Faculty

Josh Bersin

For the last two decades, has studied the world of work, HR and leadership practices, and the broad talent technology market. He is often cited as one of the leading HR and workplace industry analysts in the world.

He founded Bersin & Associates in 2001 to provide research and advisory services focused on corporate learning. Over the next ten years, he expanded the company’s coverage to encompass HR, talent management, talent acquisition, and leadership and became a recognized expert in the talent market. He sold the company to Deloitte in 2012, when it became known as Bersin™ by Deloitte. When he “retired” from Deloitte in 2018, Josh returned to his work as an independent analyst and corporate advisor.

In May 2019, Josh launched the Josh Bersin Academy, the world's first global development academy for HR and talent professionals at all levels and across all industries. Serving as the Academy’s dean, Josh guides its program offerings, interacts with members, and shares relevant research and insights to help HR and talent professionals stay current on the trends and practices needed to drive success in the modern world of work. He also currently sits on the board of UC Berkeley Executive Education.

Rachel Fitton

Rachel is based in Singapore and in her role as Head, Group Talent Acquisition is responsible for talent acquisition across the entire Singtel Group. Rachel joined Singtel in December 2018 from HP Inc., where she was the Director, Talent Acquisition for Asia Pacific and Japan. Prior to working at HP, Rachel worked at Deloitte leading an internal executive recruiting team focused on hiring consulting Partner and Directors for APAC member firms. Rachel started her career, working in executive search in Hong Kong, she subsequently spent three years working in Japan, before then moving to China and spending six years growing a search partnership business which she successfully co-founded.

Rachel has a degree in Accounting and Law from Kingston University. She also spent a year full-time at Fudan University in Shanghai learning Mandarin. Rachel is a frequent conference speaker on Talent Acquisition. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling and yoga.

Chris Pirie

Chris Pirie is the Founder and CEO of The Learning Futures Group. Formerly a Partner Level General Manager and Chief Learning Officer at Microsoft and Vice President of eLearning at Oracle, Chris has built deep expertise in the digital transformation of business and workplace learning and in developing award-winning large-scale global talent development programs such as the Oracle Learning Network, and Microsoft Certification program.

Chris brings a passion for driving disruptive change and innovation. He has worked with many large enterprise organizations, international NGOs, and a host of learning technology and service technology providers. He’s participated and designed programs with leading business schools and he is also a frequent contributor and keynote speaker at industry conferences.

Nancy Vitale

Nancy Vitale was most recently the Chief Human Resources Officer for Genentech where she was responsible for leading the team that was dedicated to creating a great place for the organization’s 14,000 employees to do their best work. Her life purpose is to “make meaningful connections,” and one of Nancy’s primary focus areas is around wellbeing.

This purpose and focus have led her to launch her own boutique People/HR advisory and consulting firm called “Partners for Wellbeing” which is dedicated to helping organizations create better places to work. Nancy also currently serves as a Board Member for the Make-A-Wish America Foundation. Prior to joining Genentech in 2006, Nancy was the head of HR for the Gillette North American Commercial Division at Procter & Gamble (P&G).

Balaji Ganapathy

Balaji is a human resources, CSR and D&I executive at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) - a Global Top 3 information technology leader, with a mission to advance access, equity and inclusion in society. His stewardship has resulted in empowering millions of women, minorities and underserved students in CS/STEM and TCS being recognized as America’s most community-minded technology company by Civic 50, a Top 50 Company for Diversity across sectors by DiversityInc, and a Top Employer in North America.

With 20+ years industry experience, he has served in board leadership roles for U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, World Economic Forum,STEMconnector, NPower, Million Women Mentors, IMPACT 2030, Here2Here and Women’s Business Collaborative. Recognized with the Charlie H. Mooreaward by CECP, he is a prominent thought leader advocating on purposeful business, social innovation, democratization of prosperity, skills for the future, empowering women and minorities, tech for good and creating shared value.

David J. DeFilippo, Ed.D.

David DeFilippo is passionate about developing processes and plans for individuals and organizations to reach their full potential. In David’s corporate career he served as Chief People & Learning Officer for Suffolk Construction, Chief Learning Officer for The Bank of New York Mellon and in senior learning and talent roles at Capital One and Comcast.

David started DeFilippo Leadership in 2019 to provide executive coaching, leadership development and talent management solutions to organizations. David also serves as an Executive Coach in Harvard Business School’s Executive Education programs where he focuses on individual and team development through coaching.

Nuno Gonçalves

Nuno is a senior HR leader who is at the forefront of envisioning and driving transformations that are either HR-led or HR supporting the business. He is an early pioneer in the move towards continuous transformation as a new reality. In his current role, Nuno is UCB’s Head of Talent Acquisition and Development focused on building UCB’s ability to anticipate the talent needs of the future and foster an environment to “learn and grow every day to create value for patients”.

Before joining UCB Nuno worked in different companies and sectors, from Pharmaceuticals at Sanofi as their Chief Learning Officer, to commodity and specialty Plastics and Chemicals at Solvay in multiple regional and global roles. Nuno is a life-long learner with a degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology; he’s also a Stanford alum having completed an in-residence Program in 2018.

Madeline Laurano

Madeline’s primary focus over the last 12+ years has been on the talent management market, specializing in talent acquisition. Her work helps companies both validate and re-evaluate their strategies and understand the role technology can play in driving business outcomes. She has watched HCM transform from a back-office function to a strategic company initiative with a focus on partnerships, experience and efficiency.

Before Aptitude Research Partners, Madeline held research roles at Aberdeen, Bersin by Deloitte, ERE Media and Brandon Hall Group. She is co-author of Best Practices in Leading a Global Workforce and has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Yahoo News, and The Financial Times. She is a frequent presenter at industry conferences including the HR Technology Conference and Exposition, SHRM, IHRIM, HCI’s Strategic Talent Acquisition conference, GDS International’s HCM Summit, and HRO Today.

S.V. Nathan

Nathan is a Partner and Chief Talent Officer of Deloitte India. He is a member of the India leadership team and serves on the Talent Executive Leadership of the Asia Pacific Region.

Nathan has over 30 years of experience in HR management, across diverse industries including Manufacturing, Services, Telecom, and Information Technology. He is an industry leader, mentor and an advocate of ethical leadership and developing future leaders through coaching.

A respected voice of the HR profession in India, Nathan speaks regularly at several national and global forums on contemporary HR matters. He is a Behavioral Specialist in Sensitivity Training. He was recognized as a ‘Distinguished Alumnus Award’ by XLRI by his Alma Mater. He has been acknowledged as one of the top ten HR Power Profiles of LinkedIn.

Robert M. Burnside

Robert M. Burnside was most recently the Chief Learning Officer for Ketchum Public Relations where he was responsible for creating a learning environment for 2500 global employees. In addition to developing Ketchum University he created the Ketchum Leadership Institute. He also formed lasting relationships with Tsinghua University in Beijing and Tufts University in Boston.

Prior to joining Ketchum, Robert was at the Center for Creative Leadership where he provided leadership development globally to Fortune 100 senior teams. Currently his focus is on bringing learning and development into the digital age, working as Senior Learning Advisor with Nomadic Learning.

Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is an international authority in psychological profiling, talent management, leadership development, and people analytics. He is currently the Chief Talent Scientist at ManpowerGroup, co-founder of Deeper Signals and Metaprofiling, and Professor of Business Psychology at University College London and Columbia University. He frequently lectures at Harvard Business School, Stanford Business School, London Business School, and IMD.

Dr. Tomas has written 10 books and over 150 scientific papers on the psychology of talent, leadership, innovation, and AI. His work has received awards by the American Psychological Association, the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences, and the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology, to which he is a Fellow. Over the past 20 years, he has consulted to a range of corporate clients, from HSBC and Goldman Sachs to Google and P&G, and he is a regular contributor on TV shows, from the BBC to CNN.

Dr. P.V. Ramana Murthy

PV is a thought leader in Talent Management, Organization Development (OD) and Strategy with over 30 years of experience across the entire gamut of the HR function. He currently serves as the Executive Vice President and Global Head – Human Resources at the Indian Hotels Company Limited which operates the Taj Group of Hotels, Resorts and Palaces, the oldest company of the salt to steel conglomerate - Tata Group. PV handles a broad spectrum of initiatives related to Performance Management, Career & Succession Planning, Leadership Assessment & Development, and Culture building.

Prior to this, he was the Executive Director – Human Resources for Coca-Cola in India. During this time, he also undertook several short-term international assignments and handled the Global Leadership Development role for the Bottling Investment Group of The Coca-Cola Company.

Dr. Frida Polli

Dr. Frida Polli is the co-founder and CEO of Pymetrics, a platform using behavioural data and ethical AI to help organizations better understand their workforce as well as make fairer and more predictive people decisions. Dr. Polli is a trained neuroscientist turned startup founder; after spending a decade in academia at Harvard and MIT, she sought to apply the science from the lab to real-world problems, leading her to found pymetrics.

Dr. Polli has presented at many of the largest scientific and world conferences including the World Economic Forum in Davos, TED, and at the President’s Circle at the National Academy of Sciences. She has appeared on several of the major news outlets including CNN, BBC, BloombergTV, and NPR and been featured in major global publications including the Economist, WSJ, NYT, and Financial Times. Today, pymetrics serves around 100 global enterprise clients and, in 2019, ranked #338 on the Inc. 5000 list as well as #30 on the first-ever Forbes AI 50 list of "America's Most Promising AI Companies."

Dr. Nick van Dam

Nick is an internationally recognized thought leader, advisor, researcher, facilitator and best-selling author of more than 25 books on Corporate Learning and Leadership Development. Dr. van Dam has over 30 years of business experience as a former Partner, Global Chief Learning Officer, HR-Executive, and Client Advisor at McKinsey as well as at Deloitte.

