We’re hitting the road this summer to spend some face time with our favorite people—customers, prospects, and leaders—to better understand their challenges, strengthen trusted relationships, and help them navigate the age of AI.
Check out our dispatches from our first four stops—Workday headquarters, New York City, Chicago, and Washington D.C.—below.
Location: Washington, D.C.
Date: Monday, July 22, 2024
Author: Josh Krist, Workday Staff Writer
The bright blue Workday Forever Forward bus rolled into Washington D.C. for an action-packed day centered on advancing skills-based hiring initiatives. While in D.C. Workday was proud to sponsor Jobs for the Future Foundation’s Horizons summit, focused on driving equitable economic opportunities for all.
Our Chief Philanthropy Officer Carrie Varoquiers kicked off the day by recording a podcast on the bus with Elyse Rosenblum, managing director and cofounder of Grads of Life (a Year Up initiative) and Celia Soriano, a former Year Up intern and current Workday employee. The three talked about embracing and accelerating the skills-based hiring movement.
Later on, the Workday-produced documentary “UNTAPPED: Closing America’s Opportunity Gap” (trailer here) was screened at the local Regal Gallery Place theater. The film, produced in partnership with The SpringHill Company—founded by LeBron James and Maverick Carter—features industry leaders such as Workday Co-Founder and Executive Chair Aneel Bhusri, GM CEO Mary Barra, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, investor and entrepreneur Mark Cuban and more, and will stream on Netflix this fall.
Back on the bus, Chandler Morse, our vice president of public policy, hosted a podcast with Papia Debroy, senior vice president and chief analytics and research officer at Opportunity@Work, an organization dedicated to advancing skills-first solutions for STARs (workers Skilled Through Alternative Routes).
At the Horizons summit, Morse hosted a panel discussion on the direction of AI policy in the U.S. with lawmakers leading the way from the state level. Guests included New York State Senator Kristen Gonzalez and Connecticut State Senator James Maroney.
While panelists focused on local government priorities, ranging from bridging the digital divide to helping small businesses leverage AI, they noted the need for guardrails that extend beyond state boundaries, and for alignment with a “North Star” that ensures continued innovation benefits the workforce and society.
Watch episodes recorded in Washington D.C. to post on the Workday Podcast soon, and watch this space for more updates as we continue our tour.
Location: Convene West Loop, Chicago
Date: Thursday, June 20, 2024
Author: Jess Richter, Workday Staff Writer
The Workday Forever Forward Bus was a flash of bright blue among the many restaurants of Chicago’s vibrant West Loop/Fulton Market neighborhood, bringing exciting events along with it. Inside our bus, customers and prospects were treated to a welcome video from one of our favorite rock stars and interacted with touch screen demos of Workday solutions. And, some visitors were even kind enough to share their knowledge in the high-tech podcast recording studio in the back of the bus.
Inside Convene West Loop was a lively crowd of finance (FP&A and accounting) and IT professionals—with 275 registered customers/prospects attending the Intelligent Finance Tour Chicago, sponsored by GSI partner PwC. This packed house of finance futurists listened carefully as Lisa Stark, executive vice president, controller, US Bank; Luis Taveras, senior vice president and CIO, Lehigh Valley Health Network; and Isaac Bilyk, assistant vice president, FP&A, CNA shared valuable insights. Each discussed growth strategies and how they utilized AI throughout their organization, not only to facilitate growth, but to cultivate a business culture that embraced AI.
Location: Convene Midtown, New York City
Date: Monday, June 17, 2024
Author: Bruno J. Navarro, Workday Staff Writer
It was hard to miss the Workday Forever Forward Bus parked in Midtown Manhattan last week. Bedecked with rockstar accouterments, a swanky lounge section, product demonstrations, and a very special message from one of our favorite rock-and-roller celebrity spokespersons, the bus was stationed outside the Midtown location of Convene, a modern event space, throughout the day. Inside, participants partook in Workay’s Intelligent Finance Tour, which included a networking luncheon, keynote addresses, and discussions about such topics as AI in FP&A, growing value through AI-driven insights, and the journey toward becoming a finance futurist.
