Business Leaders Keynote Speakers
Proven CEOs, founders, investors, and operators who share what it actually takes to build and lead a business, drawn from real results at real scale.
These speakers have run the company, made the payroll, and lived with the results. Marc Randolph co-founded Netflix and served as its first CEO. Barbara Corcoran turned a $1,000 loan into The Corcoran Group and sold it for $66 million before backing dozens of founders on Shark Tank. Carla Harris spent three decades at the top of Morgan Stanley, and Simon Sinek's Start With Why has become the common language of purpose-driven leadership. Whether your audience needs a founder's story of building a category from nothing, a CEO's view of leading a major institution, an investor's read on what makes businesses win, or a field-tested framework they can run on Monday, the right business leader gives your event instant credibility. The match matters: a sales kickoff, a leadership summit, and an industry congress each call for a different voice, and we help you find it.
CEOs and Chairs of Major Institutions
Leaders who ran institutions at global scale: Morgan Stanley's Carla Harris, Mavericks CEO Cynt Marshall, and The Economist's Zanny Minton Beddoes.
Carla Harris
Vice Chairman of Morgan Stanley and one of the most senior Black women on Wall Street, author of Expect to Win. Three decades of leading at the top of a major global bank, translated into candid, actionable lessons on performance, sponsorship, and leading through pressure.
Cynthia ‘Cynt’ Marshall
CEO of the Dallas Mavericks and the NBA's first Black female CEO, brought in to rebuild the franchise's culture after crisis. Former senior AT&T executive and bestselling author of You've Been Chosen. A masterclass in turning around a major institution under a spotlight.
Zanny Minton Beddoes
Editor-in-Chief of The Economist and the first woman to hold the role. She briefs boards and heads of state on the global economy, giving business leaders the clearest available read on the growth, trade, and technology forces shaping their next strategic decisions.
Randy Garutti
Former CEO of Shake Shack, who took the company from a handful of stands to a public company with hundreds of locations worldwide. Danny Meyer's longtime operating partner, he speaks to scaling culture, hospitality, and standards without losing the soul of the brand.
Robert Safian
Former Editor-in-Chief of Fast Company, where he coined the Generation Flux framing for leading through constant change. He has interviewed hundreds of the world's top CEOs and founders, and distills what today's most effective business leaders actually do differently.
Founders of Category-Defining Companies
Founder-seat stories from Netflix's Marc Randolph, Ring's Jamie Siminoff, and Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer on building companies from zero.
Marc Randolph
Co-founder and first CEO of Netflix, the company that redefined how the world watches entertainment, and author of That Will Never Work. Firsthand founder-seat lessons on testing ideas cheaply, surviving near-death moments, and building a culture that outlasted the DVD.
Danny Meyer
Founder of Union Square Hospitality Group and Shake Shack, author of Setting the Table. Built some of the most celebrated restaurants in America and turned enlightened hospitality into a business operating system that leaders in every industry now borrow.
Jamie Siminoff
Founder of Ring, the video doorbell company he started in his garage, got rejected on Shark Tank, and sold to Amazon for over a billion dollars. The definitive story of conviction, scrappiness, and building a category no one believed in yet.
Mike Cessario
Founder and CEO of Liquid Death, the canned water brand that grew into one of the fastest-growing beverage companies in America on branding audacity alone. A playbook for standing out in commodity markets and marketing like nobody else in the category.
Chris Barton
Founder and creator of Shazam, one of the world's most downloaded apps, acquired by Apple. Former Google and Dropbox leader. He unpacks the years of persistence behind an overnight success and how leaders spot breakthrough ideas hiding in plain sight.
Jennifer Fleiss
Co-founder of Rent the Runway, the company that invented clothing rental at scale and changed how consumers think about ownership. Now an investor backing the next wave of consumer brands. Practical lessons on launching, scaling, and reinventing retail business models.
Jesse Cole
Owner of the Savannah Bananas, the yellow-tuxedoed baseball phenomenon selling out stadiums nationwide with a waitlist years long. His Fans First playbook shows leaders how obsessive customer experience turns a small business into a category of one.
Bert Jacobs
Co-founder and Chief Executive Optimist of Life is Good, the positive-lifestyle apparel brand he and his brother built from selling tee shirts out of a van into a hundred-million-dollar company. Proof that optimism is a business strategy, not a slogan.
Liz Bohannon
Founder of Sseko Designs, the footwear and fashion brand built to fund education for women in Uganda and one of the largest fair trade fashion brands in the world. A founder story where the business model itself is the impact.
