As the Founder and CEO of Distribute, a virtual organizational development think tank and consulting firm, Laurel Farrer is an internationally-renowned thought leader on the topic of remote work. For the past 15 years, she has been unlocking the power of distributed workforces to create impact in corporate and socioeconomic infrastructures.
She and her team of fellow experts collaborate with the world's leading businesses and governments on three primary topics: how to convert business operations from physical to virtual, how to build products and content for the remote work market, and how to leverage workplace flexibility to solve global concerns. In addition to being a regular Forbes contributor, Laurel’s subject matter expertise has also been showcased by brands like Zoom, Microsoft, Gallup, NPR, Logitech, BBC, New York Times, Vistaprint, Fast Company, and Upwork. She was also included on Forbes “Next 1000” list of inspiring entrepreneurs in 2021.
Craig Durr is a Senior Analyst at Wainhouse Research and focuses on enterprise
communication technologies and solutions. He provides research and analysis related to market sizing and forecasts, product and service evaluations, market trends, and end-user and buyer expectations. In addition to following the technology, Craig also studies the human elements of work - organizing his findings into the workforce, the workplace, and the workflows – and charting how these variables influence technologies and business strategies.
Craig's experience prior to Wainhouse Research includes leadership roles at Poly, Dell, Microsoft, and IBM.
Natashia Dunham is currently the Director of Real Estate and Construction at Sobeys where she oversees change leadership delivering financial benefit and operational efficiency and effectiveness in the areas of Consumer Packaged Goods, Retail and Consumer Finance. She focuses on leading and coaching teams through various cross functional / capital transformation work and establishing new standards and structures to manage compliance, risk and end-to-end process management.
Dave Witting is Managing Director of Digital Products for DEPT®, a global digital agency. DEPT® Digital Products is a team of over 300 employees focused on software development across eight locations in North America. With an unconventional background in animation, video games, and software, Dave brings a unique perspective to the DEPT® workplace strategy that encourages a culture of experimentation and risk-taking. Dave is the inventor of the successful "clubhouse strategy" to entice employees back to the office, reduce your costs and reimagine the traditional office.
Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury is the Lumry Family Associate Professor at the Harvard Business School. He was an Assistant Professor at Wharton prior to joining Harvard. His research is focused on studying the Future of Work, especially the changing Geography of Work. In particular, he studies the productivity effects of geographic mobility of workers, causes of geographic immobility and productivity effects of remote work practices such as ‘Work from anywhere’ and ‘All-remote’.
Celine Schillinger is an award-winning French entrepreneur, change practitioner, and consultant. She has over 30 years of field experience, working with both small and global organizations across several continents. A solid track record on transformation informs Celine’s vision of change, engagement, and leadership. A blogger since 2013 and a TEDx speaker, she was knighted by the French government for her workplace change efforts. Lessons from her journey in change are captured in Celine’s first book, published in June 2022, Dare to Un-Lead: The Art of Relational Leadership in a Fragmented World.
Micah Remley is the CEO of Robin, the hybrid workplace company. Remley brings more than 20 years of experience helping growth-stage technology companies achieve tremendous growth. Most recently, he served as the Chief Executive Officer at MineralTree, contributing to the company's rapid expansion and entry into new markets. Remley holds a B.S. in Ecology from the University of Maine and a Strategy MBA from Yale School of Management.
Ciara Peter is the Vice President of Product at Robin, the hybrid workplace company. An innovation expert for companies like Salesforce and Box, Peter has nearly 15 years of experience bringing consumer-grade experiences to enterprise products at scale. Her team focuses on platform innovation, international expansion and making it easier for companies across the globe to bridge the gap between workplace guidelines and employee choice. Ciara lives in San Francisco, CA.
Tobin (Toby) Trevarthen is the CEO/Founder of Spatial Shift, LLC, a Strategic Narrative Design firm for organizations, and CEO/Co-Founder of The Narrative Playbook, a Narrative Design Lab for Executives.
Toby is a modern elder and curious polymath that brings over 35 years of executive management wisdom to his pioneering strategic narrative work. His background represents a consistent thread of revenue creation, strategic thinking, and designing for new categories that span, startups, scale-ups, and stay-ups. He is obsessed with catalyzing change in the Future of Work.
Toby is the Co-Author of Narrative Generation, a groundbreaking book that focused on the significance of narrative as the most valuable asset in a world besieged by noise and uncertainty.
Sandy is a Principal Analyst in the Verdantix Smart Building practice. Her research agenda focuses on business insights and the intersection of IT and OT digital strategies and technologies for the workplace and built environments. Sandy’s experience prior to joining Verdantix included work as a research director and technology industry analyst at Forrester and IDC. She has also held roles in competitive research, strategy consulting, application development, and marketing.
Stowe’s calling is the economics, sociology, and politics of work in a time of accelerating discontinuity in society, business, and our lives. Stowe Boyd has been studying work and the tools we use to adapt to the future for the past three decades. He is the managing director of Work Futures, a research group. In the past, he was the head of research at Gigaom, president of the social media pioneer Corante, a software entrepreneur, and a computer scientist.
Stowe coined the terms ‘hashtag’, ‘work management’, ‘social tools’, ‘publicy’, and ‘spreadbase’.
He is editor and chief contributor to the Work Futures newsletter, a contributor to numerous publications, such as Wired and Darwin, and served as an advisor to dozens of companies and organizations, such at the Pew Research Center, Microsoft, the Internet Archive, and Bitly, to name just a few. Stowe was a member of the Boston University Alumni Board, and a national lecturer for the Association for Computing Machinery.
Stowe has presented at many dozens of conferences over the past 30 years, like Reboot, Shift, Next Web, Meaning, C2, and Viva Technology.
Stowe holds a BS in natural sciences and mathematics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa), and a MS in computer science from Boston University, where he also served as a lecturer in computer science.
Stowe holds a black belt in Shito Ryu Karate.
He knows what diddy-wah-diddy means.
Sabrina Dorronsoro is the Senior Content Marketing Manager at Robin, the first people-first workplace experience platform. Prior to Robin, Sabrina led the development of content and strategy for ZoomInfo and Brandwatch. She graduated from Ithaca College with a B.A. in Journalism and Creative Writing.
Brian Muse is the co-founder and CTO of Robin. Brian and his co-founders Sam and Zach Dunn started Robin in 2014 to help companies evolve beyond traditional open offices and create flexible workplaces that employees love. Prior to Robin, Brian co-founded a product development agency called One Mighty Roar that worked with some of the world's largest brands. Brian holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Tufts University.
Zoe Chen is a Senior Consultant at Veldhoen + Company. With a background in Industrial/Organizational Psychology and a great deal of curiosity about people, she has spent over ten years studying and applying behavioral sciences in the workplace. She has always been interested in questions like what influences people’s thoughts and what drives people’s behaviors. Zoe is passionate about understanding the world better through the scientific lens and making scientific insights digestible and useful for more people. To do that, she has built and facilitated workshops to change organizational culture and influence individual mindsets and behaviors. She sees a workplace transition as a huge opportunity to uncover organizational issues and reconstruct a better organization (both in their physical and psychological spaces).
Sandra has both a deep and wide understanding of Corporate Real Estate and Technology. She can apply non-traditional approaches to extract deep learning from the most unsuspecting places in order to drive strategy. She has developed an appreciation for always challenging the status quo to provoke and encourage new ways of thinking that drive continuous improvement and innovation. Sandra believes square pegs can fit into round holes and that the real ‘misfits’ are those that fail to adapt. Her deep knowledge in CRE Analytics to surface key insights have helped many Fortune 500 companies inform their workforce and location planning, space and occupancy planning, and global workplace strategies.
Carl Oliveri is the Chief Revenue Officer of Robin, the first workplace platform that puts people before places. In his current role, Oliveri is responsible for
all activities that generate revenue including operations, sales, GTM strategy, marketing, pricing and revenue management. He has more than 20 years of experience in senior sales and customer success roles with leading SaaS companies like PayScale, Kenexa, and IBM.
Brendan is the Director of Partner and Channel strategy at Robin to help grow distribution and develop strategic partnerships for the organization. He was a part of the original team that started Robin as the first Go To Market lead.
Prior to Robin, Brendan was a Strategist for One Mighty Roar and ran a blog that showcased cool workplaces from around the world. He has degrees from the University of Hartford (where he is on the board of visitors) and Babson College.
He’s spoken at multiple workplace industry events, podcasts, and webinars.
Allison Slater is a Manager of a Customer Success team at Robin, the first workplace platform that puts people before places, helping organizations implement people first hybrid work strategies for their offices. Allison has 7 years of experience as a former Strategic CSM at Robin, Riskmethods, and SnapApp. She has been a part of CS teams modeled in various ways and has experience building CS teams from scratch as well as taking teams through scale ups and reorganizations.
Simon Smith is the Associate Director of Facilities and Operations at Rightpoint. He brings 15 years of facilities and operational management experience to the role, and is focused on improving the employee experience in our new working environment. He holds a B.A. in Sociology from Boston University.
Philip Putnam is the Director of Global Facilities & Real Estate at TraceLink Inc. With over 30 years of experience in Procurement, Office Operations and Real Estate, Putnam uses his expertise to support TraceLink Inc.’s headquarters in Wilmington, MA as well as 5 other global offices. His background working in software, finance, insurance, and hydro power industries has helped him build workplace strategies for all different types of organizations.
Corey Williams leads the Global Engagement efforts on Elastic's Workplace Experience team. Her focus is on creating opportunities for connection among Elasticians around the world, whether that be in our 40+ offices or in cluster communities that do not have a traditional workspace presence. Corey has spent 10 years in the world of workplace at companies of all sizes and stages, providing her with a well-rounded understanding of how to design "people first" workplace strategies that empower employees to do their best work. Corey currently resides in Washington, DC and is making the most of her degree in Theatre Production from American University.
Tara is the CEO and Founder of InfiniDEI. After spending 10+ years in the software/technology industry as a leader at both Brightcove and HubSpot, she realized her true passion lies within helping people unlock their full potential within diverse, equitable and inclusive environments. Infinidei helps organizations and individuals accomplish this through leadership development programming, 1:1 and group coaching, keynote speeches and community.
To strengthen her ability to help others, Tara has secured her Professional Coaching Certification from iPEC, one of the world's most renowned and respected coaching certification programs and is also a Fair Play Method Certified Facilitator. As a CPC and ELI-MP, she helps organizations and individuals find the root of most challenges and blocks which often include: limiting perspectives, stress and negative thinking. When we can work through blocks, it inspires boundary building, clear and effective communication, positive energy, confidence and full potential is reached.
Guy Pacitti has more than 25 years of experience providing counsel to senior level executives on such topics as workforce planning, workplace culture, and executive leadership development. He currently serves as the Global Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEI&B) at Bose Corporation. In this role, he is accountable for the design, development, and execution of Bose’s strategic DEI&B plan. He is also responsible for benchmarking internal and external data to assureBose maintains a contemporary and evolving approach to this discipline. Prior to Bose, he served as the Global Leader of Inclusion and Diversity at Pegasystems, a customer relationship management (CRM) software development company. He has also served as Director of Diversity and Inclusion at IBM where he drove the global strategy of DEI&B educational offerings as well as career accelerator programs for diverse talent. Prior roles include Human Resources leadership posts in both software and communications consulting firms.
Leslie is the CEO and Founder of Mom’s Hierarchy of Needs. She has used research to inform growth and innovation strategy for over 20 years. She’s held brand management, product marketing and business development roles in consumer technology, market research, media and publishing companies. And for the past decade, focused on children’s education, mental health, childcare and eldercare.
Most recently, she held leadership positions at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Care.com and CSpace (an Omnicom market research agency.) She began her brand management career at Bausch & Lomb and Xerox.
Over 2,500 parents have participated in her ongoing national research study on the pandemic’s impact on their lives and careers. She’s a frequent speaker, researcher, and consultant to organizations, such as HubSpot and 3M, on how to support parents in the workplace.
For more than 35 years Katsikakis has led innovation, research and implementation of transformative business environments and exemplary real estate developments worldwide.
As Cushman & Wakefield’s Global Head of Total Workplace, she provides input across the firm’s global business on the rapidly-changing context of work and its impact on employee engagement, productivity and wellbeing.
With these factors increasingly determining the leasing decisions of leading corporations, Katsikakis’ unrivalled insight on the future of work benefits occupier clients – as well as the building owners and landlords seeking to
attract them – through repositioning real estate to drive top line performance.
Despina led the development of global agile working strategies (including extensive leadership engagement) for many banks including: Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Morgan Stanley, NAB and Barclays as well as many
other global corporate clients such as Accenture, Google, BP, Microsoft, GSK, and Unilever.
She serves on the advisory board of delosTM, the pioneers of wellness real estateTM and founders of the well building standard and regularly lectures around the world, writes and contributes to media, research and publications on the future of the workplace.
Lauren Hasson is a Vice President of Workplace Strategy and lead’s Workplace Planning for the New England JLL office. She partners with clients to create value for their companies by helping define flexible work, determine how much space they need, and create a compelling vision for their future office environments. Lauren’s background in anthropology, health, and strategy is a powerful blend in today’s real estate climate where clients are hyper-focused on culture and wellbeing.
Lauren’s experience spans geographies and industries (tech, finance, legal, life science, and more). When she’s not in the room with clients, Lauren works closely with JLL’s research team to understand how disruptive technology will transform the way we use commercial real estate. She remains incredibly optimistic about the future of office design and workplace UX. In many ways, Lauren believes this is the golden era of the office.
She holds a B.A. in Anthropology from The George Washington University and a M.Ed. from Boston University. Lauren is also a passionate yogi (RYT 200 certified) and supporter of the local arts scene as a Board of Advisors member for Artists for Humanity.
Ashley Ladd is the Program Director of Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity at Snyk a developer security platform empowering organizations to develop fast and stay secure. Ashley leads the company's global Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity strategy focused on building innovative programs and partnering with leaders across the organization to drive impactful business outcomes. She furthers these initiatives in collaboration with Snyk Resource Groups (SRGs), Talent Attraction, and Talent Brand to foster a best-in-class workplace where everyone feels like they belong. Ashley is a passionate leader committed to amplifying the voices of marginalized communities through thoughtful conversation, education, and ongoing action. Ashley attended St. Lawrence University where she now sits on the Board of Trustees. She lives in Canton, Massachusetts with her husband and daughter Olivia.
Kristin brings two decades of experience guiding companies to understand, explore, and experiment the possibilities to have an amazing work experiences, navigate difficult change, and link these efforts to successful business outcomes. She is most hopeful and inspired by helping to create environments that are inclusive, equitable, inspire curiosity, and where each person believes they have the power to thrive.
Kristin focuses on an integrated approach: guiding HR, Real Estate, IT, and other functional leaders through an iterative journey, informed by data and purpose, that brings together a thoughtful future of work strategy.
She is a credentialed through the ACMP as a Certified Change Management Professional, and previously held Advisor member positions for The Conference Board Engagement Institute, the ACMP Global DEI Task Force, the ACMP Speaker Review Board, the Employers Association Survey Consulting Practice Board, and the FUEL Milwaukee Creative Council for Diversity & Inclusion.
Kristin holds a Master of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Arts in Marketing, both as a proud alum of Lakeland University.
Hilary Green is the Director of Change Management and Program Lead for the Workplace Transformation Centre of Excellence at Scotiabank. During her time with the organization, she has provided change management strategies for a variety of projects including the Way We Work Program, Toronto Contact Centre Transformation and the Jamaica Head Office Transformation. She started at Scotiabank in 2014 in their Expense Management department, while there she was responsible for the development of the Bank’s Expense Policies. Prior to her time at Scotiabank, she spent over a decade in the live events and performing arts industry before getting her MBA in 2013.
Steven is a Manager in Accenture’s Digital & Intelligent Workplace Practice with more than 9 years experience in workplace technology strategy. He has experience leading workplace transformation projects for enterprise clients in areas ranging from Workplace IoT strategy and hybrid collaboration to advisory on workplace experience design.
Based out of Boston, Steven has partnered with clients across North America to deploy smart and connected workplaces that enhance the employee experience and drive operational efficiencies for workplace leaders. As an intelligent workplace manager at Accenture, Steven works with clients to define and develop the future of their workplace environments.
Prior to joining Accenture, Steven spent time at Steelcase and has experience in workplace design, modular architecture, and construction project management.
Heather’s passion for people and technology has been the impetus for her 15-year career spanning complimentary industries. Her roots in mobile technology and applications fueled a curiosity about the relationship between people and technology and the roles each play in an organization’s ability to adapt and innovate.
Heather has spent the greater part of the last decade consulting with organizations on how they can identify the best tools to enhance their understanding of their real estate’s performance. With a lens on employee experience and the critical role our understanding of how space is performing, Heather’s current role allows her to work with a variety of partners to deliver best in class solutions to a wide breadth of leading organizations.
Sarah Brophy is a Design Director and Principal at IA Interior Architects’ Boston studio. She has 18 years of experience working with a wide range of client types on their workplace strategies through design and implementation. Guiding her clients through an exploration of how their employees are actually
working in their current environment, Sarah then establishes the workplace strategy and space plans, develops a design direction aligns with each client’s goals and brand, creates the tools and resources to enable implementation, and provides the change management critical the success of any workplace change initiative. Her projects are not only beautiful, sustainable, and on-budget – they also support and enhance the users’ unique work styles and experience with maximum space efficiency to positively impact the bottom line.
She has recently led multiple projects across various typologies, including Rapid7’s new headquarters, global office strategy, and roll-out; iRobot’s headquarters masterplan and renovations; DraftKing’s new headquarters; Timberbland’s headquarters renovations; ASCIS’ design studio; CarGurus’ new
headquarters; and regional offices and labs for Amazon.
Milo is a Product Manager at Robin working on our booking experience and resource management features. He started his career in product working at Virgin Pulse in Providence, Rhode Island after a career in non-profits and media.
Alberto is a Strategic Customer Success Manager at Robin, the first workplace platform that puts people before places.
In his current 5 year tenure, Vasquez now works with Robin’s largest partners to successfully implement and execute on hybrid workplace strategies and best practices. He is still an active founder at Next Level Baseball, a nonprofit sports league focused on providing inner city youth opportunities to further their education.
Drew Fortin is a people-first, values-driven leader with nearly 20 years of growth strategy and team-building experience across retail, marketing technology, local media, and HR tech. He spent seven years at The Predictive Index, where he was Chief Growth Officer responsible for the company's strategy to build the world's first talent optimization platform. Drew is obsessed with helping leaders everywhere embrace the shift that technology is having on the employee/employer relationship. This led him to founding Lever Talent, where he is now CEO.
Sam Spurlin is a partner at The Ready, an organizational change consultancy dedicated to changing how the world works. Over the past seven years, he has partnered with and advised many organizations in their evolution toward more people positive and complexity-conscious ways of working. Since mid-2021 he has led The Ready’s exploration of the web3 and Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) ecosystem. He lives in Arlington, Virginia with his wife.
David Morris is the Senior Manager for Strategic Alliances at Logitech and has spent more than two decades working in the video conferencing and workplace solutions industries. David is fascinated by the ever evolving world of technology and how it can be applied to enhance and optimize business. Throughout his career David has helped hundreds of organizations determine what technology could best serve their needs. At Logitech, David and his team help integrate partner companies into and with Logitech products.
Jason is Founder and CEO of Bucketlist Rewards - one of the leading employee recognition platforms.Jason believes in the importance of employee appreciation that helps companies create success by motivating people to grow and thrive. Jason has had the opportunity to help a variety of organizations roll out effective recognition programs, he’s worked with companies like NBA Team Orlando Magic, Royal Bank of Canada, University of Texas Arlington, and Stamford Hospital.
Danielle Pedra is the Director of Enterprise Sales at Robin, the first people-first workplace experience platform. She has been in the SaaS industry for almost a decade with companies such as Cvent, BoomTown, and Upserve. Danielle has spent the last four years at Robin, helping companies navigate how to make the office work best for them. Originally from the Boston area, Danielle graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University with a degree in Marketing and concentration in Green Engineering.
Bryan oversees all operations, development and new business opportunities for the Boston region. Portfolio properties include the Prudential Center, 200 Clarendon Street, Atlantic Wharf, Kendall Center and The Hub on Causeway totaling 16.5 million SF of commercial office and retail space.
Bryan has been appointed to Environmental boards and task forces for the City of Boston. He was awarded the Norman B. Leventhal Award from A Better City for Excellence in City Building and has received additional awards throughout the last decade. Author of “Revolution in the Workplace”, Bryan has presented his research at MIT, Harvard University, Boston College, Northeastern University and Texas Christian University.
Bryan is a graduate of Texas Christian University, with both a Bachelor’s Degree and Master’s Degree, Business Administration.
Jim Whalen serves as Senior Vice President, Chief Information & Technology Officer for BXP where he is responsible for the direction and implementation of technology services and solutions. Prior to joining the Company in March 1998, he served as Vice President, Information Systems of Beacon Properties. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and a recipient of the New York City Urban Fellowship. Mr. Whalen is a current trustee and past President of the Boston Chapter of the Society for Information Management (SIM) and serves on the Real Estate Cyber Consortium, Realcomm Advisory Council, Commercial Facilities Cyber Working Group, TechHire Boston and Boston Private Industry Council.
BXP is the largest publicly-held developer and owner of Class A office properties in the United States, concentrated in six markets - Boston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, DC. The Company is a fully integrated real estate company, organized as a real estate investment trust (REIT), that develops, manages, operates, acquires and owns a diverse portfolio of primarily Class A office space.
