Cynara Charles-Pierre, Senior Vice President of Culture and Communications – The New York Times

Cynara Charles-Pierre is the senior vice president of culture and communications at The New York Times. She’s the first person to serve in the role and leads a team that partners with leaders across the company to create and nurture an environment where employees feel valued and excited by the Times’ mission to seek the truth and help people understand the world. Her remit includes executive communications, employee engagement and storytelling, and internal communications supporting newsroom and business operations, total rewards, and diversity, equity and inclusion.

A change champion with the eye of a designer, Cynara is known for her warm, empathetic and collaborative style, built on a foundation of trust and proven expertise. Before The Times, Cynara led employee communication programs at TD Bank, JetBlue Airways, HBO, News Corporation and has worked for other content-driven and mission-centric organizations. Her accomplishments include bringing new levels of excellence and inclusivity to The Times’ internal communications, transforming the JetBlue intranet to revolutionize employee communications there, and building tight and talented teams who consistently deliver strategic, innovative and high-impact outcomes. A theater geek at heart, Cynara is board president for Strike Anywhere, a nonprofit interdisciplinary performance ensemble in New York City.

Craig DeWald, Chief Learning Officer – Ford Motor Company

In January 2021, Craig DeWald joined Ford Motor Co. as chief learning officer, leading the corporate learning team and the organization excellence team.

A graduate of San Francisco State University with a degree in industrial/organizational psychology, Craig spent 26 years with American Express with 19 years in human resources. He held positions as HR business partner, director of management and leadership development, vice president of organization effectiveness and chief learning officer.

Leaving American Express in 2013, Craig pursued his entrepreneurial spirit and opened two successful restaurants in Miami. In 2017 through 2020, Craig returned to human resources, consulting with Microsoft’s Global Learning and Development team supporting Manager Reimagined, a significant change and culture project.

Rose Gailey, Managing Partner – Heidrick & Struggles

Rose Gailey is a partner at Heidrick & Struggles and the global managing partner of Senn Delaney, a Heidrick & Struggles company. She brings expertise in organizational culture and transformation to Heidrick Consulting’s value proposition to accelerate performance through break through leadership and thriving cultures.

Rose’s experience spans more than twenty-five years, beginning her first tenure with Senn Delaney in 1995. Most recently, she worked with a strategy execution firm as the practice lead for their organizational development services. There, she led leadership development and organizational design initiatives in a variety of industries, drawing on deep expertise in culture and facilitation to help leaders strengthen alignment and accelerate strategy execution. Returning to Senn Delaney as part of Heidrick Consulting, she brings her expertise to aligning strategy, structure and culture to drive high performance. Given the importance of the shadow of the leader in shaping cultures, her background in counseling and organizational psychology is foundational to developing strong leadership shadows.

Christine Greybe, President, Leadership Consulting – DHR Global

Christine Greybe joined DHR in 2004 as the managing director of Asia-Pacific and has held roles of increasing corporate responsibility, including as a member of the board of directors, president and head of global. Her services include assessment and coaching, succession planning, team effectiveness, onboarding and DE&I.

During a key period of growth for the firm, Christine led the expansion of DHR’s brand globally, opening offices in Australia, China, Dubai, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Singapore, and supported growth into Europe and LATAM. More recently, she has been a part of the acquisition team providing strategic direction for international operations.

Christine has been quoted in business media including Bloomberg TV, CCTV, China Business News, CNBC Asia, Nikkei Financial Daily, Reuters, Shanghai Business Review and The Wall Street Journal.

Liz Gulliver, Co-Founder – Kunik

Donna Hicks-Mitchell, Vice President Employee Engagement & Culture, Global Diversity & Inclusion – Citi

When leaders want to break diversity silos, and drive engagement & innovation through collaboration and teamwork, they call Donna Hicks-Mitchell. As a pre-eminent retention strategist and emerging voice on diversity, equity and inclusion, Donna serves as global VP of DEI for Citi. She has contributed her voice to executive roundtables, corporate keynotes, leadership training and executive 1:1 coaching for top companies across the globe.

