Speakers

Celebrating a New Tribe of Storytellers

We are all seekers on an epic journey, with the power to shape where the story goes. What’s missing is a vocabulary for creating the kind of world we all want to live in. The good news is the answers are hiding in plain sight, baked into the operating system of human relationships. We are all storytelling machines. We have the power to change a story, if just only our own.

Below are confirmed speakers (this list is subject to change). Review our program schedule with 32 hours of content.

Learn from 30+ leading voices on how to reshape and expand your storyline:

  • John Gerzema, president, BrandAsset Consulting, Young & Rubicam
  • Nancy Duarte, author, Slideology and Resonate: Present Visual Stories
  • John Elkington, pioneer of corporate social responsibility/sustainability
  • Annette Simmons, author, The Story Factor; Whoever Tells Best Story Wins
  • Julien Smith, co-author, Trust Agents, pionnering podcaster
  • Katya Andresen, author, Robin Hood Marketing; COO Network for Good
  • Gunther Sonnenfeld, SVP, Dir of Experience & Applied Technology @ RAPP
  • Julie Ann Turner, founder, Creators Guide, and host, ConsciousShift Radio
  • Steve Denning, author, Leaders Guide to Radical Management
  • Mandy Leith, founder, Open Cinema, documentary film-maker
  • Johnny B Truant, gonzo-style approach to copywriting/blogging
  • Chris Kazi Rolle, founder, The Hip Hop Project
  • Cathy Brooks, host, Social Media Hour; founder, Story Navigation
  • David Garland, entrepreneur; mediapreneur; host, Rise to The Top
  • Mike Bonifer, author; co-founder, GameChangers
  • Scott Brandon Hoffman, Visionary Artist, Entertainer, and Entrepreneur
  • Lily McCombs, co-founder, Make Believe, social campaign experts
  • Andy Goodman, nonprofit storytelling expert
  • Michael Maslansky, author, The Language of Trust, CEO, maslansky luntz
  • Sharlene Sones, founder, brandstoria
  • John Marshall Roberts, author, Igniting Inspiration; sustainability expert
  • Jullien Gordon, motivational speaker, The Purpose Finder, 30 Day Career Challenge
  • Michelle James, CEO/Chief Emergence Officer, The Center for Creative Emergence
  • Pip Coburn, Founder, Coburn Ventures; author; change specialist
  • Richard Geer, founder/artistic director, Community Performance Intl
  • Barbara Musser, teacher, mentor, transformation coach
  • Jason Seiden, career coach; LinkedIn expert; author, Super Staying Power
  • Sean Buvala, founder, Storyteller.net, speaker, trainer, story coach
  • Angela Maiers, educator, researcher, and learning specialist
  • Andrew Melville, founder, Spoke; facilitator, community engagement
  • Robert Perez, SVP, Fenton; social change communications
  • Mike Smith, VP, Fenton; health/social justice communications
  • Alexis Martin Neely, author, entrepreneur, legal expert
  • Brian Reich, author, strategist, managing director little m media
  • Lance Weiler, film-maker, transmedia storyteller, co-founder Workbook Project
  • Eric La Brecque, Principal, Applied Storytelling
  • Jim Gaines, former editor TIME, LIFE, and People Mag, StoryRiver Media

Confirmed Speaker Bios

Below are bios for our diverse speaker line-up. While these speakers are confirmed, their scheduled appearance is subject to change. More speaker bios will continue to be added.

John Gerzema

President, BrandAsset Consulting, Young & Rubicam; Author

John Gerzema,President, BrandAsset Consulting, Young & Rubicam, is an internationally known social theorist on consumerism and its impact on business, innovation and strategy. As a consultant to corporate leaders in many of the world’s best-known companies, Gerzema is a pioneer in the use of data to identify social change and to help companies both anticipate and adapt to new consumer interests and demands. John oversees BrandAsset® Valuator, the world’s largest database of consumer insights.

In his Business Week bestselling book The Brand Bubble, he identified the beginning of changes in consumer attitudes that preceded the financial crisis. It was voted the third best of Amazon’s best business books of 2008 and in the best marketing books by Strategy + Business for 2009. A frequent essayist, columnist and commentator, John has been interviewed reviewed and appeared in The Economist, Financial Times, New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Strategy & Business, CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox Business, Inc. Newsweek among others. His 2009 TED lecture — “The Post Crisis Consumer” — has been viewed by tens of thousands of people. Along with his partner, Pulitzer-Prize winning writer Michael D’Antonio John’s new book, Spend Shift: How The Post Crisis Values Revolution is Changing The Way We Buy, Sell and Live (Wiley & Co.) explores consumerism after the Great Recession.

Nancy Duarte

Author: Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences.

Since 1988, Nancy Duarte’s firm has created over a quarter of a million presentations. As one of the largest woman-owned businesses in Silicon Valley, her experience working with global companies and thought leaders has influenced the perception of some of the world’s most valuable brands and many of humanity’s common causes: Adobe, Cisco, Food Network, Facebook, GE, Google, Al Gore, HP, Nokia, TED, Twitter, and World Bank.

Fascinated by presentations as the most powerful persuasive medium, she determined to crack the code on why some presentations are riveting and others are unbearable, in Fall 2010 she released Resonate—Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences which identifies hidden story structures inherent in great communication. In 2008 she authored the award-winning book Slide:ology—The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations where over 20 years of experience was distilled into visual communication best practices.

