Speakers and Events

“The ultimate Obama insider” (New York Times), Valerie Jarrett was the longest-serving advisor in the 44th President’s administration. Born in Iran and raised in 1960s Chicago, Jarrett originally practiced corporate law and left to enter local politics, where in 1991 she interviewed an up-and-coming lawyer named Michelle Robinson. And the rest is history, one she tells in Finding My Voice: My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward.

Stan McChrystal founded McChrystal Group in January 2011 to deliver innovative leadership solutions to American businesses in order to help them transform and succeed in challenging, dynamic environments. As Founder and a Partner, he advises senior executives at multinational corporations on navigating complex change and building stronger teams.

A retired four-star general, Stan is the former commander of US and International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) Afghanistan and the former commander of the nation’s premier military counter-terrorism force, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). He is best known for developing and implementing a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, and for creating a cohesive counter-terrorism organization that revolutionized the interagency operating culture.

Throughout his military career, Stan commanded a number of elite organizations, including the 75th Ranger Regiment. After 9/11 until his retirement in 2010, he spent more than 6 years deployed to combat in a variety of leadership positions. In June 2009, the President of the United States and the Secretary General of NATO appointed him to be the Commander of US Forces Afghanistan and NATO ISAF. His command included more than 150,000 troops from 45 allied countries. On August 1, 2010 he retired from the US Army.

Stan is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and the Naval War College. He also completed year-long fellowships at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Council on Foreign Relations.

General McChrystal’s book, A Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, is a New York Times Bestseller. In this powerful book, McChrystal and his colleagues show how the challenges they faced in Iraq can be rel­evant to countless businesses, nonprofits, and other or­ganizations. The world is changing faster than ever, and the smartest response for those in charge is to give small groups the freedom to experiment while driving every­one to share what they learn across the entire organiza­tion.

Ingrid Fetell Lee is a Brooklyn-based designer and writer whose work focuses on the way that design affects our health and happiness. As founder of The Aesthetics of Joy and in her role as IDEO fellow, she empowers people to find more joy in daily life through design.

Ingrid has over twelve years of experience in design and branding, most recently as Design Director of IDEO’s New York office, having led design work for Target, Condé Nast, Eileen Fisher, American Express, Kate Spade, Diageo, Pepsico, and the US government, among others. She has been featured as an expert on design and joy by outlets such as The New York Times, Wired, PRI’s Studio 360, CBC’s Spark, Psychology Today, and Fast Company. She was a founding faculty member in the Products of Design program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Her design work has been exhibited at imm Cologne, Germany.

Ingrid holds a Master’s in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute and a Bachelor’s in English and Creative Writing from Princeton University.

Her new book, Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness , was published in 2018. In Joyful, designer Ingrid Fetell Lee explores how the seemingly mundane spaces and objects we interact with every day have surprising and powerful effects on our mood.