David Meerman Scott is an internationally-acclaimed strategist whose books and blog are must-reads for executives seeking to grow their businesses. He helps people, products, and organizations stand out and capture hearts and minds. He is the author of 10 books, including three international best-sellers. His tailored presentations delve deep – offering tactics that help audiences seize the initiative, open new channels, and grow their brand, and his groundbreaking ideas don’t just slap social media onto dusty old strategies – they reinvent the way business engages the marketplace.

Marc Wayshak is a sales strategist and best-selling author of Game Plan Selling and Breaking All Barriers. Marc’s innovative selling system works for salespeople, entrepreneurs, and companies alike. He is a regular online contributor to Fast Company, Reuters, Entrepreneur, The Huffington Post, the Hoover’s Bizmology blog, and the Salesforce blog.

Director of Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Graham Allison is a leading analyst of U.S. national security and defense policy with a special interest in nuclear weapons, terrorism, and decision-making. As Assistant Secretary of Defense in the first Clinton Administration, Dr. Allison received the Defense Department's highest civilian award, the Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, for "reshaping relations with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan to reduce the former Soviet nuclear arsenal."

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).

Chuck Martin is a NY Times Business bestselling author, futurist and has been a leader in emerging digital technologies for more than a decade. He is considered one of the foremost authorities on the Internet of Things (IoT), as well as a mobile expert. Martin has been as one of the “IoT Thought Leaders to Watch”, “IoT 2016: Top Influencers”, and “Top Tech Writers to Follow”. He is working on a book titled The Internet of Everything (IoE), which will be published later this year. His fast-paced presentations highlight the latest tech trends, their impact on consumer behavior and how businesses need to deal with them.

Keynote speaker John Jacobs is co-founder and CCO (Chief Creative Optimist) of Life is Good, which spreads the power of optimism through inspiring art, a passionate community, and groundbreaking nonprofit work. John and his brother Bert launched their business with $78 in their pockets, selling T-shirts in the streets of Boston and at college dorms up and down the East Coast. Today, Life is Good is a $100 million positive lifestyle brand sold by over 2,000 retailers across the US and Canada. John provides the creative vision to guide the art and messaging direction of Life is Good to inspire optimism in everyone the brand touches. To inspire others to choose optimism and grow the good in their lives, John and Bert wrote Life is Good: The Book/ How to Live with Purpose and Enjoy the Ride, published by National Geographic in September 2015. 

Dr. Jha is a practicing physician and recognized globally as an expert on pandemic preparedness and response as well as on health policy research and practice. He has led groundbreaking research around Ebola and is now on the frontlines of the COVID-19 response, leading national and international analysis of key issues and advising state and federal policy makers. Dr. Jha has published more than two hundred original research publications in prestigious journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the BMJ and is a frequent contributor to a range of public media. He has extensively researched how to improve the quality and reduce the cost of healthcare, focusing on the impact of public health policy nationally and around the globe.

Mark Jenkins is a field staff writer for National Geographic Magazine and writer-in-residence at the University of Wyoming. In 2009 he won the National Magazine Award for photojournalism, along with his colleague Brint Stirton, for their National Geographic story “Who Murdered The Mountain Gorillas.” Jenkins was “The Hard Way” columnist for Outside magazine for eight years. He is the author of three books: The Hard Way (Simon and Schuster, 2002), To Timbuktu (William Morrow, 1997), and Off the Map (William Morrow, 1992). He resides in Laramie, Wyoming, with his wife and two daughters.

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.

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.

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.

Barry P. Chaiken, MD, MPH has over 25 years’ experience in healthcare information technology, clinical transformation, and business intelligence. Dr. Chaiken is the author of the recently released Navigating the Code: How Technology Transforms the Patient-Physician Journey, a groundbreaking book on healthcare information technology and its potential impact on quality, access, and cost of care. He currently serves as President of DocsNetwork Ltd. and previously worked with the National Institutes of Health, UK National Health Service, McKesson, Infor, and Salesforce/Tableau. He has served as guest lecturer and consultant on topics including patient safety, clinician adoption of information technology, quality improvement, and managed care. Dr. Chaiken is board certified in General Preventive Medicine and Public Health as well as Health Care Quality Management. He is also an Overseas Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine.