Ranjay Gulati is the Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 Professor and the former Unit Head of the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. Until recently, he chaired the Advanced Management Program, the flagship senior leader executive program, at the school. Professor Gulati studies how “resilient” organizations—those that prosper both in good times and bad—drive growth and profitability.

Kevin O’Leary is a self-made millionaire and TV/News Personality. He is currently one of the main “Sharks” on the hit ABC Emmy Award winning reality show, Shark Tank, and is constantly featured as a business and economic expert across all cable and network news.

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.

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.

As a motivational keynote speaker, author, and entrepreneur, Laura Gassner Otting helps innovators, idealists, and iconoclasts get “unstuck”, increase confidence, and achieve extraordinary results. Laura inspires change agents, entrepreneurs, investors, leaders, and donors to push past the doubt and indecision that keeps great ideas in limbo. She delivers strategic thinking, well-honed wisdom, and catalytic perspective informed by decades of navigating change across the start-up, non-profit, political, and philanthropic landscapes. Laura dares listeners to find their voice, and generate the confidence needed to tackle larger-than-life challenges, and ultimately leads them to seek new ways of leading, managing, and mentoring others. Excited by the audacity of The Big Idea and the larger-than-life goal you just can’t seem to shake, she's an instigator, a motivator, and a provocateur, and she’s never met a revolution she didn’t like.

Terry Jones is a Digital Disruptor, an author and a venture capitalist. He has founded five startups, with two billion dollar IPOs, Kayak and Travelocity, and has served on seventeen corporate boards. His career path has established him as a thought leader on innovation and disruption in our increasingly digital world. As a speaker, author, venture capitalist and board member Terry has been helping companies use the tools and techniques he’s developed to keep up with this rapidly changing world.

Scott Steinberg is an internationally-recognized business consultant and leader. Steinberg provides crucial leadership and strategic insight for companies who are looking to stay on top of emerging trends. He was worked with companies of all varieties, from Fortune 500 corporations to small start-ups. His advice and consulting have proven effective to countless organizations and many companies hail him as "a defining figure in business" and a "top trendsetter to follow".

Sheila is a Founder of Triad Consulting Group and co-author of two New York Times bestsellers, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most, and Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well. Sheila turns the usual conversations on their head and shows leaders how they can transform the culture of learning in their organization

Frances West is an internationally-recognized thought leader, inspirational speaker, strategy advisor, author, and women in technology trailblazer known for her work in innovation, technology, and business transformation. She is the founder of FrancesWestCo, a global strategy advisory company focused on operationalizing inclusion as a business and technology imperative through her unique Authentic Inclusion™ blueprint. Her insightful and impactful approach comes from her unique personal background as a first-generation, no-English speaking immigrant to her trailblazing professional path as one of the first women in the technology field and her experience as a global executive in sales, marketing, business development, and research as well as her ground-breaking work in accessibility as IBM’s first Chief Accessibility Officer. Frances brings a valuable business perspective to this human rights-based initiative. Because of her expertise, she was invited as the sole IT industry representative to testify before the US Senate on the need to pass the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities and she holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Massachusetts in Boston in recognition of her work in accessibility, research, and digital inclusion.

Cy Wakeman is a dynamic international keynote speaker, drama researcher, New York Times best-selling author, and global thought leader and business consultant with over 25 years of unparalleled experience who is recognized for cultivating a counter-intuitive, reality-based approach to leadership. Grounded in reality, Wakeman’s philosophy has helped organizations and individuals all over the world learn to ditch the drama and turn excuses into results. Named one of the “Top 100 Leadership Experts to Follow” on Twitter for seven years in a row, Wakeman’s influence continues to build. She was also recognized as #23 on the Global Gurus 2019 list of the World’s Top 30 Leadership Professionals around the world for 2019. Her programs are consistently ranked by participants as the single most impactful training they have ever received.

Future-of-work strategist Heather E. McGowan helps leaders prepare their people and organizations for the post pandemic world. As a keynote speaker, Heather gives lucidity to complex topics through her research rich, graphic frameworks, and powerful metaphors. In 2017, LinkedIn ranked her as its #1 global voice for education and in 2020 McGowan was listed as one of the Top 50 Female Futurists in Forbes. NYT columnist Thomas Friedman describes her as “the oasis” when it comes to insights into the future of work. McGowan is the coauthor of The Adaptation Advantage (April 2020) and the Empathy Advantage (March 2023).

David Reske is a 20-year digital marketing veteran, president of Nowspeed, Inc., and the author of Digital Marketing in the Zone: The Ultimate System for Digital Marketing Success, which looks at how marketers can effectively navigate the evolving digital space and avoid unnecessary spend and risk to confidently execute strong marketing plans and accelerate the results of their digital marketing campaigns.