Dr. Goldsmith is the author or editor of 35 books, which have sold over two million copies, been translated into 30 languages and become bestsellers in 12 countries. His two other New York Times bestsellers are MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There – the Harold Longman Award winner for Business Book of the Year. In February 2016, Amazon.com recognized the ‘100 Best Leadership & Success Books’ in their To Read in Your Lifetime series. The list included classics and newer books – management and self-help books. Both Triggers and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There were recognized as being in the top 100 books ever written in their field. Marshall is only one of two authors with two books on the list.
Marshall’s professional acknowledgments include: Harvard Business Review and Best Practices Institute – World’s #1 Leadership Thinker, Global Gurus, INC and Fast Company magazines – World’s #1 Executive Coach, Institute for Management Studies – Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching, American Management Association – 50 great thinkers and leaders who have influenced the field of management over the past 80 years, BusinessWeek – 50 great leaders in America, Wall Street Journal – top ten executive educators, Economist (UK) – most credible executive advisors in the new era of business, National Academy of Human Resources – Fellow of the Academy (America’s top HR award), World HRD Congress (India) – global leader in HR thinking. His work has been recognized by almost every professional organization in his field.
Verne Harnish is founder of the world-renowned Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), with over 16,000 members worldwide, and chaired for fifteen years EO’s premiere CEO program held at MIT, a program in which he still teaches today. Founder and CEO of Scaling Up, a global executive education and coaching company with over 200 partners on six continents, Verne has spent the past four decades helping companies scaleup.
He’s the author of the bestseller Mastering the Rockefeller Habits; authored The Greatest Business Decisions of All Times,” for which Jim Collins wrote the foreword; and wrote Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) which has been translated into 22 languages and has won eight major international book awards including the prestigious International Book Award for Best General Business book. His latest book, Scaling Up Compensation, rocketed to the #1 HR book on Amazon.
Verne also chairs the annual ScaleUp Summits and serves on several boards including vice chair of The Riordan Clinic; co-founder and chair of Geoversity; and board member of the social venture Million Dollar Women. A private investor in many scaleups, Verne enjoys piano, tennis, and magic as a card-carrying member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.
With a reputation as an accurate, straightforward economist, Alan Beaulieu has delivered award-winning workshops and economic analysis seminars in countries across the world to tens of thousands of business owners and executives for more than 30 years.
Alan has coauthored, with Brian Beaulieu, the books “Make Your Move,” “Prosperity in the Age of Decline,” and “But I Want It!” He has also penned numerous articles and makes up to 90 appearances a year. Alan’s keynotes and seminars have helped thousands of business owners and executives capitalize on emerging trends.
The Dean of MBA and Graduate Students at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Conor also founded and leads GenerativeAI@Stern, a no-tech initiative aimed at fostering generative AI fluency in Stern’s students, faculty, and administration and has become one of the most widely-followed and respected pioneers in the emerging uses of generative AI to improve both business and society. The New York Times bestselling author of the memoir Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal and The Hadley Academy for the Improbably Gifted (Tommy Nelson/HarperCollins, 2019), he is also Founder and President of Next Generation Nepal, a organization working to rescue trafficked children in Nepal and reunite them with their families. For that work, he was awarded the Hero of Compassion Award by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Prior to that he was a recipient of the George Russell Award for Excellence (given by George Russell, founder of Russell 2000 Index) for work on peace and reconciliation in conflict and post-war regions of Balkans (work spanning 1996-2004).
Hermann Simon is the Founder and Honorary Chairman of Simon-Kucher & Partners. He is an expert in strategy, marketing and pricing. He is the only German in the “Thinkers50 Hall of Fame” of the most important management thinkers in the world. In German-speaking countries he has been continuously voted the most influential living management thinker since 2005. The magazine Cicero ranks him in the top 100 of the 500 most important intellectuals.
Before committing himself entirely to management consulting, Simon was a professor of business administration and marketing at the Universities of Mainz (1989-1995) and Bielefeld (1979-1989). He was also a visiting professor at Harvard Business School, Stanford, London Business School, INSEAD, Keio University in Tokyo and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1995 to 2009 he was CEO of Simon-Kucher & Partners.
