Global Gurus

Dr. Jennifer Aaker is the General Atlantic Professor and the Coulter Family Faculty Fellow at Stanford Graduate School of Business. A behavioral scientist and author, Dr. Aaker is a leading expert on how meaning and purpose shape the choices individuals make, how time can be spent in meaningful and unconventional ways, and how technologies including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Mixed Reality (XR) are redefining human interaction. She is widely published in leading scientific journals and her work has been featured in The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, BusinessWeek, Forbes, NPR, CBS MoneyWatch, Inc., and Science.

Dr. Aaker is the co-author of several books including the award-winning book, The Dragonfly Effect, which has been translated into over 10 languages, and more recently, the national bestseller, Humor, Seriously, focused on why and how humor can be used as a secret weapon in business and life.

Safi is a second-generation physicist (the son of two astrophysicists), a biotech entrepreneur, and former public-company CEO.

He received his BA summa cum laude from Harvard and his PhD in physics from Stanford, where he worked with Lenny Susskind in particle physics (the science of the small) and the Nobel laureate Bob Laughlin in condensed matter physics (the science of the many). He was a Miller Fellow in physics at UC Berkeley (the school of the many).

After working for three years as a consultant for McKinsey, Safi co-founded a biotechnology company developing new drugs for cancer. He led its IPO and served as its CEO for 13 years.

In 2008, he was named E&Y New England Biotechnology Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2011, he worked with President Obama’s council of science advisors (PCAST) on the future of national research.

Loonshots, Safi’s first book, has been translated into 18 languages; recommended by Bill Gates, three Nobel laureates, Adam Grant, Malcolm Gladwell, and Tim Ferriss; and selected as a best business book of the year by Amazon, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Forbes, Inc., Newsweek, Strategy + Business, Tech Crunch, and the Washington Post. It was the #1 most recommended book of the year in Bloomberg’s annual survey of CEOs and entrepreneurs.

Ken Blanchard has always been the top leadership speaker, trainer, guru with a heart as seen in his works throughout his career which encourages in bringing out the best in people. And as an internationally renowned leadership author, speaker and consultant, he has made a huge impact to the world of leadership and as well as the lives of those people who have never even read his books. In our opinion, Ken Blanchard is one of the few people who simplify unique concepts in leadership and makes it easy to apply. Aside from having bestselling books which includes The One Minute Manager, coauthored with Spencer Johnson with sales of more than 18 million copies in more than 25 languages, Ken co-created the Situational Leadership® II model and is out to make a difference in the lives of other people. Everything about his leadership books, training and speaking reflects one commonality, he believes in the natural goodness of people and that bringing that goodness out creates greater relationships and emotions which in turn create better organizations. As a speaker, he is warm and steady. Ken Blanchard is well known internationally and is also listed as a Top Management Expert on www.managementgurus.net

Recognized as the #1 executive coach in the world by Leading Global Coaches, Peter Bregman coaches CEOs and senior leaders in many of the world’s premier organizations. Having started his career teaching leadership on wilderness and mountaineering expeditions, Peter is CEO of Bregman Partners, an executive coaching company that helps successful people become exceptional leaders and stellar human beings.

Peter is ranked as a Top 30 thought leader by Thinkers 50 Radar and selected as one of the Top 8 thought leaders in leadership. He is ranked by Global Guru’s as one of the top 30 best Coaches in the world and one of the top 30 best leadership speakers/trainers in the world.  He is the award-winning, best selling author and contributor of 18 books, including most recently, Leading with Emotional Courage: How to Have Hard Conversations, Create Accountability, and Inspire Action on Your Most Important Work. His book, 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done, was a Wall Street Journal bestseller, winner of the Gold medal from the Axiom Business Book awards, named the best business book of the year by NPR, and selected by Publisher’s Weekly and the New York Post as a top ten business book. He is also the author of Four Seconds: All the Time You Need to Replace Counter-Productive Habits with Ones That Really Work, a New York Post “Top Pick for Your Career” in 2015, and Point B: A Short Guide to Leading a Big Change.

