Crickets, Divorce, Silicon Valley, and the Future of Governance

One of my favorite comments from an attendee at last year’s Global Board Leaders’ Summit went something like this: “I was expecting to be informed; I wasn’t expecting to be inspired.” For a team that works year-round scouring the globe to discover and deliver to you voices that are shaping the future, that’s about as good as it gets.

This year’s Global Board Leaders’ Summit is on track to be our biggest ever, and one big feature of the Summit remains the same: a diverse array of thought leaders will share paradigm-shifting insights that will challenge the way you think about leadership, give you new tools to approach your directorship practice, and perhaps inspire you in surprising ways.

Here’s a sampling of some of the most exciting sessions at Summit this year:

• Michelle Crosby’s start-up Wevorce is not only shaking up Silicon Valley, it’s turning the historic, antagonistic model of divorce on its head. The company’s mission is to “help couples ensure their divorce is less damaging to themselves, their finances, and the people they love.” Crosby was named one of the American Bar Association’s Legal Rebels in 2014, a distinction reserved for “lawyers who are breaking new ground using technology.” “Every institution is subject to change, and the more entrepreneurs who learn to work in the system to create that change, the further we’re going to get,” Crosby said in an interview with USA Today. In an intimate fireside chat, Crosby will discuss innovation, entrepreneurship, disruption, and how the company applies the Wevorce model to talent management inside the company.

• Howard Ross, one of the most highly rated thought leaders at last year’s Summit, is back again to share insights from his groundbreaking work on unconscious bias, diversity, leadership, and organizational change. The question directors should ask themselves, says Ross, is not “Is there bias?” Rather, directors should ask one another, “What biases do we have that keep us from making choices counter to the values that we say we believe in?” Ross will open the Diversity Symposium on Saturday and will lead an in-depth workshop on Monday focusing on board dynamics.

• The United Nations estimates that by 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population may face fresh water shortages, a critical concern for business and society. Whitewater rafting guide turned CEO Pat Crowley is betting that the solution to that crisis might literally be in our backyards. Crowley’s passion for the outdoors led him to work as a water resource planner, which drew his curiosity to crickets, of all things. “I heard about insects as a more environmentally friendly form of nutrition. From a water perspective, it was clearly a game-changer,” he said. Crowley founded Chapul, a company that makes cricket-based energy bars, in 2012, “to leap over this psychological hurdle of eating insects in the United States.” With explosive growth— 500 percent annually for the past two years alone—Crowley is on track to break through those barriers. On the summit mainstage on Monday, Crowley will discuss what it means to be part of building a new industry that is challenging societal norms, reshaping the competitive landscape, and may just help save the planet.

• Phil Gilbert has been working with start-ups for the past 30 years, the most recent of which was acquired by IBM in 2010. Now Gilbert leads IBM’s design team with a focus on an empathy-centered workforce. Bringing a start-up mentality to 100-year-old company can be a challenge and almost immediately Gilbert was forced to confront a disconcerting question: “Is the entire way we’re working an anachronism?” Embracing that hard truth has been nothing short of transformational. Gilbert comes to the Summit mainstage to discuss lessons learned in this transformation. “We’re at an interesting crossroads in business. I think the way business is done and businesses work inside themselves has got to fundamentally change in the twenty-first century,” he said.

• As managing director of famed Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Scott Kupor has been part of building brands like Airbnb, Buzzfeed, Facebook, Foursquare, Lyft, Pinterest, and Skype—companies that have become synonymous with disruption. “Things that are fringe today might become mainstream over time,” Kupor explained on Fox News back in June, describing the philosophy that underpins Andreessen Horowitz’s approach to finding the next disruptive trend. In a mainstage fireside chat Tuesday, Kupor will discuss this philosophy in context with everything from M&A activity and shareholder activism, to IPO trends and the next big innovations he sees poised to disrupt the business landscape.

• When Chelsea Grayson took on the role of general counsel at American Apparel, she faced a daunting task: to help turn around a company that was operating in an increasingly competitive industry and was coming off of a tumultuous series of events, including high-profile sexual harassment allegations, layoffs, bankruptcy, and protests. In February, Grayson told the legal blog Above the Law, “I have been in-house for over a year now, and I have encountered just about every legal issue a general counsel might experience in an entire career.” Next month, Grayson will share her insights on governing complexity, a subject she has become adept at navigating during her tenure at American Apparel.

These are just a few snapshots of the incredible line-up of thought leaders who will join us in September. Want to learn more? View the full list of speakers and sessions at www.NACDonline.org/summit.