Past URx Speakers

Karen Lieu currently leads a team within People Operations supporting all of the Technical functions at Facebook. In this role she and her team partner closely with the HRBP community to support the nearly 40k Facebook employees in important milestones in the employment life cycle. Prior to Facebook Karen built the global HR Function from the ground up at Rubrik, the fastest growing enterprise startup in history, and ranked a Top 10 Career Launching Startup by Linkedin. An accomplished HR leader, Karen spent 4 years at Pinterest as an HRBP & People Ops Manager focussing on recruiting programs and employer brand development. As a strong supporter of the tech people professional ecosystem she serves as an advisor to startups through People Tech Partners.

Garrett Lord is the co-founder and CEO of Handshake, the leading college-to-career network helping today's students launch meaningful careers. Handshake aims to democratize opportunity for all students - no matter where they go to school, what they major in, or who they know. While a student at Michigan Tech, Garrett gained experience at both Los Alamos National Labs and Palantir. In 2014, Garrett and his fellow classmates launched Handshake. Today, the Handshake community helps 10 million students and young alumni from 700+ universities connect with 250,000 employers nationwide - including 100% of Fortune 500. Garrett is a Detroit area native and current San Francisco resident.

Currently leading the University Recruiting Team at Quora and was previously at Coursera, where she discovered her passion for connecting early career talent with amazing technical opportunities. She leverages data to inform her campus recruiting strategies and is continually looking for opportunities to improve recruiting processes to ensure excellent candidate experience. Outside of work she is mastering the art of parenthood and enjoys discovering new cultures and languages through travel.

Steven Huang left his career as an actuary to join Facebook as their first HR analyst. As an early pioneer of bringing advanced quantitative discipline to the HR field, he built the people analytics strategies at both Facebook and Square. He has become a champion of using data modeling to solve HR's most pressing problems. Steven joined Culture Amp, an employee feedback platform, as an early employee in 2015 to advise customers on a wide range of topics including organizational design, performance management strategies, and talent acquisition metrics.

He currently holds the position of Head of Diversity and Inclusion at Culture Amp. He has designed and deployed an internal D&I function, as well as open-source tools to contribute to the D&I movement, such as the Culture Amp and Paradigm Inclusion Survey. He has a B.S. in Business from Babson College.

Geni Harclerode is the Director of Employer Recruitment and Engagement for Northwestern University’s office of Career Advancement. In this role she leads employer development strategy and oversees the Employer and Strategic Outreach Team. Her team manages a portfolio of thousands of organizations spanning diverse industries and experience needs. Geni has been in career services and employer relations management for 15 years and has contributed to conversation on early career development in outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, US News and World Report and CNBC. Prior to Northwestern, Geni was the Assistant Director of Experiential Learning and Employer Development for the University of Michigan’s University Career Services.Geni has previously served as the Vice Chair for the Hire Big Ten Plus Consortium, and currently chairs their Employer Relations Knowledge Community. She is a past presenter at National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), Midwest Association of Colleges and Employers (MwACE), and the American College Personnel Association (ACPA). She taught graduate courses at Eastern Michigan University's Higher Education and Student Affairs program. Geni holds a BA in Women’s Studies and an MA Higher Education Administration, both from the University of Michigan.

Jamie Lewis leads early career programs at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative where she's focused on building processes and programs that create equity, access and opportunity for individuals starting their career journey. She has held other senior roles in the university recruiting space at places like Facebook, Qualcomm, and Aramark which have been recognized for having best in class internship programs. Jamie holds a BS/BA in Business and Psychology from North Carolina State University.

Doug Dean is Partner and Creative Director of Wall-to-Wall Studios, where he shares the belief that an emotional connection can become the currency of the challenger brand. In addition to building brands, Doug keeps himself busy doing work for the music industry by designing albums for Warner Brother Records, Republic Records, BMG and more. Doug’s work has been recognized by Graphis, Communication Arts, Print Regional, CASE Circle of Excellence, ADDYs and AIGA.

Jeffrey Moss is the Founder and CEO of Parker Dewey LLC, a company focused on addressing the challenges associated with college-to-career transitions through Micro-Internships. Prior to founding Parker Dewey, Jeffrey spent most of his career as a venture capital investor focusing on the education and technology sectors. In addition, Jeffrey was Chief of Enterprise Growth at Educational Testing Service (ETS) where his efforts focused on the use of assessment to drive equity in education and employment. Jeffrey currently serves on the Indiana University Kelley School of Business Alumni Board and the Purdue University College of Liberal Arts Dean's Advisory Council.  Jeffrey's other relevant Board responsibilities have included: Chairman of the Board of Workstream (Nasdaq: WSTM), a software provider for human resources departments; OneGoal, a non-profit focused on college accessibility and persistence; the Chicago American Marketing Association; and the Illinois Venture Capital Association.

With 10+ years of experience advising and coaching young people in the university space, Kelly now serves as the University Relations Lead for one of North America’s largest construction and engineering companies. In this role she collaborates with recruiters and senior operations leaders to create strategic university relationships.  Becoming an employer of choice in a competitive market demands relationships with students and university leadership of depth and quality. The demand for talent must incorporate an awareness of the educational needs of faculty and students. With over 150 university partners and 30+ business units, Kelly has successfully utilized analytics to streamline campus relationships across the business, restructure corporate funding for university programs, and drive the organization to engage with new programs of mutual benefit to the university and recruiting.

Lauren started her career in athletic sales which led her to student coaching and found her way to university recruiting. Lauren's passion for student and program development helped her cultivate programs at Zendesk. She developed and continues to grow the Zendesk university program globally.

Noah Diffenbaugh is the Kara J Foundation Professor and Kimmelman Family Senior Fellow at Stanford University. He teaches classes at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Undergraduate classes include “The Global Warming Paradox”, and first-year Introductory Seminar, and “Climate and Society”, an overview course that draws students from across campus.

He is currently a member of the Climate Safe Infrastructure Working Group for the State of California, and has provided scientific expertise to the White House, the Governor of California, and U.S. Congressional offices. He has spoken at the Aspen Ideas Festival, the Milken Global Summit, and the Commonwealth Club of California, and his work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Wired Magazine.

Lisa Carrozza is the Internship & Employer Outreach Liaison for Southern Connecticut and New York at Endicott College, located in Beverly, MA. As a remote employee based in Fairfield County, CT, Lisa engages CT and NY-based employers around internship and job opportunities, company site visits, and professional development collaborations.

 

Lisa received a BA with a double major in Psychology & Spanish from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a Master of Social Work from Boston University. As a Social Worker, Lisa worked with court-involved children and families in the Greater Boston area, providing clinical services and emergency interventions for adolescents returning home from psychiatric hospitalizations. Upon moving to NYC, Lisa assumed the role of Manager for the Corporate Workplace Mentoring Program at Big Brother Big Sister of NYC, facilitating programming with Fortune 100 companies such as Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Microsoft. Her career in Higher Education began in the Career Center at Barnard College, Columbia University followed by Western Connecticut State University, and currently, Endicott College. 

 

Lisa enjoys spending time with her husband Joe and three kids, Matty, Danny and Natalie. Growing up the suburbs of Boston, she is a rabid sports fan and loves to travel, especially anywhere she can use her Spanish skills.

Liz Wessel is the Co-Founder and CEO of WayUp, the go-to platform for millions of early-career professionals to explore opportunities, receive advice, and get discovered by employers. Liz has been featured as one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 and named one of the 18 Coolest Women in Silicon Valley.

