MEET THE SPEAKERS

Vanessa E. Wyche is the director of NASA's Johnson Space Center, home to America's astronaut corps, Mission Control Center, International Space Station, Orion and Gateway programs and its more than 10,000 civil service and contractor employees. She is responsible for overseeing a broad range of human spaceflight activities, including development and operation of human spacecraft, commercialization of low-Earth orbit.

Wyche previously served as deputy director at Johnson, a position she held since 2018. Other key leadership positions include: assistant and acting deputy director of Johnson; director of the Exploration Integration and Science Directorate, flight manager of several missions of the retired Space Shuttle Program, executive officer in the Office of the NASA Administrator, and led additional center-level technical and program organizations. A native of South Carolina, Wyche earned a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and Master of Science in Bioengineering from Clemson University.

Kathleen Merrill serves as Southwest Airlines' Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer. Kathleen's key responsibilities include the delivery of the company's enterprise-wide strategic initiatives and oversight of all technology products and services.

During her tenure at Southwest, Kathleen has led significant strategic initiatives, including the launch of international services, the development of Southwest's "Must Win" Strategy, the integration of AirTran systems into Southwest, the implementation of the All New Rapid Rewards Program, and most recently, the launch of Southwest's new reservation system.

Kathleen holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing from the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas.

Claire Vishik is an Intel Fellow and CTO of Intel GGA (Global Government Relations) group. Her work focuses on Artificial Intelligence, hardware and network security, Trusted Computing, privacy enhancing technologies, some aspects of cryptography and related global policy and trade issues.

Claire is on the Board of Directors of the Trusted Computing Group and TDL (Trust in Digital Life), co-chair of IEEE effort on blockchain, and adviser on numerous international research and policy initiatives, such as CyBoK , Queens University Belfast ECIT and the Imperial College Computing in the UK or the NSF Personal Data Protection Center at the University of California at Irvine.

She served on high level expert and advisory boards, e.g., ENISA (European Network and Information Security Agency) in 2007-2018. Claire was among the researchers who introduced commonly adopted concepts, such as “risk engineering” or “integrated trustworthiness,” that helped examine complex technology areas.

Claire received her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining Intel, she held leadership positions at Schlumberger Laboratory for Computer Science and AT&T Laboratories. Claire is the author of numerous peer reviewed papers and book chapters, editor of several books, associate editor of two scientific journals, and inventor on 30+ pending and granted US patents.

Krithika is a senior solutions architect who loves to put together frugal, secure, configurable, modular, and scalable foundational solutions for the various lines of business at Citi. In her current role, she and her team are responsible for setting the technology strategy for the consumer bank’s identity verification solutions.

After receiving her Masters degree in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Arlington, Krithika started her career as a developer and has progressively acquired a diverse technology background with roles in middleware, strategy, disaster recovery and enterprise architecture. She also has a patent pending for a platform solution.

Krithika is also an avid night-sky watcher and has identified 86 of the 110+ Messier objects, of which M45 or Pleiades Star Cluster is her favorite.

Debbie is a technology industry veteran who has driven innovation, revenue, and strong, collaborative leadership teams for some of the world’s foremost technology companies. Today, she leads B2B sales teams, Sales Strategy and Operations, Marketing, Business Development, and Customer Experience at Dropbox.

As a sales, marketing, and operations leader with more than 30 years of experience in the technology industry, she offers deep insights into executing and delivering consistent results in fast-paced, ever-evolving, global, customer-driven businesses. She is considered a strategic innovator and is a passionate advocate for non-traditional approaches.

Debbie is a frequent panelist and speaker who has been named a Channel Chief and was recognized as one of the Women of the Channel by Channel Reseller News.

Before Dropbox, Debbie held roles at Microsoft, Cisco, HP, and Dell.

Nickoria is Credera's Chief Diversity Officer and a Partner on their executive leadership team. As Chief Diversity Officer at Credera, Nickoria is responsible for accelerating the mission of amplifying voices of underrepresented groups and synergizing diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts toward unified goals to ensure accessibility, focus, and visibility of DE&I for the firm. Prior to this role, Nickoria served as a Principal in the Management Consulting practice for two years, leading the firm's go-to-market strategy for program leadership and change leadership. She is a seasoned technology leader for over 25 years, with global experience leading large-scale IT strategic transformation efforts, modernizing portfolio management and IT governance processes, defining and implementing change management initiatives, and establishing deep partnerships across business teams and vendor partners.

Fun fact: Outside of the office, Nickoria is a passionate advocate for Girls in STEM and enjoys mentoring and coaching a student dance team in her spare time.

Brooke Grammier earned a BS in Computer and Information Science from the University of Houston in 2002, and a MBA in Technology Management in 2017. Brooke worked her way up the IT ranks with international Architecture, Design, Engineering and Project Management firm Leo A Daly over the first 15 years of her career before moving to the CIO role with DLR Group 3 years ago in the same industry.

As the CIO on DLR's executive team, Brooke works globally across the enterprise collaborating with Design, Operational, Practice, and Technology leaders and teams to formulate a strategic vision for technology at DLR Group.

Accountable for the delivery of business solutions to increase productivity and operational efficiencies, Brooke’s team tracks new technologies and develops innovative products to better serve the needs of DLR Group’s integrated design teams, clients, and ultimately, the people who utilize the spaces they create.

Brooke has moved traditional infrastructures to leading-edge cloud technologies, rapidly transformed Technology organizations with her talent for finding the right people to build diverse, high-performance teams, and leveraged IoT, AI, ML, Data Lakes, and advanced analytics to uncover insights leading to business success in unforeseen areas.

Beyond her day-to-day work with DLR, Brooke is active in AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) organizations where she is leading industry efforts to utilize data in ways that inform better decision making and drive innovation that elevates the entire industry. She is also active in mentorship programs benefiting high school students in the Houston area through the EFTA.

Brooke has a passion for leadership development fueled by the constant challenge of rapid change in the AEC industry and is active in mentoring and developing new leaders.

Sandhya Sridharan is the firm's Head of Core Engineering and the General Manager of the Core Development Product Line at JPMorgan Chase. She leads teams of developers to ensure security, scalability, and autonomy with intelligence built in at every stage.

Sandhya has been an Advisory Board Member for Women Who Code since 2017.

In Sandhya's former role as Vice President of Engineering at VMware, she led product development, developer platform and SRE practices for VMware's Cloud Management Business Unit.

She received her Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science and Technology from University of Mysore and also attended the UC Berkeley College of Engineering for the Engineering Leadership Professional Program. In her spare time, Sandhya loves to cook, hike, read and play board games with her family and friends.

Ann leads the Baker Tilly Digital practice, a management consulting group focused on modernizing legacy business models with simple, elegant and intelligent digital solutions that are easy to understand and deliver game-changing efficiencies and better customer experiences. She strives to demystify the digital journey for her clients to empower them to make better decisions and produce positive results for years to come. Her team of thought leaders and Value Architects™ work side-by-side with our clients to transform the way business takes place for an organization and be digitally self-sufficient long after we are gone. We work with top strategic technology partners to help organizations transform their business processes through functional and technical expertise, leveraging our industry leading practices. With global capabilities across a variety of platforms, organizations partner with Baker Tilly to successfully navigate the complexities of large-scale cloud transformations.

Ann specializes in helping organizations rethink and improve their business processes to drive results. Her focus on client service, change management and rigorous project management enables her clients to maximize the return on their technology investments and successfully achieve their cloud transformation initiatives.

Shamla Naidoo is a technology industry veteran with experience helping businesses across diverse sectors and cultures use technology more effectively. She has successfully embraced and led digital strategy in executive leadership roles such as Global CISO, CIO, VP, and Managing Partner, at companies like IBM, Anthem (Wellpoint), Marriott (Starwood), and Northern Trust.

Shamla has helped organizations in over 20 countries recognize the impact of digital transformation globally and advise their stakeholders on predicting and navigating the necessary changes in laws and regulations. In addition, she has worked with intelligence communities to use digital and cyber within their organizations to protect businesses and society from technology misuse. Shamla remains actively engaged in the industry, with organizations like the Security Advisor Alliance, the Shared Security Assessments Group, Institute for Applied Network Security (IANS), Executive Women's Forum (EWF), HMG Strategy Group, and the Round Table Network.

In addition, she is an influential member of the legal community, creating and teaching courses on law, technology, and privacy for the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law. She frequently speaks at the American Bar Association and formerly served as the Committee Chair on Legal Technology for the Illinois State Bar Association. As a practitioner, teacher and coach, she enjoys the opportunity to help seasoned professionals to take their careers to the next level.

Cheryl Foulkes is the Senior Vice President of Team Member Experience and IT Strategy at Dell Technologies. As part of Dell Digital (Dell's IT org), her team is responsible for bringing innovative, secure solutions to all Dell team members, providing flexibility and choice in connectivity and collaboration wherever they are. Under Cheryl’s leadership and guidance, what Dell has accomplished in the past two years to make this happen is unprecedented.

In addition to equipping Dell's workforce with the means to succeed, Cheryl's team oversees the performance of Dell Digital, serving as an operational hub to drive strategic objectives and measure organizational performance.

Cheryl joined Dell Technologies after graduation from the University of Texas at Austin. A self-taught developer, Cheryl has experience leading many Dell IT disciplines including software engineering, IT operations, business partner management, IT portfolio planning and governance, M&A and complex program management. She has supported several Dell's business areas including supply chain & manufacturing, services, federal and Dell Financial Services (DFS). After 26 years with Dell, the company's mission of creating technologies that drives human progress still energizes Cheryl today.

Since joining Southwest as a Delivery Manager in 2010, Lauren has served in progressive Leadership capacities across different Teams within Southwest's Technology Department. Lauren and her Team are responsible for delivering stable technology platforms, designing and maintaining Southwest's IT enterprise architecture, and driving transformation efforts across Technology. Technology Platforms & Architecture focuses on building out new modern foundational platforms used and leveraged by development teams to increase efficiency and speed to market. This includes Cloud and DevOps development platforms as well as all Enterprise Data platforms comprised of Analytics, Optimization, Integration, Data Lake, and Data Warehouse. In addition to driving the adoption of technical tools, Lauren is the executive sponsor who oversees Southwest's evolution to a Lean Agile IT operating model.

Erin is the VP and Head of E2E 5G Systems of Ericsson North America. She started her telecom career in mid 90’ on 2G and witnessed the evolution of mobile communication technology over the last two decades to 3G, 4G and now 5G. Erin is especially passionate about 5G’s potential to transform our lives and society.

Erin grew up in Taiwan, holds a MSEE degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and is currently based in Plano, Texas.

Fun Fact: Erin can play piano and harmonica at the same time.

Elizabeth Bieniek pioneers internal startups for Cisco's multibillion-dollar Collaboration & Security business. Her expertise lies in building empowered teams that effectively navigate internal corporate workings to operate like a startup and deliver bleeding edge products and solutions inside of a parent company. Her most recent venture was Co-Founder of Webex Hologram, the industry's first holographic collaboration system enabling a feeling of co-presence by delivering photorealistic holograms in real-time. Elizabeth focuses on the interface of people and emerging technology and how to make the lives of the former happier by efficiently and invisibly applying the latter. A problem-solver at heart, Elizabeth believes "impossible" just means no one has done it yet. She relies on her previous experience in industries as varied as technology, art, marketing, and education, as well as life and travel experience, to bring a unique flair to challenging conventional thinking and inspiring teams to achieve unprecedented results.