Michael Bungay Stanier is the author of five books, including *The Coaching Habit*, the best-selling coaching book of the last two years with half a million copies sold and 1,000+ 5-star reviews on Amazon. Other books include *Do More Great Work* (100,000 copies sold), and *End Malaria*, a collection of articles about Great Work from thought leaders that’s raised about $400,000 for Malaria No More and reached #2 on Amazon.com. Michael is the founder of Box of Crayons, a company that is the best-known champion for coaching as a force for leadership development and culture change. More than 80,000 managers have taken their programs, and their clients include Microsoft, TD Bank, Salesforce and USA. Michael was a Rhodes Scholar, one of the first nominees in the Marshall Goldsmith 100, and the first Canadian Coach of the Year.

Dorie Clark has been named one of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world by Thinkers50, and was recognized as the #1 Communication Coach in the world by the Marshall Goldsmith Leading Global Coaches Awards. Clark, a consultant and keynote speaker, teaches executive education at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and Columbia Business School.

Recognized as a “branding expert” by the Associated Press, Fortune, and Inc. magazine, she is the author of Entrepreneurial You (Harvard Business Review Press,), Reinventing You, and Stand Out, which was named the #1 Leadership Book of 2015 by Inc. magazine and one of the Top 10 Business Books of the Year by Forbes. It was also a Washington Post bestseller. Her books have been translated into Russian, Chinese, Arabic, French, Polish, Korean, Spanish, Italian, Vietnamese, and Thai.

Clark, whom the New York Times described as an “expert at self-reinvention and helping others make changes in their lives,” is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review. She consults and speaks for a diverse range of clients, including Google, the World Bank, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Yale University.

At age 14, Clark entered Mary Baldwin College’s Program for the Exceptionally Gifted. At 18, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Smith College, and two years later received a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. You can download her Entrepreneurial You self-assessment at dorieclark.com/entrepreneur.

Erica Dhawan is the world’s leading authority on 21st century Collaboration and Connectional Intelligence.

She challenges audiences and organizations to innovate further and faster, together.

Her newest book – Digital Body Language – decodes the new signals and cues of effective collaboration and teamwork in a digital-first human workplace.

Erica Dhawan is the Founder & CEO of Cotential, a global organization that helps companies, leaders, and managers leverage 21st century collaboration skills and behaviors to improve game changing performance.

She is the co-author of the bestselling book Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence, named #1 on What Corporate America is Reading. Dhawan was named by Thinkers50 as “The Oprah of Management Ideas.”

Erica was rated the #1 Woman Keynote Speaker of 2020 by RealLeaders. Erica speaks on global stages ranging from the World Economic Forum at Davos and TED to companies such as Coca-Cola, Fedex, Goldman Sachs, Walmart, SAP, and Cisco.

Erica has been featured in WSJ and Harvard Business Review and FastCompany. She has degrees from Harvard University, MIT Sloan, and The Wharton School.

Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, a chair established to support the study of human interactions that lead to the creation of successful enterprises that contribute to the betterment of society.

#1 Bestselling Business Author, Organizational Culture, Employee Engagement and Leadership Expert

One of today’s most influential voices in workplace trends, Chester Elton has spent two decades helping clients engage their employees to execute on strategy, vision, and values. In his provocative, inspiring and always entertaining talks, #1 bestselling leadership author Chester Elton provides real solutions to leaders looking to manage change, drive innovation, and lead a multi-generational workforce. Elton’s work is supported by research with more than 850,000 working adults, revealing the proven secrets behind high-performance cultures and teams. He has been called the “apostle of appreciation” by Canada’sGlobe and Mail, “creative and refreshing‚” by the New York Times, and a “must read for modern managers” by CNN   Elton is co-author of the New York Timesand #1 USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling leadership books, All In, The Carrot Principle and The Best Team Wins.His books have been translated in more than 30 languages and have sold more than 1.5 million copies worldwide. Eltonis often quoted in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Fast Company and theNew York Times.He has appeared on NBC’s Today, CNN, ABC, MSNBC, National Public Radio and CBS’s 60 Minutes. In 2017 Global Gurus research organization ranked him as #15 in the world’s top leadership experts and #10 in the world’s top organizational culture experts. Eltonis the co-founder of The Culture Works, a global training company and is a board member of Camp Corral, a non-profit for the children of wounded and fallen military heroes.He serves as aleadership consultant to firms such as American Express, AT&T, Avis Budget Group andProcter & Gamble. He is most proud, however, to be the father of four exceptional children-more exceptional now they’ve grown up and left home.