Inside the standing-room-only event, finance leaders and practitioners heard first-hand accounts from their peers about how they’re already realizing benefits from AI built into the Workday platform. Spotted in the crowd were Mark Hawkins, former president and CFO at Salesforce and a member of the Workday board of directors, and our own CFO Zane Rowe, among many others. A very special shout-out to Evan Cabat, CAO of SiriusPoint, who joined us aboard the bus for the inaugural interview in our mobile podcast studio.
Location: Workday Headquarters, Pleasanton, Calif.
Date: Tuesday, June 11, 2024
Author: Emma Chalwin, Chief Marketing Officer, Workday
We’re all on a journey. Whether it be fully embracing the power of AI to boost workforce productivity or proceeding with caution to slowly navigate the landscape, technology keeps rapidly advancing and it’s not a one-size-fits-all problem to solve.
At Workday, our global customers represent over 60% of the Fortune 500 and we serve 70% of the top 50 of that Fortune 500, in addition to thousands of midsize organizations. We believe they are the true Rock Stars of Business, adapting and leading through so much change—transforming how they manage their people and their money. We also believe it helps to have a trusted partner along the way, which requires us to step out of our own comfort zones and into theirs.
This summer, we’re taking our brand on the road to meet our U.S. customers and prospects right where they are in their cities, in their office parks, and on their specific points in the journey. And there isn’t a better representation of how far we will go to build meaningful, trusted relationships than our own Forever Forward Tour Bus.
The tour is powered by our values—employees, customer service, innovation, integrity, and fun—that inspire us to take a rock star ad campaign and bring it to life through the experiences of real people at large and small companies across the nation.
We’re using this time to educate and engage according to each organization’s needs—with location-specific strategies that not only show our love for and commitment to our customer community, but that also deliver true business value. With AI capabilities built into the core of our products, we’re opening up entirely new possibilities about how work gets done. Employees can then spend more time focused on the most important business priorities to help stay ahead of the competition. We know what an empowered workforce can accomplish when it is connected, supported, and inspired.
We’re using this time to educate and engage according to each organization’s needs—with location-specific strategies that not only show our love for and commitment to our customer community, but that also deliver true business value.
Trusted partnerships are key to our success. And since the beginning, Workday has established this trust through close relationships with customers where we better understand their pain points, custom-tailor their solutions, and work together to help them navigate the age of AI. We have a growing base of loyal customers, and that loyalty comes with our investment in creating engaging experiences that help them tackle ambitious business outcomes.
It’s an unexpected approach from a typical B2B company, but then again, we’re Workday! Kicking off today at our headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area, our tour bus will make over 40 stops across the U.S. at targeted cities. Ultimately, it’s not about how we’re making the journey as much as it’s about why. We’re meeting customers right where they are, interacting with their employees, listening to their challenges, and receiving real-time feedback in person, which really matters to us.
Our Workday customers are part of a vibrant community that innovates, solves problems, and collaborates to shape the future of work, together. Join us for Workday Rising, taking place in Las Vegas September 16–19, 2024—an event that is not just a conference, but also an opportunity for us all to imagine the possibilities. The Forever Forward tour bus will be there, so come check it out! True to our vision, we want to help companies—including yours—to move forever forward, elevating humans and supercharging work.
Workday has joined the Fortune 500 list for the first time, ranking us among the largest U.S. companies by revenue. We sat down with our CEO Carl Eschenbach to talk about this milestone and how Workday will continue to move the world of business forever forward.
More Reading
How is skills-based hiring reshaping the way we think about talent? Carrie Varoquiers, chief philanthropy officer at Workday, chatted about this with the founder of Grads of Life and a Workday program manager who is also an alum from Year Up.
Learn about the Workday Foundation’s Upstream Grant Fund. This fund supports investments in prevention initiatives, including nonprofits that help build unified communities, reduce the severity of disease and pandemics, and drive disaster and resilience response.
Workday Rising 2024 will bring us together to build invaluable connections, preview AI innovations, and discuss cutting-edge strategies to take business forever forward. Learn more from Workday Chief Marketing Officer Emma Chalwin.
