In 1996, Stephen R. Covey was recognized as one of Time magazine's 25 most influential Americans and one of Sales and Marketing Management's top 25 power brokers.

Dr. Covey is the author of several acclaimed books, including the international bestseller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It has sold more than 15 million copies in 38 languages throughout the world. Other bestsellers authored by Dr. Covey include First Things First, Principle-Centered Leadership, with sales exceeding one million, and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families.

Dr. Covey’s newest business book, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness, which was released in November 2004, has risen to the top of several bestseller lists, including New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today Money, Business Week, and Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. The 8th Habit has sold more than 1 million copies internationally. In April 2006, The 8th Habit was named Best Business Book of 2005 by Soundview Executive Summaries.

1. In 2002, Forbes named The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People one of the top 10 most influential management books ever.
2. A survey by Chief Executive Magazine recognized The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People as one of the two most influential business books of the twentieth century.
3. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People audiobook on tape is the best-selling nonfiction audio in history, selling more than 1.5 million copies.
4. Over two million copies of First Things First have been sold. Simon & Schuster expressed the opinion, "...First Things First is the best-selling time management book ever."
5. Dr. Covey's book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families was released in October 1997 and is the No. 1 best-selling hardcover book on family. 2003 Fatherhood Award from the National Fatherhood Initiative
6. Speaker of the Year in 1999
7. The Sikh's 1998 International Man of Peace Award
8. The National Entrepreneur of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award for Entrepreneurial Leadership

Dr. Covey holds a BS in Business Administration from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and an MBA in Business Administration from Harvard University. He also has 10 honorary Doctorates. He has made teaching principle-centered living and principle-centered leadership his life's work.

Dr. Covey lives with his wife Sandra, and their family in Provo, Utah. He is a father of nine and a grandfather of forty-eight.

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Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham graduated from Cambridge University in 1987, with a master’s degree in social and political science. During his seventeen years with The Gallup Organization, Buckingham helped lead research into the world’s best leaders, managers, and workplaces. He drew on this research and used it as the basis for two bestselling books: First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Best Managers Do Differently (coauthored with Curt Coffman) and Now, Discover Your Strengths (coauthored with Donald O. Clifton). His new book, The One Thing You Need to Know (The Free Press) was released in March 2005.

A subject of in-depth profiles in The New York Times, Fortune, and Fast Company, Marcus Buckingham, now an independent consultant, author, and speaker, is considered one of the world’s leading authorities on employee productivity and the practices of leading and managing. He is a member of the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Leadership and Management. He lives with his wife and two children in Los Angeles.

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Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki is a founding partner and entrepreneur-in-residence at Garage Technology Ventures. He is also the co-founder of Alltop.com, an “online magazine rack” of popular topics on the web.  

Previously, Mr. Kawasaki was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. He is the author of eight books including The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way.

Guy Kawasaki has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

Mr. Kawasaki is also one of the founders of Nononina, creator of Truemors. Truemors is a web site that enables you to “tell the world”-within the bounds of good taste and the law, anyway. You can post your rumors, news, and sightings, and anyone with web access can read and rate them within minutes.

Guy Kawasaki's in-depth knowledge of the high-tech industry combined with his years of management experience enable him to address a wide range of audiences. His particular strength is the ability to quickly understand diverse industries and incorporate his pre-existing knowledge into a highly relevant and customized speech. He routinely gets rave reviews from clients including trade associations, packaged goods companies, service providers, insurance companies, educational institutions, and technology companies. He has spoken for organizations including Nike, Audi, Wal-Mart, Sprint, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Saturn, Stanford University, TIE, Calgary Flames, The Body Shop, MIT, Forbes, and Aveda.

Guy Kawasaki is highly flexible and is willing to create a speech that is tailor-made for any audience.

“Marvelous keynote speaker! Provocative, candid, funny. Brought his experiences in the industry to life. Appreciated that we had the Q&A opportunity too. Tells it like it is. Extraordinarily relevant! Thank you so much for having Guy speak at this workshop!”

“Did a great job of bringing humor into the interaction of the keynote and the Q&A.”

“External perspective outside of (Client Company) was excellent.”

Visit Guy Kawasaki's website at www.guykawasaki.com
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Peter W. Schutz

Peter W. Schutz was born in Berlin, Germany on April 20, 1930. After leaving Germany in March of 1939, the Schutz family settled in Chicago, Illinois after a two-year stay in Havana, Cuba.

Peter grew up and received his formal education in Chicago, including a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Schutz served as CEO of Porsche A.G., the automobile company, in Stuttgart, Germany, from January 1981 until January 1988. Porsche was mired in the midst of its first money-losing year in 1980. During the Schutz tenure Porsche worldwide sales grew from 28,000 units to over 53,000 units in 1986. Revenues grew from DM 850 million to DM 3.7 billion and profits after tax grew from DM 12 million to over DM 125 million.

Prior to his tenure at Porsche, Mr. Schutz served 15 years at Caterpillar Tractor Co. in Peoria, Illinois in a variety of engineering tasks. Subsequently he spent 11 years at Cummins Engine Company in Columbus, Indiana, three years in corporate strategic planning and eight years as Vice President responsible for sales and service of truck engines in the U.S. and Canada, with revenues of over $850 million.

In 1978 he assumed responsibility for the Diesel and Gas Turbine operation of Klöckner - Humboldt - Deutz (KHD) in Cologne, Germany, where revenues grew to exceed DM 1 billion per year.

In 1987, his alma mater, IIT, honored him with the Outstanding Achievement Award, and the Henry Townley Heald Award, awarded for business ethics that have impacted an industry. (Other recipients of the Heald Award include: Mies Van der Rohe, Edward Teller, Buckminster Fuller, Jonas Salk, Bill Hewlett, and Ted Turner.)

Today, Peter W. Schutz and Sheila Harris-Schutz operate their own company, Harris and Schutz Inc. Peter has lectured on leadership and business management techniques in the U.S.A., Europe, Australia and Asia. This includes over 800 presentations to Vistage (a worldwide organization of CEOs), as well as sales meetings for a number of corporations, convention keynotes, business conferences, strategic planning meetings to varied organizations on various topics.

In 2005, Schutz authored, The Driving Force, Extraordinary Results with Ordinary People, published by Leadership Publishing Company and available in bookstores or on Amazon.com.

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Ray A. Rothrock
Managing General Partner, Venrock
Menlo Park, California

Ray joined Venrock in 1988 and after nearly 20 years and over 40 investments, his passion for building companies continues. His venture capital career has its roots at Yankee Atomic Electric as a nuclear engineer, at Sun Microsystems in marketing and sales and with two failed startups prior to Sun. An engineer at heart with a keen insight into product markets, Ray loves to tinker with technology figuring out what applications matter. Leading Venrock into the Internet age in the early 90s, he has enjoyed a stellar investment record. His current investments are mostly in the fields of security infrastructure and energy. Past successful investments include Spyglass, Digex, USInternetworking, FogDog, Check Point Software, Pedestal, Haystack Labs, Whole Security, Vontu and others. Ray currently serves on the boards of 10 private companies in Venock’s portfolio and on the board of Check Point Software (NASDAQ: CHKP).

In addition to his venture capital activities, he serves on the Board of Trustees of the Texas A&M Foundation, where he chairs the investment committee of its $1 billion foundation.† Ray also serves on the Visiting Committee of the MIT Nuclear Science and Engineering Department. He served on the board of and was chair of Woodside Priory School until 2006. Ray was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas

Education:
1977 Texas A&M University, B.S. Nuclear Engineering, Summa Cum Laude
1978 M.I.T., Nuclear Engineering
1988 Harvard Business School, MBA with Distinction

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Flip Flippen

Flip Flippen is a man with an uncompromising mission: “To build relationships and processes that bring out the best in people.” He has applied this lofty goal to his work with hundreds of thousands of individuals, including educators, K-12 students, executives, and athletes. With an emphasis on changing behaviors and attitudes that stand in the way of success, he has helped organizations – from small rural school districts to Fortune 500 companies – achieve dramatic improvement in performance, leadership, trust, and productivity.

Flip is an internationally renowned speaker and psychotherapist. He was the founder of Still Creek Ranch, a residential treatment center for young people that flourishes today.

He founded The Flippen Group in 1990. Today, it is the largest educator training company and one of the fastest-growing leadership development organizations in North America. The company’s breakthrough educational processes and curricula are in use at 5000 school districts and campuses in 42 states. His Flippen Leadership Series, a dynamic training that helps leaders establish goals, uncover constraints, and develop action plans that improve performance and profit, has transformed organizations around the world.

Flip developed The Flippen Profile, an unparalleled psychometric assessment tool that accurately identifies individual strengths and weaknesses. Using this powerful tool, Flip conceived the theory of Overcoming Personal Constraints (OPC), which teaches people how to break the constraints that limit performance and hinder growth. His book, The Flip Side – Break Free of the Behaviors That Hold You Back, released in May 2007, is a New York Times and USA Today Best Seller.

The success of his efforts has been documented on The Today Show, The Super Bowl Pre-Game Show, Speed Channel’s NBS 24/7, and in countless publications for more than twenty years.

An energetic and successful entrepreneur, Flip has founded numerous businesses and counseling services and serves as chairman of the board of K2Share, a web-based learning company in partnership with Trinity Industries.

Flip earned his master’s degree from Texas A & M University. Committed to public service, he has served on the Texas Governor’s Commission on Children, Youth, and Family Services and other committees and task forces. Flip and his talented wife Susan have a passion for kids and have helped raise more than twenty children. They reside in College Station, Texas.