Bestselling Leadership Author | Organizational Culture Expert 

How do today’s best leaders accelerate business results? By engaging their employees to execute on strategy, vision, and values. In his challenging, information-packed talks, #1 bestselling leadership author Adrian Gostick provides real solutions on managing change, driving innovation, and leading a multi-generational workforce. Gostick is a global workplace expert and thought leader in the fields of corporate culture, leadership, and engagement. He is founder of the training and consulting company The Culture Works and author of the #1 New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestsellers All In and The Carrot Principle. His books have been translated into 30 languages and have sold 1.5 million copies around the world. As a leadership expert, he has been called “fascinating,” by Fortune magazine and “creative and refreshing” by the New York Times. Gostick has appeared on NBC’s Today Show and CNN, and is often quoted in The Economist, Newsweek, and Wall Street Journal. If you Google the 30 Top Leadership Gurus, he is on the list along side Jack Welch and Jim Collins. His consulting clients include Danaher, Bank of America, Rolls Royce, JELD-WEN and California Pizza Kitchen.

Dr. Tasha Eurich is an organizational psychologist, researcher, and New York Times best-selling author. She uses science to help leaders—from early stage entrepreneurs to public company CEOs—achieve dramatic and measurable change. Her primary areas of expertise are executive coaching, executive team development, and leadership and high potential development.

Having worked directly with over 20,000 leaders and spoken live to hundreds of thousands more—on every continent but Antarctica—Dr. Eurich’s clients include Salesforce, the NBA, Walmart, KPMG, and the White House Leadership Development Program. Her TEDxMileHigh talks have been viewed more than six million times.

In 2019, she was named one of the top 30 emerging management thinkers in the world by Thinkers50, as well as the #1 self-awareness coach in the world by Marshall Goldsmith.

Tasha contributes to Harvard Business Review, and her thought leadership has been featured in outlets like NPR, Forbes, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

Dr. Eurich’s first book, Bankable Leadership, debuted at #8 on The New York Times best-seller list. Her latest book, Insight, delves into the connection between self-awareness and success. It has been hailed as a “bold, exhilarating take on self-improvement” by Success Magazine,  a “fascinating read” by The Guardian, and famed Wharton Business school professor Adam Grant calls one of the three books he recommends most often.

Frances Frei is a Professor of Technology and Operations Management at Harvard Business School. Her research investigates how leaders create the conditions for organizations and individuals to thrive by designing for excellence in strategy, operations and culture. She regularly advises senior executives embarking on large-scale change initiatives and organizational transformation, including embracing diversity and inclusion as a lever for significantly improving performance.

A global thought leader on leadership and strategy, Frances is widely recognized for her dynamic teaching style and breakthrough courses optimized for rapid, lasting impact. She developed one of the most popular classes at HBS, which explores business models that reliably delight customers. She also led the design and launch of HBS’s innovative FIELD curriculum built around learning experiences that are experiential and immersive.

While at HBS, Frances has held extensive leadership roles including Senior Associate Dean for faculty development and recruiting, for executive education, and faculty chair for the MBA required curriculum. Within each of these roles, Frances led significant change efforts. Highlights including addressing the gender gap in satisfaction and performance for students and faculty and broadening the reach of executive education to incorporate the evolving needs of executives and their organizations.  This includes enhancing our off-campus program as well as using our state-of-the art HBX studio on campus.

