Maurice Ashley made history in 1999 when he became the first African-American chess grandmaster. He is a three-time national championship coach, author of Chess for Success: Using an Old Game to Build New Strengths in Children and Teens, ESPN commentator, iPhone app designer, puzzle inventor, and motivational speaker. Maurice is well known for providing dynamic live tournament coverage of world-class chess competitions and matches.

Gurpreet Dhaliwal, MD, is a clinician-educator and associate professor of clinical medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. He studies how doctors think – how they diagnose, how they make treatment decisions, and how they develop expertise. Considered one of the most skillful diagnosticians and clinician-educators in the U.S. today, he regularly mesmerizes audiences of hundreds of medical professionals as he correctly diagnoses cases meant to stump participants.

Mona Patel is a dynamic, engaging entrepreneur with 17 years experience convincing leaders at some of the world’s biggest brands to understand, value, and optimize their customers’ experiences. She is the author of the bestseller, Reframe: Shift the Way You Work, Innovate, and Think, which inspires others and offers an actionable roadmap to innovation.

Dandapani is a Hindu priest, entrepreneur and a former monk of 10 years. After graduating university with a degree in Electrical Engineering he left it all behind to become a Hindu monk under the guidance of one of Hinduism’s foremost spiritual leaders of our time, Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. For 10 years he lived a life of serious personal discipline and training at his guru’s cloistered monastery in Hawaii. When his vows expired, he chose to venture out into the world making New York City his home. He works with entrepreneurs and some of the top athletes in the world in helping them understand and leverage their mind so that they can be the best at what they do. He does this by empowering them with tools and teachings that have been used by Hindu monks of his tradition for thousands of years. Among his clients are companies such as Fortress Investment Group, ICONIQ, McKinsey, Nike, Comm Bank of Australia, Bloomberg LP, Ribbit Capital, Red Ventures, Sprinklr, AMEX and more.

Kaihan Krippendorff is an acclaimed business strategist. He has insider knowledge of the world’s most innovative businesses through his popular Fast Company blog and is the best-selling author of Outthink the Competition. With actionable content and tremendous stage presence, he teaches audiences how to think about problems differently and apply those lessons to business. His goal is to help his audience create “fourth options” for themselves – the strategic advantages their competitors don’t see, don’t expect, and cannot (or will not) emulate.

Lisa Bodell is one of the world’s leading experts on innovation. She has created a unique approach to a complicated topic and helps organizations become world-class innovators. She is the founder and CEO of futurethink and the author of the best-selling book, Kill the Company. Her presentations are fun and memorable. She is interactive and includes quick exercises that are simple but amazingly effective at demonstrating how people resist change even when they think they’re open to it. Bodell leaves her audiences with the tools, tricks, and resources to start innovating immediately.

Asha Rangappa is a Senior Lecturer at the Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and a former Associate Dean at Yale Law School. Asha served as a Special Agent in the New York Division of the FBI, specializing in counterintelligence investigations. Her work involved assessing threats to national security, conducting classified investigations on suspected foreign agents, and performing undercover work. Asha has published op-eds in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post, among others, and has appeared on NPR, BBC, and several major television networks. She is an editor for Just Security and is currently a legal and national security analyst for CNN.

Dr. Sahar Yousef and Lucas Miller are both cognitive neuroscientists, as well as faculty at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. They teach one of the most popular MBA classes at Cal, called “Becoming Superhuman: The Science of Productivity and Performance”, and have been featured in Forbes, Wired, The Wall Street Journal, and Business Insider. At Berkeley, Sahar and Lucas co-run the Becoming Superhuman Lab, which conducts research on how to help busy leaders and their teams get their most important done, in less time, and with less stress. Since COVID began, Sahar and Lucas have given over 700 talks and keynotes to knowledge workers in 50+ countries, have advised executive teams at Google, JPM, Deloitte, American Express, and Visa, and have been invited to speak to the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. Known for their fast-paced, high-energy style and their science-backed practical tactics, this dynamic duo is consistently rated as the #1 session at events, particularly within the technology, financial services, and private equity industries.

Kim Lear is a writer, researcher, and the founder of Inlay Insights. She is known for skillfully weaving eye-opening statistics, insightful stories, and relevant case studies to make presentations come alive. Before founding Inlay, Kim was the content director at BridgeWorks, a research firm dedicated to generational and millennial trends. Kim’s interest has always been understanding the social trends shaping the future. Her undergrad research was on Baby Boomers redefinition of aging, and her post-grad work was on Millennials and social media trends. Her two most recent studies are focused on the rapidly changing world of work. The Pandemic Time Capsule, a 200-interview project, provides insight into how quarantine, work-from-home, and the “new normal” reshaped the world and our expectations. Why They Leave, a 100-interview series focused on job change trends in the pandemic, attempts to uncover why people left their jobs, where they went, and what, if anything, could have enticed them to stay.

Chrissa Pagitsas is a strategic advisor, keynote speaker, and author. She advises senior executives and boards on the intersection of environmental, social, governance (ESG) and global business. She is the author of the book "Chief Sustainability Officers at Work" (Apress, 2022) which explores the leadership strategies of Chief Sustainability Officers and Heads of ESG at Fortune 500 companies including BlackRock, The Coca-Cola Company, Duke Energy, and Procter & Gamble.

Lisa Gable is a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of the award-winning book, Turnaround: How to Change Course When Things are Going South, and is recognized worldwide as a turnaround mastermind. As CEO of several organizations, and as a former Presidential appointee, US Ambassador, UN Delegate, and advisor to Fortune 500 companies, Lisa has orchestrated and executed the successful turnarounds of well-known private and public organizations in all industries and sectors. Lisa most recently served as the CEO of FARE, the world’s largest funder of food allergy research. In 2004, she was appointed by President George W. Bush as the first woman in World’s Fair’s 150-year history to direct the U.S. Pavilion, a 100 percent non-federally funded $33.7 million operation with more than 70 employees. She held personal rank of Ambassador.