Chantel Adams, Current Forté Fellow, MBA 2014, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business
Chantel Adams is a second year MBA student at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. After earning her B.A. in Finance from Simmons College, in 2009, she returned to her hometown Brooklyn, New York to pursue a career in the financial services industry. Prior to business school, Chantel worked as an Associate Analyst at Moody’s Investors Service and as an Accountant at Geller & Company. Her ultimate goal is to become the CEO of a socially responsible corporation or the Executive Director of a large, global nonprofit organization. She is currently concentrating in marketing, while also pursuing UNC’s Nonprofit Leadership Certificate. Chantel has held several leadership positions at UNC Kenan-Flagler and currently serves as the President of Carolina Women in Business and as a Liaison for the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management.

Beverley Babcock, Vice President, Corporate Financial Services, Exxon Mobil Corporation
Beverley Babcock serves as Vice President, Corporate Financial Services and has held her current position since June 2013. Originally from Canada, Beverley has enjoyed the opportunity to learn and develop through 18 diverse assignments over the course of her 27-year career with ExxonMobil. She has held a variety of management roles including Assistant Controller of Financial Reporting and Treasury Finance Manager, where she was responsible for financing large scale projects in West Africa. She also had the responsibility of coordinating ExxonMobil's communications to shareholders and analysts in the investment community as the company's Investor Relations Manager. Beverley has held positions in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Beverley holds a bachelor's degree from Queen's University and Masters of Business Administration degree from McMaster University, both in Ontario, Canada. She is also a member of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants.  In 2014, Beverley received a Breakthrough Woman award from the Greater Houston Women’s Chamber of Commerce. Over the past five years, Beverley has enjoyed actively participating in Forté. Beverley is married and the mother of two sons. Her personal interests include travel, reading and playing tennis. 

Marina Barreto, Director, Business Planning and Strategy, Disney Channels Worldwide
Marina is Director, Business Planning and Strategy, Disney Channels Worldwide, a role she has held since January 2014. In her current role, Marina is responsible for strategic and business planning for Disney Channels Worldwide, a portfolio of more than 100 kid-driven, family-inclusive entertainment channels and channel feeds available in 164 countries in 34 languages, spanning the Disney Channel, Disney XD, Disney Junior, Disney Cinemagic, Hungama, Dlife and Radio Disney brands.  She is also involved in evaluating new business ventures and areas for business improvement.  Additionally, Marina works closely with other divisions across The Walt Disney Company to formulate new opportunities and growth strategies for the kids television business.

Marina, who has been with The Walt Disney Company since 2006, was previously Senior Manager, Alliance Management, Disney Corporate Alliances, and, prior to that, Senior Manager, Consumer Insights and Strategy at Disney Mobile, a division of Disney Interactive.  During her tenure at Disney’s global Corporate Alliances organization, Marina was responsible for leading the strategic business relationship between major corporate brands including Coca-Cola, Nestle and Hanes, and Disney’s film studios, consumer products, interactive, media networks, and theme parks and resorts divisions.

Prior to joining Disney, Marina was a Manager at Warner Home Video International Marketing, where she developed marketing strategies and assets in addition to managing executive and producer approvals for DVD releases around the world.  She was also a business and marketing strategy consultant with Monitor Group for several years and held analytical finance positions with Citibank and Merrill Lynch.

Throughout her career, Marina has worked in several countries including the U.S., Brazil, Mexico and Argentina.  She has a Master in Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a Bachelor in Business Administration from EAESP at Fundação Getúlio Vargas in Brazil.

Deborah Bertan, Director, Campus Strategy, Citi
Debbie is Director of Citi Campus Strategy & Diversity. Her role involves creating and enhancing the partnerships between Citi Businesses and the major colleges and universities from which they recruit. The goal is to insure a steady pool of highly qualified and motivated candidates for Citi’s Leadership Training Programs. She is an accomplished Human Resources professional with over 18 years of increasing responsibility in the financial services industry. Her diverse background includes work in staffing at all levels, employee relations and counseling, management development and compensation administration.

Debbie joined Citigroup in 1998, first with Salomon Smith Barney as First Vice President of Corporate Recruiting and then becoming Director of College Relations in November of 2001. Prior to Citi, she has had multiple industry experiences, having worked as a Human Resources Generalist at J.P. Morgan & Co, Inc. and as a Senior Personnel Associate for Goldman, Sachs & Co.

Debbie holds a B.B.A., Cum Laude degree from Baruch College of the City University of New York. She resides in Hastings on Hudson, NY with her husband Dave and her children Ali and Eli.

Marta Braun, Head of Digital Distribution, LATAM, 20TH Century Fox
As Head of Digital Sales, Marta leads the growth of digital transactional sales across Latin America by managing and expanding the existing customer base and by developing and executing growth strategies for each market in this region.
 
Before joining 20th Century Fox, Marta worked in global business development at Disney Consumer Products and, earlier, in LATAM business development at FIJI Water. Marta began her career as an investment banking analyst at Bank of America’s Healthcare Group in NYC. She then redirected her focus to the Entertainment industry in a Finance/Deal Analysis role at the Walt Disney Studios.
Marta holds an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania. She has worked in the United States and Brazil, and travels often to Mexico and Brazil to develop new sales opportunities in territory.

Tina Cheng, Manager Advisory Services, Ernst & Young LLP
Tina is a Manager in the Advisory Services practice of Ernst & Young LLP with a focus on Procurement Transformation. She’s partnered with multiple clients ranging from an S&P 100 Automotive Manufacturer to a National Healthcare Provider to transform Procurement business processes and deliver multiple lifecycles of ERP implementations working across various functional teams. She specializes in Supplier Relationship Management and Procure to Pay processes. Prior to joining EY, she spent six years in the aerospace industry with focus areas in Supply Chain Management, Process Improvement and Engineering Project Management. Some of her key strengths are supplier relationship improvement initiatives, major program transformations and project performance management. Tina is also proficient in Mandarin, Chinese.

Jennifer Colosimo, Vice President of Wisdom, DaVita Healthcare Partners
Jennifer Colosimo is a Vice President of Wisdom at DaVita Healthcare Partners. In her work with the Wisdom group, she focuses on DaVita University operations, technology strategy, and culture. She was with FranklinCovey for 15 years and is acclaimed coach, speaker, and author.
Jennifer co-authored the book Great Work Great Career with Dr. Stephen R. Covey, blogs at jennifercolosimo.com, and can be found on Twitter at jencolosimo. Previous to joining FranklinCovey in 1996, she was a Change Management Consultant with Accenture and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in organizational communication from the University of Utah and Purdue University respectively.

Jennifer is involved in organizations focused on developing self-sufficient girls and women who have courage, confidence, and character. She is particularly passionate about Girl Scouts and is on the Board of the Girl Scouts of Colorado and was a troop leader for nine years. She lives with her husband and teenage daughter and receives occasional texts from her college-aged progeny.

Barbara Desoer, CEO, Citibank, N.A.
Barbara Desoer is the CEO of Citibank, N.A., a role she assumed in April 2014.  She is also a member of its Board of Directors. Citibank, N.A. accounts for approximately 70% of Citigroup's total assets. The Bank engages in banking activities through approximately 1,000 U.S. branches in thirteen states and the District of Columbia. It is also the primary entity within which Citigroup engages in international activities through branches and subsidiaries in over 100 countries and territories outside the United States. Citibank, N.A.'s principal offerings include mortgage lending, credit cards, and retail banking products and services; corporate lending, commercial banking, cash management, trade finance and e-commerce products and services; and private banking products and services.  Barbara joined Citibank, N.A. as Chief Operating Officer in October 2013.

In her previous 35 year career at Bank of America, Barbara's most recent position was President, Bank of America Home Loans, a $7 billion/5 million customer/50,000 associate business. In this capacity she reported to the CEO, and led the integration of Countrywide, the largest mortgage originator and servicer in the United States, from Legal Day One of the transaction.  She grew customer mortgage originations, divested multiple businesses, recruited new leadership, built out capability to more effectively manage operational, credit, regulatory and reputational risk, and led the team to double in size requiring multiple strategy shifts.

In previous Bank of America roles, Barbara was Global Technology & Operations Executive, an international market focused position reporting to the CEO, with teams in UK, Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong, India, China) and Latin America Bank Boston.  In this capacity she re-tooled capability to more effectively enable growth and innovation plans through technology, drove quality through building offshore teams, invested in infrastructure upgrades, and created Six Sigma centralized capability.  She also served as President, Consumer Products reporting to the CEO, leading checking and savings deposit accounts, credit and debit card, first mortgage and home equity, and insurance products, call centers, ATMs, online banking, and dealer services.

Earlier career positions included Director of Marketing, where she executed the rebranding of all legacy businesses of Bank of America and NationsBank post the 1998 merger; Banking Group President; California Retail and Small Business Banking Executive; District Manager; and several prior management positions.

Barbara has served in various non-profit board positions over the years.  She is currently a member of the Advisory Board of the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley.

She received her MBA in Finance from University of California, Berkeley – Haas School of Business, and her B.A. in Mathematics from Mount Holyoke College.

Monica Dodi, Co-founder and Managing Director of The Women's Venture Capital Fund
Monica has over 20 years experience as a new media pioneer and entrepreneur. She was a leading founder for four successful start ups – including MTV Europe, the first recycled paper products company in Europe, and as CEO of AOL’s Entertainment Asylum. Monica also ran Disney Consumer Products for Europe and was Entrepreneur-in-Residence for Softbank VC. Monica founded the WVCF after having identified a unique opportunity to invest in women led startups. Monica also serves as a Board member for the LA River Revitalization Corporation.

Katie Dye, Manager, Monitor Deloitte, Customer and Marketing Strategy, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Katie is a manager with Monitor Deloitte, Deloitte Consulting’s strategy practice. She has over five years of experience developing growth and market entry strategies within the consumer products, technology, media, and defense markets. Katie’s passion lies in helping her clients to better understand their customers and leverage those insights to uncover sustainable advantages in the market.

She received her BS from Cornell University and her MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Meaghan Eichmann, Group Manager, Supply Chain Finance, Target    
Meaghan is currently the Group Manager Supply Chain Finance. In her 3 years at Target Corporation, she has also worked in Multichannel Finance and Merchandise Finance for the Jewelry/Accessories and Shoes divisions. Meaghan worked as a Senior Associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers prior to going back for her MBA, and is heavily involved in MBA recruiting at Target.

Meaghan received her MBA in Corporate Finance from the Carroll Graduate School of Management at Boston College, and her B.S. from Stonehill College.

Megan McGowan Epstein, Vice President, Goldman Sachs
Megan is a Vice President in PWM and serves on the Client Value Proposition and Branding Committee.  She joined Goldman Sachs in 2000 as the Business Unit Manager of PWM in Los Angeles after having spent a brief period of time in the New York Institutional Equity Group.  Megan worked four years prior to business school at Credit Suisse First Boston as an Analyst in the Global Power Investment Banking Division and as an Associate in Equity Capital Markets.  Megan graduated from Harvard Business School in 2000 in Finance and Entrepreneurial Studies.  She also received her chef’s degree from the Culinary Institute of Education in 1999.  She received her BA from Columbia College, Columbia University, in Economics and Political Science.  Megan serves on the Regional Board of Directors of the National Foundation of Teaching Entrepreneurs (NFTE) and the Finance Committee for the Wilshire Boulevard Temple.

