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.

Cynthia Rowley built a global consumer brand by trusting instinct where others waited for proof. She started as a painter at the Art Institute of Chicago, landed in New York with barely enough money to stay afloat, and turned a creative point of view into a company with real cultural and commercial weight that continues to evolve.

Her label broke through traditional categories, introducing surf-leisure before the market had language for it and moving early into e-commerce to build direct relationships with customers. From cereal boxes to Band-Aids for Johnson & Johnson and Barbies for Mattel, Rowley consistently pushes beyond narrow ideas of what her brand is “allowed” to be. Along the way, Rowley became a bestselling author of the Swell books, dressed celebrities like Julianne Moore, Kim Kardashian, Alan Cumming, and became a familiar face on television, including guest judging on Project Runway and appearances on late-night talk shows.

As a speaker, Rowley explores what it really takes to build and sustain a business without a roadmap. She speaks about judgment under pressure, embracing fear, and pushing boundaries when playing it safe can stall progress. Audiences gain access to the thinking behind a brand that learned how to move early and keep its edge.

Renowned conductor James Conlon has cultivated a vast symphonic, operatic, and choral repertoire and is one of today’s most versatile and respected conductors and educators. Mr. Conlon has spoken internationally about the power of creativity, the enduring importance of classical music, and leadership insights that resonate across industries.

Since his 1974 debut with the New York Philharmonic, Mr. Conlon has conducted virtually every major American and European symphony orchestra. He is Music Director of LA Opera, with whom he has won four Grammy Awards and led more performances than any other conductor in the company’s history, and also serves as Artistic Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Through worldwide touring, an extensive discography and videography, numerous writings, television appearances and guest speaking engagements, he is one of classical music’s most recognized and prolific figures.

Mr. Conlon is an enthusiastic advocate of the role music plays in our shared humanity and civic life. He has worked to call attention to the works of composers silenced by the Nazi regime – which led to the creation of The OREL Foundation, the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices, and his popular TEDx Talk “Resurrecting Forbidden Music.” Mr. Conlon has received numerous honorary doctorates and accolades including the Legion d’Honneur – France’s highest honor – and was personally inducted by then-President Jacques Chirac.

DeMaurice Smith spent fifteen years negotiating against the most powerful owners in sports and walked away having delivered more than $100 billion to players.

As Executive Director of the NFL Players Association, he took on what ESPN called the toughest job in sports and turned it into a platform for leverage. Smith led high-stakes labor battles, navigated public crises from "Deflategate" to player protests, and built a business engine that reshaped how athletes generate value beyond the field.

In his recent book, Turf Wars: The Fight for America’s Game, Smith pulls back the curtain on those moments, offering a clear look at how power, money, and influence actually operate behind closed doors. The same dynamics shaping the NFL are playing out across business and leadership today, which makes his perspective feel less like sports commentary and more like a real-time playbook.

On stage, Smith breaks down how power actually works. He shows how to negotiate when the other side has more resources, how to manage risk when every decision is public, and how to build systems that hold under pressure. His perspective is grounded in experience where the consequences were immediate and the stakes could not be higher.

Simu Liu built his career by walking away from the future that had been mapped out for him. The son of Chinese immigrants, he left a conventional career in business at 23 to pursue acting, eventually becoming the face of a history-making Marvel franchise and one of the most recognizable Asian stars in the world.

But Liu has never treated success in Hollywood as the finish line. From Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and the cultural phenomenon Barbie to Broadway and the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, he has continued to push into new territory. Off screen, he is building just as deliberately. As a partner at Markham Valley Ventures, Liu backs AAPI leaders across business and culture, and as Chief Content Officer of MìLà, he is helping grow a modern Chinese food brand with cultural identity at its core.

His New York Times bestselling memoir, We Were Dreamers, tells the story underneath that trajectory: immigrant expectations, a failed accounting career, and the decision to pursue a life that looked nothing like the one he was expected to lead.

Funny, candid, and relentlessly ambitious, Liu brings audiences inside what it takes to forge your own path, expand the possibilities of representation, and keep building long after the breakthrough.

What happens when you stop letting the world define you and start choosing yourself?

For more than three decades, Jennie Garth has lived that question in public. She became one of television’s most recognizable stars as Kelly Taylor on the cultural phenomenon Beverly Hills, 90210, growing up in front of millions while an entire generation formed an idea of who she was. Today, she has reclaimed one of her character’s most iconic declarations, “I choose me,” and transformed it into a deeply personal philosophy about identity, reinvention, and having the courage to decide what comes next.

Garth has navigated extraordinary fame, motherhood, divorce, aging in Hollywood, and the challenge of building a life beyond the role that made her a household name. Her instant New York Times bestseller, I Choose Me: Chasing Joy, Finding Purpose & Embracing Reinvention, and I Choose Me With Jennie Garth podcast turn those experiences into candid conversations about letting go of expectations, embracing change, and finding purpose in a new chapter.

An actor, producer, bestselling author, podcaster, entrepreneur, and designer, Garth has continually evolved without losing the authenticity that first connected her with millions. Onstage, she brings a refreshingly relatable perspective to the moments when the life you built no longer fits and choosing yourself becomes the first step toward building what comes next.

A Super Bowl champion and one of his generation’s most influential athletes, Russell Wilson continues to inspire the next generation through his unwavering commitment to excellence.

Leadership looks different when the whole world thinks it has the answer. Wilson has spent his career learning how to earn trust without chasing approval, remain focused through passion and overcoming adversity, and lead people toward a common goal to achieve ultimate success. Wilson's perspective carried him and his team to a Super Bowl championship, ten Pro Bowls, and a career that has expanded far beyond football through entrepreneurship with 3BRAND, Why Not You Productions and Limitless Minds. His commitment to uplifting the next generation and create change is cemented in the global work he does through his Why Not You Foundation and being recognized as NFL Walter Payton Man of the Year and Bart Starr Award.

On stage, Wilson explores what it really takes to lead when expectations never disappear. His message goes beyond sports. It's about conviction and dedication to the craft. Audiences leave with a new understanding of how resilient leaders build trust, respond to adversity, and inspire people to believe in something bigger than the moment in front of them.

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.

Michael Bosstick is the Founder and CEO of Dear Media, the largest podcast network for women, leveraging its shows as springboards for talent to build broader brand ecosystems across commerce, live events, national tours and publishing. Dear Media pioneered the 360 model in the audio space, from audio and video production to distribution, monetization, live events and consumer brand extensions. It hosts 100 top-rated entertainment and pop culture shows led by talent like Khloé Kardashian, Amanda Hirsch and Jordin Sparks. 

Sir John is a globally renowned makeup artist, creative director, and cultural tastemaker whose artistry has shaped defining looks for Beyoncé, Serena Williams, Zendaya, Oprah Winfrey, Naomi Campbell, and Priyanka Chopra. His influence spans from the red carpet to the boardroom, with leadership roles as Editor-at-Large at Allure and Creative Director at Medicube, following collaborations with L’Oréal Paris and Kilian Paris. Known for blending technical mastery with emotional depth, Sir John views beauty as a frequency, a way of living with curiosity, presence, and pleasure. That philosophy, paired with his track record of cultural impact, makes him a trusted guide for audiences exploring identity, creativity, and personal power.

In 2026, he will debut VERSION of SELF, a podcast with iHeartRadio that brings his signature candor and vision to conversations on transformation and belonging. Across every platform, Sir John uses beauty as a language of empowerment, leaving those he engages with a renewed sense of confidence and possibility.

Pioneering Physician, Longevity Expert & Wellness Innovator

As one of the world’s leading voices on longevity and preventative health, Steven Gundry, MD helps organizations unlock the science of living—and working—better, longer. As a world-renowned heart surgeon turned pioneering researcher exploring the links between gut health, the microbiome, and disease, he equips audiences with actionable strategies to lower stress, prevent burnout, and build the foundations for lasting longevity and high performance. With a unique ability to make cutting-edge science both inspiring and practical, Dr. Gundry's dynamic keynotes empower corporate leaders, teams, and associations to build cultures of vitality that drive performance today while protecting the health and productivity of tomorrow.

A cum laude graduate of Yale University, Dr. Gundry is a renowned cardiothoracic surgeon, four-time New York Times bestselling author, restorative medicine practitioner and medical researcher. Over his 40-year cardiothoracic surgeon career, he has performed more than 10,000 heart surgeries, published over 300 studies, and developed life-saving medical technology.

Dr. Gundry is the founder of the wellness brand Gundry MD, the telemedicine app Gundry Health and host of the weekly audio and video Dr. Gundry Podcast. His recent book, Gut-Brain Paradox delves into the connection between gut and mental health.

Allison Ellsworth is the visionary behind poppi, the modern soda brand that reinvented an entire category and reshaped how the next generation thinks about better-for-you beverages. She went from experimenting in her kitchen to creating one of the fastest-growing drinks in the country, turning a farmers-market side project into a cultural staple with a Shark Tank deal and a landmark sale to PepsiCo. Ellsworth built poppi’s unmistakable presence online and in pop culture, cultivating a massive community, billions of views, and celebrity fans who turned the brand into a phenomenon. Her work has earned recognition from TIME, Inc., Modern Retail, and the broader consumer world as a blueprint for how modern brands break through.

