ESPN is the superstar of the sports broadcasting world, reaching about 100 million US viewers per month with its stable of channels, including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN Classic.

Over the past 30+ years, the company has transitioned from a start-up to a fully integrated, international powerhouse brand, recognized as the Worldwide Leader in Sports.

And, since 1979, Berman has been the face of ESPN with his trademark combination of genuine enthusiasm, knowledge and wit. He is best known for his signature delivery of highlights of every sport, most notably on NFL Sundays.

Chris is the host of NFL Primetime, the highest rated sports studio show in the history of cable television. He’s also been an ESPN Major League Baseball play-by-play commentator since 1990, and has covered golf’s U.S. Open on ESPN since 1986.

Six times he has been selected the National Sportscaster of the Year by the members of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. Berman and his various shows have won ten Emmy Awards and 12 Cable ACEs.

We’re thrilled to have Chris Berman and his unique brand of charisma as one of our featured speakers at THINK 12. He’ll take us through the history of the brand, and impart some of the lessons learned along the way as the company transitioned from start-up to contender to leadership.

The subject of Michael Lewis’ 2003 book, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, and the 2011 film of the same name starring Brad Pitt, Billy Beane is considered one of the most talented and progressive baseball executives in the game today. He has molded the Oakland Athletics into a perennial postseason contender since assuming the general manager’s duties shortly following the 1997 season. Beane’s strategy has since opened the eyes of many top sports executives and CEOs around the country who now utilize the “Moneyball” methodology. At the podium, Beane conveys his innovative, winning style of management and leadership, which involves identifying undervalued assets to create and sustain a competitive advantage. By striking parallels between baseball and business, Beane inspires audiences across industries with his unforgettable winning underdog story.

A highly valued consultant for the private sector, Congress and the national security establishment, Jeffrey Baxter specializes in applying traditional ideas and resources in non-conventional ways. Two disparate fields define his career: music and missiles. Baxter began as a guitar player for bands such as Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan and Elton John, earning two Grammys and many gold and platinum albums. Consulting for leading musical instrument companies to help them apply state-of- the-art computer technologies to next-generation musical instruments, he scoured the defense industry for relevant emerging technologies. This led him to contemplate next-generation paradigms by which the Defense Department could reapply its own defense systems. Soon, he was advising top military and civilian groups on national security matters ranging from missile defense and terrorism to cyberwar. Baxter teaches how strategic, out-of-the-box thinking can help us view the future not as a time of uncertainty and anxiety, but as an era of opportunity and growth.

Dr. Jeff Norris is the supervisor of the Planning Software Systems Group at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His group develops operations systems for a variety of space missions, including the Phoenix Mars Scout, Cassini Saturn Orbiter, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the Spirit and Opportunity Mars Exploration Rovers—for which his team was co-winner of the 2004 NASA Software of the Year Award. Jeff currently is leading the development of the uplink system for the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory Rover mission and operations software development within NASA’s multi-center lunar Human Robotic Systems technology development project. He also is the operations lead for the DARPA F6 project, which seeks to replace single satellites with lower-risk clusters of microsatellites. Jeff founded the JPL OPS Lab for the design, development, and deployment of mission operations software and human-robot interaction technologies. And as a Tactical Activity Planner, he helped operate the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers during the prime mission.

A career dedicated to building and launching innovative and compelling e-commerce experiences for consumers has involved Alexis Maybank in key roles at several of the most notable names in online marketing. Most recently a founding CEO of Gilt Groupe, Maybank worked to expand the upscale web retailer from women’s brands into lifestyle categories that include sporting goods, home decor, children’s apparel and luxury travel services. Previously, Maybank served as general manager and business development director for AOL’s e-commerce businesses, and was an early member of the eBay team. At eBay, she helped establish the company’s first strategic planning group, and launched eBay Canada, which became that nation’s largest e-commerce business. She also helped found eBay Motors, which at over $2.5 billion in gross sales, today is the largest category of goods sold on the site. In her presentation titled “By Invitation Only,” Maybank will offer credit unions proven strategies for creating brands that inspire passionate devotion in consumers.

THINK 12 MC Valerie Coleman Morris has a proven talent for guiding an audience through the latest thinking in business and finance. As a former CNN domestic and international correspondent/anchor, she delivered reports seen by more than 290 million viewers in households and businesses, as well as over airport networks. Morris currently appears on CNN as a personal finance guest expert and is a financial journalist/educator. Her unique point of view about money has been shaped by first-hand experiences with financial customs in cultures from Europe to Asia.

Morris's first book, It’s Your Money So Take It Personally® gives a multi-generation approach and mindset for a financial behavioral change to help families make a sustainable recovery from the recession. She brings her latest ideas to the THINK conference for a second consecutive year.

An expert on innovation, customer experience and channel distribution strategy, Brett King returns to this year’s THINK Conference with fresh insights from his role as an industry advisor. Published regularly in Huffington Post, Internet Evolution, FinExtra and his own personal blog Banking4Tomorrow, he has been featured on Bloomberg TV, BBC and CNBC, and in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Economist and other media.

King’s consultancy, User Strategy, focuses on improving customer interaction for leading financial services companies and businesses. King previously led the Asia division for Modem Media/Digitas (part of the Publicis group) and the E-Business service line for Deloitte (Financial Institutions Industry focus). His clients include HSBC, Citigroup, UBS, Standard Chartered, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Emirates NBD, BNP Paribas and many more.

King’s bestselling book Bank 2.0 examines how customer behavior and technology will change the future of financial services.

Doug Rauch spent 31 years with Trader Joe's Company, the last 14 years as President, growing the business from a small, nine-store chain in Southern California, to a nationally acclaimed retail success story with more than 340 stores in 30 states.  Rauch developed their prized buying philosophy, created their unique private label food program, and wrote and executed the business plan for expanding Trader Joe’s nationally. He retired from Trader Joe’s in 2008.

Rauch received his Executive M.B.A. from the Peter Drucker School of Management at Claremont University, where he won several honorary awards including the Early Career Outstanding Entrepreneur Award from Peter Drucker.

He is actively involved in numerous causes and serves on the board of several for-profit and non-profit organizations. He is CEO of Conscious Capitalism Inc., a Senior Fellow in Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative, a Trustee at Olin College, and Chairs the Board of Overseers at WBUR.

Currently, Rauch is working on an innovative non-profit solution to the issue of “food waste” and hunger/obesity by bringing high quality, nutritious food at affordable prices to the underserved in our inner cities.

We’re excited to have Doug Rauch as one of our featured speakers at THINK 12. He’ll talk about his experiences and how creativity helped him transform a small grocery store chain into a national powerhouse, and how you can apply creative thinking to the problems facing your credit union. Rauch changed the way Americans do their grocery shopping, and he’ll change the way you see the credit union movement.