Meet the Chapter Leaders of California! Last week, we announced the inaugural class of Chapter Leaders for Women We Admire. Today, we are highlighting the incredible women of California who serve as leaders in their communities.  In addition to helping us shape in-person regional events and support new members, our Chapter Leaders will be featured at our upcoming national event on October 17.

Northern California

Pearl Chen
VP, CS Partner Success, Microsoft

Pearl recently joined Microsoft’s Global Customer Success’ senior leadership team, as VP, CS Partner Success.  Pearl is responsible for enabling Microsoft partners to bring the power of the intelligent cloud to their customers and support their digital transformation journey.  Pearl joins Microsoft from Bain & Company where she was most recently the Executive Vice President of Global Partnerships. In that role, Pearl drove growth and development of the Bain Alliance Ecosystem (BAE), leading to over $1 billion in revenue through strategic partnerships with industry leaders like AWS, SAP, Salesforce, OpenAI, and Microsoft.  

Prior to Bain, she was responsible for customer success with some of the most innovative technology companies, including Amazon Web Services, GE Digital, SAP, Siebel (Oracle) and Hewlett-Packard. At AWS, Pearl led the global expansion of Amazon Web Services’, achieving unprecedented growth, and surpassing targets with a 322% achievement rate. With over 25 years of experience, Pearl is an impactful global leader with deep expertise in strategic planning, execution, operations, strategy, go-to-market, and partnerships. She has driven success with cutting-edge technologies including cloud, SaaS, ERP, CRM, Internet of Things (IOT), Industrial IOT, big data, analytics, AI/ML, and digital transformation. 

Hillary Rupert
Senior Director, Programs, GNA (a TRC Company) 

Hillary M. Rupert is a Senior Director at TRC, a leading global consulting, engineering, and construction management firm that provides environmentally focused and digitally powered solutions. As a strategic sustainability professional with a strong emphasis on climate solutions, Rupert showcases her dedication to advancing sustainability and clean energy initiatives to drive impactful partnerships on mission-critical programs, adding significant value as a thought leader in sustainable systems for more than a decade.

Rupert builds and leads cross-functional teams, generating multi-departmental alignment, with significant experience navigating across government, high-tech, regulatory, and nonprofit entities, and has a strong ability to influence, mentor, and empower colleagues, and business partners. As a calculated risk taker, she communicates across all aspects of organizations, boards of directors, regulatory agencies, and public advisory councils to drive strategy and vision that advance organizational objectives.

Before joining TRC, Rupert was an expert program manager of clean energy transportation at Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) where she led two electric vehicle infrastructure programs and the development of a sustainability curriculum for over 1000 schools in PG&E’s service territory. Prior to joining PG&E, Rupert was the founder and principal consultant at Pulse180. This social and environmental sustainability consulting firm created market-based solutions to some of the most pressing sustainability issues of our time. Rupert has been at the cutting edge of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives such as conflict minerals, vehicle electrification, business solutions to poverty, environmental health, and food systems. Rupert graduated from Presidio Graduate School with an MBA in sustainable systems and an undergraduate degree with honors in social science from Portland State University. She has traveled through over 40 countries and never stops learning.

Diana Pohle
Senior Director, Strategic Insights, Global Product Strategy 

Diana Pohle is an insightful leader in healthcare insights and intelligence, dedicated to helping human-centric organizations meet stakeholder needs and achieve ambitious, mission-driven goals. Renowned for her collaborative leadership, Diana excels at building partnerships and leveraging diverse perspectives to maximize opportunities.

With over twenty years of thought leadership across pharma/biotech, medical devices & diagnostics, pharmacy, health and wellness, retail, digital, and e-commerce, Diana's expertise is widely recognized. Currently, as Senior Director of Strategic Insights at BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc., she has built a best-in-class insights function that leverages her skills to drive global product strategy for pipeline and in-line assets. Diana fosters productive team environments, drawing out the unique talents of individuals and teams to unite collective strengths. Her extensive analytical skills and relentless curiosity drive deep insights, improve decision-making, guide strategies, and provide organization and structure for complex initiatives. 

Previously, Diana built the Insights & Advanced Analytics department at Myovant Sciences where she served as Senior Director of Commercials Analytics & Insights. Additionally, she held various key roles at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, including Director of Global Competitive Intelligence in Neuroscience and Associate Director of Market Intelligence for Sleep Medicine. Serves on many philanthropic and industry association boards, and teaches undergraduate courses in business strategy, market research, statistics, and healthcare consumer trends. However, she believes her most important leadership role is within the walls of her own home.

Diana is privileged to be the mother of nine amazing young people. As her family grew through unconventional means, she has become an outspoken advocate for the needs of the vulnerable, including immigrants, foster youth, and unaccompanied refugee minors. She relishes opportunities to share her family experience with kindred spirits who may be discerning the same path to expanding their own family or desire to change the broken systems that fail too many of our neighbors in need, especially children.

Diana's career and community leadership is marked by her ability to produce actionable insights and guide teams toward successful outcomes, all while maintaining a people-centered approach.

Southern California

Saumya Bhatnagar
Chief Product Officer, involve.ai

Saumya is the CPO and Co-founder of involve.ai, an AI-driven Early warning dashboard that helps companies predict churn and revenue growth opportunities using customer data. Her fascination with AI sparked during her master's studies, where she was captivated by the power of technology to understand and interpret human language, driving her to explore innovative applications of AI in business.

Before starting involve.ai, Saumya co-founded a startup right out of high school in New Delhi that focused on using technology to reduce gender-based abortions in India. She did her undergrad in Computer Science and went on to earn her Master's in Computer Science from the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a focus on Natural Language Processing.

She is a Forbes 30 under 30 alum, winner of the Stevie Gold Entrepreneur of the Year award, recognized as the 50 Most Powerful Women in Tech by the National Diversity Council and is on the list of Top 100 Women in Technology by IBM.

Saumya is a strong advocate of more representation for women in tech and is the founder of a nonprofit in India for women's empowerment.

Alexandria Collis
Senior Director of Operations, Princess Polly

Alexandria Collis is a highly accomplished leader renowned for building exceptional, efficient, and cohesive teams across operations, customer support, retail, and e-commerce. Drawing on her unique background as a former professional athlete and leader, she fosters innovation in her teams and finds joy in being a leader who inspires others through passion and purpose.

As the Senior Director of Operations at Princess Polly, one of the fastest-growing fashion brands in the world, Alexandria oversees strategy and innovation for CX, Operations, and led the brand's entry into brick and mortar retail stores. She is passionate about enhancing team dynamics and empowering her colleagues to become inspiring and energetic leaders themselves. Not only has she successfully established an industry-leading customer experience utilizing cutting-edge technology and platform optimization, but she has also crafted a highly scalable end-to-end customer support journey that fosters customer satisfaction and brand advocacy. With extensive knowledge and expertise in fostering Operational x Customer Experience synergy in e-commerce, her insights are highly sought after as a speaker on the topic.

Alexandria's outstanding achievements have been recognized across the industry with over a dozen prestigious awards, including Retail TouchPoints 40 Under 40, Stevie Awards for Sales and Customer Service: Woman of the Year in Customer Service, Customer Service Department of the Year - Retail, Young Customer Service Professional of the Year, Best Customer Satisfaction Strategy, American Business Awards Customer Service Executive of the Year, International Business Awards Customer Service Executive of the Year. Prior to her passion for operations, she was a professional figure skater and has performed in over 40 countries and 200 cities. She is a US Figure Skating Double Gold Medalist and continues to train and perform whenever she can.