In-person Pass

Ray is currently the Director of Human Resources for Springpoint Senior Living. Prior to joining Springpoint, Ray served as the Senior Human Resources Generalist at Five Guys Enterprises. He has held a variety of Human Resources and management roles in different industries throughout his career including Apple, Flextronics, and SprintNextel. He also has experience in the startup world having been recruited to work on the creation of Enhanced Wireless. After a series of pivotal experiences as a manager and district manager in employee development, engagement, and retention, he decided to focus his career in Human Resources. Since 2014, Ray has been teaching a series of SHRM prep and continuing education courses at PACE University and recently joined the adjunct faculty at William Paterson University. He has also worked as a content reviewer in HR for Western Governor's University, and served as a HR consultant for several corporations.     

Ray is currently working on his Doctorate of Business Administration with an anticipated completion date of December 2019. Ray has an MBA with concentration in Human Resources Management, is SHRM-SCP certified, holds his SHRM Talent Acquisition Specialty Credential, and a BA in History with a minor in African, African American, Caribbean Studies. He is a certified practitioner of "MBTI®️Step I™️and Step II™️" and is a member of Board of Directors of the Picatinny Federal Credit Union and Rock Ridge Community Club. 

Ray is currently the Director of Human Resources for Springpoint Senior Living. Prior to joining Springpoint, Ray served as the Senior Human Resources Generalist at Five Guys Enterprises. He has held a variety of Human Resources and management roles in different industries throughout his career including Apple, Flextronics, and SprintNextel. He also has experience in the startup world having been recruited to work on the creation of Enhanced Wireless. After a series of pivotal experiences as a manager and district manager in employee development, engagement, and retention, he decided to focus his career in Human Resources. Since 2014, Ray has been teaching a series of SHRM prep and continuing education courses at PACE University and recently joined the adjunct faculty at William Paterson University. He has also worked as a content reviewer in HR for Western Governor's University, and served as a HR consultant for several corporations.     

Ray is currently working on his Doctorate of Business Administration with an anticipated completion date of December 2019. Ray has an MBA with concentration in Human Resources Management, is SHRM-SCP certified, holds his SHRM Talent Acquisition Specialty Credential, and a BA in History with a minor in African, African American, Caribbean Studies. He is a certified practitioner of "MBTI®️Step I™️and Step II™️" and is a member of Board of Directors of the Picatinny Federal Credit Union and Rock Ridge Community Club. 

Angela Shaw is an accomplished HR professional.  She grew her career from an administrative employee leadership most recently serving as Vice President of HR in real estate. She has a BS degree in Business with a minor in Human Resources.  She is certified as a SHRM Senior Certified Professional. Angela has a love of HR but is specifically devoted to diversity, inclusion, and workforce readiness. Angela views volunteer leadership as a pathway for her passion as a servant leader to the HR community.  She has steadily been involved with SHRM chapters since 2011 including 2019 President of the Austin Human Resource Management Association and currently Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Director for TXSHRM. She is currently concentrating on teaching HR and consulting. She also serves on the board of two other organizations PelotonU and the YWCA of Greater Austin.

Henry Lonsdale, VP of Sales & Co-Founder of California Payroll

• Co-Founded California Payroll in 2001
• HR industry since 1993
• Former Director of Recruiting Training for 700-person company
• Consulted with over 1500 companies, large and small
• Former leading sales representative for a national payroll provider
• Former Workers’ Compensation Insurance & Benefits Broker 1996-1999
• American Payroll Association: Speaker at National Congress
• Member, Society Human Resource Manager: Speaker/Member
• The Payroll Group: Member
• HR-Star: Speaker
• Past Northern California Human Resources Association – NCHRA: Board of Directors, Tri-Valley Chapter
• Past Board Director, Independent Payroll Providers Association – IPPA
• Married with wife and two kids

Michelle Kim is a fierce immigrant queer woman of color entrepreneur challenging the status quo in tech.

Michelle is the co-founder and CEO of Awaken (www.visionawaken.com), a leading provider of modern, experiential diversity and inclusion workshops that go beyond just “checking the box.” Awaken creates compassionate and inspiring learning experiences to empower leaders and teams to lead fearlessly and inclusively in today’s dynamic workplace.

Prior to Awaken, Michelle had a successful career in both tech and management consulting, working with C-/VP-level executives to build high performing organizations around the world.

Michelle has been a lifelong social justice activist and has served on a variety of organizations such as the LGBTQ Speakers Bureau, SF Human Rights Commission's Advisory Committee, and LYRIC nonprofit’s Board of Directors.

Michelle graduated from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business with a passion for social entrepreneurship. Michelle is a passionate keynote speaker and writer -- she was named “Top Writer in Diversity” by Medium for her thought leadership and is a contributor to Quartz at Work.

