John C. Beck is President of the North Star Leadership Group, a Senior Research Fellow at the Annenberg Center of the Digital Future at the University of Southern California (USC), and a Senior Advisor at Monitor Group. He leads research and consulting projects on topics of strategic thinking, wireless communication, the global internet, and global leadership.

John earned his B.A. from Harvard University, and was the first graduate of Harvard’s integrative Ph.D. program in Organizational Behavior. Dr. Beck is an Adjunct Professor at the Ivey School of Business at University of Western Ontario and a Visiting Professor at Thunderbird Graduate School of International Management, where he has taught courses on Strategy, Media and Entertainment, eCommerce, Management Consulting, Globalization and Leadership. John has also taught at Harvard, Dartmouth, Kellogg, and Waseda University in Japan.

Dr. Beck has published over one hundred books, articles, and business reports on the topics of business in Asia, strategic management, globalization, leadership and organizational behavior. The conclusions of his report The Future of Wireless were reported in over two hundred newspapers and magazines around the world. His co-authored book, The Attention Economy, was named one of the best ten business books of 2001 by Amazon, Border’s and the Library Association.

Mitchell Wade approaches this work from a practitioner’s point of view: games matter in business because they form a powerful link between information and action. For his entire career, Mr. Wade has specialized in exactly that link, using information to change beliefs, feelings, capabilities, and ultimately behavior.

Currently CEO of CHOICE Humanitarian, a non-profit organization that for over twenty years has dramatically increased the capabilities of two extremely important groups: humanitarians from affluent North America, and natural leaders from some of the poorest communities on earth.

Mr. Wade also has extensive experience helping business, government, and large non-profits convert information into action. In a decade at RAND, he applied his innovative approach to policy research, high-stakes communications, and the organization’s own strategic change. He has consulted to key leaders in such disparate settings as Google, the US military, Charles Schwab, Accenture, and the White House.

Mr. Wade graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College. He has since taught thought leaders and researchers at Harvard, Claremont, and Cedars Sinai to use information more effectively. His co-authored book, DoCoMo: Japan's Wireless Tsunami, was summarized by the Boston Globe as “that rarest of business books, one that reaches beyond business logic to reveal what comes from the heart.”