|
2009 Keynote Speakers
|
 |
BETSY MYERS most recently served as a senior adviser to Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign. She joined the campaign in January 2007 as the Chief Operating Officer tasked with the challenge of building a $100,000,000 organization and established the campaign with a business operational model and customer service mentality.
Myers also represented the campaign as a senior adviser and as Chair, Women for Obama. She traveled extensively in 2008 speaking to undecided voters and particularly on women’s outreach. These efforts included a working partnership with Women for Obama and the DNC’s Women’s Leadership Forum. She spent significant time working on unity efforts—meeting with Clinton supporters across the country hearing their concerns and inviting them to join the Obama efforts.
Prior to this appointment, Myers was the Executive Director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. She came to CPL in 2003, with a track record of strategically building and realigning organizations. Myers focused the Center's teaching and research around personal leadership and the fully integrated person. This centered on her strong belief and conviction that the hardest person we will ever manage is ourselves. She also increased the Center’s efforts around women and leadership while working closely with the Harvard’s Women’s Leadership Board (2000-2007).
A senior official in the Clinton Administration, she was the President's senior adviser on women's issues. As Deputy Assistant to the President, she launched and was the first Director of the White House Office for Women’s Initiatives and Outreach. She played a critical role in Clinton's re-election effort in 1996 and figured prominently in shaping the Administration's legislative agenda on issues such as domestic violence, reproductive choice, breast cancer, and women in business.
Myers also served as the Associate Deputy Administrator for Entrepreneurial Development in the U.S. Small Business Administration. She implemented the SBA’s national requirements under President Clinton’s Welfare to Work Initiative and was responsible for the agency’s technical assistance, management, and distance learning programs. In a previous post, Myers was the Director of the Office of Women’s Business Ownership at the SBA. She served as an advocate for the 7.8 million women entrepreneurs in our country. |
|
 |
MARILYN TAM has had an extraordinarily diverse life, from her beginnings in a traditional Chinese family in Hong Kong to her meteoric rise in the international business world to become an influential corporate leader, speaker, corporate consultant, author, and respected humanitarian.
Her long, distinguished background includes prominent executive roles at numerous of world-class companies, including CEO of Aveda, President of Reebok Apparel & Retail Group and Vice President of Nike. She is also a successful entrepreneur, having developed and built three companies in diverse fields. She is currently co-leading a cutting edge, non-invasive integrated healthcare services and products company, HealthWalk.
Ms. Tam is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Us Foundation whose mission is to facilitate global action and dialogue on social, economic and environmental issues. She is also an advisor to the country of Bhutan, working with the Ministers and government officials to transition the country into the 21st Century while retaining their cultural and environmental heritage.
Marilyn was recognized as one of the Top 30 Female Entrepreneurs in the USA by Fempreneur magazine. Jack Canfield detailed her work in his book on the strategies for success, “The Success Principles”. She is featured as one of 50 women in the best selling book, “Fearless Women, midlife portraits” by Alspaugh, Kentz, and Halpin. Daryn Kagan, former CNN anchor featured Marilyn as one of the 50 people who dared to dream that they can make a difference, in her book, “What’s Possible”. |
|
 |
SANDRA TAYLOR served as the senior vice president of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) with Starbucks Coffee Company in Seattle, Washington, from 2003-2008. In this capacity, she led the strategic development and day-to-day direction of all CSR programs including community affairs, the Starbucks Foundation, support for disaster relief; development of responsible and sustainable standards for business practices and product procurement; and the management of programs to reduce the environmental impact of business operations. In addition, she was responsible for public policy and government relations and the publication of the company’s award-winning CSR annual report. Taylor launched Starbucks innovative coffee-buying guidelines, Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) Practices, paying premium prices to poor coffee farmers for producing high quality coffee, protecting the environment and biodiversity, and providing social improvements for their community. She also designed and led social investment programs for education, health, income generation, skills training and access to clean drinking water in Central America, India and Africa. Taylor is currently president and CEO of Sustainable Business International LLC. Prior to her role at Starbucks, Taylor served as vice president and director of public affairs for Eastman Kodak Company. As a corporate officer, she had overall responsibility for public affairs, international trade policy and corporate citizenship worldwide. She also worked as a Foreign Service officer for the United States Department of State.
Businesses today are scrambling to meet the demands of the "Green Revolution," and, specifically, the recent push for greater Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), while still improving growth on the bottom line. Companies are looking around to see how to embed it into the business strategy, and create measurement systems that incentivize innovation and creativity. This keynote address will demonstrate how bold leadership defines corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and innovative practices used to empower the next generation of leaders to implement new standards. |
|
 |
GAIL EVANS is author of the books Play Like A Man, Win Like A Woman, a New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Wall Street Journal best-seller and She Wins, You Win. In the male dominated world of television journalism, she began working at CNN at its inception in 1980. By the time she retired in 2001, she was Executive Vice President. During her career there, she was responsible for program and talent development for all of CNN’s domestic networks overseeing national and international talk shows and the Network Guest Bookings Department, which schedules about 25,000 guests each year. Ms. Evans has appeared on The Today Show and Larry King Live, and has been featured in The New York Times and USA Today and can be heard on her weekly radio segment “It’s Not Just A Man’s World,” which is syndicated to 1,900 CNN Radio affiliates across the United States.
In addition to speaking and teaching, Ms. Evans stays busy serving on numerous charitable boards including Radio and Television News Directors Foundation, the Society for Women’s Health Research, the Atlanta Girls School and the Georgia State University Law School and the Breman Jewish Heritage Museum.
Ms. Evans is also a founding board member of Greenstone Media, FM talk radio for Women. She was also appointed by President Clinton to the Commission on White House Fellows. She is the former chairperson of the Georgia Endowment for the Humanities and worked at the White House in the Office of the Special Counsel to the President during the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration. |
|
 |
MARILYN KING is a two-time Olympian (Munich, 1972 & Montreal, 1976) in the grueling five event Pentathlon (100 meter hurdles, shot put, high jump, long jump, 800 meters). Her 20-year athletic career includes five national titles and a World Record. An automobile accident in 1979 rendered her unable to train physically for her third Olympic Team. Using only mental training techniques she placed second at the Olympic trials for the 1980 Moscow Games.
This extraordinary experience and the resulting research led to a 25-year career as an expert in the field of exceptional human performance. The implications of her findings regarding human performance prompted Marilyn to give up her prestigious head coaching position at the University of California, Berkeley to found Beyond Sports. Her discovery of the three elements that are always present when ordinary people do extraordinary things led to the development of Olympian Technology™. Her work is a powerful example of applying skills learned through sports to three specific areas: business, education, and peace.
Ms. King’s participation in an international, five-year think tank on the role of business in peace building led to a career that includes conducting programs for senior executives with global responsibilities at Fortune 500 companies. Her techniques are incorporated by businesses seeking to empower employees, embrace change, and provide global leadership. |