Bill Strickland | CEO, Manchester Bidwell Corporation 

For more than thirty years, Bill Strickland has transformed thousands of lives and reshaped the business of social change. As president and CEO of the Manchester Bidwell Corporation-- a job training center and community arts program -- he and his staff work with corporations, community leaders, and schools to give disadvantaged kids and adults the opportunities they need to build a better future.  In the history of Harvard Business School's review of case studies, only two US companies, Manchester Bidwell Corporation and Apple Computer were singled out for four case studies.

Strickland is the recipient of the 2011 Goi Peace Award and the 1996 MacArthur Genius Award. He was appointed by President Obama to serve on the White House Council for Community Solutions and he is a former member of the National Endowment for the Arts.  His unshakable message of leadership, self-worth and the intrinsic ability in all of us to achieve remarkable transformation in our lives. "Bill Strickland is a genius," says former e-Bay president Jeff Skoll, "because he sees the inherent genius in everyone."

Bill Strickland is also the author of Make the Impossible Possible, a recipient of The White House's "Coming Up Taller" Award, and the founder of the Grammy-winning MCG Jazz, the most successful jazz subscription series in America.

Peter Sheahan | CEO, ChangeLabs  

Peter Sheahan is recognized internationally as a leading business thinker and has advised executives and leaders for clients that include Google, Goldman Sachs, Hilton Hotels, Harley Davidson and GlaxoSmithKline.  A native of Australia, Sheahan quickly progressed from a trainee accountant to general manager of a $10 million hotel business and has since established himself as a highly successful entrepreneur. In addition to his world renowned thought leadership practice, Peter is also the founder and CEO of ChangeLabs where he applies his passion about creating behavioral change around social causes. ChangeLabs specializes in large scale social change projects for clients such as Apple and IBM and developed and still delivers the largest face-to-face youth financial literacy program in the world. In 2003 Peter was named “Young Entrepreneur of the Year”.

Adam Gazzaley, Ph.D., M.D. | Director, Neuroscience Imaging Center at University of California, San Francisco

Dr. Gazzaley was born and raised in New York City. He was interested in science since childhood and was always convinced that it was his career path. However, he did not discover his passion for the brain until later in his undergraduate years. He went on to receive his M.D. and Ph.D degree in Neuroscience through the NIH-sponsored Medical Scientist Training Program at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. His doctoral research, under the mentorship of Dr. John Morrison, focused on plasticity of glutamate receptors in the hippocampus and implications for cognitive changes in normal aging. This research earned him the prestigious 1997 Krieg Cortical Scholar Award. He then completed an internship in internal medicine and residency in neurology at the University of Pennsylvania. Following residency, Dr. Gazzaley traveled to UC Berkeley for a research fellowship with Dr. Mark D’Esposito and Dr. Robert Knight. The research involved studying memory and attention in humans and the changes that occur with normal aging using functional MRI and EEG. During that time period he also completed a clinical fellowship in cognitive neurology at the Memory and Aging Center under the direction of Dr. Bruce Miller and became board-certified in neurology.

Dr. Gazzaley is the founding director of the Neuroscience Imaging Center at the University of California, San Francisco, an Associate Professor in Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry, and Principal Investigator of a cognitive neuroscience laboratory studying the neural mechanisms of perception, attention and memory, with an emphasis on distraction and multitasking. A major focus of his research has been to expand our understanding of alterations in the aging brain that lead to cognitive decline. His most recent studies explore how we can use this knowledge to improve our attention and memory abilities. His laboratory uses the tools of human neurophysiology, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). He has authored over 50 scientific articles, delivered almost 200 invited presentations and his research and perspectives have been consistently profiled in high-impact media: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, TIME magazine, Discover, PBS, NPR, and NBC Nightly News. Awards and honors for his research include the Pfizer/AFAR Innovations in Aging.

Margaret Wylde, Ph.D. | ProMatura Group, LLC 

Margaret Wylde founded ProMatura Group, LLC in 1984. Wylde serves on the Board of Directors of the American Seniors Housing Associations and has served on the Boards of the American Society on Aging, National Association of Senior Living Industries, and the Seniors Housing Council of the National Association of Home Builders. She is a frequent invited speaker at many conferences and programs throughout the United States and Canada, speaking approximately 30 times each year. Wylde is a member of the faculty of the Erickson School at the University of Maryland in the Executive Development program for the age-qualified housing industry. Wylde has been a member of this faculty since the inception of the executive program at Johns Hopkins University.

Having authored five books, dozens of technical papers and articles, Wylde is a prolific contributor to trade and business publications and scholarly journals. Wylde recently authored, Right House, Right Place, Right Time: the Community and Lifestyle Preferences of the 45+ Housing Market that was published by BuilderBooks in January 2008. Her other books include Boomers on the Horizon: Housing Preferences of the 55+ Home Buyer published by BuilderBooks in 2002, and Building for a Lifetime: The Design and Construction of Fully Accessible Homes published by The Taunton Press.

Wylde received the Icons of the Industry award from the 50+ Housing Council of the National Association of Home Builders “in recognition of substantial and lasting impact on the seniors housing industry” in May 2007 in Denver, Colorado. She is the only woman of five people to have received this award.

Wylde earned a doctorate degree in audiology from the University of Oklahoma Health Services Center and received a Bachelor of Science in communicative disorders from Northern Illinois University.