Professor Simon has published over 35 books in 27 languages, including the worldwide bestsellers Hidden Champions (Boston 1996, cover story of BusinessWeek in 2004) and Power Pricing (New York 1997), as well as Manage for Profit, Not for Market Share (Boston 2006). Hidden Champions of the 21st Century, Success Strategies of Unknown World Market Leaders (New York 2009) investigates the strategies of little known market leaders. Confessions of the Pricing Man was published by Springer, New York in 2015. His textbook Price Management (2019), his autobiography Many Worlds, One Life: A Remarkable Journey from Farmhouse to Global Stage (2021), and True Profit! No Company Ever Went Broke from Turning a Profit (2021) were all published with Springer, New York. New this year are Hidden Champions in the Chinese Century: Ascent and Transformation and Beating Inflation, again with Springer, New York.
Simon was and is a member of the editorial boards of numerous business journals, including the International Journal of Research in Marketing, Management Science, Recherche et Applications en Marketing, Décisions Marketing, European Management Journal as well as several German journals. For several decades he regularly wrote columns for the German business monthly Manager Magazin. As a board member of numerous foundations and corporations, Professor Simon has gained substantial experience in corporate governance. From 1984 to 1986 he was the president of the European Marketing Academy (EMAC). Simon is co-founder of the first Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) listed on the German Stock Exchange in Frankfurt, and the first search fund in Germany.
A native of Germany, he studied economics and business administration at the universities of Bonn and Cologne. He received his diploma (1973) and his doctorate (1976) from the University of Bonn. Simon has received numerous international awards and holds honorary doctorates from IEDC Business School of Bled (Slovenia), from the University of Siegen (Germany) and from Kozminski University Warsaw (Poland). He is a honorary professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. In China, the “Hermann Simon Business School” is named after him.
Lucinda (“Cindy”) Baier is the President, Chief Executive Officer, and a member of the Board of Directors of Brookdale Senior Living, the nation’s premier operator of senior living communities. As of year-end 2021, the $2.8 billion company operates nearly 700 senior living communities and has the ability to serve approximately 60,000 residents through its independent living, assisted living, memory care, and continuing care retirement communities. The company’s 30,000+ employees are taking care of America’s seniors.
Ms. Baier became Brookdale’s President, Chief Executive Officer, and a member of the Board of Directors on February 28, 2018. From the beginning, she initiated the company’s operational turnaround strategy and developed the “Winning Locally” action plan. Within her second year, the company’s Net Promoter Score® increased 20%. In her third year as CEO in 2020, J.D. Power recognized the company as #1 in customer satisfaction (in a tie) in assisted living/memory care communities. As CEO, she led the company through the largest public health crisis in 100 years by prioritizing the health and well-being of its residents, patients, and associates. She focused the company’s efforts on increasing diversity, including the Board and executive leadership team approaching gender parity in 2020. Ms. Baier led Brookdale’s efforts to negotiate and restructure leases with its largest three REIT partners. She led the company through the sale of assets, including Brookdale’s interest in the unconsolidated entry CCRC ventures and the majority share of its home health, hospice, and outpatient therapy business. These deals unlocked significant value for Brookdale and shareholders. In 2022 Baier published her first book Heroes Work Here: An Extraordinary Story of Courage, Resilience, and Hope from the Front Lines of COVID-19 in which she shares how she and her team led Brookdale through the COVID-19 pandemic. Then in late 2022 J.D. Power once again recognized Brookdale as #1 in customer satisfaction (in a tie) in assisted living/memory care communities.
Ms. Baier has served more than a decade as a board member for public and private companies. Currently, she is on the board of directors of Argentum, the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC), and the Nashville Health Care Council, where she serves as Vice-Chair. She is a member of the NYSE Board Advisory Council, which identifies and connects diverse board candidates to NYSE-listed companies seeking new directors, and serves on the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Board.
