Perspectives 22 - Unleashed

Ben is Executive Editor of FastCo Works overseeing all content programs for Fast Company's industry-leading studio. With over twenty years of experience in business journalism, Ben has covered the transformative shifts and the innovators driving them during his time at Fast Company, Forbes and CNN where he led teams of writers, editors, and producers to create award-winning storytelling around the globe.

As Chief Marketing Officer, Michelle is responsible for the leading global marketing strategy for the Skillsoft group of companies, focused on driving growth, generating brand awareness and increasing demand for Skillsoft’s solutions among learners, customers and partners. Since joining the company in 2019, she has overseen customer marketing, corporate communications, demand generation, marketing operations and business development.

Michelle brings more than 25 years of marketing, branding and strategy experience to her role. Prior to Skillsoft, she held several executive positions of increasing responsibility in the high-tech sector, including as Chief Marketing Officer of IBM Watson, where she was responsible for marketing the company's artificial intelligence (AI) products and solutions. Michelle also served as the Global Head of Marketing for The Weather Company, an IBM Business, where she helped companies understand how to anticipate, plan for and ultimately make better decisions – with greater confidence - in the face of weather.

Michelle holds a Master's of Science from Simmons University.

Jen is responsible for executive development and executive coaching. She also is the owner of the Lenovo learning management system, Grow@Lenovo, for 40,000 learners. Jen has over 17 years of experience in the learning and development field, the last seven have been at Lenovo. She has worked in many industries including government, software, manufacturing, and retail. Jen’s passion is equipping fellow employees with the skills and knowledge they need to be more effective in their jobs therefore improving the overall organization culture. Working women and mothers are especially important to Jen. She founded and co-chaired Lenovo’s new mother’s group for 3.5 years and is an active board member of Women in Lenovo Leadership (WILL).

Jen has a MBA from The George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin Madison.

Outside of work Jen enjoys spending time with her husband and two young daughters. She loves yoga and hiking.

Orla Daly is the Chief Information Officer at Skillsoft, where she brings her extensive experience delivering large transformation programs and leading IT & Digital organizational transformation through her passion for applying technology to solve business problems and accelerate business growth.

Orla held several IT and business roles at ExxonMobil, based in Europe, prior to joining EMC in Massachusetts, where she demonstrated a successful track record fostering strong business partnerships, evolving the IT operating model, and leading the company’s largest transformation program to enable Go-To-Market strategies.

As part of the Dell EMC merger, Orla led the IT Integration for Sales & Marketing, before heading up Dell’s global IT Marketing organization. Following Dell, Orla joined National Grid, with accountability for the technology strategy and delivery of IT programs and production operations for the US Customer organization. Most recently, she led IT & Digital Organizational Change Management and served as Chief of Staff for the Chief Information & Digital Officer.

Orla earned a B.A. in International Marketing with French and German from Dublin City University, Ireland, and an MSC in IT from Stirling University, Scotland. She currently lives outside Boston, where she likes to make the most of the New England outdoors with her husband and two daughters.

As a versatile, global learning executive, Emma Engel increases enterprise value by partnering with executive leadership and clients to identify and resolve performance gaps. She effectively directs teams that design innovative and cost-effective solutions that accelerate business growth and improve the talent pipeline without disrupting business momentum. Demonstrating a solutions-focused, consulting approach with stakeholders, Emma brings clients deep expertise and quantified success in global learning, leadership, operations, and sales. She has worked in multiple industries in 21 cities across five continents, with many roles designed specifically for her.

As Director of Learning and Engagement for Lenovo, Emma sets and executes the Leadership learning strategy for Lenovo in North and Latin America. She also leads engagement and culture initiatives in rest of world to ensure that the Lenovo values are embedded across all countries outside China. In her role Emma ensures a robust pipeline of aspiring and first time managers as well as experienced managers who embody the Lenovo Leadership priorities and who ensure the Lenovo Listens (engagement) scores exceed 90 consistently year on year.

Emma holds a post-graduate Certificate in Management from the Macquarie University Graduate School of Management in New South Wales, Australia. Her Bachelor of Arts with Honors is from Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburg, South Africa. Emma and her husband live south of Raleigh, North Carolina. Emma enjoys travel with her husband, golfing, cooking and walking with her two rescue dogs.

