Al Leake is an art director based in Phoenix with deep expertise in music, media, cultural brands, and entertainment.

Amy Choi is the co-founder and editorial director @The Mash-Up Americans. Launched in 2013, The Mash-Up Americans is a media company and creative consultancy. It is the place to explore the hybrid culture and hilarious stories from the frontlines of a mixed-up, vaguely ethnic, multidimensional America.

Our mission is to help you — and us — navigate the complexities of a multi-identity life. We produce a popular podcast, hosted by founders Amy and Rebecca; publish original content on our website; and curate must read mash-up stories in our weekly newsletter. We work with select clients who want to understand and connect to new audiences in an authentic, meaningful way, often using audio as the medium.

Everything we do reflects the kaleidoscope of the Mash-Up American experience and at its core, pursues key questions: How do we define our identity? Who are the mash-up leaders, makers, doers and thinkers we need to know now? What are the issues keeping us up at night? What are Mash- Ups doing to create culture? And finally, how do we recenter stories on audiences of The Future?

Andrew Herzog is a multidisciplinary conceptual artist and designer. He’s a partner at School, a design studio founded by two designer-engineer-artist-types. His artworks have occupied museums, galleries, and city streets. He was previously a co-founder and partner at HAWRAF - a design and technology studio, and is an alum of Google’s Creative Lab.

His artwork explores the relationship between the viewer and art, creative accessibility, and prioritized sight. His projects in public space manifest as installations and interventions. In the interest of establishing an accessible language for his work, he utilizes materials, methodologies, and tools that are commonplace and comprehensible.

In 2018, Herzog painted a meter-wide, one-kilometer diameter circle around the National Museum of Art of Romania. In 2019, the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia funded his interactive public installation, Blue Sky Or Sky Blue?. Also in 2019, Herzog completed two of his “A Communal Line” collective public installations at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia and the A4 Museum in Chengdu, China

His former design studio HAWRAF studio was started in NEW INC., the New Museum's incubator program. HAWRAF was known for creating honest and interesting interactive work for their clients and self-initiated projects.

Prior to HAWRAF, he led projects at the Google Creative Lab dealing with AI, creative tools, and accessibility. Before all of that, he worked stretches at Sagmeister & Walsh and R/GA. He is also a professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

Andrew Luecke is an author, editor, and stylist who has worked with the world's leading apparel brands and media companies. Currently, he’s the Associate Director for Branded Entertainment at Complex Networks, where his work won 2021 Anthem Awards for campaigns created in partnership with Macy's, T-Mobile, and Microsoft.

He is the co-author (with Greg Foley) of the book Cool: Sound, Style, and Subversion, a history of youth subcultures, which Refinery29 hailed as "required reading."

Andrew was previously the Digital Style Editor at Esquire where he wrote and edited the magazine's online fashion coverage. As a journalist, he has written for a wide variety of top consumer and B2B fashion and lifestyle publications, and spoken at top colleges like Rhode Island School of Design and Parsons, as well as at leading cultural institutions like Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Prior to joining Esquire, Andrew served as the Menswear Editor at StyleSight (now WGSN), where he led men's style coverage and reporting for the industry's largest consulting agency.

Andrew has worked with clients like Dior, Versace, Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy’s, Nike, Ralph Lauren, Prada, Levi's, Target, and H&M, and also styled shoots for Giorgio Armani.

He is often quoted as an expert on style by outlets including GQ, Vogue Australia, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the Los Angeles Times, and Refinery29.

Andy Pressman leads creative direction for companies building interfaces that are smart, flexible, and meaningful. Previously, he founded the design practice, Rumors, and helped clients which include, but aren't limited to: Unity, SCI-ARC, Clif Bar, Ace Hotel, Microsoft, Verso Books, Hopscotch, and Open Signal.

Archie Lee Coates IV is a co-founder of PLAYLAB, INC.-- an extremely multi-disciplinary Los Angeles-based creative studio founded in 2009. With no particular focus, they explore themes using art, architecture, and graphic design to initiate ideas for themselves and others.

Arlander Taylor is an art director and the founder of Wakuu Works, Medium, and TMINEC. Prior to Wakuu, Arlander was a lead creative director at the Utah Jazz, Fice Gallery, and streetwear publishing house Casual Fridays.

BLDGS is a practice dedicated to the creation of inventive and enduring architecture and community design. They focus on projects in the public realm, including museums and art galleries, university buildings, corporate offices and campuses, and offices and homes for clients who share a belief in architecture as a community asset.

The firm has been recognized with over 20 local, national, and international awards, including the 2019 Georgia AIA Firm of the Year, the 2017 Architectural League of New York Emerging Voices Award, and the 2016 Atlanta AIA Silver Medal Firm Award – the highest recognition given to a firm for design excellence and community leadership. The work of the firm has been published internationally. In 2008 the very first project of the office was published in the New York Times Sunday Magazine.

Beau Oyler is founder of Enlisted Design -- a design agency with deep expertise in industrial design, branding, and packaging design.

Ben Fry is principal of Fathom, a design and software consultancy located in Boston. He received his doctoral degree from the Aesthetics + Computation Group at the MIT Media Laboratory, where his research focused on combining fields such as computer science, statistics, graphic design, and data visualization as a means for understanding information.

