Changemakers

Meg Clarke is an SEO expert and the owner + founder of Clapping Dog Media. After studying marketing and graphic design in college, Meg found herself working in boutique ad agencies where she developed her interest in attracting the ideal customer for her clientele. Meg left this position when she traveled to Uganda to adopt her eldest sons but found upon her return that she missed the job. She turned then to freelance web design and before long, Clapping Dog Media was born. At Clapping Dog Media, Meg focuses on creating functional websites using keyword analytics, site simplicity, and her own personal experience to help her clients run successful online businesses. In addition, Meg specializes in communication, ensuring her customers learn and understand the SEO strategies with which she provides them so that they leave Clapping Dog's services feeling empowered in their business. She especially enjoys working with clients in the health and wellness industry. In addition to her enthusiasm for SEO, Meg believes

Victor Boutros is the CEO and Founding Director of the Human Trafficking Institute and co-author with Gary Haugen of The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence, a book published by Oxford University Press in 2014. Drawing on real-world cases and extensive scholarship, The Locust Effect paints a vivid portrait of the way fractured criminal justice systems in developing countries have spawned a hidden epidemic of modern-day slavery and everyday violence that is undermining vital investments in poverty alleviation, public health, and human rights. A critically acclaimed work of thought-leadership, The Locust Effect is a Washington Post bestseller that has been featured by the New York Times, The Economist, NPR, the Today Show, Forbes, TED, and the BBC, among others. For their work on The Locust Effect, Boutros and Haugen received the 2016 Grawemeyer Prize for Ideas Improving World Order, a literary prize awarded annually to the authors of one book based on originality, feasibility,

We are entering the greatest period of global transformation the world has ever known. These tectonic changes are enabled by rapidly evolving technology and destabilizing demographic changes. This constant state of disruption mandates a new level of professional courage and influence in order to effectively impact our organizations and those around us. Seth Mattison challenges conventional leadership thinking while introducing the super trends shaping the Future of Work. Supported with cutting edge research and category leading case studies Seth discusses how listeners can compete and thrive in the changing landscape of work. In this episode, you'll learn: Deep insights into what’s coming next in the new world of work for leaders at all levels. A new framework to see beyond the fades and more clearly understand the trends certain to impact the business landscape over the coming decade. Practical and actionable tips and techniques that can immediately impact business today Seth Mattison is an Internat

David French is the President and Chief Marketing Officer of the newly formed nonprofit The Memphis Brand Initiative. The organization has been launched to lead Memphis brand stakeholders in well-coordinated, best-in-class brand, marketing and communications practices, which spark civic pride and attract talent, tourists and business investment to Memphis. Prior to this role, Mr. French was Senior Vice President, Marketing, Communications and Corporate Partnerships at the National Park Foundation where he was responsible for overseeing the strategic brand development and key fundraising businesses. This included the Foundation's corporate partnerships and direct marketing programs, which generated millions of dollars in support, as well as leading the Foundation’s overall marketing and communications strategic planning and operations. In 2015, Mr. French also served as the Foundation’s Interim President & CEO, leading the National Park Foundation through a successful leadership transition. Mr. French join

Steve Hinkley is the President and CEO of Adventure Science Center (ASC) in Nashville, Tennessee. Alongside board members, staff and community leaders and volunteers, ASC is implementing a multi-year transformation to become a premiere hands-on science and innovation center. Prior to moving to Nashville, Hinkley served as the President and CEO of MOXI, The Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation in Santa Barbara, California, where he completed a $27 million dollar startup capital campaign and the grand opening of a new, 25,000-square foot science center in the heart of Santa Barbara’s waterfront district. Hinkley began his museum career in 2007 with the Perot Museum of Nature in Science in Dallas, Texas, where he oversaw exhibit and education program development for the highly successful launch of an all new 185,000-square-foot science center in downtown Dallas. Before joining the science museum field, Hinkley earned his degree in biology from Tufts University and spent 10 years in the classroom teaching midd

Grace Askew is an incessant songwriter. Each and every day of 2018 she has written a new song and performed it live for her fans on Facebook and Instagram. She maintains this practice while touring, collaborating on projects with Wrangler and Stetson in New Mexico, developing new sounds, and recording. Her mantra “creativity is a muscle; dare to suck” epitomizes her endeavor, as she explores the limits of her muse. Grace was a contestant on Season 4 of NBC’s The Voice (team Blake). She has won numerous songwriting awards, including Unsigned Only (First Place, Americana, 2017), the International Songwriting Competition (First Place, Americana, 2016), and the John Lennon Songwriting Contest (2014 Grand Prize, Folk). PBS featured her on the show Sun Sessions. Grace is currently preparing a tour to close out 2018 and end her 365-day songwriting challenge. She will begin in Memphis, Tennessee, and end in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Grace’s influences include Cat Power, Jeff Buckley, and Tom Waits. Grace has joined James

