Meet the Speakers

Hala Annabi

Associate Professor, UW Information School

Dr. Hala Annabi is an Associate Professor in the Information School at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on creating and maintaining inclusive learning organizations. Hala investigates diversity and inclusion interventions in the technology industry aimed at retaining and advancing women, as well as recruiting, retaining, and advancing individuals with autism. Hala earned a B.S. in Business Administration and Management Information Systems and an MBA from Le Moyne College. She earned a Ph.D. in Information Science and Technology from The Information School at Syracuse University in 2005.

Faculty Profile: Hala Annabi

Martie Burris

Director of Product Management, Salesforce

Martie is a creative who enjoys building products that improve people’s lives. She has a proven track record developing 0-1 products, organizing chaos, getting scrappy and empowering product teams. Currently she’s working on building productivity tools at Salesforce for the future of work. When she’s not working, Martie uses her experience to educate and create space for others. In 2018, she started a coaching initiative called FoldingChair. Through her initiative, Martie has created $8.6M+ in salaries for Black and Latinx “coachees.” FoldingChair primarily helps coachees from underserved backgrounds find their first or second roles in product.

LinkedIn: in/meetmartie

Wade Davis

Vice President of Inclusion Strategy for Product, Netflix

Wade is part of Netflix’s team of inclusion experts that bring transformative solutions to build inclusive corporate cultures. He’s a former NFL player and the NFL’s first LGBT inclusion consultant working at the intersection of sexism, racism, and homophobia. Before joining Netflix, Wade consulted for Google, P&G, and 21st Century Fox. He’s a UN Women Global Impact Champion and a Ms. Foundation for Women board member, as well as a Rutgers and NYU adjunct professor, 2012 President Obama surrogate, and a feminist.

Website: wadeadavis.com

Michael Fisher

Lead Product Manager, Community.com

Michael Fisher is a proven product leader with a depth of experience, having worked in companies of all sizes and across industry verticals. He is currently Lead Product Manager at Community.com where he leads cross-functional teams to deliver value and solve problems.

Prior to joining Community as the first product hire, Michael advised numerous startups and held various product roles at Pivotal Labs, Adobe, OpenX. Michael is also passionate about improving D&I in product management and tech in general. He recently spoke on this topic in the Diverse Voices in Product series.Michael holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and a B.S. in Computer Science from Morehouse College.

LinkedIn: in/mifisher
Twitter: @1mfisher1

Christina Fong

Associate Dean of Inclusion & Diversity, UW Foster

Christina T. Fong is the Associate Dean for Inclusion and Diversity and the William D. Bradford Endowed Professor of Management at the Michael G. Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Williams College in 1998 with Honors in Psychology and a concentration in Neuroscience. She has a PhD in Organizational Behavior from Stanford University (as well as a Masters Degree in Sociology).

Christina’s research and consulting interests include the study of emotions in the workplace, leadership development, impression management, power and politics in organizations, negotiations, and management education. Her research has been covered in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Slate, among others.

Christina joined the University of Washington in 2003, and she teaches leadership and management principles to a wide variety of audiences from undergraduates to executives. Her efforts have been recognized with several teaching awards, including the 2011 Distinguished Teaching Award, winner of the Evening MBA Faculty Service Award in 2019 and 2020, Instructor of the quarter, and Outstanding UW Woman. She has also often served as Senior Fellow in the UW Faculty Fellows program, and was the co-winner of the Dean’s Leadership Award in 2015.

In her life outside of UW, Christina lives with her husband, two sons, and two dogs. Christina also works as an executive coach, helping CEOs and other top executives accelerate their leadership development and strategic thinking. She leads and teaches executive seminars on leadership development, negotiation, innovation, and decision making. She was recognized as a recipient of “Women as Bridge Builders: Making A Difference” Women of Color Empowered Award, sponsored by Northwest Asian Weekly in 2016.

Faculty Profile: Christina Fong

Abigail Franco

Director, Product & Technology, T-Mobile

An experienced technologist, Abigail Franco has worked for large and small organizations leading product & software development and digital transformation. Abigail is a Director in the Digital Product & Technology organization at T-Mobile, where she leads the teams behind all service areas in T-Mobile’s flagship application and websites. Her product and software engineering teams build and optimize solutions to improve the customer experience, cut costs, and increase product efficiencies. Abigail is also a passionate advocate for women in tech and STEM initiatives.

Prior to T-Mobile Abigail spent 7 years at AT&T and previously worked for General Electric & ABB. Abigail holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from Florida Int’l University, an MBA from Seattle University and is currently pursuing an Executive Leadership certificate at Cornell University.

LinkedIn: in/abbyfrancog

Regine Gilbert

Professor, NYU Tandon School of Engineering

Regine Gilbert is a User Experience Designer based in NYC. She is a professor at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. She teaches user experience design and assistive technology to students in the Integrated Digital Media program. Regine is the author of ‘Inclusive Design in the Digital Age: Designing with Accessibility in mind.’

Website: reginegilbert.com

Brian Glaister

Head of Product & GM of Justice Solutions, Axon

Brian Glaister is the Head of Justice Solutions at Axon where he is building a new business centered on efficiency, accountability, and equity in the criminal justice system. Previously he was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Itron where he built software to combat climate change, an Entrepreneur in Residence at Intellectual Ventures where he built a digital concierge to help low-income Americans navigate the healthcare system, and Co-Founder and CEO of Cadence Biomedical where he invented and commercialized wearable medical hardware to help people with neurological injuries relearn to walk. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Villanova University and a master’s degree in Bioengineering from Arizona State University and has been humbled to be named a Puget Sound Business Journal 40 Under 40 Honoree, a member of the Wall of Fame at UW’s Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship, and a fellow with the Young Leaders Forum at the National Committee on US-China Relations among other honors.

LinkedIn: in/brianglaister

Daphra Holder

Product Lead, Facebook

Daphra Holder is a Product Lead within Facebook’s Communities Product Group, whose mission is to enable the best communities that foster belonging and connection on Facebook. Prior to ‘Communities,’ she served as a product leader within Marketplace & Commerce on Facebook. In both organizations, her focus has been on building foundational, technical customer-centric products for users globally. Prior to Facebook, she spent 5 years at Amazon working on internationalizing Alexa product and launching it in new markets and before that in product at American Express. Outside of work, she enjoys rock climbing and gastronomical pursuits (both consuming & cooking!). She grew up on the East Coast in NYC but resides in Seattle and is a graduate of Princeton University. She is a fervent advocate, sponsor and mentor of increasing diversity and inclusion within tech spaces.

LinkedIn: in/daphraholder

Angelina Howard

Sr. PM & Past President, Black Employee Network at Amazon

Angelina Howard is a Senior Product Manager (PM) at Amazon where she drives global product features and roadmap prioritization for digital video games. She owns the domain/roadmap across seven marketplaces for customer discovery which includes the customer shopping journey from search, product detail page, and checkout. Angelina transitioned into product management in 2017 and has been passionate about not only learning and building inclusive products, but also increasing the knowledge and representation of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) in product management.

In addition to her PM role, she is a past President of the Black Employee Network (BEN), an Employee Resource Group (ERG) at Amazon. She focuses on being an advocate for inclusion and diversity, driving different initiatives and programs internally/externally, advising Amazon’s senior leaders, and growing a community inside and outside of Amazon. She co-founded several initiatives at Amazon including BEN Startup Week, a week to highlight and support Black entrepreneurs, and the Black Excellence Gala, a scholarship event for organizations supporting underrepresented youth in STEM.

Angelina is a freelance instructor, adjunct professor at the University of Arkansas, speaker, and business and corporate diversity consultant. In 2019 she started her blog to provide insight into a career in product management.

LinkedIn: in/angelinalhoward
PM Newsletter & Blog: angelinahoward.com/blog

Jordan Horton

Digital Experience Manager & DE&I Leader, Nintendo of America

Jordan Horton leads the Digital Marketing Voice of the Consumer program for Nintendo of America. For over half a decade, he has focused on creating smiles, by identifying opportunities for business growth, consumer adoption, and meaningful improvement across the consumer journey – ensuring Nintendo fans across the world have their voices heard along the way. Jordan also leads Nintendo of America’s Black employee resource group, B@ND, to support employee engagement, community outreach, and business impact. His championship for inclusivity, continues to influence the conversations and efforts needed to truly ensure smiles are for everyone.

LinkedIn: in/jordanhorton

Beth Kolko

Professor, UW Human Centered Design & Engineering

Beth Kolko began her career as a professor in the humanities, studying how diverse communities used a then text-based internet to organize and enact change. Her current work focuses on the potential of non-experts to create disruptive solutions, and she builds programs that help people become functional engineers so they can solve problems in their communities. She is co-director of the Tactical and Tactile Technology Lab. She also created the Hackademia Project which builds innovation potential among broad audiences by imparting functional engineering skills combined with design thinking.

Beth is the co-founder and CEO of Shift Labs, a for-profit company building low-cost medical devices for emerging markets leveraging global innovation networks. She has been the Director of Innovation at the Makerbot Foundation (2013), a Fulbright professor at the University of World Economy and Diplomacy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan (2000), a Visiting Faculty Researcher at Microsoft Research (2007), and a Fellow (2007-2009) and Faculty Associate (2009-present) at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

Faculty Profile: Beth Kolko

Marily Nika

AR Product Manager, Google

Marily Nika holds a Ph. D in Computer Science & Machine Learning from Imperial College London and is also a part-time Teaching Fellow at Harvard Business School. Marily has delivered 3 TEDx talks and has received international recognition — including the Woman of the Year 2018 Award as well as the Women in Science and Engineering Influence Award in 2015, for empowering and mentoring the Women in tech community by having founded 3 women in tech groups, and for launching a mentorship app. Marily teaches product management courses.

Instagram: @marilynika

Hani Rachidi

VP of Product, Prescryptive Health

Hani is currently VP of Product at Prescryptive Health, a technology startup building a health intelligence platform using blockchain technology and user centered design to disrupt the healthcare industry. Previously, Hani led Commercial Licensing in the Cloud Marketing organization, responsible for the overall licensing and monetization of commercial offerings to Partners and Customers, globally. Hani has more than 17 years of experience in the technology industry, holding several leadership roles within Microsoft in Engineering where he designed B2B ecommerce platforms and in Marketing where he transformed Microsoft’s ecosystem from traditional software licensing distribution to digital subscription, consumption and value-added services powering $100’s Billion in commerce.

Clubhouse and Twitter: @hanirachidi

Jeff Shulman

Professor, UW Foster

Jeff Shulman is the Marion B. Ingersoll Professor of Marketing and Founding Director of The Product Management Center. Jeff joined UW after earning his Ph.D. from the Kellogg School of Management in 2006. His research focuses on strategic pricing and product decisions. In studying equitable urban growth and development, Jeff produces the award-winning Seattle Growth Podcast and produced the critically acclaimed PBS documentary, On the Brink.

Faculty Profile: Jeff Shulman
Clubhouse and Twitter: @profshulman

Srishti Sofat

Group Vice President, Product Development in CX Marketing, Oracle

Srishti Sofat brings 22+ years of experience across US and India in building and scaling large scale consumer and enterprise cloud products. She has been solving interesting problems in Marketing Automation, Personalization, Mobile, Mar-Tech, Loyalty and Consumer Search to help a global set of customers. Drives a strong culture of product innovation, customer retention and growth.

Srishti has helped in building and scaling R&D centers in India and she’s adept in collaborating with cross functional teams across geographies to define, influence and realize an organization’s shared vision while driving customer success and business growth. She’s experienced in M&A transactions and integrations with a proven record of hiring ‘A’ players, building & mentoring strong teams, and leading geographically distributed teams.

In her current role at Oracle, she leads the Product development for Oracle CX Marketing Products. She is the Oracle CX – India Dev Center lead and a champion for the Oracle Women Leadership (OWL), Mentorship Program and Diversity initiative. Prior to joining Oracle, she was General Manager /Managing Director- Responsys India.

Srishti has a Bachelor’s of Engineering in Computer Science from NITK Surathkal and an MBA from University of Washington. She enjoys gardening and running. She ran the Mumbai Full Marathon, Big Sur Half, and the Kaveri half marathon in the last few years.

LinkedIn: in/srishti-sofat

Maria Thomas

Chief Product Officer at Buffer

Maria Thomas is currently a Chief Product Officer at Buffer, a social media marketing platform for small businesses, leading product, and design organizations. Buffer’s mission is to provide essential tools to help small businesses get off the ground and grow. Maria has a breadth of experience working in the SaaS industry. Before Buffer, her most recent roles have been as the VP of Product at Bitly for the past two years and Insightly for the prior three and a half years. Maria also spent seven years building products for SMBs at Intuit – San Francisco and five years at Microsoft – Redmond, Washington. Maria was born, raised, and educated in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and obtained her MBA from Michael G. Foster School of Business, UW in 2001.

LinkedIn: in/mariagthomas

Teresa Thomas

Principal Product Manager, Zillow

Teresa leads the search and homepage experience for home buyers. She’s passionate about finding the sweet spots of opportunity where technology and business can come together to solve a real customer problem. She strives to foster an inclusive culture where everyone can do their best work. Prior to Zillow, Teresa held product roles at the growth stage Outreach and tech giant Microsoft. On her time off, you’ll find her taking long walks with her pup, working out in the home gym, traveling with her husband, or playing mixologist and inventing a cocktail.

LinkedIn: in/tthomas

Elizabeth Umphress

Professor, UW Foster

Under the rubric of social justice research, Dr. Umphress pursues three primary branches of inquiry: ethics, organizational justice, and diversity. To date, in collaboration with co-authors, she has published twenty-eight peer-reviewed research articles. With regard to teaching, she has received various teaching awards including the Hybrid MBA Excellence in Teaching Award (2020), Professor of the Year for Master of Science in Entrepreneurship (2019) and the Evening MBA (2014) programs. She is committed to teaching and mentoring doctoral students, exemplified by authoring sixteen publications with current or former doctoral students. She also provides important service to her profession, including being an Associate Editor for the Academy of Management Journal and on the editorial board of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

Faculty Profile: Elizabeth Umphress

Padmaja Vrudhula

Senior Director, Product Management at VMware

Padmaja Vrudhula is an engineer and strategist, working in emerging technologies at VMware. As part of her responsibilities, she focuses on creating solutions that meet her customer pain points. She also spends a considerable amount of time implementing solutions with customer and learning best practices. This allows for a good view into industry trends, challenges, and successes. Prior to VMware, Padmaja was the SVP of Product, Services, and Strategy for an innovative SaaS BI company, Chief Strategist and Founder of a consulting company, the Director of Solution Delivery for Moss Adams LLP, a consultant with Deloitte Consulting in their CIO services practice, as well as a business solutions manager for Washington Mutual’ s Treasury, Capital Markets, and Market Risk groups.

LinkedIn: in/padmajavrudhula