As a speaker, Ellsworth talks about trusting ideas before they make sense on paper and navigating the pressure of the public eye. Her story shows people how to stay grounded, take smart risks, and keep pushing forward even when the path is unpredictable.

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.

Most people think they understand beauty. Winnie Harlow made a career proving how narrow that definition really is.

A globally recognized supermodel and beauty entrepreneur, Harlow did not just break into fashion. She changed what it looks like. Diagnosed with vitiligo at age four, she turned visibility into power, becoming one of the most recognizable faces in the industry and a defining voice on representation. From her groundbreaking Madame Tussauds figure to global honors like Canada’s Global Citizen Award, her influence moves well beyond the runway.

She is also building what comes next. As the founder of Cay Skin, launched with $4.1 million in funding, Harlow is creating products and a brand that reflect a more inclusive vision of beauty.

On stage, Harlow is sharp, candid, and disarming. She challenges audiences to rethink who sets the standard and why it matters now, leaving them with a clear edge: the brands and leaders who stand out are the ones willing to be seen differently.

Anna Wintour is one of the most influential leaders in modern media. For more than thirty years, she has led Vogue and Condé Nast, demonstrating an uncommon ability to read the cultural and commercial moment. As a speaker, Ms. Wintour talks from the vantage point of someone who has spent decades making consequential decisions and steadying institutions through disruption.

Her name signals authority and discernment. That judgment extended beyond publishing, transforming the Met Gala into a global philanthropic engine and raising more than $400 million for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her work also spans public health and philanthropy, including long-standing advocacy in the fight against HIV and AIDS, recognized by the American Foundation for AIDS Research, and her role as Co-Founder of the Center for Youth Mental Health.

Wintour’s influence has been recognized at the highest levels internationally. She has received a damehood from Queen Elizabeth II, been appointed a Companion of Honour by King Charles III, awarded France’s Légion d’Honneur by President Nicolas Sarkozy, and honored with the CFDA Lifetime Achievement Award.

Audiences hear from a voice whose experience is singular and whose influence has defined how modern media operates at scale.

Widely regarded as the G.O.A.T. of professional surfing, Kelly Slater is an 11-time World Surf League Champion whose career spans over three decades at the pinnacle of sport. A global icon and sustainability entrepreneur, he brings unmatched insight into peak performance, resilience, and purpose-driven leadership. Known for his ability to adapt to constantly changing conditions—both in the ocean and in life—he inspires audiences to embrace uncertainty, stay focused under pressure, and push beyond perceived limits. As the founder of the eco-conscious apparel brand Outerknown and a passionate ocean advocate, Slater also demonstrates how sustainability can drive innovation, strengthen brands, and create lasting impact. Whether sharing lessons from the champion’s mindset, strategies for thriving in high-change environments, or his vision for a more sustainable future, Kelly delivers an unforgettable, authentic, and energizing experience for any audience.

Tiffany Derry is a nationally recognized chef and entrepreneur who has built and scaled successful hospitality businesses in highly competitive markets. Known to broad audiences through MasterChef and Top Chef, Tiffany has developed a portfolio of business ventures that includes co-founding T2D Concepts, a purpose-driven hospitality company that develops and operates restaurant brands, as well as the ‘Shef Tiffany spice line and the DerryWear apparel brand. Her experience is directly relevant to organizations operating under scrutiny, where execution matters and missteps are visible.

As a speaker, Derry brings an operator’s perspective on leadership under pressure. Denied her first cooking job at 15 because of race and gender, she built credibility through execution rather than permission. She speaks about making decisions when the margin for error is thin and results are immediate. Her perspective resonates with organizations responsible for performance and long-term durability.

Dexter Fowler is a World Series champion and MLB All-Star whose leadership helped propel the Chicago Cubs to their historic 2016 title. Known throughout his 14-year career as a dynamic switch-hitter and clubhouse catalyst, Fowler has since redefined himself as a broadcaster, entrepreneur, and investor. He’s a studio analyst for MLB on FOX, TBS, and MLB Network, co-founder of 400 Ventures, and part of the ownership group of Premier League club AFC Bournemouth.

Now one of sports’ most engaging new voices, Fowler brings the same energy and insight to audiences that he once brought to the field. He shares lessons on resilience, teamwork, and building a winning culture, weaving in his own story of reinvention: earning a college degree after retirement, competing in high-profile golf tournaments, and embracing life as a proud dance dad. Blending the wisdom of a champion with the perspective of someone navigating family, business, and life after the game, Fowler leaves audiences with lessons that resonate far beyond sports.