Amy Blankson is the only person to be named a Point of Light by two Presidents (President Bush and President Clinton). She received a Presidential appointment to serve a five-year term on the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National Service, and was one of the youngest delegates to the Presidents’ Summit for America’s Future. Amy received her BA from Harvard and MBA from Yale School of Management. She went on to co-found the Future of Philanthropy Conference at Yale University, and in 2007, joined GoodThink on the ground floor to develop and scale the company as it sought to bring the science of happiness to life.
Drawing on over 17 years of management and consulting experience with businesses, foundations, and nonprofits, Amy Blankson brings both passion and practicality to GoodThink. She is currently doing research in partnership with Google to determine how to make positive psychology strategies stick and create sustainable positive change. Amy is the author of the award-winning children’s book Ripple’s Effect, and has three beautiful daughters who teach her about the joy of positivity and the importance of gratitude on a daily basis.
Very few people have the ability to combine the adventure world and the business world quite like Matt McFadyen. For over a decade Matt has worked with organizations all over the world to align leaders, energize culture and build winning teams. Matt is a world-class speaker and facilitator who addresses, leadership, building high performing teams, motivation and inspiration.
From dragging heavy sleds to the North Pole to sailing small yachts through some of the world’s deadliest oceans, adventurer Matt McFadyen has pushed himself and others to the ends of the earth, testing the limits of human potential. He has been a leader of teams in some of the toughest conditions on the planet. This includes three record-breaking expeditions to the North Pole & two long-haul sailing trips to Antarctica & in 2013 Matt rowed, sailed & dragged a small boat 2000 miles across the North West Passage. Matt’s presentations not only inspire and motivate the audience but more importantly challenge them to think and act differently both personally and professionally.
Jason Lauritsen is a talent strategist and innovator who will challenge you to think differently about talent and the workplace. A former corporate Human Resources executive, Jason is today the Director of Client Success for Quantum Workplace where he leads a team dedicated to helping organizations make work better for employees everyday.
He also leads the research team behind Quantum’s Best Places to Work program that collects survey responses from employees at over 6,000 companies each year to identify, celebrate and promote some of the best workplaces in the world. He is the co-author of the book, Social Gravity and some people may know him as the tall, dancing guy with Talent Anarchy.
Patrick Sweeney is the son of a first generation Irish immigrant who paid his way through state college where he took up rowing. With just two years of experience he decided to take on the world and try out for the USA Olympic team. Five years later, he finished second in the Olympic trials and won national and international championships in the process.
After the Olympics, Patrick attended a Top 5 business school where he would earn his MBA and go on to start three technology companies worth millions of dollars, raising over $30 million in the process and successfully selling two of the companies. During the height of his business success he contracted a very rare form of Leukemia. The brush with death launched him on a path to find his genius what he calls the combination of passion and vocation and make friends with fear to discover his adventure within.
Jason Schenker is the president of the consulting firm Prestige Economics and one of the most accurate financial market forecasters in the world. Jason has been top-ranked by Bloomberg News in 35 different categories since 2010, and his research is frequently quoted in the press, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on Bloomberg and CNBC, and he has been a Guest Host of Bloomberg Television. Jason is also the author of the best-selling books Commodity Prices 101, Recession-Proof, and Electing Recession.
