Speakers & Moderators

As a Reporter for The Washington Post, Lori Aratani writes about how people live, work and play in the D.C. region for The Post’s Transportation and Development team. She grew up in California and graduated from Boston University, where she learned the real meaning of cold weather.

Ronit Avni is the founder of Localized, a soon-to-launch platform for university students and young professionals in emerging markets to access career guidance, role models and expertise from top-tier professionals around the world who share language and cultural roots.

A social entrepreneur, human rights advocate and Peabody Award-winning media producer with 17 years of leadership experience, Ronit’s work has been featured in dozens of global news outlets, including The Washington Post, The BBC, NPR, The Economist and The New York Times.

Prior to Localized, she founded and led Just Vision, which creates digital media, award-winning films (Budrus, My Neighborhood, Encounter Point), news analysis and public education campaigns to raise awareness and support for Palestinian and Israeli civilians working for freedom, dignity, equality and human security. As Executive Director of Just Vision, Ms. Avni managed a diverse team based in North America and the Middle East and was a frequent speaker in think tank, community, government, international, educational and media settings.

Previously, Ronit trained human rights defenders worldwide to incorporate film and digital media into their advocacy campaigns while working for the human rights organization, WITNESS. She co-edited the book, “Video for Change – A Guide for Advocacy and Activism” with WITNESS and now sits on the WITNESS Board, chairing the Program Committee.

Ronit has been recognized with a variety of honors, including the King Hussein Leadership Prize, Search for Common Ground’s Common Ground Award, the Circles of Change Award, Auburn Seminary’s Lives of Commitment Award and the Trailblazer Award from the National Council for Research on Women. She was named a Young Global Leader (2009) through the World Economic Forum and a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations (2010).

As a side passion, Ronit has trained hundreds of business leaders, MBA students, nonprofit leaders and civil servants to speak persuasively to the media, on stage and in executive settings with KNP Communications.

Deb Bannon is a Director for Cloud Productivity Services at Microsoft. She is responsible for developing solutions that help organizations worldwide to connect, innovate and transform into digital businesses. With over 10 years at Microsoft in SharePoint and Office 365 product management, customer experience and enterprise services, Deb has a passion for solutions that empower and engage employees across geographies, mobile workstyles and teams. She is a frequent speaker at Digital Workplace customer briefings and internal Microsoft events. Prior to Microsoft, Deb managed partner channels, strategic alliances and collaboration products at Groove Networks and IBM.

Karen joined is the Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at Sutherland Global and supports the work-from-home division. Her team is responsible for recruiting a distributed workforce to help businesses transform processes and delight their customers. Karen has held a variety of leadership roles and is passionate about cutting edge recruitment, crowd sourcing and onboarding strategies to effectively grow a large distributed workforce and improve the talent available in the cloud.

Barbara Booth is a writer and editor for CNBC whose work covers a wide range of business and social topics, including health care, work/life issues, international business and personal finance.

You can follow her on Twitter @bjbooth2.

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.”

Mohammed is the Global Human Resources Director at Dell and leads global strategic programs within Dell’s Human Resources Organization including M&A, Transition Services Agreement, and Dell’s work flexibility programs. In his current role Mohammed also leads the function’s innovation and design thinking agenda. As the leader of Dell’s work flexibility programs, Mohammed’s focus is to further Dell’s work flexibility strategy and increase its positive impact on Dell and its Team Members.

Throughout his 14+ years at Dell, Mohammed has held a variety of leadership and program management roles in different HR domains including HR Shared Services, Training, Talent Management, Mergers and Acquisitions and Managed Services Deals. Mohammed’s background in IT and experience in Human Resources makes him continuously explore and research how technology changes how work is defined and the impact it has on the purpose and role of the HR function.

Congresswoman Suzan DelBene represents Washington’s First Congressional District, which spans from northeast King County to the Canadian border, and includes parts of King, Snohomish, Skagit and Whatcom counties.

First sworn into the House of Representatives on Nov. 13, 2012, Suzan brings a unique voice to the nation’s capital, with more than two decades of experience as a successful technology entrepreneur and business leader. Her experience and focus on achieving concrete results allowed Suzan to break through congressional gridlock and get things done. Suzan takes on a wide range of challenges both in Congress and in the First District and is a leader on issues of technology, health and agriculture.

As Vice President of Facilities Management at the National Equity Fund, Gaylene Domer is a master of everything office related, overseeing an annual budget of $3.1 million. Domer is responsible for the successful organization and coordination of all office operational procedures, employee customer service and has been instrumental in maintaining a safe, pleasant and productive Workplace.

Since joining NEF in 1988, Domer has worked to create an effective and efficient environment with innovative and motivational design elements for NEF’s highly professional and diversified workforce with a variety of needs.

