Maria Sophocles, MD, FACOG, NCMP is a board-certified OB/GYN with more than 25 years of medical experience. She is the Medical Director of Women’s Healthcare of Princeton, a progressive and innovative women’s health practice in Princeton, NJ.Dr. Sophocles understands the spectrum of issues women face from their teens through post-menopause. “Women of any age want a physician they can trust,” Dr. Sophocles says. “I spend time with my patients so they can share intimate issues and complex problems.”After graduating with an honors degree in English from Duke University, Dr. Sophocles earned her medical degree from Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. She completed her residency training at Johns Hopkins /Greater Baltimore Medical Center. She promoted early development of umbilical cord blood banks and researched non-invasive ways to detect abnormal fetal chromosomes. Today, Dr. Sophocles focuses on advancing non-invasive, non-hormonal gynecological procedures to treat vaginal dryness, painful intercourse, and lichen sclerosus.Dr. Sophocles is a member of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the North American Menopause Society, and the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health. She is a fellow of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, is a certified menopausal specialist, and a fellow of the International Society for the Study of Vulvovaginal Disease.In early 2015, Dr. Sophocles was one of the first physicians to utilize laser for the treatment of vaginal dryness and lichen sclerosus. She teaches and trains physicians nationally and internationally and is a sought-after opinion leader on issues of menopause and female sexual dysfunction.She is married with four children and resides in Princeton.

Carissa Reiniger is the Founder & CEO of Silver Lining Ltd. She is the creator of the Silver Lining Action Plan - SLAPTM - a proven methodology based in behavior change science that has been helping small business owners worldwide build more profitable and sustainable businesses since 2005. By leveraging technology and data, SLAPTM is the modern approach to the age-old problem of growing a small business. She is an expert on small business and often writes, speaks, and advises on the state of small business in different markets around the world.

Chris Markowski founded Markowski Investments in 1995, which is an SEC Registered Investment Advisory. He's known as the "Watchdog on Wall Street" and has been appearing on television for two decades. Chris is a champion for the individual investor and an investor advocate. Chris is a veteran TV guest with decades of experience.

Ryan Duey was born and raised in Northern California. He attended Cal Poly University where he spent a semester abroad in Barcelona. The experience was so impactful that after graduation, Ryan returned to Spain and spent the next two years living and working in Madrid. After Madrid, Ryan returned to the states and began working in the front office 2of the San Jose Earthquakes. Soon after, Ryan had what he calls his “greatest gift”: a head-on motorcycle accident in Thailand. This near-death experience catapulted Ryan into a journey of self-inquiry, leading him to the jungles of the Amazon, the inside of a float tank, and a commitment to entrepreneurship in the Health and Wellness industry.While building Capitol Floats, Sacramento's Premier Float Center, Ryan traveled to Reboot Float Spa in the Bay Area with the hopes of meeting the owner, Mike Garrett. The two quickly became friends and business confidants.Now, six years later, Ryan and Mike are taking the next step together and have joined forces to create Plunge. Their mission is to make cold plunging as common as coffee. Ryan couldn’t be more grateful and excited to be working alongside such an impressive human and building the team at Plunge.

Artist Alexa Meade paints on the human body and three-dimensional spaces, creating the illusion that our reality is a two-dimensional painting. As The New York Times describes Alexa’s artwork, “Think of it as a Van Gogh — that is, if one of his paintings were brought to life as a performative protest." Alexa’s art has been exhibited around the world at the Grand Palais in Paris, the Saatchi Gallery in London, the United Nations in New York, Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo, and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. Her artwork has also been exhibited in space, orbiting the Earth on the history-making SpaceX Inspiration4 mission. She has created interactive installations at Coachella, Cannes Lions, and Art Basel. Alexa painted on the body of Ariana Grande for her iconic “God is a Woman” music video, which has over 350 million views. Her solo show on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills was attended by forty-thousand people throughout its 5-week run. Alexa’s art has been upvoted to the #1 position on the Front Page of Reddit. She has been commissioned by Apple, BMW, and Sony. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Alexa teamed up with LEGO as a Master Builder for their “Rebuild the World” campaign. Collaborating with spacetime researchers, Alexa was the first ever Artist-in-Residence at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. She has also been Artist-in-Residence at Google, where she worked alongside the engineers advancing Light Field imaging technology. Alexa and her work have been honored with the "Disruptive Innovation Award" from the Tribeca Film Festival. Respected for her thought leadership and non-traditional career path, Alexa has lectured at TED, Stanford, and Princeton. Alexa accepted an invitation to the White House under President Obama. Google Arts & Culture selected Alexa as the face of their “Faces of Frida” campaign, celebrating the legacy of Frida Kahlo and the female artists who are carrying it forward today. InStyle has named Alexa among their "Badass Women." alexameade.com / @alexameadeart

