All About Skills!

Ina Pinckney is the Breakfast Queen!

INA was the Chef/Owner of INA’S, an American Food restaurant and a pioneer in the West Loop Market District, that closed at the end of 2013.  

She is a frequent and welcomed guest on radio, local news and cable TV, has done interviews on shows in the U.S., Canada and Germany and appeared in a national Quaker Oats commercial as herself – the Breakfast Queen.

Articles about her have appeared in local, national and international newspapers and magazines, as well as trade and in-flight magazines.  Her recipes have been syndicated globally and featured in many cookbooks.

Ina has been a guest lecturer on Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University,  DePaul University and the University of Illinois, and has been the keynote speaker at food conferences and culinary school graduations.

She also speaks about breakfast trends for food companies.

In 2014, Ina was awarded the Golden Whisk Award from the Women Chefs and Restaurateurs Organization for excellence in the kitchen, lead a coalition of Chicago Restaurateurs and Chefs to support Chicago’s smoking ban and co-founded the Green Chicago Restaurant Coalition for restaurants in Chicago with Dan Rosenthal for which they received Chicago Magazine’s 2011 Green Award.  

She was named 2008 SBA Woman in Business Champion and in 2020 received the Jean Banchet Culinary Achievement Award.

In 2013 she published INA’S KITCHEN: Memories and Recipes from the Breakfast Queen so that her recipes would live in everyone’s home.

Besides writing a monthly column for the Chicago Tribune called BREAKFAST WITH INA, a documentary about the closing of INA’S screened in 48 film festivals around the country.

Despite the awards and acclaim she has garnered in her career, the most significant title she holds is Polio Survivor.  Ina now speaks to Rotary groups about the late effects of polio in her effort to help Rotary and the Gates Foundation achieve their goal of the global eradication of polio.

Dr. Clark ‘Corky’ Graham, is the Founder and CEO of the nonprofit LET’S GO Boys and Girls Inc.

Dr. Graham received a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 1969 and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the US Naval Academy. He retired as a Captain following a 30-year career with the U.S. Navy as a Naval Architect and Marine Engineer.

Following his Naval career, Dr. Graham joined Northrop Grumman as Senior Vice President in the shipbuilding sector. His positions at Northrop Grumman included Technical Director of the Zumwalt Destroyer program and Senior Vice President in charge of Northrop Grumman’s Gulf Coast shipbuilding operations with over 10,000 employees

Dr. Graham has the distinction of being the only individual to receive both the David Taylor Gold Medal from the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME) and the Gold Medal from the American Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE).

After retirement from Northrop Grumman, Dr. Graham founded Let’s Go Boys and Girls in Maryland.  LET’S GO stands for Leadership, Engineering, Technology, Science Generating Opportunities and is a program that is inspiring and supporting underserved students to become professional scientists and engineers.

Dorie Clark has been named one of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world by Thinkers50, and was recognized as the #1 Communication Coach in the world by the Marshall Goldsmith Leading Global Coaches Awards. Clark, a consultant and keynote speaker, teaches executive education at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and Columbia Business School.

Recognized as a “branding expert” by the Associated Press, Fortune, and Inc. magazine, she is the author of Entrepreneurial You (Harvard Business Review Press,), Reinventing You, and Stand Out, whichwas named the #1 Leadership Book of 2015 by Inc. magazine and one of the Top 10 Business Books of the Year by Forbes. It was also a Washington Post bestseller. Her books have been translated into Russian, Chinese, Arabic, French, Polish, Korean, Spanish, Italian, Vietnamese, and Thai.

Clark, whom the New York Times described as an “expert at self-reinvention and helping others make changes in their lives,” is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review. She consults and speaks for a diverse range of clients, including Google, the World Bank, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Yale University.

A former presidential campaign spokeswoman, Clark has also taught for Spain’s IE Business School, HEC-Paris, Babson College, Smith College Executive Education, UNC’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business, and more.

She has guest lectured at universities including Harvard Business School, the Harvard Kennedy School, Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, the University of California-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Georgetown, NYU, the MIT Sloan School of Management, and the University of Michigan.

Her work has been published in the Harvard Business Review Guide to Getting the Right Job and the Harvard Business Review Guide to Networking, and she is quoted frequently in the worldwide media, including NPR, the BBC, and MSNBC. She has been a regular commentator on Canada’s CTV and was named one of Inc. magazine’s “100 Great Leadership Speakers for Your Next Conference.”

A former New England Press Association award-winning journalist, Clark directed the environmental documentary film The Work of 1000, and was a producer for a multiple-Grammy-winning jazz album. She is a Broadway investor, as well as a participant in BMI’s Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, widely considered the premiere training ground for musical theater lyricists and composers.

At age 14, Clark entered Mary Baldwin College’s Program for the Exceptionally Gifted. At 18, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Smith College, and two years later received a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. You can download her Entrepreneurial You self-assessment at dorieclark.com/entrepreneur.

Christie Hefner is no stranger to leadership.

She graduated Summa cum laude from Brandeis University and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. After free-lancing for the Boston Phoenix for a year, she joined Playboy Enterprises in Chicago where she became President in 1982 and Chairman of the board and Chief Executive Officer in 1988.

Christie is the longest serving female chief executive officer of a publicly traded company – serving in that capacity for 20 years.

She now serves on several corporate and non-profit boards of directors and is always busy in charitable affairs as well as simply making a difference in the world.

Christie has always been a living example of someone with all of the “critical skills,” and these days is particularly interested in continuous education.

