Scott Ginsberg is the only person in the world who wears a nametag 24-7-365 to encourage people to become friendlier and more approachable. He is the author of four books including "HELLO, my name is Scott," "The Power of Approachability," "How To Be That Guy" and "Make a Name for Yourself." As a speaker, Scott works with companies and professionals worldwide on how to be approachable, become unforgettable and make a name for yourself. Scott has also been recognized by CNN, USA, Cosmopolitan and The Wall Street Journal as "The Authority on Approachability" & "The World's Foremost Expert on Nametags." And, he has recently been inducted into the Hall of Fame of Ripley’s Believe it Or Not.

Founder, Chief Executive Bear and Chairman
Build-A-Bear Workshop® Where Best Friends Are Made®

Maxine Clark is one of the true innovators in the retail industry. During her 30-year career, her ability to spot emerging retail and merchandising trends and her insight into the desires of the American consumer have generated growth for retail leaders, including department store, discount and specialty stores. In 1997, she founded Build-A-Bear Workshop, a teddy-bear themed retail-entertainment experience. Today there are more than 370 Build-A-Bear Workshop stores worldwide, including company-owned stores in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland and France, and franchise stores in Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa. Build-A-Bear Workshop extended its in-store interactive experience online in 2007 with the launch of its virtual world at buildabearville.com™

In 2008 Maxine Clark was named one of The 25 Most Influential People in Retailing by Chain Store Age, in 2006 she was inducted into the Junior Achievement National Business Hall of Fame and received the 2006 Luminary Award for Entrepreneurial Achievement from the Committee of 200. She was named a Customer-Centered Leader in the 2005 Customer First Awards by Fast Company. Maxine was one of the Wonder Women of Toys by Playthings magazine and Women in Toys, and was also one of the National Finalists in Retail for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2004. In 2005, the National Association of Small Business Investment Companies (NASBIC) made Build-A-Bear Workshop Portfolio Company of the Year, it was named one of the International Council of Shopping Centers “Hottest Retailers of 2004” and the Retail Innovator of the Year for 2001 by The National Retail Federation.

Maxine is a member of the Board of Directors of The J.C. Penney Company, Inc., and serves on the Board of Trustees of Washington University in St. Louis. She is Chair of Teach for America – St. Louis and a member of the Teach For America National Board. She is also a member of the Committee of 200. She is a graduate of the University of Georgia. In 2006, her first book “The Bear Necessities of Business: Building a Company with Heart” was published.

Dr. Susan G. Weinberger has been recognized for her expertise in establishing, maintaining, and evaluating school and community-based mentoring programs and school-to-work initiatives. Her work has been published widely and the program she designed has been replicated in more than 40 States, as well as in Bermuda and Canada.

Shawn Achor is the winner of over a dozen distinguished teaching awards at Harvard University, where he delivered lectures on positive psychology in the most popular class at Harvard. His research and lectures on happiness and human potential have received attention in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, as well as on NPR and CNN Radio. When not at Harvard, Shawn travels around the United States, Europe, and Mexico giving talks on positive psychology to Fortune 500 corporations, schools, and non-profit organizations.

Shawn graduated magna cum laude from Harvard with a BA in English and Religion and earned a Masters degree from Harvard Divinity School in Christian and Buddhist ethics. Because he believes authentic relationships are the key to education and positive change, Shawn has met for coffee individually with over 1,100 Harvard students. He thinks it’s only a matter of time before Starbucks offers to personally sponsor Aspirant’s research.

In addition to his role as CEO of Aspirant, Shawn continues to research positive outliers—people who are well above average—to understand where human potential, success and happiness intersect.

He has spoken to diverse audiences—Wall Street analysts, Harvard law students, business leaders in London and Rome, elite high school students, doctors, and parents—in order to close the gap between the advances made in positive psychology research and our everyday lives.

Based on his research and 12 years of experience at Harvard, Shawn Achor clearly and humorously describes to organizations how to increase happiness and meaning, raise success rates and profitability, and create positive transformations that ripple into more successful cultures.

Michael J. Karcher, Ed.D., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Education and Human Development at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where he coordinates the School Counseling Training Program. He received a doctorate in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University (1997) and a doctorate in Counseling Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin (1999). He conducts research on school-based and cross-age peer mentoring as well as on adolescent connectedness and pair counseling. He conducted one of the first large-scale school-based mentoring studies, the Study of Mentoring in the Learning Environment (SMILE, 2003-2006) funded by the William T. Grant Foundation (www.utsasmile.org), which focused on its effects for Latino youth. Along with David L. DuBois, Professor Karcher edited the Handbook of Youth Mentoring (2005, Sage) and is currently co-authoring a book on school-based mentoring with Carla Herrera entitled Lifting as we climb: Achieving positive youth development through school-based mentoring (2009, Harvard). He is on the editorial board for five national journals and the research and advisory boards of BBBSA, MENTOR, and Mentors, Inc. He lives in his hometown of San Antonio with his wife Sara, their sons Reed and Jack, and two rather large dogs.