Summer Bazemore
Chief Executive Officer
Summer Bazemore is an Information Technology and Systems Engineering professional turned CEO who has worked as a government contractor for over eighteen years. In 2019, Mrs. Bazemore partnered with her husband and COO, Terry Bazemore Jr, to form a digital services startup, Ey3 Technologies (www.ey3.tech), headquartered in Prince George’s County, MD. The firm focuses in Systems Engineering and Cyber Security solutions and has a priority of giving back to their community.
Summer holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Morgan State University and a Master of Science degree in Engineering Telecommunications from University of Maryland at College Park. When not working, she enjoys traveling, spa days, and spending time with her family and friends.
Summer holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Morgan State University and a Master of Science degree in Engineering Telecommunications from University of Maryland at College Park. When not working, she enjoys traveling, spa days, and spending time with her family and friends.
Samantha Berg
Head of Design
Samantha is an award-winning design leader breaking barriers to shape an industry of excellence and equity. She has 15 years of experience building and leading teams with proven success – from larger, publicly-traded tech companies to mid-sized design consulting firms to smaller, venture-backed startups. Her teams envision, create, and ship next-generation consumer products that fundamentally change the industry and empower the underrepresented.
Sam is passionate about proving that teams can (and should be!) both tight-knit and high performing. She creates cultures of equity and inclusion, whether that’s on her design teams or in the women’s groups that she’s formed at lead and multiple organizations. You can catch her guesting on podcasts or speaking at industry events about designing your career, creating amazing teams, and using your power to empower.
Recipient of the 2021 Moxie Award
Named to the 2021 Anchor List
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Nina Bitz
Director of Customer Success
As an Enterprise Program Success leader at Upwork, Nina connects Fortune 100 companies with top independent talent across the globe helping drive the company’s mission to create economic opportunity so people have better lives. She has built skilled teams that drive client adoption and cultivate advocates. Nina is passionate about community and was a founding member of the Upwork Family Belonging Community and long-term supporter for the March of Dimes where she also served as a Family Ambassador.
Vikki Caruso
EVP of People
Vikki has over 20 years of Human Resources experience focused on enhancing the employee lifecycle for implementing benefits and recruiting and retaining top talent. Prior to joining Clearcover, she worked with mid-sized technology companies focused on digital fitness, labor relations and employee placement, healthcare and benefits before entering the world of startups. Most recently, Vikki worked at Shiftgig as their VP of People where she built out the HR department, establishing an HR team, implementing best hiring practices and developing their organization’s hiring goals and metrics, compensation and benefits.
Since she joined in 2019, Vikki has ensured that Clearcover maintains its unique people-first culture while growing the organization from 45 employees to over 450 employees in just three years.
As a direct result, Clearcover receives multiple quarterly and annual workplace awards including Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work, while continuing to scale its teams. Vikki holds a business degree from University of St. Francis and a Masters in Education from DePaul University.
Ruchie Chadha
President
Ruchie is the President of Smokeball, a leading legal, practice management start-up based in Chicago. In her role she oversees the Product, Marketing, Sales, Finance, HR, and Client teams. Prior to joining Smokeball, Ruchie was a Family Law lawyer serving the Chicagoland area. She has first-hand experience identifying inefficiencies and areas of opportunity within the case management lifecycle. Combining her background and the power of technology, Ruchie now focuses on delivering innovative solutions to lawyers so they can better serve their clients and build healthier businesses.
Ruchie holds a B.A. in History and South Asian Studies from the University of Michigan (Go Blue!) and received her J.D. from Case Western Reserve University. In her spare time, you can find her nose in a book, recipe testing, or researching her next travel destination.
Ruchie holds a B.A. in History and South Asian Studies from the University of Michigan (Go Blue!) and received her J.D. from Case Western Reserve University. In her spare time, you can find her nose in a book, recipe testing, or researching her next travel destination.
Stephanie Chin
Hutch Program Manager
Stephanie Chin is the Program Manager of Hutch, a digital services and civic tech incubator founded by Fearless. She is the former Assistant Director of Entrepreneurship at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she led entrepreneurship programming for the $5M Ratcliffe Center for Creative Entrepreneurship. Stephanie is passionate about community and actively involved in the entrepreneurial ecosystem as the Board Chair of Open Works and board member at Baltimore Community Lending and the Maryland Business Innovation Association. A proud Towson University alumna, she is committed to supporting entrepreneurs and innovators throughout the region.
