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Scaling Up Live 2025
Verne Harnish is founder of the world-renowned Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), with over 18,000 members worldwide, and chaired for 15 years EO’s premiere CEO program held at MIT, a program in which he still teaches today.
Sam Walker is an author, keynote speaker, and strategist who helps organizations strengthen their leadership selection and development practices, build stronger cultures, and create more cohesive and enduringly successful teams.
Sandra Joseph is a history-making Broadway star, a #1 international Amazon bestselling author, and a TEDx and keynote speaker. Her legendary run as Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera spanned ten years and over 1,500 performances.
Geoff Smart is the chairman & founder of ghSMART, a global leadership advisory, education, and analytics firm. Founded in 1995, ghSMART helps Fortune 500 CEOs & boards, entrepreneurs, and heads of state to achieve their goals.
In a career spanning over 25 years in Broadway productions and with symphony orchestras worldwide, Ron Bohmer most recently starred as the Prophet Joseph Simith in the mega-hit The Book of Mormon.
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Author, Scaling Up and Mastering the Rockefeller Habits
Verne Harnish is founder of the world-renowned Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), with over 18,000 members worldwide, and chaired for 15 years EO’s premiere CEO program held at MIT, a program in which he still teaches today.
As founder and CEO of Scaling Up, a global executive education and coaching company with over 260 partners on six continents, Verne has spent the past four decades helping companies scale up.
He’s the author of the bestseller Mastering the Rockefeller Habits; authored The Greatest Business Decisions of All Time, for which Jim Collins wrote the foreword; and wrote Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) which has been translated into 22 languages and has won eight major international book awards including the prestigious International Book Award for Best General Business book. His latest books Scaling Up Compensation and 12 Habits of Valuable Employees rocketed to the #1 HR books on Amazon upon release.
Verne serves on several boards, including vice chair of The Riordan Clinic; co-founder and chair of Geoversity; and board member of the social venture Million Dollar Women. A private investor in many scaleups, Verne enjoys piano, tennis, and magic as a card-carrying member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.
Bestselling Author, The Captain Class
Sam Walker is an author, keynote speaker, and strategist who helps organizations strengthen their leadership selection and development practices, build stronger cultures, and create more cohesive and enduringly successful teams.
He has worked with a Super Bowl-winning NFL franchise, several high-achieving national, Olympic and NCAA-champion sports teams, a national law enforcement agency, elite U.S. military special forces units, one of the world’s largest money managers, one of the world’s leading surgical hospitals, one of the world’s largest media companies and the commanding officers of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier.
Sam uses a rigorous, proprietary, data-driven assessment process to help existing teams make structural and cultural improvements and to help individual leaders refine their approaches and maximize their natural leadership strengths.
Sam’s expertise comes from two decades as a reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal, where he helped to direct the paper’s page-one features and investigative reporting. He also served as a sportswriter and leadership columnist and was the founding editor of the paper’s prize-winning daily sports coverage.
His most recent book, The Captain Class, is a meticulous analysis of effective leadership based on the traits of the captains who led the 17 most dominant teams in sports history. The book has become a cult classic, beloved by men and women worldwide who apply its principles to leading and building teams. Its fans include an FBI Director, a Marine Corps commandant, a Champions League-winning soccer manager, and the lead singer of one of the world’s top rock bands, in addition to many professional athletes, university presidents, politicians, and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.
Former Lead Actress of Broadway’s Phantom of the Opera, and author, Unmasking What Matters
Sandra Joseph is a history-making Broadway star, a #1 international Amazon bestselling author, and a TEDx and keynote speaker. Her legendary run as Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera spanned ten years and over 1,500 performances. She holds the record as the longest-running leading lady in the longest-running Broadway show of all time. Sandra has appeared on many national broadcasts including The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, The Today Show, Dateline, The Early Show, The View, and Oprah: Where Are They Now?
Sandra is a member of The Transformational Leadership Council, an invitation-only group of 125 top thought leaders. Among the luminaries who endorse her work are Jack Canfield, Mark Nepo, Martha Beck, Marci Shimoff, and Geneen Roth. Sandra is the author of Unmasking What Matters: 10 Life Lessons from 10 Years on Broadway. She is also the co-author, with five-time New York Times best-selling author Caroline Myss, of Your Creative Soul: Expressing Your Authentic Voice.
Sandra’s one-of-a-kind musical keynote program inspires audiences to live authentically, contribute their gifts wholeheartedly, and unmask what matters most in their lives and careers. She is married to actor Ron Bohmer, who played The Phantom. They perform together during keynotes, concerts, and client events. When they’re not on the road, Sandra and Ron are home in San Diego with their mini-Australian Shepherd, Rocky.
Co-author, Who: The ‘A Method’ For Hiring
Geoff Smart is the chairman & founder of ghSMART, a global leadership advisory, education, and analytics firm.
