TheCompassion Lab

In this talk, Boyd Varty – tracker, coach, and storyteller – will teach you how to find the “track” of your own leadership. As we cross the threshold into adventure, Boyd will take us into the African wilderness where he grew up to discover how ancient technologies can powerfully inform the decisions of today’s fast-paced business world. In a world where we must navigate vast amounts of data and a...

If you start your day with the understanding that people really don’t care about your brand, that you’ve got to care about them first before they’re going to care about you, you’re going to have a very different mindset and you’re going to do very different things. One of the things that we all need to do is super basic — step back and reset, and think that our job as a marketers is to identify an...

If two powerful abilities would rule the future, it will be innovation and intuition. Duncan Wardle, Disney’s former Head of Innovation and Creativity, takes us into the world of innovative thinking and how to return to the expansive lens of our childhood. After 25 years at Disney, he has learned not only how to escape our routinized rivers of thinking but also how to move into a more creative and...

Does your strategy reflect the new normal? We live in unpredictable times where the rules are changing and the formulas for success are disintegrating. The only constant is change and it requires a new level of leadership that is able to anticipate these changes and mobilize teams to capture new opportunity. In this talk, bestselling author and thought leader Frans Johansson shows organizations ho...

The current tides of the world have asked for more innovation among businesses to adapt to the fast-changing times. Nancy Quan, Global Chief Technical Officer for the Coca-Cola Company, talks about the many faces of innovation, leadership, and personal risks. Nancy talks about that willingness to step through every open door and see the difference it can make in your career. She gives us her own p...

Technology has definitely changed the game for marketers to reach and connect people. It is not enough anymore to wait for them to come to you. Now, you have to put in the effort to actually get to them and have them respond. One of the great things that technology has helped businesses overcome that is using AI, which holds the power to create dynamic user experiences. Dameon Pope, partner at IBM...

Stories are beautiful in the way it allows a person to dive deep into another world that tends to bring out certain pieces in us that we don’t know about. Yet the process of telling and writing stories is not often as easy as it is to see its beauty. Two great writers speak about their writing process, taking in the struggles they meet and finding creativity in them along the way: Anthony Doerr of...

Life has its own way of showing us the brighter side of darkness. When we are in despair, what comes after is this sudden glimmer of hope that seems to contrast and show us how immense the grace from the other side. Bringing us deeper into that connection is singer-songwriter, Alex Woodard. Alex shares how she found beauty from the ashes through her For The Sender project. With her passion for sin...

We have heard numerous times the importance of innovation to businesses from a philosophical point of view. Taking it back down to a business perspective and putting it to application is Chris Hellmann, Global VP and GM at the Coca-Cola Freestyle Division. Chris shares the innovation dilemma that businesses have to contend with nowadays, and tackles whether it is practical evolution or true disrup...

VP of Business Development from Mayfield Venture Capital, Gamiel Gran, talks to the chair of the Berkeley Haas Professional Faculty, Gregory LaBlanc about exploring the innovation ecosystem in the corporate world. With the fast-changing times, it is a must for businesses to learn how to cope with it; otherwise, they may find themselves stricken out from the game. Corporate innovation must sit at t...

The face of consumption has greatly changed for the past couple of years. Now, by the help of rapid technological advancements, people have flocked to the conveniences offered by the digital world. For businesses, this translates to being able to adapt to the changing needs of the people. Focusing on the huge shift happening in restaurant retail is Marty Hahnfeld from Olo. He provides front-row in...

At certain points in our life, we may find ourselves feeling stuck. Thinking we could not afford any more time than what we currently have to tackle what is in front, we have come to a resolution to just settle and go on with it, convincing ourselves that it is what we want. But what are you willing to give up to have the life you keep pretending you want? This thought-provoking question is at the...

