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Karen Steadman/ Leadership Futures, Inc.
Dr. Karen Steadman is the Founder and CEO of Leadership Futures, Inc., a coaching and human capital strategy firm that optimizes the performance of leaders in complex systems. Her specialty expertise is advising analytical leaders who are “Beyond Smart†of the best strategies for leveraging the human factor with their teams, organizations and shareholders. She is a licensed psychologist who graduated with highest honors in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and completed her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Georgia. She has implemented leadership development programs in the United States, Canada, South America, Europe, South Africa, India, Australia and Asia. She a proud board member for HOBY International whose mission is to inspire and develop the next generation of leaders. Her book PIONEER: Why Stop at Successful? will be released December, 2012.
Bob Eckert/Â New & Improved LLC
Bob Eckert is CEO at New & Improved. Bob works primarily with large transnationals to foster increased innovation in their cultures, people, leadership practices, products, services and processes. Bob says, “Essentially, I’m in the business of helping people be more effective in their work and lives via whatever method worksâ€.
Bob has a diverse background of experiences that helps him to add additional value. Such as; Psychotherapist, Neuropharmacology trainer, wilderness guide, manufacturing facility owner, retail manager, tree farmer, innovation specialist, husband and dad.
Bob uses his training and consulting skills to make change efforts stick. The author of numerous articles and books, his most recent (co-authored with Jonathan Vehar) is “More Lightning, Less Thunder: How to Energize Innovation Teams†which details a model for healthy human development in the service of great personal creativity and the emotional intelligence that leads to great team membership.
A sought after speaker who’s impacted tens of thousands at conferences around the world, Bob has a solid track record of satisfied clients in the areas of innovation, human resource and team development. He and his partners work with the world’s leading companies, including more than 20% of the Fortune 500 as well as NGOs in the developing world in places like South Africa immediately post-Apartheid and recently Uganda, helping to overcome the incredibly negative impact of the Lord’s Resistance Army.
Mark Peterson/Guerrillapreneur
Mark A. Peterson is the author of the small business strategy book, Guerrillapreneur™. Guerrillapreneur is the combination of the words “Guerrilla†and “Entrepreneur,†and is the name given to enterprising, cash, and environment-conserving small business executives.
In Guerrillapreneur, which can be found on Amazon.com, Peterson, a former strategy consultant, business incubator executive and serial entrepreneur, provides eco-green, capital preserving frameworks that small business executives can use to effectively compete against corporate goliaths.
Mark A. Peterson has over twenty-five years of entrepreneurial and strategic consulting experience. Peterson is the co-founder and former CEO of PrideRock Holding Company, Inc., a leading biometric and criminal history screening company. Along with his business partner, Mitch Duitz, Peterson launched PrideRock in 2002 from their respective garages and grew the business to over $10 million in annual revenues. In 2011, Peterson and Duitz completed the sale of the business to Corelogic, a spin-off from First American.
Peterson’s career history prior to PrideRock includes working as the Vice President of Emerging Markets at ChoicePoint, Inc. and six years as a strategy consultant with Andersen Consulting’s (now Accenture) Strategic Services practice. During his time at Dartmouth College, Peterson launched two entrepreneurial ventures: Le Noir Style, a company that sold health and beauty-aid products for African Americans to New England Area colleges; and ENform Magazine, a political and social magazine.
Peterson is a 1987 graduate of Selma High School (Selma, Alabama) where he was named the city’s first African-American Paul M. Grist “Boy of the Yearâ€. Peterson has a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.B.A. from the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth.
Jacqui Chew/ TEDx Peachtree
Jacqui Chew Spent the last 15 years leading high-performance teams at both marketing consultancies and corporations. Four years ago she started iFusion Marketing to exorcise her passion for supporting innovation and by extension technology startups. Officially, iFusion Marketing is a consultancy that provides fractional CMO services to technology startups. In practice, she serves as the stand-in senior marketing executive for companies that aren’t quite ready to add a permanent senior marketer to their team. Tasks run the gamut from strategy planning to brass tacks execution.
Jacqui apprenticed with some of the best in Atlanta such as Georgia Technology Hall of Fame inductee Leland Strange and worked with or at some pretty recognizable companies like eBay, Durex Consumer Products, PeopleSoft (acquired by Oracle), Miller Brewing Company and Stonesoft (HA+infosec for you cyber security buffs). Finally, she led the launch of Silverpop, RealEstate.com, drkoop.com and hsupply.com during the tech boom of the late 1990s.