As an experienced HR professional, Melisa Thomson is currently the Senior Manager of Employee Engagement on CBS' Learning & Development Team for the Interactive (Tech) Division. She loves applying her knowledge and skill-sets to create and implement high-impact growth programs. Prior to her current role, Melisa worked as CBS' University Relations & Diversity Program Manager, where she was a key member on a dynamic Talent Acquisition and Human Resources team, providing overall leadership to the company's internship program, diversity initiatives, employee resource groups, corporate social responsibility, and company culture.

Mikaela joined Kiewit Corporation just over 7 years ago, and in that time, she has taken on the responsibility of two key HR leadership roles. One as the Senior HR Manager for a division based out of Dallas, TX, and the other being the role she is currently in overseeing all University Recruiting & Relations for Kiewit. With the transition from a decentralized HR model to a centralized HR model, this role is the first of its kind for the company, and she has been more than successful in the challenges that have faced her in this role. Her team is directly responsible for all of the New Grad and Intern hiring, which is over 1,300 hires across the US and Canada per year. She has been able to decrease the cost of travel on her team by 19% as well as Cost per Hire down by 10% . This is through leveraging analytics to tell a story and driving for overall efficiency in our selection process. To manage an operation of this size with efficiency and great quality is not easy, and Mikaela has been able to accomplish both. Her leadership, not only of her team, but her peers and managers, has led to lower turnover and growing early career personal to have a greater impact to the organization. She continuously coaches her team on how to grow personally and professionally in their career. Many of her employees said that their reviews and coaching moments are the best they have had, and that Mikaela truly cares about them as people and employees. Throughout her career, the road has always led back to Recruiting. She is truly passionate about the ability to identify and select top talent for her organization that not only aligns with the culture but that will also be able to contribute immediately to their team.

Mike Kozak is Director of Digital Strategy at Wall-to-Wall Studios where he works to bring brands to life in the digital space through compelling experiences. Mike has worked with clients across industries, including higher education, tech, nonprofits, B2B and more. 

With over 10 years of experience working in the technology, higher education, and psychotherapy sectors, Sirrah continues to pursue her passion for people and creating a more inclusive tech space. At Square, she has worked in campus recruiting for three years, while also serving in Employee Resource Group leadership for Women@Square, Black Squares Association and Veterans@Square.

Originally from New Jersey, Wade has a passion for helping people & organizations with big dreams for the future achieve their potential. Whether through his work as a member of the Stanford Men's Basketball Team, a member of LinkedIn's Business Leadership Program, or his current work as a founding member of the sales team at Airtable, he loves breaking down complex systems & problems to help people achieve more. His passions also extend into providing guidance for early in career talent and creating opportunities for implicitly or explicitly excluded communities.

Steve Scordo serves as GW's Center for Career Services Employer Development Consultant working directly with top employers seeking to recruit from GWU. Steve has over 17 years of experience building university-wide employer partnerships having previously worked at the University of Phoenix and the University of Maryland. Steve holds a bachelor's degree from James Madison University.

Stella is the Founder and CEO of rising ed-tech venture, WeSolv, in addition to serving as an advisor on workforce & diversity strategy for leading organizations. Stella maintains an unwavering focus on customer and user acquisition via value creation, a strategy she applies to WeSolv and client engagements. 

Stella has 10+ years of experience in business growth strategy, business development, and operations. Her industry/category specialties span the financial services, technology, education, and heavy manufacturing & utility industries.

Stella holds a BS in Political Science and emphasis in Accounting from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and graduated among the top of her class from the Full-Time MBA Program at the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business.

Staci Fowler serves as GW's Center for Career Services Managing Director of Employer Services and lends support in attracting top employers to recruit from GW and building university-wide employer partnerships. Staci has nearly 20 years of experience in higher education, marketing, communications, and recruitment at organizations such as Bloomberg L.P., Northrop Grumman, PBS, and the U.S. Department of Energy. While at PBS, Staci teamed with the White House press staff for President Obama’s Educate to Innovate STEM program. Staci holds a master's degree from Georgetown University and a bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia.

Engaging college students early on in their career path is a core objective of many HR Departments. Adam will talk about little-known tips top internship programs are using for their Student Ambassador Programs, including how to change the traditional process for finding student ambassadors, keeping them motivated for consistent results, and how to apply solutions internally without added costs. His client work has yielded impressive success, including a record breaking amount of applicants for Volkswagen Grad Program and helping a Fortune 50 beverage company reduce costs by $200K while increasing student reach by 50%. His tips have been captured in Forbes, Inc, and Huffington Post, and they will work for you!

Anthony is energized by two things, about equally: The tech industry, and recruiting fantastic talent. He loves finding the very best people and watching them change the world everyday. Anthony currently leads talent at Karat, a startup with a mission to engineer the world's most predictive technical interview, and use it to remove bias from the hiring process. Prior to Karat, he recruited early career talent at Microsoft, owning a broad range of university relationships (CMU, Berkeley, UCSD, Duke, among several others).  Anthony’s passion for the HR and Talent space emerged through studying Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University - after which he spent several years solving complex labor and employment relations challenges at one of the nation's largest transportation companies.  When he’s not busy recruiting (as if that ever stops), Anthony lives on a micro-farm just east of Seattle with his partner, three kids, and two adorable pups. 

Alexandria Noel Butler, affectionately known as Lexi B, is considered one of Silicon Valley’s candid and prominent voices. Her thought provoking advice and opinions on how to create a more equitable work environment stem from her own experiences working in some of the most popular tech companies. In 2013, she founded Grown Up Truth, an online magazine dedicated to the new college graduate experience. This platform not only inspired young professionals but also experienced leaders that used this knowledge to better support their young adult workforce and how to guide them. In April 2017, Lexi B founded Sista Circle: Black Women in Tech, a community that supports Black women in tech companies and tech related
professions. This 3,800+ international community spans over 72 countries and has partnered with organizations such as Phenomenally, Instagram, Youtube, Linkedin and Slack. Lexi’s main mission is to inspire people to create their desired life journey by understanding their purpose and life goals. In her own words, “People deserve to live the life that caters to their strengths
and passions. When they truly understand what they need and what they offer, they can then implement tools to create their own path and thrive.”

Mary Kate McHugh is a University Programs Specialist at Google. Her job is to connect undergraduate students with non-technical opportunities at Google. It is her dream job! Her biggest focus is to encourage students who are from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds in the tech world to find an interest in potentially working in that world someday. She's been at Google for 7 years and has done a variety of different roles including customer service, sales, training, and managing. On a personal note, she just moved to Chicago to be closer to her new nephew, Finnegan.

A passionate champion for equity and inclusion at all levels of an organization. Angela leads the efforts to grow and nurture a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Riot Games. An accomplished executive with more than 20 years of human resource experience leading diversity and inclusion, talent management, and leadership development initiatives for several Fortune 500 companies including T. Rowe Price, Jones Lang LaSalle, and Whirlpool Corporation. As a member of senior leadership teams, she has developed and implemented global diversity strategies that have resulted in increased ethnic and gender representation at both leadership and pipeline levels, boosted employee engagement, upped leadership accountability, and increased spend - ing with diverse suppliers. She has received recognition from DiversityInc. com, Diversity Best Practices, Black Enterprise, and Diversity MBA. She was named to the Network Journal list of 25 Influential Black Women in Business in 2013.

Donna Ganske is currently the Recruiting & Systems Lead managing recruiting technology and analytics for Talent Acquisition & Attraction at Kiewit. She also oversees Kiewit’s University Recruiting team in Canada.  In these roles, she is able to bring various aspects of recruiting together to give insight and initiate forward-thinking and innovative business decisions. Prior to her current role, Donna worked as a University Recruiter allowing for hands on experience that gives context to improving processes and analytics. With her passion for recruiting and data, she believes that there is no problem so big that can’t be tackled with the right team and insight.

Benjamin leads the University Talent Program at Juniper Networks. He joined the company as a new college grad after completing his Ph.D. in electrical engineering at Stanford. He started as an engineer in routing protocols, then as engineering program manager served globally across the software development groups. Eventually, his passion for people and culture led him to make the switch to HR. Benjamin has been recognized at the company level for his work in unleashing talent through cross-functional initiatives.

Dara Patton is the Associate Director of Employer Relations at the University of California, Berkeley Career Center and has worked at the Career Center for 20 years.  She manages the 7-person employer relations team which includes oversight of all employer recruiting services, including on-campus interviews, career fairs, the Berkeley Circle Employer Partnership program, the Handshake career management system, and a wide variety of other employer and alumni engagement programs.  A significant portion of her time is spent consulting with employers about optimal strategies for building their brand on campus. Prior to joining the Employer Relations team in 2011 Dara was Assistant Director for Counseling, providing guidance and programming for students pursuing business-related careers.  Before starting her career in higher education, Dara worked in Human Resources development for a manufacturing company and as a recruiter and account executive for a technical staffing agency. Dara has a MS in Counseling from San Francisco State University and BA in Psychology from UC Irvine.

Buddy has been at Quicken Loans since 2015 within the talent acquisition team. He spent his first year
with the company as a recruiter where he recruited for multiple types of full time roles as well as
internships. Over the past three years, Buddy has focused in the university space and building
relationships with colleges and universities. While building these relationships, he has worked to identify
top talent within the various universities to bring back to Quicken Loans. Currently, he primarily works
with schools in the Metro Detroit and Northern Michigan areas as well as Ivy League hiring efforts.
Buddy is the 2018 recipient of the Don Hunt Service Award. Which recognizes a member of the Michigan
Co-op and/or Internship community for significant contributions in promoting and sustaining the
cooperative education and internship philosophy in Michigan.

Jessica began her career with Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans 4 years ago as an Intern. Her background is in Training and Development but she has spent the majority of her career in the University Talent Programming space – building out internship programs and externships. She specializes in building relationships with candidates from programs like the Quicken Loans Family of Companies Winternship, engaging them pre, during, and post externship by facilitating business area and mentor match-ups, professional development opportunities, networking events, exposure to the city of Detroit, and then retaining this talent for future internships or full-time employment. Jessica has launched many successful Internship initiatives such as a Ted Talk platform for our Interns, improv-based public speaking workshops, and our first Technology Internship Program that creates a future full-time pipeline for Software Developers and Engineers. She is an avid goal setter, loves her dogs (both named Cooper), and she has a weakness for sweet potatoe fries and pizza.

Diana is a University Recruiter at Asana NYC and has 4 years of experience in Tech Recruiting at various companies, including Facebook and Andreessen Horowitz. She is an AfroLatina from Colombia and attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln before moving to NYC. She is very passionate about helping students and working with diverse populations to ensure that representation in Tech continues to improve in a tangible way

Gaurav Verma leads Customer Success at HackerRank. Throughout his career, Gaurav has held leadership roles in enterprise software companies including product planning and management, marketing performance management, brand strategy, persona-based marketing for products and industry solutions, marketing communications, demand generation, sales and partner enablement and competitive analysis. Gaurav regularly serves as a spokesperson to press, analyst communities and at industry events. He has authored several articles and is quoted in leading industry publications.

Jason Weingarten is the co-founder and CEO of Yello, a talent acquisition platform built for enterprise and fast-growing recruiting teams to strengthen employer brand, drive hard cost savings and maximize ROI. Weingarten’s vision for reinventing the way enterprise companies acquire top talent has helped Yello grow an impressive client roster; the software powers recruitment initiatives for hundreds of the world’s leading brands. Weingarten and co-founder Dan Bartfield previously founded a company to help college students find jobs online, which was sold in 2008. Weingarten’s serial entrepreneurship and business savvy has been noticed by investors, with funding rounds exceeding $46M, led by investors JMI Equity, First Analysis and Argentum.

Corey Twitty is the Head of Emerging Talent at Netflix. Formerly, Corey worked at Lyft Recruiting as well a Talent Acquisition Manager at Intuit, where he leads University Recruiting for all business roles. During his time at Intuit, he has worked to champion diversity and currently facilitates workshops across the company on what it means to lead inclusively. Before joining Intuit, Corey spent 8 years at Target Corp. He began his career in their Global Sourcing Department as a Business Analyst where he acted as the liaison between Target and overseas vendors. Soon after, he transitioned into Talent Acquisition where he found his true passion of University Recruiting. During his tenure on the team, he built long lasting diversity programs, and was critical in scaling the team’s growth. Corey attended Connecticut College (Go Camels!) and graduated with a degree in Sociology based Human Relations.

Caroline Cunningham is a Sr. Manager for Early Career Talent Acquisition at Intuit. In this role, her team is responsible for Early Career hiring for Software Engineering and Data Science. Prior to Intuit, Caroline was at GE Digital where she built and rolled out their University Relations and Diversity Recruiting strategy. She also spent several years at Chevron where she worked in similar progressive leadership roles in the university relations and diversity spaces. Caroline has 20+ years of staffing experience and has worked in a variety of industries and major corporations including Johnson & Johnson, NorthBay Healthcare, consumer distribution and non-profit services. Caroline is an active member of NACE (National Association of Colleges and Employers) where she has participated on and lead numerous committees and also served as a member of the Board of Directors. She has presented at several national and regional conferences and events on a variety of topics related to recruiting and talent acquisition. She holds a bachelors degree from Occidental College and is PHR
(Professional in Human Resources) Certified. In her spare time, she is a volunteer host family and student interviewer for Youth for Understanding (FYU) and enjoys spending time with her husband and two teenage daughters.

Colleen is a Recruiter at Thumbtack, recruiting for the G&A and Software Engineering teams. She built Thumbtack’s University Recruiting Program from ground up, hiring over 65 New Grads and Interns and earning the program the #2 spot on Forbes’, “6 Awesome Tech Companies to Intern For—According to Interns Themselves.” She learned the grit, scrappiness, and self-discipline necessary to be successful in the industry from her internship and mentor at Nest (then a stealth-mode startup), and shown what it takes to on-board stakeholders and streamline hiring process at Apple. She’s looking forward to sharing her learnings and experiences with you!

I’m a PNW native that’s passionate about coffee, inclusion, travel, and politics. I’m currently at Microsoft where I’ve had the incredible opportunity to manage a team of campus recruiters for the past few years. We’re focused on hiring diverse talent from universities across North and South America that will help Microsoft empower the world through our products and services. Prior to returning to Microsoft as a boomerang, I managed a team of industry recruiters for Amazon’s Worldwide Advertising team. That said, I’ve always had a passion for university recruiting and I love utilizing my platform to support the non-traditional candidate, the underdog, and those that don’t think they can work at a big company like Microsoft or Amazon. Shout-out to all of the road warriors, passionate recruiters, and incredible people working in talent acquisition.

Charlene (Char) Delapena is the Head of Early Talent at BitGo and the Executive Director for URx, a community for University Recruiting and Early Talent professionals. Leading the early talent recruiting efforts for BitGo, she is responsible for executing strategies designed to attract early career talent across the organization while managing programs focused on providing real life work experiences and mentorship to ensure career success. Char is also passionate about diversity & inclusion and makes it a priority to not only increase the diversity within pipelines but encourages an inclusive environment for early career talent to excel in and feel a sense of belonging. Char has spent nearly 10 years within the university and emerging talent recruiting space managing programs at BitGo, Robinhood, Quora, Coinbase and Dolby Laboratories and holds a Bachelors degree in Telecommunications from DeVry University.

Jared Bazzell serves as the Senior Manager, Talent Acquisition at CDW, a leading Fortune 200 multi-brand technology solutions provider to business, government, education and healthcare organizations in the US, Canada, and UK. CDW’s fingerprints can be found on technology in workplaces and workspaces of more than 250,000 companies, from fresh-faced startups to international conglomerates. In this role, Jared is responsible for CDW’s international go-to-market talent acquisition strategy, and strategic initiatives to drive an enhanced experience, productivity, and efficiency. Furthermore, Jared is responsible for CDW’s job applicant privacy and data collection policies to help maintain compliance in today’s ever-changing privacy and legal environment. Prior to Jared’s current role he was responsible for CDW’s University Recruiting and Internship Program during which he lead the expansion of CDW’s award-winning Summer Internship Program by more than 265% since 2015. Jared’s attributes his success in the UR space with the ability to link our early talent recruitment strategy, new hire performance, coworker retention data. Jared is versed in optimizing process related to Lean Six Sigma methodology and holds his Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt certification.  Outside of CDW, Jared is on the HR Policy Association’s Recruiting Software Initiative Review Board to help understand the latest hiring and recruiting software solutions integrating artificial intelligence for the largest employers doing business in the United States and globally. Find him here on LinkedIn.

Craig Campbell is the Vice President of Talent Acquisition at Match Group. He has over twenty years of experience recruiting across various industries and has spent nearly seventeen years leading teams within the talent function. Prior to Match Group, Craig was the Head of Technical Recruitment at Uber and Head of Talent at Microsoft and Dolby Laboratories. Craig is very passionate about the early talent audience having built the college recruiting program at Microsoft early in his career. In his current role, Craig leads all hiring efforts and talent teams at Match Group.

Ahmad is an Assistant Dean and Associate Director with BEAM, Stanford Career Education. In his role with Career Catalyst, a team focused on a two pronged approach of increasing Equity and Inclusion, and building Community and Belonging around the intersection of career and identity, Ahmad is responsible for the development and implementation of the broader diversity strategy for his team and BEAM. Ahmad’s professional experience includes a combined 12 years of work in higher education and the recruiting industry. Prior to his time at Stanford, Ahmad spent 6 years in academic advising at his alma mater UC Berkeley, where he earned his M.A. in Education and B.A. in Sociology.

Jill Ripper brings a wealth of corporate experience leading global organizations in attracting and hiring college talent across the world. She is known as a “builder” of intern programs, university partnerships, and the business she supports. In her current role as Head of University Programs at Teradata, a data analytics software company headquartered in San Diego, California, she is responsible for partnering with senior leadership to develop early-in-career workforce strategies and programs enabling Teradata to innovate cutting edge technologies for its customers. Previously, Jill held similar roles at eBay, Informatica, Cisco Systems, and NetApp; all global leaders in the technology industry. Jill was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana and currently resides in Raleigh, North Carolina. She has a BS degree from Ball State University and a HR Certification from Duke University.

Jehron is a senior at Cornell University studying Computer Science. He interned at Two Sigma and Google as a software engineer, then went on to the APM internship at Google most recently. On campus he co-founded Black Entrepreneurs in Training and is the Co-President of Underrepresented Minorities in Computing (URMC). He grew URMC from 15 to over 135 active members in a year and changed the narrative for Black and Latinx CS majors at Cornell. URMC has seen great success beyond Cornell as well by increasing the amount of students of color that land summer internships—from 2 to 14 at Google alone in a year! Under the mentorship of the founder of /dev/color, his goal is to scale URMC nationally to move the needle for racial diversity in tech.

Colleen has been at HubSpot for over 4 years. When she started, she was an Associate Recruiter focused on hiring tech talent. She quickly realized that her passion was with helping young female engineers thrive in a male dominated industry. With this passion leading the way, Colleen switched to focus 100% of her time on campus hiring. In doing so, she expanded HubSpot’s global campus programming to focus on a wider array of universities and events that assisted females engineers, like the Women’s WebApp Workshop. After making this shift, HubSpot experienced an increase in intern and co-op applications by over 400%. Colleen continues to work with her team on its goal of making HubSpot an inclusive work environment for all and helping all students grow better.

Emma Surich has recently joined Perpetua Labs as their Head of TA and previously was with ecobee as Manager, Recruitment helping to grow ecobee from 125 to just over 500, and building ecobee’s campus recruitment and new graduate program to 30 students per term. With a focus on great candidate experience and a strong employer brand. Emma has been involved in early talent recruitment over the last 10 years and loves to see a co-op students and new grads bring their curiosity and drive to teams.

Bridget King is a Talent Acquisition Manager, Early Professional Hiring at IBM. She is responsible for leading IBM's North America Early Professional Programs teams including diversity programs, events, intern and early ID programs. She has been with IBM over 6 years in talent acquisition and specializes in talent marketing, social media and early career programs. Bridget holds a BA from the University of Waterloo and was named Campus Recruiter of the Year by Talent Egg in 2017.

Caitie Sullivan is a thought-leader for developing talent who specializes in recruiting and fostering the growth of SAP Silicon Valley’s early-talent hires in development, data science and design roles. She has a long history of connecting the dots for new hires, guiding them into a career path that fits their needs and encouraging them to reach their full potential. As program manager for Silicon Valley Next Talent program (SVNT), Caitie is responsible for the strategy and management of a program that recruits, trains, and retains up to 90 recent graduates for an 18-month rotational program.Her diverse team works on cutting-edge technology at SAP that has a positive and direct impact on improving the greater good. Some examples of projects her team has worked on are: using machine learning to help companies avoid working with vendors that use child labor, developing products to reduce and avoid the pay gap, and removing the bias from recruiting.  Caitie earned a dual bachelor’s degree from University of California, Santa Cruz in Literature and Psychology as well as Master of Science in Industrial Organizational Psychology from San Jose State University. Caitie volunteers and partners with local non-profits such as HandsOn Bay Area, Reading Partners, and City Year and feels that “giving back is in her blood.”

Desiree Booker is the Founder and CEO of ColorVizion Lab LLC, where she empowers people of color to be successful in the workplace through career coaching while helping companies attract, develop, and retain diverse talent. Born and raised in West Philadelphia and now residing in Atlanta, Desiree graduated Cum Laude from Spelman College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology. Since then, Desiree has developed a strong background in corporate communications, recruiting, and diversity in the workplace, and puts her skills to use to develop inclusive workplace cultures. Prior to assuming her role as Founder, Desiree worked with global brands such as NBCUniversal, MSNBC, Nickelodeon, WarnerMedia, and Gartner. Desiree is also the creator of the Career Reset Course, an online course and members-only community that has helped over 200 diverse professionals earn a higher job title and salary in their careers. Noting the extreme lack of diversity in executive roles across industries, Desiree has now shifted her focus to grooming individual contributors into enterprise leaders by providing coaching, development, and mentorship that can not only change the lives of her clients, but also enrich the community at large.

Brittnie Lundie is the Manager, Global Recruiting Programs at Twitter. Previously, Brittni was a Diversity and Inclusion Program Manager at Uber based in San Francisco where she manages diversity and inclusion programs on the university team to include conference engagement, early diverse talent pipeline relationship building through UberStar and inclusive training facilitation on campus diversity outreach and engagement. Goals surrounding her current role center exclusively on driving the hiring of diverse early career talent.