After completing his thesis, he spent time developing tools for visualization of genetic data as a postdoc with Eric Lander at the Eli & Edythe L. Broad Insitute of MIT & Harvard. During the 2006-2007 school year, Ben was the Nierenberg Chair of Design for the Carnegie Mellon School of Design. At the end of 2007, he finished writing Visualizing Data for O'Reilly. In 2011, he won the National Design Award for Interaction Design from the Cooper-Hewitt.

With Casey Reas of UCLA, he currently develops Processing, an open source programming environment for teaching computational design and sketching interactive media software that won a Golden Nica from the Prix Ars Electronica in 2005. The project also received the 2005 Interactive Design prize from the Tokyo Type Director's Club. In 2006, Fry received a New Media Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation to support the project. Processing was also featured in the 2006 Cooper-Hewitt Design Triennial.

In 2007, Reas and Fry published Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists with MIT Press, and in 2010, they published Getting Started with Processing with O'Reilly and MAKE. Processing 1.0 was released in November 2008, and is used by tens of thousands of people every week.

Fry's personal work has shown at the Whitney Biennial in 2002 and the Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial in 2003. Other pieces have appeared in the Museum of Modern Art in New York (2001, 2008), at Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria (2000, 2002, 2005) and in the films Minority Report and The Hulk. His information graphics have also illustrated articles for the journal Nature, New York Magazine, and the The New York Times.

Ben Roazen is currently a community manager at Rockstar Games, where he writes compelling copy for forward-facing event messaging serving two live products (GTA Online and Red Dead Online), conducts social listening and sentiments reporting across all major platforms, coordinates, plans, produces, and execute livestreams, events like TwitchCon, sweepstakes, record label launches, album releases, and more.

He previously worked at HYPEBEAST where he was in-charge of the site's op-ed column and hosting the HYPEBEAST radio podcast.

Bernard McCoy is the founder of Modern Atlanta (MA!) and Editor-in-Chief of Design is Human. For over 15 years, Bernard has led the curation, production, and execution of Atlanta Design Festival as well as the Design Economy Expo.

For Design Museum London's prestigious Designs of the Year exhibition, Bernard serves as a nominator along with a team of design experts and luminaries including David Adjaye and MoMA's Paola Antonelli.

Bodega Ltd. is a multi-disciplinary creative studio. They create worlds through integrated strategy + communications, creative direction & branding, interior design, and product development.

Brandon Edler is a content and strategy director working in the marketing and advertising industry. Skilled in Brand Strategy, Digital Strategy, Digital Marketing, Social Media, Digital Media, Creative Ideation, and managing successful teams. Brandon has been a critical part of the
recent--and sustained-- success of Complex and Finishline.Some of his past experiences include, but aren't limited to: Complex Media, Finish Line, ROSEWOOD Creative, and GUESS?, Inc.

Brett Lovelady founded ASTRO Studios in 1994, as a design-driven company that empowers designers and strives to capture the value of design in the product, brand, experience, and company creation process. By developing a culture that attracts some of the world’s best talent and clients, Brett and ASTRO have helped reshape the design industry. A

ASTRO blends design, technology, and lifestyle insights into a wide range of innovative, culture-defining products, brands & companies. In the past 20 years, Brett has become one of America's top design leaders by directing some of the world’s most culturally relevant programs, helping clients generate over $60+ billion in new revenue worldwide, and advocating for design in many influential situations.

Brett & ASTRO have won 2 Design of the Decade Awards from BusinessWeek / IDSA and been nominated 9 times for Cooper Hewitt National Design Award, multiple Time Best Inventions listings, along with numerous international industry, business, and product & brand design awards. Additionally, Brett & team have mentored in a range of accelerators including R/GA Ventures Accelerators, Highway One by PCH International, Techstars, and Intel.

In 2007, Brett spun off ASTRO Gaming Inc. from ASTRO Studios extending the ASTRO design brand into hi-performance video gaming. In 2011 the venture capital-backed ASTRO Gaming achieved #13 on the INC. 500 fastest-growing companies list, then was acquired by pre-IPO Skullcandy Inc.

From 2011 to 2013, Brett helped build the ASTRO Gaming brand within the Skullcandy by introducing the brand to retail partners Best Buy & Game Stop while continuing to work, lead and expand the brand’s position, helping to increase sales to over $40M+.

In 2016 Skullcandy & ASTRO were taken private by Mill Road Capital, then in July of 2017, ASTRO Gaming was sold for $85M to Logitech (LOGI). Today ASTRO Gaming is a recognized leader in the global eSports arena.

Brett has spoken around the world at universities like Art Center, Stanford, Cincinnati, BYU, etc., companies like Philips, Nike, HP, P&G, and organizations like IDSA, IDC, DMI, AIGA, CES & more. Also, Brett has been a guest writer for Fast Company, & a contributor to many media outlets.

Brett has worked on hundreds of products and brands, from Fortune 100 clients to start-ups, to launching his own brands. Currently, he continues to start new fires at ASTRO Studios, sporadically blogs, tweets, and speaks about design.

Dr. Bryan McElderry is the founder of 3 businesses: McElderry Ventures, Alchemy Credit Solutions, and Zyer Investments.

The goal of his holistic life + business coaching practice is to help high-performing professionals and entrepreneurs master their lives and tap into a deeper understanding of themselves.

After earning his Bachelor's of Science in Chemistry from Morehouse College, he went on to earn a Doctorate in Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) from St. Louis College of Pharmacy. He now helps top executives, professionals, and entrepreneurs identify and capitalize on opportunities in their lives and businesses.

Christopher Knowles is an art director, illustrator, art director and founder of the Atlanta-based non-profit Practise Makes Practice . Some of his past clients and affiliations include: Daft Punk, SXSW, Alicia Keys, Creative Circus, Unboundary, Son&Sons, University of Georgia, Razorfish, and Bureau Christopher Knowles

Curry Hackett is a transdisciplinary designer, public artist, and educator. His practice, Wayside Studio primarily based in Washington, DC, collaborates with communities and organizations to engage matters pertaining to culture, infrastructure, ecology, and the public realm.

Noteworthy work includes the Howard Theatre Walk of Fame, the DC High Water Mark system, art direction for the DC Clean Rivers Project, and his ongoing research project Drylongso, which explores the relationships between Blackness and land.

Currently, Hackett is an adjunct architecture professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and is a core organizer of the anti-racist design justice school, Dark Matter University.

Dr. D'Ondre Swails is an interdisciplinary scholar of Africana Studies specializing in 20th-century African American cultural and intellectual history. His work considers the role of narrative/myth in the construction of racialized political realities in the US.

He completed his undergraduate studies at Morehouse College and his doctorate at Brown University.

Daniel Baer is 1/3 of the web design studio--No-Plans. As a self-proclaimed, "un-awarded single-disciplinary studio", this team of 3 conceives online shops, microsites, creative showcases, editorial platforms and experimental interfaces to display and organize information.

Their clientele spans different sectors, from new ventures to creative non-profits, and they find themselves lucky to have worked with open-minded, ambitious, and curious people.

Dark Igloo is company that specializes. They believe each project is an opportunity to develop their collective talents and grow as individual artists. That's why they've never stuck to one aesthetic style or one type of work: The partners and friends they work with offer unique challenges, and they're happiest when solutions are equally distinct.

Whether its through creative direction, graphic design, illustration, photography, art direction, short films, character design, naming, even shorter films, tattoo suggestions, or bespoke robot construction... Dark Igloo is a company that specializes.

One of the world’s leading business thinkers, Dr. David Burkus’ forward-thinking ideas and bestselling books are helping leaders and teams do their best work ever.

He is the bestselling author of four books about business and leadership. His books have won multiple awards and have been translated into dozens of languages. His insights on leadership and teamwork have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, USAToday, Fast Company, the Financial Times, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, CNN, the BBC, NPR, and CBS This Morning. As a sought-after international speaker, his TED Talk has been viewed over 2 million times. He’s worked with leaders from organizations across all industries including Google, Stryker, Fidelity, Viacom, and even the US Naval Academy.

A former business school professor, Burkus holds a master’s degree in organizational psychology from the University of Oklahoma, and a doctorate in strategic leadership from Regent University.

Deneesha Lawrence is a creative producer whose past and current experiences include, but aren't limited to: Google, Facebook Reality Labs, Google Creative Lab, and Code & Theory.

For Florida ­born, LA ­based visual artist Dewey Saunders the “medium” is the message. In true internet era fashion Saunders has created an identity for himself that is not based on delivering a single product in a single medium repeatedly. Instead Dewey has a vision, and a style born of the various sensibilities of the top end of the millenial age spectrum, and he is constantly adapting his work to his surroundings and moving.

In his works various media such as collage, illustration, and computer ­based graphic design all come together to form a visual vocabulary that speaks volumes on culture, history, and imagination. He was around before the internet, and he has embraced its flourishing to create work that resonates with folks who appreciate old, new, and especially both.

His sensibilities are contemporary, but his influences exceed the trends of today. His work is an ever unfolding series of images that embrace hip hop’s values, and champion a tropical psychedelia that only South Florida could inspire. In Saunders’ work the spectacle merges with an all ­seeing eye that roams like a tumbleweed through the vast sea of images that is the web, and looking becomes a central element of creation.

The result is a visual aesthetic that considers everything, but only focuses on a few things, and does so with such adaptability that Dewey’s refined vocabulary can speak any language, and be heard in any setting. Through his work Dewey shows us a cohesive way to see and participate in the world that the Internet has created for us. (bio c/o Zach Moldof)

Dong-Ping Wong is an architect, the director of @foodnewyork, and the cofounder of @pluspoolny.

Elliott McKnight is a Creative Director.

He is the founder of @researchdevelopment_ , an immersive Experience Company that bridges the gap between art and technology. Through this company, he is able to explore different creative ideas in an experiential and open source approach. Among many projects, Research + Development has co-launched Color Theory in collaboration with @ryd.der , an experimental moodboard that challenges creatives to present ideas using vibrant colors and photography. 

Another brain child of Research + Development is @appliedsciences_ , a creative agency that Elliot stated in 2021. This creative practice uses knowledge and information from his creative endeavours to solve practical problems for brands and collaborators of the agency. Applied Sciences has worked with names such as Adidas, Nike, The Jordan Brand & Red Bull - just to name a few.

Additionally, Elliot is also a Co-founder of @publik.library , a creative accessibility initiative by @schoooooooooooool and @educated__guess . This project was birthed with the idea of reimagining the traditional library into a modern context. The Publik Library website itself acts as a digital library card that appeals to a new generation of creatives by providing access to educational events, information, links, free tools, and resources. Simply Genius. 

‪As a multidisciplinary designer, Elliot is also a Creative Director at @camkirkstudios where he continues to develop overarching concepts, art direction, and strategy.‬

A vegan and passionate animal rights activist, Erez Nevi Pana’s practice is based on investigating natural phenomena and environmental processes through material exploration.

Born in Bnei Brak, Israel in 1983, Nevi Pana earned his Bachelor of Arts in Design from the Holon Institute of Technology in 2011 and Master of Arts from the Design Academy of Eindhoven in 2014, where his thesis focused on the recrystallization of salt. After graduation, Nevi Pana formed La Terrasse in Eindhoven as a platform for designers, artists, writers, and thinkers in 2015.

Nevi Pana’s investigations of salt has developed into a long-term research project; he has been working with salt in the Dead Sea for the past eight years—investigating the devastating imbalance of an over-abundance of salt caused by the industrialization and mineral extraction of the region. The culmination of this research is a body of work entitled Bleached (2018), where Pana submerges wooden structures encased in loofah into the Dead Sea to absorb the wasted salt, which then crystallize like coral formations over time.

His works have been exhibited at museums worldwide, and have recently been included in the Beazley Designs of the Year exhibition (2018-19) at the Design Museum in London, and in Nature: Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial (2019-2020) co-organized by the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York and the Cube Design Museum in Kerkrade, the Netherlands.

Nevi Pana’s works have been acquired in the permanent collections such as The Design Museum Holon in Israel, and the FRAC Grand Large - Hauts-de-France in Dunkerque. In 2020, Nevi Pana created Crystalline, the world’s first commissioned work of salt-based architecture, which will debut in the National Gallery of Victoria’s NGV Triennial (2020-2021) in Melbourne and enter the museum’s permanent collection.

He is currently researching the topic of Vegan Design as a doctoral candidate at the University of Art and Design in Linz, Austria. Nevi Pana is based in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Form Us With Love, is an international design studio founded in 2005. Since its conception, the studio has burned with a passion for design and its democratic potential. Its belief is that we all have a right to meaningful design. At the studio’s core lies a process that blends traditional creative practices with a lean, strategic application. The central intention is to evolve with the needs of each project, its place in the market, and the ever-changing needs of real people.

Today, the work of Form Us With Love falls into three areas: Consultancy—an engagement in products, ranges, collaborations, and spaces for clients around the world, Ventures—disciplined and holistic approaches to launch and build brands, Civic—based on knowledge transfers and sharing of experiences, actively contributing to the broader spectra of design.

Hawraf was an interactive design & technology studio focused on engaging people in new & interesting ways.

Co-founded by Carly Ayres, Andrew Herzog, Pedro Sanches & Nicky Tesla, the studio is full-service and media agnostic, covering branding, design, development, marketing, and execution.

From generative identity systems for orchestras that react to sound to mirrored selfie posters for dental startups, HAWRAF creates interactive communications for consumer-facing brands that help them have meaningful and authentic interactions with their end users.

They do it well, too. Andrew was named as one of Print Magazine’s 15 under 30 New Visual Artists. In 2017, Carly was listed as one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company. Together, they’ve spoken on conference stages in London, Stockholm, Belfast, and New York City. Nicky was named Best Musician in high school. He was in the jazz band.

Haris Fazlani is a multi-disciplinary designer and creative director based in New York City. He is a co-founder and partner at WØRKS.

Hassan Seguias is the founder of Elevux--an immersive content studio with a passion for building disruptive experiences that transform brands and captivate people.

James Williams III (b. 1992) is a Virginia-born interdisciplinary artist based in Atlanta, Georgia. Although Williams has demonstrated his creative capacity throughout his life, he became particularly engaged with his practice in 2016. His studio practice explores the intersections between space, navigation, emotional health, and their relation to identity.

In 2018, Williams adopted abstraction as his primary style in an effort to abandon the representational and push the boundaries of form, mood, and tone. Since his adaptation of abstraction, Williams’ work has been featured in various publications including Modern Luxury (US), Architectural Digest (US), and POPEYE Magazine (JP).

Williams strives to investigate the beauty and complexities of humanity in order to produce works that serve as sites of awareness and celebration. He is innately inspired by personal accounts and the shared experiences of individuals in his orbit. After absorbing stories of past and present, Williams returns to a familiar process of automatic drawing as he would in grade school to navigate through the emotions that derived from those evolving narratives. Those forms are then placed under a critical lens that allows Williams to receive ancestral themes that are later worked into paintings, sculpture, studio furniture, and installation. His choice of materials is often industrial, inspired by his admiration for structures that endure time.

In the process of operating between art and design, both disciplines have informed each other and allowed Williams to channel his voice through various mediums. Although self-taught, Williams has received direction from accomplished fine artists over the years. He had the opportunity to work under Lawrence “Naturel” Atoigue in 2018 as studio director and studio assistant to Basil Watson in 2019. The time Williams spent in each studio was integral to understanding his approach and how to navigate a holistic art practice.

Jeannette Kuo received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Architecture at U.C.Berkeley (1999), her Master of Architecture with Distinction at Harvard University (2004), and her Master of Advanced Studies at ETH Zurich (2010).

After working for Barkow Leibinger Architects in Berlin and Architecture Research Office in New York, she started teaching in 2006 with the Maybeck Teaching Fellowship at UC Berkeley and went on to teach at MIT (2007—2009) and at the EPFL Lausanne (2011—2014). Since 2016, she is an Assistant Professor in Practice at Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Alongside Ünal Karamuk, she co-founded Karamuk Kuo in 2010. The office works on projects of a range of scales—from spatial installations and exhibitions to complex institutional projects—and is always looking for new creative opportunities.

In addition, both partners are committed to intellectual pursuits in design research and have been teaching since 2006 at various universities in the U.S. and Switzerland. Recent awards include a double recognition for BestArchitects 19, a LafargeHolcim Awards Acknowledgement prize and a nomination for the Iakov Chernikov Prize recognizing promising young architects.

Jeremy Benson is a multidisciplinary designer from Tennessee who has studied at UPenn, Harvard, and in London. His past and current experiences include, but aren't limited to Snarkitecture and Geo Design House.

He is currently living and working across the southeast United States.

Jocelyn Tsaih (b. 1992) is a Taiwan-born, Shanghai-raised artist currently based in Oakland, California. The focal aspect of her work is an amorphous figure that’s meant to be both a reflection and a vessel.

By illustrating these figures, Tsaih pours herself into them while encouraging viewers to do the same. The unspoken dialogue that’s present in her work exists in parallel to her observations of what it means to be beings that fundamentally long for connection. Her use of multiple mediums, including painting, drawing, and sculpture, is an extension of her exploration of communicating our complex experiences as humans.

Joe Peacock is great human being. His impressive backlog of work is less important than the preceding sentence.

John Maeda is an American technologist and product experience leader. As an early catalyst for generativeart and computationaldesign for cultural + commercial applications across Web2 and Web3, he was the first recipient of White House’s National Design Award for algorithmically-generated visualizations informed by data.

John's current and past experiences include: CTO of Everbridge, Sonos board of directors, Wieden+Kennedy board of directors, Kleiner Perkins design partner, MIT Media Lab data visualization lead, Automattic head of design + inclusion, Publicis Sapient executive vice president and chief experience officer, and 16th president/CEO of Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).

He is also an investor in entrepreneurial ventures like Canva, Walker & Co, Typeform, Negative, Superheroic, Tatcha, Flexport, and Crave to advance greater startup diversity.

John is the author of five books including a gentle intro to AI/ML "How To Speak Machine" and the tech bestseller of 2006 "Laws of Simplicity." Writings, interviews, or talks include WSJ, NYT, TED, BBC, WEF, COP, CNN, The Economist, Forbes, USA Today, Fortune, Fast Company, Esquire. Honors include three honorary doctorate degrees, TIME Best Twitter 140, White House National Design Award, Fast Company Masters of Innovation, LinkedIn Top 10 US Influencer, Esquire 75 Most Influential of the 21st Century, and Tribeca Film Festival Disruptor Award for launching the STEM to STEAM movement in the US.

Josh Davis is the author of the international bestseller, Two Awesome Hours, which has been translated into 10 languages. He did his undergraduate work at Brown University, in Engineering, and his Ph.D. at Columbia University, studying Psychology and Neuroscience. He is the Chief Scientist at the Mentora Institute and a trainer at the NLP Center of NY.

Previously, he served as the head of Research for the NeuroLeadership Institute. He was a professor in the Psychology Department at Barnard College of Columbia University, and has taught courses or regularly guest lectured at NYU, Columbia University, Columbia Business School, and UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.

His writing has appeared in HBR, Fast Company, Psychology Today, Inc., Strategy, and Business, among others, and his work has been reported on by major news sources globally, including the WSJ, the Financial Times, and The Times of London.

Kevin Bethune is the Founder & Chief Creative Officer of dreams • design + life, a "think tank" that delivers design & innovation services using a human-centered approach. Kevin's background spans engineering, business, and design in equal proportion over his 20+ year career, positioning him to help brands deliver meaningful innovations to enrich people's lives.

His past experiences include, but aren't limited to: Nike, Magic Leap, Z-Tech, B Capital Group, ArtCenter, KEEVO, BCG, Invoy, Pepsico, Formé, and Berkshire Hathaway Insurance.

His work represents creative problem-solving that brings multidisciplinary teams together to see the future through an open aperture, and a deep industrial design approach to inform and influence desirable, feasible, and business-viable design outcomes.

Kevin also serves as a Board Trustee for ArtCenter College of Design and the Board Chair for the Design Management Institute (DMI).

Kevin Carroll is an author, instigator of inspiration, and creative catalyst. Kevin brings a playful curiosity, a keen understanding of human nature, and a lifelong love of competition to all of his endeavors.

Kevin is the author of four highly successful books published by ESPN, Disney Press, McGraw-Hill, and A Kids Book About. Kevin has helped turn creative ideas into reality for organizations such as Nike, Starbucks, Adidas, Walt Disney, Target, Proctor & Gamble, Columbia Sportswear, Mattel, the National Basketball Association, and many others.

