Lisa Sun, founder and CEO of GRAVITAS, seamlessly blends stories from her data-driven insights from 11 years at McKinsey & Company and from her experience as an entrepreneur launching an innovative retail brand to offer talks that encourage audiences to choose self-confidence, work to harness their “superpower,” and use gravitas to advance personally and professionally. Sun explores why it’s vital to push past your potential, how to transform an idea into a movement, and why you’ve got to bet on yourself every single day. Sun has always had a passion for style, for inclusivity, and for helping people look and feel their best and was named one of Washingtonian Magazine's Best Dressed Women.

As the highest-ranking Asian American in the history of the U.S. Navy, Ambassador Harry B. Harris Jr. oversaw all military operations for more than half of the world’s geography as Commander, U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM). Widely regarded for his leadership, Amb. Harris was selected to serve by two presidential administrations – first to lead in one of the military’s most challenging roles at a critical time when the U.S. confronted the rise of new world powers and nuclear threats, and later as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea.

Nikkia Reveillac is a trailblazing executive insights and innovation leader, business consultant, podcast host, and speaker. She has overcome significant obstacles throughout her career to deliver exceptional results at some of the world’s most influential tech, entertainment, and consumer packaged goods companies. She has drawn upon her creative background as a professional dancer, her unique multicultural perspective as a Caribbean woman, her entrepreneurial instincts, two decades of experience building global industry-leading teams, and her distinctly humane way of framing all manner of questions to bring meaningful transformation everywhere she has been. Reveillac was instrumental in helping Netflix define its first-ever brand promise, created a safer organizational culture at Twitter during the tumultuous pandemic years and 2020 U.S. election cycle, helped develop innovative oral care solutions for consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa at Colgate, grew high-performing and emotionally intelligent teams at all of her companies, and was the first to launch an online marketplace for Trinidad Carnival costumes. Today, she advises businesses of all sizes to leverage research, data, and insights for disruptive innovation and brand building, and she mentors junior and senior talent for career growth.

A pioneer in medicine and leadership, Dr. Freda Lewis-Hall has been on the frontlines of healthcare for more than four decades as a clinician, researcher, and leader in the biopharmaceuticals and life sciences industries. Dr. Lewis-Hall is an incredible storyteller with a flair for well-timed humor who shares with audiences her powerful story and inspiring path to becoming a leader in the healthcare industry. Her talks motivate audience members to embrace pressure and determine their own destinations, just as she did on her path to being the first in her family to attend college, becoming a physician and, subsequently, a biopharmaceutical executive. Dr. Lewis-Hall’s message of perseverance, tenacity, equity, inclusion, and transparency is one that resonates with all audiences and diverse backgrounds.

With more than a decade working at the heart of the technology industry, Dex Hunter-Torricke has managed communications for some of the most-influential and admired Silicon Valley leaders and corporations of our day. In his daily work, Dex plays a critical role in writing the next chapter on science, tech, the economy, and society across the globe, and spearheads efforts to bring the stories of how the world is being moved forward to light. From 2012-2016, he led the executive communications team at Facebook and served as personal speechwriter for Mark Zuckerberg. He then went on to join SpaceX as senior director of communications. He later served as the VP Global Communications & Public Engagement for the Oversight Board for Meta, the independent body that makes decisions on Facebook and Instagram’s most challenging content issues. Dex takes audiences into Facebook’s boardroom, Musk’s open-concept cubicle, the famed Googleplex, and finally to the UN itself to share lessons on what it takes in today’s environment to build highly effective internal teams, how to use storytelling in modern communications, and what to make of the steady transition from local to global that’s unfolded over the past decade.

Recognised as “the man who fixes businesses” Kevin Gaskell has an impressive track record in building and leading successful companies. As CEO of Porsche, Lamborghini, and BMW, Gaskell led hugely successful turnarounds that are pointed to as examples of how to successfully transform companies and position them for long-term success. His energy and leadership have helped companies to achieve world-class levels of customer service and financial performance, and he speaks with electricity about using inspired leadership to achieve incredible results.

Gavin Patterson is the president and chief revenue officer of Salesforce.com, Inc., leading the CRM company's global sales organization. He previously served as Chief Executive, BT from 2013-19. During his tenure, Patterson completed the UK rollout of the superfast fibre and started the deployment ultrafast fibre. He led the £15billion acquisition of EE, launched BT Sport, expanded BT’s cyber security practice and championed BT’s social purpose agenda. He joined BT in 2004 as MD Consumer and joined the board as CEO BT Retail in 2008. Prior to BT, he spent four years at Virgin Media and nine years at Procter & Gamble. Patterson is a Non-Executive Director at British Airways plc and a Trustee of the British Museum. He graduated from Cambridge University with an MEng in Chemical Engineering.

Paul Ryan served ten terms in the U.S. House of Representative and as Speaker of the House from 2015 to 2019. Known for his meteoric rise in politics and often praised for his seriousness and honesty, Ryan is a committed conservative and public servant who has spent his life advocating for real solutions that expand opportunity for Americans. Before serving as Speaker of the House, he was Chair of the House Budget Committee, Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, and a U.S. Vice Presidential candidate. He is exclusively represented by Leading Authorities speakers bureau.

Dedicated to creating the conscious workplace for tomorrow, Virginia “Ginny” Clarke is a seasoned executive recruiter who has advised at the highest levels of corporate America for decades. A proven expert in driving diverse leadership, she is the former director of executive recruiting at Google, where she led the company’s diversity, non-tech recruiting, and leadership internal mobility teams – finding and hiring senior leaders across the company. She also built a scaled internal mobility program for Google’s senior leaders and designed much of the infrastructure that supports their executive recruiting function today. In speeches, Clarke draws on her unparalleled experience assessing thousands of executives inside corporate C-Suites and boardrooms to bring a unique, holistic five-dimensional approach to true leadership that is essential now more than ever. She delivers “no-holds-barred” discussions on the root causes that lead to a lack of diversity in organizations, and provides the integrated solutions that anyone can use to affect change.

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.

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.

Cassandra “Cassi” Chandler is an innovator, strategist, investigator, and leader who has broken barriers, led diverse teams, and built cultures of motivational leadership and inclusivity at some of the world’s most important organizations, including Bank of America and the FBI. In a career that has included many “firsts” across the U.S. government and financial services industries, she served as the FBI’s first African American female special agent assistant director as well as the Bureau’s first female national spokesperson and director of public and community affairs. In addition to defining the tools motivational leaders need to mindfully build more high-performing cultures, Chandler provides actionable insights on how to move the needle while leading with empathy.