Gary Fencik

Head of Business Development, Adams Street Partners

Gary Fencik is the Head of Business Development at Adams Street Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm. Gary oversees all marketing and consultant related activities and relationships for the firm, and works closely with the Client Service and Investment Teams to develop private equity investment proposals and programs for institutional and high-net worth clients. Gary is also a member of Adams Street’s Executive Committee, where he is actively involved in developing the strategic vision and initiatives for the Firm.

TIANA S. CLARK

United States Air Force veteran, Master of Science in Educational Leadership and Bachelor of Science in Political Science with a minor in African-American studies.

Tiana S. Clark is a United States Air Force veteran, mom of four, entrepreneur, creator & executive producer, multi-award-winner, wife, teacher, nonprofit founder, world traveler, corporate tech leader, and mentor. She’s climbed the ladder in two Fortune Top 10 corporations over a span of 15 years, leading an international acquisition at Valero Energy Corporation and building the first-ever and best-in-class National Services Sales University at Microsoft. She's created her OWN positions — twice. She's led portfolios of millions and billions in revenue over the years and has liberated herself from so-called “imposter syndrome.”

Franck Cespedes

Senior Lecturer, Harvard Business School

Frank Cespedes is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School. For 12 years, he ran a professional services firm that won awards in the United States and in Europe for its work with companies. He has consulted to companies in many industries, is affiliated with PE and VC investors, has been a Board member of corporations and start-up firms, and the Education for Employment Foundation. At Harvard, he teaches Entrepreneurial Sales & Marketing, heads the executive program on Linking Strategy and Sales, and also teaches in the Owner-President Management program (OPM) for CEOs.

Kelly Amonte Hiller

Combe Family Head Lacrosse Coach, Northwestern University

Already a legend in the game as a player, Kelly Amonte Hiller has established herself as one of the sport's greatest coaches after building Northwestern Lacrosse into a dynasty. In May of 2005, Amonte Hiller etched her name in the annals of college athletics when she guided her upstart Northwestern team to an undefeated season and the first NCAA Lacrosse Championship ever won by a team outside the Eastern Time Zone, the first of an incredible seven national titles. After resurrecting a Northwestern program that had not competed at the varsity level in more than 10 years, Amonte Hiller led the Wildcats to the national semifinals 10 years in a row from 2005 to 2014 and tied an NCAA record with eight consecutive title game appearances in the process.

Brooke Olson Vuckovic

Clinical Professor of Leadership at the Kellogg School of Management

Brooke Olson Vuckovic is a Clinical Professor of Leadership at the Kellogg School of Management, where she teaches on a wide variety of leadership topics including the Moral Complexity in Leadership. Brooke takes great pride in receiving the Faculty Impact Award for multiple years from her MBA students for her outstanding contributions in the classroom. In addition to her teaching, Brooke is the Academic Director for “Leading the Family Enterprise,” and the faculty director of coaching for Zell Fellows, Kellogg’s highly selective venture accelerator program. Brooke’s work at Kellogg reflects her deep interest in the complex tasks of leadership broadly speaking, but especially within multi-generational family enterprise and founder-led companies.

Dr. Steven G. Rogelberg

Organizational psychologist, Chancellor’s Professor at UNC Charlotte for distinguished national, international and interdisciplinary contributions.

Dr. Steven G. Rogelberg, an organizational psychologist, holds the title of Chancellor’s Professor at UNC Charlotte for distinguished national, international and interdisciplinary contributions. He is an award-winning teacher and recipient of the very prestigious Humboldt Award for his research on meeting. His latest book, “The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance” (Oxford) was recognized by the Washington Post as the “#1 Leadership Book to Watch for”. He and the book were also featured on CBS This Morning Freakonomics, HBR, WSJ, BBC World to name a few. Adam Grant has called Steven the “worlds leading expert on how to fix meetings”. He was the inaugural winner of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) Humanitarian Award. He is also the current President of SIOP.

Jodi Glickman

CEO and founder of Great on the Job

Jodi Glickman is passionate about developing leaders— both seasoned executives and next generation talent. As the CEO and founder of Great on the Job, Jodi and her team have reached hundreds of thousands of the brightest minds across corporate America and academia—working with many of the most influential organizations and iconic brands—counting LinkedIn, JP Morgan, Abbott, and Harvard Business School among their longest standing clients. Jodi has appeared on the TEDx stage (Why You Should Stop Looking for Work You Love), she is the author of the critically acclaimed book Great on the Job, What to Say, How to Say It, The Secrets of Getting Ahead (St. Martin’s Press), and she is a writer for the Harvard Business Review. Jodi lives in Boulder, CO with her husband and three children. She enjoys hiking, biking and eating hot fudge sundaes, not necessarily in that order.

Carter Cast

Michael S. and Mary Sue Shannon Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.

Carter is an operating partner at Pritzker Group Venture Capital and a senior advisor at Pritzker Group Private Capital. Carter was formerly the CEO of Walmart.com and prior to that, the founding chief marketing officer of Blue Nile, Inc. the leading seller of diamonds and jewelry on the Internet. Before that, Carter was the director of marketing at Frito Lay, where he and his team developed Tostitos Scoops and launched the salsa and dip product line. Carter teaches entrepreneurship courses at Kellogg and has been given the impact teaching award by his students six times. He is also the author of a book, The Right (and Wrong) Stuff: How Brilliant Careers are Made – and Unmade, which was released in 2018. Forbes named it one of the six best “self-help books to keep you motivated until 2020 (and beyond).” Carter has a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and received his MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.

Dr. Bernard Banks

Associate Dean for Leadership Development and Inclusion (and a Clinical Professor of Management) at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

At Kellogg, Bernie is accountable for integrating leader development across the school’s global portfolio of degree programs. He also serves as the institution’s Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer. Previously, Dr. Banks was the Department Head (Dean) of Behavioral Sciences & Leadership at West Point and he retired from the Army as a Brigadier General in August 2016. A dynamic speaker, Bernie has presented on a variety of topics related to leadership at notable institutions like the U.S. Army War College, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Yale University’s School of Management, and General Electric’s John F. Welch Leadership Center. He has also consulted to, and conducted training on behalf of, numerous corporate and government clients (e.g., Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, U.S. Forest Service, Jones Lang LaSalle, Honeywell, P&G, Mercedes Benz, Wellpoint, Reckitt Benckiser, 7-Eleven, and IBM).

Amanda Russell

Leader in business, professor, author, and accomplished marketing consultant

Amanda is widely respected as a leader in business, professor, author, and accomplished marketing consultant. By the age of 32, she built and sold two thriving businesses. A former Olympic-level runner, her first company began with a fitness YouTube channel that she grew into one of the first digital fitness subscription programs. She went on to found a digital marketing company, the Interesting Agency, that specialized in the fitness industry and worked with some of the biggest names in fitness. Considered one of the most important voices in influencer marketing today, Amanda is a leading authority on Modern Influencer Marketing Strategy — the novel approach to marketing that is taking the world by storm.