FEATURED SPEAKER

Simone Biles

Athlete and Advocate

About the Speaker

Simone Biles is one of the greatest female athletes of all-time. The first woman to capture five All-Around World Championship titles, Biles is the most decorated gymnast in World Championships history – male or female – with 25 medals overall (19 gold) and is a seven-time Olympic medalist (four gold, one silver, two bronze). A three-time Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year, she has earned the rare distinction of having four skills named in her honor – The Biles – across beam, floor (two) and vault disciplines. Biles’ extraordinary accomplishments have received widespread recognition including TIME 100 Most Influential, Forbes 30 Under 30, Ebony Power 100, People Women Changing the World, USA Today 100 Women of the Century, and two-time Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year among others. Her autobiography – Courage to Soar – was a New York Times bestseller and developed into an award-winning tv special on Lifetime and her documentary series – Simone vs Herself – that streamed on Facebook Watch is nominated for a Sports Emmy Award. Biles utilizes her platform to help advocate for mental health and support initiatives that provide education and assistance for children and young adults associated with adoption and foster care.

FEATURED SPEAKER

Penny Wheeler, MD

Former CEO, Allina Health

About the Speaker

Penny Wheeler, MD, is chief executive officer of Allina Health and has announced plans to transition out of the role on Dec. 31 2021. Prior to her appointment as CEO, she served as president and chief clinical officer of Allina Health, responsible for leading the organization’s quality and value agenda through alignment of the clinical and operational leadership to optimally benefit those served by Allina Health. A board-certified obstetrician/gynecologist, Dr. Wheeler served patients at Women’s Health Consultants in Minneapolis, was the president of Abbott Northwestern Hospital’s medical staff, chaired the Allina Health Quality Committee and served on the Allina Health Board of Directors.

Dr. Wheeler continues to set the overall strategic direction for Allina Health, ensuring the organization delivers exceptional care and supports the health and well-being of all those served.

Under Dr. Wheeler’s leadership, Allina Health has sharpened its focus on serving those who have not always been well-served by a health care system. This includes individuals with disabilities through the creation of Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute; those with mental illness and addiction issues through significant investments in Allina Health’s mental health capabilities; and those who face discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity through Allina Health’s diversity, equity, and inclusion work.

Dr. Wheeler serves on a variety of local and national Boards. She is currently Chairing the American Hospital Association’s Health Systems Council; and serves on the Boards for NRC Health and Cedar, an organization that eases the strain of financial billing for those served. Locally, Dr. Wheeler serves on the Executive Committee of the Minnesota Business Partnership, Medical Alley, the University of Minnesota Foundation, St. Thomas University Board of Trustees, and Portico Healthnet, an organization dedicated to helping uninsured Minnesotans receive affordable health coverage and care.

Dr. Wheeler was recently recognized as a Luminary by Modern Health Care for her multiple appearances on their top 25 Women Leaders in Health Care list. In addition, she received an award as one of the 100 most influential people in health care and was recognized as one of the 50 most influential clinical executives.

Her educational background includes an undergraduate degree with honors from the University of Minnesota, and a doctorate of medicine degree from the University of Minnesota Medical School.

FEATURED SPEAKER

Marzyeh Ghassemi, MSc, PhD

Artificial Intelligence Professor and Researcher

About the Speaker

• Assistant Professor at MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and Institute for Medical Engineering & Science (IMES)
• Vector Institute Faculty member with CIFAR Artificial Intelligence Chair
• CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar

Marzyeh completed her PhD at MIT where her research focused on machine learning in healthcare, exploring how to predict immediate and long-term patient needs to inform decisions in the intensive care unit and ambulatory care. Her current research interests include clinical risk prediction with semi-supervised learning, optimal treatment discovery using expert demonstrations, and non-invasive patient phenotyping for behavioral conditions. Prior to MIT, she received a B.S. degree in computer science and electrical engineering at New Mexico State University as a Goldwater Scholar and Master’s degree in biomedical engineering from Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar. Marzyeh is on the Board of Women in Machine Learning (WiML), and co-organized both the NIPS 2016/2017 Workshop on Machine Learning for Health and MIT’s first Hacking Discrimination event.

