Spring Speaker Bios
Speaker Bios
Thursday, April 10th
General Session #1
Steve McClatchy
Leading Relationships
Radically Increase Engagement, Reduce Turnover, Eliminate Conflict, and Build High Performance Business Relationships
8:30 a.m. - 10:15 a.m.
Steve McClatchy is the author of award-winning New York Times Bestseller Decide: Work Smarter, Reduce Your Stress & Lead by Example. It has enjoyed global success, having been translated into 11 languages including Chinese, Russian, Japanese, and Spanish. In every one of his keynote speeches, Steve weaves insight, interaction, and actionable content with humor, inspiration, and motivation. For over 20 years Steve has worked with the most prominent organizations in the world including Google, Under Armour, Disney, John Deere, Microsoft, NBC Universal, Accenture, HP, Tiffany’s, Wells Fargo, Campbell’s Soup, and many teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB. He speaks frequently at Harvard, Wharton, and Chicago Booth, has appeared on CNBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, WSJ TV, and NBC’s The Today Show, and has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, WebMD, Oprah Magazine, Entrepreneur, and Investor’s Business Daily. Steve’s new book Leading Relationships’ release date is February of 2025 (Wiley).
Steve’s passion is for continuous improvement and believes that when we stop growing, learning, gaining experience, and achieving goals we stop living.
General Session #2
Zack Kass
The Innovator’s Dilemma: Navigating Our AI Future - Pioneering the path towards an AI-empowered future – The Innovator’s roadmap
10:45 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Zack Kass is a Futurist, keynote speaker, consultant, adjunct professor and the former Head of Go To Market for OpenAI. He has spent over 14 years in AI, leading large teams at some of the industry’s most important companies. His mission is to ensure individuals, businesses, and governments are active participants in the AI-powered future by demystifying AI, making it accessible and understandable for everyone, and helping leaders navigate the rapidly evolving environment.
While Head of Go To Market at OpenAI, Zack worked at the helm of the key team channeling OpenAI’s innovative research into tangible business solutions. Zack built the teams responsible for OpenAI’s sales, partnerships, and customer success and served as a personal advisor to countless executives deploying the technology across their business.
Today, he is considered one of the foremost thinkers in Applied AI. His thought leadership and techno-optimist views have been featured in countless publications, such as Fortune, Newsweek, Entrepreneur, AdAge, and Business Insider. Zack supports education and research at two major universities, and still advises Fortune 1,000 board rooms, including Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, and Amgen.
Zack received his BA from The University of California, Berkeley, and resides in Santa Barbara, California.
General Session #3
Jon Acuff
Dream, Plan, Do, Review: The Simple System the Best Teams in the World Always Use
1:15 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Jon Acuff is the New York Times bestselling author of ten books, including his most recent, All it Takes is a Goal.
Published in dozens of languages, his works have been both critically acclaimed and adored by readers. When he's not writing, Acuff can be found on a stage as one of INC's Top 100 Leadership Speakers. He has spoken to hundreds of thousands of people at conferences, colleges, and companies around the world including FedEx, Range Rover, Microsoft, Chick-fil-A, and Comedy Central.
Known for his insights wrapped in humor, Acuff shared the stage with an American Icon when he opened up for Dolly Parton at the Ryman Auditorium.
Jon lives outside of Nashville, TN with his wife Jenny and two daughters.
General Session #4
John Mackay and Taylor Mackay
The Value of Financial Benchmarking
3:00 p.m. - 4:15 p.m.
John R. Mackay has over three decades of experience helping entrepreneurs, primarily in owner-managed businesses, improve their profitability by understanding their strengths and weakness. Since 1982, John has been conducting benchmarking studies for trade associations. Prior to forming the Benchmarking Analytics, John was Vice President of the Profit Planning Group. In 2004, Mackay spun-off a segment of PPG to form the Mackay Research Group. John received his undergraduate degree from The Ohio State University and his MBA from the University of Colorado.
Taylor R. Mackay began his benchmarking analytics career in 2013. His prior experience includes work in the banking industry and in supply chain logistics. Taylor received his undergraduate degree in finance from Colorado State University.
Friday, April 11th
General Session #1
Pamela Barnum
Tactical Influence: The Superpower for Leaders
8:30 a.m. - 10:15 a.m.
Take decades of experience working undercover in narcotics, a successful legal career, and studies in corporate negotiations, and you get real-world strategies and proven, field-tested techniques to help crack the code on trust, improving professional relationships, and increasing effectiveness.
Living for months with a false identity–different person, name, and background–is what Pamela Barnum did for years working undercover in Drug Enforcement where success depended on building trust and detecting deception. Among some of the most dangerous people imaginable, she quickly learned to separate fact from fiction and truth from falsehood and developed techniques for building trust.
After graduating from law school, Pamela left policing and began work as a federal prosecuting attorney, spending countless hours in the courtroom perfecting her proficiency as a trust strategist and body language expert. Following her successful 20-year career in criminal justice, Pamela then studied corporate negotiations in graduate school and now shares her expertise with others.
As a nonverbal communication expert and trust strategist, Pamela is a featured expert and contributor sharing her experience, research, and expertise in Canadian and American print, radio, and television news programs, appearing before live and virtual audiences ranging from 50 to 12,000. Pamela blends actionable strategies with her memorable stories, delivering the techniques of this “secret second language” with humor, candor, and energy so her audience may immediately begin using the improved communication skills that increase trust inside corporations, associations, and law enforcement.
General Session #2
Brian Beaulieu
Economic Forecast 2025
10:45 a.m - 12:00 p.m.
Brian Beaulieu has served as CEO and Chief Economist of ITR Economics™ since 1987, where he researches business cycles and performs economic forecasting as tools for improving corporate profitability. Over the last 40 years, Brian has shared his highly valued research results in numerous countries via presentations, workshops, and seminars to hundreds of thousands of business owners and executives.
Prior to joining ITR Economics, Brian served as an economist for the US Department of Labor, where he worked on the health-care component of the Consumer Price Index. Brian has coauthored, with Alan Beaulieu, the books Prosperity in the Age of Decline, Make Your Move, and, for children, But I Want It!