John Elkington

Founding Partner, Volans; Co-Founder, Sustainability, Author

Founding Partner & Executive Chairman of Volans, also Co-founder of SustainAbility (1987, where he is a non-executive member of the Board) and of Environmental Data Services (ENDS, 1978). John Elkington is a world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development. His first involvement in the field: raising money for the newly formed World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in 1961, aged 11. In 2004, BusinessWeek described him as “a dean of the corporate responsibility movement for three decades.” In 2009, a CSR International survey of the Top 100 CSR leaders placed John fourth: after Al Gore, Barack Obama and the late Anita Roddick of the Body Shop, and alongside Muhammad Yunus of the Grameen Bank.

Volans, launched in April 2008, aims to find, explore, advise on and build innovative scalable solutions to the great global divides that overshadow the future. His work in this area has been celebrated and supported by awards including the UN Global 500 Roll of Honour, the Fast Company Social Capitalist Award and a 3-year, $1 million Skoll Foundation grant (2007-2009). He has written or co-authored 17 books, the latest being 2008’s The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World, (Harvard Business School Press), co-authored with Volans co-founder Pamela Hartigan. As a public speaker, he has addressed over 500 conferences all over the world. He was a Faculty member of the World Economic Forum from 2002-2008. In terms of other hats, John is a Visiting Professor at the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility at the Cranfield School of Management and sits on an A-Z of advisory boards and committees.

Annette Simmons

Author, The Story Factor; Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins

Annette Simmons is a successful keynote speaker, consultant and author of four books: The Story Factor named as one of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, followed by Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins, A Safe Place for Dangerous Truth and Territorial Games: Understanding and Ending Turf Wars at Work first published in 1997. Annette received a degree in marketing from Louisiana State University in 1983. Moving to Australia in 1984, she put her business degree to work for international companies, Ericsson, and J. Walter Thompson. Noticing destructive patterns that plagued group decision making, she returned to the United States to study social psychology and adult education. With a Masters Degree (1994) from North Carolina State University she continued to research and test training/interventions while teaching leadership to business executives at Farr Associates of Greensboro, NC.

Annette discovered the power of storytelling as a group intervention during graduate school. Attending workshops and hiring professional storytellers as coaches she refined her storytelling skills and studied the psychological impact of stories. She delivered her first course in storytelling in 1998 as a leadership training course for government executives through the Office of Personnel Management. Annette continues to provide leadership training, keynote speeches, and web delivered training in the areas of storytelling, dialogue and overcoming turf wars. You can see and hear samples of Annette’s appearances on CNBC’s Power Lunch, NPR’s Market Watch, etc. A frequent guest on talk radio and web podcasts, she has been quoted in Fortune, Working Woman, Harvard Business Review, The Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, and dozens of other respected publications.

Julien Smith

Co-Author, Trust Agents, podcasting pioneer

Julien Smith is an author, consultant, and speaker who has been involved in online communities for over 15 years– from early BBSes and flashmobs to the social web as we know it today. He was one of the first people on the web to use podcasting in 2004, as well as being one of the first web personalities to get broadcast by traditional radio. He has since worked with and been interviewed by numerous media organizations such as CNN, CBC, CTV– and a bunch of others that don’t start with the letter C.

Julien is co-author of Trust Agents, which was written with Chris Brogan. It hit: the New York Times bestseller list (#13), the Wall Street Journal bestseller list (#8), and the Amazon top 100 list (#30) – the Amazon Best Books of 2009 list (Business and Investment category).

Katya Andresen

COO, Network for Good; Author, Robin Hood Marketing

Katya Andresen is Chief Operating Officer of the leading online charitable resource, Network for Good, as well as a speaker, author and blogger about nonprofit marketing, online outreach and social media. In addition, she teaches at American University’s Key Certificate Program and serves on the board of NTEN. Katya has trained thousands of causes in effective marketing and media relations, and her marketing materials for non-profits have won national and international awards.

She is the author of the book, Robin Hood Marketing: Stealing Corporate Savvy to Sell Just Causes, which has been translated into four languages. She is also a co-author featured in the book, People to People Fundraising – Social Networking and Web 2.0 for Charities. Fundraising Success Magazine named her Fundraising Professional of the Year in 2007. Before joining Network for Good, she was Senior Vice President of Sutton Group, a marketing and communications firm and a marketing consultant overseas in Ukraine. She also worked for CARE International. Katya traces her passion for good causes to the enormous social need she witnessed as a journalist prior to her work in the non-profit sector. She was a foreign correspondent for Reuters News and Television in Asia and for Associated Press and major US newspapers in Africa.

Gunther Sonnenfeld

SVP, Dir of Experience & Applied Technology, RAPP; Adjunct Professor, Miami Ad School

Gunther is the SVP, Director of Experience & Applied Technology at RAPP (Omnicom Group) where he oversees experience planning, content strategy and platform development initiatives for clients such as Adobe, Skype, Toyota and Bank of America. Over the course of his 16-year career in the media world, his cause-related work has included initiatives for groups such as the NRDC, The Annenberg Foundation and the American Cancer Society. As a technologist, he has helped architect community websites, mobile apps, search tools, analytics tools and social media platforms.

Gunther is a regular contributor to leading industry publications such as iMedia Connection, is a published author and a public speaker; his most recent appearance was at Gulltaggen, where he keynoted on brand and media theory alongside the likes of Sir Richard Branson, Guy Kawasaki and Mitch Joel. On a quarterly basis, Gunther serves as an adjunct professor at CP+B’s prestigious Miami Ad School, where he teaches a range of subjects from communications planning to experience design and narrative development. Gunther is currently working on a new book entitled, A Literacy of the Imagination, an exploration of the storytelling paradigm and its influence in shaping the new world economy, and is a transmedia producer on Algren, a cross-platform narrative of Nelson Algren’s influence on prolific artists such as Lou Reed, Johnny Depp, David Mamet, Russell Banks and Michael Mann.

