Susan Vinnicombe's research interests focus on the lack of women in leadership and specifically on corporate boards, women's leadership behaviors and the issues involved in women developing their executive careers. Vinnicombe was Founder Director of the Cranfield International Centre for Women Leaders from 1999 to 2016 and the Deloitte Ellen Gabriel Endowed Chair in Women's Leadership at Simmons College, Boston, USA from 2013-2016. She and her co-authors produce the annual Female FTSE Board Report, which she launched in 1999 and is regarded as the premier research resource on women directors in the UK and is renowned globally. She has written ten books and over one hundred articles, reports and conference papers. Her latest book “Handbook of Research on Promoting Women’s Careers” (Eds. S Vinnicombe, R.J. Burke, S. Blake-Beard and L.L. Moore) was published by Edward Elgar in 2013.

Vinnicombe receives regular recognition worldwide and was honored in 2016 by the International Women's Forum in Washington as a woman who has "Made a Difference" in the world and become a Companion of the Chartered Institute of Management in the UK. Vinnicombe was also named in the HR Magazine Most Influential Thinkers, 2016 and 2017. Susan has been presented with the Richard Whipp Lifetime Achievement Award by the British Academy of Management. She was a member of The Lord Davies Steering Committee on Women on Boards between 2010 and 2015 and has recently been invited onto the Advisory Board of the Sir Philip Hampton/Dame Helen Alexander Review on the lack of women in the executive pipeline and that of Sir John Parker’s Review of the lack of ethnicity on FTSE 100 boards.

Vinnicombe was awarded an OBE for her Services to Diversity in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List in 2005 and subsequently awarded a CBE for her Services to Gender Equality in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, 2014.

Diana Bilimoria, Ph.D. is KeyBank Professor and Chair and Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. She received her Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of Michigan. She is a co-author of Women in STEM Careers: International Perspectives on Increasing Workforce Participation, Advancement and Leadership (Edward Elgar, 2014), Gender Equity in Science and Engineering: Advancing Change in Higher Education (Routledge, 2012), Women on Corporate Boards of Directors: International Research and Practice (Edward Elgar, 2008), and Handbook on Women in Business and Management (Edward Elgar, 2007). She has published extensively in leading journals, and has contributed to several edited volumes. She has received multiple grants from the National Science Foundation to advance women faculty in science and engineering. She served as the Chair of the Gender and Diversity in Organizations Division of the Academy of Management, was the editor of the Journal of Management Education, and serves on the editorial boards of several journals in the business and management field. 

Dr. Bilimoria’s research focuses on gender and diversity in governance and leadership, and organizational transformation. Her work helps corporate, educational, and nonprofit organizations reinvent themselves and establish practices that attract and retain a high-performance, diverse workforce. Topics she addresses include: How do individuals achieve their fullest potential as leaders and contributors in organizations? What facilitates women and minority group members becoming full participants in organizations, top management teams, and boardrooms? How can workplaces tap into all the capabilities of leadership and diversity? 

Dr. Bilimoria is an expert in how leadership development can transform individuals, groups, and organizations. Her teaching and executive education activities focus on executive leadership and gender, diversity and inclusion in organizations. She has served as an organizational consultant and management educator for private, public, and nonprofit organizations, and as an advisor and coach for executives, focusing on the areas of leadership development, gender and diversity in organizations, board effectiveness, and institutional transformation. 

Dr. Bilimoria has received several honors and recognitions including the Scholarly Contributions to Educational Practice Advancing Women in Leadership Award from the Gender and Diversity in Organizations Division of the Academy of Management in 2017, the Weatherhead School of Management Enduring Research Impact Award in 2017, the Janet Chusmir Distinguished Service Award from the Gender and Diversity in Organizations Division of the Academy of Management in 2016, the Weatherhead School of Management Teaching Excellence Award in 2014, the Excellence in Higher Education Leadership Award from the ACE Ohio Women’s Network in 2012, the Flora Stone Mather Center for Women’s Spotlight Series Prize for Women’s Scholarship at Case Western Reserve University in 2007, and the Weatherhead School of Management’s Doctoral Teaching Excellence Award in 2002. She has been internationally recognized for her scholarship, leadership and service, including the 1999 Anbar Golden Page Award for her editorship of the Journal of Management Education, and Academy of Management Conference awards in 2016, 2012 and 2010 (Gender and Diversity in Organizations Division), 2009 (Careers Division), 2006 (Careers Division), 1999 (Organizational Behavior Division) and 1997 (Organization and Management Theory Division). 

