Our History

Speakers featured in the past

Past Event Highlights

All Our Past Speakers

David Allen

Creator of the GTD® methodology
@Getting Things Done
David Allen
Creator of the GTD® methodology
@Getting Things Done

Ashley Kramer

Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer
@Gitlab
Ashley Kramer
Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer
@Gitlab

Brian Elliott

Head of Future Forum & SVP
@Future Forum by Slack
Brian Elliott
Head of Future Forum & SVP
@Future Forum by Slack
Annie Dean
VP of Team Anywhere
@Atlassian

Casey Fenton

Co-Founder
@Couchsurfing

More than 20 years ago, Casey Fenton gave himself an objective; to hack his own destiny. He dreamed of having a positive impact on the world, but how does one person from a small town in Maine create real change?

As an introvert turned omnivert, and programmer, Casey Fenton explored the intersection of humanity and technology which resulted in him founding Couchsurfing, the world’s greatest trust experiment, and growing the platform to more than 20 million members.

Casey Fenton is passionate about bringing people together and creating win-win systems where game mechanics work out such ways that everybody gets more. In 2010, he was elected to the Ashoka Fellowship for contributing new ideas for improving human well-being. in

Most recently he has founded Upstock, a bold replacement for the antiquated legacy equity systems that provides Fortune 1000 equity for all businesses. Upstock delivers on equity’s true promise of helping companies dramatically improve worker attraction, motivation and retention, often doubling or tripling.

Casey Fenton continues his work with helping humanity solve some of the non-obvious problems of today by teaching others how to hack their egos and thereby destiny and become the people they aspire to be and not just dream of being.

Casey Fenton
Co-Founder
@Couchsurfing

Laura Daniels

Chief People Officer
@Typeform

As Chief People Officer at Typeform, Laura Daniels leads the People and Home team including talent acquisition, people experience, and business partnering. She is responsible for the global people strategy, helping the organization scale by cultivating a best-in-class workforce.

Prior to joining Typeform, Laura held a number of leadership roles at Autodesk, Charles Schwab, and PerkinElmer where she helped build business-driven strategies, programs, structures, and teams that were innovative and results-driven. Laura believes in using strength-based leadership to achieve growth and success, prioritizing the focus and development of areas in which individuals and teams excel. Laura has a Bachelor of Arts in History and Women’s Studies from Santa Clara University and a Juris Doctorate from Golden Gate University School of Law.

Laura Daniels
Chief People Officer
@Typeform

Sunaina Lobo

Chief HR & People Officer
@Marqeta
Sunaina Lobo
Chief HR & People Officer
@Marqeta

Ryan Chartrand

CEO
@X-Team

Ryan Chartrand is the CEO of X-Team, providing high performing, on-demand teams of developers to the world’s leading brands including Kaplan, Fox Broadcasting, Riot Games, Beachbody, Coinbase, Sony, and more. With over 15 years of experience, Ryan is an expert at managing remote teams, and building brands and products for large-scale companies. Today, Ryan leads X-Team’s strategic roadmap, vision and culture.

Ryan Chartrand
CEO
@X-Team

Lara Prospero

Global Director Delivery Excellence
@Microsoft

Lara has been acting as a strategist on learning and cultural change processes, with her major focus on the definition of programs and initiatives that allow the attraction and retention of top talent individuals to act on the new digital world. With her background in Physics, Lara has been showing high problem solving capabilities, as well as disruptive creativity on how to address classical problems, in a innovative fashion.

Lara joined Microsoft back in May 2012 as a PFE Manager, being involved in People Management activities for teams delivering in Western Europe Countries.

Lara Prospero
Global Director Delivery Excellence
@Microsoft

Q Hamirani

Global Head of Work Anywhere
@Airbnb

Q is a business minded people and operations leader, advisor and executive coach. He joined Airbnb in 2018 as its first global people ops leader, and was responsible for the strategic vision, build-out and execution of Airbnb’s people operations function from the ground up. Additionally, he was responsible for leading Airbnb through numerous pivotal milestones including hyper growth, pandemic responses, workforce restructuring, IPO and the future of work. Most notably, Q ideated and incubated Airbnb’s Global Nomad program in 2020 that eventually became Airbnb’s formal Live & Work Anywhere program in 2022. This program created an extraordinary opportunity for Airbnb to become industry leaders in the future of work by leveraging their existing business model to enable their employees to live and work anywhere. Airbnb decided to invest in the creation of a newly formed cross functional center of excellence (COE) to make this opportunity a reality. Q has been leading the build out of this newly created global COE since April 2022 that brought together Airbnb’s legacy workplace, immigration, relocation, mobility tax and operational teams to work in close partnership with corporate tax, accounting, employment legal, privacy, public policy and external comms teams to drive our vision and enhance our employee experience and business growth collectively. Q has leaned on his engineering roots to become a web3 enthusiast, evaluating the impacts of decentralized models on the people and operations functions. He has worked with web3 creators and founders to help craft their optimal people and operations strategies to achieve their growth objectives. Q is a trusted advisor to founders, C-Suites, people executives and several accelerator programs globally. He leverages his first hand experience from working across his own startups, various venture growth and PE backed firms, Big 4 management consulting and Fortune 100 companies to provide valued insight and drive sustainable change. Q specializes in strategy and operations, operating models, workforce planning, technology, IPO and SOX readiness, cross-border mobility programs to support the future of distributed work, and employee experience service delivery models. You can learn more about Q at www.hamirani.com.