Investors and Dealmakers
Investors who bet their own money: Shark Tank's Barbara Corcoran and Daymond John, plus billionaire empire-builder Magic Johnson.
Barbara Corcoran
Turned a $1,000 loan into The Corcoran Group and sold it for $66 million, then spent more than a decade backing founders as a Shark on Shark Tank. Straight talk on deals, grit, and what separates the entrepreneurs who make it.
Daymond John
Founder of FUBU, which he grew from his mother's house into a global brand with billions in sales, and an original Shark on Shark Tank. The Power of Broke in person: dealmaking, branding, and hustle from a self-made billionaire businessman.
Magic Johnson
NBA Hall of Famer turned billionaire businessman and chairman of Magic Johnson Enterprises, with landmark investments from movie theaters to a stake in the Dodgers. One of the great second acts in business: building an empire by betting on overlooked markets.
Jesse Itzler
Serial entrepreneur who co-founded Marquis Jet, sold it to Berkshire Hathaway's NetJets, helped build Zico coconut water before its sale to Coca-Cola, and is a part-owner of the Atlanta Hawks. Bestselling author who makes big audacious goals feel doable.
Emmitt Smith
The NFL's all-time leading rusher and Hall of Famer who built a serious second career as a commercial real estate developer and investor. His playbook on discipline, reinvention, and treating a business career with the same rigor as a championship season.
Operators Turned Teachers
Operators who turned experience into playbooks: Simon Sinek, Multipliers author Liz Wiseman, and Unreasonable Hospitality's Will Guidara.
Simon Sinek
Author of Start With Why and Leaders Eat Last, with one of the most-watched TED Talks ever delivered. The defining voice on purpose-driven leadership; his Golden Circle and infinite mindset frameworks are standard vocabulary in boardrooms around the world.
Liz Wiseman
Former Oracle executive and author of the bestseller Multipliers, based on research into why some leaders double their teams' capability while others quietly drain it. Ranked among the world's top leadership thinkers by Thinkers50. Frameworks leaders can apply the Monday after.
Will Guidara
Co-owned Eleven Madison Park when it was named the best restaurant in the world, and wrote the bestseller Unreasonable Hospitality. His idea, that going one step beyond reasonable is a business strategy, has jumped from restaurants into every service industry.
Chris McChesney
FranklinCovey's Global Practice Leader for execution and author of the #1 bestseller The 4 Disciplines of Execution, one of the most field-tested operating systems for closing the gap between strategy and results. Built from work inside thousands of organizations.
John Rossman
Early Amazon executive who launched the Marketplace business that now drives more than half of Amazon's sales, and author of The Amazon Way and Big Bet Leadership. Translates Amazon's operating principles into moves any leadership team can actually run.
Scott Galloway
NYU Stern professor and serial founder who built and sold L2 to Gartner, bestselling author and Pivot podcast co-host. Nobody delivers sharper or funnier takes on markets, big tech, and where the economy is headed next for business leaders.
Josh Linkner
Five-time tech entrepreneur, founder of ePrize, and New York Times bestselling author, now a venture investor backing early-stage startups. Turns the creative habits of successful founders into repeatable innovation frameworks for established organizations and their teams.
Steve Cadigan
LinkedIn's first Chief HR Officer, who built the culture that carried the company through hypergrowth and its IPO. Now advises companies and leaders worldwide on talent strategy. Firsthand lessons on scaling people and culture as fast as the business.
Ryan Estis
Former chief strategy officer at a top advertising agency turned hyper-growth entrepreneur and bestselling author, one of the most-booked voices on sales and leadership. Field-tested frameworks that help leaders and client-facing teams win in a changed marketplace.
Explore All Business Leaders Speakers
Ben Casnocha
Co-author with LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman of the bestseller The Start-Up of You and co-founder of the venture firm Village Global. Sharp on how the employer-employee relationship is changing and what it means for how leaders build and keep teams.
Cassie Kozyrkov
Google's first Chief Decision Scientist, who trained thousands of Googlers in decision-making and helped found the discipline of decision intelligence. For leadership teams that want their biggest business calls made with data instead of gut feel alone.
Dr. Geeta Nayyar
Former Chief Medical Officer at Salesforce and one of the leading voices on AI in healthcare. Helps executive audiences separate AI reality from hype and lead technology adoption that their people and customers actually trust.
Erica Dhawan
Author of Digital Body Language and a leading expert on 21st century teamwork and collaboration. Gives leadership teams the connectional intelligence playbook for getting hybrid, cross-functional organizations to genuinely work together instead of just coexisting.
