Leading through transformation is difficult. Doing it with hundreds of thousands of people is something else entirely. Kathryn McLay knows what that takes.

As former President and CEO of Walmart International and Sam's Club, McLay led one of the world's largest and most complex organizations through a defining period of change. Responsible for operations across 18 countries, more than 500,000 associates, and millions of customers each week, she helped align global teams behind a shared strategy while navigating disruption, accelerating growth, and driving execution at extraordinary scale.

On stage, McLay makes transformation tangible. Rather than offering theories, she shares the leadership principles she relied on to align hundreds of thousands of people around a common goal, execute through uncertainty, and sustain performance at extraordinary scale. Audiences leave better equipped to lead change inside their own organizations—whether they're responsible for fifty people or fifty thousand.

Columbia Business School professor Dr. Sheena Iyengar is a world expert on choice and decision-making. Her book The Art of Choosing received the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year and inspired an eponymous TED Talk.  Her subsequent book, Think Bigger, was a Gold Medal Winner of the 2024 Axiom Business Book Award. Her research is regularly cited in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Economist as well as in popular books, such as Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink and Aziz Ansari’s Modern Romance. Dr. Iyengar has also appeared on television, including The Today Show, The Daily Show, and Fareed Zakaria’s GPS on CNN. Her TED Talks have collectively received 7M views and her research continues to inform markets, businesses, and individuals around the world.

Dr. Iyengar has been named a member of Thinkers50, a global ranking of the top 50 management thinkers. She won the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Core Teaching from Columbia Business School in 2012 and was named one of the World’s Best B-School Professors by Poets and Quants. She has also given keynotes and consulted for companies as wide-ranging as Deloitte, Google, Bloomberg, Blizzard Entertainment, J.P. Morgan & Chase, and The North Face.

Chris Finch is the architect behind one of the NBA’s most dramatic turnarounds. As head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves, he reshaped a long-struggling franchise into a Western Conference finalist and one of the league’s most disciplined, resilient teams. His leadership delivered the highest winning percentage in team history, four straight playoff appearances, and recognition as head coach of the 2024 NBA All-Star Game.

As a speaker, Finch translates elite coaching into practical leadership insight. He speaks candidly about accountability, mental toughness, and building belief inside high-pressure environments. Audiences come away with a clear understanding of how strong culture is built, how performance is sustained, and how leaders earn trust when the stakes are highest.

J.B. Bickerstaff is one of the NBA’s most respected turnaround leaders. As head coach of the Detroit Pistons, he led the franchise back to the playoffs for the first time since 2019, tripled the team’s win total from the previous season, and earned runner-up honors for NBA Coach of the Year. In 2025, he reached 300 career wins, becoming one of a small group of coaches in league history to hit the milestone and the first to do so alongside his father, Bernie Bickerstaff.

As a speaker, Bickerstaff talks honestly about earning trust in losing environments, making decisions when patience is thin, and leading people who are tired of hearing speeches. His message resonates with organizations looking for leaders who can move teams forward under real pressure.

Trajan Langdon is President of Basketball Operations for the Detroit Pistons and a decisive leader who changes outcomes fast. In his first year in the role, he engineered one of the NBA’s most dramatic turnarounds, transforming a 14-win team into a 44–38 playoff contender and earning top-three recognition for NBA Executive of the Year. The impact was immediate and unmistakable.

Drawing on his experience as a Duke standout shaped by championship standards, Langdon moved quickly to reset the organization. The result was a franchise with clearer direction, stronger belief, and a culture built to win.

As a speaker, Langdon takes audiences inside what real transformation looks like when the clock is ticking and scrutiny is high. He speaks candidly about making consequential decisions early, rebuilding trust, and creating environments where people perform at their best. Leaders bring him in when they want a grounded, modern perspective on how winning cultures are actually built and sustained.

Brad Underwood has reinvigorated Illinois basketball, transforming the Fighting Illini into a consistent national contender since arriving in Champaign in March 2017. In 2024, Underwood led Illinois to historic heights, capturing the Big Ten Tournament Championship and advancing to the Elite Eight, becoming the first coach in Illinois history to win multiple Big Ten Tournament titles with the program hoisting a conference trophy for the third time in just four years. Over his 11 years as a Division I head coach, he has compiled an impressive 69% winning percentage, recorded nine 20-win seasons, and made eight NCAA Tournament appearances.

As a speaker, Underwood offers powerful insights on leadership, resilience, continuous improvement, and building championship cultures—providing actionable lessons for organizations seeking to elevate performance and create environments where individuals and teams thrive under pressure.

Funny, provocative, and endlessly engaging, Harvard Business School professor Leslie John has a gift for making people rethink what they thought they knew about human behavior. An award-winning behavioral scientist, she studies the choices people make in conversation and why our instincts about trust and influence are often spectacularly wrong.

John is the James E. Burke Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, but her work starts with questions that are anything but academic. How much is too much to share? Why can asking questions be more powerful than making an argument? Her forthcoming book, Revealing: The Underrated Power of Oversharing, turns one of our most familiar social anxieties into a surprising case for greater openness.

On stage, John brings the energy of a great storyteller to the rigor of a Harvard researcher. Through humor and counterintuitive findings, she gives audiences a fresh way to understand the people around them and practical ideas for becoming more effective leaders and communicators.