A noted keynote speaker, Donna frequently shares her insights on business podcasts, virtual keynote summits and executive roundtables. She has been requested to speak on topics ranging from onboarding, retention roadmapping, diversity and inclusion, leadership development for women and executive presence for companies such as Ford Motor Company, American Express, Citi, Google, Black Enterprise, Florida State’s Attorney General’s Office and Statefarm.

Nancy Harrington Jones, Chief Culture & Conduct Officer for the Americas – Societe Generale

Nancy is currently managing director – chief culture & conduct officer for Société Générale Americas, overseeing the management and implementation of the culture & conduct program which is a strategic priority for SG. The primary objective of the program is to secure safe, sound and profitable businesses that will inspire long-lasting, confident relationships with our clients, peers and employees. This is being accomplished by promoting and enforcing the behaviors that embody the Group’s values and by making culture & conduct principles the cornerstone of the way we operate our business day-to-day.

The 2021 recipient of the Markets Media U.S. Women in Finance Excellence in Corporate Culture Award, Nancy was the chief human resources officer SG Americas from 2007 through May 2016. Prior to that she was the global director of human resources for information technology, based in Paris. She spent several years with the information technology division in various management positions, in addition to working for the CFO and managing the internal technology audit team.

Stuart Kaplan, Director of Culture Transformation – Google Cloud

Stuart Kaplan is an expert at the intersection of strategy and people. He has two and half decades of experience in organization development, leadership effectiveness, and strategy consulting.

Stuart currently leads Google Cloud’s global culture transformation initiative. Prior to this role, Stuart led organization development and leadership work in the Office of the CEO as well as in many of Google’s core businesses, including Search, Maps, and YouTube. He started his Google career as head of business leadership recruiting.

Before joining to Google, Stuart served as both a business leader and consultant at Accenture and Korn Ferry.

Constance Kassouf, Partner – Caldwell

Constance Kassouf is a partner in the New York office and a member of the financial services practice. With more than 25 years of experience in financial services both as an investment banker and as a search consultant, Constance has developed a high level of credibility in the market.​

She has a long-standing reputation for successfully working with major global clients as a human capital advisor and search consultant, and maintains active relationships with business leaders and top performers promoting a dynamic approach to every project and candidate.​

Constance joined Caldwell from Kassouf Partners, a boutique firm she founded in 2010. She was previously a partner at CTPartners, where she was a leader in the investment banking and private equity practice, as well as a member of the operating committee. Prior to CT Partners, she was a senior partner at Heidrick & Struggles and Westwood Partners. ​

Constance began her career with investment banking roles at Drexel Burnham Lambert as an analyst. After earning her MBA, she continued her investment banking career at Chemical Bank, now JPM and Credit Suisse.​

Sue Lam, Global Head of People Insights, Strategy & Culture – The Coca-Cola Company

Sue Lam, Ph.D. is the global head of people insights, strategy & culture at The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC). Reporting to the CHRO, she is responsible for leading the center of excellence and shaping the future of TCCC’s workforce by developing and executing the company’s long-term people, analytics, and engagement strategy.

Sue works closely with the leadership team to develop and lead global culture and change management efforts on the company’s journey to emerge stronger as a networked, agile organization. Additionally, Sue drives the creation and implementation of the people analytics vision and strategy. She is developing HR’s capabilities in using data and evidence to support more effective decision making to ensure the business delivers on its promises to shareholders and the communities in which it operates.

Prior to joining the company, Sue was the global head of HR diagnostics for Shell, based in Houston, Texas. In her role, she managed a global center of excellence in HR strategy, learning and organizational effectiveness. Sue was responsible for the overall development and execution of the company’s assessment and analytics strategy to accelerate the change in people and their business with the goal of creating more and cleaner energy solutions.

Throughout her career, Sue has held additional roles with various organizations, including APQC, where she led HR and human capital management projects with a focus on best practices, benchmarking, organizational surveys, strategy formulation and development, and thought leadership. Sue has also held leadership roles with other organizations, including Psychology Beyond Borders and University of California at Irvine.

Val Lopez, Partner – Hanold Associates

Val Lopez is a partner with Hanold Associates where she specializes in recruiting executive level HR and diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) leaders. She has over a decade of experience in rapid-growth, private equity-backed SaaS businesses, specializing in M&A integrations and change management. She is especially strong in translating strategy to action, particularly with respect to managing change initiatives and designing and implementing DEI programs.

Prior to joining Hanold Associates, Val was global head of employee engagement & inclusion/VP of DEI at Cision, where she stood up Cision’s first DEI function. She was responsible for providing vision and leadership to Cision’s DEI strategy across the global organization.

Val is a seasoned guest speaker in the DEI space and has had the pleasure of speaking on a variety of panels and fireside chats. In 2019, she was recognized with a Power50 award by the Illinois Diversity Council.

Karen S. Lynch, Chief Executive Officer – CVS Health

Karen S. Lynch is president and chief executive officer of CVS Health, a Fortune 4 diversified health services company. Karen leads more than 300,000 colleagues who are passionate about transforming health care to be simpler, more convenient and more personalized.

Under Karen’s leadership, CVS Health touches the lives of more than 100 million people each year through its unique combination of assets, including more than 9,900 pharmacies and over 1,000 MinuteClinic and HealthHUB locations. CVS Health also serves an estimated 34 million people through its health insurance products and services. CVS Health continues to play a leading role in the national response to COVID-19 through testing solutions and vaccine administration across the country.

Karen has over three decades of experience in the health care industry. Prior to becoming chief executive officer, she was executive vice president at CVS Health and president of Aetna, responsible for driving strategy to deliver consumer-focused, high-value health care.

Before joining CVS Health, Karen held executive positions at Cigna and Magellan Health Services, where she served as president. She began her career with Ernst & Young as a certified public accountant (CPA).

In 2021, she was included on Forbes’ inaugural “50 over 50” list. She was recognized by Forbes as one of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women in 2020 and included on Business Insider’s Top 100 People Transforming Business list in 2019. For the past five years (2016 to 2020), she was named to Fortune’s list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business.

Karen serves on the board of U.S. Bancorp and is Chair of its Audit Committee. She is a trustee of The Bushnell Performing Arts Center and a member of the Global 50 and the Boston College Women’s Council. Karen also serves as a member of the Business Roundtable.

Louis Montgomery, Partner and Practice Leader Human Resources and Diversity Officers – JM Search

Louis Montgomery Jr. leads the human resources and diversity officer practice at JM Search. Louis specializes in the placement of human resource leaders, their teams and diversity officers.

He joined JM Search from Korn Ferry where he led the firm’s human resources and diversity officer practice. He has placed human resource leaders and diversity officers in a variety of sectors, including private equity, industrial, consumer, healthcare, life sciences, higher education and associations. 

Prior to moving into executive search, Louis had more than 30 years of experience as a human resources practitioner and diversity officer with several major Fortune 100 firms including, IBM, Celanese Corporation, Frito Lay, Kraft Foods, Altria, AES and Serco North America.   

Louis is an author and thought leader in human resources and diversity & inclusion.  Some of his publications include: A Years Worth of Inspiration, and several thought leadership articles including HR Goes to School, Starbucks Battle Against Bias, Golden Talent and “Next Generation Diversity Officers,” a research study on the leadership competencies of diversity officers. He has been quoted in numerous publications including The New York Times, Washington Post, Human Resources Executive, Black Enterprise and American Banker. 

Kate Morican, Global Leader for Change Services – Deloitte

Kate Morican is the global leader for change services at Deloitte with over 25 years’ experience working with both private and public sector organizations on people strategies in support of business transformation. Kate serves as an advisor to the C-suite to address culture, complex change, organization design, new ways of working and leadership development to achieve business outcomes.

Kate has been an advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion leading multiple initiatives in Canada including Deloitte’s collaboration with Export Development Canada and the University of Ottawa to establish a global MBA DE&I case competition six years ago.

In her career, Kate has served multinational organizations across multiple industries in Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America including clients such as Bayer, Philips Lighting, Circle K, Air Canada, Canada Post, TD Canada Trust and the Government of Canada.

Prior to Deloitte, Kate worked at National Defence in Canada on management renewal and culture transformation.

Darcie Murray, Senior Vice President and Head of the Americas – Mercuri Urval

Based in Houston, Darcie Murray serves as senior vice president & head of the Americas for Mercuri Urval. Darcie conducts C-suite and senior executive level engagements and advises clients on disciplined hiring and human capital issues.

Her experience spans across multiple sectors including professional advisory services, industrial, financial services & life sciences and healthcare and she has a passion around diversity, equity & inclusion.

Darcie is responsible for the growth of the business in the United States, and across the Americas for Mercuri Urval, as well as further developing the import and export business for the firm. Her responsibilities include client engagement and service, search execution, talent acquisition for Mercuri Urval in the Americas and professional development.

Prior to this, Darcie was the senior managing partner for a boutique executive search and leadership advisory firm. Before stepping into that role, she spent 14 years with a mid-level international executive firm as an equity partner, COO & head of North America. She began her executive search career whilst living in Prague, and spent more than a decade in Europe, which provided her a deep exposure and invaluable insights to cultures and business needs across more than 50 countries globally. Darcie considers herself a true global citizen and enjoys sharing those perspectives with her clients.

Prior to entering executive search, Darcie worked within the professional advisory services industry for eight years in Houston, Texas in the functional areas of administration, university recruiting, marketing, event coordination, employee relations, training, and project management. During her career, Darcie has provided leadership advisory and executive search services to clients across all sectors globally.

Tonya Muse, Partner, U.S Association, Corporate Affairs & Non-Profit Practices – Odgers Berndtson

Tonya Muse is a partner in the U.S. association, corporate affairs & non-profit practices of Odgers Berndtson in Washington, a global executive search firm, who works with clients to recruit and develop executives for leadership roles in government affairs, corporate affairs, public affairs, and the association and non-profit sectors. In her practice she is driving diversity and equity in the workplace.

Prior to joining Odgers Berndtson, Tonya served as the executive director of the Council of Manufacturing Associations (CMA) at the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), a position that she held for six years overseeing the leadership, direction, and management of more than 250 trade association members.  She engaged CMA members on manufacturing policy priorities to broaden and advance the NAM’s advocacy efforts.

Prior to the NAM, Tonya spent three years as director of membership for the Girl Scout Council of the nation’s capital, with a membership of more than 90,000 girl and adult volunteers. Before that, she spent 17 years with the Envelope Manufacturers Association (EMA) serving as the senior vice president overseeing the day-to-day operations of the association, as well as the executive director of the EMA Foundation for Paper-Based Communications, where she was responsible for fundraising and developing programs to support the foundation’s mission.

Angela Navarro, CEO and Managing Partner – Catalyte Leadership Acceleration

Angela Navarro is the CEO and managing partner at Catalyte Leadership Acceleration, a Beecher Reagan Company. Angela has dedicated her entire career to accelerating performance – of leaders, clients, and firms. She has a true passion for maximizing the potential of executive talent to drive measurable improvements, including greater return on human capital investments, significant practice growth, and increased diversity.

Angela previously served as the president & COO of Beecher Reagan, joining directly from the management consulting industry. Prior to Beecher Reagan, she served as senior vice president of global operations at North Highland Worldwide Consulting, a global consulting firm. As global SVP, Angela oversaw operations including workforce solutions, talent attraction, resource deployment, and business development.

Prior to North Highland, Angela spent 20 years within the professional staffing and search industries, earning a strong and consistent legacy of developing internal teams and external alliances to stimulate and deliver year-over-year growth and profitability. She has a proven track record in strategic planning and sustainable continuous improvement.

Denielle Pemberton-Heard, Managing Director and Chief Legal Officer – Diversified Search Group

Denielle Pemberton-Heard is chief legal officer and managing director of Diversified Search Group where she directs commercial transactions and manages a portfolio of executive level and legal counsel searches across multiple sectors. As an advisor to Pod Networks, a P/E backed operator of STEMconnector she remains committed to increasing the number of STEM-ready workers in the global talent pool supporting leaders across 200 organizations.

Denielle joined Diversified following fifteen years as group counsel, programming and business affairs at the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), the nation’s largest non-commercial media enterprise where she directed transactional work on behalf of PBS and its 300 plus member stations, and led negotiations, ensured broadcast standards and grant compliance for PBS, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and collaborated with on-air talent, program funders and the PBS Foundation. Before joining PBS, she served as group counsel for Thales, Inc., a French-owned defense contractor, as vice president, legal and business affairs at Time Life (TWX) and in-house positions at Discovery Communications, Inc. (DISCA).

Denielle began her law career in private practice as a commercial real estate attorney with Connecticut’s Wiggin and Dana, and was subsequently associated with the New York firm of Cowan Liebowitz and Latman, where she focused on intellectual property litigation and portfolio management. She has published scholarly works in the area of copyright and trademark law and has experience in compliance and board governance matters.

A past regional judge for president Obama’s presidential commission on White House fellowships, Denielle is committed to emerging leaders, talent pipeline development, community service and corporate social responsibility initiatives. She has also served as a trustee of the Toy Industry of America Foundation; on the advisory committee of DCVLP (DC Volunteer Lawyers Program to end domestic violence) and on the board of governors of the Case Western School of Law. Denielle is a past member of the professional faculty of the Johns Hopkins University Carey School of Business, where she lectured on business law.

KeyAnna Schmiedl, Global Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Culture & Values – Wayfair

Deb Taft, Chief Executive Officer – Lindauer

Deb Taft is CEO of Lindauer, a premier executive search and talent firm serving the nonprofit profession. An innovative leader, she has held prior executive roles in the education, health/academic medicine, and voluntary sectors. Deb’s expertise includes governance, leadership strategy, organizational growth, management, and talent recruitment. development and retention.

A respected speaker and facilitator, Deb serves on the editorial board of Giving USA, the boards of the Giving Institute and Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts (GSEMA), and recently completed her service and leadership of the board of directors for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) foundation in Washington, DC. Deb continues to advance inclusion and equity in nonprofit leadership including through her service on the steering committee for Allies in Action for Women of Color in Philanthropy (WOC) and through various appointed leadership roles for the Giving Institute, Council for Advancement and Support of Education, ESEMA, and HRC. Deb was a founding team member of City Year, which today has youth service teams in more than 31 regions across the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Africa.

Carolyn Taylor, Founder & Executive Chair – Walking the Talk

Carolyn Taylor is one of the world’s foremost experts in organizational culture change and the executive chair of Walking the Talk. During her 30 years in the field, Carolyn has run workshops with 50,000 leaders, worked alongside 200 culture change journeys, consulted on 15 mergers & acquisitions, coached 60 CEOs and worked in 35 countries. She can certainly advise on what works and what doesn’t in terms of changing culture.

Born in London, Carolyn spent some years in Australia where she pioneered work in leadership, values and culture through her company, Corporate Vision. The firm was in the BRW 100 fastest growing Australian companies five years in a row, and her achievements led her to being a finalist Telstra Businesswoman of the Year in 1998, and Australian Business Woman’s Hall of Fame in the same year. The company provided organizational development services to most of the major companies in Australia and the UK. Her clients included the CEOs of Telstra, NAB, Westpac, Wyeth and Rio Tinto.

