Keynote Speakers
Be inspired by leaders of the industry
Jon M. Chu
Award-winning director of "Wicked", "In The Heights" and "Crazy Rich Asians" and author of "Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen"
Jon M. Chu is known for his visually stunning blockbuster films, as well as his kinetic work across various genres from groundbreaking series to commercials and films. Additionally, his unique storytelling ability has earned him the honor of inclusion on the Hollywood Reporter’s Power 100 list as well as Variety’s New Hollywood Leaders.
Most recently, Chu directed Universal Pictures’ critically acclaimed WICKED, starring Oscar-nominated actress Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. Part 1 of the feature-film adaptation of the record-breaking musical phenomenon released in theaters on November 22, 2024 and quickly became a box-office hit, becoming the highest-grossing Broadway adaption in domestic box office history in its second week earning over $350 million globally. His memoir, Viewfinder, is his journey from growing up in the Silicon Valley to transitioning to Hollywood and helming major studio projects, released Summer 2024. The book is an uplifting tale of belonging, creativity and learning to see who you truly are.
His recent projects include the critically acclaimed adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Award-winning musical IN THE HEIGHTS for Warner Bros. Studios as well as the worldwide phenomenon CRAZY RICH ASIANS, which was nominated for numerous awards, including a SAG Award, a Golden Globe and PGA Award. It is one of the top 10 highest grossing romantic comedies of all time and the highest in a decade. It was also the first contemporary studio picture in more than 25 years to feature an all-Asian cast and opened a new chapter in Asian-American representation in Hollywood.
Chu is in post-production on WICKED: PART TWO, which is set to release on November 21, 2025, and is attached to develop to direct the highly anticipated biopic for Britney Spears based on her memoir, The Woman in Me, with Universal. He is also in development on Dr. Seuss’ OH, THE PLACES YOU’LL GO! with Warner Bros and JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot, which will be his first animated film. His previous films include GI. JOE: RETALIATION, NOW YOU SEE ME 2, JUSTIN BIEBER’S NEVER SAY NEVER and many more representing over 1.3 billion dollars in the worldwide box office.
Penny Pennington
Managing Partner
Edward Jones
Penny Pennington is the managing partner of Edward Jones, a leading financial services company dedicated to helping its 8 million clients turn their life plans into financial strategies. Under her leadership, the firm delivers on its purpose to partner for positive impact, to improve the lives of its clients and colleagues, and together, better its communities and society.
As Edward Jones begins its second century, Pennington, as the firm's sixth managing partner, is guiding Edward Jones through a cultural renewal and strategic transformation that is purpose-driven, leader-led and team-based. The firm's approximately 54,000 associates and nearly 19,500 financial advisors throughout the U.S. and Canada are committed to meeting clients' growing desires and expectations for a trusted advisor who deeply understands their goals and guides them to meet those goals with professional advice that reflects their unique situations.
With more branch offices in more communities than any other financial services company, Pennington is seeking to lift more people up through three areas of focus: partnering for lasting financial strength, promoting healthier futures, and advancing inclusive growth. One way Edward Jones brings these priorities to life is by promoting financial wellness; through its Financial Fitness program, the firm is committed to educating 1 million learners by the end of 2025. Edward Jones believes that serving more clients in more communities, and helping them achieve more possibilities in their lives, invigorates families and futures for this generation and generations to come.
Pennington began her career with Edward Jones as a financial advisor in 2000 after a 14-year career in banking and was named a principal in 2006. She held various leadership roles in the firm's St. Louis home office before being named managing partner in 2019. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and she was named No. 69 on the Fortune Most Powerful Women* list.
In 2022, Pennington was elected to serve a three-year term as a large-firm governor of the FINRA Board of Governors, which oversees management in the administration of FINRA’s affairs and the promotion of FINRA’s welfare, objectives and purposes. She is an active member of the St. Louis community, serving on the boards of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and the Washington University in St. Louis Board of Trustees.
*2023 Fortune Most Powerful Women, published October 2023, data as of August 2023. Compensation provided for using, not obtaining, the rating.
Dr. Anirudh Devgan
President and Chief Executive Officer
Cadence
Dr. Anirudh Devgan is President and CEO of Cadence and is a member of the Board of Directors. Prior to becoming CEO in 2021, he was President of Cadence, before which he served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Digital & Signoff and System Verification groups. Under his leadership, Cadence has significantly grown its computational software and hardware portfolio, expanded into adjacent and new markets, and achieved several years of record revenue growth. Prior to joining Cadence in 2012, Dr. Devgan was Corporate VP and member of the executive staff at Magma Design Automation and earlier held management and technical roles at IBM.
