Author, Young Leaders 3.0

Passionate about unleashing the full potential of next-generation leaders, Jason L. Ma is a preeminent success coach, mentor, author, and speaker. Ma is also a high-level global business dealmaker and HR success consultant. Listed among The World’s Top Experts, Ma is Founder, CEO and Chief Mentor of ThreeEQ, a premier college admissions, career, leadership, and life success coaching and global business consulting firm. ThreeEQ’s clients are high-end families with teenagers and millennials, HNWI CxOs and entrepreneurs, enterprises, institutions, and associations. Ma is the author of Young Leaders 3.0: Stories, Insights, and Tips for Next-Generation Achievers, an inspiring and acclaimed book, and is a luminary expert and speaker for IfOnly.

As a sought-after speaker, Ma captivates and educates audiences, at times sharing the stage with tycoons, Global 2000 CEOs, and pinnacle political leaders. Featured in top-tier media as a thought leader, Ma has appeared on Forbes, CNBC Asia (including Managing Asia and Squawk Box), Business Rockstars, Teen/Kids News, and many others. As a Forbes contributor, his articles generated nearly 1 million views. Ma’s been a delegate to the Forbes Global CEO Conference for eight years. He is a member of the B20 Employment and Education Taskforce, which advises the G20 on policy. He is also a member of the World Chinese Economic Summit‘s Global Business Advisory Council.

Ma gives to disadvantaged next-gen causes from the ThreeEQ Foundation, a small philanthropy fund through the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and via in-kind services. He earned a B.S. degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from UC Berkeley. Ma and his wife are the joyful parents of two daughters — a college student and a high schooler.

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Neil Waldman is the founder and managing member of Waldman Capital Management (WCM), a fund of hedge funds primarily focused on long/short equity strategies. Prior to forming WCM, Mr. Waldman was a research analyst responsible for long and short equity investments at Wooster Capital Management (2006-2007) and Fortress Investment Group (2004-2006). Mr. Waldman began his career in 2000 as an investment banking analyst at Thomas Weisel Partners in San Francisco. Mr. Waldman received a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan in 1999 and a Master’s degree in Accounting from the University of Michigan Business School in 2000.

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Marcia Nelson is the Founder and President of Nelson Addison Advisors, a private deal source referral network for family offices and private investors that is affiliated with The Alberleen Group.  Ms. Nelson has a proven track record of working with family offices and their advisors. Over the last 20 years has developed a strong network investors seeking direct and co-investment opportunities, collaboration with other families, and thought leadership around impact and philanthropy.

Ms. Nelson formerly worked for an ultra-high-net-worth philanthropic family, and subsequently managed business development and relationship management in the areas of estate planning, finance, and accounting. She is also the is also the Founder and CEO of Deals and Divas, an educational and networking organization that connects women entrepreneurs and investors.

Ms. Nelson holds her Series 7 and 63 licenses.

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Mickey Penzer comes from a family where Real Estate and Philanthropy have been a family business for three generations. Mickey has a Bachelors and Masters in Business & Accounting
from the Stern School of Business at NYU, a law degree from Fordham Law and she is an NYS Bar member. She currently holds the position of Legal Counsel and Head of Business Development for
LIFE, focusing primarily on helping the disabled and elderly receive medicaid benefits.

Her goal is to combine her interests and skills in government services, real estate development (her father’s business) and philanthropy, to make a difference in low income housing. Her Jewish faith and natural ability to connect others are a large part of her business and charitable identity. She is a member of AIPAC and Israel is close to her heart. She is also a member of Jewish Funders Network, a peer network for philanthropic Jews and is working on growing their young funder division.

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Described by The New York Times as the person “often sought out in…thorny situations” by corporations, Bart M. Schwartz has wide experience providing advice and support to corporations, governments and individuals. Mr. Schwartz served under U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani as the Chief of the Criminal Division in the Southern District of New York. In that post, he had responsibility for overseeing prosecutions related to financial and business fraud, organized crime, narcotics, and other types of criminal activity.