Kevin was named by SUCCESS magazine as one of 19 “SEERS – changing the world!” Kevin believes that play is serious business!

Kim Nguyen is currently Senior Marketing Manager for SoleSavy. Previously, she was responsible for FinishLine's social media presence as well as serving in a multitude of roles across the company.

Marc Posch is the founder of Opus Creative Group. Opus works with leaders, rebels, and visionaries in the technology and manufacturing sectors to create better products, inspire better processes, and bring clarity to their message, all of which leads to better performance.

Marcus Hollinger is the SVP of Marketing at Reach Records, an independent hip hop label based in Atlanta, GA with a roster of artists, including: Andy Mineo, Lecrae, Wande, and more.

Matt May is Adobe’s head of inclusive design. His work includes integrating inclusive design practices across every aspect of the Adobe user experience, training and mentoring the Adobe Design team, and advocating principles of accessibility and inclusive design to the public at large.

Morcos Key is a Brooklyn-based design studio collaborating with arts & cultural institutions, non-profits, and commercial enterprises in North America and the Middle East. We translate our clients’ stories into visual systems that demonstrate how thoughtful conversation, and formal expression make for impactful design.

Jon(athan) Key is an artist, designer, and writer originally from Seale, Alabama. After receiving his BFA from RISD, Jon began his design career at Grey Advertising in NYC before moving on to work with such clients and institutions as HBO, Nickelodeon, The Public Theater, and the Whitney Museum. As an educator, Jon has taught at MICA, Parsons, CCA, and currently teaches at Cooper Union. Jon is also a Co-Founder and Design Director at Codify Art, a multidisciplinary collective dedicated to creating, producing, supporting, and showcasing work by artists of color, particularly women, queer, and trans artists of color. Jon was selected for Forbes 30 under 30 Art and Style list for 2020 and was the Frank Staton Chair in Graphic Design at Cooper Union 2018-2019.

Wael Morcos is a graphic designer and type designer from Beirut, Lebanon. Upon receiving his BA in Graphic Design from Notre Dame University (Lebanon), he spent three years developing identities and Arabic-Latin bilingual typefaces, in addition to working in print and exhibition design. Wael received his MFA from RISD in 2013, after which he moved to New York and worked with several studios in the city before founding Morcos Key. Wael has been featured in Print Magazine’s 15 under 30, was named a Young Gun by the Art Directors Club and an Ascender by the Type Directors Club.

Creativity strategist Natalie Nixon is “the creativity whisperer for the C-Suite”. She is a highly sought-after keynote speaker, valued for her accessible expertise on creativity, the future of work, and innovation.

Natalie advises leaders on transformation- by applying wonder and rigor to amplify growth and business value. She brings an innovative and unique perspective to every keynote, strategic advisory engagement, and leadership coaching session. Her experience living in 5 countries combined with her background in anthropology, fashion, academia, and dance distinguish her as a one-of-a-kind creativity expert.

Natalie has been named among the top women keynote speakers by Real Leaders and BigSpeak; and has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company and INC. She’s the author of the award-winning The Creativity Leap: Unleash Curiosity, Improvisation and Intuition at Work and her firm Figure 8 Thinking, was named among the top women-led innovation firms by Core 77. Marketing guru Seth Godin has said that Natalie “helps you get unstuck and unlock the work you were born to do!”; and Jessi Hempel, host of LinkedIn’s “Hello Monday” podcast called Natalie “a personal trainer for your creativity muscle”.

Natalie is a trustee of the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt Design Museum; Vassar College; and Leadership+Design. Natalie received her BA (honors) from Vassar College, and her Ph.D. from the University of Westminster in London. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Daniel Nelson is the founder of October--a PR Agency. They help design, architecture, property, and events brands communicate their work better.

In 2013, they started to connect PR and Inbound Marketing in order to build an agency for the way people consume messages now.

They recognize the power of inbound marketing and its ability to attract customers through relevant and helpful content and adding value at every stage in the buying journey. With inbound marketing, potential customers find you through channels like blogs, search engines, and social media.

Based in both London, UK and Tartu, Estonia, they are global in their thinking from day one. They've created architecture PR campaigns and generated high impact coverage for numerous placemaking and urban regeneration projects.

They've gained coverage for their clients in Wallpaper*, Monocle, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC TV News, ITV News, Guardian, Observer, Le Monde, The Times, Elle Decor, Fast Company, Metropolis, Design Milk, Designboom, Dezeen, Dwell, and more.

Oliver Lütjens, born in 1972, studied Architecture at the ETH Zurich and at the EPF Lausanne. After his Diploma he worked for Diener & Diener, Meili Peter, and OMA/Rem Koolhaas.

Together with Thomas Padmanabhan, he established Lütjens Padmanabhan Architects in 2007. The practice’s recent work focuses on projects for housing in the residential districts surrounding Zurich and Basel. Further afield, a project for a new residence for the Swiss ambassador in Algiers will be completed in 2021. They won the 2019 Architecture Prize of the Canton Zurich.

Oliver has taught as an assistant at the guest chair of Adam Caruso and Peter St John at ETH Zurich, later as head assistant at the chair of Adam Caruso, and as a guest professor at TU Munich and EPF Lausanne.

