Concurrent Session

Dr. Edward E. Hubbard, President and CEO of Hubbard & Hubbard, Inc., an International Business Performance Consulting Corp. specializing in Business Improvement, Diversity Return on Investment (DROI®) Measurement/Analytics, and organizational development.  Author of more than 59 DEI ROI and Business-related books, Dr. Hubbard is an expert in Organizational Analysis, ROI Measurement, Strategic Planning, and more. Dr. Hubbard was an honoree at the Inaugural International Society of Diversity and Inclusion Professionals Living Legends of Diversity Award Ceremony in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico where he received the “Living Legends of Diversity Award” for creating the “Diversity ROI Analytics” and “Diversity Measurement Fields and their associated Disciplines” and is recognized globally as the creator of these unique sciences and fields of study. 

Dr. Hubbard received the “Excellence in Global Leadership Award” from the World HRD Congress (the highest individual professional award given), the 2017 Distinguished Alumni Award from The Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences, the Sentry Award from the U.S. Pentagon, and many others.

Dr. Hubbard serves on the Harvard Business Review, Diversity Executive Magazine and Strategic Diversity & Inclusion Management (SDIM) magazine Editorial Advisory Boards and serves on the Board of Directors for The Ohio State University African American Alumni Society. He also holds a Practitioner Certification and Master Practitioner Certification in Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), a Neuroscience discipline. Dr. Hubbard earned Bachelors, Masters Degrees from The Ohio State University and earned a Ph.D. with Honors in Business Administration.

Guru Sethupathy is a senior executive and Entrepreneur in Residence at Capital One. He is currently working on building innovations in the talent technology space while also advising the President of Capital One Credit Cards on topics around talent, innovation, and the Future of Work. 

After 4.5 years, he recently stepped down after building and leading People Strategy & Analytics (PS&A) at Capital One. He built the PS&A function to a diverse team of ~100 associates that develops innovative products and insights and is highly influential in shaping talent strategy and transforming talent systems at Capital One. 

Previous to Capital One, he spent time as an assistant professor of economics and as a strategy consultant. He has a BS in Computer Science and a PhD in Economics.  He lives in Washington DC with his wife and two daughters, aged 6 and 3.

Bob Cahill has 20 years of C-level experience and has a proven track record of executing global strategies. Prior to Globalization Partners, Bob served as CFO, COO, and CEO at several companies such as Smarterkids.com, Cambridge Interactive Development Corp/Everest Poker, Warcloud Inc., KaBloom Inc., and Fetch Storage LLC.

Bob brings extensive knowledge in all aspects of business management including equity & debt financing, international operations, strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, human resources, systems, legal and regulatory. Bob is a results-driven financial expert who has substantial experience scaling rapidly growing companies and has directed numerous successful exits, including two IPO’s.

Adam Weber is Chief Evangelist at 15Five, host of the popular HR Superstars Podcast and best-selling author of “Lead Like a Human.” Adam is the creator of the HR Superstars Community, a vibrant community of over 8K strategic HR leaders and is a leading voice in the strategic HR movement, being named a LinkedIn “Top Voice in HR”.

Previously Adam co-founded and sold two tech companies, Emplify (acquired in 2021) and Bluebridge (acquired in 2016).

He holds a master’s degree in organizational communication from Ball State University and lives in Zionsville, IN with his wife, two sons, and dog Poppy.

Dr. Benjamin Granger is Chief Workplace Psychologist and Head of EX Advisory Services at Qualtrics. He has over a decade of experience building Experience Management (XM) programs across the globe and leads EX thought leadership and research initiatives across Qualtrics and the XM Institute. His research has been featured in academic and practitioner forums, including Forbes, the Journal of Business and Psychology, the International Journal of Training & Development, the Academy of Management, and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Ben is a certified XM Professional and earned his Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology from the University of South Florida.