Amy brings to Apochromatik a unique track record of working with law students as dean of students at a top 5 law school and a successful career practicing law, first as a Skadden litigation associate and later as an associate and then partner at a mid-size Chicago firm.  In addition to countless hours completing stand-alone coaching trainings, she is a graduate of the Institute of Professional Excellence in Coaching.

Until March, 2016, Amy was the Dean of Students at the University of Chicago Law School.  Through her work as a dean of students, Amy developed an expertise in understanding the unique needs of law students and in tailoring professional education and development opportunities to their needs.  

Her work as a dean of students was described as “transformative” and “visionary.”  In addition to counseling and advising law students on a variety of issues, she drew on her legal experience to revolutionize the way the Law School prepared students for legal practice.  These efforts took the form of programs and initiatives to prepare students for the reality of the legal practice outside the classroom that are now being mimicked at other law schools.  In one such effort, Amy partnered with the Booth School of Business to create the Kapnick Leadership Development Initiative, the first program at a top law school to introduce systematic leadership development to all 1Ls.    

While serving as dean of students, she received the Class Award from the Class of 2014 for outstanding contributions to improving the quality of student life and the spirit of community at the Law School.  In 2013, she was nominated to and completed the University of Chicago’s Executive Program for Emerging Leaders. 

She received her B.A. from Luther College in English and political science before spending two years working in Iowa politics. Amy received her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 2002, where she served as a Topic Access Editor for the Law Review, among other activities. She earned her M.A. in Public Policy and Administration from Northwestern University in 2017.  Amy spent five years as a litigation associate at Skadden in Chicago, where her extensive pro bono work was profiled by the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and resulted in her receipt of the Chicago Volunteer Legal Services Foundation 2006 Distinguished Service Award. While an associate at Skadden, she also founded and led the Chicago Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society from its first organizing meeting in 2003 to its being named the Lawyer Chapter of the Year for 2006-2007. 

From Skadden, Amy was a commercial and intellectual property litigator at Ungaretti & Harris LLP in Chicago, first as an associate and later as a partner. 

Amy’s extensive community service has included serving as president of the University of Chicago Alumni Club of Chicago from 2008-2010 and as a member of the University’s Alumni Board of Governors from 2010-2016.  Her service to the University was recognized by her receipt of the Young Alumni Service Citation in 2007. 

In the spring of 2010, she traveled to five European cities as an American Marshall Memorial Fellow, meeting with policymakers and prominent members of the business, government, political, NGO, and media communities.

In 2017, Amy was appointed to the Illinois Supreme Court Committee on Character & Fitness.  She is a member of the Illinois and U.S. Supreme Court bars.  

Captain Charlie Plumb graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis and went on to be a fighter pilot flying the F-4 Phantom jet on 74 successful combat missions over Vietnam. On his 75th mission, with only five days before he was to return home, Plumb was shot down, captured, tortured, and imprisoned in an 8-by-8 foot cell.

He spent the next 2,103 days as a Prisoner Of War in communist war prisons.

During his nearly six years of captivity, Captain Plumb distinguished himself among his fellow prisoners as a professional in underground communications, and served for two of those years as the chaplain in his camp. Since his return home, more than 5,000 audiences in nearly every industry have been spellbound as fighter pilot keynote speaker Captain Charlie Plumb shares his story and the lessons he learned from it.

In this episode, Charlie talks about his use of the Critical Skills as a POW.

You can access Charlie’s website by clicking HERE.

Ted Dysart is Vice Chairman of the premier executive search firm, Heidrick & Struggles.

He discusses the Critical Skills, the Executive Search profession, and the application of Critical Skills to Executive Search.

You can access the Heidrick & Struggles website by clicking HERE.

Mark Herschberg is the author of The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You. 

From tracking criminals and terrorists on the dark web to creating marketplaces and new authentication systems,

Mark has spent his career launching and developing new ventures at startups and Fortune 500s and in academia. He helped to start the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program, dubbed MIT’s “career success accelerator,” where he teaches annually. At MIT, he received a B.S. in physics, a B.S. in electrical engineering & computer science, and a M.Eng. in electrical engineering & computer science, focusing on cryptography. At the Harvard Business School, Mark helped create a platform used to teach finance at prominent business schools. He also works with many non-profits, including Techie Youth and Plant A Million Corals. He was one of the top-ranked ballroom dancers in the country and now lives in New York City, where he is known for his social gatherings, including his annual Halloween party, as well as his diverse cufflink collection. You can visit his website by clicking HERE.

Natalie Cordone and Kevin Kelly are professional performers having performed for over 20 years off Broadway, with major symphonies, and in television and film.

In 2018 they were tired of witnessing universities churn out students – many of whom had incurred six-figure college debts for their four-year performance-based degrees.

Seeing these young people with immense talent but struggling with the business of the performing arts motivated Natalie and Kevin to found “The Connected Performer” in Orlando, Florida. It is through this entity that they apply their own talent and experience as musical theater career coaches.

Their goal is to help professional triple threat performers connect to their talent, their scripts, and the performing arts industry.

And they are successful – they radiate enthusiasm, confidence and a true knowledge of the performing arts in education.

We have a wonderful guest today. And she’s a coach! An energetic and dynamic success coach.

Heather Vickery shares her strategies to help her clients move their personal lives and businesses so that they can create and support lives that they absolutely love. In just a few minutes after meeting her, you know that she cares about improving your quality of life – both business and personal.

She has her own podcast – “The Brave Files” – that is all about stories from people living courageously – people who are working to transform doubt and worry into fuel that propels them toward their dreams and gets them through the tough times.

Click HERE to go to Heather’s website.