Victor Margolin is Professor Emeritus of Design History at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He is a founding editor and now co-editor of the academic design journal Design Issues.

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Professor Margolin has published widely on diverse design topics including design history, social design, design for development, design education, and design theory. He has lectured at conferences, universities, and art schools in many parts of the world. and has also taught studio seminars at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem and the Politecnico de Milano, where he co-taught a seminar for service design students on The Good Society. Books that he has written, edited, or co-edited include The American Poster Renaissance; Propaganda: The Art of Persuasion, WW II;The Promise and the Product; The Struggle for Utopia: Rodchenko, Lissitzky, Moholy-Nagy, 1917-1936, Design Discourse, Discovering Design, The Idea of Design, The Designed World; Images, Objects, Environments, The Politics of the Artificial: Essays on Design and Design Studies,Culture is Everywhere: The Museum of Corn-temporary Art, and Design and the Risk of Change (in Portuguese). His books have also been translated into five languages. The first two volumes of his three-volume World History of Design were published in April 2015.

The VP of Marketing and Product Development for the Ames Company, Eric explains how a 241-year-old company stays innovative through focusing on what is going to delight their customers.

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Kabir Sehgal was a vice president in emerging market equities at J. P. Morgan in New York. He serves as an officer in the United States Navy Reserve, served as a speechwriter on a presidential campaign, and is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

He is the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of books including Coined, Walk in My Shoes (with Andrew Young), A Bucket of Blessings, and Jazzocracy.

A Grammy-winning producer who has performed with Grammy-winning musicians as a jazz bassist, he co-founded an arts organization which merged with the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance.

Sehgal is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the London School of Economics. He is a diehard Atlanta Braves fan.

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Arkadi Kuhlmann’s vocation and avocation have been to reinvent and revitalize consumers’ relationship with their money.

Arkadi introduced the world to direct banking with a simplified customer focus when he founded ING DIRECT Canada in 1996, creating the brand strategy, recruiting the senior leadership team and growing the bank during 1996-2000 to a successful market position while serving as the bank’s President and CEO. He then repeated this process in 2000, founding ING DIRECT USA and led its growth to become the nation’s largest savings bank and number one direct bank, with more than $84 billion in deposits and 7.8 million customers. As the bank’s Chairman, President and CEO, Arkadi executed his vision to create a retail-focused bank that offered an easy-to-use savings, checking, mortgages, and investment products direct to consumers. His customer strategy led to fanatical loyalty and industry-leading customer promotion scores and branded him affectionately as the ‘CEO of Savings.’

Following the sale of ING DIRECT USA, Arkadi set out to fill the “white space” that he saw in mobile banking for customers with global connections and needs. In 2012, Arkadi founded ZenBanx and began creating the next generation of global, mobile banking. With the initial launch of ZenBanx Canada in Q1 2015, Arkadi officially assumed the moniker “CEO of multi-currency saving.” Additional country launches are anticipated in 2015.

Earlier in his career, Arkadi engineered an organizational and systems restructuring as the President of North American Trust, a turnaround project under the ownership of North American Life. The execution of Arkadi’s tactical business plan along with new product development resulted in a transformation from a $10M operating loss to a $17M operating profit.

Prior to North American Trust, Arkadi served as President and CEO at Deak & Co. and Deak International for a period spanning 1985-1993. Deak provided merchant and investment banking services, and through Deak International provided foreign exchange and precious metals trading and refining services. Arkadi reorganized Deak International’s operations, launching a revitalized company in April 1986, and expanded the company from 52 to 192 branches worldwide and 350 to 1,500 employees, achieving revenues of $1B wholesale and $2.5B retail, and income of $70M. Arkadi oversaw the successful divestiture of Deak International in 1990.

From 1977-1984, Arkadi served as Vice President, General Manager and Manager of Royal Bank of Canada in its Corporate Cash Management and Commercial Banking Marketing divisions. Before that, he served briefly as a consultant for the banking industry and as an Assistant Director of the Institute of Canadian Bankers.

In addition to his corporate successes, Arkadi demonstrated his passion for teaching as a professor of International Finance and Investment Banking at the American Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird) in Phoenix, Arizona. He is the author of Rock then Roll: The Secrets of Culture-Driven Leadership and The Orange Code: How ING DIRECT Succeeded by Being a Rebel with a Cause, as well as several books on finance and numerous business cases. His thoughts on banking, leadership and innovation have been published in major newspapers including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and New York Times.

