Dr. Alvy Ray Smith is the co-founder of two successful start-ups: Pixar, an animation studio which was sold to Disney, and Altamira, a software company which was sold to Microsoft. He also co-founded the Lucas film Computer Division, which developed computer graphics software including early renderer technology. As director of the Computer Graphics Project, he created and directed the “Genesis Demo” in The Wrath of Khan, and conceived and directed the short animated film The Adventures of Andre and Wally B., starring the animator John Lasseter. He proposed and negotiated the Academy-Award winning Disney computer animation production system, CAPS.

Smith was an original member of the Computer Graphics Lab of the New York Institute of Technology and was the First Graphics Fellow at Microsoft. While at Xerox PARC, he witnessed the birth of the personal computer and received two technical Academy Awards, for the alpha channel and digital paint systems. He invented the first full-colour paint program, the HSV (or HSB) colour transform, and the alpha channel. Smith was instrumental in initiating the Visible Human Project of the National Library of Medicine. He was also active in the development of the HDTV standard.

Dr. Smith holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Fellow of the American Society of Genealogists. Smith is the creator of many pieces of computer art, including Sunstone in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Ben Ripple is the Founder and CEO of Big Tree Farms, Indonesia’s largest organic and fair-trade certified food company. Over the past 20 years, Ben has worked on creating scalable business models that provide beneficial social impact to marginalised producers through the practice of regenerative agriculture.

Today, the company operates a direct-transparent supply chain of more than ten thousand small farmers across the Indonesian archipelago and manufactures the farmer- produce in three purpose-built facilities. Of particular note has been the pioneering effort to first introduce and then build global markets for Coconut sweeteners. Coconut sweeteners, a traditional sugar produced from the flower nectar of coconut trees, was once a poverty crop with no significant demand. Today, through Big Tree Farms and direct partnerships with international NGOs such as Swiss Contact, SNV and Prisma, coconut sweeteners are the fastest-growing non-cane sugar in the global organic market and producers are being paid fair and viable compensation.

Over the past two decades, Ben’s commitment to sustainable supply chains has received international recognition and multiple awards. Ben has spoken at numerous events in the US, EU and South East Asia on the topics of Sustainable Agriculture, Supply Chains, Social Impact and Triple Bottom Line Business.

A true rags-to-riches personality who has inspired millions around the world, Chatri Sityodtong is an entrepreneur, motivational speaker and martial artist from Thailand. A graduate of Harvard Business School and Tufts University, he is the Founder and Chairman of ONE Championship, Asia’s largest sports media property in history. A self-made entrepreneur, his other businesses include Evolve MMA (Asia’s premier championship brand for martial arts), Evolve University (world’s largest online university for martial arts), Evolve Vacation (Asia’s ultimate martial arts vacation), Evolve Fight Gear (Asia’s online fight store), and many more.

Sityodtong is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at INSEAD, one of the world’s top business schools, and has spoken at top global conferences such as Forbes Global CEO Conference, CNBC Asia Business Leaders Awards and TEDx, amongst others. He also gives regular business talks at Fortune 500 companies around the globe.

Away from business, Sityodtong plays active leadership roles in the community, serving on the board of Project Sunshine, one of the largest volunteer organisations in the world dedicated to terminally-ill children. He is also active in child-related organisations such as Boys Town Home, Singapore Children’s Society, and Children’s Cancer Foundation. Sityodtong is also a certified senior Muay Thai instructor and holds a Blue Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Claire Lachance is the Chief Executive Officer of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), a nonprofit organisation dedicated to supporting individual and collective transformation through consciousness research, transformative learning, and engaging a global community in the realisation of our human potential.

Prior to joining IONS, Lachance was the founder and president of Inspiration Quest, Inc. where she delivered comprehensive management consulting, training, and coaching to hundreds of nonprofit organisations , foundations, public agencies, and social entrepreneurs. Earlier in her career, Lachance held executive positions at Pacific Bell and MetLife. She earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Tufts University.

A popular speaker on strategy and financial sustainability, Lachance is also a self-proclaimed spiritual explorer fascinated by how the mystical manifests in cultures around the world. Leveraging this apparent dichotomy, Lachance recently developed the Inspiration Quest® Integrative Model for Professional and Organisational Success, combining leading-edge business practices with valuable learnings from wisdom traditions and new science. According to Lachance, “the ability to access the insights and energy residing in non-physical realms may be as valuable—if not more valuable—than our most robust professional training.”