Prior to joining Uber, she was a diversity and college recruiter for Tesla, the Boeing Company, Deloitte and the Department of Defense. She’s spent the majority of her 12 year career recruiting entry level engineers across various industries. She has a bachelor’s degree in communications from Grambling State University, an MPA in HR Management from Texas Southern University and is a huge proponent of HBCU’s and diversity hiring and retention. She is a recent transplant to the bay area from Denver and enjoys cooking, crafting and raising her 3 year old daughter Charleigh.

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Emily Flannery is a trend forecaster rooted in strategic design. With a decade in the creative industry and over 9-years in higher education, her career weaves together the future of industry and academia. She is driven to illuminate the "why" behind our creative intentions and chart a path toward a better future. In her present role as Assistant Director for the Division of Experience-based Learning and Career Education - College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning co-operative education team, Emily champions strategic partnerships, rigorous research, and student-centric teaching to bring the best of the industry together with the college’s emerging talent and experienced faculty. She has additionally led several executive training workshops on translating social-cultural and social-technological shifts to business and product strategies. Outside of the classroom, Emily actively practices trend forecasting as a method to holistically design a better future with consumers, business, and society.

Cindy B. Damschroder is a Senior Director of Academic Operations, Director and Associate Professor at the University of Cincinnati. She is a passionate advisor and educator that places students at the center of their educational goals. She strives to create an experiential environment that engages the student, helps them to feel personally invested in their learning, and often offers advice and counseling to those students looking to define themselves within a large-scale university environment. In working with the Division of Experience-Based Learning and Career Education, she facilitates placements and job development of design, architecture, and planning students into their co-op jobs on alternating semester appointments. Her instructional background has been focused primarily on first- and second-year learning in the undergraduate environment and how successful learning modules and assessments can ultimately lead to better student engagement, overall learning and retention of material that is applicable for post-collegiate application. As Director she is responsible for management of the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning Creative Team within the Division.

Organized, detail oriented, and enthusiastic team player with exceptional interpersonal skills, interacting effectively with clients and individuals at all organizational levels. Effective
facilitator, collaborating with diverse divisions and staff levels to achieve consensus on various training issues. Extensive expatriate experience: Guam, Holland, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines.

Deitrick Franklin is an Engineer, Program Manager, Recruiter, Mentor and DEI Advocate. As a University Recruiting Program Manager for Reddit, he is developing foundational structure, processes, and programming that seeks to attract and retain exceptional and diverse early talent professionals into opportunities. He currently creates inclusive recruiting experiences for both tech & business roles, such as Software Engineering, Data Science, Communications, Marketing, Sales & Account Management and more. Prior to Reddit, he worked as an Early Talent PM at Lyft to ensure an excellent employee experience for incoming Apprentices, Interns & New Grads. His focus included engagement and retention strategies that aimed to convert 100% of the participants in Lyft’s Early Talent Programs into full-time opportunities. Deitrick proactively engages underrepresented / underserved communities in tech, particularly Black, Latinx, and Women, to inform & encourage them to apply for high paying opportunities. As a former engineer who broke into the tech industry, he strongly believes in diversity, equity and inclusion and strives to help others see that #YouBelong. Deitrick is a native of Baltimore, MD, who received his B.S. (2012) and M.S. (2014) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and Georgia Institute of Technology, respectively. In his spare time, Deitrick enjoys traveling, playing billiards, and making people laugh! If you’d like, please connect with Deitrick Franklin on LinkedIn!

Inbar is a University Recruiter at Databricks. In her role, she focuses on early career technical recruiting and building out intern and new grad programs. Inbar is passionate about candidate experience and helping students find opportunities in tech.

Prior to joining Databricks, Inbar worked at Adaptive Insights, a Workday Company in recruiting and field marketing. She graduated from San Diego State University with a B.S. in Marketing and in her free time enjoys baking, yoga, and traveling.

Carolynn is invested in fostering authentic relationships with early career talent from start to finish. Previously Carolynn was a university technical recruiter at Square, Carolynn hires interns and new grads across multiple offices and executes programming to grow the employer brand among students. She's focused on finding new ways to enhance early career programs and elevate its value to businesses during this time.

Outside of recruiting, Carolynn has hosted events for Tech Ladies, a global community that connects 100k+ women to the best opportunities in tech. She is also a member of the NYU Alumni Association Board of Directors, where she helps develop strategies towards the advancement of NYU and its alumni.

Trained as a graphic designer, Bernard co-founded Wall-to-Wall Studios in Pittsburgh, PA in 1992 and returned home to launch the second office in Honolulu in 2005.

The agency (walltowall.com) specializes in growing brands through an integrated approach to design, advertising, online and environmental experiences, collaborating with local and national clients in the arts, education, hospitality, real estate, development, retail and technology. Wall-to-Wall Studios has long been known for its approach to using humor, wit and emotion to forge connections between a brand and their audience.

Bernard has been actively involved with the AIGA, the professional association for design as past President of both Pittsburgh and Honolulu chapters. He has taught communication/graphic design as an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon, Chaminade University of Honolulu and as a visiting professor at the St. Gallen School of Design in Switzerland.

In 2009, he was named  “Advertising Man of Year” by the American Advertising Federation (AAF) of Hawaii. He spends most mornings thinking about lunch.

An experienced recruiting leader, Roz Harris has worked at some of the largest enterprise and fastest-growing companies in Silicon Valley, such as Microsoft, IBM, Uber, Slack, WarnerMedia and now Zillow. With creating access to tech jobs for underrepresented communities as her passion, Roz has developed a reputation for building diverse recruiting teams at companies that reflect her personal values and strive to impact those same communities through hiring initiatives, development opportunities, and retention motivated programing.

Roz Harris a champion of the LGBTQ community and is striving for equity in the tech space through pipeline initiatives, hiring strategies, development opportunities, and retention motivated programming, at the companies she serves.

Roz identifies as a Lesbian and her pronouns are she/her/hers. 

Richard Cho is the Head of Recruiting at Robinhood Financial LLC, and has over twenty years of experience recruiting for some of the top tech companies in Silicon Valley. During his tenure as a talent executive, Richard has led hiring across critical functions to scale early-stage startups including Facebook, Dropbox, Machine Zone, and the Chan Zuckerburg Initiative. In his current role, Richard leads all hiring efforts for Robinhood Financial.

Roxana has worked in the international exchange field for over 19 years and is passionate
about facilitating professional experiences through cultural exchange programs. One role she
has consistently maintained throughout her tenure at Cultural Vistas has been relationship
building with international universities, fostering new international university partnerships, and
contributing to the growth of Cultural Vistas participant numbers. Since 2015, Roxana has led
the Client Relations department as Senior Director. She oversees the administration of impact
surveys for more than 5,500 participants per year from over 135 countries via the Qualtrics
survey platform with the goal to consistently improve program experiences for exchange
visitors and host employers. Roxana also oversees the administration of exchange visitors’
international insurance, mental health services, and consistently finds innovative solutions
through new partnerships to improve stakeholders’ experiences and well-being.

Queen Denchukwu is the Senior Manager of Diversity Strategy & Partnerships at Autodesk. In her role, she is focused on creating a diverse workforce and fostering a sense of belonging at Autodesk. A key element in achieving that goal is developing partnerships that help to attract a diverse talent pipeline and driving initiatives to promote an inclusive culture. In addition, Queen is also responsible for the Autodesk Diversity Brand, promoting Autodesk as an employer of choice – particularly as it relates to Autodesk’s commitment to diversity and belonging.

Prior to her current role, Queen was a part of the University Recruiting Program at Autodesk where she worked on summer internship programs for college students and emerging graduates. Before joining Autodesk in 2014, Queen spent several years in banking as a Business Relationship Manager with Wells Fargo and Chase Bank.

She graduated from Golden Gate University in San Francisco with an MS in Human Resources Management and previously, from Enugu State University of Science and Technology in Nigeria with a BSc in Chemical Engineering.

Outside of work, Queen serves as a professional mentor with TechWomen. She enjoys travelling, hiking and spending time with friends and family. Queen resides in Oakland, CA with her husband and three beautiful aged fourteen, thirteen and nine.

Hi I’m Samantha Khan, founder and CEO of Lighthaus Coaching. I help high-achieving women who are over the 24/7 grind tap into their intuition, find their voices and go after what they really want with a sense of ease in order to live their most badass, abundant lives. After almost a decade in varying roles from HR Business Partner to Recruiting to Learning and Development, I left my corporate career in 2021 to open up the doors to Lighthaus Coaching.

I'm a certified life coach and Energetic Breakthrough Practitioner©, a 200hr registered yoga teacher and an apprentice in modern day shamanic principles. I bring a unique blend of traditional coaching, energy work, and yogic principles to my practice to help women get clear on their goals and take aligned action to make those dreams into reality.

Find out more at LighthausCoaching.org.

Paul Bauer earned his Master's degree from Indiana University in Higher Education and Student Affairs before moving to Seattle in 2013. Paul started his career collaborating with employers and students in university career centers before moving into recruiting in 2014. Paul has recruited for Northwestern Mutual, Amazon, Expedia, Salesforce and Gopuff where he managed the early careers program.

Kaci Kelly works for the Center for Career Development at the University of Notre Dame as the Talent and Employer Engagement Manager for California. She currently resides in Los Angeles and builds relationships with California employers to inform Notre Dame students of the amazing opportunities throughout the state, and to help students line up their internships and full time jobs.

Kaci received her B.S in Business Administration (Management) from California State University San Marcos, and her M.A in Management from the University of Redlands. Kaci spent six years working in industry for Northrop Grumman in San Diego where she provided logistical support for an unmanned surveillance aircraft, and worked in a project management role focusing her activities on engagement, staffing, onboarding, and operations as the Enterprise Integration Lead for the Common Mission Management System (CMMS) Enterprise.
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Kaci grew up in Southern California with a family who loves the mission and vision of the University of Notre Dame! A Notre Dame football game is never missed in the Kelly Household! Her enthusiasm and passion for building relationships continues to be a common theme throughout her life as she loves to surround herself with family, friends, and colleagues. Kaci believes that opportunities in life are endless and that you create your own destiny!

After graduating with a degree in Information Technology, Kate quickly realized her strengths lied with people and not just coding.  In the midst of a winding career path across North America, straddling employer development, career advising and contingent workforce management in Silicon Valley, Kate is currently a Co-op Coordinator, supporting the School of Computer Science at the University of Guelph. Her primary focus includes supporting co-op students on job search strategies and employability skills while working closely with the ever-changing, dynamic technology industry in Canada and beyond.  Kate's biggest enrichment through her role is seeing highly capable students, who just need a foot in the door to gain the skills and experience to excel and thrive in their jobs.  Their confidence and commitment to using technology for good is inspiring. 

Originally from San Diego, California, Joseph “Joe” Ham pursued a Bachelors from U.C. Berkeley and MBA from the University of San Francisco. The culmination of both degrees led to his passion in data analysis, talent operations and employer branding.He started at SAP in Technical Talent Advising with SAP’s Internship Experience Project (iXp). Efforts with his team achieved global expansion of 1,000+ interns in 7 countries. Special projects at that time comprised of community outreach opportunities, diversity, inclusion, and strategic talent engagement campaigns. His area of focus at SAP is now in operations and experience management for the Silicon Valley Next Talent Program (SVNT). This strategic early talent program focuses on strengthening new software engineers, data scientists, and UX/UI designers as they launch their careers. Program objectives he focuses on include: program scalability, stakeholder engagement, data & talent storytelling. More info on the SVNT Program can be found  https://bit.ly/2sDohnP. He continues his professional trajectory in organization and talent development programs through the array of social and educational opportunities the SF Bay Area has to offer. 

Kathy has worked in corporate diversity and inclusion for over 15 years now. A lot has changed in that time, but unfortunately many of the challenges remain the same. What keeps her motivated to bring her best each day? It's the positive evolution she has seen first-hand when organizations, teams, and even individuals discover and are transformed by diversity, inclusion and belonging.

Kathy loves to dream big but is always driving toward practical strategies that make a lasting and self-sustaining impact. "There’s no magic bullet to diversity, but together we can figure out the right solutions to help organizations and teams realize their full potential."

Kate is a Senior Campus Recruiter at MongoDB, primarily focused on engineering hiring in the US. In her 3+ year tenure at MongoDB, she's seen the ins and outs of scaling a campus recruiting program by more than 300%. She’s passionate about access and inclusion and is grateful that her role allows her to do meaningful work in this space. She loves working with students so much, she even spends her time out of the office volunteering in sorority recruitment. Kate is a graduate of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey and a proud New Yorker. In her spare time, she can be found in a yoga class or at a broadway show. 

Cortez is a university relations and human resources professional who has been working with Silicon Valley powerhouses for 19 years. He has served as a university relations and human resources leader for several organizations, including Airbnb, Zynga, Workday, Ericsson, Yahoo! and Cisco Systems. He currently leads the University Recruiting team at Airbnb, positioning the program to be best-in-class and expanding programing in the areas of early career.  Prior to his roles in the high tech industry, Cortez, built his experiences in the education sector as a teacher and administrator for both K-8 and High School.  This blend of education and high tech provides Cortez with a unique perspective to innovate and l lead his teams.

Cortez was born in Mexico; moved to the United States at the age of 10 and began working in California agriculture until he was 20 years old.  He received Bachelor’s Degrees in History and Political Science and a Master of Arts in Education Administration and Supervision from San Jose State University and a Master’s Certificate in Project Management from George Washington University.

I am a transparent leader with proven skills of working directly with individuals from diverse academic, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds. I believe in the power of education, social intelligence and transformational leadership.

Today, I continue to build on my ability to effectively impact the lives of those I encounter in a whole new way while remaining true to my deepest belief that, persistence leaves no man hanging, but only grants success to those who try.

Michael Ellison is the CEO and founder of CodePath.org. CodePath.org is an educational nonprofit transforming computer science education for underrepresented minorities at over 50 colleges and universities by improving curriculum, teaching practices, and student support. Prior to CodePath.org, Ellison founded 3 nonprofits and 3 tech startups starting at age 19. Ellison was a founding board member for Women Who Code and co-founder of Segment, now valued at $1.5B.

Michele Militante is the North American Talent Acquisition Leader for Early Professional Hiring at IBM, overseeing Campus, Diversity and Signature Events. In her various roles working in complex, global, professional services and technology organizations, she has developed innovative talent strategies, built and managed teams to support high growth businesses and drove organizational transformation at one of the largest global corporations in the world. Currently she is transforming campus recruitment in IBM North America, responsible for sourcing over 4000 hires in 2020 and creating signature experiences in which to draw them in.  Connect with Michele here.

Michele is a Recruiting Manager that focuses on early career talent and events at Oscar Health. She’s been in recruiting for 5+ years and has hired entry to senior level talent while building & scaling recruiting programs. Prior to joining Oscar, Michele worked at AppDynamics and Fitbit.  She is an SF Native who made the move across country to NYC. She’s been involved with OneReq since 2017 and is passionate about building community and helping individuals jumpstart their careers.

