2016 TRaD Works Forum

Marjorie R. Asturias is a Happiness Engineer at Automattic, parent company of WordPress.com, Jetpack, Woo, and many other fine software products. Based in Dallas, Texas, Marjorie manages the company’s Google Apps reseller program. She also speaks frequently at conferences and meetups about WordPress, content marketing, and social media.

Prior to joining Automattic in 2014, Marjorie ran a small digital marketing agency that specialized in assisting small and medium-size businesses and entrepreneurs with their online initiatives. She founded the company out of her home and grew it into a six-figure business with several employees without ever compromising her commitment to creating a flexible, distributed office environment for herself and her staff. She’s a passionate advocate of remote workplaces and is thrilled to be a part of the most well-known, fully distributed company in the industry.

Marjorie is a graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington. One of the things she loves most about having a flexible work schedule is the opportunity it affords her to volunteer regularly with local animal rescue groups. When she’s not scooping up stray dogs and finding them forever homes, she can be found at marjorieasturias.com.

As a Sr. Director of Talent at Appirio, Julie has overseen the Global Field HR and Recruiting functions of the organization for the past three years as the company has more than doubled in size. Appirio is a global services company that helps customers create next-generation Worker and Customer Experiences using the latest cloud technologies.  43% of global team members and 66% of US team members are based remotely from their homes within Appirio.  Julie drives her team with a laser-focus on candidate and team member experience resulting in new candidate experience surveys, a top-to-bottom revamp of the interview process, and high level business partner engagement across the business.

Julie has been a speaker and panelist at LinkedIn Talent Connect, 2014 and was the 2015 recipient of the Indiana SHRM Professional Excellence Award.  She graduated with a B.S. degree in Business Administration with concentrations in HR Management from Indiana University.

Prior to Appirio, Julie has built her tech-focused career through companies like Interactive Intelligence, Teradata, & Aprimo in roles spanning all areas of HR operations, recruiting, and talent management.  She started her career in university recruitment a ProTrans, a logistics company.

Asha Beh is a former journalist/multimedia producer who is currently a social media specialist and program analyst for the Virtual Student Foreign Service program at the U.S. Department of State. Her work experience at State includes helping set up and organize the first-ever, full day User Experience (UX) event for the Department, leading bureau-wide event planning for Earth Day, managing an environmental social media community of nearly three million people, and overseeing and developing the website and social media for the U.S. Consulate in Chennai, India.

Prior to joining the State Department, Ms. Beh was a multimedia content producer for NBC’s local news station in Washington, D.C., where she also acted as managing editor on weekends for the DC and Philadelphia, PA websites. Prior to that, Ms. Beh worked weekends at NBC, while working full-time as a website writer/editor for the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and helping VHA launch its Facebook and Twitter pages.

She has also worked as a producer for CNBC.com, a writer for NPR.org, a production assistant at CNN, and the (ad) traffic and program coordinator for America’s Black Forum. She began her journalism career as a print reporter.

Ms. Beh has a Bachelor’s degree in Communication from the University of Buffalo in Buffalo, NY and a Master’s degree in Journalism from American University in Washington, DC. She is a member of South Asian Journalists Association, where she served as a board member and Student Scholarships chairperson. She currently serves as a board member for her neighborhood community association.

Elizabeth is currently the Chief People Officer at Unity Technologies, one of the most popular gaming engines. Prior to that she led the HR function at Trulia, an online real estate site. She spent several years helping grow Trulia including playing a critical role in the Zillow/Trulia acquisition integration.

Prior to joining Trulia, Elizabeth spent two years at LinkedIn leading HR for the Global Sales and Operations group and the HR International team. In this role, she was at the forefront of hyper-growth and led the team to deliver 100 percent year-over-year headcount growth and open several international LinkedIn offices. She also served as an industry thought leader on recruiting, scaling organizations, culture and leadership. Previously, she held several HR leadership positions at Microsoft Corporation and Intuit. Elizabeth received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley. She was recently honored one of SF’s Most Influential Business Women.

Greg Caplan is the founder and CEO of Remote Year, a program of 75 professionals traveling together for a year while working remotely.  Prior to Remote Year, Greg founded oBaz.com, which was acquired by Groupon.  He went to the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.

I fundamentally believe great work can be done from anywhere and people perform at their peak when they are inspired by their surroundings.  With clear goals and communication, remote workers are happier and more productive.

