Join us at the 2026 LIMRA Annual Conference!

Mark McKinnon

Mark McKinnon is a political advisor, reform advocate, columnist, and television producer. He was the creator and co-host of Showtime's Emmy-nominated hit documentary series "The Circus" — the longest-running, most-watched unscripted show in the history of the network which ran for eight seasons.

McKinnon has worked for many causes, companies, and candidates, including President George W. Bush, Senator John McCain, late Governor Ann Richards, and Bono. He was the chief media advisor for five winning presidential primary and general election campaigns. Dedicated to bipartisanship, McKinnon helped start No Labels, an organization dedicated to bringing our parties together to problem solve and heal the partisan divide in our country.

According to Broadcasting and Cable magazine, McKinnon is one of “a handful of players behind every big decision, consensus or roadblock in Washington . . . putting a unique, sometimes hidden stamp on the outcome of today’s debates.” Politics Daily writes: “He’s known for his originality in a field typified by copycats, a mellow personality in a world populated with high-strung brutes and ecumenical urges in a profession dominated by its unadulterated partisans.”

“McKinnon is evidence that principled centrism is not an oxymoron,” wrote John Avalon in a Daily Beast column about the 25 Best Centrist Pundits. “McKinnon piloted John McCain’s 2008 primary campaign to victory. But he announced in advance that if Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination; he would ride off into the sunset rather than participate in the negative attacks he knew would be required. This is unheard of in the world of modern politics, where partisanship trumps principle as a matter of course.”

President George W. Bush says of McKinnon, “I was really impressed by Mark’s creativity, and I was particularly impressed by his honesty.” Senator John McCain, in his typical straight-talk fashion, remarks, “He’s almost a genius.” And President Barack Obama calls McKinnon “a class act.”

McKinnon has been a regular columnist for The Daily Beast, The London Daily Telegraph, and Vanity Fair, and was a consultant to the HBO show “The Newsroom” and Netflix’s “House of Cards.”

McKinnon attended the University of Texas at Austin and served as editor of the award-winning university newspaper, The Daily Texan; he was arrested and jailed during his tenure in 1980 for defending the first amendment. He spent several years in Nashville working as a songwriter with Kris Kristofferson (and was wildly unsuccessful). McKinnon also is a two-time Ironman finisher. His quality of life is exceptionally enhanced by the enduring love and patience of his wife, Annie — whom he started dating before he had a driver’s license.

John Heilemann

John Heilemann is chief political columnist, host of the twice-weekly podcast Impolitic with John Heilemann, and partner at Puck. He also serves as national affairs analyst for MS NOW and co-host of the podcast Hacks On Tap with renowned political strategists David Axelrod and Mike Murphy. Previously, Heilemann was a creator, host, and executive producer of the groundbreaking weekly political documentary series The Circus, which was nominated for multiple Emmy, Critics Choice, and IDA awards in its eight-season run on Showtime from 2016 to 2023. In 2019, he co-founded the pioneering online video news start-up The Recount and served as its executive editor before selling the company four years later. From 2014 to 2017, he was a co-anchor of the MSNBC and Bloomberg TV series With All Due Respect and managing editor of Bloomberg Politics. In 2008, he hosted Download, a four-part docu-series on the rise of the Internet for the Discovery Channel.

A former staff writer for New York, The New Yorker, Wired, and The Economist, Heilemann is the co-author of Game Change and Double Down (about the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections) and author of Pride Before The Fall (about the Microsoft antitrust case). All three books were New York Times bestsellers; Game Change held the No. 1 spot for 11 weeks and was adapted into a feature film for HBO that went on to win five Emmys, three Golden Globes, and a Peabody Award. Educated at Northwestern University, Oxford, and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, John was born and raised in Los Angeles and lives now in Shokan, New York, and Manhattan.

Melissa Valentine

Stanford Professor Melissa Valentine studies how technology is changing work and organizations. Her work examines the evolving dynamics between AI/algorithms and organizational design. Melissa is a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and a tenured professor of Management Science. She and collaborators have received best paper awards for research in both management and computer science conferences, and she was awarded the prestigious NSF CAREER award. She is the author of Flash Teams: Leading the Future of AI-Enhanced, On-Demand Work.

Exclusively represented by BrightSight Speakers, her work has been covered in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Wired, Fast Company, and Financial Times. Prof. Valentine holds a bachelor's degree from Stanford University, a master's degree from NYU, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Kevin Lane Keller

Through the years, he has served as brand confidant to marketers for some of the world's most successful brands, including Accenture, American Express, Disney, Ford, Intel, Levi-Strauss, L.L. Bean, Nike, Procter & Gamble, and Samsung. With over 120 published papers, he is also one of the most heavily cited of all marketing academics. His textbook, Strategic Brand Management, co-authored with Vanitha Swaminathan, in its 5th edition, has been adopted at top business schools and leading firms around the world and has been heralded as the “bible of branding.” He is also the co-author with Philip Kotler and Alex Chernev of the all-time best selling introductory MBA marketing textbook, Marketing Management, now in its 16th edition.