Nick is Chief of the Center for Corporate Learning Innovation at IE University (Spain) and a member of the IE Center for Health, Wellbeing and Happiness. Nick is a Professor at IE University, Nyenrode and the University of Pennsylvania, where he works with candidates in the executive doctoral program for Chief Learning Officer. He is affiliated with McKinsey & Company as an External Senior Advisor. Nick is the founder of the e-Learning for Kids Foundation, which has provided free digital lessons for more than 20 million underprivileged elementary school children.

Ekpedeme “Pamay” Bassey

Pamay is the Chief Learning Officer for the Kraft Heinz Company, where she creates a culture of continuous learning and drives the company’s global learning and development strategy and initiatives through Ownerversity, Kraft Heinz’s corporate university. Pamay has deep expertise in learning theories derived from artificial intelligence research and practical experience designing and developing highly-rated learning solutions and transformative professional development programs.

Prior to Kraft Heinz, Pamay served as the Global Head of Learning Platform and Professional Development for BlackRock. Before that, she was president of The Pamay Group, an e-learning design and strategy company.

Pamay is also Chief Experience Officer of the My 52 Weeks of Worship Project, through which she facilitates courageous conversations about cultural and interfaith diversity, inclusion, and understanding. Her 2018 TEDx talk, Navigating Sacred Spaces, is based on her project work and her book: My 52 Weeks of Worship: Lessons from a Global, Spiritual, Interfaith Journey. Pamay earned a B.S. in symbolic systems from Stanford, with an AI concentration, and a M.S. in computer science from Northwestern. She is also a graduate of the Second City Conservatory program in Chicago, an advanced study of improvisational comedy and theater.

RJ Milnor

RJ Milnor, VP of Talent Management Operations & Analytics for McKesson Corporation — a Fortune 10 company — is an HR leader with 18+ years of global experience delivering workforce and business results through data-driven people strategies. RJ leads people analytics and workforce planning at McKesson, enabling people data to play an increasingly important role in the business

His writing has appeared in numerous books and journals, and RJ received the Bersin by Deloitte WhatWorks Award for Transforming HR. Previously, RJ served as the Head of Talent Analytics at Chevron Corporation where he created a global Center of Expertise for people analytics and redesigned the enterprise-wide strategic workforce planning process to inform business planning.

Mark Levy

Mark is a seasoned globally minded Employee Experience Leader. Mark was the pioneer of designing the Employee Experience at Airbnb, which has since created significant changes in the way organizations globally are looking at expanding the HR function to focus on the entire employee journey. Glassdoor recognized Mark and his team’s work by naming them the #1 Place to Work in 2016.

Mark has taken his learnings to consult with companies, from start-ups to large global brands, to advise on how to evolve from HR to Employee Experience. Mark is an advisor to several start-ups as well as a few big-hearted VCs, including Backstage Capital and SemperVirens. Most recently Mark spent 8 months at Allbirds, combining his experiences in retail and start-ups to help them scale their people, culture and global expansion.

Emily Chardac

From Silicon Valley to Wall Street, Emily Chardac is an accelerator designing the future of work at the intersection of talent and innovation. At the helm of hyper growth, global expansion, (re)building teams, and positioning for IPO or acquisition, Emily has impacted the People and Culture functions at Square, Mozilla (Firefox), and Speck.

During her time at a financial services firm and investment bank ($265B AUM), she positioned the Human Capital function from paper-based processes into digital platforms and redesigned and aligned the global benefits packages while saving the company millions of dollars. Emily is keen to collaborate with change-makers who want to, and can, make the world a better place while unleashing meaningful change in the workplace ecosystem.

Riina Hellström

Riina Hellström is recognized internationally as a brilliant agile & people professional. After years working in traditional global organizations, in 2010 she started her own consultancy, driving the Agile organization development scene forward. Now, almost a decade later she is globally the first HR professional to achieve Certified Scrum Professional (CSP) and a Licensed Scrum at Scale trainer. She also holds a Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Certified Product Owner (CSPO), and SAFe Agilist credentials.

Riina is the co-founder of Agile HR Community, a lead trainer in Agile HR, training and certifying HR professionals in Agile capabilities globally. She currently works with large corporate agile transformations in Europe through her company People Geeks Ltd Oy. Riina is a Master of Science (Technology) and she has a Master’s degree in Applied Neuroscience from Middlesex University, UK.

Josh Alwitt

Josh Alwitt is a thought leader in the Organizational Development space, currently enrolled in the MSOD program at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School. At Publicis Sapient, Josh was most recently responsible for Leadership & Culture, where he led the company-wide inclusive definition of a new organizational Purpose and Values, and the co-creation of a culture that enables people to thrive at work.

Prior to this role, Josh formed the Talent Development function at Sapient, which included Learning & Development, Performance Management, Career Development, Succession Planning, Leadership Development and Integrated Talent Systems. He has been a long-standing and active member of the Learning Innovations Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and speaks at conferences focused on learning, organizations and the future of work.