Prior to joining NEF, Domer served as vice-president of operations for Best Auto Transport, Inc., vice-president of training for Zirl Smith & Associates, and held several posts at affordable housing organizations including Chicago Housing Authority, Wilmington Housing Authority in Delaware and Stark Metro Housing Authority in Ohio.

Stacy Elliott is the Executive Communications Director at Microsoft and has focused her career in marketing and communications, with an emphasis in technology.  She spent her early career in public relations working for notable firms such as Manning Selvage & Lee, Hill and Knowlton, and Fleishman-Hillard. Her clients included multi-national consumer brands, including Lever Brothers, Ralston-Purina, Carnation, Pepsi-Co, and American Airlines. In the mid-90s, Stacy was recruited to bring her experience to the consumer technology realm, helping Microsoft launch its early consumer-focused technology products including education and gaming software, and home productivity products. After eight years in Redmond, WA., she left Microsoft’s main campus to pioneer a remote job-share scenario from her home in Dallas, TX.

Working remotely for the past 14 years, she’s held a variety of marketing and communication leadership roles, including launching the first executive speaker bureau and leading a global brand team for Microsoft’s advertising business. These days, she continues to use her communications skills at Microsoft for speechwriting, executive communications, and public relations in support of HR and Microsoft’s Chief People Officer.

Marcela Escobari is currently a visiting Fellow at Brookings Institution in their Global Economy and Development program, where she is incubating an initiative on the Future of Work. She spent the last year of President Obama’s administration as Assistant Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean. Marcela was confirmed by the US Senate and joined USAID in May 2016, and led the bureau and its initiatives on poverty, inequality, citizen security, and governance. Throughout the region, USAID has 13 bilateral missions, 3 regional missions, and U.S.-based programs focusing on democracy, humanitarian assistance, and the environment.  The bureau manages an annual budget of approximately $1 billion.

Since 2007, Escobari served as Executive Director at the Center for International Development at Harvard University, a research center working to generate breakthrough ideas that bring stable, shared, and sustainable prosperity to developing countries. During her tenure, the Center achieved tremendous impact, tripling in size with projects in 17 countries across 5 continents.

She has also worked as head of the Americas region at the OTF Group (a spin-off of Monitor Group), where she advised governments on how to increase export competitiveness and harness the private sector to eradicate poverty. She began her career as a Mergers & Acquisitions banker at JP Morgan in New York.  The World Economic Forum named her a Young Global Leader in 2013.  She co-authored the book “In the River They Swim: Essays from around the World on Enterprise Solutions to Poverty”, holds a BA in Economics from Swarthmore College and an MA in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Amy Freshman is the Senior Director – Global Workplace Enablement at ADP. In her 20th year with ADP, Amy has had the fortunate opportunity to hold multiple roles within the same organization and grow her career. Beginning with ADP directly out of Bryant University in 1995, she spent nearly 15 years in the Sales organization with roles in direct sales, leadership, training, operations and leadership development for ADP’s small business division.

During her tenure, she achieved multiple awards and recognition including the President’s Club award both as a sales associate and in her leadership role. In 2008, she completed a one year internal coaching certification program and was certified as an ADP coach where she actively takes on coaching engagements with leaders focused on developing their skills in efforts to move their career forward.

In 2010 she transitioned into a role in a newly centralized sales operations organization assisting the US sales teams navigate workspace changes and piloting new facility programs. Amy joined the HR organization in 2012 continuing her work with the sales and our real estate partners and took on the new responsibility in leading ADP’s Global Workplace Enablement program across the enterprise. Her focus has been on our remote workers; specifically assisting with their transition from office to home, associate engagement, improved collaboration, ensuring they feel connected to the rest of the organization & working with our internal partners to provide enhanced tools & technologies for seamless connectivity and telephony. She has conducted annual reviews of data comparing office based population with our home based population including areas such as engagement, productivity, & overall performance.

In the summer of 2012, ADP launched a business resource group “Virtual Connections” where Amy has taken on an advisory role leading the core team to lend support to ADP’s virtual, remote workers & our highly dispersed teams around the world. Amy’s current scope of work is focused on shifting to a more holistic approach on workplace flexibility; in general terms: With the levels of technology available to us, we have significant opportunities to offer flexibility in where, when and how work gets done.

Amy Gallo is a Contributing Editor at Harvard Business Review. She is an author and speaker who transforms complex ideas into practical advice. Her latest book, HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict, is a how-to guidebook for navigating uncomfortable situations at work. As a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review, she writes about a range of topics with a focus on interpersonal dynamics, remote work, communicating ideas, leading and influencing people, and building your career. She is the co-author of the HBR Guide to Building Your Business Case.