Vijay Govindarajan (VG) is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on strategy and innovation. VG is the Coxe Distinguished Professor (a Dartmouth-wide faculty chair) at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a former Marvin Bower Fellow at Harvard Business School. VG is a Faculty Partner at Mach49, a Silicon Valley incubator. He was the first Professor in Residence and Chief Innovation Consultant at General Electric. He worked with GE’s CEO Jeff Immelt to write, “How GE is Disrupting Itself”, the Harvard Business Review (HBR) article that pioneered the concept of reverse innovation – any innovation that is adopted first in the developing world. HBR picked reverse innovation as one of the Great Moments in Management in the Last Century. VG is a NYT and WSJ Best Selling author and a two-time winner of the prestigious McKinsey Award for the best article published in HBR. VG was named by Thinkers 50 as a Top 3 Management Thinker in the world and received the Breakthrough Innovation Award in 2011. VG was inducted into Thinkers 50 Management Thinkers Hall of Fame and was given the Distinguished Achievement Award for most contributions to the understanding of innovation in 2019. VG has been a select few who have received Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Awards in two different categories.

Govindarajan has been identified as a leading management thinker by influential publications including: Outstanding Faculty, named by Business Week in its Guide to Best B-Schools; Top Ten Business School Professor in Corporate Executive Education, named by Business Week; Top Five Most Respected Executive Coach on Strategy, rated by Forbes; Rising Super Star, cited by The Economist; Outstanding Teacher of the Year, voted by MBA students.

Adam Grant has been Wharton’s top-rated professor for 7 straight years. As an organizational psychologist, he is a leading expert on how we can find motivation and meaning, rethink assumptions, and live more generous and creative lives. He has been recognized as one of the world’s 10 most influential management thinkers and Fortune’s 40 under 40.

​He is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 5 books that have sold millions of copies and been translated into 45 languages: Think Again, Give and Take, Originals, Option B, and Power Moves. His books have been named among the year’s best by Amazon, Apple, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal. His viral piece on languishing was the most-read New York Times article of 2021 and the most-saved article across all platforms.

Adam hosts WorkLife, a chart-topping TED original podcast. His TED talks on languishing, original thinkers, and givers and takers have been viewed more than 30 million times. He has received a standing ovation at TED and was voted the audience’s favorite speaker at The Nantucket Project. His speaking and consulting clients include Google, the NBA, Bridgewater, and the Gates Foundation. He writes on work and psychology for the New York Times, has served on the Defense Innovation Board at the Pentagon, and has been honored as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He has more than 5 million followers on social media and features new insights in his free monthly newsletter, GRANTED.

Recognized as one of the 50 leading business thinkers in the world. Whitney Johnson is an expert on disruptive innovation and personal disruption; specifically, a framework which she codifies in the critically acclaimed book Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work and in her latest book Build an “A” Team: Play To Their Strengths and Lead Them Up the Learning Curve. (Harvard Business Press, 2018). She is also the author of Dare, Dream, Do: Remarkable Things Happen When You Dare to Dream

She developed her proprietary framework and diagnostics after having cofounded the Disruptive Innovation Fund with Harvard Business School’s Clayton Christensen. This framework is complemented by a deep understanding of how executives create and destroy value, having spent nearly a decade as an Institutional Investor ranked equity analyst on Wall Street.

In addition to her work as a speaker and advisor, Whitney is one of Marshall Goldsmith’s original cohort of 25 for the #100 Coaches Project, is a coach for Harvard Business School’s Executive Education program, frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, is a Linkedin influencer, and hosts the weekly Disrupt Yourself Podcast.

Daniel Kahneman is Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs Emeritus at the Woodrow Wilson School, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Princeton University, and a fellow of the Center for Rationality at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Dr. Kahneman has held the position of professor of psychology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (1970-1978), the University of British Columbia (1978-1986), and the University of California, Berkeley (1986-1994). Dr. Kahneman is a member of the National Academy of Science, the Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, the Society of Experimental Psychologists, and the Econometric Society. He has been the recipient of many awards, among them the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association (1982) and the Grawemeyer Prize (2002), both jointly with Amos Tversky, the Warren Medal of the Society of Experimental Psychologists (1995), the Hilgard Award for Career Contributions to General Psychology (1995), the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences (2002), and the Lifetime Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association (2007). Dr. Kahneman holds honorary degrees from numerous Universities.

Carol is known globally as one of the top leaders in the field of coaching. She has been named the #1 Leadership coach in the world by the Marshall Goldsmith group. Thinkers 50 shortlisted her as one of the top 8 coaches for her contribution as a thought leader and coach.

She is on the faculty at Harvard where she is the Founder of the Institute of Coaching. In addition, she supervises an international fleet of leadership coaches and has created a Coach Approach training program with a global footprint.