As Vice President and Head of Curriculum at Codecademy, Koma leads and manages a diverse, high-functioning team that delivers best-in-class interactive educational content in high-demand skills and technologies to a global learning community.

Koma brings over two decades of experience in multiple industries to her current role, including leadership roles at EY and Morgan Stanley where she led teams that delivered solutions integrating cutting-edge technology, new business processes, and industry best practices. In addition to her work in financial services, Koma has extensive business-government experience gained from her time at the The Cohen Group where she advised domestic and international clients in the aerospace and defense industries, and her work in information security with Booz Allen Hamilton where she advised Department of Defense and Department of the Navy clients on matters pertaining to wireless networks, cybersecurity, and biometrics.

Koma began her career as an officer in the US Navy and attained the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the Navy Reserve. Koma received a BA from Harvard University and an MBA from Georgetown University McDonough School of Business.

Mike Hendrickson is Vice President of Technology and Development products at Skillsoft. Prior to Skillsoft, Mike spent 15 years at O’Reilly Media, Inc., where he most recently was the VP of content strategy. Mike is a technology strategist with extensive experience establishing, building and maximizing relationships with industry leaders, companies, and partners.

John Heun is Global Head of Talent and Learning at GXO Logistics, the #1 pureplay provider of contract logistics in the world. Our brands feature the biggest blue chip customers in the world. Prior to joining GXO, he led Talent Development at XPO Logistics, Inc. for their North American Transportation and AMAPAC Supply Chain businesses, and led Talent Management teams at TIAA in a variety of roles from culture change to technology and operations learning. A former educator, John has devoted his career to developing the careers of others at all stages and levels, focusing on eliminating the barriers to growth.

Kevin Kelly leads Skillsoft’s Global Compliance Go-To-Market initiatives, including Legal Compliance, HR Compliance, and Workplace Safety. He has more than 20 years of experience delivering business transformation in the compliance, legal, digital, and SaaS markets.

Jessica Lee is SVP of Global Talent Development and has been with Marriott since 2012. Her role is critical to Marriott’s commitment to invest in developing our associates so that we can fuel both the performance of the business and that of our talent, enrich lives, and accelerate reinvention for the company. Jessica leads the organization’s global learning COE which delivers against learning and talent development needs for the 800,000 managed and franchised associates around the world who wear a Marriott badge. Her remit also includes Brand Talent which delivers service and culture solutions that help the individual brands in Marriott Bonvoy to each have unique brand identities and fulfill differentiated service propositions. Additionally, her accountabilities include The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center which has helped thousands of clients to improve customer and employee engagement, innovate their culture, and differentiate themselves.

Jessica has more than 20 years of in-the-trenches HR experience that ranges from small companies to the public sector and now Marriott. She has touched nearly every HR function during her career making her a true generalist. Outside of her Marriott life, she continues to build her leadership capabilities serving as a Girl Scouts troop leader and cookie manager (those are real titles!). She is an alum of the University of Washington where she focused her studies on Political Science and Labor Studies.

James Leight is a Compliance Risk Manager at USAA, where his work focuses on Political Activities and Anti Bribery and Corruption compliance.

James has extensive experience advising businesses on bribery and corruption issues and risks, conducting bribery and corruption risk assessments, and designing, implementing and administering compliance programs at global financial institutions.

James holds a BA from the University of Delaware, and a JD from Rutgers University School of Law.

Maricar is the Global Head of Learning and Development at WTW. She has an extensive career in leading talent, learning, and leadership development within global companies in the financial and professional services industries.

Maricar’s 30 years of international experience spans roles in banking, consulting, learning, and organizational development. At WTW, her focus is to transform and implement globally scalable learning solutions and influence and shape managers and future leaders.

Maricar holds an MBA in Finance from the NYU Stern School of Business. She has served as a member of the Diversity Project UK and the professional development panel of the CFA Society.

Since becoming Chief Content Officer in 2018, Mark has been responsible for leading all aspects of Skillsoft’s content catalogue, including strategic direction, roadmap and development.

Mark previously served SVP of Skillsoft Books, successfully launching the company’s book summary product, increasing the audiobook collection by more than 60% and creating the largest collection of audiobooks in the corporate learning market. Prior to Skillsoft Books, Mark led Skillsoft’s strategic business development, where he worked on cross-functional projects and services teams to deliver integrated learning experiences with key clients.

Mark became Skillsoft’s VP, Content Production after the company acquired Element K in 2011. His career with Element K spanned 15 years, where he was responsible for product strategy, content development and operational execution.

Mark holds an MBA from the Rochester Institute of Technology and Bachelors of Science in Finance and Economics from State University of New York, College at Brockport.

Asha Palmer is Skillsoft’s senior vice president of compliance solutions. Throughout her career, Asha has developed, enhanced, and optimized effective ethics and compliance programs for hundreds of companies worldwide. Her passion and expertise are in program development and enhancement, training and engagement, anti-bribery and corruption, risk assessments, and making compliance fun (dare we say it!). Asha pushes compliance out of the box. As a former Assistant United States Attorney and litigator, Asha is extremely passionate about making training and engagement stick and be meaningfully embedded in and with business and its leaders.

Josh is the Senior Director of Product Management for Leadership and Business at Skillsoft. He has spent 15+ years coaching sales teams, developing global strategy, leading cross-functional teams, and facilitating organizational innovation. He propels learning initiatives to the next level by delivering results and behaviors rather than spending resources on creating content. This approach reduced ongoing new hire training resources at Zillow Rentals by 50% while also improving ramp performance of sales professionals by 86%.

Josh's unique way of seeing how things connect leads him to develop novel learning experiences; for example, a just-in-time voice assistant for vehicle manufacturers at Zoox aimed to reduce errors and time wasted. He refers to this as TheaterThink, because just like lawyers, engineers, doctors, and others use unique approaches to solve business problems, his theater career shapes how he deliver value. Josh is a big thinker and long-term strategist who builds new programs for scaling and automation, such as developing a mechanism that enabled the offline Amazon Alexa business to grow by 1000% in one year.

Sedrick’s focus is to help clients reimagine and succeed in the Future of Work by creating a thriving culture to unleash and unlock talent through modernization.

As General Manager of Modern Work Solutions, Sedrick is responsible for building, developing, and optimizing high-performing teams of sales and technical specialists to prepare customers for the new human-centric ways of working across a 1.4-billion-dollar book of business.

Sedrick has been at Microsoft since 2018; prior to his current role, he served as Regional Sales Director leading a team of sellers supporting customers in Retail, Manufacturing, High-Tech, Utilities, and Consulting industries. Before joining Microsoft, Sedrick held executive sales leadership roles at Netbrain Technologies and Trillium Software.

Sedrick resides in Boston with his wife and their two daughters. When not working, Sedrick loves watching movies and listening to music. His current favorite musical artist is Gary Clark Jr. As an avid fan of the arts, Sedrick supports the Boston Arts Academy, whose mission is to prepare a diverse community of aspiring artist scholars to succeed in college or professional careers.

Sedrick holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Rhode Island - College of Business, and has multiple professional certifications in Sales, Revenue, and Leadership methodology.

Carolina is the Director of Learning, Organizational Development and Early Talent for Retail Business Services. Retail Business Services is the services company of Ahold Delhaize USA, currently providing services and solutions to five East Coast grocery brands, including Food Lion, The GIANT Company, Giant Food, Hannaford, and Stop & Shop.

Carolina is a passionate talent management leader with 25 years of experience. In her role, she is responsible for creating strategic direction for talent development, organizational development, and early talent programs, by partnering with the business and HR partners to evaluate competency requirements, critical business challenges, external trends, and short- and long-term organizational goals, to build sustainable solutions that maximize organizational performance improvement.

Carolina holds a bachelor's degree in Business Administration with a minor in psychology, from La Universidad de la Sabana in Bogota, Colombia, and completed a Corporate Executive Development Program at SMU.

Outside of work, Carolina has served as board member for the National Hispanic Corporate Council, and currently serves on the Board of Advisors for Capella University. She lives in Charlotte, NC with her family.