Julie Ann Turner

Creativity catalyst, Trainer, Author, Social Entrepreneur

Julie Ann Turner is an award-winning trainer, author, consultant, executive and life coach, speaker, community leader and social entrepreneur/founder of Orbits of Influence Global Leadership Dialogue Initiative. As CEO and founder of Julie Ann Turner & Company/ CreatorsGuide.com, Julie Ann is an expert in Strategic Planning CreatorsGuide.com and Innovation, and is one the world’s Founder & CEO top authorities on the Creative Process, as author of the 2009 3-Book CREATOR’S A Creator’s Guide GUIDE® Series: The Arc of Imagination, The Once & Future Age of Imagination, and the POWER ARC/Creative Guidance System Master Guidebook (the CREATOR’S GUIDE® master innovation system is USPTO patent-pending.).

Julie Ann – and the systems she shares – are the force behind both the career and community trajectories of executives and civic leaders and the career success and life contribution of dozens of executives and entrepreneurs who have used her systems, steps and tools to craft successful lives and work – and even craft entirely new careers – on their own terms.

Steve Denning

Author, The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management; Leaders Guide to Storytelling

Stephen Denning is the author of eight books, including most recently The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management (Jossey-Bass, 2010). The Secret Language of Leadership was selected by the Financial Times as one of the best books of 2007. The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling, was named in 2005 by the Innovation Network as one of the twelve most important books on innovation in the past several years. Squirrel Inc.: A Fable of Leadership Through Storytelling was published in 2004. He has also published The Springboard (2000) as well as a novel and a volume of poetry.

Denning consults with organizations worldwide on topics of leadership, management, innovation and business narrative. He worked at the World Bank from 1969 to 2000, where he held various management positions, including Program Director of Knowledge Management from 1996-2000. In 2000, he was named as one of the world’s most admired knowledge leaders (by Teleos) and in 2003, he was ranked as one of the world’s top two hundred business gurus by Tom Davenport and Larry Prusak in their book, What’s the Big Idea? In 2009, he was a visiting fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University. His Web site is at http://www.stevedenning.com

Mandy Leith

Founder, Open Cinema; Documentary Film-Maker

Mandy creates and uses narrative, film and interactive media to build bridges: stories that inspire people and communities. Her work percolates at the intersection between documentary filmmaking, social media, community building, storytelling and transformation.

She now works as a film editor, producer, media educator and social media strategist in Victoria, British Columbia. She is also the Founder and Director of OPEN CINEMA, a popular screening thought-provoking films in café style venues followed by open forum conversation with invited guests. Mandy is the editor dozens of award-winning documentaries and most recently of Blue Gold: the Tsilhqot’in Fight for Fish Lake, the first documentary ever to be used as evidence in a Canadian Federal Land Claim Hearing. Nominated for numerous editing awards and leadership roles, in August 2010, Mandy was invited to sit on the Documentary Organization of Canada’s National Board of Directors.

Johnny B. Truant

Blogger, Copywriter, and Internet Marketing Specialist

Johnny B. Truant is an internet marketing nonconformist and punk rock entrepreneur who specializes in teaching people how to sell products, services, and themselves through the use of stories. Within Johnny’s first year, he used his own breed of “personality branding” (characterized by transparency, win-win-win thinking, a healthy dose of disobedience, and — of course — storytelling) into a six-figure business.

In addition to running JohnnyBTruant.com and Storyselling 101 (and co-creating “Question the Rules: The nonconformist’s punk rock, DIY, nuts-and-bolts guide to creating the business and life you really want, starting with what you already have”), Johnny is a regular contributor to mega-blogs Copyblogger.com and Problogger.net, as well as to the cult hit small business marketing blog IttyBiz.com.

Chris Kazi Rolle

Artist and Social Entrepreneur

Chris Kazi Rolle is an artist and social entrepreneur, whose mission is to use the arts to empower the voice of young people. He is the founder of the Hip Hop Project, an award winning, arts education organization that uses Hip Hop and popular culture to engage young people. A survivor of child abuse, foster care, homelessness and incarceration Kazi shares his story of trail to triumph in All Things Are Possible, a forthcoming, youth focused, self help book that gives people practical tools on how to deal with life’s adversities.

He travels nationally and internationally inspiring audiences through speaking and performances. Kazi has been featured on VH1, CNN, CBS and The Oprah Winfrey Show in a segment called people using their lives. Kazi’s work and inspiring life story is also the focus of the feature length film entitled, The Hip Hop Project (www.thehiphopproject.org), executive produced by Bruce Willis and Queen Latifah. His latest initiative, Together Apart is an innovative touring play/forum designed to create safe spaces, on and offline, where single and committed men and women can engage in empathetic conversations about dating and relationships. A proud father, Kazi is originally from Nassau, Bahamas and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Cathy Brooks

Journalist, Blogger, Social Media Expert

What began for Cathy as a career telling other people’s stories has evolved into a journey of helping others tell their own stories for themselves. A “classically trained” Journalist, Cathy’s passion for communications began with her first job ripping wire copy and has evolved to encompass nearly every platform and aspect of media – from reporting and editing to management, talent casting and guest booking. Cathy also has curated content for several leading technology industry conferences including LeWeb and several events produced by The Guidewire Group. It was after engaging as an activist for LGBT equal rights, however, that Cathy began to explore the influence of personal stories in people’s professional lives.