Leadership coaching: As a very active practicing coach, her mission is to help leaders raise the bar on themselves, their teams and organizations to maintain peak performance and optimal life satisfaction. She has over 40,000 hours of client contact. Her work focuses primarily on CEO’s and their teams. In order to launch the next generation of leaders, she is now working with millennials, high potentials and some unicorns.

A sampling of clients where she has worked with top leaders, often with their executive committees includes: Ahold, Astra Zeneca, Cisco, ConsenSys (Etherium), Dashlane, Deutche Bank, Egon Zehnder, Genentech, Harvard, Indeed, Informatica, Knowls, Lloyds, Lyft, Mastercard, Oliver Wyman, Owens-Illionis, Rifinitiv, Sonos, Takeda, Telefonica TriNet, Unilever, Vanderbilt and Value Retail and Vertex.

Academic leadership: She is a leader who has profoundly impacted the profession of coaching on a global scale. While on the faculty at Harvard for over 25 years, she received a $2,000,000 gift from the Harnisch Foundation to be the founder of the Institute of Coaching. She also launched the Coaching Conference at Harvard and the IOC Leadership Forum. Our education-based community has 2,000 active members and serves coaches and those who want to use coaching skills to change their worlds.

Dr. Kauffman was also the Founding Editor in Chief of the first academic journal for a major publishing house, Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice. Her goal in all these organizations is to bring together evidence-based theory and research and most of all – translate it into practical applications for best practice. Her hope is to be of true service to coaches and leaders.

HBR requested she design their first research project and write “What Coaches Can Do for You,” their most frequently cited article on coaching. She is also published in many venues.

Coach approach training: Dr. Kauffman’s enormously successful Coach Approach training for leaders won the Harvard Medcial Schools Inaugural Program Award for Culture of Excellence in Mentoring. A team of researchers assessed its impact at Massachusetts General Hospital. Due to its national acclaim as the gold standard, the program is now rolled out in 23 of the top teaching hospitals in the US. Dr. Kauffman has trained hundreds of leaders at ConsenSys, Egon Zehnder, Oliver Wyman, Rifinitiv, Unilever and others.

Of all her ventures Carol most enjoys coaching leaders and partnering with them as they navigate their way forward.

Jim Kouzes is the coauthor with Barry Posner of the award-winning and best-selling book, The Leadership Challenge, with over 2.5 million copies in print. He’s also the Dean’s Executive Fellow of Leadership, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University.

The sixth edition of The Leadership Challenge was released in 2017 and is available in 22 languages. It was selected by FastCompany as one of the 2012 Best Business Books of the Year, was on the 2013 Wall Street Journal bestseller list, an Amazon Editor’s Pick in 2007, and the winner of the 1995-96 Critics’ Choice Award. It has been named one of the 100 best business books of all time by 800-CEO-READ. Jim and Barry have coauthored over thirty other publications including Learning Leadership, The Truth About Leadership, A Leader’s Legacy, Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It, Encouraging the Heart, The Leadership Challenge Workbook, and the Encouraging the Heart Workbook.

Jim and Barry also developed the highly acclaimed Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), a 360-degree leadership assessment questionnaire, and it is the top-selling off-the-shelf leadership assessment instrument in the world.

Jim was again named in 2017 as one of the top 30 Global Gurus in Leadership, is the 2010 recipient of the Thought Leadership Award from the Instructional Systems Association, and for 4 years in a row named to HR Magazines Most Influential International Thinkers. In 2006 he was presented with the Golden Gavel by Toastmasters International. Jim and Barry are the recipients of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) 2009 Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning and Performance Award.

Not only is Jim a highly regarded leadership scholar, The Wall Street Journal cited Jim as one of the twelve best executive educators in the U.S.

Specialties: Leadership assessment and coaching, leadership skills development, keynote presentations, research and writing

Hortense is an Executive Leadership Coach and the President and Founder of JAY Consulting. She works with decision makers in the business world, including many C-suite executives from Fortune 500 companies, supporting them in their development and leadership by working with them on the alignment between their personal values and their professional activities.

Prior to coaching full time, le Gentil spent over 30 years in business in various industries, working for leading multinational companies in the areas of media consulting, marketing, and advertising. She then founded and spent 10 years as CEO of an entrepreneurial start-up (in metals recycling).

Hortense is part of the MG100 Coaches, Marshall Goldsmith’s Pay It Forward project, and is a certified Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered™ Coach. She has been selected to receive a Thinkers 50 coaching award for excellence in her field. She is the author of several articles about leadership and coaching in such publications as Leader to Leader and Les Echos.

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.

Erin Meyer is a professor at INSEAD, one of the leading international business schools. Her work focuses on how the world’s most successful managers navigate the complexities of cultural differences in a global environment. She helps companies to develop organizational cultures that breed both flexibility and innovation and offers cutting-edge strategies to improve the effectiveness of projects that span the globe.

Living and working in Africa, Europe, and the United States prompted Erin’s study of the communication patterns and business systems of different parts of the world. Her Culture Map framework allows international executives to pinpoint their leadership preferences, and compare their methods to the management styles of other cultures. Erin has taught thousands of executives from five continents to decode cross-cultural complexities impacting their success, and to work more effectively across these differences.

More recently Erin conducted an in-depth study with Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO of Netflix, investigating the underlying principles necessary for building a corporate culture that is inventive, fast, and flexible. The results of that research were published in their new book No Rules Rules (Penguin Press, September 2020).

Erin’s work at INSEAD includes directing the Leading Across Borders and Cultures program.

One of the world’s most influential proponents of business model innovation and value proposition design, Alexander (Alex) Osterwalder provides a framework for large companies and startups to innovate by rapidly experimenting with new business models and value propositions. He is co founder of Strategyzer, an innovation powerhouse that helps organizations develop growth engines, better customer understanding, more attractive value propositions and powerful business models via online applications and blended online/offline courses.

Osterwalder invented the Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition Canvas, Culture Map, and Business Portfolio Map, to help business people with practical tools to help address important strategic jobs. He simplifies the strategy development process, turning complex concepts into digestible visual models. As a result, a better language for identifying and communicating value is created and disseminated throughout an organization. Osterwalder’s talks – which illuminate the application of these practical tools with current market examples – consistently rank first or second among his peers at global conferences. By punctuating his informative speeches with humor and interactive exercises, Osterwalder establishes a deep and direct connection with audiences ranging from five to 5,000 and beyond, commanding high levels of participation, engagement and enthusiasm. His speeches further reveal how his business model and value proposition frameworks allow companies to grasp and maintain a competitive advantage in the midst of a crowded, or previously uncharted, industry.

Osterwalder won the 2015 strategy award from Thinkers50 and currently ranks #7 among the top 50 business thinkers of the world. In 2013, he won the European Union’s inaugural Innovation Luminary Award. A frequent keynote speaker at Fortune 500 companies,

Osterwalder travels the world discussing his ideas and strategies at leading universities such as Wharton, Stanford, Berkeley, IESE, MIT, KAUST and IMD. He holds a doctorate from HEC Lausanne, Switzerland, and is a founding member of The Constellation, a global not-for-profit organization aimed at eliminating HIV/AIDS and Malaria.

A navy personnel turned management professional Tom Peters writes and speaks about a very special area of management i.e. personal and business empowerment and problem solving methodologies. Peter went to Severn School for High School and attended Cornell University receiving a bachelors degree in civil engineering in 1965 and a masters degree in 1966. He later studied business at Stanford Business School receiving an M.B.A. and Ph.D. In 2004 he also received an honorary doctorate from the State University of Management in Moscow. He is called the most provocative and engaging management guru in the USA. He is also called the Red Bull of management thinkers. He is a best selling author of the book In Search of Excellence which became a bestseller and had exposure in the United States at a national level when a series of television specials based on the book and hosted by him appeared on PBS.

JEFFREY PFEFFER is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University where he has taught since 1979. He is the author or co-author of 15 books.

Pfeffer has presented seminars in 39 countries throughout the world as well as doing consulting and providing executive education for numerous companies, associations, and universities in the United States.

