Anna is CEO and Founder of Ceresa.  Ceresa’s mission is to build diverse leadership for the future, by democratizing access to truly transformative career and leadership resources. She dedicates her time to shaping the company’s vision and strategy, driving consistent high-quality programming, building a world-class team and culture, and shaping a sustainable social impact business model.

Prior to launching Ceresa, Anna was a Partner at McKinsey & Company, where she served healthcare systems globally, as well as leading leadership development and diversity initiatives. She also served as COO at an early-stage tech company prior to launching Ceresa. She holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, MPhil, and BA from the University of Oxford. Anna lives in the Colorado mountains with her two dogs, three kiddos and one husband (who typically manage to get her attention in that order).

Melissa is a passionate people leader, leveraging her superpower of creating synergy to cultivate inspirational, inclusive environments where high-performing teams thrive.

Committed to unlocking the boundless potential of others, Melissa has several coaching designations; she is an ICF Associate Certified Coach (ACC) Certified Executive Leadership Coach (CELC), Executive Emotional Intelligence Coach (CEIC), Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach, and Hogan-Certified Coach.  She also acts as an advisory council member to enhance and promote learning and mentoring for the George Washington Women in Leadership Program.

Since joining Zurich North America  in 2011, Melissa has held various roles.  Her dedication to creating collaborative, inclusive cultures and developing others led her to her current role as VP, Head of Leadership Development.  Over her career she has developed high performing teams and partnered with leaders, providing coaching, consulting and perspective, to deepen their leadership skills and management practices.

Lydia Dishman is Fast Company’s senior editor for growth and engagement. She has also written for CBS Moneywatch, Fortune, The Guardian, Popular Science, and the New York Times, among others.

Steve has spent the last ten years of his career building technology that helps people to learn, grow, and connect. Before starting Campfire, he spent 5 years at Instructure building a talent management platform focused on career development and human performance. He worked with product, marketing, sales, and strategy teams to grow the business from the ground up to $27 million in annual revenue. While with Instructure, he worked with teams at Disney, Tesla, Lululemon, Johnson and Johnson, and other global brands to strengthen their talent management practices.

Now, Steve is focused primarily on finding ways for people to learn and grow through connected learning experiences called Campfires. The business has strong investment and is responsible for training hundreds of managers in the key skills needed to effectively lead teams. Steve’s experience in technology, content, facilitation, and talent management provide a rich mix of skills for solving these challenges.

Campfire was founded in 2020 at the very beginning of the pandemic and has benefitted from the changes and shifts that allow for us to consider new ways of connecting and working with each other. Steve has three co-founders - Todd, Taylor, and Marinne - who are all passionate about the mission of providing universal access to connected learning experiences.

Rapti Khurana is the Vice President - Head of Talent Engagement and Development at the National Football League.

Kristy has 15 years of experience as a Strategic Human Resource Leader, Change Manager and Organizational Development Expert. She has served in senior leadership positions throughout her career – most notably with Pearson Education and Constant Contact. Kristy brings a big picture perspective and a hands-on, tactical approach to her leadership that she is now bringing to life with SkillCycle (where she is the CEO & Co- Founder). Kristy’s goal is to help and educate companies to meet their ultimate goals by empowering their employees to take ownership of their career.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance reporter and From Day One contributing editor based in Richmond, Va., who writes about workplace culture and policies, hiring, DEI, and issues faced by women. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Fast Company, and Food Technology, among others, and has been syndicated by MSN and The Motley Fool.

Janelle is a business reporter at the Boston Globe, covering retail, restaurants, and consumer culture. She is also the host of the Bold Types interview series with the city's business leaders. She thrives on diving deep into the ideas, people, and trends that drive Boston’s economy. She has previously worked at Boston Magazine, National Geographic Traveler, and New York Magazine, and she currently teaches a class in magazine writing at Boston College. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. She was a Senior Fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism.

As Co-founder and Chief Experience Officer of Ceresa, Nicole Tanzillo is dedicated to changing the landscape of leadership, using technology and neuroscience to democratize access to transformative leadership development for all, and particularly for traditionally underrepresented leadership communities. She is responsible for driving all aspects of the Ceresa experience, inclusive of Product, Design, Engineering, Operations, and Brand, building both a deeply human and data-driven solution for supporting early career talent.

Prior to joining Ceresa in 2018, Nicole was the Vice President of Strategic Operations at Spiceworks where she drove both long-term strategic planning and objective-aligned business operations across the company. During her eight-year tenure, she held multiple roles across marketing, operations, and product, pioneering the product management function.

Previous to her work at Spiceworks, she held multiple leadership roles at Surgient and NI (National Instruments) that included more than 2.5 years of working and living abroad in the UK, Europe, and Asia.

Over the course of her professional journey, the common theme is one of service and connection, leading Nicole to become a sought-after speaker and mentor, delivering engaging workshops and keynotes around the world.

A product technologist from the start, Tanzillo earned a BS in Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University where she was a President’s Endowed Scholar.

