Shawna M. Oliver is AVP and head of global benefits & wellness for Manulife Financial Corp. Oliver prides herself in challenging the status quo and has spent 23 years in the health care and benefits industry doing just that. Over this time, she has worked with key stakeholders spanning the ecosystem–as an underwriter, a consultant, within health technology, in operations, and currently at Manulife overseeing global benefits & wellness. Her breadth of experience uniquely positions her to push for evolution with confidence. Dr. Oliver holds her DBA from Drexel, an MBA from the University of Oregon, a BA from the University of Hartford, and a BS from Purdue.

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider, helping people make their decisions easier and lives better. With global headquarters in Toronto, Canada, the company provides financial advice and insurance, operating as Manulife across Canada, Asia, and Europe, and primarily as John Hancock in the U.S.

Lara is a transformative leader passionate about helping organizations and their people growth and develop while maximizing their impact. Nowadays, she is the Senior Director of Global Talent Strategy at AstraZeneca being responsible for the design and implementation of global talent management practices to enable the company strategy. Across her career, she has hold global roles with an increasing degree of responsibility in Employee Experience Transformation, Talent Management, and Learning and Development across multiple industries. Before joining the private sector, Lara worked in Academia collaborating with the European Commission on Diversity and Inclusion initiatives. Lara holds a BSc on Psychology, a BSc on Employee Relations, a MSc on Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology and a Harvard Certificate on Strategic Management.

Paul Francisco is senior vice president and chief diversity officer for State Street Corp., the Boston-based financial-services company. He leads the company’s strategies in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), as well as workforce development. Prior to joining State Street, he was the co-founder of Foster & Francisco, a diversity consulting and executive-search firm, and held leadership positions in staffing and recruiting at Bank of America and Gillette. A native of Honduras, he attended Boston University on a football scholarship, playing tight end, and majored in political science. After graduation, he signed as a free agent with the Miami Dolphins of the NFL and also played for the New England Patriots and Baltimore Ravens before joining Amica Mutual Insurance Co. as a recruitment manager.

Amina Lobban is Head of Culture, Engagement & HR Business Excellence, Global Manufacturing, Supply & Quality at Takeda. She joined Takeda through Shire, and in her 16 years at the company her career has steadily progressed from Engineering, Business Operations, Integration, and Program Management roles in Process Development and Global Manufacturing, Supply & Quality. She joined HR in 2021, further expanding her experience across the business. Amina began her professional career in her home country of Trinidad & Tobago as a Petroleum Engineer at the Ministry of Energy, where she worked with multinational energy companies operating in the region. Her transitions across industries and functions have brought her increasing experience leading global teams and working with colleagues internationally.

Amina has demonstrated her passion and commitment to gender parity through her volunteer work internally at Takeda as Global Co-Lead of their Gender Parity Network ERG, and externally with the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) and The Boston Club. She has previously held local and regional roles with HBA New England, now Chairs HBA’s Global Ambassador program, overseeing leadership development programs at over 50 corporate partner locations worldwide, and is co-chair of The Boston Club’s Healthcare and Life Sciences Affinity Group. Amina was honored to be named a 2022 HBA Rising Star at Takeda in recognition of her leadership and impact. Amina lives in Bedford, MA with her husband and two young children.

Jacqueline Fearer is the Head of Culture and Engagement Communications at Iron Mountain.

Zeynep Ton is a MIT Professor & Author of "The Case for Good Jobs".

Shahina Islam is the Vice President Human Resources at Zensar.

Jodi is a technology executive with over 20 years of experience leading operational, process and digital transformation for multi-national, complex organizations. Today, Jodi serves as the Head of Technology for C&W Services, a 15k employee, $1.5b real estate services organization.

C&W Services goal is to build clear, attainable career paths and provide opportunities for growth so that our employees develop up through the organization to take on leadership positions.  85% of C&W Services employees are front line workers in the building maintenance and janitorial spaces, therefore much of our work is focused on how to leverage technology to engage and empower these colleagues, who can often feel disenfranchised and left behind. 

Jodi is a sister, wife & mom to three boys.  She is passionate about DE&I and mental health awareness.  She is a proud Ally-in-Training and is determined to help create a safe and healthy world for her transgender niece to thrive.

Adi Ignatius is Editor in Chief of the Harvard Business Review Group, where he oversees the editorial activities of HBR, hbr.org, and HBR’s book-publishing unit. Prior to joining HBR in 2009, Mr. Ignatius was the No. 2 editor at TIME.

He is the editor of two books: President Obama: The Path to the White House and Prisoner of the State: The Secret Diaries of Premier Zhao Ziyang. Both made the New York Times Bestseller List.

Mr. Ignatius lived and worked for nearly 20 years overseas. He was Editor of Time’s Asian edition and earlier served as Beijing Bureau Chief and Moscow Bureau Chief for the Wall Street Journal.

Katie Johnston writes about work and income inequality for the Boston Globe. She also edits the Globe's annual Top Places to Work magazine. Katie has been at the Globe since 2002, where she has also worked as a copy editor, entertainment editor, music editor, and travel/workplace reporter. She previously worked at The Gazette in Colorado Springs and the Itemizer-Observer in Dallas, Ore., and has a bachelor's degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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.

Callum Borchers writes a weekly, reported column for the Wall Street Journal about people’s careers and work lives. Previously, he was a correspondent at public radio station WBUR, where he covered business and politics and often hosted NPR’s national midday show, “Here & Now.” Callum also has been a staff writer at the Washington Post and Boston Globe. He is an adjunct professor of journalism at Northeastern University, where he earned a master’s degree. He and his wife have four children and are foster parents. Before kids devoured his non-work time, Callum once qualified for the U.S. national pararowing team for athletes with physical disabilities.

Jess serves as a partner to the most innovative employers in the world, working to create equitable and accessible opportunities for their employees to find care.

Matthew Confer is the Vice President of Strategy at Abilitie, a Leadership Development company based in Austin, Texas that provides immersive business simulations to a global client base that includes over 50 members of the Fortune 500.

In the past three years alone, Abilitie’s leadership programs have been delivered to over 65,000 corporate professionals in more than 30 countries around the world

Matthew has spoken on the topic of decision making at the TEDx Conference with a talk entitled "Before You Decide." Matthew also hosts the Learn To Lead Podcast where he speaks with authors, professors, creatives, and business leaders about their leadership journey and how they are working to develop the leaders of tomorrow.

Marissa Vargas is VP, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Global Strategy, Planning, Operations and Messaging at Liberty Mutual Insurance, a Fortune 500 company. Marissa and her team are responsible for supporting and developing the DEI enterprise strategy, plans as well as leading DEI messaging and team operations. Through DEI practices and principles, she helps leaders connect more in-depth with their teams so they can achieve their business outcomes. Her dedication to the DEI mission in the workplace stems from her early commitment to promoting business leadership in the Hispanic/Latinx community. 

Paris Alston is co-host of Morning Edition and The Wake Up podcast at GBH News. She previously was a host of the NPR podcast “Consider This,” produced in conjunction with GBH and WBUR.

Paris also served as the host of GBH’s digital series Keep it Social about social media trends targeted at millennial and Gen Z audiences. Prior to that, she broke into the industry as an intern at UNC-TV in North Carolina and NBC10-Philadelphia. She has also told stories from Southeast Asia, Morocco, Panama and Brazil.

A North Carolina native, Paris is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she studied media and journalism and global studies. She is currently pursuing a social impact MBA at Boston University. She is a member of the Boston and National Associations of Black Journalists and has worked extensively with print, digital, video, audio and social media.