Speakers 2025
Alexis Redding: The Real Secret to Adulting (What the Research Shows)
We genuinely want to help guide young people with advice about life. But research shows that when we look back and tell the story of our lives, our narratives become accidentally distorted - and those omissions leave young people feeling lost when their path is anything but linear. When Harvard scholar Alexis Redding discovered a lost trove of interviews from 50 years ago, it began a journey that led her to uncover a powerful new way to understand how young people actually grow, stumble, and make meaning on the path to adulthood. In this talk, she shares her research insights about how we can all learn to tell our stories more honestly – and support young adults better as they navigate life transitions.
Dr. Alexis Redding is a developmental psychologist and faculty co-chair of Higher Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She studies young adults navigating college and career and is the co-author of The End of Adolescence: The Lost Art of Delaying Adulthood. Her work has been featured in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, and Teen Vogue. She is a frequent keynote speaker on college student mental health, the undergraduate experience, and the transition from college to the workforce.
Angela Burgess: What You Don’t Know About Nonprofits
Angela Burgess is the President & CEO of Broad Oaks Consulting, a nonprofit consulting firm transforming the way organizations fundraise and lead. She is also the best-selling author of Are You on the Right Bus? Navigating Change on the Road to Success, a compelling memoir to making meaningful, measurable change—starting with yourself.
Before founding Broad Oaks, Angela spent a decade in wealth management, helping financial advisors grow and scale their businesses. But her true calling emerged when she pivoted to the nonprofit sector, bringing the same strategic rigor to mission-driven work.
Angela brings real-world insight, results-driven strategies, and a dash of Iowa pragmatism to her work. Originally from Iowa City, IA, she now lives in Houston, TX with her husband and their dog, Enzo. She’s an avid traveler, passionate cook, and never misses her daily workout.
Mark Lenhard: Re-envisioning Aging Successfully
Mark Lenhard will propose a transformative shift in understanding what it means to “age successfully.” Moving beyond the traditional quantitative markers of senior healthcare, Mark will emphasize the importance of qualitative aspects of quality of life. He will explore how both traditional and unexpected partners can collaborate with senior living providers to reframe aging as positive, natural experience. By taking a “hopefully contrarian” approach to questioning and re-examining traditional methods, this presentation will chart a course towards innovative practices that challenge stereotypes and create and environment where aspiration for life can continue at any age.
With nearly 30 years of experience in senior living, Mark Lenhard is a dedicated servant leader committed to the ministry of caring for others. His extensive leadership and management background includes multi-site senior living operations, financial oversight, fundraising, project development, strategic planning, team building, and public policy.
Mark Lenhard was appointed President & CEO of United Methodist Communities (UMC), a faith-based nonprofit senior living provider serving NJ seniors and their families, in 2022. Prior to joining the UMC team, Mark served as President & CEO of The Wesleyan in Georgetown, Texas. Mark has held various volunteer leadership roles with local chambers of commerce, advisory boards, and industry groups such as Leading Age Texas. Additionally, he has been a panelist and presenter for LeadingAge New Jersey & Delaware and LeadingAge National conferences.
Mark has been a Licensed Nursing Home Administrator (LNHA) since 1996 and holds a Master of Science in Gerontology with a concentration in Management of Organizational Behavior and Public Policy from Baylor University.
Dan Wenker: Over the Edge - Where Your 'What Ifs' Can Take You
Dan Wenker is an author, speaker, mountaineer, former REI Outdoor Experiences Guide and seasoned sales/marketing consultant. In his book, “Staying on Guard: A spiritual Encounter of Miracles and Gratitude to Discover Life’s Purpose”, Dan shares the gripping story of surviving a near-fatal 60-foot fall into a pitch-black underground ice moat while descending Wyoming’s 13,700-foot Grand Teton and the life-changing impact mountaineering has had on his body, mind and spirit.
Raised in Philadelphia, Dan has built a 40-year career in senior leadership across iconic, nationally branded foodservice manufacturing companies. His life made a dramatic turn when he moved to Yakima, Washington, for work purposes and was exposed to the world of mountaineering, outdoor adventure, and backcountry skiing.
At age 50, Dan began pursuing major mountaineering goals, successfully summiting Mount Rainier(twice), Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Whitney, Mount Adams (four times), Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens (three times, including a ski decent). He also completed the grueling one-day Grand Canyon rim-to-rim Grand Canyon hike. After surviving his life-threatening fall at 62, Dan embraced a renewed purpose: to inspire others to live a “what if” mindset instead of a “not anymore” mentality – showing that purpose, adventure and transformation don’t come with an age limit.
Dani Klein Modisett: What My Mother’s Alzheimer’s Teaches Us About Laughter
Despite working as a comic for over twenty years and teaching stand-up at UCLA for ten, when my mother became depressed, facing an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, I could not make her laugh. Desperate to recapture this light in her eyes, I had an idea that would not only change her end-of-life experience but also my understanding of how laughter connects us. In this TEDx talk, I share what I have learned in 30 years as a professional, a daughter, and a wife about specific comedians’ tools that help us break through feelings of isolation and create joyful communication where we least expect it.
Dani Klein Modisett is a comedian/author and the Founder/CEO of the award-winning company Laughter On Call. LOC launched to help her mother, who became depressed, facing the disease. Since then, the company has grown to help all people who feel isolated. It has trained thousands of caregivers and worked with over 600 companies around the world, including META, Amazon, Capital One, and Bristol Myers. Dani is also the author of the books, “Afterbirth: stories you won’t read in a parenting magazine (St. Martin’s Press), “Take My Spouse, Please” (Penguin Random House), a how-to for using comedian’s tools to keep laughing in marriage. Dani taught Stand-Up at UCLA for 10 years and has coached business leaders and Congressional candidates to use humor to connect. She’s been a keynote speaker at Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, Dartmouth Entrepreneur Forum, CALA, and ICAA. She has been a guest speaker at the Milken Global Conference, Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Fuqua, and Harvard Business School. Her writing has appeared in AARP, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Parents Magazine, and many websites. Dani was recently listed on Forbes 50>50.
Julia Flynn Siler: Singing Together
Julia Flynn Siler is a New York Times best-selling author and journalist. Her most recent book, The White Devil's Daughters: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a nonfiction finalist for the California Book Award. Her other books are The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty, a finalist for a James Beard Award and a Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished reporting, and Lost Kingdom: Hawaii’s Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America’s First Imperial Adventure. She is a regular contributor to National Geographic and The Wall Street Journal, is a member of the National Book Critics Circle, a juror for the Commonwealth Club’s California Book Awards, and spent this past spring as an academic visitor at Oxford University as part of its Oxford Next Horizons Program. She most recently wrote a feature story for The Wall Street Journal about walking in Jane Austen’s footsteps.
Ryan Benz: Why Being Yourself Takes Courage—and How to Find It
In a world full of noise, comparison, and pressure, being yourself has never been harder—or more necessary. In this powerful and deeply personal talk, Ryan Benz reveals a trail-tested truth: authenticity isn’t something you find—it’s something you practice—and it takes courage every step of the way.
Through lessons learned on a 2,000-mile journey along the Appalachian Trail, he challenges all of us to slow down, reconnect to who we are, and start walking the path that’s truly our own—so we can live and lead with greater clarity, courage, and connection. Are you ready to hike your own hike?
Ryan Benz is a speaker, author, and authenticity strategist who helps individuals and teams reconnect to who they truly are—so they can walk their own path, build resilience, and inspire growth in life and work.
Before redefining his life’s direction, Ryan spent over a decade working as a brand strategist in the corporate world, helping companies uncover what made them unique. It wasn’t until his personal life began to unravel—prompting him to step away from his career and everything familiar—that he realized: the most important brand you’ll ever build is the one inside yourself.
Louis Bezich: Unleash Your Emotional Force to Live Healthy and Happy
There is an emotional force within us all with incredible power to conquer one of the greatest challenges to our health and happiness, changing behavior. This TEDx Talk reveals how a merger of science and humanity offers a new model for anyone looking to enrich their lives, and a nation struggling to close a growing gap between its lifespan and healthspan.
An executive for over 40 years in the public and private sectors, Louis Bezich currently serves as Senior Vice-President and Chief Administrative Officer with Cooper University Health Care and is an adjunct professor in the Graduate Department of Public Policy and Administration at the Camden Campus of Rutgers University. He also sits on various public and non-profit boards, including the Coriell Institute for Medical Research.
Bezich is the author of Crack The Code: 10 Proven Secrets that Motivate Healthy Behavior and Inspire Fulfillment in Men Over 50, and a forthcoming book Living A Kick-Ass Life. He is a contributing author to Corporate Lawbreaking and Interactive Compliance, edited by Jay A. Sigler and Joseph E. Murphy, a contributing writer on men’s health for PhillyVoice.com, and a regular guest on the video podcast This Is It TV with Cheldin Bartlatt Rumer.
Bezich holds a master’s degree in public policy from Rutgers University, a bachelor’s degree in social science from the University of Tampa, and a graduate of Harvard University’s Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government. He resides in Haddon Township, NJ, with his wife Maria, has two adult sons, Anthony and Stephen, and two grandchildren, Luca and Brayleigh.