ABRAHAM - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist

In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice - from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs - has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter-intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. Schwartz, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971, has been awarded several grants by the National Science Foundation over the last three decades. In addition, he is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and the American Psychological Society, and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association.

Job Titles:

• Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist

Dr. Jan Yager helps individuals, groups, and companies achieve their potential through her dynamic speeches, seminars, consulting, and writing. Dr. Jan Yager, who has a Ph.D. in sociology (City University of New York, 1983) is a member of the National Speakers Association, and author of more than twenty highly-acclaimed and award-winning books, as well as 250+ articles in Parade, The New York Times, Redbook, and other publications. She is regularly quoted in the media (the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Self, Dallas Morning News, USA Today, etc.) as well as interviewed on TV/cable and radio programs including The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show, Good Morning, America, The View, CBS News' Sunday Morning Show, National Public Radio, BBC radio, and others. Work Less, Do More: The 14-Day Productivity Makeover is Dr. Yager's most recent book, and presents a revolutionary program for taking back control of your life. This is an essential guide to getting things done intelligently and efficiently.

Job Titles:

• Co - Founder of Marshall Goldsmith Partners
• Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is a world authority in helping successful leaders get even better - by achieving positive, lasting change in behavior: for themselves, their people and their teams. Marshall's newest book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There, is a New York Times best seller, Wall Street Journal #1 business book and winner of the Harold Longman Award as the Best Business Book of 2007. Recently, the London Times named Goldsmith one of the top 50 most influential living management thinkers. The American Management Association named him as one of 50 great thinkers and leaders who have influenced the field of management over the past 80 years and Business Week listed him as one of the most influential practitioners in the history of leadership development. Dr. Goldsmith's Ph.D. is from UCLA. He teaches executive education at Dartmouth's Tuck School and frequently speaks at leading business schools. His work has been recognized by almost every professional organization in his field. Over two hundred of his articles, interviews, columns and videos are available for viewing and sharing online (for no charge) at www.MarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com. Visitors to this site have come from 188 countries and have viewed over 2.1 million resources. Goldsmith is co-founder of Marshall Goldsmith Partners, a network of top-level executive coaches and is widely recognized as one of the world's foremost authorities in helping leaders achieve positive, measurable change in behavior: for themselves, their people and their teams. In 2000, Forbes listed Marshall as one of top five executive coaches and Human Resources rated Marshall as one of the world's leading HR consultants. He has also been ranked by the Wall Street Journal as one of the "Top 10" executive educators. He has written and co-edited over 15 books on leadership development including "The Many Facets of Leadership" and "Coaching for Leadership."

Job Titles:

• Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist
• Founder and Executive Chairman of Decision Strategies International, Inc

Dr. Paul J.H. Schoemaker is the founder and Executive Chairman of Decision Strategies International, Inc., a consulting and training firm specializing in strategic management, executive development and multi-media software. He also serves as Research Director of the Mack Center for Technological Innovation at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches decision making and strategy as a part-time professor. Dr. Schoemaker took an extended sabbatical with the scenario planning group of Royal/Dutch Shell in London, and has since worked with over a hundred organizations around the world. He's written more than 100 academic and applied papers, including multiple articles in the Harvard Business Review. He' has also (co)-authored of several books, including Profiting from Uncertainty and Peripheral Vision. His 1995 article, "Scenario Planning" , was the second most reprinted publication in the 42 year history of the Sloan Management Review, and is listed by among the most highly cited scholars in terms of academic publications in business and economics. Paul Schoemaker is also an active private investor in new technology-based ventures and serves on the Board of Directors for several of these, including the Decision Education Foundation. His hobbies include tennis, golf and piano. He lives with his wife Joyce in Villanova, Pennsylvania and Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in the winter; they have two kids just out of college.

Job Titles:

• Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist

Dr. Spencer Johnson is one of the world's most respected thinkers and beloved authors. He is often referred to as "the best there is at taking complex subjects and presenting simple solutions that work." You might recognize Dr. Johnson from his bestselling books, Who Moved My Cheese?®, An A-Mazing Way to Deal with Change and The One Minute Manager®. His newest book, Peaks And Valleys: Making Good And Bad Times Work For You, is being hailed as "the right book at the right time." His books reveal universal principles that can be used by people in every culture in every part of the world. Dr. Johnson earned a B.A. degree in Psychology from the University of Southern California, an M.D. degree from the Royal College of Surgeons, and medical clerkships at The Mayo Clinic and Harvard Medical School. He has served as Medical Director of Communications for Medtronic, the original innovators of cardiac pacemakers; Research Physician at the Institute for Inter-Disciplinary Studies, a medical-social think tank; Consultant to the Center for the Study of the Person, and to the School of Medicine, University of California and Leadership Fellow at the Harvard Business School. He is currently an Advisor to the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. His work has captured the attention of major media, including The Associated Press, the BBC, CNN, Fortune, the New York Times, the Today show, Time magazine, USA Today, and United Press International.

