GrowCoConference: speakers

	Erika Andersen CEO, Proteus International Erika Andersen is the CEO of Proteus International which offers practical methods for individuals, teams, and companies to clarify and then achieve their hoped-for-future. Much of Andersen's recent work has focused on organizational visioning and strategy, executive coaching, and management and leadership development. In these capacities she has served as consultant and advisor to the CEOs and top executives of a number of corporations, including MTV Networks, Rockwell Automation, Turner Broadcasting, Miller Coors, NBC Universal, Union Square Hospitality Group, and Comcast Corporation. She has been invited to share her insights about managing people and creating successful businesses by speaking to corporations, non-profit groups, and national associations. Her books and learning guides have been translated into Spanish, Turkish, German, French, Russian and Chinese. She is the author of Growing Great Employees: Turning Ordinary People into Extraordinary Performers and the forthcoming Being Strategic: Plan for Success; Outthink Your Competitors; Stay Ahead of Change.
	Kirk Aubry Managing Partner, CEO Project Aubry has experience helping big and small companies grow. He started, ran and sold his own fast-growing business. He successfully led a team that transformed Fortune 150, Textron resulting in its more than tripling in value. He steered a billion dollar global automotive supplier back to profitability as its Chief Operating Officer. He has worked with companies from the Inc. 500 to the Fortune 500. He has led, engaged, coached and advised thousands of people in organizations around the world and has served on Boards of both public and private companies. He has written a number of articles and is the author of the soon-to-be-published: The Emperor’s Tailor—A Story of Transformation. Aubry is a partner in The CEO Project, and leads groups of CEOs of fast-growing companies at peer group events.
	Paul Bolles-Beaven President of the Core Restaurant Division for Union Square Hospitality Group Paul Bolles-Beaven is President of the Core Restaurant Division, the division of Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG) comprised of those iconic restaurants conceived to be unique industry standard-bearers, including Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, Tabla, and The Modern at the Museum of Modern Art. Bolles-Beaven's most recent role was Chief People Officer for USHG, responsible for recruiting, training, and motivating one of the nation’s most acclaimed hospitality teams, now 1,500 strong. As Chief People Officer, he oversaw the Departments of Human Resources and Culture & Learning, both of which are geared toward upholding the first tenet of USHG’s culture of Enlightened Hospitality: Taking Care of Each Other. He became a founding employee of Union Square Cafe (USC) in 1985 after graduating from Columbia College, where he had earned a bachelor’s degree in music. He started at USC as a waiter and ultimately rose through the ranks of the organization to bartender, bar manager, wine director, service director, manager, general manager, and managing partner. Bolles-Beaven is the only general manager to have presided over a restaurant which earned Zagat Survey’s #1 Most Popular Restaurant rating for seven consecutive years. As General Manager of USC in 1999, he was named one of “50 Tastemakers” by Nation’s Restaurant News. In addition, he shares his knowledge of the hospitality industry with students at the French Culinary Institute, where he teaches classes in managing service staff and human resources for restaurants.
	Norm Brodsky Inc. columnist and founder, CitiStorage Inc. columnist and serial entrepreneur Norm Brodsky is the founder of numerous businesses, including a three-time Inc. 500 company. A graduate of Rider College and Brooklyn Law School, Brodsky began his career as a lawyer. His first venture was Perfect Courier, a messenger service based in New York City, which was launched in 1979 and made its initial appearance on the Inc. 500 list in 1984. In the early ‘90s, Brodsky launched CitiStorage, which today stores more than 3 million boxes of documents in its warehouses on the Brooklyn waterfront. CitiStorage, in turn, led him to found a third business, U.S. Document Security—a secure document destruction company. Brodsky sold CitiStorage in 2008 for $110 million. His monthly Inc. column, Street Smarts, was a 2006 and 2008 finalist for a National Magazine Award—the highest honor of the U.S. magazine industry. Brodsky recently published The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up with Bo Burlingham, his Street Smarts co-author.
	Bo Burlingham Editor-at-large, Inc. magazine Bo Burlingham is an editor-at-large of Inc. and the author of Small Giants: Companies That Choose To Be Great Instead of Big, which was one of five finalists for the 2006 Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year award. He joined Inc. in January 1983 as a senior editor and became executive editor six months later. In 1990, he resigned so that he could do more writing and became editor-at-large. Subsequently he wrote two books with Jack Stack, the co-founder and CEO of Springfield Remanufacturing Corp. and the pioneer of open-book management. One of the books, The Great Game of Business, has sold more than 300,000 copies. The other, A Stake in the Outcome, has been called “the first management classic of the new millennium.” Burlingham co-authors with Norm Brodsky the popular monthly column in Inc. called Street Smarts, which was a finalist for a National Magazine Award, the highest honor of the U.S. magazine industry, in 2006 and 2008. Burlingham recently published The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up with Norm Brodsky, his Street Smarts co-author.