Joseph (“Joe”) Beachboard is a nationally recognized employment lawyer who also closely tracks the most important developments at the U.S. Supreme Court impacting the business community. He has more than 30 years of experience representing management in a wide variety of employment and labor matters in perhaps the most challenging state in the nation for employers – California.  Mr. Beachboard speaks regularly before human resource and employer groups on cutting edge employment law topics.  He is a member of SHRM and has been an annual presenter at both the SHRM Annual Conference and the Employment Law and Compliance Conference for two decades.  Mr. Beachboard is frequently quoted in such leading publications as HR Magazine, National Law Journal, Los Angeles Times, NY Times, HR Executive and Workforce, and has been published in dozens of legal and business journals. Throughout his career in Los Angeles, Mr. Beachboard has represented dozens of studios and entertainment properties.  He cites his most interesting project as working with the cast and crew of the television show The Office, from its pilot through the final season.

Jenny is a global executive taming complexity for distributed global technology firms. She’s been a Chief People Officer, Chief Talent Officer and Chief Learning Officer at companies like SuccessFactors, SAP, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems/Oracle, Klaviyo and Sum Total Systems.  An international thought leader in HCM, she is acknowledged as one of the 50 most Powerful Women in Tech. She is also the author of two best-selling business books, “Data Driven: How Performance Analytics Delivers Extraordinary Sales Results,” and “The Data-Driven Leader: A Powerful Approach to Delivering Measurable Business Impact Thought People Analytics.”  She’s an advisor to Education and HR technology firms and sits on the Board of Directors of talent assessment firm Plum and compensation management firm Beqom.

Melissa Adams is Executive Vice President of Human Resources of Duarte, Inc., responsible for the company’s culture and talent strategies to enable all our people to thrive. As a leader in HR for over two decades, Melissa brings a wealth of best practices for creating engaged, diverse, and inclusive work environments where people and business results excel. Through her experience in a range of industries, across businesses of all sizes in the U.S. and Europe, Melissa has developed proven strategies for cultivating employees and strengthening culture to support and sustain business growth. She’s particularly passionate about creating innovative training experiences that build empathy and inclusion, underpinned by her deep expertise in psychometric and relationship awareness tools. As a result of Melissa’s leadership, Duarte’s employee engagement measures have skyrocketed, with scores well above benchmarks for similar companies. She has received several accolades for her work, including National Employer of the Year and Outstanding Contribution award. In addition to multiple coaching and psychometric accreditations, Melissa has an International Human Resources Management Degree with honors from Southampton Solent University, UK.

As the Vice President and Global Head of Human Resources at MS International, Inc. (MSI), Chris leads the HR function for the premier flooring, countertop, and hard surfaces supplier in North America. With over 15 years of experience in HR and business management, Chris has a proven track record of delivering innovative solutions that impact his organization’s people and bottom line. Before his career in HR, he was a business leader responsible for managing sales, supply chain, and warehouse operations for one of the largest private employers in the US. He is a certified Diversity and Inclusion professional, a member of Forbes Magazine’s Human Resources Council, a member of Newsweek Magazine’s Americans Greatest Workplaces Council, and has won the Distinguished HR Leaders award for the last 3 years. In his current role, he partners with the executive team and the operational and sales management teams to align HR strategies with business goals. He oversees all HR activities across 50+ locations in the US, Canada, and India, including employee relations, organizational development, diversity and inclusion, performance management, training, benefits, compensation, rewards, wellness, workers compensation, injury prevention, and compliance. He also leads MSI’s HR modernization efforts, leveraging automation, big data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning techniques to enhance people practices. 

Mr. Bedi joined Visa in 2014 in Asia Pacific leading its regional client engagement strategy. Recently, he led all sales learning and leadership development for Visa in North America. He is currently focused on helping organizations develop a coaching culture. Mr. Bedi has shared his thought leadership and expertise in this area at leading HR conferences, including the Conference Board (https://www.conference-board.org/events/engagementsummit)

Prior to Visa, Arun was with PayPal  in Sales Enablement.  Previously, he was with  Dell Computers where he helped to develop an integrated go-to-market strategy for emerging markets.   Before Dell, he was with Cisco Systems,  in the client-facing strategic consulting practice.

In his early career, Mr. Bedi ran a successful US fintech startup to provide credit scoring for under-represented minorities.    Mr. Bedi has also held assignments globally with Chase Manhattan Bank and Citibank.  He started his career as a management consultant with Booz Allen & Hamilton, in the Financial Services practice.  Mr. Bedi graduated from Cornell University with a BA, BSc, and an MBA. While at Visa, he pursued his Masters in HR at Cornell (awarded July 2023) with an emphasis on coaching and internal talent marketplaces.