Event Archives

Victor Cheng, Author, The Recession-Proof Business
Date: Friday, February 19, 2010
Location: San Ramon

"America's Business Coach," Victor Cheng joined us for this regional Alliance meeting.  Victor is an expert at showing business owners how to profit in even the worst of economies. He has been featured as a small business, banking, and recession expert by the Fox Business Television Network, MSNBC, The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News and World Report, SmartMoney magazine, Inc. magazine, TheStreet.com, and Monster.com. Victor discussed “Lessons from the Winners of the past 12 US Recessions” with us.  

Bob Johansen, Author, "Leaders Make the Future"
Date: Friday, February 12, 2010
Location: San Francisco

Futurist, Distinguished Fellow with the Institute for the Future, and author of the visionary book Leaders Make the Future: Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World, Bob Johansen, joined us for this regional Alliance meeting.  Bob discussd how leaders must adapt from the chaotic world of today to the uncertain, but challenging world of tomorrow. He discussed the importance of understanding the technological, economic, societal and environmental trends and how recognizing them is not only the key to success but survival.

Bob Hagerty, CEO, Polycom
Date: Friday, February 05, 2010
Location: Santa Clara

This Regional Alliance Meeting featured Bob Hagerty, Chairman & CEO of Polycom.  Bob came to Polycom to build on the vision of delivering a total conferencing and collaboration solution to the customer. Polycom's solutions are unique, integrating voice, video, Web, and data conferencing, and the network to support them. He discussed trends in collaboration and what he's learned about having global, remote teams collaborate.

John Hamm, General Partner, Venture Strategy Group
Date: Friday, December 04, 2009
Location: Santa Clara

We were pleased to welcome back John Hamm for our keynote discussion. John is the former CEO of Whistle Communications (acquired by IBM) and the author of two of the most read articles in Harvard Business Review history: "Why Entrepreneurs Don't Scale" and "Five Messages Leaders Must Manage." His newest book, The Necessary Nine is about the leadership skills that define our best leaders.

• Download PDF

Jim Wunderman, CEO, Bay Area Council
Date: Friday, November 20, 2009
Location: San Ramon

This Regional Alliance Meeting featured Jim Wunderman, President & CEO of the Bay Area Council, the voice of Bay Area business leaders.  Under Jim’s leadership, the Council has developed a global competitiveness strategy for the Bay Area that serves as a model for other regions.   As the government becomes increasingly active in the economy, we invited Jim to speak with our Alliance CEOs about what this means for Bay Area CEOs and what we can do about it.

John Stumpf, CEO, Wells Fargo
Date: Friday, November 13, 2009
Location: San Francisco

This Regional Alliance Meeting featured John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo.  A 26-year veteran of the company, John most recently led Wells Fargo’s merger with Wachovia, creating North America’s largest distribution system for financial services!

Ken Weller, Former CEO, The Good Guys
Date: Friday, August 14, 2009
Location: San Francisco

Ken Weller, the former CEO of The Good Guys joined us for this regional Alliance meeting. Ken discussed how “you’re only as good as the people who work for you.”

Carl Guardino, CEO, Silicon Valley Leadership Group
Date: Friday, August 07, 2009
Location: Santa Clara

This Regional Alliance Meeting featured Carl Guardino, one of Silicon Valley’s most distinguished business and community leaders.  Known throughout the region as a consensus builder, Carl has championed a number of important issues, especially in the areas of transportation and housing. He joined us for a discussion of the growing involvement of government into the private sector and what it means for CEOs.

Kevin Surace, CEO, Serious Materials Inc.
Date: Friday, June 05, 2009
Location: Santa Clara

This Regional Alliance Meeting featured Alliance member Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials, and a noted writer on climate change.  Serious Materials’ mission is to reduce energy usage and CO2 generation from the world’s largest contributor, our buildings. Formerly, Kevin was CEO of Perfect Commerce, and was a top executive at General Magic where he built the world's largest internet/telephony operations center.  Before General Magic, Kevin was CEO of Air Communications and WebKnight.

Watch a video of this speaker’s remarks (MOV-16MB)

Jerry Kennelly, CEO, Riverbed Technology
Date: Friday, May 15, 2009
Location: San Ramon

Fellow Alliance member, Jerry Kennelly, CEO of Riverbed Technology joined us for this regional Alliance meeting. Jerry co-founded Riverbed, the performance leader in wide-area data services in 2002 and was one of the top IPOs in 2006.  Jerry has more than 25 years of industry experience in companies such as Sybase, Oracle, HP, and Hitachi and this is his third successful startup after Inktomi and Gain.

David Thomson, Founder, The Blueprint Growth Institute
Date: Friday, May 08, 2009
Location: San Francisco

David Thomson, the best-selling author of Blueprint to a Billion joined us for this regional Alliance meeting  David shared his insights on how to transform a small business into a high growth business that can achieve exponential revenue growth all the way to a billion and beyond. His business strategy insights are based on a three-year study which identified the success pattern of America's highest growth companies.

Judy Estrin, CEO, JLabs LLC
Date: Friday, April 03, 2009
Location: Santa Clara

Judy Estrin joined us for this regional Alliance meeting.  Prior to co-founding Packet Design / JLabs in May 2000, Judy was CTO for Cisco and has founded three other successful technology companies: Bridge Communications, Network Computing Devices and Precept Software.  Named by FORTUNE magazine as one of the 50 most powerful women in business, Judy is also on the Board of Directors for Disney and FedEx.  Judy talked with our Alliance CEOs about the growing “innovation gap” in the US.

• Download PDF

Michael Gregoire, CEO, Taleo Corporation
Date: Friday, February 20, 2009
Location: San Ramon

Fellow Alliance member, Michael Gregoire, CEO of Taleo Corporation joined us for this regional Alliance meeting. Michael has led the on-demand talent management solutions company since 2005.  Leading organizations worldwide use Taleo solutions to assess, acquire, develop, and align their workforce for improved business performance.

Eamonn Kelly, CEO, Global Business Network
Date: Friday, February 13, 2009
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 led an in-depth discussion about his views of the future.

• Download PDF

Tom Siebel, Chairman & CEO, Siebel Systems
Date: Friday, February 06, 2009
Location: Santa Clara

Tom Siebel, founder and CEO of Siebel Systems, spoke candidly about how the current environment has changed and discussed the transition from a focus on information technologies to energy, health and clean-tech.

Bill Campbell, Chairman, Intuit
Date: Friday, December 05, 2008
Location: Santa Clara

We were pleased to welcome Bill Campbell back to the Alliance.  Bill is the Chairman of Intuit. He 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.”

• Download PDF

Warren Bryant, Chairman & CEO, Longs Drug Stores
Date: Friday, November 21, 2008
Location: San Ramon

Warren Bryant, Chairman & CEO of Longs Drugs Stores Corporation joined us for our East Bay regional meeting.  Warren discussed the lessons he learned in his career with The Kroger Company and now as CEO of Longs.

Tim Brown, CEO, IDEO
Date: Friday, November 14, 2008
Location: San Francisco

Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, the world's leading design consultancy specializing in turnkey product development and innovation strategy joined us for our San Francisco regional meeting. Tim discusssed his special interest in cultivating great design and innovative thinking within multidisciplinary teams.

Bob Sutton, Author, The No Asshole Rule
Date: Friday, October 03, 2008
Location: Santa Clara

Robert Sutton is the author of The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't.  Bob is also a Professor of Management Science and Engineering in the Stanford Engineering School, where he is Co-Director of the Center for Work, Technology, an active member of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, and a cofounder of the new Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. Bob discussed his studies of the links between managerial knowledge and organizational action, innovation, and organizational performance, with the attending Alliance members.

Regis McKenna,
Date: Friday, August 01, 2008
Location: Santa Clara

Regis McKenna founded his own high tech marketing firm, Regis McKenna, Inc., in Silicon Valley in 1970 after working in the marketing departments of two early semiconductor pioneering companies. McKenna is included in the San Jose Mercury News' Millennium 100 as one of the 100 people who made Silicon Valley what it is today. McKenna has written and lectured extensively on the social and market effects of technological change advancing innovations in marketing theories and practices. Regis spoke to the participating Alliance members about "How Technology is Changing Marketing."