Arkadi also served on the Federal Reserve’s Thrift Institutions Advisory Council (TIAC) Board from 2006 to 2007, and is a charter member of American Savings Education Council, member of National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), member of the Financial Services Roundtable and a previous member of the Canadian Club and the Empire Club of Canada.

Arkadi received an M.B.A. and an Honors in Business Administration degree from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. In 2010, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) from the University of Western Ontario for his contributions to the world of business strategy.

Arkadi has served on the Ivey Advisory Board beginning in 1997 and served in a Chairman role from 2004 to 2013. He was recognized with the Ivey Distinguished Service Award in 2007 for his contributions to the school. Arkadi also serves on the Boards of the Council for Economic Education, Sindeo, and Payoff.

During his career, Arkadi has been honored as American Banker’s 2006 Innovator of the Year and the recipient of ING Business Award (Revenue Growth Category) in 2005, Delaware Business Leader Award in 2006 and 2008, Habitat for Humanity Leadership Award in 2007, and the inaugural Netherlands American Foundation’s Ambassador C. Howard Wilkins Jr. Award in 2007. In 2010, Mr. Kuhlmann was honored with the Council for Economic Education’s Visionary Award for his life-long advocacy in teaching adults and children about responsible money behavior.

Nathaniel Popper is a reporter at The New York Times, where he has covered the intersections between Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Before joining the Times, he worked at the Los Angeles Times and the Forward. Popper grew up in Pittsburgh and graduated from Harvard College. He lives in Brooklyn with his family.

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Brian Quinn is a Principal at Doblin, part of Deloitte Consulting. He partners with executives to help their organizations innovate and become better innovators. His experience in working with clients across a broad array of sectors, ranging from healthcare to private equity to heavy manufacturing, gives him a deep appreciation for challenging industry orthodoxies and seeking breakthrough change. He has led programs in companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500 multi-nationals.

Brian is also responsible for integrating Doblin’s major client offers, ensuring they represent best and next practice in driving innovation effectiveness. He is a co-author of Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of Building Breakthroughs, published by Wiley in May 2013, and his writing on innovation has been published in Forbes, Fast Company, Businessweek, and the Wall Street Journal. He speaks frequently at industry and innovation conferences including Brandworks University, the Design Management Institute, and the Association of National Advertisers.

In addition to his work in innovation and strategy, Brian worked as a screenwriter for the L.A. film industry. He is fascinated by the power of narrative in framing complex events & bridging perspectives. Brian is a proud graduate of Amherst College. He currently lives in Chicago with his wife Melissa, and spends more time than he probably should in the city’s many fine restaurants and bars.

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Tina Seelig is the author of Insight Out: Get Ideas Out of Your Head and Into the World, published June 2015 by HarperOne. She has a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Stanford University Medical School, is Professor of the Practice in the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford School of Engineering, and executive director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. She is the internationally bestselling author of What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20, which showed how having an entrepreneurial mindset allows you to see the world as opportunity rich, and inGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity, which provides a set of tools for creative problem solving. In 2009, Seelig was awarded the prestigious Gordon Prize from the National Academy of Engineering for her pioneering work in engineering education. In 2014, she was honored with the SVForum Visionary Award. She lives in Silicon Valley, California.

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Sharon leads the Business & Brand Development team at Adore Me – a disruptive eCommerce lingerie startup, designing fast-fashion, affordable intimates. Ranked the No. 3 fastest-growing company in New York on the Inc. 500 list and selected InStyle magazine’s Best of Digital 2014, Adore Me is quickly positioning itself as the Zara of lingerie.

Prior to joining Adore Me, Sharon cultivated a diverse business experience across management consulting, business development, high-tech and media. She started her professional career doing research & business development in the Israeli equivalent of Saturday Night Live. Fascinated with the business side of media, she joined Israel’s leading law firm as intern in their technology and high-tech department, and gained hands-on experience in deal-making and VC-backed financing rounds. After being certified as a lawyer, she decided to delve deeper into the business front and joined Israel’s largest management consulting firm, specializing in the media and technology practice. She continued her consulting career at American Express in New York, until she met the Adore Me team and knew it was time to join a Silicon Alley startup with a disruptive appetite. Sharon holds an MBA from INSEAD.

