Profiles in Leadership

Brad Newbury, MPA, NRP
Brad Newbury, MPA, NRP, is President and CEO of the National Medical Education & Training Center (NMETC) and co-author of The Saved Effect and The First Responder Advantage. With more than 40 years of experience as a firefighter, paramedic, educator, and leader, Brad has dedicated his career to preparing others to act confidently in emergencies. He is a nationally recognized speaker on EMS leadership, disaster preparedness, and emergency response.

Kiera Newbury, BA, NREMT
Kiera Newbury, BA, NREMT, is a Nationally Registered Emergency Medical Technician and co-author of The Saved Effect. With a background in psychology and emergency medicine, she combines clinical experience with a passion for storytelling to inspire others to be prepared and willing to act. Kiera has contributed to disaster medicine research and speaks on emergency preparedness, CPR, and mental health awareness.

Mike Krupit is the founder and CEO of Trajectify, where he helps growth-stage technology, manufacturing, and professional services companies bridge the gap between early success and scalable leadership. With more than 30 years of experience as a CTO, COO, and CEO, Mike has led organizations through rapid growth, IPOs, M&As, and even bankruptcies—giving him rare, real-world insight into what actually works when the stakes are high. Known for his practical, candid approach, he helps founders and CEOs build courage, align their organizations, and unlock momentum from the inside out.

JamesLoeffleris Felix Posen Professor of Modern Jewish History at Johns Hopkins University, and Kogod Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. He writes widely on modern Jewish history from antisemitism to Zionism, with a focus on the overlooked ties between the Jewish past and the global present in politics, law, and culture.

Antisemitism in the United States—from 1940s anti-Jewish riots to the Nazi march in Skokie to the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville—has long been on the frontline in our wars over freedom of speech and the nature of American liberalism. InEXCEPTIONAL HATRED: Antisemitism and the Fight over Free Speech in Modern America, leading Jewish historian and Johns Hopkins professorJamesLoeffler offers a revelatory exploration of this idea and acritical perspective on today’s debates over antisemitism and racism, free speech and hate speech.

Ashley Stahl is an entrepreneur, international bestselling author (You Turn), podcast host (You Turn Podcast) and

internationally recognized speaker. She stepped onto the TEDxBerkeley stage in 2013 and the

TEDxLeidenUniversity stage in 2019. Both of her talks went viral at 2 million and 10 million views, respectively.

Her talk in 2013 (“Three Questions to Unlock Your Authentic Career”) also happened to be the first speech she’s

ever given in her life. At the time, she’d just finished working in counterterrorism for the Obama Administration,

where she learned everything she knew about speaking through writing tips from colleagues who wrote speeches

for key members of the administration.

Her second talk (“How to Figure Out What You Really Want”) in 2019 went even more viral, and is one of the top

100 most viewed talks on YouTube’s TEDx channel. Knowing the impact these talks had on her career, she was

inspired to build Wise Whisper Agency and help other inspirational professionals create their own signature talk and

land their spot on stages around the world so they could make more of an impact, generate more leads for their

business, and establish themselves in the speaking arena.

Maximos Lih is an Executive Coach and founder of Emboldened LLC, where he helps small teams scale without losing their edge and leaders grow with purpose and trust. His leadership philosophy was shaped by his grandfather—a self-taught orphan who became a four-star general—who taught him that true greatness is measured by how you make people feel. After immigrating to the U.S. and graduating from UC Berkeley, Maximos joined Google, where he specialized in recruiting top engineering talent before moving to Google Ventures. There, he guided hundreds of founders through rapid growth, witnessing companies like Uber and Flatiron Health scale at remarkable speed. Today, he draws on those experiences to coach the next generation of leaders in building mission-driven, high-performing teams.

Julie Castle has dedicated her life to saving animals. Since joining Best Friends Animal Society in 1996 as employee #17, she has grown with the organization and advanced its mission to save the lives of dogs and cats in America’s animal shelters.

Now CEO, Julie has helped guide Best Friends through a period of significant growth, including expanding the organization’s fundraising from $60 million to more than $130 million. Under her leadership, Best Friends has been recognized as a Harris Poll Brand of the Year four times and named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies. Throughout her career, Julie has championed an approach rooted in collaboration, helping bring together shelters, rescues, and communities around our shared commitment to lifesaving.

Celebrating 30 years with Best Friends in 2026, Julie remains focused on strengthening the partnerships, policies, and momentum needed to help every shelter and every community reach no-kill. She leads a team of nearly 1,000 employees working toward one shared mission: Save Them All.

KennethRoMD.com is a double board-certified Internal Medicine and Emergency Medicine physician who has treated more than 170,000 patients across a 35-year ER career. His book PRIME reframes midlife as a powerful awakening rather than decline. He created the RECLAIM™ Method to restore men’s vitality, identity, and purpose through precision medicine, neuroscience, narrative psychology, and emotional reintegration. He is a medical expert in filmmaker Charles Mattocks’ upcoming international docuseries about sleep and health, bringing attention to the invisible epidemic of sleep disorders destroying men’s vitality. Dr.Rospeaks to corporations, executive teams, and healthcare organizations about the silent burnout dismantling men’s performance in midlife— and teaches organizations how to rebuild resilience using precision-health tools and his RECLAIM™ framework.

DuncanBrandis a leadership and organizational effectiveness advisor, author ofMind the Gap, and founder of Intrinsic Leader. He has worked with nearly 100 organizations across healthcare, technology, finance, and the public sector, helping leaders strengthen culture, succession planning, and team effectiveness. Drawing from firsthand experience during the financial crisis at the Federal Reserve and throughout COVID-era healthcare challenges,Duncanfocuses on helping organizations move beyond outdated leadership models and build people-first systems that support adaptability, engagement, and long-term effectiveness in the modern workplace.

Nelson Nigel is the Founder and CEO of Moto Nation. 

Back in 2016 Nelson as an Uber driver noticed that taxis and car services do not offer installed child car seats, and parents are helpless.

He found a void in the transportation marketplace that Uber and Lyft have explicitly left open. 

Nelson created a mobile app to provide a convenient and safe alternative to lugging car seats to and from airports to change how parents travel with small children.

Today, Kidmoto is a trusted brand that connects parents to a network of professionally trained drivers that provide airport transfers with secured child car seats for safe and convenient airport travel in 52 US cities.

After operating for 6 years Kidmoto has over 40k completed rides, 40 part-time employees, 500 independent drivers nationwide, over a 7-figure revenue for 2024 and is valued at $25 million.

Dr. Jennifer Berry 

Dr. Jennifer Berry is a transformational leader driving purposeful collaboration between education, industry, and community ecosystems. As CEO of SmartLab, she champions mission-driven innovation that equips learners for tomorrow's workforce and fosters systemic change that matters for partners, funders, and communities. Her work accelerates strategic partnerships, measurable outcomes, and shared impact at scale.