Q Hamirani
Global Head of Work Anywhere
@Airbnb

Darren Murph

VP of Workplace Design and Remote Experience
@Andela

Named an “oracle of remote work” by CNBC and featured in The Forbes Future of Work 50, Darren is a recognized visionary in organizational design. He serves as Andela’s VP, Workplace Design and Remote Experience. He leads at the intersection of people operations, marketing, and strategic communication. His career is defined by leading remote teams, charting remote transformations, connecting nonobvious dots, and architecting inclusive cultures. He holds a Guinness World Record in publishing, and authored GitLab’s Remote Playbook and “Living the Remote Dream: A Guide To Seeing the World, Setting Records, and Advancing Your Career.”

Darren pioneered the Head of Remote role in the historic IPO of GitLab. His interviews are found in CNBC, CNN, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Fortune, Digiday, Business Insider, and more.

Darren Murph
VP of Workplace Design and Remote Experience
@Andela

Emeric Ernoult

Co-founder & CEO
@Agorapulse

Emeric is a serial entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in Social Media and SaaS. He is the CEO and co-founder of Agorapulse, a Paris-based Social Media Management Software launched in 2011. Agorapulse has 160 team members across the globe and is currently being used by more than 37,000 users across 180 countries.

Emeric Ernoult
Co-founder & CEO
@Agorapulse

Liam Martin

Co-Founder & CMO
@Time Doctor
Time Doctor

Liam Martin is the co-founder and CMO of Time Doctor and Staff.com — one of the most popular time tracking and productivity software platforms in use by top brands today. He is also a co-organizer of the Running Remote Conference.

He consults on outsourcing and process design and is passionate about how to gain insights into the inner workings of how people work.

He is an avid proponent of remote work and has been published in Forbes, Inc, Mashable, TechCrunch, Fast Company, Wired, The Wall Street Journal, The Next Web, The Huffington Post, Venturebeat, and many other publications specifically targeting the expansion of remote work.

The mission statement that feeds all the products and services that Liam is involved with stems from empowering workers to work wherever they want, whenever they want.

Liam has an undergraduate and graduate degree in Sociology from McGill University. He lives in Canada but travels 3-6 months out of the year due to his ability to work wherever and whenever he likes. He chooses a new place to travel a few times a year but usually spends time in Austin, Las Vegas, and Ubud each year and loves to encourage others to work remotely on his travels.

Time Doctor
Liam Martin
Co-Founder & CMO
@Time Doctor

Tara Vasdani

Founder & Principle Lawyer
@Remote Law Canada
Remote Law Canada logo

Tara Vasdani is the Principal Lawyer and Founder of Remote Law Canada., a law firm specializing in Civil Litigation, Employment Law, and Remote Work. In both 2018 and 2019, she has been nominated for Canadian Lawyer’s Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers, and in 2019, she was featured in Forbes.

Tara’s law firm is exclusively remote, and it thrives on using legal technology and artificial intelligence to more efficiently serve clients, and encourage the remote work movement. Tara is dedicated to advocating for her clients, from the consultation stage, through to negotiations, and if necessary, trial – using solid litigation experience. In both 2018 and 2019, she has set national and international legal precedents.

Prior to founding Remote Law Canada, Tara practiced civil, subrogation and employment litigation in Toronto’s premier law firms. Today, she assists business owners, employees and legal tech companies with navigating their legal obligations, to eventually “go remote”.

Remote Work areas of expertise:

  • Remote Work Agreements
  • Remote Work Policies
  • Health & Safety Checklists
  • Remote Work Request Forms
  • Remote Work Handbooks
  • Legal and HR Compliance
Remote Law Canada logo
Tara Vasdani
Founder & Principle Lawyer
@Remote Law Canada

Zoë Harte

Chief People Officer
@Upwork

Zoë Harte holds the position of Chief People Officer at Upwork and leads their talent strategy. She has guided the growth of the company’s team by more than 75 percent, from startup to becoming a public company. She implements innovative management approaches and focuses on building a mission-driven culture for Upwork’s team of employees and global network of freelancers.

Zoë has been recognised as one of SIA’s Global Power Women in Staffing for three consecutive years.

Zoë Harte
Chief People Officer
@Upwork