Before working with Harvard Business Review, she was a management consultant at Katzenbach Partners, a strategy and organization firm based in New York (later acquired by Booz & Company, which is now Strategy&). She contributed to the firm’s research on the “informal organization” — the unofficial networks and communities in organizations that govern how people work together in practice.

Vipula Gandhi is a Managing Consultant based in Gallup’s Singapore office with regional responsibilities in South East Asia, Middle East and Africa. Vipula helps organizations create value through organic growth by focusing on human capital management and customer engagement. She works with her clients’ management teams to understand their company’s vision, develop long-term strategic plans that align with organisational objectives, and deliver on plans that drive positive business outcomes.

Kathy Gurchiek is Associate Editor, SHRM. Kathy has been with SHRM Online since September 2004. She is a frequent contributor to HR Magazine and is a top influencer in the SHRM LinkedIn discussion group. She is an award-winning journalist who has worked as a business writer for the Salt Lake Tribune, served as a managing editor of a Department of Defense journal, taught business communications, and served on the creative team for the 2002 Winter Olympics. She’s worked as an editor and reporter at newspapers around the country and has freelanced for media outlets such as the Chicago Tribune and The Associated Press. Follow her on Twitter @SHRMwriter​.

Kerry Hannon is an author, columnist for The New York Times, Next Avenue and Forbes, AARP Work and is a nationally recognized expert and strategist on career transitions, personal finance and retirement. She is a frequent TV and radio commentator and is a sought-after keynote speaker at conferences across the country. She has appeared as a career and financial expert on The Dr. Phil Show ABC, CBS, CNBC, NBC Nightly News, NPR, and PBS.

Kerry focuses on empowering yourself to do more with your career and personal finances – now and for the future.

Kerry is currently a columnist and regular contributor to The New York Times. She is AARP’s Work and Jobs Expert and Great Jobs columnist. She is a contributing editor and Second Verse columnist at Forbes, and the PBS NextAvenue.org expert and columnist on personal finance and careers. She is a contributing writer for Money magazine.

Kerry is the award-winning author of a dozen books, including Getting the Job You Want After 50, Love Your Job: The New Rules for Career Happiness, What’s Next? Finding Your Passion and Your Dream Job in Your Forties, Fifties and Beyond, and the national bestseller Great Jobs for Everyone 50+: Finding Work That Keeps You Happy and Healthy . . . And Pays the Bills.

You can learn more about Kerry by visiting her web site Kerryhannon.com. Follow her on Twitter @KerryHannon

Peter Hirst is the Associate Dean, Executive Education at MIT and leads the team of professionals who partner with clients and faculty at the MIT Sloan School of Management to develop, design, and deliver innovative executive education programs for individuals and companies.

Formerly CEO of the commercialization, consulting, and executive education business of the London School of Economics, he has over twenty years of experience in international strategy, technology consulting and organizational development.  Peter has also served as a director and board adviser to businesses and non-profit organizations on three continents.  He is a past president of the British American Business Council of New England, for which he currently serves as a board director, and a founding member of its Energy and Environment and High Tech Committees.  Peter is a trustee and treasurer of the American Foundation of the University of St Andrews in Scotland and cochair of the Education Working Group of the Internet of Things World Forum and a founding member of the Internet of Things Global Talent Consortium.  He is also a board director and cochair of the Digital Communications Subcommittee of UNICON, the global association of university-based executive education programs.

Peter earned a PhD from the University of St Andrews, Scotland, for research in plasma physics and microwave engineering.  After a period of academic entrepreneurship in a variety of related fields, including optoelectronics, neural network computing, and the interfaces between technology and terrorism, he was appointed Westminster Fellow in the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, where he advised MPs and Peers of all parties on policy issues in the physical sciences, defense, and IT.

In 2012, Peter was named a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his service to British and American business and academia interests.

Trina Hoefling has been transforming the workplace virtually since developing remote management training in 1984 for a F50 corporation. She believes that “Technology is the enabler, but People are the key” and that “The Network is the Workplace.”

Author of Working Virtually: Transforming the Mobile Workplace, 2nd Ed, released this March 2017, Trina is an accomplished thought leader with passion for helping people and organizations thrive. In addition to her 30-year consultancy, GroupONE Solutions LLC, she is co-founder of The Smart Workplace and Virtual Workplace University, a learning portal for workplace competence in today’s mobile, flexible work world. VWU just released Trina’s first on-demand course in her Virtual Leadership Essentials series based on Working Virtually.

Her commitment is to transform the organization’s ability to thrive while unleashing the talent and well-being of its people. She continuously expands her own knowledge and methods to bring the precise tools and timely expertise that helps business leaders navigate the challenges associated with leading strategically.

