June 5, 2018

Academy of Arts and Sciences, 136 Irving St, Cambridge, MA

Keynote Speakers

   Wendy Smith    Marina Gorbis

Dr. Wendy Smith’s (Alfred Lerner School of Business, University of Delaware) research focuses on strategic paradoxes – how leaders and senior teams effectively respond to contradictory agendas. She studies how organizations and their leaders simultaneously explore new possibilities while exploiting existing competencies, and how social enterprises simultaneously attend to social missions and financial goals. Her research has been widely published, and she was awarded the Lerner College Outstanding Scholar Award in 2015.

Wendy teaches leadership, organizational behavior and business ethics. She has taught at University of Delaware, Harvard and University of Pennsylvania – Wharton. Wendy was awarded the University of Delaware MBA Teaching Award in 2016.  Wendy has also taught executive and senior leadership teams how to manage interpersonal dynamics, emotional intelligence, high performing teams, organizational change and innovation, managing in times of crisis, and managing strategic paradoxes. She facilitated senior leadership teams at the Harvard Business School Executive Education program. She has also worked with senior teams at organizations such as American Automobile Association (AAA), Wilmington Trust, DHL and IBM.

Marina Gorbis (Executive Director,  Institute for the Future) is a futurist and social scientist who serves as executive director to the Institute for the Future (IFTF), a Silicon Valley nonprofit research and consulting organization. In her 19 years with IFTF, Marina has brought a futures perspective to hundreds of organizations in business, education, government and philanthropy to improve innovation capacity, develop strategies, and design new products and services.

Marina’s current research focuses on how social production is changing the face of major industries, a topic explored in detail in her book, The Nature of the Future: Dispatches from the Socialstructed World . She has also blogged and written for BoingBoing.net, FastCompany, Harvard Business Review, and major media outlets. A native of Odessa, Ukraine, yet equally at home in Silicon Valley, Europe, India, and Kazakhstan, Marina is particularly well suited to see things from a global viewpoint. She has keynoted such international events as The Next Web Conference, NEXT Berlin, the World Business Forum, the National Association of Broadcasters annual convention, and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges annual conference. She holds a BA in psychology and a Master of Public Policy from UC Berkeley.

To register for the LILA Summit on June 5th 2018 click this link: Register for the Summit

We look forward to seeing you at the Summit.  If you have any questions, contact marga_biller@harvard.edu