Heather Candy, Esq.
Vice President, Chief Risk Officer and Associate General Counsel
Adventist Health
Heather Candy is Chief Counsel for Labor and Employment at Adventist Health, where she oversees all systemwide labor and employment matters for 20 hospitals, 270 clinics, and more than 30,000 employees across California, Oregon, and Hawaii. A Sacramento native with more than 20 years of legal experience, she is part of Adventist Health’s newly formed Office of General Counsel, providing legal support and regulatory compliance across the organization. As the system’s sole labor and employment attorney, Ms. Candy advises leaders, develops and updates policies, ensures compliance, and manages litigation. Prior to joining Adventist Health, she practiced labor and employment law at Sacramento firms and served as in-house counsel for Vision Service Plan. Known for her calm, solutions-oriented approach, Ms. Candy brings a holistic legal and business perspective to complex organizational challenges.

Eric Cole
Corporate Senior Vice President, Human Resources
Scripps Health
Eric Cole serves as the Corporate Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for Scripps Health, a not for profit, integrated healthcare delivery system headquartered in San Diego, California. Scripps Health generates annual revenue exceeding $5.2 billion and is comprised of more than 22,000 employees, volunteers, and foundation and affiliated physicians.

Mr. Cole’s primary focus is advancing the organization’s people strategy. In his role, he provides the vision, leadership, and strategic planning necessary to optimize workforce performance and support the system’s mission and objectives. He is responsible for developing people focused strategies and resources that enhance organizational learning, expand leadership capability, and create a competitive advantage in support of improving community health.

Erika Frank, Esq.
Vice President, Legal Counsel
California Hospital Association
Erika Frank is Vice President and Legal Counsel for the California Hospital Association, specializing in labor and employment, workers’ compensation, workplace safety, workforce, community benefits, and seismic compliance. She leverages more than two decades of legal, regulatory, and legislative experience, offering a practical and insightful approach to helping employers, regulators and government leaders understand the impact workplace policies and mandates have on employers and employees alike.

John Henderson
Senior Consultant
People Results

Catherine Lee, Esq.
Partner, Atkinson
Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo
Catherine Lee specializes in employment, financial institution, and complex commercial litigation, with additional focus on data security and privacy matters. She counsels and represents employers of all sizes in state and federal courts, administrative proceedings, and arbitration, handling matters involving wage and hour claims, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, PAGA, trade secrets, and unfair competition. Ms. Lee also advises employers on hiring, discipline, terminations, and wage and hour compliance, and prepares employee handbooks, policies, and agreements.

In addition, Ms. Lee represents major financial institutions and community banks, having successfully defended clients such as JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, and PNC Bank in disputes involving fraud, privacy, internet banking, credit reporting, and foreclosure-related claims. She also advises businesses on CCPA compliance, data security issues, and corporate transactions.

Scott MacDonald, MD
Chief Medical Information Officer, Clinical Informatics
UC Davis Health
Scott MacDonald is a practicing primary care internal medicine and informatics physician with extensive experience implementing and improving an electronic health records system in a complex academic health system.

As the CMIO, he is the primary leader for optimizing the system to support high quality and high value clinical care, research, education, and community outreach across all venues of the Health System. Mr. MacDonald leads teams of informaticists and analysts from various specialties and venues to design and deploy solutions, and the strategies to support change.

Current key initiatives include a highly effective physician training and optimization program; optimizing clinical decision support, population health, and deploying and evaluating machine learning & large language models with a focus on fairness and accuracy.  Mr. MacDonald works to improve the health of patients, health care workers, and the community with thoughtful change of processes, technology, and people’s skills.

Angeli Mancuso, RN
Manager, Workforce Development
Cottage Health
Angeli has been a nurse for 17 years and earned her Masters in Public Health from the University of North Carolina in 2018. She is known to be an out-of-the-box thinker, strategic planner, and get-stuff-done leader. As a nurse who has worked the majority of her career in Human Resources, her career path is not a typical one and she enjoys sharing her journey with employees and students to illustrate how life doesn’t always work out as planned.

Muira Mishra, Esq.
Founder and Principal
MKM Law Group
Muira Mishra is the founder and principal of MKM Law Group and brings more than 25 years of experience in labor and employment law. She advises employers across a wide range of industries, including healthcare, finance, retail, nonprofits, and emerging businesses, providing both legal guidance and practical business solutions. Her background includes serving as an employment attorney at a national law firm and as Vice President and Labor and Employment Counsel for a large integrated health care system with more than 25,000 employees.

A former litigator, Ms. Mishra understands the complexities of employment disputes and emphasizes proactive compliance and risk prevention, particularly in wage and hour matters. She regularly conducts audits, partners with clients on corrective strategies, and delivers training for executives, managers, and employees.

Will Owens
Chief Human Resources Officer
Common Spirit
Will Owens was appointed Chief Human Resources Officer for the expanded California Region in November 2023. In this role, he provides strategic HR leadership for human capital, clinical education, and occupational health across 31 hospitals statewide. Mr. Owens joined Dignity Health in 2014 and has held progressively senior leadership roles, including Human Resources Director for Mercy San Juan Medical Center, Methodist Hospital of Sacramento, Woodland Memorial Hospital, and Woodland Clinic. From 2019 to 2023, he served as Vice President of Human Resources for the Northern California Division, leading workforce transformation, labor relations, performance management, and employee engagement initiatives. He is actively engaged in the community, serving as Board Secretary for the Greater Sacramento Urban League and as Immediate Past President of the Northern California Chapter of NAHSE.

Sylvia Pittman, MSHR 
Chief Human Resources Officer 
Chinese Hospital 
Sylvia Munguia Pittman is the Chief Human Resources Officer at San Francisco Chinese Hospital and Chinese Community Health Plan, bringing over 20 years of experience in HR within healthcare industry. Ms. Pittman has a deep understanding of regional, system and community hospitals, leveraging this expertise to foster robust employee engagement and well-being programs. With a strong passion for creating positive workplace cultures, Ms. Pittman has successfully led initiatives that improve employee engagement and performance aligning HR strategies with organizational goals to drive overall success. 

Julie Reppas
Senior Vice President, Operations & Human Resources
California Hospital Association

Adam P. Romero
Chief Deputy Director
California Department of Industrial Relations
Adam P. Romero was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom in February 2025 to be the Chief Deputy Director of the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR).

DIR administers and enforces laws governing wages, hours, overtime, retaliation, workplace safety and health, apprenticeship training programs, and medical care and other benefits for injured workers. Mr. Romero helps direct all aspects of the department’s functions, goals, and strategies.

Previously, he served as a deputy director of the California Civil Rights Department, a position to which he was appointed by Governor Newsom in March 2020. Mr. Romero was a scholar and adjunct professor at UCLA School of Law and a senior associate at WilmerHale, where he specialized in appellate, Supreme Court, and intellectual property litigation. An attorney admitted to practice law in California and New York, Romero earned his J.D. from Yale Law School and A.B. from Cornell University (summa cum laude).

Lindsey Ryan, Phd, RN, ACNS-BC, NEA-BC, FACHE
VP, Patient Care Services, Chief Nursing Officer
Sharp Metropolitan Medical Campus

Jennifer Shaw, Esq.
Founder
Shaw Law Group
Jennifer Shaw is a nationally recognized employment law expert and the founder of Shaw Law Group, a leading California boutique specializing in proactive compliance, workplace investigations, training, and employment law advice.

With decades of experience, Ms. Shaw is the trusted advisor organizations call when navigating complex and high-stakes workplace challenges. She provides practical, real-world guidance in areas such as wage-hour compliance, anti-discrimination obligations, leave laws, hiring practices, and overall HR strategy.

A sought-after workplace investigator and longtime member of the Association of Workplace Investigators, Ms. Shaw regularly conducts sensitive, high-profile investigations for employers across the state. She also trains HR professionals to conduct defensible internal investigations and is known for her ability to translate legal requirements into clear, accessible, and actionable steps.

Cara Williams
Vice President & Chief Human Resources Officer
Cottage Health
Cara Williams is Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Cottage Health, where she builds on the organization’s nationally recognized commitment to an exceptional workplace culture that supports outstanding patient care and experience. She succeeded long-time HR leader Patrice Ryan following her retirement after 16 years of service. Prior to joining Cottage Health, Ms. Williams spent nine years at Scripps Health in San Diego, most recently serving as Assistant Vice President of Patient and Staff Engagement and Human Resources. Her earlier career includes leadership roles as Regional Human Resources Director for ARAMARK’s Healthcare Division and district and regional HR management positions with Best Buy Stores Inc.

Alliant Insurance Services provides insurance and consulting services engineered to mitigate risk, improve performance, and promote long-term growth. With offices across the U.S., Alliant’s diverse service profile encompasses property and casualty insurance, employee benefits, underwriting, surety, and financial products and services driven by industry experts who understand the unique market dynamics our clients face.

At Alliant Employee Benefits, our passion is delivering an exceptional experience for Healthcare employers, employees, and their families. We deliver specialized expertise with a personalized approach and find creative solutions that meet your unique needs, helping your organization stay agile and resilient.

Corporate Traditions helps healthcare organizations simplify employee recognition at scale. We provide digital gifting solutions that eliminate the manual work, wasted budget, and logistical complexity of traditional recognition programs. Trusted by health systems across the country, our platform delivers instant, flexible rewards that employees actually use, saving HR teams time while improving retention across multiple locations and shift schedules.

Medical Solutions is a leading healthcare staffing company specializing in travel nursing, allied health, and workforce solutions. As one of the nation’s largest healthcare staffing provides, it connects clinicians with hospitals and healthcare facilities across the U.S., offering contingent staffing, managed services, per diem, permanent placement, and international staffing. The company is known for its human-first approach, strong recruiter support and commitment ot quality patient care.

Springboard helps health systems solve their most pressing allied health talent shortages with homegrown talent.  Employers get access to job-ready talent in just six months through Springboard’s mentor-led, hands-on training, replacing expensive travelers and long vacancy cycles. Our performance-based model means you only pay for employees who complete training and get certified. Providence, Ochsner, NewYork-Presbyterian and other similar systems rely on Springboard to fill critical roles including medical assistants, pharmacy technicians, and sterile processing technicians.

Concern: Elevating Workforce Well-Being
Fast, seamless, deeply personalized support—delivered with uncommon care. Concern goes beyond a traditional EAP. Known for our white glove service, we support employers in strengthening well being with customized benefits and compassionate support available anytime, anywhere. We offer specialized programs tailored to the unique challenges faced by hospitals and healthcare professionals.

Health Benefits Alliance was formed in 1993 in response to the first wave of healthcare reform conversations on Capitol Hill. As a result, hospital leaders came together to gain greater negotiating power and rate stability by collaborating on health and welfare benefits.

Today HBA includes hospitals, physician groups, colleges with medical schools or health sciences programs, and healthcare-related companies. HBA covers over 960 entities representing nearly 1 million covered lives. With a sole healthcare focus, HBA has six of the leading insurance carriers who guarantee participating hospitals the best savings possible.

Jellyvision
Hospitals and health systems turn to Jellyvision to help employees navigate complex plan designs like domestic and multi-tiered networks by providing personalized benefits education, decision support, and year-round help resources to increase high-value, in-network utilization.

CriticalArc is a global safety technology company transforming how organizations manage safety, security, and emergency response. Its flagship SaaS platform, SafeZone®, delivers real-time coordination, situational awareness, mass communication and incident management to protect people across higher education, healthcare, government, enterprise and critical infrastructure settings. Quick to deploy and easy to scale, SafeZone empowers teams to respond faster, optimize resources, and fulfil their duty of care wherever people work or study.

Unitek Learning partners with health systems to embed nursing education inside the hospital, enabling employees to become licensed nurses without leaving the workforce. By removing barriers to access — seat availability, financing, and format — we help organizations convert internal talent into long-term workforce stability.