Known as one of the most powerful black women in Silicon Valley, Denise Young Smith recently closed a brilliant two-decade career with Apple and is currently serving as only the second executive-in-residence at the new Cornell Tech graduate school campus in Manhattan. At Cornell Tech, Denise will be visiting scholar and a key cultural influencer at this unique institution, on the imperative of true diversity, inclusion, and humanity in technology...drawing on her passion to positively impact the next generation of business and tech leaders and entrepreneurs.

Denise held a variety of executive roles at Apple, including building much of the company’s retail store initiative, taking the chain to over 400 stores globally before being promoted to the chief HR role, reporting to Apple CEO, Tim Cook. She served as Apple’s first ever vice president of inclusion and diversity, leading the company’s efforts to see its full ecosystem become as inclusive as possible. Denise has been named a “Most Powerful Woman” by Ebony Magazine and Black Enterprise, has been named one of “100 Most Influential in Silicon Valley” by Business Insider, and has been featured in Fortune’s “Most Powerful Women” issue. Truly living at the intersection of technology, humanity and art, Denise is an accomplished soprano who has graced local and international recital halls—including Carnegie and SFJazz.

As chief diversity and inclusion officer, Audra is responsible for working with Randstad’s U.S. operating companies to further diversity strategies both internally and externally. With more than 20 years of human resources, diversity and compliance experience, Audra provides clients across the organization with guidance for effective strategies in diversity, inclusion, veterans and compliance. Audra also helps run Randstad’s Hire Hope program to provide career readiness training and job placement services to underserved and at-risk women, including survivors of exploitation and trafficking. Audra holds a Master’s in Business Administration with a Human Resources concentration, and a Bachelor’s in Finance, from the University of North Carolina. A member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM); she is also a Certified Diversity Professional (CDP), a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR), a SHRM Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP) and a Six Sigma Green Belt. Audra is known for her speaking engagements at diversity conferences and has published white papers in her area of expertise.

Ruchi Jalla is Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer of BAE Systems, Inc., a U.S.-based, international defense, aerospace, and security company. In her current role, Ruchi provides direction on enterprise diversity and inclusion strategies and ensures alignment of initiatives that bring about sustainable shifts in workplace culture. Ruchi previously held diversity and Affirmative Action/EEO roles in various organizations including BlackBerry, RBC Financial Group and Sodexo. Throughout her career, she has been responsible for designing and developing programs in the areas of talent acquisition, employee engagement, international compliance, communications and social media. Ruchi graduated from the University of Western Ontario.

Tanuja has over 20 years of experience in Human Resources with large multi nationals at leadership roles both India and USA. She held strategic and leadership roles with organisations like NTT Data, Bank of America and GE.

Tanuja is extremely passionate about the gender diversity cause. Currently Tanuja runs her company “Beyond Pinks” which focuses on gender issues and challenges at corporates as well as atuniversity level. She works with corporates to build leadership talent pipeline and on employability and sustainability of women at workplace.

Tanuja holds a Master’s degree in Human Resources and an Executive MBA from Cornell University.

Her personal belief in life: Live the day as if it’s your last.

Emily Gregory’s gift is to create for her audience a moment of self-discovery that leads to change.

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