Matthew French (He/Him/His) is the Founder and ‘90s-nostalgic brain behind Awesomely Authentic, a career-coaching, and inclusion organization that focuses on the unique experiences of LGBTQ+ people as they navigate the milestones of choosing a college to attend, searching for that perfect job, or making your company more inclusive.With ten years of experience working with the LGBTQ+ community, eight years of professional career coaching, and a love of the ‘90s, he has blended all of these aspects together to create an authentically high-energy tailored experience for his presentations. His work has been highlighted in national career development associations, CNN Business, LGBTQ+ non-profits, and more!

Matthew currently works and resides in Charlotte, North Carolina where he works as the Assistant Director for Employer Relations at UNC Charlotte to connect Employers with UNCC students and alumni.

I have a passion for talent development and helping others succeed in their careers. My own career started in education, and I have had the opportunity to teach in the CA public school system, as well as teaching English abroad in Spain - where my students taught me the art of tapas, fiesta, and flamenco! While attending business school I was able to translate my joy of teaching into creating programs in the professional development space. I love working with early career talent and building programs that set new hires up for a positive first job. Development + coaching + culture = retention & results!

Naomi Thalenberg is the brand manager of SAP’s global, signature internship program, SAP Internship Experience Project.  After studying journalism and multimedia storytelling in her undergraduate studies, she began her career as an editorial assistant in Seattle and has since owned content channels for startup, higher education, and enterprise organizations. She’s passionate about the future of storytelling, all things content strategy, and most recently graduated from the University of Washington’s Communication Leadership program. When she’s not helping recruit the next generation of SAP’s global talent, she’s either hiking or backpacking in the Pacific Northwest.

Paul Sledd is a recruiting and human resources leader whose experience spans three Fortune 50s, two start-ups, and currently BCG Digital Ventures. Throughout the journey, his most significant impact occurred in university recruiting, cultural programs, and buildouts for experienced sourcing, recruiting, and research teams. Paul is a technology enthusiast with interests in software, hardware, manufacturing, and data science, yet his favorite combination of all of these is the humble pinball machine.

Saqi Mehta has 15+ years experience in higher ed, talent aquisition and D&I at organizations like Harvard, HBS, MIT, Disney, Square, and Tufts. She currently is the Global Lead for Early Talent & Diversity Recruiting at Cloudera. Saqi has served on the board of National Tech Diversity Magazine and written for Huffington Post, the Daily Muse and Blavity amongst other publications. She was a co-Founder of ReigningIt (https://medium.com/@ReigningIt) which brings awareness to women in STEM by profiling other womens' stories. In any non-typing free time she is an art, interior design, and travel enthusiast.

Pat Sellers is Director of Talent at Tresata, a predictive analytics software company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Prior to Tresata, Pat taught political science and data science for nearly 20 years at Davidson College, where he also served as Vice President for Strategic Partnerships. In his current role, Pat leads recruiting and directs tresata ACADEMY, the company's training and professional development program. He is passionate about helping young talent lead happy, professional lives.

Olivia Haas is currently enjoying her third career. As a creative director at Job Portraits, an SF-based employer branding agency, she uses authentic storytelling and the tools of journalism to help startups build a long-term recruiting advantage. Prior to Job Portraits, Olivia built and ran all university programs for Customer Experience Management (CEM) leader Medallia, traveling the country to (successfully!) translate the story of a B2B SaaS company for both technical and non-technical undergrad and grad students. And before tech? Olivia had a tell-all-worthy career in entertainment, first working on Broadway and then in film and television in Los Angeles. A playwright, actor, and improviser with a B.A. in English from Stanford, Olivia is more than qualified to discuss the experience of being a “fuzzy” in the tech world.

Sarah is an innovative and respected Talent Acquisition leader with a passion for building sustainable and scalable global internship and early talent programs. As the founder and global manager of SAP’s world-class internship program, iXp, Sarah leads a team of program managers who deliver a stellar experience for all involved. Sarah is a strategic business partner to executive stakeholders, an advocate for early talent in the workplace, and visionary for the future workforce. When not in an airport or traveling the world, Sarah can be found outdoors hiking, running or chasing the snow for the perfect day on the mountain.  

I have 5 years of experience delivering and optimizing global programs and systems. I'm passionate about streamlining and building efficient processes; thriving on the positive impact I can make for employees. I've had the constant opportunity to learn and develop within an organization; which has encouraged me to lead with a growth mindset and become a flexible and dynamic teammate!

Sarah has been in the early career space for almost a decade touching every stage of the process from sourcing, closing, strategy, programming, intern management, and events.  She is currently a University Talent Scout at Meta focusing on the Front End pipeline, though throughout her career has worked on roles from hardware to front end engineering roles. Sarah was first introduced to the early career space at Microsoft where she led their intern programming. She spent the bulk of her career as a full cycle recruiter at Redfin, positioning Redfin as a competitive force in the industry. Right before joining Meta she spent a year at Rockwell Automation helping their UR program update their recruiting philosophies and transition their strategy from local to nationwide recruiting efforts.  Sarah is most passionate about equipping all students with the skills and information they need to navigate the recruiting system and land  their dream opportunity. 

For last year, Sarah has been involved with the URx team helping put together conferences and marketing.

Sue Harnett has been an entrepreneur in the technology space since 2003. Her most recent venture is a virtuous startup: Rewriting the Code. RTC couples Harnett’s passions for mentorship and technology. The organization's mission is to recruit, retain + advance college women-in-tech. Since the nonprofit’s launch in January 2017, 3,800+ undergraduates from 400+ universities joined the RTC community. RTC is conducting prospective research to understand and address why women leave technology-related degree programs and jobs at unprecedented rates.

Harnett entered the startup arena when she founded Replay Photos – a sports e-commerce + technology business with a host of top collegiate and professional brands. Harnett sold Replay Photos to Raleigh-based Lulu in October 2013.

Harnett’s success with intellectual property commercialization, college students, entrepreneurs and start-up companies comes from her passion and ability to recognize the viability of a concept, develop a foundational infrastructure for it, and quickly scale the idea into a business. She attributes the largest part of her success to creating teams of highly-motivated colleagues who embrace a culture of independence + motivation to do great things every day.

Harnett, a native of Staten Island, NY, holds two degrees from Duke University, including a master’s degree in Health Care Administration. Harnett received and All-America honors as a 4-year starter for the Duke women’s basketball team. She is a charter inductee of the Duke Basketball Hall of Honor and the 4th all-time leading scorer with a career point total of 1,785 points. Harnett continued her basketball career after she received her graduate degree and played on the professional level in Belgium.

Tarsha McCormick is the Head of Diversity and Inclusion for ThoughtWorks North America. Tarsha joined ThoughtWorks in January of 1999 as a Recruiting Specialist when the company was a small startup with a group of less than 100. Today ThoughtWorks has grown to over 3500 employees globally in 34 offices spread across 13 countries on 6 continents.

She was instrumental in helping to build, grow, and lead various aspects of their People organization including recruiting, benefits, HR operations, and talent management. Since moving into the Head of Diversity and Inclusion role in January 2015, Tarsha is responsible for driving the strategic thinking and work related to making ThoughtWorks more diverse and inclusive, and advocating for change in the I.T. industry.

After earning a B.A. in Political Science from Illinois State University, Tarsha worked in the social services industry for 4 years before making a transition into human resources, which married her love of people, law, and education. In addition to her 18 years of human resources experience, she holds an MBA with a focus on Human Resources Management. Born and raised in Chicago, she has called Atlanta home since 2010.

Tigran Sloyan is the CEO of CodeSignal, an automated-technical assessment platform that enables large and small companies to go beyond resumes and evaluate engineering candidates based on their skills and not the school they went to or the companies they’ve worked at.

Tigran is also the founder of the #GoBeyondResumes movement that brings together engineering, recruiting and career services leaders to create a mindset shift in the industry about how we approach recruiting and how we measure talent. He is a frequent speaker on the topics of education, assessment and recruiting and how these industries interact and influence each other.

Tigran holds bachelor’s degrees in Mathematics, Computer Science and Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T) and has previously worked in Product Management and Engineering roles at companies like Google and Oracle. Between 2003 and 2007, Tigran was awarded 5 medals at the prestigious International Mathematics Olympiad that brings together more than 500 top young mathematicians from all over the world.

Tinsley Hembree comes from a background in higher education and has translated those skills into a career as the Recruitment Marketing Manager at Fisher Investments. In this role, she develops the global university recruitment strategy and manages student programs and events. Her previous experiences mentoring students, advising student organizations and managing fraternity and sorority life have led to a positive impact on the Firm’s internship program, campus relationships, and student leadership initiatives. Bringing the student and campus perspective to a finance firm to cultivate change motivates Tinsley in her efforts to  expand the global campus strategy to ultimately connect with students to launch the next chapter of their lives.

Entrepreneur, community builder, and diversity advocate. Wahab Owolabi is the Founder of OneReq, URx & Producer of the URx Conference. Currently Wahab is also a Diversity Business Partner at Facebook and on the Board of ColorStack a non-profit organization that promotes the advancement of underrepresented college CS students. Previously, Wahab built the University Recruiting and Talent Programs function at Rubrik. Rubrik became an employer of choice amongst top engineering students and ranked in the top 10 of Linkedin's Career Launching Startups. Prior to Rubrik, Wahab was a Talent Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, building a network of top university talent and supporting portfolio company recruiting efforts. Previously, Wahab worked at both Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon University helping technology companies recruit university talent and helping students launch amazing technical careers.  

I am currently the Talent Acquisition Manager for University Recruiting at Adobe. Throughout my 14 years of recruiting experience, I have worked for many industry leaders such as 3M, Amazon and now Adobe. With my recent transition to the University recruiting space, I’ve witnessed many areas where my team and I can make an impact on the careers of budding professionals. University Hiring efforts offer multiple opportunities to infuse new ideas that drive different layers of innovation into the organization. I pride myself on practicing and preaching to my teams the importance of a high-level customer focus. My expertise thrives in working backwards from a customer need while developing a solution to address them. The recruiting world survives on candidate experience, and a good reputation can take an organization a long way. Every connection you make helps to build the brand of your organization. I always like to encourage others to “ Do it right and Do it with the candidates best interest in mind always”

I love building communities and helping professionals figure out what they want to do with their career. I'm often the first person friends and friends-of-friends call when considering a career move and have helped hundreds of people secure full-time jobs and internships.

At Greylock Partners, I focus on technical university talent (software engineer, data science, product, & design) for our portfolio companies and work with both undergraduate and graduate-level students. Before this role, I managed the internship component of the Stanford in New York program, focusing on student career advising, professional development, employer relations, and alumni engagement. Outside of work, I helped build New York's university recruiting community (#URxNYC), one of the local chapters involved with the University Recruiting Conference. I led Stanford's young alumni club in New York and develop professional and social programming to benefit the 2,500+ young alumni living in the city. Prior to my role at Stanford, I was the platform manager at Lerer Hippeau Ventures, the most active seed stage investor in New York, and then worked as a project manager for the co-founder of Dia&Co, a Lerer Hippeau portfolio company.

Stephanie has over 15 years of experience launching, scaling and maturing early career strategies and talent acquisition programs. Currently she runs a global UR team at Autodesk and manages TA programs and enablement. With a growth mindset, she is passionate about her team and constantly innovating. Previosuly as National Director of Campus Recruiting, at BDO USA, LLP Stephanie has developed and scaled a best-in-class campus recruiting strategy during a time of rapid firm growth. With a streamlined, digitally enabled approach focused on candidate care, Stephanie and her team hired more than 1500 students last year from some of the best colleges and universities in the country. With more than 15 years of recruiting experience, Stephanie is a thought-provoking speaker on many issues in the workplace, including multi-generational trends in the workplace, digital marketing, university recruiting strategies and the college-to-career transition.

Adam Ward is the Co-Founder and Partner of GBD Talent. Growth by Design Talent is a Recruiting Strategy and Services company, specializing in helping companies achieve growth with quality through a thoughtfully designed approach. We advise on recruiting foundations, place top talent through retained search, and provide recruiting leadership training and development. We’re passionate about building inclusive teams, sustainable recruiting cultures, operations for scale, and iconic employer brands.

Formerly, Adam was the Head of Recruiting of Pinterest overseeing University, Executive, Tech and Business Recruiting. Over the last 4 years, he’s helped scale Pinterest from 250 to 1500+ employees worldwide.

Prior to Pinterest, Adam spent 3 years at Facebook where he was a Director of Recruiting overseeing global University Recruiting and Recruiting Operations. He built a team and program that ramped to over 400 technical new grads and 900 intern hires per year.

Prior to joining Facebook, Adam spent 7 years at Qualcomm as a Director of Staffing where his responsibilities responsibilities included Head of APAC recruiting, Global Campus Recruiting, Recruiting Brand, and HR Data Analytics.

Adam started his career as an intern and then eventually the Campus Recruiting Manager for Trilogy Software in Austin, TX and later in Bangalore, India. He also served as a Marketing Manager years with the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin and was a founding member of CollegeHire.com.

Adam graduated from Wake Forest University with a degree in Communications and Psychology. He lives in the Bay Area with his wife and three daughters.

Connie Norwell joined Zendesk in August 2021 as the Global University Relations Manager, overseeing a team of all-star recruiters and a program with interns all around the world. This is her sixth year in the UR space, and previously Connie has experience in the Healthcare and Aerospace & Defense industries. In her spare time, Connie enjoys getting outside, being active, and exploring the Dallas food scene with her husband.

Christine is the Head of Candidate Engagement at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a new kind of philanthropy that’s leveraging technology to help solve some of society’s toughest challenges. In this role, she oversees CZI’s Sourcing team and University Recruiting program. Prior to CZI, Christine led a recruiting program management team at Google, was an early HR hire at two fast-growing startups and managed the university recruiting program at a media company.

Throughout her career, Christine has been driven by the power of recruiting to transform lives. She is passionate about enabling access to opportunity, and facilitating experiences where early career talent can learn, grow and thrive. She resides in San Francisco and holds a BS in Psychology from Fordham University.

Ahva Sadeghi is a passionate social entrepreneur and co-founder of Symba, a venture backed and all-female founded tech startup. Symba is focused on designing the internship experience and the future of work. Ahva is an economist and researcher focused on remote work and workforce development. Prior to launching Symba, Ahva worked at the US Department of State in the Human Rights Bureau and completed a civil rights fellowship with Congressman John Lewis in Atlanta. She was recently named Forbes 30 Under 30 and a Global Entrepreneur Scholar by the US Department of State.

Ahva completed her graduate studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science and received her BA from the University of Arizona Honors College. In her spare time, Ahva enjoys playing the cello.

Currently spearheading university relations and recruiting partnerships as a Program Manager at Jam City, a mobile game publisher based out of Los Angeles, Andrew has spent the last 6 years at the intersection of entertainment and tech. His passion for representation in tech comes from his personal upbringing in a Mexican-American home and in his experiences in being the first person from his family to work in a corporate role. Prior to joining Jam City, Andrew spent time recruiting at EA (Electronic Arts), Netflix, and Apple. He recently made the move to San Diego and is excited to try all the new restaurants and continue building community in the industry.