Shobhana (Sho) Chandra is an economics reporter at Bloomberg News. Based in Washington, she specializes in coverage of the U.S. economy and often writes about China and India. Prior to her current role, she was on the consumer and retail beat. She joined Bloomberg in July 1998. Media appearances include Bloomberg TV and radio; CSPAN Washington Journal’s Saturday morning show with John McArdle; and the John Batchelor Show on WABC.

Sho began her journalism career with Economic Times, the leading business newspaper in India, and later moved to Financial Express. She also was a researcher at the National Institute of Public Finance & Policy in New Delhi.

She has a master’s degree in journalism from Medill at Northwestern University in Chicago, in addition to an M.A. in economics from Delhi University, India.

As Executive Director of Talent Acquisition, Sarah Chouinard oversees the Talent Acquisition function for TeleTech’s At Home business globally. Sarah is responsible for hiring approximately 10,000 At Home associates each year who service clients across a spectrum of industries.

Sarah has 17 years of industry experience and joined TeleTech in 2003. Before joining TeleTech she worked as an Employment Specialist/Permanent Placement Consultant at Kelly Services. Prior to that, Sarah served as Marketing & Promotions Supervisor at Casino Nova Scotia and she began her career as a Job Developer with Employment Partnership, where she assisted people with barriers to employment find meaningful work.

During her tenure at TeleTech, Sarah has held multiple roles including Talent Acquisition Manager and Senior Regional Talent Acquisition Manager before being promoted in 2007 to Director of Human Capital for North America. In 2012, she was asked to lead the Talent Acquisition function for At Home, a rapidly growing part of TeleTech’s business.  She quickly became enthralled with the uniqueness, innovation, technology, scalability and the impact that At Home has on TeleTech’s business, and has been leading the recruitment function as the Director of Talent Acquisition ever since.

Sarah holds a Strategic Human Capital Business Partner (sHCBP) designation and is a certified DDI Targeted Selection & Behavioral Interviewing Facilitator. She is also certified in Steven Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” and is a member of the Human Resources Association of New Brunswick.  Sarah is an avid birder and nature photographer and she resides on the East Coast of Atlantic Canada, where she grew up.

Dan Connolly is a Senior Associate at ideas42. His current work focuses on designing and testing behavioral interventions in work-life conflict, postsecondary education, and civic engagement. Dan is the lead author on the recent ideas42 report Work and Life: A Behavioral Approach to Solving Work-Life Conflict.

Prior to joining the ideas42 team, Dan worked as a research assistant at Cornell University’s Laboratory for Experimental Economics and Decision Research, as well as Cornell’s Self and Social Insight Lab, where his research examined the incentization of objective reasoning in political judgment. Dan holds a BA in Economics and Psychology from Cornell University.

Sacha Connor works for The Clorox Company as the Marketing Director for Pine Sol, Liquid Plumr, Clorox Fraganzia & Green Works. She has been with the company since 2004 and has worked in a variety of roles across new product innovation, sales, and base brand marketing. Clorox is headquartered in Oakland, California, however Sacha has been working remotely from her home office in the Philadelphia suburbs for the past 5 years. To help Clorox succeed in an increasingly decentralized work environment she co-created an Employee Resource Group named ORBIT that has grown to 550 global members.

Prior to Clorox, Sacha worked in advertising account management, first for a small agency in the Philadelphia suburbs and then for Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco.

After working in Clorox Corporate Headquarters for 6 years, she and her husband moved to Berwyn, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia where they both grew up. They have a 6 year old daughter and a 4 year old son who have flourished by being in close proximity to their grandparents and extended family.

Mika is highly regarded as a thought leader for flexible and transformational workplace practices and is regularly featured as a professional speaker at industry events. On behalf of the White House, National Security Council (NSC), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) agencies have invited Mika to contribute to the “Workforce of 2020” strategy session to develop a new model for vetting current and future Federal employees.

In 2014, Mika was selected as a President’s Management Council Interagency Fellow at OPM. She worked on government-wide projects affecting culture, process change, and helped create an online Employee Engagement Community of Practice (eCOP) within OPM’s interactive dashboard (the Unlocking Federal Talent data tool at unlocktalent.gov). The eCOP is targeted for Senior Executive Management to help Federal agencies collect and use data to create a more engaged workplace.

