Thought Leadership Network
Thought Leadership
We curate thought leaders from a variety of disciplines to inform, advise and inspire us. We are proud to support independent bookstores through our talk series and privileged to have members of our network as advisors.
Code to Success – Season 1
Vikram Chandra, author of Sacred Games, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and chosen by Netflix to be their first original series from India. Vikram Chandra is the co-founder and CEO of Granthika Co., a software startup that is re-inventing writing and reading for the digital age.
David Eagleman is the author of The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World, a deep dive into the creative mind, a celebration of the human spirit, and a vision of how we can improve our future by understanding and embracing our ability to innovate. David is an adjunct professor at Stanford University, a Guggenheim fellow, and the director of the non-profit Center for Science and Law.
Gary Bolles is an internationally-recognized expert on the future of work and the future of learning. As Chair for the Future of Work for Singularity University, he leads the organization’s efforts to empower a global community with the mindset, skillset, and network to create an abundant future of work and learning.
Bernard Roth is one of the founders of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford (the d.school) and active in its development: currently, he serves as Academic Director. His design interests include organizing and presenting workshops on creativity, group interactions, and the problem solving process.
Tobias Balling is the co-founder and CTO of Blinkist, a micro-learning subscription service that transforms books into 15-minute digests (also known as “blinks”) and as a result, offers an easier way to access great knowledge during your daily routine. Blinkist, founded in 2012 with over 7 million users, is a start-up from Berlin, Germany and partner of the SAP Academy for Engineering.
Jochen Guertler, is an expert in Design Thinking, innovation expert, coach and a Gestalt therapist. He has worked at SAP for 23 years and has been a Design Thinking / innovation coach for many SAP customers. Jochen is co-founder of redesign YOU - creative and innovation workshops that combine Design Thinking and personality development.
Lee Daniel Kravetz, author of Supervisors!, has written for print and television, including The New York Times, Psychology Today, The San Francisco Chronicle, and PBS. He has been featured in Time Magazine, the Harvard Business Review, and Fast Company, and is a founding board member of the Lit Camp Writers Conference.
Code to Success – Season 2
Kelly McGonigal is a health psychologist who specializes in understanding the mind-body connection. She is the best-selling author of The Willpower Instinct and The Upside of Stress. Her latest book, The Joy of Movement, explores why physical exercise is a powerful antidote to the modern epidemics of depression, anxiety, and loneliness.
Dean is a sought-after speaker who has captivated and inspired audiences across the globe with his stories of persistence and perseverance. You are sure to enjoy Dean’s talk, whether you run great distances, modest distances, or not at all. And if you don’t run at all, he may just convince you to begin.
Nipun Mehta is the founder of ServiceSpace, an incubator of projects that works at the intersection of volunteerism, technology and gift-economy. What started as an experiment with four friends in the Silicon Valley has now grown to a global ecosystem of over 500,000 members that has delivered millions of dollars in service for free. Nipun has received many awards, including the Jefferson Award for Public Service, Dalai Lama's Unsung Hero of Compassion, and the Goi Peace Award in 2019.
Leah is a researcher, professor, consultant, entrepreneur, and author. She teaches courses on compassionate leadership at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she created the perennially-waitlisted course Leading with Mindfulness and Compassion. She is a principal teacher and a founding faculty member of Stanford’s Compassion Cultivation Program, conceived by the Dalai Lama.
Former member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, Adaire Fox-Martin led Customer Success, the global sales, services and customer engagement organization. She was responsible for SAP’s business across the globe with a resolute focus on the success of over 440,000 customers and nearly 40,000 employees. Adaire and her team maintained an unwavering commitment to providing extraordinary experiences while recognizing the unique business demands of each customer.
Code to Success – Season 3
Irfan Khan, President of SAP HANA & Analytics, who will talk about the work he’s doing, his career, the latest technologies, and future trends of 2021.
Dr. Keith Devlin is the Director of the Stanford Mathematics Outreach Project in the Graduate School of Education.
His current research is focused on the use of different media to teach and communicate mathematics to diverse audiences. In this connection, he is a co-founder and President of an educational technology company, BrainQuake, that creates mathematics learning video games.
His current research is focused on the use of different media to teach and communicate mathematics to diverse audiences. In this connection, he is a co-founder and President of an educational technology company, BrainQuake, that creates mathematics learning video games.
Sabine Bendiek joined SAP in January 2021 as Chief People Officer, Labor Relations Director, and member of the Executive Board. In her role, she heads our Human Resources organization and brings SAP’s people strategy to life. Sabine has more than 20 years of professional experience as an executive in the technology industry. Before joining SAP, she was Chairwoman of the Management Board at Microsoft Germany.
Jaya Baloo, currently Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Avast Software has worked in the cybersecurity area for nearly 20 years. She won the Cyber Security Executive of the year award in 2015 and is one of the top 100 influencers in the field. Jaya frequently speaks at security conferences on subjects around lawful interception, mass surveillance, cryptography. She is a faculty member of the Singularity University and a member of various infosec boards.
Gareth Hinds is the creator of critically-acclaimed graphic novels based on literary classics, including Beowulf (which Publisher’s Weekly called a “mixed-media gem”), and King Lear (which Booklist named one of the top 10 graphic novels for teens).
Sally Dominguez is a thought leader in resilience and exponential mindset. An inventor, architect and futurist with seven international product awards, Sally pioneered two new product categories that are now mainstream, and has been named one of Australia’s “50 for the Future” entrepreneurs in the USA.