Global Gurus

William Arruda is a motivational speaker, entrepreneur and the world’s leading authority on the topic of personal branding. He’s the bestselling author of the definitive books on the topic: Career Distinction and Ditch. Dare. Do! His latest book, Digital YOU helps readers translate their real-world brands for the virtual world. William is the CEO (Chief Encouragement Officer) of Reach Personal Branding and the co-founder of CareerBlast.TV – a personal and digital branding video learning platform for innovative organizations. His products have been used by over a million people across the globe. He’s honored to work with many of the world’s most revered brands, including 20% of the Fortune 100. William regularly shares his thoughts on workplace trends and branding in his Forbes column. He holds a Master’s degree in Education.

Brenda Bence is passionate about two things: branding and leadership—and how the two work together. After earning her MBA from Harvard Business School, she spent 20 years building billion-dollar mega brands across four continents for Fortune 100 consumer giants like Procter & Gamble and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Brenda then started her own business to help companies and individuals define and grow their own successful leadership brands.

Brenda combined her years of expertise in brand-building along with her passion and experience in corporate leadership to create a unique, step-by-step personal leadership branding system that is based on the same methods used by household name brands.

Now sought after as a speaker and coach across six continents, Bence is one of only a handful of professional speakers worldwide who have earned the coveted Global Certified Speaking Professional title from the Global Speakers Federation, reflecting her mastery in addressing diverse, multi-cultural, and multi-generational audiences around the world.  Brenda is also a Certified Executive Leadership Coach who has coached almost 1,000 leaders to help them build their brands, leaders who hail from 60 nationalities and 70 industries.

An avid writer, Bence has authored 11 books that have won almost 50 book awards. In 2021, she released her latest bestseller, The Forgotten Choice: Shift Your Inner Mindset, Shape Your Outer World.

Donald Miller is the CEO of StoryBrand and every year helps more than 3,000 business leaders clarify their brand message. Combined, Don’s books have spent more than a year on the New York Times Bestsellers list. His books include: Blue Like Jazz, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and Scary Close.

Don is widely considered one of the most entertaining and informative speakers in the world. His audiences are challenged to lean into their own story, creatively develop and execute the story of their team, and understand the story of their customers so they can serve them with passion. Don’s thoughts on story have deeply influenced leaders and teams for Pantene, Chick-fil-A, Steelcase, Intel, Prime Lending, Zaxby’s, and thousands more.

Don lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife, Betsy, and their chocolate lab, Lucy.

Most businesses make significant investments in their #1 asset: human capital, then experience costly business problems like ineffective recruiting, turnover, underperformance, threats to morale and leadership gaps. What’s usually missing is a clear connection between the people strategy and the business strategy to create measurable bottom line results. That’s where we come in.

Amber Hurdle Consulting is a multi-award-winning talent optimization firm that pioneers using both science and marketing principles to solve these problems by strengthening your brand from the inside out. As a Predictive Index (PI) Certified Partner, we teach you how to generate and use real data in the form of people analytics, and then we sit on your bench as analytics experts, bringing along almost 20 years of branding, marketing and public relations experience. With these tools, we partner with you to design a compelling internal relations strategy featuring three key areas:

#1 We work with your leaders on their personal brands, so they increase self awareness and see and harvest the greatness in others.

#2 We teach you to use a scientific, repeatable method to recruit, retain and inspire top talent, elevating your culture while crafting a world-class employer brand.

#3 We then help you leverage strong leaders and a “best places to work” environment so that happy employees are serving happy customers…ultimately elevating your business brand.

Dr. Jerome Joseph is an award-winning Brand Strategist, Global Speaker and Thought Leader focused on Brand Strategy, Digital Branding, Internal Branding & Personal Branding. With his past experience as a CEO & Board Member of a public listed brand agency & global group, he brings real life brand expertise through keynotes, workshops and consulting.

He is a bestselling Author of 8 books on Branding including the acclaimed “Internal Branding: Growing your Brand from Within” & “The Brand Playbook”. Dr. Jerome has over 25 years of experience and has impacted over 1000 brands, majority of which are Fortune 500 companies, in 35 countries. The combination of real-life consulting experience, global expertise and proven speaking skills, makes Jerome a highly sought-after speaker in the market. Some of the brands that Jerome has worked with include: Hitachi, Novo Nordisk, Dell, SAP, Pfizer, Prudential, BASF, HSBC, OCBC, DHL, LEXUS and many more.