A number of organizations have recognized Ms. Baier. Some of her awards and honors include Amazon Best Selling Author; named to Nashville Business Journal’s “Most Admired CEO” list in 2022 for the third time; CEO Forum Group’s 2021 Top 10 CEOs Transforming Healthcare in America; Nashville Medical News’ Class of 2021 “Women to Watch”; Corporate Citizenship 2020 Award from the Committee for Economic Development of The Conference Board; and one of McKnight’s 2020 “Women of Distinction”.
Before becoming CEO of Brookdale, Ms. Baier was the company’s Chief Financial Officer beginning in December 2015. In addition to experience as a seasoned chief financial officer for several companies, she has been responsible for multi-billion-dollar operations, the chief executive officer for a publicly-traded retailer, and served as an executive officer of a Fortune 30 company.
Ms. Baier is a Certified Public Accountant and a graduate of Illinois State University, with Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Accounting.
SVP & Senior Group Managing Director, Robert Half Executive Search
Ash Athawale is a senior vice president and senior group managing director with the executive search practice at Robert Half, the world’s first and largest specialized talent solutions and business consulting firm that connects companies with the talent and subject matter expertise they need to confidently compete and grow.
Head of Private Wealth Premier Solutions, Raymond James & Associates
As head of the Private Wealth Premier Solutions team, Chip Bauder provides guidance on advanced planning strategies to the firm’s largest private clients. Joining Raymond James & Associates in 1994, Chip managed two departments: Financial & Retirement Services and Wealth Solutions. After a brief hiatus from Raymond James to oversee a private family office and also manage a boutique hedge fund for sophisticated investors in 2011, Chip returned to the firm four years later with a fresh and innovative focus for providing personal wealth management solutions to Raymond James’ investment banking clients. Chip received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Stetson University and his Juris Doctorate from Florida State University College of Law. He attained the Certified Private Wealth Advisor® (CPWA®) designation from the Investment Management Consultants Association and the University of Chicago.
SVP, Senior Group Managing Director, Robert Half Executive Search
Leigh is a seasoned executive and trusted advisor with over two decades of experience in retained search engagements across a wide range of industries and functional areas. She works with a diverse client base, including Fortune 500, small and medium-sized companies, as well as private equity and venture-backed firms. She has additional expertise with founder-driven and family-owned entities, advising owners, CEOs, and investors through times of ownership, generational, or leadership shifts.
Partner, Simon-Kucher & Partners
Adam Echter is a Partner based in Simon-Kucher’s Silicon Valley office. He brings two decades of B2B sales & pricing experience across manufactured goods, industrial equipment and technology industries. Adam has built pricing & sales organizations throughout North America, Europe & Asia with an emphasis on transitioning transactional businesses toward recurring revenue models. Serving firms across America from base of operations in Silicon Valley provides a unique perspective for bringing SaaS-pioneered monetization models to legacy, industrial firms.
Private Wealth Advisor & Managing Director, Alex Brown, a division of Raymond James
Tony Fagella is a Managing Director at Raymond James, a global financial services firm focused on providing trusted advice and tailored, sophisticated strategies for individuals and institutions. He brings over 35 years of legacy planning and investment solutions experience to corporate executives, business owners and family offices. Tony has earned the Private Wealth Advisor designation from Raymond James. This designation reflects his experience in managing the financial concerns of families, individuals and organizations of significant wealth, and his mastery of methods and resources necessary to support their expansive financial interests.
Partner, Digital Advisory Services, Cherry Bekaert Advisory LLC
Luis Gallardo is a Partner and leader of Digital Platform & Analytics services at Cherry Bekaert. He has over 23 years of experience assisting companies become data-driven, from strategy and transformation to solution implementation and managed services. As a business strategist his experience extends across the business functions of accounting/finance, supply chain, sales, and operations. Previously, Luis was the Microsoft Practice Leader at IBM which included practice leadership and accountability from business development to delivery of consulting services in North America. He has broad industry experience including consumer products, life sciences, manufacturing, retail, electronics, wholesale/ distribution, entertainment, and government.
