Andrea Dimond joined USC with a robust 25-year career in the food industry. Dimond’s leadership experience spans sales, distribution, marketing, and organizational development with a proven track record of driving growth and transformation. At the Western Association of Food Chains (WAFC), she spearheaded the organization’s first comprehensive strategic plan, directed a successful rebrand, and modernized systems to strengthen program management, scholarship administration, and student recruitment.

Cynthia McCloud joined USC with a 40 year career in the food industry. She has led teams in both the U.S. and in international markets including: France, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, India, Singapore and Australia. She is a certified executive coach and has held leadership roles in multi-national companies and start-ups. Her focus today is on organizational leadership and development.

Shon Hiatt is an associate professor at USC Marshall School of Business and faculty affiliate of the Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. He researches entrepreneurship, ESG strategy, and He is the recipient of numerous scholarly and teaching honors, including the Kauffman Junior Faculty Fellowship in Entrepreneurship and the Academy of Management and ARCS Emerging Scholar Awards. Prior to joining USC, he was on the faculty at Harvard Business School. sustainable innovation in domestic and international contexts. Professor Hiatt’s research has been published in academic journals and featured in media outlets.

Stephen Lind is an Associate Professor of Clinical Business Communication at USC's Marshall School of Business, where he teaches courses in business communication. His teaching encompasses strategic messaging, technology in communication, consulting, and refining speaking and writing skills for business contexts. Lind's research interests lie in business communication technology and the nuances of communication choices, such as the use of video for business and the use of religious messaging in entertainment commerce. Outside of academia, Dr. Lind runs BizComm Ally, a consulting firm that assists businesses with their communication needs.

Nandini Rajagopalan is the Joseph A. DeBell Chair in Business Administration and Professor of Management and Organization. Her research examines platform-based markets, diversification and strategic alliances, CEO succession, and corporate governance. She has published in the Academy of Management Review, the Academy of Management Journal, the Strategic Management Journal, the Journal of International Business Studies, the Journal of Management Studies, the Journal of Management, and Business Horizons among others. She is a Distinguished Faculty Fellow at USC’s Center for Excellence in Teaching, and recipient of USC’s Provost’s Mentoring Award. She is past Associate Editor of the Academy of Management Journal.

Cheryl Wakslak’s research focuses on how people interact with others across various forms of distance. Much of her recent research looks at communication, exploring when people use more "big-picture" abstract language versus more specific language, and how this influences the way they are perceived by others. Projects here focus especially on the role of gender, power, and perceptions of leadership and future potential. Cheryl is further interested in how these dynamics — and other communication signals — play out in the entrepreneurial space. She explores these interests using a variety of approaches, including experiments, field studies, and archival data analysis.

Professor Aponte-Moreno specializes in leadership development, strategic management, and cross-cultural negotiations. He brings a unique approach to executive education by integrating principles from the arts, particularly theater, to cultivate leadership skills in business settings. His book, Leadership as Performance: Developing Leadership Skills through Acting, explores how acting techniques can enhance key leadership skills such as self-awareness, presence, authenticity, communication, and emotional intelligence.