Linkedin Speaker Series

If you don’t know who Robert Putnam is -- you should. He is the author of the bestseller, “Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis,” in which he writes a groundbreaking examination of the growing inequality gap and what we can do to fix it.  As you know, this is at the heart of what we are all about - providing economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. There could not be a more relevant discussion for us to be having at LinkedIn and we are incredibly fortunate for the opportunity to hear him in discussion with Reid Hoffman. In addition to income inequality, Professor Robert Putnam suggests that there is also a growing inequality of opportunity. For many children in lower income families, systemic obstacles – economic, social and political – become insurmountable and prevent social mobility and the realization of the American dream. What has caused this trend away from equal opportunity in the US? How can we address the crisis of inequality and shorten the opportunity gap? Professor Putnam

Buddhist monk, humanitarian activist, scientist, and author Matthieu Ricard (The Monk and the Philosopher, Happiness) turns his lens from the personal to the global with a rousing argument that altruism, genuine concern for the well-being of others, could be the saving grace of the 21st century. Altruism is, he believes, the vital force that can solve the greatest challenges of our time – from a troubled economy, to decreased life satisfaction, to environmental problems. Ricard's message has been taken up by respected economists and thinkers, including Joseph Stiglitz and George Soros.Our CEO Jeff Weiner, hosted the event and they discussed insights from Ricard’s newly released book, Altruisum: The Power of Compassion to Change Yourself and the World. 

We recently hosted Jack and Suzy Welch as a part of our LinkedIn Speaker Series.  The business titans and #1 New York Times bestselling authors were here to discuss their new modern, essential guide for everyone in business today—and tomorrow—that explores the most pressing challenges related to creating winning strategies, leading and managing others, and building a thriving career.  Coupled withJack Welch’s years of iconic leadership andSuzy Welch’s insights as former editor of the Harvard Business Review, their new database of knowledge infusesThe Real Life MBA with fresh, relevant stories and equally powerful solutions that every manager at any level can use right now. Our own Executive Editor, Dan Roth, hosted the event and discussed insights from their newly released book.

Mallika Chopra, Founder of Intent.com, is focused on bringing people together around personal, social, and global well-being.  Her new book, Living With Intent, is about her search to find more meaning, joy, and balance in her life. She provides a practical roadmap for how we can all move from thought to action to outcome. Chopra’s insights and advice will help us all come closer to fully living the lives we truly intend.

The LinkedIn Speaker Series, in partnership with BIG @ LinkedIn (Black Inclusion Group), is honored to host LinkedIn Influencer, John Hope Bryant, for an engaging session where he will tackle some of the fundamental principles of his bestselling book: How The Poor Can Save Capitalism.Homeless for six-months of his life at age 18, Bryant has built successful for-profit enterprises and best-in-class non-profit organizations with global impact. He has helped form financial literacy-to-entrepreneurship federal public policy for the U.S. federal government, working under both Democratic and Republican U.S. Presidents.Mr. Bryant is founder, chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE, and Bryant Group Companies, Inc. Widely published, Bryant is the only bestselling business author in America today who is African-American.You can also read more about John Hope Bryant at his website - www.johnhopebryant.com.

We are proud to host our first LinkedIn Speaker Series event live from the new office in Singapore!  During this session, you will find out what happens when a Mount Everest expedition leader becomes partially disabled and then decides to undertake a ten year study about how teams and individuals work together on and off the mountains! David Lim, leader of the first Singapore Everest Expedition in 1998, will share the lessons he learned from Everest and what climbing the great peaks can teach us all about self leadership and teamwork.This session will be just the inspiration you need for the rest of Q4!  Learn how to set and accomplish goals, understand how your brain works under pressure, create a winning culture, and gain meaningful insight about what you can do in your workplace to be more successful!

LinkedIn and Kiva are kindred spirits - sharing the common goal of economic opportunity expansion.  We are honored to host an enlightening conversation between Reid Hoffman, Premal Shah, Kiva’s President and Julie Hanna, Kiva’s Chair of the Board.     Premal and Julie will discuss everything they are learning about: The most effective ways to reach and truly financially empower the world's poorest The challenges of microfinance and how technological innovation & great social entrepreneurs can help overcome these challenges The challenges and opportunities of operating a non-profit internet public good The problem of credit access for U.S. small businesses and how innovation can help create more opportunity here at home More About Premal Shah Premal Shah leads Kiva.org, a website that allows you to lend $25 to the working poor. Since 2005, Kiva lenders have financed over 1 million low-income entrepreneurs from 75 countries, with a 98% repayment rate. The site has been named as one of Oprah's Favo

Join us for a conversation with U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand about how to raise your voice, make a difference and change the world.Revolutionary, transparent, empowering and forward-thinking are just a few of the words that have been used to describe Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Since taking office in 2009 at age 42 to fill Hillary Rodham Clinton's New York Senate seat when Clinton was appointed Secretary of State, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has established herself as a passionate, fearless, and laser-focused presence in Congress.The granddaughter and daughter of two trail-blazing feminists, Gillibrand is a fierce advocate for getting women involved in the issues that matter most to them and making their voices heard; in 2011, she formed the PAC Off the Sidelines with that very mission in mind. And as a wife and mother to two young sons, she's a role model to working moms everywhere. With the release of OFF THE SIDELINES: Raise Your Voice, Change the World, Senator Gillibrand hopes to share her message with

This month we hosted our *youngest* speaker ever in our San Francisco office. When Vivienne Harr was 8 years old she learned that there was child slavery in the world and was deeply troubled by it. So, she decided to make a lemonade stand every day until she raised $100,000 to end child slavery. Two years later, she and her family have started “Make A Stand Lemon-aid” and through their ongoing dedication and passion for this cause, they have raised over $1 million dollars for organizations that are working to eradicate child slavery in the U.S. and around the world. Make a Stand is a social impact brand that supports its 10-year-old founder's vision of a world where all 18 million enslaved children are free and safe. "You don't have to be big or powerful to change the world. You can be just like me." - Vivienne Harr

This month’s Speaker Series was hosted from our New York office with our special guest, Adam Braun, Founder and CEO, Pencils of Promise -- the epitome of a transformational story.  JDan Roth, Executive Editor at LinkedIn, sat down with him to discuss the incredible work Pencils of Promise is doing and learned more about Adam’s personal journey.They also discussed his book: The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change.  The Promise of a Pencil is an inspiring story that shares the essential lessons to creating a life of meaning, passion, and purpose. The book shares the riveting story of how Adam started with only $25 and has now built over 200 schools around the world.  It also discusses the guiding steps that any ordinary person can take to lead a successful and significant life. Talk about transformation!More About AdamAdam Braun began on the path towards a career in finance, but met a young boy begging on the streets and asked him what he wanted most in the world. The ans

LinkedIn's co-founder/chairman, Reid Hoffman, has written a new book with Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh: The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age. Jeff Weiner  sat down with Reid and Ben to discuss this fascinating and very relevant topic before the book is released in early July. The premise of the book is that the employer-employee relationship is broken. Managers face a seemingly impossible dilemma: You can't afford to offer lifetime employment. But you can't build a lasting, innovative business when everyone acts like a free agent. The solution: Stop thinking of employees as family or free agents, and start thinking of them as allies on a tour of duty. This bold but practical guide for managers and executives will give you the tools you need to recruit, manage, and retain the kind of employees who will make your company thrive in today's world of constant innovation and fast-paced change. What Are Business Leaders Saying About The Alliance? "GE is competing in its third century. The key to

Do you seek purpose from your work?  Do you strive for impact, personal growth and community?  On Friday, May 23, we hosted Aaron Hurst, CEO of Imperative and author of The Purpose Economy, for our first Speaker Series event hosted from our Dublin office, and a discussion around working with purpose.A series of shifts are happening in our economy: A record of number of millennials are trading in conventional career paths to launch tech start-ups, start small businesses that are rooted in local communities, or freelance their expertise. We are sharing everything from bikes and cars to extra rooms in our homes.Globally recognized entrepreneur and founder of Taproot Foundation, that helped create the $15 billion pro bono service market, Aaron Hurst argues in his latest book, The Purpose Economy: How Your Desire for Impact, Personal Growth and Community is Changing the World, that while these developments seem unrelated at first, taken together they reveal a powerful pattern that points to purpose as the new driv

Do you find yourself stretched too thin?
 
Do you feel simultaneously overworked and underutilized?
 
Are you often busy, but not productive?Is your to-do list longer at the end of the day than it was when you started?
 
Do you ever feel like your time is being hijacked by other people’s agendas?
If you answered yes to any of these, the way out is the way of the Essentialist. Please join us for a presentation and Q&A with Greg McKeown, author of the forthcoming ESSENTIALISM: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, which teaches how we can do less -- but better-- in every area of our lives. By challenging the assumption of “we can have it all” and “I have to do everything,” and replacing it with “the right thing, in the right way, at the right time,” (does this sound familiar? :) ) we can regain control of our choices about where to spend our precious time and energies so we can make our highest point of contribution towards the things that really matter.INTERESTING FACT ABOUT GREG!Greg happens to be one of Linke

We were lucky to host Arianna Huffington, President and Editor-in-Chief, of the Huffington Post Media Group where we had the opportunity to hear about her new definition of success.In her new book, Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder, she makes an impassioned and compelling case for the need to redefine what it means to be successful in today's world. Perhaps you will walk away inspired to look at your own life from this new lense!More About AriannaArianna Huffington is the chair, president, and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group, a nationally syndicated columnist, and author of fourteen books. In May 2005, she launched The Huffington Post, a news and blog site that quickly became one of the most widely-read, linked to, and frequently-cited media brands on the Internet. In 2012, the site won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. In 2013, she was named to the Forbes Most Powerful Women list. In 2006, and again in 2011, she was

Blogs - who hasn’t read one? Or maybe you’ve even written one. Chances are one of those blogs was built on WordPress - the world’s most popular blogging platform.  Now, the mastermind behind WordPress and Automattic will be here to share some interesting and powerful insights. Join us for an enlightening and inspiring fireside chat with Reid Hoffman and Matt Mullenweg, co-founder, WordPress and founder and CEO, Automattic. Reid and Matt will discuss:- Lessons learned from WordPress and Automattic- Matt’s vision of how content will run on the Internet- The relationship between content and social networks- Distributed workforces and how that works for entrepreneurial projectsMore About MattMatt Mullenweg is the co-founder of the open-source blogging platform, WordPress, the most popular publishing platform on the web, and the founder and CEO of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and Jetpack. Additionally, Matt is a principal and founder of Audrey Capital, an investment and research company.Matt got hi

Are you ready to change your thinking about innovation and entrepreneurship?  Inspired to learn new methodologies that foster innovation--especially in established companies?   Join us for an enlightening and inspiring fireside chat with Reid Hoffman and Eric Ries, entrepreneur and author of The Lean Startup:  How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. Eric created The Lean Startup methodology and his book is getting rave reviews:   “Every so often a business book comes along that changes how we think about innovation and entrepreneurship... The Lean Startup has the chops to join this exalted company.” -- Financial Times   "A must read for every serious entrepreneur-and every manager interested in innovation." --Marc Andreessen, Co-Founder of Andreessen Horowitz, Opsware Inc. and Netscape   To learn more about Eric and his work, follow him on LinkedIn and check out his popular blog, Startup Lessons Learned.   And don’t forget to bring your questions -- there

This LinkedIn Speakers Series guest aligned perfectly with our “wellness” inDay theme that month. After all, what says wellness more than improving your happiness, adopting positive habits, and breaking bad ones? We’re fortunate to host one of our top LinkedIn Influencers Gretchen Rubin, author of the blockbuster New York Times bestsellers, Happier at Home and The Happiness Project. Gretchen currently has over 310,000 followers on LinkedIn, and we’re delighted that she’s joining us live in Mountain View to give us a preview of her forthcoming book, Before and After. In the book, Gretchen shares a framework that she’s developed about the making and breaking of habits. This framework will help you understand yourself much better, how to motivate yourself -- and other people as well.   To get a better sense of what to expect from Gretchen’s talk, check out her blog (www.happiness-project.com), where you can also sign up to receive a daily “Moment of Happiness” quote by email, her monthly newsletter, or her month

Fred Kofman claims that most people don’t really know what their jobs are, and it’s hurting business. Join us for an insightful, provocative, and inspiring session where Fred will help us to discover our real jobs, how we can each succeed while doing best for the team, and what it takes for a winning company to stay competitive. By the end of the session, you should have new insights that will change the way you do your work, how you contribute to your team, and how you negotiate the challenges of our organizational structure. You will also understand why misalignment is the number one killer of organizations, and what you can do to keep LinkedIn at the top of our game as we grow in size and complexity.