General Session

Mike Aitken has worked at SHRM since 2003 and currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Government Affairs. Prior to joining SHRM, he served for 14 years as associate director for Governmental and External Relations at the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR). Previously, Aitken worked on state public policy issues at Bonner & Associates, a public affairs firm in Washington, DC. Currently, he is based in Alexandria, VA.

In his role as an author, independent consultant, and speaker, Buckingham has been the subject of in-depth profiles in The New York Times, Fortune, Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, USA Today,and The Wall Street Journal. He has appeared on numerous television programs, including TODAY and The Oprah Winfrey Show, and is routinely lauded by such corporations as Toyota, Coca-Cola, Master Foods, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, and Disney as an invaluable resource in informing, challenging, mentoring, and inspiring people to find their strengths and sustain long-lasting personal success.

Cy Wakeman is a drama researcher, global thought-leader, and New York Times best-selling author who is recognized for cultivating a counter-intuitive, reality-based approach to leadership. Backed by 20 years of experience, Wakeman’s philosophy offers a new lens through which employees and executives alike, can shift their attention inward, sharpen their focus on personal accountability, and uncover their natural state of innovation simply by ditching the drama.

Deemed “the secret weapon to restoring sanity to the workplace,” Wakeman has helped companies such as Google, Facebook, NASA, Pfizer, Bank of America, and United Healthcare learn to harness energy wasted in workplace drama and reinvest that effort into achieving profound business results.

Carly Fiorina is a true leader and a seasoned problem‐solver. 

She is a passionate, articulate advocate for problem-solving, innovation, and effective leadership. Her mission is to inspire, equip and connect individuals and teams to seize opportunities, face challenges, and accelerate impact in their communities and places of work. She knows that everyone has more potential than they realize, that those closest to the problem understand the problem best, and that leading to unlock the potential in others and actually solve problems can result in both progress and joy.

Carly shares her leadership experience and approach to problem-solving in a variety of ways. 

In addition to her regular speeches to students, businesses and non-profits, she is the founder and Chairman of Carly Fiorina Enterprises, and of Unlocking Potential, a non-profit organization that invests in human potential by supporting local leaders who are solving problems in their communities and places of work; equipping them with the behaviors, characteristics, disciplines and tools to increase their leadership and problem-solving capacity.

Carly’s experience spans from secretary to CEO, from public to private, and from for-profit to non-profit. 

She started out as a secretary for a nine-person real-estate business and eventually became the first woman ever to lead a Fortune 50 company. When Carly was recruited to lead Hewlett Packard (HP) in 1999, the industry was facing the worst technology recession in 25 years. Under Carly’s leadership, revenue grew, innovation tripled, growth quadrupled, and HP became the 11th largest company in the U.S.

During her tenure at HP, the company received numerous civic recognitions, including being named one of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens by Business Ethics Magazine, one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers by Working Mother Magazine, receiving a 100% rating by The Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index, and being named one of the World’s Most Respected Companies by The Financial Times and PricewaterhouseCoopers. 

After leaving HP, Carly focused her efforts on giving back. Prior to Unlocking Potential, she served as the Chairman of Good360, the world’s largest product philanthropy organization, and as Chairman of Opportunity International, a Christian-based organization that lifts millions out of poverty around the globe through micro-finance. She also founded the One-Woman Initiative in partnership with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to engage and empower women in Pakistan, Egypt, India and the Philippines through increased access to economic opportunity. 

Carly was appointed by President Bush and CIA Director Michael Hayden to serve as the Chairman of the External Advisory Board of the CIA after 9/11. In this capacity, she held the highest clearances available to a civilian, and focused her efforts on CIA recruitment policies, information technology capabilities and organizational integration.

In 2015, Carly launched a campaign for President. Running as a political outsider, Carly spoke about empowering and engaging citizens to take back government from a political ruling class that has failed to deliver results. There, many more Americans came to know her as a clear-eyed, direct leader capable of actually solving problems.

Carly is also a best-selling author. Her titles include Tough Choices and Rising to the Challenge. Her third book Find Your Way is out now. 

She and her husband, Frank, have been happily married for 34 years. They reside in northern Virginia near their daughter, son-in-law and two granddaughters.

Tucker Carlson is the anchor of Fox and Friends Weekend and the editor-in-chief of The Daily Caller, one of the largest and fastest growing news sites in the country. Carlson joined FOX from MSNBC, where he hosted several nightly programs. Previously, he was the co-host of Crossfire on CNN, as well the host of a weekly public affairs program on PBS.

A longtime newspaper and magazine writer, Carlson has reported from around the world, including dispatches from Iraq, Pakistan, Lebanon and Vietnam. He has been a columnist for New York magazine and Reader's Digest. Carlson began his journalism career at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper in Little Rock. His most recent book is entitled, Politicians, Partisans and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News. He appeared on the third season of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars.

A high-profile senior analyst for CNN and staff writer for The New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin is one of the country’s most esteemed experts on politics, media and the law. With unparalleled journalistic skill, Toobin has provided analysis on some of the most provocative and important events of our time. Toobin provides a unique look into the inner workings of The Supreme Court and its influence, as well as how upcoming elections will shape the court and, in turn, the nation. 

After a six-year tenure at ABC News, where he covered the country’s highest-profile cases and received a 2000 Emmy Award for his coverage of the Elian Gonzales custody saga, Toobin joined CNN as a legal analyst for CNN in 2002 where he now serves as senior analyst. Also a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1993, he has written articles on such subjects as the Bernie Madoff scandal, the case of Roman Polanski, and profiles of Justices Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer, John Paul Stevens and Chief Justice John Roberts. 

Toobin received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

When a roadside bomb severely injured her network journalist husband Bob Woodruff, Lee Woodruff discovered how quickly life can change—and what you can learn from surviving a crisis. Today she speaks with grace and humor about her own family's experience and their approach to the crisis that befell them, one that resulted in the healing and strengthening of her whole family. As co-author of the best-selling book, In an Instant, Woodruff garnered critical acclaim for the compelling and humorous chronicle of her family's journey to recovery and she continues to work with groups nationwide to raise awareness of traumatic brain injury and the sacrifices of our military troops and families.