Joanna spearheads the company’s Affordable Care Act and Pay Equity auditing practices. She speaks about ACA Compliance and Pay Equity at conferences and provides her expert insight as a regular contributor to written publications such as Employee Benefit Adviser, Accounting Today, and The ACA Times. She has also authored books published through the American Bar Association.

Joanna, formerly a partner with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld LLP, has over 20 years of experience advising clients on a wide range of employment, tax, intellectual property, and other related business issues.

Joanna holds a B.Sc. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and a J.D. from Loyola Law School (with honors). She is a former President of the Korean American Bar Association; Rising Star, Super Lawyers; and has held positions with various subcommittees of the American Bar Association and Federal Courts Coordinating Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association.

Laura Morgan is a senior human resources leader and compensation expert with proven ability to develop and implement new strategies and change initiatives, creating competitive advantage and support for the culture and mission of the company. For over 30 years, Laura has successfully established and implemented initiatives that improve organizational effectiveness for various clients. She has led HR initiatives that comprise the full project cycle, design to implementation. Laura is currently the Founder and Managing Partner of Morgan HR.

Tess Bredesen is Thrive's Cognitive Nutrition Director and an expert on the prevention of cognitive decline. She is the founder of Sia Health, a practice which specializes in the implementation of the Bredesen Protocol, the first program proven to prevent and reverse cognitive decline. She works with clients internationally through one-on-one online consultations, developing and coaching to adopt programs customized to an individual's risk factors.

Stacey has 20 years of public relations, ​internal communications, ​brand reputation, crisis communications, culture development and corporate social responsibility experience. She’s adept at strategy and creation of key messaging to all stakeholders, from the boardroom to the break room.

She’s held CorpComm leadership positions managing all social and traditional media for Brinker International (parent company of Chili’s Grill & Bar and Maggiano’s Little Italy), FedEx Office and At Home. She built internal and external communications strategies and led a culture shift for At Home’s $20 million, nationwide rebrand. Additionally, she served on the core team and led communication for the company’s 2016 IPO. As an SVP at a NYC-based PR agency, she was deeply involved in supporting Peloton’s September 2019 IPO. In 2020, she joined the Peloton organization as an employee.

Alexander Alonso, PhD, SHRM-SCP is the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM's) Chief Data & Insights Officer leading operations for SHRM's Certified Professional and Senior Certified Professional certifications, research functions, and the SHRM Knowledge Advisor service. He is responsible for all research activities, including the development of the SHRM Competency Model and SHRM credentials.

During his career, he has worked with numerous subject matter experts worldwide with the aim of identifying performance standards, developing competency models, designing organizational assessments, and conducting job analyses. He was also responsible for working on contract task orders involving the development of measurement tools for content areas such as job knowledge (like teacher knowledge of instructional processes) and organizational climates (like organizational climate forecasting in military health care).

Dr. Alonso received his doctorate in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Florida International University in 2003. His works have been recognized for their contribution to real-world issues. They include being recognized by the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology (Division 14 of the APA; SIOP) with the 2007 M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace for the development of the federal standard for medical team training, TeamSTEPPS; being awarded a 2009 Presidential Citation for Innovative Practice by the American Psychological Association for supporting the development of competency model for team triage in emergency medicine; and receiving the 2013 SIOP Distinguished Early Career Contributions for Practice Award.

Throughout his career, he has published works in peer-reviewed journals such as Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, Journal of Applied Psychology, International Journal of Selection and Assessment, People and Strategy, Personality and Individual Differences, Quality and Safety in Health Care, and Human Resources Management Review. He has also authored several chapters on community-based change initiatives in workforce readiness, as well as co-authoring Defining HR Success: A Guide to the SHRM Competency Model in Practice.

Dr. Alonso also served as a columnist analyzing major trends in the workforce for The Industrial Psychologist and HR Magazine. In addition, he has served on several professional society boards including the SIOP and the Personnel Testing Council of Metropolitan Washington.