Linda Dotts
Chief Partner Strategy Officer
Linda Dotts is Chief Partner Strategy Officer at Blue Prism. Linda joined Blue Prism in July 2017 as VP, Alliances and Channels. Expanding her role in parallel to Blue Prism’s business growth, she began to oversee Global Partner Strategy and became SVP Global Partner Strategy and Programs in August 2018 and Chief Partner Strategy Officer in April 2020. Previously, Dotts was Senior Leader of Channels at FICO following a long career in Customer Relationship Management and Unified Communications at AT&T, Lucent and Avaya. She held key leadership roles in Product Management, Marketing and Sales including President of Avaya Japan, a highly channel-centric division of the company. Dotts has a BS Economics from Arizona State University and an MBA from the University of Hartford.
Linda and her team are the drivers behind Blue Prism’s Technology Alliance Program (TAP) allowing participating companies to market their solutions via the Blue Prism Digital Exchange marketplace. Linda also contributed to Blue Prism’s culture of inclusion and empowerment, by helping to found Women in RPA.
Linda and her team are the drivers behind Blue Prism’s Technology Alliance Program (TAP) allowing participating companies to market their solutions via the Blue Prism Digital Exchange marketplace. Linda also contributed to Blue Prism’s culture of inclusion and empowerment, by helping to found Women in RPA.
Tatiana Finkelsteyn
Founder / CEO
Tatiana is a serial entrepreneur who has founded and served as CEO for zLinq and IQ Wired. Under her leadership, 300+ employees and partners provide SaaS and managed services to enterprise clients in unified communications, networking, and the contact center space. For 20 years, these companies have been transforming business communications performance, cost, and customer experience.
Both zLinq and IQ Wired have appeared on Denver Business Journal’s Best Place to Work list numerous times, and each has held the coveted #1 spot. Zlinq won multiple Stevie American Business Awards and was featured on Inc’s list of Best Work Places and Best in Business. Both companies have 100% female executive leadership teams, which is unprecedented in IT and reflects Tatiana’s passion for promoting women in tech.
Tatiana is passionate about balancing results with having meaningful relationships with clients, employees, and shareholders. Her impact is measurable. Today, zLinq has a Net Promoter Score of 81 (vs. overall telecom industry score of 27), and IQ Wired is one of the largest regional master agencies in the US, managing over $100M in communications assets for its customers.
Tatiana earned her MBA from Columbia Business School. She has been in communications her entire career and held various roles — from sales to service to engineering to serving on partner Advisory Boards of Comcast, Lumen, and Intelepeer. Tatiana lives with her husband in downtown Denver. When not working, she plays volleyball, camps, and travels — visiting 52 countries to date. Being the best she can be, while helping others do the same, is Tatiana’s mission in life. Her superpower is transforming complex concepts into clear goals with action plans that lead to epic results.
Ashten Fizer
Integrated Marketing Manager – Global Diversity
Starting a career in Social Media Strategy by necessity is no easy task. Ashten began as a Deejay, and knew that she had to find new ways to create a following for herself. Once she realized she had a gift for staying a couple steps ahead of the next person, she took her Social Media Strategy skills to the Chicago political realm. It was in this function that Ashten began to flourish as a thought leader in her field. In her time, Ashten has been called on by the likes of Clear Channel(now iHeart Media) nationwide to help manage On-Air Talent communities, as well as held deejay residencies for industry giants like Google, CISC and E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo). She is an Adobe Creator and currently works at Meta where she lends her Social Media, Employer Brand, Graphic and Web Design expertise to the Global Attract Team to engage employees and potential candidates with targeted content as a Global Diversity Integrated Marketing Manager.
Shannon Fulton
Product Training/Enablement + Startups + SaaS + Ecomm + SMS Marketing + CS Leadership/Growth
Shannon is currently in Revenue Enablement for the SMS Marketing Platform Postscript where she trains a world-class team of GTM team members. She specializes in E-commerce brand growth through SMS Marketing.
She has also cultivated a community within TikTok and YouTube where she encourages thousands of people every single day to chase their dreams and join the amazing world of tech. Shannon is incredibly passionate about connecting those who are generally under-represented in the tech-community with all of the tools they need to find success. From sharing remote job opportunities, coaching through job interviews, and educating the masses, there is nothing she would rather do than enable others to find their place in the world of tech!
Shannon is also a mother, remote-work advocate, and a United States Army Veteran.
Jamie Gilpin
CMO
Experienced marketing leader with demonstrated success in growing brands in the technology space through strategic positioning. Skilled in building great teams to drive customer acquisition through lead generation, integrated marketing, public relations, event marketing, social and content marketing, and sales enablement.
Hailley Griffis
Head of PR
A passionate communicator, much of Hailley’s work revolves around effectively sharing information to help others succeed. At Buffer, Hailley is the Head of Public Relations leading public relations, content, and social media efforts across the organization. She created and runs Buffer’s popular annual State of Remote Work report, a leading report with data and insights from remote workers on their reality and struggles and is also responsible for Buffer’s annual pay analysis where she shares Buffer’s journey to closing the gender pay gap in an effort to help other organizations do the same.
Hailley is also the co-host of MakeWorkWork, a podcast where she and her co-host discuss career growth, creative work, and striving to be better. She also contributes to several publications and writes for her own blog and newsletter on the topic of remote work, career progress, and public relations.
Gia Griffith
Vice President Accelerated Commercialization Team
My experiences building products, new businesses, and organizations converge on transforming how companies grow and scale. At the core of my ability to make things happen, I quickly assess complex systems, understand them, identify what needs to be solved – making it easy for everyone to do their part. I integrate across functions to make more value flow, and flow faster. I mobilize people around change, keeping them feeling confident and focused on delivering their goals. I engender trust, followership, and respect. My teams deliver business outcomes that sustain. I am committed to building high performing, diverse teams; and ensuring under-represented populations have access to opportunity.
I lead a team to commercialize Risk and Identity Solutions at Visa. I designed a talent management experience for black employees at Visa and launched Black Succeed, a cluster coaching program. Prior to Visa, I led global and local teams in Africa, Vietnam, and Chile to deliver new capabilities at Amex, Proudfoot & Brightstar.
I have a BS and MS in Engineering, and an MBA. I was named to the Top 100 under 50 Emerging Leaders by Diversity MBA in 2013. I am a Posse Scholar, volunteer, and member of the President’s Advisory Council.
I lead a team to commercialize Risk and Identity Solutions at Visa. I designed a talent management experience for black employees at Visa and launched Black Succeed, a cluster coaching program. Prior to Visa, I led global and local teams in Africa, Vietnam, and Chile to deliver new capabilities at Amex, Proudfoot & Brightstar.
I have a BS and MS in Engineering, and an MBA. I was named to the Top 100 under 50 Emerging Leaders by Diversity MBA in 2013. I am a Posse Scholar, volunteer, and member of the President’s Advisory Council.
Jossie Haines
VP, Software Engineering
Jossie Haines is on a mission to retain women in tech and fulfills that by empowering engineering leaders to build inclusive and diverse teams that thrive in today’s uncertain world. She has spent over 20 years in the tech industry as a software engineering leader at the forefront of emerging technology across Silicon Valley, including management roles at Apple, Tile, Zynga and American Express. She is currently VP of Software Engineering at Tile and leads the mobile, backend, web, and platform engineering teams that empower users to find millions of lost items every day. She also heads up the diversity, equity and inclusion efforts across Tile, and started the Tile mentoring program which has enabled both employee retention and company mobility. She is an avid public speaker, having given over 40 talks on the topics of retaining women in tech, empathy in engineering, and effective and fair management practices. She also runs her own consulting practice focused on empowering engineering leaders to build inclusive and diverse teams that thrive in today’s uncertain world.
Shannon Hogue
Head of Enterprise Solutions Engineering
Shannon Hogue is the Head of Enterprise Solutions Engineering at Asana, a leading work management platform for teams. Prior to joining Asana, she served as the Global Head of Solutions Engineering at Karat, a leader in technical interviewing, where she led teams across operations, sales, analysis, product development and operational efficiency. Shannon is passionate about advancing equity in tech, driving change through public speaking, regular column contributions and internal company initiatives. She holds a certificate in Operations Management from Cornell University.
