Building a Resilient Tomorrow

About Our Speakers

Ari Wallach is a futurist and social systems strategist. He is the founder and Executive Director of Longpath Labs, an initiative focused on bringing long-term thinking and coordinated behavior to the individual, organizational, and societal realms in order to ensure humanity flourishes on an ecologically thriving planet Earth for centuries to come. Ari is the author of Longpath: Becoming the Great Ancestors Our Future Needs by HarperOne. Mr. Wallach’s TED talk on Longpath has been viewed over 2.5 million times and translated into 19 languages.

Mr. Wallach was also the founder and CEO of Synthesis Corp., a New York-based strategic innovation consultancy whose clients included CNN, Volkswagen Global, The UN Refugee Agency, and the US State Department. He was the co-founder of the 2008 presidential initiative “The Great Schlep with Sarah Silverman” and previously hosted Fast Company magazine’s “Fast Company Futures with Ari Wallach.” He has served as an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, lecturing on innovation, AI and the futures of governance and public policy.

Vikki N. Spruill is President and CEO of the New England Aquarium, an ocean conservation organization that educates and inspires more than a million visitors a year on Boston’s Central Wharf; conducts applied research through its Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life; and rescues and rehabilitates threatened and endangered sea turtles in its Sea Turtle Hospital in Quincy, Mass.

Ms. Spruill previously served as President and CEO of the Council on Foundations, the largest association of philanthropic grant-making organizations, and Ocean Conservancy, a science-based advocacy organization dedicated to the oceans. She also founded the Trash Free Seas Alliance, was the founding director of SeaWeb, and helped found COMPASS, which empowers scientists to better engage in public discourse on environmental issues.

Ms. Spruill is on the Board of Directors of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce as well as the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Foundation and the Water Institute of the Gulf. She is a Trustee of the New England Aquarium and an active member of Boston’s Green Ribbon Commission and the Massachusetts Women’s Forum. She also serves as Co-chair of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Climate & Energy Leadership Council and as a member of M&T Bank’s Director’s Advisory Council.