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.

History does not come with explanation. Martha MacCallum has made a career of providing it in real time.

Across six presidential elections and decades of breaking news, Martha MacCallum has served as a steady voice in moments that shape public understanding. From September 11th to January 6th, from the funeral of George H. W. Bush to the coronation of King Charles III, she has anchored coverage when the stakes are high and the picture is still forming.

As Anchor and Executive Editor of The Story, she has conducted consequential interviews with presidents, cabinet officials, and Supreme Court justices, including exclusive access at defining moments. Her style is direct and controlled, built for environments where clarity matters and trust is tested.

On stage, MacCallum brings that same perspective. She offers a behind-the-scenes view of how narratives take shape in real time, how leaders communicate under pressure, and what separates information from understanding when it matters most.

Most people think they know American history. Greg Jackson is not so sure.

A historian, professor, and creator of the hit podcast History That Doesn’t Suck!, Jackson has built a following by challenging familiar narratives and making the past feel urgent again. His work extends well beyond the classroom, from his live stage show The Unlikely Union, which has sold out theaters nationwide, to appearances on HISTORY Channel and National Geographic.

Jackson brings real scholarship without the distance that usually comes with it. As a tenured professor and America 250 Professor at Utah Valley University, his work is grounded in primary sources, but his delivery is built for audiences who want clarity, not lectures. His forthcoming book, Been There, Done That, continues that approach, using history to show what people have actually navigated before.

On stage, Jackson focuses on the moments where things could have gone differently. He draws a direct line between past decisions and the pressures leaders face now, giving audiences a sharper way to think about the present.

What do you learn about power when you’ve seen it from inside the White House, the Pentagon, and the national media? Alyssa Farah Griffin has had a front-row seat to how consequential decisions get made, communicated, and challenged at the highest levels. The only person to have served as the top spokesperson for the President, Vice President, and Secretary of Defense in a single administration, she has navigated national security crises, advised senior leaders under extraordinary pressure, and communicated when every word carried weight.

Now, as a co-host of The View and CNN Political Commentator, Farah Griffin brings that insider experience to the conversations shaping America today. With candor, perspective, and a willingness to engage across differences, she takes audiences beyond the headlines to explore how power really works, what leadership demands when the stakes are highest, and how we can find a way forward in an increasingly divided world.

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.

The AI race won't be won by the companies building the models. It will be won by the companies that know how to put them to work. Few leaders understand that better than Bill McDermott.

As Chairman and CEO of ServiceNow, Bill leads one of the Fortune 500's fastest-growing technology companies and is helping define how the world's largest organizations put AI to work. Under his leadership, ServiceNow has become a leader in enterprise AI, connecting people, data, and workflows to drive transformation at scale. Previously, as CEO of SAP, he led one of the most successful chapters in the company's history, cementing his reputation as one of the technology industry's most admired executives.

On stage, Bill offers a CEO's perspective on the biggest technology shift of our time. Drawing on decades leading global software companies, he shares how organizations can harness AI to accelerate growth, lead through disruption, and build businesses prepared for what's next.

Glenn Youngkin served as the 74th Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. In 2020, Governor Youngkin took a bold step and left his role as Co-CEO of one of the largest investments firms in the world, The Carlyle Group, to win the 2021 historic race in Virginia and ignite the Great Virginia Renaissance during his term-limited four years as Governor. Business investment soared to $157 billion - more than the previous six governors combined. His pro-growth policies spurred record job growth with over 270,000 more Virginians working. With over 200,000 open and available jobs and 85,000 more jobs on the way, he drove unprecedented business investment in the Commonwealth.

As America's Education Governor, Youngkin delivered record education investment, lead in recovering learning loss after the pandemic, set a national standard for bell-to-bell cellphone-free education, expanded choice, and put parents at the head of the table. Governor Youngkin’s Back-the-Blue pro law enforcement policies led to a 30% reduction in the murder rate and a nationally leading 60% reduction in fentanyl overdoses. Governor Youngkin brought a business mindset to government - reducing wait times at the DMV from 35 minutes to 6 minutes, transforming the behavioral health system and delivering $10 billion in budget surpluses. Governor Youngkin's commonsense conservative leadership delivered on his frequent refrain that "results matter."

Today, Governor Youngkin serves as Chairman of venture firm, Red Cell Partners, in addition to providing board and advisory services to several companies and non-profits.

At a time when trust in the news is fading, V Spehar has built something rare: a space where people feel informed and understood. As the founder of Under the Desk News, they’ve created a community of millions who come for context that cuts through the noise. Named one of TIME100’s Most Influential Digital Voices, V has become a steady presence in a chaotic media landscape Their storytelling bridges the space between breaking stories and human stories, showing that understanding current events starts with empathy, not outrage.

