Scott is an internationally recognized crisis negotiator, advisor, trainer and keynote speaker. He is known and respected for his experience negotiating in highly charged situations, with high stakes and when the situation requires sensitivity to the human element. Clients, audiences and students alike, find Scott’s teachings, insightful, inspiring and pragmatic.   

Scott worked as a hostage/crisis negotiator with one of the largest regional SWAT teams in the United States for many years before moving into the role of a negotiations speaker and trainer. He has over 20 years of law enforcement experience and retired from a Chicago area police department in 2023 at the rank of Lieutenant. He was trained by in negotiation by the FBI and has studied at the Harvard University Program on Negotiation, at IMD Business School, and he continues to receive training from the world’s top negotiators.  

​Scott is a prolific trainer within the negotiation field and travels the country and around the world speaking to a wide variety of audiences. He has taught negotiations at Harvard University, for the FBI, and has keynoted for companies such as Microsoft and Bosch.  In 2016, he was invited to give a TEDx talk titled “The Secrets of Hostage Negotiators”, which has received over 1 million views.  His visibility as a speaker and educator through TEDx and other venues has reached global status.  
 
Scott currently resides in the Chicago area and is a Partner and co-founder with the Negotiations Collective, where he works with organizations and their leaders on how to have difficult conversations to resolve conflict and increase their influence.    

Ryan Ellis, a distinguished litigation attorney, boasts considerable expertise in state and federal employment law. Proficient in representing both employers and employees as an attorney,
Ryan's experience also spans business consulting and leading MatrixHR, a comprehensive human resources provider. Proactively assisting clients before lawsuits are filed, he effectively
mitigates risks and fosters harmonious workplace environments. With unique insights and a wealth of expertise, Ryan stands as a trusted authority in the ever-evolving realms of HR and
legal consulting. Licensed in California, Michigan, Nevada, and Texas, his reach extends across multiple jurisdictions.

Hoefling has been supporting cross-functional leadership change teams to transform the workplace, while achieving organization strategy for over 30 years. Author of Working Virtually: Transforming the Mobile Workplace, Trina is an accomplished thought leader with passion for elevating the workplace experience, speaking frequently about high-performance teaming in the mobile work world. Trina teaches at the University of Southern California, HR Management M.S program.

Gretchen Phillips is the Chief Revenue Officer of headversity, a preventative workforce mental health platform. She is responsible for strategic partnerships, sales and client success- working with employers of all sizes to reduce the costs of poor mental health in the workplace.  Over the past two decades, Gretchen has held many executive leadership roles in the Group Benefits space, including head of Disability Claims. When she’s not working, Gretchen is a devoted swim and music theatre parent, and whenever possible, plays golf, chess, and the piano.  Gretchen is a graduate of Bucknell University and lives in Morristown, NJ with her husband, two sons and rescue dog, Maverick.

Yvette Stott, PhD. is a Director of Corporate Partnerships at InStride; with expertise in leading manufacturers, retail, and distribution businesses to become an employer of choice by transforming their employees’ lives through strategic enterprise education. With an undergraduate degree in Psychology, a M.B.A., and a doctoral degree in Higher Education Administration she brings both extensive experience and formal education to drive desired outcomes. Yvette hails from the Los Angeles area.

After several years producing and facilitating team building programs for a variety of companies, Matt May recognized that there was an alternate way to provide engaging, interactive experiences. As a result, he created Premier Team Building & Interactive Experiences®, delivering programs nation-wide, and abroad. As the company’s president, he is responsible for the design & development of its experiences, overseeing the production and facilitation of these programs, customer support, and staff training. Additionally, in his career, May has served as a producer, director, manager, administrator, educator, and consultant for various event and live entertainment, theatrical, and educational organizations.

John Rood is founder and CEO of Proceptual.com. Proceptual provides compliance solutions for emerging regulation of automated and AI-driven tools for HR and people operations. John is on the board of JB Training Solutions, a leadership training consultancy, and Victory Lap, a sales training and placement platform. Prior to Proceptual, John was founder of Next Step Test Preparation, a market leader in pre-health and pre-medical test prep that sold to private equity. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Michigan State University. 

Jennifer Dulski has 20+ years of executive experience including leadership roles at Facebook, Google and Yahoo!, and founder, CEO and president roles at early stage and scaling startups. She is currently CEO and founder of Rising Team, a talent development platform that improves employee engagement and scales talent development with software that equips managers to run deeply connecting, interactive team sessions without an outside facilitator.  

Her lifelong passion is centered around empowering people to reach their full potential. From a very early age she was focused on bringing out the best in others, from her time as a crew coxswain to teaching high school and founding and leading a Breakthrough program to help motivated students be the first in their families to go to college. In addition to her role at Rising Team, she currently teaches management at Stanford Graduate School of Business, serves on the boards of Weight Watchers and Arcadia, and writes about leadership and the future of work as a LinkedIn Influencer. Dulski’s first book, Purposeful, about how each of us can be movement starters, is a Wall Street Journal Bestseller.