Santiago Jaramillo

A nationally recognized expert and keynote speaker on employee engagement, organizational culture and entrepreneurship, Santi Jaramillo is the co-author of Agile Engagement, an Amazon best-selling book that provides employers with a framework for measuring employee engagement and achieving unprecedented business value through maximizing the workforce’s potential.

As the Co-Founder and former CEO of Emplify, now part of 15Five, Santi led a team of experts for many years in supporting leading organizations in their mission to attract, engage and retain the best talent. In 2013, Santiago was named to Inc. magazine’s 30 Under 30 list, and he has also been invited to the White House by the Obama administration for recognition of his entrepreneurial contributions through the Champions of Change program. Most recently, he was named to Indianapolis Business Journal’s “Forty Under 40” list in 2015 as one of the youngest honorees in the program’s history, and was named the 2016 Indiana Latino Businessman of the Year.

Lydia Dishman

Lydia Dishman is a business journalist who writes about the intersection of tech, leadership, commerce, and innovation. She is a regular contributor to Fast Company and has written for CBS Moneywatch, Fortune, The Guardian, Popular Science, and the New York Times, among others. She is coauthor of the book Survive to Thrive. Over the course of her career, she’s interviewed a variety of well-known executives including Diane Von Furstenberg, Gregg Steinhafel, former CEO of Target, Mickey Drexler, former CEO of J.Crew, Christopher Bailey of Burberry, Mary Barra of General Motors, Scott Borchetta of Big Machine Records, Alexis Ohanian of Reddit, Tony Hsieh of Zappos, and other luminaries such as Adrian Grenier, Romany Malco, and Tom Brokaw.

Kate Zimberg

Kate Zimberg, PhD, has spent her career as an HR professional within the technology and telecommunications industries.  She has intentionally varied her career, moving between roles within HR centers of excellence – where she’s been instrumental in creating new programs, tools, and methods – and roles working directly with employees and business leaders – where she’s focused on the pragmatic application of HR practices, coaching and consulting to help drive business success.

Most recently, Kate joined F5 in March 2019 as the VP of Talent and Organizational Capability.  In this capacity, Kate works closely with other members of HR and with business leaders to drive Leadership Development, Performance Management, Talent Management, Recognition, Employee Listening, Culture, the F5 Giving Programs, and Organizational Design.

Prior to F5, Kate worked at T-Mobile as the HR leader for the Product & Technology organization where she led a team which provided coaching, change management, talent management, leader and employee development, recruiting, and HR consulting.  Kate also led the T-Mobile enterprise-wide community of leadership development consultants.  Before T-Mobile, Kate worked held multiple HR leadership roles at Microsoft, including HR business partner, talent mobility, talent management, and leading employee engagement and onboarding programs. Kate began her HR career in the telecommunications industry as an I/O Psychologist, focused on selection assessments and methods at both AT&T and Lucent Technologies. She earned both her masters and doctorate from Purdue University.

Outside of work, Kate has a passion for working with girls as a troop leader with the Girl Scouts of Western Washington.

Lydia Martinez

Lydia Martinez joined Long & Foster with more than 20 years of experience in the development and implementation of human resources strategic management, talent development and employee relations. With a diverse career history of building strategic partnerships, both internal and external to an organization, as well as building relationships with staff at all levels, Martinez brings the human capital leadership necessary to lead Long & Foster’s teams to the next level of excellence.

Prior to joining Long & Foster, Martinez led the George Washington University equal employment opportunity efforts after a successful career as vice president at Thompson Hospitality, the ninth largest minority-owned company in the United States. She also served as executive director of Institutional Equity and Labor Relations at the Community College of Baltimore County.

Martinez has had multiple speaking engagements with national organizations, including speaking about the value of diversity with the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities and discussing wrongful discrimination with the National Association of College and University Attorneys. She is committed to transforming the human resources function to further strengthen the company’s ability to support and guide its business partners and support consistent and fair labor practices across the organization. Her strategic leadership style and commitment to measurable success, as well as her in-depth experience in many areas of employee relations, further solidifies Long & Foster’s efforts toward becoming an employer of choice.

Originally from Puerto Rico, Martinez earned her undergraduate bachelor’s and double master’s degrees from the Inter-American University and University of Puerto Rico, respectively. She also holds a juris doctor degree from American University’s Washington College of Law and was admitted to the District of Columbia Bar in 2002.

Willie Jackson

Willie Jackson is Head of Learning & Development at ReadySet, a diversity strategy firm that creates more human-centered workplaces. In this role, Willie leads a team that brings a range of expertise and lived experience to bear in addressing complex organizational challenges.

Before ReadySet, Willie founded a digital magazine for Black men called Abernathy. In its four year run, Abernathy published 400+ articles, backed by companies like Atlassian, Mailchimp and WeWork.

In a prior life as a technologist, Willie designed and scaled web applications for small businesses, including serving as Founding Technical Lead of Seth Godin’s altMBA program. Willie studied Information Technology at Florida State University and started his career as an IT Consultant at Accenture.

A frequent public speaker, Willie has been featured in conferences (MAKERS keynote) documentaries (I’m Fine, Thanks), on HGTV (House Hunters International), and in print (The Hollywood Reporter). When he’s not facilitating on Zoom, he can be found tending to his sprawling houseplant jungle.