Tara Noonan Amaral is a Principal Consultant at Riviera Advisors. Tara brings several decades of talent acquisition and leadership strategy expertise to Riviera Advisors. Tara has had an impressive career in recruitment, diversity and strategic talent acquisition for some of the most successful organizations in the world including: Marsh & McLennan, Fidelity Investments, New York Life, ADP and AON/Hewitt. She has more than 20 years of experience developing, implementing, and operating both Corporate and RPO talent acquisition and recruiting functions where she has inspired innovation, and integrated emerging technologies and practices into the talent acquisition function. Prior to her talent acquisition career, Tara held banking and financial services leadership positions at JPMorgan Chase in retail and institutional client management and Six Sigma and Agile project management.

In addition to her corporate leadership roles, Tara has been a frequent industry speaker, well-travelled industry advocate and has participated in leadership roles with the Association of Talent Acquisition Professional (ATAP), the Conference Board Global Labor Advisory Council, and the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM). Tara also serves as an HR Venture Advisor with SemperVirensVenture Capital.

Tara’s passions include working on the continued importance of a strong talent acquisition and retention ecosystem, the future of work(ers), Diversity & Inclusion solutions, and cross-cultural and multi-generational talent strategies. Tara holds a Bachelor of Arts in Organizational Behavior from Brown University. Tara is based in Charleston, South Carolina.

Ryan is the Founder and CEO of ApplicantPro, a hiring software company founded in 2006. Ryan and his team have grown the small startup into a leading provider of hiring software for over 7,000 companies around the nation. Ryan's mission is to help companies, managers, and HR teams improve their hiring results. To do this, he and his team strive to create educational content, tools, integrations, and software to help businesses drive their hiring results. In addition, he is an HRCI and SHRM-CP Approved Provider and conducts weekly, free webinars and presents at SHRM events around the country. 

Dr. Melody Rawlings is Director of the Center for the Advancement of Virtual Organizations, Lead Faculty for Managing Virtual Organizations specialization, and doctoral chair at Northcentral University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Education, an MS in Technology specializing in business management, and a doctorate in leadership. Melody has led remote teams for 10+ years, developed partnerships between corporations and higher ed, and managed her own businesses. She has authored peer-reviewed publications and presented internationally on business topics such as leadership development, emotional intelligence, ethics, and conflict management. Melody has taught internationally in Europe and Asia.

Jennifer Currence is a Senior Partner of HR Soul consultancy firm in Tampa, Florida, where she delivers results through strategic HR solutions, customized training, and coaching programs for organizational and HR leaders. She is the creator of The SOTO Approach to Leadership and the content architect for the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) international People Manager Qualification (PMQ).

Jennifer is regularly published and featured in industry magazines, webinars, and podcasts, and is the author of three HR books on behavioral business competencies.

Jennifer was named one of the top 100 Influential HR professionals in Leadership and Development in 2023 and Tampa Bay’s HR Consultant of the Year in 2017.  She is a faculty member for SHRM and a former management professor at the University of Tampa.

Ryan Gottfredson, Ph.D. is a cutting-edge leadership development author, researcher, and consultant. He helps organizations vertically develop their leaders primarily through a focus on mindsets. Ryan is the Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-selling author of Success Mindsets: The Key to Unlocking Greater Success in Your Life, Work, & Leadership. And, he is the author of the upcoming book, The Elevated Leader: Leveling Up Your Leadership Through Vertical Development. He is also a leadership professor at the College of Business and Economics at California State University-Fullerton.

Laura Maffucci is Sr. Director of Global Total Rewards & HRIS at Globalization Partners and has over 20 years of human resources leadership experience. She specializes in innovative, strategic total rewards solutions that attract and engage rockstar talent.

Laura’s experience encompasses many aspects of the human resources arena including HRIS, HR operations, culture and engagement, compensation, employee care and wellbeing, executive compensation, and people analytics.

Laura is passionate about the future of work, normalizing the value of work everywhere, and enabling employees across the globe to be their best selves and add value wherever they go and whatever they do.