Partner, Strategic Growth & Innovation, T&Co by Cherry Bekaert Advisory LLC
Richard Schwartz, a Partner at T&Co by Cherry Bekaert, works with leaders of publicly traded, PE-backed and family-owned businesses in the commercial vehicle and industrial equipment manufacturing, building products, B2B distributors, consumer recreational durables, medical and life sciences, and enterprise software industries, among others, on strategic growth and innovation. He works with clients to define growth ambitions, identify and validate market opportunities, design and execute in-market pilot tests, build and launch new business concepts, identify and assess mergers and acquisitions pipelines, and develop corporate venturing capabilities. Richard focuses on accelerating learning, mitigating risk and ensuring accountability for profitability growth results.
Managing Director, Chartwell Financial Advisory LLC
Michael is an investment banker in Chartwell’s corporate finance practice and leads advisory activities across the Southeast region. He has over 20 years of corporate finance, management consulting, and organizational leadership experience, advising publicly- and privately-owned companies and their owners on a wide range of strategic finance, transaction, and operational improvement mandates. Michael is responsible for brand development, relationship management, and transaction execution in the Charlotte, Atlanta, Washington DC, and greater Florida major metropolitan areas.
Managing Director, Chartwell Financial Advisory LLC
Greg has been with Chartwell since 2010 and leads the firm’s corporate finance practice. During the course of his 25+ year investment banking career, he has been involved in hundreds of transactions including both M&A and capital markets, in public and private markets.
Prior to Chartwell, Greg was Managing Director of Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s M&A advisory group, where he was responsible for covering diversified industrial clients, as well as ESOP advisory for the investment bank. Prior to Bank of America, Greg was Managing Director at ABN AMRO where he was responsible for M&A advisory and a member of the coverage team for the consumer sector. In addition, he established and led the ESOP Advisory practice for the investment bank, as well as co-led the middle market public to private practice. Prior to his large cap investment banking experience, Greg was a Managing Director at Lazard Middle Market (Goldsmith, Agio, Helms) where he represented private business owners, corporations, and private equity in a variety of middle-market M&A transactions.
In addition, Greg has held positions of increasing responsibility with Fortune 100 companies Diageo, plc and Invensys plc in corporate development, planning, and finance director positions. Greg began his M&A career in private equity with the Jordan Industries, Inc., the holding company strategy of the Jordan Company. He began his career in public accounting.
Get insights and analysis from top leaders on the latest issues and trends impacting CEOs.
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1:00 - 5:00 pm
Over 70% of Executives Surveyed Agree: Many Strategic Planning Efforts Lack Systematic Approach Tips for Enhancing Your Strategic Planning Process
Executives expressed frustration with their current strategic planning process. Issues include:
Steve Rutan and Denise Harrison have put together an afternoon workshop that will provide the tools you need to address these concerns. They have worked with hundreds of executives to develop a systematic approach that will enable your team to make better decisions during strategic planning. Steve and Denise will walk you through exercises for prioritizing your lists and steps that will reset and reinvigorate your process. This will be a hands-on workshop that will enable you to think about your business as you use the tools that are being presented. If you are ready for a Strategic Planning tune-up, select this workshop in your registration form. The additional fee of $695 will be added to your total.
2:00 - 5:00 pm
Female leaders face the same issues all leaders do, but they often face additional challenges too. In this peer session, we will facilitate a discussion of best practices and how to overcome common barriers to help women leaders be more effective within and outside their organizations.
Limited space available.
10:30 - 5:00 pm
General’s Retreat at Hermitage Golf Course
Sponsored by UBS
General’s Retreat, built in 1986 with architect Gary Roger Baird, has been voted the “Best Golf Course in Nashville” and is a “must play” when visiting the Nashville, Tennessee area. With the beautiful setting along the Cumberland River, golfers of all capabilities will thoroughly enjoy the golf, scenery and hospitality.
The golf outing fee includes transportation to and from the hotel, greens/cart fees, use of practice facilities, and boxed lunch. The bus will leave the hotel at 10:30 am for a noon shotgun start and return to the hotel after the cocktail reception following the completion of the round.
