InfluenceHR 2019
Join fellow innovators of the industry as we explore the new world of work technology.
InfluenceHR is an exclusive B2B marketing event designed for industry leaders innovating the future of work. Brand or demand, traction or scale — InfluenceHR showcases a unique blend of best practices and actionable insights for brands looking to drive immediate results.
The Agenda
Leaders of the new school.
We're proud to announce Paul Sarvadi, CEO of Insperity and author of Taking Care of Your People, as the 2019 keynote speaker for InfluenceHR San Francisco. In addition to Paul Sarvadi, we're excited to have some of the leading voices in Work Technology join us on stage at InfluenceHR.
- Tuesday, Nov. 5
2019 event registration brought to you by SmartBrief
Anna Mamalaki, Founder, The Human Aspect
Session description goes here.
Bailey Blanchone, Art Director, The Starr Conspiracy
Lance Haun, Strategy & Insights Leader, The Starr Conspiracy
Session description goes here.
Steve Smith, Partner and CMO, The Starr Conspiracy
Session description goes here.
Bret Starr, Founder and CEO, The Starr Conspiracy
Dustin Wells, CEO, Headspring
Session description goes here.
Sponsored by Hibob
Paul Sarvadi, Founder & CEO, Insperity
Session description
Sponsored by Hibob
InfluenceHR is held Sept. 10–11, immediately preceding the 2018 HR Technology® Conference & Exposition. Agenda topics, speakers, and schedule are subject to change prior to the event.
Bret Starr, Founder and CEO, The Starr Conspiracy
Kevin Mangum, Partner, The Starr Conspiracy
Dan McCarron, Partner and COO, The Starr Conspiracy
Mark Mitchell, Partner, The Starr Conspiracy
Steve Smith, Partner, The Starr Conspiracy
Organizational structure, internal communications, and goal setting — it all matters. Join our panel of Starr Conspiracy business owners as they discuss the common failure points and hurdles encountered along your path to growth.
Mark Stelzner, Founder and Managing Principal, IA-HR
Stephanie Cipolla, SVP and Chief Human Resources Officer, Cherokee Nation Businesses
Kelley Hoven Ortelli, VP of Total Rewards, Great-West Financial
Mark Stelzner moderates a panel of senior HR decision-makers as they take us through a typical evaluation and buying experience all while highlighting the things they love about the process as well as the things they hate. Plenty of Q&A opportunity from the audience.
Annamarie Andrews, Senior Marketing Officer, Cielo
Kristen Wright, EVP and Chief Marketing Officer, Cielo
Get the skinny on using competitor brand audits and routine pulse checks to positively impact your brand.
Lance Haun, Practice Director, The Starr Conspiracy
Emily He, Senior VP of Marketing, Oracle
Ann Fulton, CEO, Fuel50
Phil Stewart, CEO, Engage2Excel
Jason Lauritsen, Author, JasonLauritsen.com
A category at a crossroads. Integrated talent management is often thought of as “the old guard” — but that may be selling the platform short.
Kevin Marasco, Chief Marketing Officer, Zenefits
Down with the cookie cutters. Learn how to develop a compelling visual strategy.
Andrew Arno, Director, William Blair & Company
A look at how venture capital and private equity firms are investing. What kind of M&A activity is going on. How the industry is investing in R&D. The scoop’s all here.
Russ Heddleston, Co-founder and CEO, DocSend
Join us as we present our latest research analysis and explore the key findings to increase engagement with high-value prospects.
Lance Haun, Practice Director, The Starr Conspiracy
Steve Smith, Partner, The Starr Conspiracy
Jonathan Goodman, Managing Director, Bay Area, The Starr Conspiracy
The next major market cycle in HCM is forming, and we believe it’s the biggest yet. Orient yourselves and your strategy for the year to come. We promise to use terms like “AI,” “machine learning,” and “blockchain” sparingly.
The Speakers


