Kristin Campbell Reed leads Corporate and Employee Giving at Genentech, overseeing strategy and operations for charitable giving, employee volunteerism and matching, and local and national citizenship programs such as Futurelab. She has a passion for learning, identifying connections and building new things. Prior to Genentech, she spent nearly a decade as an award-winning healthcare journalist at Bloomberg News. Among other highlights, Kristin led Bloomberg’s entry into general science coverage, and was named to NewsBios’ “30 Under 30” list for financial reporting. In her presentation, Kristin discusses the Genentech FutureLab…

1. Companies can make a difference in their own backyards, and successfully partner with local school districts.
2. Lead with what you know and are passionate about, and listen. This builds trust and results in better decisions.
3. Meaningful and magnetic volunteer programs benefit companies by engaging employees, helping them build skills and connecting them to your company’s mission and to one another.

Charlotte Fenner is a Director of Partner Resources at Starbucks Coffee Company, based in San Francisco. During her career she has worked for global brands in the UK, The Netherlands, Germany and Australia. Prior to the Bay Area, Charlotte spent 3 years as the Director of Global Leadership Development at Starbucks headquarters in Seattle. Charlotte is currently responsible for supporting the Northern California business, and is specifically focused on the attraction, retention and development of talent in competitive urban markets. In this talk, Charlotte examines the Starbucks College Achievement Plan…

1. The Starbucks College Achievement Plan provides FULL tuition coverage for Starbucks partners to earn their degree through Arizona State University. Partners can pursue ANY degree and there is no give back to Starbucks.
2. We believe that the investments we make in our partners are critical investments for our business – the partner-customer connection is key to us and focusing on our partners is invaluable.
3. We are happy to share how this came to be and how it is working, we hope to inspire other companies to find creative solutions like this that meet the needs of their employees and a larger societal need as well. Listen to your employees, and help them pursue their dreams. Believe in the power of human potential and find a way to unlock it.

Sima Yazdani is a Senior Technical Leader, Chief Data Scientist at Learning@Cisco at Cisco Services, where she leads Cisco Collaborative Knowledge Cognitive Analytics, team helping enterprise users as learners, mentor and training partners with their personalize knowledge discovery and recommendation services. She has 30+ years of experience in Database technology, system architecture, analytics, Business Process Optimization, Semantic technologies, cloud computing and machine learning in a variety of industries, including IT, learning, health, and workforce professional development. Sima talks about Benefiting Local Talent Markets Using Knowledge Networks & Cognitive Surplus…

1. Cisco’s emphasis is on and investment in Digital transformation.
2. We must seeing Local talents, workforce & human capital as national assets.
3. Observations through participation in Cisco CSR programs, Teachers Without Borders and City of San Jose Work2Future & startup pilots.
4. Future of learning, work & workforce – Technology as an enabler – yet we need a new kind of workforce digital transformation strategy, indicators, development bridges & pathways.
5. My journey- has included Passion, Profession, Vocation, Mission – leading me to my career pathways & plans– focused on making an impact.