Through her San Francisco based consulting firm, Cathy now helps companies and individuals navigate new technologies with the purpose of leveraging these platforms to tell stories. Through workshops and consulting services, Cathy walks clients through the story-telling process and towards the deep engagement that comes from authentic communication. Every week Cathy brings these discussions to life on Social Media Hour, a live talk show on which industry leaders and average folks share their experiences and stories. The program, for which Cathy is Executive Producer and Host, puts technology in human terms, and lets the audience interact via text chat and phone. Passionate as a writer, Cathy also takes these conversations to digital print, contributing regularly to an array of blogs. A founding member of the recently launched LGBT community, dot429, Cathy contributes weekly to this blog with perspectives on social media and technology. Cathy also writes for The Huffington Post, BrianSolis.com and Technically Women in addition to her own commentary at Other Than That.

David Garland

Entrepreneur, Media Host, Author

Entrepreneur, mediapreneur, speaker and author David Siteman Garland is the Founder of The Rise To The Top, The #1 Non-Boring Resource For Building Your Business Smarter, Faster, Cheaper and upcoming author of Smarter, Faster, Cheaper: Non-Boring, Fluff-free Strategies for Marketing and Promoting Your Business (Wiley Publishing).

He hosts RISE, a web show focusing on interviews with unique, creative, passionate entrepreneurs viewed by over 100,000 big thinkers monthly as well as The Rise To The Top TV show on ABC.

Mike Bonifer

Author, co-founder GameChangers

Mike Bonifer, the author of GameChangers – Improvisation for Business in the Networked World, and the co-founder of GameChangers, LLC, has consistently been at the forefront of the media and communications business.  Beginning with a job as the publicist on the gamechanging motion picture, TRON, Bonifer’s work as a writer, director, producer and creative executive can be characterized as an exploration of new technologies, new business models and emotionally-resonant narratives.

Past and present clients include The Walt Disney Company, Pandora, Credant Technologies, Diversey, DreamWorks, Frito-Lay, Mountain Dew, Kimball International, Hot Topic, Smithsonian Online, CIT, and many start-ups and entrepreneurs.  He has conducted GameChangers workshops at the University of Notre Dame Executive MBA Program, NYU’s Stern School of Business, USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism, and the University of California-Irvine.  He was the Chief Storyteller for 2007′s Live Earth Concerts.

Bonifer founded GameChangers to help individuals and organizations communicate better and build deeper, more authentic relationships with their customers. He views improvisation as a ‘narrative engine,’ and narratives as the most powerful way of organizing information in a complex communication environment.  By translating the techniques of improvisation theater for the theater of business, GameChangers offers a vital set of skills for any organization doing business in the Networked World.

Scott Brandon Hoffman

Visionary Artist, Entertainer, and Entrepreneur

Scott’s the creator of “the “Just Do You” Revolution, Living in a Human Suit™, and Scott Brandon Studios in Los Angeles. He’s a unique, much needed, and fresh NEW voice who has recently arrived on the scene, and is creating quite a buzz. He has an uncanny ability ‘telling it like it is,’ saying the things that people are afraid to say, (but want to), and bringing some sanity to all the madness, while rattling a few cages, busting old paradigms, and chanting ‘screw the status quo,’ but in a funny AND empowering way that everybody can relate to. His words will move you, make you think, laugh, and inspire you to want to rise up and be a better human, while eloquently reminding us to lighten up because…“It’s Just a Ride.” His main intention is to bring Truth, Freedom, AND Comedy to Millions through his Performance, Publishing, and Multi-Media Production Platforms.

Scott’s part Philosopher, part Modern Day Mystic, part Motivator, AND part Comedian, an “Un-Guru” (and Spiritual Bad Boy) who will kick your butt right into your Authentic Self making you THINK deeply and QUESTION everything, AND at the same time, make you laugh out loud. He’s an energetic, lively and ALWAYS entertaining host, inspirational and humorous speaker, writer, producer, comic, and a frequent TV and radio guest; as well as a highly sought after teacher of truth. Scott walked away from an unfulfilling, soul deadening, and very lucrative million dollar a year career at the age of 28 to go on a personal quest to pursue and find his purpose, passions, and the meaning of life, and it has been a CRAZY, enlightening, painful, beautiful, AND hilarious journey. He’s read over 700 personal and spiritual development books, attended hundreds of seminars with top Gurus from all over the world, and participated in VERY Strange activities, such as: getting Rolfed by a man with extremely large hands, being pursued as a client by a Suicidal Life Coach, and receiving the now famous “Spiritual Haircut” (don’t ask.). Scott’s trained in Improv comedy from the world famous Groundlings in Hollywood, and has performed on stage and produced shows with A-list stars like Wayne Brady and Bobby Lee from Mad TV. To find out more about Scott and his work, please visit: ScottBrandonHoffman.com

Lily McCombs

Co-founder and Director, Make Believe.

Lily started out as a writer who cares about politics and the big picture. Growing up in the United States, she saw the rise of a new kind of political right, as conservatives became associated with personal and fiscal responsibility, along with family values and a can-do spirit of entrepreneurism. Whereas ‘Liberal’ became almost an insult – synonymous with a sort of moral relativism, bloated big brother government and a culture of victimhood. Which side would you want to be on? In short, progressives were being completely ‘out-storied’, yet we either didn’t know what to do about it or we were completely reluctant to go there. Lilian wanted to see if she could help a new generation of political and social leaders reclaim their story and their power.

After graduating with degrees in politics and journalism, Lilian joined the online-based Australian campaigning organisation GetUp.org.au during its early days of 2005 (modeled in part after MoveOn.org). As Campaigns Director, she played a pivotal role in defining the organization’s voice and building its large membership base: writing emails, coordinating media and producing ads that raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, helped reinvigorate Australia’s progressive community and won campaigns on a range of national issues. Lily went onto to work for the Australian Labor Party’s 2007 election campaign, as well as CHOICE, Australia’s largest consumer association. Today, she is a director and co-founder of the boutique global communications consultancy, Make Believe, based it Sydney. Lily now gets to help diverse clients engage in messaging and communications challenges on a day-to-day basis. How do we tell our story in a way that people want to be part of? How do we reframe debates, motivate people to act and sustain that motivation over the long-term? How do we empower people around complex issues, in a way that’s effective, rewarding and fulfilling? And how, as people inside cause and mission-driven organizations, can we avoid burn out and thrive? Lily’s passionate about helping change makers to achieve their potential and stand in their power. She speaks, mentors, meditates, sings badly and writes regularly: visit www.makebelieve.me for more information.