Paul Sarvadi is chairman of the board, chief executive officer and co-founder of Houston-based Insperity, which serves as a leading provider of human resources and business performance solutions for America’s best businesses. In addition, he is the author of “Take Care of Your People: The Enlightened CEO’s Guide to Business Success.”
Sarvadi co-founded Insperity in 1986. More than 33 years later, under Sarvadi’s leadership, Insperity has grown from a two-person operation with three initial clients to a publicly traded company providing business performance solutions that support more than 100,000 businesses with over 2 million employees. With 2018 revenues of $3.8 billion, Insperity operates in 73 offices throughout the United States.
Prior to co-founding Insperity, Sarvadi started and operated several small companies. Through his work with small businesses and as a business owner himself, he experienced first-hand the challenges entrepreneurs must overcome in order to succeed. Sarvadi also gained an understanding and appreciation of the crucial role employees play in helping businesses succeed. His ongoing vision for Insperity is to serve as a trusted advisor to America’s best businesses, creating customers for life by providing a breadth and depth of products and services and level of care that are unmatched in the marketplace.
Insperity was recognized as one of “America’s Most Admired Companies” for five years in Fortune magazine and named for five consecutive years to the InformationWeek 500 list of the leading information technology innovators. The company was included six times on the Forbes Platinum 400 list of the Best Big Companies in America in the Business Services and Supplies category. With 3,200 corporate employees nationwide, Insperity is consistently identified as a top workplace throughout the country at the national, state and local levels. Since 2001, when the company began participating in best places to work programs, it has appeared 150 times on the respective lists, reflecting Insperity’s ongoing commitment to be a preferred employer. Most notably, Insperity has received seven Stevie Awards for Great EmployersSM – three Gold Stevie Awards as Employer of the Year in the Business Services category, and four Gold and Bronze Stevie Awards for HR Technology Solution Provider of the Year (recognition for helping clients foster great workplaces) and Achievement in HR Technology; the company was named in the top three percent of America’s Top Workplaces by WorkplaceDynamics; it has been recognized 13 times by Texas Monthly as one of the Best Companies to Work For in Texas; 17 times by the Houston Business Journal as one of the Best Places to Work in Houston; and nine times by the Houston Chronicle as a Top Workplace.
Sarvadi was selected in 1995 as Houston’s Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for service industries and in 2001, he was named as the National Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the service category. In 2004, he received the Conn Family Distinguished New Venture Leader Award from Mays Business School at Texas A&M University. In addition, Sarvadi was inducted into the 2007 Texas Business Hall of Fame.
He and his wife Victoria founded The Nathaniel Foundation in Kingwood, Texas. They have six children and 20 grandchildren.


As one of The Starr Conspiracy’s most senior account executives, Ashley leads the account services team and sets the bar for how to manage different types of marketing strategies. She is responsible for developing and nurturing relationships with clients through effective communication to make sure The Starr Conspiracy leverages the breadth of the areas of expertise within the agency. Ashley and her team of account managers will ensure that work is completed on time, on budget, and in strategic alignment with each client’s business objectives.


Bailey’s role is to provide strategic creative direction and create on-brand visuals that support each project’s marketing goals.
She works closely with content writers, developers, and the digital team to develop campaigns, websites, application interfaces, and on-site experiences. Bailey has been with The Starr Conspiracy for five years.


Jonathan leads The Starr Conspiracy’s consulting and strategy practices — a team known as the Intelligence Unit (IU). Companies that plan to stoke a market revolution — and deploy next-level marketing — first require clear thinking and good counsel. That’s where the full-service digital agency’s team of world-class consultants, researchers, market analysts, PR professionals, and writers do their thing. Industry innovators in marketing, sales, and product leadership engage the IU for the kind of industry insights and growth-orientated strategy they can’t find anywhere else. And they keep working with The Starr Conspiracy to execute across brand and digital.
Jonathan is a regular speaker at InfluenceHR and was recognized in the #Engagement101 for his contributions to Employee Engagement. When he’s not plotting the future of enterprise software with clients, Jonathan spends his time with his wife and two children in Fort Worth, Texas.


Lance is a practice leader at The Starr Conspiracy Intelligence Unit, the research, consulting, and publishing arm of The Starr Conspiracy. As part of the Intelligence Unit, Lance helps enterprise software and services companies find their compelling place in their respective markets, consults with them on messaging and go-to-market strategy, and helps them execute their game plan with compelling thought leadership and content strategy. He also works on public-facing market research and reports that specifically target the HCM industry.
Before joining The Starr Conspiracy Intelligence Unit in early 2013, he was an editor at ERE Media for over three years. He also served as editor-in-chief for SourceCon, the leading publication and biannual conference for sourcers and recruiters.
Lance is a regular speaker, having spoken at the Society for Human Resource Management annual conference, HR Technology® Conference, ERE Recruiting Conferences, IHRIM’s HRMS Strategies Conference, and numerous other local and regional events and webinars. His writing has been featured on the Harvard Business Review blog and he is regularly interviewed as an expert on HR and recruiting issues by The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, HR magazine, Workforce Magazine, Fast Company, and BNET.com.


Anna Mamalaki is Human Resources professional with a broad multicultural experience in global corporate & consulting roles of different industries (financial services, manufacturing, retail & consumer goods), as well as in diverse geographies of four continents. She specializes in organizational effectiveness, through people development and employee engagement transformation.
Her Expertise areas are supported by the specialized knowledge of a Master’s Degree in Human Resources Management and are matched with a relentless enthusiasm for making a difference in other people’s lives.
Anna Mamalaki is recognized as one of the global experts in the field of organizational effectiveness and employee experience(identified as 101 Global Employee Engagement Influencers for 2018.


Steve is a partner at The Starr Conspiracy and splits time between St. Louis and New York City, where the company plans to open its third office in 2020. Steve’s focus is strategic consulting and account leadership, as well as writing on where the work technology industry is headed. Since 2001, he has specialized in human resources and human capital-focused strategy, content, and consulting after nearly a decade as a newspaper journalist. He has developed messaging, positioning, brand, thought leadership, and content marketing strategy for dozens of enterprise software companies and written hundreds of white papers and research reports for work technology clients.
Prior to The Starr Conspiracy, he worked as an employee communications consultant on Fortune 500 accounts such as FedEx and BNSF. His writing has earned awards from the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and the American Advertising Federation (AAF).