FEATURED SPEAKER

Elana Meyers Taylor

Five-Time Olympic Medalist, USA Bobsled

About the Speaker

The daughter of a professional football player, Elana was born in Oceanside, California, but grew up in Douglasville, Georgia. A naturally gifted athlete across many sports, she was drawn to softball and by the time she was nine years old, she declared her intention to become an Olympian. She attended George Washington University on a softball scholarship and went on to play professionally for the Mid-Michigan Ice. After what she calls “the worst tryout ever in the history of tryouts” for the US Olympic Softball Team, it appeared her Olympic dreams were over.

It was her parents who saw bobsled on TV and suggested she give it a try. That turned out to be great advice. In the summer of 2007 she made the trip to Lake Placid, NY, home of the US National Bobsled Team. She never left. Elana turned out to be an incredibly powerful brakeman and less than three years later she stood on the podium in Vancouver as an Olympic Bronze Medalist.

Post Vancouver, Elana decided to take the wheel, or in the case of the bobsled, the ‘D-rings’, and transition to the role of driver. That too turned out to be a great decision. Not long after, she became a regular on medals’ podiums around the world, and eventually drove herself all the way back to the Olympic podium in 2014, this time in Sochi, Russia, and this time for silver. Later that year, she became Elana Meyers Taylor, marrying fellow bobsled athlete, Nic Taylor.

In 2015, Elana made history, becoming the first woman to earn a spot on the US National Team competing with the men, as part of a four-man bobsled pilot. She went on to become the first woman to win a medal in international competition in a men’s event. That same year, she won the World Championships in the two-woman event, the first woman in U.S. history to do so. In 2018, at the Olympic Games in PyeongChang, Elana battled back and forth with Team Germany over the four heat Olympic competition, missing the gold medal by just .07.

On February 8, 2020, Elana and Nic welcomed their first child, Nico, into the world. Nico was born with Down syndrome and severe hearing loss and spent the first week of his life fighting to survive. The following winter, Nico and his parents began traveling the world in pursuit of another few minutes on the Olympic podium for Elana, for the first time as a mother. After a grueling final year leading into the 2022 Olympics–including a last minute positive Covid test just as the Olympics began–Elana made her way back to the podium not once, but twice, winning silver in the inaugural Mono-bob competition, and bronze in the two-woman competition. In doing so, she once again made history, become the most decorated black athlete in the history of the Olympic Winter Games.

FEATURED SPEAKER

Shawn Achor

Top Emotional Intelligence Speaker, Happiness Researcher, Bestselling Author of The Happiness Advantage

About the Speaker

Shawn Achor is the New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage and Before Happiness. He spent 12 years at Harvard, where he won over a dozen distinguished teaching awards and delivered lectures on positive psychology in the most popular class at Harvard. Shawn graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and earned a master’s from Harvard Divinity School in Christian and Buddhist ethics. Shawn has since become one of the world’s leading experts on the connection between happiness and success. Shawn has now worked with over a third of the Fortune 100 companies, and with places like the NFL, the Pentagon and the U.S. Treasury. To do his work, Shawn has traveled to 51 countries, speaking to farmers in Zimbabwe, CEOs in China, doctors in Dubai and schoolchildren in South Africa. In 2014, Oprah Winfrey did a two-hour interview with Shawn on the science of happiness and meaning. His research on happiness made the cover of Harvard Business Review, his TED talk is one of the most popular of all time with over 11 million views, and his lecture airing on PBS has been seen by millions.

FEATURED SPEAKER

Matthew Luhn

Former Lead Animator and Storyteller, Pixar Studios

About the Speaker

Matthew Luhn is an accomplished storyteller, instructor, motivational keynote speaker, and story consultant, with over 20 years’ experience creating stories and characters at Pixar Animation Studios. Alongside his story work in Hollywood, Matthew works with Fortune 500 companies, entrepreneurs, and other professionals how to craft and tell stories that bridge the gap between business and heart to build stronger brands and business communication. Matthew’s most recent clients include Adidas, Target, Coke, Procter and Gamble, Facebook, Warner Brothers, Sony, and Google.

Matthew’s story credits include Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3, Monsters Inc., Monsters University, Finding Nemo, UP, Cars, Ratatouille and other films currently in development.

With over 20 years experience creating and developing dozens of films, TV shows, and video games, at Pixar, The Simpsons, ILM, and other studios, Matthew Luhn knows what it takes to create memorable stories with enduring characters. From filmmaking to business, Matthew’s story talks are beneficial to anybody wanting to improve their story skills, or learn the persuasion of great storytelling. In Matthew’s story seminar, he will share his process for creating new ideas and characters, how to develop great stories and story structure, and how to realize your story ideas from script to storyboards to finished product. and business communication. 

FEATURED SPEAKER

Brent James, MD, MStat

Clinical Professor, Clinical Excellence Research Center (CERC), Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine

About the Speaker

Brent James is known internationally for his work in clinical quality improvement, patient safety, and the infrastructure that underlies successful improvement efforts, such as culture change, data systems, payment methods, and management roles. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly known as the Institute of Medicine), and participated in that organization’s seminal works on quality and patient safety. He is a Clinical Professor at the Clinical Excellence Research Center (CERC), Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine.

• Visiting Lecturer, Harvard School of Public Health (Health Policy and Management)
• Adjunct Professor, University of Utah David Eccles School of Business
• Adjunct Professor, University of Utah School of Medicine (Family Medicine; Biomedical Informatics)

He is a Fellow of the American College of Physician Executives. He is presently a Senior Advisor at Health Catalyst, Salt Lake City, UT; Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), Boston, MA; and a Senior Advisor at the Leavitt Group, Salt Lake City, UT. He was formerly Chief Quality Officer, and Executive Director, Institute for Healthcare Delivery Research at Intermountain Healthcare, based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Through the Intermountain Advanced Training Program in Clinical Practice Improve­ment (ATP), he has personally trained more than 5,000 senior physician, nursing, and administra­tive executives, drawn from around the world, in clinical management methods, with proven improvement results (and leading to over 50 “sister” training programs in more than 10 countries).

He has been honored with a series of awards for quality in health care delivery, including (among many):

• 2018 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety & Quality Individual Award, Joint Commission & National Quality Forum, March 2019
• Distinguished Alumnus, University of Utah, 2015
• Deming Cup–Columbia University School of Business, 2011
• C. Jackson Grayson Medal, Distinguished Quality Pioneer–American Quality and Productivity Center, 2010
• Joint Commission Ernest A. Codman Award, 2006
• AHA HRET TRUST Award, 2005
• National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) Quality Award, 2005
• American College of Medical Quality Founders’ Award, 1999

For 8 of first the 9 years it existed, he was named among Modern Physician’s “50 Most Influential Physician Executives in Healthcare.”  He was named among the “100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare” (Modern Healthcare) for over 5 consecutive years, and among Modern Healthcare’s “25 Top Clinical Informaticists”.

Before coming to Utah in 1986, he was Assistant Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health, providing statistical support for the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Before coming to Utah in 1986, he was Assistant Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health, providing statistical support for the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) and Cancer & Leukemia, Group B (CALG); and staffed the American College of Surgeons’ Commission on Cancer.

He holds the following degrees; Bachelor of Science degrees in Computer Science (Electrical Engineering) and Medical Biology; an M.D. degree (with residency training in general surgery and oncology); and a Master of Statistics degree. He serves on several non-profit boards of trustees dedicated to clinical improvement and patient safety.

FEATURED SPEAKER

Kedar Mate, MD

President and CEO, Institute for Healthcare Improvement

About the Speaker

Kedar Mate, MD, is the President and Chief Executive Officer at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), President of the Lucian Leape Institute, and a member of the faculty at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Mate’s scholarly work has focused on health system design, health care quality, strategies for achieving large-scale change, and approaches to improving value. Previously Dr. Mate worked at Partners In Health, the World Health Organization, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and served as IHI’s Chief Innovation and Education Officer.  Dr. Mate has published numerous peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and white papers and has received multiple honors including serving as a Soros Fellow, Fulbright Specialist, Zetema Panelist, and an Aspen Institute Health Innovators Fellow. He graduated from Brown University with a degree in American History and from Harvard Medical School with a medical degree.  You can follow him on twitter at @KedarMate

FEATURED SPEAKER

Marcus Collins, DBA, MBA

Top Booked Speaker, DE&I Thought Leader, Head of Strategy, Wieden+Kennedy

About the Speaker

Top Booked Speaker, DE&I Thought Leader, Head of Strategy Wieden+Kennedy, AAF Advertising Hall of Achievement Inductee, 2022 Cannes Lions Jury Member and expert on Cultural Contagion – getting your message and brand to go viral.

