Using Humor and Levity to Repair Our Communities
Speaker Biographies
Dr. Jennifer Aaker
Dr. Aaker is the General Atlantic Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a leading expert on how purpose and meaning shape individual choices and how technology can positively impact both human well-being and company growth. Her work has been widely published in leading scientific journals and featured in The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and Science. A recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award and the MBA Professor of the Year, Aaker counts winning a dance-off in the early 1980s among her greatest feats.
Naomi Bagdonas
Naomi is a Lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and an Executive Coach. She helps leaders be more creative, flexible, and resilient in the face of change by facilitating interactive sessions for Fortune 100 companies and coaching executives and celebrities for appearances ranging from Saturday Night Live to the Today Show. Formally trained at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, Bagdonas performs at comedy venues and teaches improv in San Francisco’s county jail. Her constant stream of foster dogs describes her as gullible and full of treats.
Tina Sharkey
Tina Sharkey has driven innovation in media, commerce, and community for more than two decades, pioneering the development and adoption of pivotal consumer brands and platforms that bring data and technology together. A C-suite executive, entrepreneur, investor, board member, and change agent, she has created, led, and scaled global brands and businesses transforming the way we communicate, shop, and share.
As its co-founder and CEO, Tina built and operated the consumer products company Brandless, assembling and leading the team that developed from scratch a direct-to-consumer power-house named one of Fast Company’s most innovative retailers two years in a row. She scaled Johnson & Johnson’s BabyCenter to become the largest platform in the world for new and expectant mothers; oversaw AOL’s defining transition from a closed network to the open web; served as President of the renowned Sesame Street Digital Group, and co-founded iVillage, a pioneering online destination for women that became one of the most popular sites on the internet.
Her success in creating relatable brands and vibrant, engaged communities has been a throughline in her otherwise diverse career. Tina advises C-suite executives of Fortune 500 companies on investments, M&A, strategic partnerships and incubation, and mentors founders and business leaders. She is also an investor focused on disruptive companies – and their founders – and has worked extensively with technology-enabled consumer and enterprise startups, including Conde Nast, eBay Target, and Salesforce.
Recognized as one of the top 100 People Transforming Business by Business Insider, named by Fast Company as one of the Top Women in Technology, and chosen as one of Entrepreneur’s Most Daring Entrepreneurs, Tina delivered keynote and mainstage speeches on brands that scale, harnessing the power of community, entrepreneurship, purpose-driven disruption, and digital transformation at events including Milken Global Conference, TechCrunch Disrupt, NRF, Wall Street Journal D Live, and TEDx. She lectures at universities including Harvard Business School, The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, The Marshall School at USC, and Stanford. A Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, Tina currently serves on the national board of the Public Broadcasting Network (PBS) and IPSY. Previously she served on the Board of Directors of HomeAway, (NASDAQ: AWAY) through the successful sale to Expedia.
Tina emphatically believes in building brands with soul, purpose as an imperative, and that taking the high road will always deliver a better view.
