We also honor Wendi Whitmore, Senior Vice President of Unit 42 at Palo Alto Networks, a global cybersecurity firm specializing in AI-driven network, cloud, and security operations solutions. Whitmore leads the Unit 42 team in its mission to strengthen national security, working closely with clients and partners worldwide to address evolving cyber threats.

Lastly, we honor Aprajita Mathur, Director of Bioinformatics Software Test Engineering at Guardant Health, a leading precision oncology company. With over 10 years of software testing experience, Mathur has worked as a manual and automation tester on a wide range of products like instrument software used in the fields of agriculture, transplant genomics, forensics, and oncology. 

Please join us in celebrating the accomplishments of The Top 50 Women Leaders of San Francisco for 2025.

VP, Global Head of Public Policy, Roblox

Nicky Jackson Colaco is aVP and the Global Head of Public Policy at Roblox. Shehas over 20 years of experience addressing the most important policy issues on the digital agenda and joined Roblox in 2020 to start and grow their Public Policy team. 

Before Roblox, she was Instagram's first global head of public policy, growing the team to support a user base of over 1B users. Before leading public policy at Instagram, she managed children's safety and privacy under Facebook's chief privacy officer. At Instagram, Colaco helped design innovative safety tools and built social programs to support the Instagram community. She worked directly with the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, on educational programs for teens and met with other senior government officials globally. She also worked with influencers like Oprah, Miley Cyrus, and Rowan Blanchard on programming to reach young people. Colaco has been featured in Wired magazine for work using artificial intelligence to address negative online interactions and has been profiled on NPR’s Inflection Point, a program about women changing the status quo.

Before joining Facebook, Colaco managed the International Consumer Product Policy for Google in Mountain View, California, and in Hyderabad, India. For her work in India, she received Google’s Luminary Award for extraordinary achievement. Before joining Google, she spent a year teaching English in a Japanese fishing village. She is the mother of two delightfully messy boys and holds a Bachelor of Science from Northwestern University and a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Head of Compliance, Anthropic

Larkin Ryder is an accomplished professional with extensive experience in compliance and security across multiple organizations. She has served as the Head of Compliance at Anthropic since January 2024. Anthropic is an AI research company that builds reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. Their first product is Claude, an AI assistant for tasks at any scale. Their research interests span multiple areas, including natural language, human feedback, scaling laws, reinforcement learning, code generation, and interpretability.

Ryder previously held significant roles at Slack, including senior director of product security, interim chief security officer, and director of risk and compliance, contributing to reducing risks to user data. At Twitter, Ryder worked as a senior security engineer focused on information security, while earlier career achievements at LookSmart involved overseeing compliance and project management and developing core SOX documentation that led to successful compliance with a PwC audit. 

Ryder's career began at Hewlett-Packard, where critical initiatives addressed customer concerns and resolved quality issues with major corporate clients. Her academic credentials include a BS in Computer Science and a BA in Zoology from the University of Vermont.

Chief Executive Officer & President Technology, ASAPP 

Priya Vijayarajendran currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of ASAPP, where she and her team are transforming contact centers with AI-powered automation. ASAPP is a leading provider of enterprise AI SaaS solutions for contact centers.

With a strong commitment to transformative technology, Vijayarajendran specializes in engineering scalable enterprise software. A deeply data-driven leader, she focuses on building cloud-native, scalable SaaS AI products and services. She is passionate about bringing the value of transformative technology to solve real business challenges and thrives as an intrapreneur, identifying and developing top talent, and building high-performing, scalable teams. Vijayarajendran is a dedicated listener to the voice of the customer and users, serving as their trusted technology advisor and partner. She believes strongly in engineering solutions with a customer-centric focus. With her deep experience, she is well-qualified to assist boards in differentiating and validating technology choices, ensuring strong execution paths. She brings a data-driven approach with insights and analytics to enhance business decisions.

With over three decades of experience in enterprise product development, product strategy, application development, enterprise architecture, customer co-innovation, services, and field enablement, Vijayarajendran is a recognized thought leader. She advises and participates in entrepreneurial and tech meetups around the Bay Area and is a regular speaker at many enterprise computing, data, and AI forums. As a woman of color in tech, she is a committed advocate for democratizing AI and mentoring the next generation of talent, especially women in tech.

Head of Customer Experience Strategy, Samsara

Emma Sopadjieva is the Head of Customer Experience Strategy at Samsara, the trusted leader in connected operations, empowering the world's largest organizations to better serve their communities. Her team brings customer feedback to life so that teams have the knowledge and tools to create “wow!” moments for Samsara customers. 

With tireless energy and striving to help companies deliver excellence, Sopadjieva has built a career with over 20 years of experience in customer experience strategy and business consulting. She is a main stage speaker at several CX thought leadership conferences, and a frequent guest speaker on top-charted podcasts, and her work is featured in publications, including Harvard Business Review, The Washington Post, and Forbes. Before Samsara, Sopadjieva was the head of customer experience insights and operations at ServiceNow for over four years. She also served as the leader of the Customer Insights team at Eventbrite and of the Research & Analytics team at Medallia, where she helped Fortune 500 companies provide stellar customer experiences. Her early career also included six years in consulting and forensic accounting with Deloitte across NYC, Madrid, and London.

Sopadjieva holds a Master's degree in International Economics from UCSD and a BSc in Business Administration from Bucknell University. When she is not leading CX strategy, she is dominating in San Francisco’s largest kickball league, chasing her toddler, or crossing off new bucket list travel destinations with her family.

Chief Marketing Officer, Gong

Emily He is the Chief Marketing Officer of Gong. Gong transforms revenue organizations by driving business efficiency, revenue growth, and improved decision-making. The Revenue Intelligence Platform uses proprietary artificial intelligence technology to enable teams to capture, understand, and act on all customer interactions in a single, integrated platform. Thousands of companies around the world rely on Gong to support their go-to-market strategies and grow revenue efficiently. 

He is a Silicon Valley technology executive with experience leading go-to-market functions in both private and public companies, including Microsoft, Oracle, Saba Software (now Cornerstone OnDemand), DoubleDutch (now Cvent), and Siebel Systems (now Oracle). She has over 20 years of experience in technology companies that span customer experience (CX), human capital management (HCM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and supply chain. She has product development, marketing, and sales expertise, having served customers across the financial services, retail, healthcare, pharmaceutical, public sector, and media and entertainment industries. Before joining Microsoft, He served as the SVP of marketing, responsible for global GTM strategy, brand awareness, and demand generation for Oracle Cloud Human Capital Management. She has served as the chief marketing officer in two high-growth SaaS businesses, leading all aspects of global marketing strategy and execution and working closely with the CEO and the board of directors.

He is known as a thought leader on topics like digital transformation, customer experience, the future of work, and inclusive leadership, and she is passionate about using technology innovations to solve real-world problems and transform industries. The clients can find her perspective in a variety of business and technology publications and media outlets, including BBC, CNBC, The Economist, Fortune, The Financial Times, Forbes, Fast Company, The New York Times, and Harvard Business Review. She is a champion of advancing women and minorities in the workplace, frequently speaking at conferences or participating in employee resources groups and nonprofit organizations. He holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and attended colleges in both China and the US. She has native fluency in English and Mandarin Chinese, has lived and worked in Asia and the US, and has extensive experience supporting businesses and customers around the globe.

Global Head of Sustainability, Franklin Templeton

Anne Simpson is the Global Head of Sustainability for Franklin Templeton. She is responsible for driving the company's strategic direction on stewardship, sustainability, and ESG investment strategy globally while fostering best practices within the firm's autonomous specialist investment managers. She was ranked by Time Magazine as one of the 15 women leading the fight against climate change and as one of the top 100 Women in US Finance by Barrons. She has been listed by the National Association of Corporate Directors as one of the most influential people in the boardroom for each year since 2012.

Simpson is a visiting fellow at Oxford University and teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, as a lecturer in sustainable and impact finance. Her most recent book is The Financial Ecosystem: The Role of Finance in Achieving Sustainability, with Satyajit Bose and Dong Guo, published by Palgrave MacMillan. She has been appointed the Deputy Chair of the Advisory Council to the Official Monetary Financial Institutions Forum, she chairs their Transition Finance Working Group, and she is a board member at Ceres. She was a co-founder and inaugural chair of the Climate Action 100+, where she stepped down having completed her seven-year term on the Steering Committee. She has previously served on the US SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's Investor Advisory Group, and the International Financial Reporting Standards Advisory Council.

Before joining Franklin Templeton, Simpson served as managing investment director for board governance and sustainability at CalPERS, where she was a member of its Investment Management Committee. She also led the CalPERS’ investment office diversity, equity, and inclusion business initiative, including the founding of 3D (Diverse Director DataSource) and the Human Capital Management Coalition. Her previous roles include teaching as a senior faculty fellow and lecturer at the Yale School of Management, the head of the global corporate governance forum at the World Bank, the first executive director of the International Corporate Governance Network, and the joint managing director of Pensions and Investment Research Consultants (PIRC) Ltd in London.

VP, Head of Product & UX, SEPHORA 

Sneha Narahalli is an esteemed technology leader, known for her expertise in driving industry transformation through innovative and simplified product development. Growing up in a family of writers in India, with both parents being renowned literary figures, Narahalli has always used her creativity to achieve focused results. She recently authored a book titled Not the Loudest Person in the Room, which recounts her journey and the challenges she faced as an introverted woman in the industry.

Ten years ago, Narahalli moved to the United States to pursue her master's degree at Carnegie Mellon University. Since then, she has been at the forefront of next-generation strategies for major companies, such as Sears and Walmart. Currently, as VP and Head of Product and UX at SEPHORA, she leads the entire product portfolio, including digital, stores, data, and marketing technology. She is a great product leader with the unique ability to bring clarity to ambiguous situations.

Narahalli strongly believes that raising awareness is the first step towards creating change. She hopes to increase consciousness about the fundamental biases women face in any environment and collaboratively overcome and eradicate them. She intends to continue leveraging her creativity to make a positive impact.

CEO & Co-Founder, NRJ Media Group

Norma Garcia is the CEO and Co-Founder of NRJ Media Group, a multimedia entertainment company that promotes positive influence, philanthropy, and inspiring conversations across generations. NRJ Media Group uses a variety of platforms, such as TV, film, and podcasts, to encourage community engagement and create quality entertainment.

Garcia is a seasoned entertainment industry veteran with a background in motion pictures, television, home entertainment, and premium cinema technology. Before joining NRJ Media Group, she held several executive positions, including VP of marketing at Kaleidescape in Silicon Valley and director of marketing at Dolby Laboratories and THX. Her invaluable contributions were instrumental in launching Dolby Cinema worldwide and developing premium large-format cinema experiences. Garcia’s previous posts include head of international marketing at Lucasfilm, where she oversaw strategy and positioning for iconic franchises like Star Wars, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Indiana Jones, and Red Tails. As the international marketing director at Paramount Pictures, she managed blockbuster titles, such as The Godfather, Mission Impossible, and Transformers.

Garcia’s leadership and expertise have earned her numerous accolades, including being named among the Top 2024 Influential Latinos in Media, Top 50 Women Leaders in San Francisco, and Top 50 Women in Global Cinema. As a consummate motivator and a strong advocate for empowering young women, she mentors at Women in Exhibition and The International Union of Cinemas (UNIC) Women's Leadership Program. Garcia serves on the Poppy Jasper International Film Festival and Women in Consumer Technology boards.

GVP & Automotive Sector Lead, Concentrix 

Rajani Shailender is GVP and Automotive Sector Lead at Concentrix, the global technology and services leader that powers the world’s best brands, today and into the future. Shailender is a transformational, people-oriented, and results-driven leader, with extensive experience in solutions-based consultative sales and operations, spanning the breadth of engineering, it, business process reengineering, and infrastructure services. In a career spanning over two and a half decades, Shailender has created several win-win partnerships, opened new markets, and accelerated business growth at various companies. She firmly believes that the foundation of a successful relationship is built on the achievement of mutual goals.

Shailender has successfully worn many hats during her professional career, including successfully founding and selling a flourishing tech services company. She teaches business management courses at UCSC Extension and is an advisory board member of the Design Thinking Program at UC Riverside. She is dedicated to fostering diversity and inclusion in the workplace. With a wealth of experience driving business growth, she actively advocates for the value of diverse perspectives and regularly engages with the industry to emphasize the impact of diversity on professional success. Shailender's commitment to creating a diverse and inclusive environment extends beyond her role, reflecting her belief in the power of varied perspectives to drive innovation and success.

Previously, Shailender was a VP of sales and the business unit head at Tech Mahindra. Before that, she was a VP of sales at Symphony Teleca. Earlier in her career, she worked with HCL as a business development executive. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering and an MBA in Sales and Marketing. She is based out of the Silicon Valley in California.

Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, Asato.ai

Sundari Mitra is a three-time CEO, entrepreneur, and seasoned technology executive. She is currently the CEO and Co-Founder of Asato Corporation (Asato.ai). Asato is an enterprise copilot platform powered by AI designed for CIOs. The platform discovers, connects, and contextualizes IT and Talent assets to equip CIOs with insights to make informed decisions about resource allocation, identify alternative solutions, and optimize investments. Most recently, Mitra was the chief incubation officer at Intel Corporation, leading disruptive innovation and the next $10 billion opportunity. Previously, she was corporate vice president and general manager of the IP Engineering Group (IPG) at Intel, where she led a 5000-person team focused on developing best-in-class IP powering $75 billion of Intel revenue across multiple market segments.

As founder and CEO of NetSpeed, Mitra built a global company that transformed SoC design for the world’s leading semiconductor companies before a successful exit. She has a demonstrated track record of leading transformative strategies and building great engineering and go-to-market teams in both large and small companies and brings her experience in vision, strategy, technology, and market development to the companies and leadership teams she works with. Mitra is also a role model and champion of improving diversity and inclusion in the workplace and actively mentors diverse CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs to help them achieve business and career growth.

Previously, Mitra was a chief incubation officer, corporate vice president, and general manager at Intel Corporation. Before that, she was a founder and CEO at NetSpeed Systems. Mitra earned an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda.

Chief Executive Officer & President, Delta Dental

Sarah Chavarria is Chief Executive Officer and President for Delta Dental of California, an enterprise that encompasses 15 states and Washington, DC. Chavarria provides overall leadership and strategic direction for the organization, partnering with the Delta Dental Executive Leadership Team and board of directors to deliver on the enterprise’s purpose to improve health by providing access to quality care. 

Chavarria joined Delta Dental in 2017 as EVP and chief people officer. She brings more than 25 years of expertise in the healthcare industry and has a strong track record of transforming organizations. Before Delta Dental, Chavarria was chief people officer at NantHealth. She served in a similar role at Optum360, a joint venture between Optum and Dignity Health, and was vice president of human resources at Dignity Health. She also held organizational transformation positions at Oracle, Medibuy, and Levi Strauss.

Chavarria earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at El Paso. She holds certifications in the General Electric Change Acceleration Process, the Myers & Briggs Foundation, and the Conner Change Model.

Head of Verticals & Social Impact Programs, Asana

Jaime Coleman is the Head of Verticals and Social Impact Programs at Asana. She first joined the team in 2021. Asana, a leading enterprise work management platform, is where work connects to goals. Over 150,000 customers like Amazon, Accenture, and Suzuki rely on Asana to manage and automate everything from goal setting and tracking to capacity planning to product launches.

Coleman leads go-to-market programs supporting the public sector, healthcare, education, nonprofit, media, and entertainment industries, along with social impact initiatives that align with the company’s customer base. Previously, she was the head of LinkedIn nonprofit relationship management. Before that, she was a director of partnerships at CyArk Foundation. Earlier in her career, she worked with Enterprise Strategy Group as an ESG client programs analyst.

