Deborah Ancona is the Seley Distinguished Professor of Management, a Professor of Organization Studies, and the Faculty co-Director of the MIT Leadership Center. Her pioneering research into how successful teams operate has highlighted the critical importance of managing outside, as well as inside, the team’s boundary. This research directly led to the concept of X-Teams as a vehicle for driving innovation within large organizations. Ancona’s work also focuses on the concept of distributed leadership and on the development of research-based tools, practices, and teaching/coaching models that enable organizations to foster creative leadership at every level. She is the author of the book, X-Teams: How to Build Teams That Lead, Innovate, and Succeed (Harvard Business School Press, June 2007) and the related article, “In Praise of the Incomplete Leader” (Harvard Business Review, Feb. 2007). Ancona has served as a consultant on leadership and innovation to companies such as AT&T, BP, Credit Suisse First Boston, Hewlett-Packard, Merrill Lynch, News Corporation, Li & Fung, and Vale. Ancona holds a BA and an MS in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in management from Columbia University.

The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi is the Founding Director of The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Born into a Hindu Brahmin family in Vaishali, India, he chose his own path at the age of ten, entering a Buddhist monastery in Rajgir. His unique upbringing combined a modern secular education with traditional Buddhist training and ordination by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He earned his bachelor’s degree summa cum laudeas an Integral Honors scholar and completed his graduate studies in Comparative Philosophy of Religion at Harvard University in 2003.
Venerable Tenzin also serves as the President of the Prajnopaya Foundation, a worldwide humanitarian organization developing innovative health, education and social welfare programs. He serves on the board of several academic, humanitarian, and religious organizations, and teaches Buddhist philosophy and practice through the Prajnopaya Institute.