Dana Endundo Ferreira, Management Associate in Global Digital Marketing, Citi
Dana is a Management Associate in Global Digital Marketing team in the Global Consumer Marketing and Internet Office. She is responsible for supporting rapid progress of online acquisition efforts across all markets. In this role, she focuses on leveraging digital marketing and online acquisition best practices across regions to support the rapid growth of new customer accounts from online channels including onsite, search, display, affiliates and partner sites.
Dana joined the Consumer Banking Management Associate Program at Citi in August 2012, after earning a MBA from Columbia Business School.

During her time in the program, she also worked on defining the next generation online and mobile application for Credit Cards, and leading the development and implementation of a new lead generation campaign for the US credit card market. Prior to business school, Dana has worked in various traditional marketing roles in industries including financial services and healthcare. She has lived and worked in 3 continents, and she speaks five languages.

Jenn Flynn, Chief Financial Officer, GE Capital Finance
Jenn is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for GE Capital Franchise Finance located in Scottsdale, Arizona. Jenn has 17 years of Finance experience, 10 of which have been in GE. Jenn has held various Controller & Finance leadership roles in GE, supporting the business through several integrations & executing on initiatives at the HQ, business platform, and functional levels. Most recently, Jenn held the position of CFO Risk & Regulatory, leading key initiatives for GE Capital, which began operating in a U.S. Federal Reserve regulated environment. This included capital planning, stress testing, model governance and loan loss reserving. Prior to joining GE, Jenn spent 7 years at PWC in New York, NY and Stamford, CT. She is a CPA in the State of CT and holds a B.S. in Accounting from Bryant University in Rhode Island.
 
Beyond her role, Jenn is very active in the GE Women’s Network. She led the Danbury, CT hub for 4 years, and currently leads the Women in Finance initiative for the Network. Jenn was named GE’s Working Mother of the Year in 2012 in recognition for her extensive mentoring and demonstration of effective work-life balance. Jenn lives in Scottsdale, AZ with her husband, Kevin, and daughter, Brooke (4).

Gary Fraser, Assistant Dean, University of Southern California (Marshall School of Business)
Dr. Gary Fraser is currently Assistant Dean and Executive Director at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business. He is responsible for directing the career development process for full time, part time, executive, and international program MBA students as well as the corporate recruitment process with external organizations. Previously he served as Associate Dean of MBA Student Affairs and was also Assistant Dean of the Office of Career Development at NYU Stern. Prior to his career in Higher Education, Dean Fraser worked in marketing and brand management with Kraft/Nabisco, Cadbury Schweppes, and the Sara Lee Corporation. He attended Syracuse University and earned a dual major Bachelor's degree with the Whitman School of Management and the Newhouse School of Public Communications, and has an MBA from NYU's Stern School of Business. In 2011, Dean Fraser earned a Doctorate of Education from the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education where his dissertation focused on leadership development at leading MBA programs.

Terri Frink, Global Exploration Controller, Exxon Mobil Corporation
Terri manages the organization responsible for financial reporting and analysis of ExxonMobil’s global exploratory activities. 

During her 16 year career at ExxonMobil, Terri has held a variety of positions in Treasury, Controllers and Internal Audit, including an expatriate assignment in the United Kingdom, which enabled her to strengthen her global expertise.  Some of her roles have included working on mergers and acquisitions, developing country business strategies, structuring financing for large-scale projects in Russia and the United Kingdom and managing the organization responsible for analyzing and reporting the financial results of ExxonMobil’s multi-billion dollar project portfolio. 

Terri holds a bachelor's degree from Duke University and a Masters of Business Administration degree from Southern Methodist University.  She has enjoyed actively participating in Forté over the past five years. Terri is married and is the mother of two young children.  Her personal interests include travel and playing tennis.

Kim Fulton, MBA Candidate, Consulting Club President
Kim is currently enrolled in the full-time MBA program at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. She has a focus in management consulting and is the President of the class of 2015 consulting club. She is also a recipient of the Forté Foundation scholarship.
 
Prior to the MBA, Kim worked for five years in marketing and business development in the construction industry. She collaborated with multidisciplinary and international teams to formulate business development strategies for infrastructure projects valued up to $600 million. Most recently, Kim managed the marketing initiatives for the Southern Alberta region of a progressive construction management firm. Through advertising, events, public relations and social media, she established and maintained positive relationships with targeted clients. She also worked in partnership with the business development team to secure record-breaking new projects including a large mixed-use development that will be the branch's largest project to date.
 
Throughout her career and education, Kim has developed a reputation for being a natural leader, logical problem solver, strategic thinker and highly effective communicator.

Namrata Gandhi, Vice President, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Technology Investment Banking
Namrata Gandhi is a Vice President in BofA Merrill Lynch’s Technology Investment Banking team based in Palo Alto, CA. Prior to Namrata's investment banking career, she worked for GE Capital in a variety of different roles. Namrata has diverse transaction experience including initial public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, capital structure optimization, ratings advisory, and debt/equity/hybrid securities. She received her MBA from University of Chicago Booth School of Business and her undergraduate degree from Indiana University

Leigh Gauthier, Director, Careers, Full-Time MBA, Rotman School of Management
With People Development, Learning, and Consulting roles spanning national, multinational, and global organizations such as Accenture, the Ken Blanchard Companies and The Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, Leigh has had the privilege to work with some of the world's best and brightest talent. She has conducted over 1000 coaching sessions and has delivered hundreds of workshops/facilitated events. Leigh is a Certified Coach (CPCC), and professionally trained facilitator certified in administering the MBTI and Reach360 Personal Branding assessment. She currently puts her passion to work at the Rotman School of Management leading the Career Centre team for the Full-Time MBA program.

Twitter: @CoachLeigh

Sherri Ghamsary, Sr. Business Consultant, Corporate Development Program, Liberty Mutual Insurance
Sherri is a Senior Business Consultant in Liberty Mutual’s post-MBA Corporate Development Program. Prior to joining Liberty Mutual in 2012, Sherri completed her MBA at the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business. Sherri began her career at PricewaterhouseCoopers in San Francisco, CA as part of the Financial Services Advisory Practice. She brings 8+ years of experience leading process improvement, mergers/integration and risk mitigation projects for financial institutions in both the US and Central America, including: banks, broker-dealers, credit unions, insurance companies, investment management firms and real estate investment trusts (REITs). Throughout her career, Sherri has taken on leadership roles in expanding women’s networks at both PricewaterhouseCoopers and USC Marshall.

Sherri graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and a Minor in Business Administration. Additionally, Sherri is fluent in Farsi and Spanish. During her free time, she enjoys adventure travel, hiking and watching sports.

Heather Giese, Director, Commercial Leadership Programs, GE Corporate
Heather has been with GE for 16 years in a variety of sales and marketing roles across multiple GE businesses. In her current role as Director of Commercial Leadership Programs,  she is responsible for leading and transforming GE’s global sales and marketing rotational programs including, Experienced Commercial Leadership Program (ECLP) and Commercial Leadership Program (CLP), by supporting commercial growth in GE Businesses and emerging markets in order to generate a successful commercial pipeline across the company.  Prior to this position, she held several marketing leadership roles within GE Capital’s Retail Finance business, where she was responsible for growing GE’s relationship with retailers including JC Penny, Lowes, Belk, Lord & Taylor and American Eagle Outfitters. In addition to roles held within GE Capital, Heather was a graduate of the GE Experienced Commercial Leadership Program (ECLP), where she led commercial projects across both industrial and capital businesses.  She started her career with GE Financial, where she served as a relationship manager for top Securities Brokerage Intermediaries and earned her Six Sigma Black Belt Certification.

Through her active participation, Heather has been selected to manage leadership roles within the GE Women’s Network, and Executive School Campus Recruiting. Heather has a BA in Communications from James Madison University and a MBA from Virginia Commonwealth University.  She currently resides in Charlotte, NC with her husband and daughter.

Libby Gill, CEO, Libby Gill & Company
Libby is the former head of communications and public relations for Sony, Universal, and Turner Broadcasting.  She is now CEO of Libby Gill & Company, an executive coaching and consulting firm. An international speaker and bestselling author, she has shared her success strategies on CNN, NPR, the Today Show, and in BusinessWeek, Time, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and more.

Libby helps clients like ABC-Disney, Avery Dennison, Deloitte, GoDaddy, Kellogg’s, Microsoft, Nike, Oracle, PayPal, Royal Caribbean, Safeway, Warner Bros., Wells Fargo, and many more create a highly committed workforce of inspired and inspiring leaders.

Twitter: @LibbyGill

Michelle Go, Vice President, Investment Banking Division's Financial Institution Group, Barclays
Michelle Go is a Vice President at Barclays in the Investment Banking Division’s Financial Institutions Group. She focuses on the coverage of specialty finance companies within the consumer finance and financial technology sectors. Michelle has worked on M&A, advisory and cross-border transactions and has over $15 billion in capital markets transactions experience. Prior to joining Barclays, she interned at Citi in their Fixed Income group and previously worked in corporate finance for URS Corporation based in California.

Michelle received a MBA from the NYU Leonard N. Stern School of Business and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a BA in Economics and a minor in Public Policy.

Irina Goedemans, Fixed-income Investment Analyst, Capital Group
Irina is a fixed-income investment analyst with research responsibility for high-yield corporate bonds, specifically capital goods, chemicals, food & beverage and autos & auto suppliers issues. She has 16 years of investment experience and has been with Capital Group for 11 years. Earlier in her career at Capital, Irina’s coverage included broadcasting and utilities. Prior to joining Capital, she was a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Co. She holds an MBA with honors from the University of Chicago School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Rice University. Irina is based in Los Angeles.

Poornima Gopalakrishnan, Senior Product Manager, Dental Technologies, Danaher Corporation
Hailing from southern part of India, Poornima holds an MBA from University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business and a BS in Computer Science and Engineering from Osmania University. While at Darden, she was named Forte Fellow for exemplary leadership and commitment to women’s initiatives. Upon graduation, she joined Danaher Corporation as a Product Manager for their Dental Technologies business. Prior to Danaher, Poornima held progressive roles in Tata Consultancy Services working in software consulting, development and implementation. She currently holds Global Product Management responsibility for their 3D cone beam business including new product development and global product deployment.

Erica Graham, Head of US Partnerships, Movember
Erica Graham oversees US Partnerships for Movember, the global men’s health charity focused on raising funds and awareness for men's health, specifically prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and mental health.  In this role, Erica is responsible for securing, developing, and managing all brand partnerships that generate marketing awareness, breath, and reach within the American market.  Prior to Movember, Erica worked at Active.com as General Manager of the Promotions Business, at Apple on the Enterprise Solutions team, and in film development on major comedy motion pictures.
 
Erica has her Bachelors in Political Science from the University of Southern California, a Masters in Communication from the University of Washington, and her Masters in Business from the University of Michigan.  You can find Erica running around the Culver City neighborhood of the Movember office, or on her yoga mat.

