AI is transforming every stage of the talent lifecycle — making how you govern it as critical as what it can do. Organizations can no longer rely on black‑box models or unchecked automation; trust must be engineered, continuously governed, and proven. As AI shifts from optional to operational, transparency and governance have become board‑level imperatives.
In this webinar, Varun Kacholia, Co‑founder and CTO of Eightfold, and Meghna Punhani, Chief People Officer at Eightfold, are joined by Bill Pelster of The Josh Bersin Company for an in‑depth conversation on what responsible AI really means in HR and how to put those principles into practice.
Tune in to the conversation to better understand:
- How this wave of AI is changing the fundamentals of people decisions and expectations of HR.
- What it means to design AI for transparency, fairness, and accountability rather than bolt them on after the fact.
- How to move from intent to evidence with bias testing, monitoring, and governance that stand up to regulators and boards.
- How leaders can operationalize trust — through governance, standards, and oversight — so AI strengthens, rather than erodes, confidence in talent decisions.
Meet the Presenters
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Varun Kacholia
Varun Kacholia, Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder at Eightfold AI, is one of the world’s leaders in search, ranking, and machine learning. After ranking #2 at the Indian Institute of Technology in 2000 and earning his Master's from the University of California, Berkeley, Varun went on to lead the News Feed team at Facebook and the YouTube Search and Recommendations team at Google. Varun is the recipient of several Google Executive Awards, has accomplished 20+ patents, and is an ACM ICPC world finalist.
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Meghna Punhani
A seasoned business leader with deep expertise in people-focused operations, strategic execution, and talent transformation, Punhani has spent decades driving growth, change, and workforce evolution. She has advised Eightfold for several years, directly contributing to its mission of revolutionizing talent processes in the AI era. Now, as CPO, she will champion a people-first approach to HR, while bringing strong business acumen to align talent strategy with company growth, embed effective use of AI into every function, and set up Eightfold’s workforce for the future.
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William (Bill) Pelster
William (Bill) Pelster is currently the co-founder of Josh Bersin Academy helping to elevate the HR profession by providing future focused professional development, curated resources and linking the global community of 15 million HR professionals. Bersin academy at www.bersinacademy.com is the leading platform for HR professionals designed to enable and accelerate HR transformations.
Previously, Pelster is a retired Principal in Deloitte and former US Consulting Board member with over 25 years of industry and consulting experience focused on learning, leadership and integrated talent management. He has developed and deployed talent solutions for top 50 companies globally in financial services, life sciences and consumer products.
Pelster is also a pioneer within large professional services firms with key roles including the buildout of a large Human Capital practice in India, international deployment to build a Human Capital practice in Germany, creation of the learning and leadership practice within a “Big Four”, Chief Learning Officer for Deloitte and the acquisition of Bersin and Associates; Deloitte’s first move into a products and subscription business.
Pelster also led the stand-up and integration of the Deloitte India consulting practice. He was also the senior partner who led the acquisition of Bersin & Associates creating the Bersin by Deloitte research and products practice.
He has contributed or authored key talent research pieces to include Talent 2020, Human Capital Trends (2013-2017), and The Leadership Premium. He is a well noted speaker with keynote engagements at the Wharton Leadership Conference, MASIE Conference, I4CP research and other large venues to include CLO magazine, Wall Street Journal, SHRM, Harvard Business Review and Forbes.com. In his previous role as Deloitte’s Chief Learning Officer, he was responsible for the total development experience of professionals to include learning, leadership, high-potentials, and career/life fit. He designed and led the move of Deloitte to a single, integrated learning platform. Additionally, he was a key architect of Deloitte University; Deloitte’s $300m learning facility outside of Dallas and the satellite facilities in Belgium, India, Canada and Singapore.
SHRM certification has approved this webinar for 0.75 PDC toward SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP recertification. A program code will be provided at the end of the webinar.