2027 Speakers

CHAIRMAN & CEO OF SAGE POLICY GROUP, INC.

Anirban Basu is Chairman & CEO of Sage Policy Group, Inc., a Baltimore-based economic and policy consultancy he founded in 2004. He serves the Chief Economist function for many organizations, including the Maryland Bankers Association and Associated Builders and Contractors. The Baltimore Business Journal named him one of the region’s 20 most powerful business leaders in 2010. In 2022, he entered the Daily Record newspaper’s Circle of Influence. He is the Distinguished Economist in Residence at Goucher College, where he teaches History of Economic Thought. He holds four graduate degrees, including a J.D. and a Ph.D.

BESTSELLING AUTHOR

Charles Duhigg is the bestselling author of The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, which explores the science of habit formation in our lives, companies and societies. His newest book, Supercommunicators: The Power of Conversation and Hidden Language of Connection, delivers a simple but powerful lesson: With the right tools, we can connect with anyone. His book Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business is a fascinating exploration of the science of productivity, and why, in today’s world, managing how you think—rather than what you think—can transform your life.

Duhigg's presentations are both descriptive and prescriptive, and speak to a wide range of groups from the fields of science, medicine, business and education.

Duhigg is a Pulitzer prize-winning investigative reporter for The New York Times Magazine. A former writer for The New York Times business section as well, he has authored or contributed to multiple series, including “The Reckoning” (2008), which studied the causes and outcomes of the financial crisis, and “The iEconomy”, which examined the global economy through the lens of Apple, and which won the 2013 Pulitzer prize in explanatory journalism. He has also won the George Polk Award (2007), the Gerald Loeb Award (2008), the National Journalism Award (2009), was a Business News Visionary Award recipient (2020-2021), and other honors. Currently, Duhigg writes for The New Yorker and hosts the "How To!" podcast for Slate Magazine.

In addition to his reporting, Charles Duhigg is a regular contributor to television and radio, including the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Frontline, Dr. Oz and various programs on CNBC and NPR. Before becoming a journalist, Duhigg worked in private equity and founded a health care company in his home state of New Mexico (and, for one terrifying day in 1999, was a bike messenger in San Francisco.) He is a graduate of the Harvard Business School and Yale College.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER, BESTSELLING AUTHOR, AND FOUNDER OF SGI VENTURES

Sam Goodwin is an inspirational keynote speaker, bestselling author and founder of SGI Ventures. He has delivered hundreds of keynotes all around the globe, from Fortune 500 companies to industry-leading organizations.

As one of the few people to have traveled to all 193 countries in the world, Sam’s global journey took an unexpected turn in 2019 when he was taken hostage and wrongfully imprisoned in Syria. His bestselling memoir, Saving Sam, recounts this harrowing experience and reveals the hard-earned wisdom he discovered through the ordeal. Today, these lessons form the foundation of SGI’s signature program, “Winning Through Uncertainty.”

A former Division I hockey player, Sam spent six years living in Singapore working for a tech startup and an NGO. He completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees before earning a doctorate in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC.

Away from the keynote stage, Dr. Goodwin is a private pilot, Ironman triathlete and adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis. He and his wife, Natasha, make their home in Tampa, Florida, where Sam balances coaching leaders, logging flight hours and playing in a weekly men’s league hockey game.

At SGI, Sam’s mission is simple: to serve others. Through humor, heart, and practical insight, he asks every audience: How will you turn uncertainty into your greatest advantage?

HIGH-PERFORMANCE & RESILIENCE EXPERT

Eric Potterat, Ph.D., is a high-performance, sport, and clinical psychologist and retired U.S. Navy Commander. During his final 10 years in the Navy, he served as the lead psychologist for the U.S. Navy SEALs, overseeing mental assessment, selection, development, and performance enhancement programs for some of the nation’s most elite performers. He also developed and implemented the SEALs’ mental toughness curriculum, embedding it into their training pipeline.

After retiring from the Navy in 2016 and receiving the Legion of Merit, Dr. Potterat spent seven years as Director of Specialized Performance Programs for the Los Angeles Dodgers. During his tenure as performance psychologist, the Dodgers recorded the most regular-season wins in baseball, won three National League Championships, and captured the 2020 World Series.

His experience in elite sport also includes five years as a high-performance psychologist for Red Bull, where he developed and delivered mental performance programming for hundreds of athletes. He also served as mental coach for the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team during its 2019 World Cup championship run.

For the past decade, Dr. Potterat has also worked as an executive and organizational consultant and coach to Fortune 500 companies, providing expertise in talent acquisition, resilience, high-performance culture, change management, and leadership.

Across more than 30 years of research and practice, his work has focused on mental performance, stress resilience, character development, decision-making under pressure, mental toughness, and elite human performance. He has personally worked with approximately 25,000 elite performers across the military, athletics, first response, medicine, law, and business.

Dr. Potterat has authored or contributed to 30 peer-reviewed journal articles and professional publications and has consulted with organizations including professional and collegiate sports teams, NASA, Olympians, law enforcement and government agencies, and Fortune 500 corporations.

He is co-author of Learned Excellence: Mental Disciplines for Leading and Winning from the World’s Top Performers, published by HarperCollins in 2024. The book is available in 12 countries and reached bestseller lists in Business and Leadership.