Coleman earned an undergraduate degree in political science and international relations from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Chief People Officer, Fastly

Puja Jaspal is the Chief People Officer at Fastly, overseeing global human resources strategy, employee experience, talent acquisition and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Fastly’s powerful and programmable edge cloud platform helps the world’s top brands deliver the fastest online experiences possible while improving site performance, enhancing security, and empowering innovation at a global scale. 

With over 20 years of experience, Jaspal has significantly improved company culture, leading Fastly to be named among US News & World Report’s Best Companies to Work For. She implemented a hybrid workforce model and successfully integrated Domainr after its acquisition. Previously, as an SVP at Cisco, she contributed to the company achieving the #1 Best Place to Work ranking. Her career includes leadership roles at Visa and Google, where she was an HR partner to executives like Marissa Mayer and Sundar Pichai.

Jaspal holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Head of Creative, Sierra Club

Thea Stutsman is an accomplished brand and creative leader who specializes in building impact-driven marketing campaigns and strategies. With a diverse background spanning global brand marketing, creative direction, and social and environmental impact strategy, she has led marketing initiatives that resonate deeply across outdoor, lifestyle, and environmentally-oriented communities.

As the Head of Brand Creative at Sierra Club, Stutsman has led the transformation of Sierra Club's creative voice, and established and managed a team dedicated to producing impactful visual and narrative content to support environmental advocacy and social change, aiming to engage and inspire a contemporary audience. As the global brand marketing manager at The North Face, she spearheaded award-winning campaigns, notably "Walls Are Meant For Climbing," which garnered a 2018 Silver Clio Award. Her role involved overseeing brand strategy for Mountain Sports & Expeditions and Social Impact verticals, highlighting the power of exploration in building community and environmental stewardship.

At Edelman, Stutsman advised a diverse clientele, from Fortune 100 corporations to nonprofits, to develop and execute authentic programs and communication strategies addressing climate and social issues. Her focus was on integrating purpose-driven initiatives into client platforms, paving the way for a more ethical and sustainable future. She holds a Master’s degree in Gender, Media, and Culture from the London School of Economics and an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College.

Chief Customer Officer, Intermedia Cloud Communications

Urvashi is a respected leader in the technology sector. She has extensive experience in global operations and customer-facing functions and has successfully used advanced technologies, such as robotic process automation, gen-AI, and machine learning to transform customer experience, customer success, and sales organizations. Her remarkable career includes overseeing multi-million dollar P&Ls and creating excellent technology-driven customer experiences across different industries.

Sheth has played pivotal roles in spearheading complex initiatives, including supporting operations during major mergers and preparing companies for successful exits. Her achievements have been recognized with prestigious awards from industry leaders like Gartner, 1to1 Media, Oracle, and JD Power, including repeated Technology Woman of the Year awards and the esteemed Female Executive of the Year in Business Services award by Stevie Awards. As a sought-after speaker, Sheth shares insights on customer experience, customer success, and the transformative potential of gen-AI and machine learning technologies at global conferences. Her thought leadership and expertise significantly contribute to industry discourse, inspiring audiences worldwide.

Currently serving as the Chief Customer Officer at Intermedia Cloud Communications, a leading cloud communications company, Sheth continues to leverage her extensive experience and technological expertise to drive revenue growth, increase customer retention rates, and elevate customer service benchmarks to unprecedented levels of excellence. Before her current role, Sheth served as vice president of global customer care and warranty operations at Western Digital and SanDisk, where she showcased exceptional leadership skills in managing complex global support, warranty, and logistic operations. She is a passionate advocate for DEI initiatives. As a founding circle member of the South Asian Women’s Association, she champions initiatives supporting and empowering women, solidifying her legacy as a leader committed to positive change within the technology sector.

Chief Marketing Officer & VP, Intelligent Devices Group (IDG) & International Markets (ISO), Lenovo

Emily Ketchen is Lenovo’s Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President for the Intelligent Devices Group (IDG) and International Sales Organization (ISO). She leads a global team developing and driving marketing campaigns, overseeing brand marketing, customer insights, and creative direction across all business segments in IDG. Ketchen is accountable for defining the IDG marketing strategy with a key focus on growing the Lenovo brand and driving expansion worldwide. She also drives marketing and growth across ISO markets, including Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA); Asia Pacific; North America; Latin America; and China.

Before joining Lenovo, Ketchen held several senior marketing roles, including head of marketing at HP Americas for Personal Systems and Marketing Services, where she held responsibility for creating end-to-end marketing programs, including marketing strategy and execution spanning consumer, commercial, public sector, and marketing services. A versatile senior leader, Ketchen was tapped to create and lead the global omnichannel go-to-market team. Her prior positions at HP include regional head of marketing services and personal systems marketing for Asia Pacific/Japan, where she was based in Singapore, and VP of worldwide integrated marketing and communications.

Throughout Ketchen’s 30-plus-year marketing career, she has held senior roles at Publicis & Hal Riney, Grey San Francisco, Dell, Poppe Tyson/Bozell Advertising, Falcon Cable TV, and Iberia Airlines of Spain. Ketchen, who is fluent in Spanish and French, holds a degree in international relations from Pitzer College, part of the Claremont Colleges, and studied at the University of Paris, Sorbonne, and IEP while pursuing her undergraduate degree.

Head of Global Learning, Development & Skilling, Micron Technology

Shveta Miglani is the Head of Global Learning, Development, and Skilling of Micron Technology. She first joined the team in 2019. They are an industry leader in innovative memory and storage solutions transforming how the world uses information to enrich life for all. 

Miglani excels in constructing skills-based organizations and offers expert career coaching. She leverages her extensive two-decade experience to provide superior organizational solutions and learning initiatives. Her core competencies encompass corporate learning and development programs, diversity and inclusion strategies, performance management, and executive coaching. Previously, Miglani was a head of talent development at LiveRamp. Before that, she was the head of leadership development at Palo Alto Networks. Earlier in her career, she worked with Micron Technology as an organizational development leader.

Miglani earned a Doctorate of Philosophy in Leadership Development and Organizational Enablement and earned a Master of Arts in Organizational Development from Fielding Graduate University. She also has a Master of Science in Instructional Technology from Utah State University and an undergraduate degree in economics and sociology from the University of Mumbai.

Head of Market Research & Community, Achievers

Chief People Officer, Pantheon

Christine Park is the Chief People Officer for Pantheon. She has more than 30 years of hands-on experience steering industry-leading organizations through transformational growth to win in the market. Park’s goal is to transform the work lives of employees by bringing out the leader within, one interaction at a time.

Park is leading the evolution of Pantheon’s sales, customer, and people organizations, building on the company’s momentum with her proven ability to identify the “people implications” of business strategies, and enabling the alignment of talent toward Pantheon’s business objectives. She understands that true transformation on an organizational level requires adaptability, empathy, and operational rigor. She is working to scale Pantheon’s go-to-market execution with a focus on building the strategies, teams, and processes needed to drive sustainable, global growth, as well as customer loyalty and retention. With her expertise in guiding both public and private technology organizations through monumental growth and change, she excels in translating business strategy into people strategy, and in driving a high-performing, growth-minded organization with optimized capabilities. 

Park consistently works with her team and fellow leaders to create and foster an engaging culture that connects the hearts and minds of all employees, which in turn creates exceptional customer experiences and achieves company revenue goals. Before joining Pantheon in 2022, Park held leadership positions at Sitecore, BOLD, TriNet, and Kia Motors America.

Chief Executive Officer, Splice

Kakul Srivastava is the Chief Executive Officer of Splice. Splice is cultivating the essential ecosystem for music creation with innovative audio products that inspire and enable artists. With sounds, skills, and connected instruments, Splice is meeting the needs of a new generation of musicians and creators, alongside a diverse and trusted library of over 2 million pre-cleared samples. 

Before Splice, Srivastava was responsible for the end-to-end experience for Adobe’s over $9 billion Creative Cloud business, building and scaling a product-led growth platform across their award-winning web, desktop, and mobile products. Before Adobe, she was the VP of product and marketing at Github, where she instituted key product and business changes, including the most significant pricing model change in the company’s history, to dramatically increase growth in their core open-source business and drive enterprise growth. Srivastava was the GM of Flickr and helped grow it to over 100 million users, and as the VP of Apps at Yahoo, led the biggest re-architecture of Yahoo Mail. She has deeply held beliefs around the importance of human connections at work and creativity, which led her to build Tomfoolery, Inc., a company that built apps for the future of work. Their first app, Anchor, was designed to help teams run better through more open human interactions. Srivastava was a co-founder and CEO of the company, which was later acquired by Yahoo.

Srivastava holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and an MBA from the Haas School of Business. She was named among the Top 25 Creative People in Business by Fast Company Magazine.

CFO, Cents

Bridgett Thurston is the Chief Financial Officer at Cents, a vertical SaaS company and the industry-leading, all-in-one business management system for laundromats and dry cleaners. 

As a leader in SaaS technology, Thurston promotes creative problem-solving to advance strategic planning based on data and associated projections. Her foundational success in FP&A has given her opportunities to not only manage finance but also to successfully manage accounting, internal tools software development, and HR.

Throughout her career, Thurston has enjoyed bringing people together with data and key metrics to solve obstacles using the latest technology as the foundation that enables scale and growth. Before joining Cents, she served as the VP of finance for Greenbits. Before that, she was the head of finance for JFrog. Thurston graduated from the University of Oklahoma with an undergraduate degree in economics.

Chief Philanthropy Officer, CommonSpirit Health

Today, Raya Galang is the Chief Philanthropy Officer of CommonSpirit Health, a non-profit, Catholic health system dedicated to advancing health for all people. CommonSpirit establishes a population health services organization. 

Galang has served the ministry since 2011 and has over 17 years of experience providing executive-level support with a demonstrated history working in hospitality, startup, healthcare, and nonprofit organizations. Her combined experiences have honed customer service, problem-solving, collaboration, leadership, and intuitive decision-making skills while developing effective relationships. Service to others is a value that is deeply ingrained in her. Being born and raised in the Philippines, where poverty and inequality are a daily reality and challenge, Galang developed empathy towards those who are on the peripheries of society. Her deep understanding of the long-lasting impact of genuine service has given profound meaning and fulfillment to the career path she has chosen.

Galang began her early work in 2003 as a guest services supervisor/catering and conference services coordinator at Omni Hotels & Resorts. From there, she went on to Highgate, before eventually rising to executive assistant to senior vice president of mission integration at Dignity Health, her most recent position before joining CommonSpirit Health. Galang received her Bachelor’s degree in Hotel and Restaurant Administration from the University of the Philippines. She was awarded the Rising Star Award by the Hotel Council of San Francisco in 2006 at its annual Hotel Heroes Gala.

SF Opera Guild Director & Past President, San Francisco Opera Guild

Maryam Muduroglu is the SF Opera Guild Director and Past President at San Francisco Opera Guild. She first joined the team in 2014. San Francisco Opera Guild engages with the community, recognizing authentic voices as they emerge through the practice of music and storytelling, and supporting young artists in their development of worldview, artistic expression, and leadership potential. They believe in human dignity and the right to be heard. They embrace and celebrate each individual's unique story and encourage the sharing of stories through song. They are committed to strengthening diversity, equity, and inclusion in their organization. 

Muduroglu previously had a successful career in technology and healthcare, where she led projects for prominent institutions, such as UC Health Systems, Stanford Hospitals, and the VA Health System across the West Coast. Her dedication to improving the lives of youth and the community is evident through her active involvement with various boards, including The Little School, Discovery Museum, Children of Shelters, the Center for Youth Wellness, the Bay School of San Francisco, and “Rising,” a public/private initiative collaborating with the San Francisco Homelessness Department and Larkin Street Youth Services. Her fierce advocacy for youth earned her the 2024 Anne Stanton Award at The Larkin Street 40th anniversary celebration. Currently, Muduroglu serves on the Tipping Point Leadership Council, and the San Francisco Opera Association Board, and she is a director and past president of the San Francisco Opera Guild. She is also a Trustee Commissioner of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center.

For her past role as chief of protocol for the City and County of San Francisco, Muduroglu was recently honored with the Global Leadership Award by the Bay Area Council for her valued efforts with the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) hosted in San Francisco in November of 2023. Her multifaceted contributions reflect her unwavering dedication to making a positive impact on her community, San Francisco, and beyond. Muduroglu holds an MBA in Marketing and received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and French from the University of California, Davis. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and family. 

Founder & CEO, Aldea Home & Baby

Johanna Bialkin is a New York native who has found her home here in the Bay Area. After a successful career in advertising and time spent within the nonprofit sector, she decided to combine her love for people and create beautiful spaces by launching Aldea Home & Baby in 2005. Aldea, which means “small village” in Spanish, has been a place for Bialkin to lean into her passion for travel, appreciation for culture, and eye for design by bringing eclectic and trend-setting items that add an element of uniqueness and charm into the home.

By offering expectant parents personalized baby registry and nursery design services, Bialkin has been able to establish relationships with customers that are built ​on a foundation of trust and support​.​ ​These ​families have ​naturally evolved into a trusted community that ​was born into, and grew, within the Aldea family. With store locations and clients in both San Francisco and Los Angeles, Bialkin found that her customers began coming to her for help in curating personalized gifts for colleagues and clients, and it was with this that the idea for Aldea For Business was born.

Aldea For Business offers a personalized touch and thoughtfully assembled gifts for corporate events, holidays, or a life moment that is too special to be missed. Whether it’s self-care, cooking, mixology, gardening, or staying organized Bialkin's knowledge and expertise will ensure that the gifts will stand out and resonate with the recipient. Understanding her customer base and what people need has remained a central focus and key to her success. Both Aldea locations remained open throughout the pandemic to serve and be a source of comfort to her client base.

CEO & Executive Coach, Brain Squared Solutions

Laurie Cozart is the CEO and an Executive Coach at Brain Squared Solutions, an organization dedicated to using neuroscience to help create a thriving organizational culture. She is an owner of Science2Wellbeing, an award-winning, evidence-based, advanced coaching program developed by high-profile scientists and coaches to increase life satisfaction through life-values alignment. Additionally, she is the founder of the Mind2Lead Institute of Professional Coaching, an organization that supports the ongoing development of coaches through coach training, mentoring, and supervision.

Cozart is an International Coaching Federation, Master Certified Coach, a certified ICF Mentor Coach, and a certified Coach Supervisor. She has been featured in CEO Today, and Smart Money, and is the author of Coaching Conversations: Techniques to Deepen and Broaden the Coaching Experience. Cozart says that being an executive and leadership coach gives her the extraordinary blessing of partnering with people in their reach toward their fullest potential. She is the program director and instructor of the UC Davis “Team Coaching for High-Value Results” program, has been a coaching instructor and mentor coach for the UC Davis “Professional Coaching for Work and Life Program,” an executive coach and leadership development instructor for UC Davis for over a decade. 

Cozart earned an MD in Leadership and Management from York St. John University and an undergraduate degree in business administration from the University of Utah.

Chief Customer Officer, Salesloft

Sam Loveland is the Chief Customer Officer of Salesloft, a provider of the first and only global AI-powered revenue workflow platform. As a pioneer of modern-day customer success programs, Loveland leverages her deep experience to accelerate time to value and drive exceptional business outcomes for SalesLoft customers.

Loveland joined SalesLoft on the heels of several market-leading innovations and announcements. In June 2023, the company launched Rhythm, a first-of-its-kind, AI-powered workflow solution that translates buyer behaviors into prioritized seller actions based on the highest impact. Earlier in the year, the company introduced generative AI to unlock seller productivity. At the same time, Salesloft became the only revenue workflow provider to offer its full platform in French, German, and Spanish to better serve sellers around the world. 