Jodi Davidson, Sodexo’s Director of Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives, leads the organization’s vast portfolio of Diversity & Inclusion learning, development and engagement strategy to include training, mentoring, work/life – flexibility, and recognition for their North America Region. In addition, she is rolling out a comprehensive cultural agility framework to support Sodexo’s global business model. Jodi chairs a number of task forces and serves as the Program Manager for the organization’s Inclusion Council.

Prior to her current role, she served as Director of Diversity and Human Resources Director for Sodexo’s Education Market in the United States. Jodi holds a Master’s Degree in Human Resource Development and is certified as a Leadership Coach through Georgetown University. She is married and the proud mother of three children.

Nikita Devereaux, PMP is a Professional Speaker, Corporate Trainer and Lean Certified Business Productivity Consultant who inspires companies and individuals to LIVE & WORK smarter – through the application of virtual teams and technologies. Her company, SIMPLY VIRTUAL™ helps leaders and organizations leverage people and technology to streamline their business systems & processes, increase employee engagement and reduce costs.

Nikita has over 20 years of experience supporting technology initiatives at industry giants such as Ford Motor Company, Prudential Healthcare and Amerisource-Bergen. She studied Business Management at Queens University of Charlotte and has earned Lean Office Certification from The University of Michigan.

Nikita is a passionate and dynamic speaker whose unique blend of innovative ideas, practical experience and real-world examples consistently engage both left- and right- brained audiences. An award-winning training facilitator, Nikita also teaches leadership, communication and technology seminars on behalf of GreyCampus, Fred Pryor & SkillPath Seminars and Ty Boyd Communications. Regardless of the forum, she gives it to you straight – with BOLD statements, RELEVANT examples, COLORFUL stories and an enchanting style that will keep you on the edge of your seat!

An avid writer, Ms. Devereaux is the Charlotte Working Moms columnist for Examiner.com and author of 25 Smart Ideas to Grow Your Business with a Virtual Assistant. She has been featured in numerous media outlets – including, Charlotte Business Journal, The Detroit News, HR Matters Magazine, Syracuse Woman and CNN’s Comcast Newsmakers.

Nikita lives in the Carolinas, where in her spare time, she enjoys running, cycling and hiking with her fun-loving Schnauzer / Terrier mix, Scotty.

Cynthia Doi is a Director in the Global Servicing Network of American Express, where she leads teams of virtual employees in AXP’s Home-Based Servicing (“HBS”) organization. From its inception in 2012, HBS has grown from a pilot team of 55 employees to over 500, with employees located in 44 states.

Cynthia began her career at American Express as part of a two-year Global Rotation Program, where she held various management positions in New York, London, and Salt Lake City, Utah, in areas ranging from Executive Compensation to Prepaid Servicing Operations. Following the program, Cynthia assumed a project management role crafting the strategy for a Global HR Transformation. In 2013, Cynthia was promoted to her current position and relocated from New York to Salt Lake City, where she currently resides with her husband and son.

Cynthia holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and a M.B.A. from Brigham Young University, with an emphasis in Organizational Behavior.

Sara Sutton Fell is the CEO and Founder of FlexJobs, an award-winning career website for telecommuting, flexible, freelance, and part-time jobs. Sara founded FlexJobs in 2007 while she was pregnant with her first son, after she experienced first-hand the frustrating search for professional jobs that also offered flexible work options. Having also co-founded an entry-level employment service in 1995 (JobDirect, later sold to Korn|Ferry International in 2000), she has long been passionate about helping people find jobs that make their lives better, and she is thrilled that her own experience as a working mom is now helping others who want or need work flexibility.

Sara also believes that a modern workplace should address the needs of today’s workforce, and that utilizing workplace technology to support telecommuting and flexible work will achieve societal, environmental, and economic benefits for both employees and employers. In support of that belief, Sara launched the 1 Million for Work Flexibility in 2013 and Remote.co in 2015. For her work in the employment and technology fields, she was named as a Young Global Leader (class of 2014) by the World Economic Forum. Sara is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, and currently lives in Boulder, Colorado, USA with her two children.

At the Boston College Center for Work & Family (@BCCWF), Jennifer is Associate Director, Communications and Programming. She works closely with the Boston College Workforce Roundtable, a learning and networking community for over 50 leading employers as well as the New England Work & Family Association (NEWFA). Jennifer manages all CWF marketing initiatives including the CWF website, social media, member newsletters, research reports and other publications. Jennifer also works with organizations to provide research and consultation on flexibility, work-life balance and other workforce management issues. Jennifer enjoys presenting on workplace flexibility and work-life balance; recent speaking engagements include the Future of Work Forum, WorldatWork Total Rewards, the New England HR Association and the Massachusetts Conference for Women. Jennifer was the founder of and a regular guest on the Fox 25 News Boston Work-Life Wednesday segment. She has been featured on NECN, Marketplace, NPR, in the Boston Globe, Fortune, The Huffington Post, Human Resource Executive and other publications. Jennifer received her BS in Clinical Psychology from Tufts University and her Master of Social Work and Master of Business Administration from Boston College. Jennifer and her husband John are the proud parents of two children.

Monica Frias is Diversity Program Director at Anthem, Inc. In her role, Monica consults with different areas of the business to insert the diversity lens into strategic initiatives, policies and practices; drives strategy around diversity branding, communication and training, and provides oversight to Anthem’s associate resource groups (ARGs).

Monica has been a work@home associate for about six years. She is a founder and co-chair of W@VE (Working at Anthem in a Virtual Environment), one of nine associate resource groups. W@VE was launched in 2013 and has now more than 1,200 members across the enterprise. This community focuses on developing and expanding practices that allow for effective collaboration, networking and personal and professional development in a virtual setting. Before joining Anthem in 2007, Monica served roles in the Human Resources organizations of Nationwide Insurance and Abbott Laboratories.

Monica grew up in Chile and now lives in Grand Rapids, MI, with her husband and two children. She holds a Master’s in Labor and Human Resources (MLHR) from The Fisher College of Business – The Ohio State University, and a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the Catholic University of Chile.

Mari Kent is the Senior Director of Academic Operations for Kaplan Test Prep, overseeing recruitment, hiring, training and development, and other operational support for Academics positions in the Grad and PreCollege business units of the company.  She works closely with other recruiting and human resources leaders within the organization, as well as with the HRIS team, and is Workbench-certified for Kenexa 2xB. She started with Kaplan 8 years ago as an MCAT instructor, and has since served in multiple roles in management, human resources, and talent acquisition for the organization.

Mari has a certification in Leading Operational Excellence from MIT Sloan School of Management, holds a B.S. in Biology and Chemistry, and is the President of City Living NY, a NYC-based nonprofit organization.

Alex Konanykhin, CEO of TransparentBusiness, designated by Citigroup as the “Top People Management Solution”.  TransparentBusiness.com platform greatly increases productivity of remote work, protects from overbilling, allows for easy monitoring and coordination of geographically distributed workforce and provides real-time information on the cost and status of all tasks and projects. TransparentBusiness is an Integrated Partner of ADP and Technology Partner of Facebook and is in use in 140 countries.  TransparentBusiness is a part of KMGi Group, an internationally acclaimed IT group, founded by Alex in 1997.

Kate is president of Global Workplace Analytics (GWA), a research-based consulting organization that helps employers and communities create and communicate the people, planet, and profit business case for strategies that involve workplace flexibility, agility, engagement and well-being.

GWA’s proprietary tools include:

• An extensive digital library with over 4,000 research reports, case studies and news items related to workplace strategy
• A variety of customizable web-based and mobile calculators including a Workplace Savings Calculator™ and Well-Being Savings Calculator™
• Model business cases for a wide range of workplace strategies and stakeholders
• Templates for collecting pre- and post-strategy measures of success
• Customizable eLearning courses specific to agile workplace practices

Under contract with a handful of global product and service organizations, GWA provides on-call research and develops custom ROI calculators, white papers, e-books and other marketing content.

Kate is a highly regarded speaker, writer and thought leader on the future of work. She has co-authored three business books, contributed chapters to two others and written hundreds of articles for major media outlets. Her firm’s research has been cited by hundreds of publications including the Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.

Kenneth Matos, Ph.D., is Vice President of Research at Life Meets Work. He conducts research on a wide range of workforce and workplace issues, including diversity, mentoring, work-life alignment, wellness, engagement and workplace policies and effectiveness. Before joining Life Meets Work, Ken was the Senior Director for Research at Families and Work Institute where he identified emerging employment issues and trends, through client records, original company surveys, and national studies. Experienced in reporting data to the academic, business and media communities, Dr. Matos has been frequently quoted in a variety of media such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, theToday Show, and NPR. Ken also worked for the Department of Defense (DoD), where he developed and analyzed surveys of U.S. military members, their families and related constituencies. His research for the DoD examined issues of racial-ethnic harassment and discrimination, mentoring, and work satisfaction and was presented to Congress and various military policy offices. He completed his undergraduate work in Psychology at Amherst College, received his master’s in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and earned his Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the George Washington University.

