WASHINGTON, DC — At a time when recruiting and retaining talent has never been more challenging, Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., president and chief executive officer of SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, has joined the lineup of speakers for PRovokeGlobal, where he will discuss “Building Better Workplaces for a Better World”.

Taylor will appear in conversation with AnnaMaria DeSalva, global chairman and CEO, Hill+Knowlton Strategies and joins a program that already includes Jen Psaki, who recently joined MSNBC after serving as President Biden’s first press secretary during 2021 and 2022; journalist and best-selling author Frank Bruni, who spent more than 25 years at The New York Times; and UK government communications chief Alex Aiken.

Taylor is the author of The Wall Street Journal best seller RESET: A Leader’s Guide to Work in an Age of Upheaval, on the imperative for business and communication leaders to reset during times of transformation. 

He will talk about the wide range of challenges facing leaders today: creating enduring and tangible corporate cultures; integrating stakeholder interests to innovate and build trust; addressing challenges to long-held assumptions about how we live and work; and learning what it means to truly lead inclusively.

And he will discuss the ways communicators are playing a principal role in navigating this new era.

Taylor leads an organization with more than 300,000 members in 165 countries, making it the largest HR professional association in the world, impacting the lives of 115 million workers every day. He is an expert on all matters affecting work, workers and the workplace, authors the weekly USA Today column, "Ask HR", and has frequently been called on to testify before Congress on workplace issues and served as a member of the White House American Workforce Policy Advisory Board during the Trump Administration.

His career spans over 20 years as a lawyer, human resources executive and CEO in both the not-for-profit and for-profit space. He has held senior and chief executive roles at IAC/Interactive Corp, Viacom's Paramount Pictures, Blockbuster Entertainment Group, the McGuireWoods law firm, and Compass Group USA.

Most recently, Taylor was president and chief executive officer of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. He was also appointed chairman of the President's Advisory Board on Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Taylor will feature on Day One of the PRovokeGlobal Summit, 25 October. Tickets for the Summit, the Entrepreneurs’ Forum on October 24, and the Global SABRE Awards dinner on the evening of October 26 are available now.