When entrepreneur and former top brand executive Michelle Cordeiro Grant set out to start her own company, she did so with the mission to create a brand, experience, and community that empowers women. What followed was Lively, the ultra-successful activewear-inspired lingerie brand that she built into an industry leader and disruptor in less than 10 years. Introducing "Leisurée" to the world, Cordeiro Grant identified opportunities to turn the apparel market on its head and redefined approaches for leading an organization to success.

Mick Ebeling is an American film, television and commercial executive producer as well as an author, entrepreneur and philanthropist. He was named as on one of the Top 50 Most Creative People of 2014, won the SXSW Innovation Award twice in a row (2014 and 2015), and was awarded the 2014 Muhammed Ali Humanitarian of the Year Award. He is the CEO of Not Impossible, an organization that develops creative technology solutions to address real-world problems.

With a career dedicated to addressing inequities in education and helping young women of all backgrounds succeed, Dr. Tarika Barrett is at the forefront of expanding the pipeline of women entering tech and removing the obstacles that stand in the way of them reaching their full potential. As the CEO of Girls Who Code, an international non-profit organization disrupting the tech industry and transforming perceptions of what a programmer can look like, she spearheads initiatives aimed at closing the gender gap in technology by inspiring, educating, and equipping young women with the computing skills to pursue 21st century opportunities.

Clara is the Founder and Executive Chair of Hearsay Corporation, which provides software to help companies securely manage and measure their presence across Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. In 2007, Clara created the first business application on Facebook with her Faceconnector application, which integrates Facebook and Salesforce CRM.

A beauty industry vanguard, Jessie Hayes-Stallings is the founder and CEO of Skinphorea Facial Bar & Acne Clinic who took her passion for skincare and manifested it into the first facial bar and acne clinic in Metro Detroit — a concept that has made waves in the industry. She has set Skinphorea apart by providing customers with medical-grade skin treatments while creating an elevated and personalized, yet convenient relaxation experience. Not only does she create experiences for Skinphorea’s skincare clients, she also creates opportunities for beauty industry hopefuls. As an investor and a mentor, she has partnered with the state to develop an apprenticeship program that offers aspiring estheticians the opportunity to train to earn their esthetic license at Skinphorea before being offered a full-time position at the company.

A testament to the power of the human spirit, Kath Koschel is a survivor who has overcome incredible odds and unimaginable tragedy to inspire ordinary people to do extraordinary things. Koschel is formerly an elite cricketer and Ironman competitor whose world came crashing down when she broke her back twice in the span of five years and was told she’d never walk again. Instead, she faced the challenges head-on and defied all medical prognoses by teaching herself to walk again on three separate occasions. Driven by a passion to spread gratitude in the world, she founded Kindness Factory with the goal of encouraging one million acts of kindness and helping people find the light during dark times — just as she has done so many times.

Jon Steinberg is the founder and CEO of Cheddar, a new video media company sitting at the intersection of business news and culture. He was named to Ad Age’s 2015 40 under 40. He was most recently the Chief Executive Officer of DailyMail.com North America. Steinberg grew U.S. revenue 45% while at Daily Mail and doubled direct advertising revenue. He joined DailyMail.com from BuzzFeed where he was President & Chief Operating Officer, responsible for business management, company operations, finance, and social advertising operations. Under his leadership, BuzzFeed became a global and profitable social advertising business working with over half of the top 100 brands. He grew the company from 15 employees to over 500. Steinberg was previously Strategic Partner Development Manager on Google’s SMB (small medium business) partnerships team.

Originally a facial therapist, Jo fell in love with fragrance whilst working from her discreet skin care clinic which she set up from her London home. Discovering an instinctual talent for creating scented products by hand in her kitchen, word of her exceptional potions quickly spread and soon Jo was unable to keep up with demand. From these artisan beginnings Jo launched her first brand, Jo Malone London which gained cult status around the world.

Jane Park is the CEO and Founder of Tokki, a social & sustainable gifting technology company. Merging reusable physical giftwrap with a digital social experience, Tokki is reinventing gift giving to make the experience unforgettable.

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.

A senior leadership/board advisor, educator, executive coach, and bestselling author, David Nour is internationally recognized as the leading expert on applications of strategic relationships in profitable growth, sustained innovation, and lasting change. The author of eleven books, including bestsellers Relationship Economics® (Wiley), and Co-Create (St. Martin’s Press), as well as the forthcoming Curve Benders (Wiley, 2021), Nour serves as a trusted advisor to global clients and coaches corporate leaders. He is an adjunct professor at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and was named to the Global Gurus Top 30 Leadership Professionals and the Thinkers 50 Radar Class of 2021 lists. A Forbes Leadership contributor on the Future of Work, and an Inc. contributor on Relationship Economics, Nour’s unique insights have been featured in a variety of prominent publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fast Company, Huffington Post Business, Entrepreneur, and Knowledge@Wharton. He’s also the host of the popular Curve Benders podcast. Born in Iran, Nour immigrated to the U.S. as a teenager with $100, limited family ties and no fluency in English. He graduated from Georgia State University with a bachelor’s degree in business management and went on to earn an Executive MBA from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University. He resides in Atlanta, GA, with his family.

Ever since 2002, as chairman and CEO of Johnson Publishing Company — where she became the first African American woman CEO among the top five of the Black Enterprise 100s largest black-owned companies — Linda Johnson Rice has shone a ray of positivity on the black community with her strong and resilient leadership.