	Jim Champy Chairman, Perot Systems Consulting Jim Champy, chairman of Perot Systems's consulting practice, is recognized throughout the world for his work on leadership and management issues and on organizational change and business reengineering. His first book, Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution, sold more than three million copies and spent more than a year on The New York Times bestseller list. He is also the author of the bestseller, Reengineering Management: The Mandate for New Leadership, which was recognized by BusinessWeek as one of the top ten best business books of 1995. With Professor Nitin Norhia of the Harvard Business School, Champy is the co-author of The Arc of Ambition: Defining the Leadership Journey and Fast Forward: The Best Ideas on Managing Business Change. His columns and articles appear in such magazines as Forbes and ComputerWorld. Champy's latest book, Outsmart! How to Do What Your Competitors Can't, reveals surprising, counterintuitive lessons learned by companies that have achieved super-high growth for at least three straight years. At Perot Systems, Champy provides strategic guidance to the company's team of business and management consultants. He consults extensively with senior executives of multinational companies. Champy earned his BS in 1963 and his MS in Civil Engineering in 1965 from M.I.T., and a JD degree from Boston College Law School in 1968. He is a life member of the MIT Corporation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Board of Trustees, and serves on the Board of Overseers of the Boston College Law School. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Analog Devices, Inc.
	Ram Charan Business advisor Ram Charan has coached some of the worlds’ most successful CEOs. For 35 years, he has worked behind the scenes at companies like GE, Bank of America, DuPont, and Verizon. He graduated from Harvard with high distinction and was a Baker Scholar. He then served on the Harvard Business School faculty. He has taught for 30 consecutive years at GE's famous Crotonville Institute and is the recipient of their Bell Ringer award (best teacher). He won the Best Teacher Award at Wharton and Northwestern. Charan is a well-known author, whose books include Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, co-authored with Larry Bossidy, the former CEO of Honeywell. Execution reached number one on the Wall Street Journal list, and has been on The New York Times bestseller list for more than one hundred and fifty weeks. His forthcoming book, Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty: The New Rules of Getting Things Done in Difficult Times will be published in January 2009. He has written articles for BusinessWeek, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Time, and USA Today. Charan is a director of Austin Industries, The Six Sigma Academy, and Tyco Electronics. He was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources in 2005. He serves as a co-host for the Fortune Forum on Corporate Governance and also serves on the National Association of Corporate Directors’ Blue Ribbon Commission on Corporate Governance.
	Christos M. Cotsakos, Ph.D. Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Pennington Ventures Christos M. Cotsakos, Ph.D., led ETRADE Group, Inc., to pioneer the personal online investment market. He is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Pennington Ventures, a digital media and strategic management company. He is considered to be one of the visionaries, architects and entrepreneurs of e-commerce and e-finance and is among a team of co-inventors listed in multiple patent applications covering technical applications relating to social media and interactive digital technology. He has served on the Board of Directors for a number of private and public internet, technology and interactive multimedia companies. Prior to ETRADE, he served as global co-CEO, president, and COO of AC Nielsen, and held senior executive positions at FedEx. William Paterson University in New Jersey named its business school in his honor. Dr. Cotsakos is a decorated Vietnam veteran.
	Mike Faith Founder and CEO, Headsets.com Mike Faith is a serial entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Headsets.com, Inc. His company has grown from a $40,000 investment in 1998 to $31 million in sales in 2005. Faith credits 'Customer Love' as the number one reason. Headsets.com has made three consecutive appearances on the Inc.500 list and was voted as “One of the Best Places to Work in the Bay Area” for the last two years. Catalog Success named him a “Cataloger of the Year” in 2005; he won a Stevie award for creating “America's Best Customer Service Team” and was a finalist for Ernst and Young's “Entrepreneur of the Year.” Faith came to the U.S. from the United Kingdom and recently became an American citizen. He lives in the East Bay of San Francisco, California, is married with two children, is a recent convert to Veganism, and loves playing polo on Segways. Faith also runs ReserveDinners.com, a non-profit which holds dinners with celebrities such as Sir Richard Branson and Rob Carter and donates the monies raised to the celebrities' favorite cause.