David Blobaum is the Director of Outreach for the National Test Prep Association. He works to support the appropriate use of testing in admissions and uphold the highest ethical standards in the test preparation industry. He graduated from the University of Chicago with honors both from the college and in his major, and he received his Executive MBA from Quantic School of Business and Technology. In college, he took seriously the University of Chicago’s aim of a “Renaissance” or well-rounded education and took courses in 17 different disciplines, ranging from Statistics and Economics to Philosophy and Art History. Since then, he has devoted himself to helping students reach their potential through education and, more broadly, to help empower them to succeed in life. To do so, he co-founded the education company Summit Prep in 2013 with a classmate from college, Eva Addae.

Michael grew up in Arizona, spent his last 3 years of high school in Del Mar, and then went to his Mother's alma mater, Penn State. After school, Michael moved to Los Angeles thinking he would work in finance but quickly realized it wasn't his passion. In 2010, he discovered a true passion for float therapy. After an influential trip to the jungle to sit with Ayahuasca in 2011, he built a float tank from scratch so he could float at home. A year later, he quit his 9-5, spent 6 months in Southeast Asia, then came back and founded Reboot Float & Cryo Spa in San Francisco. On a van road trip through the Rocky Mountains, he fell in love with jumping in cold rivers and lakes and again returned home to create a DIY setup - this time to satiate his appetite for cold water. In the summer of 2020 with the help of his father, he invented the Plunge and recruited fellow float center owner, Ryan Duey, to be his co-founder.

Shanna A. Hocking is the founder and CEO of Hocking Leadership, which helps companies and nonprofit organizations build stronger workplace cultures, develop leaders to reach their potential, and support women to thrive at work. She is also the author of One Bold Move a Day.

Jessica Entzel Nolan honed her skills working in the kitchens of celebrated chefs Gordon Ramsay, Wolfgang Puck, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and Masaharu Morimoto. She was nominated as Food and Wine magazine's Best New Pastry Chef at just 27 years old, Zagat's 30 under 30, and is the reigning champion of Food Network's Cutthroat Kitchen. Most recently, she worked as a Senior Inspector for the Michelin Guide, one of the most exclusive and prestigious jobs in the culinary world. Despite nearly 20 years of hospitality industry experience, however, Jessica found that being a stay-at-home mom was the most difficult position she had held. She and her family had moved from San Francisco to suburbia, and she left her dream job as a Michelin Inspector. She struggled to settle into her SAHM life, and the pandemic only added to the stress. She was exhausted and running on fumes. She desperately needed some time to feel like herself.  As the youngest of eight children, Jessica used to spend time in the kitchen with her mother. Spanish was her mom’s native language, but cooking was her mom’s love language, and she passed down the love of feeding others as an expression of love and self-care to Jessica. Everything from a humble pot of frijoles to recipes from a tattered, red spiral-ring-bound “Betty Crocker ‘s Cooky Book" were regularly made together and left lasting comforting food memories that still trigger nostalgia. Baking cookies had always felt warm and comforting. That need for comfort, and Jessica’s pastry chef instincts inspired her to begin batch-producing cookies at home, scooping and freezing the dough. Anytime she needed a hit of dopamine, she was only 10 minutes away from the warm, gooey bliss of freshly baked cookies. She frequently gifted them to new neighbors and new mothers. With her kids in school, it allowed her the bandwidth to start something new while still allowing her the flexibility to be the primary caregiver. Doughpamine gourmet frozen cookie dough was born in October 2023.   