Mr. Schwartz has served as a trial lawyer, corporate advisor and CEO of a private company and a unit of a public company. For  more than 30 years, he has managed complex investigations,
prosecutions and security assessments, and provided sophisticated investigative services to a wide array of clients. Mr. Schwartz is currently the chairman of Guidepost Solutions and  serves on the board of HMS Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:HMSY) where he is Chairman of the Compliance Committee and a member of its Audit Committee.

He is also Chairman of the Board of Managers of Kadmon Corporation, LLC and is on the Board of Directors of the Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association

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Brazilian-born and Miami-made, Romero Britto is an international artist that uses vibrant, bold and colorful patterns to reflect his optimistic view of the world around him. Britto has created a visual language of hope and happiness all its own that is relatable to all, inspiring millions. Self-taught at an early age, Britto painted on scraps of paper or cardboard or any medium he could find before coming into his own and traveling to Paris where he was introduced to the works of Matisse and Picasso. His appreciation of these masters influenced him to create an iconic style that The New York Times described, “exudes warmth, optimism and love”.

Britto’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums in over 100 countries, including the Salon de la Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts exhibition at the Carrousel du Louvre in 2008 and 2010. In 2013, Maria Elena and Carlos Slim Domit invited Romero to be the first living artist to exhibit at Museo Soumaya. He has created public art installations for the 02 Dome in Berlin, New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport, Cirque Du Soleil at Super Bowl XLI, and has been credited with the largest monumental sculpture in London’s Hyde Park history.  Britto served as an official artist for the 2010 World Cup, Ambassador to the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil and was recently invited to be an honorary torch bearer for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Britto’s pop sensibility has since leant itself to many collaborations with international brands such as Audi, Bentley, Coca-Cola, Walt Disney, Evian, Hublot, and Mattel to name a few.

Romero is an activist for charitable organizations worldwide and most of all an artist who believes “art is too important not to share.” Britto has donated time, art, and resources to more than 250 charitable organizations. Not a silent activist, Britto was a selected speaker for the arts at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. In addition, Romero Britto is proudly an Inaugural Founding Benefactor of the Harvard International Negotiation Program. He holds a seat on several boards such as Best Buddies International, and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, and was recently appointed to the board of HRH The Prince of Wales charity, The Prince’s Trust.  A believer in the role of an artist as an agent of positive change, Romero Britto is committed to developing and supporting the role art will continue to play in world issues.

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Sami Shiro is a systems engineer with a Master’s Degree in Science and Manufacturing Systems Engineering from Lehigh University.
Mr. Shiro has experience in several fields, including banking, management consulting, manufacturing, information technology and real estate. He developed an expert system for the Futures and Options desk at Lehman Brothers in 1991. In 1992 he developed a decision support system for Banking Decision Services, a company that provided consulting services to most of Venezuela’s major banks. Sami also worked with Ernst & Young LLC as a management consultant in the US, based in Chicago, Illinois as well as in Latin America. While working at Ernst & Young Mr. Shiro helped a major bank holding company in Portland, Oregon to consolidate its loan processing centers as well as improve their reconciliation process.
In 1997 he acquired a major stake in a small chocolate manufacturer, Chocolates St. Moritz (www.chocolatesstmoritz.com), in Caracas, Venezuela, turning it into a multimillion dollar business with a full set of mass marketed products and raising it to the top three chocolate manufactures in the country.
In 2003 he led the development of a 192 unit luxury condominium in Aventura, Florida with over $100 million in sales. Since then he has been involved in development, investment and management of real estate properties.
Sami Shiro is the manager for Israel G-Tek LLC (www.ig-tek.com), a private equity fund which engages in investments in the “greentech” market with a special focus on Israeli companies, currently holding stake in at least 12 different companies.
In 2010 Mr. Shiro became a shareholder and Board Member at Apollo Bank, a community bank based in South Florida (www.apollobank.com). The bank currently operates seven branches and has over $500 million in assets.
Sami is also a board member of Miami Innovation Fund, a venture capital fund for technology startups in South Florida, as well as a Board Member at the MAR-JCC (the North Miami Beach Jewish Community Center)
Sami continues to operate Chocolates St. Moritz, is the Managing Director for Israel G-Tek and is involved in real estate management and investment.
In recent years Sami’s real estate focus has been towards hotel properties, he joined forces with Driftwood Hospitality (driftwoodhospitality.com), a hotel acquisition, development and management company with over 50 properties across the US. Together they are increasing the size of the portfolio by acquiring and developing new hotel properties which are syndicated to private investors.
Mr. Shiro is fluent in Spanish and English and can manage basic Hebrew.

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Jonathan M. Conrad is the Chairman, CEO and founder of AdmieMobile LLC, an early stage software company.  He is the co-inventor of AdmieMobile’s peer-to-peer software, whereby data can cross multiple platforms in the mobile and desktop space in a secure and private/trust and verify environment, without storage in the cloud.  His “Systems and Methods for Establishing and Maintaining Virtual Computing Cloud”, patent was granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and published November 4, 2014. On November 3, 2014 a second patent was filed.  Mr. Conrad is a member of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP) cyber security round table which includes some the nation’s leading experts in the field.  He has also participated at West Point Military Academy’s Army Cyber Institute briefings. Mr. Conrad’s experience in senior management positions has been with organizations ranging from a large national bank, to operating a mid-size public company as an executive officer, to working with early stage companies, often as a principal or CEO in fields which usually included cutting edge technologies.    

Mr. Conrad was instrumental in the creation of the federal legislation enabling broad-based use of leverage Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs). During the Reagan Administration, he was appointed to the Commercial Space Advisory Committee of the US Department of Transportation, created by executive order of the President.  He served as a Senior Advisor to the original X PRIZE for space travel.  Mr. Conrad was a member of the “Harvard North Pole Discovery Centennial Commemorative Committee” to honor Robert Peary and Matthew Henson, for their historic accomplishment for being the first to reach the North Pole in 1909.   In a related prime time PBS documentary, he appeared in “North Pole Promise”, a timeless story of these two iconic American explorers. Mr. Conrad is a Medalist of The Explorers Club as well as a former Director and Officer. He has led discussions at the Club for a series of “green dinners” on the impact of certain food groups on health, climate change and wildlife. He also serves on the International Board of WildAid.org. Mr. Conrad is a graduate and Trustee of Washington and Jefferson College, and resides in New York.

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Chris is co-founder of Infocyte, Inc., a developer of proactive cyber security solutions focused on breach discovery and malware hunting.  Chris is a pioneer in defensive cyberspace operations having established the U.S. Air Force’s elite Defensive Counter-Cyber (DCC) practice.  From a decade of military service, Chris draws on both leadership and deep technical experience serving in various roles such as cryptographic systems maintainer, cyber warfare officer and Air Force pilot.
Prior to co-founding Infocyte, Chris served as the Air Force CERT’s first Chief of DCC Operations.  In this role, he led a team of 28 operators tasked with finding, tracking, and neutralizing state-sponsored threats on the Air Force’s $2B, 800k node enterprise network.  He personally conducted and/or oversaw 350+ adversarial hunt, rapid response and threat engagement missions on networks throughout the world.
Chris holds a B.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Oregon State University. 

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Ms. Ricks launched Munificent Asset Management in 2016 to leverage over two decades of expertise building businesses and strategically assessing alternative investment managers.  As a serial entrepreneur, recognized breast cancer survivor/advocate, and hockey mom, Ms. Ricks realized the need for more diversity, transparency and impact investing within  the alternatives industry which Munificent was created to address.

