We are honored to welcome these business leaders, professors, professionals, and mentors to lead our speaker series and participate in our different panels. Each one has their own journey and experiences to learn from and we know will provide valuable insight to our conference and its attendees.
Anoop Gupta is the CEO and Co-Founder of SeekOut which provides companies a competitive advantage recruiting, retaining, and maximizing talent. We believe that great people and great companies grow together.
SeekOut was founded in 2017 and recently raised $115 million in a successful round of Series C funding with a valuation of $1.2 billion, following a year of 3X revenue growth.Read More
Ben is the Founder and CEO of Build Insight, helping companies and partners with digital transformation and M&A. He brings over 30 years of experience in building and operating mega cloud services and software engineering. Before Build Insight, he held a number positions including, SVP at Nutanix, VP at Salesforce, CEO and President at Northwest Center, and spent 21 years at Microsoft building and operating B2B and B2C cloud services and software products. During his time at Microsoft, he was the General Manager for both Microsoft’s Service Engineering of Windows Live, including Hotmail, LiveID, OneDrive, and also Dynamics365. He has a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin - Madison and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Louisiana Tech University.
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Dr. Sophie Leroy is an Associate Professor of Management, at the University of Washington Bothell, School of Business. She received her Ph.D. from New York University, Stern School of Business. She also holds a Master in Management from HEC (Paris), which was partially completed at Columbia Business School, MBA program. Before her academic career, Dr. Leroy held managerial and executive positions in the finance and consulting industries, working for SG Cowen, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Interbrand, among others. .Read More
Aaron Hurst, the CEO and co-founder of Imperative, is the foremost expert on the science of purpose and fulfillment at work. Imperative is a peer coaching platform that uses the power of peers to support each other over time to become increasingly effective and fulfilled. The science-backed platform combines the effectiveness of coaching with the impact of building trusted peer networks that are proven to build resilient and high performing cultures. Read More
Britt Provost is the Chief Human Resources Officer at Siteimprove. She plays a key role in shaping the employee experience across the company to ensure they attract, develop, engage and retain their talent.
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Michael Erisman has led teams, organizations and employees across over 100 countries around the world in a variety of industries. Michael serves as the Chief People Officer at Reputation, and has held this role at DocuSign, Pushpay and Parallels, and brings more than 25 years of global HR experience. In addition to the senior executive roles, Michael has served in senior HR leadership roles with Microsoft, H&R Block, Qwest Communications, KRONE, PepsiCo, and General Electric. Read More
Dr. Badshah is the Distinguished Practitioner at University of Washington at the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, the Business School, Bothell campus and faculty advisor at the START Center Department of Global Health. He is the founder and curator of Accelerating Social Transformation, a mid-career professional development certificate course on social impact. Dr. Badshah is a seasoned executive with over 30 years of experience in international development, managing a corporate philanthropic program and co-founding a global nonprofit for social enterprise.
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Sreeja is a 2nd year MBA Student at the University of Washington. She received her undergrad from Washington State University, achieving a double concentration in Marketing & Psychology. She has an Event Marketing/Administrative background worked at Microsoft before, supporting the Microsoft Real Estate & Facilities team. At Microsoft, she supported over 5 directors where she supported their teams, events, and space allocation. Currently, she works at Starbucks Corporate in the Global Growth & Development Team where she supports her leaders and executes complex administrative projects. Sreeja lives in Sammamish with her dog Luna whom she affectionally calls “Lunatic.” When she isn’t busy with work and school, Sreeja loves taking Luna on runs, traveling to new places, and spending time with family and friends. On the weekends, she participates in hip-hop and contemporary dance workshops.
Sonali has extensive recruiting experience working with agencies, corporations, across different geographies, and varied global markets. She graduated with a masters degree in Human Resources in 2002 and soon after joined a recruiting agency in India where she worked a little over a year. She then joined a company supporting their recruiting needs for domestic/local market and eventually became a founding member to support US staffing. Sonali moved to Seattle in 2011 and resides here along with her family. She has had the opportunity to work with companies like Microsoft and currently Amazon. Read More
I am a trilingual psychologist who graduated from Ricardo Palma University, have a master's in Leadership from the City University of Seattle. I have experience recruiting Talent from the USA, Canadian, Peruvian, Costa Rica, and Mexican markets. Currently, I work as a recruiter at Microsoft.