He delivers compelling brand driven programs based on proven methodology, matched by his highly infectious personality, practical experience and interactive style of speaking. He is dedicated to transforming and creating brands with the result that audiences can expect to be engaged while attaining a wealth of great insights.

Dr Jerome Joseph holds the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation which is held by only the top 12% speakers in the world. He was awarded the prestigious Global Speaking Fellow in 2015 for speakers with global reach & expertise and is the 30th speaker in the world to achieve this. Dr. Jerome is also an accredited Professional Management Consultant (PMC) a designation for top tier proven management consultants.

A Fast Company expert blogger and the subject of numerous articles in Forbes, ADWEEK, Huffington Post and Business Insider, David Brier is the recipient of the Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship medallion, presented to David by Shark Tank star and NY Times bestseller Daymond John.

An award-winning veteran (recipient of over 330 international industry recognitions) in branding, rebrands, design and brand strategy, David has designed and transformed global brands, regional and local brands, and brands for startups and even cities.

David also wrote the new “branding bible” and Amazon bestseller, Brand Intervention, 33 Steps to Transform the Brand You Have into the Brand Need, with a Foreword written by Daymond John of Shark Tank and FUBU.

David is also a highly sought-after guest on podcasts and live streams on the topic of branding, and his popular One Minute Wednesday series found on YouTube.

Martin Lindstrom is sought after as a branding/marketing/keynote speaker and workshop leader by companies and organizations throughout the world. The rapid rise of his career has made him one of today’s most respected branding speakers in the world according to the Chartered Institute of Marketing. He sits on several boards globally, and his clients include Disney, Mars, Pepsi, American Express, Mercedes-Benz, Reuters, Visa, McDonald’s, Kellogg’s, Ericsson, Yellow Pages and Microsoft. He energizes audiences with his creative genius and dynamic, motivational style. Lindstrom’s reputation for earning “a guaranteed standing ovation” at his compelling lectures on branding accompanies his popularity as an Advertising Consultant, keynote speaker, Branding Consultant, workshop leader and in-house trainer. Martin Lindstrom is the author of 5 books, including collaborative works with industry icons such as Dr. Philip Koter Kotler on Marketing), Paco Underhill Why We Buy), Dr. Don Peppers, Martha Rogers 1to1 Marketing) and Patricia Seybold (Customer.com). Buyology – Truth and Lies About Why We Buy (Doubleday, New York), has been translated into over 40 languages.

Alina Wheeler engages enterprises in a dynamic process to build their brands and embrace best practices. Wheeler inspires the whole branding team to seize every opportunity to design compelling customer experiences at every touchpoint. Designing Brand Identity, now in its fifth edition, is the first book to deconstruct the branding process into a universal, five-phase methodology. Her signature mantra is “Who are you? Who needs to know? Why should they care? How will they find out?” Designing Brand Identity demystifies branding and gives practitioners a roadmap to create sustainable and successful brands. It is published in 7 languages, and is used by clients and their branding and design firms to educate their staffs.

Sally Hogshead is a New York Times bestselling author, Hall of Fame® speaker, and the CEO of How to Fascinate, helping companies develop messages that persuade and captivate. By age 24, she became the most award-winning copywriter in the United States, and she’s been described by the press as “an advertising mastermind” who “changed the face of North American advertising.” Her campaigns for brands such as MINI Cooper, Nike, and Coca-Cola have fascinated millions of consumers. To develop the science of fascination, Hogshead measured over one million professionals over the course of a decade. Using this research, she built a marketing system that now lives inside organizations such as IBM, Twitter, and Porsche. Her two most recent books, Fascinate, and How the World Sees You, are both national bestsellers.

Richard Sauerman is The Brand Guy. He acquired his brand expertise working in the ad industry for multi-national ad agencies Saatchi & Saatchi, Ogilvy & Mather, DDB, McCann-Erickson, and George Patterson Partners.

He left advertising in 2004 to pioneer a new way of doing branding, where everything you do and say as a company, business or organisation must be driven by and aligned to your brand strategy – especially your people and culture.

He has worked closely with CEOs and Executive, HR and Marketing teams to create, reboot and reshape over 200 brands and businesses in Australia and internationally, across just every business category: from iconic brands (Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Vodafone, and Levis) to international brands (Laborie, Allegis Global Solutions), Australian brands (QBE, Arnott’s, Tourism Australia, Mortgage Choice, Penfolds), not-for-profits (CSIRO, Data61, Breast Cancer Trials), and start-ups (LeukBook, T-shirt Ventures).

Richard has written two self-help books and is a sought-after motivational speaker at conferences and seminars across Australia and abroad. His talks are a wake-up call for people at work. He believes that business success ultimately comes down to your people, and his talks tap into people’s natural desire to aim high, do great work, and make an impact.

Richard holds a Master’s degree in English Literature & Philosophy, and is especially interested in people and ‘the human condition’.

Laura Ries is a leading marketing strategist, bestselling author,branding Guru and television personality. Since 1994, Laura has run Ries & Ries, a consulting firm with her partner, father and legendary Positioning pioneer Al Ries. Together they consult with Fortune 500 companies on brand strategy and are the authors of five books which have been bestsellers around the world. They have traveled to over 60 countries from Chile to China and India to Indonesia teaching the fundamental principles of marketing.

Jane Anderson is a Branding and Strategic Communications expert. With over 20 years’ experience in corporate communications, personal branding, and business growth, she has worked with over 150,000 people, especially women, on building more trust and influence in their businesses and brands.

She has won more than 50 marketing and business coaching awards.

She is the host of the iTunes podcast “The Jane Anderson Show” interviewing people like Seth Godin and has been featured in Business Insider, Sky Business, Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. She is also a contributor to Forbes Magazine.

Her clients have included some of the world’s leading experts in their field as well as iconic brands such as Virgin Australia, Lego, Ikea, Rio Tinto and Origin Energy.

She is the author of 11 books including “Exceptionality: How to Build a Personal Brand that’s Wildly Unique and World Class”.

Marty Neumeier is an author, designer, and brand adviser whose mission is to bring the principles and processes of design to business. His series of “whiteboard” books includes ZAG, named one of the “top hundred business books of all time,” and THE DESIGNFUL COMPANY, a bestselling guide to nonstop innovation. An online presentation of his first book, THE BRAND GAP, has been viewed more than 22 million times since 2003. A sequel, THE BRAND FLIP, lays out a new process for building brands in the age of social media and customer dominance. His most recent book, SCRAMBLE, is a “business thriller” about how to build a brand quickly with a new process called agile strategy. In 1996, Neumeier founded Critique magazine, the first journal about design thinking. He has worked closely with innovative companies such as Apple, Netscape, Sun Microsystems, HP, Adobe, Google, and Microsoft to help advance their brands and cultures. Today he serves as Director of Transformation for Liquid Agency in Silicon Valley, and travels extensively as a workshop leader and speaker on the topics of design, brand, and innovation. He and his wife divide their time between California and southwest France.

Bruce is a branding expert who makes his clients’ brands more valuable.

As CEO of the successful brand management firm, TURKEL, Bruce Turkel has been creating and working with valuable brands for over 25 years.

Born and raised in Miami, Mr. Turkel studied design at the University of Florida and rushed to New York City to start his career. Preferring the sun to the subway, he returned to Miami and opened his own advertising agency built on the belief that marketing should be well-designed, simple, and should make a client’s products and services more valuable. Using this straightforward checklist, he has worked with hundreds of clients, written thousands of headlines, and designed even more print ads, television spots, websites, and campaigns.

Besides all that, Mr. Turkel is a husband, father of two and author of three books–his most recent is Building Brand Value. Oh, and he is an avid harmonica player. He tours extensively, spellbinding audiences with simple yet powerful brand building techniques.

When you book Bruce Turkel, you do not have to worry about a thing. Yes, your audience will be entertained and delighted. Of course, your audience will learn an uncomplicated and memorable way to excel in life as well as in business. Sure, his speech will be a much talked about part of your meeting. Most certainly, you will get the chance to hear Mr. Turkel play his harmonica. And, most importantly, you will know you have made the right choice the moment he starts speaking.

Professional keynote speaker, business author and branding consultant Joe Calloway is an expert in developing customer focused teams. Joe’s approach is both innovative and compelling. He speaks frequently on business competition and is a straight talking expert on competition and continuous improvement. Joe Calloway is a performance expert who helps people and companies think competitively, improve constantly, and act decisively. He is the author of four ground-breaking business books including the best-selling Becoming A Category of One, which received rave reviews from The New York Times, Retailing Today, Publishers Weekly and many others. Joe is a partner in Engage Consulting Group and is also a partner in BizVideos, a company that produces short business videos for use in meetings and corporate events. Joe has been inducted into the Speakers Hall of Fame, but he doesn’t do “speeches.” Instead, Joe actively engages people in sessions that challenge assumptions and create new ways of thinking.

Leonard Kim’s TEDx Talk, Why You Should Let Your Fears Guide You, has been internationally recognized as one of the best TED Talks by Forbes and Inc. Magazine.

Leonard is recognized by Forbes as a Top Marketing Influencer, Inc. Magazine as a Top Digital Marketer and Top Youth Marketer and by Entrepreneur as a Top Personal Branding Expert. Adweek recognized him as one of their Socially Strong Entrepreneurs Every VC Should Be Following. He went from being almost homeless to becoming a personal branding expert whose content has been read over 10 million times. He has amassed a social media following of well over 500,000 people. He’s been featured in a huge list of publications, including Mashable, Inc, Entrepreneur, Forbes, Fortune and more.

Leonard is managing partner of InfluenceTree. At InfluenceTree, Leonard and his team teach you how to build your brand, get featured in publications and growth hack your social media following.

Michel, an Independent Brand Counsel, has advised organizations for over two decades on the risk to their purpose and values of making promises they can’t keep, and on achieving alignment between who they are, what they say and what they do. So whether they’re offering up products, services or ideas, nothing gets in the way of their success and a robust, resilient brand result.

Michel works with a diverse range of clients—including small-to-medium size enterprises, start-ups, individuals, larger corporations and non-profits. Some are laying the foundations for new ventures. Others are responding to changes in the expectations and needs of their customers and employees. Still others are in the process of reinventing themselves to take advantage of new opportunities. She is also part of Vancouver’s Living Brand Result team, working to embed a practice of deliberate experience to help you thrive in today’s economy.

She is a sought-after contributor and speaker on brand, promises and experience. Since 2008 she has written a weekly blog for online business site SmartCompany and is the author of two books. Between Making Money and World Peace talks about the role that purpose and values play in brand. Her new book, The Unheroic Work, captures how to bring your purpose and values to life across what you do and how you do it, and why the brand is a result of the promises you keep.

Strategize, guide, advise, integrate. Serial entrepreneur, investor, speaker, leader, and former private investigator (not the Sherlock Holmes kind) Lisa has a unique set of skills most advisors don’t have.

Known for her unique ability to quickly make complex principles simple and then execute, so entrepreneurs can reach their full potential in their business.

Fearless, scrappy, passionate, full of grit, and unstoppable. No hurdle is too high and no ask is too small when looking to get a strategic edge on your future.

Rob Frankel began his career in advertising, eventually evolving his practice to become “the best branding expert on the planet,” a moniker bestowed upon him not by his mother, but several of his peers and acknowledged in Jaclyn Easton’s now out-of-print book, “StrikingItRich.com”. His first book, “The Revenge of Brand X: How to Build a Big Time Brand on the Web or Anywhere Else,” was published in two editions, the second of which was updated and expanded.

Rob is also the author of “The Artist Who Loved Women,” a biography of artist Patrick Nagel, the most successful yet anonymous American artist of the 1980s. In addition to documenting Nagel’s dynamic, brief life (he died in 1984 at the age of 38), Rob is a collector of, and authority on many of Nagel’s pieces.

To find out more about Patrick Nagel, or to ask,buy and sell his work feel free to swing by PatrickNagelGroup (dot com) to meet and talk with other Nagel fans.

