Employee Centricity in an AI World

Annie Dean is a globally recognized transformation leader and expert on the future of work. In her Chief Strategy Officer role, she is responsible for developing strategy and driving strategic initiatives across the Property Management, GWS Enterprise, GWS Local, and Industrious business units that comprise the BOE segment.

BOE consists of CBRE’s Enterprise Facilities Management, Local Facilities Management and Property Management business lines and Industrious, CBRE’s wholly owned flexible workplace subsidiary. This segment produced approximately $20 billion of combined revenue, including Industrious, in 2024 and comprises CBRE’s entire 7+ billion sq. ft. global property and corporate facilities management portfolio.

In addition to her role as Chief Strategy Officer, Annie serves as a leading future-of-work expert for CBRE. She leads the CBRE x Industrious Building Experience Lab to redefine what’s possible in the buildings that power our economy, making offices, industrial and retail environments more human-focused, tech-driven and inspiring.

Annie studies emerging workplace trends and technologies across CBRE’s global operations and those of CBRE clients and uses her findings, along with her workplace expertise, to design cutting edge services and offerings.

Throughout her career, Annie has led enterprise-wide, CEO-sponsored transformations. Her experience includes transformations rooted in data, research and bringing product-build cycles into nontechnical areas of the business. Annie is an expert on “organizational AI”, how companies redesign to operate in a new era of intelligence. Before joining CBRE, she led Atlassian’s real estate and workplace experience divisions and oversaw a teamwork lab researching modern work trends, including the influence of artificial intelligence. Prior to that, she led a portfolio of future of work policies at Meta. She started her career as a commercial real estate attorney at Wall Street law firms.

Brian Elliott is the CEO of Work Forward, a leadership advisor and noted expert on the future of work. After 25 years in tech as a startup CEO and executive at companies like Google and Slack, Brian co-founded Future Forum, a think tank focused on the future of work. He is Publisher of the Flex Index, bestselling author of How the Future Works and the Work Forward newsletter, a Senior Advisor with BCG, and one of Forbes’ Future of Work 50. 

Brian has spent 25 years leading teams and building companies. He led high-growth startups to profitability and productive exits, guided Google's first forays into full-stack commerce, and drove substantial growth and expansion of Slack's Platform, playing key roles in the company's IPO and growth. In 2020, Brian cofounded and led Future Forum, which brought together data-driven insights with best practices gathered from organizations around the world.

Brian started his career at BCG, where he's now a senior advisor. Work Forward also advises various organizations, including Airbnb, Allstate, Atlassian, Capital One, Dynatrace, Teradyne, and Webflow, and operates the Work Forward Forum, an invitation-only community of senior leaders from organizations like Cloudflare, Delta Dental, MillerKnoll, Target and Zillow. Brian earned his MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar. His work has been published in a wide range of publications, including Charter/TIME, The Economist, Fast Company, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, and cited extensively by outlets like Bloomberg, CNBC, the Economist, Forbes, the Financial Times, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

His work enables leaders to build a future of work that's better for people and organizations, rooted in research combined with practical advice from his leadership experience. He is the proud father of two young men.

Michael Fraccaro is a Mastercard Fellow, responsible for advocating for advancements in human capital; deepening industry partnerships to drive our collective commitments to culture and people; and strengthening Mastercard’s position as an employer of choice. Previously, Michael served as the chief people officer at Mastercard for nine years, a period of transformational growth that saw the company more than double its workforce. Michael will formally retire from Mastercard at the end of 2025. 

During Michael’s tenure as chief people officer, he was responsible for all human resources functions globally. His dynamic team oversaw cultural transformation, including the launch of The Mastercard Way values, the integration of more than a dozen acquisitions, and the global launch of an AI-driven growth and development platform. He built a leadership system to ensure breadth and depth of talent for short and long-term succession planning and was integral to the Mastercard CEO transition in 2021. He oversaw a comprehensive location strategy with the launch of Tech Hubs in high-growth markets such as India, Ireland and Canada. His leadership has helped forge numerous recognitions for the brand, including “most valued to work for.” In this role, he was a member of the company’s executive leadership team and management committee, and an active participant with the Mastercard Board of Directors.

Prior to Mastercard, Michael spent 10+ years at HSBC in various senior HR leadership roles in Australia and regional headquarters in Hong Kong. He also held senior HR positions in the financial service industry in the Middle East and Australia.

Michael holds a Master of Applied Science, Communication Management from the University of Technology, Sydney, and a Bachelor of Education from the Australian Catholic University. He also has accreditation in change management from the Australian Graduate School of Management and attended leadership programs at Duke Fuqua and INSEAD. 

Michael serves as Chair of the Board of the Young People’s Chorus of New York City and is on the Board of the HR Policy Association. 

Diane serves as an Independent Director and Committee Chair at Kraft Heinz Company, as well as two startups, Centivo (health care) and TechWolf (skills inference). She is also an advisor to two human capital startups, Valence (AI coach) and CTS (Organization Network Analysis). She is also an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources and serves on its board.

The prior Chief People Officer at IBM, Diane served on the top leadership team and was responsible for the global HR function and successfully transforming the company culture of 365,000 employees to support a massive portfolio shift, requiring innovation, agility and continuous learning, leveraging AI. Recognized as the early pioneer in AI and a new operating model for HR, she was elected HR Executive of the Year in 2018.

Following her 19-year stint at IBM, Diane taught MBAs at the Harvard Business School. Today, Diane is a senior advisor at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) where she serves as a coach and advisor to CEOs and CHROs. 

Publications include two articles in the Harvard Business School magazine, both focused on the dilemmas of managers today. Managers Can’t Do it All won the Warren Bennis prize as the best article on leadership in 2023. 

Diane holds a Bachelor’s degree from Trinity College, University of Toronto, and a Masters in Industrial Relations from Cornell University.

Chris Goodchild is a Managing Director and Senior Partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in the Philadelphia office. With a career rooted in transformation and large-scale change, Chris has spent over 20 years advising leading organizations across the consumer sector on growth strategies anchored in marketing, sales, and organizational excellence.

Chris co-leads the firm’s Generative AI (GenAI) Transformation under the Amplify Impact initiative. In this global role, he is instrumental in enabling BCG’s 32,000+ employees to integrate GenAI tools into their daily workflows, driving step-change improvements in productivity, creativity, and client outcomes. His leadership in this domain centers on building GenAI fluency across all levels of the firm, fostering a culture of responsible innovation, and operationalizing AI to unlock value for both clients and BCG teams.

Chris holds an MBA with distinction from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and a BA in Quantitative Economics from Tufts University. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and three daughters.

Matt Kropp is Managing Director and Senior Partner at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in San Francisco and the CTO of BCG X, the AI build capability within BCG. Matt leads the GenAI topic in North America, and globally for the Marketing, Sales, and Pricing practice. 

Before his tenure at BCG, Matt spent 15 years as a technologist and entrepreneur, establishing four successful Internet services and software companies. His entrepreneurial ventures included technology consulting firms, a medical informatics software company, and a digital freight marketplace.

In addition to his current deep focus on Generative AI, Matt's expertise spans various domains, including B2B pricing strategy for tech, software, semiconductors, and industrial goods, digital transformation encompassing cloud migration, digital product innovation, the future of transportation and logistics, as well as turnaround programs and large-scale business transformations.

Educationally, Matt holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Beyond his professional pursuits, Matt actively contributes to social causes around educational equity. He serves on the board of North Bridge Academy, a non-profit independent school in Marin County dedicated to providing education to students with dyslexia.

Debbie Lovich is a Managing Director & Senior Partner in the Boston office of BCG.

She is a global thought leader on the Future of Work as well as leadership, culture, and broader people topics. She is also a fellow in BCG's Henderson Institute (BCG Think Tank).  Debbie has published extensively in Forbes, has written several HBR articles, and spoken for TED. She works with global clients across industries and settings to make work better for all employees. Her work includes:

• Co-creating future-forward work models to improve productivity and joy
• Addressing the human side of large-scale change, post-merger integration, and digital transformation
• Front line / deskless worker programs that tap into the best performers to enable their peers
• As part of her practice, Debbie launched BCG's leadership coaching/ advisory offering that has >45 former c-suite executives coaching/advising executives and their teams to deliver organizational priorities
• Fifteen years ago, Debbie collaborated with an HBS professor to design and globally implement an internal BCG program called "PTO" (Predictability, Teaming and Open Communication).  This transformed BCG's own ways of working and culture.  It has been a key reason why BCG is consistently recognized as one of the best places to work.