Jeffrey Pfeffer has won the Richard D. Irwin Award presented by the Academy of Management for scholarly contributions to management and numerous awards for his articles and books. He was listed in the top 25 management thinkers by Thinkers 50 and as one of the Most Influential HR International Thinkers by HR Magazine. In November, 2011, he was presented with an honorary doctorate degree from Tilburg University in The Netherlands.

Sanyin Siang’s personal mission in life is to enable greatness in others. She lives this out as a board and ceo coach, an educator, author, and a mom.

Recognized as the world’s #1 Coach by Thinkers50 (the Oscars of Management), she leads Duke University’s Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics (COLE) at the Fuqua School of Business. She is a professor at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering, an advisor to Google Ventures, and the author of The Launch Book.

Sanyin helps leaders and teams of leaders create even more value by focusing on mindset, behavioral change, and team and culture building. She has worked with generals, Fortune 500 CEOs, family business leaders, nonprofit leaders, and sports executives.

Her experience in coaching coupled with an understanding of board and executive team dynamics and patterns of effective leadership across industries, has helped organizations and executives identify gaps and lead more effectively in a rapidly changing marketplace and talent space. She convenes interdisciplinary and diverse teams towards finding and implementing new approaches for complex problems. Whether the client is startup founder working on scaling the team, business and culture, or a general or CEO of billion dollar company – every chief executive faces the challenges of scaling self, leading their teams in a disruptive new market, while maintaining work-life integration.

Ranked as the #1 management guru by Business Week, profiled by Fast Company as one of the world’s top 10 creative people in business, a top 5 coach in Forbes, and recognized on Thinkers50 (Hall of Fame) as one of the world’s leading business thinkers, Dave Ulrich has a passion for ideas with impact. In his writing, teaching, and consulting, he continually seeks new ideas that tackle some of the world’s thorniest and longest standing challenges.

His bestselling books and popular speeches inspire the corporate and academic agenda. Dave has co authored over 30 books and 200 articles that have shaped three fields:

Organization.  With co-authors, he has influenced thinking about organizations by empirically showing how organization delivers 4 times business results over talent (Victory Through Organization), defined organizations as bundles of capabilities (Organization Capability) and worked to delineate capabilities of talent management (Why of Work; Talent Accelerator), culture change (GE Workout), learning (Learning Organization Capability), and collaboration (Boundaryless Organization). Leadership.  With colleagues, he has also articulated the basics of effective leadership (Leadership Code and Results Based Leadership), connected leadership with customers (Leadership Brand), shown how leadership delivers market value (Why the Bottom Line Isn’t), shaped investor expectations and ability to measure leadership (Leadership Capital Index), and synthesized ways to ensure that leadership aspirations turn into actions (Leadership Sustainability). Human Resources.  He and his colleagues have shaped the HR profession and he has been called the “father of modern HR” and “HR thought leader of the decade” by focusing on HR outcomes, governance, competencies, and practices (HR Champions; HR Value Added; HR Transformation; HR Competencies; HR Outside In).  He spearheaded a “gift” book on the future of HR (The Rise of HR) distributed to over 1,500,000 HR professionals), in which 70 thought leaders freely share their insights.

Wendy and Dave serve frequently in their church, have 3 children, 8 grandchildren, and get their greatest glee when their grandkids’ eyes light up at seeing them

Liz Wiseman is a researcher and executive advisor who teaches leadership to executives around the world. She is the author of New York Times bestseller Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, The Multiplier Effect: Tapping the Genius Inside Our Schools, and Wall Street Journal bestseller Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work.

She is the CEO of the Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm headquartered in Silicon Valley, California. Some of her recent clients include: Apple, AT&T, Disney, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Nike, Salesforce, Tesla, and Twitter. Liz has been listed on the Thinkers50 ranking and named one of the top 10 leadership thinkers in the world.

She has conducted significant research in the field of leadership and collective intelligence and writes for Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and a variety of other business and leadership journals. A former executive at Oracle Corporation, she worked over the course of 17 years as the Vice President of Oracle University and as the global leader for Human Resource Development.

She is a frequent guest lecturer at BYU and Stanford University. Liz holds a Bachelors degree in Business Management and a Masters of Organizational Behavior from Brigham Young University.