If you’re a movie producer, you can get the cost of your book 100% reimbursed as soon as your feature film about the book, “The Artist Who Loved Women,” is released. Seriously. No kidding. We all know how cheap Hollywood people can be.

You can find out more Rob and his books at the web sites that bear the same names.

Brand strategist and storyteller Robin Fisher Roffer provides the rocket fuel that has launched and evolved dozens of media brands all over the world such as A&E, Animal Planet, CNN, Comedy Central, Discovery, FX, Hallmark Channel, History, Lifetime, MTV, and TNT. As Founder and CEO of Big Fish Marketing, Inc., she leads an award-winning creative team adept at unearthing a brand’s essence and filter, its look, feel and tagline, market positioning, value proposition and key messaging to both consumers and the trade. Sought after for leading edge ad sales strategy, Robin is the go-to person for television networks, technology companies and content creators ready to bring audiences to brands across multiple platforms. Robin uses her rare combination of talents to craft persuasive sales narratives and has produced Upfront presentations for AMC, BET, Bloomberg, Food Network, Fox Networks Group, HGTV, Scripps Networks and Univision. She inspires sales leaders to give press-worthy keynotes, and trains their teams to take the story on the road. With a mission to inspire humanity to fearlessly embrace change, Robin has authored four books including Make A Name For Yourself, The Fearless Fish Out Of Water, Reinventing Yourself, and her latest book, Your No-Fear Career.  A speaker and frequent media guest on fearless leadership and personal branding, Robin keynotes corporate conferences at companies such as Walmart, Microsoft, AIG and Starwood Hotels and top business schools like Columbia, Wharton, USC and Northwestern.

Bernadette Jiwa is a recognised global authority on the role of story in business, innovation and marketing and the author of six best-selling books on marketing and brand storytelling. Named by Smart Company as a Top Business Thinker 2018. She advises, consults and speaks to entrepreneurs and business leaders who want to build meaningful brands.

Bernadette’s blog, TheStoryofTelling.com was voted as the Best Australian Business Blog in 2012 and chosen by Smart Company as one of Australia’s Top 20 Business Blogs in 2013 and 2014. It topped that list in 2016. Bernadette’s book Meaningful featured on Inc Magazine’s Best Business Books of 2015.

She has been named as one of the Top 100 Branding Experts to Follow on Twitter and she spoke at TEDxPerth about ‘The Secret To Spreading Ideas’.

Her work sees her advising, consulting with and speaking to entrepreneurs, business leaders and global brands, (like EA, LinkedIn, Zappos and Adidas). Bernadette works with them to intentionally create products, services and marketing that help them to matter to their customers.

Rita Clifton CBE has been called ‘Brand guru’ by the Financial Times and ‘The doyenne of branding’ by Campaign magazine. She is a writer, keynote speaker, conference chair & practitioner on all aspects of brands, branding and business leadership.

Her career has included being a Vice Chairman at Saatchi & Saatchi, as London CEO and Chairman at the global brand consultancy Interbrand and as co-founder of BrandCap. She is also a portfolio chairman and non-executive director on the board of businesses including ASOS and Nationwide Building Society, and her non-profit boards have included WWF and the Sustainable Development Commission.

Rita is a regular columnist and media commentator, as well as author of ‘The Future of Brands’ and two editions of The Economist ‘Brands and Branding’. She is working on her new book as we speak!

Karen Kang is the best-selling author of BrandingPays™: The Five-Step System to Reinvent Your Personal Brand.  Karen has more than 20 years of experience in brand strategy consulting.  She is the founder and CEO of BrandingPays LLC, a corporate and personal branding company. Karen has trained thousands of professionals on the unique BrandingPays System for personal branding, and has consulted to more than 200 organizations. Her clients have included AT&T, Adobe, AstraZeneca, Genentech, HP, Intel and UC Davis Health System.

Before starting her own brand strategy consulting firm in 1994, Karen was a partner and principal with Regis McKenna Inc., the Silicon Valley marketing firm that launched the Apple and Genentech brands, and a vice president with TFB/BBDO, a high technology advertising and public relations agency. Her book has been featured in BusinessWeek, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, More and Working Mother and was an Editor’s Pick on WSJ Radio. She has been interviewed as a branding expert on ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX network affiliates.