Evelyn Anderson has over 26 years of experience in IT Security. Evelyn is an IBM Distinguished Engineer, which is an executive technical role within IBM. Evelyn has served across IBM's organization as the global leader for Identity & Access Management, Security, Regulatory, and Risk Management, Physical Security, System Currency and Infrastructure Protection where she led the design of a global framework to standardize delivery, automate controls and reduce security risks for IBM and its Clients. Evelyn holds a master's degree in Technology Management and a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Accounting. She has professional certifications in Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC), Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT (CGEIT) , Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) and is also an IBM Master Inventor.

Wendy Stewart is a powerful business driver whose Client Relation instincts and clarity of vision have carried multiple companies through rapid and continuous growth though outstanding detail to one on one client relationships.

Her primary focus for almost 20 years has been in the technology industry, with a focus on the Data Center industry.

Wendy is distinguished by her passion for business, her focus on collaborative team-building, and her commitment to meeting customer and market demands. This contagious enthusiasm instills her and her team members with extraordinary energy and dedication in an environment where creativity and innovation are encouraged. Wendy’s servant leadership philosophy motivates people to deliver. Wendy is profoundly driven and energetic by nature.

Nancy Wang works as the VP of Technical Product Management at Alert Logic. Alert Logic is a leading Managed Detection and Response Security company. Nancy has a masters degree in Computer Science and has worked in various industries like Wind Energy (Vestas), banking (Chase) and Cybersecurity (Alert Logic). Nancy has worked in different roles like software and system engineer leader, large infrastructure engineer leader including data center buildout and cloud migration and the most recent years heavy in product. In the years of leading a technical product team, Nancy is responsible for building out the overall company product roadmap as well as ensuring the execution of the roadmap. Outside of work, Nancy likes to travel, enjoys good food and cooking, as well as outdoor hikes with her husband and two daughters.

Asha Devasia leads the global digital innovation roadmap for Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure Power IoT solutions. She is responsible for defining the strategy and roadmap for IoT solutions in the smart, connected energy and power industry and defining new business models to drive growth and profitability for partners and end users. Asha is also spearheading key global transformation initiatives in the group that will accelerate agile innovation to the market across multiple businesses.

Asha has a diverse background with roles in operations, technology/management consulting, strategy, product management, channel management, commercial and marketing. She brings extensive experience transforming organizations to improve productivity and effectiveness, redefining evolving skills and competencies, developing talent and disrupting standards to drive business value.

Asha earned a MBA from the University of Texas at Dallas, is married and a mother of three children.

Kayce joined Southwest Airlines as the Technology Director of Customer Support & Services/Customer Relations (CS&S/CR) in 2017. She built the Customer Technology Portfolio, launched Customer 360 for CS&S, CR, and Southwest Business, deployed Enhanced Reaccom, aligned all contact/operation centers onto one telephony contract, directed the return to service and CDC mandate work for Technology, and drove the Salesforce Enterprise coordination, relationship, and build out of the CoE for Southwest.

Kayce and her Team are responsible for managing the business relationships and integration of business and technology strategy for Finance, People & Communications, Supply Chain, Internal Audit, and Corporate Strategy. Part of that approach is ensuring our Employees are utilizing the best in class tools, such as Office 365, Salesforce, and the upcoming implementation of Workday. In addition to deploying new tools, Enterprise Management drives efficiencies by replatforming or moving applications to the Cloud, retiring legacy tools, and establishing an Enterprise Agile strategy.

Prior to joining Southwest Airlines, Kayce worked at Accenture for 18 years in both management and technology consulting.

Jennifer Paine currently serves as Senior Director within Southwest Airlines' Technology Department. In this role, Jennifer is responsible for providing Southwest's Network Operations Center with the appropriate solutions to meet their business needs, most of which utilize technology.

Jennifer joined Southwest in 2007 as Senior Manager, Enterprise Insights. Once the AirTran acquisition was announced, she moved to Senior Manager, AirTran Integration/Multi-Fleet and led the Technology integration of Southwest Airlines' and AirTran Airways' operational capabilities. In 2012, Jennifer was promoted to Director, Airport Ops and NOC and Multi-Fleet. In this role, she supported the Technology needs of Ground Ops and NOC and led the Team to support the 737-800, evolve the existing 737-700's, and support Flag Operations, a project that allowed Southwest to fly outside of the continental United States to Puerto Rico.

From 2014-2016, Jennifer led the organization through the Program for Reliable Operations (PRO), a program that delivered capabilities to improve the operational reliability of the airline, introduces the new 737-8 aircraft into the fleet, and replaced many of Southwest's operational systems. In 2017, Jennifer was promoted to Senior Director, Technology. From 2017-2021, she led deliveries to provide tools to front-line airline Employees to enable a more efficient operation with a focus on customer service.

Prior to joining Southwest Airlines, Jennifer worked at Neiman Marcus for seven years, where she managed teams in the areas of application development and website technology.

Jennifer earned a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Texas A&M University. She is married to her husband, John, and they have twin sons, John and Jeffrey.

As a leader within the Southwest Airlines Technology Department, Carrie is responsible for Cybersecurity Threat Intelligence, Incident Response, Risk and Compliance, Vulnerability Management, Penetration Testing and Engineering Operations.

Carrie Mills, Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), is currently responsible for the Cybersecurity Threat, Risk and Operations Team at Southwest Airlines as a Technology Director. Since joining in 2017, Carrie’s leadership and guidance have driven team wins across numerous efforts to improve Southwest’s cybersecurity posture. Key initiatives include the buildout of a 24x7x365 Security Operations Center (SOC) and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) capabilities, enhancing the cybersecurity incident response processes and procedures, the original implementation of Shape Security to combat customer account takeover attacks, the rollout of improved technologies to aid in vulnerability management and reporting, and the deployment of an enterprise-wide Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) platform.

Prior to joining Southwest Airlines, Carrie worked at Brinker International for thirteen years, where she most recently held the role of Director of Information Technology Security and Risk Management. She was responsible for the strategy and execution of the Information Technology Security Program at the Corporate Headquarters and all corporate-owned restaurants.

Carrie earned a B.B.A., Management Information Systems, from the University of Oklahoma.

Priya Narayan is a Technology Leader at Southwest Airlines with over twenty years of experience in the design, development, implementation and support of IT systems. Priya has a breadth and depth of experience across the Southwest Airlines IT portfolio and has displayed proven Leadership on multiple high-impact projects within Southwest Airlines. She is known for building strong relationships, promoting teamwork and working collaboratively with business partners to deliver quality implementations on time and within budget. Priya is an impassioned Team Leader who mentors with purpose and understands that strong working relationships create great teams and produce excellent results. Prior to joining Southwest Airlines in 2001, Priya held other consulting and software engineering roles.

Priya holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science with a major in Network and Telecommunication from the University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas and a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Kerala in India.

Priya is also a wife and a mother of two children, who are 17 and 9 and enjoys travelling the world along with her family.

Julia Liang is a passionate, strategic technology leader with extensive experience leading digital transformations in fortune 100 companies. Julia started her career in AT&T in 1998, where she led the building of scalable eCommerce and customer services websites to serve millions of AT&T consumers. As a result, Julia got promoted to Principal Architect. In 2011, Julia moved to Capital One and served as an Enterprise Architect, where she drove the solution of a new commercial banking treasury management platform. From 2015 to 2019, Julia worked as Program Architecture Manager in Toyota and led multiple large IT programs in Core Receivables and compliance. Julia joined Goldman Sachs three years ago as Vice President of Technology in Goldman Sachs Consumer Banking. Currently, she is leading Conversational AI to transform the call center and the customer experience. Julia owns dual master’s degrees in computer science and Mechanical Engineering from Ohio University and MBA from Cornell University.

Fun Fact: I am the Founder and the current President of the DFW Chinese-America IT Association, a nonprofit organization that inspires IT professionals to continue improving their technical and leadership skills and achieve their career excellence.

Solu Nwanze is certified executive coach and an organizational effectiveness executive in Tech/SaaS. In both capacities, she works with leaders and teams at the intersection of strategy, people and process to create and implement strategies that help them to thrive through growth and transformation while accelerating better business outcomes.

Solu brings two decades of core competencies in team dynamics & resilience, leadership & communications, business strategy & transformation, organizational design & development, organizational & relationships systems, and strategic planning & decision processes. Solu is the Vice President, Organizational Effectiveness at Zendesk. She has a solid track record in building and scaling high-performing global multi-disciplinary teams from ground up. Solu is also the Founder of Expanded Impact, an integrated organizational effectiveness service provider. Expanded Impact’s clients come from Adobe, Babylon Health, Charles Schwab, Exxon Mobil, Google, Instacart, LinkedIn, Logitech, Lyft, Motional, New Teacher Center, PaloAlto Networks, Salesforce, Slack, Zendesk and other companies.

Solu recently served on the Board of Directors for Housing and Economic Rights Advocates, HERA, a legal services non-profit in California, and has architected award-winning leadership development programs for women and people of color at work.

Solu is a Certified Professional Coactive Coach (CPCC) from Coactive Training Institute (CTI)® and a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) from the International Coaching Federation (ICF)®. She is also a trained Organization and Relationship Systems Coach, Certified Leadership Circle Profile & Collective Leadership Assessment Practitioner, Certified SCRUM Master & Product Owner, and a Certified Change Practitioner.

Solu holds an M.B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, where she graduated with the Dean's award for academic excellence, and a B.Sc. in Computer Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth where she graduated Summa cum Laude (First Class Honors). She enjoys taking long walks with her cavapoo, Zia, hosting game nights and potlucks, singing karaoke with friends and enjoying outdoor symphonies.

Jen Wasem is the Vice President of Workforce Social Responsibility at Revature, the leading provider of entry-level tech talent powering global leaders. She leads Revature's diversity and strategic nonprofit relationship efforts focused on assisting more women, veterans and BIPOC talent to rewarding careers in technology.

Wasem has over 15 years of nonprofit executive leadership experience while raising over $100M for philanthropic initiatives. Her creativity and strategic direction towards corporate partnerships, workplace engagement and peer-to-peer fundraising projects with Fortune 500 Companies resulted in industry-wide recognition. These experiences drive her energy towards a focus on strategically examining trends, data, systems, and culture to improve engagement, retention, and diversity in the workplace. Wasem earned a Bachelor of Science in Communications from John Brown University.

Catherine established her career in financial systems, applications, project management and has been responsible for the oversight and implementation of business systems across various healthcare, public sector, and technology organizations over her 20+ career in finance. She currently resides out of Houston Texas, holds a BBA in Accounting from Southern Methodist University – Cox School of Business and an MBA from UNM Anderson School of Management. In her current role, she provides functional and technical support for applications supporting the Global Finance organizations in partnership with McKesson Technology. Catherine has worked at McKesson for 14 years.

Misty Shafer Sterne is the Managing Director of Flight Attendant Technology at American Airlines. This entails delivering all capabilities for Flight Attendants ranging from the way they manage their work life to the tools they have inflight to service customers. Misty has a breadth of experience that ranges from her start as a consultant at Perot Systems, big 5 consulting, owning her own consulting firm and even dabbling in the technology start-up arena before landing at American Airlines over 20 years ago.

After leading the AA.com organization for much of her career at American, Misty joined Flight Attendant Technology to lead the Flight Attendant Operational Integration, considered to be the most complex airline integration in aviation history. She is now focused on modernizing crew technology as well as transforming the way they deliver solutions and collaborate with their business partners. Misty's passionate about creating an inclusive team culture that allows everyone to bring their whole self to work.

