Conference Keynotes

Ira Chaleff

Ira Chaleff is a thought leader in the field of Followership and the founder and president of Executive Coaching & Consulting Associates. Ira's book, The Courageous Follower: Standing Up To and For Our Leaders was first published in 1995 by Berrett-Koehler and is currently in its third edition. It is widely acclaimed as a classic in its field and was the Silver Winner of the Best Business Book of the Year award in 2002 from ForeWord Magazine, the magazine of independent publishers.

Ira has published and has been quoted in numerous articles on Followership and its emergence as a newly recognized field of study and practice. He was the catalyst for the first national conference on Followership, hosted by the Kravis Leadership Institute of McKenna College and the Peter Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University. Ira is co-editor of the Art of Followership: How Great Followers Create Great Leaders and Organizations, published in January, 2008 as part of the Warren Bennis Leadership Series by Jossey-Bass. He has also been named one of the top 100 thinkers on leadership by Leadership Excellence Magazine and serves on the board of International Leadership Association.

We are pleased to be offering a copy of Ira's book, The Courageous Follower, to all registered conference attendees.

Ted Thomas

Ted Thomas is Director of the Department of Command and Leadership in the Command and General Staff College (CGSC) at Ft. Leavenworth, KS. Ted graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1978 and served 20 years in various command and staff positions before retiring as a Battalion Commander of the 554^th Engineer Battalion. He received a M.S. degree in Civil Engineering (1986) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Ph.D. in Engineering Management (1998) from Missouri University of Science and Technology. He joined the faculty at CGSC in 2005 before becoming the department director in 2007.

Ted supervises over 35 civilian and military department members who develop and deliver leadership curriculum for the 10-month long resident Command and General Staff Officer Course totaling over 1300 students annually with representation from 80 plus countries across the globe and members from each branch of the armed services. His department performs professional curriculum development and instructional duties associated with the development, revision, evaluation, and presentation of subjects in leadership, ethics, media relations, resilience, critical reasoning principles and creative thinking techniques and also assists in running an annual ethics conference for the Army at Ft. Leavenworth.

As the subject matter expert on leadership and leader development, he advises and represents the Deputy Commandant and other Department Directors on matters of leadership education in the college curriculum. As a Division Chief in the college, he rates and supervises five Team Leaders who are in charge of 60 faculty members from all five departments in the college. His division is responsible for teaching over 330 of the 1300 annual resident students. In addition, his military schooling includes the Army's Airborne, Ranger, Jungle, and Jumpmaster schools.

New Orleans Welcome Speaker

LaToya Cantrell

We are excited to announce that the ALE opening session will feature the Honorable LaToya Cantrell welcoming us to New Orleans and discussing the power of community-based efforts aimed at resilience in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill. Her passion for service through her role as the New Orleans District B Councilmember has provided her with insight into the nexus of academic leadership education and community leadership development. This will undoubtedly be a great opening to our conference and introduction to the sights, sounds, and culture of NOLA!

For more than 20 years, LaToya Cantrell has lived in New Orleans. She graduated from Xavier University with a Bachelor of Science in Sociology and a minor in Political Science and also completed Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government’s executive management program. She has more than ten years of executive management experience working in the non-profit sector.

As a community leader, Cantrell led the citizens’ fight to save their flooded Broadmoor neighborhood following Hurricane Katrina and the levee failures. Today, Broadmoor is considered a national and global model in post-disaster recovery. There is an “Education Corridor” anchored by a new school, library/community center and community health clinic opening in early 2013. Cantrell has been recognized for her post-Katrina recovery efforts as a Restore America Hero by the National Trust of Historic Preservation, a Young Leadership Council Role Model, a New Orleans Magazine “People to Watch,” a Gambit “40 Under 40,” as well as numerous other awards.

Cantrell has committed her life to community service, serving as the President of the Broadmoor Improvement Association, Board Member of the Salvation Army of Greater New Orleans, Arts Council Committee of Greater New Orleans, Neighborhood Partnership Network, 4-H Foundation of Louisiana, Smart Growth Louisiana and the National Association of Bench and Bar Spouses. She also co-chaired the Neighborhood Development Task Force for Mayor Landrieu’s Transition New Orleans 2010.

As a Councilmember, Cantrell pledges to make constituent services a top priority, striving to improve the quality of life for all residents in the areas of housing, economic development, public education and accessible health care, making District B a safer and better place. She lives with her husband, Jason, and daughter, RayAnn, in District B’s Broadmoor neighborhood and is a parishioner of Blessed Trinity Catholic Church.

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