Marcus Collins is an award-winning marketer and cultural translator with one foot in the world of practice—serving as the Head of Strategy at Wieden+Kennedy New York—and one foot in the world of academia—as a marketing professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan.

His deep understanding of brand strategy and consumer behavior has helped him bridge the academic-practitioner gap for blue-chip brands and startups alike. He is a recipient of Advertising Age’s 40 Under 40 award and Crain’s Business’ 40 Under 40 award, and a recent inductee into the American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Hall of Achievement. Before joining Wieden+Kennedy, he served as the Chief Consumer Connections Officer at Doner Advertising and led Social Engagement at Steve Stoute’s advertising agency, Translation. Over the course of his career, Marcus has developed a practice for creating culturally contagious ideas that inspire people to take action. His strategies and creative contributions have led to the launch and success of Budweiser’s “Made In America” music festival, the Brooklyn Nets (Hello Brooklyn!), and State Farm’s “Cliff Paul” campaign – among others.

Prior to his advertising tenure, Marcus began his career in music and tech with a startup he co-founded before working on iTunes + Nike sport music initiatives at Apple and running digital strategy for Beyoncé.

Marcus holds a doctorate in marketing from Temple University where he studied cultural contagion and meaning-making. He received an MBA with an emphasis on strategic brand marketing from the University of Michigan, where he also earned his undergraduate degree in Material Science Engineering. He is a proud Detroit native, a devoted husband, and a loving father to Georgia and Ivy. He has spoken for Fortune 1000 companies such as Google, United Healthcare, PepsiCo and Fannie Mae.

FEATURED SPEAKER

Taylor Davis, MStat, MBA

President, KLAS Research

About the Speaker

Taylor Davis recently became the President of KLAS Research (in October 2021). Before this role he was the founder of both KLAS consulting services and the KLAS Arch Collaborative.

Taylor has played a leadership role in nearly all KLAS research lines, writing many KLAS reports over the years, running many KLAS Summits, and leading consulting engagements with over 250 provider and vendor executive leadership teams. In his time at KLAS, Taylor has conducted over 4,000 interviews with healthcare executives and leaders.

With a master’s degree in Statistics from Texas A&M and an MBA from Brigham Young University, as well as experience as an adjunct professor, consultant and speaker, Taylor loves the opportunity KLAS gives him to, “Tell the truth for a living.”

FEATURED SPEAKER

Talithia Williams

Host of the PBS series NOVA Wonders

About the Speaker

A host of the PBS series, NOVA Wonders, Dr. Talithia Williams is a groundbreaking professor, popular TED speaker, inspiring author and passionate STEM/STEAM advocate. She has made it her life’s work to get people of all ages and backgrounds excited about the bold possibilities of a STEM education and to “STEMpower” women and minorities to enter theseprofessions. Her latest book, Power in Numbers: The Rebel Women of Mathematics reflects Williams’ passion to re-brand the field of mathematics as anything but dry, technical or male-dominated. Renowned for her popular TED Talk, “Own Your Body’s Data,” she advocates for all of us to deploy data as a way of taking charge of our own health. A vibrant, engaging andenergizing speaker, Dr. Williams demystifies data, statistics, probabilities and the mathematical process in amusing and insightful ways. She also passionately champions the contributions of scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians and their vital role in transforming ourfuture.

Dr. Williams is Associate Dean for Research and Experiential Learning and Associate Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College, where she develops statistical models which emphasize the spatial and temporal structure of data, and applies them to real world problems.Focused on data analytics, mathematics, statistical modeling and STEM Outreach, she is the first African-American woman to achieve tenure at the college. She hosts NOVA Wonders, a PBS mini-series that explores the biggest questions on the frontiers of science. The Los Angeles Times praised the show for sending the message “that scientists come in a range of ages, genders, colors and hairstyles.” She also appeared in NOVA’s Prediction by the Numbers, aseries exploring the history of probabilities and gambling which Forbes called, “an entertaining, fun piece that conveys her knowledgeable and deep interest in this predictive method.” In addition to her teaching and television work, she has partnered with the World Health Organization in developing a cataract model used to predict the cataract surgical rate for countries in Africa. Her professional experiences include research appointments at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA’s Johnson Space Center, and the National Security Agency.

An exceptional communicator and gifted teacher, Dr. Williams won the Mathematical Association of America’s Henry L. Alder Award for distinguished teaching. She also developed a 24-part college level lecture series on learning statistics for The Great Courses, an online platform

Dr. Williams earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from SpelmanCollege, a master’s degree in mathematics from Howard University and a Ph.D. in statistics from Rice University. Described by audiences as engaging, relevant, funny, accessible, and a joy to work with, Dr. Williams captivates and inspires with her contagious enthusiasm for STEM in general andmath in particular. Applying the data-driven approach made famous in her TED talk to a range of subjects, she takes sophisticated numerical concepts and makes them understandable to a wide audience, debunking perceptions with an energizing call to “show me the data!”

Topics:

• The STEM Mindset: Creating the Future Generation
• Bringing Diversity to STEM: A Lesson in Disruptive Innovation
• Becoming an Agent of Change for Inclusive Education
• Innovative Technology: Engaging Students in Mathematics
• Using Data-informed Decisions to Drive Student Success in Higher Ed
• Personal Health Data Mining: The Empowered Patient
• Data Driven Strategies for Eliminating Health Disparities
• Power in Numbers: The Rebel Women of Mathematics

FEATURED SPEAKER

Jia Jiang

Top Inspirational and Emotional Intelligence Speaker

About the Speaker

Top Inspirational and Emotional Intelligence Speaker, Winner of Toastmasters Golden Gavel Award, One of the Most Viewed TED Talks: 100 Days of Rejection

Jia Jiang is the owner of Rejection Therapy, a website that provides inspiration, knowledge and products for people to overcome their fear of rejection. He also teaches people and trains organizations to become fearless through rejection training. In 2015, he authored the Amazon bestselling book, Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection and was one of the most viewed TED Talks of 2017.

Several years after Jiang began his career in the corporate world, he took a life-altering risk and stepped into the unknown world of entrepreneurship. His result was everyone’s biggest fear: rejection. This was the catalyst that set Jiang on the path to his true calling.

To conquer the fear of rejection, Jiang embarked on a personal quest and started a blog, 100 Days of Rejection Therapy. His journey revealed a world that was hidden in plain sight — a world where people are much kinder than we imagine. He discovered that rejection can be much less painful than we believe and that the fear of rejection is much more destructive than we know.

Jiang grew up in Beijing, China and migrated to the United States at age 16. He holds a Bachelor of Computer Science from Brigham Young University and a Master of Business Administration from Duke University.     

FEATURED SPEAKER

Ford Koles, Jr.

Vice President and National Spokesperson, Advisory Board

About the Speaker

Ford is one of Advisory Board’s preeminent thought leaders in the area of health system economics and strategy and is the keynote speaker at the annual meetings for Advisory Board’s strategy membership. Ford is a health care economist by training and has participated in every major Advisory Board research initiative since 1992. He is well-versed in health care history and the many reform initiatives we have lived through in the past three decades: coverage expansion; vertical integration and physician partnership models; managed care and payer contracting; horizontal integration and system economics of scale; and quality-based payment.

FEATURED SPEAKER

Mark J. Ott, MD

Surgical Oncologist and Former Chairman, Department of Surgery and Director, Surgical Services, Intermountain Healthcare

About the Speaker

Dr. Ott is the former Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Intermountain Medical Center, the former medical director for Surgical Services, Intermountain Healthcare, and an adjunct associate professor of surgery at the University of Utah School of Medicine.

Dr. Ott received his medical degree from the University of Utah School Of Medicine. He trained in general surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Subsequently, he completed a Society of Surgical Oncology fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He practiced surgical oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital and was a faculty member of the Harvard School of Medicine before being recruited to Intermountain Healthcare. He has received multiple teaching awards for educating medical students and residents.

In addition to his educational responsibilities, Dr. Ott is a practicing surgical oncologist specializing in Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic tumors, Sarcoma, complex upper gastrointestinal surgery, and other rare tumors.

His leadership interests center on recruiting physicians/surgeons to participate in clinical program building, outcomes analysis, and research. In his career he led corporate-wide initiatives across the 23 hospitals in the Intermountain Healthcare system to reduce the cost of surgical procedures by tens of millions of dollars per year.

He has served as the physician champion for Intermountain Medical Center’s participation in the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program. He also has a strong interest in workplace wellness and serves as a Board Member for the Wellness Council of America (WELCOA).