An organization development and transformational change consultant, strategic facilitator, leadership coach and virtual team engagement expert, Trina is often the consultant behind the scenes, helping support flexwork and virtual team leaders who want to develop and support competent, confident and engaged teams.

Trina also authored Working Virtually: Managing People for Successful Virtual Teams and Organizations 1st Edition, 2000. She is chapter author of 2008 Jossey-Bass treatise, The Handbook of High-Performance Virtual Teams: A Toolkit for Collaborating Across Boundaries. Her chapter discusses expanded emotional bandwidth and developing team trust virtually.

For well over 20 years Trina has published articles, keynote speeches, webinars and training on TRaD. She has been working with educators and learning professionals by providing workshops, sessions, and conference speeches. Customers such as Department of Education Vocational Technical Training sector, Victoria, Australia look to Trina for her experience and thought leadership. She recently presented on virtual conflict management at ATD 2017, as well as engaging virtual teams at the World@Work Total Rewards Conference.

Her 2017 Keynote topics include:

• Authentically engaged, flexible organization cultures in a dispersed work world
• Upskilling for workforce digital literacy and lifelong learning
• Strategic collaboration among L&D, HR, Facilities, IT, and Leadership
• Mindset shifts when the network is the workplace, technology as the enabler, and people are key
• Lessons learned from an early adopter of online learning and extreme Slacker
• Engaging and connecting online learners and learning communities of practice
• Bringing pedagogy to online and blended learning – what really works and what’s myth

Trina Hoefling is a graduate school Master Teacher and online course developer for the University of Denver in two Masters programs – Organization Leadership M.A. and Organization Development Masters Certificate.

Neil Irwin is a Senior Economics Correspondent for The New York Times, where he writes for The Upshot, a Times site for analysis of politics, economics and more. He is the author of “The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire,” about the efforts of the world’s central banks to combat the global financial crisis, published by the Penguin Press in 2013.

Mr. Irwin was previously a columnist at The Washington Post and an economics editor of its Wonkblog site. As a beat reporter covering economics and the Federal Reserve, he led the Post’s coverage of the financial crisis and the government’s response to it.

Mr. Irwin has an M.B.A. from Columbia University, where he was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economics and Business Journalism, and his undergraduate studies were at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. He has often appeared on television analyzing economics topics, including on “PBS NewsHour” and CNBC.

Co-Founder of The SMART Workplace, President of Career/Life Alliance Services with over twenty-five years consulting on workforce transformation. Co-author of the National Workplace Flexibility Study, author of several articles and frequently requested speaker. Works with organizations to close the gap between strategy and execution, work effectively in a matrix organization and lead and collaborate in a virtual environment. Kathy is an organizational expert, content developer and workshop facilitator.

Win Khanijoun as a Workforce Experience Advisor at Cisco Systems drives digital transformation for leading commercial organizations.

Win advises organizations on how to achieve the true potential of technology by partnering with CRE, Facilities, HR, IT and business leaders.  He helps create agile teams and an engaging culture to change the way employees work, live, play and learn by maximizing the value of people and their work environments.

Win is passionate about the role of culture, social trends and digitization and their impact on the global business environment. Coming to the United States at an early age, he recognizes the value of freedom and it is part of the very fabric for how he approaches his work. He understands the importance of the liberty to work from anywhere and the significant opportunity for us as a community to create the workplace of the future.

Karen LaGraff is the Vice President, North American HR Operations at Xerox Corporation.

In her current role, Karen has responsibility for employee relations, labor relations, employee service centers, vendor management, operational implementation of business initiatives and HR programs, performance management, HR Policy, workforce actions, internal investigations and executive escalations across North America. She has a team of HR Professionals located throughout the US and Canada, and is responsible for off shore resources as well. Under her leadership, many HR policies were harmonized globally for the Corporation, the first of which was the Virtual Office policy implemented in 2014.

LaGraff has more than 30 years of human resource management experience. She joined Xerox Corporation in 1984 and has held a variety of assignments inside and outside of human resources. She has managed Global Compensation, Workforce Analytics, Talent Acquisition and a variety of other areas in the function, with employees located in the United States, Canada, Mexico and off shore locations. Of note, she has worked as a transition manager for several acquisitions and divestitures, including the ACS acquisition, and was directly involved in the recent separation of companies. Additionally, LaGraff has held a variety of operational positions outside of human resources in managing large call centers, as well as in key management roles in the Integrated Supply Chain and Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) organizations.

Karen is a certified Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma. She has lead a number of key projects at Xerox, including a series of efforts in the area of HR Transformation, vendor optimization and outsourcing, leading global cross functional teams and partnering with external consultants.  LaGraff has a significant amount of experience in the improvement of work processes, including leveraging HR technologies and harmonizing processes across various business segments. She has coached a number of Green Belt candidates to certification status.

LaGraff received an M.B.A. from Rochester Institute of Technology’s Executive Program in 1996 and a Bachelor of Science degree in Human Resource Management from Roberts Wesleyan College in 1992. Karen has served as Committee Chair for Boy Scout Troop 183 in Irondequoit, NY and leads many fundraisers and recruiting activities for the scouting organization. She is also a member of the Xerox Women’s Alliance, and a volunteer for many community causes.

Karen lives in Rochester, NY with her husband and two sons.

Claire Lew is the CEO of Know Your Company, a software tool that helps business owners overcome company growing pains. Her company, Know Your Company, has helped over 15,000 people in 25 countries at companies like Airbnb and Kickstarter. Claire’s mission in life is to help people become happier at work. She speaks internationally on how to create more open, honest workplace environments, and has been published in Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Inc, CNBC, among others. Read what Claire writes here, and watch her speak here.

Dr. Karen Sobel Lojeski is the founder and CEO of Virtual Distance International (VDI), a software company based on data and analytics derived from her original scientific research to stimulate human solutions in a world where technology is the main driver of workplace transformation. While human capital migration into “virtual space” creates opportunities, this migration also creates unintended consequences and challenges.

Virtual DistanceTM Analytics, built around Dr. Lojeski’s award winning discovery, have helped Fortune 500 companies improve performance, innovation and other critical success factors. At a strategic level, Virtual Distance is a measure of what is lost when the human being is translated through the machine. Dr. Lojeski defined this phenomenon, and its specific characteristics, in a set of quantifiable metrics and software applications that reveal hidden, and often unexpected dynamics that lie beneath the surface of the virtual workforce. She has demonstrated that these forces can result in significant impact to key performance indicators which, when identified and managed properly, result in immediate and measurable increases in an organization’s key metrics, including financial performance, productivity, and employee engagement. Some of VDI’s clients include Coca-Cola, Bank of America, Boehringer-Ingelheim, and the World Economic Forum.

As President & CEO of The Diversity & Flexibility Alliance, Manar Morales is a national thought leader on women’s leadership, diversity and workplace flexibility. The Diversity & Flexibility Alliance is a think tank dedicated to helping organizations create high performance cultures that advance diversity and flexibility. Manar is a frequent speaker on workplace flexibility, diversity and inclusion, women’s leadership, and individual strategies for success.  Manar began her career as an employment litigator representing clients in all aspects of labor relations and employment law.  She has litigated in federal court, before federal administrative agencies, and in arbitration.  In addition, Manar served as an adjunct faculty member of Georgetown University where she taught classes in Labor and Employment Law and Entrepreneurship.  Manar serves on a number of Boards and Commissions; she is a Washington Advisory Council member for Commonsense Media, a member of the President’s Council of Cornell Women, a liaison to the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, and a Trustee of the Board of St. Patrick’s Episcopal Day School.

Jennifer Newbill is the Director Global Employment Brand for Dell within the Global Talent Acquisition COE (Center of Excellence) leading Dell’s candidate attraction, engagement and experience. Jennifer and her team manage the global employment brand strategy including: management of the global recruiting brand campaign, social media strategy and planning, content creation and expertise (visual graphics, multimedia, blogging and social assets), candidate experience, recruiting tools and process, go-to-market recruiting strategies and employee referral program. Jennifer and her team are also heavily partnered with various Dell teams on employee advocacy and measuring employee and market sentiment.

A member of Glassdoor’s Advisory board, Jennifer was voted one of the top Talent Warriors by Glassdoor in 2014. She has published numerous online articles on Direct2Dell, LinkedIn and Slideshare.net about Employment Branding best practices.

Jennifer has been with Dell, Inc. for 13 years in various Human Resources roles including Recruiting, Leadership and Development and HR Operations project management.

Prior to Dell, she was with several Austin, TX based start-up companies including pcOrder.com (a spin-off of Trilogy), eLaw.com and Ignite! Learning in various HR roles including Recruiting and HR Generalist.

She started her career after graduating from Austin College in Sherman, TX and earning her Master’s degree in Business from the University of Dallas with executive search firm, Heidrick & Struggles where her passion for Recruiting began.

Tom is a professor of organizational psychology at the University of Calgary and co-founder of Work EvHOlution. Through his involvement in Work EvOHlution, he helped create psychometric assessments to enhance the effectiveness of leaders, teams, and individuals involved in remote work. New models of human performance and dynamics during remote work were developed as a basis for this. Tom was involved in cutting-edge research that identified the leader capabilities, team dynamics, and individual personality traits needed to function well in a remote work arrangement. Tom will speak to these findings and how they can be implemented to prepare workforces for the challenges of remote work.