Jason O. Harris
Combat-proven military aviator and leadership researcher whose No Fail Trust methodology comes from missions where delegation was life or death. Brings business leaders a tested model for building trust, accountability, and culture under real pressure.
Jay Shetty
Global bestselling author of Think Like a Monk and host of On Purpose, one of the world's most popular podcasts. Brings purpose, focus, and resilience practices to leadership audiences navigating burnout, distraction, and constant change.
Jess Ekstrom
Founder of Headbands of Hope, built as a college student into a national brand that has donated headbands to children in hospitals across the country. An energizing founder story about optimism, momentum, and starting before you feel ready.
Jimmy Johnson
Hall of Fame coach who built the Dallas Cowboys into back-to-back Super Bowl champions and remains a fixture on FOX's NFL coverage. Talent evaluation, standards, and building a winning organization from the bottom of the league up.
John Foley
Former lead solo pilot of the Blue Angels, where teams execute at speeds that leave no room for error. His Glad To Be Here debrief framework gives business teams a repeatable discipline for high performance and continuous improvement.
Mel Robbins
Author of The 5 Second Rule and The Let Them Theory and host of one of the world's most popular podcasts. Behavior-change science that gives leaders and entire workforces simple, sticky tools to stop hesitating and act.
Mick Ebeling
Founder of Not Impossible Labs and two-time SXSW Innovator of the Year, known for projects like 3D-printed prosthetics for children in conflict zones. Shows business audiences how commit first, figure it out second drives breakthrough innovation.
Mike Massimino
Former NASA astronaut who helped repair the Hubble Space Telescope, now a Columbia University professor and bestselling author. High-stakes teamwork, preparation, and leadership lessons from spacewalks where failure was not an option.
Nick Tasler
Organizational psychologist and author whose Year of Wonders approach helps leaders and teams embrace change and make faster, smarter decisions. A practical, research-grounded voice for organizations in the middle of transformation.
Pascal Finette
Lead faculty at Singularity University and a veteran of Mozilla, eBay, and Google, now advising leaders on AI and disruption. Helps executive teams turn exponential technology from a looming threat into an actionable plan.
Peter Zeihan
Geopolitical strategist and bestselling author whose forecasts on demographics, energy, and deglobalization shape boardroom planning. For leadership audiences that need to understand how a rewritten world map changes their supply chains and markets.
Rachel Wilson
Cybersecurity leader for Morgan Stanley's wealth management business after a distinguished career running operations at the NSA. Gives business leaders an insider's view of the cyber threat landscape and what boards and executives must do about it.
Rorke Denver
Navy SEAL commander who ran every phase of training for the SEALs and starred in the film Act of Valor, bestselling author of Damn Few. Leadership under pressure, taught by the man who trained America's most elite teams.
Sam Richter
Bestselling author and technologist who pioneered the field of sales intelligence, teaching teams how to use online information and AI to win more business. Tactical, immediately usable content for revenue teams and client-facing leaders.
Shannon Polson
One of the first women to fly the Army's Apache attack helicopter and author of The Grit Factor. Leadership lessons on grit, courage, and owning your story from leading flight platoons in high-stakes, male-dominated environments.
Susan Salgado
Spent more than a decade building the culture engine behind Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group, then co-founded its consulting arm to teach it. Shows leaders how deliberate culture design produces measurable business results.
Tyronne Stoudemire
Senior Vice President of Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Hyatt Hotels and one of the hospitality industry's most respected culture executives. Practical guidance on building workplaces where global teams and customers feel they belong.
The Business Leaders roster spans the full arc of building and running companies. Founders like Marc Randolph of Netflix, Jamie Siminoff of Ring, and Liquid Death's Mike Cessario share how categories get created. Institutional leaders like Carla Harris of Morgan Stanley and Dallas Mavericks CEO Cynt Marshall speak to leading at scale. Dealmakers Barbara Corcoran, Daymond John, and Magic Johnson bring the investor's eye, while operators turned teachers like Simon Sinek, Liz Wiseman, and Will Guidara translate hard-won experience into frameworks your team can apply immediately.
These speakers fit the moments that matter most on a corporate calendar: an opening keynote that sets the bar for a leadership summit, a closing session that sends a sales kickoff out the door with momentum, an all-hands or offsite that needs a credible outside voice, or an industry congress looking for a headline name. Rave Speakers handles the full booking process, from shortlist to contract to day-of logistics, and matches the speaker's story and fee to your event's goals and budget.
Call (310) 614-8653 or email [email protected] to check availability and fees.
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