Dominique Hollins
Founder and Connector-In-Chief
Dominique Hollins is the Founder and Connector-in-Chief of WĒ360 (360° of Workplace Equity), a boutique Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) consulting firm. She provides customized strategies for companies committed to developing an equitable and inclusive workplace. With over 16 years of experience working with Fortune 500 companies, non-profit organizations, academic institutions, entrepreneurs, community leaders and professional advocates, Dominique has become adept at community building for collective impact. Her expertise spans the technology and financial services industries including business operations, product and program development, brand engagement, data analysis, partnerships, community development, small business advocacy, communications, tech entrepreneurship and JEDI planning and development.
Teresa Hopke
CEO of The Americas
Teresa Hopke is CEO of The Americas, Talking Talent, a global coaching firm that inspires inclusive cultures that allow people and organizations across the globe to thrive and create company-wide behavior shifts that accelerate business performance. Teresa has deep expertise in the areas of Inclusion with Purpose, Women in Leadership, and Working Parent Support.
Prior to joining the organization, Teresa was an SVP with Life Meets Work where she launched their coaching and women’s leadership practices. Teresa received the AWLP Work-Life Rising Star award for her innovative work in the field. She is a nationally-recognized speaker who has been featured in many books and media outlets such as CNBC, the CBS Morning Show, NBC Nightly News, NPR, Wall Street Journal, HR Magazine, Money Magazine, and many more.
Teresa is a working mother of four with an arsenal of real-world experiences (and stories) that influence the work she does with her clients.
Briana Jones
Senior Consultant
Briana Jones has an educational background in Information Systems and an MBA from Georgia Southern University. She is currently a senior technology consultant at Deloitte where she delivers value to her clients by managing large scale digital transformations. Outside of her day to day, Briana is passionate about sports, music, technology, and maintaining a presence in her community. She serves as the board chair for a US and Uganda-based non-profit, and enjoys mentoring and connecting with fellow women in tech. At Deloitte, she founded a program that supports women in her practice and provides an open platform for discussion on how to empower and retain women in tech. This program has grown internally by over 300% in 4 years and now provides opportunities for leadership exposure and experience, mentorship, networking, and community involvement. She is looking forward to serving on the judge’s panel in this year’s Moxie Awards Program to honor many more amazing women in tech.
Lindsay Kaplan
Co-Founder and Chief Brand Officer
Lindsay Kaplan, Co-Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Chief, is an award-winning startup marketer and brand strategist who previously served as VP of Communications and Brand at Casper. Lindsay was named a New YorkTimes DealBook Groundbreaker and one of Business Insider’s Most Innovative CMOs in the World.
Mary Ellen Kelleher
VP Product
Mary Ellen Kelleher has worked in Chicago tech for over ten years from sales to operations, ultimately leading her to her passion, Product Management. At Smokeball, she is responsible for scaling the product while also continually introducing innovative features to compete in a fast paced, competitive legal case management market. This requires her to be a jack of all trades and to truly learn the value of hiring teams that complement each other’s strengths, working together to produce the best result.
She is passionate about tech, pragmatic leadership, and widening the doorway to help others gain access to building themselves a fulfilling career and life.
She is passionate about tech, pragmatic leadership, and widening the doorway to help others gain access to building themselves a fulfilling career and life.
Melissa Kinckle
Director
Melissa Kinckle is a Marketing Technology executive and consulting leader. She currently works for Slalom consulting firm’s cross-market Customer & Digital Strategy practice. Melissa has over 20 years of experience in strategizing, road mapping and managing large scale digital and marketing technology transformations. Melissa’s experience spans a wide range of industries including financial services, media & entertainment, technology, insurance and retail. She has large scale initiatives for martech strategy, customer experience, CRM, personalization and marketing technology & digital transformations. She obtained her Bachelors and Masters in Information Technology and Marketing from Syracuse University. Melissa has lived all over the United States including New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
Sheryl Koenigsberg
VP
Sheryl Koenigsberg (she/her) has spent over 20 years in technology in the Greater Boston area. She started her career focused on high availability and disaster recovery solutions, spent many years at Dell in Enterprise Storage, and then worked within the VMware ecosystem. Most recently, she moved “up the tech stack” to her current role as the Head of Global Product Marketing for Mendix, the leading enterprise low-code development platform. Professionally, Sheryl is passionate about communicating complex technology concepts to broad audiences, and about the power of coaching and mentorship. She holds a BA in Mathematics from Brown University and an MS in Engineering Management from Tufts University. Sheryl and her family live in Boston’s South End, where she is currently learning to solve cryptic crossword puzzles.
