Michael Dougherty has been chairman and CEO of Kindermusik International since December 1996. Under his leadership, Kindermusik has grown at a 30 percent compound annual growth rate, due largely to product expansion, brand building, and channel development. During this period, sales have grown from $3M to over $15M, licensed educators have increased from 1,100 to over 5,000, and countries served have grown from 5 to 42. KI is now highly profitable and has received numerous special honors.

Before KI, Dougherty was the president of Gymboree Play Programs, Inc., executive vice president and COO of Leisure Sports, Inc., and management consultant and team leader for Bain & Company in San Francisco, Calif. Dougherty received his MBA degree in 1988 from Stanford University with a concentration in marketing and finance, and his AB degree in 1982 from Colgate University with aconcentration in history and economics.

Dennis Doyle is cofounder and chief academic officer of SchoolNet. He is a nationally and internationally known education writer and consultant. His career began as a consultant to the California legislature after earning his AB and MA in political science from the University of California at Berkeley. He later joined the federal government as an assistant director of the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity, where he developed major education reform projects. He was transferred by executive order to the U.S. Office of Education, where he served as an assistant director of the National Institute of Education. Since that time, Doyle has served in four think tanks—the Brookings Institution, the American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, and Hudson Institute—where he has written over 200 articles for both scholarly and popular publications, ranging from the Atlantic Monthly to the Washington Post.

An authority on business and education, Doyle is the coauthor of three major education books with CEOs: Investing in Our Children, with Proctor & Gamble CEO Brad Butler; Winning the Brain Race, with Xerox CEO David Kearns; and Reinventing Education, with IBM CEO Lou Gerstner.

Bridget Foster is the director of Business Development for SchoolNet, Inc. She was formerly with Plato and the California Department of Education. She has presented on the topic of electronic learning resource review at a variety of national and state conferences. She was a teacher for 16 years and has worked with a variety of student populations including at-risk, migrant, and adults. She was a district mentor teacher in technology and curriculum integration, and has also worked as a consultant in the area of technology integration staff development at the K-12, university, and corporate level. Prior to working in education she spent five years owning and operating a retail store.

Alan Tripp has made a career of enhancing student motivation, success, and achievement. With InsideTrack, his attention is now focused on the success of college students, as reflected in academic performance, persistence, and graduation rates. Previously, he launched SCORE! Educational Centers, a national system of K-12 centers aimed at helping students strengthen their academic skills and love for learning. As the founder, CEO, and general manager, he helped to grow the company to nearly 100 centers with more than 1,500 employees. The company is now a unit of The Washington Post Company. Prior to SCORE!, he was a management consultant with Boston Consulting Group and worked as an analyst for H&Q Technology Partners.

Tripp has also worked as a reporter and editor for the Wall Street Journal. In addition to his management activities at InsideTrack, he was a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate Schools of Business and Education from 1999-2004, where he co-taught the core course for education entrepreneurs. He holds a BA in economics and an MBA, both from Stanford University.