Profiles in Leadership

Matthew Mitchell is a Wall Street Journal best-selling author, speaker, three-time SEC Coach of the Year, and the winningest head coach in the history of the University of Kentucky women's basketball program. The foundation for his teams’ achievements is the Winning Tools principles: honesty, hard work, and discipline. Through Mitchell’s focus on the fundamentals, he led the program to new heights―seven winning seasons and UK’s first SEC Championship in 30 years. In his new book, Ready to Win:How Great Leaders Succeed Through Preparation(Winning Tools, November 19, 2024)Mitchell shares proven principles that lead to resilience, preparation, and growth. Learn more at www.coachmatthewmitchell.com

Colin Carr is a commercial real estate expert who has successfully completed over a thousand commercial real estate transactions while saving his clients hundreds of millions of dollars. Colin founded and scaled CARR, a nationwide commercial real estate company, to exclusively represent the unique needs and interests of healthcare providers. He has mastered several niches in the healthcare real estate industry and is passionate about helping others “Maximize Your Profitability Through Real Estate®”. 

Today, CARR is the nation’s leading healthcare real estate advisor with a team of almost 150 experts that span coast-to-coast. Every year, thousands of healthcare providers trust CARR to help them achieve the most favorable terms on their lease and purchase negotiations.

Faisal Hoque is the founder of SHADOKA and NextChapter and

serves as a transformation and innovation partner for CACI, an $8

billion company focused on U.S. national security. He is a #1 Wall

Street Journal bestselling author with ten award-winning books to

his name. His new book, TRANSCEND: Unlocking Humanity in the

Age of AI, was named a ‘must read’ by the Next Big Idea Club and

selected as a Financial Times business book of the month. It

became an instant bestseller—across multiple categories—on

the USA Today (#1 in Computers, #1 in Philosophy, #3 in Business & Economics, #5 in All

Non-Fiction), Los Angeles Times (#7 in All Non-Fiction), and Publishers Weekly lists.

For thirty years, he has been developing commercial business and technology systems,

and enabling leadership teams at MasterCard, American Express, GE, Home Depot, French

Social Security Services, US Department of Defense (DoD), US Department of Homeland

Security (DHS), PepsiCo, IBM, Chase, and others with sustainable growth. Today, Faisal is a

highly sought-after innovation and transformation (digital/AI, business, organization)

partner for both public and private sector organizations, and recognized as one of the

world’s leading management thinkers and technologists.

As a founder and CEO of multiple companies, he is a three-time winner of the Deloitte

Technology Fast 50™ and Fast 500™ awards. Faisal is a contributor at the MIT's IDEAS Social

Innovation program, Thinkers50, and the Swiss business school IMD. His work has

appeared in Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, MIT Sloan

Management Review, The Financial Times, Psychology Today, BIG Think, Business

Insider, Fortune, Inc., Kiplinger, Yahoo Finance, Fox, ABC, CBS, and others.

Faisal’s work and life are profoundly influenced by a distinctive fusion of Eastern

philosophy and American entrepreneurial spirit. He frequently speaks at international

conferences, business schools, corporate gatherings, and business summits. Inspired by

personal experiences, Faisal is a passionate advocate for cancer research, raising

awareness and supporting research efforts to combat the disease.

Gabe is the owner of River Valley Therapy and Sports Medicine, a series of outpatient therapy clinics in northcentral Arkansas where the focus is delivering phenomenal patient care with a focus on customer service.  In addition to serving the communities where these clinics are located, he enjoys working with payers and regulators to ensure that patients have the access to care that they deserve. 

He is currently the President of Rehab Net of Arkansas, a collaboration of 200 different clinics and 1800 providers, where they provide shared administrative support in addition to delegated contracting and credentialing for these providers.  He serves on the Board of Directors for CareSource PASSE, an Arkansas Managed Medicaid insurance company and is currently the pay chair for APTA- Arkansas.  He is on various provider advisory committees with several insurance payers as well as the therapy workgroup for Arkansas Medicaid.

Gabe’s work on ensuring sustainable reimbursement models with payers has resulted in him being twice awarded the APTA-Arkansas Distinguished Service Award as well as the Greg Wren Legislative Award.  He currently serves on the PPS Payment and Policy Committee as well as the Payment Consortium.   He enjoys teaching at various universities on topics such as payment, coding, and leadership development.  

Leslie Grandy is an author, speaker, and CEO advisor who guides companies, teams, and product leaders to expand their creative capacity to invent and innovate for customers, disrupt and grow their market opportunities, and maintain relevance in a fast-changing world. Organizations like Oracle, Starbucks, and Red Robin Gourmet Burgers turn to Leslie to ignite creativity across their workforce and empower everyone, regardless of role or level, to identify novel solutions and think expansively. Leslie’s book, "Creative Velocity," debuts in early 2025.

