Inclusion & Diversity

An accomplished HR practitioner, Laurie has industry experience in non-profit, health care, consumer packaged goods, and banking. As a senior leader of SHRM’s HR team, she focuses on strategic initiatives to drive innovation to positively impact the employee experience and allow staff to maximize their potential through a culture of learning. She received her Masters’ degree in HRM from Capella University, is a Certified Strengths Coach and holds both SHRM-SCP and CAE designations.

Alex Murzaku leads the Genius Institute’s Research and Development team at Gap International. His ideas have been implemented in various consulting practices and digital products as well as data analysis and the adaptation towards a world expanded by artificial intelligence. 

After his doctorate at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy, Alex worked in leadership positions at several startups—in the areas of information retrieval, machine translation, and knowledge discovery. Following a decade in industry, he returned to academia as a university professor of both Linguistics and Data Science.

Since joining Gap International in 2014, Alex’s research has focused on the role of language in mindset transformation and in the creation of mental tools that allow performance to reach breakthrough, genius levels.

Kristen Howe is the Vice President Enterprise Products for SHRM Enterprise Solutions, where she oversees Product Management and Product Development. She has over 20 years of experience building and leading businesses in the leadership and development space, with a focus on leadership development, sales, coaching and facilitation.

Kristen is passionate about building products that foster inclusive behavior, positive corporate performance and business outcomes. She strives to create products that help global organizations develop key segments of their business, in both live settings and through digital platforms. She empowers teams by developing smart and efficient processes designed to utilize the individual skills of every team member, all while optimizing overall performance.

Kristen is a highly sought-after leadership consultant and speaker, with a deep expertise in Advancing Women Leaders and Inclusive Leadership. She has delivered programs and keynotes to thousands of leaders globally at organizations such as the Chief HR Officer Exchange, The Chief Learning Officer Exchange, Constellation Brands, The Tata Group, Western Union, and Texas Instruments, among others. She is also an emcee at Linkage’s Women in Leadership Institute™, an immersive experience which attracts more than 1,400 women leaders across the globe each year.

Background & Experience:

Prior to joining Linkage, Kristen spent the last decade growing businesses within Corporate Executive Board (CEB), now Gartner. During her time there, she led multiple teams across the Talent Solutions business, focusing on conceptualizing, building, selling and delivering talent solutions based on CEB data. She also ran CEB’s Leadership Academies business, which developed more than 30,000 professionals at 2,100 companies throughout 50 countries; Kristen was consistently recognized as one of the top managers and coaches across the entire firm.

Education & Training:

Kristen previously served in a variety of roles including global facilitator, consultant and engineer. She has a Master of Business Administration from the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, and an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from North Carolina State University.

Kent is as passionate about compensation and pay equity as he was in 1999 when he co-founded Salary.com with a goal of reinventing how employers and employees access compensation data. Kent has always believed pay equity is a two-sided coin and designed the business to support that belief. The company’s groundbreaking Salary Wizard was the first tool employees could access to understand their worth, effectively lifting the veil on salary information for millions of employees annually. On the B2B side, Salary.com has become the preeminent provider of compensation market data, software, and analytics, serving over 30,000 survey participant organizations, 8,000 business-to-business software subscribers, and 45+ million employees globally. 

Kent holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and A.B. in Economics and Government from Georgetown University. He is a three-time Inc. 500 CEO, a six-time Deloitte Fast 50 awardee and recipient of the 2007 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of Year Award for business services. Kent is accredited by WorldatWork as a Certified Compensation Professional (CCP®) 

Elizabeth is currently the Manager, Foundation Programs overseeing SHRM Foundation’s strategic priority of Building Inclusive Workplaces. In that capacity, she oversees the Foundation’s initiatives around leveraging untapped talent including Veterans At Work, Employing Abilities and Getting Talent Back to Work. She joins the Foundation with extensive experience across the corporate, nonprofit, and government sectors. She most recently served as the Deputy Executive Director for PFLAG National working to advance equality and anti-discrimination efforts. In that role, she also partnered with corporate diversity and HR professionals on partnerships to impact the workplace culture for the LGBTQ community. She lives in Alexandria with her spouse, two sons, and an oversized rescue dog.

Allison Chamberlayne is the Director of Operations for Hiring Our Heroes, an initiative of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation connecting transitioning service members, veteran, military spouses, and caregivers with American businesses to create economic opportunity and a strong and diversified workforce. In her role, Allison focuses on day-to-day program operations, staff development, process improvement, and strengthening partnerships.

Allison is a military spouse who served alongside her husband, a retired Army Engineer, for over 25 years. She joined Hiring Our Heroes in January of 2018, as a part of the Corporate Fellowship Program. Over the past four and a half years, Allison has held several roles to include Operations Manager, Program Manager of Corporate Fellowship program in the National Capital Region and Deputy Director of the Military Spouse Fellowship Program.

Before her career at Hiring Our Heroes, Allison faced the same employment challenges as those she currently serves. She has held full time, part time and temporary positions in multiple fields to include Accounting, Logistics, Marketing, Finance and Education. This has made her a passionate advocate for military spouses in their pursuit of meaningful employment opportunities.

Allison has a bachelor’s degree in Urban Affairs from Virginia Tech and being a diehard Hokie consumes much of her and her family’s free time. She resides in McLean, VA with her husband, Ed (VT ’93, ‘02, ‘11 ) and son Eddie (VT ’24). Her daughter, Emma (UVA ’20) lives nearby and tolerates the VT fanaticism.

Ashley T. Brundage is the President and CEO of Empowering Differences. While seeking employment at PNC Bank in the United States, she identified openly during the interview process as a woman of transgender experiance and subsequently was hired after facing years of harassment, discrimination, and homelessness. These factors led her to start her second career as a means of survival while doing research on empowerment & differences. She took a role in the bank as a part time teller and then rose to national Vice President of Diversity & Inclusion in less than 5 years. She captured her research as a 4-Step process of empowerment to cultivate change in her new book and online leadership course. Ashley credits her success to those closest to her for providing actionable allyship including her 2 teenage sons, Bryce and Blake. She also volunteers her time serving numerous nonprofit organizations including serving as the vice chair for the national board of directors for GLAAD who works to accelerate acceptance across all forms of media for the LGBTQ+ community.

Eric Cutler is one of the original founders of TOOTRiS, the first and only Child Care technology platform built for business, that is revolutionizing the Child Care space. Eric helped launch the company so that all parents – especially women – have the same opportunities for career advancement and so that every child, regardless of family income or zip code, has access to quality Child Care. A Columbia Business School graduate and frequent speaker to national organizations, Eric passionately believes that solving the Child Care crisis is the key to enabling every human to live more meaningful, abundant, and equitable lives.

BRENDA MCCHRISTON, MA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP                                                                               

Brenda is CEO and Principal of Spectrum HR Solutions, a certified woman-owned minority human resource advisory practice in strategic HR management, diversity, leadership training, compliance, employee relations and compensation. Her vision for the company began in 2004. Since then, Spectrum has helped more than 175 companies and organizations nationwide save money, improve employee productivity, and achieve organization growth.

In the community, Brenda has a passion for mentoring the next generation to be successful in their life’s work. She has been an Advisory Council Member to the Passport-to-the Future Program at Howard County Public Schools; providing guidance on curriculum-based tools to meet labor force needs. Each year, this program grows larger with employer participation with the help of organizations such as the Howard County HR Society, an organization to which Brenda was a past president. In 2019, Brenda chaired the Howard County Human Resource Society’s Diversity Inclusion Committee and organized the County’s first ever Leader’s Symposium on Diversity Inclusion bringing top notch speakers and attracting C-suite attendees. The results of which inspired several organizations to develop and/or create diversity programs for their organizations. She was recently appointed by the County Executive to the County’s first Police Accountability Board - a federal initiative.

Continuing her work as advocate for youth and women’s issues, she was re-appointed to a second four-year term by the Governor to the Maryland Commission for women. As Commissioner, she is working to protect and promote women’s issues in education, safety, childcare, workforce development and health. Previously, she served on Howard County’s Personnel Board and the Mid-Maryland Workforce Investment Board (WIB). She has served as College Relations Director for the SHRM Maryland State Council and served as a board member to the Better Business Bureau of Maryland.     

Additionally, her leadership commitments continue graduating from Leadership Maryland, Class of 2015 and Leadership Howard County, Class of 2006. She is an alum of the Goldman Sachs 10K Small Businesses Program.

In 2013 and 2023, Brenda was twice selected as one of Maryland Daily Record’s Top 100 Women. In 2018, for her volunteer contributions she received the regional CEO Leadership award. In 2017, Brenda received the prestigious international award as Enterprising Women of the Year, recognizing her community contributions. In 2014, Spectrum HR Solutions was noted as one of Baltimore’s 100 Smart Run Companies – Innovative Leaders. Again, Spectrum HR Solutions received the distinguished honor twice as one of the region’s Top 100 MBE’s. In 2011, her company was recognized as one of SmartCEO’s Future 50 – Emerging Growth Companies and Brava! Women in Business Achievement Award.

As the top Human Resources executive, Brenda has frequently served as an advisor, consultant, and coach to CEOs, on organization development, culture inclusion and HR globalization. For 7 years she was Adjunct Professor at McDaniel College, in the Post-graduate Program in Human Resources Development. Completing her business undergraduate degree at Michigan State University, Ms. McChriston holds a master’s degree in business management/human resources from Central Michigan University and holds prestigious SPHR and SHRM-SCP certifications in human resources.

Teresa Lawrence, PhD, PMP, CSM, is recognized internationally as the SME on the integration of Creative Problem Solving into Project Management. Since 2017, 85K+ people have participated in one of her in-person or virtual trainings, workshops, keynotes or facilitated sessions. Services include cognitive diversity training, executive leadership searches, coaching, team development, transformational goal setting, and developing a project management mindset. Teresa serves as Senior Advisor to the Vice Provost for Research and Graduate Studies at the University of the Virgin Islands. International Deliverables, LLC is a NYS Women Business Enterprise (WBE).