Dan Gingiss
Dan Gingiss is an international keynote speaker and business coach who believes that a remarkable customer experience is your best competitive advantage. His 20-year professional career spanned multiple disciplines including customer experience, marketing, social media and customer service. He held leadership positions at McDonald’s, Discover and Humana.
Dan is the author of The Experience Maker: How To Create Remarkable Experiences That Your Customers Can’t Wait To Share and Winning at Social Customer Care: How Top Brands Create Engaging Experiences on Social Media. He was also the co-host of the award-winning Experience This! podcast.
He earned a B.A. in psychology and communications from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. in marketing from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Dan is also a licensed bartender, a pinball wizard, and he once delivered a pizza to Michael Jordan.
Joyce Marter
Joyce Marter is a licensed psychotherapist with 25 years of experience and entrepreneur who founded and successfully sold Urban Balance, a national outpatient mental health company in the U.S. Marter is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University, an international speaker, blogger for Psychology Today, and a mental health thought leader specializing in mindfulness, career, and the psychology of money. Joyce Marter is routinely consulted as a mental health expert in the media, featured in such outlets as U.S. News & World Report, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and MTV. Her book, The Financial Mindset Fix: A Mental Fitness Program for an Abundant Life, was published by Sounds True in July of 2021 and has been featured in Business Insider, MoneyGeek, US Weekly, Thrive Global, Forbes, and more. Joyce inspires and empowers audiences by promoting mental health awareness, teaching mental health first aid for supervisors and leaders, and providing practical tools and strategies to cultivate positive mental health and resilience in their employees and teams.
Greg Schwem
Greg Schwem tells all his clients, “I’m here to make you laugh but, at the end of the day, I want to be your biggest cheerleader too!” That approach is why the Chicago Tribune recently proclaimed Greg “king of the hill in the growing world of corporate comedy while HuffPost calls Greg, “Your boss’ favorite comedian.” Indeed, Greg’s comedic take on the 21st century workplace and work/life balance has landed him on SIRIUS Radio, Comedy Central and the cover of Exceptional People Magazine. During the 2020 pandemic, Greg’s virtual keynote, You Can‘t Quarantine Laughter, was lauded by clients such as Cisco, Verizon, Merrill Lynch and his alma mater, Northwestern University. One participant called it “fantastic and just what everybody needed during this time.” More than just a business humor keynote speaker and sought-after corporate emcee, Greg is also an author, nationally syndicated humor columnist for the Chicago Tribune, award-winning greeting card writer and creator of funnydadinc, voted one of the top Dad humor sites on the web in 2020. His recent business travels have resulted in a hilarious web series, A Comedian Crashes Your Pad, currently streaming on Roku and AppleTV. He has shared the concert stage with the likes of Celine Dion, Jay Leno and Keith Urban.
What sets Greg apart from other corporate entertainers is his ability—and willingness—to customize material for his audience while working within the parameters of the corporate environment. That means no profanity or politically incorrect material. “That’s never been a part of my show anyway,” Greg recently told a reporter.
When Greg presents, live or virtually, at whatever time of day, audiences will see and hear the following:
- A heavily researched and customized presentation featuring material created with the help of Greg’s client. Greg doesn’t “phone it in.”
- Customized multimedia support that includes video, audio and screen grabs from a client’s website.
- A motivational message that uses humor and real world examples from actual companies that show the “do’s and dont’s” of succeeding in business. Let Greg tell your audience about his experiences with the highly successful American Girl Doll company!
Greg’s preparation always includes a conference call with company executives and, in some cases, an onsite visit.
Customized Material from Past Shows
John Hancock: You sell the U.S. Global Leader Growth Fund. Is there a U.S. Regional Follower Growth Fund as well?
Michigan Realtors Assoc.: Your organization has been around since 1915? What kind of sessions did realtors attend at the 1915 convention? “The do’s and dont’s of selling that log cabin!”
Campbell’s Soup: You make “premium organic” baby food? Don’t you realize that, after the baby eats your incredibly healthy food, he’s gonna grab a fistful of the cat’s hair and eat that too?
Greg also is the author of two Amazon best sellers: Text Me If You’re Breathing: Observations, Frustrations and Life Lessons From a Low-Tech Dad and The Road to Success Goes Through the Salad Bar: A Pile of BS (Business Stories) From a Corporate Comedian.
