Meet The Gems of Talent Summit! (Part 1)

As Gem Talent Summit approaches and conversations with our speakers unfold around it, we’re getting more and more excited about our lineup and about what they’ll be sharing with us… and with you! Here’s a little taste of who—and what—is coming your way on September 15th (this is hardly everyone; there’s more to come in a follow-up post!):

Ashleigh Anderson, Vice President, Head of Global Talent Acquisition @ Credit Karma

Ashleigh oversees global recruiting for Credit Karma and is responsible for scaling the org through its next phase of growth. In her first year at the company, Credit Karma’s recruiting team hired more than 400 employees. This year, they chose to push the reset button and restructure their teams in the midst of COVID. At Talent Summit, Ashleigh will talk about the decision behind pushing that button, how the team pinpointed the most effective enablement roles they needed to hire, what technologies they used to hire for those unique roles, and how the restructuring and introduction of new roles has optimized team performance. Ashleigh’s been growing and scaling teams since her tenure at Zynga, where she built the research recruiting team that hired 40% of U.S.-based engineers and product managers as the company grew to 4,000. She’s also a Clemson football fan; so if you’re a Tiger enthusiast, this talk is definitelynot to be missed!

Maisha L. Cannon, Manager of Global Talent Sourcing @ Procore Technologies

Maisha is an ISFJ personality (inquisitive introvert), Queen of Giphys, collector of Zoom backgrounds… and she’s back again at Summit this year, which delights us. Maisha has recruited for companies like Google, LinkedIn, and GitHub. We know her as a tremendous people-connector who’s interested in how technology supports that connection. And this is precisely what she’ll be discussing at Talent Summit: how to break through the noise of your prospective candidates’ inboxes with a data-driven, high-yield messaging strategy. How do you use data to drive more compelling and effective emails? How do you use your unique voice to connect, human-to-human, with prospects? What are the best strategies for personalization across industries and roles? If you’re not already following Maisha on Twitter @talentgenie, we recommend you get on that. And then come find her at Summit, and learn how to work smarter by infusing practical creativity into your outreach. 

Chelsea Cohen, Manager of Recruiting Operations @ FullStory

Chelsea is an explorer of new hiking trails, an impromptu living-room-dancer with her kids, and a recruiting “Jane of All Trades.” She’s been a recruiting coordinator, a full-cycle technical recruiter, a university recruiter, and ran her own boutique recruiting consulting firm, where she worked with clients like the Obama Foundation. She describes her transition into Ops at FullStory as “like coming home.” Now, her team ensures that FullStory has the right technologies and data-driven processes in place to scale—not only effectively, but also inclusively. Come hear Chelsea talk about data and empathy together, such that KPIs and reporting ultimately lead to better candidate experiences… not to mention ICs who can do their best work with the right structures in place. 

Krystle Olson, Talent Attraction Lead @ Shopify

Krystle is a former botanist and a current lover of all-things-people-leadership. She’s helped design and build the Talent Attraction team at Shopify for the last 5+ years. In December of last year, when Shopify announced the goal of doubling its engineering team via Twitter (hiring 2,021 new technical roles in 2021), Krystle knew that her team needed to be both creative and proactive with their hiring strategies if they were going to meet that goal. Curious about how the team is trending to meet that number? You’ll have to show up to find out! Krystle will present two different programs Shopify created in an effort to meet their hiring goals. Get ready to take notes, because she’ll be talking about everything from how the team structured its sourcing program to scale hypergrowth to how they empowered leadership to advance their success... and more.

Bernardo Sosa, Director of Talent Sourcing, Ops & Programs @ Box

Bernardo came to recruiting with a background in sales and marketing; and he has a unique lens into TA from that experience. He’ll join Sarah Koo, Head of Product at Gem, to discuss how Box thinks outside of the box when it comes to talent sourcing and resourcing for all roles in a Talent Acquisition team. 

Dai Marie Strong, Global Head of Talent Operations, Compliance, Programs & Early in Career @ Cisco Meraki

Dai is a self-professed foodie, HGTV junkie, and sports fan with over 21 years of Talent Acquisition experience (14 of those years in TA Leadership). She’s worked in a wide range of industries—from agency, to service, to finance, to healthcare, to energy and tech; and her most recent role at Cisco Meraki has been accompanied by its own set of questions about remote work. After nearly a year and a half of working from home, employees and candidates have shifted the expectations of their work environments away from traditional office settings; and companies would be wise to shift their recruiting efforts in the same direction. Dai’s session will cover how Cisco Meraki not only adapted its recruiting practices but also thrived in the wake of change. She’ll discuss the benefits of hiring remotely with regards to budgets, location, and new markets; best practices for transitioning your recruiting strategy; and how Cisco Merkai used multiple resources to scale their hiring needs.

We’re so thrilled to have you join us in just two weeks for this event! If you haven’t registered for Gem Talent Summit yet, we highly recommend you save your spot! And if you’re already registered, know that we here at Gem are so thrilled to get to spend the day with you, learning from these remarkable talent and people professionals… and from you.