Industry Dinner Speakers
Program Host
Ali Wentworth
Actor & Comedian
A multi-talented performer, Ali Wentworth brings a wealth of experience to all her endeavors, including writing movie scripts, her column in multiple magazine, and acting and in notable movies and television shows. Ali made a name for herself as a regular on three seasons of “In Living Color”. She has appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno over a hundred times, as well as Colbert, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel. Other television credits include her memorable role as Jerry Seinfeld’s girlfriend, Schmoopie, in the series’ classic “Soup Nazi” episode. She was the creator, star and
executive-producer of the critically acclaimed Starz series HEAD CASE. Ali was an on-air regular on “THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW” for three years. She created, wrote and starred in “Nightcap”, a half hour comedy on the Pop network.
In film, Ali played Meryl Streep’s best friend in the Nancy Meyer film, “It’s Complicated”. She also costarred in such films as “Jerry Maguire”, ‘Office Space” and “Trial and Error”.
Ali is a three time New York Times bestseller. Her books include “The Wasp cookbook”, “Ali in Wonderland”, “Happily Ali After” and “Go Ask Ali”. She is currently working on another book and has written numerous TV pilots.
Ali is a notable public speaker. She does engagements all over the country regaling audiences with humorous tales about parenting, marriage and life.
She resides in New York City with her husband George Stephanopoulos, and their two daughters Elliott and Harper.
Featured Speaker
Ronald Heifetz
King Hussein Bin Talal Senior Lecturer in Public Leadership;
Founder, Center for Public Leadership
Ronald Heifetz is among the world’s foremost authorities on the practice and teaching of leadership. He advises heads of governments, businesses, and nonprofit organizations across the globe. In 2016, President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia highlighted Heifetz’s advice in his Nobel Peace Prize Lecture. Heifetz founded the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School where he is the Leadership.
King Hussein bin Talal Senior Lecturer in Public Leadership. Heifetz played a pioneering role in establishing leadership as an area of study and education at Harvard, in the United States, and around the world. His research addresses two key challenges: developing a conceptual foundation for the analysis and practice of leadership; and developing transformative methods for leadership education, training, and consultation.
​
Heifetz co-developed the adaptive leadership framework with Riley Sinder and Marty Linsky to provide a basis for leadership practice and research. His first book, Leadership Without Easy Answers (1994), is a classic in the field and has been one of the ten most assigned books at Harvard and Duke Universities. Heifetz co-authored the best-selling Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Change with Marty Linsky, which serves as one of the primary go-to books for practitioners across sectors (2002, revised 2017). He co-authored the field book, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing your Organization and the World with Alexander Grashow and Marty Linsky (2009). All three books have been translated into many languages. Heifetz’s HarvardX online course, Exercising Leadership: Foundational Principles (2020), has reached more than 700,000 people and was one of five finalists among global online courses for the 2021 EdX Prize.
​
Heifetz began his focus on transformative methods of leadership education and development in 1983. Drawing students from throughout Harvard’s graduate schools and neighboring universities, his courses on leadership are legendary; his core course won the alumni award for the most influential course in the careers of alumni six out of six years. His teaching methods have been studied extensively in doctoral dissertations and in Leadership Can Be Taught, by Sharon Daloz Parks (Harvard Business Press, 2005).
​
A graduate of Columbia University, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard Kennedy School, Heifetz is both a physician and cellist. He trained initially in surgery before deciding to devote himself to the study of leadership to address the major challenges facing societies and organizations. Heifetz completed his medical training in psychiatry to provide a foundation for developing a political psychology of leadership. As a cellist, he was privileged to study with the great Russian virtuoso, Gregor Piatigorsky.