Meet our panelists and moderator
Lan Tran is a learning strategist, experience designer, and technologist with over 20 years of experience in the learning and technology industries. Featured in Forbes, HR Tech Outlook, CLO Magazine, CIOReview, Profile Magazine’s Code Breakers: Women in Tech campaign, and most recently, a finalist for OnCon’s Top 100 L&D Professionals for her people-first leadership style and learner-centric design focus, Lan is currently Director of Learning Design & Technology at McDonald’s, where she sets the vision and direction for a people-first learning design approach with a focus on behavior change and enabling technologies through continuous learning, gamification, and immersive experiences. Prior to joining McDonald’s, Lan was the Head of L&D Governance, Technology, and Operations at Kraft Heinz.
Jake Gittleson is a Senior Expert of Learning Design at McKinsey and based in Chicago. Jake co-leads McKinsey’s Research and Innovation Learning Lab and sits on the extended Learning Leadership team. He is responsible in managing the research and experiment agenda for L&D function, such as spearheading the GenAI innovation and experiment pipeline, yearly trends analysis, and development of additional emerging skills for L&D and People (i.e., GenAI).
He specializes in learning design, purposeful apprenticeship, and applying learning and development science to help people improve performance. Jake also co-hosts The Learning Geeks Podcast, has co-authored articles on learning and development for the McKinsey Quarterly, and a planning committee member for ATD International Conference.
Wesley Hall Parker is VP of Design Services and a Learning Design Director at Socratic Arts, where she focuses on practical applications of Gen AI and other tech to accelerate the design and development process. She also works with teams to consider Gen AI-enabled features for client programs.
Wesley has more than 20 years of experience designing award-winning, performance-driven learning solutions and games across a wide array of industries, modalities, and learner levels (from partners to preschoolers). Prior to joining Socratic Arts, Ms. Parker was a Senior Designer and Producer for LeapFrog, a leading developer of innovative, technology-based educational products. At LeapFrog she designed web-based educational content, video games, DVDs, and interactive toys and books. She holds a Master’s Degree in Literature from Stanford University.
Judy Albers is responsible for creating a suite of practical, easy to use tools to help HR leaders implement next practices and drive organizational change, including The HR Leader’s AI Strategy Toolkit. As a learning strategist, Judy has helped many of the world’s most admired companies create collaborative digital learning experiences backed up by cognitive science and research on web behavior. Her consulting projects have earned over a dozen awards from across the learning, media, and marketing fields.
As First Vice President of Learning Technology for JP Morgan Chase, Judy served as the business owner of learning management systems to support 160,000 employees, six lines of business, and 34 stakeholder groups. During Bank One’s years as the top-rated bank in Training Magazine’s Training Top 100, Judy facilitated learning governance and measurement.
Access i4CP research:
Generative AI, What HR Professionals Should Know
Kate Huey Kapoor is the AI Learning & Development leader at Deloitte. She is responsible for a suite. of programs building AI capabilities across 150k+ professionals in the US and India. Kate leads the design and development of the Deloitte AI Academy Generative AI portfolio which includes more than 11 learning experiences ranging from conversational fluency and prompt engineering to app development and solution architecture. She is passionate about creating engaging learning experiences in a virtual environment. Kate is a graduate of Indiana University.
MODERATOR
Holly Christensen Sestak
President and COO
Holly Christensen Sestak is the President and COO of Socratic Arts. Previously, Holly was the Director of Operations and a Learning Design Director at Socratic Arts. While at Socratic, she has worked with large global companies, premier consulting firms, the International Organization for Standardization, universities, and other organizations and schools to solve complex business challenges using human-centered design, leading to the creation of award-winning, learn-by-doing programs. She has more than 20 years of experience in leadership roles in education and learning, and has an MBA.
Prior to working at Socratic Arts, Holly was a performance consultant working with large organizations including IBM and Allstate. In addition, she was the Learning Officer and Director of Academic Systems and Processes for Apollo Group, overseeing online and FlexNet faculty development at the institutions owned by Apollo Group. In this role, she also was responsible for the academic and administrative processes and learning for 180 locations throughout the world and served as a faculty member in management and organizational behavior.
Socratic Arts team members
Mike McGarry
Tammy Berman, Ph.D.
Breanne Grover
Kris Azdia
We're the only learning design firm with decades of experience in both AI and the learning sciences
Socratic Arts is uniquely positioned to be a partner for responsible AI use in this time of great change in the business world
88% of leaders anticipate “unprecedented rate of change” in 2024; 52% don’t feel their organizations are fully prepared to respond to that change.
Technology, led by GenAI, was top cause of change cited in 2023, (#6 in 2022.) It’s predicted as #1 source of disruption for 2024.
61% of C-suite leaders expect the pace of technology disruption to accelerate even further in 2024; 76% see GenAI as more of an opportunity than a threat, and more beneficial to revenue growth than costs reduction.
42% of C-suite leaders say issues around talent - especially skill shortages & lack of employee engagement - is the second biggest challenge that will hold back their organizations’ ability to respond to change.
Our Gen AI workspace
- Gen AI-powered acceleration of content design and development.
- Secure development environment.
- Leverages client source content to generate new instructional material.
- AI generated content may be incorporated into SocraticBUILD™ or other course modalities.
- Enables rapid prototyping.
- Reduces demand on SME time.
- Client proprietary information remains confidential.
Our AI Offerings
AI-ENABLED learning experiences
- Real-time Socratic dialogues with learners.
- Real-time evaluation and feedback of learner submissions.
- Virtual simulations with multiple agents and real-time conversation.
- Real-time embedded audio and video, including realistic avatar videos.
AI-SUPPORTED course design
- Accelerated course design and development, including complex
branching simulations. - SCORM package deployment behind a client firewall’s with no real-time AI dependencies.
AI-SECURE gateway
- By default, data sent to AI companies is not secure because it’s used to train their models.
- Our secure gateway provides hosted access to OpenAI services where
data is not stored or used for training their models, which enables secure AI access to company proprietary information for performance support and other applications
AI CONSULTING
- Advisory services on the feasibility of AI applications.
- Needs analysis to uncover possible new applications of AI.
- Prompt engineering and software development to create custom applications.
- Employee training on the use of AI tools and prompt engineering.
Schedule a 60-min consultation with your Learning Leaders
We'll discuss the needs of your business and team, along with how AI can enhance the learner experience and help you design and develop solutions more efficiently.