Steve Almond is the author of eleven books of fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football. His essays and reviews have been published in venues ranging from the New York Times Magazine to Ploughshares to Poets & Writers, and his short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, Best American Mysteries, and Best American Erotica. Almond is the recipient of grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. Steve cohosted the Dear Sugars podcast with his pal Cheryl Strayed for four years, and teaches Creative Writing at the Neiman Fellowship at Harvard and Wesleyan. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts, with his family and his anxiety.

Ashley Goodall is a leadership expert who has spent his career exploring large organizations from the inside, most recently as an executive at Cisco. He is the co-author of Nine Lies About Work, which was selected as the best management book of 2019 by Strategy + Business and as one of Amazon’s best business and leadership books of 2019. Prior to Cisco, he spent fourteen years at Deloitte as a consultant and as the Chief Learning Officer for Leadership and Professional development. His newest book is “The Problem with Change.” www.ashleygoodall.com

Barbara Kellerman is a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership. She was the Founding Executive Director of the Center, and a member of the Kennedy School faculty for over twenty years. Kellerman has held professorships at Fordham, Tufts, Fairleigh Dickinson, George Washington, Christopher Newport, and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. She also served as Director of the Center for the Advanced Study of Leadership at the University of Maryland.

Kellerman received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College, and her M.A. M.Phil., and Ph.D. (in Political Science) degrees from Yale University. She was awarded a Danforth Fellowship and three Fulbright fellowships. At Uppsala (1996-97), she held the Fulbright Chair in American Studies. Kellerman was cofounder of the International Leadership Association (ILA) and is author and editor of many books. Kellerman has also appeared on media outlets such as CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, NPR, MSNBC, Reuters, and BBC, and has contributed articles and reviews to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and the Harvard Business Review.

JEFF WETZLER is co-CEO of Transcend, a nationally recognized innovation organization, and an expert in learning and human potential. Wetzler combines unique leadership experiences spanning more than 25 years in business and education, as a management consultant to the world’s top corporations, a learning facilitator for leaders around the world, and as Chief Learning Officer at Teach For America.

Jeff earned a Doctorate in Adult Learning and Leadership from Columbia University and a bachelor’s in psychology from Brown University. Based in New York, he is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and is an Edmund Hillary Fellow. His newest book is ASK: Tap Into the Hidden Wisdom of People Around You for Unexpected Breakthroughs in Leadership and Life. https://www.askapproach.com/

Kandi Wiens, EdD is the Director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Master’s in Medical Education Program and the Penn Health Professions Education Certificate Program. As a sought-after international speaker, Dr. Wiens is co-founder and chief research officer of Big Sky Leadership Labs, where she leads and conducts evidence-based research on executive performance, emotional intelligence, burnout, and resilience. Her work has been prominently featured in the Harvard Business Review and in several Harvard Business Review Press books.

A Senior Fellow at Penn, Dr. Wiens is Academic Director of the PennCLO Master’s Program and teaches various graduate-level and executive-format courses. She has designed and delivered over 2,000 leadership development programs focused on helping leaders build and leverage their emotional and social intelligence to amplify their positive impact and protect themselves from burnout.

Dr. Wiens holds a doctorate from the Penn Chief Learning Officer executive doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania, an M.B.A. from the University of Oregon, and a B.S. in business administration from Montana State University.

ALEXANDRA O. HUDSON is passionate about how ideas and storytelling can

change people’s lives. A writer and popular speaker, she also is the founder ofCivic Renaissance, a publication and intellectual community dedicated to beauty, goodness, and truth. She was named the 2020 Novak Journalism Fellow, and contributes to CBS News, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, TIME Magazine, POLITICO Magazine, and Newsweek.

She earned a master's degree in public policy at the London School of Economics as a Rotary Scholar, and is an adjunct professor at the Indiana University Lilly School of Philanthropy. She is also the creator of a series for The Great Courses,Netflix for lifelong learners, called Storytelling and The Human Condition. Her bestselling book, “The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves,” was published by St. Martin’s Press, and was selected as a “Must Read” book by The Next Big Idea Book Club. She lives in Indianapolis, Indiana with her husband and two children.

https://alexandraohudson.com

Arun Gupta, CEO of NobleReach, is a venture capitalist, Lecturer at Stanford University for “Valley Meets Mission”, and Adjunct Entrepreneurship Professor and Senior Advisor to Provost at Georgetown University, and author of, “Venture Meets Mission”.

Arun is active in the emerging technology, entrepreneurship, public policy, and venture finance communities. He is passionate about inspiring students to pursue mission-oriented entrepreneurial careers.

At Stanford University, Arun serves on the Stanford in Washington (SIW) Advisory Board, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Advisory Council, and is a Faculty Lecturer teaching ” Valley Meets Mission: Purposeful Entrepreneurship with Government” at Stanford in Washington. The class highlights his venture capital and academic experience building successful mission-oriented ventures at the intersection of the government, mission, technology, and entrepreneurship.

As a Partner at Columbia Capital, Arun’s investment career spanned eighteen years including initiating the firm’s Cybersecurity and Government technology investments with a focus on National Security, AI, and SaaS/Cloud infrastructure sectors. Prior to joining Columbia Capital in 2000, Arun was at Carlyle Venture Partners focused on software investments.

Arun has lived in the Washington DC metropolitan area for over 40 years and has been actively involved in local community organizations focusing on coaching youth sports, inner city educational programs, and food insecurity programs for vulnerable communities. Arun has been happily married for 27+ years to Dr. Anjali Mehta Gupta and has three wonderful children. www.venturemeetsmission.comhttps://noblereachfoundation.org