We Host TEDx Stages.

Dr. Forbes Riley is a globally recognized media personality, National Fitness Hall of Fame inductee, and legendary business pitch pioneer whose infomercial campaigns have driven more than $2.5 billion in gross sales worldwide. Co-emceeing TEDxSoardsRoad, Forbes deconstructs sales barriers not as commercial objections, but as internal permission crises rooted in subconscious dissonance.

Carl Cleavenger is a severe trauma survivor, entrepreneur, and keynote speaker who survived a catastrophic vehicle fire in the Mojave Desert that claimed the life of his special-needs son, James, and left Carl with third-degree burns across more than half his body. Surviving seven major surgeries and six weeks in a medically induced coma at the Grossman Burn Center, Carl rebuilt his physical and psychological capacity through three explicit cognitive anchors: Desire, Movement, and Meaning.

Barbie Ray is a veteran automotive collision executive, organizational strategist, and keynote speaker. Having survived a direct lightning strike, complete temporary neurological paralysis, multiple complex spinal surgeries, and protracted rehabilitation, Barbie simultaneously steered independent collision enterprises through the 2008 financial collapse and the 2020 supply-chain shutdowns. Her talk analyzes why predictive machine learning architectures fail during unmodeled disruptions and why earned human intuition remains our ultimate competitive edge.

Jim Keyes is a distinguished American business leader, educator, commercial pilot, and author who served as CEO of two Fortune 500 companies: 7-Eleven, Inc. and Blockbuster. Combining five decades of enterprise leadership with thousands of cockpit flight hours, Keyes demonstrates how the discipline of aviation instrument scanning provides the exact cognitive blueprint leaders need to harness artificial intelligence and navigate macroeconomic turbulence.

Angela Webber is an acclaimed vocal coach, expressive arts strategist, and transformational speaker. Her keynote at TEDxSoardsRoad explores the neuro-physiological connection between the human voice, emotional trauma, and creative sovereignty. She provides leaders and artists with the somatic tools to break through fear-based vocal inhibition and communicate with magnetic resonance.

Matt Russell is a premier American professional triathlete with over forty professional Ironman podiums. After losing his mother to ALS at thirteen, Matt channeled grief into endurance excellence. During the 2017 Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii, an unauthorized van penetrated the race barricades, colliding with Matt and severing his external jugular vein. Saved on the asphalt by a quick-acting spectator, Matt executed a rigorous 12-month rehabilitation rooted in radical gratitude, breathwork, and immediate action—returning to Kona in 2018 to post the 3rd fastest American time in event history.

Diane Darling is an internationally celebrated author, speaker, and communication consultant who has addressed audiences across sixty countries. In her keynote at TEDxSoardsRoad, Diane breaks down the biological and social mechanics of genuine relationship architecture, demonstrating why transactional digital networking fails and how intentional vulnerability creates unbreakable social capital.

Dr. Andre P. Walton is an institutional strategist, behavioral change scientist, and founder of Plan4Change. His TEDx talk decodes why over 70% of enterprise change initiatives fail due to emotional friction and cognitive inertia, presenting a validated operational blueprint to sequence behavioral adaptation and achieve lasting cultural renewal.

Joe Rivera is a transformational speaker, entrepreneur, and recovery advocate. Having scaled a 7-figure commercial business only to experience a catastrophic collapse into severe chemical dependency and rock bottom, Joe underwent complete personal, psychological, and professional reconstruction. His talk, 'Reforge Your Life', delivers a battle-tested operational framework for confronting denial, embracing total accountability, and converting systemic personal failure into an engine for lasting impact.

Anirban 'Andy' Bhattacharya is the founder and CEO of Amplo Global, an AI-powered enterprise modeling platform. At TEDxSoardsRoad, Andy explores how machine intelligence can be aligned with sustainable governance, helping global enterprises navigate environmental compliance, supply-chain resilience, and responsible autonomous operations.

Scott Weinstein is an educational administrator, author, and graduate lecturer at Villanova University. Examining the progressive loss of intentional environmental design as individuals transition from elementary classrooms to corporate environments, Weinstein extends the late Rita Pierson’s thesis—that every human being requires an unconditional champion—into lifelong organizational architecture. Leading a major high school through the 2020 administrative lockdowns, he demonstrated that authentic authority emanates from frontline culture carriers, such as career custodians, rather than executive titles.

Drew Curtis is the founder of Fark.com, one of the earliest and most influential news curation platforms on the internet, and author of 'It's Not News, It's Fark'. Drawing upon twenty-five years on the frontlines of online media, Curtis provides a razor-sharp critique of digital sensationalism, algorithmic rage bait, and how human communities can preserve sanity in an attention economy.

Dr. Dan Docherty is the Chief Coaching Officer at Braintrust and a faculty member at Miami University's Farmer School of Business. Applying clinical neurobiology to executive hierarchies, Docherty analyzes how modern task-saturated corporate routines trigger chronic sympathetic fight-or-flight reactivity. He proves that asking a single transformative question—'What do you dream about?'—bypasses the brain's threat circuitry, dampens amygdala hyperactivity, and stimulates parasympathetic oxytocin pathways to unlock profound collaborative trust.

Matt Music is an audio composer, entrepreneur, and founder of LI Music Boutique. His presentation at TEDxSoardsRoad explores the biophysics of acoustic resonance, showing how harmonic sound waves alter brainwave states, down-regulate systemic stress, and unlock heightened states of creative problem-solving.

Obet Pabon is the founder of 'Wow with Obet' and an internationally sought-after experience architect. Obet dissects the cognitive science of human memory, explaining why people forget 90% of informational presentations within forty-eight hours but permanently retain moments of unexpected emotional delight and shared wonder.

Shawn Reaves is a Kentucky theatre director, playwright, and educator who has spent three decades directing community stage productions across the Bluegrass. His talk illustrates how live theater acts as an irreplaceable civic crucible, allowing communities to confront collective grief, celebrate resilience, and recognize our shared humanity.

Trevor Shoemaker is a performance coach specializing in stress-inoculation training and psychological toughness. His presentation details the physiological mechanisms that occur when adrenaline spikes, offering proven cognitive protocols to slow down perceived time and make high-consequence decisions with surgical clarity.

Cheryle Hays is the founder of InPower Strategists and a trusted adviser to senior Fortune 500 leaders. In her TEDx talk, Cheryle unpacks the hidden micro-behaviors and psychological boundaries that prevent brilliant executives from stepping into senior institutional influence, providing a tactical roadmap to own the room with dignity.

Lisa Ann Oliveira is an endurance athlete who has completed eighteen full 140.6-mile Ironman triathlons, an author, and an international motivational keynote speaker. Drawing upon thousands of training hours in harsh environmental extremes, Lisa deconstructs the illusion of overnight transformation. Her address, 'The Ripple Maker', illustrates how microscopic daily commitments, unobserved acts of kindness, and momentary discipline ripple outward across decades to create monumental systemic change.