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.

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.

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.

MakerHealth CEO, Anna Young, works from a fundamental belief that, with the right tools, everyday people can use their ingenuity to create devices that heal. Applying years of global experience with the Maker Movement, Anna brings prototyping tools and makerspaces into hospitals enhance the natural problem-solving abilities of clinicians and patients. Anna is the co-founder of MakerNurse, an RWJF sponsored program to support inventive, frontline nurses. Anna’s roots come from MIT as researcher in the Little Devices Lab and lecturer in the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science. In 2015, Anna was recognized by LinkedIn as a "Top Health Innovator Under 35" and in 2016 received Fast Company’s "Most Creative People in Business."

Bettina is a thought-leader in the emerging blockchain space and leads the blockchain practice at Animal Ventures, including research, development, and commercialization across the ecosystem of blockchain innovation. She partners her network with governments and members of the Fortune 500 to help drive the global commercialization and integration of blockchain technology. Bettina is passionate about the convergence of technology and politics and the impact it will have on our future. She is also the executive producer of a new tech show called, Tech on Politics, interviewing some of the world's most influential political operatives, entrepreneurs, government official, and the creators of some of the most exciting digital products on the market.

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.

A leading expert on practical solutions for closing 'skills gaps' that deter organizational performance, the strategic impacts of changing workforce demographics, the leader’s critical role in managing talent, and how to accelerate the transfer and retention of critical knowledge, Dr. David DeLong has helped leaders in sectors such as healthcare, manufacturing, aerospace and defense, utilities, government, technology, and finance build a smarter workforce for almost two decades. Through customized presentations, he reveals strategies for building a Millennial-friendly culture, maximizing the value of veteran workers approaching retirement, developing new leaders faster, improving knowledge transfer across generations, and effectively managing organizational changes to build tomorrow’s workforce. He is the president of consulting firm, David DeLong & Associates, which helps clients solve the challenges created by a changing, and aging, workforce: Aging baby boomers, restless Gen-Xers, and promising Millennials. David has spoken for and consulted with numerous different organizations such as MetLife, American Council of Life Insurers, the Federal Reserve Bank, Farm Credit System, Microsoft, MasterCard, Lockheed Martin, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Ernst & Young, and Accenture. He has written numerous books and his work has been widely cited in major publications such as the New York Times, Fortune Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Harvard Business Review Blog, CIO Magazine, US News & World Report, and The Boston Globe.

Daniel Linskey is a Managing Director in Kroll’s Investigations and Disputes practice, and is head of the Boston office. As the former Superintendent-in-Chief of the Boston Police Department (BPD) and a 27-year veteran of the force, Dan provided strong leadership through some of the most tragic and contentious events in the city’s history, including the Boston Marathon bombings and the Occupy Movement.

John P. Kotter is internationally known and widely regarded as the foremost speaker on the topics of Leadership and Change. His is the premier voice on how the best organizations actually achieve successful transformations.

With a career devoted to understanding how humans make risk decisions, Andy Ellis is a seasoned technology executive with deep expertise in security. An advisor to several cyber security startups, including Orca, Vulcan, and Uptycs, he currently serves as an advisor at cyber security venture capital firm, YL Ventures. Ellis formerly served as the chief security officer of web and internet security company Akamai. In his 20 years with Akamai, he helped to design and bring to market several of the company’s core technologies behind its security solutions. Combining more than 20 years of security experience with insider anecdotes from his time serving as CSO, he explores how and why humans make risk choices and decisions – and their impact on security.

Joseph Badaracco is a popular author and the John Shad Professor of Business Ethics at Harvard Business School. He has taught in executive programs in the United States, Japan, and many other countries and has spoken to a wide variety of organizations on issues of leadership, values, and ethics. Badaracco's research focuses on business ethics, particularly on leadership and individual decision making, and he has written several books, including Loading the Dice, Leadership and the Quest for Integrity, The Knowledge Link, and Business Ethics, and Leading Quietly.

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