	Ping Fu Chairman, President and CEO, Geomagic Ping Fu co-founded Geomagic and has led its growth from a start-up to the worldwide leader in digital shape sampling and processing (DSSP) industry. Before starting Geomagic, Fu was Director of Visualization at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, where she initiated and managed the NCSA Mosaic software project that led to Netscape and Internet Explorer. She has more than 20 years of software industry experience in database, networking, geometry processing, and computer graphics. Ms. Fu is a respected thought leader and frequent keynote speaker at international conferences. Fu has received numerous awards for her management achievements, including the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for the Carolinas, worldwide "Fast 50" executive by Fast Company, Entrebizneur of the Year by Business Leader, and Triangle Business Journal's Women in Business, Class of 2005. In 2005, she was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Inc. She holds graduate and post-graduate degrees in computer science and Chinese literature, and is an adjunct professor at Duke University.
	Gay Gaddis President and CEO, T3 Gay Gaddis is president and CEO of T3 (The Think Tank). She started her company in 1989 with a cashed-in IRA and two employees. Today, T3 is the largest independent advertising agency owned by a woman in the country, with over $300 million in capitalized billings. Organized as a marketing and creative think tank, T3 works with clients including Marriott, JCPenney, JPMorgan Chase, Cisco, UPS, Microsoft, Intel, John Deere, and Universal. Gaddis blogs for PINK, is a columnist for iMedia Communications, is an interactive media and marketing trade publisher, and recently participated in the Global Summit of Women in Vietnam, The New York Times Small Business Summit, and Harvard Business School's Dynamic Women in Business conference.Gaddis has been recognized as one of Fast Company's “Top 25 Women Business Builders,” Inc.'s “Top 10 Entrepreneurs of the Year,” and 25 Advertising Working Mothers of the Year by Working Mother. T3's family-friendly workplace programs have been recognized by the White House, Good Morning America, BBC World Service radio, USA Today and most recently, Nightline. Before founding T3, Gaddis started her career as a copywriter with The Richards Group. She then served as public relations director for Baylor University Medical Center; marketing director for Leadership Dynamics, a national management consulting firm; and a full partner at an Austin advertising agency. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Texas at Austin. Gaddis and her husband Lee run the Double Heart Ranch where they raise Texas Longhorns and endangered Madrone trees.
	Dan Gertsacov Team Manager, Google TV Ads Dan Gertsacov has been instrumental in bringing Google's newest AdWords product to life and oversees a cross-functional start-up team. Dan came in on the ground floor of the product's launch and has been part of the senior management team helping the sales team grow from 5 to 50 in less than 2 years. Dan's specific focus is to help Google's core advertiser base - small and medium sized businesses and entrepreneurs - test TV advertising for the first time, in order to drive traffic and real ROI for their businesses. In the process, Dan is helping to re-write the rules for the TV industry, driving innovation and changing assumptions about the effectiveness and accessibility of TV advertising. Prior to joining Google, Dan was Vice President of Business Development at Univision Networks, the largest Spanish-language media company in the US. Earlier, Dan was an entrepreneur himself, as the Founding Director of Forum Empresa, a Latin American business association based in Brazil. Dan holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Goldsmith Scholar. A former Fulbright Fellow in Chile, Dan earned his BA in Economics with Honors from the University of Richmond.
	Brian Hamilton Co-founder and CEO, Sageworks Brian Hamilton is the co-founder and CEO of Sageworks, where he manages overall strategy and product development. Sageworks is a 2007 Inc. 500 honoree. Hamilton is an original co-developer of “FIND” (Financial Information into Narrative Data), the company's core artificial intelligence technology which converts financial numbers into plain-language reports. “FIND” is the basis of ProfitCents� and Sageworks Analyst�, applications that are used today by thousands of financial institutions and accounting firms throughout North America and the United Kingdom. Hamilton is an accomplished entrepreneur who has guided Sageworks since its inception. He holds an MBA degree from Duke University and a bachelor's degree from Sacred Heart University, where he graduated summa cum laude. Brian is a noted expert in finance who has been published and quoted in most major national media outlets. He is currently a guest columnist for Forbes.com.
	Sam Horn Communications consultant Sam Horn is an award-winning keynote speaker, bestselling author, respected creative consultant, and an in-demand media resource. As an originator of innovative communication and creative methodologies, Horn created the trade-marked communication methodology of Tongue Fu!� and has certified instructors around the world to teach this program through her Tongue Fu!� Training Institute. Her most recent book POP! Stand Out in Any Crowd teaches companies and their leaders ways to craft one-of-a-kind titles, slogans, and brands so they can become one-of-a-kind instead of one-of-many. Horn is a frequent media guest who has been interviewed on every major network and on dozens of radio shows including National Public Radio, WGN, and Bloomberg Report. Her work has been featured on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and To Tell The Truth, where she and her Tongue Fu!� team stumped the panel.