Teresa Amabile is the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration and a Director of Research at Harvard Business School. Originally educated as a chemist, Amabile received her doctorate in psychology from Stanford University. She studies how everyday life inside organizations can influence people and their performance. Amabile’s research encompasses creativity, productivity, innovation, and inner work life–the confluence of emotions, perceptions, and motivation that people experience as they react to events at work.

Amabile’s most recent discoveries appear in her book, The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work. The book, based on research into over 12,000 daily diary entries from over 200 professionals inside organizations, illuminates how everyday events at work can impact employee engagement and creative productivity. To be published in August 2011 by Harvard Business Review Press, the book is co-authored with Amabile’s husband and collaborator, Steven Kramer, Ph.D. Amabile’s other books include Creativity in Context and Growing Up Creative.
www.brightsightgroup.

Patrick Lencioni is founder and president of The Table Group, a firm dedicated to providing organizations with ideas, products, and services that improve teamwork, clarity, and employee engagement.

Lencioni’s passion for organizations and teams is reflected in his writing, speaking, and executive consulting. He is the author of eleven best-selling books with nearly five million copies sold. His capstone book, The Advantage, is the pre-eminent source on organizational health and became an immediate best-seller. After twelve years in print, his classic book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, remains a weekly fixture on national best-seller lists. He is also author to The Ideal Team Player, a much-anticipated follow-up to his team book.

The wide-spread appeal of Lencioni’s leadership models have yielded a diverse base of speaking and consulting clients, including a mix of Fortune 500 companies, professional sports organizations, the military, non-profits, schools, and churches. 

Lencioni addresses thousands of leaders each year at world-class organizations and national conferences. Consistently the top rated keynote speaker at major events, Lencioni shares his insights and inspires his audiences through his accessibility, humor and story-telling.

Named in Fortune magazine as one of the ‘ten new gurus you should know,’ Lencioni and his work have been featured in USA TODAY, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Harvard Business Review, to name a few.

Prior to founding his firm, he worked as a corporate executive for Sybase, Oracle and Bain & Company. Pat lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and four sons.

Blake Mycoskie is the Founder and Chief Shoe Giver of TOMS, and the person behind the idea of One for One®, a business model that helps a person in need with every product purchased.

A simple idea has grown into a global movement: TOMS Shoes has provided over 60 million pairs of shoes to children since 2006, TOMS Eyewear has restored sight to over 400,000 since 2011 and TOMS Roasting Company has helped provide over 335,000 weeks of safe water since launching in 2014. In 2015, TOMS Bag Collection was founded with the mission to help provide training for skilled birth attendants and distribute birth kits containing items that help a woman safely deliver her baby. As of 2016, TOMS has supported safe birth services for over 25,000 mothers.

TOMS humble beginnings happened unintentionally. While traveling in Argentina in 2006, Blake witnessed the hardships faced by children growing up without shoes. His solution to the problem was simple, yet revolutionary: to create a for-profit business that was sustainable and not reliant on donations. Blake’s vision soon turned into the simple business idea that provided the powerful foundation for TOMS. Over the course of its first five years, TOMS was successful enough in providing shoes for children in need. But Blake, having recognized other vital needs during his travels around the world, realized that One for One® could be applied to more than shoes. He developed the idea for TOMS Eyewear in which for every pair of eyewear purchased, TOMS would help give sight to a person in need. One for One®. In the fall of 2011, Blake released his first book, Start Something That Matters, offering his own amazing story of inspiration, and the power of incorporating giving in business. He references other companies and individuals who have been motivated and inspired to integrate philanthropy into their profession as well as their personal lives. The book became a New York Times best-seller. More importantly, it is Blake’s hope that Start Something That Matters inspires others to turn their passion and dreams into a reality.

From shoes to eyewear and now a book, Blake’s unique approach to business has awarded him with numerous accolades. In 2009, Blake and TOMS received the Secretary of State’s 2009 Award of Corporate Excellence (ACE). At the Clinton Global Initiative University plenary session, former President Clinton introduced Blake to the audience as “one of the most interesting entrepreneurs (I’ve) ever met.” People Magazine featured Blake in its “Heroes Among Us” section, and TOMS Shoes was featured in the Bill Gates Time Magazine article “How to Fix Capitalism.” In 2011, Blake was named on Fortune Magazine’s “40 Under 40” list, recognizing him as one of the top young businessmen in the world.