LEAD Conference Features Brooks, Duhigg
An impressive lineup of world-class keynote speakers will share insights on effective and purposeful leadership at the 11th annual LEAD Where You Stand conference on June 4-5 at Westmont’s Global Leadership Center. David Brooks, New York Times columnist and bestselling author, headlines an exceptional group of speakers that includes: Gayle D. Beebe, Westmont president and author of “The Crucibles That Shape Us”; Dr. Charity Dean, CEO and co-founder of PHC Global; Charles Duhigg, author of “Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection”; Wendy Jackson, movie/TV producer and Westmont faculty; and Jeff Schloss, Westmont’s T.B. Walker professor of natural and behavioral sciences.
An AI panel discussion will feature Mike Ryu, Westmont computer science professor, Valentina Costarelli, Amazon AI software engineer/team lead, and Michael Daoud, founder and CEO of Visus LLC.
Tickets to the conference cost $329 per person through May 6 ($429 per person May 7-25) at westmont.edu/LEAD. Registration closes May 25 or when sold out. Group registrations will include a fifth, complimentary ticket.
“Lead Where You Stand offers rich content for established as well as emerging leaders,” Beebe says. “We hope you’ll join us for two days that will inspire you to lead well and pursue the greater good.”
Brooks has written numerous books, including the No. 1 New York Times Bestsellers, "The Road to Character" and "The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life." One of America’s most prominent political and social commentators, he writes a bi-weekly, op-ed column for the New York Times and regularly appears on PBS News Hour and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. His most recent book, "How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen," explores the topic of human connection and its importance in today's society.
Dean, the former assistant director of the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), established PHC Global to bring together the best expertise in public health disease control with private-sector tech innovation to build autonomous disease-control decision capabilities in scalable software. While with CDPH, she served on the executive leadership team directing California’s strategy and response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She appears as one of the central characters in Michael Lewis’ bestselling book “The Premonition: A Pandemic Story.”
A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Business School and a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, Duhigg has written “The Power of Habit,” which spent more than three years on bestseller lists and has been translated into 40 languages. His other bestselling books include “Supercommunicators” and “Smarter Faster Better.” Duhigg writes for the New Yorker magazine and previously worked for the New York Times, leading the New York Times team that won the 2013 Pulitzer prize in explanatory journalism for “The iEconomy,” a series that examined the global economy through the lens of Apple.
Jackson graduated from University of California, Berkeley, before earning a Master of Fine Arts in screenwriting from the University of Georgia. Her vast experience in the film and television industry ranges from developing made-for-television movies at SONY Pictures Television to advertising and marketing with Turner Broadcasting and developing TV pilots. She earned a prestigious Producers Guild Mark (p.g.a) for her producing work on the award-winning, feature-length documentary “MAYNARD” (Netflix). She is also writing two feature films for Hallmark Channel’s new banner, Mahogany.
Schloss, who directs Westmont’s Center for Faith, Ethics and Life Sciences, graduated from Wheaton College and earned his doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology at Washington University. He joined the Westmont faculty in 1981 and enjoys joining his students on research in the field. His scholarship focuses on the relationships between biology and Christian faith. He holds visiting faculty appointments in several programs in the U.S. and abroad, serves on numerous international editorial and advisory boards related to science and religion, and writes and speaks widely on biology and faith.
Daoud’s software development firm specializes in tailored software solutions, including digital content and digital commerce with a focus on innovation and a customer-centric approach to achieve meaningful results. Passionate about leadership and technology, he has contributed his expertise to the MIT Enterprise Forum's Board of Directors in Santa Barbara and the Westmont AI Advisory Board.
Costarelli, born in Italy, studied at Caltech and graduated from Westmont with a degree in applied sciences, statistical analysis and management in 2023. At Amazon, she works at the intersection of science, tech and finance. Her passion includes STEM advocacy and education.
Ryu, engineering director at Westmont’s Center for Applied Technology, seeks to empower all people with technology. He brings unique perspectives from his professional experiences in the cloud-native enterprise SaaS space with specialties in infrastructural API development and expertise in agile practices proven to optimize productivity in software teams.
The annual conference, which began in 2015, has also featured keynote speakers Doris Kearns Goodwin, Matthew Luhn, Geoffrey Moore and Jon Meacham.
This year’s Gold Sponsor is Lux Forum.