Leslie’s career has taken her on a 25+ year journey, from a successful career in the film industry in Los Angeles as a member of the Directors Guild of America to iconic brands, such as Amazon, Best Buy, Discovery, T-Mobile, and Apple. She’s built teams from the ground up and led multiple first-to-market products; she was on the front end of the earliest digital media subscription services from major content brands like Major League Baseball, NASCAR, CNN, and ABCNews and co-authored a patent currently held by Intel. Leslie has led internal innovation labs and is an IDEO-trained leader in Design Thinking. 

Leslie has educated product leaders and executives through The Product Guild, the University of Michigan College of Engineering's Center for Entrepreneurship, and as a guest lecturer at the University of Washington Foster School of Business. 

She co-created and serves as the Lead Executive in Residence in the Product Management Leadership Accelerator, part of the Foster School's Executive Education program. 

She is a member of the Board of Advisors and Adjunct Faculty at Regis College's Marshall Sloane School of Business in Product Management and Service Design and West Virginia University’s College of Creative Arts and Media.

Joeserved as MD and Senior Partner at BCG. In The Generous Leader,Joeshares a performance review: He was told he was not the best at problem-solving solo; but with others, he could solve any challenge. His manager identified his key strength - a person who could connect.

Joespent 37 years with BCG, co-founded the Washington DC office, led office systems, started BCG’s NA Public Sector business, led BCG North America, founded and chaired BCG’s Center for Inclusion and Equity.

Joeearned his BA from Whitman College, MBA from HBS.Joeis currently serving his second term as Whitman’s Board Chair. Joehas been married to Sarah for over 40 years, has four children, eight grandchildren.  

• Former leadership coach to IBM’s top executives, Head of Organization Development at Honeywell, and fellow with McKinsey’s Change Center, Todd has taught world leaders at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, developed doctoral students at Columbia University, and trained tens of thousands of leaders globally to “Get to Candor”.
• As the founder of Holzman Leadership, a global consultancy, Todd’s Real Work Process has been used by numerous Fortunate 500, FTSE 100, and Global 2000 companies to transform their leaders, cultures, and business results.
• Todd holds a B.S. in Industrial Labor Relations (Cornell), an M.A. in Organizational Psychology (Columbia), and an Ed.M. in Leadership & Adult Development (Harvard).

Amy Lafko is a leadership and organizational design expert, mainstage speaker, author, and facilitator. Known for her “People First” method, she brings a step-by-step process to put employee engagement and empowerment into practice. Having spent 20+ years in healthcare leadership roles, her work is inspired by her personal transformation as a leader.  That inspiration and her energy is multiplied every time she assists someone with their own shift in mindset and intentions. 

Her book, People First: A Proven Method for an Exceptional Healthcare Practice was an Amazon bestselling new release. In addition to founding Cairn Consulting Solutions, LLC and being certified in TTI Success Insights DISC, Driving Forces and Emotional Intelligence, Amy has earned her MSPT from Ithaca College, her MBA from Loyola University of MD.

Dr. Laura is a professional speaker and organizational psychologist who inspires driven self-starters to transform their

relationship with themselves to accomplish more than ever while making everything easier! While sharing revelations

on radical self-acceptance she uniquely leverages humor to resonate with audiences. She is an approachable, funny,

warm, alluring, optimistic, curious and delightful speaker and guest! Even as a USA Today and Wall Street Journal

Best-selling author, Dr. Laura doesn't fit the typical "academic" personality of her PhD peers.

Some of her noteworthy achievements include being hired by NASA to transform culture following the Columbia

accident, working with Disney to lead radical shifts in performance management for their leaders, and inspiring

Yahoo’s global teams to seek transformation from the inside-out.

Fun is always abounding in Dr. Laura’s life; so when she’s not serving a mass self-acceptance movement you can find

her water skiing, floating in a sunny pool (likely on a large peacock floatie), playing with her dogs, Grace and

Jackson, singing while playing her beautiful grand piano, or diving deeper into her own consciousness to live

life most fully.

Bill is a world-renowned keynote speaker, business owner, and partner at the Institute for Health and Human Potential (IHHP). Over the last 30 years, he’s worked with leaders and high-pressure performers around the world — from the U.S. military and Olympic athletes to executives at global organizations like IBM, Marriott and Rolls Royce.

 

As a partner at IHHP — one of Profit Magazine’s fastest 100 growing companies — Bill has access to insights gained from monthly surveys of 40,000 people. Years of studying how people perform under pressure has led him to formulate a radical new method for building high-performing leadership teams, which he explores in his upcoming book The Last 8%.