Since her diagnosis with breast cancer and the debut of her HBO documentary, The Education of Dee Dee Ricks, she has given over 100 keynote addresses to Fortune 500 companies, foundations, and non-profit organizations in the US and abroad.   Ms. Ricks is a sought after inspirational speaker on access to quality healthcare, patient navigation, and entrepreneurship. She understands the social injustices underserved individuals face in healthcare treatment as well as in their day-to-day activities. These experiences led to her founding The Ricks Oberoi Foundation, a 501c3 that specializes in funding healthcare equality through patient navigation of underserved breast cancer victims as well as sponsoring The NYC Roots Student Athlete Development Program.  The NYC Roots Program is a predominantly diverse youth hockey team aimed at providing minorities the opportunity to participate and excel as student-athletes in this affluently exclusive sport. In addition to her pioneering work within the alternatives industry, Ms. Ricks  is chairman of the board of the Harold P. Freeman Patient Navigation Institute (PNI), which supports patient navigation training and aims to provide information about chronic disease prevention and eliminate barriers to timely diagnosis, prevention and care. Ms. Ricks is also the national spokesperson for Rezilient Direct, the leading provider of supplemental health insurance.

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EJ Bliner spent her career assessing transnational security issues and briefing senior policy makers, defense officials and members of Congress on geopolitical trends. EJ founded ForecastFwd in order to fuse emerging technology and data analytics for global security purposes.

Prior to establishing ForecastFwd, EJ worked as Assistant Director of Global Security at AIG where she oversaw a 24/7 watch floor team responsible for managing the security of AIG’s 63,000 employees and assets in 90+ countries. She also led an initiative to assess terrorism models used in AIG’s casualty business.   

Before joining AIG, EJ spent six years at Booz Allen Hamilton, where she worked across multiple government entities including the Defense Department, State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. She was a defense market lead on the Predictive Intelligence team where she spearheaded a social media analytics program from the ground-up, and led a team of 25 analysts globally.  

EJ was selected for The White House’s United State of Women Summit in 2016, was a featured speaker on predicative analytics at the United Nation’s Media for Social Impact Summit in 2014, and was selected for the G8 Young Summit in 2013.

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Chaim Katzman is the founder, controlling shareholder and Chairman of Gazit-Globe Ltd, a leading international real estate company listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE:GZT), the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: GZT) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: GZT).  As Chairman, Mr. Katzman leads global operations, manages affiliate and subsidiary activities and oversees more than $US19 billion in assets in over 20 countries.   

Mr. Katzman is also the founder, controlling shareholder and Chairman of Norstar Holdings (formerly Gazit Inc.), the parent company of Gazit-Globe, the Chairman of Equity One, Inc. (NYSE: EQY), a leading shopping center developer and owner focused on urban communities, U.S. Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) he founded in 1992. He served as EQY Chairman & CEO from 1992 to 2006. Mr. Katzman also serves on the Board of First Capital Realty Inc. (TSX: FCR), Canada’s leading owner, developer and operator of supermarket- and pharmacy-anchored shopping centers. He served as FCR Chairman from 2000 to 2015. In 2008, following an investment by the Gazit Group, Mr. Katzman was appointed as Chairman of Atrium European Real Estate (VSX/Euronext Amsterdam: ATR), a leading real estate company that owns, operates and develops shopping centers in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2010, Mr. Katzman was appointed Chairman of Citycon Oyj (OMX: CTY), an owner, developer and operator of shopping centers in the Nordic and Baltic and the market leader in the Nordic shopping center sector. 

A pioneer of the retail investment and development industry, Mr. Katzman is a member of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT), the Real Estate Roundtable and the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE), and a trustee of the Urban Land Institute (ULI).

He received an LL.B. from Tel Aviv University Law School and serves as a trustee on the Board of Governors at Tel-Aviv University.

Mr. Katzman was the recipient and winner of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2010 Award in the Real Estate and Construction Services Category in Florida.

Mr. Katzman is a well-known civic leader, philanthropist and supporter of numerous organizations. In 2011, he founded the Gazit-Globe Real Estate Institute at Israel’s Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, a novel academic and research program focused on innovation and entrepreneurship in the real estate sector that will eventually offer a master’s degree in real estate with concentrations in housing, land use and real estate financing. 

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Ed Lantz is an entertainment technology engineer, entrepreneur, immersive experience designer and innovator in giant-screen digital cinema. He left aerospace engineering in 1990 to transform old-style planetariums into 360-degree immersive visualization environments, designing over a dozen dome theaters worldwide while at Spitz, Inc. including the Library of Alexandria in Egypt, National Space Center in Leicester, UK, the Glasgow Science Center in Glasgow, Scotland and Papalote Museo del Nino in Mexico City.  He also led the product development of the SciDome digital planetarium which has sold over 100 units worldwide.

Ed co-founded Vortex Immersion Media in 2007 to bring VR, immersive and interactive experiences into mainstream arts and entertainment markets. Vortex produces immersive and interactive media experiences for themed entertainment, VR Cinemas and numerous Fortune 500 companies including Condé Nast, EMC², IBM, Microsoft, NBC Universal, Nestle, NFL, Nike, Nokia, Sprint and Turner Broadcast. The company has produced 360 concert dome venues as large as 60 meters in diameter with capacity of 3,000 people for artists including Scrillix, Diplo and DJ Snake (dot Party for Production Club) and Childish Gambino (Pharos for Live Nation).

Vortex also operates the Vortex Dome, the first commercial immersive media production studio and events venue located in downtown Los Angeles. The Vortex Dome hosts a wide range of arts and entertainment co-productions including live stage shows (Pasión, BollyDoll), fine arts performances (Blue Apple ballet), live concerts (Ceremony with James Hood) in addition to immersive arts educational activities (classes for CalArts, USC and Relativity University).

Ed has published numerous articles in journals and trade publications on immersive media and virtual reality, is a public speaker on panels and keynote talks including at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and is a regular contributor to ACM/SIGGRAPH. Ed’s personal focus is on the unique cognitive properties of next-generation multisensory “sentient” environments, the merging of virtual and real storytelling worlds, and the development of fulldome theaters as next-generation entertainment and performance venues. Ed holds two U.S. patents on immersive theater technologies, was awarded a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering with minor in Quantum Physics and Electromagnetics from Tennessee Tech University, and is a founder of the trade association IMERSA. He co-authored DIGSS 1.1 (Digital Immersive Giant Screen Specifications) in cooperation with the Giant Screen Cinema Association, is a member of ACM/SIGGRAPH and IEEE, co-chaired the VR Village at SIGGRAPH 2015, is a board delegate on the Producer’s Guild of America’s New Media Council and chairs the Boards of nonprofit organizations c3: Center for Conscious Creativity and Create Now.

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Nick David Raynes is a film producer, director and businessman. He is a grandson of billionaire Marvin Davis who owned 20th Century Fox, The Beverly Hills Hotel, Aspen Skiing Company, The Little Nell Hotel, Pebble Beach Golf Links and Fox Plaza.[1] His grandmother.Barbara Davis started the Carousel Ball of Hope for Diabetes. Raynes is producing a feature film about jazz legend Miles Davis that is being directed by George Tillman, Jr.

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Kim is a supporter and board member of numerous non-profit organizations that provide support to victims of domestic violence and life skills training to at-risk youth, particularly victims of sex trafficking and slavery. She is a founding board member of the Agnew Family Foundation, a private foundation gifting to organizations that enhance the lives of children. She is also an emeritus board member and long-time supporter of Portland’s Classic Wines Auction, which benefits women, children and family charities.