Lori McInerney
CMO
As Chief Marketing Officer, Lori brings more than 20 years of mid-market and enterprise B2B software marketing experience to UPshow. She leads the marketing and revenue operations team in driving go-to-market product marketing and demand gen strategies, brand awareness, content and public relations.
Prior to joining UPshow, Lori McInerney was the Vice President of Marketing for Hunt Club, a new category of talent that leverages technology to transform thousands of subject matter experts and business leaders into the world’s most powerful talent network. She led the marketing team in driving go-to-market product strategies, brand awareness and public relations, content, and lead generation.
Prior to joining Hunt Club, Lori was the CMO for Visibly, a healthcare technology company that creates digital eye care technologies. She led the marketing team in driving brand awareness globally, partner marketing and executing top of the funnel initiatives to drive revenue. Prior to Visibly, Lori was the Vice President of Marketing at Shiftgig where her team was responsible for driving new business, increasing brand awareness and public relations and recruiting on-demand talent. She also spent over 12 years at CareerBuilder in various marketing and sales leadership roles.
With over 20 years of experience in sales and marketing, Lori succeeds in growing and developing teams, launching new products, and driving brand awareness and lead generation.
Prior to joining UPshow, Lori McInerney was the Vice President of Marketing for Hunt Club, a new category of talent that leverages technology to transform thousands of subject matter experts and business leaders into the world’s most powerful talent network. She led the marketing team in driving go-to-market product strategies, brand awareness and public relations, content, and lead generation.
Prior to joining Hunt Club, Lori was the CMO for Visibly, a healthcare technology company that creates digital eye care technologies. She led the marketing team in driving brand awareness globally, partner marketing and executing top of the funnel initiatives to drive revenue. Prior to Visibly, Lori was the Vice President of Marketing at Shiftgig where her team was responsible for driving new business, increasing brand awareness and public relations and recruiting on-demand talent. She also spent over 12 years at CareerBuilder in various marketing and sales leadership roles.
With over 20 years of experience in sales and marketing, Lori succeeds in growing and developing teams, launching new products, and driving brand awareness and lead generation.
Kelli Morrison
SVP and Chief Account Officer
An experienced finance leader with more than 20 years of experience, Kelli currently serves as the Senior Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller at Cengage Group where she oversees all aspects of global accounting leading a team of over 60 members. Cengage Group is $1.3B global education technology company serving millions of learners, provides affordable, quality digital products and services that equip students with the skills and competencies needed to be job ready.
With a passion for people and advocating for women, Kelli served on the board of Mediagirls, a Boston-based nonprofit that teaches girls and young women to harness the power of media for positive change. She has the privilege of being an active mentor at Cengage Group. Surrounded by strong women throughout her life and now having a young daughter, she is determined to continue promoting learning opportunities.
Kelli is a Certified Public Accountant and holds an MBA from Boston University and a BS in Mathematics from Trinity College in Hartford, CT.
Jessica Newman
DEI Lead
Jessica Newman grew up in Englewood – Chicago, IL and attended elementary school in Bridgeport. At an early age, her multicultural experiences encouraged Jessica to interrogate the educational and economical inequities of her city. She grew to be a social justice educator, artist, and cultural bridge builder. Jessica has received her B.A. degree in Global Business from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and her M.S.Ed in College Student Personnel Administration from Illinois State University. She currently serves as the Diversity and Inclusion Lead at OppFi, Founder of Transformation Lens where she strives to make inclusive workplaces, elevate individuals with underrepresented communities, and dismantle barriers in the fintech industry. It is a passion of hers to bridge healing and diversity and inclusion. Jessica believes in the power of racial healing, allyship, collective action, and continued awareness as pillars of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work. “If healing is not involved, systems will not evolve.” – Jessica Newman Jessica believes in the true work life balance. Creating intentional space to fill up the cup of others and her own as a coach, friend, and family member. Jessica loves traveling, eating french fries with truffle, and writing.
Yvette Pegues, Ed.D(c)
Corporate D&I Executive
Yvette Pegues, Ed.D(c) began her career as a scientist and is now serving as an activist, advocate, author and adaptive athlete. Along the way she held the position of engineer, executive, and educator. After surviving a traumatic brain/spinal cord injury, she co-founded a non-profit organization to serve other families affected by disability. Your Invisible Disability Group (YIDG) empowers, equips, and includes people with disabilities around the world.