JENNIFER (JENN) RAMIREZ is the Enterprise Regulatory Learning and Governance Executive. She has direct responsibility for learning governance and enterprise-wide and regulatory learning to help ensure every client and employee interaction is compliant with the continuously changing laws, rules and regulations that govern our company, and ensure that teammates know how – and – why they need to adhere to them.

Prior to her current role, Jenn was the Global Technology & Operations (GT&O) Performance Measurement and GT&O Learning executive responsible for overseeing and driving an end-to-end learning strategy across GT&O, in partnership with GHR, to build and deploy training curriculum, including GT&O Boot Camp. In addition, Jenn was responsible for the performance measurement team that worked across GT&O to aggregate metrics and publish standardized management reports including GT&O scorecards, Legal Entity, Issues Management, Key Risk Indicators (KRIs), and Key Risk Review (KRR).

During her tenure, Jenn managed large risk programs and policy governance for Consumer, Small Business and Wealth Management Technology that supported adherence to regulatory, compliance and enterprise standard requirements. She also served as a key contributor in the MBNA transition, specifically in Consumer Production Operations, where she held a program management office role that managed global communication strategies, executive governance and engagement routines for the merger. She has more than 20 years of banking experience that spans various roles in technology, operations, marketing, risk and chief operating offices.

Jenn is a member of the Leadership, Education, Advocacy and Development (LEAD) for Women employee network and the Women in Technology & Operations (WIT&O) organization, both dedicated to promoting professional women’s development.

Jenn, her spouse David and their four adolescent children reside in Delaware where she enjoys working on interior design projects, gardening, hosting family gatherings and relaxing at their beach home.

Loriann has over 12 years’ experience in learning and development. She was first introduced to what a great training experience could be when working for Estee Lauder. Her career has taken me in many directions, from sales, to banking, to non-profit and corporate segments. Loriann has always had a strong desire to help others grow and develop. Her first real opportunity to practice that desire was as a volunteer for the American Cancer Society when she worked as a Regional Trainer. She then turned her passion for the fight against cancer into her career, lasting over eight years with the American Cancer Society. At ACS, Loriann was responsible for training and facilitating everything from leadership development, customer service, relationship building, team building, change management, coaching and sales. With her time at the American Cancer Society, her attention shifted primarily to leadership development where she was instrumental in developing and facilitating a three-year manger development program.

Loriann joined the Learning and Talent Development Team at Rite Aid in 2020. Currently, she lead a team of L&D specialists who are responsible for design and delivery of leadership and professional development. She also has experience in organizational development in the areas of new team assimilation, team intervention, and performance coaching, with extensive emphasis on the GROW coaching model. She has over six years of managing experience in both the non-profit and retail settings.

Loriann is the mom of twin boys, Noah and Aaron who started pursuing their passions at Marywood University and Edinboro University of PA, respectfully. She enjoys cooking, entertaining, baking, working out, spending time with friends and hopes to do more traveling in 2022.

Brian currently serves as Associate Director of IT Service Delivery at IDEXX. In this role, he is responsible for end user support and service delivery for enterprise applications, packaged software, and lab platforms for the organization. Over the course of his career, Brian has been successful in leading distributed teams, managing change, driving digital transformation, and consistently improving the overall quality of service delivery and customer satisfaction. Brian has a passion for building strong customer relationships through collaboration and communication, and was awarded the CIO Collaboration Award in 2020.

Prior to joining IDEXX in 2017, Brian held leadership and technical positions at both Health Dialog and Bottomline Technologies. Brian holds a bachelor's degree in business administration with a minor in computer science, from the University of New Hampshire. In addition, he holds an M.B.A from Southern New Hampshire University.

About IDEXX Laboratories, Inc.

IDEXX is a global leader in pet healthcare innovation. Our diagnostic and software products and services create clarity in the complex, constantly evolving world of veterinary medicine. We support longer, fuller lives for pets by delivering insights and solutions that help the veterinary community around the world make confident decisions—to advance medical care, improve efficiency, and build thriving practices. Our innovations also help ensure the safety of milk and water across the world and maintain the health and well-being of people and livestock. IDEXX Laboratories, Inc. is a member of the S&P 500® Index. Headquartered in Maine, IDEXX employs more than 10,000 people and offers solutions and products to customers in more than 175 countries. For more information about IDEXX, visit www.idexx.com.

Heber is the global end to end transformation lead for Talent Supply Chain and Skills at kyndryl, responsible for creating intelligent data insights to create workforce strategies and people experiences. Prior to joining kyndryl Heber was part of the Accenture Talent & Organization Human Potential practice and has 20 years of global experience in Talent Transformation, Digital Fluency, Talent Development and Learning Strategy. Working with corporations in all industries such as Healthcare, Retail, Communications, Media & Technology, Financial Services, Resources and Government. Heber has led some very complex Talent and Workforce Transformations to achieve the desired human centric results across global organizations and drive behavioral change.

Katina Sawyer, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Management and Organizations in the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona. Her areas of expertise include diversity, work-life balance, leadership, and positive workplace behaviors.

Over the years, Dr. Sawyer has published numerous peer–reviewed articles and book chapters about diversity, leadership, work-life balance, and positive organizational phenomena. Her work has been published in premier academic journals, including the Journal of Applied Psychology and Administrative Science Quarterly, as well as in practitioner-oriented journals, such as the Harvard Business Review. Her research has also been awarded grant funding, including from the National Science Foundation. Additionally, she is the co-founder of a company that aims to bring the science of workplace wellness to employees everywhere, Workr Beeing.

Dr. Sawyer holds a dual-Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology and Women’s Studies from the Pennsylvania State University. She received her B.A. in Psychology from Villanova University.

As Chief People Officer at Monumental Sports & Entertainment, Kelly Skoloda leads the organization’s effort to reward, recognize, develop and delight our employees. From recruiting incredible talent, providing best-in-class health and welfare programs, developing new opportunities for employees to serve the local Washington, D.C., community to partnering with our diverse staff of part- and full-time employees to deliver first-class guest experiences, People & Culture strives to continually improve our processes and exceed expectations. Prior to joining Monumental Sports & Entertainment, Skolodaadvised litigation clients as an attorney at Akin, Gump, Straus, Hauer & Feld LLP and was an employment litigator and assistant general counsel at America Online Inc.

Janis is a learning design and technology professional with extensive knowledge of working with all levels of the organization to create learning and performance solutions to sustain and grow the business. She’s passionate about continuous learning and helping empower others to achieve their personal and professional goals. She enjoys keeping up to date with the latest innovations so that she can offer recommendations and training to her colleagues and clients she serves. She’s managed and worked on numerous learning initiatives during her 20-plus years in Learning and Development. Janis’ latest project was leading the implementation of Skillsoft Percipio, a game changer for the organization. Five years ago, only 5% of training occurred via online learning. Today, it’s over 77%!

Janis holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Palm Beach Atlantic University and certifications in Instructional Design from Langevin and ATD.

In her spare time, she enjoys gardening and outdoor activities.

Janis is the proud mother of two college graduates.

Clive Swift, VP Talent Development, is responsible for leading Moody’s University governance, engagement and measurement activity. In this role he drives business alignment through strategy, transparency and innovation. Clive partners with the Moody’s University academies, focusing on employee learning and development. He has extensive experience in L&D and is currently expanding his knowledge of Data Science. In today’s world of hybrid working, Clive splits his time between NYC and the Hudson Valley.

Jeff Tarr is Chief Executive Officer of Skillsoft and brings a successful track record of building tech-enabled services companies into trusted industry leaders.

Over the last two decades, he has built three publicly traded, tech-enabled information companies into industry leaders. He previously served as Chief Executive Officer and a director of DigitalGlobe, the world leader in satellite imagery and geospatial intelligence, from 2011 until the sale of the company to MDA (now Maxar Technologies) in 2017. Subsequently, Jeff served as an advisor to TPG, other leading private equity firms and corporate clients. From June through October 2019, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Solera Holdings. Prior to DigitalGlobe, Jeff was President and Chief Operating Officer of IHS (now IHS Markit) and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the publicly-traded business information company, Hoover’s, Inc. (now a division of D&B). He began his career with Bain & Company.

