Resilience: Leading in a Reset World Workshop

Ann Powell is the EVP, Global Chief Human Resource Officer for Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) whose mission is to discover, develop and deliver innovative medicines that help patients prevail over serious diseases.

With a focus on business performance, Ann leads efforts to drive the corporation’s global people strategy, empowering the company’s current and future workforce and building a healthy culture focused on serving patients and communities. Ann works across the enterprise to support BMS’s commitment to creating an energizing work experience and a culture that is powerfully diverse and globally inclusive. Most recently, Ann was appointed executive sponsor for COVID recovery at BMS, overseeing the global efforts to ensure the health and safety of employees while continuing to deliver for patients. 

Ann’s industry experience and expertise lie in executive compensation, global leadership development, change management, global diversity and inclusion, training design and delivery, recruitment and placement, labor relations, mergers and acquisitions, divestitures and green field start-ups.

With a career spanning both international and domestic assignments, Ann has held leadership roles of increasing responsibility within the gas, chemical and pharmaceutical industries, including Dow Chemical and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Prior to joining BMS in 2013, Ann was the Chief Human Resources Officer for Shire Pharmaceuticals.

Ann holds a BS degree from Iowa State University, a Master’s degree in Industrial Relations, University of Minnesota, and is certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR®).

Ann is an avid reader and traveler and enjoys spending time with her family and friends.

Two time cancer survivor, author of "You are Enough! Reclaiming your Career and Your Life with Purpose, Passion and Unapologetic Authenticity", former CCO of Bechtel Corp (a premier engineering and construction firm) and the senior advisor for equity and justice at APCO Worldwide, will open the session. Charlene’s book will debut in April 2021 and it details her experience as a Black, female executive and her courageous fight with cancer. The book features practical strategies for overcoming adversity from her lecture “Lessons from Being Invisible.” More Info

Maril is a nationally recognized leader in communication, strategy execution and transformation. She’s pioneered a discipline that collaborates with corporate leaders to optimize business performance by engaging and mobilizing their workforce behind a company’s strategic goals, its culture and its brand. Her clients have included some of the world’s most recognized brands including Bristol-Myers Squibb, Coca-Cola, DuPont, GE, Johnson & Johnson, and United Airlines.

Maril is CEO and founder of Gagen MacDonald, a leading strategy execution and change leadership firm. She’s also founder of Let Go & Lead, an online community dedicated to new philosophies and strategies for leadership. Until its successful sale in 2016, Maril was also the CEO of Son&Sons, a leading branding and identity firm.

Maril is a current board member of the Women Presidents’ Organization, a non-profit international membership organization for successful female entrepreneurs. She’s a past chairman and long-serving board member of the Arthur W. Page Society and the Institute for Public Relations and serves as an Advisory Board Member for the Museum of Public Relations and the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Relations.

Maril previously served as Chief Communication Officer and Executive Management Committee member for Navistar, and its operating company, International Truck and Engine Corporation. She worked closely with CEO John Horne, to direct the company’s highly successful cultural turnaround. This was a key factor in Navistar’s resurgence from the brink of bankruptcy to being named in the Wall Street Journal’s “top 10 Performers” list and Business Week’s “Top 50 Companies.”

Prior to joining Navistar, Maril was vice president of communications for Pitman-Moore Inc., and held several leadership positions spanning operations, communications, and human resources with Bayer USA Inc., and The Standard Oil Company / British Petroleum. Her broad range of corporate experience has allowed her to claim “the white space between the silos” as her ultimate functional expertise.

Maril is a recipient of Arthur W. Page Society’s Distinguished Service Award and has been recognized by PR Week as one of the top 25 leaders in the industry, and one of “The 50 Most Powerful Women in PR.” She was also recognized as a “PR All-Star” by Inside PR. She is frequently invited to speak at major conferences and universities. More Info

With more than 20 years of experience in international marketing and communications, Patricia Bayerlein has advised local governments on international relations and developed business-to-business markets within Europe and Asia.

At Gagen MacDonald, Patricia provides change management and communication counsel to global Fortune 500 companies to effectively engage employees and prepare leaders for significant change. She has worked with senior teams on predicting, measuring and managing risk associated with implementing and executing change initiatives from business process transformation and restructuring within the pharmaceutical and medical device industries to mergers and acquisitions for specialty chemicals and consumer products.

Patricia also counsels clients on reorganizing communication functions for high performance. From planning to execution, she has led many corporate communication organizational assessments—from redesign to implementation—including United Airlines, Medtronic, Mosaic and several management consulting and technology services companies.

Earlier, Patricia was a director of marketing at Cendant Intercultural, a consulting firm for global business leading such diverse projects as global employer branding, effective cross-cultural workforce practices and global leadership development. Her clients included Dow Chemical, Motorola and Accenture.

Patricia began her career in marketing working for a business-to-business electronics manufacturer that developed products for Bosch, Black & Decker, Hitachi, Motorola, Nokia and Panasonic. She was responsible for managing marketing strategies for emerging markets and measuring international customer satisfaction. Patricia also spent two years as an international relations advisor to the mayor of Kawaguchi City, Japan to support local government initiatives.

Along with being conversant in Japanese and German, she has studied Sanskrit, Hindi, French and Classical Chinese.

Patricia is a member of the Institute for Public Relations Measurement Commission.

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