Tolu Olubunmi is an entrepreneur and global advocate for migrants, refugees, and displaced people. An innovative thinker and determined change-maker, she has established and led numerous NGOs and campaigns focused on immigrant integration, employment, access to technology, and education.

Tolu is the founder and CEO of Lions Write, a social venture that builds and manages initiatives committed to giving voice and value to the voiceless and strengthening collaborations between corporations, governments and civil society organizations. She co-founded Immigrant Heritage Month and has helped draft and implement U.S. immigration policies.

Tolu serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Migration and co-chairs Mobile Minds – a high-skilled migration project advancing cross-border remote working as a 21st century alternative to physical migration. She also sits on the Board of Directors of USAIM for IOM (the UN Migration Agency), and was recently named to the Board of Advisors of the social impact investment platform, BRAVA Investments.  

In 2015, the World Economic Forum named her One of 15 Women Changing the World and an Outstanding Woman Entrepreneur. Tolu is often called upon to share her expertise and inspiring personal story with a variety of entities, including the United Nations, Gates Foundation, World Bank, TIME, and the White House.

Tolu holds a Chemistry-Engineering degree from Washington and Lee University.

Jason Phillips is Vice President of HR Operations and Chief of Staff at Cisco. He currently plays a major role in the company’s overall human resources performance, leading human resources digital strategies, promoting operational efficiency, and managing team performance through effective governance and financial stewardship.

He leads Cisco’s human resources digital roadmap which support and align to Cisco’s overall business strategy and are essential to driving the Company’s transformational journey. He also is responsible for managing human resources leadership governance, budget and investment portfolios which currently are designed to drive key transformational capability to support the business. Jason is actively involved in driving integrated veterans support solutions across Cisco.

Prior to Cisco, Jason served as the Vice President of HR Shared Services for Kaiser Permanente where he had oversight of all human resources delivery for talent acquisition, contingent workforce, learning, total rewards, integrated disability management and HR technology. He also led Kaiser Permanente’s human resources service center where he was responsible for all core human resources employee transactions in support of over 180,000 employees, 430,000 retirees which processed over 1.1 million cases per year.

Jason also has worked in various leadership roles across multiple consulting firms and started his professional journey as an officer in the United States Marine Corps.

Jason is recognized as a HR operations and systems subject matter expert within numerous human resource consortiums.  He has his Bachelors degree in Government, his Masters degree in Management and completed his doctoral studies in Adult Learning & Human Resources Development.

Joe Pinsker is an associate editor at The Atlantic, where he writes and edits stories about business and economics. The pieces he writes typically focus on the intersection between business and culture, usually involving topics such as food, advertising, office culture, and entertainment. He also regularly covers academic research, especially in the realms of consumer psychology and personal finance.

Joe studied English at the University of Pennsylvania and was a summer intern at Rolling Stone while in college. He currently lives in Washington, DC.

Ceri Power is an HR Wrangler at Automattic. Combining a passion for people and innovation led Ceri to her dream job working in the people team at Automattic. In her ten prior years working as a management consultant in traditional office environments, Ceri held roles advising client HR teams in Switzerland, India, South Africa, and Russia on people strategy and global human capital. Since working remotely full-time, Ceri has become fascinated by contemporary HR and the future of work, and enjoys spreading the word on the benefits of distributed workforces. Ceri stays busy at Automattic managing the full range of HR activities and projects for an employee population spread across 50 countries, from change management, career coaching, to compensation & benefits.

As Talent Agency Director at Upwork, Jeremy is building new services to connect companies with elite freelance professionals around the world. Upwork is the largest freelance marketplace where professionals earn over $1B annually – his job is to help grow our footprint at the high end of the market.

Previously he helped launch and lead Upwork’s first mid-market service offering, Upwork Pro. Prior to joining Upwork he founded an award-winning digital consultancy and before that an online legal startup – both of which had entirely remote teams. Earlier he was an enterprise software consultant, managing teams of remote developers. Basically he’s been helping businesses get work done online his entire career, and at Upwork he gets to do it at unprecedented scale.

Jeremy holds advisory positions for two inspiring non-profit organizations and is also a functional fitness hobbyist and a YouTuber.

Ian Reynolds has served as Director of WorkLife and Community Programs in the Office of Work, Life and Engagement at Johns Hopkins University and Health System since 2011. He oversees the development and delivery of a variety of programs and services designed to assist faculty and staff navigate the competing demands between work and life. Programs include childcare referrals, adult and child emergency backup care, eldercare consultations, resources for expectant and breastfeeding employees, flexible work arrangements, and housing and relocation assistance. Ian frequently presents to audiences on strategies for managing one’s worklife effectiveness. Ian was recently interviewed by 1 Million for Flexibility about his role in promoting workplace flexibility at Johns Hopkins.

From 2014 – 2016, Ian was President of the College and University Work-Life-Family Association (CUWFA), an organization whose mission is to provide leadership in facilitating the integration of work and study with family and personal life at institutions of higher learning. Among other accomplishments, Ian led CUWFA’s Board through the composition and implementation of the organization’s three-year strategic plan.

Ian received his M.A. and B.A. in American Studies from the University of Wyoming and Skidmore College, respectively. In between earning these degrees, Ian studied and performed improvisational comedy at the Second City Conservatory in Chicago. He tries to integrate humor into his personal and professional spheres as much as possible because he believes laughter is indispensable to managing all that life and work can throw at us. Ian lives in Columbia, MD with his wife Stephanie and their three sons.

Brad Richardson is the Co-Founder of Walkabout Collaborative LLC and the Chief Sales &
Marketing Officer of Walkabout Workplace. Brad has had significant experience in managing
remote global teams and understands today’s challenges of how to constantly drive stronger
engagement with faster, better and more connected decision making. After over 20 years in
Senior Leadership roles at one of the world’s largest BPO companies, Brad decided to pursue a
dream of building a company that would drive a paradigm shift in how consulting services were
delivered. Today, Walkabout provides clients with managed solutions delivered by Senior
Executive Independents facilitated through its Walkabout Workplace™ product, an award
winning, state of the art, virtual online office platform.

Jeff Robbins is the Founder of Lullabot and Yonder. Jeff is one of the world’s first web developers. In 1993, he worked as part of the team that created the first commercial website. One year later, Jeff’s band Orbit was signed to A&M Records and he spent the remainder of the decade writing songs and touring. The band scored a top-10 song on the Modern Rock charts and toured with Lollapalooza in 1997.

However, for those reading this page, Jeff is probably best known as the cofounder and CEO of Lullabot, a fully distributed digital agency started in 2006. Lullabot’s client list includes MSNBC, Martha Stewart, Tesla Motors, WWE, The GRAMMYs, Google, Intel, and many other household names. As CEO, Jeff grew the company to over 60 employees before amicably stepping away and selling most of his shares in 2017.

Jeff started Yonder in 2014, as a way for distributed companies to connect with one another and share ideas. He is passionate about remote work as a model for the future of employment, where workers are empowered, trusted, and treated like human beings. After 10 years leading a successful officeless company, he has experienced just about all of the ups and downs of this model of business. With Yonder, he hopes to share these ideas with the world.

Richard G. Rosenblatt has a diverse practice, handling wage and hour class and collective action matters, restrictive covenant and trade secrets litigation, employee benefits litigation, and a full panoply of discrimination, retaliation, contract and common law claims on behalf of employers in courts, arbitral tribunals and agencies around the US. He also represents and counsels employers on unfair labor practices, mass picketing, employment and severance agreements, and employee manuals and policies.

Rich has argued appeals at the US Courts of Appeals for the Second, Third, Fourth, and Sixth Circuits and in the state appellate courts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He also has authored briefs filed with the US Supreme Court.

His clients operate in a wide group of industry sectors that include financial services; insurance; pharmaceuticals and healthcare; technology, information management, and telecommunications; online retailing; utilities; real estate investment trusts (REITs); chemicals; defense contracting; outsourcing; business process consulting; energy; transportation; manufacturing, warehousing, and logistics; customer care; brick-and-mortar retail; food service; food and fragrance; and personal and professional services.

Certified as a Legal Process ManagerTM, Rich has a deep interest in legal process management (LPM). Rich served as the operations partner for the firm’s labor and employment practice for eight years.

Rich also has been deeply involved in bar-related activities, including as a founding member of the Academy of New Jersey Management Attorneys for which he has served as recording secretary and, currently, treasurer.

In addition to frequently lecturing at Temple University’s undergraduate School of Business on compensation matters, Rich has been an alumni interviewer for Duke University for more than 20 years.

Chris Rugaber is a reporter covering employment and the economy for the Associated Press.

With over 25 years’ experience that includes leadership development, executive recruitment, professional development and diversity consulting, Susan Schmitz helps organizations and individuals Connect, Be Bold and Celebrate. As the Chief of People Strategy for a 1400-person business unit of Dell Technologies, Susan leads initiatives to attract, retain and develop top talent in over 80 countries. She is passionate about driving positive business outcomes via diverse and inclusive teams that are engaged and empowered to best serve Dell customers. Susan works remotely and travels extensively. She loves the possibilities for growth and learning that technology and a global mindset enable.  She’s committed to creating dialogue and removing barriers to success and believes “we can’t fix what we can’t talk about.