Beyond her IT Delivery role, Misty serves as an Associate Board Member for the American Airlines Federal Credit Union and participates in numerous mentoring initiatives both within and outside of American.

Starting as a programmer, I have spent my 20+ year of career in software development for the oil industry. Currently as a DevOps Manager working for Schlumberger IT, I’m leading a team of more than 100 members to build a flagship product which enables our employees to operate in a more efficient and collaborative ways. What motivates me in my daily work is the ability to make a difference – adopt new technologies, improve process, and develop people. I also enjoyed working in an environment with people coming from different background. The rich cultural diversity that my colleagues bring in always fascinates me and give me a real sense of belonging.

Hello, I'm Kiley Salomon, a former Financial Advisor and Michigan native who stumbled my way into tech. Initially I spent 4 years in Boston recruiting for and then working for startups, one of which eventually brought me to Texas. I then joined MongoDB in November 2017 (immediately post-IPO) as an individual contributor before stepping into a leadership role two years ago, managing one of our strategic enterprise sales teams out of Dallas.

Hello! I'm Libby Firer (rhymes with cheer/beer, depending on the crowd,) and I joined MongoDB in February 2021 after 4+ years at Oracle. I pilot lead-generation sales teams supporting Canada, TOLA + the SouthEast.

My Semester at Sea study abroad friendships brought me to Austin 5 years ago, and I serve on the program's board of Trustees as a Youth Trustee to ensure the experience lives on for generations to come.

Equally passionate about Women in Tech, (especially Tech Sales!) I'm dedicated to empowering the women leaders of tomorrow at MongoDB as Co-Lead of our North American Women's Group chapter.

Archana Vembakam is a Technology solutions focused senior executive in multi-cloud Big Data, Analytics and IoT Platform Solutions. She has also Led Digital Transformation and modernization. and skilled in setting product and technology strategies for on-premise and Hybrid Cloud based workloads.

Archana has delivered IoT, ML and Analytics solutions like Smart Trucking, Smart Energy, Track & Trace and Smart Warehouse deployed globally. She has delivered solutions for interactive BI platforms, web based portals and smart devices and also led cross functional scale agile teams across various delivery centers.

She is responsible for Digital and Data Strategy and Innovation in IoT, Machine Learning and Big Data Platform & Analytics. Staffing and career growth/planning of the overall team as well as P&L accountability for products and projects in the CTO organization.

Archana is currently an Executive Director at JP Morgan Chase managing a cross-LoB Cloud Based Data Platform providing Smart Insights for various banking products. Leading the modernization efforts for multiple Data Platforms and enabling analytics for various Data Products.

Fun Fact: I absolutely LOVE to travel. I have realized that all over the world people love to call themselves "different" but at the core, we are all very much the same.

Susan has more than 25 years of experience helping companies both large and small develop standards, metrics, programs, customer awareness and on-boarding processes. As Managing Director for Baker Tilly's middle-market digital practice, Susan leads all customer-facing delivery. This practice sells software subscriptions, develops custom solutions, and delivers implementation services to the middle market CFO's. Prior to Baker Tilly, Susan spent seven years as VP of Partner Enablement with Sage Intacct, a top financial management solution, where she focused on partner and customer success. She holds a Bachelor of Science double major in Accounting and Business Management from Elon University.

Sara is a Managing Director at Slalom with 21 years of professional services experience. She started her career at Accenture, where she spent 13 years helping client deliver large and complex software application solutions for leading technology implementations. Additionally, Sara supported the creation of reusable assets for Accenture specifically Accenture's Foundation Platform for Java, Spring Batch, Accenture's IBM Innovation Center and General Reusable Netcentric Delivery (GRNDs). Sara joined Slalom in 2014, where she has focused on leading the Technology Enablement and Salesforce capabilities in Dallas and supporting client work on Delivery Transformation.

Sara is passionate about expanding the number of women in technology. She serves on the global steering committee for Women in Tech at Slalom and was an instrumental part of launching the organization. Additionally, she is a part of building a larger technology community in Dallas including teaching at University of Texas at Dallas and serving on the UT Dallas Center for Information Technology and Management (CITM) Advisory Board.

Sara has received several recognitions for her work including Consulting Magazine Women in Tech 2021 and Dallas Business Journal Women in Tech 2021. She earned BA in Computer Science and Mathematics from Duke University. Sara lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband and their three sons.

Kim Martin has been a professional computer scientist for over 20 years specializing in data engineering, machine learning, and tech leadership. She has spent her career working on complex big data problems for organizations across the education, entertainment, finance, robotics, and travel domains. She's created big data solutions, recommendation engines, and custom search applications for the Department of Defense, Cubic, Avis/Budget, Eli Lilly, and HBO, among others. Kim is ex-YouTube, ex-Google, ex-Netflix, and currently an engineering executive at Indeed in Austin. She is also a technical advisor to startup executives in New York, Texas, and California.

Kim holds a BS in Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University, a Masters in Interactive Telecommunications (Physical Computing) from New York University, and an MS in Computer Science (Machine Learning) from UMass Amherst. She is a mom, an avid golfer, a mediocre pianist, and a passionate advocate for gender and ethnic diversity in tech.

Fun Fact: Kim was the first girl to play little league baseball in New York City.

Amy Czuchlewski is the VP of Engineering at Noggin, where she leads the teams responsible for building Noggin's interactive learning applications. Prior to Noggin, Amy was the head of technology at Bottle Rocket, where she oversaw a team of 150 software engineers, and defined and executed Bottle Rocket's technical vision to clients and internal stakeholders. In her free time, Amy sits on the Board of Directors for Bold Idea, an organization that pairs technology companies with Dallas-area schools to provide hands-on computer programming mentors for students. Amy was a recipient of the 2019 Women in Technology Luminary Award presented by Technology Ball, and the 2016 CTO of the year issued by D CEO Magazine. She has a degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Fun Fact: My dad was a Systems Analyst at Kellogg's, and I wasn’t allowed to eat anything but Kellogg's cereal growing up. I still feel guilty if I buy anything else!

Vice President. Podcast Producer. Speaker. Rebeckah Sapp, effectively boosts creativity, passion and inspiration for women ready to step into the life they want with confidence, purpose & focus. Professionally trained speaker, with a Certificate in Training Practice CIPD, and a talent for connecting with audiences, Rebeckah provides the training/coaching for her audiences to put ideas into actions.

Fun Fact: I'm currently renovating and restoring an 1881 victorian house.

Lisa believes people can solve the most complex and confounding business problems with the right mix of teamwork, processes, and technology. For over 30 years, she has helped business and technology teams create and evolve new capabilities from concept to reality. Following a morale-crushing project in 2009, Lisa began studying and applying agile principles as a way to improve the experience of work for technology teams. As a consultaant and coach, Lisa combines learnings from her agile journey with an outsider's perspective to serve her clients. Lisa is currently a Principal with Cyber Group, an IT consulting firm based in Dallas, Texas.

Fun Fact: I love to cycle and have toured The Netherlands, France, and Ireland by bicycle.

Georgette Hunter-Franklin is the Director of Organizational Development, Culture and DEI at NEC of America. Georgette is responsible for preparing NEC for transformation by ensuring strategic and cultural consistency in both Organizational Development and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) through identifying high-impact solutions that maximize business impact and work alongside the broader HR team to execute a focused strategy across the organization. As a seasoned HR leader in technology, Georgette has more than 15 years of global experience in leadership training, talent and organizational development.

Georgette holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Jackson State University and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems from Louisiana Tech University.

Fun fact: Outside of work, Georgette loves to run and for 2022 she has committed to running a 5k each month!

I am a "full-time" Tech-geek and a "full-time" mom, obsessed about outcomes, To-Do Lists, and efficiency. At work, I lead a globally distributed (and awesome) team to establish software product governance, the technology tooling ecosystem, practices (such as Agile, DevOps, Product Management, UX, Design Thinking etc.) and building the competencies and skills for a large diverse, distributed Technology organization delivering cloud and on-prem solutions. I believe that the "organizational culture and mindset" is the foundation of successfully engaged teams, and continuously strive to break down siloes and enable clarity via shared understanding and a strong vision and strategy at all levels. I am passionate about bringing "authentic" diversity in teams, to empower Women in Technology and am always keen to find opportunities to pave it forward where I can.... #LeanIn

Fun Fact: I am recently writing the odd Haiku from everyday encounters with nature.

Ms Russell joins us with over 20 years of global IT experience gained from living and working in and outside of the United States. Her intellectual curiosity has never wavered throughout her career and has enabled her to be a sought after global program manager for some of Silicon Valley's largest software companies.

Kim Padeletti is the Global Head of Energy Data Platforms Business Development at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Kim is responsible for driving data-driven technologies and cultural transformations for large Fortune 100 companies to innovative energy transition startups. As the founder of the Energy Data Platforms P&L, Kim developed strategies to launch a unique energy data platforms that can take non-data driven organizations from on-premises to taking advantage of advanced cloud technologies in a matter of weeks. These offerings enable easy analysis of massive data sets through automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Kim has 15+ years of international experience, working in roles of increasing complexity and scale from new technology solutions for AWS Energy to leading major projects and operations (career portfolio of US$50B+) in the US, Europe, and the Middle East. Kim earned her bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Mississippi.

A diplomatic disruptor, force multiplier, and storyteller, Taneshia "T" Canady Barton is a transformation and delivery executive obsessed with evolving and aligning organizations for purpose and power, building high-performing, customer-centric teams focused on reimagining the future, and cultivating the entrepreneurial spirit and innovation culture within corporate environments. She currently serves as a Lead within Google's Cloud Customer Experience organization focused on digital enterprise strategy and innovation, as well as a coach and mentor across Alphabet.

Ms. Barton has an MBA from Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business, where she was recognized with the Jones Citizenship Award and the M. A. "Mike" Wright Award for leadership and service for her significant contributions to the school. She earned her Bachelors of Science in Chemical Engineering from Texas A&M University, where she is a Lifetime Member of the Lettermen's Association and a Dwight Look College of Engineering Distinguished Scholar.

Fun Fact: Every person in the Barton household is an avid Dallas Cowboys fan, regardless of the season or their record.

Manpreet Kaur is a Technical User Experience Leader with over 20 years of experience, spanning academia and industry. Dr. Kaur has a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering with a focus on HCI, as well as a Master's degree focusing on Vision and Attention from Rutgers University NJ, and an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from PEC, India. In addition, she has completed graduate work in Cognitive Psychology and Computer Systems Management. Over the years she has been a hands-on practitioner, an academic researcher, a professor and a leader of UX teams.

Manpreet is currently the Director of User Experience and Product Definition at Siemens Digital Industry Software where she heads up a UX team focused on product design within an agile development organization. Throughout her career, Manpreet has worked to establish processes and methodologies, not just for Usability and UX design work, but for how UCD fits into the larger picture of a Product Development organization.

Manpreet lives in Houston TX, with her husband, 2 teenagers and a dog - it is a full house and a full life! Outside of work she loves travelling and is passionate about volunteering with her family.

Natalie is a Director of AI at Bill.com - a FinTech company with multiple offices across the US and in Australia. She received her BS in computer science at UT-Austin and her PhD in computer science from Rice University. After graduation, Natalie stayed in Houston, joining the Oil & Gas industry, in a job which she has been comfortable with after her numerous internships in college. In her 10 year career in the energy companies, Natalie moved from the roles in software engineering to data science and to data science management. During this time, she applied traditional ML and deep learning solutions to specialized engineering and geophysical applications.

Her yearning for an industry where her experience with data science and AI could be applied to a wider range of applications led her to take a leap to Bill.com and the FindTech industry. Among other things, her team is responsible for developing the core AI feature in Bill.com which utilizes computer vision and NLP to simplify data entry and save the users a lot of time.

Amna Awan is Director, Security Development and Engineering, within the Technology Risk Management function of a major financial services firm. Amna is a periodic speaker and panelist at industry events in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. She also is a co-author of The CISO Mentor: Pragmatic advice for emerging risk management leaders. Amna has a background in cybersecurity and holds multiple certifications, including CISSP, CRISC, CCSP, and ITILv4.

Fun Fact: Current hobby is learning to do DIY projects

Munira Gandhi is a TOGAF and Google Cloud certified Chief Architect, Technology Strategist with over 18+ years of as Enterprise/Data architect focused on all data aspects (data ingestion, integration, advanced analytics). She is Google Cloud Practice leader and focuses on presales and GCP community growth.

Specialties:

• Cloud SME
• Big Data Architecture and Strategy
• Business Intelligence
• Data Science and Analytics

A Sustainability advisor to help business achieve their ESG goals, reduce carbon footprints and analyze the ESG data and reports. She is attending the Harvard Business School Online – Sustainable Business Strategy.

Fun Fact: Munira loves travel and outdoor activities and is involved with hiking and biking.

Valerie Vacante is an award-winning global innovator, creative catalyst, and visionary. She is the Director of Strategy, Product Innovation for leading data-driven customer experience company Merkle, where she uncovers cultural trends, next-generation product innovations, and designs strategies impacting the way people connect and experience in the physical and digital world.

Val is the visionary and co-creator behind ShopNXT™ — Merkle's collection of patent-pending, app-free retail innovations focused on helping brands create more personalized shopping experiences and increasing loyalty, sales, and customer joy.

The ShopNXT suite of products have been named top product picks at CES by PCR Magazine featured in CNET, MediaPost, The Drum, Click Z and DigiDay among others. Additionally, Val architected and launched NXT Intelligence™ a platform focused on 12 technology, innovation, and brand experiences designed to explore, evaluate and evolve business growth opportunities, currently leveraged by Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 global clients.

She is also the Founder of strategy and innovation firm Collabsco; where she pioneered award-winning digital products and connected experiences across IoT, AR, VR, voice, robotics, and the first connected play landscape featured in VentureBeat, The Drum, VRScout, and more.

Her portfolio includes over 50+ brands including Hasbro, Mattel, Disney, Bandai Namco Entertainment, WowWee, AT&T, Vodafone, Mercedes-Benz, MINI, Honeywell, Sleep Number, Dell, HeadOffice.Space, MERGE, Virsix Games, among others.

Val has recently been named one of the Top 25 Women in Tech by PCR magazine, 40 Over Forty, and Top 10 Pioneering CEOs to Follow in 2021 by CIO Look.

She serves on the Fast Company Executive Board, SXSW Innovation Advisory Board, a Global Expert to MassChallenge, an international speaker and writer.

You can find her almost anywhere creators are designing the future.

Mani Patel is the Director of NFT Product at SIMBA Chain, a blockchain technology company bringing web3.0 to the rest of the world. Before joining SIMBA, Mani founded LuluCartoons, an e-commerce digital art brand which has recently been acquired. LuluCartoons started during the peak of the pandemic with the goal of creating personalized hand-made products for loved ones to cherish. Two years, 50 full time employees, and over 50,000 orders fulfilled later, it stands tall as one of the leading customized digital art brands in the world.

Always believing in the value of education, Mani also founded the Patel Sisters Foundation, a non-profit focusing on creating opportunities for young women to pursue careers in engineering, science and technology. She holds several board positions at universities and start - up companies and is a proud alma mater of Lamar University and Rice University. She is passionate about efforts around gender equality, the future of web3.0 technology and building products to better the world.

Fun Fact: During any free time, Mani loves to try (and sometimes failing) at cooking new recipes with her husband and spoiling their 4- month old Cavapoo, Mochi.

Alysia N. Green is the General Manager of Information Technology Engineering, a position she has held since October of 2020. She is responsible for leading, developing and inspiring IT resources across Chevron.

Previously Green was General Manager of Information Technology for Upstream. During her tenure with Chevron, Alysia has worked in the Downstream business in a variety of IT and business roles, in the central IT company in leadership positions, in the Midstream business as the IT Strategy manager, in the Upstream business as Information Technology and Business Development & Planning Manager, in Upstream Asia South Business unit as General Manager Information Technology and General Manager of Information Technology for Midstream, Development and Global Corporate Functions.

Alysia was a part of the initial leadership team of Chevron's Black Employee Network and currently serves as advisory board member for Chevron's XYZ and women's network. She serves as the Chevron Management sponsor for IT recruiting for SWE, HENAAC, SHPE and NSBE. She also sits on the advisory board of the Lawrence Hall of Science

Green joined Chevron in 1991 as a programmer analyst. She earned her bachelor's degree in Mathematical and Computational Sciences from Stanford University, California that same year.

Alysia and her husband, Henry, live in Tomball, Texas. They have a twenty-three-year old daughter, Jazmyn, who is a 2020 graduate of Wake Forest University.

Rocio has spent her career in management consulting and FinTech both domestically and internationally, successfully navigating work cultures where female empowerment isn't prevalent. She spent 5 years living and working abroad in Chile, Spain, Germany, Norway, Mexico, Peru, and Morocco. As a Latina in business who grew up in the MidWest, she has always been passionate about awareness around inclusion and diversity. She served on the North America People Board and Diversity & Inclusion team at Accenture and she is currently a Director, Digital Transformation at HighRadius, and serves as the Enterprise Sales Team representative on the Women's ERG.

"The world's most prominent women leaders show the importance of honesty, courage, impact, and decisive action in leadership." —Oprah Winfrey

Kimmah Shah's goal has always been to grow, uplift, elevate and lead women from diverse backgrounds and elevate their voices across all organizational functions. Kimmah understands the importance of perseverance, tenacity, and seeking opportunities that will allow for personal development and growth for herself and those around her. This is especially true in Tech, where racial and gender diversity is lacking. Kimmah endeavors to open doors, shatter ceilings, and dismantle biases that limit the opportunities for women and people of color.

Kimmah is a dynamic and driven professional with over twenty years of experience, service, and leadership. As the Senior Director of Demand Marketing and Operational Excellence for Actian Corporation, Kimmah is responsible for a myriad of duties. These include but are not limited to successful campaign execution, foundational marketing operations, MarTech stack, analytics/reporting, process improvement and planning, and field and account-based strategies.

Kimmah's goal is to align individual efforts and foster collaboration around the business's priorities. And in doing so, develop a framework focusing on growth and execution that enables improvement in market position and meeting the business's strategic goals.

Fun Fact: When Kimmah is not mentoring young women of color in the tech space, she is spending time with friends, family, and her fiance in Houston, Texas where she currently resides.

Jessica Parker, PMP® is a multidimensional leader with the ability to drive both strategic and tactical priorities. Over the past 25+ years, Jessica has developed expertise in areas including executive leadership, financial management, project management, software quality assurance, data visualization. She has also presented at multiple IT conferences. Jessica wrote a book of practical leadership tips, Lead Yourself First, and co-authored Software Quality Assurance 101: Best Practices Made Easy.

In her role as Senior Director, Client Success for SMC Squared, Jessica serves as a local partner responsible for the efficient and effective rollout of talent solutions for SMC Squared clients.

Admired for her dynamic and innovative leadership, Victoria Okotie has extensive global engineering experience in the energy industry. As the Director of Data Science and Analytics for Kevin Mitch Group, Victoria has a passion for using analytics and machine learning to drive business value from data and create customized solutions to meet business needs. She received her Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Colorado School of Mines, and an Executive Master of Business Administration from Quantic School of Business and Technology. Victoria also holds a Master of Science in Data Science from Texas Tech University, and she is working towards a doctorate in Business Administration with a specialization in Strategic Leadership and Innovation at Concordia University Chicago. As an advocate for diversity in leadership, her startup company, TorchPoint, is focused on career development. Victoria is the co-author of the book "Innovate your career: Become indispensable," a practical guide for every career professional. She lives in Houston and enjoys spending time with her husband and two kids.

Fun Fact: Victoria's global experience spanning the United States, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East include extreme temperature locations such as the land of the midnight sun (-40 degrees F) in North Slope, Alaska and the Arabian hot desert in Muscat, Oman (120 degrees F).

Mildred Mabirizi is a transformational leader with extensive years of experience in the oil and gas industry. She is the co-founder and Vice President of TorchPoint and an Electrical engineer by discipline. In her professional career, she advises executive leaders on how to deliver their business strategy. As a powerful force in the workplace, Mildred uses her positive attitude and tireless energy to support others to reach their full potential. Mildred is an alumnus of Colorado School of Mines. She enjoys spending time with her husband and two kids and loves running, baking, and volunteering.

Latonya comes with 15 years of technology experience, where she has spent over a decade in the financial services industry, leading engineering and operations organizations. During her previous tenure at Citi she proved that her innovation breaks boundaries. Her leadership brought automated solutions that enabled both operations and engineering teams to move faster and more efficiently. She was responsible for designing and implementing the first single click container onboarding solution which enabled over 250+ applications which collectively generated over 1B+ in revenue. Latonya is currently VP - Head of Technology Onboarding and Process Engineering at Chubb where she is responsible for driving an automation first mindset across complex technology programs, enhancing the overall experience, through the development and implementation of strategies that focus on identifying manual touchpoints within processes and translating them into automation driven outcomes.

Latonya received her MBA from Cornell University and her B.S in Computer Engineering from The University of North Texas.

Juliana is the Head of Houston Incubator and VP of Innovation for Greentown Labs. A Board Member of the Angel Capital Association, Juliana is a Lead Investor of the Portfolia Rising America Fund that invests in BIPOC and LGTBQ founders, as well as the Portfolia Consumer and Rising Tide Funds. She is also an Advisory Board Member of the University of Houston Cougar Venture Fund, the Houston Diversity Fund, the Investors of Color network and Impulse4women. A Kauffman Fellow experienced in Bridging the Gender Gap in investing, she is part of the City of Houston’s Women Commission. Juliana was the Texas Medical Center Venture Fund Director and the Managing Director of the Houston Angel Network. She was the Manager of the in the French Riviera's Sophia Business Angels network and Antipolis Innovation Campus and Project Manager of several International Projects funded by the European Commission. Previously, Juliana worked for 5 years in Singapore: first as an International Trade Consultant for the Trade Commission of Spain in a broad range of industry sectors and then as a Project Manager for the Asia Technology Office of Citigroup, leading projects at the international level. Juliana obtained an MBA at the London Business School and Haas School of Business in Berkeley, specializing in Entrepreneurship.

An investment banker turned three-time award winning Latina entrepreneur from Bolivia, Carolyn Rodz serves as the Founder and CEO of Hello Alice. A free multi-channel platform powered by AI technology, Hello Alice guides business owners by providing access to funding, networks and services. Through a network of nearly half a million companies in all 50 states and across the globe, Hello Alice is building the largest community of business owners in the country while tracking data and trends to increase owner success rate. During her time at Hello Alice, Carolyn was recognized as a "17 Women to Watch," by Inc. Magazine, in 2020 was named Hispanic CEO of the year by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, has testified before the U.S. Congressional House Small Business Committee, and was featured in a U.S. Senate report by Senator Shaheen titled, "Tackling the Gender Gap: What Women Entrepreneurs Need to Thrive." She was selected by Mayor Turner of Houston to co-chair the Women and Minority Small Business Task Force in 2019.

