Meet the Leadership Experts: Live2Lead 2025
LIVE2LEAD is a leader development experience designed to equip attendees with new perspectives, practical tools and key takeaways. They’ll learn from world-class leadership experts, be prepared to implement a new action plan, and start leading when they get back to the office with renewed passion and commitment.
JOHN C. MAXWELL, is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, speaker, coach and leader who has sold more than 34 million books. He is the founder of Maxwell Leadership® — a leadership development organization that has trained tens of millions of leaders in every nation. Having been recognized as the #1 leader in business and as the world’s most influential leadership expert, Maxwell continues to influence individuals and organizations worldwide—from Fortune 500 CEOs and national leaders to entrepreneurs and the leaders of tomorrow. For more information, visit maxwellleadership.com.
ANTHONY TRUCKS is a former Foster Child, NFL Football Player, Competitor on American Ninja Warrior, Author, and Identity Shift Coach. From foster care to the NFL, to successful business owner, Anthony Trucks has accomplished what statistics
would say is impossible.
But it didn’t start out that way. At the age of three years old he was placed into the foster care system where he remained until age 14, when he was adopted by a poor, all-white family. In high school, he set a challenging and lofty goal for himself…making the varsity football team. Hard work and determination lead to Anthony not only making the team but being offered a full ride scholarship to the University of Oregon and ultimately going pro in the NFL.
A fluke shoulder injury sent his NFL dreams crashing down just as quickly as they’d come. Drawing on what he had learned in childhood, Anthony realized that he had to pivot and pivot quickly.
With a degree in kinesiology, Anthony decided to open his own gym. However, it wasn’t long before Anthony found himself run down with a struggling business and a personal life that was suffering as well.
A conversation with a friend reminded Anthony that others viewed him as an inspiration and a hero because, despite the odds, he always overcame. In that moment, Anthony began to think, “what if I could be an inspiration for others?” It occurred to Anthony that the gap between his current situation and his desired outcome wasn’t a method, a secret marketing strategy, or anything like that. What was missing, was within.
Anthony once again put in the work. He spent years researching, practicing, and essentially rewiring his brain on a deep psychological level to achieve the necessary changes to become the person he wanted to be. Little by little, he slowly became a well oiled “shift making” machine.
Now it is Anthony’s passion and life’s mission to pass along the knowledge that took him 30+ years to learn. As the founder of “Dark Work” and creator of the “Dark Work Experience” Anthony teaches people how to access the power of their identity through Dark Work, tap into their full potential, and "Make Shift Happen"!
TIFFANI BOVA's illustrious career has been marked by a long (and continuously growing) list of accomplishments and honors: Two-time Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author, Former Global Growth & Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce, Three-time Thinkers50 Top Management Thinker, Former Research Fellow at Gartner, Top 50 Marketing Thought Leader, Top X and LinkedIn Influencer, Five-Star Podcast Host, contributor to top business journals, researcher on the future of sales, employee and customer experience, and honors ranging from the Gartner Thought Leadership Award to being named one of the most powerful and influential women in California by the National Diversity Council. Listed by the San Francisco Examiner in 2023 as one of the Ten Most Sought After Brand Evangelists, Tiffani is referred to as “one of the most masterful keynote speakers in the world.”
A marquee name in the speaking world, Tiffani has delivered more than 1,000 keynotes on six continents, winning rave reviews for her ability to ignite audiences and provide them with actionable tools for success. She is also a frequent guest lecturer at business schools, including Columbia University, Wharton, and USC.
For more than 20 years, Tiffani Bova has stood at the forefront of transformative industry developments across multiple industries and regions, specializing in driving top-line growth, sales transformation, and catalyzing customer and employee experience. She is the author of two Wall Street Journal bestsellers, Growth IQ, which has been translated into 12 languages and The Experience Mindset. Over the past decade, she has consistently ranked in the highest echelon of management and marketing thinkers, ranging from Thinkers50 to being a top X influencer and LinkedIn Sales Expert. Forbes says that she “reshapes our perception of growth.”
Tiffani serves in an advisory capacity with a number of Fortune 500, fast-growth and research and advisory companies. She formerly served as Chief Growth & Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce, where she focused on driving customer success within the company’s vast global customer and partner ecosystem. Prior to Salesforce, she was a sales, marketing and customer service executive for startups and Fortune 500 companies, where she was recognized as one of the first to develop a robust go-tomarket
model for cloud-based solutions, and indirect channel strategies to accommodate changes in buying behavior. Tiffani left the corporate world to join Gartner as a Distinguished Analyst and Research Fellow. There, she helped some of the largest technology companies in the world including Microsoft, Cisco, Salesforce, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Oracle, SAP, AT&T, Dell, Amazon-AWS, expand their market share and grow their revenues, earning her Gartner’s coveted Thought Leadership Award.
An active and influential thought leader within her areas of expertise, Ms. Bova has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, MIT Sloan Management Review, INC, Fast Company, Fortune, Yahoo Finance and MSNBC. She also hosts the highly-rated podcast, What’s Next! with Tiffani Bova, welcoming prominent guests such as Seth Godin, Tom Peters, Daniel Pink, Arianna Huffington, Marshall Goldsmith, Guy Kawasaki, former Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly, former Ritz-Carlton President Horst Schulze, and others.
JESSE COLE
Founder of the Savannah Bananas
Jesse Cole, also known as “the guy in the yellow tuxedo” is the founder of Fans First Entertainment and the owner of the world-famous Savannah Bananas as well as the Party Animals, Firefighters and Texas Tailgaters. With the mantra “Fans First. Entertain Always”, the Bananas are on a mission to Make Baseball Fun by creating the Greatest Show in Sports.
The team has sold out every game since their inaugural season in Savannah and has since grown a ticket waitlist of more than 3 million fans from all over the world.
With more than 20 million social media followers and features on such outlets as The Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, HBO Real Sports and Access Hollywood in addition to Bananaland, a five-part documentary original series on ESPN+, the Savannah Bananas are just getting started.
Jesse is the proud inventor of the fastest and most entertaining game of baseball, Banana Ball. Banana Ball puts a fun twist on traditional baseball with new rules featuring a two-hour time limit, no walks, no bunting, no stepping out of the box, no mound visits and best of all, if a fan catches a foul ball – it’s an out.
He is the not-so-proud promoter of the Grandma Beauty Pageant, the Human Horse Race, the Living Piñata, and Flatulence Fun Night.
In addition to the wildly successful Banana Ball, Jesse continues to create raving fans all over the world as a best-selling author of “Fans First, and Find Your Yellow Tux”, and as a highly sought-after international keynote speaker for some of the world’s largest and most respected organizations.
Most of all, Jesse is a raving fan of his wife, Emily, his 3 kids, and peerless promoters like Walt Disney and PT Barnum.
