Deborah Dagit joined Merck & Co. Inc. as the Chief Diversity Officer in June 2001. She has responsibility for global equal opportunity employment compliance, diversity, inclusion, work environment, and university relations strategy.

Under Ms. Dagit's leadership, organizations such as Diversityinc, Working Mother and the Human Rights Campaign have recognized Merck for its exemplary work in diversity and inclusion. Merck has undergone 55 different federal audits for compliance with U.S. Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Opportunity requirements for federal contractors since 1980 - each time, receiving a letter of compliance from the government.

Ms. Dagit introduced and leads the company's signature Global Constituency Group (GCG) strategy, which was launched with the creation of 10 global teams representing 32 countries.  These groups are: Men, Women, Black, Hispanic/Latino, Native/Indigenous, Differently Able, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender, Asian, Interfaith and Generational. Each team is made up of 15-20 senior leaders representing the company's best talent across various business units and geographies. 

These teams are charged with recommending both talent development and marketplace- focused best practices to be integrated into the company’s HR and business practices. The teams' work guides the Company's diversity and inclusion strategy globally. In addition to the 10 GCGs, Merck also has eight Employee Resource Groups, a Chairman's annual global diversity awards program, and plays a key role in well known educational outreach and philanthropic initiatives with strategic partners.

Ms. Dagit joined Merck from Silicon Graphics, Inc. where she was a Director of Learning Communications and Diversity since 1993. Prior to Silicon Graphics, Ms. Dagit was Senior Manager, Strategic Cultural Initiatives for Sun Microsystems, Inc. from 1991 to 1993.  Previously, she founded and managed Bridge-to-Jobs, a job placement organization through which she personally placed 400 people with disabilities into full time employment. She played a key role in the passage of the American with Disabilities Act through lobbying efforts in California and Washington, D.C. 

Ms. Dagit earned a bachelor's degree with honors from Oregon State University, and completed her master's coursework in clinical psychology at San Jose State University. She is a past Chair of the Conference Board's Workforce Council on Diversity and served as co-chair of the Board of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network until May 2011. She also currently serves on the Business Advisory Councils for Catalyst and the Tanenbaum Center for Inter-religious understanding, and is on the Board of the U.S. Business Leadership Network and the Families and Work Institute. She is the author of, "The Promise of Diversity: Reflections on the Not-So-Level Playing Field" and "An Employer's Guide to Hiring and Accommodating People with Disabilities."

Among her many awards, Ms. Dagit earned the 2005 Champion of the Year from Out and Equal; the 2004 “Employee of the Year" award from Careers & the DisABLED magazine; the 2000 Exemplary Leader Award from Silicon Graphics; the 1999 Advocate of the Year from the Black Employees Network; the 1997 Award of Professional Excellence from the Northern California HR Council; and the 1996 Tribute to Women in Industry award.

Karl Ahlrichs specializes in helping professionals make order from chaos. He is a national speaker, author, and consultant, presenting on the people issues in all industries, and is often quoted in the local and national media. 

Karl’s experience is ideally suited to times of organizational change as he pulls on risk management and organizational development theories to replace “best practices” with “next practices”. He owes much of his communications mastery to working as a writer and editor in daily media, to on-the-job writing experience and to the process of becoming a published author.

He joined Gregory & Appel in 2010 after serving as a founding partner of ExactHire, bringing his HR, operations, diversity & belonging, and learning & development skills with him. Karl’s affinity for design, composition and learning started at a very young age, by taking and examining thousands of boring pictures with the goal of improving his craft. He loves deploying that practice-to-improve approach with all manner of hobbies including writing haiku, mastering cutting-edge technology and learning Spanish.

In 2003, he was named the SHRM Human Resource Professional of the Year for the State of Indiana. He is on the Boards of several organizations, including the Maryland CPA Society.  He has lived in Scotland and Spain and lives to explore new experiences with his wife and family.

Todd Solomon is a partner in and Chicago local practice group leader of the employee benefits practice group of McDermott Will & Emery LLP in its Chicago office.  Todd focuses his practice primarily on designing, amending, and administering pension plans, 401(k) plans, employee stock ownership plans, 403(b) plans, and nonqualified deferred compensation arrangements.  He also counsels corporations and tax-exempt entities regarding fiduciary and plan investment issues under ERISA, employee benefits issues involved in corporate transactions, executive compensation and Code Section 409A compliance and correction matters, and the implementation of benefit programs for domestic partners.  