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Dr. Krakauer is nationally and internationally recognized for his study of the human motor system in health and disease. His scientific achievements to date include bringing a motor learning paradigm called visuomotor rotation into the neuroscience mainstream, discovering the proportional recovery rule for stroke, characterizing a sensitive period of heightened plasticity after stroke, developing new conceptions of motor skill, and coming up with the notion of implicit motor motivation. His research has been funded by the NIH, NSF, and various other agencies and foundations. In 2015 he received The Salute to Science Award from The Mind Science Foundation. Dr. Krakauer is routinely invited to speak at scientific meetings, and at venues such as Microsoft, Apple, Google, TEDx, The Charlie Rose Show, NPR, and the Aspen Institute.

Dr. Krakauer is also very interested in the interface between neuroscience and the areas of philosophy, sport, and art. In the case of philosophy, he has co-written papers on the notion of motor skill and its relation to the rest of cognition. He has also written about the brains of elite athletes and is frequently interviewed by the media on this topic, especially when major sporting events come around such as the World Cup and the Olympics.  At one point in an interview with the Lancet, when he was asked what he might like to have done other than his current profession he answered: “In order of decreasing plausibility: art historian, literary critic, tennis player, dancer for the Alvin Ailey Company.”

Dr. Krakauer is co-founder of the video gaming company Max and Haley, and of the creative engineering Hopkins-based project named KATA. KATA and M&H are both predicated on the idea that mission-focused customized software and hardware can revolutionize the care of patients with neurological injury and disease in the hospital and at home. One major thrust of KATA is the creation of video gaming and animation based on the real physics of animal movement. The idea is that skilled animal movement is beautiful and highly pleasurable, and that these features are hugely heightened when the animal’s movement is under the control of our own movements. A simulated dolphin and other cetaceans were developed by KATA to interface with an FDA-approved 3D exoskeletal robot, and are being used in an ongoing funded multi-site rehabilitation trial for early stroke recovery.  This work that combines animation, engineering and neurology has been covered extensively by the media including profiles of Dr. Krakauer in The New Yorker and National Geographic.

Dr. Krakauer was a tenured professor in the Departments of Neurology and Neuroscience at Columbia University before moving to Johns Hopkins in late 2010.  He is currently John C. Malone Professor, Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience, and Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. He is Co-Director of the Brain, Learning, Animation, and Movement Lab and co-Director of The KATA Project. He received his BA from Cambridge University, and his MD from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He completed his internship in Internal Medicine at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and his residency in neurology at The Neurological Institute of New York at Columbia University. He subsequently completed a research fellowship in motor control at Columbia’s Center for Neurobiology and Behavior and a clinical fellowship in stroke at the Neurological Institute at Columbia University Medical Center.

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Wendy currently holds the position of Chief Operating Office of Favara, LLC, a family office focused on real estate but allocating to other sectors which include pharmaceuticals, venture and certain areas of the tech industry.  The family office serves three generations of the family and is based in New York City.

Previously, Ms. Craft held the position of Executive Vice President and General Counsel for Fulcrum Equities, LLC, a single family office that invests in real estate and operating companies on its behalf.  The office handles the holdings of a real estate family and also co-invests with other family offices on a variety of projects around the world.

Previous to that, Ms. Craft worked with the Schneider Family serving as their Vice President and General Counsel and assisted them in separating the existing family office from the family’s operating company.  The Schneider Family is a prominent real estate family in New York and has a foundation that serves children’s charities around the world.

Having received her BA from Kalamazoo College MI, Ms. Craft continued her education at Thomas Cooley Law School with a concentration in international law.  She also received the American Jurisprudence Prize Award in Conflict of Laws.  She then attended Georgetown University Law School and attained her LL.M. in Taxation.

Additionally, she is a member of many Family Office Associations.  She has served on the Advisory Board for Family Office Exchange.  She has also served as a committee member for the NYSSCPA Family Office Committee in New York and serves on the Steering Committee for the NYU Sterns Family Office Council.  She is a frequent speaker on Family Office Topics in the United States and abroad.