Nicole McCabe is a Senior Director of Global Diversity & Inclusion at SAP, responsible for the creation and execution of innovative programs that support gender diversity, and SAP’s overall target of 25% women in leadership by 2017. Nicole prides herself in being a connector, a strong collaborator and in her ability to deliver results to the business without having direct authority.

Nicole has had a very unconventional career that leveraged her transferable skills. This has enabled her to gain experience in many aspects of business, from technical implementations, to managing post- acquisition integration, to account management, and Marketing technical services. Through her experience she observed the challenges many women face in the workplace, and her passion to drive impact and create a culture where everyone feels they are valued was sparked. In 2012, Nicole joined the Global Diversity & Inclusion team where she has gathered expertise in Human Resources, and has established a strong of the inter-dependencies between the employees and the business strategy.

The result – Nicole’s programs have been recognized inside and outside of SAP, including an ongoing Women’s Professional Growth webinar series, focused on topics related to the development of women. This series has had over 6800 participants in 2 years, at a cost of less than 5 Euros per participants. Nicole is also the creator and manager of the Women@SAP Jam site, which serves as an online community to communicate SAP’s programs and enables women to connect. The community currently has over 8,500 members.

Jeanne is Partner, Future Workplace, a firm dedicated to re-thinking, re- imagining and re-inventing the workplace. Jeanne is the receipt of the Distinguished Contribution in Workplace Learning Award, an award given by Association For Talent Development to one executive each year honoring their body of work. She is also a Contributor to Forbes Magazine. In 2015, Glassdoor named Jeanne to the top 50 Influencers in Corporate Human Resources and Recruiting. Jeanne’s latest book is, The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop & Keep Tomorrow’s Employees Today. Jeanne is working on a new book on future of work to be published Fall, 2016.

Jeanne and her firm, Future Workplace launched the 2020 Workplace Network, a consortium of 55 Fortune 500 organizations who come together as a community to discuss debate and share “next” practices in people development, talent acquisition and corporate learning. A sample of the member firms in 2020 Workplace Network includes, Anthem, Disney, General Electric, Google, IBM, MasterCard and QVC.

Jeanne was previously Vice President of Market Development at Accenture.

Jeanne lives in New York City and Columbia County, New York. Jeanne invites you to speak to her after this session to share what your organization is doing to prepare for the future of work as she is researching and writing her next book now.

Hannah Morgan is a speaker and author on job search and social media strategies. She delivers fresh advice and serves as a guide to the treacherous terrain of today’s workplace landscape. Hannah’s experience in Human Resources, Outplacement Services, Workforce Development and Career Services equip her with a 360 degree perspective on job search topics. Recognized by media and career professionals, Hannah is an advocate who encourages job seekers to take control of their job search. Hannah is frequently quoted in local and national publications and she writes a weekly column for U.S. News & World Report.

Hannah is a life-long-learner and a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University.

Hannah is the author of “The Infographic Resume” (McGraw Hill Education, 2014) and co-author of “Social Networking for Business Success” (Learning Express, 2013). You can learn more about Hannah on CareerSherpa.net and by following her on Twitter at @careersherpa.

John O’Duinn is a software developer, architect, Director and Founder who has written code and lead teams in companies ranging from four person startups to multinationals and back to a startup with no office.

In addition to technology, John loves growing a culture where humans work well together in a distributed global workplace. Almost every company in his career has been distributed in one form or another. The most extreme was a team he grew at Mozilla, with 18 people in 14 cities, in 4 non-adjacent timezones, working with Mozilla’s globally distributed open source community. John is currently writing a book on leading distributed teams for O’Reilly.

John blogs at oduinn.com, practices Aikido, loves travel and is on track to fill his passport again.

Danielle Paquette is a policy reporter for the Washington Post, where she writes often about lawmakers and employers working to address our changing labor force. She’s also interested in how gender impacts economic opportunity. Paquette, an Indianapolis native, previously covered crime for the Tampa Bay Times.

Janice has 20 years of Talent Acquisition experience and joined UnitedHealth Group in 2007 and led the Service Operations Center Recruitment teams until a promotion to a Sr. Talent Acquisition Partner with the United Healthcare business lines in 2015.

