Speakers

Check back for additional speakers—we'll be announcing more soon! This lineup is subject to change.

Priya Parker

In a world where connection often feels fleeting and gatherings can lack meaning and focus, Priya Parker emerges as a bold catalyst for change, helping us take a deeper look at how anyone can create collective meaning and belonging in modern life, one gathering at a time. She is the acclaimed author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters, former executive producer and host of The New York Times podcast Together Apart, and a trusted facilitator, advisor, and strategist to leaders and organizations. Her latest book, The Art of Fighting: The Transformative Power of Conflict, debuts in September 2026.

Arguing that most gatherings lack intentionality and structure, Parker offers strategies for designing engaging, intentional, and transformative gatherings. She emphasizes the importance of understanding the purpose and desired outcome of a gathering, along with the significance of setting the right context, creating a sense of belonging, and fostering meaningful interactions among participants.

Parker has spoken on the TED Main Stage and her sessions have been viewed over 3 million times. Drawing on her diverse training in conflict resolution, business management, public policy, and community-building, she dives into the anatomy of gathering with purpose. Whether talking about gathering as a leadership skill, fostering belonging among remote teams, the art of hosting meetings everyone wants to attend, or connecting people across identities, backgrounds, and hierarchies, Parker offers practical tools for designing more purposeful, meaningful gatherings.

Parker studied organizational design at MIT, public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and political and social thought at the University of Virginia.

Photo by Fernando Palafox

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. An Emmy, duPont-Columbia, and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, and institution builder, he has published numerous books and produced and hosted an array of documentary films about Black history, most recently Black and Jewish America: An Interwoven History. Gates’s groundbreaking genealogy and genetics series, Finding Your Roots, is now in production for its 13th season on PBS. The New York Times named his latest book, The Black Box: Writing the Race, one of the 100 Best Books of 2024.

Gates has received numerous honorary degrees, including from his undergraduate alma mater, Yale University, his graduate alma mater, University of Cambridge, and University of Oxford. He was a member of the first class awarded “genius grants” by the MacArthur Foundation in 1981, and in 1998 Gates became the first African American scholar awarded the National Humanities Medal. In 2001, he discovered the first novel written by a Black female author, The Bondwoman’s Narrative, by Hannah Craft; he donated the holograph manuscript to Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Gates is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an International Fellow of the British Academy, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts. A former chair of the Pulitzer Prize board, he currently serves on several boards, including the New York Public Library, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Aspen Institute, Whitney Museum of American Art, Library of America, and The Studio Museum in Harlem.

Kenji Yoshino

Kenji Yoshino is the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law and director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging. A graduate of Harvard University, University of Oxford, and Yale Law School, he specializes in constitutional law and antidiscrimination law. He received tenure at Yale Law School, where he served as deputy dean before moving to NYU.

Yoshino has published articles in major academic journals, including the Harvard Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and Yale Law Journal. He has also written for The New York Times and The Washington Post. The author of five books, Yoshino coauthored his most recent books with David Glasgow, Say the Right Thing: How to Talk About Identity, Diversity, and Justice (2023) and How Equality Wins: A New Vision for an Inclusive America (2026). 

Yoshino has served as president of the Harvard Board of Overseers. He currently serves on the boards of the Brennan Center for Justice and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, along with Meta’s Oversight Board. Yoshino also serves on advisory boards for diversity and inclusion for Morgan Stanley and Charter Communications. He has won numerous awards for his teaching and scholarship, including the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award, Peck Medal in Jurisprudence, and NYU’s Distinguished Teaching Award. 

He lives in Manhattan with his husband, two children, and their Great Dane.