Karen’s marketing and communications background gives her a 360-degree view of branding. A former newspaper journalist on both the East and West Coasts, she has held executive positions in marketing consulting, advertising and public relations firms. She is a sought-after speaker at national organizations and leading business schools such as London Business School, Stanford, and Wharton (UPenn). A member of Phi Beta Kappa, she holds a B.A. degree from Mills College and an M.S. degree from Boston University.

CB has been a professional branding executive for many years. She began in a position with General Foods where she was responsible for the branding of ready-to-eat cereals, frozen foods, and stuffing. This included iconic brands such as Honey Bunches of Oats, Birdseye Frozen Foods, Grape-Nuts, Great Grains, Shredded Wheat, et al.

In 2014, CB created the brand that represents the highest level of skills and experience for the executive coaching space: The Association of Corporate Executive Coaches (ACEC). This is an association focused on increasing the quality of executive coaching by identifying and certifying executive coaches who align with being “enterprise-wide business partners” with their clients.

CB is also passionate about supporting the Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches junior coaches to identify and market their brand.

As an expert in her field, Roz Usheroff is one of the most sought-after communication, image and branding specialists, working internationally with leaders of Fortune 500 companies, executives, managers, sales teams and entrepreneurs. She is the founder of the Usheroff Institute, where she infuses her clients with the strategies and insights necessary to understand the dynamics and subtleties of professional communication, impression management and the art of personal leadership. She is also the author of The Remarkable Leader Blog, which has gained a reputation for insightful and thought-provoking commentary on what it takes to succeed in the new global economy.

Contact Roz and her team to learn more about how she will help you to create a memorable experience for your audience with a customized presentation targeted to address specific business or training objectives.

Specialties: Team training, leadership projection, executive presence, personal branding, executive coaching, image, business protocol, business etiquette, influence and strategic persuasion techniques, interpersonal skills, presentation skills, team building, female focused assertiveness training and gender communication.

Karen McCullough is the most energetic, positive and inspirational speaker in the business. She worked for respected brands. She studied high performing brands. And she built a successful brand from the ground up. Karen is an inspiring speaker who draws on her varied background as a highly successful educator, businesswoman, entrepreneur, and CEO to enlighten and entertain audiences from some of the world’s top companies, universities, and organizations. Karen McCullough knows people, knows trends, and she knows how things work. She is a master at opening people’s minds to the opportunities of change. Through her study of generational behavior, business relationships, social trends, and technology Karen has tapped into an innovative model that leads to positive action and drives desired results.

Luis Pedroza is a global brand builder with real-world, international experience that comes from leading brands for iconic companies like General Mills, Nestle, and Kerry in markets all over the world such as North America, Europe, Asia, and Russia. Now based in California’s Silicon Valley to be at the epicenter of so much of today’s disruptive innovation, Luis has a long track record of helping emerging brands reach the next level of success.

His worldwide marketing journey has also given him the incredible opportunity to consult with numerous successful global brands such as YUM!, Meiji, Domino’s, and ASDA, helping brand builders use lean innovation techniques to grow their businesses. As a result, Luis is widely considered to be an expert at identifying global trends and assisting companies in developing the insights required to meet the needs of target consumers.

Sunny Bonnell is an American bestselling author, leadership and brand expert, and motivational speaker. She is also the CEO & Chief Visionary of Motto, one of the leading branding companies in the country.

Sunny has been called a “visionary thinker with a rare breed of talent.” As a leadership and strategic brand advisor for CXO leaders, Sunny aims to dismantle business-as-usual, think around corners, challenge convention, and break what needs to be broken.

Under Sunny’s guidance, Motto’s award-winning work has disrupted every category imaginable for brands such as Microsoft, Google, Hershey’s, the NFL, and Twentieth Century Fox.

Her work and thought leadership has been featured in Forbes, The Verge, ESPN, Fast Company, Entrepreneur, and hundreds more publications.

Sunny is a author of RARE BREED: A Guide to Success for the Defiant, Dangerous & Different (HarperCollins) is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, Books-a-Million and wherever books are sold.