Karen Rhorer
Director of Strategy and Analytics
Karen Rhorer is an expert in product strategy, sales operations, and analytics and is a seasoned SaaS manager and executive. Karen currently serves as the Director of Strategy & Analytics for Twilio’s R&D organization. Previously, she ran and scaled the Customer Experience and Sales Strategy functions at Atrium, where she and her team worked with Atrium’s customers to develop data-driven insights about and create strategies to manage to their individual sales motions.
Prior to working at Atrium, Karen oversaw sales operations for North America and EMEA for LinkedIn’s Learning Solutions (Lynda) business unit, helping to integrate the Lynda acquisition into LinkedIn and develop the required sales operations structure and process in the new business unit after the acquisition. Before that, she created the sales operations function at event marketing software company DoubleDutch.
Karen speaks and writes on topics related to structured approaches to strategic questions and data-driven management of sales organizations.
Before working in technology, Karen was a private equity investor at HGGC and a consultant for Bain & Company. She graduated from Vanderbilt in 2007 and Harvard Business School in 2014.
Juliette Rizkallah
CMO
Juliette brings more than 30 years of experience in marketing, sales development and growth strategy for leading enterprise technology companies. She most recently served as CMO for A Cloud Guru, a social learning platform for cloud computing acquired this year by Pluralsight. Prior to that, she was CMO at SailPoint, where she developed and led the company’s worldwide marketing and was instrumental in the company’s successful 2017 IPO. She has also held senior marketing leadership roles at Check Point Software Technologies, BusinessObjects, CA and Oracle. Juliette is also on the board of Elemica, a digital supply chain company, and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. She lives in Austin, TX with her husband and two kids.
Tara Robertson
CMO
Tara joined Teamwork in February 2021 as Chief Marketing Officer and has over 20 years of global experience leading award winning marketing and sales teams. With a passion for growth and results driven marketing, Tara is experienced in managing full funnel marketing strategies that drive both customer acquisition and retention. She believes that marketing should be focused on value first; whether that is through a sales assisted or product led model and marketing impact is driven through direct revenue attribution. Tara’s leadership perspective and results have given her the opportunity to be invited to speak at notable Industry conferences such as SaaStr, SaaStock, INBOUND, SaaSfest (now RECUR), and more. In addition to delivering strong impact across her department, Tara is also passionate about her work as an ally for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace and served on the DEI leadership team in a prior role.
Before Teamwork, Tara was the Head of Customer Marketing at Sprout Social. Prior to that, she was the VP Marketing at Hotjar and VP Marketing and Creative Services for TSL Marketing, a platinum HubSpot agency whose clients included IBM, SAP, Aon, and Capgemini.
Before Teamwork, Tara was the Head of Customer Marketing at Sprout Social. Prior to that, she was the VP Marketing at Hotjar and VP Marketing and Creative Services for TSL Marketing, a platinum HubSpot agency whose clients included IBM, SAP, Aon, and Capgemini.
Carolyn Stebbings
COIO
Carolyn oversees the daily operations of both RAPP and Code, whilst critically leading the charge to ensure diversity, equity and inclusion remains core to the future of the business.
An experienced marketer with a proven track record across all channels and within many industry sectors, Carolyn prides herself on having a strong intuition for client objectives and being an authentic leader. She brings with her extensive experience consulting with clients to determine smart, future-fit, data-driven solutions that connect customer and brand.
As a senior woman in the Tech industry, Carolyn has been on Data IQ’s Top 100 list for 7 years running as a data enabler. She sits on the committee for OmniWomen and on the Global Advisory Board for Women in Tech, a not-for-profit organisation that’s looks to bring STEM to those in less privileged parts of the world. She’s also an IDM Fellow and is on the Qualifications and Advisory Board.
An inspirational leader and industry stalwart, Carolyn is also strategically focused is on making RAPP and Code a magnet for data and tech talent from all backgrounds and she is doing this by placing DE&I firmly at the heart of the business.
Carrie Steyer
General Manager
Carrie Steyer is a leader in the fields of artificial intelligence, analytics, and strategy alignment with over 25 years of experience. Recognized as one of Consulting’s 2020 Women Leaders in Technology, Carrie drives modern engineering transformations at Fortune 500 companies and beyond. She is an advocate for the power of data and insights to enable social transparency and she works with leading public sector organizations to bring those insights to life. Degree of challenge and level of passion are highly correlated for Carrie — the more complex the issue, the more driven she is to develop a strategy and lead the resolution. She combines the problem-solving strengths of her mathematics background with a uniquely people-centric approach.
As General Manager of Slalom Chicago, Carrie is committed to creating a place where people love their work and life; this vision includes Slalom employees, our clients, partners, and broader community. She is known for growing and developing future leaders and proudly serves as Slalom Chicago’s executive sponsor for Inclusion & Diversity. Carrie is also a member of Greater Leadership Chicago’s 2021 Daniel Burnham Fellowship, a program for senior executives shaping the future of Chicago. Carrie holds Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from University of Notre Dame and a Certificate of Applied Statistics from Texas A&M University. She is a mother of six (two human and four canine) and loves the Chicago Cubs as if they were her children.
As General Manager of Slalom Chicago, Carrie is committed to creating a place where people love their work and life; this vision includes Slalom employees, our clients, partners, and broader community. She is known for growing and developing future leaders and proudly serves as Slalom Chicago’s executive sponsor for Inclusion & Diversity. Carrie is also a member of Greater Leadership Chicago’s 2021 Daniel Burnham Fellowship, a program for senior executives shaping the future of Chicago. Carrie holds Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from University of Notre Dame and a Certificate of Applied Statistics from Texas A&M University. She is a mother of six (two human and four canine) and loves the Chicago Cubs as if they were her children.
Jessica Tenuta
CPO
Jessica Tenuta cofounder of Packback, an award-winning education company that builds software which supports student inquiry and writing skills. Jessica serves as Packback’s Chief Product Officer. She is also the cofounder and creative director of 501c3 non-profit, PlayTogether.org, dedicated to uplifting the Chicago arts community through creative collaborations. Jessica began her career in brand and design in venture capital, at Lightbank and Listen Ventures, working with brands including Fooda, Factor, Snapsheet and more. Jessica was named on the 2020 “Forbes 30 under 30” list in the Education category, the 2017 “Techweek 100” list, and the 2015 Chicago Inno “50 on Fire” list.
Judith Tigner
COO
As COO at Fusion Risk Management, Judith Tigner is responsible for delivery, support, and strategic consulting. With more than 20 years of experience in the implementation and support of software, she focuses on improving the client experience from implementation and beyond.
Throughout her career, she has had a passion for growth and transformation building support and services organizations for enterprise software companies growing from startup to $100+million in revenue.
Lorraine Vargas Townsend
Chief People Officer
Lorraine Vargas Townsend (she/her) is an experienced coach and Chief People Officer with more than 20 years of experience as an HR executive. She is the CPO at ESO in Austin, Texas. She served on the board of directors at Babson College’s Executive Development Center and previously led HR at A Cloud Guru, Mendix and athenahealth.
As queer, latinx, and a daughter of an immigrant, her life’s mission is to develop people-first HR policies to go beyond tokenism and build an inclusive, anti-racist workplace.
She has been featured in Fast Company, the Wall Street Journal, and invited to speak on several podcasts about HR disruption and innovation and has been invited to keynote events such as the Women in Tech Festival, Silicon Valley Organization, Siemens Digital Summit, Sharp Heels Conference for Women in Business.
Because of her progressive HR practices, she has been recognized as a Female Health IT Leader to Know, and in 2019 was named one of the Leading Latinas by Hispanic Executive Magazine.
Lorraine lives in Austin with her wife, Cyn, and their daughter, Flo.
Elisa Vincent
Vice President of Global Talent Enablement
Elisa Vincent is Vice President of Global Talent Enablement at Skillsoft where she leads strategic talent and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. She has more than 20 years of experience leading and transforming people-first organizations through human capital management, leadership development, talent and change management, organizational effectiveness, and diversity, equity, and inclusion across global enterprises.
Elisa began her career in international education and study abroad, where she designed, developed, and led international leadership development experiences for students and faculty — experiences that enabled research and study of gender equality and equity around the world. She was one of the founding members of the Bentley University, Center for Women and Business, and has served as an adjunct faculty member for human resources and talent development students at Bentley and an executive coach for people at all stages of their lives and careers.
She has founded numerous women’s leadership programs in both the organizations and the communities she serves. She is has been a proud Board Member of MediaGirls. Elisa holds a Masters of Education and a Bachelor of Arts from Boston University. She lives in Boston with her husband and two children.