Rebecca Griggs, Vice President of Operations Innovation, DaVita
With over 16 years of experience in the dialysis industry, Rebecca Griggs is a proven business partner with a track record of bottom line results.  Throughout her career at DaVita, she has managed a diverse project portfolio that has leveraged her relationship building skills as well as big-picture strategic thinking to drive revenue-generating opportunities, cost-reduction strategies and forge new business relationships.  As the Vice President of Operations Innovation, she currently manages a team of directors, managers and process engineers focused on driving operating efficiencies through a research and development operating division spread across 4 states.

In 2010, Rebecca was nominated to lead DaVita’s effort to relocate its headquarters to Denver through the construction of a build-to-suit office which opened in Lower Downtown Denver in 2012.  She has been recognized for her commitment to values through various awards, including Service Excellence, Accountability, being voted Most Valuable Leader 2010 – 2012 for her work with the headquarters and the DaVita Chairman’s Award in 2014.
Rebecca holds a Master of Business Administration degree, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology. In addition, she is trained as a Black Belt in Six Sigma by the American Society for Quality.  She sits on the Board of the National Sports Center for the Disabled, is an active member of the Denver Art Museum’s Strategy Committee, and serves as the Secretary for the Ben Franklin Academy Charter School’s Marketing and Community Outreach Committee.

Angela founded MBA Career Coaches to create opportunities for the some of the world’s most exceptional professionals to achieve greater success and fulfillment in their work. The tools and techniques MBA Career Coaches use to engage with clients bring together the best of her own experience and learning over nearly two decades of work in the field of business communication and professional growth and development. Those experiences include: Five years at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where she managed BCG’s Women’s Initiative, two years managing communications and leadership training and HR initiatives at KPMG Seoul, and a BA in Philosophy from Yale and an MBA from The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, where she was a Siebel Scholar.

Elaine Hagan, Interim Associate Dean, Alumni Relations; Executive Director, Harold and Pauline Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, UCLA Anderson School of Management
Elaine Hagan is executive director of the Price Center, which oversees UCLA Anderson’s internationally recognized entrepreneurship program, as well as initiatives in social innovation. For the past year, she has also served as interim associate dean of alumni relations at UCLA Anderson, managing programs and services throughout the world for Anderson’s 35,000 alumni. Previously, Elaine worked in Stanford University's Office of Development, and served on the turnaround management team of a privately-held manufacturing firm in San Diego. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of California at Irvine and her MBA from UCLA Anderson.

Dr. Donna M. Hamlin, CEO and Board Director of Intrabond Capital U.S., Inc. and Chairperson of Hamlin Harkins, Ltd.
Currently, Donna is CEO and Board Director of Intrabond Capital U.S., Inc. and well as Chairperson of Hamlin Harkins, Ltd., a 30 year-old international management consulting firm working with a broad spectrum of domestic and international companies on issues of strategy, market growth and performance improvement. Industries served are wide, including: high technology, retail, professional services, finance and manufacturing spanning 38 countries.

Donna joined Intrabond Capital U.S., Inc. as CEO in 2010, taking it from start-up to $30 million in the first year. Simultaneously, she continued her role and Board Chair for Hamlin Harkins, Ltd., which holds a long history of awards for corporate success, including ones from General Electric and the International Communication Association.
 
In addition to her current board and executive roles, Donna’s board experience includes serving as Director for Interhealth, USA, a leading international provider of nutraceuticals, including chair of the compensation committee; a member of board advisors for Paramit Corporation, a fast-growing standards-setting electronic contract manufacturer;  board director for Focus Group Holdings, Ltd. Investment Partnership One, and a 25-year-standing director for San Jose Stage company.  She also served as advisor to compensation committees for Asyst Technologies and Trident Microsystems, Inc.
 
Prior to these roles, she served as board director for Commonwealth Central Credit Union, CardioGrade, Inc., Agromac International, and for the non-profit organizations: Girls, Inc, United Way, and the San Jose Ballet.

Donna holds professional governance certifications from National Association of Corporate Directors and Harvard University. She is recognized for her board style as a statesperson who successfully facilitates robust discussions of issues and integrates directors’ thinking to create solid solutions. Donna holds a Ph.D. in strategic planning from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute(RPI), an M.S. with honors in organizational communication also from RPI, and a B.A. from Siena College. 

Ann Hargraves, Director, Graduate Campus Recruiting, Liberty Mutual
Ann Hargraves Nowak is Director of Recruiting for Professional Programs at Liberty Mutual Insurance, a global Fortune 100 company based in Boston, Massachusetts.  Ann’s team recruits for the company’s general management and finance leadership development programs.

Ann also leads Liberty’s effort to help the business find diverse talent to meet their hiring objectives and is currently managing the companies mentoring program with American Corporate Partners, a veteran’s mentorship program.

Prior to joining Liberty, Ann worked in non-profit and education, both in the student services functions. Ann has had numerous mentors during the different stages of her professional career and credits much of her professional success to those that stood next to her along the way.

Patricia Henderson, Manager, Monitor Deloitte Strategy
Patricia is a Manager in the Strategy & Operations practice, where she specializes in working with Aerospace & Defense and Industrial Products companies on corporate and competitive strategy. In this role, she has helped clients with highly-engineered products focus their growth through customer segmentation, market assessments, scenario analysis, and implementation planning.

By directing clients to first understand the current and future market / technology trends then assessing options for aligning operations, she has helped her clients prioritize initiatives and build actionable plans for capturing value.

Patricia holds an MBA from Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a Bachelor of Arts from Villanova University.

Zoe Hillenmeyer, Senior Consultant, Strategy and Transformation, IBM
Ms. Hillenmeyer works for IBM as a Strategy consultant specializing in Energy & Utilities and Media & Entertainment. With a background in behavioral economics, design, entrepreneurship and communications; Ms. Hillenmeyer assists large organizations undergoing rapid technological change meet the demands of markets, regulators and employees. She is currently working on projects around data sharing, privacy and security in the energy markets.
 
Ms. Hillenmeyer received her MBA from Washington University in Saint Louis, with a focus on behavioral and labor economics. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the same institution specializing in Interactive Sculpture.

Twitter: @ZoeLive

Roxanne Hori, Associate Dean, Corporate Partnerships, Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University
Roxanne is the Associate Dean for Corporate Partnerships after serving as the Assistant Dean of Career Management at the Kellogg School of Management for close to 17 years. Prior to joining Kellogg she worked in various service organizations for a total of 16 years in a variety of roles within Human Resources. She currently serves as the chair of the Forté Foundation Advisory Board,.  In addition, Roxanne is an active member of the Kellogg School's Women’s Business Association Advisory Board and the Diversity & Inclusion Committee. She is a past President of Midwest ACE and former board member of the National Association for Colleges and Employers. Roxanne has over 20 years of experience in higher education coaching students and alumni on career choices.

Barbara B. Hulit, Senior Vice President and Group Executive, Danaher Corporation
Barbara joined Danaher in 2005 as President of the Fluke Corporation. She was appointed a Group Executive and Danaher Corporate Officer in July 2008 and currently is the leader of the Danaher Business System. Prior to joining Fluke, Barbara was with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in Chicago since 1992. She rose to the position of Vice President and Director where she focused her work in developing growth strategies and in M&A/ business development. While at BCG, she had responsibility for the Consumer & Retail Practice Area in the Americas, and for the packaged goods sector globally. Prior to joining BCG, Barbara also served in sales and marketing roles with Noxell Corporation, PepsiCo and Marketing Corporation of America.

Barbara serves on the boards of the Washington STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) Center, the Pacific Science Center and the Kellogg Global Advisory Board for the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Barbara earned her MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern and BBA in Marketing from the University of Texas – Austin.

Sandra Hurse, Global Head of Talent Acquisition and Junior Talent Management at Bank of Merrill Lynch
Sandra has over 15 years of experience in the Financial Services industry.  She is currently Global Head of Talent Acquisition and Junior Talent Management at Bank of Merrill Lynch.  Prior to joining Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Sandra spent eight years at Goldman Sachs in various HR roles.  She has also worked at JP Morgan Chase, Colgate Palmolive and Time Warner where she held various HR and Marketing roles. Sandra has an MBA from the University of Michigan and a BBA from Baruch College.

Andrea Johns, Associate, Goldman Sachs
Andrea John is an Associate in Goldman Sachs’ Investment Banking division based in Los Angeles, CA. In her current role, she covers various equity and debt products for Healthcare, Real Estate and Consumer / Retail clients. Prior to joining investment banking, Andrea was an equities trader at Goldman Sachs in New York, where she became the youngest trader to serve as market maker on the U.S. Shares Trading desk. In her previous role, she traded public stock, ADRs, and FX for customers and proprietarily. Andrea serves as a junior board member of the LA Alliance Charter School system. She received her MBA from Harvard Business School and her undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Audrey Kania, Co-Founder and Former Executive Vice President, World Poker Tour (WPT Enterprises, Inc.)
Audrey Kania is the Co-founder and former Executive Vice President of the World Poker Tour (WPT Enterprises, Inc.), which is televised in over 150 countries worldwide. Kania was instrumental in changing the image of poker and bringing it to the forefront as a branded worldwide phenomenon through television, publishing, online, mobile media, video games, and licensed consumer products.  After taking the company public and forming WPT Enterprises, Inc., Kania retired and embarked on the third sabbatical of her career. She is currently advising entrepreneurs, consulting with new business development ventures, and speaking on leadership and entrepreneurship.

Over the course of her career, Kania has launched seven new business ventures for both entrepreneurial and Fortune 50 companies. During her tenure with the Walt Disney Company, Kania managed the new venture development efforts to launch a global film production company for the edutainment market and to expand the Winnie-the-Pooh brand into a new global product category. Prior to Disney, Kania was COO of an entrepreneurial toy company in Boston, worked in Strategic Planning and Corporate Development for FMC in Philadelphia, developed marketing strategies for Apple Computer, Inc., and pioneered the integration of digital imaging technology into the printing and package design industry for Continental Can Company and others.

Kania earned her B.S. from Carnegie-Mellon University, her M.B.A. from The Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College, and studied creative writing at Oxford University. Although she didn’t know how to play poker prior to launching the WPT, Audrey finished 12th out of 315 players in the 2006 World Poker Tour Pro-Celebrity Invitational poker tournament. Born in Pennsylvania with a passion to explore the world, Kania’s curiosity has led her to travel extensively internationally to 46 countries and 7 continents, including photographic expeditions to the high Arctic and Antarctica, a camel safari in Morocco, and sailing the South Pacific.

Jennifer Kaplan, Americas Head of Campus Diversity Recruiting, Credit Suisse
Jennifer is Americas Head of Diversity Campus Recruiting and Investment Banking Regional Recruiting at Credit Suisse, overseeing undergraduate and MBA recruiting for students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds, women, LGBT students and military candidates.  In her role as lead ofr regional recruiting, Jennifer is the contact for investment banking candidates pursuing opportunities outside of New York.  Prior to joining Credit Suisse in 2007, Jennifer was the Senior Associate Director of MBA Admissions and Diversity Relationship Manager at NYU Stern.

Jennifer works closely with organizations such as Forte, MLT, MBA Veterans, Toigo Foundation and Reaching Out, and is Corporate Advisory Board member of the Consortium.  In 2009, Jennifer helped launch the Credit Suisse Americas Veterans’ Network and currently serves as the Network’s Chief Operating Officer as well as the Recruiting Chair for the Open Network. Jennifer is deeply engaged in organizations that support children and young adults from diverse and/or low-income families, and former Veterans, such as Prep-for-Prep, Operation Mend and ReserveAid. She is also a founding member of the Young Professional Advisory Board of the NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness)-NYC Metro Board of Directors.

Jennifer graduated from Tulane University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering and began her career as a project engineer for Martin Marietta Materials.

Rachel Klieman, MBA Candidate 2015, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Vice President of Communications, MBA Association Senior Consultant, Illinois Business Consulting
Rachael Klieman is an MBA student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she is concentrating in Marketing and Strategy. Outside of class, Rachael is the Vice President of Communications for the MBA Association, a Senior Consultant at Illinois Business Consulting, and the lead Graduate Assistant for a 600-student freshman course. She is also an active member of the Women in Business club as well as the Graduate Marketing Association. Prior to coming to the University of Illinois, Rachael graduated from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec with a Bachelor of Science and proceeded to work in online marketing for two years.

Kahne Krause, Vice President and Regional Director, Financial Advisor Services, Dimensional
Kahne Krause works closely with financial advisors in Southern California. In this role, Kahne helps advisors address a wide array of issues, including portfolio design, client communication, and advisory best practices. Prior to joining Dimensional, Kahne was a principal audio/video engineer at Walt Disney Imagineering, where she worked on the design and installation of theme park attractions at Disney parks worldwide.  Kahne holds an MBA from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA and a bachelor's degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Purdue University.

Laura Kray, Warren E. and Carol Spieker Professor of Leadership at the Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley
Laura earned her doctorate in social psychology and she applies this lens to her work on gender, negotiations, counterfactual thinking, and group decision-making. She has published over 40 articles in a range of top psychology and management outlets. Her work has received numerous “Best Paper” awards from the Academy of Management and the International Association of Conflict Management and received multiple awards from the National Science Foundation. In 2008, her work on gender and negotiations was recognized with the “Most Influential Paper” award from the Conflict Management Division of the Academy of Management.

She is on the Editorial Board of two leading social psychology journals, Social Psychological and Personality Science and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. She teaches courses on negotiations, leading high impact teams, and leadership to MBAs and executives, and she has been recognized for her teaching excellence with ongoing membership in Haas’ “Club 6.” She is the founder and faculty director of the Center for Executive Education at UC Berkeley’s Women’s Executive Leadership Program. She has provided leadership training for both for-profit and nonprofit organizations, including Adobe, California and Hawaii Bar Associations, Chevron, Ethicon, Google, HealthNet, Indian School of Business, Intel, Tokyo’s Keizai Koho Center, Los Alamos & Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, National Chiao Tung University, Professional BusinessWomen of California, Raytheon, Smith College, Triage Consulting, etc.

Deborah S. Kullman, Vice President/General Manager, Automotive Controls, Eaton
Deborah Kullman is the VP/GM for the Automotive Controls Group at Eaton.  This business includes fuel vapor, powertrain/transmission controls, and torque control products.  Prior to this position, Deborah was the NA Automotive Sales Director and the Global Commercial lead for Ford and General Motors accounts.  Deborah worked in various leadership positions with Ford and Visteon prior to joining Eaton.  Her experience includes design and development engineering, manufacturing, program management, sales and marketing. Deborah earned a Bachelor of Science in Materials Science Engineering from Michigan State University and Master’s in Business Administration from MSU’s Broad School of Management.  She has completed executive training through IESE Business School, University of Navarra and  CEIBS- China Europe International Business School., Shanghai.

Brenda Laboy, Director, Construction & Engineering, AT&T California
Ms. Laboy is Director, Construction & Engineering leading the Digital Electronics Group & Microwave for California. In this role, she manages installation, repair, and preventative maintenance on digital services in both an inside and outside plant environment. This includes placement and care of carrier systems and circuits, SONET multiplexers, Ethernet and DS3 equipment as well as microwave transport for interoffice facilities.

Previous to this role, she was Chief of Staff to the Executive Vice President of Shared Services managing executive communications, business continuity plans, organization compliance, diversity planning and recognition for AT&T’s supply chain, fleet operations, real estate, quality management, and staff support organizations. Over the past eight years, Ms. Laboy has held a number of diverse experiences across AT&T. She managed staff and operational roles in California for Construction and Engineering including statewide metrics and reporting, Northern California mobility Ethernet build, statewide remote digital electronics engineering, as well as digital electronics engineering and operations in the Bay Area.  Her career has primarily focused on operations while completing roles in Local Marketing, Installation & Repair, Special Services, Business Sales and Wholesale.

Before joining AT&T, Ms. Laboy completed her MBA at University of Southern California Marshall School of Business. She worked in several Bay Area technology start-ups and earned a BA in Psychology from Stanford University. She is an active volunteer for Junior Achievement and In2Books eMentoring. She was hired as an intern into the AT&T Leadership Development Program in 2003 and joined full-time in July 2004. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, JD, and 2 children, Paloma and Mateo.

Katrina Lake, Founder & CEO, Stitch Fix
Katrina is passionate about helping women achieve everyday confidence. She founded Stitch Fix to help women everywhere discover and explore their style through a truly client-focused shopping experience.

Prior to founding Stitch Fix, Katrina developed extensive experience at the intersection of fashion, retail, and technology. She managed the blogger platform at venture-backed social commerce company Polyvore and consulted with a variety of e-commerce and traditional retailers during her time at The Parthenon Group. Additionally, she has invested in and worked with dozens of entrepreneurs and start-ups at Leader Ventures.

Katrina holds a B.S. in Economics from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Blair Lawson, Head of Merchandising and Product Development, Beautycounter
Blair recently joined direct retail beauty startup Beautycounter, where she is responsible for product strategy and product development. Before joining Beautycounter she was the President of Lisa Perry, a New-York based designer clothing and accessories brand. Prior to that she spent seven years at Louis Vuitton North America – first as Director of Merchandising for Leather Goods, overseeing the product buying, store allocations, and retail product training for leather goods for the North American stores; and then as Vice President of Digital, where she oversaw Vuitton’s US online and call center businesses. She has a BA in English from Stanford University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Dawna Levenson, Director of Admissions, MIT Sloan School of Management
Dawna is currently the Director of Admissions at the MIT Sloan School of Management.  In this capacity she is responsible for all recruiting, evaluation, conversion and marketing activities in support of the MBA, Master of Finance (MFin), and Master of Science in Management Studies (MSMS) programs.    Prior to this role, Dawna was the Associate Director for MFin Admissions for one year.  Dawna came to Admissions from the MIT Professional Education office where she managed the Advanced Study Program, the Career Reengineering Program, and a collaboration with Accenture’s Solutions Workforce.  She had worked closely with the Admissions Office reading MBA applications for the past 6 years and brings a wealth of admissions and recruiting experience to the team.  Prior to MIT, Dawna was a partner at Accenture where she spent 18 years.  She holds a SB and SM degrees from MIT Sloan.

Amanda Lewis, Manager of Strategic Planning, Chevron Corporation
Amanda Lewis is the Manager of Strategic Planning for Chevron’s Business and Real Estate Services organization. Prior to her current role she was a Senior Treasury Analyst in Chevron’s Corporate Finance Group, where she was responsible for managing Chevron’s global banking relationships and helping to determine Chevron’s optimal financing strategies. Ms. Lewis joined Chevron five years ago on the Finance MBA Development Program.  She has held a number of positions of increasing importance within Chevron, including Corporate Comptrollers, Upstream Strategy and Corporate M&A.
 
Prior to joining Chevron, Ms. Lewis worked as an Investment Analyst in the Oil & Gas Division of the International Finance Corporation (part of the World Bank) and as an investment banking analyst in Goldman Sachs Natural Resources practice. Ms. Lewis graduated summa cum laude from Rice University with a Bachelor’s in Economics and Managerial Studies. She also holds an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School with a focus on Finance and Management.

Meg Lin, Director, Strategic Services, Cognizant Business Consulting
Meg has over 20 years of consulting experience, focused on developing and implementing strategies that drive value for organizations through people. Her areas of expertise include HR transformation, leadership development, talent management, and workforce analytics.

Prior to joining Cognizant, Meg was a Senior Managing Consultant in IBM’s Organization & People consulting practice.  Prior to that, she held a variety of roles during a 15-year career with Towers Watson (formerly Watson Wyatt), as an Account Manager, Organization Effectiveness Consultant, and Actuarial Analyst.  

She is a member of HRPS (HR People & Strategy) and SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management).

Meg earned an MBA in General Management from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and a BS in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Michigan.

Robyn Lurie, Director, Worldwide New Media and Digital Entertainment, NBCUniversal
Robyn Lurie is Director, New Media & Digital Entertainment at Universal Pictures, focusing on new digital business opportunities in content, windows and formats. She has been with NBCUniversal for seven years, serving in various roles across film and television properties.  Robyn holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from UCLA and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Kim Martinez, Vice President of Innovation and New Capabilities, DaVita Rx
Kim brings over 15 years experience in operations, process design and project management in the healthcare services and medical device industries. In her current role, Kim is responsible for driving innovative solutions to solve some of the issues in healthcare today.

Kim joined DaVita Rx in 2007 as a regional operations manager after graduating from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.  Since joining, she has held positions of increasing responsibility, including operations and project management, strategy, and innovation.  DaVita Rx, a subsidiary of DaVita Healthcare Partners, a Fortune® 400 global healthcare provider, was founded in 2005 to address the unique medication needs of dialysis patients.  Kim was part of the team that build the organization from an idea into a national business, licensed in 50 states, providing services to over 65k patients.  The focus of starting DaVita Rx was to improve clinical care for dialysis patients.  A recent study published by the American Journal of Kidney Disease showed that patients that use DaVita Rx spend 14 percent fewer days in the hospital and are 21 percent more likely to live longer than patients who do not use DaVita Rx.

Prior to joining DaVita Rx Kim held numerous engineering and leadership roles at 3M and Align Technology.  At 3M Kim was a key member of the team that scaled up the fastest growing product division within 3M at that time.  She was also one of the first Six Sigma Master Black Belts trained in the company.  After five years at 3M Kim joined Align Technology (manufacturer of Invisalign clear braces) as the founder of their first process improvement department.  She helped grow the company from $75M to $207M in revenues, and move from a Net Loss of $68M in 2002 to a Net Profit of $1.4M in 2005.
 
Kim earned a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Iowa State University and an MBA degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.  She holds one patent and is a licensed professional engineer in the state of California.  She is passionate about her two kids (both under the age of 4), coaching and mentoring others, gardening, photography, running, and enjoying the wonderful food in San Francisco.

Christine M. McCarthy, Executive Vice President, Corporate Real Estate, Alliances, and Treasurer, The Walt Disney Company
Christine M. McCarthy is the Executive Vice President, Corporate Real Estate, Alliances and Treasurer of The Walt Disney Company. She is responsible for the enterprise-wide management of a variety of functions, including corporate finance, capital markets, financial risk management, pension and investments, risk management, global cash management, and credit and collections. She also oversees the company’s global real estate organization, including development, portfolio management, facilities management, and corporate alliances.

Prior to joining Disney, Ms. McCarthy was the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Imperial Bancorp from 1997 to 2000. She held various finance and planning positions at First Interstate Bancorp from 1981 to 1996, and was elected Executive Vice President in Finance for First Interstate in 1993.

Since 2010, Ms. McCarthy has served as Disney’s representative on the board of FM Global, a mutual insurance company. She is a Trustee of the Westridge School for Girls in Pasadena, Calif., and has also been a mentor for young women through the STEM program for the National Math and Science Initiative. In 2002, she completed terms as the Treasurer and a Director of the Alumnae Association of Smith College, and as a member of the Smith College Investment Committee. She also served as a Board member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association from 1998 to 2001.

Ms. McCarthy completed her Bachelor’s Degree in Biological Sciences at Smith College, where she received an award for excellence in botany, and later earned an MBA in Marketing and Finance from the Anderson School at UCLA. She has been named multiple times to Treasury & Risk magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in Finance.”

Colleen M. McMullen, Executive Director of Diversity Initiatives
As Executive Director of Diversity Initiatives, Colleen McMullen leads a comprehensive effort to develop diversity and inclusion strategies and programs for the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. As a member of the schools leadership team, Colleen works with her colleagues in the areas of outreach and recruiting of prospective students, faculty and staff, climate and culture issues of the Tepper School community and, corporate outreach and research related topics of diversity and inclusion in graduate business education. During her 15 year tenure at The Tepper School, Colleen has served in roles with both MBA Admissions and Career Services where her dedication to diversity combined with her commitment to student achievement and professionalism has fostered a welcoming and inclusive environment for students at Carnegie Mellon.

Colleen currently serves as the vice chair on the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee for the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management (CGSM) and previously served two (2) 2-year terms as vice chair and member of the Board of Directors for the Forte Foundation, a consortium of major corporations and top business schools that has become a powerful change agent in educating and directing talented women toward leadership roles in business. At Carnegie Mellon, she serves on the President’s Diversity Advisory Council, is a member of the CMU Andy Awards selection committee, CMU Graduate Student Service Award committee and the Carnegie Mellon Women’s Association.

In 2011, Colleen was selected by the New Pittsburgh Courier as one of their ’50 Women of Excellence’, which honors the achievements of African American women in the Pittsburgh region.  In addition to her role at Carnegie Mellon, Colleen is a member of the WQED Multimedia Community Advisory Board, and Scholarship Committee member and Volunteer Coach and with The First Tee of Pittsburgh where she helps foster confidence and self-esteem in Pittsburgh youth through golf.

Aadila Desai Memon, National Inclusion Recruiter, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Aadila Memon is the National Inclusion Recruiter for Deloitte Consulting LLP.  With more than 14 years of recruiting and professional services experience, she partners with National Leaders to develop and implement programming to hire MBA and Undergraduate talent into the Consulting practice.  During her tenure at Deloitte, she has contributed to a number of National initiatives including Alternative Spring Break, the Deloitte Consulting Immersion Program and the Deloitte Women’s Leadership Launch.  Aadila is passionate about new program development and innovative ways to connect students with opportunities to explore their potential.  She earned an B.A. in Psychology from the University of Maryland and currently lives in the DC Metropolitan area with her husband and 2-year-old daughter.

Ashley Merryman, Author
With Po Bronson, Ashley is the author of two New York Times bestsellers NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children and Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing (both published by Twelve/Hachette).

Using science to develop a fuller picture of our lives – as individuals and as a society –Ashley and Po have written cover stories for Newsweek and New York, as well as having written for Time, the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, the Guardian, Huffington Post, the Daily Beast, and many others. Ashley has appeared on countless of radio and television shows around the world including: The Charlie Rose Show; The Tavis Smiley Show; Fox and Friends; @KatieCouric; CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 and CNN Newsroom; Canada AM; BBC World News; NPR's Tell Me More and On Point; and Kurt Andersen's Studio 360.

For their work, Ashley and Po have won nine national awards for their writing including: the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Journalism; the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Award for Science Journalism; an “Audie” from the Audio Publishers Association; two Clarion Awards; the Books for Better Life Award; the Mensa Press Award; and the award for Outstanding Journalism from the Council on Contemporary Families. And their work is considered so substantial that scientists themselves rely on their reporting: their work has been cited as a research authority in more than 80 preeminent academic journals and almost 260 books, and it is being used as text in universities around the world. You'll find references to their work in publications by the White House to speeches by politicians around the globe.

Ashley is an acclaimed public speaker, having appeared at such venues as Yale University, Cal Tech, American University, the Aspen Institute, PopTech, 92nd St. Y Tribeca, the Los Angeles Times Book Festival, and many other universities, conferences, and venues around the nation. Previously, Ashley was an attorney and a speechwriter in the Clinton Administration. She lives in Los Angeles, directing a small all-volunteer tutoring program for inner-city kids since 1999. For her civic involvement, Ashley received commendations from both the Clinton and Bush Administrations.

Ashley has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the USC School of Cinematic Arts and a Juris Doctorate from Georgetown University.

Michelle Moudry, Director, Investment Management, Hines
Michelle is a Director of Investment Management at Hines, an international commercial real estate firm, within the Global REIT and Hines REIT.  She has been with Hines for 12 years, serving in various roles within the firm.  Michelle currently handles underwriting of acquisitions, asset management, and dispositions for the retail portfolio currently valued at over $900M and over 3.8M SF on behalf of both investment vehicles. Michelle has a BS/MPA in Business/Accounting from The University of Texas and earned an MBA from The Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania.

Michelle Mukai, Senior Sales Program Execution Manager, AT&T Mobility
Michelle Mukai is a Senior Sales Program Execution Manager supporting AT&T Mobility for the Greater Los Angeles Market. This is Michelle’s third and final rotation in AT&T’s Leadership Development Program. In this role, she develops and directs programs that relate to AT&T products, sales process, and operational sales across all retail channels and ensures its successful implementation.
Prior to this assignment, Michelle served as Associate Director for U-verse Content Acquisition supporting multi-million dollar deal negotiations through analysis of industry trends and internal agreements. She began her first rotation in the Leadership Development Program serving as Manager of Network Operations where she coached, led, and developed a group of Service Technicians in achieving performance and quality objectives associated with AT&T’s Wireline Field Operations organization.
 
Upon completing her MBA at University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, Michelle was hired into AT&T to participate in AT&T’s Leadership Development Program. Prior to joining AT&T, Michelle held a variety of roles in both Finance and Garment industries. She graduated from University of California, Los Angeles with a BA in Business Economics and minor in Korean Language. She was born and raised in Southern California and currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband and three dogs. Her passion includes exploring cuisines all over the world, snowboarding, photography, and supporting all Los Angeles sports teams.

Marilyn Nagel, CEO of Watermark
Marilyn joined Watermark as CEO in 2011, leading strategic initiatives designed to help exceptional women in the Bay Area enhance their personal and professional impact. As CEO of Watermark, Marilyn leverages her passion for gender diversity by promoting inclusive, diverse, and well-balanced workplaces.

Prior to joining Watermark, Marilyn was Chief Diversity Officer (Inclusion and Diversity, I&D) at Cisco, where she enhanced Cisco's innovation, by driving policy changes to create a more inclusive environment. Marilyn holds bachelors and master's degrees in public administration, and has an additional master's degree in social and systemic studies, with a focus on organizational systems.

She has served on the Board of Directors of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, Inc. (NACME), serves on the board of Big Pink Ribbon as well as Watermark, and is a senior adviser to The Center for Talent Innovation, formerly the Center for Work-Life Policy.

Listed multiple times in "Who's Who – Women in Business," winner of the Women of Influence from the SJ Business Times in 2012, the YWCA Women Leading the Way TWIN Award for 2011, Women Worth Watching award from the Diversity Journal 2010, Black Enterprise Top Executives in Diversity 2011, and Diversity Officer Leadership Award 2009, Marilyn is a frequent speaker on the topics of Building Meaningful Connections, Women on Boards, Women's Leadership, as well as Building a Culture of Inclusion.

Stephanie Neonakis, Global Corporate Human Resources Manager, Danaher Corporation
Stephanie has worked extensively with both graduate and undergraduate recruitment across the company and is currently the campus owner for the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
 
Stephanie has over 12 years of experience in multiple functions within Human Resources leadership.  Prior to Danaher, Stephanie held HR leadership positions with University Hospitals of Cleveland and Target.  Stephanie holds an MBA from Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management and a BS from Ohio University.

Laura Nieder, Senior Associate Director, Career Management Center at Johnson School of Management, Cornell University
Laura Nieder is a Senior Associate Director at the Career Management Center at Johnson at Cornell University, where she focuses on advising students interested in finance.

Laura has a wide range of experience in finance having worked in investment banking, private equity real estate, and asset management.  Laura began her career in JPMorgan’s San Francisco office in the public finance investment banking division.  She went on to receive her MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.  Laura then spent several years working at CIM Group, a Los Angeles-based real estate private equity firm, where she worked on both real estate and infrastructure transactions.  Most recently, Laura worked for Cornell’s Investment Office where she invested the private equity portfolio and managed the risk and liquidity of Cornell’s endowment. Laura received a B.A. in Economics from Wellesley College.

Lauren Ochoa, Associate, Finance MBA Rotation Program, Prudential
Lauren Ochoa is an associate in Prudential’s Finance MBA rotation program. Her rotations have been in international treasurers, capital and liquidity, and structured finance solutions. Prior to joining Prudential in 2013, Ms. Ochoa worked on private equity co-investments at the Credit Suisse Customized Fund Investment Group and as an airline and aircraft leasing analyst at BofA Merrill Lynch.  Ms. Ochoa received a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University.

Judy Olian, Dean and John E. Anderson Chair in Management
UCLA Anderson School of Management
Judy D. Olian, Ph.D., is the eighth dean of UCLA Anderson School of Management and is the John E. Anderson Chair in Management. She began her appointment in January 2006 after serving more than five years as dean and professor of management at the Smeal College of Business Administration at Pennsylvania State University.

Under her leadership, UCLA Anderson has hired a record number of faculty from the world’s best research institutions, launched new degree and certificate programs, initiated a diverse set of global degree and immersion courses, and developed targeted partnerships with an emphasis on Asia and Latin America. The School’s Board of Visitors has expanded, attracting many prominent business leaders who represent diverse functional and global perspectives. The School recently completed a fundraising campaign that raised $118M to support innovative programming and management thought leadership, and to advance UCLA Anderson as one of the leading schools of management in the world.

Olian served as the 2008 chairman of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International), the premier business accrediting and management thought leadership organization in the world.

As dean of UCLA Anderson, Olian leads an institution that annually provides management education to almost 2,000 students enrolled in MBA, Executive MBA, Fully-Employed MBA, Masters of Financial Engineering and doctoral programs, and to over 2,000 professional managers through executive education programs. The school has several widely recognized research centers and a global alumni network of more than 37,000 graduates. Prior to her tenure at the Smeal College at Penn State, she served in various faculty and executive roles at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.

