Women's Leadership Summit 2025 IN PERSON

Adelaide Ness

Adelaide Ness has been speaking to professional service firms around the world for nearly 20 years, helping them grow, strengthen their cultures, and build more client-centric organizations. As the Director of Client-Centric Advisory at Moss Adams, she leads initiatives that enhance client relationships, develop talent, and drive sustainable growth. Prior to joining Moss Adams, Adelaide served as the Chief Learning Officer of The Rainmaker Companies, a management consulting and training organization dedicated to helping professional service firms succeed. Her expertise lies in leadership, business development, and cultural transformation, equipping professionals at all levels with the skills and mindset needed to thrive in an evolving marketplace. Passionate about holistic development, she is a dedicated yogi who emphasizes the importance of work-life integration in building strong firm cultures. She has developed and led women’s leadership programs at many of the Top 100 accounting firms across the country, helping to advance and retain top female talent. Adelaide is also an Adjunct Professor at Vanderbilt University, where she teaches in the Human and Organizational Development department at Peabody College. A dynamic and engaging speaker, Adelaide brings a global perspective to her work, drawing on her experience as a bilingual and bicultural citizen of the United States and France. She holds a B.A. from Vanderbilt University, an M.A. from the American University of Paris, and is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Learning and Leadership in Organizations at Vanderbilt University.

Angela Oakley, Clark Nuber PS

Angela Oakley is a Talent Advisor Director at Clark Nuber PS. She is a Gallup-Certified StrengthsFinder coach, with over 20 years in organizational development, training, performance management, and coaching expertise.

Chad Dalton

Chad is a Managing Director of Tax Technology at KPMG Ignition of the U.S. member firm (KPMG LLP), with 15 years of experience as an operations and technology executive. Chad has valuable experience working in tax technology, tax transformation, venture capital and venture backed startups. Chad has extensive experience building and leading teams that provide digital transformation and technology solutions for the accounting and healthcare industries. In his work, Chad uses data driven startup methodologies to identify inefficiencies, build disruptive technologies and create new business products. Prior to his role at KPMG LLP, Chad led operations and product for 3 startups with successful exits totaling over 500 MM in returns. Chad Joined KPMG LLP in 2018 through the Bookly.co acquisition and subsequently joined the KPMG Ignition team of the U.S. firm in 2019 to help support KPMG Mexico and other KPMG LATAM member firms on technology and innovation.

Jen Mueller, Talk Sporty To Me

Jen Mueller pursued a career in sports broadcasting after repeated comments of “talks too much” from teachers and family members.

A 22-year sports broadcasting veteran, Jen currently serves as the Seattle Seahawks sideline radio reporter. She is also an Emmy-award winning producer and part of the Seattle Mariners and television broadcast team on ROOT Sports.

In addition to her work on the sidelines, Jen launched Talk Sporty to Me in 2009. She provides a unique twist on business communication based on her time in locker rooms and expertise in 1-on-1 conversations. Jen is the author of three books and an on-demand video series “Asking Better Questions.”

Jen graduated from Southern Methodist University in 2000 with degrees in Broadcasting Journalism and Public Policy.

Lamiaa Daif

Lamiaa is the Worldwide Growth Strategy Leader for Mac and iPad at Apple, an Executive and Business coach, and an award-winning keynote speaker. She created the Inside-Out Model® to help organizations and individuals achieve transformations starting from within. She serves as Treasurer and Board Member for Resonate Workshops, empowering women and girls in Africa. With over a decade as a Director at Europe’s largest Private Equity Fund, Lamiaa now supports mission-driven founders as an angel investor and advisor. A Stanford GSB alumna and Robert Joss Scholar, she is also a TEDx speaker and frequent guest at global conferences on leadership, women empowerment and innovation. In 2024, Lamiaa was named to Morocco’s 40 Under 40 list, the Arab America Foundation’s 40 Under 40 list, and received the Speaker of the year 2024 award by Women in Tech Network.

Renee Yaseen

Renee Yaseen writes The Washington Post’s Post Grad column in the Opinions section, about her experiences navigating life after college. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2022 with a BA in economics. In college, she founded her first tech startup while at home in Indiana during the coronavirus pandemic. Recently, she worked as a senior research associate at the University of Notre Dame’s Building Inclusive Growth Lab, focusing on global poverty and development research.

Taylor Vernath, Manager

Taylor is a Manager at KPMG Ignition with experience in utilizing AI and automation to transform and automate processes within the indirect tax function. Taylor’s focus around Generative AI in Tax has allowed for her to provide recommendations and improvements around clients’ broader data strategy, with a specific focus on leveraging Generative AI to enhance efficiencies and insights using tax data. Taylor specializes in working with large clients and complex indirect tax functions, specifically in Technology, Telecommunications, Financial Services, Oil & Gas, and Utilities. Prior to joining KPMG US, Taylor received her BSBA at the University of Denver in Business Information & Analytics. She also worked as a Sales Operations and Insights Intern at Rockwell Automation.  Whilst attending the University of Denver, Taylor focused her studies on database structure development and relational database processes. She also specialized in data visualizations and supply chain strategy research. Taylor also worked as a Teaching Assistant for the database courses and taught Microsoft certification classes to undergraduate students. Whilst at Rockwell Automation, Taylor supported the Pricing Team in developing Power BI reports to manage sales data & insights KPIs. Taylor also maintained the development of Quarterly Business Review Reports for FY18. Technical skills —Generative AI & AI strategy and implementation —Modeling, statistical analysis and reporting using various visualization tools —Experience connecting directly to large data sources and data extracts and generate complex modeling solutions for clients —Utilizing KPMG’s Generative AI capabilities to develop qualitative reporting & insights —Prompt engineering and qualitative & quantitative analysis utilizing Generative AI —Advanced Excel, Alteryx, PowerBI, Tableau, DAX, PowerQuery, Gen AI