Bill Hybels

Carly Fiorina

Colin Powell

Floyd Flake

Jimmy Carter

John Ortberg

Michael Porter

Richard Curtis

Warren Bennis

Bill Hybels is the senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, and chairman of the board for the Willow Creek Association. He convened The Leadership Summit in 1995 following a God-given prompting to help develop the spiritual gift of leadership in the local church. A highly sought-after conference speaker on issues related to Christian leadership, Hybels is the best-selling author of more than 20 books including Courageous Leadership, The Volunteer Revolution, and the summer 2007 release, Holy Discontent.

One of the world’s most admired business leaders, Carly Fiorina served as president and chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard from 1999 to 2005, reinventing the firm in order to compete in a rapidly changing business landscape. Under her tenure, HP improved its cost structure and profitability, doubled its revenues, and achieved the highest rate of innovation in its history. She details this experience in her 2006 memoir, Tough Choices.

Colin Powell was the U.S. Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005 under President George W. Bush. Prior to that, he served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993, during which he oversaw the invasion of Panama and Operation Desert Storm. In 1997, Powell founded America’s Promise — The Alliance for Youth to improve the lives of children from all socioeconomic backgrounds. The author of the best-selling memoir, My American Journey, Powell speaks regularly on his improbable career arc and the leadership lessons he has learned along the way.

The Rev. Dr. Floyd H. Flake is the senior pastor of the Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral of New York in Queens and the president of Wilberforce University in Ohio. Under his leadership, Allen Cathedral has grown into a 23,000-member church with senior citizen centers, private school, and hundreds of housing units for members and community residents. Along with its affiliates, Allen Cathedral is the second-largest African-American employer in New York City. Flake served as U.S. congressman from 1986 to 1997 and is the author of The Way of the Bootstrapper: Nine Action Steps for Achieving Your Dreams.

Jimmy Carter served as the 39th president of the United States, from 1977 to 1981 and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. He is founder of The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, which works to promote peace, health, and human rights across the globe. A Sunday school teacher at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, are also well known as volunteers for Habitat for Humanity. Among his many books is Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis, which addresses the theme of morality in public leadership.

John Ortberg is a highly-acclaimed writer and speaker and is the senior pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, California. He is the best-selling author of many books including God is Closer Than You Think, Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them, and the August 2007 release, When the Game is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box. Ortberg served as the teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church from 1994 to 2003 and earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Fuller Seminary.

Michael E. Porter is the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School. He is the author of 17 books and the creator and chair of The New CEO Workshop, a program for newly appointed CEOs of billion-dollar corporations. Porter’s foundational ideas on competitive strategy and leadership are taught at virtually every business school in the world. He frequently works with global issues and recently devoted considerable attention to understanding and addressing the problems in health care evident in the U.S. and abroad.

A New Zealander by birth, Richard Curtis is best known as the Oscar-nominated screenwriter for the popular British romantic comedies Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Notting Hill as well as the Mr. Bean television series. His most recently broadcast film, HBO’s Emmy-winning The Girl in the Café, asked hard questions about Third-World debt and poverty in Africa. In addition to co-founding the Make Poverty History campaign and the Live 8 concerts, Curtis founded Comic Relief UK in 1985 to raise money for victims of famine in Ethiopia.

Warren Bennis is the Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and Founding Chairman of The Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California. A prolific author and world-renowned leadership expert, he has consulted with Fortune 500 companies, four U.S. presidents, and international governments. Among his 30 books are the best-selling Leaders and On Becoming a Leader. Bennis is chairman of the advisory board at the Center for Public Leadership, which is part of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.