In 2005, Carolyn joined a global consulting firm as an academic board member, where she Introduced a culture practice, and worked with executives in some of the world’s leading companies to build the cultures they required and ensure that they themselves were walking their talk. She was global sales and marketing partner during a period of 300% growth and led several of the largest culture change projects in which the company was involved. Her clients included Henri de Castries, CEO of AXA; Roberto Setubal, president of Itau Unibanco Bank in Brazil; Sheryl Sandberg, the executive responsible for the monetization of Google and COO of Facebook; and Mark Begor, EGM GE Money.

In 2009, driven by a vision to promote her culture management methodologies to a much larger group of internal and external culture advocates, she co-founded Walking the Talk to build an integrated culture management system – diagnostic, planning and training tools – to enable companies to capitalize on their culture and to build internal capability. With hubs in Europe, Australia and Latin America, Walking the Talk’s mission is to make culture do-able, so that more and more organizations can do extraordinary things because of the behaviors and mindsets of their people. Carolyn has worked deeply in recent years with Sanofi, Vale, Novartis, BT, and Dubai Airports to help them achieve their culture goals.

In 2021 Walking the Talk was acquired by executive search firm ZRG, who, together with Walking the Talk, have been able to build unique ways of using recruitment as a lever for accelerating culture change.

Carolyn is known for her ability to demonstrate links between strategy, culture and leadership behavior, facilitating events with teams that are insightful, profound, fun and provocative. She is forever touched by the courage and openness her clients show as they strive to explore the relationship between their behavior and how it leads to a culture which either supports or detracts from the performance of their organization.

LTG (R) R.L. "Van" Van Antwerp

Lieutenant General (Ret.) R.L. “Van” VanAntwerp, retired from the Army in 2011 after 39 years of service and most recently served as chief of engineers and commanding general of the U.S Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). He was the senior military officer overseeing a $40+ billion program, including most of the Nation’s civil works infrastructure and military construction on 250 Army and Air Force installations worldwide. As the USACE commanding general, he was responsible for over 37,000 employees who provided engineering, project management, construction, and operation and maintenance support in nearly 100 countries worldwide.

Van is currently the vice chairman of the Flippen Group, a Texas-based leadership and organizational development company that specializes in talent assessment, development, and alignment. He works with a wide range of clients in education, corporate, government, sports, and not-for-profit sectors providing executive development consulting, coaching and leadership keynotes.

In addition, Van is past chairman of the board of Eagle Creek Renewable Energy LLC, board director at USAA, Calibre, Cardno GS, and on several advisory boards for non-profits. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. He is a registered professional engineer.

Yves Van Durme, Global Organization Transformation Leader – Deloitte

Kelli Vukelic, Chief Executive Officer – N2Growth

Kelli Vukelic is the chief executive officer of N2Growth and is responsible for the firm’s global executive search and leadership advisory services.

Kelli is an industry veteran, having spent her entire career in executive search. She brings over 20 years of experience to every team and client interaction—melding strategy with executive search, leadership development, and organizational psychology. Her areas of expertise include talent operations and strategy, and C-suite executive recruitment, mainly but not exclusively in technology organizations. Her experience in these areas spans across geographies and organizations of varying sizes. Her passion is purpose-driven leadership, where individuals and organizations can realize purpose alignment to drive impact, including greater personal fulfillment while accelerating organizational performance.

Prior to assuming her current responsibilities, Kelli served as chief operating officer of N2Growth, leading both business and sales operations for the firm and driving the innovations required to establish the future of executive search. Before joining N2Growth, she held several roles of increasing responsibility at Korn Ferry over her 20-year tenure culminating in an executive leadership role in the firm’s global technology practice.