Founded in 1995, ghSMART helps Fortune 500 CEOs & boards, entrepreneurs, and heads of state to achieve their goals through hiring, developing, and leading talented teams.
ghSMART’s Credo begins, “We exist to help leaders amplify their positive impact on the world.”
The firm is known for offering extraordinarily talented, diverse, and goodhearted professionals the opportunity to work in a culture characterized by the freedom to choose, the chance to be a part of an exclusive yet inclusive team, and the opportunity to do meaningful work every day. ghSMART is ranked #1 on Glassdoor among top firms in consulting, finance, and tech, with a 4.7/5.0 overall rating. It is also ranked #1 on the Great Place to Work index among top professional services firms. In 2023, Vault named ghSMART the #1 consulting firm in its industry (ranked above McKinsey, Bain, and BCG) in the categories of overall colleague satisfaction, compensation, selectivity, challenge, client interaction, work-life balance, (few) hours in an office, best boutique, business outlook, and overall diversity.
ghSMART shares its knowledge about leadership with the world. The firm has published three bestselling books. Who: The A Method for Hiring (Smart & Street) is a New York Times bestseller that is currently ranked #1 on Amazon.com on the topic of hiring talented teams. Power Score: Your Formula for Leadership Success (Smart, Street, and Foster) is a Wall Street Journal bestseller, and appeared on an international newspaper’s list of “The 10 Best Business Books of 2015.” The CEO Next Door (Botelho & Powell) is a critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller. In addition, Dr. Smart published Leadocracy: Hiring More Great Leaders (Like You) into Government, a New York Times bestseller which won the IPPY Award and the Axiom Book Award for #1 Best Business Book of the Year. He earned a B.A. in Economics with honors from Northwestern University, and a M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology from Claremont Graduate University, where he was a student of management thought leader Peter F. Drucker.
ghSMART makes an impact in the broader community. Dr. Smart founded a not-for-profit leadership development organization which became the Colorado Governors Fellowship Program, and he currently serves on the Board of Trustees of CiviCo. ghSMART colleagues donate hundreds of hours per year to advising leaders who make the world a better place.
Former Lead Actor of Broadway’s Phantom of the Opera,
In a career spanning over 25 years in Broadway productions and with symphony orchestras worldwide, Ron Bohmer most recently starred as the Prophet Joseph Simith in the mega-hit The Book of Mormon. On stage, he has starred as the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera, Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard, Alex in Aspects of Love, Enjolras in Les Miserables, Coach Bolton in the cultural phenomenon Disney’s High School Musical, Sir Percival Glyde in The Woman in White, and as the title role in The Scarlet Pimpernel. His most recent Broadway roles include Father in the Tony nominated revival of Ragtime and Frid in the Tony nominated revival of A Little Night Music with Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch.
Sandra Joseph and Ron Bohmer have been called “Broadway royalty” and “a real-life fairytale romance.” They met on the stage of the Kennedy Center Opera House just moments before stepping into their roles as the Phantom and Christine and fell in love, both on and off the stage, in 1997. Nearly three decades later, their story has transcended Broadway stages and concert halls worldwide into a 20+ year marriage and professional partnership.
1:00 - 5:00 pm
Over 70% of Executives Surveyed Agree: Many Strategic Planning Efforts Lack Systematic Approach Tips for Enhancing Your Strategic Planning Process
Executives expressed frustration with their current strategic planning process. Issues include:
Steve Rutan and Denise Harrison have put together an afternoon workshop that will provide the tools you need to address these concerns. They have worked with hundreds of executives to develop a systematic approach that will enable your team to make better decisions during strategic planning. Steve and Denise will walk you through exercises for prioritizing your lists and steps that will reset and reinvigorate your process. This will be a hands-on workshop that will enable you to think about your business as you use the tools that are being presented. If you are ready for a Strategic Planning tune-up, select this workshop in your registration form. The additional fee of $695 will be added to your total.
2:00 - 5:00 pm
Female leaders face the same issues all leaders do, but they often face additional challenges too. In this peer session, we will facilitate a discussion of best practices and how to overcome common barriers to help women leaders be more effective within and outside their organizations.
Limited space available.
10:30 - 5:00 pm
General’s Retreat at Hermitage Golf Course
Sponsored by UBS
General’s Retreat, built in 1986 with architect Gary Roger Baird, has been voted the “Best Golf Course in Nashville” and is a “must play” when visiting the Nashville, Tennessee area. With the beautiful setting along the Cumberland River, golfers of all capabilities will thoroughly enjoy the golf, scenery and hospitality.
The golf outing fee includes transportation to and from the hotel, greens/cart fees, use of practice facilities, and boxed lunch. The bus will leave the hotel at 10:30 am for a noon shotgun start and return to the hotel after the cocktail reception following the completion of the round.