Perspectives 22 - Unleashed

Join us on November 7th in Utrecht as we propel people and organizations to grow together.

Eddie Brock

Sr Director, Field Sales

N/A

Simon Brown

Global Learning & Development Leader | Partner, Talent Team at EY

N/A

Dr. Serena Gonsalves-Fersch

Global Head of Talent Management for SoftwareONE

Dr Serena Gonsalves-Fersch, is the Global Head of Talent Management for SoftwareONE, a co-founder of Women in Learning Leadership, and the 2024 winner of the Colin Steed Award for Outstanding Contribution to Learning. Serena is a Talent and Learning & Development leader and holds a doctorate from Middlesex university on the future of learning & the learning and development function in technology accelerating organisations. Her current role includes Performance Management, Succession Planning, Talent Identification, Workforce Planning, DEIB, and leadership of the SoftwareOne Academy – the organisation’s corporate university. She has a wealth of experience both as a management consultant, and in internal leadership roles – in setting learning strategies, defining organisation skills frameworks, managing talent and career development, and predictive learning solutions.

Genevieve Machin

Chief Human Resources Officer, NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA)

N/A

Apratim Purakayastha (AP)

GM, Talent Development Solutions, Skillsoft

As Skillsoft’s GM, Talent Development Solutions, AP is responsible for the overall strategy and product roadmaps for the entire Skillsoft portfolio. In addition, he is responsible for engineering, cloud operations, and support for Skillsoft enterprise learning platforms. He is also responsible for the digital and IT infrastructure across all areas in the Skillsoft group of companies. AP has held this role since 2016.

AP has extensive experience supporting rapidly growing technology companies, including as General Manager and SVP at SevOne, where he was responsible for the on-demand / SaaS business segment. He also served as Group President at ACI Worldwide and ran the on-demand payments division. AP started as a research staff member at IBM and became a Director of Software at IBM.

AP currently serves on the board of William Clarence Education, a K-12 education company. He has previously served on the board of Nuvepro, a cloud learning company. AP holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Duke University, M.S. in Computer Science from Washington State University, and a B.S. in Computer Science from Jadavpur University in India.

Leena-Maija Rinne

VP, Product Portfolio

Eva Spierings

Lead Learning & Development, Rabobank

Lead Learning & Development

As Lead L&D I have over 20 years of international expertise in Learning & Development across the banking, healthcare, media, and IT industries. A proven ability in people development strategy, digital strategy and leveraging learning insights to improve performance. Talent coach & mentor!

I successfully transformed & lead corporate Academies, implemented learning measurement strategy, leveraged Big Data and lead (leadership) development programs in more than 30 countries across the globe. Key strengths: governance, data driven and people centric.

Stacey VanderHeiden Güney

Head, ArcelorMittal University/General ManagerHead

Stacey VanderHeiden Güney is the head of ArcelorMittal University. In addition to this role, since 2023, she is an advisor to NAMTECH, an educational initiative of ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel (AMNS) India.

Stacey joined ArcelorMittal in June 2019. Previously, as Founding Director of Every Learner Everywhere, she envisioned and led the national deployment of the digital learning strategy on behalf of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This built on experience as the Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs for Aims Community College where she led institutional research, grants, assessment, accreditation, program review, library services, tutoring, online learning, career & technical education, and faculty development. Prior to this, she was the Austin Community College Founding Executive Director of the ACCelerator – the world’s largest technology-enhanced learning environment. Additionally, she has served in roles centered in education, including strategic and facility master planning and economic development.

Stacey is a Board-Certified Coach with designations in Executive, Corporate, Business, and Leadership and a Certified Professional in Talent Development. She earned a Ph.D. in Learning Technologies from the University of North Texas, a MS in Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, and a BA in Physics, Math, and English from Greenville University.

Renée van Geel

Head of People Development, Rabobank