Coaches and Speakers

Elizabeth is a public company board member and the CEO of A2C Leadership Group. She has served as two CTO positions of billion-dollar revenue companies: CP Group and BMC Software. She became a C-level executive in 2005 at a public company. She provides coaching in Leadership, Digital Transformation, AI, and cloud. She is also an investor for early-stage companies.

Dr. Elizabeth Xu has taught at Stanford University for 6 years about leadership, and currently is a guest lecturer at Stanford University Teaching Digital Transformation at the Department of Engineering Management Science. She is also the advisor for MIT Innovation Initiatives.

Elizabeth earned an M.S. and B.S. degree from Peking University and a Ph.D. and a Master’s Degrees from University Nevada, and She is a Harvard certified board member and attended the Stanford Executive Program.

Elizabeth received the TOP 50 Diversity Leader in the United States in 2020, the Presidential Award in 2019, the Global Leadership Award in 2018, the WITI Hall of Fame Award in 2017, and Women of Influence in Silicon Valley in 2013. She also received 10+ other prestigious awards. She is a trailblazer, leading a creative and proven path to the top.

Elizabeth lives by the credo of the four “L”s

1. Live to my fullest potential.
2. Love others and enable them to reach their fullest potential.
3. Learn continuously.
4. Leave a legacy.

Pat has been Elizabeth’s mentor for 30 years. She retired from AT&T at age 43. She retired the 2nd time from the positions of the Chairman and President of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, University Nevada, Reno.

Pat has been teaching and coaching various students and working professionals since 1989. She has contributed significantly to the community.

Pat is the winner of Jefferson and Kennedy Awards and many other prestigious awards. As a lifelong learner and mentor, she believes that “ The day you stop learning, is the day you start dying”.

Megan has a 20 year career in technology market research, marketing and go-to-market strategy leadership. She spent many years abroad living in Sydney Australia and Paris France covering both Asia Pacific and European markets as an industry expert with IDC. Later she held numerous marketing leadership roles working with C-Suite executives: head of product (Group President), head of engineering (CTO) and heads of marketing (CMO) and pre-sales (Chief Customer Officer) for a multi-billion revenue software company, BMC Software.

Most recently Megan was CMO for a premier Google Cloud partner specializing in AI/ML services. She is passionate about marketing innovation and improving the customer journey by more effectively aligning the customer experience from top of funnel all the way through to onboarding and customer advocacy. Megan has two master’s degrees: Masters of Media from University of Technology Sydney and an MBA from HEC School of Management in Paris. Megan is passionate about mentoring others, taking on interns, and giving back through organizations like Girls Who Code and the Girl Geek Dinner. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two children. She speaks fluent French.

Kathy Wen is a multifaceted professional with a dynamic career that spans technology, entertainment, and consulting.

Kathy is an Executive Producer at Banyan Tree Movies and a professional singer-songwriter. At Banyan Tree Movies, she produces independent films highlighting Asian stories and themes. In their recent film, Battlebox, Kathy served as a producer and took on an acting role and wrote and performed the film’s theme song, “Battlebox (Through the Soldier’s Eyes).” Additionally, she is a YouTube creator and singer with a growing audience of over 100K subscribers on her self-titled channel.

Kathy has spent over 15 years of her career in tech, gaming, and consulting. Previously, she was the Director of Global Infrastructure Planning at Google and the Director of People and operations at Riot Games. She has also worked as a software engineer at Lam Research, a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, and the Chief of Staff to various senior executives at Cisco Systems.

Kathy holds a B.S. in Computer Science and Economics from the University of Washington and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Chuck Eesley is an Associate Professor and W.M. Keck Foundation Faculty Scholar in the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. As part of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, his research focuses on the role of the institutional and university environment in high-growth, technology entrepreneurship. His research focuses on rethinking how the educational and policy environment shapes the economic and entrepreneurial impact of university alumni. His field research spans China, Japan, Chile, Bangladesh, Thailand and Silicon Valley and has received awards from the Schulze Foundation, the Technical University of Munich, and the Kauffman Foundation. He is a faculty affiliate at the Stanford Center for International Development, the Woods Institute for the Environment and the Stanford King Center on Global Development. He is also a member of the Editorial Board for the Strategic Management Journal. Before coming to Stanford, Prof. Eesley completed his Ph.D. at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management. He started his first company while earning a Bachelor's degree from Duke University in 2002. His work has been published among other places in Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, Research Policy, and Biological Psychiatry. Prof. Eesley previously was an entrepreneur, early employee, board member/advisor, and investor in the areas of life sciences, online education and machine learning. He has also been an advocate and mentor for historically under-represented groups in STEM, academia and the tech sector via programs such as Diversifying Academia, Recognizing Excellence (DARE), Global Innovation through Science and Technology (GIST), and SURF among others.

Harry West is building a human-centered design and innovation curriculum at Columbia and working at the intersection of design, data and behavior change with a focus on developing new ways to reduce consumption. He is also the Principal of Invisible Design which develops design and innovation solutions to particularly difficult business problems and helps design organizations align their work meaningfully with company strategy.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

DESIGN METHODOLOGY; PRODUCT, SERVICE AND EXPERIENCE DESIGN; DESIGN FOR BEHAVIOR CHANGE; SUSTAINABILITY

RESEARCH AREAS

DESIGNDEVICESSYSTEMSSUSTAINABLE HUMANITYCREATIVE HUMANITY

LINKS

VISIT INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING AND OPERATIONS RESEARCHVISIT MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Harry was formerly the CEO of frog, Senior Partner at Prophet, and CEO at Continuum where his work ranged from developing new products with P&G - resulting in the creation of Swiffer and ThermaCare - to envisioning new ways for people to interact with financial services with BBVA and Fidelity.

He has worked with a wide range of companies globally including: Alicorp, American Express, Andersen Windows, AstraZeneca, BBVA, BMW, Brooks Automation, CGAP, Cigna, Colgate, Crown Equipment, Fidelity, Master Lock, Motorola, National Park Service, P&G, PNC, Sprint and Tetra Pak.

He has worked on projects in the US, Europe, Asia and South America; with senior executives at the corporate level, and with consumers and customers in the field. Harry has contributed to the design of products and services with ongoing sales of several billion dollars a year and which have won many design awards.

Prior to working in design consulting, Harry was an associate professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT where he taught kinematics and engineering design.

Harry received his BA in Engineering from Cambridge University in 1980, an MS in Technology and Policy from MIT in 1984, and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 1986.

George is the COO at Twilio, in charge of Twillion worldwide oporation. Before he joined Twilio, George served four of his 13 years at Salesforce as COO, where he owned all major shared operational functions for the company. He also served in a variety of other management roles including VP of Product Marketing, SVP of Applications, EVP of Products, and Chief Marketing Officer. After leaving Salesforce at the end of 2014, George founded a workplace feedback startup called Peer that was acquired by Twitter in 2016. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard College and a master’s degree in business administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. George was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

CLINICAL ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, ANESTHESIOLOGY, PERIOPERATIVE AND PAIN MEDICINE

Practices at Stanford Hospital and ClinicsLucile Packard Children's Hospital

Xiang Qian, MD, PhD, is a Pain Management Physician and Clinical Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University. He is also the Stanford Facial Pain Program Co-Director for interdisciplinary pain patient care at Stanford Hospital and Clinics.

Dr. Qian is highly respected for his work on developing novel therapies for various chronic pain conditions, and he lectures internationally for those work and topics. Dr. Qian’s clinical interests include the treatment of acute and chronic pain, with special interest in migraine, headache, trigeminal neuralgia, glossopharyngeal neuralgia, hemifacial spasm, atypical facial pain, cancer pain, back pain, joint pain, nerve pain, and others. At Stanford, Dr. Qian developed many advanced surgical and interventional technologies for his patients, and he currently leads the CT-guided interventional pain program and is the recipient of Translational and Clinical Innovation Award at Stanford.

With his deep interest in clinical innovation and translational medicine, Dr. Qian is the faculty professor of Stanford Wearable Electronics Initiative (eWEAR) and has been working with colleagues from engineering school to develop mini implantable nerve stimulator, powered by wireless energy. Similar to a pacemaker for the heart, nerve stimulators are modulators for the nerves.

Due to his passion for global health and leadership experience, Dr. Qian was appointed as the Medical Director of Stanford International Medical Services (IMS) since 2016, where he has been working in collaboration with faculty members from all subspecialties and hospital administrations to help deliver care for international patients and promote international collaborations. His vision is to help Stanford become the leader in international medicine by providing its physicians and faculty the opportunities to expand their practice internationally and spread knowledge globally.

Dr. Qian completed his residency and fellowship training at Stanford. Prior to that, he received his PhD degree in Physiology and Biophysics from University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, and went through Postdoc fellowship training in Neuroscience at UCSF. Outside of the work he does at Stanford, Dr. Qian founded the Chinese American Physicians’ Society to foster his efforts in bringing medical knowledge internationally. Today, the society has more than 400 physician members from 50 states of the US, across over 38 different subspecialties.

In his free time, Dr. Qian enjoys reading, running, hiking and exploring the mountains and beaches of Northern California.

BING PROFESSOR IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND SENIOR FELLOW AT THE WOODS INSTITUTE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS

• Professor, Biology  Senior Fellow, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment

ADMINISTRATIVE APPOINTMENTS

• Director, Natural Capital Project, (2006- present)

• Director, Center for Conservation Biology, (2010- present)

PROGRAM AFFILIATIONS

• Center for Latin American Studies Research & Scholarship

CURRENT RESEARCH AND SCHOLARLY INTERESTS

Land use, biodiversity dynamics, ecosystem services 

Bikini.com President Shannon Follansbee demonstrates how to transform your image for a successful career, open doors and connect better.

Follansbee demonstrates is a Master Professional Image Makeover Coach. She has inspired hundreds of thousand of women globally to pursude style, grace, beauty and career sucess without age limits. She helps women to break the glass ceiling and opens many new doors.

Certified Professional Co-Active Coach dedicated to helping my clients find their voice. I apply decades of senior leadership experience in marketing, finance and operations to empower clients to pursue their career and life dreams. I am skilled at analyzing leadership competencies and then working with clients to develop strategies for developing and implementing an authentic personal brand.

• Founder & CEO of digital marketing company, Martecana, LLC. (www.martecana.com)

• Last position as VP of eCommerce and Marketing at OriGene Technologies, where she led a

team of 30+ people

• Worked at other top companies such as Thermo Fisher Scientific, eBay, eHarmony, mostly in

different marketing positions

• MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management

• MS in Statistics, and BA of Information Management from Renmin University of China

• Guest speaker in various conferences

• Board member for nonprofit organization, Sisters Without Boarders™

Neil Bush is an international businessman who is active in service.  He serves as Chairman of the Points of Light Board of Directors, where Neil expands his father’s vision of inspiring, equipping and mobilizing volunteers to increase capacity for vital social services and for finding innovative solutions that lift individuals, strengthen families, and renew communities.  Neil also chairs the advisory boards of the Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation dedicated to helping all Houstonians realize their fullest potential through literacy; the Bush China US Relations Foundation which fosters better understanding and promotes closer ties between the USA and China; and the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M which trains public and nonprofit leaders. He also serves on the advisory boards of the Houston Salvation Army and the Asia Society Texas Center.  

Neil’s business is focused on cross border bridging activities between the USA and Asia. His business interests have included health care, medical services, real estate, high tech, and food/ agriculture businesses.

Neil and his wife Maria have six wonderful children and they are proud that the family passion for service has passed on to the next generation.  Neil’s daughter, Lauren Bush Lauren, is founder and CEO of FEED Projects, a nonprofit that has provided funds to both the UN World Food Programme causing over 100 million meals to be served in schools in Africa and to Feeding America to help with their outreach programs for food insecure Americans. His son, Pierce Bush, mentors an inner-city youngster and leads the largest Big Brothers Big Sisters agency in the USA.

Neil earned an MBA and a BA from Tulane University.

I am an illustrator from the Bay Area with experience in computer science. I specialize in visual development for the entertainment industry.

In elementary school, I would design games on paper to play with my friends. My hand-drawn games were always a hit, which fueled my fascination for design. When I got my first computer, I quickly learned to program, and I have been making art and games ever since. 

Yan Yan is an award-winning product designer at A2C Academy. She also volunteers as a design team lead in Be the Change Foundation leading and coaching 10+ middle/high school and college students. Yan graduated from California College of the Arts with a Master of Fine Arts in Design. As a multiple-awards-winning designer, she shows strong talent in user experience design and visual communication. She believes that design can deliver joy, generate fresh curiosity, even bring the magic to life.

Department Chairman at MIT Engineering

Director of Stanford Medical School and Stanford Hospital 

Professors at Stanford University

Professor at Columbia University

Adobe expert and influencer

Apple Manager

Google Marketer

Facebook Research Scientist

Zoom Director

The Son of US President

C-level Executives

Top Ph.D. Student from CMU

Coaches and mentors are the best students from Top US Universities.

Retired Executives and Board Members