Considered one of the most progressive and talented baseball executives in the game today, Billy Beane has molded the Oakland Athletics into one of professional baseball’s most consistent winners since taking over as General Manager following the 1997 season. Beane shattered traditional MLB beliefs that big payrolls equated wins by implementing a statistical methodology that led the Oakland A’s, one of the worst teams in baseball with one of the lowest payrolls, to six American League West Division Titles. That strategic methodology has come to be known as the Moneyball philosophy, named for the bestselling book and Oscar nominated film chronicling Beane’s journey from General Manager to hero to celebrated management genius. Most recently, Beane was named Major League Baseball Executive of the Year for the second time by Baseball America in 2013 (first earned in 2002).

Today, Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” philosophy has been adopted by organizations of all sizes, across all industries, as a way to more effectively, efficiently, and profitably manage their assets, talent, and resources. He has helped to shape the way modern businesses view and leverage big data and employ analytics for long-
term success.

Beginning in 1999, Beane and former Assistant GM Paul DePodesta shattered antiquated MLB beliefs that big payrolls could mean more wins by implementing an unorthodox (by MLB standards) strategic methodology that led one of the worst teams in the American League to become a perennial postseason contender. Bestselling author Michael Lewis chronicled their journey in his 2003 bestselling book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game; the film adaptation, starring Brad Pitt as Beane, garnered 6 Academy Award nominations in 2012. Beane’s strategy has since opened the eyes of many top sports executives and CEOs around the country who now utilize the Moneyball methodology. In 2008, Beane even collaborated with Newt Gingrich and Sen. John Kerry in co-authoring an article in the New York Times offering possible remedies for the U.S. health care crisis.

Under Beane, the A’s have adopted an organizational philosophy that stresses plate discipline and pitchers who command the strike zone. Over 16 seasons with Beane at the helm, the A’s have won six
American League West titles (2000; 2002-03; 2006; 2012; 2013). In 2012, they secured the AL West title with the smallest payroll in the American League, and with the third smallest AL payroll in 2013.

Beane was named Sporting News’ Executive of the Year twice, first in 1999 and again in 2012. He also earned Major League Baseball’s Executive of the Year honors twice by Baseball America magazine,
following the 2002 and 2013 seasons. In November of 2001, Beane was named one of Street & Smith’s Sport Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” and in 2004, he was rated 16th on their list of Baseball’s Heavy Hitters.

A first round draft pick of the New York Mets in the 1980 June Free Agent Draft, Beane played six major league seasons as an infielder, outfielder, and catcher for the Mets, Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers and Oakland A’s. His final season in uniform was 1989 when he was a utility player on the A’s World Championship team. Beane retired as an active player in the spring of 1990 when he joined the A’s front office as the club’s major league advance scout. Former A’s President Sandy Alderson promoted Beane to General Manager in 1997.

A native of San Diego, CA, Beane attended Mt. Carmel High School and UC San Diego, where he studied economics. Beane is the proud father of twins, Brayden and Tinsley, and daughter, Casey. He lives with his family in Danville, California.

Josh Bersin is Founder and Principal at Bersin by Deloitte, leading provider of research-based membership programs in human resources (HR), talent and learning. He is a global research analyst, public speaker, and writer on the topics of corporate human resources, talent management, recruiting, leadership, technology, and the intersection between work and life. Having spent much of his career in technology, sales, marketing, and business leadership, Joshactively writes about major global trends in leadership, management, HR and talent management technologies. Read his materials on Bersin by Deloitte and Forbes.com.

Neal leads Workforce Strategy & Planning at Uber, which includes People Strategy, People Analytics & Data Science, and People Operations.  In his time at Uber, Neal has also led Compensation, Benefits, Mobility, Learning & Development, HR Technology, and Careers Marketing. Neal joined Uber in 2014 to help build the People function and create a scalable architecture for growth.  Prior to Uber, Neal led HR Strategy & Operations at Salesforce. Neal holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, a Masters of Engineering Management from Northwestern and a Bachelors in Computer Science from Vanderbilt.

Jennifer Anker Kaufman is the Director of Talent Acquisition at Twilio.  She has over 12 years of recruiting experience with deep expertise in building teams at high-growth startups like Twilio, Zynga and Okta. Prior to recruiting, Jennifer worked with marine mammals and remains very passionate about animals.  She currently lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two children.

Sjoerd Gehring is Johnson & Johnson’s Vice President of Talent Acquisition overseeing all of the
company’s global recruiting activities (approximately 25,000 hires annually). Sjoerd is responsible for
developing the global talent acquisition strategy and devising innovative and progressive sourcing,
selection and assessment processes to ensure J&J continues to attract and retain a globally diverse
pipeline of talent.
Sjoerd’s primary focus and passion is in the development of next-generation recruiting platforms and
channels, employing the rapid prototyping of ideas that disrupt conventional recruiting strategies. He is
a widely recognized thought leader in the talent acquisition space and has several patents pending with
the United States Patent Office for cutting edge talent acquisition technologies.
Sjoerd holds an MBA in International Marketing from ESLSCA Business School.

Anna Binder is the head of People Operations at Asana, the fast-growing work management app for teams. Based in San Francisco with offices in NYC and Dublin, Asana helps more than 35,000 paying customers — such as Uber, Major League Baseball, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — manage everything from marketing campaigns to product launches to team goals. Anna has spent most of her career in human resources at technology start-ups, connecting organizations’ people programs to their business objectives and values. She has served in similar roles at MuleSoft, Readyforce and IronPort Systems. She has a B.A. from the University of Oregon and an MBA from IESE in Spain.

Robby Peters is the Co-Founder of PeopleTech Partners. PeopleTech Partners is an advisory group that works with early-stage HR technology founders and matches them with early customers for product feedback and pilots of the technology they are building. Some of the advisors that are in the group include the Heads of HR from companies like Slack, Box, Thumbtack, Evernote, OpenTable and more. PeopleTech partners has worked with over 20 companies including Reflektive, Everwise, and Lucy to name a few. PeopleTech also focuses on running events that are centered around Progressive HR initiatives and Robby has put on more than four hundred events across SF, NY, LA, Austin, and Seattle bringing together thousands of HR leaders across the country.

Ragini Holloway is currently Head of Talent at Affirm, where she oversees recruiting, employer brand, and diversity and inclusion, and serves as an advisor to tech startups, including Lever and Shift. Ragini helps high-growth startups scale recruitment and HR processes, often from scratch. Most recently, she took Credit Karma from 40 to 500, and has similar ambitious hiring goals at Affirm, which has already doubled in headcount in the last year.

Ragini advocates for collaborative hiring practices and facilitates organic and authentic work cultures where people come together and discover common goals. Ragini is heavily focused in building diverse teams and designing employee engagement programs that drive ongoing workplace satisfaction and high retention rates.

Robin Erickson leads talent acquisition, engagement, and retention research for Bersin, Deloitte Consulting LLP. Recognized as a thought leader in her areas of expertise, Robin offers more than 20 years of experience, including prior experience in talent strategies consulting and research for Deloitte’s Human Capital practice. Robin led Deloitte’s global Talent 2020 longitudinal survey series and, in addition to writing for Bersin publications, appeared in multiple Deloitte Review and Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends publications. She holds a doctoral degree in organizational communication and change, as well as a master’s in communication, from Northwestern University. Robin also has a master’s in theology from Northern Seminary and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Chicago.

Sharique Hasan is an Associate Professor of Strategy at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Sharique studies social networks, careers and entrepreneurship. His research has explored how networks help people learn complex ideas, what types of network connections enhance individual and firm performance, and how individuals can build larger and more diverse networks. Sharique’s research on careers has explored how specialized experience translates into rapid career advancement and how the internal configuration of organizations shapes the dynamics of jobs inside them.

His research has been published in leading journals including Organization Science, Management Science, the American Sociological Review, and Administrative Science Quarterly. He serves as an Associate Editor for Management Science and is on the editorial board of Organization Science. Professor Hasan received his BS in Computer Science and Philosophy from Rutgers College in New Jersey, an MS in Public Policy and Management and his PhD in Organizational Theory and Management from Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College. His doctoral dissertation, “Social Networks, Stratification and Careers in Organizations” won the Herbert A. Simon Doctoral Dissertation Award in the Administrative Sciences from Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to Duke, Sharique was Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.

DK Bartley is the Vice President & Head of Talent Acquisition for Dentsu Aegis Network. As a speaker and facilitator, he is a subject matter expert for global talent acquisition, and diversity & inclusion. He has successfully managed and implemented recruitment strategies and teams in more than twenty countries throughout his twenty-year career.

Mohsen Bayati is associate professor of Operations, Information, and Technology at Stanford University, Graduate School of Business (GSB) and Electrical Engineering (by courtesy). He studies probabilistic and statistical models for decision making with large-scale and complex data, and applies them to healthcare problems.

Jon is the founder and CEO of Entelo. A serial entrepreneur, Jon founded three companies in the e-learning and social networking space and served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Battery Ventures. He holds a B.S. from University of Minnesota and an M.B.A. from UCLA.

Gaurav Kataria leads product and data science at Entelo. Prior to this role he spent nearly decade at Google Cloud and prior to Google, he was a senior leader at Booz Allen Hamilton and co-founder of a tech startup. He has a Masters and PhD in Computer Security from Carnegie Mellon University and Bachelors in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology.