David S. Pottruck is Chairman of Red Eagle Ventures, Inc., his investment firm focused on privately held companies and Co-Chairman of HighTower Advisors, a rapidly growing $20 billion Wealth Management firm he and several other investors helped launch in 2008. He also serves on the Board of Directors of CorpU, a leading corporate university research and advisory company, where he serves as Executive Chairman.

Mr. Pottruck serves on the Board of Directors of Intel Corporation where he is a member of the Executive Committee, Chairman of the Compensation Committee, and the Chairman of the Retirement Plan Investment Committee.     He is also on the board of several early stage companies: Joyent, a cloud computing software venture, as Lead Director; and Triporati, a web travel business.  He was also formerly a Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania and Chair of the San Francisco Committee on Jobs. In addition, he is a Senior Fellow and adjunct faculty in the Wharton Center for Leadership and Change Management. In 2010 Mr. Pottruck won the "Outstanding Teaching Award" for teaching his class "Leading Bold Transformational Change" at Wharton San Francisco as the highest rated faculty member in the school. Mr. Pottruck has taught change leadership to hundreds of executives from around the world.

Mr. Pottruck was formerly President and Chief Executive Officer of The Charles Schwab Corporation, where he worked holding various titles from 1984 until 2004.  Mr. Pottruck began at Schwab as the EVP of marketing where he led the effort to grow the company through innovative direct response advertising campaigns. From the year he started in 1984 to 1987, the year Schwab went public, Schwab's revenues tripled under his marketing leadership. He became Schwab's president in 1992 and Co-CEO in 1998, and CEO in 2002.

During his time at Schwab, the assets in custody grew from $5 Billion to over a $1 Trillion and the equity value of Schwab grew from roughly $50 Million to approximately $20 Billion.

Mr. Pottruck helped lead Schwab to be perhaps the first company to completely rebuild its business model around the internet. This, of course, completely transformed the company and led to explosive growth.  Less well known are Mr. Pottruck's leadership of Schwab's reinvention of the no load mutual fund industry via the "mutual fund supermarket concept" and their introduction of the "RIA servicing platform" which today are two of the cornerstones of the "discount brokerage industry".

Mr. Pottruck has received significant recognition by various organizations. He has been named one of the “Top 15 CEOs” by Worth; “CEO of the Year” by Information Week, “Executive of the Year” by The San Francisco Business Times; “CEO of the Year” by Morningstar. Mr. Pottruck also received the Anti-Defamation League’s 2000 Torch of Liberty Award.

Mr. Pottruck co-authored a business book, Clicks and Mortar: Passion Driven Growth in an Internet Driven World, which reached number 8 on the Times best seller list.  He was appointed by Congress and then President Clinton to serve as a Commissioner on The Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce.

Mr. Pottruck graduated with a BA from the University of Pennsylvania in 1970, and earned his MBA with honors from Wharton in 1972.  A native of New York, Mr. Pottruck and his wife, Emily, reside in San Francisco.  He is the father of three adult children.

Christian Terwiesch is the Andrew M. Heller Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He also is a Professor in Wharton's Operations and Information Management department as well as a Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics. His research on Operations Management and on R&D and Innovation Management appears in many of the leading academic journals, including Management Science, Operations Research, Marketing Science, and Organization Science. Professor Terwiesch has researched with and consulted for various organizations, including a project on concurrent engineering for BMW, supply chain management for Intel and Medtronic, and product customization for Dell. Most of his current work relates to healthcare and innovation management. In the healthcare space, some of Professor Terwiesch's recent projects include the analysis of capacity allocation for cardiac surgery procedures at UCSF and at HUP, the impact of emergency room crowding on hospital capacity and revenues (also at HUP), and the usage of ICU beds in the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. In the innovation space, recent projects include the management of the clinical development portfolio at Merck, the development of open innovation systems, and the design of patient centered care processes in the VA hospital system. Professor Terwiesch is the co-author of Matching Supply with Demand, a widely used textbook in Operations Management. His latest book, Innovation Tournaments, was published last summer. The novel, process-based approach to innovation outlined in the book was featured by BusinessWeek, the Financial Times, and the Sloan Management Review.

Martin Ihrig is Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania, USA) and President of I-Space Institute, LLC (USA). He holds a Master of Business Studies (First Class Honors) from University College Dublin (Ireland) and a Doctorate in Business Administration (Summa Cum Laude) from Technische Universität Berlin (Germany).

Dr. Ihrig is interested in the strategic and entrepreneurial management of knowledge and he heads a research initiative that explores this topic at Wharton’s Snider Entrepreneurial Research Center. In developing strategy tools for corporate and public-sector decision makers, he has worked with organizations such as BAE Systems (USA) and The Boeing Company (USA), and his research projects have been funded by The Economic & Social Research Council (UK) and The ATLAS Collaboration at CERN (CH).

His academic research focuses on studying entrepreneurial opportunity recognition strategies with the help of agent-based simulations. He is also investigating the evolution and mapping of knowledge in the multibillion dollar ATLAS experiment at CERN.

Stanton Wortham is the Judy & Howard Berkowitz Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and the Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Education. Professor Wortham has pursued interdisciplinary studies that stretch across anthropology, education, linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. At Penn, he also serves as associate faculty in the Annenberg School for Communication and in the Anthropology and Folklore Graduate Groups in the School of Arts & Sciences. He serves on the editorial boards of Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Theory & Psychology, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Linguistics & Education, Mind, Culture & Activity, Critical Discourse Studies, Discourse Processes, Pedagogies and the Journal of Latinos and Education. In 2001, he received the American Educational Research Association Cattell Early Career Award for Programmatic Research. His training is in human development from the University of Chicago.

Joe Kable is a neuroeconomist who studies how people make tradeoffs between the present and the future, and the brain mechanisms that underlie such decisions.  Joe received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania in 2004, and completed postdoctoral fellowship at NYU's Center for Neuroeconomics before returning to Penn in 2008 as an Assistant Professor of Psychology.  His research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, and has been covered in outlets such as freakonomics.com and /Newsweek/.

Dr. Angela Lee Duckworth is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Angela studies non-IQ competencies, including self-control, that predict success both academically and professionally. Her research populations have included West Point cadets, National Spelling Bee finalists, novice teachers, salespeople, and students. Angela received a BA in Neurobiology from Harvard in 1992 and, as a Marshall Scholar, a Masters in Neuroscience from Oxford. She completed her PhD in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to her career in research, Angela founded a non-profit summer school for low-income children that won the Better Government Award for the state of Massachusetts and was profiled as a Harvard Kennedy School case study. Angela has also been a McKinsey management consultant and, for four years, a math teacher in the public schools of San Francisco, Philadelphia, and New York City.

After teaching in both public and private schools for a number of years, Dr. Ingersoll obtained a PhD in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. From 1995 to 2000, he was a faculty member in the Sociology Department at the University of Georgia and currently is Professor of Education and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Ingersoll's research is concerned with the character of elementary and secondary schools as workplaces, teachers as employees, and teaching as a job. He has published over 100 articles, reports, chapters, and essays on topics such as the management and organization of schools, the problem of underqualified teachers, the impact of induction and mentoring for beginning teachers, the problems of teacher turnover and teacher shortages, the status of teaching as a profession, changes in the demographic character of the teaching force, and the degree of accountability and control in schools and its impact. His research is nationally recognized, was cited by President Clinton in a number of speeches announcing his teacher recruitment and training initiatives, influenced the No Child Left Behind Act, and has been featured in numerous major education reports, including those published by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, the Education Trust, the Alliance for Excellence in Education, the National Governors' Association. the international Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Dr. Ingersoll has received a number of awards, including the Richard B. Russell Award for Excellence in Teaching from the University of Georgia, the Harry Braverman Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems for his work on organizational control and accountability in schools, an American Educational Research Association Fellowship, the National Award of Distinction from the Penn Education Alumni Association, and the Outstanding Writing Award from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education for his book, Who Controls Teachers’ Work? Power and Accountability in America’s Schools, published by by Harvard University Press, and the 2011 Outstanding Researcher Award from the Association of Teacher Educators. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association in 2009. Dr. Ingersoll has conducted numerous briefings of local, state and federal legislators and been invited to present his research before many policy groups, including: the Aspen Institute's Education Policy Program for Members of Congress, the Congressional Hearings on Teacher Preparation Initiatives held by the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Education and the Workforce; the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century, chaired by Senator John Glenn; the Science and the Congress Briefing; the Congressional Research Service's seminar for new members of Congress, sponsored by the U.S. House of Representatives; the Council of the City of New York; and education reform commissions in many states.

Ian McMillan is the the Dhirubhai Ambani Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Director, Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Research Center at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. McMillian is an Academy of Management Fellows, Editorial Board member of the Strategic Management Journal, Human Resource Management, and Long Range Planning publications. His work has been published in Harvard Business Review, Long Range Planning, and Research-Technology Management.

Gregg A. Lichtenstein is the CEO of Collaborative Strategies. A serial entrepreneur, Gregg also earned his Ph.D. in Entrepreneurship from the Wharton School.

Gregg is the founder of EntreLeague, a business that coaches individuals to develop the skills they need to build successful companies. Modeled after the farm system in sports, EntreLeague organize entrepreneurs into levels according to their skill in creating or growing a business – Rookies, Single A’s, Double A’s, Triple A’s or Major Leaguers – and helps them grow their business in terms of size, performance and profitability as they move up the skill ladder.

Entrepreneurs can achieve increases in performance of more than 2 to 10 times as they move up each skill level, creating significant value in the process. Gregg has coached over 400 entrepreneurs in all kinds of businesses using this organized system for mastering entrepreneurial skills.

An international expert in the field of entrepreneurship and business incubation, Gregg is a successful speaker and author. His most recent book, Investing in Entrepreneurs, was co-authored with Dr. Thomas S. Lyons and published by ABC-CLIO in 2010. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal and his coaching system has been featured in the New York Times and on America Public Media's Marketplace show, aired on National Public Radio. He has also authored a number of articles in academic journals.

Websites: www.entreleague.com

www.investinginentrepreneurs.com

www.pipelineofentrepreneurs.com

Charles Fadel is a global education expert, author, and inventor, with several affiliations. At Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, he is a Visiting Practitioner exploring curriculum redesign concepts and accelerated learning via neuroscience, visiting lecturer at Wharton/UPenn where he teaches a class on Technologies for Learning in the Chief Learning Officers program (received highest student rating), and member of the President’s Council of Olin College. His work spans the continuum of Schools, Higher Education, and Workforce Development/Lifelong Learning. Vice-chair of the Education Committee of the Business and Industry Advisory Committee (BIAC) to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), nominated by the U.S. Chamber of International Business (USCIB). He works with several teams at the OECD – PISA, AHELO, and Innovation groups most notably. He is the co-author of a best-selling book titled “21st Century Skills – Learning for Life in our Times” (Wiley), now being translated in mandarin Chinese, Russian and Korean. He frequently lectures on this topic, as well as STEM and Education Technology. He is a former Global Education Lead at Cisco Systems and the Cisco board member at the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (of which Cisco was a founding member) and Change the Equation (STEM). He was also the Cisco liaison with UNESCO and the World Bank. He is also a Board member at Innovate/Educate (dedicated to the advocacy of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). He is an appointee to the Massachusetts gubernatorial “Commission to Develop an Index of Creative and Innovative Education in Public Schools”, and has served on the Massachusetts Governor’s Readiness Project, as well as its 21st Century Skills task force. He is an angel investor, as part of Beacon Angels in Boston. He has worked with a wide variety of education ministries and organizations in Massachusetts, Canada (Federal, New Brunswick and PEI), France, Finland, Sweden, Italy, Chile, Brazil, Costa Rica, Tunisia, and the Dominican Republic, to name a few, and has worked on education projects with more than thirty countries and states. He has contributed to and has been featured by media such as National Public Radio (NPR), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the Huffington Post, eSchool News, Education Week, University Business, Technology & Learning, New Media Consortium, MA and NY Associations for Supervision and Curriculum Development, T.H.E. Journal, and many others. He has presented at numerous education conferences, including UNESCO, the World Bank, the Consortium for School Networking (COSN), the National School Boards Association (NSBA), the National Center for Technology Innovation (NCTI), and the Masie Center’s Learning conferences. He is incubating DigData, a non-profit addressing the convergence of 21st Century Skills, psychology and linguistics to better teach statistics and probabilities. He was creative advisor to the Hayden planetarium of the Boston Museum of Science on their new implementation, and has advised innovative school systems in Brazil (Lumiar) and Chile (Innova100). Charles has been awarded five patents on video, content, and communication technologies. He holds a bachelor of science in electronics with course concentration in quantum and solid-state physics with a minor in neuroscience, and a master of business administration in international marketing. An avid reader, he has autodidactically learned disciplines such as evolutionary psychology. He also enjoys the lessons of classical history.

Jessica Pryce-Jones is CEO of the iOpener Institute for People and Performance, an international organization which provides practical solutions to common and complex workforce issues by leveraging the Science of Happiness at Work. Its specific purpose is to assess, analyze and act upon the factors that create high-performing workplaces.

Jessica strongly believes in data-driven and metrics-led results. Numbers help everyone understand what helps and hinders their performance and what drives happiness at work. Her book, ‘Happiness at Work: Maximizing Your Psychological Capital For Success’ was published in 2010 both in the UK and in the USA. She’s currently working on her second, which is looking at how leaders create high performing and happy organizations.

As well as being a frequent media commentator, Jessica teaches and coaches leaders at London Business School, Chicago Booth, Saïd Business School in Oxford and Judge Business School in Cambridge. She works with senior executive teams and leads consulting interventions. Clients include multinationals in banking, IT, health, publishing and engineering as well as the public and not-for-profit sectors.

Her career started at Rothschild's Bank in Paris and she then spent seven years in the insurance market before starting work as a consultant. Jessica has degrees in Classics (Latin and Greek) and Psychology. She works all over the world but is based in Oxford, UK with her family.

As CLO of MasterCard Worldwide, Dr. Ann Schulte leads MasterCard University. She is responsible for learning and capability development at MasterCard Worldwide and designs and implements programs and initiatives that enhance business performance. She is also leading the organization in capitalizing on collaborative and social learning technologies, informal learning, and knowledge sharing techniques by emphasizing on-the-job learning and learning embedded into the workflow. Before joining MasterCard in 2002, Ann served as a consultant to the firm and led a five-year project to develop training for the rewrite of all key processing systems. She also project managed the Y2K training effort at MasterCard and provided content management for the first HR intranet portal. As principal of her own consulting practice, she delivered learning and performance improvement solutions over a 10 year period for clients such as Helzberg Diamonds, Sprint, Ferrellgas, and the Kansas City Zoo. Her early career focus was in public relations and corporate communications. Ann earned her doctorate in Work-based Learning Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania/Wharton School of Business. Her dissertation, a qualitative study of the role of learning and development in employer brand practices, was designated a dissertation of distinction. She holds a Master’s degree in Media from Webster University, and a Bachelor’s in Journalism from the University of Missouri. She has served on the Public Policy Council for the American Society of Training and Development and on the Board of the ABA BankCard School of Management.

John Resnick is the creator and host of the nationally syndicated radio program, Legends of Success with John Resnick. The show includes rare one-hour interviews with America's top CEO's and business leaders including Steve Forbes, President & CEO of Forbes, Inc.; Jack Welch, retired Chairman of General Electric; Jon Huntsman, Founder & Chairman of Huntsman Corporation; Howard Schultz, Chairman of Starbucks; Evelyn H. Lauder, Senior Corporate Vice President of The Estee Lauder Companies; William Randolph Hearst, III, and many others.

Legends of Success debuted on January 12, 2002, on a single station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and is now syndicated on over 100 affiliates and 58 digital cable television systems (audio channels) across the United States. A major objective of the program is to share the personal journeys of how America's most successful business icons overcame obstacles and setbacks to make it to the top. Mr. Resnick strongly believes that it is vital to foster the entrepreneurial spirit of our students and young people by providing them with astute role models who have accomplished the dreams to which these new entrepreneurs aspire.

John recently conducted his first Legends Live event in Harrisburg, PA featuring keynote speakers Steve Forbes of Forbes magazine and Dr. Patrick T. Harker, Dean of the Wharton School. The sold-out event paid special tribute to The Vista School of Central Pennsylvania, an organization assisting young children with autism.

John Resnick is a nationally recognized advisor to high net worth families and privately-held business owners across the U.S., specializing in the proper use of life insurance in business succession and estate plans. For more than 20 years he has been a principal in Resnick Associates, a second generation firm with offices in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Overland Park, Kansas. Mr. Resnick’s continual focus has been protecting family assets from estate taxes and when applicable, designing inter-generational business succession plans that address the special challenges of active vs. inactive family members. He is frequently requested by other professionals in the financial services industry to assist with joint case work.

Mr. Resnick has served as an adjunct professor of Family-Owned Business studies at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and has lectured at The University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, Florida State University’s College of Business, Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, Penn State Dickinson School of Law, Widener University School of Law, and numerous others. John has also been the course instructor of "Due Diligence of Trust Owned Life Insurance" presented at Bucknell University for the Pennsylvania Bankers School of Trust & Wealth Management, and for the Pennsylvania Institute of CPAs for continuing education.

John, his wife Billie Dietz Resnick, Esq. and colleague Larry Brody, Esq. were recently invited by the American Bar Association to co-author two of the ABA's upcoming national books, “Life Insurance Due Care”, 3rd Edition, and “Estate Planning and Business Succession – A Survival Guide For Serious Family Business Owners”, which are expected to be released in 2012. Mr. Resnick's courses on life insurance, business succession, and buy-sell agreements have been certified by the Pennsylvania Board of Accountancy for continuing education and have been attended by over 2,000 CPAs. Mr. Resnick is a board member of the Pennsylvania Business Development Centers based at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. His articles have been published by newspapers and business journals throughout the U.S., including The Wall Street Journal and Commerce Clearing House (CCH) Journal of Practical Estate Planning on assessing the risks of universal life and variable universal life insurance. John has been a featured contributor of personal interviews with America's top family business leaders in Family Business Magazine, a national publication.

John, his wife Billie and son Ethan live near Harrisburg, Pa.

Ross Born is Co-CEO of Just Born Inc., a family owned candy business located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.  Just Born was founded in 1923 in Brooklyn, New York and moved to Bethlehem in 1932.  Just Born produces brand names Peeps®, MIKE & IKE®, Hot Tamales®, and Goldenberg’s® Peanut Chews.  Just Born products are distributed in all 50 states and internationally in countries such as Canada, South Korea and Israel.

Ross joined the family firm in 1978 and shares the responsibility of leadership with his cousin, David Shaffer; who shares the title of Co-CEO.

Ross, an Allentown, Pennsylvania native, is a graduate of Tufts University (1975) and Hofstra University School of Law (1978).  He and his wife, Wendy, have two married daughters, Lisa and Amy,  grandson Jacob and granddaughter Lilah. Lisa’s husband, Andrew Ellis, joined Just Born in 2007.

Ross is involved in a wide variety of community and industry activities and is the past Chairman of the National Confectioners Association.

Dr. Philip Mathew is the Program Director at the Aditya Birla Group and is based out of Mumbai, India. He brings rich experience in training and consulting across many of the fortune 500 companies. He has worked as a consultant with over 65 organizations like Morgan Stanley, Pepsico, HLL etc. He has conducted coaching sessions at mid and senior levels using various psychometric instruments and 360 degree reports. He has also facilitated various leadership development programs in India, US, Europe and Singapore. He has been a visiting faculty with leading business schools including the Indian School of Business (ISB).

Prior to joining Aditya Birla, he was Assistant Vice President with Genpact (formerly part of GE capital). Philip holds a doctoral degree in Psychology from the University of Pune, INDIA.

Dr. JoEllyn Prouty McLaren is the Managing Director of CorpU EMEA and leads the Europe, Middle East, Africa HQ in London. With over twenty years of experience in consulting, management,  business education, strategic talent management and offline/online learning uniquely positions her as an authority on the use of human capital development to improve performance at  the individual, team and global organizational level.

Dr. Prouty McLaren has designed and directed senior executive leadership development programs for London Business School and Chicago Booth in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Most recently as Director of Executive Education  and Learning for London Business School, she advanced the leadership capabilities of hundreds of global senior executives as the Senior Executive Programme Director, designed the school’s signature approach to tailored learning experiences, and led development of the school’s 2015 learning strategy. She has lectured at LBS, established EMBA programmes for Chicago Booth, designed and co-directed strategic talent management programmes, and designed online learning and talent management strategies for Fortune 100 and global organizations on four continents across a range of industries. She collaborates with The World We Work In where she helps global account executives improve their strategic sales capabilities and organizational effectiveness. Her industry experience gives her a unique perspective on the importance of achieving real business outcomes through application of innovative programme design.

Dr. Prouty McLaren holds a doctorate in learning leadership from University of Pennsylvania/Wharton, an MBA in international business from Chicago Booth, and a BA in French and Foreign Service from Baylor University. Her research interest centres on “Building competitive advantage through the employer brand and employee experience.”

Art Dobrucki leads strategy development and learning performance for the University of Farmers.  Focused on driving business results through learning, Art has broadened learning measurement practices.  He leads a team focused on R&D, evaluation, learning technologies, and corporate university administration. 

Art’s efforts have been instrumental in bringing numerous industry recognitions to the University of Farmers, most notably, three top 10 rankings awarded by Training Magazine.  

Art Dobrucki is a graduate of California State University, Northridge with a B.A. in Economics and an M.B.A.  He holds the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter designation and is a 25-year veteran of the insurance industry.

Alan Todd is CEO of CorpU.  Prior to joining CorpU, Mr. Todd was Chairman and CEO of KnowledgePlanet, a company he founded that helped launch the Online Learning revolution and grew to serving millions of people in over 150 countries, growing to over $150 million in value.  He was named Inc. Magazine / Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for High Technology.  He also serves as a Wharton Entrepreneur-In-Residence and Education Entrepreneurship adviser at the Penn Graduate School of Education.  He completed his doctoral coursework and holds a master's degree from The University of Pennsylvania.

As Global Head of Talent Development at Aon Hewitt, Aaron Olson is responsible for talent management and organizational development for Aon. His team manages executive development, technical learning, performance management and succession planning for Aon’s 59,000 colleagues around the world.

Aaron has 15 years of experience consulting with clients and leading initiatives related to talent management, learning governance and strategy, executive development, manager effectiveness, and blended learning.

Beyond Aon Hewitt, Aaron serves as adjunct faculty at Northwestern University where he teaches graduate courses in talent strategy and leadership development.

As HR Director/Leadership and Management Development at Aon Hewitt, Margaret Heneghan is responsible for the development, deployment and measurement of leadership and management programs that grow the knowledge, skill and experience of the Aon leaders of today and the future. She has more than 17 years of experience related to executive development, blended learning, human resources, corporate communication and knowledge management.

Prior to joining Aon Hewitt in 2000, Margaret was with Tribune Company’s Corporate Relations Department, where she focused on internal and external communication strategy. A native of Chicago, Margaret holds a BA/History degree from Mundelein College (now a division of Loyola University of Chicago) and a MA/Journalism degree from New York University. She also is certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR).

E. Joseph Steier III, Ed. D., MBA, CPA, CNA, entrepreneur, author, public speaker, was born in Louisville, Kentucky and is married to beautiful wife, Sony. They have four wonderful children, Joseph, Jacqueline, Luke, and Ava.

Joe graduated from Bellarmine University with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and from the University of Miami with a MBA in Healthcare Administration. Additionally, Joe has earned his Masters in Education and Doctorate in Education from the University Of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Joe’s dissertation titled “Application of Theories, Principles and Methods of Adult Learning for Managers to Improve Workplace Reactions to Learning, Knowledge and Performance”, received the prestigious honor of distinction.

Joe has won numerous awards both personally and professionally. He was a finalist for the prominent Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2007. He also was voted one of the “40 under 40” in Business First of Louisville and was awarded the “Order of Merit” by the University of Miami for his great academic performance. In 2011, he was named Louisville Magazine’s 37th Most Powerful Person in Louisville and received the prestigious Fleur-de-lis Award from Greater Louisville, Inc, which recognizes a local citizen who has made significant contributions to the Louisville community throughout his or her career.

