Category: Speaker News

The era of companies extracting value from our social systems is over, Doug says. “We have crossed over into a new era where competitive advantage will come not through further extraction of value, but rather through contribution of value.”

One of Lavin’s most requested speakers, Doug is a bestselling author and internationally renowned retail futurist whose work has influenced the world’s biggest brands, including Walmart, Google, Disney, and Estée Lauder.

In his vital new talk, Doug lays out the business case for adapting to an era where businesses will need to contribute value in order to compete. You’ll learn:

• How cutting-edge brands like Amazon and Google are laying the foundation for what promises to be the greatest leap in competitive advantage in modern history;
• Why every brand will eventually need to adapt in order to survive (and how getting a head start today will ensure a sustained edge over your competition);
• How investing in your workers and their education will pay massive dividends in the long term;
• How to use the 4 pillars of new competitive advantage—rethinking democracy, rethinking capitalism, rethinking industrialism, and rethinking education—to boost your bottom line;
• and much more!

“One of the strongest artists to emerge in this country this century.”—Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Jerry Saltz

LaToya Ruby Frazier is a long-time Lavin speaker who captures the struggles and triumphs of Black Americans against racial, environmental, and health injustices with the “preternatural observational powers of Rembrandt and Goya” (Vulture).

Intimate and evocative, Latoya’s art shines a light on the overlooked stories of Black working-class communities. She spent five years collaborating with the residents of Flint, Michigan to document their resilience in the face of the toxic water crisis, investigated how the closure of a General Motors plant forced many workers to make difficult decisions about their families and livelihoods, and much more.

Writing for the TIME100, Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage called LaToya “an eloquent storyteller, making visible the landscapes and lives of working people” and said that her images “pierce our complacency and demand that we pay attention to the world around us with intention and compassion.”

This Sunday (May 12), the Museum of Modern Art, New York will open their celebratory solo show dedicated to LaToya’s storied career so far. The show, entitled Monuments of Solidarity, features award-winning art from LaToya’s two decades using her iconic photos to uplift marginalized voices and build community. A “quietly revolutionary testament to our time” (Vulture), it’s a vital reminder of the role we all play in challenging injustice—and a celebration of the creativity, mutual support, and collaboration that are bringing us all towards a better world.

“Ellen was the first Hispanic woman to go to space, ushering in a whole new age of space exploration and what it means for every generation to reach for the stars.”—President Joe Biden

Lavin speaker Ellen Ochoa just received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is awarded to Americans who represent “the pinnacle of leadership in their fields.” It honors leaders who “built teams, coalitions, movements, organizations, and businesses that shaped America for the better.” Ellen is one of only 19 recipients this year—the star-studded list includes Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore, former Secretary of State John Kerry, and “grandmother of Juneteenth” Opal Lee.

Ellen grew up without role models in STEM who looked like her. But that didn’t prevent her from climbing from engineer to inventor and finally to astronaut, making history as the first Latina in space.

And she didn’t stop there. As the first Latinx (and second female) director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, she transformed its company culture to welcome diverse voices, making it possible for people of all backgrounds to contribute and thrive there. Her work championing psychological safety at NASA was profiled in Adam Grant’s bestseller Think Again as an example of how to build a culture of inclusion and innovation.

In talks, Ellen draws on her groundbreaking story to encourage us all to work together, break barriers, and aim for the stars.

Absolutely brilliant. Uniquely astute. Sarah Lewis grows The Unseen Truth from her superb Vision and Justice project into a work of stunning originality.— Nell Irvin Painter (The History of White People)

For too long, images have been used to support racial injustice in America. But now, Vision & Justice founder Sarah Elizabeth Lewis is showing us instead how to use them as a vital tool in our search for equality.

In her hotly anticipated new book, The Unseen Truth (out this Fall), this award-winning art historian reveals the hidden history of a time when Americans were confronted with the truth about America. It’s already being hailed as “a groundbreaking work of visionary scholarship” (Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates, Jr.) and “an indispensable resource to better see ourselves” (Clint Smith, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How the Word Is Passed).

Sarah tells the story of the Caucasian war—the fight for independence in the Caucasus that coincided with the end of the U.S. Civil War—and how it showed that the place from which we derive “Caucasian” for whiteness actually wasn’t white at all. She reveals how visual tactics concealed the truth, and how we can begin to see one another more clearly and start to rebuild together.

Just this month, Sarah was profiled in The New York Times!

This huge feature reveals how her Vision & Justice book initiative publishes monographs on underrepresented Black photographers to build a richer, more inclusive history of photography and the arts. And it’s just one prong of her larger initiative, which aims to achieve full citizenship for all Americans through the power of imagery.

Tyler Mitchell, whose portrait of Beyoncé was the first Vogue cover shot by a Black photographer, calls Vision & Justice “a bible to what has been unseen.”

“Black Americans have always been foundational to the idea of American freedom,” says MacArthur “Genius” Nikole Hannah-Jones, one of TIME‘s most influential people in the world. She’s dedicated her career to proving that when we understand the history of Black America, we understand the history and the future of all America—which makes us better equipped to fight for racial justice today.

The 1619 Project Hulu docuseries weaves Nikole’s own story with the story of our country, exploring concepts from democracy to music to justice. The six-part series, an expansion of the groundbreaking New York Times anthology and #1 NYT bestselling book, is a collaboration between Nikole, director Roger Ross Williams (the first Black director to win an Oscar), and executive producer Oprah Winfrey.

Each episode is based on an essay from the original anthology. As host, Nikole talks to real people—from workers to musicians to mothers—whose compelling stories give us a larger picture of Black America and the nation as a whole. She offers us the chance to gain not only a better understanding of our past, but also the tools to make real change in the present. “The 1619 Project is not a history,” Nikole says. “It really is talking about America today.”

How to Implement a Growth Mindset in Your Whole Organization

Mary C. Murphy

Photography, Solidarity, Hope

LaToya Ruby Frazier

“Monuments of Solidarity” MoMA Exhibition

MacArthur “Genius” LaToya Ruby Frazier is “one of the strongest artists to emerge in this country this century” (Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Jerry Saltz). The New York Museum of Modern Art is dedicating a massive, celebratory, and much-anticipated solo show to LaToya’s storied career so far: two decades using her iconic photos to bring recognition to the overlooked stories of Black working-class communities. LaToya speaks with passion on workers’ rights, environmental racism, and community solidarity.

AI Won’t Destroy Education. It’ll Save It

Salman Khan

Brave New Words

As founder of the famous online learning platform Khan Academy, Salman Khan is using tech like ChatGPT to give each individual a personal tutor, turning struggling students into proficient ones and proficient students into superstars. His recent TED Talk was one of the top 10 most watched of the year, and in his upcoming book, Brave New Words, he argues that AI’s most powerful use-case is to enhance HI: “human intelligence, human potential, and human purpose.”

“Brilliant. Personal. And best of all, actionable. A highlight reel of what scientists know about how to change behavior for good.”—Angela Duckworth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Grit 

“Some moments are much more motivating than others for starting something new. And of course, the most famous of those is New Year’s,” says Katy Milkman, Wharton professor and bestselling author of How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. “Fresh start moments give us optimism about what we’re capable of.”

Katy was recently named to this year’s Thinkers50 (widely known as the Oscars of Management Thinking), and was one of three experts interviewed for Jay Shetty’s “Navigating Change” Masterclass. She reveals 5 practical tips that you can use this New Year’s in order to achieve your goals for 2024:

1. Add cues like when and where to your plan. Instead of saying “I’ll meditate on weekdays,” try “I’ll meditate at the office on weekdays during my lunch break.” These cues help jog your memory at the right moment.
2. Try a penalty clause. Putting some money on the line—and forfeiting it when you fail—can motivate you to follow through on your goals. You can make a bet with a friend, or try a website like StickK which gives your money to a charity if you fail.
3. Make it fun. Instead of striving to complete your goal as efficiently as possible, try directing your efforts so that you actually enjoy the process. Katy suggests “temptation bundling”: combining a chore with a guilty pleasure.
4. Allow for emergencies. Giving yourself one or two “get-out-of-jail-free” cards to use each week can keep you pushing forward after a misstep. If you happen to slip up once, you can use your emergency card rather than throw in the towel.
5. Get help from your friends. Spending time with high achievers—who can show you how they reached their own goals—can boost your own performance. But coaching friends towards shared goals can improve your success too.

Watch Katy explain why every change you want to make requires its own unique game plan: