Keynote Speakers

In 2007, Dr. Michael Sorrell faced a life-altering decision. He was part of an ownership group that was on the verge of purchasing the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies and he would serve as the team’s president following the completion of the deal — a dream come true for him. At the same time, he was approached by Paul Quinn College, a failing institution, to serve as the historically Black college’s president in the interim while they sought out a permanent appointment to take over the role — a search that was proving difficult as the school continued to falter. Dr. Sorrell accepted the role, hoping it would be a brief side quest on his journey to becoming an NBA executive. In reality, it marked the beginning of a transformative and innovative era for the school that continues to this day. Dr. Sorrell has spearheaded one of the great turnaround stories of our time — leading Paul Quinn’s evolution from one of the worst in the nation to a higher education powerhouse. As the longest-tenured president in the college’s history, he has instilled a “WE Over Me” mentality in students, faculty, and the community at large and has been revered throughout his historic tenure for his ability to reimagine organizations to better serve the needs of the people that depend on them. He is a testament to the power of purpose and vision.

Dr. Sorrell’s talks center on why the simplest approach to leadership is often the most effective one. As he engages the audience with the experiences that led him to Paul Quinn College, and the turnaround that followed, he introduces them to his values-based leadership formula. Dr. Sorrell emphasizes the importance of being authentic and establishing a vision as a leader and demonstrates how leaders can adapt when life takes an unexpected turn and unite people around a shared mission. Sorrell is a polished storyteller who captures the audience’s attention from his first word and keeps it until the very end. As a leader who truly walks the talk, Dr. Sorrell’s story of forgoing his dream of serving as a president and part owner of an NBA seam is one of sacrificing personal interest in order to serve and elevate others.

Prior to Dr. Sorrell’s tenure as president, Paul Quinn College was on the verge of permanent closure. He brought a vision for rebuilding the 151-year-old HBCU on foundations of problem-solving, entrepreneurship, and academic excellence. Dr. Sorrell’s revitalization plan began with rebranding the campus and partnering with PepsiCo to transform the college’s unused football field into the “WE Over Me Farm.” These initiatives were part of his broader mission to create a new urban college model and address the food desert in the surrounding community. Under Dr. Sorrell’s leadership, Paul Quinn College revamped its admissions policy to include the families of incoming students, established partnerships to increase academic offerings, and modernized operations leading to budget surpluses. By 2011, Paul Quinn had gone from struggling small college to being named the “HBCU of the Year.”

Among his most notable awards and recognitions, Dr. Sorrell has been named one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders” by Fortune Magazine, received the George W. Bush Presidential Center’s Bush Institute Trailblazer Citation, and is the only three-time recipient of the HBCU Male President of the Year Award. Dr. Sorrell has also been named by TIME Magazine as one of the “31 People Changing the South” and one of “America’s 10 Most Innovative College Presidents” by the Washington Monthly. Among his numerous board appointments, Dr. Sorrell has served as the chair of the Board of Governors for the Dallas Foundation and co-chair for the Aspen Prize. He has also been a trustee for the American Council of Education.

Before becoming president at Paul Quinn College, Dr. Sorrell served as a Special Assistant in the Executive Office of the President during the Clinton Administration, opened his own business, worked as a public affairs consultant, and practiced law.

A former senior NASA robotics researcher and Mars Exploration research engineer at the space agency’s storied Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), co-founder of a trailblazing ed-tech company, and dean of the 10,000-student strong College of Engineering at The Ohio State University, Ayanna Howard, Ph.D., is a true leader in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics engineering.

According to Howard, AI is poised to enhance every aspect of our professional and personal lives, particularly in such areas as remote work, health care, education, and manufacturing. But she emphasizes we must ensure the ethical development of these increasingly prevalent technologies.

“AI has already enhanced medical care, education, transportation, and so much more. It’s also been groundbreaking in facilitating social interaction, which is so important,” explains Howard, who recently joined the esteemed ranks of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. “But we must protect ourselves and others in the process. We need to be able to get the benefits of AI while ensuring broad access and without sacrificing privacy.”

Described by the media as everything from “Superwoman undercover” to “The Pied Piper of potential,” Sarah Robb O’Hagan is an executive, entrepreneur, author, and founder of Extreme Living — a content platform designed to help individuals, teams, and organizations play to their highest potential. She is also the CEO of EXOS, the leading human performance coaching company, which counts 30 percent of the Fortune 100 companies among its clients. In this role Sarah and her teamwork with individuals ranging from C-Suite leaders and their teams, through to pro athletes and elite level military personnel who are looking to improve their performance in work, sport, and life. Moreover, Sarah and her team are leading the conversation around the future of high performance in the modern-day workplace — with research and new methodologies to help clients create cultures that reduce burnout while promoting productivity.

Sarah is a rare blend of fierce businesswoman, cheerleading Mom, passionate women’s advocate, and high-energy innovator. In fast-paced presentations and in her book, Extreme You: Step Up, Stand Out, Kick Ass, Repeat, Sarah lays out a roadmap for becoming the most “extreme” version of yourself by playing to your own unique passions and strengths, and by building highly-collaborative, focused, and successful teams and corporations. Drawing on her decades of experience at some of the world’s most influential brands, she shares practical takeaways including how to get comfortable making bold moves and using failures in work or life to come back stronger, how to discover your most competitive playing field, and most importantly, how to tune your own mind and body for best performance in a fast-paced, hybrid work world so you can also empower the kind of teamwork that brings out the best in everyone else. She is exclusively represented by Leading Authorities speakers bureau.

Professionally, Sarah is widely regarded as a transformational CEO having personally led the development of breakthrough innovation efforts in her corporate career, including: the turnaround of Gatorade from a declining sports drink into an innovative sports performance company; the Virgin Atlantic Airways-Austin Powers movie collaboration in which the airline was rebranded “Virgin Shaglantic;” Equinox’s transformation from a brick-and-mortar gym to an always-on, digital-first fitness business; and the turnaround and transformation of her current company EXOS, in the midst of the global pandemic.

She is also not afraid to talk about what she calls her “canyon of career despair” in her 20s, using major back-to-back failures to learn, to grow, and motivate herself forward to eventually lead a $5 billion global business by the age of 38. Sarah shares firsthand accounts of these peaks and valleys — pairing stories of firings with a behind-the-scenes look at Gatorade’s transformational turnaround under her stewardship — to illustrate what it truly takes to be successful, why you learn more when you play for all or nothing, the importance of humility, and why you must always “play your own game.” She also taps into her own experiences with extreme burnout after giving birth to her third child in the midst of the Gatorade turnaround — and how it informed the work she does with EXOS today helping corporate clients and executives around the world to lead healthy high performing teams.

Robb O’Hagan has been named twice to Forbes magazine’s list of the “Most Powerful Women in Sports,” named a “Woman to Watch” by Ad Age magazine, dubbed one of the “Most Creative People in Business” by Fast Company, and named to “40 Under 40” lists by Sports Business Journal, Crain’s Chicago Business, and Sports Goods Business. She also complements her operating experience with board service, having served on the board of Strava, as well as her current role as an independent director for JetBlue Airways.

Sarah is a passionate advocate for an active lifestyle and believes the lessons learned from sports and fitness can be applied to improve performance in the workplace. She has served on Hillary Clinton’s U.S. State Department Council to Empower Women and Girls through Sports and is a trustee of the Women’s Sports Foundation. She is an active member of the World Class New Zealand Network, as she remains committed to helping the country’s development, international competitiveness, and economic growth. In 2016, she was awarded the Sir Peter Blake Trust Award for outstanding leadership, and in 2018 she was named a “WISE” Woman of the Year.