Andy Goodman

Author, Why Bad Ads Happen to Good Causes, and Storytelling as Best Practice

Andy Goodman is a nationally recognized author, speaker and consultant in the field of public interest communications. Along with Storytelling as Best Practice, he is author of Why Bad Ads Happen to Good Causes and Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes. He also publishes a monthly journal, free-range thinking, to share best practices in the field. Andy is best known for his speeches and workshops on storytelling, presenting, design and strategic communications, and has been invited to speak at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs at Princeton, as well as at major foundation and nonprofit conferences. He currently serves on the faculty of the Communications Leadership Institute, which trains nonprofit executive directors and grantmakers.

In 2007, Al Gore selected Andy to train one thousand volunteers who are currently helping the former Vice President engage more Americans in the fight against global warming. In 2008, Andy co-founded The Goodman Center to offer online versions of his workshops and additional communications and marketing classes to nonprofits, foundations, government agencies and educational institutions across the U.S. and worldwide. When not teaching, traveling, or recovering from teaching and traveling, Andy also serves as a Senior Fellow for Civic Ventures and is on the advisory boards of VolunteerMatch and Great Nonprofits.

Michael Maslansky

CEO, maslansky luntz + partners, Author: The Language of Trust

Michael Maslansky spends a great deal of time thinking about why some messages stick and others don’t, and why sometimes the right word at the right time can make all the difference in creating successful communications. As CEO of maslansky luntz + partners, Michael advises Fortune 500 companies, industry associations, and professional communicators on language strategies that shift perceptions and move markets. Michael has conducted hundreds of messaging and research projects in over 20 countries using his firm’s trademarked polling methodology, lauded by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, “60 Minutes,” “Nightline,” and PBS’s “Frontline,” among others. Michael is the author of, The Language of Trust: Selling Ideas in a World of Skeptics (Prentice Hall: 2010)

Michael has helped sell financial products, communicate about health care reform, fight digital piracy, promote environmental conservation and help companies that have good stories to tell to tell better stories. Across each of these challenges, he seeks the common truths about effective communications in the fact of incredible skepticism. The way CEOs, companies, and entire industries communicate – often doesn’t match what people really want to hear and experience. Previously, Michael founded MarketResearch.com, a leading market intelligence company where he served as President and remains on the Board.

Sharlene Sones

Founder, Chief Storyteller, Brandstoria

Sharlene is Founder and Chief StoryTeller of Brandstoria – consulting with and training organizations, brand leaders and entrepreneurs about the application of storytelling as core marketing and brand strategy. Sharlene’s background is a lot like the Neil Finn song “Four Seasons in One Day.” Her career is as diverse as the four seasons. Sports. Music. Entertainment. Retail. Social Media. Higher Education. And More. She’s a jack of all marketing trades – and master of the good story. A brand-building specialist with a penchant for understanding, defining and leveraging stories, Sharlene has helped strengthen many well-known global brands including Benetton Sportsystem, Spalding, Forefront Records, University of Pennsylvania and the LPGA.

Sharlene started her career developing and launching hundreds of products in sports and entertainment. More recently, she has worked in the collegiate market, gaining knowledge of the changing business considerations facing Universities and know-how to connect with students – one of today’s largest, influential groups of consumers and brand experts. She believes that we are all the authors of our own story – we can edit, re-write and take it on a new course. Her passion is helping other people and organizations realize this, too. When she’s not flying a single-engine plane (“a lawnmower with wings”), hitting a tennis ball, creating something on a wood lathe (Bowl? Pen? Art?), or trying to master guitar riffs to an obscure folkie tune, she can be found in her office in Pennsylvania’s beautiful Lehigh Valley, or, what she refers to as the “deep, deep, deep suburbs of NYC.” Sharlene earned her graduate degree in organizational dynamics from the University of Pennsylvania and holds a B.S. in management from Babson College.

John Marshall Roberts

Author, Igniting Inspiration: A Persuasion Manual for Visionaries

John Marshall Roberts teaches people and organizations how to overcome cynicism and inspire. He is a communication expert and applied research psychologist with more than a decade of strategic consulting experience. His bestselling book “Igniting Inspiration: A Persuasion Manual for Visionaries” delivers a breakthrough paradigm for creating inspirational media and messaging called Worldview Design™.

A seamless blend of systems theory, developmental psychology, and common sense, this new interdisciplinary framework allows socially conscious people -marketers, business leaders, and activists-to design messages that systematically overcome cynicism, shift thinking, and inspire measurable behavior change. A dynamic and popular keynote speaker, workshop facilitator, and consultant within the sustainability movement, John is CEO of the innovative communication education and strategy firm, Worldview Learning.

Jullien Gordon

Motivational Speaker, Author, Teacher

Jullien Gordon, The PurposeFinder is a motivation teacher and a leading voice on professional development & personal motivation, especially for young professionals & millennials. At the age of 28, he already has 10 years of experience working with millennials as a CEO, coach, and counselor. He believes that his purpose is to help as many people as possible find their purpose and reach their full potential by helping them make a living doing what they love. He is currently CEO of the Department of Motivated Vehicles, a personal and professional development company designed to help young professionals discover and align their lives with their purpose through motivational teaching and speaking, live and online courses, and career coaching.