Jeff currently serves on the board of EchoStar and is Chairman Emeritus of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Management Board. He also serves on the board of DSST Public Schools, one of the leading open enrollment school systems in the United States. He previously served on the board of CEB (The Corporate Executive Board Company) until the sale of the company to Gartner in 2017. Jeff also served as co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Council on the Future of Space Technologies and co-Chair of the Annual Meeting of New Champions in Dalian China. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Jeff holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs.

Nancy Varela is Accenture’s North America Learning & Leadership Development Lead. In this role she manages a training budget of approximately $50M and sets the learning strategy for over 50,000 employees. Nancy has over three decades of experience and started her career in consulting working on large scale system implementations. Nancy has a BS in Engineering from Lafayette College. She is based in Philadelphia.

Over the past 18 years, Alina has helped companies transform their Learning, Development, and Training ecosystems.

Her professional career started in consulting and change management and evolved into a focus on learning. Alina has touched every avenue of training, development, and learning - from building training programs for SAP implementations to leadership development.

Alina believes professional success occurs when people get access to the right development opportunities at the right time. She has spent her career on a mission to inspire and connect people to their personal growth journeys.

As Global Chief Learning Officer at Dentsu International, Todd is responsible for driving the global learning strategy across Dentsu, which is one of the largest global marketing and advertising agency networks in the world.

Todd maintains that learning is an integral part of our employee experience, and is committed to delivering industry-leading technical training, comprehensive power skills development and robust leadership development experiences connected to their leadership@dentsu model. Dentsu's learning programs link directly to their career framework, enabling relevant and timely learning journeys, mobility and career progression. To help anchor this commitment to learning, every employee receives a minimum 40-hour annual learning allowance.

Todd has been leading learning organizations for high growth companies since 2007. Prior Prior to Dentsu, Todd served as Chief Learning Officer at Merkle, as well as the Head of Learning and Development at upstart apparel company, Under Armour, and divisions of Constellation Energy.

Brad Watt is Chief Learning Officer of Colgate-Palmolive – a caring, innovative growth company that’s reimagining a healthier future for all people, their pets and our planet. Brad is responsible for Colgate’s strategy to transform the Company into a global leader in continuous learning. Brad brings a unique perspective to this role due to his strong commercial experience and his demonstrated leadership in building commercial capabilities.

Previously Brad was Colgate’s Worldwide Director, Marketing Strategy and Effectiveness, where he led initiatives to strengthen Colgate’s competitive advantage in the fast-changing global commercial environment. Brad helped develop Colgate’s 2020 Strategic Plan as well as new commercial hubs and subsidiaries. He served as co-lead of a cross-functional team that created new commercial career pathways for the Company.

Brad joined Colgate-South Africa in 1990, where he held positions in both Customer Development and Marketing. In 1995, he moved to the Colgate-U.S., where he served in various commercial roles. In 2005, Brad was promoted to Marketing Director, East Africa where he managed the marketing programs across several countries, achieving record-high shares and significant sales growth. In 2007, he was promoted to General Manager, C-P Singapore and to Marketing Director, C-P Russia in 2009.

Brad holds a degree from the Institute of Marketing Management at the Global School of Business in Richmond, South Africa and an MBA from Henley Business School in the UK.

Michael is responsible for driving innovation and growth in the Technology and Developer Customer Market. His role as General Manager of this customer market concentrates on leading the content, platform, customer success, sales and marketing teams to deliver compelling experiences to our customers.

Prior to Skillsoft, Michael led the council member organization at GLG, focused on growing GLG’s network of professional experts. Before that, Michael spent over a decade at Gartner, where he led several business units serving technology providers, chief information officers, professional services firms, technology investors, digital marketers, and small & medium businesses. He also led Gartner’s corporate marketing and corporate development organizations. Prior to Gartner, Michael spent 4 years at McKinsey serving high-tech, telecom, and pharmaceutical clients on a variety of strategic issues.

Michael began his career as a research physicist, leading fundamental R&D efforts in semiconductor nanotechnology at IBM, Philips Electronics, and Bell Laboratories. Michael received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard, and his Ph.D. from MIT.