Olivier Charland is a multi-disciplinary designer from Montréal. His work spans different mediums while maintaining a playful and sensitive aesthetic throughout his practice. He is also co-founder of Par Hasard studio.

Paul Johnson is the founder of Johnson Trading Gallery. Since 2000, Johnson Trading Gallery has exhibited works by emerging and established architects, designers and artists who push the boundaries of traditional furniture construction as well as highlighted major historical design movements.

Rachel Bungey's work explores questions around new technologies, abstraction, perception, and environmentalism. With a focus on abstract form, Rachel uses sculpting as a form of medititation. Exploring these ideas through the physical and digital realm, using new technologies such as 3D printing, VR, and 3D sculpting. Rachel is currently working towards a project that will use a 6-axis robot arm, as well as experimenting with more traditional sculpting techniques.

After working in-house for XL Recordings for 5 years, Rachel moved to Tokyo to start a design studio, Mantis Studio, which funds her art practice, working as a creative director and graphic designer for musicians. At XL and as a freelancer she has worked on many musicians' global album campaigns. Rachel is now a full-time student at the RCA, Sculpture MA program.

Robert Newman is a painter, director, and designer. After graduating from Morehouse College in 2014, Robert moved to Harlem to continue both his career as an artist and his career on Wall Street (Morgan Stanley and Neuberger Berman). 

His work has been featured in galleries, events, and museums across the city of New York and internationally. In addition to producing his own shows, he has also worked with a number of global organizations to advance the arts. Some of the organizations include, but aren't limited to: Verizon Media, The Museum at Fit, Big Brothers and Big Sisters of NYC, Broadway Advocacy Coalition, Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, And More.

Robin Johnson is a Creative Producer with a wealth of experience in tech start-ups and cultural initiatives. Leveraging her expertise in project and stakeholder management, she's become a wizard at blending her passions for music and culture to build communities, re-engage employees, and develop creative programming.

Some of her past experience includes founding and leading initiatives at companies including:o Netflix, Uber, Apple, Indie Creator Society, Blavity, and, more.

Scott Belsky is an executive, entrepreneur, author, and investor (and all-around product obsessive). He currently serves as Adobe's Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud. Scott's passion is to make the creative world more productive, connected, and adaptive to new technologies. Scott co-founded Behance in 2006, and served as CEO until Adobe acquired Behance in 2012. Millions of people use Behance to display their portfolios, as well as track and find top talent across the creative industries. After Behance's acquisition, Scott helped kick off Creative Cloud’s services and reboot Adobe's mobile product strategy and led Behance until 2016, when he spent a few years as an investor and advisor to multiple businesses.

Alongside his role at Adobe, Scott actively advises and invests in businesses that cross the intersection of technology and design - and help empower people. He is/was an early advisor and investor in Pinterest, Uber, sweetgreen, Carta, Cheddar, Flexport, Airtable, OpenSea, Ramp, Ro, and Periscope (now part of Twitter) as well as several others in the early stages.

Over the years, Scott has pursued other projects to help organize and empower the careers of creative people. These include 99U, Behance's think tank and annual conference devoted to execution in the creative world; and a popular line of organizational paper products that help organize creative people and teams.

Scott is also the author of the international bestselling books Making Ideas Happen (Portfolio Imprint, Penguin Books, Apr, 2010), and The Messy Middle (Portfolio Imprint, Penguin Books, Oct, 2018).

Scott is an advocate for technology and community initiatives that empower creative people and help businesses leverage the creative potential of their people. In 2010, Scott was also included in Fast Company's list of "100 Most Creative People in Business."

Prior to founding Behance in 2006, Scott helped grow the Pine Street Leadership Development Initiative at Goldman, Sachs & Co. Scott was especially focused on organizational improvement and strengthening relationships with clients. Scott serves on the Advisory Board of Cornell University's Entrepreneurship Program and the Board of Trustees for the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. He attended Cornell University as an undergraduate and received his MBA from Harvard Business School. Scott and his family now live in New York City.

Shujan (Shu) Bertrand is the founder and CEO of Aplat Inc. Inspired by the French Art de Vivre, aplat designs culinary and garden totes that uplift the daily practice of sharing the good things we cook, eat, drink and gift. Aplat totes are sustainably made in San Francisco, using 100% organic cotton and zero waste in production.

Shu is an award-winning industrial designer with 20 years of design experience. With a stellar background in soft good design, advanced concept design, product development, design research and strategy, she has impacted brands around the globe, translating user insights into new product and business opportunities.

She has worked in Paris, Milan, and Seoul and has designed and directed for companies such as Astro Studios, IDEO, Incase, Steelcase, Nike, Samsung, LG Electronics, Siemens, and Procter & Gamble, among many others. Recently she has served on the design jury panel for the IDEA Awards, and Core77 Design Awards and is now honored to be joining the Cannes Lion Awards 2016.

Shu’s passion for beautiful design, sustainability, and local craftsmanship is realized in each aplat tote that lands in the hands of culinary, garden, wine and design enthusiasts.

Spandana Gopal is the founder of Tiipoi, a product design studio based between Bangalore and London whose ‘KARIPOT’ cookware is one of Elle Decoration's ‘15 of the best sustainable designs’.

Thomas Padmanabhan, born in 1970, studied Architecture at RWTH Aachen, La Sapienza Rome, and Cornell University. After his Diploma he worked for Skidmore Owings and Merrill, Meili Peter, and Diener & Diener.

Together with Oliver Lütjens, he established Lütjens Padmanabhan Architects in 2007. The practice’s recent work focuses on projects for housing in the residential districts surrounding Zurich and Basel. Further afield, a project for a new residence for the Swiss ambassador in Algiers will be completed in 2021. They won the 2019 Architecture Prize of the Canton Zurich.

Thomas has taught as an assistant at the chair of Peter Märkli and Markus Peter at ETH Zurich and as a guest professor at TU Munich and EPF Lausanne.

Tomas Clarkson is 1/2 of PLUSMINUS. Plusminus studio is a creative consultancy and graphic playground run by Armel Bellec and Tomas Clarkson.

They work across various mediums and for a wide-range of clients, from world-famous record labels to local start-ups. They use a concept-driven approach to our work, believing that conceptual foundations allow our clients' images to stand the test of time.

Established in 2007, UnderConsideration is a graphic design firm generating its own projects, initiatives, and content while taking on limited client work.

Since 2002, they have been publishing content online, starting with the design blog Speak Up, that ran through 2009 and was one of the most active, entertaining, and well-regarded blogs, even earning a spot in the Cooper-Hewitt’s National Design Triennial in 2006 — the only blog included in the exhibition.

Their most popular blog, Brand New, was launched in 2006 and has grown to be the leading site for opinions on logo and identity redesigns with a readership of over 1.25 million page views a month and, like its predecessor, it was also the only blog included in Graphic Design: Now in Production, co-organized by the Walker Art Center and Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Active blogs in their network include Art of the Menu, FPO (For Print Only), and Quipsologies.

Warren Berger is the creator of the popular website amorebeautifulquestion.com and author of BEAUTIFUL QUESTIONS IN THE CLASSROOM: Transforming Classrooms Into Cultures of Curiosity and Inquiry (Corwin, 2020),THE BOOK OF BEAUTIFUL QUESTIONS: The Powerful Questions That Will Help You Decide, Create, Connect, and Lead (Bloomsbury, 2018), and A MORE BEAUTIFUL QUESTION: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas (Bloomsbury, 2014)—all focusing on the power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas and improve your daily life.

Before focusing on questioning, Warren wrote the internationally acclaimed GLIMMER: How Design Can Transform Business and Your Life (Penguin Press; 2009), published in several editions worldwide. Business Week named Glimmer one of the “Best Innovation & Design Books of the Year.” (More on Warren’s many books on innovation here.)

Warren writes for a wide variety of publications, including Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, Psychology Today, and was a longtime contributor at Wired magazine and The New York Times.

He has appeared on NBC’s Today Show, ABC World News, CNN, and as an expert on NPR’s All Things Considered. As a speaker, Warren has keynoted at the Oracle Connect Conference, the Citrix Synergy Conference, the CUSP Conference, the Fuse Conference, the Design Thinkers Conference, the International Women’s Forum in Rome, and TEDx Portland. He has also spoken at in-house conferences hosted by General Electric, ADP, Little Caesar’s, MassMutual, Citrix, and Microsoft, among many others. The education world has particularly embraced the power of questioning.

He has been a guest lecturer at the University of Virginia, the University of Oregon, University of Texas, Bowling Green State College, New York’s School of Visual Arts, and Virginia Commonwealth University, where he gave the 2011 commencement address for graduating business students.

Xavier Vendrell is an architect and studied architecture in his native city of Barcelona, where he has been practicing architecture since 1983. His work embraces a range of scales from landscape architecture, urban design, public buildings, housing, and interior design.

In 1988, his office won the competition for the Poblenou Park in the Olympic Village of Barcelona. His office (Ruisanchez-Vendrell, Architects) was involved in several other projects for the 1992 Olympic Games. Xavier Vendrell won the FAD Award in 1997 for the Riumar School. He has also taught at the Barcelona School of Architecture (1990-1998).

He has lectured across Europe, USA and Latin America. He has been visiting Professor at Washington University, School of Architecture in St. Louis, Missouri in 1994 and 1996, and visiting professor at School of Architecture, College of Architecture and the Arts, University of Illinois at Chicago in 1997, 1998 and 1999 as the Jens Jensen Visiting Professor in Landscape Urbanism. His works and projects have been published in magazines and books, and presented in several exhibitions internationally. He was co-founder, in 1986, of A30 Edicions d’Architecture and he has written numerous articles for journals.

Xavier Vendrell founded in 1999 Xavier Vendrell Studio Chicago/Barcelona, a collaborative practice of architecture, landscape and design.

In August 2001, Xavier Vendrell was appointed Professor of Architecture, at School of Architecture, the College of Architecture and the Arts at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

His work embraces a range of scales from landscape architecture, urban design, public buildings, housing and interior design. And, he currently teaches design-build at Auburn University's Rural Studio.

Yancy Wilkinson is a multidisciplinary designer currently leading efforts at ASD | SKY. Previously, Yancy served as head of Branded Environments at Perkins + Will. As a graduate from SCAD, Yancy has over 15 years of experience in branded environments, store design, brand design, graphic design, and identity.