His latest initiative is the nationwide 30 Day Online Career Change Challenge taking place in November 2010, where he will be guiding 1,000 career changers and job seekers step-by-step through the career change process with 57 videos, 6 hours of content, and a 270 page workbook he created. He just published two books titled—The 8 Cylinders of Success: How To Align your Personal and Professional Purpose and Good Excuse Goals: How to End Procrastination & Perfectionism Forever. He blogs regularly at JullienGordon.com on millennials, purpose, passions, and professional development. Jullien Gordon is originally from Oakland, California and currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.

Michelle James

CEO/Chief Emergence Officer, The Center for Creative Emergence

Michelle James has been pioneering Applied Creativity, Storytelling and Improvisation in business in the Washington, DC area since the mid-nineties. She is CEO of The Center for Creative Emergence and founder of the Capitol Creativity Network – an Applied Creativity community hub since 2004. Her mission is to integrate the worlds of creativity, service, meaning and commerce, and cultivate whole brain, whole-person engagement in the workplace. Recently she was recognized for Visionary Leadership in Fast Company’s blog, Leading Change, for “her commitment to bring creative expression into the work environment in a very deep and meaningful way.”

Michelle is a business creativity catalyst, facilitator and coach who has designed and delivered hundreds of programs for entrepreneurs, leaders, and organizations such as Microsoft, Deloitte, GEICO, NIH, World Bank, and Kaiser Permanente among others. Her original programs have been featured on TV, the radio and in print. Her passion for storytelling, with the transformative power of improv principles and practices, led her to develop Quantum Leap Business Improv. Last year she produced a sold-out Creativity in Business Conference – the first of its kind in DC – which used the improv principles to set the conditions for collaborative interaction for the entire event. Michelle performs full-length improvised plays with Precipice Improv, co-creating 90-minute stories on the spot.

Pip Coburn

Founder, Coburn Ventures; Author; Change Specialist

Pip Coburn founded, along with his core team from UBS, a firm named Coburn Ventures, an organization that puts its knowledge about “change” to work in the realm of technology, telecom, and media investing. Coburn began providing advisory services in 2005 and launched a hedge fund in May 2006. On August 19, 2005 Coburn Ventures group released the first beta of its bi-weekly thought piece “Waypoints,” the successor to “The Weekly Global Tech Journey” that Pip’s group generated from 1999 to 2005 at UBS. He has been featured in Fast Company, Barron’s, Fortune, Smart Money and MIT’s Technology Review. For three years Pip wrote as a guest columnist for the Red Herring.

Prior to founding Coburn Ventures, Pip Coburn was a Managing Director and the global technology strategist in the technology group of UBS Investment Research. At UBS, he was responsible for integrating the research efforts of 120 technology and telecom analysts worldwide, and from 1999 through 2005 was a member of the firm wide Investment Committee. In 2000 Pip gained recognition for calling for a prolonged and widespread global tech collapse in equities near the market heights — while even few individual sell recommendations on tech stocks existed from individual analysts.

Pip studies change for a living. In June 2006 Pip released his first book not surprisingly titled, The Change Function: Why Some Technologies Take Off and Others Crash and Burn. The book addresses why some technologies are adopted and why most are not. Pip writes a weekly blog for Tony Perkins’s AlwaysOn Network. In that same vein, along with change-thinker Jerry Michalski, Pip co-hosts the weekly open-by-invitation Yi-Tan conference call that is dedicated to identifying and understanding change and technology. Pip is also an advisor to Taking IT Global a global on-line community for youths, and a member of TTI Vanguard’s think-tank.

Richard Geer

Founder/Artistic Director, Community Performance International

People Magazine says “Director Richard Geer heals troubled communities with the magic of theatre–and the gift of new hope.” Dr. Richard Geer created Community Performance — Theater of, by and for the community- to empower individuals and bring neighborhoods together. Geer has founded over a score of Community Performance groups, including Georgia’s Official Folk Life play, “Swamp Gravy”, part of the Cultural Olympiad in Atlanta, Georgia, and also featured at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

In partnership with the International Storytelling Center, Geer and CPI are pioneering ways to bring this transformational work to organizations and communities nationwide. American Theatre Magazine calls Geer’s work a “gem of cultural democracy.” It has been showcased across America, as well as in England, Scotland, Brazil and Chile. Geer holds a PhD. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, and will be publishing a book in 2011, with playwright Jules Corriere, on the methods and transformative power behind Community Performance.

Barbara Musser

Teacher, mentor, and transformation coach

Barbara Musser is a catalyst for change and transformation. She is passionate about helping people who are ready to stand “naked” in the Truth of who the really are, so that they can design a life that fully expresses that. She is a skillful guide down into the roots underneath the stories that define us. Once there, she helps people to clean out the roots, strengthen the basic structure of who they are, and discover and embody their true purpose.

Barbara bridges the business and spiritual worlds and is committed to shifting how we experience ourselves and our world from the inside out. She has an MBA and many years of experience as a consultant and trainer in the corporate world; has designed and facilitated transformation and personal growth workshops for 20 years; and is a Senior Practitioner in the Core Individuation tradition. She combines these into a body of work that restores hope and possibility, helps people create passion, joy and abundance in their lives, and have fun! Learn more about Barbara at www.barbaramusser.com

Jason Seiden

Author, How to Self Destruct: Making the Least of What’s Left of Your Career

There are two ways a person can live a better story: (1) overcome whatever fears hold him or her back, or (2) learn to tell his or her current story better. Jason helps people with both. Jason is co-founder of Ajax Social Media, a company that shows sales professionals how to use LinkedIn to drive top-line revenue more efficiently… by telling their story more credibly and by reading their prospects’ stories more effectively. Plus, having spent 10 years in executive coaching and management development—working with top level executives from companies with between $10 million and $30 billion in revenue—Jason is also still regularly hired as a speaker to help organizational leaders learn more about the courageous and resilient ethos of “Fail Spectacularly!”

Jason is the author of two popular career books, How to Self-Destruct: Making the Least of What’s Left of Your Careerand Super Staying Power: What You Need to Become Valuable & Resilient at Work, and blogs at FailSpectacularly.com. He is an advisor on SmartBrief‘s Workforce publication and an oft-cited industry leader who has appeared in/on USAToday, CNN, and Yahoo!/HotJobs. Jason earned his MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School and his Bachelor’s from Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania. Possibly his favorite accolade, Jason also holds the title Honorary Talent Anarchist according to respected bloggers in his field.

Angela Maiers

Award-winning educator, speaker, consultant and professional trainer

Angela Maiers is an award-winning educator, speaker, consultant and professional trainer known for her work in literacy, leadership and global communications. She is a consistently energized and recognized worldwide speaker greatly impacting leadership through not only the education field, but the international business community as well. Challenging educational philosophies and business ethics, Angela strives to achieve total synergy and unstoppable energy by reconstructing the thought process of many dated ideologies.

Today, Angela is at the forefront of New Literacy and Web 2.0 technologies. An active blogger and social media evangelist, she’s deeply committed to helping learners understand the transformational power of technology. Her intimate knowledge of teaching and learning, down-to-earth style, and powerful message of personal empowerment have made her a highly sought after keynote speaker and a vibrant courageous voice in both the business and education space. You can learn more at Angela Maiers Educational Services.

Sean Buvala

Professional Storyteller, Coach, Author

Sean Buvala is a professional storyteller, presenter coach and a veteran of the storytelling movement, connected to all areas of story since 1986. He describes his work as somewhere between “in your life and in your face” depending on the needs of the group he is with at any given time. Sean has been telling tales, training storytellers, providing private corporate coaching and creating practical applications for stories in many industries. He has had the honor to consult within the travel, telecommunications, health care, non-profit, publishing, government, community development, social media and manufacturing industries both in live events and through the new technologies of the Internet.

Sean Buvala is the director of Storyteller.net, which provides information for those who use storytelling in any environment. He has also received the Oracle Award from the National Storytelling Network for creative leadership. He has created the brand-new “Executive Speaker Training Workshop” to bring the concepts of communication via storytelling to the non-storyteller. Sean has authored the training workbook “www.storytelling101.com“used by clients throughout the world. He also wrote the book, “DaddyTeller: How to be A Hero to Your Kids And Teach Them What’s Really Important by Telling Them One Simple Story at a Time“ for parents and families. Most importantly, Sean is the father of four and husband of one. His home and office is in Arizona. To learn more, please visit his website at http://www.seantells.com

Andrew Melville

Founder, Spoke

Andrew has been writing, telling and gathering stories for a living most of his life. Andrew has worked as a journalist, as a PR consultant, as a feature film scriptwriter and as an award winning radio documentary maker and university lecturer. As the founder of Spoke, he is a story ‘hunter gatherer’ and work with individuals and organisations to powerfully connect through story; so a vision, a brand, and the talk in the coffee room all line up to inspire.

As a Kiwi, he loves nature, and encourages people to look to nature for the most powerful of stories. Andrew works with Maori tribal authorities in New Zealand, government and corporations in New Zealand and Australia. Andrew holds a Masters degree in Communication Studies and run a communication consultancy, Spoke, in Auckland New Zealand.

Robert Perez

Senior Vice President, Fenton

For more than 15 years, Robert Pérez has helped people and organizations create social change by crafting communications campaigns and tell stories that inspire action and build support for a cause. Pérez leads the branding and messaging practice in Fenton’s San Francisco office. He works on a broad range of social causes – from environmental protection to human. Early in his career, Pérez discovered the power of storytelling when he helped to pass legislation to protect students in California schools from harassment based on sexual orientation. During the campaign, Pérez worked to shine a spotlight on the real-life stories of young people who had experienced bullying and violence in schools.

To this day, Pérez continues to use storytelling to build support for social change. The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District approached Pérez because they had been on the defensive for more than six years against conservative activists who opposed their effort to permanently protect nearly 12,000 acres of farms and open space south of San Francisco. Pérez crafted a winning message strategy that featured the stories of farmers and Coastside residents who supported the plan as the last best hope to protect the rural character and small-town charm of the San Mateo Coastside. Pérez is currently working with the Auburn Theological Seminary and other faith leaders around the country on the best way to talk to Christians about the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Mike Smith

Vice President, Fenton

Mike Smith has worked at Fenton since 2002 and has more than a decade of experience in positioning and branding, media and strategic planning, marketing, and online tactics. He is a member of the health team and also specializes in social justice, political reform and animal welfare. Smith’s clients at Fenton have included the American Medical Association, Maddie’s Fund, the Public Policy Institute of California and the James Irvine Foundation. He has helped place clients in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Time, as well as on NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s World News Tonight and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.

As a senior advisor at the Polly Klaas Foundation, Smith helped the missing children’s organization raise its national profile by advocating for Amber Alerts and Internet safety. Prior to Fenton, Smith worked for the Horn Group, a high-tech public relations firm; WetFeet, a publisher and Web site for career information; and Odwalla, the juice company, where he conducted marketing outreach, events, donations and sponsorships with community and grassroots organizations. Smith also wrote and developed advertising campaigns for The Onion.

