Speakers

With roots as a high school teacher and varsity basketball coach, Ramona brings over twenty-five years of international experience focused on helping individuals maximize their potential and supporting organizations in developing their people in meaningful ways. Often referred to as a “talent tinkerer,” she infuses her expertise in career cognition, business strategy, mobility, and talent technologies to create modern, measurable talent solutions. She was recognized as the 2022 Chief Learning Officer of the Year by CLO Magazine while serving as Chief Learning Officer at Dell Technologies and is a recipient of the University of Texas at Austin President’s Award for outstanding contributions to the success of the University’s nationally ranked MBA program.

Ramona’s leadership is pushing the boundaries of HR talent strategies to drive business impact by transcending traditional approaches. She incorporates behavioral science, AI/ML, automation, kinesthetic and simulation-based experiences, data science, social learning, and even film.

Chrissie is a visionary Learning & Development executive with over 20 years of experience in designing and executing high-impact learning strategies that align with business and commercial objectives. She has extensive experience in fostering robust learning cultures across diverse industries in both the public and private sectors including retail, CPG, quick-service restaurants, healthcare, and startups.

Chrissie’s an expert in developing transformative solutions and systems that drive talent performance and organizational growth. As a highly regarded thought leader within the L&D community, she’s frequently consulted for innovative approaches and is known for creating and optimizing high performing L&D functions in dynamic and fast-paced environments. She’s been recognized globally as a leading Learning Professional and a leader of top-performing L&D teams.

Currently, as the new Chief Learning Officer for PepsiCo, she is leading the work to reimagine the future of learning; architecting a learning strategy and ecosystem that is unifying, agile, learner-centric, tech-enabled and delivers measurable impact for individuals and the organization.

Johann is the Chief Learning Officer in Global Learning & Development at Merck & Co., Inc. where he ensures learning solutions and innovations are aligned to the company’s mission to save and improve lives.  He has over 20 years of experience leading large global teams with a focus on furthering business transformation, defining and launching innovative user experiences and creating operational efficiencies to propel the impact of learning across all audiences.

For Johann, diverse talent is always at the forefront to achieve outstanding patient & employee experiences.  He is passionate and dedicated to coaching, motivating and developing our next generation of leaders.  As a result, he has worked tirelessly to improve:

• Organizations’ diversity & inclusiveness of thought leadership
• Digital capability in human capital, learning solutions, tools & processes
• On demand learning environments focused on self-learning & self-exploration
• Leadership & managements’ capabilities in advanced career development, coaching & mentoring opportunities

Johann has diverse and broad expertise in Learning & Development, Product Development, Product Marketing & Engineering, which have given him expertise in building & leading diverse global learning cultures. He holds a Master of Product Design & Development (MPPD) from Kellogg Graduate School of Management, a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Lake Forest Graduate School of Management and a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from University of Mississippi.

Ana Maria Sencovici (AMS) is an interdisciplinary Human Capital Leader with a stand-out track record of translating business needs into tangible, scalable talent solutions, with a focus on transformational and innovation-driven initiatives. She is currently the Chief Talent Officer of the Royal Caribbean Group (NYSE: RCL), a vacation industry leader with a global fleet of 65 ships across five best-in-class brands traveling to approximately 1,000 destinations. In her role, AMS oversees the company’s learning, development and performance functions as well as its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in support of the organization’s mission to deliver the best vacations responsibly.

Prior to RCG, AMS was the global head of Change and Organizational Advisory Services at Genpact, a professional services firm where she managed a global team advising clients on learning, talent and change transformations, as well as designing award-winning employee development programs.  Previously, she served as the head of Learning and Development Bridgewater Associates where she stood up its first learning and development function and was a founding member of the company’s talent council.

AMS is an unabashed neo-generalist, a stubborn status-quo disruptor, and a passionate practitioner of applied empathy, embracing the tensions in the space of “and”:  the practical and the conceptual, the soft and hard,  and the slow and fast. She has an MBA in Change Management from the Wharton School of Business, an MA from Bryn Mawr College and a BA from Haverford College. AMS lives in South Florida with her husband, Juan, and two sons Luca and Mateo.

Chris is the Global Head of Talent Enablement and Development at Sony Interactive Entertainment, where he leads learning, performance, and talent management for one of the most creative organizations in the world. With over 15 years of experience building talent functions at organizations including Google, the United Nations, and NBCUniversal, he brings deep expertise in designing the programs, teams, and experiences that drive organizations forward.

Katy Jones is a strategic thought leader in the leadership and talent development space who customizes talent strategies to meet business demands and accelerates growth in leaders and teams. Katy joined Medtronic in February of 2024 as Vice President, Global Learning & Leadership Development, where she has responsibility for leadership development for entry-level employees to executives, along with the organization’s global learning strategy. Prior to Medtronic, Katy was the Head of Leadership Development for Walmart with responsibility for enterprise leadership development, manager enablement, and executive coaching. Katy built her L&D career at Walmart for 10 years through onboarding, internal consulting and facilitation, early talent strategy, employee experience, performance transformation, high potential and executive development, and foundational leadership development across the globe. In recent years, Katy won two Make a Difference Awards at Walmart, one in 2020 for her rapid response work on the corporate intern program and onboarding efforts during the pandemic, and another in 2022 for her work on implementing an HR competency model and development strategy for the Global People function. Katy’s team also was awarded the Josh Bersin HR Hero Award in 2022 for excellence in HR development.

Prior to Walmart, Katy worked in higher education, where she taught public speaking and communication studies, held a leadership role in academic administration, and developed and recruited faculty members. Katy has a BA in Public Relations from James Madison University and an MA in Communication Studies from the University of Arkansas.

Outside of work, Katy lives in Minneapolis, MN with her husband, Kevin; daughter, Charlotte (8); and son, Patrick (6). When she’s not chasing her kiddos, Katy loves travel, live music, sports, and spicy food.

Jeff Neumann is the Vice President of Learning & Talent Development and Communications at Brinker International, Inc., bringing more than 20 years of leadership experience in organizational development, team engagement, and strategic communications. Throughout his career, he has been dedicated to building people-first cultures, driving leadership development, and creating programs that support employee wellbeing, inclusion, and professional development across large organizations.