Authors

Nico De Bruyn didn’t have the “right” degree.

He studied nutrition.

He wanted to work in marketing.

No one took him seriously.

So he started small.
Did marketing for a friend.
Learned obsessively.
Reached out to people daily.

Jamie Russo is the founder of Tweetjoy and runs a boutique content agency serving startups.

he operates at the intersection of:

• Writing
• Brand building
• Community
• Multi-format content creation

Angela Chanowsky is the founder of Unique Genius, where she helps business owners reclaim focus, freedom, and growth by building elite virtual teams.

Michael Biarnes works at the forefront of healthcare strategy, focused on improving patient outcomes and advancing meaningful innovation.

But beyond healthcare, he’s become known for something deeper:

Helping people redefine success.

Alisha Wielfaert is a best-selling author, transformational coach, speaker, podcaster, and artist who empowers creatives, entrepreneurs, and seekers to align with their inner wisdom and build flourishing lives and businesses.

John Thompson has been a senior executive at GE and Northwestern Mutual, leadership coach, and team builder with more than two decades of experience across operations, sales, and leadership roles in corporate America. Known for his practical, no-excuses approach, John focuses on helping individuals and teams take ownership of their choices and outcomes.

Lori Mazer is a strategist and leader whose work centers on helping individuals and organizations clarify their voice, sharpen their reputation, and expand their impact.

Dr. Ardeshir Mehran is a psychiatrist and public thinker whose work sits at the intersection of mental health, identity, and personal agency. Trained to diagnose and treat, he increasingly felt constrained by systems that prioritize comfort over truth.

Bob Jones is a veteran entrepreneur, executive, and innovation leader with decades of experience building consumer products, scaling businesses, and turning around underperforming public companies. His work spans early-stage ideation, customer discovery, product-market fit, and retail distribution, long before “Lean Startup” became a movement.

Henna Pryor is an award-winning author, keynote speaker, and executive coach who helps leaders navigate moments of social risk, visibility, and uncertainty.

Michael Dumlao is an award-winning Vice President of Marketing & Communications with 15+ years of experience leading brand transformations across Fortune 500, federal, academic, and nonprofit organizations.

Former corporate leader turned executive coach who spent 25 years inside the systems that reward stoicism, status, and self-sacrifice. Despite professional success, Jim experienced severe burnout driven not by workload alone, but by the isolation and emotional suppression baked into traditional definitions of masculinity and leadership.

Technology and business strategist with a 20+ year career leading transformation across Fortune 500 telecom, ecommerce, and retail organizations, most recently as Vice President of Strategy at a $12B North American retailer.

Commercial fisherman, charter captain, and safety professional whose life was permanently altered after surviving a catastrophic accident at sea in 1998. With decades of experience fishing the U.S. East Coast, the Bahamas, Mexico, and Bermuda, John’s life has always existed at the intersection of risk, responsibility, and faith.

Multi-passionate writer, performer, composer, and executive coach who has spent years operating at the intersection of creativity and leadership. Trained in musical theater, with professional performance credits and a thriving executive coaching practice, Allyson had already built multiple careers before writing Ballad of Dreams.

Matt Poepsel is a leadership scholar, executive practitioner, and former U.S. Marine Corps officer whose career spans military service, software product leadership, organizational psychology, and executive education. He holds a PhD in Psychology, an MBA, and has taught leadership and human flourishing at Boston College.

Multi-passionate writer, performer, composer, and executive coach who has spent years operating at the intersection of creativity and leadership. Trained in musical theater, with professional performance credits and a thriving executive coaching practice, Allyson had already built multiple careers before writing Ballad of Dreams.

Founder of GoPositiv and a long-time talent development leader who spent decades inside organizations designing learning experiences that actually worked. A dynamic presenter with a sharp sense of humor, Don became deeply interested in how the brain learns and what enables people to bring their best selves to work.

Senior global business executive and award-winning public speaker who has scaled partner ecosystems from seed-stage startups to Fortune 500 companies, generating over $200M in revenue. Parallel to his business career, Satish completed full marathons on all seven continents, including Antarctica.

Senior marketing and strategy executive with decades of experience at companies like AWS, Intel, and Honeywell, known among peers as an “idea machine,” who had long been fascinated by how decisions actually get made, but had never consolidated that thinking into a single framework.

Former Marine Corps officer, executive coach, and leadership development professional with 25+ years of experience working inside organizations, helping leaders build trust, connection, and performance.

Early-stage entrepreneur and digital creator who used Her Big Idea to process failure, clarify her message, and articulate a mission centered on empowering women to pursue bold ideas. The book became the foundation for a speaking career, community, and long-term platform.

Reinvention expert, educator, and entrepreneur who had already lived multiple career transitions but needed a cohesive framework to connect his experiences into a teachable, repeatable model. The book became the backbone of his work at The School of Reinvention.

Veteran hostage negotiator and leadership trainer with nearly three decades in law enforcement who needed a way to translate high-stakes field experience into a durable leadership philosophy. The book became the vehicle to capture lessons learned under real pressure and make them usable outside crisis situations.

Former retail executive and economist who transitioned into entrepreneurship, Morgan entered the process believing a book should package her existing presentations. Instead, she confronted a deeper question: was she willing to step beyond service delivery and articulate a defensible point of view about identity, worth, and executive presence?

Former Wall Street executive who rebuilt her life from childhood poverty in Brazil, climbed to senior leadership at top financial institutions, and ultimately faced a pivotal question: could her value exist beyond the career she spent decades building?

Emmy Award–winning journalist and media professional who translated decades of interviewing leaders, politicians, and public figures into a conversational, action-oriented book focused on communication, courage, and showing up fully.

Attorney and long-time policy advocate who turned a personal experience with dismissive medical treatment into a broader examination of systemic failures in U.S. health care, particularly for Black women and other marginalized communities.

Senior fintech product leader and VP of Product at high-growth payments companies who had accumulated years of internal writing, diagrams, and explanations, but lacked a single, durable way to codify his thinking for investors, operators, and the broader fintech ecosystem.

Founder and CEO of Level Up For Life Coach, a professional coach working with women leaders to overcome self-doubt, who had long believed she was meant to write a book but lacked a clear path to turn that identity into a finished, usable asset.

The book became the centerpiece of Nicole’s leadership platform. Organizations began using it as the foundation for workshops, executive programs, and multi-touch engagements. Instead of one-off speaking, the book created demand for deeper, longer-term work, including bulk orders tied directly to leadership development initiatives.

Executive coach and former corporate marketing leader who wanted to turn years of experience helping high achievers into a clear, portable framework she could use across coaching, speaking, and media.

Leadership consultant and advocate focused on closing the leadership and wealth gap for Latinas who wanted to turn a deeply researched point of view into a credible, visible body of work.

Founder and CEO of a behavioral science and product design firm who wanted a clearer way to communicate how his team thinks and works to higher-stakes, enterprise buyers.

Andrea Goulet is a founder and UX leader who understands how trust and positioning are built.

She entered the Manuscripts process not to “become an author someday,” but to turn her expertise into a clear public framework, one that could create authority, demand, and opportunity in real time.

Ashlee Berghoff is the founder of Smooth Operator, America’s go-to process and systems specialists for event-based businesses. She helps entrepreneurs replace 7-figure chaos with 7-figure profits by building operational engines that scale without burnout.

Peter Parnegg is a sales strategist, instructor, and the author of Why Bother Asking?: Unexpected Keys to the Kingdom of Connection, a book that turned conventional sales wisdom on its head and redefined what leadership and connection look like in today’s world.

Lawyer. Computer scientist. Policy architect.

Neil has advised the Federal Trade Commission, guided national debates on digital regulation, and now leads AI policy strategy at the Abundance Institute.

Corrie Napier is a conflict resolution consultant, mediator, and speaker who helps leaders turn destructive conflict into constructive conversations using her B.U.I.L.D. framework.

Catherine Connelly is a veteran tech entrepreneur who spent two decades building and scaling companies in the online dating and social discovery space. In 2020, she sold her company, The Meet Group, in a $500M acquisition.

Speaker, trainer, and coach with a decade-long idea around relationships and connection who had built a solid practice but hadn’t yet turned his core philosophy into a defining, market-anchoring asset.

Alyce Dailey is an entrepreneur, leadership coach, and mother of four who spent nearly two decades building a successful referral-based real estate business while mentoring women in leadership and personal growth.

Senior global HR executive preparing for a major career transition who had deep experience and research but lacked a structured way to turn it into a defining body of work.

CEO and Chairman of a public real estate company who had spent decades building businesses, teams, and results, but wanted a meaningful way to share his philosophy on happiness, purpose, and living fully beyond quarterly outcomes.

Physician and nonprofit leader carrying a deeply personal story that required care, structure, and emotional safety to translate into a finished memoir rather than remaining an unwritten burden.

Founder, entrepreneur, and advisor with deep Silicon Valley experience who had built and exited multiple businesses but hadn’t yet formalized her core philosophy into a single, shareable point of view.