Alexis Martin Neely

Alexis Neely has built 2 million dollar businesses, published a bestselling book and appeared on many of the top television shows as a legal expert, all while raising two kids and diving into the path of awakening.

Today, she is an evolutionary strategist consulting with evolving entrepreneurs on how to build sustainable, make a difference businesses around who they are and how they want to serve through her ground-breaking Money Map technology and her (so badly needed in our industry) LIFT Foundation System. Follow Alexis on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlexisNeely and get on her list for an advance copy of her eBook Your Soul’s Evolutionary Journey Through Life and Business: 7 Keys to Waking Up and Integrating What’s Real and True www.AlexisMartinNeely.com

Brian Reich

Author; Strategist; Managing Director, little m media

Brian Reich is the managing director of little m media, which provides strategic guidance and support to organizations around the use of the internet and technology to facilitate communications, engagement, education, and mobilization. He is well known for his expertise in new media, web 2.0, social networks, mobile, community, ecommerce, brand marketing, cause branding, and more. Reich is the author of Media Rules!: Mastering Today’s Technology to Connect With and Keep Your Audience (Wiley 2007). He blogs at Thinking About Media and contributes as a Fast Company Expert. He also hosts a weekly podcast, Thinking About Everything, that is distributed by Capitol News Connection, and other organizations, online.

Previously, Reich was a principal of EchoDitto, one of the most successful online communications agencies in the nation, Director of New Media for Cone Inc, a brand strategy and communications agency in Boston and a Senior Strategic Consultant and Director of Boston Operations for Mindshare Interactive Campaigns, an interactive public affairs agency. From 2000 – 2004, Brian ran how own strategic communications firm, Mouse Communications. Reich has worked in and around politics, including helping to direct dozens of campaigns across the country. He spent two years as Vice President Gore’s Briefing Director in the White House, handling both official activities and personal/political activities during his 2000 presidential campaign. Brian serves on the board of Investigate West, independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to the art and craft of investigative and narrative journalism. Brian served as an adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University in Washington, DC and is currently teaching a course on consumer behavior and marketing at Columbia University in New York.

Lance Weiler

Lance Weiler is a critically acclaimed award winning writer / director. Recognized as a pioneer because of the way he makes and distributes his work. WIRED magazine named him “One of twenty-five people helping to re-invent entertainment and change the face of Hollywood.” He has successfully self-distributed his films The Last Broadcast and Head Trauma to more than 20 countries while grossing over 5 million dollars in the process. The Last Broadcast which he co-wrote and co-directed became the first film to be distributed digitally to theaters in 1998.

Always interested in experimenting with new ways to tell stories and reach audiences, Lance developed a cinema ARG (alternate realty game) around Head Trauma. Over 2.5 million people experienced the game via theaters, mobile drive-ins, phones and online. In recognition of these cinematic gaming innovations, BUSINESSWEEK named Lance “One of the 18 Who Changed Hollywood.” Others on the list included Thomas Edison, George Lucas, Steve Jobs and Walt Disney. Lance is developing a number of film, TV, and gaming projects. His next feature film / transmedia project entitled HiM recently won the Arte France Cinema award at the 2009 edition of CineMart. In January 2010 HiM attended the Sundance Screenwriters Lab marking the first time the lab has supported a feature film / transmedia project. In 2006, Lance founded the WorkBook Project an open creative network that has grown to become a thriving international community of filmmakers, musicians, game designers and software developers.

Eric La Brecque

Principal, Applied Storytelling

Over the past 18 years, Eric La Brecque has pursued an approach to brand communications that combines storytelling techniques from the world’s great narrative traditions with an ongoing study of marketplace dynamics. Viewing brand development as equal parts business discipline and art form, he and his team have successfully addressed complex communications challenges for everything from cities and retail destinations to beauty products and communications technologies. In addition to helping clients achieve their business objectives through working to strengthen their connection with their audiences, he is dedicated to advancing brand practice through the ongoing development and refinement of tools and methods.

A leading independent brand and name development resource, Applied Storytelling has developed corporate and product brands and naming systems for dozens of organizations ranging from startups to Fortune 500® companies. With respect to cities and regions, Applied Storytelling is focused on ways to increase the transparency, inclusivenes and sustainability of civic brand-building. This effort is informed by new developments in social media as well as an interest in how slow money works and the need to reinvest, emotionally as well as financially, in the particulars of place. Eric believes that the while world all around us may be increasingly market-driven it should also be no less socially sustaining and personally meaningful. He works with the understanding that the marketplace remains a lively, surprising and arrestingly human place to be, no matter how fragmented or mediated it might sometimes become.

Jim Gaines

Founder, StoryRiver Media, former editor of TIME, LIFE, and PEOPLE Magazines.

Jim Gaines is the founder of StoryRiver Media, a Washington, DC-based company whose mission is to re-imagine narrative storytelling for the online multimedia world. Its ambition is to realize the potential of the internet as a new medium and to put the signal assets of that medium—interactivity and online outreach—behind the objectives of clients ranging from public and private corporations, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to social advocacy groups and cause-based non-profits.

Before starting StoryRiver, Jim was editor-in-chief of FLYP, the first interactive online “magazine”. In that role, he led the creation of multimedia packages on subjects ranging from politics, finance, science and the environment to music, movies and the fine arts, producing content for a wide variety of channels, from Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated and Warner Music to Fortune magazine and ProPublica, the Web-based forum for investigative journalism. A consultant on strategy and digital projects for publishers worldwide, including Conde Nast International and American Express, he is the former corporate editor of Time Inc, where he was chief editor of TIME and PEOPLE magazines and both editor and publisher of LIFE.

We’ll keep updating this list in the coming days as we’ve got many more inspired speakers and thought leaders joining the line-up.