University of Southern California, Wallis Annenberg Hall

Check back here for a live stream of the panel. Event hashtag: #YWHSummit

Want to attend? Join us at Annenberg Hall at 3630 Watt Way, LA CA 90089 — on USC’s campus at the corner of Watt Way and Downey Way. Directions here.

panelists

Liz Barrett
Global President and General Manager at Pfizer Oncology

Liz Barrett is Global President and General Manager for Pfizer Oncology. She joined Pfizer in 2009 and has since held a number of senior positions spanning Europe and North America. Before joining Pfizer, Liz held the position of Vice-President & General Manager, Oncology Business Unit at Cephalon, Inc. Her previous experiences include managing Johnson &Johnson’s cancer therapeutics business, leading Worldwide Sales & Marketing for Veridex, LLC, a cancer diagnostics division of J&J and Vice President, Critical Care/Surgery Franchise for Ortho Biotech, another division of Johnson & Johnson. Liz holds a Bachelor of Science in business administration from the University of Louisiana and a Master’s of Business Administration in marketing from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Vanessa Larco
Partner at NEA

Vanessa Larco is a partner at NEA (New Enterprise Associates), a global venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors, and geographies. NEA invests in technology and healthcare companies at all stages in a company’s lifecycle, from seed stage through IPO. Previously, Vanessa led the product teams for the mobile and web apps at Box, an enterprise software platform for content collaboration that helps businesses securely access and manage their critical information in the cloud. Vanessa also worked for more than three years in several capacities as a program manager at Microsoft across the Surface and Xbox teams. Earlier, she co-founded a gaming studio at Playdom, where she drove in millions of dollars in revenue within 18 months by designing and launching Facebook games. Last year, Silicon Valley Business Journal named Vanessa as one of 100 Women of Influence in Silicon Valley, and and Glamour magazine included her on their list of 35 Women Under 35 Who Are Changing the Tech Industry. She earned a B.S. in computer science at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Dr. Fola May
Seed Global Health Director of Internal Medicine

Fola May, MD PhD is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at UCLA and co-director of the UCLA Center for World Health Global Health Education Program. She is also the Director of Internal Medicine for Seed Global Health, an NGO that partners with the Peace Corps to increase clinical care capacity and strengthen health systems in sub-Saharan Africa. She graduated from Yale University with a degree in biology and then attended the University of Cambridge to study international systems of health care delivery before matriculating to Harvard Medical School. She trained in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and then joined the UCLA Specialty Training and Advanced Research (STAR) Program, completing a fellowship in gastroenterology at UCLA and a PhD in health policy and management from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Fola performs research to addresses challenges in access to preventative services nationally and internationally and community engagement in health. She has participated in global health programs in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Uganda, Malawi, Tanzania, and South Africa.

Pat Wadors
LinkedIn SVP of Global Talent Organization

At LinkedIn, Pat Wadors hires, retains, and inspires top talent, and she is also responsible for all employee-related HR programs. Pat was recently awarded one of the Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Technology. From August 2011 until August 2012, Pat also served as the HR Executive Advisor to Twitter, and she also spent over four years as the Senior Vice President of Human Resources at Yahoo!. She has also held senior human resource management positions at Applied Materials, Merck Pharmaceutical, Viacom International and Calvin Klein Cosmetics. She graduated with a B.S. in business administration from Ramapo College, with a major in human resources management and a minor in psychology.

Amy Shat
Switchfly EVP of People and Learning

Amy Shat is a seasoned leader and innovator in People Development for technology companies. Her extensive background includes credits on award-winning AAA video titles such as Tomb Raider, time spent in genomics, and building a team that pioneered enterprise network security. Her specialty is creating and driving high performing teams in fast growth technology start-ups. In addition, she has served on several boards as an expert in HR and Benefits technologies, including Sequoia Consulting Group and Collective Health. Currently, Amy manages Switchfly’s strategic organizational development and growth, as well as customer product training, as the EVP of People and Learning. Founded in 2002, Switchfly is a travel commerce and loyalty platform that enables enterprises to become online travel agencies in their own right. Amy graduated with B.A. in Political Science from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.

moderator

Ruthe Farmer
White House Senior Advisor for Tech Inclusion

Ruthe Farmer is Senior Policy Advisor for Tech Inclusion at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy focusing on education, technology, and inclusion of underrepresented groups. She leads implementation of President Obama’s Computer Science for All initiative, an effort to make computer science education available to all American students. Prior to joining the White House, Ruthe worked nationally on tech, engineering, and computer science education and advocacy, with a focus on equity and inclusion. She formerly was Chief Strategy and Growth Officer at the National Center for Women & IT, chaired Computer Science Education Week in 2012 and led tech and engineering programs at Girl Scouts of the USA. Ruthe holds a B.A. from Lewis & Clark College and an M.B.A. in social entrepreneurship from the Oxford University’s Said Business School.

USC Annenberg Partner

Dr. Stacy L. Smith
Associate Professor / Director of Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative

Dr. Stacy L. Smith joined the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism faculty in the fall of 2003. The nation’s leading expert on gender disparity in the media, Dr. Smith’s research has been written about in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, fivethirtyeight.com, The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, Newsweek, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Slate.com, Salon.com, The Boston Globe, and USA Today, to name a few. As director of USC’s Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative, Dr. Smith oversees all of the Initiative’s research activities and routinely presents her research findings to academic, industry, and advocacy groups. Since 2005, Dr. Smith has been working with a team of undergraduate and graduate students to assess portrayals of males and females in popular media. Over two-dozen projects have been completed, assessing gender in films, TV shows, video games, and point-ofpurchase advertising. Dr. Smith earned her Ph.D from the University of California, Santa Barbara.