Carol Coletta is Senior Fellow, American Cities Practice, at The Kresge Foundation. In addition to leading the foundation's initiative, Reimagining the Civic Commons, she is on loan as president and CEO of the Memphis River Parks Partnership. She previously served as vice president of Community and National Initiatives for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, a national foundation with deep local roots in 26 cities across the U.S. At Knight she managed a portfolio of more than $50 million annually in grants and a team of 18 in 9 cities to drive success in cities. She was recruited to the foundation to lead a new portfolio created from a merger of two departments. Her strategic focus at Knight has been to understand how robust public life can accelerate talent, opportunity and engagement. To do that, she deployed grants, challenges, research, local leadership development, and national and local convenings of academics, policymakers and practitioners (with special emphasis on practitioners). In particula

Kurt Heinecke is probably best known as the Music Director for Big Idea Entertainment and their ground-breaking video series' “VeggieTales" and "3-2-1 Penguins”. For over 20 years, Kurt co-wrote, produced, arranged, and scored hits like “The Hairbrush Song” and “His Cheeseburger”, along with two major motion pictures, selling over 70 million audio and video units and garnering 7 Dove Awards. Kurt has also been a touring musician, music teacher, band director, church music director, and freelance composer and musician in Nashville. Oh…and he photographs in his free time (ha!) for clients such as The Nashville Symphony, Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith and other artists. Kurt regularly speaks to college students and business people, sharing what he has learned from 3 decades of working in entertainment. Learn more: www.khstudios.biz

Cameron Brown speaks to audiences around the world on how to thrive in an ever changing world. He delivers multi-sensory experiences on stage, blending education with storytelling videos and live music on a grand piano. Our world is changing faster than ever. To deal with this, companies need a workforce that is fully engaged, high performing and adaptable to change. But 67% of employees in North America are still not engaged or actively disengaged at work, with actively disengaged employees cost $450 billion to $550 billion per year alone. Cameron helps solve this by helping companies develop high performance teams, increasing innovation, employee engagement, emotional intelligence and adaptability to change. He has been featured in the media in 7 different countries, his online videos have reached well over 1 million people in 195 countries, and he just returned from delivering the closing talk ‘What Future Are We Creating?’ at Italy’s largest TEDx event. For the talk, Cameron showed how the purposeful use

Joann Massey is an experienced economic development and business consulting professional, leading equity and diversity efforts for the City of Memphis. The mission of the City of Memphis Business Diversity & Compliance is to increase the number of M/W/SBEs certified with the City of Memphis and assist with strengthening the capacity of these companies so that they might better compete for opportunities in City of Memphis government contracting. Follow Joann Massey & City of Memphis BDC: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joannlewismassey/ https://twitter.com/Joann_Massey901 https://twitter.com/BDCMem

JK has landed coverage in Nashville Medical News, Paradigm Magazine, ALDA IoT for CLE, MGMA Mips and Macra, Tech Talks HIPAA, and is a frequent speaker at the Southeast Business Forum. She talks and trains frequently on Compliance, GDPR, Cybersecurity, Hostile Work Environment and more. JK earned her J.D. degree from the Nashville School of Law in 1995, where she graduated with honors and was a member of the Law Honor Council. She has been a Tennessee Rule 31 Listed Mediator and received HIPAA certification training. Following law school, JK practiced at Spicer Rudstrom and was named partner in 2001. She put her law practice on-hold in 2007 and took over her family business where she learned how handy it was to have a law degree. After selling the business she returned to Spicer in 2017 and wants to put the full measure of her experience to work for you, the small business person. In addition to her passion for the law, JK is a trained ballroom dancer and has participated in several shows and competitions thr

John Feather, PhD, is Chief Executive Officer of Grantmakers In Aging, the national society of grantmaking foundations and other organizations that work to improve the lives of older people. Prior to beginning that position on October 1, 2011, Dr. Feather was Executive Director and CEO of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists, the national membership organization of pharmacists who specialize in care of older persons. Until 2002, he was Director of the AARP Andrus Foundation, the research and education charity of AARP. For the seventeen years prior to that appointment in 1995, Dr. Feather held several positions at the State University of New York at Buffalo, including Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology, and Executive Director of the Primary Care Resource Center. Prior to that he was Director of the Western New York Geriatric Education Center. Dr. Feather is Past Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Society on Aging, Past Treasurer of the

After founding Energy Lighting Services in 2010 in Nashville, CEO Jason Duncan and his team have completed four of the world's largest LED retrofits. The commercial lighting company has saved companies like Saint Thomas Hospitals, Gap stores and Adventure Science Center up to 33 percent on their electric bills, and up to a 75 percent reduction in their energy consumption. Jason lives in Gallatin, Tennessee with his wife and two children. Jason enjoys playing guitar, boating, riding his Harley-Davidson, playing racquetball, backpacking, & camping with his family. He is a lifelong resident of Sumner County and an alumnus of White House High School (1993). Jason serves as a leader in his local faith community (www.eikonhouse.com), serves on the executive board for the Gallatin Area Chamber of Commerce, and serves on the board of the Sumner County Museum Association. He is a member of the Tennessee Hospital Association (THA) and the Tennessee Hospital Engineers Association (THEA). In 2014, Jason was awarded t

Josh McManus is a problem-solver working in post-industrial cities with entrepreneurs, corporations, and foundations to help people positively transform the places that they love. Josh’s experience spans 20 years as a serial social and business entrepreneur. An innovator in entrepreneurial ecosystems, creative economic development and combatting population loss, Josh is obsessed with place-based change. An autodidactic learner on subjects ranging from invention laboratories to neuroscience to game theory, Josh designs and implements projects that aim to disrupt how people in places think of themselves and their community and maximize the potential of all citizens who reside there. Nationally, Josh is a Marshall Memorial Fellow and a Next American Vanguard. Locally, he has helped found multiple organizations and has served on a variety of institutional boards in his collection of adopted hometowns including Chattanooga, Tennessee; Detroit; and Bar Harbor, Maine. His thoughts have been featured by Forbes, Fast

As Porter-Leath’s vice president of development, Rob Hughes has many responsibilities, ranging from planning the annual Rajun Cajun Crawfish Festival to driving Toy Truck donations and assisting in a capital campaign for the organization’s Early Childhood Academy. A native Memphian, Hughes always knew he wanted to make an impact in children’s lives and envisioned a future career in law. After earning both his bachelor’s degree and MBA from Christian Brothers University, he realized a career in nonprofits was a fit. Hughes joined Porter-Leath in 2009 as development coordinator. He was promoted to development manager in 2010, development director in 2014 and, most recently, to vice president of development. His most important responsibility is funding programs and services for the 12,000 local children and families Porter-Leath serves.

H2Growth Strategies LLC, founded by Linda C. Hartley and Vivien Hoexter, advises executive staff and board members to improve performance, build leadership, and increase revenues for sustainable growth and impact. Working with mission-driven clients, H2Growth leverages its expertise and talents to create a more enlightened world. Services include strategic and succession planning, board development, leadership and CSR training, executive coaching, fundraising and advocacy. Their recent book, Big Impact: Insights & Stories from America's Non-Profit Leaders, is the topic of today's ChangeMakers podcast. You can order the book online at www.http://h2growthstrategies.com/ Linda C. Hartley, Principal Hartley combines an MBA in management (NYU-Stern) with over 35 years experience working with boards and staff to achieve their strategic and financial goals. Through board building and development initiatives, she has helped U.S. and international organizations raise over $800 million. Vivien Hoexter, Principal Ho

Michelle Gielan, national CBS News anchor turned positive psychology researcher, is the best-selling author of Broadcasting Happiness. Michelle is the Founder of the Institute for Applied Positive Research and holds a Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. She is an Executive Producer of “The Happiness Advantage” Special on PBS and a featured professor in Oprah’s Happiness course. Her research and advice have received attention from The New York Times, Washington Post, FORBES, CNN, FOX, and Harvard Business Review. Learn more: www.broadcastinghappiness.com

Carla Javits is President and CEO of REDF (The Roberts Enterprise Development Fund), a pioneering venture philanthropy galvanizing a national movement of social enterprises—purpose-driven, revenue-generating businesses that help people striving to overcome employment barriers get good jobs, keep those jobs, and build better lives. Through her stewardship, REDF has invested in more than 100 social enterprises in 21 states. These businesses have generated $327 million in revenue and employed 21,000 people—and counting. REDF’s goal is to see 50,000 people employed by 2020, contributing their skills and talents to our communities and helping to build a stronger, more inclusive society. Inspired by the leadership of REDF’s founder, George R. Roberts, Carla focuses on achieving measurable results by leveraging the business community’s knowledge, networks, and resources, and the mission of the nonprofit sector to address some of our country’s most pressing challenges. In fighting to create a more inclusive society,

There is more than one way for a child to come up missing, at least in the eyes of Ret. Memphis Police Sgt. Len Edwards. As executive director of Memphis-based Commission on Missing and Exploited Children (COMEC), he works not only with parents to find children who go missing physically, but also children who might be sitting with the family every evening but somehow are missing mentally or emotionally. Learn more about COMEC here: http://www.comec.org/

Moira Forbes is the President and Publisher of ForbesWoman, a multi-media platform dedicated to successful women in business and leadership. She is also the Executive Vice President of Forbes Media where she is responsible for programming and branding Forbes events worldwide and driving new business initiatives across the company’s diverse media platforms. She is currently the host of Success with Moira Forbes, a video series on the Forbes Video Network featuring candid, one-on-one interviews with today’s top women leaders. Launched by Forbes Media in 2008, ForbesWoman includes a robust website, a global digital community and a variety of content-rich live forums and events. Across these diverse media, ForbesWoman examines the unique experiences of professionally successful women, affirms their ambitions and achievements, and sets the agenda for purposeful discourse on the topics that matter most to them. Moira joined Forbes Media in 2001 in its London office, overseeing research and marketing for Forbes’ Eur