Job Titles:

• Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist

Fran Tarkenton played in the NFL for eighteen seasons and has founded and built twelve highly successful companies. A consultant to numerous Fortune 500 firms, he lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Drawing on his experience as a top entrepreneur, and displaying the energy and grit that saw him through dozens of professional ups and downs, Football Hall of Famer, Fran Tarkenton presents field-tested guidelines that anyone starting a business will value. Offering inspiration, insight, and practical know-how, he shows you how to:

Job Titles:

• Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist

Herb Cohen has been called "the world's best negotiator" and is internationally renowned as a corporate and governmental consultant on negotiating strategy, commercial dealings and crisis management. As a U.S. presidential advisor, he has helped formulate policy on hostage negotiations and terrorism. His clients have included business executives, entrepreneurs, sports and theatrical agents plus large corporations as well as governmental agencies, such as The Department of State, F.B.I., C.I.A., The U. S. Conference of Mayors and The U.S. Department of Justice. Cohen's analysis, insights and humorous view of many of these high-level happenings have appeared in many international publications, and he himself has been the subject of articles in Time, People, The Economist, The New Yorker, Newsweek, Rolling Stone and even Playboy magazines. He is considered "America's foremost convention speaker, presenting serious subjects with such humor and dramatic flair that they become pure entertainment". He is the author of You Can Negotiate Anything, which was on the New York Times Bestseller List for almost one year and has been translated into twenty-one languages. His latest book, Negotiate This! By Caring But Not T-H-A-T Much is written in the same humorous style as his first book. Critics have said, "It's a must read for not only business people, but parents, politicians and consumers". Cohen has lectured at many educational institutions and enterprises, such as The Harvard Negotiation Project, Yale Law School, The Kellogg School, Wharton, the University of Wisconsin, the University of California-San Diego, McGill University, UBC and the Columbia University and Chicago University Schools of Business.

Job Titles:

• League of Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist
• President of Trout & Partners
• President of Trout & Partners Ltd.

Jack Trout is president of Trout & Partners, one of the most prestigious marketing firms with headquarters in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, USA and offices in 13 countries. Jack Trout manages and supervises a global network of experts that apply his concepts and develop his methodology around the world. The firm has done work for AT&T, IBM, Burger King, Merrill Lynch, Xerox, Merck, Lotus, Ericsson, Tetra Pak, Repsol, Hewlett-Packard, Procter & Gamble, Southwest Airlines and other Fortune 500 companies. Jack Trout started his business career in the advertising department of General Electric. From there he went on to become a divisional advertising manager at Uniroyal. Then he joined Al Ries in the advertising agency and marketing strategy firm where they worked together for over twenty-six years. With Al Ries he co-authored the industry classic, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, which was published in 1980. In 1985 he and Al Ries wrote a second best-selling book entitled Marketing Warfare. Positioning and Marketing Warfare are now published in 14 languages. In 1988 Bottom-Up-Marketing was published. In 1993 their book, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing became the marketing bible. It outlined the basic reasons why marketing programs succeed or fail in the competitive nineties. Jack Trout closed the circle with the sequel to Positioning in 1995. Entitled The New Positioning it takes the world's No. 1 business strategy to a new level. It became a Business Week best seller and has already been translated into 16 languages. Jack Trout is President of Trout & Partners Ltd., where he supervises a global network of experts that apply his concepts and develop his methodology around the world. Trout is recognized as the world's foremost marketing strategist; his concept of "positioning" has become the world's #1 business strategy. Trout writes a bimonthly column for Forbes

Job Titles:

• Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist

John Kotter, is widely regarded as the world's foremost authority on leadership and change. His is the premier voice on how the best organizations actually "do" change. In his newest work, A Sense of Urgency, Kotter shows what a true sense of urgency in an organization really is, why it is becoming an exceptionally important asset, and how it can be created and sustained within organizations. Professor Kotter is the author of seventeen books, a collection that has given him more honors and awards than any other writer on the topics of leadership and change. In fact, his books are in the top 1% of sales from Amazon.com. John Kotter's international bestseller Leading Change, which outlined an actionable, eight-step process for implementing successful transformations, has become the change bible for managers around the world. Our Iceberg Is Melting, the New York Times bestseller, puts the eight-step process within an allegory, making it accessible to the broad range of people needed to effect major organizational transformations. Professor Kotter often talks to groups and has only one goal: to motivate action that gets better results. John Kotter's articles in The Harvard Business Review over the past twenty years have sold more reprints than any of the hundreds of distinguished authors who have written for that publication during the same time period. Professor Kotter's honors include an Exxon Award for Innovation in Graduate Business School Curriculum Design, and a Johnson, Smith & Knisely Award for New Perspectives in Business Leadership. In 2003, a video version of a story from his book, The Heart of Change won a Telly Award. In 2006, Kotter received the prestigious McFeely Award for "outstanding contributions to leadership and management development." In 2007, his video "Succeeding in a Changing World" was named best video training product of the year by Training Media Review and also won a Telly Award. John Kotter lives in Cambridge Massachusetts and Ashland, New Hampshire.

Job Titles:

• Chief
• President
• League of Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist

One of the most sought-after consultants, speakers and thought leaders on new marketing, Joseph Jaffe is President and Chief Interruptor of crayon, a conversational marketing company, specializing in community, dialogue and partnership.

Joseph Rodrigues is known for his deeply reflective and eliquently presented mind-map training videos. He is a champion and advocate for preeminent entrepreneurship Finally, there is me, Jay, writing you thoughtfully reflective (hopefully exceedingly well reasoned) perspectives, from deeply impactful experiences and interactions I'm having all over the world.

Job Titles:

• Economist
• Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist

Paul Zane Pilzer is a world-renowned economist, a multimillionaire software entrepreneur, an adjunct professor, and the author of eight best-selling books and dozens of scholarly publications. Pilzer completed Lehigh University in three years and received his MBA from Wharton in 15 months at age 22. He became Citibank's youngest officer at age 22 and its youngest vice president at age 25. At age 24, he was appointed adjunct professor at New York University, where he taught for 21 consecutive years. Over the past 30 years, Pilzer has started and/or taken public, five companies in the areas of software, education and healthcare. He is the Founder of Zane Benefits, Inc. and Extend Health, Inc., the nation's two leading suppliers of individualized health benefits to corporate America. He was an appointed economic adviser in two presidential administrations and warned of the impending $200 billion savings and loan crisis years before official Washington was willing to listen a story that he later shared in Other People's Money, which was critically acclaimed by The New York Times and The Economist magazine. Pilzer is a prolific author, and in one of his most recent books, The New Health Insurance Solution he sets forth a bold new direction for U.S. health insurance and explains how individuals can now get affordable health insurance independent of their employer. This book also explains how employers can end their health insurance nightmare while still being able to hire great employees by providing the same health benefits for less than half the cost they are paying today.

Job Titles:

• Creative Director
• Founder
• League of Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist

Russ Granger has been creating peak professional performance for businesses around the world for over 25 years. Russ specializes in management, sales, service, and personal productivity courses for growth-oriented organizations in a wide variety of industries. His books, multimedia workshops, and self-paced programs produce documented, measurable results. Russ is the founder of several organizations devoted to professional education for peak performance, including Granger Associates, Insurance Learning Systems, and the ProEd Corporation. He is the prime architect of the world-renowned PRISMS program series, the largest-selling business skills courses in the domestic and international insurance industry. Russell Granger is a creative director specializing in digital branding and web media, and currently heads the Internet division of a New York ad agency. When his family history pursuits led to the discovery of an association with Walt Whitman, his research and archiving efforts began to focus on antebellum Brooklyn.

Job Titles:

• Co - Founder and CEO of Covey
• League of Extraordinary Minds Expert Panelist

Stephen M. R. Covey is co-founder and CEO of CoveyLink Worldwide. A sought-after and compelling keynote speaker and advisor on trust, leadership, ethics, and high performance, he speaks to audiences around the world. He is the author of The SPEED of Trust, a groundbreaking and paradigm-shifting book that challenges our age-old assumption that trust is merely a soft, social virtue and instead demonstrates that trust is a hardedged, economic driver a learnable and measurable skill that makes organizations more profitable, people more promotable, and relationships more energizing. He advocates that nothing is as fast as the speed of trust and that the ability to establish, grow, extend, and restore trust with all stakeholders is the critical leadership competency of the new global economy. Covey passionately delivers that message and is dedicated to enabling individuals and organizations to reap the dividends of high trust.