Corporations & Associations

A trio of APB speakers was recently named to Forbes magazine’s 50 Over 50 List of Women Who Are Leading the Way in Impact list. The three honored are: Melissa Berton, Cofounder and Executive Director of The Pad Project; Susan McPherson, Founder and CEO, McPherson Strategies; and Winona LaDuke, Founder, White Earth Land Recovery Project. According to Forbes, the women are being recognized for changing their communities and the world in ways big and small through social entrepreneurship, law, advocacy and education.  

Fortune magazine recently announced “The Best Books of 2021—So Far” and it includes APB Speaker Susan McPherson’s new work. The Lost Art of Connecting: The Gather, Ask, Do, Method For Building Meaningful Business Relationships (McGraw-Hill) was nominated to be on the list by Ellen McGirt, Senior Editor at Fortune. “In this delightful book, McPherson explains not just how to infuse your interactions with trust and purpose, but why it matters, now more than ever,” McGirt writes. 

Ruzwana Bashir, Co-founder and CEO of Peek.com, was recently honored by the Female Founders Alliance (FFA) with its Founder Award for pivoting her travel and experiences company in the face of a global pandemic. The Founder Award is part of the FFA’s Champion Awards, which celebrate champions of intersectional gender equity. Finalists for the awards were selected from hundreds of nominations submitted by FFA’s community. Winners were chosen after tallying thousands of votes.  

In a little more than a month, over 14,000 people from more than 200 countries will gather in Tokyo, Japan, for the Summer Olympics. They will be joined by thousands of delegates and members of the press. One month later, an additional 5,000 athletes and support staff will come together in Tokyo for the Paralympic Games.  These two enormous events have APB speaker Dr. Michael Osterholm, Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, and several of his colleagues deeply concerned. 

When APB speaker Maryam Banikarim decided to return to the workforce after a year-and-a-half hiatus, she never imagined her new job would play a major role in helping millions navigate one of the worse crises of the century. And this same event would skyrocket her company’s social platform growth. Banikarim, former CMO of Hyatt Hotels, joined social media company Nextdoor as CMO just a few weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic began ravaging the world and forcing us to stay home. 

APB speaker and former commanding officer of SEAL Team TWO Mike Hayes has made J.P. Morgan’s 2021 Summer Reading List with his book, Never Enough: A Navy SEAL Commander on Living a Life of Excellence, Agility, and Meaning. The book discusses the mentality of the U.S. Navy SEALs and how it can be implemented in everyone’s life for the better. J.P. Morgan stated, “He shares the pillars of excellence, agility and meaning, along with the notion that everyone must look for opportunities to support their teams in order to ensure we all succeed.”   

Do you want to drastically improve your thinking? APB speaker and former commanding Officer of SEAL Team TWO Mike Hayes offers us 5 ideas to illustrate “how to think,” instead of “what to think,” to Inc. Drawing on examples from his illustrious career, Hayes shares leadership principles such as teaching individuals how a leader’s job is not to make the best decision, but rather to make sure the best decision gets made. In addition, he explains how comfort with discomfort is a key tenet of high-performance individuals and organizations. According to Hayes, these five ideas can improve our thinking in almost any scenario: 1. All high-stakes decisions are fundamentally the same, 2. Get the broadest range of inputs possible, 3. Emphasize the signal over the noise, 4. The first decision is when to make the decision, and 5. Bring your values to bear in every decision you make.

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On May 26, 2020, Philonise Floyd learned that his older brother, George “Perry” Floyd, Jr. had been murdered by four police officers in Minneapolis after a store clerk alleged that he passed a counterfeit $20 bill. The world watched as named officer, Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. George’s death sparked a worldwide outpour of protests against police brutality, especially toward black people. Philonise vowed that George’s death would not be in vain, another hashtag on a t-shirt, and started the Philonise and Keeta Floyd Institute for Social Change, actively working to eliminate the daily impacts of police brutality, criminal justice reform and systemic racism.

Prices on many products are on a rise, and consumers are speaking out. APB speaker and Professor of Supply Chains at Northeastern University Dr. Nada Sanders says it’s going to get worse before it gets better.