Julieta Chiara is a Sex & Kink coach, sex blogger, and adult space influencer. Originally going to school for sex therapy, Julieta instead found her origins and passion in the sex industry by reviewing sex toys and collaborating with adult brands. Her truest passion, BDSM, is the gift she wanted to share with the world in an approachable way that wasn't a hidden secret, but something to be infused as part of our everyday life free of shame. Through years of experience as a seasoned BDSM submissive and rope bunny, Julieta now smoothly transitions women from sexual stagnancy to their truest, kinkiest, erotic lifestyles via online 1:1 coaching, courses, and workshops.

Don Dillon is the founder and chief executive officer of SOUND Foods Inc., a food technology company which has created a snack bar formed only with sound. In this role, Dillon draws upon a variety of business and life experiences to guide the endeavor of using a radically different food production technology to create an entirely new kind of snack bar for both the U.S warfighter and the American consumer.Dillon’s interest in improving the food offering for the warfighter stems from a severe medical problem which he developed while serving in the U.S. Navy. Due to complications stemming that incident he now must read the label of every package of food before eating it.This reality led Dillon to search for a technology that could change the way that people snack and eat. He discovered and acquired a process using ultrasonic technology which gently forms ingredients into a discrete shape like a bar in just a fraction of a second. An entrepreneur at heart, Dillon immediately envisioned how this technology could benefit both the warfighter and anyone looking for a new or different snack bar.Before establishing SOUND Foods, Dillon displayed a similar entrepreneurial spirit in founding Summit Building Services Inc., a construction company which builds and repairs the exteriors of large government buildings where he has been president since April 2016. In addition to his roles at SOUND and Summit, Dillon has been president of DAJA Holdings Inc., a family investment vehicle since September 2012. He also spent more than a decade gaining exposure to a wide variety of private and public sector business endeavors at Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.Dillon earned his undergraduate degree from Indiana University and his master’s degree in finance and investment from New York University. Dillon volunteers as a mentor for American Corporate Partners which assists military personnel who are transitioning to civilian life.

Award-winning blogger Cy Smash collects and reviews sex toys. On her blog you can find ways to maximize pleasure, sex education, and toy reviews. Her blog has over 300 articles for readers to peruse.

Zev Freidus began his real estate career in Boca Raton, Florida over 20 years ago. Long before the mass migration from the northeast, in the mid 90’s Zev had the vision to begin investing in residential properties in Boca. In 2005 Zev founded Boca Executive Realty with the mission of combining innovative technology with superior agents to become Florida’s most respected and trusted residential real estate brokerage. Over the coming 10 years he led the company through a period of hyper growth, which culminated in 2014 by selling a controlling interest in the company to a private equity group and rebranding as BEX Realty. In 2021 Zev launched ZFC as a full service boutique residential and commercial brokerage, specializing in real estate across the entire state of Florida.

Growing up in Queensland, Australia, Peter Jackson didn’t have much familiarity with wine. The journey that ultimately led him to a career as a winemaker began in high school French class. With his interest piqued, he double majored in French and Law at university before taking a yearlong hiatus to travel through France on a bicycle. While cycling through France’s many wine regions, Peter was captivated by the history and culture, but especially by the elegant and diverse wines. So much so that soon after returning to Australia, he left his unfinished Law degree behind and moved to Adelaide to study Oenology at Adelaide University. Since then, Peter has had the privilege to craft wine in some of the world’s most renowned growing regions in Australia, France, Italy and the United States. Peter's initial encounter with Marlborough was the 2005 vintage, an experience that cemented his love for cooler climate wines. “I remember being in awe of the beauty and tranquility of the region almost immediately. I couldn't imagine finding a better place to grow and produce wine,” he says. Peter first joined the Whitehaven team in 2008, spending three years at the winery. He returned to Whitehaven as Chief Winemaker 2020, where he seeks to create beautifully balanced Sauvignon Blanc that showcases the Marlborough region with honesty and integrity. He believes his role is to cultivate the best grapes sourced from the best sites, capturing Marlborough’s renowned fruit intensity while respectfully conveying the subtleties of different vineyard sites. “We have a multi-dimensional approach to fruit selection and an absolute commitment to quality in the winery. This makes for a consistency to our wine style, always offering a vibrant and layered expression with broad appeal — quintessential Marlborough,” says Peter.Outside of wine, Peter is a keen jetty jumper in the Marlborough Sounds, plants many trees and enjoys baking a decent sourdough. He and his wife Nadine are busy raising three kiwi children, Eddie, Matilda and Heidi.