Bret is founder and CEO of The Starr Conspiracy, a marketing agency that has served thousands of clients around the world since 1999. He has dedicated his career to developing brands, messages, and marketing strategies that help businesses connect with buyers on a human level. Bret is an author and a speaker, but spends most of his time researching new marketing models, strategies, and tactics, and consulting directly with clients. His agency has been the recipient of more than a dozen local, state, and national “best places to work” awards, along with numerous marketing awards. Bret lives with his wife and two children in Fort Worth, Texas.
The areas of Bret’s expertise include branding, message, advertising, public relations, mergers and acquisitions, market research, and management consulting.


Dustin has guided mid-market and enterprise clients through technology transformation and enterprise software innovation for over 18 years. His first startup was Headspring, a software consultancy that has grown based on a strong culture that spans teams and geographies. Dustin’s passion around culture and engagement led him to spin up his next startup, Workify, an engagement analytics platform that helps companies grow their people and drive their cultures at scale. He’s also an active early-stage tech investor and consultant to tech-focused VC funds, as well as a venture partner at NextGen Ventures.
Dustin helps leaders think differently about modernization and innovation: He supports a holistic approach that will drive people, systems, and businesses, together, into the future.
The Location
Back in the Bay.
Hosted at The Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center, walking distance from The Starr Conspiracy’s San Francisco base camp, the 2019 event provides exclusive access to key influencers, analysts, and decision-makers from the brands making the most noise in workplace technology.

About The Center
The Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center is a San Francisco-based nonprofit [501(c)(3)] organization designed to educate, innovate, connect, and provide free resources for a growing demographic of underserved and aspiring entrepreneurs.
The Center’s goal is to paint a dynamic portrait of entrepreneurship by telling the stories of everyday innovators who are diverse, creative, and dedicated to bringing new ideas to life from all industries and corners of the globe.
NASDAQ Entrepreneurial Center
505 Howard Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
For more information about the center, visit thecenter.nasdaq.org.
Hotel Recommendations
The following hotels are walking distance to both the 2019 venue and The Starr Conspiracy's San Francisco headquarters. If you do too much networking at the happy hour, we have a couch with your name on it. Please note that these hotels are not affiliated with InfluenceHR in any way.
Courtyard Marriot Downtown San Francisco
299 2nd St
San Francisco, CA 94105
Phone: 415-947-0700
Omni San Francisco
500 California St
San Francisco, CA 94104
Phone: (415) 677-9494
The Sponsors
Thank you to our 2019 event partners.
Without our partners, this event would not be possible. Each year we identify sponsors that share our forward-thinking approach to B2B marketing and value the opportunity to provide a premium event experience to the leaders of Work Technology.
Sponsorship submissions for 2019 are now closed. Please contact our team to explore 2020 opportunities in New York, San Francisco, and Austin.
2019 Event Partners


You can thank The Starr Conspiracy for InfluenceHR. Each year, we bring our radical take on the insights, challenges, and perspectives that drive the work technology industry to present the most advanced marketing trends, metrics, and programs in the industry. We’re not your typical marketing and advertising agency — and we know it.
Learn more at www.thestarrconspiracy.com


Serving nearly 6 million senior executives, thought leaders and industry professionals, SmartBrief is the leading digital media publisher of targeted business news and information by industry. By combining technology and editorial expertise, SmartBrief delivers the most relevant industry news – curated daily from thousands of sources – in partnership with leading trade associations, professional societies, nonprofits and corporations.
Learn more at www.smartbrief.com


bob is a people management platform that helps fast-growing companies attract, excite, and retain their people. We know that when you grow your people, you grow your business. Founded in 2015 by serial entrepreneurs, Hibob was created based on the understanding that the world of work is changing. We built the HR system needed to attract, retain and grow today’s demanding workforce. bob takes a fun and friendly consumer approach to engagement tools that sit on top of compelling data insights.
Our 150 people in New York, London, and Tel Aviv are working every day to help the companies that are changing the world, change for the better themselves.
Learn more at www.hibob.com


The Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center is a San Francisco-based nonprofit [501(c)(3)] organization designed to educate, innovate, connect, and provide free resources for a growing demographic of underserved and aspiring entrepreneurs. The Center’s goal is to paint a dynamic portrait of entrepreneurship by telling the stories of everyday innovators who are diverse, creative, and dedicated to bringing new ideas to life from all industries and corners of the globe.
The Starr Conspiracy is proud to be an official event partner for 2019 and announce that 100% of InfluenceHR ticket revenue will be donated to the Center to further their educational efforts and mentoring programs in the Bay Area.
Learn more about the center at thecenter.nasdaq.org
The Starr Conspiracy
Connect
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