Liz Pavese, PhD, is the Director of Behavioral Science, North America at CoachHub where she takes her expertise in organizational psychology, employee experience, and organizational development to close the gap between coaching research and practice. Prior to CoachHub, Liz worked for two employee experience HR tech companies, Limeade and Qualtrics, where she built global advisory teams to deliver on customer employee experience programs and provide expertise in the design of new product features and solutions. During her time as Director of Organizational Development at Healthfirst she supported the organization’s transformation toward integrated talent management through building employee listening strategies, assessing and supporting culture transformation, transforming performance management, delivering 360-degree feedback programs, and designing talent reviews and succession planning.

In her early career, Liz was a Consultant for Towers Watson and Paris Phoenix Group, partnering with world-class organizations across industries, her client work ranged from employee engagement, culture assessment and change, competency design and implementation, career architecture, and conducting custom research to address complex business issues.

Liz earned her Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Seattle Pacific University and is an ICF Certified Professional Coach. Liz is an active member of the Society of Industrial-Organizational Psychology (SIOP), International Coaching Federation, and Portland Women in Tech.

Christine Doucet joined the Ace Foundation team in 2012 to manage and grow all retailer fundraising initiatives related to Ace’s two national charitable partners, Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals and the American Red Cross. Since then she has held various roles in the Foundation and currently serves as the director, overseeing all corporate, vendor and retailer fundraising as well as the Ace Helpful Fund, Ace’s employee emergency assistance fund. In early 2019, Christine also took on Employee Engagement for Ace Hardware and is leading the engagement strategy for the organization as well as the annual engagement survey.

Prior to joining Ace, Christine worked at Elmhurst Memorial Healthcare on both the PR and foundation teams, managing all events for the health system and serving as a media spokesperson.

Christine holds a bachelor of arts degree in journalism from the University of Iowa.

Judith Almendra, Vice President Human Capital and Talent Acquisition at TTEC is an accomplished human capital professional with a proven track record of integrating business and people strategies to drive results. With over 15 years of business and human capital experience, Judith has led teams in the implementation of traditional and innovative strategies in the areas of marketing and communications, public relations, learning and development, talent acquisition, performance management, succession and employee engagement and employee retention.

In her 12 years with TeleTech, Judith has held progressive leadership positions, covering multiple facets of the for Human Capital spectrum as well as leading the development of company’s proprietary human capital tools, programs and solutions. Through her career, she has gained deep expertise in the international business and multicultural markets. And, she has played key roles leading global cultural transformation.
She is originally from Mexico and moved to the US in 2001 to pursue her Masters in Business at the University of Colorado. She is also a board member of the TTEC Community Foundation. The mission of the foundation is to provide better education opportunities to children in underserved communities, which is something Judith is very passionate about.

Lara McLeod is a Global Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Business Leader, with 10+ years of experience helping corporations in tech and non-profit industries empower diverse teams to successfully create socially inclusive workplaces, products, and solutions that drive better business outcomes. 

A storyteller by trade, Lara started her DEI career as a lobbyist and advocate, using her personal story to pass groundbreaking federal legislation protecting sexual assault survivors’ civil rights. Since then, Lara has continued to leverage the magic of empathic storytelling to amplify underrepresented voices, foster meaningful connections, drive employee development and engagement, break barriers, and inspire corporate social action.

Lara has had the pleasure of leading DEI at several major tech companies, including Microsoft and Zillow, and Lara currently leads Inclusion, Equity & Belonging strategy and programming for Robinhood. Her strategic approach uses organizational development and human-centered design principles to ground DEI in a sense of purpose that manifests in a company’s mission and business goals. 

Believing successful DEI work must be tied to more than a moral obligation, Lara is particularly passionate about coaching leaders and employees through their DEI “aha” and “ouch” moments to ultimately recognize that DEI is more than a series of underrepresented employee programs – it’s an operational lens that, when applied consistently across all business systems, behaviors, and decisions, will achieve the best business results.

A District of Columbia native, Lara has always cared deeply about social justice, social impact, and equity efforts. That innate passion fuels her to create innovative approaches to solving DEI business challenges. 

Emma Hinchliffe is an associate editor for Fortune, where she covers women in business and gender issues across business, politics, and culture. Emma is a coauthor of the Broadsheet daily newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women and cochair of the Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership. Before joining Fortune, she worked as a reporter for Mashable and the Houston Chronicle. She is a graduate of Georgetown University.