Founder and Head Distiller, Kirby Kallas-Lewis, developed a palette and passion for food, wine, and cocktails during his years as an art dealer in Paris, Brussels, New York, and San Francisco. Before finding a passion for distilling, he raised milk goats, created paintings and sculptures while living in Tahiti, worked on Alaskan fishing boats, and ran a gallery in NYC, phew! 

Tasuku Murakami helms the kitchen at Umi, Atlanta’s destination for modern Japanese cuisine. The Michelin-starred chef oversees the menu that unites classic and modern Japanese flavors and has earned Umi accolades from media outlets including The New York Times, Time Out and USA Today. Murakami’s career spans more than 20 years and includes stints in Tokyo, Osaka and Kobe, Japan, as well as Turin, Italy. Murakami came to Umi from New York’s The Lobster Club, a Japanese-style brasserie where he served as executive sushi chef. While in New York, he also was executive sushi chef at the Michelin-starred Tribeca hot spot Sushi Azabu. In Japan, Murakami served as sushi chef at Sushi Kobe in Kobe and Ginza Sushi in Tokyo. In Osaka, he was executive sushi chef and managed nine restaurants for E-ownersfood Inc. and was proprietor for the sushi and Japanese restaurant Dateya, responsible for all areas of the restaurant. Murakami also served as executive chef for Ristorante Tobiko and was sushi chef for Ristorante Arcadia and Tsukiji Sushi Iwa in Turin.

Mark McLaughlin is the Chief Business Officer at WHOOP, where he is responsible for leading the WHOOP Unite business and driving growth and value for customers, enabling them to improve organizational performance, readiness, and resilience. Previously, he was Chief Revenue Officer at Roostify, and served in various leadership positions at DocuSign, Box, and Booz Allen where he was a part of successful IPO teams.

Winemaker Ryan Flock began his career while still in high school, working for an icon in California winemaking, Kent Rosenblum and Rosenblum Cellars. Today, he leads winemaking for the most celebrated and iconic premium three-liter boxed wine producer, Black Box. Along the way, he’s helped create and build brands as winemaker at world-class wineries across California. “Black Box had the challenge of being the first premium, appellation-specific boxed wine,” said Ryan, who joined the brand in 2009. “Black Box eliminated the stigma of the box because of the incredible quality of the wines. Today, we use vineyards and grapes that allow Black Box to rival or outshine wines in a glass bottle, even some at higher price points. These are sophisticated wines that will taste as good on day 21 or day 41 as they did on day one, and that’s an incredible benefit for consumers.”Ryan is enthusiastic about the future of Black Box, which was acquired by E. & J. Gallo Winery in 2021. “We have incredible support, resources, estate vineyards and grower relationships that allow us to make the high-end wines we know we can make,” he said. “We have the freedom and the latitude to make creative, quality-driven decisions. We are very excited to push Black Box into the future — and consumers are really enjoying what we’re doing. We have a huge opportunity right now to craft different styles and flavor profiles. As winemakers, we get to be innovators. This is our ability to shine.”A native of Alameda, California, Ryan worked the bottling line and other jobs at Rosenblum Cellars during high school and college. After graduating from San Francisco State University, he returned to Rosenblum, eventually rising to Cellarmaster in his decade-long stint at one of the nation’s most successful urban wineries. Ryan then moved to Amador County, where he still lives today, to become Assistant Winemaker at Renwood Winery, followed by a role as founding winemaker at Karmere Vineyards and Winery. Later, as a principal consulting winemaker, Ryan helped craft wines for a diverse set of clients from Napa Valley, Lodi, Amador, Sacramento and other regions. In 2009, he joined Turner Road Vintners in Lodi as Senior Winemaker, overseeing a team of winemakers crafting celebrated California wines.   Early in his career, Ryan said he was motivated by the thrill of earning accolades from peers and critics for the wines he was crafting. Today, he’s equally excited about mentoring and teaching his winemaking team, leading them to success. “We are making something to help celebrate fun, celebrate life and create great experiences. It’s a wonderful place to be.”