A seasoned journalist with a sharp grasp of politics, policy, and culture, V has reported from the Democratic National Convention and the Paris Olympics, and conducted interviews with Presidents Biden and Obama. Their work reflects a command of complex issues and a talent for translating them into something people can actually use and understand. Their work has appeared in outlets such as The Washington Post and NBC News, and they are frequently featured as a guest contributor on MS NOW and CNN.

V approaches the stage like they approach the news, with curiosity, precision, and a clear sense of responsibility. Their talks cut through noise and polarization, inviting people to think critically while remembering the humanity behind every headline.

WIRED called Josh Johnson “the funniest guy on the internet.” What matters is why people are paying attention.

On stage, Johnson stands out because he has a rare ability to quickly translate topical, complex and sometimes heavy topics into stories that feel personal, clear, and genuinely funny. Instead of overwhelming audiences with jargon or oversimplifying the issue, he builds his explanations using relatable analogies, sharp observations and personal stories that make everything click. His calm, conversational delivery gives listeners space to process the idea while still being entertained and his humor doesn’t distract from the message—it actually reinforces it. The result is comedy that feels insightful without being preachy, and educational without ever losing its sense of fun.

An Emmy-nominated writer, stand-up comedian, and NAACP award winner, Johnson has built one of the most engaged audiences in comedy today, with over 10 million followers and more than half a billion views on YouTube. As a rotating host and correspondent on The Daily Show, and a former writer for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, he is uniquely qualified to create high quality content that sits at the intersection of culture, technology, and media.

In 2025 alone, Johnson released 38 hours of original stand-up comedy grounded in current events, while his sold-out FLOWERS TOUR spanned 112 cities worldwide.

Many-time bestselling author, columnist, and commentator John Avlon has been called “a trusted, grounded, and welcome voice” emphasizing bipartisanship and real solutions. He currently hosts a solutions journalism podcast on The Bulwark called How to Fix It and serves as the Chairman of Citizens Union, New York’s oldest good government group. Avlon was a Senior Political Analyst and Anchor at CNN, known for his “Reality Check” segments across the network. He is an award-winning columnist and the author of Independent Nation, Wingnuts, Washington’s Farewell, and Lincoln & the Fight for Peace, which was praised by The New York Times as “a Lincoln for our polarized times…powerful and affecting” and named one of the best books of the year by Vanity Fair and Foreign Affairs. He was the editor-in-chief and managing director of The Daily Beast (2013-8) and served as chief speechwriter for the Mayor of New York. Avlon’s essay, “The Resilient City” was selected to conclude Empire City: New York through the Centuries and won acclaim as “the single best essay written in the wake of 9/11.”

Avlon has appeared multiple times on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Real Time with Bill Maher, The Daily Show, PBS, and C-Span. He has spoken at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, the National Constitution Center, and other civic organizations around the nation. Avlon is also a co-founder of No Labels – a group of Democrats, Republicans and Independents dedicated to the politics of problem-solving and making government work again. Highly regarded for his shrewd analysis of the headlines of the day, offering historic perspective on the current political climate of the U.S., and the role of journalism in politics, Avlon offers reasoned discourse that focuses on real solutions.

Artificial intelligence is moving faster than most organizations realize, and Matt Shumer is one of the people closest to the shift.

As the former CEO of OthersideAI, the company behind the widely used AI writing assistant HyperWrite, Shumer buillt the kinds of tools that are quietly reshaping how millions of professionals write, code, and work.

His perspective broke into the mainstream with his viral essay, Something Big Is Happening published in Fortune, where he argued that the current AI moment resembles February 2020, when early warnings about COVID were still easy to dismiss. Shumer’s message was blunt: the transformation is already underway, and most people have not caught up yet.

On stage, Shumer brings audiences inside the front lines of AI development. Rather than relying on abstract predictions, he draws on what he and other builders are already seeing in their work, helping leaders understand what matters now as AI begins to reshape industries and how knowledge work gets done.

De Kai is Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at HKUST and Distinguished Research Scholar at Berkeley’s International Computer Science Institute. De Kai invented and built the world’s first global-scale online language translator that spawned Google Translate, Yahoo Translate, and Microsoft Bing Translator.He is Independent Director of AI ethics think tank The Future Society, and was one of eight inaugural members of Google’s AI ethics council. For his pioneering contributions in AI, natural language processing, and machine learning, De Kai was honored by the Association for Computational Linguistics as one of only seventeen Founding Fellows and by Debrett’s as one of the 100 most influential figures of Hong Kong.

De Kai's new book, Raising AI, has taken the marketplace of ideas by storm. With a rare combination of visionary insight, deep technical expertise, and a compelling ability to communicate complex ideas to diverse audiences, De Kai is uniquely positioned to lead vital conversations on the future of AI and humanity. His groundbreaking work and global influence make him a catalyst for thought and action. Hiring De Kai means bringing bold ideas, ethical clarity, and transformative perspective to your stage.