Debbie has a BA summa cum laude/Phi Beta Kappa in economics from Barnard College, Columbia University, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Dave Lindbom is a senior executive with a proven track record of leading enterprise transformation at scale. As Senior Vice President of Organizational Development, People Insights and Project Management at The Walt Disney Company, Dave plays a pivotal role in shaping the company’s strategic direction through people, process, and culture.

With a deep belief in the power of technology, data and analytics, Dave has helped drive meaningful change across complex global organizations. His leadership has been instrumental in aligning business priorities with talent strategies, enabling teams to deliver measurable impact while fostering a culture of agility, accountability, and innovation.

Dave is widely recognized for his ability to lead through change—guiding organizations through periods of disruption with clarity and purpose. He has held executive roles leading multiple areas across HR, including HR Business Partners, Systems & Operations and L&D. He is passionate about building inclusive, high-performing cultures where people are empowered to lead, grow, and thrive.

At Disney, Dave partners closely with senior leadership to embed transformation not just as a business imperative, but as a cultural evolution. His work has helped redefine how the organization approaches leadership development, change management, and enterprise-wide collaboration.

Dave brings a thoughtful, human-centered approach to transformation—balancing strategic insight with a deep understanding of organizational dynamics. His perspective is shaped by years of experience at the intersection of business strategy, organizational design, and data-driven decision-making.

Danelle McCusker Rees currently serves as the Global Head of Talent, Learning & HR Business Partner for UPS. She leads the enterprise strategy in executive succession planning, learning and development, performance management, and people & culture in multiple business units located in over 200 countries and territories worldwide.

UPS is one of the world’s largest shipping couriers, with more than 450K staff and 120K vehicles delivering 25.2M packages daily, generating $90B+ in annual revenues. With over 20 years of experience across multiple areas of the business, she has developed into a business leader who is obsessed with driving results through people.  She has extensive experience leading structural and cultural transformations, driving growth, improving productivity, and building high-performing teams.

Danelle has been consistently recognized for her transformational leadership and business results. Her recent feature in HR Magazine (spring 2024 edition) highlights her instrumental role in positioning UPS as an industry trailblazer in addressing the childcare crisis for frontline workers while improving attendance and retention.  

Danelle's commitment extends beyond her professional title; she is a Certified Executive Coach, lending her expertise to both internal and external executives.  She has received the U.S. Senator John S. McCain III Maverick Award for her selfless commitment and contributions to her community and most recently has been recognized by Chief as an “exceptional executive building a new era of leadership” with their Leader in Empathy Award.

Danelle holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business from Lebanon Valley College and a Master of Human Resource Management & Labor Relations from St. Francis University.  She is also a graduate of the Senior Leadership Development Program at the University of Navarra’s IESE Business School in Barcelona, and holds numerous certifications from prestigious institutions such as Harvard, Yale and London Business School.  

Stephan Meier is the James P. Gorman Professor of Business at Columbia Business School. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Zurich, was previously a senior economist at the Center for Behavioral Economics and Decision-Making at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and taught courses on strategic interactions and economic policy at Harvard University and the University of Zurich. His research interest is in behavioral strategy. 

He investigates the impact of psychology and economics on human decision-making and its implications for public policy and firms' strategy. Current research topics include how non-selfish behavior affect organizations or the effect of borrower's decision-making on financial institutions' strategy. His work has been published in the leading academic journals including the American Economic Review and Management Science, and has been profiled by the press such as The Economist, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Neue Zuercher Zeitung.

Scott Salmirs is the President and CEO of ABM Industries (NYSE: ABM), a Fortune 500 leader in facility, engineering, and infrastructure solutions. Since assuming the role in 2015, he has led the company’s $8+ billion enterprise and its 130,000+ employees with a strategic focus on growth, innovation, and operational excellence. He is only the seventh CEO in ABM’s 100+ year history, underscoring his leadership and the confidence placed in him.

Under his guidance, ABM has solidified its position as one of the largest facility solutions providers in the U.S., U.K., and Ireland, serving key sectors including aviation, healthcare, education, technology, and commercial real estate. His leadership has helped drive efficiency, sustainability, and high-impact service delivery for clients across these industries.

Mr. Salmirs joined ABM in 2003 and has held pivotal executive roles, including Executive Vice President overseeing international and aviation operations. Earlier, as head of ABM’s Northeast region, he tripled revenue, increased profitability by 400%, and achieved a 96% client retention rate.

Before ABM, he held senior positions in corporate facilities management at CBRE, Goldman Sachs, and Lehman Brothers, gaining deep expertise in the industry.

In addition to his corporate role, Mr. Salmirs is active in philanthropy and community service. He serves on the boards of ICF International (NASDAQ: ICFI), the Business Advisory Council of SUNY Oneonta, the Outreach Project, and Donate Eight. He was recently appointed to the board of the World Federation of Building Service Contractors (WFBSC), reflecting his global industry influence.

He holds an MBA in Finance from SUNY Binghamton and a bachelor’s degree in business economics from SUNY Oneonta.

Jeff Schwartz is the Vice President of Insights and Impact at Gloat. Prior to joining Gloat, Jeff was a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP for 20 years, most recently as the U.S. Leader for the future of work and as a senior partner in the firm’s Global Human Capital executive since 2003. His leadership roles have included global and U.S. marketing, eminence, and brand, leading the organization, change, and talent practices, and growing the firm’s global delivery capabilities in India. Jeff is the author of WORK DISRUPTED (Wiley 2021) and co-author of Workforce Ecosystems: Reaching Strategic Goals with People, Partners, and Technologies (MIT Press 2023). Jeff has also been a leading innovator and was the founding editor and a principal author of Deloitte’s global human capital trends report since 2011 and the co-founder of Catalyst Tel Aviv, the firm’s first global innovation tech hub. It was in Tel Aviv in 2016 that Jeff first met the founders of Gloat while researching one of the first future of work start-up landscape surveys. 

A renowned subject matter expert on work and workforce transformation, he has lived in and led consulting practices in the U.S., India, Israel, Belgium, Russia and Kenya. Jeff has an MBA from the Yale School of Management and an MPA from Princeton’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. He is an adjunct professor and visiting lecturer at Columbia’s Graduate School of Business and Cornell Tech’s MBA program.

Eric Severson is a three-time Chief People Officer and Hudson Institute-certified Executive Coach with over 30 years of experience coaching and leading teams at some of the world’s best-loved companies.  

For three decades, Eric has coached senior leaders and built evidence-based systems to manage talent and drive organizational performance. Prior to becoming a full-time executive coach and consultant, Eric was Chief People, ESG & Belonging Officer at Neiman Marcus Group (NMG).  Previous to Neiman Marcus, Eric was Chief People Officer at DaVita Inc., Co-CHRO at Gap Inc., and held various executive leadership roles in Human Resources and Store Operations at Gap and Macy’s Inc.

Eric’s public service roles have bridged the public, private, and non-profit sectors.  In 2014, Eric was appointed by U.S. Commerce Secretary to a 2-year term on the National Advisory Council on Innovation & Entrepreneurship (NACIE).  He served as a Director on the boards of HR People + Strategy; Society for Human Resource Management Executive Council; The Felton Institute; La Napoule Art Foundation Advisory Board; and the IM Human Advisory Board.  

Eric’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Forbes, Fortune, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Business of Fashion, Women’s Wear Daily, HR Magazine, HR Executive Magazine, and People + Strategy Journal, as well as in the books Choosing Greatness, Future Work, The Diversity Advantage, and Pull: The Power of Magnetic Leadership.  Eric has also appeared on numerous podcasts, including Living Corporate, Future of Work, Purpose at Work, Talent Talk, Built on Purpose, We’re All In This Together, Pop Health, Working Gratitude, Next Wave Leadership, and Celebration of You.  He is a contributor to the upcoming book, Executive Coaching: Perspectives and Practices Across the Field, forthcoming from Wiley.

Eric holds a B.A. in English from Pennsylvania State University and an M.A. in English from Arizona State University.

As Chief People Officer of Zillow Group, Dan leads the company’s people operations, including human resources, talent acquisition, engagement & belonging, learning & development, organizational & talent strategy, and Cloud HQ experience. Dan oversaw Zillow’s transition to Cloud HQ - a flexible, distributed workforce model that boosts efficiency and innovation by empowering employees to work where they thrive. His focus is on creating programs that not only attract, develop, and retain Zillow’s talented employees while keeping teams inspired, connected and engaged no matter where they are.

Prior to joining Zillow Group, Dan was vice president of U.S. Stores and Operations and Human Resources for Starbucks, where his team drove support and strategy for over 8,000 stores and 140,000 employees nationwide. Before Starbucks, Dan held various leadership roles on human resources teams at Life Technologies and Dell, Inc.