Widely published in journals on human resource management, top management team composition,and the business alignment of management systems, Olian wrote a weekly syndicated newspaper column and hosted a monthly television show on current topics in business. She is a sought-after speaker and has consulted for major corporations. She serves on the advisory boards of Beijing University’s Guanghua School of Business; the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney; and Luminous Capital.

Twitter: @DeanOlian

Jeanette L. Ourada, General Manager, Finance Shared Services, Chevron
Jeanette is the general manager of Chevron’s financial shared services organization supporting Chevron’s global operations with shared service centers in Argentina, the Philippines, and the U.S. She assumed this position in July 2013.
 
Prior to her current role, Jeanette was assistant treasurer, opco support and intercompany financing. From 2009 to 2012, Jeanette was the general manager of investor relations responsible for Chevron’s outreach to institutional investors and security analysts. From 2007 to 2009, Jeanette was the general manager of finance of Chevron’s Asia South business unit based in Bangkok. Her responsibilities covered finance related activities in Chevron’s upstream operations in Thailand, China, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Cambodia. From 2005 to 2007, she was responsible for Chevron International Exploration and Production’s forecasting and reporting group. Jeanette joined Chevron as part of the Unocal acquisition in 2005.
 
In 1992, Jeanette began her career in the energy business when she joined Atlantic Richfield (ARCO) in Los Angeles, California. Between 1992 and 2000 she held a number of financial positions in ARCO Products Company, corporate treasury, and international internal audit. Jeanette joined Unocal in El Segundo, California, in 2004 and served in strategic planning and as assistant comptroller. Outside of the energy business, Jeanette also worked for Hercules in Wilmington, Delaware, leading the implementation of their Sarbanes-Oxley project; for Universal Studios in Universal City, California, as vice president of finance for the Universal Studios Television Distribution division; and for Weyerhaeuser in Tacoma, Washington, in a variety of information systems positions.
 
A native of Boise, Idaho, Jeanette earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Oregon State University in 1987 and a master’s degree in business administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. Jeanette is a Certified Public Accountant and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Leslie Parker, Principal, A.T. Kearney
Leslie, a Principal in A.T. Kearney’s Operations Practice, has been with the firm since 1997. Leslie provides leadership to organizations seeking to improve profitability and performance by adopting and implementing best-in-class procurement practices. She leads projects focused on procurement organization transformation and supply cost improvement.

Leslie holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson and an AB in Psychology from Georgetown University. She is a trustee of the George F. Baker Scholars Program – a Georgetown program that encourages liberal arts students to pursue business careers. arrShe lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.

Sarah Pasyk, Market Research Consultant, Eli Lilly and Company
Throughout the course of several years, Sarah Pasyk has rotated through a variety of marketing positions at Eli Lilly and Company, the 10th largest pharmaceutical company globally.  After completing three roles within the Neuroscience division—from Global Marketing to US Market Research—she returned to school to get her MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of business.   She recently graduated in 2012 and returned to Eli Lilly to work as a Market Research Consult within the Diabetes Business Unit.  She is currently working on building the brand for a new product that is under review for approval.

Kris Pederson, Vice President, Transformation Leader, IBM Global Services
Kris is an experienced executive with 25 years of management consulting, auditing and financial analysis experience.  She currently leads IBM’s Transformation Center of Excellence, as an expert in large-scale business transformation associated with business process and system integration efforts. Expertise and focus includes strategy consulting, business development, Value Realization/financial engineering, change leadership/organization change, and technology-driven transformation/IT strategy.

Kris has held numerous leadership roles within IBM’s Global Business Services organization.  Prior, she was a Management Consulting Partner at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, which was acquired in 2002 by IBM.  Past roles include:  IBM Internal Transformation Programs Leader, Midwest Region Consulting Leader, Global Value Creation Leader, North Americas Strategy and Market Development Leader, Global Organization and Change Leader, and Practice Area Leader.

Prior to IBM and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Kris was a Managing Consultant with Gemini Consulting, and before that, an Internal Auditor with Consolidated Electrical Distributors.  Industry focus includes high technology, consumer products, industrial products, retail, telecommunication and banking.

Kris currently serves as a director on two corporate boards, Great Western Bank, where she is also on the audit committee, and Windward Reports, as a board member.  She is the Programs Chair and on the Compensation Committee for ASME (Association of Mechanical Engineers), serves on the Harvard Business School Women’s Advisory Board, and is a member of the White House Commission for Women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). 

Kris received an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA, Psychology and Business Administration, UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles).

Preeti Raghupathi, Vice President, Technology Investment Banking Group, Wells Fargo Securities
Prior to joining Wells Fargo Securities, Preeti was an investment banker with Goldman Sachs and Citadel Investment Group where she specialized in advising technology and media companies on mergers and acquisitions and capital raising transactions.

Preeti holds an MBA from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business and an MSc (Finance) with Merit Honors, from the London School of Economics. In addition, Preeti is a qualified Chartered Accountant.

Nithya Rajan, Director of Strategic Planning, Green Dot Public Schools
Nithya Rajan serves as the Director of Strategic Planning at Green Dot Public Schools. In her role she assesses organizational growth opportunities, designs the organizational strategic plan and facilitates implementation of this strategy across departments at Green Dot. Recently, she has been focused on developing the governance structures and organizational processes to support Green Dot’s expansion into new states.  Before joining Green Dot, Nithya worked at the College-Ready Promise (one of the four Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Teacher Effectiveness and College-Readiness Intensive Partnership Sites) facilitating collaboration across four charter management organizations in Los Angeles as they jointly designed a multi-measure teacher evaluation system. Prior to entering education, Nithya worked as a management consultant at Booz & Company in Chicago.  Earlier in her career, Nithya worked as a mergers and acquisitions analyst at Wasserstein Perella and a Manager of Advertising Operations at internet advertising company WhenU.com.  Nithya received her BA from Dartmouth College in Economics and Spanish Literature and her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Regina Regazzi, Assistant Dean, Career Services, Parker Career Management Center
Regina joined Parker CMC in October 2010. Prior to joining, Regina founded and ran Artume LLC, an executive recruiting and career consulting firm. Her executive recruiting career began at Spencer Stuart, a major international firm and continued at PrinceGoldsmith, a New York-based boutique firm. In both places, she concentrated on financial services recruiting, focusing on asset management.

Prior to executive recruiting, Regina worked in originations for Bank of America's Leasing and Capital Group. Early in her career, Regina worked for Greenwich Associates, a financial services market research and consulting firm, known for its benchmarking studies.

Regina graduated from UCLA Anderson in 1997 and has been an active alumnus, serving as president of the Bay Area chapter, alumni board chair of chapter presidents, and as president of UCLA Anderson's alumni board of directors. She received the Outstanding Alumni Service Award in 2005 and was chosen as one of the 100 Inspirations as part of the school's 75th anniversary celebration.

Regina received a B.A. in Philosophy from Colgate University and MBA from UCLA Anderson.

Kirsten Rhodes, Director, Market Development, Managing Director, West Region Inclusion, Technology, Media and Telecommunications Industry, Deloitte Services LP
Kirsten manages relationships with our most strategic media and technology clients of the Deloitte U.S. Firms. In this capacity, she provides a single point of contact for our strategic clients and is responsible for understanding their operations, business, global industry market  and challenges facing this industry.  Kirsten creates an important conduit between our clients and Deloitte, helping to increase understanding and to facilitate service responsiveness.
 
In her 23+ years of high-tech and media industry experience managing accounts and key business relationships for companies, Kirsten has developed a deep understanding of such areas as strategic planning, tactical execution, effective communication, and revenue growth and brings significant experience in structuring and managing global go-to-market / alliance relationships.  Because of her knowledge of these critical challenges facing our TMT industry clients, she is able to assist in finding the right resources from our organization to support ongoing business goals and ultimately, success.  Kirsten was recently appointed as the Lead Client Service Partner for Agilent Technologies and continues to play a crucial role in the success of her other clients including Apple and Cisco Systems.
 
Kirsten is also leading Deloitte’s Inclusion (Diversity & Inclusion, WIN, and Work-Life) initiatives for the West Region.  She is often asked to speak on the topics of leadership and inclusion, recently speaking at Watermark, Wilpower, and the 2013 California Diversity Conference.   Additionally,  Kirsten leads Deloitte’s relationship with Stanford’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research and has consulted to Cisco Systems, Costco, PG&E, Toyota, VMWare and Yelp on how to build, innovate and measure success on their respective Women’s Initiatives. 

She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose and is on the Advisory Board for the Jefferson Awards – Students in Action.  Kirsten currently lives in Northern California with her husband and son.

Twitter: @kirsten_rhodes

Angela Verdoorn Rodriguez, Chief Financial Officer and VP Finance, UGI Energy Services, LLC
Angela is the CFO of UGI Energy Services (“UGI ESI”), the Midstream and Marketing subsidiary of UGI Corporation (“UGI”). UGI ESI supplies natural gas and power to commercial and industrial customers in the Mid-Atlantic and owns and operates midstream and power generation assets in Pennsylvania. 

Angela has been in her current position since 2004 and is responsible for the finance, accounting, information systems and human resources functions at UGI ESI. Prior to becoming CFO, she was in a business development role with UGI, a function she had with manufacturing companies prior to joining the UGI family of companies. Prior to attaining her MBA, she had 5 years’ experience on the floor in manufacturing facilities. 

Angela holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of Notre Dame and a MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Angela has two children in their twenties who were babies and toddlers while she pursued her MBA. She enjoys cooking, reading and traveling.

Rebecca Rosengard, Marketing & Communications Manager, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A.
Rebecca Rosengard is the Marketing & Communications manager for RAV4, and oversees all elements of the RAV4 brand, including product, sales & marketing, and marketing communications. Rebecca earned her MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business in May 2009, where she specialized in Marketing and Strategy. While at Stern, Rebecca was co-president of OutClass, and held leadership positions in the Graduate Marketing Association and Stern Women in Business. Prior to business school, she worked as a Business Process & Technology Consultant with Accenture in their Health Payer practice. Rebecca received her undergraduate degree in Astronomy and Economics from Wellesley College.

Maeghan Rouch, Consultant, Bain & Company
Maeghan Rouch joined Bain & Company in 2009 as an Associate Consultant Intern in the Dallas office. In 2012 she transferred to the Los Angeles office and was directly promoted to the post-MBA Consultant level in 2013. During her time at Bain, Maeghan has worked on major transformations at three of Bain’s largest flagships. Her industry experience includes technology, utilities, healthcare, and airlines, where she primarily focused on performance improvement and organization. She has also worked on multiple strategy cases, focusing on mobile technology expansion and consumer product growth strategy. Maeghan is a graduate of Vanderbilt University, where she earned her Bachelor of Science in Human & Organizational Development.

Irene Sandler, AVP/CMO Emerging Business Accelerator, Cognizant Technology Solutions
Irene is the AVP and CMO of the Emerging Business Accelerator at Cognizant Technology Solutions, where she is part of a small, focused team of senior executives charged with incubating the next generation of Cognizant’s offerings. 

Prior to Cognizant, she spent nearly 10 years at Cisco Systems, beginning as a product manager in the Security Technology Group and ending as the director of product and solutions marketing for the Internet of Things Group.  She was responsible for reaching a new set of business buyers for Cisco, building a bridge from high-level “Internet of Everything” thought leadership to revenue, and shaping the thinking around IoT security, architecture, and use cases.
 
Irene was also a co-founder of startups i-Planet (sold to Sun Microsystems in 1998) and WUF Networks (sold to Yahoo in 2003).  She was also on the initial team of Perfigo, which was acquired by Cisco. She earned an MBA with distinction from Harvard University and a BS from Georgetown University.

Twitter: @ISandlerPDX

Elissa Sangster, Executive Director, Forté Foundation
Elissa serves as Executive Director for the Forté Foundation, an organization dedicated to inspiring women business leaders.  Ms. Sangster brings to the role extensive knowledge of issues affecting women’s abilities to seek, prepare for, and attain business leadership positions, drawn from her prior experience as Assistant Dean and Director of the MBA Program at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin.  There she oversaw all activities related to the full-time McCombs MBA program including marketing, admissions, student services, and alumni relations. Elissa received her MBA and her BA in English from Texas A&M University, where she was the Assistant Director of the MBA Program until 1997.  She is also past Chair of the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) Annual Industry Conference. Elissa formerly served as chair of the MBA Student Services Professionals (MBA SSP). She is an ex-officio member of the Forté Foundation Executive Committee.

Bonny Smith, Manager, Cognizant Technology Solutions
Bonny Smith is a Manager with Cognizant Technology Solutions based out of Chicago, IL. She is a Retail and Consumer Package Goods business process, operations, marketing and strategy expert with emphasis and interest in the intersection of Retail and CPG – where business strategy, operations and consumer dynamics collide. She has extensive experience in the implementation and design of technological solutions to enable business objectives including Digital Asset Management, e-commerce, Mobility, Pricing and Analytics solutions. Bonny holds an MBA in Marketing and Strategy from Indiana University and a BBA in Marketing from the University of North Texas.

Cindy Solomon, President & CEO, Solomon & Associates
Cindy is an internationally recognized speaker, consultant, author and entrepreneur who helps organizations, teams and individuals find their courage as leaders, as business owners and as individuals. She has helped organizations as varied as The Mayo Clinic and Oracle, The Ritz Carlton and Genentech to create and nurture the leadership and customer skills they need to meet the challenges of today’s economy. As the number one speaker at conferences around the world Cindy has brought her humorous, provocative and meaningful insights to literally tens of thousands of leaders each year. Cindy’s books, The Rules of Woo: A Guide to Capturing the Hearts and Minds of Today’s Customers and Creating a Culture of Courage are available at Amazon.

Website: www.cindysolomon.com Twitter: @cindysolomon

Pernille Spiers-Lopez, Senior Associate, Barbara Annis & Associates Inc.
Pernille is dedicated to advancing gender intelligence, cultural inclusiveness and empowering women to achieve their highest aspirations while remaining true to themselves.

Pernille was a top female executive for IKEA, the leading home furnishings company globally. She was with the company for 21 years. Among her executive positions, she served as President and CEO for IKEA North America and a member of the executive management team of the IKEA Group for 10 years. Most recently, Pernille was the Global HR Manager for the IKEA Group and its 130,000 employees. With her extensive business experience, she developed and implemented a new business-focused HR strategy empowering the organization, its leaders and co‐workers to grow business and people together. It is through this humanistic way of doing business that Pernille brought to IKEA perhaps her greatest asset: the ambition to foster an environment of growth, inclusion, balance and empowerment – while doing good business.

Pernille serves today on a number of both corporate and non‐profit boards. She is on the board of Meijer’s Corporation and COOP DK. She serves on the board of Save the Children International and Save The Children US, on the Harvard Women’s Leadership Board of the John F. Kennedy School of Government and Good City Chicago. She is Co-Chairing the Chicago Chapter for Women’s Corporate Directors.

Pernille recently published her first book in Denmark about personal leadership and taking responsibility for our own life and success, Don’t make it the most important thing in your life to find the right job, make it the most important job to find the right life. Her book will be published in US in the fall.

A native of Denmark with a Masters degree in Journalism, Pernille has lived in the United States for over 30 years. She and her husband, an area school administrator, live in Chicago. They have two children in college.

Erika Spott, Director of Human Resources & Executive Compensation, UGI Corporation
Erika is the Director of Human Resources & Executive Compensation at UGI Corporation (NYSE:  UGI), a publicly traded holding company that, through subsidiaries, distributes, stores, transports and markets energy products and related services, domestically and internationally. Erika is responsible for UGI’s succession planning process, as well as its leadership and executive development initiatives, which include UGI’s MBA Leadership Development program, the corporate High Potential development program and UGI University.  Erika also heads up UGI’s global executive compensation group responsible for the design, implementation and administration of its executive compensation plans. Erika began her career at UGI in 1993 as Associate Counsel in UGI’s Law Department.  In 1999, Erika accepted an expatriate assignment at Flaga GmbH in Vienna, Austria, where she served as Director-Administration & Law for four and a half years. It was during this assignment that Erika’s interest in Human Resources developed, and through roles of increasing responsibility, led to her current role.  Erika holds a B. A. from King’s College and a J. D. from Villanova University School of Law.   Outside of UGI, Erika is a locally-elected public official serving as Vice Chairperson of the Upper Merion Township Board of Supervisors.

Uma Ellur Staehler, Director of Global Oncology Market Research, Eli Lilly
Uma currently leads the Global Oncology Market Research- GI Cancers Team at Eli Lilly that is responsible for providing customer insights to inform business decisions for our GI Cancer portfolio, focused on the recently launched product Cyramza.  She joined Lilly in 1993 as a Project Manager and moved to the Sales and Marketing Organization in 1996.  She has had a series of experiences in New Product Planning, Global Marketing, US Marketing, European Marketing, Global Market Research, US Market Research and US Field Sales supporting products in Infectious Diseases, Osteoporosis, Diabetes and Oncology.

Uma will be relocating to the Shanghai in July to join the Lilly China team as the Marketing Capabilities Advisor.  Her primary responsibility will be to help the Lilly China Marketing organization achieve its 2020 objectives by introducing and integrating the Service Value Chain philosophy; this will include building the customer experience concept into the organizational culture.  Uma will also focus on building marketing capabilities for the affiliate.   

Uma graduated from Purdue University in 1992 with a Bachelors Degree in Mechanical Engineering, and earned her MBA from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business in 2000.  She and her husband, David, live in Indianapolis, IN.  Outside of work, she enjoys all kinds of fitness activities (especially running), traveling, cooking and relaxing with friends and family.  She is also very active in the community, currently serving as the Chair of the Women United Program at United Way of Central Indianapolis, Vice-Chair of the Jameson Camp Board of Directors, a mentor with the Starfish Initiative, and her church.

Kim Striegl, Relationship Manager, Wells Fargo Commercial Banking
Kim joined Wells Fargo in 2010 as a Senior Vice President in the Irvine Regional Commercial Banking Office. There she serves upper middle market companies helping her clients manage their treasury needs and advising them regarding financing and capital structure opportunities.
 
Prior to joining Wells Fargo, Kim spent a total of sixteen years at First Chicago/JP Morgan, initially joining the Associate MBA Rotational Training Program in Chicago in 1993. After completing the program, she accepted a position as a foreign exchange marketer for three years and a corporate relationship manager for eight years. In 2004 Kim moved to California and for a short time she worked for Bank of America’s Commercial Strategies Group in Orange County. In 2005 she accepted the offer to rejoin JP Morgan and establish their Orange County Mid-Corporate office where she stayed for five more years.
 
Kim has a Bachelor of Arts from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Master of Business Administration from Northwestern University’s JL Kellogg Graduate School of Business. 
 
Kim is Treasurer of the New Vista School Board of Directors and also serves on the Board of the Easter Seals of Southern California. Kim lives in Southern California with her two children.

Michelle Stuffmann, Director of Outreach & Communications, MAZON
Michelle Stuffmann is the Director of Outreach & Communications at MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger (mazon.org), a national nonprofit organization working to end hunger in the United States and Israel. As an integral part of MAZON’s management team, Michelle is responsible for the organization's traditional and digital marketing, communications and public relations efforts, as well as the design and development of education & youth-focused initiatives. She has more than 20 years of experience in marketing, brand strategy and advertising across a broad range of industries, in both the not-for-profit and for-profit sectors. Michelle currently sits on the Executive Committee for the Nonprofit/Association section of the Public Relations Society of America. Michelle holds a BA in Sociology from UCLA and an MBA in Marketing from the University of Texas at Austin.

Tanya Sukhu, Senior Manager, Health Care and Life Sciences, Strategy & Operations, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Tanya is a Senior Manager in the Los Angeles Strategy and Operations practice with a focus in Health Care and Life Sciences industries, primarily in health plans and government programs (including Medicaid and Medicare Advantage plans). She has nearly 16 years of experience consulting in the health care industry, focusing on health plans, hospitals and health systems.  Tanya has consulted health plans on a variety of issues including helping to develop and implement accountable care / value based care solutions, execute large and challenged programs for system implementations and develop future state workflows for key health plan functions. Tanya also has extensive experience with Medicare and Medicaid related health plan business segments.

Tanya has an MBA from the Yale school of management, a masters in Public health from Yale school of Epidemiology and public health and a bachelors degree from UC Berkeley.

Alia Tabet, Manager Digital Media & User Acquisitions, NFL
Since starting at the NFL, Alia has worked in User Acquisitions for an array of NFL digital products including live streaming products, mobile apps and games. Her primary focus this season has been on NFL Game Pass which is NFL's premier digital product. NFL Game Pass is a live streaming product for international users allowing them to watch live NFL games on their laptop, tablet or phone. She drives marketing and strategy for NFL Game Pass through an array of channels, both owned media and external. Alia works with a team to concept creative for the season including banner ads, rich media, video and commercial spots. She also works with agency partners on external media buys, A/B testing, new media testing, programmatic buying and re-targeting.

Alia has helped build the NFL international affiliate program to drive Game Pass sales while also supporting American football leagues throughout Europe including the UK, Denmark, Austria, France, Finland, Italy, Serbia, Sweden and more. In addition, she works with the UK office to have a Game Pass presence at the International Series Games in London which includes a full demo area with jumbo-trons, iPad stations and big screens. At these events the NFL lets fans trial the product for free. The organization conducts giveaways and has player and cheerleader appearances to build awareness of the product. Alia works with Apple on a full mobile promotional strategy for Playoffs and Super Bowl to drive downloads and sales of NFL mobile apps and games, NFL Films content and subscription products, and she also works with league sponsors on cross-promotional opportunities to drive sales for their brands in conjunction with driving Game Pass sales.

Alia holds an MBA from the Simon Business School at the University of Rochester.

Sasha Talcott, CFA, Vice President and Account Manager, Newport Beach Office, PIMCO
Ms. Talcott is a vice president and account manager in the Newport Beach office, focusing on institutional client servicing. Prior to joining PIMCO in 2012, she was director of communications and outreach for Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, a research center that focuses on topics ranging from international security to energy policy. Previously, she was a business reporter for the Boston Globe, where she covered the banking and insurance sectors. She holds an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management and received an undergraduate degree from Northwestern University.

