Keynote Speakers
Jocko Willink is a retired U.S. Navy SEAL officer, co-author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win, Dichotomy of Leadership, host of the top-rated Jocko Podcast, and co-founder of Echelon Front, where he serves as Chief Executive Officer, leadership instructor, speaker and strategic advisor. Jocko spent 20 years in the SEAL Teams, starting as an enlisted SEAL and rising through the ranks to become a SEAL officer.
"Why Does Jocko Say Good?"
As commander of SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser during the battle of Ramadi, he orchestrated SEAL operations that helped the “Ready First” Brigade of the U.S. Army’s First Armored Division bring stability to the violent, war-torn city. Task Unit Bruiser became the most highly decorated Special Operations Unit of the Iraq War. Jocko Willink returned from Iraq to serve as Officer-in-Charge of training for all West Coast SEAL Teams. There, he spearheaded the development of leadership training and personally instructed and mentored the next generation of SEAL leaders who have continued to perform with great success on the battlefield. Jocko Willink is the recipient of the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and numerous other personal and unit awards. Upon retiring from the Navy, Jocko Willink co-founded Echelon Front, a premier leadership consulting company, where he teaches the leadership principles he learned on the battlefield to help others lead and win. Jocko also authored the Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual, a New York Times Bestseller, and the best selling Way of the Warrior Kid children’s book series.
The only human to free solo Yosemite’s 3000 foot rock monolith, El Capitan. No rope, climbing alone. More people will walk on the moon than will do what Alex Honnold has done. His extremely rare skill, unmatched mental focus, and unique future vision about the sport of climbing means that he is (almost) from another universe.
Beyond his 2017 history-making ascent of El Cap, dramatically documented in the Oscar-winning film Free Solo, Alex is simply one of the hardest working, certainly most accomplished, and greatest climbers to ever live. His feats have blown the doors wide open on the sport of climbing, placing him at the front of mainstream media like 60 Minutes, The New York Times, and the cover of National Geographic. Thanks to Alex, most folks in America know about what once was a niche sport but what is now a multi-billion dollar industry.
Theatrical Trailer for National Geographic's "Free Solo"
Humble and self-effacing, he is deeply appreciative of the position he holds in culture and uses it for the greater good. In 2012, Alex founded the Honnold Foundation, an environmental non-profit that provides grants to organizations advancing solar energy access all over the world. Their vision was simple: to improve lives and reduce environmental impact. In 2021 alone, Honnold Foundation supported 44 communities across 17 countries, all focused on community-centered innovation catalyzed by solar energy. Host of the wildly successful Climbing Gold Podcast, Alex is a sharp listener and talented conversationalist who loves exploring the fringe, dirtbag stories of climbing culture that originally drew him to the sport. Despite numerous high profile sponsors and his continued skyrocketing success, he likes to live as simply as possible with his wife Sanni and his daughter June, whether that is out of their van or at their home in the foothills of Red Rocks, Nevada. Both out-of-this-world star and down-to-earth humble, Alex is truly the world ambassador of the sport of climbing for this generation.
Peter Zeihan is a geopolitical strategist, which is a fancy way of saying he helps people understand how the world works. Peter combines an expert understanding of demography, economics, energy, politics, technology, and security to help clients best prepare for an uncertain future.
Over the course of his career, Peter has worked for the US State Department in Australia, the DC think tank community, and helped develop the analytical models for Stratfor, one of the world’s premier private intelligence companies. Peter founded his own firm — Zeihan on Geopolitics — in 2012 in order to provide a select group of clients with direct, custom analytical products. Today those clients represent a vast array of sectors including energy majors, financial institutions, business associations, agricultural interests, universities and the U.S. military. With a keen eye toward what will drive tomorrow’s headlines, his irreverent approach transforms topics that are normally dense and heavy into accessible, relevant takeaways for audiences of all types.Peter is a critically-acclaimed author whose first two books — The Accidental Superpower and The Absent Superpower — have been recommended by Mitt Romney, Fareed Zakaria and Ian Bremmer. His third title, Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World was published November 2019.