Early on in my career, when my company was in the aftermath of a $5B acquisition, I almost quit. Fueled by frustration and stress, I found myself on the precipice of walking out of the office and never coming back. Had I done so, I would have become another statistic. Yet another African-American female departed from a STEM-driven industry. Top talent voluntarily resigning during a time of significant organizational shift. Another change victim. But I didn’t. Instead, I woke up one day and decided to view those feelings as a signal that I was sitting in a moment of opportunity. An opportunity to transform that chemistry, that feeling into something better. To choose every day to do something, say something, behave in some way that would move the needle of my work experience towards a better feeling. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was cultivating a teachable strategy to inspire anyone to become enthusiastic about change, to find their unique power of resilience during turbulent times. Today, I help organizations disrupt ‘change as usual’. Through a practical and repeatable framework, I show them how they can transform their culture from surviving change to growing through change.

As the founding CEO of RISE, a breakthrough wellness company, Suneel Gupta helped thousands of people build better habits for life and work. Now as a bestselling author and Harvard Medical School visiting scholar, Suneel has taken his mission one step further – helping organizations reach sustainable peak performance by bolstering their people’s emotional resilience. He asks the question, “How can an organization excel on the outside if its people are exhausted on the inside?” Suneel challenges our reliance on grit and hustle, which are also scientifically associated with exhaustion. Instead, he offers leaders and teams new, science-based ideas for the changing world of work – habits for beating burnout and boosting long-term creativity, innovation, and productivity.

Mark Bowden is the keynote speaker for organizations worldwide whose work depends upon winning the hearts and minds of others. Mark entertainingly trains any audience in the most cutting edge techniques to stand out, win trust and profit every time they speak. His keynote presentation takes everyone on an exciting and humorous journey to understand how, with the right body language “It’s often not what you say—but how you say it, that gets results!” Expert in human behaviour and body language, keynote speaker Mark Bowden is the creator of TRUTHPLANE®, a communication training company and unique methodology for anyone who has to communicate with impact to an audience. Mark’s highly entertaining keynote speeches and training seminars teach audiences around the world how to use the most influential verbal and nonverbal language to stand out, win trust and gain credibility every time they speak.

One of Silicon Valley's first African American female CEOs, Shellye Archambeau is the former CEO of MetricStream, a Silicon Valley-based, Governance, Risk, Compliance (GRC) apps company that helps organizations around the world improve their business performance. Under Archambeau's leadership, MetricStream has grown into a recognized global market leader with nearly 1,500 employees worldwide. The company has received many awards and recognition for growth, product innovation, and customer success, and has been consistently named a leader in GRC by leading independent analyst firms. Named the “#2 Most Influential African American in Technology” by Business Insider, Archambeau is a sought-after speaker and board member who has presented to Fortune 500 corporations, members of Congress, and associations including Institute of Internal Auditors and NASDAQ. In her talks and her hit book, "Unapologetically Ambitious," she shares her story of overcoming the odds to achieve success, along with strategies to take risks, break barriers, and create success on your own terms.

Adam Markel, bestselling author, keynote speaker and resilience researcher, guides individuals and organizations to tap the power of resilience to master the challenges of constant change. With 18 years as a trial attorney building a multi-million dollar enterprise and 10 years as the CEO of a leading personal development and business training company, Adam has much to share about resilience, culture and change. Yet, some of his most enduring lessons came from his years as an ocean first responder - a life and death environment where Adam learned the importance of cultivating high performance capacity and impeccable teamwork.

Have you ever wondered why more salespeople buy BMWs than other cars? Or why a name’s popularity grows after a hurricane of that name hits? Jonah Berger has the answers. A marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the New York Times best-selling author of the books "Contagious: Why Things Catch On" and "Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces That Shape Behavior," Berger has spent the last decade studying how social influence works, why certain ideas and products catch on, and what we can do to make ourselves more influential. He shares with audiences the keys to harnessing this “influence” to forge great partnerships, sell slow-moving products, and be more intentional with business strategies. His work is regularly published in top-tier journals, he consults for a variety of Fortune 500 companies, and popular outlets like Harvard Business Review often cover his work.

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.

When brands like Google, Starbucks, Shopify, and GE want to use technology to better connect with their consumers, they call Mitch Joel. He is the best-selling author of the award-winning business books, Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the founder of Six Pixels Group. He's also the former president of Mirum, a global digital marketing agency operating in 25 countries with close to 3,000 employees. Mitch has been called “one of North America’s leading visionaries” and the “Rock Star of Digital Marketing” by Strategy Magazine, he was listed as one of the “Speakers Worth Catching” by Forbes, and he was recognized in the highly prestigious “Top 40 Under 40”… but he's much more than that. He is a charismatic and engaging storyteller, and takes audiences on an exciting ride that helps them understand not only adapt to but succeed in the new digital, hyper-connected business environment. His speaking style is big, engaging, entertaining, educating, and eyebrow raising. Your audience will leave informed and ready to tackle the future... today.

Micah Zenko is the Director of Research and Learning at McChrystal Group, charged with the development and instruction of offerings designed to improve organizational performance through red teaming, strategic planning, and scenario development. Micah is the author of three books. His second book, Red Team: How to Succeed by Thinking Like the Enemy, which was released in 2015, reveals the work of red teams and explains how to most effectively apply them to the modern world. Micah has also published articles in The Atlantic, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, and Business Insider.

Maya Jaguar is a catalyst for cultural change and a sought-after organizational and personal transformation coach who leaders and teams in high-intensity, high-stakes roles look to for guidance on how to inspire, ignite, and grow their businesses. Previously, she held the esteemed role of cultural alchemist and head of transformation at X, the moonshot factory founded by Google’s parent company, Alphabet. At Google X, Jaguar spearheaded growth initiatives and oversaw the people side of innovation. Prior to that, she served as the moonshot’s first Latina head of diversity for a successful five-year tenure. Jaguar’s philosophy is rooted in the wholehearted conviction that unlocking the full potential of individuals is the key to unlocking the full potential of the organization.

A globally recognized brand-building innovator and a champion both of creativity and challenging the status quo in the workplace, Marisa Thalberg is 1 of only 18 to be inducted into the Forbes CMO Hall of Fame. She is considered one of the most dynamic and versatile marketing executives in the field, displaying versatility and adaptability that has led to her being an exceedingly successful leader in a diverse portfolio of industries, ranging from luxury beauty (The Estée Lauder Companies) and fast food (Taco Bell) to big box retail (Lowe’s Home Improvement) and theme parks and entertainment (SeaWorld/Busch Gardens). Her passionate advocacy for women at work led her on the path to social entrepreneurship as the founder of Executive Moms, an organization created to connect and support accomplished women who are both professionals and moms. In this capacity, Thalberg became an early leading voice and supporter for women, and particularly mothers, in the workplace, appearing across a range of media outlets including The TODAY Show, FOX, CNN, NBC News, and many more.

As the first female president of a professional sports franchise, Susan O’Malley, the former president of Washington Sports and Entertainment, is a pioneer in sports and business. Under her guidance, her company improved its bottom line, as well as its winning percentage, and the Washington Wizards experienced the largest ticket revenue increase and the highest renewal rate in the history of an NBA franchise to date. O’Malley’s illustrious career also included the creation of the MCI Center, which helped revitalize downtown DC. She addresses management, leadership, and marketing.