On January 20, 2021, Chike Aguh (Chee-kay Ah-Goo) was sworn in as Chief Innovation Officer (CInO) at the United States Department of Labor, appointed by President Joe Biden. Reporting to the Deputy Secretary and also serving as the Senior Advisor for Delivery, he leads efforts to use innovative technologies, partnerships, and practices to protect and invest in the American worker.

Previously, Chike was the inaugural Head of Economic Mobility Pathways at the Education Design Lab where he launched the Community College Growth Engine Fund, an innovative multimillion dollar effort turning community colleges into bridges to careers in high growth fields for thousands. He has been a Technology and Human Rights Fellow at the Harvard Carr Center for Human Rights Policy where he focused on the future of work and racial equity, Venture Partner at Maryland-based New Markets Venture Partners where he focused on workforce technologies, member of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Future of Work Taskforce, Lecturer at Columbia University, and guest speaker at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.  

Additionally, Chike has worked as an education policy official in America’s largest school system, 2nd grade teacher and Teach For America corps member, Fulbright Scholar in Thailand researching education and skills, director of corporate strategy and performance technologies at Education Advisory Board (EAB), CEO of a national social enterprise, which helped connect 500,000 low-income Americans to affordable internet and digital skills, and Senior Principal and Future of Work Lead at the McChrystal Group, a business advisory firm founded by Gen. (ret.) Stanley McChrystal.  

Chike holds degrees from Tufts University (B.A.), Harvard Graduate School of Education (Ed.M), Harvard Kennedy School of Government (MPA), and University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School (MBA). He is a Presidential Leadership Scholar; past Council on Foreign Relations term member; 40 under 40 honoree from Wharton and the Washington Business Journal; and former board member of the Harvard Kennedy School Alumni Board.

Additionally, he has served as an advisory board member for Teach For America-DC Region, board member for Baltimore’s Code in the Schools; past Advisory Board Chair of the Prince George’s County Social Innovation Fund; and former appointee of the Prince George’s County Executive to the County’s Commission on Fathers, Men and Boys. Chike, his wife, and their son proudly call Prince George’s County, MD home.

Nick Bloom is a Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He has been researching working from home for almost 20 years. He has been heavily involved with policy, including meeting President Obama, and speaking in the 2014 Working Families Summit. He gave a 2017 TedX talk on working from home, has consulted with 100s of CEOs and managers, and has been covered extensively in national and international media.

Angela Duckworth is co-founder and CEO of Character Lab, a nonprofit that uses psychological science to help children thrive. She is also the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and faculty co-director of the Penn-Wharton Behavior Change for Good Initiative. Angela was a 2013 MacArthur Fellow and has advised the White House, World Bank, NBA and NFL teams, and Fortune 500 CEOs. Angela has received many awards for her contributions to K-12 education, including a Beyond Z Award from the KIPP Foundation, and her TED talk is among the most-viewed of all time. Her first book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, is a #1 New York Times best seller.

Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and the author of The Power of Habit, which has spent over three years on bestseller lists and has been translated into 40 languages, and Smarter Faster Better, also a bestseller. Mr. Duhigg writes for The New Yorker Magazine and is a graduate of Yale University and the Harvard Business School. He has been a frequent contributor to CNBC, This American Life, NPR, The Colbert Report, PBS’s NewsHour and Frontline. He was also, for one terrifying day in 1999, a bike messenger in San Francisco.

Dr. Allison Gabriel is the McClelland Professor of Management and Organizations and University Distinguished Scholar in the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management. An organizational psychologist, she studies the ways we can promote thriving and well-being at work. Most recently, her focus has been on the intersection of work and women’s health, focusing on experiences linked with the journey of motherhood. She has received early career awards from the Academy of Management and Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology for her scholarly contributions, in addition to being recognized by Poets & Quants as a top undergraduate business school professor. She hopes her research—often capturing her own personal challenges with motherhood, work-life balance, and wellness—can help others flourish.

Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist and a leading expert on how we can find motivation and meaning, and live more generous and creative lives. He has been recognized as one of the world’s 10 most influential management thinkers and Fortune‘s 40 under 40. He is the author of four New York Times bestselling books that have sold over two million copies and been translated into 35 languages: Give and Take, Originals, Option B, and Power Moves. Adam hosts WorkLife, a TED original podcast. His TED talks have been viewed more than 20 million times. His speaking and consulting clients include Google, the NBA, Bridgewater, and the Gates Foundation, and he serves on the Defense Innovation Board at the Pentagon. He is a former magician and junior Olympic springboard diver.

Erika H. James became the dean of the Wharton School on July 1, 2020. Trained as an organizational psychologist, Dean James is a leading expert on crisis leadership, workplace diversity, and management strategy.

Prior to her appointment at Wharton, Dean James was the John H. Harland Dean at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School from 2014 to 2020.  An award-winning educator, accomplished consultant, and researcher, she is the first woman and first person of color to be appointed dean in Wharton’s 141-year history. As such she has paved the way for women in leadership both in education and corporate America. Dean James has been instrumental in developing groundbreaking executive education programs, including the Women’s Leadership program at the University of Virginia’s Darden School.

Known internationally, Dean James was named as one of the “Top 10 Women of Power in Education” by Black Enterprise and as one of the “Power 100” by Ebony. She has been quoted as an expert thought leader by the Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, CNN.com, and numerous other media outlets.

In addition to her academic responsibilities, Dean James is a board member of SurveyMonkey, a California-based market research and customer-experience company, the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), and several organizations that align with her passion for education and advancing women in business. Additionally, she serves as an advisory board member to Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management and as an executive board member to the Indian School of Business.  She also serves on the board of Save the Children, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic opportunities.

Dean James holds a Ph.D. and Master’s degree in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in psychology from Pomona College of the Claremont Colleges in California.

Andrea Jones-Rooy, Ph.D. (they/them) is a professor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies at the NYU Center for Data Science, where they developed and teach their popular flagship course, Data Science for Everyone, as well as advanced courses on Natural Language Processing (NLP). Before coming to NYU, they founded the interdisciplinary major in quantitative social science at NYU Shanghai, taught at Carnegie Mellon University, and earned a Ph.D. in political science with a focus on complex systems at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Andrea is also a research consultant, coach, and keynote speaker for Global Fortune 500s and tech companies on how to more thoughtfully use data science to measure talent, performance, and the (dreaded, IMHO) “potential”. In their spare time, they are an internationally touring standup comedian and circus performer, host of the podcast Majoring in Everything (on YouTube and all the podcast spots), and host of the WORLD’S GREATEST one-person comedy- and circus-accented data science show, the Data Science Spectacular (premiering March 1 at NYC’s Caveat theater and online via livestream).

Charlotte Lockhart is a business advocate, investor, and philanthropist with more than 25 years’ experience in multiple industries locally and overseas.

As CEO for the 4 Day Week Global campaign she works promoting internationally the benefits of a productivity-focused and reduced-hour workplace. Through this, she is on the board of the  Wellbeing Research Centre at Oxford University and the advisory boards of the US campaign and the Ireland campaign for the 4 Day Week.

Since a diagnosis with Stage 4 breast cancer, Charlotte has become very focused on changing the way we work today to a better, more inclusive experience for everyone.

In their spare time Charlotte and Andrew enjoy working in their vineyard business on Waiheke and spending time with family.

Cade Massey is a Practice Professor in the Wharton School’s Operations, Information and Decisions Department. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago and taught at Duke University and Yale University before moving to Penn. Massey’s research focuses on judgment under uncertainty – how, and how well, people predict what will happen in the future. His work draws on experimental and “real world” data such as employee stock options, 401k savings, the National Football League draft, and graduate school admissions.  His research has led to long-time collaborations with Google, Merck and multiple professional sports franchises. Massey’s research has been published in leading psychology and management journals, and covered by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Economist,  and National Public Radio. He has taught MBA and Executive MBA courses for 15 years, receiving teaching awards for courses on negotiation, influence, organizational behavior and human resources. He also co-teaches Wharton’s “People Analytics” MOOC on Coursera. Massey is faculty co-director of Wharton People Analytics, co-host of “Wharton Moneyball” on SiriusXM Business Radio, and co-creator of the Massey-Peabody NFL Power Rankings for the Wall Street Journal. He lives in Center City Philadelphia.

Alicia Menendez anchors MSNBC’s “American Voices with Alicia Menendez” Saturday and Sunday nights from 6 to 8 p.m. ET. She is also the author of The Likeability Trap and host of the “Latina to Latina” podcast. 

Menendez joined MSNBC in October 2019. Prior to joining the network, Menendez served as a correspondent on “Amanpour & Company” on PBS and formerly hosted a nightly news and pop culture show on Fusion called “Alicia Menendez Tonight.” Her reporting and interviews have appeared on ABC News, Bustle, FusionTV, PBS and Vice News. 

Born and raised in New Jersey, Menendez has been called “Ms. Millennial” by The Washington Post, “journalism’s new gladiator” by Elle, and a “content queen” by Marie Claire. 

Menendez is on Twitter at @AliciaMenendez.

Tsedal Neeley (@tsedal) is the Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration and Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Development and Research Strategy at the Harvard Business School. Recognized as one of the 100 people transforming business who are innovating, sparking trends, and tackling global challenges by Business Insider, her work focuses on how leaders can scale their organizations by developing and implementing global and digital strategies. She regularly advises top leaders who are embarking on virtual work and large scale-change that involves global expansion, digital transformation, and becoming more agile.

Anne Helen Petersen writes the newsletter Culture Study, and is the author of four books, most recently Out of the Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working From Home (co-written with Charlie Warzel) and Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation. She received her Ph.D. in media studies from the University of Texas, and was formerly a senior culture writer at BuzzFeed News. She lives on an island off the coast of Washington state.

Daniel H. Pink is the author of seven books, including the forthcoming The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward (Riverhead, 2022).

His other books include the New York Times bestsellers When and A Whole New Mind — as well as the #1 New York Times bestsellers Drive and To Sell is Human. Dan’s books have won multiple awards, have been translated into 42 languages, and have sold millions of copies around the world.

He lives in Washington, DC, with his family.

James Suzman is a social anthropologist. His first major book Affluence Without Abundance  was published in 2017 to wide critical acclaim and his most recent book  WORK was first published in the UK 2020 and USA in Jan 2021 and has been translated into 30 languages. 

He holds a PHD from Edinburgh University and in 2001 he was awarded the Smuts Commonwealth Fellowship in African Studies at Cambridge University. He is a fellow of Robinson College Cambridge. 

For much of the past three decades he has been documenting the encounter between the San peoples of the  Kalahari Desert and the expanding global economy. During this period he worked with many NGOs and community organizations.  Between 1998 and 2001, on behalf of the European Union, led the largest research program into status of southern Africa’s indigenous people.   

Between 2007 and 2013 he worked for the diamond giant De Beers where as Global Head of Public Affairs he was responsible for shaping the company’s external relationships with local communities, NGOs and governments as well as driving and shaping the company’s sustainability strategy.   

Since 2014  he has been director of the anthropological research and support organization Anthropos based in Cambridge focussed primarily on conducting research and offering direct assistance to community level organizations in southern Africa. In addition to his academic work, Suzman has written for the  The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Observer, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Weekly Mail, The Sunday Times,  El Pais, The New Statesman, Salon, Quartz, The Independent, The Big Issue,  New African, UnDark and Aeon.

Zeynep Ton is a Professor of the Practice at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Zeynep’s research focuses on how organizations can design and manage their operations in a way that satisfies employees, customers, and investors simultaneously. Her work has been published in a variety of journals, including Organization Science, Production and Operations Management, and the Harvard Business Review.

In 2014, Zeynep published her findings in a book, The Good Jobs Strategy: How the Smartest Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs and Boost Profits. The book draws on 15 years of research to show that the key to offering good jobs to employees, great service to customers, and superior returns to investors is combining investment in employees with specific operational choices that increase employees’ productivity, contribution, and motivation.

After her book was released, company executives started reaching out to Zeynep to understand how to implement the Good Jobs Strategy in their organizations, or to describe how they were already adopting the strategy. Zeynep cofounded the nonprofit Good Jobs Institute to help them transform through assessments, workshops, and longer term partnerships.

Prior to MIT Sloan, Zeynep spent seven years at Harvard Business School. She has received several awards for teaching excellence both at HBS and MIT Sloan.

Zeynep lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and four children. A native of Turkey, she first came to the US on a volleyball scholarship from the Pennsylvania State University. She received her BS in industrial and manufacturing engineering there and her DBA from the Harvard Business School.