Nikki Anguilm partners with senior leaders and teams across Google to align on business goals and improve performance. This is accomplished by empowering teams to develop capacity to adapt, change, and thrive in Google’s rapidly changing, complex ecosystem. Anguilm supports leaders in building or renewing leadership team culture, leading through change, navigating complexity, creating a team vision, designing organizations for growth, and fostering collaboration across teams. 

Anguilm joined Google in 2008. She had roles as an AdWords account manager, a sales operations manager, and a product training lead in sales, before moving into the People Development team. Anguilm has a Masters degree in Organizational Development, is certified in MBTI, Insights & the Change Style Indicator. She is currently completing her CTI Coaching Certification, and is active manager and career coach within Google.

Beatriz Jimenez serves as senior director of global talent management and diversity and inclusion for Dana. In this role, she is responsible for ensuring that Dana has policies and practices in place, globally, to attract, retain, and utilize the best talent within the organization. In addition, she is a champion for diversity and inclusion initiatives and works to advance a culture where employees’ ideas and perspectives are heard and valued.

Jimenez joined Dana in 2009 as human resources (HR) country lead for Dana Mexico responsible for leading HR initiatives across all product and functional groups in the region while also supporting Dana’s overall HR transformation efforts. In 2011, she joined Dana Brazil Ltd. in Porto Alegre, Brazil, as vice president of HR SA before relocating to the world headquarters in 2014 to lead HR initiatives for Dana’s Light Vehicle and Commercial Vehicle business units. She assumed her current role in 2016.

Prior to joining Dana, Jimenez worked for Grupo ADO as a corporate director responsible for labor relations, training, organization development, and personnel administration. She also served in several key roles involving labor relations, training, and organization development for General Motors, including an assignment at NUMMI, the joint venture between GM and Toyota in Fremont, California.

Jimenez earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial relations from Universidad Iberoamericana and a master’s degree in organization development from Bowling Green State University

Ethel Wragg started her career at The Bowery Savings Bank right after college. She joined a management training program where she worked in multiple roles on the banking floor. During her initial training, she became fascinated with the training process. She kept in touch with her trainer and as soon as a role became available, she applied and started her training career. Her early sessions focused on training new management development recruits.

When the opportunity came to work at Citibank, she seized it. In her 12+ years at Citibank she developed and sharpened her instructional design skills. She served as the Training Manager for the Citi-1-800 Sales center often getting on the phones side by side with reps during the refinancing boom. She supported the New York Retail bank by developing sales training which was eventually implemented to all US businesses. Later she supported this sales training in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Looking for a larger challenge, she went to MetLife where she worked on projects for the incoming Chairman. This included developing content for his first Officers meeting for the top 700 leaders in the firm. She also implemented an HR Rotational program to develop bench strength for the function and an enterprise wide mid-level management development program.

Missing the close connection to field leaders, she went to Coach to create a learning and development function. In this role she served as Chief Learning Officer responsible for all L&D and OD work. Partnering with HR, she updated the performance management system to reflect a more competence/results balanced process. She created competency based curriculum for corporate staff and for the filed organization. She standardized training across 300+ stores and created talent planning processes for both the field and corporate teams. With the buy back of Coach’s business in Japan, Wragg spent 40% of her time there working with the Japan team to integrate them into the Coach culture. This included assimilation training for executives leaving the US for expat assignments in Japan.

Later she worked in China on their integration into Coach Inc. Most recently she developed and implemented sales and service training in 42 countries and 12 languages. This work involved on-boarding new countries. She led this work in Peru, Columbia, Venezuela, Mexico, Panama, Australia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, UK, France, Spain and Italy.