Dr. Devgan is widely recognized as one of the leading authorities in electronic design automation (EDA) and successfully pioneered the application of massively parallel and distributed architectures to create several industry firsts and most impactful products in the areas of SPICE simulation, library characterization, place and route, static timing, power, and electromagnetics, among several others. He also drove the first common compiler architecture for emulation and prototyping platforms.
Dr. Devgan is an IEEE Fellow, member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), has written numerous research papers, and holds 27 US patents. He has won several awards, including the prestigious Phil Kaufman Award for his extensive contributions to EDA as well as the IBM Corporate Award and IEEE McCalla Award. Dr. Devgan serves on the boards of the Global Semiconductor Alliance and the Electronic System Design Alliance.
Dr. Devgan received a Bachelor of Technology degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and MS and PhD degrees in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
Ed Bastian
Chief Executive Officer
Delta Air Lines
Under Ed’s leadership, Delta is transforming the air travel experience with generational investments in technology, aircraft, airport facilities and, most importantly, Delta’s employees worldwide. A more-than-25-year Delta veteran, Ed has been a critical leader in Delta’s long-term strategy and champion of putting Delta’s shared values of honesty, integrity, respect, perseverance and servant leadership at the core of every decision.
Since being named Delta’s CEO in May 2016, Ed has expanded Delta’s leading position as the world’s most reliable airline while growing its global footprint and enhancing the customer experience in the air and on the ground. During his tenure as CEO, Delta has become America’s most awarded airline, having been named the Wall Street Journal’s top U.S. airline; Air Transport World’s Airline of the Year, the top-ranking airline in Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies, the Platinum Award recipient for operational excellence by Cirium; among Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies listand many more.
In 2018, Fortune named Ed among “The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders,” and in 2019, he was elected to the membership of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2021, amidst a global pandemic, Ed was awarded for his Executive Leadership in FlightGlobal’s 2021 Airline Strategy Awards and named among the Top 10 CEOs of 2021 in Glassdoor’s Employees’ Choice Awards as a leader who excelled at supporting their people. Ed was most recently honored by his peer CEOs and named Chief Executive magazine’s2023 Chief Executive of the Year in addition to the 2024 Georgian of the Year by Georgia Trend Magazine.
Ed’s values-based leadership propelled the airline to become the industry leader and a trusted global brand, guided by empathy, humanity and devotion to service, which has served Delta well in good times and bad. He has served as a Delta leader and steered the company through the most challenging periods of the company’s history, including 9/11, bankruptcy and COVID-19.
When asked to sum up his job in five words, Ed’s response is: “Taking care of our people.” The answer reflects his leadership philosophy, which is based on the “virtuous circle” – if you take care of your people, they take care of your customers, whose business and loyalty allow you to reward your investors.
Ed joined Delta in 1998 as V.P. – Finance and Controller. He was named Chief Financial Officer in 2005, and in 2007 he was appointed to serve as Delta’s President.
Before joining Delta, Ed held senior finance positions at Frito-Lay International and Pepsi-Cola International. Ed started his career with Price Waterhouse, where he became an audit partner in its New York practice.
Ed grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York, and graduated from St. Bonaventure University with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. He lives in Atlanta and is deeply involved in his faith, family and community.
John Pearson
CEO
DHL Express
With over three decades of experience, John has held leadership roles across the globe, including CEO positions for DHL Express in Europe, APEM (Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa), and EEMEA. He has an extensive background in sales, marketing, and general management, contributing to DHL’s success in regions such as the Middle East, Asia Pacific, and Oceania.
John began his career with DHL in 1986 and continues to drive innovation and growth in the express industry worldwide.
Anthony Capuano
President and CEO
Marriott International
Before his appointment as CEO in February 2021, Mr. Capuano was Group President, Global Development, Design and Operations Services, where he led the strategic unit growth of all of Marriott’s brands while overseeing the global design team as well as Marriott’s global operating standards and protocols for thousands of properties around the world. Mr. Capuano was also responsible for oversight of the EDITION Hotels, a unique concept in the luxury lifestyle hotel space conceived by hotelier Ian Schrager and Marriott International.