Joe co-led the purchase and sale of Home Quality Management, Inc., a Top 20 nationally recognized long term care organization, to a newly formed Signature HealthCARE, LLC in 2007. Almost five years later, Signature HealthCARE, LLC is one of the 10 largest post acute providers in the U.S. and has already achieved several recognitions and awards.

Katerina Karmokolias is an Enterprise Talent Development Specialist at Raytheon. In this role, she leads the enterprise-wide processes on succession planning and talent reviews, and is responsible for process design and improvements, alignment with senior leadership, providing training and support to HR and Managers, collecting metrics, and analyzing data to identify enterprise trends and development focus areas. Katerina also supports Raytheon’s leadership development programs and talent pools, as well as the company’s online Leadership portal.

Katerina is a graduate of Raytheon’s Leadership Development Program, a two year program where participants complete three unique roles across the country and receive robust leadership training. She began her career with Raytheon in 2004 as an electrical engineer and transferred to the HR organization in 2008.

Katerina has a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Lehigh University and an MBA from the University of Rhode Island. Katerina currently works at Raytheon’s global headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Nicole S. Jones is senior manager of the executive talent pool for Raytheon Company. Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN), with 2011 sales of $25 billion, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, homeland security and other government markets throughout the world. With headquarters in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs 71,000 people worldwide.

In this role, Jones manages the development, succession, and deployment of high-potential executive talent across the Raytheon enterprise. Her responsibilities include management of the company’s top two leadership development programs, Executive Leadership Summit (XLS) and Accelerating Leadership Impact (ALI).

Previously, Jones was senior manager, talent development and learning for Raytheon’s Intelligence & Information Systems business. In this role, Jones co-led the design and launch of the enterprise wide Cyber Security Learning Center and partnered with senior executives to drive a comprehensive and progressive Talent Development & Learning strategy, plan and solutions in the areas of leadership development, succession planning, talent development, and organizational assessments. 

Jones has more than 20 years of experience in all facets of global learning, leadership and talent development, performance management, and organizational development.

Prior to joining Raytheon, Jones was director of organizational development and learning for RTI International. In that role, she led the strategic alignment of employee learning and development to RTI’s research and business priorities and launched RTI’s corporate university. As a critical thinker, she also provided leadership and expertise to drive transformational change.

Prior to joining RTI International, she led the strategy, planning, execution, and return on investment of corporate learning and organizational development at global companies such as Infineon Technologies and Tekelec.

Jones holds a master’s degree in business administration from Meredith College. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from North Carolina State University. Jones is certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and as a Human Capital Strategist (HCS).

Esra Ramazanogullari is responsible for “University Industry Collaborations” at the award winning corporate university, Turkcell Academy. She has “Sales & Marketing” experience in textile, technology, and telecommunication sectors and held different managerial positions for 20 years. She has extensive CRM, Brand Management and HR Management know-how and played an important role in the establishment and development of Turkcell Academy. In recent years, she is involved in social responsibility projects to develop qualified human resources for the sector, to support strategic alliances with universities, and to enhance entrepreneurship and innovation. She holds a degree in Business Administration from Istanbul University. She is married and has a 7 year old daughter and a 9 year old son.

Born in Izmir in 1975, Güliz Senok graduated from Izmir American College and Bilkent University, completing her bachelor's degree in International Relations and Political Science. She has extensive work experience in multinational environments as director of brand management, sales and marketing. Guliz joined Turkcell Academy in 2011 where she is responsible for University - Industry Relations, with the aim of developing qualified human resources for the sector, increasing interaction with academia, and creating value for business, particularly in the fields of innovation and ventures. Guliz is maried and a mother to twin girls.

Bobby Yazdani is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Saba. He was an industry pioneer in creating the Human Capital Management category in 1997, and has grown Saba into a $100 million+ profitable enterprise software business providing premier software and service solutions for people management and collaboration.

Saba's people platform enables enterprise learning, performance and compensation management, succession planning, and workforce planning that align, engage, develop, mobilize, and foster collaboration across employees, customers, and partners. The company has been recognized by leading industry analysts for excellence and innovation in unified people management, collaboration, and social networking, and serves a roster of over 1,400 customers with more than 19 million users across 150 countries. Saba's solutions are available on-premise or on-demand.