Loveland brings more than 20 years of experience to her new role at Salesloft. Her background includes powerhouse SaaS leadership positions, including vice president of customer success at Salesforce, where her team defined and established the nascent role of customer success as it is widely known today. As vice president of customer engagement at Yammer, she was instrumental in driving customer adoption, which helped lead to the company’s successful acquisition by Microsoft. Most recently, Loveland was vice president of global customer success at ServiceNow, where she led a 500-plus global team responsible for driving increased deployment, customer adoption, and value acceleration of its products. Loveland graduated from Columbia Business School with an MBA in Consulting and Finance.

President & CEO, Beyond Yoga

Nancy Green is the CEO of Beyond Yoga, a body-positive, female-founded, premium activewear and athleisure apparel brand focused on quality, fit, and comfort for all shapes and sizes. Founded in 2005 and grounded in the values of inclusivity and body positivity, Beyond Yoga creates clothing from luxuriously soft, easy-to-care-for fabrics in styles that serve a broad range of workouts and beyond.

Before joining LS&Co., Green served as CEO and president of Old Navy, growing the business from $8 billion to $9 billion during this time, with significant growth in activewear. She built a leadership team to establish a multi-year product, digital, and operations transformation strategy while accelerating product innovation and brand purpose storytelling. Previously, she served as CEO and president of Athleta, where her team transformed the brand by introducing the Power of She platform and reshaping its product line via a robust innovation pipeline, the introduction of the Athleta Girl line, and significant advances in product sustainability. Green also championed their corporate citizenship programs, culminating in Athleta’s B Corp Certification in 2018. During this time, Athleta’s revenues grew from $250 million to nearly $1 billion, with its operating margin significantly growing and its store network expanding from 39 to 175 stores. Before that, she served as CEO of Shabby Chic, ran the Pottery Barn brand at Williams-Sonoma, and held multiple executive roles at Old Navy and Gap during their years of early growth and expansion.

In addition to her expertise in leading and building powerhouse brands, Green has served on multiple boards, such as Marine Layer, Allbirds, and the National Retail Federation. She is on the advisory board of Lily AI and is a senior advisor at the Center for Equity, Gender, and Leadership at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Green earned an undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

President, Close Concerns

Kelly Close is the President of Close Concerns, where she drives strategy, growing the organization from zero to over 100 accounts over the past 20 years. In her role, she has sustained a 90% retention rate through the company’s subscription-based model. She also successfully identifies new distribution channels, initiates contact, and builds account relationships. 

Close is also the founder and chair of the board at The diaTribe Foundation, a nonprofit established in 2013 that works to advocate for action and to improve the lives of people with diabetes and pre-diabetes. In addition to her work at Close Concerns and the diaTribe Foundation, Close also co-founded dQ&A, a patient-centric diabetes market research company that provides answers to diabetes business questions. Her passion for the field comes from her extensive professional work, as well as from her personal experience, having had diabetes for nearly 30 years.

Close sits on the board of the Vanguard Chapter of the Aspen Institute. She is a previous board member of the Diabetes Hands Foundation and the Behavioral Diabetes Institute, as well as a previous executive board member of the San Francisco Bay Area JDRF. She was a founding board member of the Institute for Responsible Nutrition. Close earned an undergraduate degree in economics and English from Amherst College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

CEO & President, Hitachi Vantara

As CEO and President of Hitachi Vantara, Sheila Rohra’s focus is on accelerating growth through transformation and innovation with a customer-first mindset. She leads the company in developing and delivering hybrid cloud data infrastructure solutions designed to address the heart of customers’ business challenges.

Before Hitachi Vantara, she was senior vice president and general manager of the Data Infrastructure Business at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). Before HPE, she spent 10 years at NetApp, where she served as SVP of customer success and led an enterprise-wide transformation as chief transformation officer. In addition, she spent 12 years at Cisco leading business operations and held quality engineering and manufacturing roles at Bay Networks.

Rohra holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland. She is passionate about social causes and serves on the Women in Engineering (WIE) Advisory Board at her alma mater, the University of Maryland at College Park, and as a board advisor for Ayati, a charitable organization that brings hygienic education and materials to girls in rural areas of India.

Chief Information Officer, Infoblox

Today, Amy Farrow is the Chief Information Officer of Infoblox. Infoblox unites networking and security to deliver unmatched performance and protection. Trusted by Fortune 100 companies and emerging innovators, they provide real-time visibility and control over who and what connects to the network, so the organization runs faster and stops threats earlier.

Farrow joins Infoblox as the company prepares for a period of rapid growth. Her proven experience helping companies scale during times of significant and complex transformation while bolstering the customer experience will be critical as the company continues to grow and lead the market. Farrow is a veteran technology leader with over 20 years of experience leading technology teams in both B2B and B2C companies. She has helped to scale organizations that are disruptors in their space, including Salesforce and Twitter. 

Farrow began her early work in 2006 as a senior director of technology delivery services at Salesforce. From there, she went on to Twitter, before eventually rising to chief information officer at Lyft, her most recent position prior to joining Infoblox. Farrow graduated from Penn State University with an undergraduate degree in management science and information systems.

Chief People Officer, Instacart

Christina Hall is a practicing attorney and the Chief People Officer for Instacart, where she oversees the company’s Human Resources, Recruiting, Workplace, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion functions. Hall is focused on building a holistic people and talent strategy designed to attract, retain, and develop employees at Instacart. 

Hall joined Instacart in October 2020 and brings to the company more than 25 years of experience advancing talent goals at high-performing tech companies. She most recently served as chief people officer at LinkedIn, and she previously held key human resources roles at Facebook and Intuit. Hall currently serves as a board member of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula and serves as an advisory board member for Syndio, Rebellion Defense, Fond.co., and Equiliar. She is also the executive sponsor of Instacart Nightshades, a Black Employee Resource Group that aims to build a more inclusive culture by attracting, retaining, and growing the number of Black employees at Instacart. 

Hall is a graduate of Stanford University with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and History. She received her JD from Hastings College of Law at the University of California.

Vice President, Community Engagement, Oracle

Today, Heather VanCura is the Vice President of Community Engagement at Oracle, a provider of cloud-based solutions for enterprises. VanCura is a global business executive with more than 20 years of experience creating brand and shareholder value. She is the chairperson of the JCP Executive Committee Board, leading companies like Amazon, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Samsung, SAP, BNY Mellon, and Goldman Sachs to collaborate on building technology solutions. She also leads the MySQL Community/Developer Relations team at Oracle. 

VanCura is an international technical and keynote speaker across events in all regions of the world, on six continents, and in over 50 countries. She is a consultant on digital transformation and virtual events, and she is also an Expert in Residence for Rippleworks. She serves as a coach and mentor for technical leaders through the JCP and works with Andela, TechBridge, and Women Who Code. VanCura’s experience includes 20 years with the Oracle Corporation. She joined Oracle through the Sun Microsystems acquisition, where she first began to grow and develop the Java developer community, responsible for leading a global organization- transforming the governance, technology, culture, and community for Java developers, as well as serving as part of the Standards Strategy and Architecture leadership team, driving long-term vision and strategy for Oracle technical standards.

VanCura has served on several nonprofit boards, including Playing at Learning (serving LEGO First Robotics); Dress for Success San Francisco/Silicon Valley; and St Ignatius private school STEM Advisory Board. She is an accredited Angel Investor and has been involved with numerous global leadership organizations, such as Junior Achievement, the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology, IEEE Women in Engineering, and Professional BusinessWomen of California (PBWC). She is an advisor to the UC Riverside MBA program and a guest lecturer for Golden Gate University. Vancura graduated from California State University with an undergraduate degree in business administration. She has authored and contributed to several books and podcasts on technical and career topics. Heather's dedication to empowering developers and advocating for diversity makes her a respected leader in the industry. 