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Based in Olapic’s New York headquarters, Sanz serves two roles as Chief Operating Officer and as the head of technology and product development. Sanz’s deep technical background fueled the development of Olapic’s proprietary predictive algorithm, Photorank™ that analyzes more than 45 different aspect of an image to determine the likelihood an image has to trigger a purchase. Raised in Zaragoza, Spain, Sanz earned a Master’s Degree in electrical engineering from University of Zaragoza, completing a thesis in Active Noise Control using Machine Learning. Sanz also holds an MBA from Columbia University in New York, where he co-founded Olapic in 2010. Prior to founding Olapic, Sanz was a consultant for Accenture, working for aerospace/defense projects in Europe and also worked for Ericsson, responsible for all support teams for the Billing Gateway and Service Provisioning departments across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Sanz and his Olapic co-founders have been recognized with several awards including the Emmanuel Lang Award for Entrepreneurship and the E-cademy Award. Sanz is sought after by media and conference for his expertise in image recognition and digital imaging technologies.

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As a 40-year consultant to the Walt Disney Company, Don has been associated with literally hundreds of Disney’s entertainment events and productions. Don created and directed the $22-million nighttime millennium-themed spectacle, “Reflections of Earth” for Epcot. He also designed and directed the popular nighttime spectaculars “Laserphonic Fantasy”, “IllumiNations”, and “Holiday IllumiNations” at Epcot, “Sorcery In The Sky” at Disney/MGM Studios, “Starlight Magic” at Tokyo Disneyland, and played a key developmental role in Disneyland’s “Fantasmic!”

Don is also a creative and technical consultant to MCA/Universal Studios, other theme park companies and many live event producers, helping to develop and produce unique nighttime entertainment concepts, parade and shows. He has developed entertainment center concepts for Harrah’s Entertainment, interactive game concepts for Worlds of Wonder, interactive exhibits for the Los Angeles Children’s Zoo, designed non-linear audio editing software and user interfaces for New England Digital (makers of the legendary Synclavier®), consulted on web site design and content for DVC Interactive, and co-wrote and directed the 50th Anniversary Celebration for the Golden Gate Bridge. He also served as the Creative Director for the development and implementation of Disney’s patented Air Launch Pyrotechnic System, and has worked with Disney to design and program sophisticated computerized parade audio and entertainment control systems.

As a musician, he’s responsible for the popular synthesizer arrangements and performances of Disney’s classic “Main Street Electrical Parade,” as well as many other parades and shows at Disney theme parks around the world. His lighthearted, synthesized arrangement of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was a highlight of Radio City Music Hall’s annual Christmas Spectacular from 1979 to 1986. His first solo album, Bachbusters, gave Telarc Records its first Number One release ever, topping the Billboard Classical Compact Disc chart for fourteen weeks in 1986. It remained in the Top Twenty for over a year, and his second release, Beethoven or Bust, climbed to Number One on the charts after only ten weeks in release, remaining there for twenty-three weeks in 1988. His original compositions have been heard on television, radio, records, commercials, industrial shows, half-time shows, and spectacular events around the world. His advertising clients and credits have included Mattel, Kawasaki, Mexicana Airlines, Zenith and Yamaha, and he has worked on album projects with such music industry giants as Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, Donna Summer, Kenny Loggins and Sergio Mendez.

As an audio engineer and producer, from 1976 through 1992 Don was responsible for the engineering, mixing and post-production of recorded shows and music for the Disneyland Entertainment Division and Music Department. He created and produced the prestigious SONIC BOON™ Digital Sound Effects Libraries, which have been used extensively in scores of major motion pictures and television shows including “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” “Hunt for Red October,” “Lethal Weapon II,” and “Terminator II.” He also worked as independent entertainment audio production and technical consultant to Radio City Music Hall, The Knoxville World’s Fair, Resort and Theme park companies around the world. Don also produced the music track for the Boston Pops 4th of July Fireworks displays from 2010 to 2014.

As a professional, he has been active with ASCAP, NARAS, the AFM, and ILDA (the International Laser Display Association) serving as the latter’s Ethics Committee Chairman for three years. As an educator, he developed curriculum and taught both Electronic Music and Audio Recording programs for Long Beach City College and Saddleback College in southern California. As a hobbyist, he enjoys photography, science fiction, travel, non-linear video production, outer space, and confounding people with his unique original holiday cards.

Don was born, raised, and still lives in Orange County, California.