Saba's customers are global leaders across a broad range of industries and public sector organizations, and include BMW, Daimler AG, IBM, The American Red Cross, Procter and Gamble, Medtronic, U.S. Army, and U.S. Navy, among many others. Bobby is a frequent spokesperson at industry events held by organizations such as the United Nations and The Economist. Prior to founding Saba, Bobby held various senior R&D management positions at Oracle Corporation.

Bobby has a B.A. in Applied Mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Jason Owen-Smith is a sociologist who examines how science, commerce, and the law cohere and conflict in contemporary societies and economies. Together with collaborators, Jason works on projects that examine the dynamics of high-technology industries, the commercialization of academic research, and the science and politics of human embryonic stem cell research. He seeks to understand how organizations, institutions, and networks can maintain the status quo while generating novelty through social transformations, scientific discoveries, and technological breakthroughs. Findings from this research have been published in outlets including the American Journal of Sociology, the American Sociological Review, Cell, Higher Education, Management Science, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Methods, Organization Science, Research Policy, and Social Studies of Science.

Professor Owen-Smith has held faculty appointments in the Department of Sociology and the Organizational Studies Program at the University of Michigan since 2002. He is the recipient of a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Industries Studies Fellowship in Biotechnology. In 2008 he received the University of Michigan's Henry Russel Award, which recognizes mid-career faculty for exceptional scholarship and conspicuous teaching ability. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in sociology at the University of Arizona and a B.A. in sociology and philosophy from the New College of Florida. Before joining the faculty at Michigan, Jason conducted two years of post-doctoral research at Stanford University.

Jason teaches course on organizations, leadership, entrepreneurship & innovation in high technology, research methods, sociology of science & technology, and network theory.

Juraj Ondrejkovic is Associate Director at the World Economic Forum, overseeing Global Leadership Fellows Programme, a world class executive leadership development programme for the Forum’s frontliners developed in collaboration with INSEAD, LBS, Columbia, Wharton and other top schools and faculty. He joined the organization in 2005 to set up and later to develop the programme. (www.weforum.org/glf)

Before joining the Forum, Juraj worked in recruitment, e-marketing and as a consultant for Deutsche Telekom, T-mobile and European Investor Relations and in the not-for-profit sector as trainer and in various leadership positions with AIESEC in Slovakia and Switzerland.

Juraj holds an Executive Master in Strategic Human Resources Management, by Cornell University and SDA Bocconi. He holds also MSc in Management from Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia, where he grew up. He is certified and frequent user of MBTI step 2, MSCEIT; the emotional intelligence ability assessment tool and HOGAN; the personality assessment tool.

Currently based in Geneva, Juraj has visited or lived in 39 countries and speaks Slovak, Czech, English, French, and rusty German. He is an adventure traveler and enjoys basketball, yoga and alpine sports.

Tag Mike McCartney as one of those gifted techies that just makes software sing. A Computer Science graduate from the University of Texas at Austin, Mike was an early technology force at PayPal after joining eBay in 2001. Now a catalyst in PayPal's Technology Organization, Mike leads a group of software architects to bring the most advanced online and point of sale payment systems to consumers and businesses worldwide. Mike will be attending the conference on Day 1; his Day 3 poster presentations will be delivered by Dr. Peggy Strong, a member of the Technology Education team at PayPal.

Laura Hackett leads MillerCoors Learning and Development team and oversees MillerCoors University.

Laura has over 25 years of experience with Miller Brewing Company and now MillerCoors.  She has held a broad range of leadership roles in sales, marketing and national accounts, including serving as general manager, sales and vice president, retail marketing.  Laura’s experience and achievement within the commercial organization provides a deep understanding of the motivations of our employees and refines her ability to coach others to success.

Laura joined the learning team in 2008 as general manager, commercial learning and development and recently assumed responsibility for the entire learning organization which also includes leadership development and learning operations.

James D. May, Ph.D. is currently the program management lead for the Safety & Mission Assurance Technical Excellence Program (STEP) at the NASA Safety Center, located at Glenn Research Center in Brook Park, Ohio. Jim is employed by Alphaport, Inc., the prime contractor for the STEP Program. Prior to joining Alphaport, Jim held a number of positions in web-based training development, organizational consulting and management development in various industries. Jim holds a Ph.D. in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University.