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Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., SHRM-SCP, is President and Chief Executive Officer of SHRM. With nearly 340,000 members in 180 countries, SHRM impacts the lives of more than 362 million workers and their families globally.

As a global leader on the future of employment, culture and leadership, Mr. Taylor is a sought-after voice on all matters affecting work, workers and the workplace. Recognized as one of the “300 Most Influential Executives in Corporate America” for 2024 by Savoy Magazine and one of the “Most Influential People Shaping Public Policy” in our nation’s capital by Washingtonian Magazine, Mr. Taylor is frequently asked to testify before Congress on critical workforce issues and authors the weekly USA Today column, "Ask HR."

Mr. Taylor's career spans more than 20 years as a lawyer, human resources executive and CEO in both the not-for-profit and for-profit spaces. He has held senior and chief executive roles at IAC/InteractiveCorp, Viacom's Paramount Pictures, Blockbuster Entertainment Group, the McGuireWoods law firm and Compass Group USA. Most recently, Mr. Taylor was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.

He is the author of the national bestseller, RESET: A Leader’s Guide to Work in an Age of Upheaval, which immediately upon its release in September 2021, was in the top three of The Wall Street Journal’s list of best-selling hardcover business books.

Mr. Taylor is a member of the United Way Worldwide Board of Trustees and serves on the corporate boards of XPO Logistics (NYSE: XPO), Flores & Associates, and Guild Education. He previously served on the White House American Workforce Policy Advisory Board and as chairman of the President's Advisory Board on Historically Black Colleges and Universities during the Trump Administration.

The Women Business Collaborative (WBC) named Mr. Taylor as one of its 2023 Trailblazers in Gender Equity and Diversity for his work to achieve equal position, pay and power for all women in business. In 2020, he received the Distinguished Executive of the Year Award from the Academy of Management, and he was named 2021 ALA Professional Society CEO of the Year by CEO Update.

He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources and is licensed to practice law in Florida, Illinois and Washington, D.C.

Vineet Nayar is Founder Chairman of Sampark Foundation and former CEO of HCL Technologies (for wiki profile) and author of the highly acclaimed management bestseller “Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down” (Harvard Business Press, June 2010).

A management visionary and radical thinker, Vineet led the transformation of HCL Technologies into one of India’s fastest-growing global information technology services company, growing from $0.7 billion in 2005 to a $4.7 billion Global Technology Services Company with over 85,000 employees across 32 countries in 2013. This radical transformation led Fortune to recognize HCLT as “the world’s most modern management” while BusinessWeek named HCLT as “one of the world’s most influential companies”; which led its innovative management practices to be taught as a case study at both the Harvard Business School and London Business School.

Vineet, in turn, was chosen by Fortune Magazine for its first-ever global Executive Dream Team and also found a place on the elite Thinkers 50 List. His ideas of organization transformation have received rich praise from influencers like the late C.K. Prahalad, Tom Peters, Gary Hamel, and Ram Charan.

Vineet stepped down from the company in 2013 to focus on Sampark Foundation, co-founded with his wife Anupama Nayar, to catalyse ‘large-scale transformation in primary education through frugal innovation’. Today, Sampark Foundation is transforming learning outcomes of 7 million children studying in 76,000 rural schools across 6 states in India: Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Utter Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Jharkhand at less than $1 per child per pa. This large-scale transformation is now a ‘case study’ at Harvard Business School.

Vineet has been cited by Forbes in its ‘Heroes of Philanthropy List 2016’ and also as a ‘Global Thinker 2016’ by Foreign Policy magazine for ‘unplugging technology so kids can learn’ along with his wife.

Vineet joined HCL in 1985 after earning his MBA from XLRI. In 1993, he founded the start-up Comnet, where he developed and put into practice many of the ideas described in this book, transforming it into a multi-billion-dollar business. In 2005, he became president and in 2007, the CEO of HCL Technologies, where over the next five years, he led a remarkable turnaround.

Vineet currently serves as a Senior Advisor to the Fortune 1000 companies. He is on the Advisory Board of the Millions Learning Project led by the ex-Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard and has served as Governor of ICT, member of the Global Advisory Board of Women Leaders and Gender Parity Program at the World Economic Forum. And, as a mentor to multiple technology led start-ups, he continues to follow his passion of turning conventional management wisdom, upside down.
 

Kim Lessley, Director, Solution Management, SAP SuccessFactors has over 25 years of experience in the technology industry in both small and large organizations. Her experience includes working on global implementations, managing complex projects across geographies and time zones, running a multi-million dollar line of business, and defining positioning and messaging to help the market understand the value proposition of SAP products. She enjoys helping organizations feel confident in operating in the cloud and understanding how SAP SuccessFactors can help them run better.

Richard Solomon is Principal Consultant and Managing Director of Development Consulting Center Limited, an Organizational Development consulting firm he founded in 1997. Richard holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Business Management, a Post Graduate Certificate in Organization Development, a Master of Business Administration specializing in Organization Transformation.  He also holds a second MBA specializing in Strategic Human Resource Management and has been accepted to pursue a PhD with the University of Trinidad and Tobago.  He is the author of The Signature Service Strategy, a book  based on a model that guides organizations how to deliver VIP service to all.

His firm has provided training and consulting services to companies in 40 countries across all major sectors.  Some notable clients include BG (British Gas), Scotia Bank, Vodafone, BpTT, 3M, Grace Kennedy, RBC, Cable and Wireless, Digicel, PepsiCo, Coca Cola, Bristol Myers Squibb, 3M, Nestle, JPSco., Unilever and the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago.

Richard is a Change Architect and strategist who supports organizations through skilled consultancy, training and coaching. Some areas of specialization include: strategic HRM, strategic planning, teambuilding, job analysis (DACUM), leadership development, change management, executive coaching and The Signature Service Strategy.  He has over 20 years of experience in Organization Development including that of Alignment Specialist, Coach, Consultant and Training and Development Manager.

He has been trained by many institutions including the NTL Institute (Virginia USA); FranklynCovey (Utah U.S.A); Stucki AG (Switzerland); DMA Inc. (Salem U.S.A); “Who Moved My Cheese?” LLC (Utah U.S.A); Otto Kroeger Associates (Virginia U.S.A); Service Quality Institute (Minneapolis, Minnesota); The Ohio State University (Ohio USA) and the International Forum for Social Innovation (Paris France).

Mr. Solomon is an Executive member of the Trinidad and Tobago Scout Association, a Director of the PRVM Performing Arts Academy, a member of the NTL Institute of Applied Behavioural Sciences and a member of the Management Committee of the Programme for Development and Training at the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization in the United Kingdom.

Richard is listed in the “Who’s Who in Trinidad and Tobago Business”; he personally provides training  to thousands of individuals annually and has lectured Management and Human Resource Management at the Tertiary Level. 

 Joe is a leading thinker in managing and motivating people. He’s passionate about helping organizations achieve their vision through effective performance management.

 He’s a top-rated SHRM speaker and serves as Chief Value Officer for Delphia Consulting, a national HR and Payroll software consulting firm based in Columbus, Ohio. Joe is the co-creator of miviva, a continuous performance management application.

 Joe has over 30 years of experience and serves as VP of Professional Development on the Human Resources Association of Central Ohio (HRACO) Board of Directors. Joe is a cited contributor to the SHRM Learning System.

Been there – done that!  With 30 years of HR and business experience – Lori has walked in your shoes.  A recovered HR Generalist, she built a consulting company that she sold to Arthur J Gallagher after 7 years and then reinvented her current business – HR Topics -  training, speaking and developing content for HR professionals.  Lori delivers facts, tips, tricks and best practices in a way that appeals to human resource and business leaders: with a sense of humor, a bias toward actions that improve their operations right away, and practical resources and tools to support their progress.  As an annual speaker at the National SHRM conference, she has leveraged her masters in HR, SPHR and SHRM-SCP background to elevate the position of all HR professionals!

KELLY PALMER is on a mission to change the way the world learns. A well-known thought leader on learning, business, and career development, she is currently on the executive team of Degreed and was formerly the chief learning officer of LinkedIn. Prior to LinkedIn, Kelly was vice president of learning at Yahoo! and held executive positions in learning, M&A, and product development at Sun Microsystems. She speaks regularly at companies and business conferences around the world, has been featured in the Financial Times, Fast Company, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc., Chief Learning Officer (CLO), and on Bloomberg radio. Kelly has a Bachelor of Arts in English/communications and a Master of Science in adult learning and education technology. She is the co-author of the book The Expertise Economy: How the smartest companies use learning to engage, compete, and succeed. Kelly lives in San Francisco.