Session: The Art of Choosing

Sheena Iyengar

A world renowned expert on the subject of choice, Sheena Iyengar says that choice can provide a sense of freedom and control that is essential to our well-being.

In her critically acclaimed book, The Art of Choosing, Iyengar shines a bright light on the many different facets of choice, exposing it in all its mystery, complexity and compelling beauty. Iyengar's inter-disciplinary research on how and why we choose, and what we need to do to choose better, has surprising and profound implications for our personal and professional lives.

The Art of Choosing has received rave reviews. It was a finalist for the 2010 Financial Times & Goldman Sachs Best Business Book of the Year Award, and was ranked #3 on Amazon.com's Top Ten Business & Investing Books of 2010. Sheena Iyengar is a member of the 2011 Thinkers 50, a global ranking of the top 50 management thinkers.

Iyengar is the inaugural S.T. Lee Professor of Business at Columbia Business School. She also is director of the Global Leadership Matrix (GLeaM) initiative and research director at the Jerome A. Chazen Institute of International Business at Columbia Business School.

Beta Gamma Sigma International Honoree

Bob McDonald

Bob McDonald is chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer of Procter & Gamble (P&G). When McDonald became CEO in July 2009, he reaffirmed the Company's commitment to its Purpose - to touch and improve the lives of the world's consumers through branded products of superior quality and value. The Company's growth strategy is focused on winning with consumers through innovative, superior performing products that improve the lives of consumers around the world every day.

Under his leadership, P&G has grown sales by an average of about four percent per year over the past three years; earnings per share an average of about four percent; and adjusted free cash flow of about 90 percent. The Company has delivered these results despite significant economic headwinds, including slow-to-no-growth in developed markets, and rising commodity costs.

McDonald is chair of The US-China Business Council, vice chair of the Business Roundtable and chair of the Business Roundtable Fiscal Policy Initiative. He is vice-co-chair of the Consumer Goods Forum and serves on the Foreign Investment Advisory Council in Russia and the Singapore International Advisory Council of the Economic Development Board.

Session: Learning, Leading, and Teaching in the 21st Century

Tony Wagner

Wagner recently accepted a position as the first Innovation education fellow at the Technology & Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard. Prior to this, he was the founder and co-director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for more than a decade. Wagner consults widely to schools, districts and foundations around the country and internationally.

Wagner is also a frequent speaker at national and international conferences and a widely published author. His work includes numerous articles and five books. Wagner's latest, Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change The World, has just been published by Simon & Schuster to rave reviews. His 2008 book, The Global Achievement Gap has been an international best seller and is being translated into Chinese. Wagner has also recently collaborated with noted filmmaker Robert Compton to create a 60-minute documentary, The Finland Phenomenon: Inside The World's Most Surprising School System.

Wagner earned an M.A.T. and an Ed.D. at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.