2013 SPEAKERS
Preview our 2013 speaker lineup
Norm Brodsky
Inc. columnist; founder, CitiStorage; partner, Black Gold Suites; and co-author, The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up
“Street Smarts” columnist and senior contributing editor Norm Brodsky is a veteran entrepreneur who has founded and grown six businesses. In 2008 he sold CitiStorage, a document-archive business based in Brooklyn, New York, for $110 million. Along with Bo Burlingham, Norm has chronicled his entrepreneurial journey in his column in Inc. and in the book The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up. Norm Brodsky is one of the most sought after business-advice experts in the country.
John Mackey
co-founder and co-CEO, Whole Foods Market
John Mackey is co-CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods Market, the co-author of the new book Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business and co-founder of the nonprofit organization Conscious Capitalism. John has devoted most of his adult life to selling natural foods and building a better business model. He helped build a $10 billion Fortune 500 company that is now one of the top 20 supermarket companies in America.
Les McKeown
Inc.com, columnist; president and CEO, Predictable Success; author, Predictable Success: Getting Your Organization On the Growth Track - and Keeping It There and The Synergist: How to Lead Your Team to Predictable Success
Les McKeown is the President & CEO of Predictable Success, a leading advisor on accelerated business growth. He has has started over 40 companies in his own right, and was the founding partner of an incubation consulting company that advised on the creation and growth of hundreds more organizations worldwide.
Les is the author of the WSJ and USA Today Best-seller, “Predictable Success: Getting Your Organization On the Growth Track – and Keeping It There” His latest book is “The Synergist: How to Lead Your Team to Predictable Success”
@lesmckeown
Les is the author of the WSJ and USA Today Best-seller, “Predictable Success: Getting Your Organization On the Growth Track – and Keeping It There” His latest book is “The Synergist: How to Lead Your Team to Predictable Success”
@lesmckeown
Lisa Price
founder and president, Carol’s Daughter; author, Success Never Smelled So Sweet: How I Followed My Nose and Found My Passion
From humble beginnings in her Brooklyn kitchen, Founder of Carol’s Daughter, Inc., Lisa Price transformed her beloved hobby of mixing up fragrances and creams at home into a multi-million dollar beauty empire. Price is the recipient of numerous awards, among them the National Black MBA Association’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award (2000), the FFAWN I’m Power – I’m Beauty Award (2010) and a Cosmetic Executive Women Achiever Award (2010). She is also the author of Success Never Smelled So Sweet, a remarkable memoir that chronicles her transformation from a young Black woman deep in debt and burdened by low self-esteem to the president of a multi-million dollar business. Price is an active philanthropist and currently sits on the board of the Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now (FFAWN), a charity that is dedicated to empowering women and instilling confidence so that they may achieve their dreams through education, empowerment and encouragement.
@PeaceNLoveLisa
@PeaceNLoveLisa
Baratunde Thurston
co-founder Jack and Jill Politics; founder, Cultivated Wit; author, How To Be Black
Baratunde Thurston is a politically-active, technology-loving comedian from the future. He co-founded the black political blog, Jack and Jill Politics and served as Director of Digital for The Onion before launching the comedy/technology startup Cultivated Wit. Then-candidate Barack Obama called him “someone I need to know.” Baratunde travels the world speaking and advising and performs standup regularly in NYC. He resides in Brooklyn, lives on Twitter and has over 30 years experience being black. He writes the monthly backpage column for Fast Company, and his first book, How To Be Black, is a New York Times best-seller.
Howard A. Tullman
president and CEO of Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy and Inc.com columnist
Howard is the General Managing Partner for the Chicago High Tech Investors and a member of Mayor Emanuel’s ChicagoNEXT council of technology advisors and Governor Quinn’s Illinois Innovation Council as well as an advisor to many technology businesses and an Adjunct Professor at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Over the last 40 years, in addition to founding more than a dozen high-tech companies, creating thousands of new jobs, and training dozens of talented managers who’ve gone on to lead their own ventures, Howard has created, developed and achieved liquidity in excess of $1 billion for a number of his businesses including CCC Information Services, Imagination Pilots, Coin Dealer Services, Tunes.com, Worldwide Xceed Group, Kendall College, and The Cobalt Group.
@tullman
@tullman
Alexa von Tobel
founder and CEO of LearnVest.com
Alexa von Tobel is the founder and CEO of LearnVest.com, the award-winning financial management and lifestyle website.
Originally from Florida, Alexa received an A.B. in Psychology at Harvard College. Upon graduation, she worked as a trader at Morgan Stanley before leaving to be the Head of Business Development at Drop.io, a venture backed start-up in NYC. She enrolled in Harvard Business School in 2008 only to take a leave of absence shortly after to launch LearnVest.
Alexa was recently selected as a 2012 Fortune Most Powerful Women Entrepreneur and highlighted as “One of the Coolest Young Entrepreneurs” in Inc. Magazine’s 30 Under 30 feature.
Originally from Florida, Alexa received an A.B. in Psychology at Harvard College. Upon graduation, she worked as a trader at Morgan Stanley before leaving to be the Head of Business Development at Drop.io, a venture backed start-up in NYC. She enrolled in Harvard Business School in 2008 only to take a leave of absence shortly after to launch LearnVest.
Alexa was recently selected as a 2012 Fortune Most Powerful Women Entrepreneur and highlighted as “One of the Coolest Young Entrepreneurs” in Inc. Magazine’s 30 Under 30 feature.