Based in Palo Alto, V. R. Ferose heads Globalisation Services, the division responsible for the adoption of SAP products worldwide through the delivery of solutions targeted at individual local markets. At the age of 33, Ferose became the Managing Director of SAP Labs India. He held the post for over 5 years, during which he transformed SAP Labs India into an innovation hub. In 2012, the company was recognised as one of the ‘Great Places to Work’ in India.

Ferose brings over 17 years of industry experience with him, and has been with SAP since 1999. Ferose is a Trustee at the Autism Research Trust, which supports research at the Autism Research Centre, Cambridge University. He is a Director on the Board of the Specialist People Foundation, a non-profit foundation with the goal to create one million jobs for people with autism and similar challenges. He is also the founder of the India Inclusion Foundation, a non-profit aiming to bring the topic of inclusion to the forefront in India. The India Inclusion Summit, Inclusion Fellowships and Inclusion Platform are some of the initiatives under the non-profit.

Ferose has co-authored a best-selling book on people with disabilities, GIFTED. He writes a monthly column on books, hobbies and culture for India’s leading daily Swarajyamag.com. He is a much sought-after speaker and gives guest lectures at Columbia University. Ferose was honored as a ‘Young Global Leader’ in March 2012 by the World Economic Forum. In a study published by the Economic Times and Spencer Stuart, Ferose was selected as one of the leaders in ‘India’s Top 40 under 40’ – 2014. Business Insider named him as one of the rising stars at SAP. He was inducted into the ‘Happiness Hall of Fame’ at Stanford in 2016. He won the Eagle Award by Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) for advancing equal rights for people with disabilities.

Author of Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders (Simon & Schuster, 2011), Be the Change (McGraw-Hill, 2014), Open Source Leadership: Reinventing Management When There’s No More Business as Usual (McGraw-Hill, Oct 2017), and a regular writer for Forbes, Rajeev Peshawaria is the CEO of the Iclif Leadership and Governance Centre. He has extensive global experience in leadership development with a particular focus on uncovering personal and organisational “Leadership Energy,” and developing and delivering business strategy.

Rajeev’s professional roots are in industry. He has been Chief Learning Officer of both Coca-Cola and Morgan Stanley, and has formerly held senior positions at American Express and Goldman Sachs. At Goldman, Rajeev helped found Pine Street – the firm’s acclaimed leadership academy – and headed Pine Street for Europe and Asia. In his early career, Rajeev was a banker and currency trader. He has provided coaching, consulting and advisory services globally. His clients include Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Mitsubishi, Johnson & Johnson, MetLife, The World Bank, US Treasury, US Securities & Exchange Commission, Indian Railways, Sinarmas Indonesia, Allianz, Permata Bank Indonesia, PwC, Nestle, Mohammad bin Rashid School of Government Dubai, Prudential, Maybank, Great Eastern, Citibank and many more. He also serves as guest faculty at leading business schools in the US, Europe and Asia.

Rajeev is a sought after international speaker and has been widely featured in international media platforms such as Bloomberg TV & radio, National Public Radio (NPR), Harvard Business Review, CNBC, Fast Company, Leader to Leader, American Management Association (AMA) magazine, Leadership Excellence magazine, The Times of India, The National Dubai, Mint-Wall Street Journal and the Conference Board. He has been named one of Top 100 Global Thought Leaders for Trustworthy Business in 2014, and a 2017 Top Thought Leader in Trust by ‘Trust Across America’. Rajeev and his family have lived in fourteen cities in eight countries.

Terry Jones is best known for founding Travelocity.com and serving as founding Chairman of Kayak.com. He began his career as a travel agent, spending 24 years at American Airlines in marketing and information technology and capping his career as Chief Information Officer of its SABRE division. While at SABRE, he led a team of six working on a project that became Travelocity.com. Jones served as CEO of Travelocity for seven years, transforming it into a public company with three billion dollars in travel sales. He left Travelocity when the company was taken private and became part of the founding team at Kayak.com, a company that yet again revolutionised how travel was purchased. He served as Chairman of the company from its founding until it was sold to Priceline for $1.8 billion dollars in 2013.

Today he is the Chairman of Wayblazer and managing principal of ON Inc, a consultancy he founded to help companies in their transition to the digital economy. Jones currently serves on the boards of Wayblazer, Boingo, Smart Destinations and The Camping and Education Foundation. He is a venture capitalist with General Catalyst Partners and Sierra Angels.

Jones graduated from Denison University and has an Honours Doctor of Letters from Sierra Nevada College.