Alo Arro, Managing Director – AssessioAI

Alo leads AssessioAI, formed through the acquisition of Wisnio by Pollen Street Capital and its integration into the Assessio Group. He focuses on combining Assessio’s validated psychometrics with advanced AI tools to give private equity firms, executive search partners, and enterprise HR clearer and more consistent insight into senior leaders.

He has worked with leading funds and search firms to define what “good” looks like for founders, CEOs, and critical functional roles. This includes applying patterns from psychometrics, interviews, references, and performance data to create practical scorecards and leadership lenses that can be used across deals and portfolios; EQT’s Founder Six being one recent example.

Alo comes from an engineering and data background and has spent the past decade building assessment tools used in real hiring, investment, and succession decisions. His focus is on making AI useful, reliable, and defensible when the stakes are high.

Joseph Blass, Chief Executive Officer – Ezekia

Joseph started his career as an economist in the public sector. He then worked for a global family business managing a varied portfolio of investments in manufacturing, real estate and financial services.

Prior to founding Ezekia (www.ezekia.com), Joseph was an executive, managing both privately held and publicly listed Telecom and IT Companies. He founded Ezekia in 2015 and, together with his team, has built Ezekia into the leading CRM and Assignment Management tool for executive search firms. Recently the company has released Hylark (www.hylark.com) which is an uber-customizable life management software.

Sam Burman, Partner – Heidrick & Struggles

Sam Burman is a partner in Heidrick & Struggles’ London office and the global managing partner of Frontier Tech, which spans our Artificial Intelligence, Crypto & Digital Assets, Cybersecurity, Defense Tech, and Health Tech sectors. He also leads the Technology Officers Practice in Europe & Africa.

Sam’s client work primarily spans three key themes: technology officers, including product, digital, and data; artificial intelligence; and consumer-centric companies in high-growth and enterprise environments. He also conducts CEO and board director searches for various international consumer tech organizations.

His clients include private capital-backed and publicly traded companies across consumer tech, digital commerce, gaming, retail, technology, and media and entertainment.

Sam has authored multiple thought leadership pieces on artificial intelligence, technology officers, and digital transformation. He’s also contributed to various publications, including Financial Times, the World Economic Forum, and Sifted.

Before joining Heidrick & Struggles, Sam led the digital and technology practice of an international boutique executive search firm and established the IT leadership practice for an FTSE-listed global recruitment firm. Both roles covered the UK and Europe across multiple sectors.

Larry Hartmann, CEO – ZRG Partners

Larry Hartmann is the CEO of ZRG, one of the fastest growing mid-sized global executive search firms in the industry. He is a results-driven leader with a broad business background in executive search as well as in industry. As CEO, Larry is responsible for driving overall growth, client engagement and profitability of the firm. A key focus for Larry is engaging and recruiting top talent to join the firm as well as selectively pursuing additional acquisitions that fit the ZRG culture. Larry also leads the charge in continuing to innovate and enhance the firm’s data driven value proposition.

Prior to joining ZRG in 2002, Larry was a founder of Rockford Industries, a NASDAQ traded commercial lending business that supported the medical device market. While at Rockford, the firm went from a pure start up, to an Inc. 500 recognized growth firm through IPO and ultimate sale to American Express. This experience provided a unique view of growing a business, raising capital and hiring talent, through virtually all business stages. After the sale, Larry was an EVP with American Express for three years.

Additionally, Larry also has broad board of director experience. In addition to public company experience as a board member, he has also served on boards in both Private Equity and Venture backed businesses. Larry has also served on the Equipment Finance Industry Foundation board for six years. Currently, Larry is a member of the Kean University Business School Board and leads a non-profit board, Crossroads Job Network, which creates jobs for the community of Paterson, NJ.

Jon Hill, Managing Partner – The Energists

Passionate about people, and building high performing teams, Jon leads The Energists while acting as player / coach for C-Suite, governmental, and advisory (M&A) mandates.

Jon spent the first 25 years of his career in energy solutions, accumulating a wealth of experience across North America, the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Australia. After starting his career in the technical domain, he grew through operations and line management to strategic leadership. In an A&D themed journey, Jon often found himself as the client of executive search on either side of integrations and new market entry initiatives.

Intimately acquainted with business challenges in all phases of the evolutionary cycle, and in businesses of disparate size, it was Jon’s exposure to the challenges in talent management that led him to executive search when he assumed control of The Energists in 2015 as part of an MBI/MBO.

Jon also functions as fractional head of people at EW Pumps, a 2020 carve out from publicly listed Weatherford.

Daniel Hulme, Chief AI Officer – WPP

Dr. Daniel Hulme is a globally recognised expert in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and investor in emerging technologies. He’s the CEO of Satalia, an award-winning AI company that was acquired by the world’s largest marketing company in 2021, WPP, where he is now the Chief AI Officer. Daniel has been recognised as one of the top ten Chief AI Officers globally.

Amongst his many technology investments, Daniel is also Founder and CEO of the World’s first commercial research organisation to understand Machine Consciousness, Conscium.

With over 25 years academic experience with AI, Daniel received his Masters and Doctorate in AI at UCL. He was previously Director of UCL’s Applied AI Masters Programme, where he is now UCL’s Computer Science Entrepreneur-in-Residence. Daniel is also an Impact Board Member of St Andrew’s University Computer Science department, focused on using AI to solve business and social problems

Passionate about how technology can be used to govern organisations and bring positive social impact, Daniel is a prolific keynote speaker for the world’s largest technology companies, TEDx, and is faculty member of Singularity University, specialising in AI, ethics, innovation and organisational design.

Daniel is a contributor to numerous books, podcasts and articles on AI. His mission is to create a world where everyone has the freedom to innovate, and have those innovations become free to everyone. He has advisory and executive positions across companies and governments, and actively promotes purposeful entrepreneurship across the globe.

Fahad Jalal, Founder & CEO – QLU.ai

Fahad Jalal is a leading expert in leveraging artificial intelligence to transform executive search processes and outcomes. As the Founder and CEO of QLU.ai, Fahad has pioneered innovative AI solutions designed to significantly improve the precision, speed, and effectiveness of executive search, enabling recruiters and consultants to achieve higher market share and dramatically reduced search times. With extensive experience scaling technology ventures, Fahad notably grew a business unit at Mentor Graphics from $0 to $100M ARR in just two years and has successfully exited multiple startups to Fortune 100 companies, creating over $1 billion in shareholder value. He holds a Master’s in Computer Science from Stanford University and an MBA from The Wharton School, specializing in Finance (Financial Derivatives). Fahad regularly speaks about AI’s transformative impact on executive search and talent acquisition, emphasizing the strategic advantages that AI-driven insights and data analytics bring to talent and leadership decisions.

Dan Kalish, Director of Recruitment Operations – Maven

Based in Maven’s New York office, Dan is the recruitment operations director, focusing on optimizing business activities, streamlining processes, and ensuring the smooth execution of search projects.

With over a decade of experience in finance and a specialized focus on executive search over the past three years, Dan brings a strategic, systems-driven approach to search operations, process optimization, and team development. He plays a pivotal role in refining how top talent is identified and placed, drawing on a deep understanding of the evolving executive search landscape to deliver world-class experiences to clients around the globe. Known for his passion for leadership and professional development, Dan is dedicated to building high-performing teams and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. Before joining Maven, Dan led high-impact search initiatives that reimagined the retained executive search experience for private equity-backed businesses-delivering measurable efficiency gains and elevating client outcomes.

Veronica Lawrence-Ortega, CEO & Co-founder – Inclusivity EQ

Veronica is a retired Navy Master Chief with 24 years of committed service to our country. She culminated her military career as the Navy’s premier subject matter expert on culture, climate, and inclusion, serving as a special assistant to the Naval Inspector General. In this role, she mentored and coached 110 Command Climate Specialists while serving as a subject matter expert on Navy Equal Opportunity, Sexual Harassment Prevention, and Military Equal Opportunity Programs. She developed and delivered training, providing individual and group coaching to senior commanders and enlisted leaders on interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships to optimize workplace relations and increase cohesion.

Veronica holds an undergraduate degree in Technical Management with a specialization in Criminal Justice, and a graduate degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. She is a Distinguished Graduate of the Defense Culture Institute (formerly the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute) and completed doctoral defense on Organizational Change
and Leadership at USC’s Rossier School of Education.

As Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Inclusivity EQ, she helps organizations optimize performance through organic and artificial intelligence implementation and adoption.

Tom Mason, Executive Partner, Global Leader - Talent Operations – IBM

Tom leads the Talent Operations practice within IBM Consulting, where he supports clients in transforming their talent acquisition strategies through an optimal integration of people, data, and technology.

With more than 25 years of experience in the staffing industry, Tom has played a pivotal role in advancing how organizations identify, attract, and hire talent. He is widely recognized for his expertise in leveraging artificial intelligence, automation, and Generative AI to enhance recruitment effectiveness and redefine the future of talent acquisition.

In his current role, Tom continues to shape IBM’s strategic direction and execution for its Talent offerings, driving innovation and measurable business outcomes for clients.

Mina Morris, Managing Director, Head of Assessments – Accenture

Mina Morris leads Accenture’s global leadership assessment capability, shaping the future of executive talent and succession. As the architect of Accenture’s internal leadership assessment and development strategy, he integrates cutting-edge behavioral science, data analytics, and technology to build high-impact succession pipelines that drive business performance.

With over 20 years of experience in leadership consulting, Mina has advised Fortune 500 CEOs, C-suite executives, and Boards on leadership transitions, succession strategies, and large-scale talent transformation. Prior to Accenture, he held senior leadership roles at Aon and Korn Ferry, where he specialized in executive assessments, leadership development, and coaching.

Mina has a background in Industrial/Organizational Psychology and a truly global perspective—having lived and worked across North America, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific. His expertise lies in unlocking leadership potential, future-proofing organizations, and fostering high-performance cultures at the highest levels.

Shilpa Shah, Global Head of Talent Acquisition & Deployment – Standard Chartered Bank

Shilpa Shah is a seasoned global, HR Leader with over 20 years experience in various industries including Financial Services, Aviation, Healthcare and Technology. Ensuring an exceptional candidate experience from acquisition to on-boarding, for all internal and external talent, is vital and a significant strategic driver for her. She is currently at Standard Chartered Bank as MD Talent Acquisition & Deployment since October 2022 and is responsible for driving the strategy and transformation of the function with a specific focus on skills deployment and utilising technology and AI to drive efficiencies and a positive business experience.

Previously, Shilpa has held significant Talent and HR leadership roles at prestigious organizations such as GE, Rolls Royce, and Aviva. She is an active member of the Josh Bersin Innovation Academy, where she leads strategic discussions on emerging talent trends. Additionally, Shilpa contributes her expertise on Beamery’s customer advisory board, offering valuable insights and recommendations to address customer needs.

Thom Staight, GM Global Talent Acquisition EMEA & Asia – Microsoft

Thom Staight leads Microsoft’s Talent Acquisition teams for the EMEA & Asia regions, he is a career TA professional who has built and led recruiting and sourcing teams all over the world. Over the last three years Thom has helped lead the strategic evolution of talent acquisition and talent management at Microsoft, rethinking how Microsoft manages its internal talent in a rapidly changing context and how AI enabled tools enable TA & TM to move faster and more effectively than ever before.

Ken Vancini, Founder & CEO – Innova International

Ken Vancini has spent 27 years in executive search. In 1999 he founded ZRG Partners and, alongside Larry Hartmann for 16 years, helped lay the foundation to scale the firm—today ZRG is a top-seven global brand. At ZRG, Ken led search delivery, technology, and corporate functions, drove international expansion, and personally executed searches in 22 countries. He recruited top-tier global partners and implemented best-in-class operating practices.

After selling ZRG in 2015, Ken launched Innova International, a boutique advisory and peer community. He speaks and advises on sell-side readiness, compensation, hiring, go-to-market strategy, search delivery, and AI/technology.

Earlier in his career, Ken led sales at Rockford Industries (NASDAQ), a high-growth commercial lender in the medical device market that earned Inc. 500 recognition and ultimately sold to American Express.

Ken earned his MBA from WGU and is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Leading Professional Services Firms program. He is a certified coach and completed Section’s Mini MBA in AI in 2024.