Moving from Apple to IBM, Nancy Kramer shares about brand belonging and her journey towards becoming a Chief Evangelist at IBM iX. Starting from her origin story, she lays down her upbringing and history that led her to where she is now. She speaks about the individual’s grit and having that ability to take over, learning from one’s mistakes as well as others. She also shares about her days with A...

Failure has almost always never felt good, nor does it feel a path to success. When we find ourselves exactly in that moment, we immediately believe for it to be terrible. In this funny, poignant, and comforting talk by Pulitzer Prize Winner, Anthony Doerr, he speaks of the different perceptions and experiences of failure and successes that rings familiar to each of us—from great novelists and wri...

The world does not remain the same and so do we. That is why businesses must learn how to keep moving along side it or they will get left behind and vanish. To do that, they must have what President of Venturing & Emerging Brands, Scott Uzzell calls the innovation mindset. He guides as you explore the world of innovation—from what is the current state and figuring out how to fit in it. He give...

Speaker, author, and founder and CEO of Church+State, Ron Tite gives advice on how to thrive in the expression economy. People now have become smarter with their choices. This says a lot about how businesses and/or organizations move in order to survive. It does not anymore suffice to just provide because today, people crave stories and connection. So Ron helps out as he talks about organizational...

Often times, companies fail because they claim to never see future coming. This idea is highly in contrast to what keynote speaker, thought leader, and consultant Peter Sheahan believes. He says that the changes coming are not as unforeseeable as what many think. That is why he greatly values the role of leaders and how their leadership response influences the entire company. Talking about turning...

As leaders, we must create strong cultures and that is never a simple proposition. Understanding the dynamics of optimal performance require navigating the complications of the human experience. Our missions can be inspirational, yet they can also include a dark side. Our ability to navigate change and chaos and commitments is a skill that, as leaders, we must learn to master. Are we telling ourse...

Heather Neary is an inspirational leader who creates a true sense of community within her team. After moving from CMO to CEO, she continues to bring her love of the brand into everything she does. Her connections to others, her willingness to maintain a beginner’s mind, and her genuine dedication to her own growth as a leader allows her to model authentic leadership. Heather’s true connection and...

For most of us, we live our lives through calendars, planned structures and meetings that we sometimes get burned out or reach a plateau. For Davin Youngs, CEO and Facilitator at VOXUS, tapping into a force that is both creative and unpredictable can steer you back into motivation, improvisation, and growth, and that is our human voice. The VOXUS team brings years of experience coaching and workin...

As leaders we desire knowledge and control because it signals safety and certainty. What if the ability to “hold on loosely” with clear vision and values could create new solutions we never even imagined? What if our ability to be completely present to each other and our current circumstances could allow creative interactions that yielded far more powerful results? To be human is to improvise, yet...

On June 12, 2014, Elon Musk decided to take all this patents for the Tesla and opened them up to the world. On January 24th, 2017, Amazon did something quite unexpected by being nominated for best picture. On February 24th, 2011, Airbnb got their first one-millionth visitor or guest, and almost twelve months later, they had their ten-millionth. What drives this type of growth and is this something...

So much information is flooding in on us every second that it’s getting harder and harder to tell information from misinformation, hearsay from fact, fake news from true. The result of that is that the world is coming to us as a never ending series of shocks. Nobody predicted last year that Britain or England was going to vote to leave the European Union. None one imagined that Bob Dylan was going...

The concept of innovation as we knew it is effectively and functionally dead. It’s meaningless. It doesn’t really mean anything anymore and it’s lost its meaning mostly because we beat the crap out of it for about twenty years, telling everybody to do it. Then we realized, as we started looking through the numbers, that the truth was everyone was getting hung up on two parts of the innovation stor...

One of the greatest challenges of this age of disruption that we’re in is it’s about speed and technology. However, there’s an old school thing that people are longing for. More than anything else, we’re longing for humanity. If your company can give your team members and your customers that thing that’s missing, you can have a competitive advantage that will be hard to duplicate. You may even fin...