2008 Keynote Speakers (to date)
 |
Cherie Blair is a leading human rights lawyer and a passionate campaigner for women’s equality across the world. Her determination to help women overcome prejudice has led her to visit and speak in many countries. She also actively promotes work-life balance policies, having herself experienced the pressures of combining a demanding career with being the wife of Tony Blair and a mother of four. [more] |
|
 |
Sarah Jones is a Tony Award®-winning playwright, actor and poet. Her multi-character solo shows include Bridge & Tunnel, which was originally produced Off-Broadway by Oscar-winner Meryl Streep. Bridge & Tunnel, which Streep called “one of the best performances I’ve ever seen” also went on to become a critically acclaimed, long-running hit on Broadway. [more] |
|
 |
Marcus Luttrell is the author of New York Times best-selling book Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10, which tells the harrowing story of four Navy SEALs who journeyed into the mountainous border of Afghanistan and Pakistan on Operation Redwing. An unparalleled motivational story of survival, the book is also a moving tribute to the friends and teammates who did not make it off the mountain. [more] |
|
 |
Meg Whitman was president and CEO of eBay from March 1998 through March 2008, when she stepped down from her role. During her decade-long tenure, she helped this Internet pioneer evolve into an unmatched global e-commerce engine that continues to influence and reshape the way people trade, pay and communicate around the world. Ms. Whitman joined eBay when it was a small online auction site with 30 employees and revenues of $4 million. In September 1998 – only six months after her start – she took eBay public, resulting in the company’s rise in valuation to $2 billion. [more] |
|
|
Panelist and Workshop Leaders (to date) |
||
 |
Jill Conner Browne is a multiple #1 New York Times best-selling author. She is featured regularly in national and international magazines and television shows and is a monthly contributor to AY magazine. She is developing a Broadway musical with Melissa Manchester writing the music, Sharon Vaughn writing the lyrics, and Rupert Holmes writing the book. She actively works on Hurricane Katrina relief efforts when she’s not writing, or speaking at fundraising events around the country. To learn more about her visit www.sweetpotatoqueens.com. | |
 |
Lois Frankel, PhD, literally wrote the book on coaching individuals to succeed in businesses large and small around the globe. Nice Girls Don’t Get The Corner Office and Nice Girls Don’t Get Rich are international bestsellers in over 25 languages and have been featured on the Today Show, CNN and CNBC, in The New York Times, USA Today, and People and TIME magazines. BusinessWeek named Corner Office one of the top 10 business books of the year and ABC Television purchased the rights to it for a comedy series. Her most recent books, See Jane Lead and Stop Sabotaging Your Career, have been climbing the book charts since their release in April 2007. Learn more about Dr. Frankel at www.thethinpinkline.com or www.drloisfrankel.com. | |
 |
Caitlin Friedman and Kimberly Yorio are public relations and marketing professionals, authors and entrepreneurs. They are the co-owners of YC Media, a boutique agency specializing in cookbooks and the co-founders of Girls Guide, a company created to help women achieve professional success. As authors of the best-selling Girls Guide series (The Girl's Guide to Starting Your Own Business, The Girl's Guide to Being a Boss and The Girl's Guide to Kicking Your Career into Gear), Ms. Friedman and Ms. Yorio have been featured on CNN and The Today Show as well as covered by magazines ranging from Time to Parade. As the co-author of The Girl's Guide business book series, they have been invited to be a guest speaker at various conferences, corporations and colleges including Cornell, Harvard, Boeing, UPS and Amazon.com. Learn more about them at www.girlsguidetobusiness.com. | |
 |
Janet Gurwitch is the founder of Gurwitch Products, the company that produces, manages and markets Laura Mercier Cosmetics and Skincare. Ms. Gurwitch joined forces with famed makeup artist Laura Mercier in 1996 after realizing the imminent shift in the beauty industry, propelling niche lines to the forefront of the cosmetics business. Prior to founding Gurwitch Products, she was the executive vice president of merchandising at Neiman Marcus. Ms. Gurwitch serves on the board of the University of Texas Health Science Center. | |
 |
Jan Hargrave, CEO of Jan Hargrave & Associates, is a leading expert in the field of non-verbal communication. She teaches you the ways in which your body communicates to the world around you. Her information could help you to “read” your customers, your family, your students, your associates--in fact, everyone around you. She is the author of Let Me See Your Body Talk, Freeway of Love, Judge The Jury, and Strictly Business Body Language. This popular speaker, distinguished educator and guest of The Lifetime Channel, The Maury Povich Show, The Montel Williams Show, E-Entertainment Television and The Ricki Lake Show, describes for you all “hidden messages” you use in your everyday life and shows you how to stop the lies and uncover the truth—in any conversation or situation. | |
 |
Julia Hubbel is a professional speaker, seminar leader, and prize-winning journalist who specializes in teaching the art of charisma. She has spent nearly three decades in senior corporate and consulting positions in the areas of training and organizational development in America, Australia and New Zealand. She is the author of CLICK: Capture Your Charisma and Make Your Connections Count! Ms. Hubbel is a fully disabled, decorated Vietnam-era veteran who served as a journalist and television producer/director in the Army and as chief of military protocol under President Jimmy Carter in 1977. | |
 |
Mae C. Jemison, MD, blasted into orbit aboard the space shuttle Endeavour in 1992, as the world's first woman of color to go into space. Now the founder and president of two technology companies, she also founded and chairs The Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence, which hosts an annual international science camp. | |
 |
Renu Khator is president of the University of Houston and chancellor of the UH System, KUHT, the nation's first educational television station, and KUHF, Houston's National Public Radio station. In her capacity as chancellor, Dr. Khator oversees a system with an annual operating budget that exceeds $1 billion, serves more than 57,000 students and has an overall economic impact of $3 billion on the Greater Houston area each year. Dr. Khator, who was born in Uttar Pradesh, India, is a noted scholar in the field of global environmental policy, and has published five books and several articles on various aspects of this subject. | |
 |
Pamela Mitchell, CLC, is the founder and CEO of The Reinvention Institute, Inc., (TRI). Prior to reinventing herself (for the second time!) by starting TRI, Ms. Mitchell spent nearly fifteen years in senior-level roles in international business development, marketing and relationship management for high-profile media and entertainment companies. In addition to writing a popular monthly column on women in business for Inc.com (the website for INC magazine), she regularly teaches a course in career reinvention strategies for Mediabistro, a national company devoted to connecting media professionals to new opportunities and each other. | |
 |
Valerie Coleman Morris is the former business anchor for CNN Financial Network in New York City. On any given day her audience numbered more than 290 million homes, hotels and airports in the United States and around the world as her reports aired on CNNfn, CNN Prime, CNN Headline News, CNN International and CNN Airport Network. She has decades of experience in television and radio broadcasting. Ms. Morris is a frequent speaker at professional, educational and civic events throughout the country. Since choosing to leave CNN, Ms. Morris is dedicated to financial literacy for women, young people and emerging markets. | |
 |
Pam Peeke MD, MPH, FACP is an internationally renowned expert and speaker in women’s health, fitness and nutrition. Dr. Peeke has been recognized by the National Institutes of Health as one of the leading women physicians in America and has been named one of America’s top physicians by the Consumer’s Research Council of America. Dr. Peeke is chief medical correspondent for Discovery Health TV, and host of the award winning National Body Challenge series, as well as her newly launched Fit to Live reality show. She is a member of Oprah’s O team of medical experts, Fitness magazine columnist, in-studio expert for the Today Show and CNN, and she is the New York Times bestselling author of Fight Fat after Forty, Body for Life for Women and Fit to Live. | |
 |
Lisa Quiroz is senior vice president for corporate responsibility at Time Warner. Prior to assuming her current position, Ms. Quiroz worked at Time Inc. where she was founding publisher of People en Español, the best-selling Hispanic magazine in the U.S. | |
 |
Michael F. Roizen, MD, has founded six companies, co-invented a drug recently approved by FDA and authored four #1 New York Times bestsellers. He is the first chief wellness officer at any major academic medical center, the Cleveland Clinic. Dr Roizen is the co-founder of RealAge, Inc. He has published more than 165 peer-reviewed scientific papers, 100 chapters, 30 editorials and 4 medical books, and has received 13 U.S. patents. Dr. Roizen is boarded in internal medicine and anesthesiology. He has given over 1,400 lectures, he has appeared on Oprah (17 times), the Today Show, 20/20, CBN, Good Morning America (26 times), and has four PBS fundraising specials. He and Dr. Mehmet Oz write a daily syndicated newspaper column, a column for the association of women’s nursing, and record one hour daily for Oprah and Friends radio. He also has a two-hour, 26-station Terrestrial radio show. His most recent books are YOU: The Smart Patient, YOU: The Owner's Manual, and YOU: On A Diet, all written with Dr. Mehmet Oz, and the latter two are New York Times bestsellers. | |
|
|
||