As Senior Talent Acquisition Partner for UnitedHealth Group, Janice is responsible for providing overall relationship management and strategic direction, drive talent initiatives forward, including strategic intent and gap analysis assessment and effective workforce planning with Human Capital and Business Executives within the UnitedHealthcare businesses. In her current role a key focus area for Janice is to further evolve UnitedHealth Group virtual management environment to improve labor supply and agility through various work flexibility program initiatives.

Janice is an avid antique enthusiast and gardener. She and her husband reside on a small hobby farm west of the Minneapolis area and are the proud parents to their twin 6 year olds.

Paul Rupert is president of Washington, DC-based Rupert & Company. He combines thirty-five years’ general management, consulting, coaching, training and research experience with expertise in the development of online guidelines and training systems for offsite work and virtual teams. Paul started managing flexibly with his first start-up in 1972. He pioneered the development of explicitly business-based approaches and tools for creating the flexible workplace.

He has managed remotely staffed and mobile consulting organizations for two decades. In his previous work as Associate Director of New Ways to Work (San Francisco) and Flexibility Practice Leader of WFD Consulting (Boston), he directed national flexibility advocacy efforts and served a broad and distinguished client list ranging from Aetna and Amgen to Sodexo and Xerox. He provides a full range of client services from assessment and strategy through program design and implementation.

Mr. Rupert speaks widely about organizational flexibility and is considered a thought leader in the field. He is quoted regularly in the national media such as the Wall Street Journal, ABC World News, CBS News, NPR, Marketplace and Newsweek and produces a widely read newsletter, blog and articles in the business press. He is a graduate of Stanford University.

Jeanne Sahadi is a senior writer at CNNMoney. Among her primary beats, she reports on the workplace – including pay and benefit issues, company culture and the future of work. She also covers federal taxes, spending and debt.

With CNN since 1998, Sahadi has reported on a wide range of policy debates, including health reform, bankruptcy reform and entitlement reform. She also has covered personal finance for CNNMoney and was a columnist for Money magazine.

A graduate of Haverford College, Sahadi has been a guest on many CNN shows as well as the shows of CNN radio affiliates and outside stations, including NPR.

David Shanklin is the Head of Culture Strategy at CultureIQ, where he specializes in helping executives build high-performance, purpose-driven cultures. Thoughtful and analytical, David excels at helping leaders achieve meaningful outcomes from data obtained through CultureIQ assessment tools.

David is passionate about helping people and organizations realize their full potential. A leader by example, David excels at coaching leaders and teams how to engage employees in meaningful interactions that foster teamwork, enhance working relationships, and stimulate growth.

Prior to joining CultureIQ, David led the Associate Consultant and Analyst team at Great Place to Work. Previously, David has managed high-potential succession processes for Deloitte, as well as serving in Deloitte’s Human Capital Consulting practice. He offers clients a wealth of experience across industries including financial services, hospitality, professional services, nonprofits, manufacturing, healthcare, and technology.

David holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Colorado in Boulder, CO and an M.B.A. from Emory University, in Atlanta, GA. At Emory, he studied Leadership and Decision Sciences as a member of the Robert W. Woodruff Scholars and Fellows Program. David is currently completing his executive coaching certification at Columbia University in New York. He is also certified in the Hogan Assessment Suite (HPI, HDS, and MVPI) – a series of science-based organizational psychology assessments designed to enable leaders to leverage strengths and eliminate obstacles as they work towards creating a high-performance culture.

An accomplished athlete, David regularly competes in triathlons, and has completed two cross-country cycling trips in order to raise funds and awareness for people with disabilities. He also enjoys searching Manhattan for its best old fashioned and traveling with his wife, Lindsay, and their English bulldog, Tango.

I’m a freelance journalist covering career, personal finance and productivity, and a contributor to Forbes.com and Forbes magazine and the author of the Forbes ebook, “The Millennial Game Plan: Career and Money Secrets To Succeed In Today’s World.”​ I also I teach independent journalists how to master the art and business of freelance writing at Ideas Words Empires. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Honors from Stanford University and have a master of arts from Columbia University’s School of Journalism. To learn more about me, go to LauraShin.com.

Rose Stanley is a senior practice leader and serves as a spokesperson and ambassador for WorldatWork representing the association in public forums on matters of professional knowledge/expertise, while developing and sustaining relationships with subject matter experts, other professionals and academics.