Amy is the CEO/Co-Founder of Eunike Ventures, TiE Houston board member, principal of TiE ATX LLC (Angels of Texas), and Senior Advisor for Fisher CPA Firm in The Woodlands, TX.

Amy was named by the Houston Chronicle in 2019, "Women Who Take the Lead in Building Houston's Tech Ecosystem" (related to the launch of Eunike Ventures). Eunike was listed in 2022 as the 'Top 6 Accelerators/Incubators Investing in Houston' and the 'Top 11 Best and Most Active Accelerator in Houston'.

Eunike Ventures, Inc., headquartered in Houston, Texas USA is a first of its kind global energy venture builder /hybrid energy technology accelerator that works with innovative, technology companies through commercialization, across the entire Energy value chain. Eunike serves a unique gap in the global innovation system by bringing together energy companies, expert talent, and best of breed startups. This new open innovation model of 'Realizing the Entrepreneurial Spirit' focuses on entrepreneurs, energy companies, paid pilots, and smart capital, which has included backing from large industry players such as Equinor, Hess, TechnipFMC, and Anadarko.

Sireesha Chilakamarri is a hands-on coder at heart. She earned her MS in Computer Science from University at Buffalo, SUNY in 2009. Sireesha started off as a Quality Assurance Specialist and took a journey into full stack application development moving into more business strategic development roles to become a Chief Technology Officer of Advertising Agency: AdMedia.

As a seasoned professional with more than 13 years of experience varied in Telecom, eSigning, EdTech and Advertising platforms, Sireesha is known for driving standardizing clean code practices, coding for high scaling performance systems and maximizing operational excellence.

She's currently based in Dallas, Texas and is on a mission to grow into a more powerful technology leader and to help others unleash their inner tech beast!

Originally from Montreal, Canada, Camille studied Physics Engineering at Polytechnique Montreal. After gaining experience in various fields throughout engineering internships, she decided to shift her career from physics to software engineering. She started her first job at Bell Canada as a Cloud Computing Specialist, which led her two years later to join Canonical as a Field Software Engineer, in the Datacenter department. Recently promoted to Field Engineering Manager, she oversees pre-sales activities, project delivery and customer interactions. Camille was always very involved in her community, from student committees at university to organizing conferences at Bell, and now leading the Women’s Resource Group of her company.

Originally from Austin, TX, Sierra holds a Bachelors in International Business from St. Edward's University which led her to live, study, and work in Austria before beginning her career at Canonical in 2019. Today she is a data-driven leader of Global IoT Account Development with a strong agility for solving problems and building new relationships.

Faced with daily quarrels of global supply chain shortages and countless open-source integrations, she seeks to re-imagine and modernize processes between sales and engineering to eliminate barriers and propose well-defined, high-performance solutions for clients looking to quickly scale their device-to-market strategy.

Outside of her official role she leads one of Canonical's six Diversity Resource Groups; employee-led teams focused on highlighting the importance of supporting a diverse workforce and improving company culture from within.

Fun Fact: Sierra avidly seeks new places and experiences to try in Austin to a point where she is now the go-to for "date night" ideas among friends & co-workers!

Margo Lunsford is an Associate Design Director at Credera. She comes with a fine arts background that gives her a unique perspective on designing for brands and the people who interact with them. Margo has tackled big problems for over ten years through brand identity, creative direction, user experience, and user interfaces. She leads design teams on product- and web-based projects within healthcare, finance, hospitality, energy, retail, non-profit, and government, for clients including Reliant, Texas Children's, ExxonMobil, BakerHughes, HP, and ZoomInfo. She is an active painter and heavily involved in the art community in Houston, with her work sought by galleries and professional showcase events. Margo's approach to design and art: provoke emotion, evoke response.

Kathryn Thompson is a Senior Manager in Credera’s Management Consulting Practice with deep experience enabling large-scale change across organizations and leading communications strategy, case for change, and training end users. Her experience is largely in process optimization within healthcare, life sciences, transportation/logistics, and federal agencies, and includes work for clients like Cardinal Health, J.B. Hunt, Mars, Genentech, and Novartis. She believes success comes first by understanding exactly where an organization is in its evolution, and fully embracing the vision of where it aspires to go—with a solid grasp of both she helps organizations determine the right steps, pivots and long jumps needed to transform. Prior to Credera, Kathryn worked for Huron Consulting Group in the Healthcare practice. She went to Ohio State and graduated with dual BAs in International Relations and Communications.

Krista L. Taylor is a Technology Innovation executive at Accenture where she leads Immersive Learning for North America and Extended Reality (XR) for the US South and Houston Innovation Hub. With a knack for creative storytelling, Krista is passionately committed to creating memorable experiences that accelerate human progress. A native Texan, Krista lives in and loves the great city of Houston where she currently serves on the board of Girls in Tech in the role of Director of Data and Research. She is also an active volunteer with KIPP public charter schools where she served as a five-year board member and Young Ladies’ Leadership Chair. Krista holds a master’s degree in business administration and is a certified graphic designer, human resources professional, scrum master, and design thinker. Especially as a mother to two, Krista is dedicated to making a positive impact on the world by unleashing the power of technology and human ingenuity.

Fun Fact: Krista has lived, worked and studied in countries around the globe, including Spain, Germany and the United Arab Emirates.

Abhinaya Ananthakrishnan (she/her/hers) leads the Risk Data Analytics team at Meta. Abhi is responsible for envisioning the overall measurement strategy for Global Risk Operations along with building the data infrastructure for our signal marketplace. Prior to Meta, Abhi has been part of other tech companies such as Walmart Labs, Dell and Mu Sigma. Over the course of her career, Abhi has been in various data teams playing different roles in different parts of the business. As a result, she has experienced the entire data ecosystem from infrastructure to building advanced ML models. Her journey has been unique since the data science industry has evolved into many different roles and specialities over the last 10 yrs that Abhi has been working in analytics. She loves data but also abhors pie-charts with equal passion. Abhi got her Master's degree in Business Analytics from UT (Hook'em) and her Bachelor's degree in engineering from India. She is also on the MSBA board at UT where she actively mentors students and informs the program about data needs in the tech industry.

Fun Fact: I am serial hobbyist and like to try new things all the time. Most recently I attended a soap making workshop and strongly considered a career in selling handmade soaps.

Alicia Moniz is a 3x Microsoft AI MVP awardee and has contributed to Cloud Solution Architecture for Fortune 10 companies. As an active Data Platform community member, Alicia speaks globally at Microsoft Data and AI events on #SQL, #AI and #EventStreaming topics. Last year, her book was published by Apress, Beginning Azure Cognitive Services: Data-Driven Decision Making Through Artificial Intelligence. She also authors the blog HybridDataLakes.com, a blog focused on cloud data learning resources, with notes on personal branding! With over 14 years of experience in data warehousing and advanced analytics, Alicia is constantly upskilling and holds more than 12 in-demand IT certifications including AWS, Azure and Kafka. Alicia has grown her personal brand via social media, print and community groups to increase her visibility in the workforce and enjoys supporting women in their personal marketing strategy for career progression.

Amanpreet Sethi is a Technology Leader and has extensive experience in fueling applied R&D, developing robust and cost-effective Digital Products and Solutions from Concept to Commercialization. Amanpreet brings a unique blend of business acumen and analytical skills to wherever she goes, whether as a team leader or trusted advisor and is always in pursuit of the next data-driven innovation for enhancing a company’s profitability and growth. She is cognizant of cutting-edge Technologies (AI, Big Data, Blockchain, Cloud/Edge Computing) and focused on implementing them as part of Solution to Business Problems. When she isn’t working, Amanpreet explores new adventures and goes for long-distance biking with the husband and kid.

Fun Fact: Aman has recently been conferred the honorary doctorate in Social Innovation and Product Development by World Human Protection Rights Commission for leading and participating in the opportunities that leverage technology & innovation to affect social change, and motivate women to pursue Digital/ AI/ Data Science as the Education.

Andrea van den Haak is an experienced technology leader and mentor with over a decade of experience in software, network infrastructure, and engineering. She has driven highly complex, global projects with many stakeholders to completion for some of the world’s foremost companies. She is a former Googler who has worked on reducing latency for several Google products, and she worked on increasing the speed of the internet by helping to build trans-Pacific submarine cables and intra-Asia networking infrastructure during her time there. She has an MSc. in engineering, an MBA from Chicago Booth, and "fast is her favorite feature."

Monica S. Krishnan is Mechanical Engineer by degree with an MBA. She has worked in the Energy industry for over 18 years, with experience in upstream and downstream. Currently, she is part of the Chevron Technology Ventures group where she leads deployment of new technology by understanding business needs and technology needs.

Fun Fact: I'm going to be featured in a STEM Superheroes children's book speaking to my job and getting girls and boys excited about STEM careers. It features only women energy leaders.

I have 15+ years of Fortune 10 experience, from enterprise-level software development to global senior management, leading large global IT teams to deliver IT services and software to thousands of customers worldwide. I hold a B.S. in Computer Science from Texas A&M University and received an MBA from Rice University and M.S. in Technology Project Management from University of Houston while working full time and raising a young family. Throughout my career, I consistently challenged the status quo to reimagine processes, modernize and optimize infrastructures and IT solutions, and spark innovative ways of thinking. I care deeply about people and love helping others find what makes them happy and turning that into a career plan. I joined Amazon Web Services in November 2021 as a Global Solutions Architecture Leader for Energy & Utilities, inspired by the impact of cloud on the energy transition and Amazon's focus on customers and innovation.

Fun Fact: I love drawing Marvel superheroes, Spiderman is my favorite.

Alley Lyles-Jenkins is a product innovator focused on widgets that change how people interact, experience technology, and discover information. As a Principal in Product Innovation at Slalom Consulting, she helps organizations win by creating a competitive advantage with Design.

Alley is a newly minted Empowered Women of the World 2022 Technology Leader and a former Women in IT - Digital Transformation Leader of the Year.

She served on former Mayor Bloomberg's first digital team to implement the City of New York's premier digital roadmap. The experience catalyzed successful digital campaigns with Dell, AIG, ExxonMobil, Neste US, Budweiser, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and USAA.

As a technology leader, Sarah has a strong understanding of how to connect business and product visions, while leading software engineering teams to reach their objectives. She is passionate about building self-directed, high performing teams, and strives to curate working environments that are primed for innovation and experimentation.

Prior to embarking on her technology career, Sarah worked with businesses large and small on global partnerships and co-innovation as a government program manager. Today, her work through Culture ’n Strategy helps founders and leaders of fast-growing and sometimes distributed companies in managing and scaling high performing teams.

Positioned as the intersection between technology, business and leadership, and drawing from her experience in building and leading thriving co-located and distributed technology teams, she is able to relate and be adaptable to real business and organizational needs.

Sarah gives back to the community by mentoring fellow technologists and also serves as Global Community Growth Lead for Culture Collective and as Founder for its Houston Chapter. She also regularly participates in programs and conversations around technology leadership, culture and business.

Jo Justice is an experienced bi-modal Senior Cybersecurity leader and mentor with over 24 years of experience across the Technology industry. She has delivered strong, inspirational leadership, change, and implementation relative to cybersecurity engineering and operations teams on a global scale. A proven results executioner and solution focused leader, she lead, developed, and executed integration strategy, design, and implementation for cyber defense capabilities relative to a historic Leidos $10B merger.

Jo is currently a Cyber Security Center Operations Senior Leader where she leads a security engineering and operations team and initiatives that support enterprise focused cyber defense missions. Most recently, she was selected for the Leidos Information Technology Leadership Development and the Leidos Executive Mentoring programs. Jo was also a recipient of the Leidos Lead Excellence in Integrity Rising Star Award, a high honorary program within the organization.

Jo's aspirational career goal is continuance in elevating within the leadership (Cyber, STEM, etc.) realm. She is an intentional change advocate with a strong desire to contribute to closing the gap when it comes to women and people of color in not only leadership, but across the STEM and Cybersecurity industry. Jo truly believes that it starts and end with the people that you lead. With intentionality, Jo builds a people-centric culture around empowering personal and professional advancement. She believes that through self-confidence, authenticity, passion, and personal branding, she can help the cyber inspired, new leaders, aspiring leaders, seasoned leaders and mentees to stand out and show up as the best version of themselves.

She holds several cyber focused, DoD 8570 compliant certifications from SANS, CompTIA, ISC2, and EC-Council. She is currently a Cybersecurity and Information Assurance – B.S. Candidate completing her final semester.

Jo currently resides in Houston, Texas with her wife, 3 children and 2 Miniature Schnauzers. Outside of work, Jo enjoys movies, reading, self-development, and learning from mentors as well as mentoring others.

I worked as a Technology Consultant at Deloitte, India for almost 3 years. I decided to move to the USA to pursue my master's after getting admitted into my dream university - Carnegie Mellon. My journey in technology further accelerated when I joined Schlumberger after my graduation as a Cloud Software Engineer. I developed a cloud-based web application for IoT-enabled equipment and finally set my foot in the world of emerging technologies. Over the last 4 years at Schlumberger, I have been introduced to several challenging problems and new technologies. Currently, I am a Technical Lead at Schlumberger working on the next-generation products offering process optimization with real-time insights and greenhouse gas (GHG) control.

Fun Fact: A fun fact about me is I train for half marathons and have officially run 6 in the last 3 years. Running is really hard for me but it has taught me that one is capable of so much more than he/she ever imagined.

Arthi leads the cybersecurity product line at Nexus Controls, a Baker Hughes business, laying the technical and commercial strategy to provide end-to-end cybersecurity solutions to industrial customers in their digital transformation journey. Over the last 13 years, she has led multiple impactful projects in mining, marine and energy industries in the areas of electrical and control system design, new product development, project management, Lean Six Sigma, cost-out and lifecycle management.

Arthi holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Electrical Engineering (EE), and an MBA from Rice University. She is passionate about, and has led multiple initiatives in the professional development of women and men, promoting STEM in students, diversity and inclusion within Baker Hughes and outside with non-profit organizations.

Fun Fact: Arthi is writing a children's book on cybersecurity, where the main character along with her six animal cyber pals educate kids about being safe in the digital space, through a series of adventures.

Richa is a Sr. Customer Success Engineer at Databricks with multi-functional expertise in consulting, technology, strategy, operations, and product development. She has led a number of multi-million-dollar projects to enable end-to-end digital transformation of oil and gas, and manufacturing operations. She has 7+ years of experience in serving the energy industry and is recognized for pioneering custom-built, go-to-market strategies, developing products, and optimizing solutions to benefit global clients, transform operations and improve business performance. Richa is passionate about understanding customer pain points, developing machine learning models to distill complex data and processes into actionable insights and to help business leaders make data-driven decisions.

Fun Fact: Fueled by her passion for travel and food, she developed a food image recognition app that can identify foods from 25 cuisines with over 97% accuracy.

Jennifer Plummer has over 20 years’ experience in the technology industry. She currently manages the Real Time Pricing Engine (RTPE) development team at PROS, Inc. RTPE delivers “Just in Time” prices by managing pricing rules when calculating real-time prices for every request with sub-second response time and zero downtime. She is an active member of several employee resource groups and a champion for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Jennifer earned a B.S. in Mathematics and a minor in Computer Science from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, where she was a Meyerhoff Scholar, a program dedicated to increasing diversity among future leaders in science, engineering, and related fields. She also graduated with a Masters in Information Systems and Technology from Johns Hopkins University.

Fun Fact: When I was in high school I used to clean stalls in exchange for free horse riding lessons.

Anjlica Malla is a business focused strategic information security solution architect, championing security by design in a dynamic DevSecOps culture. Anjlica is dedicated to instrumenting the security transformation through people and process in a sustainable way. She is actively involved in developing automation for controls assurance in a hybrid cloud environment. Her career spans telecommunications and IT. Anjlica holds a Masters in Computer Science as well as professional certifications in CISSP, and CCSP. Anjlica is passionate about shaping the leaders of tomorrow by providing situational leadership to BSA Scout boy, and girl troops in Dallas.

Fun Fact: I love Crossfit and trail running. these two activities help me mentally train myself for challenges in my professional life.

Jennifer (JD) Danielowicz is a full-time Privileged Access Management (PAM) evangelist and information security professional who is passionate and extremely committed to helping grow and promote others interested in anything technical or security related. Qualifications include CISSP and CISA designations, with over 20 years of experience in the creation and deployment of solutions protecting networks, systems and information assets for highly regulated companies. JD hosts a monthly Women in IT Security meeting she created in October 2020. Her virtual attendees come from around the globe, and she uses it to showcase up and coming men and women through guest presentations in order to continue to grow the talent pipeline. JD is also an active United Way of Greater Houston volunteer, leading the 2021 Elf Toy Drive which collected and distributed over $31K USD in donated toys to 13 different agencies, ultimately reaching over 20K children in need in her community.

Fun Fact: JD first went to college out of high school to be an elementary school teacher but decided after her first internship that wasn’t her cup of tea. She went back in 2016 and in December 2017, she graduated Summa Cum Laude (3.94 GPA) with a BAAS in IT. And all this was done while working full time in the office and at home as a wife and mom of two.

Reyna Gonzalez has over 8 years of experience as a Business Intelligence and reporting in the Energy and Commodities space. She is currently a Senior Data Analyst & Science Consultant with Publicis Sapient. She helps clients interpreting and analyzing data to drive business decision making. She is excellent at understanding the underlying business problem, handling large and complex data while also highly adept at storytelling, visualization tools and communicating data insights. She is passionate about solving customer’s business problems and making organizational impact through digital transformation. Reyna enjoys teaching and mentoring others to enable their potential in their own data journey.

Reyna holds a master’s degree in International Business from Florida International University and a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from University of Stavanger in Norway. She has professional certifications in Microsoft Data analyst, Microsoft Data Engineer and Azure Fundamentals Technology.

Outside the digital world, Reyna enjoys working out, traveling, meditation and personal finance. She is originally from Venezuela but lived eight years in Norway before moving to the US. She can speak English, Spanish, Norwegian and Portuguese.

Deleine Lopez Cassell is an HR strategist who focuses on the holistic growth and development of organizations through collaboration and impactful programming. She is passionate about addressing systemic disparities to promote real change in the work place. Cassell's work is rooted in equity-based approaches to create a level playing field for all employees.

Currently serving as the Diversity & Inclusion Manager in Cisco's Security Organization, her work has included organizing sponsorships, scholarships and mentorship programs. She has also created equitable spaces to share opportunities for growth and development. Her role positions her as a teacher and a connector—one who focuses on supporting and spearheading inclusion and equity- focused programs and powering people through strategic initiatives.

Deleine holds a BS in Retail Management and minor in Organizational Leadership & Supervision from Purdue University, where she became a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. She is originally from the Washington Heights area of New York City, but now resides in Durham, NC with her 4 year old pit bull Leche. She is an explorer by nature, an avid foodie, a planner, and a budding equestrian.

For her day job, Stephanie serves as a security engineer for Cisco. Outside of work, however, Stephanie has filled her life with all kinds of cool activities. She speaks at conferences and has keynoted Diana Initiative and GrimmCon, encouraging women and minorities to take control of their career and their mental health. She volunteers and gives back, working with organizations like WISP. She has two courses on LinkedIn Learning, covering Social Engineering and Phishing. Stephanie recognizes those that inspired her or helped her get to where she is today and hopes that everything she is involved in does the same for others.

Jillian is a software engineer at Cisco in the Threat Detection and Response team. Her winding career path began in non-profit program management and fundraising in Houston, Texas. Shortly after her move to Austin she received her web development certification at the University of Texas. From her own private business to start-ups and now at Cisco, Jillian has focused her interest and engineering experience on UX and team development. Now as a mother to two young daughters, she chases the balance between a fulfilling professional career and meaningful time together with her daughters and husband. In her spare time, Jillian enjoys starting a variety of creative arts endeavors and volunteering at her local botanical center.

Jessica V. Patterson has over a decade of experience helping companies put people first in a technology-centric world.

She has led organizational change and developed strategic people programs at companies like Accenture, Dell Technologies, Optiv Security, and lululemon. Jessica's unique combination of skills in change management, organizational development, and well-being has made her a sought-after speaker by organizations eager to support inclusion and diversity initiatives, especially as they relate to women's impact in the workplace. An activist for equity and inclusion, Jessica also works with professional women through Wise Woman Co™ to forge a new path for the next generation of leaders.

Fun Fact: Jessica is a certified 500-hour yoga and meditation teacher

Becky Crawford is a Data Science and Engineering Senior Consultant at CGI. She has had broad exposure to industries including insurance, sales, medical device, manufacturing operations, pharmaceuticals, and financial technology to deliver impactful analyses and recommendations. Her recent focus is on cloud data migrations using modern ELT pipelines and creating cohesive data models. She holds a Master of Science in Data Analytics from The University of Houston, Downtown. She currently resides in Austin, Texas.

Ashwini Athalye is a senior software engineer and an elected Member of Technical Staff at Texas Instruments. She works in the System Software Group within the C2000™ Real-time microcontroller business unit. Ashwini has over 12+ years of experience creating embedded products and embedded developer tools. She has held various roles from software architect, technical lead and project manager to brief stints in product marketing. Her current focus is on understanding automotive and industrial customer application needs and applying the insights into the creation and delivery of high performance and easy to use MCU software and tools to help C2000™ customers achieve full device entitlement. She is an active contributor to industry standards bodies and is currently the Secretary of the IEEE 1149.7 cJTAG working group. Ashwini has a Master's in Computer Science from UT Austin.

Fun Fact: I love picking up new activities to enrich my spare time. These days I enjoy creating delicate French patisserie and using my newfound love for power tools to build playsets and fix things around the house.

Amanda started her career in technology working in customer support for a video game company and quickly transitioned into project and program management. As a Sr Agile Practitioner for Zapier, she focuses her time and efforts on helping engineering teams excel. The intersection of humans and technology has always been an interest and with a return to the no-code space, she's excited about how Zapier can help democratize technology for others.

Fun Fact: I LOVE camping, and camping gear is probably my largest 'luxury' expense. My partner and I have a camper, a car camping set up, and an ultralight backpacking setup.

My name is Pearl Ubaru and I am a teacher turned data scientist! I currently work as a Senior Solutions Engineer at Databricks; I am the executive director of The SiSTEM Way & I am the CEO of SiSTEM Tutoring Agency.

Fun Fact: My favorite thing to do in my spare time is take a nap!

Bukola Akinfaderin, has accumulated over 20 years experience working in Information Technology. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Wesleyan University, CT and a Master's of Science in Information Systems from New Jersey Institute of Technology. Bukola has most notably been recognized for the creation of apps that focus on underrepresented groups. The first mobile app she developed was a radio streaming app for African radio stations that had over 500,000 users. She currently leads a mobile engineering team at Carvana.

Fun fact: Bukola creates handmade jewellery in her down-time.

Katherine Druckman is a software engineer and privacy advocate, and can be heard weekly on the Reality 2.0 podcast covering topics related to digital privacy, security, and identity with co-host Doc Searls. She is also a frequent guest co-host on This Week in Tech's FLOSS Weekly. Katherine was the longtime Digital Director for the late and highly esteemed Linux Journal, and is currently a Senior Software Engineer at Acquia, working on creating exceptional digital experiences with her favorite open source project, Drupal. In her spare time, Katherine is a decorative arts history enthusiast, and is working toward her next wine certification.

Fun Fact: Katherine represented both Romania and Israel in the 2018 Roller Derby World Cup.

Parul Sinha is a Senior Software Engineer at Adobe. Parul works for the Commerce Community Engineering team where she manages and executes strategy for maintaining stronger ties with the Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source Community of Partners and Developers. The vast developer ecosystem fosters innovation through contribution programs, scalable free open-source tools and extensible modules. Parul has 10+ years of experience in software engineering.

Fun Fact: Parul is the co-lead for Women at Adobe (Austin) Employee network and spearheads the Diversity and Inclusion efforts at Adobe. She also dedicates time outside of work helping women, friends and family access information about career development, enrichment and at times just being a listener to help with their emotional needs.

Houstonian Tina Mathews is an electrical engineer who has been involved in building technology that interfaces optical modules with datacenters. She loves to pick up the trends and implications that cloud computing and data analytics can have on the communication systems and hyperscalers.

Fun Fact: I like to play hard as much as I work hard. You can catch me dancing or hiking after my family time.

Ashton is a growth marketer with 13+ years of experience building, scaling, and optimizing growth strategies for B2C and B2B companies. She has worked in various industries including tech, retail, IOT, politics and public policy, e-commerce, app development, and startups. Ashton specializes in digital marketing, growth strategies, social media advertising, partnerships, and public relations.

She has served as a marketing advisor to non-profits in her community and currently serves as Chair of the Houston Liberty Leadership Council, as a court-appointed child advocate, and was recently appointed to the City of Houston's Millenial Leadership Board. She lives in Spring, TX with her husband, 2 dogs, 2 horses, and too many chickens to count.

Fun Fact: I adopted a draft horse from the Houston Police Department's Mounted Patrol unit.

Meshell Baker is the Owner of Meshell Baker Enterprises, founded to help female founders, women business owners and women leaders empower their teams and employees to develop high-performance resilience and unstoppable confidence. Meshell, along with her team, leverages her 25+ years of sales and leadership success in more than a dozen countries, to inspire energetic and collaborative communication. Her clients acquire the knowledge, skills, and support to integrate success principles and fundamentals resulting in markedly improving confidence and sustaining profitable results.

Meshell Baker understands that many sellers struggle with fear of rejection, doubt, and imposter syndrome. She is on a mission to establish confidence as a core tenet for success. Meshell masterfully and artfully guides her clients to capitalize on their current conditions and leverage obstacles as opportunities and reenvision their problems as possibilities. She is renowned for her authentic value-based and no-nonsense approach to selling that inspires clients to confidently convert more conversations into raving fan clients. Meshell has phenomenal results, accolades, awards and has compiled an incredible track record of raving recommendations with clients over the years.

Regina Ingel serves as Executive Vice President of Applied Blockchain Inc., a company specializing in the construction and operation of next-generation data centers which support compute-intensive applications such as Bitcoin mining. This role encompasses a wide range of responsibilities, including day-to-day operations, hiring, customer and partner relationship management, business development, public affairs, marketing, and investor relations.

Ingel began her career in sourcing for Neiman Marcus. Her interest in Bitcoin and Blockchain surfaced at the start of the pandemic, during which she began pursuing opportunities to learn more about cryptographically secure transactional networks. She joined Applied shortly after the founding of the company where her initial operations role grew into the broader role she plays today at the company.

Hello, my name is Blanca Gonzales. I graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas with a degree in Biology and a minor in Psychology. I've spent 15 years in public education, 10 of which were in the classroom. The first 6 years I taught science and the last 4 years I taught computer science. I'm passionate about inspiring students to pursue STEM careers, especially computer science.

Fun Fact: I've worked at NASA Johnson Space Center.

After graduating from Stanford University with a M.Ed., Nagma taught students from diverse backgrounds. While teaching, Nagma earned a Master's degree in Management Information Systems. She shared her newfound knowledge by leading the first Python classes on campus. Nagma also volunteers in her community to support student access to top quality education.

Fun Fact: Nagma spends her weekends running after a toddler and a 90 pound dog!

Kim Raath is Founder and CEO of Topl. Founded in 2017, Topl is building an impact technology economy that enables digital and sustainable transformation across value chains and empowers the monetization of impact verified on the Topl Blockchain. Kim grew up in South Africa and comes from an ethical mining and sustainable agricultural background. She is the first Rice University student to simultaneously complete an M.A. in Economics and a Ph.D. in Statistics. As a leader in sustainability, Kim is a member of CNBC’s ESG Council and also sits on the advisory board of Xpansiv the global market for ESG-inclusive commodities. As CEO, Kim innovates around every problem that arises and continuously finds ways to grow the entire Topl ecosystem.

Fun Fact: Kim was the South African national champion in heptathlon before being recruited to the US on a Division 1 NCAA Track Scholarship.

Prior to Topl, Jackie was a divisional CFO for a global payments company where she oversaw approx. $0.8B in revenues and led strategic expansion efforts into the growing Fintech market. In 2020, she was introduced to Topl during her MBA journey at Rice University. At Topl, Jackie is charged with overseeing the Company's financial performance, driving investor relations, and commercial growth in the Energy sector.

Jackie is passionate about creating pathways towards positive systemic change and promoting inclusive institutions. "Institutions, governing bodies, and social systems have become overwhelmingly complex with narrow interests and disparate objectives. Transparency promotes accountability, which can drive collective efforts to change the world".

As an Asian American female, Jackie understands the roadblocks and hurdles faced by women and minorities in high-performing industries such as Finance and Tech. This is precisely why Jackie maintains an overriding emphasis on fostering the right culture and values at Topl.

Fun Fact: Jackie is an avid sneakerhead. "When I put on a pair of classic Air Max's or Jordan 1's, I feel young again. Lol."

Amanda Ducach believes that women are empowered through connections. She created SocialMama, an Ai-driven ecosystem that supports mothers through friendship & medically vetted resources, for that very purpose. Amanda has an MBA, is a serial entrepreneur, and former hospitality executive, currently residing with her son and husband in Houston, TX.

Fun Fact: Amanda is travel obsessed and has been dog sledding in Antarctica.

The modern architect of culture change in energy, Katie Mehnert is the Founder and CEO of ALLY™, the global community powering an equitable energy transition and addressing the energy workforce of the future. Katie has held global leadership roles with BP and Shell in safety and environment during periods of financial crisis, spills, divestment and globalization. Katie's early career included consulting with Duke Energy, Entergy and Enron. Her corporate path drove her to entrepreneurship to help energy companies prepare for the looming talent shortage and workforce diversity needs to address energy poverty and climate change. In 2020 she was appointed an Ambassador to the United States Department of Energy and in 2019, she testified before Congress on the clean energy workforce of the future. She's published in Scientific American, Forbes, The Hill, CNBC, CNN, and other international outlets. She is also the founder of Lean In Energy, a global nonprofit solely devoted to mentoring in the energy sector. Her book Grow with the Flow, Embrace Difference, Overcome Fear, and Progress with Purpose released in 2020.

Yelena is an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Rice University’s Entrepreneurship Initiative and the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Lilie). She is an early stage VC investor, start-up mentor and an entrepreneur at heart. With over 10+ years of experience in the investments industry, she has been featured as one of the Top Women Investing in Latin American Tech by LAVCA.

Prior to joining Lilie, Yelena was a partner at Cantera Capital and a fund manager at Soldiers Field Angels (SFA), where she led seed and follow-on investments in early stage startups across Latin America. She started her career in venture capital after co-founding Zapatito Blanco, a marketplace for children's products in Mexico. Her work experience also includes Laudex in Mexico City, J.P. Morgan & Chase in New York and Morningstar Inc. in Chicago.

Yelena holds an MBA degree from Kellogg School of Management and a BA degree in economics from Northwestern University. Originally from Kazakhstan, Yelena has lived in the United States, France, Brazil, and Mexico and is fluent in multiple languages.

Carrie and the PowerSpeaking, Inc. team are passionate about helping organizations—at corporations like Genentech, eBay, Autodesk, and Gilead Sciences—develop powerful communication skills that inspire people and get results.

"A large part of our client base is in the high-tech and biotech sectors, so many years ago, we researched and developed HighTechSpeaking®, which helps technical professionals become more clear, strategic, high-impact communicators," Carrie says. "And in 2018, we launched Confident Speaking for Women, to meet the unique challenges women face in the workplace. Both are now among our most popular programs."

Prior to joining PowerSpeaking, Carrie enjoyed more than 30 years' experience in the learning and development industry, where she led teams that made Training Magazine's "Training Top 125" 10 years in a row. Then, as now, she believes that "Our purpose is to make great people even greater at what they do every day."

Fun Fact: Outside of work, Carrie loves watching her son compete in the 800 run.

Amy is such a stellar coach and trainer, she heads up all US trainer certifications and mentoring for PowerSpeaking, Inc. In addition, she leads fundamental and executive-level presentation skills workshops for technical and non-technical audiences. She also provides one-on-one coaching for those preparing for conferences or other specialized presentations.

Amy began her career in nonprofit literacy and taught public speaking for the communication studies department of several colleges. She has a passion for working with adults and children whose native language is not English. She has developed and leads public-speaking workshops for advanced ESL students; trains elementary school faculty and students in public speaking; and coaches an award-winning elementary speech and debate team.

Fun Fact: If a swing song comes on, you can guarantee Amy will be dancing with a big smile on her face.

Ashley Connell, Founder and CEO of Prowess Project, is one-part fearless entrepreneur, one-part fearless women's advocate landing her thought leadership pieces in Forbes, Austin Business Journal and at SXSW. For the first 15 years of her career, she was an award-winning tech marketer in both Austin and London.

Ashley's unstoppable drive to have both a career and time for family motivated her to start Prowess Project, an integrated job, training and community platform that exists to help caregiving women return to the workforce. The proprietary tech pairs jobseekers and employers based on professional skills and behavior compatibility. To date, 70% of the trained women get hired in 3 months. In her pretty much non-existent spare time, she enjoys walks with her baby girl and bulldog, yoga, and spaghetti and meatballs.

Fun Fact: I am undefeated at the game, Connect 4.

Allie Danziger has a heartfelt passion for helping ambitious people succeed. In 2009, Allie started one of Texas' top marketing agencies, Integrate Agency, which she sold in 2018. Under her leadership, Integrate Agency generated over $15MM in revenue, employed over 200 young professionals and helped over 600 clients grow.

