Barbara Annis is an outstanding leading edge thinker who has designed breakthrough workshops and interventions since 1979. She has been studying transformational learning with many exceptional thinkers, including Dr. Flores, Ph.D. Program Director of Linguistics, University of Berkeley. Her programs include workshops for men and women, youth, and couples, as well as her highly acclaimed corporate initiatives. Barbara is recognized throughout Canada and the United States as the authority on Gender Awareness. Her recently published book on the subject titled "Same Words, Different Language" is certain to become required reading for both women and men striving to achieve excellence in the workplace of the future.

Julie Hembrock Daum is the practice leader for the North American Board Services Practice of Spencer Stuart, the leading executive search firm in the boardroom. She consults with corporate boards, working with companies of all sizes from the Fortune 10 to pre-IPO companies and has worked on over 450 director assignments. Her recent work includes recruiting all of the outside directors for the Tyco spin-off companies and she continues to work with companies such as American Express, General Mills, United Health, Delta, Freddie Mac, eBay, Federated Department Stores, Eli Lilly, and Genzyme Corporation to recruit individual directors. She serves on the Board of Directors of Spencer Stuart, Harvard’s Women’s Leadership Board, Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children and City Meals on Wheels.

Julie also is involved in the organization of the Northwestern Conference on Corporate Governance and the Wharton/Spencer Stuart Directors’ Institute. She is a frequent writer and speaker on governance topics and recently has been quoted in The New York Times, Financial Times, BusinessWeek, Time Magazine and The Wall Street Journal.

Prior to joining Spencer Stuart, Julie was the executive director of the corporate board resource at Catalyst. She managed all board of directors’ activities and worked with companies to identify qualified women for their board. After graduating with an M.B.A. in corporate finance from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Julie began her career as a consultant with McKinsey & Company in Los Angeles.

Judith E. Glaser is one of the most innovative and pioneering change agents and executive coaches in the consulting industry. She considers herself an Organizational Anthropologist, working with clients at the intersection of culture, leadership and brand. In 1980 she founded Benchmark Communications, Inc., a firm that works with CEOs and their teams helping them focus on competitive challenges in a world of moving targets – with a direct line of site to the customer.

Her two books Creating WE: Change I-Thinking to We-Thinking & Build a Healthy Thriving Organization and The DNA of Leadership (Platinum Press, an imprint of Adams Media), made Amazon Business Book Best Seller Lists in 2005 and 2006, and were also selected by both Forbes and Business Book Review as two of the top business books of 2005 and 2006. Creating WE has been translated into Chinese, Korean, Spanish and Russian, and The DNA of Leadership has been translated into Spanish. She has appeared on the NBC Today Show, ABC World News, Fox News Channel, News 12 Connecticut, NY 1, Martha Stewart Show and the Family Network talking about We-Centric Leadership, Bully Bosses and Culture Transformation. She has been quoted many times in the NY Times, WSJ, Crain’s, Newsday, Star Ledger, Harvard Management Review, AMA World and other print media talking about her Revolutionary Workplace Approaches. She is contributing Editor of Executive Excellence Magazine and is listed in the Excellence 100 Consultants.

Ann Spector Lieff, founder of The Lieff Company and former CEO of Spec's Music, brings thirty years of experience in specialty retail involving merchandising, operations, marketing and real estate. Lieff has formed Miami-based, The Lieff Company, in order to incorporate her current special projects and corporate board affiliations. Her expertise and interests range from public speaking to CEO mentoring and leadership development and to devising corporate strategies to assist and expand organizations in the management of their business practices. In the past several years, Lieff has committed the majority of her time to her on-going advisory services as a corporate director to several leading regional and national retail operations.

Ann Spector Lieff has made the retail music industry her career for over three decades. Lieff, former CEO of Spec's Music, led the company her father, Martin Spector, founded in 1948, to become a dominant music retailer -- both in its markets and reputation. In 1985, Lieff took the family-held company public and created one of Florida's largest and most respected public companies.

In May of 1998, Ann Lieff/Spec's was named as one of America's Top 500 Women-Owned Businesses by Working Woman Magazine. After establishing Spec's position as one of the regions premiere specialty music retailers, she orchestrated the execution of a definitive merger agreement between Spec's and Camelot Music, completed on July 31, 1998.

Throughout her career, Lieff's professional accomplishments have been acknowledged in the communities she serves. She received the University of Denver Professional Achievement Award in 1989. She delivered the 1989 Graduation Convocation Address at the University of Miami School of Business Administration, was honored by the National Association of Women Business Owner's (NAWBO) in 1995, and was named a Top Woman Achiever by South Florida Magazine. In 2000 Harvard Business School chose to publish a case study of Spec's Music.

Donna E. Shalala became Professor of Political Science and President of the University of Miami on June 1, 2001.  President Shalala has more than 25 years of experience as an accomplished scholar, teacher, and administrator.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, President Shalala received her A.B. degree in history from Western College for Women and her Ph.D. degree from The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.  A leading scholar on the political economy of state and local governments, she has also held tenured professorships at Columbia University, the City University of New York (CUNY), and the University of Wisconsin - Madison.  She served as President of Hunter College of CUNY from 1980 to 1987 and as Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1987 to 1993.

In 1993 President Clinton appointed her U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) where she served for eight years, becoming the longest serving HHS Secretary in U.S. history.  At the beginning of her tenure, HHS had a budget of nearly $600 billion, which included a wide variety of programs including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Child Care and Head Start, Welfare, the Public Health Service, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  One of the country’s first Peace Corp volunteers, she served in Iran from 1962 to 1964.

As HHS Secretary, she directed the welfare reform process, made health insurance available to an estimated 3.3 million children through the approval of all State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP), raised child immunization rates to the highest levels in history, led major reforms of the FDA’s drug approval process and food safety system, revitalized the National Institutes of Health, and directed a major management and policy reform of Medicare.  At the end of her tenure as HHS Secretary, The Washington Post described her as “one of the most successful government managers of modern times.”  In 2007, President George W. Bush handpicked Shalala to co-chair with Senator Bob Dole the Commission on Care for Returning Wounded Warriors, to evaluate how wounded service members transition from active duty to civilian society.

 As Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she led what was then the nation’s largest public research university.  She successfully strengthened undergraduate education, the university’s research facilities, and spearheaded the largest fundraising drive in Wisconsin’s history.  In 1992, Business Week named her one of the top five managers in higher education.

She served in the Carter administration as Assistant Secretary for Public Development and Research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.  In 1980, she assumed the presidency of Hunter College of the City University of New York.

She is a Director of Gannett Co., Inc., UnitedHealth Group, Inc., and the Lennar Corporation.  She also serves as a Trustee of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

Ja-Naé Duane is a true success story. Growing up in poverty, working at the age of 13 to support her siblings, Ja-Naé is now an international opera singer and president/founder of the fastest growing women's community: Wild Women Entrepreneurs.

Ms. Duane most recently was praised by Musical America for her portrayal of Hannah/Rabbi/Henry in the North American Premiere of Angels in America. "Ja-Naé Duane (Hannah)...plumbed the humanity of less immediately sympathetic characters.” A natural "go-getter," this Metropolitan Opera Council Audition Regional Semi-Finalist is equally comfortable performing opera, jazz, and musical theater. She has performed in such places as the White House, Mariinsky Theatre, Lincoln Center,  and Boston's Esplanade.

Ja-Naé started Wild Women Entrepreneurs (The Wild WE) out of the need to help women achieve their full potential in business in life. In 2005, The Wild WE was launched with $100. The Wild WE currently has 45 chapters in 6 countries.

For more information on Ja-Naé's performance career, go to:
http://www.Ja-Nae.com