Adam Markel, JD, is a #1 Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Los Angeles Times and Publishers Weekly bestselling author, resilience researcher, organizational strategist and TEDx speaker who helps leaders and organizations thrive in the face of uncertainty, pressure and constant change.
Adam is the Co-Founder and Chief Researcher at WORKWELL, a research and advisory firm focused on workplace resilience, culture and sustainable performance. A former commercial attorney and C-suite leader, he brings more than two decades of experience helping organizations navigate change, strengthen leadership and build the capacity to perform in high-stress, high-stakes environments.
His work is backed by a growing body of workplace resilience research representing more than 27,000 participants across leadership, practitioner, operational and frontline roles. Adam translates resilience science, stress physiology, nervous system regulation and behavior change into practical strategies that leaders and teams can apply in real time.
His approach integrates neuroscience, behavioral science and organizational psychology to help people understand how they respond under pressure, adapt more effectively to disruption and sustain performance without sacrificing well-being. His frameworks help organizations strengthen clarity, trust and adaptability while reducing burnout risk and creating cultures capable of performing through ongoing change.
Adam is the author of Pivot, Change Proof and Re-Culture, books that have established him as a leading voice on resilience, change leadership and the future of work. He is also the host of The Change Proof Podcast, where he explores how individuals, teams and organizations can develop the capacity to navigate uncertainty, remain adaptable and perform sustainably.
Over the course of his career, Adam has advised Fortune 500 organizations including Citigroup, Home Depot, CVS Health and U.S. Bank, along with organizations across financial services, healthcare, technology, government, education, energy, manufacturing and professional services. His background in law and executive leadership gives him a unique perspective on risk, decision-making under pressure and leading through complex, high-consequence environments.
Earlier in his life, Adam served as an ocean first responder, an experience that shaped his understanding of situational awareness, team coordination and rapid decision-making when the stakes are highest. Those lessons continue to influence his work today and reinforce one of the central ideas behind his message: resilience is not simply about recovering from adversity — it is about building the capacity to adapt, respond and grow stronger because of it.
Whether addressing senior leaders, sales organizations, financial professionals or enterprise-wide audiences, Adam combines compelling stories, research and actionable strategies to help people rethink their relationship with change. His highly relevant message equips audiences to become more resilient, connected and adaptable — creating stronger leaders, healthier teams and organizations prepared to perform no matter what comes next.
Jia Jiang is a bestselling author, entrepreneur and one of the world’s foremost experts on overcoming rejection. His widely viewed TED Talk, What I Learned from 100 Days of Rejection, ranks among the top 200 TED Talks out of more than 60,000 and became the foundation for his bestselling book and #1 audiobook, Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection.
A highly sought-after keynote speaker, Jia helps people strengthen their confidence, build resilience, overcome their fear of rejection and become bolder in their careers and lives. His engaging presentations combine practical strategies, personal vulnerability and humor to show audiences that rejection does not have to be feared—it can be used as a powerful tool for growth, innovation and success.
Jia’s latest book, Easy Discipline: An Unconventional Way to Achieve Ambitious Things, expands his mission to help people overcome obstacles and achieve meaningful goals. Through his breakthrough One Action Goal system, Jia offers a practical approach to developing discipline, taking consistent action and making ambitious goals feel more achievable.
His journey began in Beijing, where, as a teenager, Jia dreamed of becoming an entrepreneur like his childhood idol, Bill Gates. Determined to pursue that dream, he traveled to the United States as an exchange student and found himself living in rural Louisiana, teaching himself English and adapting to an entirely new culture.
Years later, after building a successful corporate career and pursuing entrepreneurship, Jia experienced a painful business rejection that caused him to question his ambitions and abilities. Instead of allowing the experience to defeat him, he decided to confront his fear through a personal experiment that became known as 100 Days of Rejection.
For 100 consecutive days, Jia intentionally made unusual and often outrageous requests that were likely to be rejected. He asked a fast-food restaurant for a “burger refill,” convinced a flight attendant to let him address a plane full of passengers and asked Krispy Kreme to create doughnuts in the shape of the Olympic rings—a request that was unexpectedly granted.
What began as a personal challenge quickly became a worldwide phenomenon. Jia’s videos and stories demonstrated that rejection is often less frightening than people imagine and that asking boldly can lead to unexpected conversations, opportunities and breakthroughs.
Today, Jia is a top-booked speaker whose message has captivated audiences at organizations including Google, Dell Technologies, Johnson & Johnson, Visa and Allstate. He consistently earns outstanding reviews and personal messages from audience members who credit his work with changing how they approach fear, opportunity and their own potential.
Through his books, keynotes and unforgettable personal stories, Jia challenges audiences to stop allowing the possibility of rejection to limit what they ask for, pursue or achieve. His message is clear: courage is a skill, resilience can be developed and a “no” may be the first step toward an extraordinary opportunity.
A soldier, scholar, skydiver, author, executive coach and highly recognized leadership thought leader, Brigadier General Tom Kolditz has dedicated his career to helping people become stronger leaders—especially during crisis, adversity and extreme conditions. His celebrated work across the military, higher education and business consulting is driven by a singular mission: preparing leaders from all walks of life to perform when pressure is high, uncertainty is real and the consequences matter.
Tom is one of the most experienced and highly educated leadership experts of his generation. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University, three master’s degrees, a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Missouri and an honorary doctorate from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Over the course of 22 years, he taught leadership at West Point, Yale University and Rice University. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the author of multiple books and more than 75 journal articles, and a respected authority on leadership development, trust and performance under pressure.
Unlike many leadership academics, Tom also brings decades of hands-on command and organizational experience. During more than 35 years of military and civilian leadership, he served as the principal leader of 12 organizations across four continents. A retired U.S. Army Brigadier General, he commanded thousands of troops, served in combat and received the Distinguished Service Medal, the Army’s highest award for service.
Tom chaired the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at West Point and founded the West Point Leadership Center. After retiring from the Army, he designed and directed the leadership-development program at the Yale School of Management. He later became the founding executive director of the Ann and John Doerr Institute for New Leaders at Rice University. In total, he has successfully founded five leadership-development organizations, helping reshape how leaders are selected, developed and coached across the military, higher education and business.
Tom is the author of In Extremis Leadership: Leading as if Your Life Depended on It, an authoritative examination of leadership in dangerous and life-threatening environments. The book is based on more than 175 interviews conducted on the ground in Iraq during combat operations and reveals what leaders in extreme conditions can teach leaders in every organization.
His latest book, Against the Storm: How True Leaders Prevail When the World Shakes, scheduled for release in September 2026, offers a practical and experience-driven framework for building trust, making high-stakes decisions and guiding people through extreme uncertainty, crisis and potential chaos.
Tom’s contributions to leadership and executive development have earned him significant international recognition. He received the prestigious Warren Bennis Award for Excellence in Leadership, an honor shared with influential leaders and thinkers including Benazir Bhutto, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Tom Peters. He has also been named a Top Leadership Thought Leader by the Leader to Leader Institute and repeatedly ranked among the world’s leading executive coaches by Global Gurus and Thinkers50. Most recently, Thinkers50 ranked him #3 among its 2025 Coaching Legends.
Today, Tom focuses on developing and coaching leaders across industries. He has spoken to more than 350 audiences worldwide and is a highly sought-after executive coach. Combining memorable stories, rigorous research and real-world leadership experience, he helps leaders remain calm under pressure, build trust quickly, make better decisions and guide their people confidently through change, disruption and adversity.
Rashaun Williams is a venture capitalist, entrepreneur and financial literacy advocate with more than 170 investments and over 50 successful exits. A regular guest Shark on ABC’s Shark Tank and a limited partner in the Atlanta Falcons, he combines disciplined investment expertise with a deep commitment to expanding financial knowledge and economic opportunity.
Raised on the South Side of Chicago in a community impacted by poverty, crime and housing instability, Rashaun faced significant adversity at an early age. Those experiences fueled his determination to understand how wealth is created, help uplift underserved communities and build generational change. He earned more than 100 scholarships and graduated summa cum laude from Morehouse College in 2001. In 2025, Morehouse recognized him with its Bennie Trailblazer Award.
Rashaun began his career on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs before joining Wachovia Securities, where he became the firm’s youngest vice president at age 23. He later worked at Deutsche Bank and went on to co-found Queensbridge Venture Partners, backing companies including Robinhood, Coinbase, Lyft, Dropbox, Ring, Casper and PillPack. Today, he leads Value Investment Group and the MVP All-Star Fund.
His entrepreneurial and investment experience extends across private equity, infrastructure, sports and entertainment. Rashaun founded Dixsville Partners, a private equity firm focused on infrastructure and mineral investments in West Africa, as well as Antimatter Business Partners, which helps professional athletes and entertainers establish family offices and participate more strategically in private equity and alternative investments.
Financial education has remained central to Rashaun’s work throughout his career. In 2001, he founded the Kemet Institute to provide free financial literacy, entrepreneurship and life-skills education to underserved youth. He currently serves on the boards of Fisk University and The Atlanta Opera.
Whether through investing, education, entrepreneurship or sports ownership, Rashaun Williams continues to turn obstacles into opportunity. His story and expertise challenge audiences to think differently about wealth, ownership and the role financial knowledge can play in transforming individuals, families and communities.
David Salyers was one of the original two marketing executives at Chick-fil-A. He spent 37 years helping shape the company’s marketing success and most recently served as Vice President of Marketing, Growth and Hospitality.
David joined Chick-fil-A immediately after graduating from college in 1981, when the company’s headquarters operated from a converted airfreight warehouse and the marketing department consisted of only two people. He went on to help Chick-fil-A grow into a multibillion-dollar organization with thousands of locations across the United States and internationally.
For more than 20 years, David was instrumental in the development and growth of Chick-fil-A’s iconic Cow Campaign. Throughout his career, he experienced how servant leadership, generosity, hospitality and a purpose beyond profit could build an extraordinary culture and one of America’s most respected brands.
David is the co-author of Remarkable!: Maximizing Results Through Value Creation, which debuted as a number-one-selling business-management book on Amazon. He is also a co-founder of Champion Tribes, an organization created to help fathers and sons connect in meaningful ways.
David attended Wake Forest University and the Universidad de Madrid and graduated from the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business. He is also an alumnus of Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program. He has served on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards, helped launch multiple startups and nonprofits, and received the University of Georgia Terry College of Business Distinguished Alumni Award.
Known for his marketing mind, servant’s heart and entrepreneurial spirit, David now helps leaders and organizations build cultures and brands defined by greater meaning, deeper relationships and remarkable value.