Mr. Capuano joined Marriott in 1995 and was instrumental in its steady growth over the years, which included the acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide in 2016. Mr. Capuano began his Marriott career as part of the Market Planning and Feasibility team, where he helped the company assess the overall economic viability of new and existing hotels, balancing the company’s interests with the needs of hotel owners and developers, investors, lenders, and operators.
That role prepared him to lead Marriott’s development efforts in the Western United States and Canada for its full-service hotel brands. Later, his responsibilities expanded to include North America, the Caribbean and Latin America. In 2009, Mr. Capuano assumed global development responsibility. He began overseeing global design in 2014 and global operations in January 2020.
Mr. Capuano earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in Hotel Administration. He is an active member of the Cornell Hotel Society, The Cornell School of Hotel Administration Dean’s Advisory Board, as well as the Business Roundtable and the American Hotel and Lodging Association’s IREFAC Council. Additionally, Mr. Capuano serves on the Board of Directors for McDonald's Corporation and Save Venice, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the artistic heritage of Venice, Italy. He resides in Potomac, Maryland, with his wife and daughter.
Laurel Richie
Independent Board Director
Synchrony
Ms. Richie served as President of the Women’s National Basketball Association LLC from 2011 to 2015. Prior to that, she served as a brand consultant for Teach For America and Chief Marketing Officer of Girl Scouts of the United States of America. The bulk of her career was spent at Ogilvy & Mather, where she held various leadership positions including Senior Partner and Executive Group Director and member of the Operating and Diversity Advisory Boards.
Ms. Richie has been recognized as one of the 25 Most Influential Women in Business by The Network Journal, one of the Most Influential African Americans in Sports by Black Enterprise, and one of the Most Influential Black Corporate Directors by Savoy magazine. She is the recipient of numerous awards including Sports Business Journal’s Game Changer Award and Ebony magazine’s Outstanding Women in Marketing and Communications Award.
A proud alumna of Dartmouth College, Ms. Richie was Chair of the Board of Trustees from 2017 to 2021 and currently serves as chair of the Hopkins Center for the Arts Advisory board and trustee of Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital and Dartmouth- Hitchcock Clinic.
Brian Doubles
President and CEO
Synchrony
Brian was named CEO in 2021, after serving as President for two years and as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for 10 years.
As President, Brian led the development of Synchrony’s long-term strategy, driving profitability and growth, while creating value for its partners and shareholders. In this role he focused on Synchrony’s continued leadership in digital payments, accelerating growth, driving the company’s strategic initiatives and transforming how Synchrony works. In addition, he led Synchrony’s strategic prioritization process, including efforts centered around accelerating Synchrony’s digital transformation and commercial strategies. Brian also led Synchrony’s work to elevate diversity and inclusion, focusing on driving enterprise-wide action and change in workforce development and inclusion; financial growth and wellness; and racial equality and social reform.
As CFO, he played a pivotal role in Synchrony’s initial public offering in 2014 and separation from GE in 2015. Brian has a proven track record operating in various economic cycles and has earned a strong reputation for his deep domain expertise, strategic thinking, and financial and risk discipline. Prior to Synchrony’s founding, Brian served in various roles of increasing responsibility and management at GE.
Brian is a member of the Business Roundtable and Bank Policy Institute. He is passionate about community and giving back. In 2015 he founded the “Doubles Dive,” an annual, global polar plunge event that raises money for various charitable organizations.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Michigan State University. He is married with two children.
Jim Kavanaugh
Co-founder and CEO
World Wide Technology
Jim is an investor and board member of cybersecurity firm Privoro, a board member of Stifel Financial Corporation, and a member of Business Roundtable. He has also been a trustee of the board for his alma mater, St. Louis University since 2010. Deeply committed to giving back to the community, Jim served as president of the board for St. Patrick Center and is a current member of the American Cancer Society’s CEOs Against Cancer of Missouri. Jim has supported many local and national charitable organizations such as ALS Association, St. Baldrick’s Foundation, Toys for Tots, Cardinal Glennon, Junior Achievement and United Way.
Prior to co-founding WWT, Jim played professional soccer and credits his experience with sports for instilling in him several principles that serve as core values for WWT today, such as trust, passion and being a team player. Jim is an investor/owner of Major League Soccer franchise St. Louis City SC, and National Hockey League team St. Louis Blues.
