FEATURED SPEAKERS
George Bandarian II
Founding General Partner, Untapped Ventures
George Bandarian is the Founding General Partner of Untapped Ventures, a VC firm in LA that invests in early-stage AI Startups that Uplift Humanity. George is passionate about AI and helps CEOs, senior executives, and investors personally leverage Generative AI capabilities, confidently lead AI as a strategic priority at their companies, and learn about AI investing opportunities. Prior to Untapped, George was President & CEO of AMI a business process automation software and services company leveraging AI which he grew and sold in 2018. George graduated from USC Marshall and lives in LA with his wife and 3 boys.
Kelly Palmer
Author, Advisor, Strategist
Kelly Palmer is a thought leader and advisor on the future of work and education. Kelly focuses on business strategy and new product innovation, skills-based hiring and development, and pathways from education to jobs of the future. She is the co-author of the award-winning business book The Expertise Economy, which focuses on the urgent need to upskill the workforce. Kelly has spent her entire career in Silicon Valley and was previously Chief Learning Officer at both LinkedIn and Degreed. She was Vice President of Learning at Yahoo! and held executive positions in learning, M&A, and product development at Sun Microsystems. She was also a senior advisor for Firework Ventures, which invests in early-stage startups focusing on human-centered future of work companies. Kelly speaks regularly at companies and conferences around the world and has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Barron’s, Financial Times, Fast Company, and Forbes among others.
Johnny Crowder
Founder & CEO, Cope Notes
Mental health entrepreneur Johnny Crowder is a true master of one of the most pressing strategic concerns in business today: wellbeing. But revealing the keys to a healthier workplace, headspace, and heartspace for all is just the beginning. As a Certified Recovery Peer Specialist and the Founder/CEO of the globally-utilized positive psychology startup Cope Notes, Johnny Crowder gives audiences practical self-care tools and mental health strategies that people use to improve their emotional health and wellbeing. Johnny’s 2020 Tedx Talk garnered over one million views and catapulted him to the world stage. When commanding a virtual stage or touring with his Billboard-charting heavy metal band, Prison, his firsthand experience with mental illness and infectiously positive humor never fail to resonate, educate, and inspire.
Heather Malenshek
Chief Marketing Officer, Land O’Lakes
At Land O’Lakes, a farmer-owned cooperative, Heather leads the marketing discipline across all businesses and brands. She developed, and is acting on, the purpose of the enterprise to create a better world for all of us including advocating on behalf of rural America. Prior to joining Land O’Lakes, Heather was the SVP Chief Marketing Officer for the Harley-Davidson Motor Company where she led a brand transformation that expanded the consumer base for the company, bringing in a new generation of consumers. She has been recognized by Forbes as one of the world’s most influential CMOs. Heather is on the Board of Oobli, a company that is using sweet proteins to revolutionize how we satisfy our sweet tooth. She is on the Board of the Dairy Management Inc. Advisory Board, The Ad Council Board and serves as Board President of Hunkapi Equine Therapy program in Arizona. She formerly served on the Board of Summerfest in Milwaukee.
Roger Gabriel
Chief Meditation Officer, Chopra Global
Born in Liverpool, England, Roger Gabriel first learned meditation in the early 1970s. He soon trained to be a meditation teacher under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. After moving to the U.S., Roger began studying Ayurveda, the ancient Indian system of health care. In 1985, he met and became friends with Deepak Chopra. Since then, Roger has assisted Deepak with numerous training programs, seminars, and workshops; taught thousands of people on all continents to meditate; and helped to train hundreds of people to become teachers of meditation, Ayurveda, and yoga. In 2006, Roger received his spiritual name Raghavanand from Shree Satuwa Baba Maharaji of Varanasi, India.
Randy Molland
Fractional Chief Giving Officer, GoBigtoGiveBig
After building a substantial real estate portfolio and education company, Randy Molland found himself burned out, unmotivated and stuck. That’s when he discovered the power of bringing purpose into his business, and by doing so, ended up doubling his assets under management, donating thousands of dollars to charities and creating two new mastermind communities, all within just a few years.
David Haznaw
3x Author, Conversational Interviewer
Starting as a reporter for The Watertown (WI) Daily Times, David has plied his trade across a number of disciplines: daily news, public relations, advertising, and corporate and commercial video productions. In that time, he’s worked with and interviewed countless people, finding out what makes them “tick” and developing his own philosophy on what makes an effective leader. David believes that our stories, and how we share them, craft how we operate in our daily lives and how we influence and motivate others. It’s not just the success stories that have an impact, David believes that our stories of loss and near-misses can have more to offer than our tales of winning and achievement. So, what lives in our stories?
Mike Malatesta
Entrepreneur, Author, Investor, Coach
Mike Malatesta is a keynote speaker, author, podcaster, and Dream Exit™ Expert. His insights on business ownership and entrepreneurship have been featured in Forbes, Kirkus Reviews, Entrepreneur, and Inc. Magazine. Mike is the author of OwnerShift - How Getting Selfish Got Me Unstuck, a no-holds-barred breakthrough story about the pain, grit, and mistakes of entrepreneurship. Recovering from a near career-ending disaster, he went on to start and grow two waste management companies that generated $500M+ in revenue and sold for over $180M. His podcast, How’d It Happen, is in the top 2% of podcasts globally.
Kathleen McCann
Executive Partner with Nonantum Capital Partners
Kathleen McCann in an Executive Partner with Nonantum Capital Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm focused on the lower middle market. Nonantum invests in family- and founder-owned businesses, corporate carve-outs and complex situations where personal partnership is critical and opportunities exist for significant equity value creation. Its team brings decades of experience partnering with founders, families and management teams to build businesses of enduring value. Prior to Nonantum, Kathleen served as the Chairman and CEO of United Road Services, the largest finished vehicle services provider in North America. Throughout her career, Kathleen has been sponsored by, invested in, served on portfolio company boards of or worked for nearly a dozen private equity firms.
Lotti Rachel Lofgren
Owner, UN|STUCK spaces, LLC
Rachel Lotti Lofgren is an Executive Life Coach and creator of UN|STUCK spaces LLC, specializing in authenticity and the relationship to oneself. Harnessing the tools of self and regenerative well-being, to know who you are and what you're truly capable of. She has partnered with hundreds of clients, from college students to C-level executives, creatives to engineers, neurodivergent and gifted to able-bodied, to expand their capacity to trust their inner guidance system and ignite sustainable transformation in all areas of life. Rachel has been described as a free spirit with a zest for life and depth of humanity, which fiercely guides her in living life to the fullest and inspiring others to do the same.
Alphonso James
The UnFragile Alphonso James
Alphonso James was a 17-year-old child when he was arrested and falsely convicted of 1st Degree Intentional Homicide for the murder of a man he’d never seen or met. After a brief two-day trial, he was sentenced to Life plus 5 years in prison. Alphonso’s final words to the Judge and Jury before being shackled and taken into custody were “I didn’t do it.” Although he was physically confined, Alphonso found freedom and liberation within himself. With tireless persistence, and the work of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, Alphonso was finally freed in 2017 after 32 years of confinement for a crime he did not commit. Today, Alphonso is committed to inspiring others to break free of the prisons within themselves and pursue their own journey of healing, love and forgiveness. He is a motivational speaker, an author, and a powerful person working and walking in love and forgiveness.