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Ezra Katz is the Chief Executive Officer and founder of Aztec Group, Inc., a full-service real estate investment banking firm specializing in facilitating the acquisition, disposition, financing and capital needs of real estate projects for domestic and offshore investors, entrepreneurs and commercial developers as well as offshore clients. Aztec has long been recognized as the premier real estate capital markets intermediary in the Southeast, with over $20 billion in transactions during the past 25 years.
Ezra also founded Mayan Properties, LLC over 20 years ago to serve as a Merchant Bank for Ezra’s principal transactions to grow his personal investment portfolio. Mayan’s portfolio consists of over 30 hotels, over 8 million square feet of office buildings, significant land holdings and a variety of other properties throughout the Southeastern USA owned by over 60 partnerships.

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Bob Diener is the co-founder of the company that became hotels.com and the president and co-founder of getaroom.com, which was named the best hotel booking site by frommers.com. After receiving his law degree from Cornell, where he was an editor of the Law Review, Bob practiced securities and corporate law with the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Along with his partner, David Litman, he created the merchant model for booking hotel rooms and launched one of the first travel sites on the web. They sold a majority interest in the company to Interactive Corp. and took the company public as CEO and president in early 2000. Their stock price soared from $16 to over $90 in one of the most successful IPOs ever.

As a leading travel industry expert, Bob is a frequent source for many major news organizations, as well as a recurrent guest on many television and radio stations including NBC, CNN, and Fox News. Bob is featured on KGO Radio in San Francisco every Sunday morning, and his articles have been published in journals such as the Harvard Business Review.

Bob has taught business practice at the Cornell Law School and has been a scholar in residence at the University of Florida Entrepreneurship program. He was recently named the Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year by the University of Florida. Bob is the author of The Savvy Traveler 175 Ways to Save and  Biblical Secrets to Business Success. Bob lives with his family in Miami, where he is an avid triathlete.

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Tomas Regalado was born in Havana, Cuba, on May 24, 1947. He was the first son of Carmen, a house wife, and Tomas, an outstanding attorney and journalist that became the President of the National Association of Reporters and Journalists of Cuba. Tomas Sr. was also a political Prisoner in the island for 22 years due to his struggle for the freedom and democracy of Cuba.
At the age of 14, Tomas Regalado and his younger brother, Marcos, traveled to the U.S. under the Catholic Church program known as “Peter Pan”. Marcos and Carmen sent the boys to America with the hope of having them live in freedom.
The father’s vocation for journalism was quickly reborn in Tomas. At 17, Tomas obtained an internship at the Miami radio station “WFAB” and, shortly after, he became the youngest reporter of the station. His professional training was real quick. In 1970, Tomas Regalado had become an international news reporter. His first assignments were in Africa, at the time immersed in wars sprung from the confrontation between the Soviet Union and the U.S. Tomas reported the Angolan war, the bloody revolts in Soweto, South Africa, and the violent civil war in Mozambique.
In the 1980’s Tomas reported the guerrilla warfare in El Salvador and Nicaragua, where many reporters were also casualties.
His professional jump to the top came in 1983 when he became the first Cuban American journalist to integrate the White House Press Corp. Mr. Regalado traveled with Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton for several years, in addition to the daily coverage of the White House news.
Tomas Regalado has been a multi task journalist. Besides writing article on newspapers, he was TV anchor for Channels 23 and 20 of Miami, and news director for the “Spanish Broadcasting System.”
His social concerns pushed him to jump into the political arena. In September, 1996 he was elected Commissioner of the City of Miami. For his brilliant performance was reelected in 1999, 2003 and 2007, the latest one without opposition. In November 2009, Tomas Regalado was elected Mayor of the City of Miami.
Tomas has three sons: Tomas Jr., Raquel and Jose, and four grandchildren. After thirty seven years of marriage his wife passaway in 2008. He is currently married to Mrs. Ana Cristina Regalado.

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