Each year, the Learning Leadership Conference selects 30 up-and-coming learning leaders to participate in the Thirty Under 30 program. Even in their short career, these young professionals have started making waves. Take a look at the achievements of the first 10 of our Thirty Under 30 honorees:
Maggie Bodner, Learning & Development Manager, BrandsMart USA
Maggie developed her organization's first-ever new hire program, despite the company being around for nearly 40 years. This initiative provided a structured onboarding experience, ensuring new team members felt supported and prepared from day one. As the only L&D team member at BrandsMart, this was a particularly big lift. Additionally, she played a key role in opening two new stores, creating comprehensive training plans and content for every position within the store. This involved designing role-specific training to ensure a smooth launch and immediate operational success, which had never been done before at BrandsMart USA.
Faith Brown, Operations Trainer, Westgate Resorts
Faith’s journey with L&D began organically, stemming from a natural desire to train, support, and mentor colleagues. This passion was confirmed in her proudest achievement: leading the company-wide training initiative for the new front office and back-of-house operating system. This involved designing and implementing a learning program that ensured a smooth transition for over 150 employees. She used a variety of learning methods, including developing SME's for local and national locations and hosting interactive workshop sessions, resulting in a significantly reduced learning curve and minimal disruption to operations.
Katie Buckner, Specialist, Organizational & Leadership Development, MedVet
Katie completely redesigned the leadership curriculum for all managers, directors, and VPs to ensure practical and relevant content for people leaders. She also manages the organization's LMS and has overseen the development of 200 LMS courses. Katie also converted in-person supervisor leadership trainings into a fully online, four-hour LMS curriculum. She has also streamlined compliance training enrollment and new hire onboarding. Currently, she’s leading the migration and implementation process of an updated LMS.
Sabrina Cervantes Villa, Human-Centered Design Specialist, Global Learning Experience, Align Technology
Sabrina created the virtual training guide for the Arizona Academic Decathlon during the pandemic. Built in Google Slides, the guide used role-based navigation and interactive checklists to support volunteers and participants across varying levels of digital literacy. Most recently, she led the redesign of Align Technology's global L&D content strategy to be fully data-informed, ensuring the program was aligned to both organizational priorities and the evolving needs of the 23,000+ employees. By integrating user experience methodology, she created a more targeted and meaningful learner experience, which was recognized with the 2025 Excellence in Data-Driven Learning Programs award from OpenSesame.
Ashley Cooks, Sr. Instructional Designer, The Home Depot
Ashley has held learning and development roles in oil and gas, tech, manufacturing, and retail. During her time in manufacturing, she encountered unique challenges that shaped her approach to training. These experiences led Ashley to develop presentations on Creating Training for a Multigenerational Workforce, Multicultural Workplaces, and Lower-Education Adults. She’s conducted benchmarking studies on cross-generational learning preferences, cultural adaptation in workplace training, and accessible instructional design. These insights have informed her consulting work and allowed her to bridge knowledge gaps in diverse workplace settings.
Nakul Grover, Manager, Learning Experience Design, Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc.
At Takeda, Nakul works on the Global Learning team, driving capability-building for 50,000+ employees across 12 languages. He’s enhanced learner experience by integrating game-based learning, where learners practice skills in immersive spaces like virtual sushi bars or spaceships. He’s also crafting Takeda's prompt-writing framework, collaborating with tech SMEs, and delivering a TEDx talk. Amid the structure of an industry like pharmaceuticals, he’s embraced creativity, bold design, and fresh thinking to ensure every learning experience is impactful, vibrant, and uniquely human while redefining traditional boundaries.
Mickailynn Holman, Specialist - Training & Instructional Design, Maximus
Mickailynn began her career as a training coordinator in 2021, then transitioned to more strategic and creative work in an instructional design position. In that role, she has improved knowledge management within a multi-department organization by co-developing a SharePoint hub to enhance accessibility and collaboration. She also streamlined the organization's new hire onboarding process by updating content and introducing self-service resources, resulting in a two-week reduction in onboarding time. Additionally, Mickailynn helped refine her team's review process for quality checking materials and auditing updates, as well as developing an approvals process to facilitate communication and streamline content edits.
Rachel Jennings, Sr. Project Manager, Capital One
In her first role, Rachel led a working group to develop a universal curriculum for early career programs across multiple job families, addressing a business need for a shared onboarding experience to build foundational career skills. She collaborated with learning experts to identify core competencies, streamline content, and create a scalable solution impacting 10 programs and over 1,000 new associates. In her current role, Rachel has developed an internal speakers bureau and manages a team of contracted instructional designers supporting learning content and design across the organization.
Mercedez Jones, Learning Experience Architect Team Leader, Wintrust Financial Corporation
Fresh out of college, Mercedez landed at ZS Associates as an assistant to the Chief HR Officer. One day, the L&D Coordinator quit unexpectedly, just two weeks before a major training program. With no background in L&D but a knack for organization, she volunteered to step in. She coordinated week-long new hire trainings and three-day promotional trainings, ensuring everything ran smoothly. Mercedez had never worked harder, but had also never felt more energized by work. She took on the L&D Coordinator role permanently, and from that moment on, immersed herself in L&D.
Moksha Khanna, Special Education Teacher, University of Chicago Charter School
As a Lead Teaching Artist at UCAN Academy, Moksha designed and delivered innovative arts education programs that fostered creativity and engagement among diverse learners. She developed a curriculum integrating social justice themes, empowering students to explore their identities and societal issues through art. This program increased participation by 25% and was recognized at the Illinois Art Education Association Conference. As a Heritage Months Coordinator at SAIC, Moksha created community-driven programs celebrating cultural diversity, increasing engagement by 25%. These initiatives involved cross-functional collaboration, ensuring inclusivity and accessibility.
Congratulations to these 10 winners! Keep an eye out for future articles announcing the remaining Thirty under 30 honorees.