Ideas for Tomorrow

Featured Speaker

Brian Grazer

Academy Award-winning producer, and Executive Chairman, Imagine Entertainment

Dates: Tuesday, August 18th,
Time: 5:00 pm EDT

Biography

Hollywood legend Brian Grazer is an Academy, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Grammy award-winning producer and New York Times bestselling author. Behind iconic films and shows including A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, 8 Mile, Splash, 24, Friday Night Lights, Empire, Parenthood and Arrested Development (just to name a few), Grazer's work has been nominated for 43 Oscars and 195 Emmys. He and his long-time partner, Ron Howard continue to produce the highest quality movies, documentaries and television shows of our time.

Named to TIME’s “100 Most Influential People in the World,” Grazer cofounded Imagine Entertainment along with his longtime friend and business partner Ron Howard in the 1980s, quickly growing it to become one of Hollywood's most prolific and successful production companies. Heralded as a creative visionary and entertainment powerhouse, and described by Russell Crowe in TIME as "a modern-age hunter-gatherer of information," Grazer is renowned for his uncanny prescience, curiosity, and innovative insight.

Imagine’s latest endeavor is an entertainment start-up called Impact whose mission is to democratize access to Hollywood. The goal is to find, identify, and sign the most talented writers in the world — people who do not have access to the entertainment industry. Impact uses machine learning to sort through a flood of undiscovered talent to find the storytellers and scriptwriters with the best potential. Those who are chosen go through a boot camp to refine their scripts, mentored by top Hollywood talent. It culminates in a pitch day with every buyer (studios, streamers and networks) in attendance.

Coming from modest means and growing up with dyslexia, Grazer's rise to a mogul in the pantheon of Hollywood is an empowering story of resilience and ingenuity. The secret to Grazer's success and distinct outlook are chronicled in his #1 New York Times bestselling book, A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life, which reveals why curiosity is our superpower to lead bigger and more rewarding lives. His latest book, Face to Face: The Art of Human Connection, reveals yet another key to happiness and success: the transformative power of eye contact.

Grazer feels passionate about creating good in the world, and has been honored for his global humanitarian work by several organizations including the Simon Wiesenthal Foundation, the Alfred Mann Foundation, the Alzheimer’s Association, World of Children and the Atlantic Council. Sought-out to speak everywhere from Google to Goldman Sachs, SXSW to the Aspen Institute, Grazer has helped everyone from parents to CEOs to artists to young graduates hone the mindset, philosophy, and skills needed to thrive in turbulent times.

Grazer and his longtime friend and business partner Ron Howard are renowned as being one of the longest running partnerships in Hollywood. They continue to run the company together as chairmen.

#CCIdeas

Upcoming Speakers

Judy Faulkner
CEO and Founder of Epic Systems
Wednesday, September 2nd, 5:00 pm EDT

Tim Brown
Executive Chair of IDEO
Monday, September 21st, 5:00 pm EDT

Speaker Archives

Many thought leaders have participated in the Ideas for Tomorrow speaker series. Previous speakers are listed below along with links to their presentation videos where available.

David Feinberg, MD
Head of Google Health

Stephen A. Schwarzman
Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder, Blackstone

Kevin Love
NBA player for the Cleveland Cavaliers,
Founder of the Kevin Love Fund

Katie Couric
Journalist and Founder, Katie Couric Media

Dan Schulman
President and CEO, PayPal

David Rubenstein
Co-Founder & Co-Executive Chairman of The Carlyle Group

Larry J. Merlo
President and Chief Executive Officer, CVS Health

Franz Welser-Möst
Music Director
Kelvin Smith Family Endowed Chair
The Cleveland Orchestra

Steve Case & J.D. Vance
Steve Case: Chairman and CEO, Revolution LLC; Co-Founder, America Online; Chairman, The Case Foundation
J.D. Vance: Managing Partner, Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Revolution, LLC; Author, Hillbilly Elegy – Revolution, LLC

Keven Plank
CEO of Under Armour

Doris Kearns Goodwin
Best-selling author and "America's Historian-in-Chief"

Mindy Grossman
President and Chief Executive Officer, Director of Weight Watchers International, Inc.

General Stan McChrystal
Former Commander of U.S. and International Forces in Afghanistan; Author of Best-Sellers Team of Teams and My Share of the Task; Co-Founder of the McChrystal Group

John Doerr
Chairman, Kleiner Perkins

Ginni Rometty
Chairman, President and CEO of IBM

Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD, DPhil
Oncologist and Author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene: An Intimate History

Satya Nadella
Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft

Sheryl Sandberg
Chief Operating Officer at Facebook

Angela Duckworth
Founder and Scientific Director of the Character Lab

Frederick W. Smith
Founder and CEO of FedEx Corporation

Adam Silver
National Basketball Association Commissioner

Dan Gilbert
Majority Owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers

Fred McLeod
Play by Play Announcer for the Cleveland Cavaliers

David Gergen
CNN Senior Political Analyst; Harvard Kennedy School Professor and Director

David Agus
New York Times Bestselling Author; Physician and Professor of Medicine and Engineering, University of Southern California

Jim Free
Director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's John H. Glenn Research Center

Jim Colins
Author and Lecturer

David Gregory
Author and Former Moderator of Meet the Press

Admiral Michael Rogers
Commander, U.S. Cyber Command; Director, National Security Agency/Chief, Cenpal Security Service

Marissa Mayer
Former President & CEO, Yahoo

Candice Bergen
Actress and Author

Jack and Suzy Welch
Executive Chairman of the Jack Welch Management Institute and Author

Lord Norman Foster
Founder of Foster + Partners, Architect

Thomas Friedman
Author & Journalist, The New York Times

Gentry Lee
Chief Engineer for the Solar System Exploration Directorate at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California

Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg
Former CEO of Google, Current Google's Executive Chairman; Google Advisor

Michael Govan
CEO and Walps Annenberg Director

Sebastian Thrun
Co-Founder and CEO, Udacity

Dr. Donald Berwick
Former Administrator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; Founding CEO, Institute for Healthcare Improvement

Mark Tercek
President and CEO, The Nature Conservancy

Arianna Huffington
Chair, President and Editor-in-Chief, Huffington Post Media Group

Karim Sadjadpour
Author and Middle East Expert

Daniel Yergin
Author and Authority on Energy, International Politics and Economics

Jack Dorsey
Creator, Co-Founder, and Executive Chairman of Twitter, Inc.; Co-Founder and CEO of Square, Inc.

Warren Buffet
Business Leader, Philanthropist

Vladimir Pozner
Russian Journalist and Author

John T. Chambers
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Cisco

Kevin Johnson and Michelle Rhee
Mayor, City of Sacramento and CEO/Founder, StudentsFirst

Diane von Furstenberg
Fashion Designer

General Stanley A. McChrystal
Former commander of U.S. and International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) Afghanistan; Former commander of the Premier Military Counter-Terrorism Force, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC)

Dr. Ben S. Bernanke
Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve System

General James L. Jones, USMC (Ret.)
National Security Advisor

Dr. Atul Gawande
Practicing Surgeon, Accomplished Writer, Teacher and Speaker

Victor L.L. Chu
Chairman of the First Eastern Investment Group

Dean Kamen
Inventor and Physicist

Craig Mundie
Chief Research and Strategy Officer at Microsoft Corp.

Michael Dell
Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of Dell

H. Lee Scott, Jr.
Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (Walmart)

Tom Kelley
General Manager of IDEO

Michael E. Porter
Glen Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School

His Excellency Yousef Al Otaiba
Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to the United States of America and Mexico

Mike Milken
Philanthropist, Chairman of Milken Institute

Doris Kearns Goodwin
World-Renowned Historian

Stephen Kappes
Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency

Tom Brokaw
NBC News Special Correspondent

Glenn D. Lowry
Director of The Museum of Modern Art

Steven A. Burd
CEO of Safeway Inc.

Oprah Winfrey
Worldwide Media Leader, Philanthropist and Television Host

J. Craig Venter, PhD
Founder, Chairman and President of the J. Craig Venter Institute

John Glenn
Astronaut and Senator

William McDonough
World-Renowned Architect and Designer

Peter Lewis and Frank Gehry
Architects

Anne Mulcahy
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Xerox Corp.

Antonin Scalia
Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court