Keynote Speaker:
Padmasree Warrior- CTO, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Padmasree Warrior is responsible for helping drive Cisco's technological innovations and strategy, and works closely with its senior executive team and board of directors to align these efforts with the company's corporate goals.

Panels

1. Tech World – The Next Generation
Panelists:
Nehal Mehta: Cloud Launcher, LiveOffice.
Nina Bhatti: Senior Research Scientist, HP and Advisory Board Member at Anita Borg.
Sonu Ratra: President, Akraya Inc.
Moderator:
Kalpana Shyam: IBM Senior Software Engineer, DB2 Data Manager Development for z/OS

2. Follow your Passion
Panelists:
Anita Manwani: Founder and CEO, Carobar Business Solutions.
Smita Vasant: COO, Saffron Spot and Founder, Neemo's Exotic Ice Creams.
Suzanne Spurgeon: Founder, Women Media Pros.
Moderator:
Manjula Gupta: Founder and President, Chai with Manjula organization.

3. Navigating Uncharted Waters - Job hunting, networking, and progressing in your career in today's economy
Panelists:
Dilip Saraf: Executive/Career-Life Coach, Speaker-Author.
Judy Heyboer: Human Resource Consultant.
Kamna Narain: Life Coach and marketing communications professional, McKesson Corporation.
Moderator:
Denise Brosseau: Founder and CEO, The Brosseau Group.

4. Sarah and Sarah - Crossing Borders: Geography and Memory.
Sarah Singh, Artist and filmmaker
In Conversation with Sarah Bachman, Journalist
This panel is being co sponsored by The Commonwealth Club www.commonwealthclub.org

Ms Padmasree Warrior: Chief Technology Officer, Cisco
Padmasree Warrior is Cisco Systems’ Chief Technology Officer. As CTO, she is responsible for helping drive the company’s technological innovations and strategy, and works closely with its senior executive team and board of directors to align these efforts with Cisco’s corporate goals. As an evangelist for what’s possible, she pushes the organization to stretch beyond its current capabilities – not just in technology, but also in its strategic partnerships and new business models. Warrior joined Cisco in 2007. Prior to that, she was the CTO at Motorola, where she led a team of 26,000 engineers and directed Motorola Labs, with an annual R&D budget of $3.7 billion. Over the course of her 23 years at that company, she served in a broad range of roles, including as Corporate Vice President and General Manager of Motorola’s Energy Systems Group, and as Corporate Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for its Semiconductor Products Sector.
Warrior’s energetic, approachable and pragmatic leadership style integrates ideas from diverse sources, which include engineers, sociologists, technologists, marketers, policy experts and others. Throughout her career, she has earned a reputation for establishing processes that tap a rich diversity of technical, business and entrepreneurial IQ to nurture disruptive and breakthrough innovations, speed development time to market, and improve the way people work, live, play and learn.
Under Warrior’s leadership, Motorola was awarded the 2004 National Medal of Technology by the President of the United States, the first time the company had received this honor. Recently, the Economic Times ranked her as the 11th Most Influential Global Indian, and the United States Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce recognized her with its prestigious Excellence Award. Warrior is also a strong and vocal advocate for women and minorities in math, science and engineering. In 2007, she was inducted into the Women in Information Technology International Hall of Fame, and received the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago Outstanding Woman of Achievement Award. She has been recognized as a role model by many organizations, including the Girl Scouts Illinois Crossroads Council, Notre Dame Girls High School, the South Asian Women Leadership Forum and as a Science Spectrum Trailblazer. In 2001 she was one of six women nationwide selected to receive the "Women Elevating Science and Technology" award from Working Woman magazine. Warrior is also a committed community leader. She has served on the boards of Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet and Museum of Science and Industry, the Singapore Agency for Science, Technology and Research (ASTAR), the Chicago Mayor’s Technology Council, Cornell University Engineering Council and advisory council of Indian Institute of Technology. She previously served on the Texas Governor's Council for Digital Economy, the White House Fellowships Selection Board, and the Technology Advisory Council for the FCC and on the Advisory Committee for the Computing and Information Science and Engineering of the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Warrior holds a M.S. degree in chemical engineering from Cornell University and a B.S. degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi, India. In 2007 she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Engineering from New York's Polytechnic University. In addition, Warrior serves on numerous governmental, industry and charitable boards and panels. She is married, and the proud mother of one son.

Nina Bhatti: Principal Scientist, HP Labs, Hewlett-Packard Company
Bhatti is a technologist by training, an innovator by practice leading first-of-a-kind innovation projects for some of HP’s largest customers. She has a track record of discovering and driving breakthrough business opportunities for new products, new markets, new consumer experiences. She also leads the transformation of these technologies into commercial offerings. She was recently named as one of the top 50 women in technology by Corporate Board Magazine. A thought leader, Bhatti has worked as in Intrepreneur within HP since 1996, delivering the design and creation of consumer and lifestyle mobile technologies for some of HP’s largest customers. She has also done extensive research in consumer connection technologies, web, and networking performance. Bhatti holds a Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Arizona and a BA. from the University of California, Berkeley. She has published 30 papers and has 25 patents filed.

Anita Manwani: Founder and CEO, Carobar Business Solutions
Anita Manwani is the founder and CEO of Carobar Business Solutions, a data and business process management company based in California.  She has over 20 years experience in the software industry and has worked at blue chip organizations such as NASA Ames Research Center, Hewlett Packard and Agilent Technologies.  During her tenure at Agilent, she held a variety of executive positions leading divisions, including Vice President & GM of Global Sourcing.  She led the setup of Agilent’s India operations employing over a 1000 professionals, in her capacity as the Chairman of the wholly owned subsidiary, Agilent Technologies International, Pvt. Ltd,   In the early nineties Anita was responsible for HP’s India Software Operation in Bangalore, India.   She is an industry expert in outsourcing and service management.
Anita was one of 80 US women selected as a “Technology All Star” for the National Women of Color Conference for her executive leadership in technology in 2002. She also received the YWCA TWIN award for executive leadership and impact in 2003. She is an active community volunteer and has served on the boards of Los Altos Education Foundation and is currently on several for profit and non-profit boards.  She is deeply committed to education and empowering women and serves on the board of Girls for a Change, Foothill and DeAnza Colleges, SIPA and Akash Ganga.
Anita holds a Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Chemistry, History, Marketing Management. She attended University of Bombay (India) and University of Cincinnati (Ohio).  She enjoys badminton, golf and skiing and is the mother of two children.

Dilip G. Saraf: Executive/Career-Life Coach, Author, Speaker
Dilip brings over 40 years’ experience from the corporate and consulting worlds to his career and life coaching practice. Having successfully reinvented himself through four very different careers, Dilip brings a rich perspective and hands-on realism to his career and life coaching practice.
Since his graduation from IIT-Bombay with a degree in engineering, and a master’s from Stanford, Dilip has pioneered many breakthroughs in technology (holds two patents), personal leadership (has authored five books on making successful transitions), and personal success (has helped over 4,000 clients globally through their reinvention during the high-tech’s toughest economic times). His corporate experience includes executive positions responsible for engineering and product development.
His other career experiences include technology consulting, marketing, and leadership development.
Dilip has authored dozens of articles on career management, which appear on various on-line and print outlets. Dilip is also published in the Chief Executive and the Harvard Business Review. He is an instructor at the University of California, Santa Cruz Extension, where he delivers two courses in transition and career management.
Dilip is a sought-after speaker at public and private forums on jobs, careers, leadership challenges, and how to be an effective leader. He has been LinkedIn’s #1 Career Coach (from a global pool of over 500 coaches).
Please contact Dilip at DGSaraf@aol.com

Kamna Narain: Life Coach and marketing communications professional, McKesson Corporation
Kamna Narain is a life coach who believes her purpose is to help provide people with inner clarity for success. The answers reside within oneself, Kamna (or, Coach Kamna) simply draws out those answers and solutions through assessment, dialogue and collaboration.
While Kamna officially decided to launch a coaching practice in 2007, she has been a coach during various walks of her career and life, such as:
•       Former Sr. Manager, Communications of an eight-person interdisciplinary team with a 100% retention rate for the first 18 months, compared to less than 25% retention for the prior two years. Regularly coached all members of her team, and, by popular demand, other employees as well.
•       Resident Advisor and counselor for two years at U.C. Davis where she counseled students on university assimilation, interpersonal skills, study skills, personal issues, and career planning.
•       Vice President, Member Involvement for the San Francisco chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators through which she worked with and placed more than two dozen volunteers into Board positions by assessing their interests and aligning their needs with the goals of the chapter.
Kamna is a marketing communications professional, currently working for McKesson Corporation, a Fortune 18 company.  
See references at: linkedin.com/in/coachkamna
See blog at; coachkamna.x.iabc.com

Nehal Mehta: Cloud Launcher, LiveOffice
Nehal Mehta is currently at LiveOffice in the newly created role of Enterprise Implementation Product Manager. She is responsible for not only improving the company’s Implementation Processes internally, but ensuring that the Client’s end user experience is seamless. Reporting to the VP of Client Services and working closely with Engineering, Nehal is utilizing her vast 20 years of high tech experience with ease.
As Director Software Quality Assurance at SYMANTEC (previously VERITAS), she led and managed global quality assurance and testing teams.  She started the QA team for the high availability/disaster recovery product and later managed the Customer Response QA team for the flagship Endpoint Security product.
She has worked in the global high-tech industry, in a variety of roles at companies in Detroit, Chicago, Mumbai (India) and the California Bay Area. She believes that the success of a software organization is having processes that can be measured. It was at iFlex Solution (SEI-CMM Level 5) that she became passionate about the field of quality assurance.
Nehal has a passion for employee development and has hired developed and retained top talent. She championed the Symantec Women’s Action Network (SWAN) at her site, encouraging technical women to file patents, write whitepapers and achieve work life balance.
She holds a masters degree in Software Engineering from Wayne State University and a bachelor’s degree from The University of Michigan.
She is a proud mother of two children, in her lack of free time you will find her tending to her edible garden, savoring dark chocolate and watching re-runs of StarTrek.

Smita Vasant: COO, Saffron Spot and Founder, Neemo's Exotic Ice Creams
Smita Vasant is the founder of Neemo’s Exotic Ice Creams a brand of Indian style ice cream, and Saffron Spot, a popular snack bar in Artesia which features her exotic ice cream creations and other unique foods and desserts. She also writes a column called ‘Spice Secrets’ for the Immigrant Magazine. Smita is active in the business community and is Past President of SABAN (South Asian Business Alliance Network and an active member of ABAOC (Asian Business Association of Orange County). In November 2003, she was recognized by ABAOC as Entrepreneur of the Year in the Emerging Business Category. Smita’s business has been featured in many newspapers and magazines such as Los Angeles Times, Orange County Register, Orange Coast Magazine and the Los Angeles Magazine. She participates in many community activities and actively mentors other women business owners. Most recently, she mentored a woman from Rwanda, Africa through the IEEW (Institute of Economic Empowerment for Women) in their Peace Through Business Program. In September 2009, Smita was honored by Southern California Edison for her community efforts.
Smita has her Masters Degree in Industrial Psychology.

Suzanne Spurgeon: Founder, Women Media Pros
Suzanne Spurgeon is the founder of Women Media Pros, a full-service media consulting firm based in Beverly Hills. She is a former CNN Vice President and Los Angeles Bureau Chief. During her 26 year broadcast journalism career, Suzanne worked in front of and behind the camera. She is an Emmy award-winning journalist. Her work also garnered a cable Ace award.

Today she teams with other female journalists providing media interview training, public relations, video services, crisis communications and other media services. Each consultant brings unique talents to the team. Former CNN anchor Bella Shaw specializes in infomercial training. And the newest member of Women Media Pros, Rekha Parekh, is an expert in Intercultural Communications. Their clients include: CEO’s, small business owners, doctors, lawyers, energy companies, real estate investment firms, chambers of commerce, politicians, authors, police and fire departments and celebrities. Women Media Pros provides its clients with insider knowledge of the media, coupled with practical tools to thrive in today’s 24-hour news environment. Suzanne and her team provide services to clients throughout the country and they are working to grow the business internationally.

Early in her career Suzanne worked in TV newsrooms in Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa before joining CNN as a producer. She produced thousands of hours of news programming during her tenure at the network.After working at CNN's headquarters in Atlanta for 8 years, Suzanne moved to Los Angeles where she was promoted to Deputy Bureau Chief. Among her first major assignments in LA was to supervise the network's coverage of the "trial of the century". In this major undertaking, Suzanne and her operations chief set up CNN's outpost at "Camp OJ", providing hundreds of hours of live programming on the trial. Throughout, Suzanne was responsible for copy-editing hundreds of reporter pieces.

Later, Suzanne was promoted to Vice President/LA Bureau Chief. CNN's CEO Tom Johnson appointed Suzanne to this position personally, because, "of the terrific record she had built in Atlanta and elsewhere". She became the network's first female domestic bureau chief, priding herself on mentoring other women journalists. Suzanne is credited with resolving serious human resources issues that were plaguing the LA Bureau when she arrived. In a short time, the network's confidence was restored in this bureau and its employees.

Suzanne graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee with a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications. When Suzanne isn't working with clients, she brings her practical career advice to college campuses and is an often-requested speaker before various business groups.

S.L. Bachman - Writer
Sarah Bachman is a journalist whose work has appeared in popular and academic media for more than 30 years. She first went to South Asia in 1977, working as a volunteer for a health-oriented non-profit organization in Bangladesh and then traveling extensively in India. Her recent work focuses on  economic globalization, and in particular, child labor. She is currently a freelance writer and co-director of Child Labor & the Global Village, the first photo-documentary project of Project 5: Photography for Social Change (photo4change.org).

Sonu Ratra: President, Akraya Inc.
Sonu Ratra is the Co-Founder and President of Akraya, Inc - a mid-sized multinational IT consulting company that has won several awards for delivering outstanding IT staffing and project management solutions to many Fortune 500 companies. Sonu’s career spans over a decade of international recruiting and staffing experience, with a focus on IT staffing. She has been successfully establishing and managing Employee programs, Contingent Staffing programs and vendor programs.
Empowered by her eclectic expertise, Sonu knows and can predict technical staffing trends. This also enables her to quickly comprehend strategic staffing goals (HR, Legal, Corporate Vision, etc) across industries and establish the necessary tactics (projects, processes, vendors, candidates, etc) needed to achieve those goals.
Sonu’s key strengths are her relationship building and excellent negotiation skills. Her focus is always on building relationships rather than simply doing business, a trait that has earned her loyal clients as well as happy employees and consultants. Sonu has been recognized as a highly motivated and focused thought leader. Employers and clients have consistently appreciated her dedication to deliver both out of the box and custom solutions to match the situation. Sonu won the 1999 President’s Club award for Butler International. She also won the 2007 Supplier Excellence Award from PrO Unlimited at Genentech. Consultants and employees too, have gained from her support and mentoring.  Sonu has a passion for professional ethics and adherence to the company’s core values, something she encourages her employees to follow as well.
Prior to Akraya, Sonu managed staffing strategies at Genentech, Adecco Technical, Butler Technology Solutions and Tata Consultancy Services.
Apart from leading Akraya’s aggressive growth plans, Sonu’s interests focus on raising her daughter, community service and women empowerment.  Sonu also leads Akraya’s charitable programs and is committed to social causes like nurturing orphans and promoting literacy, especially female literacy, in rural India.
Sonu holds an MS degree in Social Sciences from Tata Institute of Social Studies (TISS) in India as well as an MPM in HR Management from Symbiosis International Educational Centre, India. Sonu also holds an HR Training and Development certificate from UC Berkeley.
Sonu.Ratra@akraya.com

Denise Brosseau: Founder and CEO, The Brosseau Group.
Denise Brosseau is the founder and CEO of The Brosseau Group, an executive talent agency that provides comprehensive services to help top executives develop and implement long-term career and life strategies.Her clients include managers, directors and VPs looking to reach the next rung on the corporate ladder, entrepreneurs seeking to scale their businesses and executives needing assistance during significant career transitions (brosseaugroup.com) Denise also provides strategic consulting and business planning to Fortune 500 and start-up clients including PG&E, HP and Cisco.

Formerly, Denise held leadership positions in marketing, product development and international business development at high tech companies.In 1998, she left high tech to run the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs (FWE), growing this non-profit, which she co-founded, into the country’s leading organization for high-growth women-led start-ups with seven offices and over 1200 members. Under her leadership, more than $1 billion in venture capital flowed to member’s companies in just three years. Along the way she built FWE into a powerful network of female executives, earning extensive media coverage as well as several high profile community service awards. The organization will celebrate its 16th anniversary this year and can be found on the web at Forum for Women Entrepreneurs & Executives: fweande.org.

A professional speaker, Denise has been a frequent corporate lecturer and trainer as well as a conference speaker at many high-profile state and national conferences. She has also served as a guest lecturer at Wellesley College, Princeton, MIT and Stanford University. She offers keynotes and workshops in the area of leadership, entrepreneurship and life planning. Denise is the Chair of the Housing & Human Concerns Committee in Redwood City, CA and the Chair of the Wellesley Business Leadership Council. She also serves on the board of Women’s Forum West, the local chapter of the International Women’s Forum. An enthusiastic advocate for mentoring, Denise co-founded and continues to run a summer internship program for Wellesley undergrads and a mentoring program for Stanford business school students who are considering a career in entrepreneurship. She is a mentor herself to many start-up company CEOs.

Judy Heyboer: Human Resource Consultant
Judy Heyboer has spent the last twenty-seven years in Human Resources, retiring from full-time corporate life in 2000 as Senior Vice President at Genentech, Inc. in South San Francisco, CA.  At Genentech, Judy revamped and re-energized the Human Resources function, and managed the introduction of the entire span of new programs following the company’s public offering in 1999.  During her tenure, Genentech achieved its initial recognition by Fortune Magazine as one of America’s “100 Best Places to Work.”
Prior to Genentech, Judy spent thirteen years at Acuson Corporation, which she joined in the startup phase to create the HR function and develop the culture and “feel” of the company.  She began her human resources career at Spectra-Physics, Inc. where she spent in-depth time in each of the classic HR functions.
In addition to her consulting work in human resources, Judy devotes a substantial portion of her time and energy to writing, mentoring, advisory work, and making a difference in the community.  She continues to be actively engaged in the human resource community, serving as consultant, mentor, speaker, and executive coach.
Judy has an MBA from Santa Clara University, and BA and MA degrees from the University of Michigan.
In 2007, Judy’s accomplishments were recognized by induction into the San Mateo County Women’s Hall of Fame.  She currently serves as a trustee of the Keck Graduate Institute, a graduate school providing advanced degrees in Applied Life Sciences.  She also serves on the boards of The Health Trust, Friends for Youth, Resource Area for Teaching, and the Advisory Board of Facing History and Ourselves. She is a Senior Fellow of the American Leadership Forum.

Sarah Singh: Artist and Filmmaker
Born in Patiala, India and raised in the United States, Sarah Singh is a descendant from one of India’s royal families.  She has held solo and group exhibits of her fine art both in India and the US.  Much of the work is in private collections.
Singh recently completed The Sky Below, an award-winning documentary in which she explores the creation of Pakistan and the India-Pakistan relationship. The film has screened from Santa Barbara to Singapore. Her writing about the process of making this film has been published in Hindustan Times, one of India’s leading newspapers, as well as in Film and Festivals Magazine in the UK. This courageous and moving award-winning film on the Partition of India evokes both painful memories and raises powerful issues which continue to trouble the sub-continent. Lyrically shot on both sides of the Indo-Pak border, with a strong local ethos communicated through the music, the language and the people--the film should be watched both by those who care about the legacy of the Partition as well those trying to understand the complexities of fighting wars in those lands.
theskybelow.com
sarahsingh.com

Manjula Gupta
Manjula Gupta is a well-known community leader. Since 2001, after the success of her company of software services, Saicom Inc. in Fremont, CA, she has been fully dedicated to community service, first helping AIF, and then ICC.
Since 2007 she has been running her own nonprofit TV show called Chai with Manjula, as a producer, and host. The show promotes charitable organizations, and celebrates philanthropy, and giving within the Indo American community.
Manjula serves on the Advisory Board of the Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation, and the Induz organization.
Manjula has a Master’s degree in English. She is a trained classical vocalist and a Sitar player.
chaiwithmanjula.org

Kalpana Shyam: IBM Senior Software Engineer, DB2 Data Manager Development for z/OS
Kalpana Shyam is a Senior Software Engineer in the DB2 Development for z/OS organization at IBM’s Silicon Valley Lab. She is a recognized, lead technical developer in the organization. Her responsibilities include researching customer requirements, finding innovative solutions, prototyping, designing and implementing new functions in the database. Kalpana holds several software patents and speaks frequently at customer conferences around the world. Kalpana received her MS in Entomology from Delhi University and MBA from Santa Clara University.