Empowering Women Inspiring Worldwide Change Panel

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Kristen Banks
Partner
EY

Professional background

Kristen Banks is a Consulting Principal in our Energy practice with over 25 years of global management consulting experience. She brings deep client relationship, account growth, and delivery expertise across a range of industries and geographies, with a focus on leading major transformational programs for clients.  For the last 13 years, Kristen has focused on the Energy sector, helping clients transition at pace in an ever-changing digital world.  She currently works out of Houston.

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EY, Account Leader for Power & Utilities, 2020 – Present

Kristen brings an authentic leadership style to every account and engagement rooted in a desire to help others succeed.  By listening intently to client priorities, she effectively brings teams together to help craft and create valuable business outcomes across the Power & Utilities value chain.  In this role, she focuses on bringing the best of EY to her clients daily, with a passion to achieve tangible results.

Accenture, Technology Lead for a large Super Major, 2017 – June 2019

Accountable for all Technology delivery in North America for this client while providing direct oversight of the largest and most complex Openlink Endur implementation completed globally as of that time.  This included untangling a complex commercial arrangement, allowing for both client and the company to move forward with a predictable deal structure while improving the working relationship.

Accenture, Technology Lead for a Southwest Utility, 2015-2017

Accountable for delivery of a $150M application support and project contract.  This included participating as a key member of the sales team that led to the win of this multi-year program and helping the client establish the governance needed to manage in a new multi-vendor environment.  Early success helped Kristen and her company to grow this account into a $100M/year account in less than 2 years.

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Accenture, North America Technology Utilities Practice Lead, 2015 – 2017

Established and managed a portfolio of System Integration and Application Outsourcing work; $600M+ Sales, $430M Revenue and 170 employees.  Kristen established this practice from its inception by identifying and recruiting leadership and a pyramid to join the company’s newly formed Technology practice and improved profitability of outsourcing work by 10% while maintaining one of the most profitable system integration practices in North America.

Accenture, Philippines Delivery Center (PDC) Utilities Practice Lead, 2012 – 2014

Managed a team of 1,000 employees in Manila, Philippines serving 35 clients across the globe under the vision “Grow PDC with Outstanding Delivery and Happy Employees”.  While serving in this role, Kristen grew the practice from 600 to 1,000+ employees in 2 years by delivering great service to clients and helping the company’s sales teams create winning solutions.  She also developed and launched a women leadership program that ran for seven years.  Over 250 women leaders in the Philippines have benefited from this program.

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Kathy Belton
Senior Advisor
ExxonMobil Global Projects Company

Kathy is a Senior Strategy Advisor in ExxonMobil, with a focus on execution planning and subsea engineering.  In addition to her Engineering and Project Management experience, she has held broadening assignments in Commercial, Logistics, Strategic Planning, Business Analysis, and Operations.  More recently, Kathy held managerial positions in Melbourne, Australia and Doha, Qatar, and she has also led global teams in Nigeria, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the United Kingdom.

Kathy received her BS degree in Civil Engineering from Southern University in Baton Rouge, LA, while later receiving executive leadership training from the University of North Carolina and Thunderbird University.  In addition to her organizational responsibilities, Kathy serves on the Board of Corporate Affiliates for the National Society of Black Engineers, the Corporate Partnership Council for the Society of Women Engineers, and formerly on the inaugural Steering Committee for 4Word Women – Houston Chapter.  She is also a published author and accomplished speaker on the topics of Women Empowerment and Career Ownership.

Kim Coomber Hallum
Kim Coomber- Hallum
Head of Work Place Services for the Americas
bp
Melinda Yee
Melinda Yee
Partner | Advisory
Deloitte & Touche LLP

Melinda leads a team of 400 professionals in Deloitte’s Risk and Financial Advisory practice in Houston focused on helping organizations navigate a variety of risks to lead in the marketplace and disrupt through innovation. She has over 25 years of public accounting experience with a background in accounting, auditing, transaction structuring, due diligence, and financial processes. Melinda specializes in advising clients with the transactional needs for mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and joint venture formations and dissolutions.  She has led numerous M&A teams, both foreign and domestic, on various acquisition and divestiture transactions serving both corporate and private equity clients.  She has substantial M&A experience with companies across the energy value chain including upstream, midstream, downstream, and oilfield services.  Additionally, she also has substantial experience with power and regulated utilities, including independent power producers, alternative energy, clean-tech, and water and waste water.

Melinda is a co-founder and original board member of the North Texas Chapter of Women’s Energy Network and served on the Houston Chapter’s Advisory Board as well as United Way of Greater Houston’s Women’s Council.

She graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder and currently serves on the Advisory Board for CU’s Leeds School of Business and is a Trustee and Director for the University of Colorado Foundation.

Roger Rohatgi
Roger Rohatgi
Vice President Global Head of Design and Change
bp

I have the privilege of leading digital design and change at bp, a community of innovative thinkers, user experience (UX) professionals and creatives focused on supercharging human experience design (HXD) and enabling change. Human-centered design is the North Star we’ve followed as we created and delivered the first bp design discipline and system. We’re driving best practice and digital circularity across the company, as well as introducing an award-winning “sustainable design” methodology.

Prior to bp, I spent 25+ years with creative, transformative teams, spearheading digital innovation and delivering captivating customer and user experiences with agencies, media outlets, and top brands such as Verizon, Twitter, Hyundai, Vine, Motorola Solutions and major TV networks such as CBS, NBC Universal, MTV, FOX, CNBC Arabia, ZEE TV and more. I’ve been honored to have my TV, film and commercial work featured on the likes of MTV, ESPN, Nickelodeon, NBC, and ABC, and to have won awards both as a film producer and in design, including the Oracle CX Innovation Award for inclusive UX. Folks have kindly featured some of my work in Fast Co., Wired, USA Today, LA Times, Hollywood Reporter, Advertising Age and Forbes.com.

I see human experience design playing a strategic role in the changes we need to achieve a brighter, more equitable, more sustainable future. I get super energized by designing better, more human experiences and the sustainable impact we can have for people and planet through design.