Speakers
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The person FastCompany called "the most famous man in advertising," Alex joined Crispin and Porter Advertising in 1989. Under Alex’s direction, Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CP+B) grew to more than 1000 employees, with offices in Miami, Boulder, Los Angeles, London, Toronto and Sweden. During that time, CP+B became the world’s most-awarded agency, and is the only agency to have won the Cannes International Advertising Festival Grand Prix in all five catego- ries: Promotion, Media, Cyber, Titanium, and Film.
Alex was inducted into the Art Director’s Club Hall of Fame in 2008, and in 2009 he received an honorary PhD from the University of Colorado School of Journalism. And in 2010, he was named Creative Director of the Decade by Adweek magazine.
In the role of Creative Insurgent, Alex is stretching the boundaries of what defines corporate culture and exploring every aspect of modern business. When he’s not busy painting, writing or designing furniture, he is working to recognize, understand and codify the rapidly changing landscapes of our world and business models. -
Claire Williams Díaz leads social innovation, philanthropy, and cause marketing at Twitter. She holds an MBA and other degrees from Stanford and Oxford Universities and was a Skoll Foundation Scholar for Social Entrepreneurship. She co-founded Hope Runs, a non-profit organization in East Africa. She is a published author and writes on such diverse topics as social media strategy, saving money, and generation Y. Her first book, The Choice Effect, came out in 2010. You can find her at www.claire.us.com or via @clairew on Twitter.
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Rich oversees Learning, Leadership Development, Talent Management and Organization Development at eBay, the world's leading e-commerce platform. At the heart of Rich’s work is an expansive view of development, which sees people and organizations as inherently vital and capable, boundless and joyful. Rich takes the perspective that all things are but one thing – a singular and singularly beautiful relational field. The full integration of consciousness, rendered from this state of completeness and connectedness, is Rich’s highest aspiration personally and globally.
Rich received a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology and an M.A. in Organizational Psychology, both from Columbia University. He has worked for the past decade and a half in Fortune 500 companies, and prior to that in colleges and universities, as well as in hospitals and clinics.
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After spending three years as a Product Manager at Facebook, Leah has recently moved over to become half of a two-person team responsible for generating and/or aggregating the information employees need to do their jobs and distributing that information effectively. The team also drives the systems and programs which empower teams and individuals to better communicate with each other.
She is co-author of the book, Facebook for Dummies, and is a student of various mindfulness-based practices.
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Soren is the founder and host of the Wisdom 2.0 Conference, the annual event exploring living with awareness and wisdom in the technology age. He is also the author of Wisdom 2.0: Ancient Teachings for the Creative and Constantly Connected (HarperOne, 2009), and is a regular contributor to the Social Media blog, Mashable.
He has led mindfulness programs in a wide range of settings, including to youth in New York City juvenile halls, trauma workers in Rwanda, teachers in Nigeria, and US technology companies. As project director for Richard Gere's public charity, Healing the Divide, he organized the Healing through Great Difficulty Conference with his Holiness the Dalai Lama. -
Greg Burdulis has been practicing meditation over 20 years. He recently returned from Burma where he practiced intensively for 6 years as a monk. He has taught meditation in Burma, Thailand and the USA. He currently leads mindulness classes in various settings, including the advertising agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CP+B).
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Chris Keenan, M.D., the Medical Director of Clinica, a Community Health Center that has received national recognition for being on the forefront of various health initiatives and recently started conducting group medical visit that incorporate mindfulness techniques for patients with chronic pain.
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Tami Simon is the founder of Sounds True, a multi-media publisher dedicated to disseminating spiritual wisdom. Over their 22 year history, Sounds True has produced over 600 titles, been nominated twice for the Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing companies, and is North America's leading publisher of spoken-word spiritual teachings.
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Mark Wilding is the Executive Director of PassageWorks Institute, a non-profit organization that offers school-based programs in social and emotional learning. By supporting the 'inner lives' of teachers and students, the PassageWorks model integrates cognitive and human development to create meaningful and effective classrooms.
Mark is the former Director of the Marpa Center for Business and Economics at Naropa University. He helped launch a graduate degree program at Naropa in 1995 and continues to teach graduate courses in authentic leadership and systems thinking. Mark has held leadership roles in government, business, non-profit, and academic organizations. Mark helped found a public computer software company in 1985 and served on the board and in several roles until he left as President in 1993. He has a B.S. in Biology and an M.A. in Environmental Leadership. Mark has been studying and practicing meditation since he arrived at Naropa in 1978, and is interested in the practical application of reflection and inner work in education, work, and family.
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Susan Skjei, MS, is president of SaneSystems, a consulting firm specializing in leadership coaching and organizational transformation. Formerly a vice president and chief learning officer in the high-tech industry, she has over 25 years' experience designing and facilitating participative approaches to strategic planning and cultural change for business, nonprofit and community organizations. A senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, Susan has taught meditation programs in the United States, Canada and Europe. She is also the director of the Authentic Leadership program at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, and a founding member of the Shambhala Institute in Nova Scotia, Canada.
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Rona Wilensky was principal and founder of New Vista High School, a small, innovative, public school of choice in Boulder, Colorado from 1992-2009. Previously, she worked as an education policy analyst for the Governor of Colorado, the Education Commission of the States, and various reform initiatives in Colorado. During the 2009-10 academic year, she was a Resident Fellow at the Spencer Foundation in Chicago writing a book about the school she founded.
A frequent contributor to state and national conversations on high school reform, her essays have appeared in Education Week, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Phi Delta Kappan and Education News Colorado. She holds a PhD in Economics from Yale University and taught that subject at Williams College and the University of Denver.
Currently Rona is involved in a variety of activities to bring mindfulness practices to teachers and educational leaders. She has collaborated with The Impact Foundation to bring SMART in Education to Boulder Valley School District and is working with the Colorado Association of School Executives to raise awareness of the role that mindfulness can play in stress reduction and emotional resiliency. She is also collaborating with Passageworks to develop a transformative leadership program for educators based on increased self-awareness and mindfulness. Rona is a member of the Steering Committee of the Educational Leadership Council of the Garrison Institute helping to guide the development of their Initiative on Contemplative Education.