Garrett Nelson is the University Recruiter for KPMG Seattle. He was born and raised in Washington state where he received his Bachelor’s degree from Central Washington University in Psychology. He continued his focus on human develop and received a Master’s degree from Western Illinois University in College Student Personnel. Garrett spent the last five years of his career working in higher education, and the last two working at UW Bothell! Now he seeks to provide diverse student talent with opportunities to succeed in positions at KPMG.
Leading software development and commercialization at PorticoCare Inc, a health data management company creating platforms for patients to manage their health data. Applied economic, accounting, strategy, and sociology frameworks to prescribe strategies in startups in the Pacific Northwest and South East Asia. Collaborated with and mentored 100+ entrepreneurs on topics of strategy, product development,Read More
Dr. Susan Perreault is the Director of the Washington Women’s Business Center at Business Impact NW, a non-profit small business community development lender supporting the continuing growth of local small businesses. Washington Women’s Business Center, a program in partnership with the U.S. Small Business Administration, promotes long-term positive economic change through financial services, business coaching, and training with a focus on helping underserved entrepreneurs at every stage in their business growth. Read More
Everardo has spent nearly 30 years as a Private Equity and Venture Capital investor, entrepreneur, and director, in addition to being a product manager, design engineer, researcher, and inventor. In his roles at Intellectual Ventures, Intel Capital, Texas Instruments, Alcatel, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, and Calgene he has invested worldwide in and developed products spanning medical diagnostics, wireless networks and devices, high-speed networking & supercomputing, 3D Printing, UAV/UAS vehicles, semiconductor, and biotechnology. Read More
Everardo holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Dallas, an MS degree in Management and Engineering from MIT Sloan School of Management and the MIT School of Engineering, an MSEE from the University of Texas at Arlington, and a BSEE degree from the University of California Davis. Dr. Ruiz is a NASA Fellow.
Aseem joined Madrona Venture Group in 2021. As part of the investment team, he identifies and evaluates new investment opportunities and works closely with existing companies on business and product strategies. Prior to Madrona, Aseem spent over 17 years at Microsoft, working in various roles from a developer to creating business models for Office 365. Aseem also has global sales experience, led growth for the SaaS and hardware businesses, and was most recently the GM/COO for Microsoft Azure. At Azure, he led growth and scale initiatives that grew the business from its early days to over $20B ARR. Read More
Sandeep Krishnamurthy is the first Dean of the AACSB-accredited School of Business at University of Washington, Bothell. This role involves managing the School of Business as its chief academic, and, administrative officer, with primary responsibility for faculty, students, curriculum, budgets, and external engagement. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in marketing with a minor in Economics in 1996. He received a PGDBM(equivalent to MBA) from XLRI and a B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay.
Deanna M. Kennedy, Ph.D. is Associate Dean (Academics) in the School of Business at the University of Washington Bothell. Dr. Kennedy received her PhD in Management Science from the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and earned her MBA from Golden Gate University in San Francisco, CA. he is interested in the use of interventions, technologies and tools that facilitate group/team processes and lead to better task outcomes. Her research has been published in the Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, Decision Sciences and Production Planning and Control.
Carol Anderson Shaw is an adjunct professor with the UWB School of Business and a strategic communications consultant. She teaches courses on leadership and communications, with a focus on diversity, collaboration, stakeholder theory, social enterprise, and environmental sustainability. Originally from the East Coast, Shaw earned an MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics at UWB. She also serves on the Advisory Board for the UWB School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences (IAS), Washington State Parks Foundation Board (WSPF), and Dartmouth College alumni organizations. In the classroom and as faculty advisor for the UWB MBA Association and the Women in Business club.
Come to our PNW conference and learn more about our speakers, ask questions, and connect with them!