Dan earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and History from Knox College and currently serves on its Board of Trustees. He also earned a Master of Science in Human Resources and Industrial and Labor Relations from the University of Illinois.

Anne Arlinghaus (New York) joined KKR in 2008 and is a Partner and Co-Head of Capstone in the Americas. She worked in the Menlo Park and London offices before joining the New York office in 2016. Ms. Arlinghaus works with the Financial Services and Media private equity industry teams to evaluate new investments and drive value creation efforts with portfolio company management teams. 

She also plays a leadership role in operationalizing human capital and sustainability related value creation initiatives across KKR’s portfolio companies. She has been involved with a number of KKR portfolio companies including U.S. Foods, First Data Corporation, Sedgwick, Mr. Cooper, RBmedia, OverDrive, Apple Leisure Group, Beacon Pointe, PlayOn! Sports, Simon & Schuster, and Integrated Specialty Coverages. Prior to joining KKR, Ms. Arlinghaus worked for McKinsey and Company. She holds a B.A. with honors from Vanderbilt University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School where she was a Baker Scholar.

Adina D. Sterling joined Columbia Business School in 2023 as the Katherine W. Phillips Associate Professor of Business in the Management Division. Adina’s research advances an understanding of how inequality persists in labor markets and workplaces, despite the efforts of many leaders to create fair and equitable organizations.  In particular, her work demonstrates the various ways labor markets and hiring processes lead societal inequalities to be maintained and reinforced. For example, her work indicates how organizational behaviors such as employee turnover are not only affected by internal factors within organizations (such as employee satisfaction), but factors outside of organizations such as proximity to reliable transportation. These societal factors often cut across racial, class, and gender lines. Her research has been published in numerous top management journals (e.g., Administrative Science Quarterly, Management Science, Organization Science) and science journals (e.g., PNAS), as well as covered by many media outlets (e.g., the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business Insider, and Fast Company).

In 2018, Adina founded the Equity by Design Lab (EBDL) while she was at Stanford University. As director of the lab she works with doctoral students, postdocs, and pre-doctoral students to work on solving problems related to workplace and labor market inequality. Researchers in the EBDL use a mix of methods, including archival data analyses, longitudinal surveys, interviews, field and laboratory experiments and computational techniques, to uncover mechanisms generating inequality that are often hidden from view. To learn how to address these inequalities, she creates academic and industry partnerships that focus on the ways workplace inequality can be reduced.

Adina has taught MBA, PhD, executive, and  undergraduate courses, as well as consulted and trained employees at companies including at firms in high tech, venture capital, and law. While at Stanford she developed a very popular MBA elective titled, Equity by Design: How to Build Diverse and Inclusive Organizations. In her teaching she uses a ‘bench-to-classroom’ approach that actively integrates her own academic research and that of other scholars on hiring, promotions, evaluation, and networks to help students design organizations more equitably. Pedagogically, she develops new frameworks (e.g., “Go to the MAT: Merit, Accountability, Transparency”), publishes scholarly translation articles (e.g., Harvard Business Review), and create experiential exercises, to enhance students’ learning across diverse learning modes.

Prior to getting a PhD, Adina worked for five years at Procter and Gamble as a senior engineer, working on the development of consumer products. She received her PhD from Goizueta Business School at Emory University in Organization and Management in 2011. She was on the faculty at Washington University’s Olin Business School from 2011-2015, and Stanford University from 2015-2023.

Zeynep Ton is a professor of the practice at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the co-founder and president of the nonprofit Good Jobs Institute, whose mission is to help companies thrive by creating good frontline jobs. 

In her research, teaching, and consulting work, Zeynep focuses on helping organizations design systems that delight customers; provide meaningful, dignified, and well-paying frontline jobs; and drive high productivity and strong investor returns.

She has received numerous awards for teaching excellence at MIT Sloan and previously at Harvard Business School. Her research has been published in leading managerial and scholarly journals and has been widely featured in the media.

Zeynep is the author of two books: The Good Jobs Strategy: How the Smartest Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs and Boost Profits and The Case for Good Jobs: How Great Companies Bring Dignity, Pay, and Meaning to Everyone’s Work.

Originally from Turkey, Zeynep came to the U.S. on a volleyball scholarship to Penn State, where she earned a B.S. in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering. She later earned her D.B.A. from Harvard Business School. She now lives in Cambridge with her husband and four children.