Namisa Taylor, Manager, Dallas Treasury Center, Exxon Mobil Corporation
Namisa is responsible for cash management activities in the Americas including short-term investments, commercial paper issuances and share purchases.

Namisa joined ExxonMobil’s Treasurer’s organization in Irving, Texas in 2001 and has held a number of assignments in Capital Markets, Affiliate Finance, Business Services Treasurer’s and Internal Audit.  Namisa’s roles have included structuring project financings for projects in Nigeria, working on divestments, and managing internal audits for the fuels and lubricants organization.  Namisa has had expatriate assignments in Doha, Qatar and Lagos, Nigeria.

Namisa graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park with a bachelor's degree in Accounting and Finance.  She is a CFA charterholder and received a Master of Business Administration degree from the Johnson School at Cornell University.  Namisa has enjoyed actively participating in Forté over the last few years.

Namisa lives in Irving, TX with her husband and daughter and enjoys reading and travelling.

Dr. Melissa Thomas-Hunt, Associate Professor, University of Virginia, Darden School of Business
Melissa's research activities focus on conflict management, negotiation, and collaboration processes. Her current research examines the contribution of expertise within diverse groups and the effects of status and power on negotiation and team processes and outcomes. She is a contributor at www.LeanIn.org. Her publications have appeared in Research on Organizational Behavior, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Journal of Social Justice Research, Psychology of Women Quarterly, and Research on Managing Groups and Teams. Thomas-Hunt came to the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia from a position as a tenured associate professor at Cornell’s Johnson School. She has also taught at the Stanford University’s GSB and the Olin School of Business, Washington University and mostly recently at Semester at Sea. She received her master's and doctoral degrees from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Princeton University. Prior to attending graduate school, she worked as an account marketing representative at IBM.

Patricia Turney, Executive Director Raw Material & Device Supply Chain, Interim Head of Supplier Quality Management Amgen Inc
Ms. Turney has been at Amgen for almost 20 years and has held a wide variety of roles with increasing responsibility within Manufacturing, Engineering, EH&S, R&D, and Quality. Ms. Turney recently launched a new organization for Amgen, Raw Materials & Device Supply Chain, to improve raw material quality and supply reliability. With clear accountability for Amgen's raw materials and devices, her team works cross-functionally beginning with early development, then clinical,and finally commercial operations to mitiate material risk. Ms. Turney also has oversight of Amgen's Supplier Relationship Excellence (SRE) Program and has expanded the program coverage to include all of the suppliers that provide materials that are critical to safely serve patients.

Prior to this role, Ms. Turney led the Manufacturing Site Operations in The Netherlands, where she was responsible for supplying patients in over 70 countries. She has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the US Naval Academy and a Masters in Business from UCLA. Prior to her career at Amgen, Ms. Turney was a US Naval Aviator and served in the US Navy in various worldwide locations. Ms. Turney is a member of Rx360, PDA, Society of Women Engineers, ISPE, and Women in BIO.

Derek Walker, Director of Careers at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
Derek Walker is Director of Careers at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. He moved to his current position in October 2008 having worked in the recruitment functions of a number of large investment banks in London, including UBS, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Barclays Capital.  He has also spent three years as a management consultant, working with a range of clients across Europe, including banks, public-sector bodies, manufacturing and retailing organisations.

Jane Wanklyn, Vice President, A.T. Kearney
Jane Wanklyn is a Vice President with A.T. Kearney’s Procurement & Analytic Solutions Practice based in Chicago. She has over fifteen years of procurement and consulting experience working with global manufacturing, consumer packaged goods, pharmaceutical and information technology companies. Over the years, Jane has focused her efforts on helping these organizations elevate their strategic sourcing, knowledge management and training initiatives. She has successfully developed and executed strategic sourcing programs, leveraging accelerated and advanced sourcing processes and techniques, to drive significant savings. Jane’s projects to date have resulted in consistent savings through addressing complex supplier relationships and routinely exceed clients’ objectives.

Her recent accomplishments include managing a global food ingredient client through pre and post-merger integration phases, while helping to establish a sustainable and performing center-led procurement community. For a major beverage company, Jane established an eSourcing Knowledge Center and training program for 130+ resources across the globe, involving best practices in procurement (consistency, transparency, compliance and measurability), increasing the level of spend addressed and the velocity of eSourcing projects executed. She also managed a localization project for a Tier 2 Automotive supplier by conducting a nation-wide supplier discovery and selection process for high precision machined components. Through qualifications screens of over 450 suppliers and competitive RFP process the project resulted in 33% savings which exceeded objectives of mitigating incremental costs by currency fluctuation.

Jane is a thought leader in her field and was recognized as a 2011 Women Leader in Consulting by Consulting Magazine. Jane co-leads the Women’s Network of America which is aimed at recruiting, advancing and supporting the women of A.T. Kearney. She has also spoken at several industry events as well as recorded a podcast in A.T. Kearney’s Wave of the Future Series on procurement transformation.

Prior to A.T. Kearney, Jane was a consultant with Alliance Management Group and worked at ConAgra Foods as a Strategic Sourcing Associate. She has her Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and Russian from Trinity University, San Antonio, TX.

Jacqueline A. Wilbur, Executive Director, Student Services and Corporate Relations, MIT Sloan School of Management
Jackie has almost 30 years of experience in the management education industry where she has focused on the marketing and delivery of business programs to students and corporations. Over the span of her career, she has held diverse positions within regional and globally ranked business schools including leading the admissions, academic program management, career development, alumni relations, and corporate fundraising functions.

In her current role, Jackie leads an outstanding team of professionals who deliver admissions, student life, and career development services for the multiple degree programs at MIT Sloan, while focusing much of her time building relationships with innovation-driven organizations interested in a long-term partnership with MIT Sloan.

A member of the Dean’s Leadership Council at MIT Sloan, prior to assuming her current role Jackie held progressively responsible leadership roles within the School including Executive Director for Undergraduate and Master’s Programs, Senior Director of Career Development, and Director of Career Development. Prior to joining MIT Sloan in May 2000, Jackie was an Assistant Dean at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, Manager of MBA Career Services at Babson College, and Manager of the Co-Op MBA Program at Northeastern University.

Jackie holds a B.A. in Anthropology from the State University of New York at Oswego, and an M. Ed. from Northeastern University.

Ali Wing, giggle, Founder/CEO
Ali, a brand marketing and omnichannel retail professional specializing in lifestyle consumer products and retail brands, was born in Northern California and raised in Montana, where she was one of nine children, five of whom were adopted from different cultures. With a lifelong focus on healthy living and community, she's been a champion of ecological issues and leader in seeking out organic products from the beginning. Before giggle, Ali worked in brand marketing and corporate development for NIKE (Side One, i.e., nikewoman and Nike International). Prior to that role, she served as CMO and COO for Gazoonite, a multi-channel Bay Area start-up and the first-ever retailer of branded environmental control products for allergies and asthma, and later as brand strategist for Gruner + Jahr Publishing (Child and Parents magazines).

She serves as a parenting resource through both her published works and her speeches, helping new parents navigate the glut of choices out there and find only what they need, when they need it. Because of her extensive product knowledge, Ali is a regular speaker on lifestyle topics for parents for outlets, including Real Simple and Bloomberg Link, has appeared on The Martha Stewart Show as their baby product expert and on Fox Business News as a small business expert. She has also written the what-to-get-when-you’re-expecting guidebook on baby products, giggle guide to baby gear (Chronicle Books). Ali is also a columnist for The Bump and Glam; has contributed to other media, including BabyTalk, Working Mother and eHow; was part of USA Today’s CEO Roundtable; and is co-author of The lilaguide baby gear buyer's guide, the Zagat's of baby gear. From general advice for each gear category to lifestyle tips about individual products, her expertise helps provide context for the peer reviews.

Community and involvement are important to Ali. She serves as executive director of the Tecumseh Foundation and is on several boards, including Baby Buggy, Children's Advocacy Center, Kids Today, Northwestern University School of Law, and she serves on the Directors’ Council for Children's Museum of the Arts. She continues to track new courses both personally and publicly, as an innovative businesswoman, an outdoorswoman, a wife, and a mother.

Her education includes a Bachelor of Arts from Lewis and Clark College, an MBA from Northwestern University's J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a JD from the Northwestern School of Law.

Twitter handle: @aliwing (& of course @giggle
Instagram handle: ali_m_wing (& of course @healthyhappybaby for giggle!)

Danielle Wood, Foreign Service Officer, Management Officer, US Embassy in Vancouver, British Columbia
Danielle graduated from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio with a B.S. in Biology, and took with her a commitment to service, community and lifelong learning. She joined the State Department after earning her MBA from Fisher College of Business at the Ohio State University where she was honoured with a Pacesetter award for her work in and out of the classroom. Prior to joining the Foreign Service she worked in the health care sector as an analyst. Her varied background and experiences have served her well as she traveled with her family for assignments ranging from Outer Mongolia, Cuba and tours Washington, DC, and now Canada.

In Mongolia she served as General Services Officer, where she was singled out for commendation by both the White House Communications Office and the White House Medical Office for her contributions to their activities in support of the Presidential visit.  In addition to supporting high-level visits, her regular duties included operational oversight of the embassy. This included managing a multi-million dollar procurement section, warehouse and inventory systems, travel, customs and shipping, housing and motorpool operations.

Following her assignment to Mongolia, Danielle fulfilled her Consular obligation during a brief stint in Cuba, where she processed hundreds of visa applications before leading the U.S. Citizen Services Unit at post. Following Cuba, she returned to Washington DC, serving in the Bureau of Oceans, Environment and International Scientific Affairs, where her portfolio included a diverse group of issues and conventions at the nexus of environment and trade, such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, the Biosafety Protocol of the Cartagena Convention, as well as commodity organizations such as the International Coffee Council. In this role she often met with senior government officials in other countries and participated in negotiations on behalf of the U.S. Government. Being a true generalist, she was asked to fill in a temporary vacancy in International Health and Biodefense, where she covered counterfeit drug issues, and health and safety concerns related to the East Asia Pacific region.  In this capacity she represented the State Department in meetings with the FDA and other interagency stakeholders, as well as at the WHO.

After several years of economic tradecraft Danielle returned to her management roots, serving as Budget Officer for the East Asia and Pacific Bureau. In this capacity she oversaw funds in excess of $240 million dollars and coordinated financial activity of Financial Management Officers covering the twenty six EAP posts to ensure compliance with appropriation law, timely and adequate allocation of funds and progress toward bureau goals.

In just over a decade of government service Danielle has been awarded the State Department Meritorious Honor Award on four occasions.

Jaime Zadra, Principal, Prudential Mortgage Capital Company
Jaime is a principal with Prudential Mortgage Capital Company. In this role, she is responsible for originating a broad range of commercial mortgage products throughout Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. She is located in Los Angeles, CA.

Jaime joined Prudential in 2004 and has originated over $3 billion of loans on all property types. Jaime’s previous role included originations covering Southern
California.

Jaime earned her MBA in Finance and Real Estate from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and a BA in Biology/Public Policy Analysis from Pomona College.