Senior Policy Analyst, Upturn

Miranda Bogen is a Senior Policy Analyst at Upturn, where she focuses on the implications of machine learning and artificial intelligence for civil and human rights, and particularly on the intersection of digital technology, automated decisions, and economic opportunity. She has conducted research and authored work on issues including global data ethics, the governance of AI and automated decisions, commercial transparency practices, and consumer protection and corporate accountability in the digital age.

Founder, StartLaunchGrow.com

For the past 25 years, Rob has been instrumental in starting, funding, and growing high growth companies. He has been an executive or founder in numerous companies including Monster.com, Bullhorn, Manugistics, Parsortix, and Avention. He was a principal at Austin Ventures, a multi-billion dollar venture capital fund.

Rob is a member of the Society of Kauffman Fellows, a selective leadership-training program organized by the Kauffman Foundation. He has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and is a cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College.

Rob has authored two best-selling books- Never Too Late to Startup: How Mid-Life Entrepreneurs Create Wealth, Freedom, & Purpose and Entrepreneur Rocket Fuel: How Startup Founders Recruit World-class Talent and Build Culture to Transform Their Business.

Rob’s insights on startups have been featured in Huffington Post, Business Insider, Inc.com, The Next Web, Entrepreneur.com, and on his own blog StartLaunchGrow.com.

Senior Consultant

In her role as Senior Consultant, Julie leads implementation of programs and solutions with Disability Solutions’ clients. She supports the build and deployment of strategic solutions by first assessing current outreach, hiring, and retention systems, policies, and processes, which impact a company’s ability to successfully engage and retain qualified jobseekers with disabilities.

Julie and her team work with numerous Fortune 1000 brands including PepsiCo, Synchrony Financial, Medidata, DB Schenker through P&G, American Express, Aon, and Aramark and many others.

Julie is also the co-host of the podcast Crazy and the King with Torin Ellis. Julie and Torin tackle diversity, equity, and inclusion in our workplace and our world.

Julie regularly speaks at state and national conferences and provides training on compliance and disability inclusion to a variety of audiences. Julie has her undergraduate degree in Political Science from Indiana University. She lives in Columbus, Indiana with her husband, three children, and their dogs.

Julie is also a person with a disability. She is actively managing multiple mental health disabilities.

Chief Executive Officer - College Recruiter

Faith's career has always been at the intersection between business and technology. She started as a programmer for Ford Motor Company, graduated from the University of Michigan with an MBA, was a manufacturing information technology consultant with KPMG, served as a project manager for Wells Fargo, and then staged a bloodless coup after joining the business her husband founded, College Recruiter.

Faith's passion for helping young adults find great careers is evident in everything that College Recruiter does. As its integrator, Faith is the hub around which the organization revolves.

Jonathan is the Managing Director of Talent Tech Labs. He is a lawyer by education, and an entrepreneur and investor by trade. Jonathan can be found at HR technology conferences all over the world as a sought-after speaker and panelist sharing deep insights into the evolution of the Talent Acquisition Ecosystem.

Jessica Miller-Merrell is a workplace change agent, author and consultant focused on human resources and talent acquisition living in Austin, TX. Recognized by Forbes as a top 50 social media influencer and is a global speaker. She’s the founder of Workology, a workplace HR resource and host of the Workology Podcast.

Venkat Janapareddy is the CEO and founder of Jobiak. He has been an entrepreneur for 20 years with deep knowledge in the HR tech space. Jobiak is his third start up. Both his previous start-ups which he founded had successful exits. His first start-up XpertTech, a technology consulting/staffing company got acquired by UK based private equity company. His 2nd one Gozaik, a social jobs platform for twitter/Facebook got acquired by Monster World Wide

Adam Deif is a Head of Industry overseeing Google's B2B efforts among industries including Careers, People Search, and Life Events. Prior to that, he was in charge of mobile strategy in the retail sector working with partners including Target, Walmart and Best Buy championing performance and brand marketing efforts. Previously, Adam was an Analyst at Google in both the retail and travel verticals in Toronto and New York. Prior to Google, Adam worked in Investment Banking at Credit Suisse and Algorithmic Trading at Sanford Bernstein in New York.

Adam has BA in Economics from The University of Western Ontario. During his time there, he became and still remains a huge fan of Toronto, Canada, "one of the most multicultural cities in the world". He now lives in Brooklyn, New York and works in Manhattan.