Jade Gandhi

Jade Gandhi is a Consultant at Vizient, specializing in data analysis, financial optimization, and strategic consulting. She collaborates across the organization to optimize purchase service spend, identifying cost-saving opportunities. Partnering with Spend Optimization analysts, she leverages data to create actionable reports that enhance financial performance for Vizient and its clients.

Passionate about women’s empowerment, Jade serves on the Women @ Vizient leadership team as a strategist, driving initiatives that foster equitable access to professional growth.

Beyond Vizient, Jade has worked with nonprofit organizations and health technology startups, focusing on patient care coordination and healthcare accessibility. She directed patient care efforts at a nonprofit, researching insurance plans to assist underinsured individuals. She also contributed to a startup’s pilot program supporting families with children with disabilities.

Jade holds a degree in Interdisciplinary Health Sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with minors in Business, Healthcare Administration, and Informatics.

Mary is a passionate software engineer with a decade of experience in the field. She is maintaining high standards for her code but also requires a nurturing working environment. Her personal journey, marked by her experiences as a woman navigating the tech industry, an expat adapting to new cultures, and a parent raising a family in a multicultural environment, has shaped her into a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion.

Throughout her career, Mary has been mentored and supported by remarkable people sharing their expertise with her. She has been trying to do the same by being a champion of initiatives that foster a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace. Converting friction points to improvement initiatives, ensures a nurturing environment when individuals can be challenged and evolve, ultimately leading to greater success for both individuals and organizations.

Eryn is a future of work evangelist, retired digital nomad, workforce expert, and scale-up builder. She is the founder of Startup Consortium, editor of Weekly Workforce, and Co-Creator of the AI Maturity Index. Before founding Startup Consortium, she built two unicorns in the staffing industry where her work has helped 4.5 million people in over 190 countries access new learning and job opportunities.

Colette 't Hart is a tech entrepreneur, product designer, and UX strategist dedicated to transforming the future of recruitment. As the CEO & Co-founder of Idonea, she is pioneering an AI-driven, bias-free hiring platform that ensures fair and skill-based talent matching. With a background in user experience, digital transformation, and business development, Colette has spent her career designing solutions that bridge technology and human impact.

Passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion, she champions innovative hiring practices that break down barriers and create real opportunities for all candidates. At the summit, she will share some insights on how technology can reshape recruitment to be more inclusive, data-driven, and effective for both job seekers and hiring managers.

Kenasha Paul, J.D. is an award-winning social entrepreneur and business professional who has dedicated her life to building thriving pathways lined with access points, opportunities, and resources for underrepresented communities.

A dynamic force in community building, her first major feat started in 2008 when Paul helped the Black Student Union at FIU go from a student club with a then operating budget of $500 to a university-wide council managing a six-figure plus budget and representing nearly 12% of black students on campus. After graduation, she was asked to found and lead the FIU Black Alumni Chapter representing over 25,000 black alumni nationwide.

This work inspired her launch of the Black Professionals Summit conference in (2014) while in law school at Nova Southeastern University, later advancing the Summit into the Black Professionals Network (BPN) in 2016, as a non-profit social learning organization serving all of South Florida’s black professional community. In 2022, the organization expanded nationwide and currently has chapters in Miami, Broward, Chicago, and Los Angeles with more markets on the way.

Black Professionals Network (BPN) is now the fastest-growing non-profit organization. Its mission is to support 1 million black professionals on their journey towards success, wealth, and legacy, to ensure 90% reach accredited investor status.

Her success in building social capital across private and public sectors caught the attention of the venture and tech community. In 2021, she was announced as part of a novel partnership between the City of Miami and Florida International University to serve as Director of the Venture Miami Opportunity Program, focusing on women-founded tech businesses. In 2024, she was recruited by Florida Memorial University to spearhead the launch of their Entrepreneurship Center which will open in 2025, as part of a public-private partnership to support Sistrunk residents and FMU students.