In-person Pass

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.

Mike Horn helps executives, aspiring leaders, and their teams avoid, minimize, or reduce poor outcomes related to people and culture actions and decisions. He coaches clients on how to close the gap between probable (the best they can do) and possible (what they are capable of doing).

⭐️ Coached an IT Security executive into success following being made redundant following organizational restructure
⭐️ Led an Engineering VP and his team through a significant organizational redesign to increase managerial opportunity and career development for software, hardware, and mechanical engineers
⭐️ Worked with a founder and CEO to re-imagine his career and leadership impact
⭐️ Developed a newly formed global HR team in the midst of an organizational contraction
⭐️ Coached a Biotech VP to seek new career success following failure at their current company
⭐️ Assisted a biopharma technical leader to advance their career for promotion

An expert in human and organization development who works with leaders with technical backgrounds (scientists, technologists, engineers, financiers), helping them excel at what they do while developing leadership skills - including the ability to influence others authentically.

Mike Letizia is an accomplished, certified, senior human resource executive with over 35 years’ experience in the full scope of all HR functional areas. His last 23 years holding Director, Vice President, and President roles in HR. Mike is a subject matter expert in California employment law and is the author and developer of, “California Employment Law Essentials for Business” and has collaborated with SHRM in the development of education courses focused on California employment law.

Through his company, Mike provides full scope human resource services to over 30 small to medium sized business in California with a strong focus on training and development. He is a contracted instructor for SHRM delivering both virtual and face-to-face human resource education courses throughout the USA and California. He is also a frequent speaker at business and trade associations delivering presentations, workshops and courses on a variety of human resource topics.

Femily is a gender inclusion consultant who advises tech startups on promoting allyship cultures, advancing women of diverse ethnicities and orientations, and reducing all manner of workplace bias.

With extensive DEI industry experience and a management consulting background, Femily helps companies implement common sense, evidence-based changes that make workplaces welcoming, safe, and inspiring for everyone.

Specifically, Femily helps companies by designing customized high-level diversity, equity, and inclusion roadmaps and provides non-judgmental advisory sessions throughout their implementation processes.

WHAT I DO
I co-pilot Gravity Learning as we design, deliver, and oversee fantastic (ahem!) in-person and remote learning programs for mid and large organizations. We specialize in soft "people" skills, management, systems, software process, product, and compliance.

POINT OF VIEW
My belief is that all learning should be based in science, not trends or common knowledge. But, that's not enough. It must also be engaging, skill-focused, and measured to the point of "proof". Learning without measurement is just a wish.

And... fun. Let's have fun while we're here on this Earth.

WHO I AM
I've been a bit of an obsessive generalist my whole life. An insatiable desire to learn, grow, and share learning with others has come in handy in the learning industry. I nerd out on learning and how humans work, project management, time management, emotional management, classroom management, people management, and... basically all of the managements. If I had to pick a favorite, my main area of interest is the exquisite art of teaching and learning design.

PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT
A Gravity, we solve problems inherent in the way companies traditionally do learning. We do that by focusing on how humans actually learn AND how business decisions are made. We’ve innovated a multi-touch and ROI focused approach to learning that Gravity uses to build and support workshops. I also thought-partner to help supercharge (and sometimes totally revamp) internal learning departments for our clients.

TRIVIA
I ride a Onewheel electric skateboard around the neighborhood like some kind of teenager. I have three wonderful dogs and one of them is named David Lieberman Junior. My Google Fu is strong.