Allison “Ally” Hemming is the CEO of The Hired Guns, a new kind of talent agency that represents the best of the digital creative class. She is also the author of the job-hunting book Work It! How to Get Ahead, Save Your Ass, and Land A Job in Any Economy and the creator of the dotcom-meltdown-era-turned-any-recession-era Pink Slip Parties, now a global phenomenon which brings downsized workers together with recruiters.

Hemming has worked at the intersection of digital, data and outsourcing since 1992, first on Wall Street and then in the media industry. Recognizing the burning need for top tech talent across start-ups and Fortune 500 companies, she founded The Hired Guns in 2000 to harness the power and potential of the new movers and shakers of digital. Today, The Hired Guns numbers over 15,000 interactive leaders in its community, from product managers to social media mavens, and provides a diversified service offering that includes talent management, fulltime recruiting and staffing, career coaching, career management classes and corporate training, and a blog devoted to the future of work, where Hemming serves as editor-in-chief and pens a column that uses classic rock songs as a metaphor for career lessons.

A disruptor, workplace futurist and definitive evangelist for the individual, Hemming has mentored thousands of job-hunters and has been a keynote and panelist at industry conferences, trade shows, universities and professional associations, delivering straight talk on the future of work with topics like "Why Bad Careers Happen to Good People," "What Do You Suck At?" and now for SXSW, “Career Longevity: Manage Your Brand the Rockstar Way." Hemming has been featured in The New York Times, The Today Show, The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Newsday, CNN, CNBC, Good Morning America, NPR, PBS and many other media outlets. Look for her “One Minute Mentor” column in Fortune Magazine.