Local Keynote Speakers in Boston, Massachusetts

A leading expert in robot ethics, Dr. Kate Darling is a research scientist at the MIT Media Lab, where she investigates social robotics and conducts experimental studies on human-robot interaction. Forever interested in how technology intersects with society, Kate has a background in law & economics and intellectual property, she explores the emotional connection between people and life-like machines, seeking to influence technology design and policy direction. Her writing and research anticipate difficult questions that lawmakers, engineers, and the wider public will need to address as human-robot relationships evolve in the coming decades. Dr. Darling’s work has been featured in international media, and she has authored multiple academic publications and contributed to industry publications from Vogue to Die Zeit to the BBC, and in 2017, the American Bar Association honored her legal work with the Mark T. Banner Award in Intellectual Property.

Congressman Joseph Kennedy III has dedicated his career to social and economic justice, fighting for the basic needs of every American family and a political system that is inclusive, representative, and fair. The U.S. Representative for Massachusetts’s 4th congressional district from 2013-2021, he ran for office to tackle the systemic inequities – from health care and housing to climate and education – that have left countless American families locked out and left behind. Kennedy’s presentations address the latest in politics and what’s next for the political landscape. Well-versed on the most pressing issues of the day, he provides an insider’s look at current events and takes a thoughtful approach on how they may impact the country’s future. With a constant focus on the most vulnerable among us, Kennedy brings a uniquely empathetic voice to our nation’s most vexing challenges.

Doug Rauch, a legendary former president of Trader Joe’s, was instrumental in leading the company’s transformation from a 7/11 knockoff to what Fortune magazine called the “hottest retailer in the U.S.” In eye-opening presentations, he shares insights on building a great business based on culture, innovation, leadership, and teamwork. He shows leaders how to push for new and better ways to perform, and audiences walk away with knowledge of how to create a self-sustaining culture of innovation, build a brand in a competitive marketplace, and lead with a purpose.

Bert and John Jacobs are co-founders of the $100 million lifestyle brand Life is Good. When they started the company in 1994, they had $78 in their pockets, lived out of their van, and sold t-shirts on the streets of Boston. Was this their way of avoiding the “real world”? You betcha. Did it turn into something much bigger? Absolutely.

Mel Robbins is a best-selling author and coach, working with Fortune 500 companies like Johnson & Johnson, AG Edwards, and Bear Stearns. But right now she’s most well known for her viral TEDx talk, “How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over”, where she talks about her own version of the 5 Second Rule. She shares this message on how to stop getting in your own way, and get what you really want out of life.

Bert Jacobs is the co-founder and Chief Executive Optimist of The Life is good Company. A $100 million privately held business based in Boston, MA, Life is good® spreads positive vibes with its colorful collection of apparel and accessories. Jake, Life is good’s iconic hero with the contagious smile, teaches men, women and children that optimism is fun, healthy, and empowering. Bert has appeared on CNN’s Tips from the Top, CNBC’s Business Nation, and The Donny Deutch Show. Life is good has been featured in the New York Times, on the cover of Inc Magazine, and on NBC’s The Today Show.

How do you turn a t-shirt brand that’s sold from the trunk of a rusty car into a global, multi-million dollar business? Johnny Earle transformed Johnny Cupcakes into one of the world’s fastest growing independent businesses. Businessweek named him America’s No. 1 young entrepreneur, and he has been profiled by the New York Times, NPR, MTV, Forbes, Newsweek, the Boston Globe, and INC. By focusing on the customer experience (he wants buying a t-shirt to feel like your birthday), he created such a unique brand that consumers would (and do) line up around the block for his shirts.

Dr. William W. Li is an international expert on health and disease fighting based on diet, lifestyle, and treatments that keep the body’s blood vessels in balance. Dr. Li’s expertise extends across many health arenas including cancer, diabetes, blindness, heart disease, wound healing, and more than 70 other disease conditions. His work has been recognized by O Magazine, The Atlantic, USA Today, The New York Times, TIME Magazine, Wall Street Journal, and CNN, as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative. His latest book Eat to Beat Disease was released March 2019 and is a New York Times Best-seller as well as Amazon #1 best-seller.

Joel Brenner is the former national counterintelligence executive and mission manager for counterintelligence at the Office of the National Counterintelligence (CI) Executive, which directs national, interagency CI for the government. He is the author of America the Vulnerable: Inside the New Threat Matrix of Digital Espionage, Crime and Warfare. Brenner is a cyber security expert and provides business strategies on this complex issue. He also addresses global risk management, privacy, and data security.

Tom Koulopoulos is Chairman and founder of Delphi Group, a 30-year-old Boston-based think tank named one of the fastest growing private companies by Inc. Magazine, and the founding partner of Acrovantage Ventures, which invests in early-stage technology startups. He is also the author of 13 books, an Inc.com columnist, the past Executive Director of the Babson College Center for Business Innovation, the past director of the Dell Innovation Lab, and a professor at Boston University. His insights have received wide praise from luminaries such as the late Peter Drucker, the father of modern management; Dee Hock, founder of Visa International, and Tom Peters, who called his writing, "a brilliant vision of where we must take our enterprises to survive and thrive." His Inc. column is read by over one million people yearly. Mr. Koulopoulos' thirteen books include his most recent, Reimagining Healthcare, The Bottomless Cloud, Revealing the Invisible, The Gen Z Effect, and Cloud Surfing.

As a young man, Dr. Rolle hopes to be an inspirer of dreams, an educator of purpose, a patient centered healer and a leader for many. Sports enthusiasts and intellectuals alike know Dr. Myron Laurent Rolle as a gifted athlete, scholar and philanthropist. As a graduate medical student at the FSU College of Medicine and neurosurgery resident at Harvard/Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Rolle is achieving his dream of becoming a doctor and hoping to inspire others as well.

In his instant Wall Street Journal bestselling book Loonshots, SAFI BAHCALL reveals a surprising new way of thinking about innovation and group dynamics, challenging everything we thought we knew about radical breakthroughs. In talks based on his book—which Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman calls “Not to be missed by anyone who wants to understand how ideas change the world”—Bahcall shows how we can stoke innovation, create better leaders, and support “loonshots”: the imperfect but ingenious ideas that have the potential to change the world. As a consultant at McKinsey & Company, and co-founder and CEO of Synta Pharmaceuticals, Safi Bahcall spent nearly two decades of his life bringing big, innovative ideas to fruition. Frequently, this meant assessing and developing loonshots—the widely dismissed ideas whose champions are often written off as crazy. Along the way, he noticed the obstacles that innovators came up against, which seemed to stem from “the mysteries of group behavior.” As he dynamically explains in his book Loonshots, small changes in the structure of a company, rather than in its culture, can transform the behavior of the distinct groups involved, allowing innovation to flourish. Already a Wall Street Journal bestseller, Loonshots was recently dubbed a must-read “for people and organizations who are trying to increase their ability to catalyze more innovation” by Forbes magazine. In his talks, Bahcall shows how the science of phase transitions—think water becoming ice—suggests a useful new way of nurturing radical breakthroughs. He explains the mystery of why good teams—even those with excellent people and the best intentions—can kill great ideas. With humor, history, and a dash of physics, Bahcall offers audiences the tools to become initiators of innovative surprise rather than witnesses to it.