Brigid Schulte is the author of the New York Times bestselling book on time pressure, Overwhelmed: Work, Love & Play when No One has the Time, which named one of the notable books of the year by the Washington Post and NPR, and won the Virginia Library Association’s literary nonfiction award.

She has spoken all over the world about the causes and consequences of our unsustainable, always-on culture, and how to make time for The Good Life by redesigning how we work, by re-imagining gender roles for a fairer division of labor and opportunity at work and home and, instead of seeking status in busyness, by recapturing the value of leisure. She was an award-winning journalist for The Washington Post and The Washington Post Magazine and part of the team that won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Slate, The Boston Globe, New York Magazine’s Science of Us, Fast Company, Time, the Guardian and others. She has also been quoted as an expert or featured in numerous publications, including Fortune, the Atlantic, Financial Times and others, and has appeared on a number of TV and radio programs, including CNN, The BBC, Fresh Air with Terry Gross and NPR’s Morning Edition.

She now serves as the director of the nonpartisan think tank New America’s Better Life Lab, which uses data, storytelling and aspirational policy solutions to elevate the conversation, explore transformative solutions and highlight how work-life, gender equity and well designed social policies are keys to excellence, productivity and innovation, as well as full, authentic and meaningful lives for everyone. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with her husband, Tom Bowman, a reporter for National Public Radio, and their two children. She grew up in Portland, Oregon and spent her summers with family in Wyoming, where she did not feel overwhelmed.  

Visit her website for resources and sign up for her occasional newsletter, Toward Time Serenity, on the art and science of The Good Life.Join the ongoing discussion about making time for work, love and play on her Facebook page. And follow her on twitter @BrigidSchulte

Check out the Better Life Lab on the web and our channel on Slate. Follow us on twitter @BetterLifeLab for our curated newsletter on the best of our work and articles, essays, data and research from around the web on what you need to know to live a Better Life at work and at home.

Kristin Sharp directs New America’s Initiative on Work, Workers, and Technology. In 2016, she co-founded and ran Shift: The Commission on Work, Workers, and Technology, a joint project of New America and Bloomberg.

Prior to launching SHIFT, she had an extensive career in technology, innovation, and national security policy in the U.S. Senate, most recently serving as deputy chief of staff to Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), and the architect of his initiative examining the impact of the on-demand economy and contingent workforce on capitalism.

In the Senate, Sharp also held positions as legislative director for Sens. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). In addition, she held a variety of senior staff roles on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and was an advisor to Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

In addition to her work at New America, she is a frequent speaker on the future of work and advises a variety of private start-ups and venture capital firms. Sharp is a member of the board of the Herbert Scoville Peace Fellowship. She has an M.A. from Duke University in Political Science, and a B.A. from the University of Michigan. Go Blue!

As Vice President of Cisco’s Workplace Resources, David Wagner leads a global organization with responsibility for provisioning  all corporate real estate and facilities services for a portfolio of 23 million square feet, spanning 94 countries.

Wagner and his team respond to business demands with actionable strategies, which are delivered through an integrated outsourced platform of more than 11,000 professionals worldwide.  With an operating budget in excess of $1.2 billion, and annual capital commitments of $500 million, Workplace Resources is the architect of the corporation’s Global Site Strategy and Cisco Connected Workplace programs.

Prior to joining Cisco, Wagner was Senior Managing Director at CB Richard Ellis, Principal and Senior Vice President at Trammell Crow Company, Project Executive and Program Manager at Parsons Corporation, and Senior Engineer at General Dynamics Corporation.

Wagner received a master’s degree in business administration from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, as well as a master’s degree and bachelor’s degree of science in engineering from Lehigh University.  He has also received Six Sigma certification and is a licensed professional engineer.

Aliah is the Online Editor for SHRM and covers HR technology. She has been with SHRM since 2008. For nine years, she was entertainment editor for Gannett News Service, directing entertainment coverage for all of Gannett’s newspapers, including the nation’s largest daily, USA Today. Before that, she was a political correspondent for The Associated Press in Pennsylvania. She also worked at smaller papers in South Carolina and Pennsylvania and taught journalism at the Pennsylvania State University.

Wright is also the author of the best-selling SHRM-published social media book, A Necessary Evil: Managing Employee Activity on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn … and the Hundreds of Other Social Media Sites (SHRM, 2013). In addition to training HR professionals worldwide on social media best practices, she also directs the editorial division’s social media strategy. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Temple University.  Follow her on Twitter @1SHRMScribe​.