Featured Speakers

Annie Young-Scrivner has been CEO of Wella Company since the company became an independent entity on December 1, 2020. Wella Company is a global leader and one of the fastest growing global brand companies in the $100 billion beauty category, with expertise in hair, nails, and digital tech styling tools.

As CEO, Annie is responsible for accelerating the company’s growth and unlocking the full potential of its nearly $3B brand portfolio, which includes Wella Professionals, OPI, ghd, Briogeo, Sebastian Professional, Clairol and Nioxin. She brings a proven leadership track record and deep understanding of global markets acquired through her 25+ years of experience driving transformation across an acclaimed portfolio of consumer-centric brand companies.

She is recognized for increasing the economic value of companies through successful brand-building, digital transformation and elevating the customer and consumer experience. She thrives developing high performance cultures where people can bring their best selves to work.

Prior to Wella Company, Annie served as CEO of GODIVA Chocolatier, held executive roles at Starbucks, where she was instrumental in the turnaround of the company’s business performance, and launched her career with nearly 20 successful years at PepsiCo. Annie currently serves on the Board of Directors of YUM! Brands and Wella Company. 

An undergraduate alumna of the Foster School of Business, University of Washington, Annie also holds an Executive MBA from the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota.

Angela Spranger, PhD, MBA, is the Sr. Diversity Officer at the Carlson School of Management. She comes from Christopher Newport University (CNU) in Virginia where she served as the chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer in the Office of the President for the past two years. There, she helped cultivate a welcoming culture on campus, recruit and retain top talent, expand community engagement, and effectively communicate the university’s efforts for inclusive excellence. Prior to that position, she was an assistant professor at CNU’s Luter School of Business, where she taught management and marketing courses. Also a former defense industry corporate trainer, she is an expert in implementing performance improvement and quality techniques in the workplace. Spranger runs her own consulting practice as well.

Roxi Wen is the CFO for Invitae Corp, a publicly traded leading medical genetics company. She leads Invitae’s Finance, Investor Relations, Corporate Development, and Digital Transformation teams, helping to scale the business globally by driving growth, capital allocation, financial management and the execution of our unique business model. Roxi also provides oversight to the Patient Network and Data business leveraging her deep experience in technology and innovation. Roxi brings decades of success as a senior business executive where she scaled global technology and medical technology companies. Prior to Invitae, she served as CFO at Mozilla Corporation, overseeing finance, M&A, business development, data and analytics, IT and engineering operations, workplace resources, and ESG. Prior to Mozilla, Roxi served in CFO roles at Elo Touch Solutions and General Electric Critical Power following experience driving capital market and business finance efforts at Medtronic, a leading medical technology company. Roxi is a CFA shareholder and has a MBA from the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management.

Srilata (Sri) Zaheer became the 12th dean of the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota on March 8, 2012.

During her tenure as dean of the Carlson School, Sri launched a Military Veterans Initiative to help servicemen and women transition from military to business careers, resulting in the Carlson School being named the number one Military Friendly business school in the nation. Sri has increased the business community’s engagement with the school, resulting in a wealth of new experiential learning opportunities for students, and has overseen the introduction of new degrees in business analytics, supply chain management, finance, and new programs in partnership with Tsinghua University in Beijing and Tongji University in Shanghai, as well as online degrees and certificates. Sri holds the Elmer L. Andersen Chair in Global Corporate Social Responsibility and her research focus is on international business — a topic on which she has published extensively. Sri is currently preparing to return to faculty at the Carlson School, beginning in July 2023.