She is a subject matter expert in the disciplines of work-life, recognition and total rewards, maintaining a wide-ranging understanding of practices across the profession. She is responsible for keeping abreast of changes in the total rewards profession, watching trends and identifying the hot topics important to reward practitioners.

She helps to identify, develop, manage, and grow relationships of critical importance to the association, and as a subject matter expert, helps support WorldatWork’s products, events, and initiatives, while serving as an internal consultant and collaborative partner.

She is engaged with total rewards professionals through authoring articles, blogging, media interviews, and social media platforms, actively working with other subject matter experts to advance thought leadership, while identifying current and anticipated future issues and challenges that are important to rewards professionals.

Other responsibilities include content selection for the annual WorldatWork Total Rewards Conference and Exhibition and Future of Work Forum, as well as serving as staff liaison to the Work-Life Advisory Council.

Prior to joining WorldatWork, Stanley was employed with Circle K for more than nine years where she designed and implemented total rewards programs.

Stanley serves as a spokesperson for WorldatWork. She has been quoted extensively in numerous publications including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, Inc. magazine, CNN Money, KTAR-AM, and many human resources trade publications.

Stanley is a regular blogger for WorldatWork Post and Huffington Post.

Kristin Thomas is a passionate Flex Work Champion with more than 20 years of diverse experience in human resources. She has spent most of her career focused on talent acquisition and talent management for a wide variety of industries, including Insurance, Software, Dot Com, Hardware, Financial Services, Hospitality, and Nuclear Power. Kristin is also a leader in her community. She founded an organization to improve local parks and playgrounds, and started Malvern Community Arts Project, which has created six community-funded, public art projects in her small town. As a former Silicon Valley commuter, a mother of four, a community volunteer, and a breast cancer survivor, Kristin has a deep appreciation for flexible work, and is proud to be working as the Director of Employer Engagement for FlexJobs – a company that is centered on the value of such opportunities for both job seekers and employers.

Alina Tugend is an award-winning New York-based writer who is published frequently in the New York Times, Inc. Magazine and other national publications. She is the author of the book, “Better by Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong.” Her work can be seen at AlinaTugend.com and she is on twitter at @atugend.

Jeff Vrabel is an Indianapolis-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in GQ, Men’s Health, Success, the Washington Post, Billboard, the official Bruce Springsteen and Indy 500 sites, Indianapolis Monthly, Modern Bride, South Magazine and more. A former editor-in-chief of Hilton Head Monthly magazine, he recently served as a work-from-home senior editor with Nickelodeon for four years. “My last day in an office was the day my younger son was born. I stayed home with him for his first year, and have been lucky enough to work remotely ever since. It lets me maintain a freelance career while being around for all the dad stuff.” He can be found at the cleverly named JeffVrabel.com and @JeffVrabel.

Kelly Wallace is a digital correspondent and editor-at-large for CNN, focusing on family, career and work/life balance. An award-winning digital journalist and television correspondent, Wallace writes in-depth articles and socially sourced stories and does original web videos for CNN Digital’s Health, Wellness and Parenting section. In addition, she appears regularly on both CNN and HLN TV.

Wallace came to CNN from iVillage, where she served as chief correspondent and executive director of digital video. While there, she made headlines for scoring exclusive interviews with First Lady Michelle Obama, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Alicia Keys, Jill Biden, Dr. Oz and other newsmakers. She also appeared regularly on TODAY and MSNBC. In 2012, Wallace received a Gracie Award for Outstanding Reporter/Correspondent.

Before iVillage, Wallace worked at CBS News as a general assignment reporter, where she covered stories for the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and The Early Show.

Wallace began her CNN career as an associate producer and then became a CNN TV correspondent covering a wide range of beats for the network, including the White House, the Mideast and John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign.

She graduated magna cum laude from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor of sciences degree in economics.

Peter is a consultant with PwC Advisory and specializes in helping organizations realize financial and operational improvement through organizational, process and technology change. He has consulted with companies in the Technology, Information, Communications and Entertainment sectors.

Specialties: For 10 years, Peter has worked on numerous consulting projects related to startups, order- to-cash improvement, process reengineering, business process management and workflow automation, platform consolidation, large-scale program management, and application and system development and integration.

Peter is very passionate about Diversity & Inclusion and the Millennial workforce and works with organizations to craft visions and establish environments to engage, equip, and empower their millennial workforce to achieve success, growth, and career fulfillment.