Adam Bouse is a Performance Coach at 15Five, leveraging data and dialogue to help managers and leaders identify critical opportunities and challenges in their organizations. He holds an MA in organizational leadership and is a certified Brain-based Coach through the NeuroLeadership Institute. Adam works with global businesses and local organizations across every industry, coaching at every level of organizations, from the C-suite to frontline managers. In his coaching practice, he specializes in emotional intelligence, resonant leadership, difficult conversations, manager development, and empathy. Adam’s goal is to help people unlock their own potential and overcome obstacles to achieve high performance and powerful engagement.

Alicia Cafarelli is the VP, Client Experience at Blueboard. She has been in the client success space for about 13 years, and is an advocate for transparency and authenticity in her workplace and on her team. She is passionate about creating a team culture of curiosity, empathy and recognition. She has spoken at Girls in Tech events and many Blueboard webinars around the topics of creating a culture of appreciation and the importance of employee recognition, wellbeing, and fulfillment.

Outside of work Alicia loves volunteering and contributing to the San Diego community. She currently sits on the board of directors for the Think Red Project, a local San Diego charity. She also enjoys listening to the San Diego Symphony and attending any Broadway show available.

Peter Sursi is the senior executive, recruiting & hiring at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), where he oversees recruiting, staffing, employment marketing, and workforce strategy efforts for all FBI offices around the country.

Erica has over fifteen years of leadership experience in global organizational effectiveness including leadership development, human resources, diversity & inclusion, and communications. She is Vice President of Enterprise Learning and Talent Development at City of Hope, Founder and CEO of E L Reynolds & Associates, LLC which specializes in addressing the factors of human behavior that affect performance and productivity and a Graduate Professor of Ethics and Diversity in Organizations. Erica has a passion for advancing organizations and people beyond their current limitations to achieve greater results. She has provided her expertise to a variety of organizations ranging from investment banking, healthcare, medical device, government, and retail.

Erica holds a BA in Communications Studies, a MA in Industrial-Organizational Psychology and is currently a PhD candidate for a doctoral degree in Organizational Psychology. Erica is a member of Forbes Coaches Council, where she contributes as an expert panelist, and has coached thousands of leaders in various roles, industries, and phases of life. She also holds a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) designation and mediator credential.

In her spare time, Erica enjoys spending time with her family and is very active in giving back to her community.

Carly Ackerman is a Director of Customer Experience for VIP & Partnership Accounts at Eightfold AI. Working closely with pioneering leaders, she has contributed to broad organizational and workforce transformations designed to meet the evolving demands of a disrupted global economy.

Carly is a frequent speaker and thought leader on talent trends, workforce transformation, upskilling, and the employee experience.

Katrina Howchin-Tucker is the Global Head People & Performance for WHQ at Kraft Heinz.

Orazio Mancarella is the Vice President, Project Manager Manager - HR Operations at PNC.

Carmen Canales is Senior Vice President, Chief People & Belonging Officer at Novant Health, where she drives the people strategy for more than 37,000 team members by fostering an inclusive culture, maximizing talent, and building a resilient workforce. Canales has diverse industry experience, including leadership roles in the healthcare, higher education, consumer goods, banking, and professional services industries. She is an engaging speaker and storyteller who connects with audiences on topics related to talent and culture and is often recognized for her remarkable contributions to the HR profession. Recently, she was named CHRO of the Year, Non-Profit by HRO Today.

Jennifer Kartono is the Senior Vice President, Human Resources at Iron Mountain.

Amanda Ripley is a New York Times bestselling author, an investigative journalist and host of the Slate podcast How To! She’s spent her career trying to make sense of complicated human mysteries, from how people get out of dysfunctional conflicts to how countries educate virtually all their kids to think for themselves. Amanda’s most recent book is High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out, published by Simon & Schuster in 2021. Her previous books include The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes—and Why, which was published in 15 countries and turned into a PBS documentary, and The Smartest Kids in the World—and How They Got That Way, a New York Times bestseller which was also turned into a documentary film.

In her books and magazine writing, Amanda combines storytelling with data to help illuminate hard problems—and solutions. She follows people who have been through some kind of a transformation—including the survivors of hurricanes and plane crashes, American teenagers who have experienced high school in other countries and politicians and gang members who were bewitched by toxic conflicts and managed to break free.

For the Atlantic Magazine and other outlets, she has written feature stories on how journalists could do a better job covering controversy in an age of outrage, on the least politically prejudiced town in America and on the strange history of state laws that punish teenagers for acting like teenagers. Her work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Slate, Politico, the Guardian, the Harvard Business Review and the Times of London. Her stories helped Time win two National Magazine Awards.

To discuss her writing, Amanda has appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX News and NPR. She has spoken at the Pentagon, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, as well as conferences on leadership, conflict resolution and education.

Amanda started her journalism career covering courts and crime for Washington City Paper, where she had the great fortune to work for an editor named David Carr, who made his writers think anything was possible. She then spent 10 years working for Time Magazine in New York, Washington and Paris. Currently, Amanda lives in Washington, D.C., with her family.