Event Archives

Bill Novelli, CEO, AARP
Date: Friday, May 16, 2008
Location: San Ramon

Bill Novelli is the leader of one of the most powerful organizations in the country, AARP, with 38 million members. Bill spoke with our Alliance CEOs about issues including “Re-engineering Healthcare” and "How America Can Afford to Grow Older."

Jim Pouliot, CEO, CSAA
Date: Friday, April 11, 2008
Location: San Francisco

Jim Pouliot shared his experiences with how his insistence on value-based behaviors in his organizations led to better performance and higher profitability.

Don Massaro, CEO, Sendmail Inc.
Date: Friday, April 04, 2008
Location: Santa Clara

Fellow Alliance member, Don Massaro, CEO of Sendmail, discussed some of the lessons learned while leading a number of Silicon Valley technology companies including: Shugart Associates (which was acquired by Xerox), Metaphor Computer, Silicon Gaming, MainStreet Networks, Array Networks and Reconnex.

Paul Clayton, CEO, Jamba Juice
Date: Friday, February 15, 2008
Location: Oakland

Fellow Alliance member, Paul Clayton, CEO of Jamba Juice, discussed his experiences in growing two major retail food brands: Burger King and now, Jamba Juice.

Eamonn Kelly, CEO, Global Business Network
Date: Friday, February 08, 2008
Location: San Francisco

Eamonn Kelly, CEO of Global Business Network, the renowned California-based, future-oriented network and consulting firm, and a partner of the Monitor Group joined us for this Regional Alliance meeting.  Eamonn is the author of “Powerful Times” and we shared an in-depth discussion with Eamonn on his views of the future.

Geoffrey Moore, Author, "Crossing the Chasm"
Date: Friday, February 01, 2008
Location: Santa Clara

Geoffrey Moore, the best-selling author of “Crossing the Chasm” and a Managing Director at TCG Advisors discussed his latest marketing strategies for "Competing in Tough Times:  Innovations Strategies that are Recession Proof.”

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Bill Campbell, Chairman, Intuit
Date: Friday, November 30, 2007
Location: Santa Clara

Bill Campbell, Chairman of Intuit, discussed his philosophies on leadership and management gained from a fascinating career as both a senior executive at several companies including GO Corporation, Claris Corporation and Eastman Kodak Company and as head football coach at Columbia University.  Bill was recently cited by FORTUNE magazine as the “Coach to Silicon Valley CEOs.”

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Keith Sawyer, Author, "Group Genius"
Date: Saturday, November 24, 2007
Location: Oakland

Keith Sawyer, author of Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration discussed his finding that creativity is not an individual gift, but is always collaborative.  Keith has spent 15 years studying the hidden collaborations that drive exceptional creativity.  We learned how we can all maximize the  creativity and power of both our private Alliance CEO Groups but also the small teams within each of our organizations.

Bill Coleman, CEO, Cassatt Corporation
Date: Friday, October 05, 2007
Location: Santa Clara

Bill Coleman, the CEO of Cassatt and Founder of BEA Systems - the fastest software firm ever to exceed $1 billion in revenues, joined us for this Regional Alliance Meeting. Bill discussed his views on the future of technology and how the technology industries will evolve.  It was an incredibly stimulating discussion about how the world will be changing in the next 10 to 20 years.

Peter Magowan, General Partner, the San Francisco Giants
Date: Friday, August 31, 2007
Location: Oakland

Peter Magowan, General Partner of the San Francisco Giants, discussed his leadership lessons learned from being the CEO for organizations as different as Safeway and the Giants, as well as being on the board of both Chrysler and Caterpillar.  Alliance members had a great time discussing a wide variety of topics with Peter ranging from the “business of baseball” …to how Safeway built Safeway Select, their private label brand into 20% of their business…to Chrysler’s challenges and opportunities.

Lynn Upshaw, Principal, Upshaw Marketing
Date: Thursday, August 30, 2007
Location: San Francisco

Lynn Upshaw, principal of Upshaw Marketing, an accomplished author and award-winning educator at the Haas School of Business joined us for this regional Alliance Meeting.  Lynn has deep experience in a wide range of marketing and brand building services and discussed how "Great Leaders are Great Marketers."

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Eric Benhamou, Chairman, Palm, Inc.
Date: Friday, August 03, 2007
Location: Santa Clara

Eric Benhamou, Chairman of Palm, 3Com and Cypress Semiconductor led an interactive discussion about his 30 plus years of experience in building some very high profile, successful technology companies.

Tom Miller, Managing Partner, The Trium Group
Date: Friday, June 08, 2007
Location: San Francisco

Tom Miller, CEO of The Trium Group, led a discussion on how his firm helps create brilliant organizations.  He defines “brilliant organizations” as those that create value for multiple stakeholders, adapt well to change, bring out the best in others, deliver results and are organizations where we’d like our kids to work.  Tom specializes in working with both large companies and early-stage businesses on vision, strategy, performance improvement and creating leaders and companies of the future.

Martin McGlynn, CEO, StemCells, Inc.
Date: Friday, June 01, 2007
Location: Santa Clara

Alliance member, Martin McGlynn of StemCells, the first company to directly identify and isolate human neural stem cells from normal brain tissue, joined us for this regional Alliance Meeting.  Martin has spent several decades in the life sciences industry in Europe, Canada and the United States and will share his experiences in this developing area of biotechnology.

Rick Cronk, Co-Founder, Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream
Date: Friday, May 18, 2007
Location: Oakland

Rick Cronk, Co-Founder of Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream discussed his leadership philosophies and the "Dreyer's Grooves."  These "Grooves" create a work environment where each individual is empowered, involved and encouraged (indeed expected) to truly "make a difference" in Dreyer's success as a company. 

Chip Conley, CEO, Joie de Vivre Hospitality
Date: Friday, April 13, 2007
Location: San Francisco

Chip Conley, CEO of Joie de Vivre Hospitality and author of "Rebel Rules” and "Marketing Matters," discussed his philosophies on leadership from his newest book "How Great Companies Get Their MOJO from Maslow.”  Chip gave a brilliant analysis of how Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs enabled him to gain the commitment of customers, employees, and owners.  Our Alliance CEOs are still talking about Chip’s discussion.

John Hamm, General Partner, VSP Capital
Date: Monday, February 26, 2007
Location: Oakland

Former CEO of Whistle Communications, John Hamm is the author of the highly acclaimed article in the Harvard Business Review on "Why Entrepreneurs Don’t Scale." John's presentation to the Alliance was "CEO Leadership." Over the last six years, John has worked with over 120 CEOs nationwide providing strategy and leadership advice.

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Bo Burlingham, Author, "Small Giants"
Date: Friday, December 15, 2006
Location: Oakland

Bo Burlingham, author of Small Giants: Companies that Choose to be Great Instead of Big, discussed his study of CEOs that chose to march to their own drummer. Bo is also Editor at Large of INC Magazine and Co-Author of The Great Game of Business.

Sam Saks, CEO, Jazz Pharmaceuticals
Date: Friday, December 01, 2006
Location: Santa Clara

Sam is the CEO of Jazz Pharmaceuticals and formerly leader of Alza Corporation which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson. He spoke to his fellow Alliance members about his leadership philosophies and vision for Jazz Pharmaceuticals.

John Dillon, CEO, Navis
Date: Friday, October 20, 2006
Location: Oakland

John is the former CEO of Hyperion Software and Salesforce.com. He spoke to his fellow Alliance members about his experiences in the software industry that shaped his leadership philosophies and vision for Navis.