VP of Engineering, Developer Experience & Authorization, Okta 

Monica Bajaj is a seasoned technology engineering executive with over 20 years of experience building and scaling products and global engineering teams. Her expertise spans technology, business operations, global expansion, M&A, digital transformation, and the entire product lifecycle, from inception and launch to scaling. As an executive leader, investor, and advisor, she has contributed to numerous Fortune 500 companies (Cisco, NetApp, UKG, Workday) and startups, developing innovative solutions focused on user engagement, resiliency, and scale. 

Currently, Monica serves as VP of Engineering at Okta, where she leads the Developer Experience and Fine-Grained Authorization product portfolio. Her focus is on building a developer-first, frictionless, and extensible identity platform that is highly scalable and secure, supporting billions of monthly logins for customers and partners. 

A committed member of the tech community, Monica advises the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering and serves on the advisory board of the Berkeley SkyDeck startup accelerator. She frequently engages with venture capital groups and is a sought-after speaker on topics including building scalable architectures and teams, enterprise SaaS, and AI & Security. She also actively blogs about leadership and technology. 

Beyond her professional achievements, Monica is passionate about giving back. She serves on the board of directors of SheTO (www.sheto.org), an organization dedicated to advancing women in engineering leadership. Her contributions have been recognized with several awards, including being named one of the top 60 women technical leaders by the Girl Geek X Community and recognized by the WomenTech Network. 

Monica holds a Master's in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mumbai and a BS in Computer Engineering from SGSITS, Indore. In her free time, she volunteers with the Boy Scouts and enjoys hiking with her family. She lives by the motto: “To be a champion, compete; to be a great champion, compete with the best; but to be the greatest champion, compete with yourself.”

Vice President, Corporate Citizenship, Blue Shield of California

Antoinette Mayer is the Vice President of Corporate Citizenship at Blue Shield of California, one of California’s largest health insurers. At Blue Shield, Mayer has spearheaded transformative initiatives in corporate social responsibility, environmental sustainability, and corporate reputation, earning Blue Shield numerous awards, including recognition as one of the most community-minded companies in the nation by Civic 50 for two years in a row.

Mayer joined Blue Shield in 2013 and under her leadership, has built a world-class team overseeing bold sustainability action, millions in corporate giving, and record-breaking employee engagement. Over the past year, 96% of Blue Shield employees participated in giving and/or volunteerism, and Blue Shield became one of the few health insurance plans in the world to commit to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), the most rigorous and clearly defined pathway for companies to reduce their carbon footprint. Mayer serves as the chair of the Steering Committee of Practice Greenhealth’s Health Insurers Working Group, a national collaborative uniting health insurance companies to accelerate sustainability in healthcare. In 2019, she co-founded BlueSky, Blue Shield’s signature youth mental health initiative. This multimillion-dollar initiative invests in best-in-class nonprofits and programs that promote emotional well-being for young people across California, particularly youth in marginalized communities. To date, BlueSky has supported over 2,500 youth, trained more than 6,000 educators, and has been recognized by the California Department of Health Care Services with the Health Equity Award in 2021.

After earning her Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University, Mayer had a successful career on Wall Street in executive compensation for over a decade before transitioning to corporate social responsibility. She serves on several boards and committees, including the board of directors of Children Now, California’s leading children’s advocacy organization. 

Head of Product for Stores, Marketing, Loyalty, & Mobile Apps, Williams-Sonoma, Inc.

Swati Sahai is the Head of Product for Stores, Marketing, Loyalty, and Mobile Apps of Williams-Sonoma, Inc. Founded in 1956, Williams-Sonoma, Inc. is the premier specialty retailer of high-quality products for the home. 

Sahai has 20 years of experience solving complex product challenges and driving bottom-line results by developing end-to-end solutions that optimize processes, enhance profitability, and improve efficiency. She has successfully managed multi-million-dollar global product and solution portfolios, leading companies toward product-led growth.

Sahai began her early work in 2006 as a senior analyst at H&R Block. From there, she went on to Fidelity, before eventually rising to senior director of product management at Workday, her most recent position before joining Williams-Sonoma, Inc. Sahai graduated from Vanasthali with an MBA in IT and from Delhi University with an undergraduate degree in applied science.

VP, Enterprise Operations & Technology, Verkada 

Ksenia Kouchnirenko is the VP of Enterprise Operations and Technology at Verkada. Ksenia is a strategic technology executive with over 20 years of leadership at the intersection of strategy, technology, and business operations. She is recognized for building and leading diverse, high-performing teams, implementing innovative solutions, creating efficiencies that deliver measurable results, and scaling operations to achieve significant revenue growth. She has deep expertise in SaaS technology, automation and optimization, compliance and risk mitigation, and international markets. Ksenia has a proven track record in integrating large-scale acquisitions, managing due diligence, IPO preparation, and optimizing business processes. She excels in fostering a culture of efficiency, diversity, and inclusion, having led global teams that achieved significant revenue growth and cost savings.

Prior to Verkada, she served as VP of business systems, security, and IT operations with SurveyMonkey. There, she led the strategic thinking and execution with a lean global team, focused on cross-functional operational processes. She selected, operated, and scaled key SaaS technology platforms and ensured a successful execution of security infrastructure, compliance, and IT operations. She spearheaded the strategy and launch of the automation platform at SurveyMonkey, which drove process automation, enhanced efficiencies across functional operations, and created a sales pipeline via automation.  She launched an efficiency program that drove over 60,000 cumulative hours and generated over $3 million in savings. She led multiple due diligence, integrations, and diverse hiring practices resulting in a global team that was over 45% female. As director of international strategy, she developed strategy and led marketing optimization driving international growth for SurveyMonkey’s 170 markets.

Before that, Kouchnirenko held roles at Intuit and with Mint.com. She managed a team responsible for QuickBooks cross-sell platform initiatives and led Mint's original monetization, helping the start-up grow from 20 employees to a team of 50 while building products to drive over 50% of the revenue. Kouchnirenko began her career at William Blair & Company, an independent investment bank.  Ksenia holds a BS in Business Administration from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

VP, Global Talent Management & Organizational Development, Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.

Shawna Kovacs has over 20 years of experience in talent development, organizational development, and learning and development roles. She currently serves as the VP of Global Talent Development and Organizational Development at Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.

Kovacs oversees talent development initiatives for the parent company and its subsidiaries. Headquartered in New York City, Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is a leading developer, publisher, and marketer of interactive entertainment for consumers around the globe. Before this, she was the head of talent and organizational development at 2K. Kovacs has also held leadership positions at Fitbit (now part of Google), Neustar, Leaders Required, Meltwater, Pandora, and Microsoft. 

Kovacs holds a certificate in the psychology of leadership from Cornell University. Additionally, she has a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Athabasca University, and she obtained a Situational Leadership Certification from The Ken Blanchard Companies in December 2021. She has additional certifications in DiSC and EQ-i 2.0 and EQ 360 from DISC and Multi-Health Systems Inc. (MHS), respectively.

VP, Strategic Planning & Operations, Chargebee

Sailatha is a results-driven executive with extensive experience in Enterprise PMO, Strategic Planning, and Business Operations across SaaS, fintech, and e-commerce. She has a proven ability to scale high-growth organizations post-Series D funding. She specializes in operational transformation, execution excellence, and aligning strategy with execution at a global scale.

Sailatha has led PMO and Operations teams across multiple regions, driving large-scale transformation, execution governance, and enterprise-wide efficiencies. Her expertise spans strategic planning, cross-functional execution, and optimizing business operations for sustained growth and scalability. Her key areas of impact include: enterprise PMO & business operations leadership; leading high-impact teams and driving execution excellence across international markets; scaling post-funding rounds (Series D & beyond); establishing structured governance models for operational growth; strategic planning & execution; aligning business objectives with scalable, cross-functional execution frameworks; revenue growth & product market fit; driving go-to-market success and accelerating adoption through data-driven execution; enterprise-wide transformation & C-Suite engagement; and bridging business strategy with operational execution for sustainable growth.

She thrives in high-growth, dynamic environments where data-driven decision-making, operational excellence, and execution governance drive measurable business impact. She is passionate about bridging strategy with execution, and her focus is on aligning teams, optimizing execution frameworks, and accelerating business transformation at scale.

She holds a Masters of Computer Science from San Jose State University and a Masters of Computer Science from Osmania University.

Vice President, External Affairs, GAF Energy

Keally Dewitt is the Vice President of External Affairs for GAF Energy. She first joined the team in 2019 as the director of marketing and public policy. GAF Energy is the solar roofing business unit of GAF, North America’s largest roofing and waterproofing manufacturer and a Standard Industries company.

Dewitt comes to solar with the conviction that carbon-neutral is the new black. She started in renewables as the head of marketing for the largest solar company in the Northeast before moving into marketing and public policy leadership roles at Sunrun and SunPower. As the national organizing director of The Alliance for Solar Choice (TASC), Fortune magazine described the netroots work she pioneered as “radically changing” political advocacy through digital technology. 

Previously, Dewitt was a seed investor at Valence App Inc. Before that, she was a director of marketing and head of marketing at Mosaic. Earlier in her career, she worked with Save the Bay as a field educator and advocate in marine ecology. Dewitt earned a Master's degree in Rhetoric and Communication from the University of Cincinnati and an undergraduate degree in environmental studies and sciences from Brown University.

VP of Marketing, Origin

Alex Lavian is the VP of Marketing at Origin, a FinTech company revolutionizing wealth management for a new generation with a personal finance app designed to help individuals track their finances and build wealth. In her current role, Lavian is responsible for shaping the brand, fueling the company’s growth, and scaling the marketing organization. Since joining in May 2023, she has led the company’s first-ever integrated brand campaign, a comprehensive brand and positioning refresh, launched Origin direct-to-consumer, expanded the product suite beyond budgeting to investing, tax filing, and estate planning, and built out the marketing team.

Previously, Lavian led product marketing for Spotify for artists with a focus on redefining the role of Spotify in the creator economy. Her team built products that unlock new revenue streams for artists and new ways for fans to engage and connect with the artists they love. Before Spotify, she led product marketing for Uber’s Membership Programs, where she built and launched the company’s first-ever subscription program (Uber One) in over 18 countries, with millions of paid members yielding hundreds of millions in incremental gross revenue. 

During her time at Uber, Lavian led global and national marketing campaigns across owned and paid channels growing the subscriber base by over 400%, led a rebrand/rename/relaunch of the membership portfolio, developed the three-year global membership strategy and vision, and built and hired a team of product and brand marketers that worked across both mobility and delivery responsible for on-going adoption and retention. She also scaled the Uber Rewards program to new countries and led product partnerships to maximize user growth and benefit/program engagement.

Vice President, Deputy General Counsel, Litigation & Employment, Ripple

Deborah McCrimmon is the Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, focusing on litigation and employment, at Ripple. Founded in 2012, Ripple is the only enterprise blockchain company with products in commercial use. Ripple’s global payments network includes over 300 customers across over 40 countries and six continents.

McCrimmon started at Ripple in 2018 as director of litigation and has added a multitude of responsibilities since then. Before Ripple, she was a litigation attorney for DLA Piper, a global law firm. She concentrated her practice on complex commercial litigation, trademark and copyright litigation, employment litigation, and internal investigations, as well as consumer class actions. She has extensive intellectual property litigation experience, including matters related to trademarks and trade dress, copyright, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and unfair competition. 

McCrimmon graduated from the University of California’s College of the Law in San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings) with a JD in Law and from the University of California, Davis, with an undergraduate degree in Spanish language and literature. She enjoys spending time with her family, traveling to new places, and cooking.

Member of the People People Group, & former VP of Global Talent, Branch

Michelle Rife currently is a member of The People People Group. North America's most engaged community of passionate HR, Recruitment, and Operations professionals. We are dedicated to sharing best practices, elevating each other, and collectively improving the employee and candidate experience for everyone.

She formerly served as the vice president of global talent at Branch, a mobile growth and attribution platform for enterprises and brands. Rife has over 25 years in talent, diversity, and recruiting, extensive operational experience, and success building teams and companies within startups and global companies. 

Rife is passionate about talent acquisition and DEI, leading with inspiration, empathy, and care, while maintaining a high standard of operational rigor and expectations for herself, her team, and how and what they deliver to meet business demand. She is a strategic thought leader on best practices across all talent initiatives, developing and operationalizing recruiting and hiring programs, D&I, ERG and allyship, metrics analysis, employer branding, and working with multiple stakeholders to ensure consistency and compliance.

Rife has been a conference speaker at various recruiting and employer brand events, such as the Bay Area Council, ERE, SRSC, and Infopresse, Montreal. Originally from Seattle, Washington, Rife graduated from the University of Washington with an undergraduate degree in speech communication.

Founding Member, The John Maxwell Team

Demi Chizgi is a Founding member of The John Maxwell Team. She previously served as the executive director. Chizgi is certified to facilitate, speak, train, and coach individuals and groups in the areas of leadership development, professional skills, and personal growth. Trained and mentored by John Maxwell and mentors of his world-class faculty, she is equipped with the tools, resources, and experience to help teams improve productivity, performance, and profitability. 

Chizgi has been empowering people through her training, seminars, and public appearances since 1999 with various organizations and projects. She is best known as a social entrepreneur and community leader. She is passionate about helping people achieve their dreams by inspiring them to take action, which led her to join the John Maxwell Team as a founding member in 2011. Before joining the team, she invested over a decade in the nonprofit sector and real estate respectively. In addition to the hands-on experience of building and leading award-winning nonprofit organizations, she holds a Master's degree in Nonprofit Administration from the University of San Francisco. She also has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and International Relations from Bogazici University.

During her real estate career, Chizgi also served as a Keller Williams University-approved faculty member and assisted agents in growing their businesses. Recently, she launched her brokerage and partnered with agents nationwide to serve her clientele. During her time, she enjoyed completing Toastmasters International's curriculum as a Distinguished Toastmaster and has successfully competed in many speech contests.

Senior Director, Epidemiology & Modeling, Ginkgo Bioworks

As a Senior Director, Nita Madhav leads the Epidemiology and Modeling team at Concentric by Ginkgo, the biosecurity and public health unit of Ginkgo Bioworks. Madhav joined Ginkgo through the successful acquisition of the data and analytics technology and team of Metabiota, where she served as CEO.

Madhav has nearly two decades of experience in probabilistic modeling and risk assessment. She has contributed to innovations in measuring, mitigating, and managing epidemic and pandemic risk by applying her expertise in computational epidemiology and extreme events modeling. The majority of her experience has focused on monitoring and modeling infectious disease spread and economic impacts to provide actionable insights to governments, businesses, and multilateral organizations. Her work has helped governments and businesses answer pressing questions about how to better prepare for epidemics and pandemics. Madhav excels at combining technical and subject-matter expertise with management skills to build highly collaborative and mission-driven teams. She has built infectious disease modeling teams from the ground up and has led model development, data acquisition, and customer projects spanning a wide range of partners and industries. 

Before becoming CEO of Metabiota, Madhav was the VP of data science, where she established and led the data science and computational modeling group. Before joining Metabiota, she worked as a principal scientist at AIR Worldwide, where she led the life and health research and modeling team. Before that, she performed hantavirus research at the Special Pathogens Branch of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Madhav holds a BS in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, with Distinction, from Yale University and an MSPH in Epidemiology from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. Her work on infectious disease dynamics and modeling has been published in leading journals, including The Lancet, BMJ Global Health, and The Actuary.

Senior Director of Product Management, Walmart

Bani Malhotra is the Senior Director of Product Management for e-commerce at Walmart. She first joined the team in 2021 to lead personalization and is currently responsible for the oversight of building best-in-class e-commerce site discovery and inspirational experiences for the organization. 

Before her current role, Malhotra was the head of product at Curology, led flagship products at Narvar, and held early hire lead positions at Shipt (acquired by Target), and Flipkart (acquired by Walmart). She spent the early years of her career in investment banking M&A and venture capital, and she brings in more than 10 years of e-commerce experience across the retail, grocery, and telehealth industries for direct-to-consumer, marketplace, and subscription business models. Malhotra is passionate about supporting aspiring and early PMs and is an active member of Women in Product at Walmart. She is also an instructor at Product School, USA.

Malhotra earned an undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology and an MBA  in Strategy and Finance from the Indian School of Business. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two kids.

Senior Managing Director, Accenture

Chetna Sehgal is a Senior Managing Director at Accenture. She is also the global practice lead of the Accenture Google Business Group, where she drives key relationships across Accenture and Google Cloud that enable the transformation agenda of joint customers. She is accountable for the co-creation of pioneering industry solutions, future-ready capabilities, and high-value delivery of Accenture’s Google Cloud work. 

In her prior role, Sehgal was accountable for all technology delivery in Accenture’s West Market Unit. She was also the technology lead for Accenture‘s North American High Tech Industry network. Over her 28 years with Accenture, she has grown its footprint and built strong technology practices that drive value for some of the world’s marquee logos. Sehgal has demonstrated expertise in sales and delivery of large, complex initiatives ranging from global system implementations and business transformation to M&A for Fortune 500 clients. She is a trusted advisor to her clients and focuses on tackling complex problems and driving them to resolution.

Sehgal is a published thought leader and a public speaker who has done numerous web and podcasts. She is a fervent believer in giving back. She has been on the board of the American Red Cross, Silicon Valley, for 10 years. She is an active women’s champion and has a reputation for high-impact mentoring of women in the workplace. Sehgal is also yoga-certified. In addition to getting her MBA from George Mason University, she has studied negotiation at Harvard and MIT and value-led selling at Stanford University.

Managing Director, West Life Sciences Practice Lead, Accenture

Alisa Wilson is a Managing Director and leader in Accenture’s National Life Sciences practice. She has 25 years of industry experience building practices and leading innovative transformations to address complex challenges in the life sciences sector. Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the world’s leading businesses, governments, and other organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth, and enhance citizen services creating tangible value at speed and scale.

Whether it’s a digital implementation, a new strategy, or redefining the nature of work, Wilson leverages her deep expertise in life sciences to advise leaders on preparing for and implementing innovations and transformations in an agile manner. She began her early work in 2001 as a senior consultant at Right Management Consultants. Before joining Accenture, she worked in life science and human capital at Deloitte Consulting. 

Wilson holds a PhD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. She actively serves as an advisor and board member for the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) and as an advisor to Springboard Life Sciences Healthcare CEOs. Wilson has published articles on Women’s Health Innovation and Cell and Gene Therapy growth strategies, presented at the 2025 JPM Conference on the State of Women’s Health in Therapeutic Areas with Springboard, and moderated and participated in panels at the Galien Awards and JPM Life Sciences Trends sessions.

North Coast Director of Maintenance & Engineering, Constellation Brands

Joy Malinowski is the North Coast Director of Maintenance and Engineering at Constellation Brands, Inc. Joy has successfully developed and implemented maintenance and engineering strategies for luxury wineries throughout the Wine and Spirits division. Her focus on people, processes, and innovation has led to organizational growth and transformation. Her leadership and dedication were recognized with the prestigious Marvin Sands Heritage Award in 2024 for inspiring leadership, demonstrating strong business acumen, and giving back to the community. 

Prior to this role, Joy served as the Environmental, Health & Safety Director at Constellation Brands, Inc., where she built an impressive EHS team for production wineries in California and New York. She implemented strategies and processes to ensure regulatory and corporate compliance, fostered growth, and empowered teams to think bigger. Her efforts in creating EHS tactical execution, leading the Support Services team, and improving the EHS Management System significantly enhanced the organization's performance.

With over two decades of experience in various industries including packaging, pharmaceutical, wine, and biotechnology her mission is to be unstoppable in the pursuit of growth and success. Her approach is simple: listen first, engage second, and act third. By understanding and connecting with others, she aims to help everyone achieve their greatest potential.  

Joy holds a Bachelor's degree in Psychology with a minor in Environmental Science from Santa Clara University and an MBA from the University of California, Davis. She is a Registered Environmental Health Specialist with the state of California. She has been published in numerous publications and has authored a white paper. In her free time, she loves to garden, raise animals, and support various children’s nonprofit organizations. 

Director, Bioinformatics Software Test Engineering, Guardant Health

Aprajita Mathur is a mom, inventor, mentor, and international keynote speaker with over 15 years of experience in software engineering. She has contributed to clinical software, Software as a Medical Device (SaaMD), order-to-cash workflows, and data analysis/ bioinformatics pipelines, impacting fields such as oncology, transplant genomics, forensics, and agriculture.

In her current role as Director of Bioinformatics Software Test Engineering at Guardant Health, she leads efforts to ensure quality, compliance, and security in cutting-edge bioinformatics and clinical software. Aprajita holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, India, and a Master’s degree in Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics from San Diego State University. She is also a patent holder in sequencing instrument UI design, an international keynote speaker, and a recognized thought leader in software quality, software testing, and compliance in healthcare technology. She believes in fostering safe, empathetic, and authentic environments for quality advocacy and actively supports the next generation of leaders.

Beyond her technical leadership, Aprajita is a mentor and advocate for women in STEM. She leads the Women Who Test (Bay Area, USA) chapter and has served as a Senior Technical Advisor for IVOW AI’s Women in History Data Ideation Challenge. She is a passionate advocate for mentorship, diversity, and leadership in STEM. Her philanthropic fundraising contributions were recognized when she was named “Woman of the Year 2020 Silicon Valley” by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. 

Aprajita Mathur is an expert in software testing, automation, and verification & validation (V&V) for bioinformatics, clinical, and medical device software. With a strong foundation in regulatory compliance and risk management, she ensures that software meets the highest quality standards while adhering to ISO 13485, 21 CFR Part 11, CLIA, CAP, and FDA regulations. She is also a  CISSP-certified cybersecurity professional. Aprajita is a proven leader in building and managing global, cross-functional teams, fostering a culture of inclusion, innovation, and continuous improvement. Beyond her technical expertise, she is a recognized thought leader and keynote speaker, having presented at international conferences such as STARWEST and EUROSTAR, where she shares insights on software quality, regulatory compliance, and emerging technologies in healthcare.

50. Alestra Menendez
Director, Multilingual Initiatives, Amplify

Alestra Flores Menéndez’s journey began as a college retention counselor and livable wage organizer while an undergrad at UCLA. These experiences ignited her passion for transformative change. As the Director of Multilingual Initiatives at Amplify, she champions academic excellence for ALL students. Fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, she immersed herself in a new language and value system when she began teaching in Hawai‘i, embracing the principles of laulima (collaborative work) and pono (integrity).

Menéndez has worked across the US, Central and South America, and the Caribbean, bridging K-12 classrooms, universities, and global education collaborations. Her diverse career embodies her mission to spark potential, from founding art and media programs in rural Hawai`i to developing national science curricula, teaching first-generation students at UC Berkeley and incarcerated men at San Quentin Prison, and partnering with hundreds of school districts across the Americas. Her most meaningful role is the one she holds at home, raising her kind, creative, and thoughtful son and daughter. She carves out time to run, perform poetry, dance salsa, or curl up with a stack of unrelated books. 

Menéndez continues her mission to humanize education and elevate diverse voices. Her forthcoming book, In the House of Flowers, traces a Salvadoran family in San Francisco's Mission District over five generations. Menéndez earned a Master's degree in Critical Environmental and Global Literacy from New College of California and an undergraduate degree in Latin American studies from UCLA.