The Hot Seat: Mara Cardenas | Senior Talent Advisor @ King County

The Fireside Chat:

The Hot Seat (Fireside Chat) is a moderated conversation featuring leaders and people of influencers from the business community and public sector. By highlighting stories of success (primarily from women and people of color), this event is designed to be an inspirational, mentorial resource for entrepreneurs and professionals.

About Your Guest:

Mara Cardenas is a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) advocate and human resources professional with over 17 years of experience. She received her B.A. in Sociology and minor in Individual and Family Development from Seattle Pacific University. 

Mara is the founder of Your Best You - SPP, where she provides consulting services, coaching, content development, and training to non-profit and for-profit organizations and individuals related to DEI, human resources, and spiritual, personal, and professional development. 

Mara has experience operationalizing best practices around diversity, equity, and inclusion on an enterprise-wide level, providing consultation to HR teams on best practices, and educating and providing tools to dismantle institutional and structural racism. Her span of experience stretches from talent acquisition, where she provides innovative ways to attract, retain and promote talent, to coaching and consulting individuals and teams on professional development and advancing DEI. She is known for speaking and facilitating engaging and impactful training and workshops around DEI, development and more.

About Your Host, Rubelyn Chu:

Rubelyn Chu is the GM of ProDev, part of the YPC non-profit organization, and Co-Founder of Access2, a sourcing and staffing marketplace that operates in tandem with community organizations. We help ensure that space is occupied by providing opportunity through events and storytelling through our unique platform, one of them being sports.

Rubelyn is also part of the Alumni Advisory Board and Advisee in the Entrepreneurship Program at Northwest University and is a mentor to local high school and college students and in the local startup community. When she isn’t working, she can be found in the gym, going on road trips/traveling or with family and friends.