Eddie Slowikowski
3 minutes and 58 seconds. That is the amount of time it took Eddie Slowikowski to run the mile. Whether it’s as a Gold Medal winner for the USA Track & Field Team, an NCAA All-American, or a sought after dynamic professional speaker, Eddie knows a thing or two about Peak Performance. Through years of training as an athlete and running his own speaking business, Eddie knows what it takes to be elite. Eddie has always had the can-do spirit of an entrepreneur, in all walks of life. Best of all, Eddie can channel that sense of accomplishment through interactive storytelling to audiences everywhere. He can make you laugh, cry, dance and learn… all in one presentation.
Eddie’s story has always been about taking the lead and setting the pace. Through his years as a world-class runner and now as an internationally known Speaker & Consultant, you can count on Eddie to be out in front. In addition to his accomplishments and medals, Eddie sought to enrich his life with service and empowerment for others. Whether it was in month-long service projects in Central America or helping the homeless in the city of Chicago, Eddie widened his world-view beyond the life of sports. Also, as a husband and father of four, he proves that a successful balance of life and business can be attained.
Through storytelling and high-energy showmanship, Eddie shows participants how to follow through on a vision from inception to achievement and how to create positive energy for yourself and others. It’s time to match who you are with who you want to be. Create the congruency of peak performance and attain the attitude of, Be That Now!
Laurie Guest
An entrepreneur, keynote speaker and author, Laurie Guest became known as a “go-to-resource” for customer service excellence during a successful career in the healthcare industry. In 1997, she channeled that expertise into Guest Enterprises, Inc., her own speaking and training company. For more than two decades, she has shared her practical point of view on customer service and staff development to audiences across the country, blending real-life examples and proven action steps for improvement.
Laurie is an award-winning columnist and the author of two books. With her latest, The 10¢ Decision: How Small Change Pays off Big, Laurie presents her most sought-after and impactful strategies to find and retain the best staff and highest-quality customers while delivering exceptional guest experiences. Laurie is a certified speaking professional, a designation held by less than 12% of speakers worldwide. She lives in northern Illinois where she is a wife, mother of two, lover of board games and below-average cook.
Amy McWhirter
Soulful and captivating, professional emcee and event host Amy McWhirter energizes and inspires audiences to connect and take action. Amy creates continuity and cohesion, drives deeper audience engagement and amplifies messaging by pulling threads together in a unique way so that audiences come away with deep value and connection.
Expert in emceeing live on-stage, in-studio, hybrid and virtual events, hosting and producing videos, Amy helps audiences get to the heart of every session, making sure messages are clear and compelling. Her effervescence is contagious and she’s adept at emphasizing key points from speakers, gracefully improvising with humor, focusing the audience’s attention and weaving in themes of the event.
She works with marketing and event planning teams to help craft scripting, content, interview questions and engagement activities that drive home the central themes of her client’s events and ensure that the audience is inspired, energized and ready to act.
Curtis Hill
Motivational Speaker | Diversity Expert | Inclusion Equity Coach | Author
In today’s world? Diversity, inclusion, and equity are no longer should have components in cultivating fair, safe, and effective business environments – they are a must.
That’s where diversity strategist, author, and speaker Curtis Hill comes in. Curtis brings audiences an empowering message of awareness, culture, and resilience, combined with a powerful mix of savvy business skills honed from a lifetime of both raw and well-crafted experience.
Growing up in Chicago, Curtis easily drifted into a life of violence and crime and quickly rose to become one of the city’s most recognizable and notorious gang members. While dealing drugs earned him a six-figure per month bankroll, it cost him everything when he witnessed the cold-blooded murder of his best friend and came face-to-face with the immense suffering it caused in his community.
That’s when Curtis turned to education to springboard his street smarts into solid business acumen. After earning four degrees, including a Master of Arts in Teaching, an Educational Specialist in Administration and Supervision, and a Black Belt in Six Sigma, Curtis now travels the globe helping businesses and associations manage the chaos of people, practices, and profits. His unique way of communicating complex issues like race and division with humor and humanity keeps audiences both laughing and learning.
Whether from a virtual or physical stage, Curtis delivers messages for leaders, sales professionals, service providers, and business professionals with high energy, purposeful passion, and solid strategies that create long-lasting and significant differences in their personal and professional lives. Want to learn how you can integrate more diversity, equity, and strong, effective business skills into your organization?