Allie's newest venture, Ampersand, was started in 2020 and applies the >10,000 hours of lessons she learned in hiring, managing and mentoring employees and interns in a career readiness and internship matching platform. To date, Ampersand has reached >5,000 young professionals and placed over 350 internships around the country in a variety of companies and industries. Allie is dedicated to eliminating the skills gap from higher education to employment through scalable technology solutions. With Ampersand, Allie aims to democratize access to internship placements and mentorships, while simultaneously helping companies of all sizes build a pipeline of talented, driven, and diverse talent.

Fun Fact: I married my high school sweetheart and we have two young girls. My work is very important to me, and I am incredibly passionate about building this business. I like to run and do yoga, eat Vietnamese food at least once a week and I love to travel the world.

Wendy Fong is the founder and principal of Chief Gigs, which offers fractional business leadership, organizational consulting, and team development. Chief Gigs helps businesses and the people within them achieve optimum performance and thrive in a dynamic and diverse world.

Wendy is passionate about building dream teams with leaders. She emphasizes the natural strengths and preferences of individuals to help team members attain the highest level of performance from each other.

Wendy has over 20 years of experience in culture change, leadership development, team effectiveness, capability building, and operations. She has worked with a variety of customers ranging from healthcare to financial services to engineering.

She is active in the community. She serves as the chair of United Against Human Trafficking and is a board member of Valhalla Investment Group, as well as several startups.

Wendy holds an Executive Master of Business Administration from Rice University.

Fun Fact: Wendy loves food and often plans entire trips with the itinerary centered around the restaurants she wants to try.

Trina L. Martin is the founder and CEO of Trina L. Martin International. She is a technologist, international speaker, best-selling author, and podcaster.

Trina is a retired US Naval Officer and former computer programmer. She has over two decades of computer programming, digital forensics, and intelligence experience. Holding a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and extensive expertise, Trina has experienced the biases of the tech industry. Trina's resilience helped her navigate the obstacles and make strides in her career that many said weren't possible.

Qualified but often overlooked, Trina calls herself 'The Queen of Equality in Tech.' She is on a mission to make the tech industry equal for women, especially women of color.

Trina lives in Houston, Texas, with her two children, Dexter the Doberman. She loves traveling, shoes, and wine.

Fun Fact: Growing up I was afraid to swim. To conquer my fear, I became a Certified Advanced Open Water Scuba Diver!

Anna is a sustainability advocate with a passion for the creative arts that has 5+ years in the tech startup space in both Texas and Europe. She graduated the University of Texas, Austin with a B.S. in Biology and a B.A. in Chinese Relations and has since devoted her time to help build a more sustainable future.

In 2020 Jennifer Emelogu founded Circulate App San Antonio, a database app that helps consumers discover, support, and patronize great businesses that happen to be Black owned. Circulate was birthed out of a necessity to bridge the gap between the supportive consumer and established service providers.

Jennifer believes technology is a vehicle for community development that we must take full advantage of. Her current platform helps spread the message of tech advancement awareness and mentorship through business.
Aside from being a tech founder, Jennifer is a former Division 1 athlete, a published author, an advocate for business mentorship & development, and is currently serving in her fourteenth year of education. She enjoys motherhood while pursuing entrepreneurial ventures related to flourishing business and enrichment.

Shambhavi is the Founder of Mentor Me Good, a global platform to help future tech leaders take leap in their careers. She has worked in the tech industry for 9+ years in product management roles at various tech companies including Amazon and The Home Depot. Shambhavi has led teams to build innovative high-growth products using AI/ML such as personalized messaging, recommender systems and smart voice assistant (Alexa) thereby bringing in a personal and unique perspective on unlocking product growth using AI/ML. She is a Carnegie Mellon alumnus and a passionate advocate for women in tech.

Fun Fact: As per ancient yoga texts, her name is also a name of a meditative pose that helps to bring the mind into a state of balance.

A 20-year Mechanical Engineering Associate at ExxonMobil, is solving global energy challenges through the design of static equipment and deployment of cutting-edge technology. She too mentors ExxonMobil Engineering Executives on improving organizational and business performance through Human and Organizational Performance principles.

As an Award-Winning International Speaker, Owner of Reset Your Business and Life International, and Creator of The Unforgettable Engineer brand, Eryka helps female engineers attract the attention and respect they deserve in engineering by re- connecting with feminine values. The result is a happier engineer leading with femininity, grace, and presence.
Having mentored over 19,000 women leaders in London, Dubai, India, Canada, Silicon Valley, and the U.S., Eryka is committed to seeing women thrive and be more authentic in technical industries.

Eryka is the Amazon Bestselling Author of Fearless Visionaries: Tear The Veil which brings awareness to mental health challenges women suffer globally and offers a step-by-step plan to hit reset in your life and career with her book.

Monique Montanino began her tech sales and marketing career in Dallas, Texas, before migrating like a salmon to Seattle, Washington.

Her book Clicks, Tricks, and Golden Handcuffs: 5-point Roadmap for Tech Executives to Land Big-Impact Roles debuted on Amazon in late 2021.

The author wore her golden handcuffs for 18 years at two Fortune 500 companies—lured by cash bonuses, stock options, pensions, and the promise of retirement insurance. It allowed her to retire early, at 55 years old, as a technology sales executive.

Currently residing in Austin, Monique is the founder of Resumé Tech Guru, whereby she collaborates with technology executives on their job search journeys. She is a certified executive coach and obtained her BBA from The University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from St. Mary's University in San Antonio.

You can access her monthly blog posts at www.resumetech.guru or connect with her on LinkedIn for tech exec career advice.

Fun Fact: Dubbed "Dora-the-Explorer" by her best friend's husband, you can find Monique searching for a global sunshine destination in Europe or the Caribbean. Next up is two weeks in St. Lucia in May and one month in Cadiz, Spain, in September.

Follow her travel adventures at instagram.com/resumetechguru.

Rachel B. Williams is a Women's Leadership Coach, Super-Connector, and Speaker who helps women take their life back – turning up the inspiration in work and life by leveraging their unique gifts to naturally become authentic leaders.

After a decade of environmental project management for utility-scale energy projects, she pivoted her career to align with her natural talents, creating a unique position connecting energy leaders with the services they need while also being an advocate for women’s leadership in STEM. She also is CEO and founder of her own business, Authentic Women’s Leadership, where she serves women through individualized one-on-one coaching, group coaching programs, and leadership retreats.

She also finds great joy in spending time with her family and pets in Houston, Texas, and getting out into nature as much as possible!

Jaime has over 20 years of experience building, growing and transforming teams within 10 different tech organizations and launching three businesses of her own. Starting as an Internet consultant in the Bay Area, she navigated her way across and up organizations to land service and customer success executive leadership roles throughout her journey. Finding herself and other colleagues often feeling unappreciated, unfulfilled, complacent and frustrated in their careers, she launched Career Agility System four years ago to leverage what she has learned to help women in tech accelerate getting unstuck and doing the work they love, are paid what they are worth and have the time to enjoy life. She is also an original co-founder of the Alliance of Technology and Women (ATW) based in Dallas, Texas. Here in 2002 she launched the secondary school girls in tech program GREAT MINDS that continues to thrive today. Jaime holds a computer science degree from Harvard University.

Fun Fact: Jaime lived across the hall in college from the original founders of OK Cupid (which is now part of Match.com and one of the founders is now CEO). She also met her hubby on Match.com!

Laura K. Wise is a writer, speaker, and content creator. As a freelancer for the last 12 years, she's built a life that she loves—on her own terms—and is dedicated to helping women everywhere rethink work.

She is the founder of Content Wise Communications (CWC), a boutique communications agency that works with brands to build communication strategies and tell brand stories in a digital world. She is also the founder of The Black Female Freelance Network (The BFF Network), a growing community of Black women freelancers sharing tips, tools, resources, and stories—but most importantly, creating a hiring pipeline.

Laura has supported some of the world’s largest brands throughout her consulting career by developing strategic D&I- and CSR-focused communication plans, successfully executing countless global impact initiatives. Additionally, she creates weekly content to support Black women freelancers (and friends) on their journey to build profitable freelance businesses.

Fun Fact: Laura was recently elected as Member Representative of the Freelancers Union, where she will sit on the board. Freelancers Union is the largest and fast-growing organization representing the 56.7 million independent workers across the United States.

Monet Quarles is the CEO of Duchess Consulting LLC, a marketing and business development consulting firm in the crypto and NFT space. She is also the founder of The Crypto Duchess, a platform that provides education and resources about cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to the public. She has been researching in the crypto space since 2009 and has been an investor since 2012. Monet is originally from New York but currently resides in Houston, Texas. She currently holds her Master's in Management and Analytics from Colorado State University.

In addition to her work as an entrepreneur, Monet is also an avid reader and works out every day. She is enthusiastic about helping onboard as many women of color as possible into the crypto and NFT space. In fact, she is opening a DAO in the upcoming month to help assist female creators and art collectors in the NFT space. This DAO will also offer support for women who are looking to gain skills to become employed by Web 3 companies or start their own Web 3 businesses.

Check out her press release from her recent appearance on Meta's NFT and Crypto panel: https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/the-crypto-duchess-monet-quarles-participated-as-a-panelist-in-the-just-concluded-meta-securethebag-black-history-month-series-2022-02-21

Fun Fact: She briefly lived in London, England in 2018. Her favorite author is Albert Camus, and she has an extensive library in her home.

Dr. Deepti Gupta is a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science at Huston-Tillotson University, Austin. She received her Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) and also received her M.S. degree in Computer Science from UTSA. She has worked as an Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Computer Science at St. Edward University, Austin. Dr. Gupta's research interests lie in the areas of security and privacy in the Internet of Things (IoT) leveraging cloud and edge computing. Her research interests also include the application of AI and Machine Learning to secure IoT and CPS infrastructures in various application domains, such as smart healthcare, wearable IoT, and smart home.

She is also interested in designing federated learning algorithms to deal with non-IID data using game theory. She also developed novel anomaly detection models and fine-grained access control models to develop secure infrastructure for IoT. She has several conference and journal publications, and also continually serves as an expert reviewer for various journals and technical program committees for several conferences and workshops. She is an active team member of IEEE ComSoc Young Professionals, AnitaB.org, WiCyS, and also co-chair of the N2Women fellowship.

Fun Fact: Dr. Deepti Gupta loves reading, hiking, and mentoring female researchers.

Katharina is on a mission to connect purpose-driven businesses and women empowerment with the power of our mind.

Katharina is a traveler, entrepreneur, tuberculosis and earthquake survivor, and dreamer. Originally from Germany, the world is her home and after working and living on 5 different continents, she still gets excited about meeting inspiring people, helping others, getting out of her comfort zone, and taking risks.

She quit her job at Montblanc to go volunteering in Colombia and Namibia, solo-travel, work for United Nations, freelance for various start-ups, and return to university. She holds a Master's degree in Strategic Entrepreneurship, advises early-stage start-ups, founded her own businesses and women empowerment network. In addition, she is a mentor for young entrepreneurs and changemakers, including the Clinton Global Initiative University.

You may be surprised that she is only 26 years old, but what brought her here are her passion, her growth mindset, and her willingness to take risks and get uncomfortable.

Jenay Sherman is a best-selling author, educator, and marketing consultant. She has worked with businesses and organizations of all sizes on their sales and marketing strategies, with a focus on content, communication and diversity. Jenay has written and facilitated leadership and diversity curriculum in a number of schools and universities, and delivered training on sales, marketing, and communication to audiences around the country. Jenay's ultimate goal is to leave each audience with actionable next steps they can use to immediately implement change for positive impact.

Fun Fact: I was selected Texas Mother of the Year by American Mothers, Inc, in 2017.