Dr. David Rock coined the term 'Neuroleadership’ and is the CEO of the NeuroLeadership Institute, a global initiative bringing neuroscientists and leadership experts together to build a new science for leadership development. With operations in 24 countries, the Institute also helps large organizations operationalize brain research in order to develop better leaders and managers. David co-edits the NeuroLeadership Journal and heads up an annual global summit. He has written many of the central academic and discussion papers that have defined the Neuroleadership field.

Alexander Alonso, PhD, SHRM-SCP is the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM's) Chief Data & Insights Officer leading operations for SHRM's Certified Professional and Senior Certified Professional certifications, research functions, and the SHRM Knowledge Advisor service. He is responsible for all research activities, including the development of the SHRM Competency Model and SHRM credentials.

During his career, he has worked with numerous subject matter experts worldwide with the aim of identifying performance standards, developing competency models, designing organizational assessments, and conducting job analyses. He was also responsible for working on contract task orders involving the development of measurement tools for content areas such as job knowledge (like teacher knowledge of instructional processes) and organizational climates (like organizational climate forecasting in military health care).

Dr. Alonso received his doctorate in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Florida International University in 2003. His works have been recognized for their contribution to real-world issues. They include being recognized by the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology (Division 14 of the APA; SIOP) with the 2007 M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace for the development of the federal standard for medical team training, TeamSTEPPS; being awarded a 2009 Presidential Citation for Innovative Practice by the American Psychological Association for supporting the development of competency model for team triage in emergency medicine; and receiving the 2013 SIOP Distinguished Early Career Contributions for Practice Award.

Throughout his career, he has published works in peer-reviewed journals such as Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, Journal of Applied Psychology, International Journal of Selection and Assessment, People and Strategy, Personality and Individual Differences, Quality and Safety in Health Care, and Human Resources Management Review. He has also authored several chapters on community-based change initiatives in workforce readiness, as well as co-authoring Defining HR Success: A Guide to the SHRM Competency Model in Practice.

Dr. Alonso also served as a columnist analyzing major trends in the workforce for The Industrial Psychologist and HR Magazine. In addition, he has served on several professional society boards including the SIOP and the Personnel Testing Council of Metropolitan Washington.

John A. Rubino, SHRM-SCP, CCP, CBP, GRP, WLCP, is founder and president of Rubino Consulting Services, a global human resources consulting company based in Pound Ridge, New York. His areas of expertise cover all areas of Human Resources program design. An internationally acclaimed speaker for SHRM and WorldatWork, John is the author of numerous human resources articles, and is frequently quoted in professional publications. He holds BA and MBA degrees, as well as a lifetime Achievement Award from WorldatWork. John works with a wide variety of organizations and his consulting practice takes him all around the world; in fact, he has visited one hundred and nine countries!

Steve works for Nike where he is the Senior Director of Talent Mobility.  Steve's team is developing Nike’s Talent Mobility strategy in support of the company’s broader Human Capital agenda. Steve’s team also manages Nike’s expatriate assignments with a fully integrated service model which includes immigration, relocation, tax, and mobility policy. Steve has 25 years experience in in a variety of HR and finance disciplines including talent planning, expatriate management, immigration, tax, total rewards, and accounting. Before joining Nike in 2016, Steve spent 19 years at Accenture in a variety of roles focused on talent mobility. Steve has also worked at Novell and at Ernst & Young.  Steve holds an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of California and Masters degrees in Business Administration and Accounting from Northeastern University, Boston.

As Littler’s global director of data analytics, Dr. Zev J. Eigen guides HR departments to strategically tap employee and applicant information when making business-critical decisions. He combines a data scientist’s mindset with a shrewd knowledge of labor and employment law in the delivery of precise and practical workplace-related counseling. A frequent speaker on machine learning algorithms and statistical analysis, Zev has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Forbes and by NBC, CBS and Fox, among others. He has taught at a number of universities, including Northwestern School of Law, Yale Law School and Kellogg School of Management.