The Sport Performance Summit

Dave is the current General Manager of the NBA’s LA Clippers, and has over 40 years of experience as a player and coach at the top level. Dave has held a number of roles including Assistant Coach at the Nets, Celtics, Timberwolves, Kings and Lakers (where he won the NBA Championship in 1985), as Assistant General Manager of the Celtics, and EVP Basketball Operations at the Miami Heat. He started his current role as GM of the Clippers in 2014, which is the third time working with Head Coach Doc Rivers after the two worked together in Boston and with the Orlando Magic. In his playing career, Wohl was selected in the 3rd round of the 1971 NBA Draft by the Philadelphia 76ers. He played for six different teams over a seven-year career including the 76ers, the Portland Trail Blazers and the Houston Rockets. 

Les has just completed his fourth year as General Manager of the newly relocated LA Rams. He partners with Head Coach Jeff Fisher to direct all personnel decisions for the club, as well as coordinating all aspects of the club’s football operations, and direct the team’s business ventures alongside EVP Football Ops and COO, Kevin Demoff. Les started his career in the NFL at Jacksonville Jaguars as a Pro Scout between 1995-97, then moved to the Atlanta Falcons where he was also Pro Scout as well as Director of Pro/Player Personnel. He was hired as GM of the Rams in 2012, and instantly made an impact with his ambitious moves to improve the organization in any way possible, with clever trades that resulted in greater manoeuvrability in the draft, and the acquisitions of players such as Michael Brockers, Brian Quick, Janoris Jenkins and Isaiah Pead. The Rams also have this year’s NFL Rookie of the Year in their roster, Todd Gurley, who Les was instrumental in picking and bringing to the Rams. 

Mark Helfrich had one of the hardest jobs in college sport after replacing Chip Kelly, arguably the Ducks’ most successful ever football coach in 2013. However, after 11-2 first year (surpassing Chip Kelly’s previous Oregon pinnacle for most wins in a first-year), and a victory over Texas in the Alamo Bowl (only the second Ducks’ coach to win a bowl game in the first season), he could not of got off to a much better start. But he and his team went from strength to strength, and in 2014 he became only the school’s second ever coach to lead the team to a National Championship appearance, falling at the final hurdle to Urban Meyer’s Ohio State Buckeyes – this included guiding the school to more single-season victories than any other in conference history. The achievements continued as they won the Pac-12 title with a 15-3 record, ran out 51-13 winners over Arizona in the conference championship game, and handed Florida State only their second loss in two seasons. Mark also coached the school’s only ever Heisman Trophy (College Football Player of the Year) winner ever, Marcus Mariota. 

Tom is the in his third year as GM of the Chargers, having previously spent 14 years with the Indianapolis Colts in the roles of VP Football Operations and Director of Player Personnel. Tom comes from a strong scouting background after roles with the Panthers and Colts, the latter coinciding with one of the most successful eras of the franchise’s history – he also arrived at the same time as one the team’s and sport’s great Quarterbacks, Peyton Manning.

Tom and the rest of the recruitment team put together a Colts team that appeared in the playoffs 12 times, winning 8 division titles and the Super Bowl XLI title in 2006, and were the second best team in this period only to the Patriots.

Following this successful spell, Tom was hired as the GM at the Chargers and was immediately part of the committee that appointed Mike McCoy as Head Coach. It’s a new era in San Diego, and the last three years have been a rebuilding phase, spearheaded by top players Philip Rivers and Danny Woodhead. Tom is the youngest GM in Chargers history, and one of the youngest in the NFL, so he will be able to give some great contrasting views alongside Dave Wohl of the Clippers, discussing the future of the leaders in their respective sports, and how the role of GM is evolving. 

In addition to leading User Experience & Design (UxD) for SAP, Sam has taken over responsibilities as the Managing Director for SAP in Silicon Valley in July 2015.

Sam keeps his role as the Chief Design Officer of SAP. He will continue to drive a renewed commitment to design and user experience at SAP. Under his leadership SAP further strengthens its mission of listening to customers´ needs leading to tangible results, including SAP Fiori, SAP Screen Personas and SAP´s UX design services.

Prior to taking on his current role as Chief Design Officer Sam was the Global Head of Design and User Experience. Before that he led the SAP AppHaus, an innovation team building new solutions, establishing new markets, and reaching new users for SAP.

Last year Sam was a fellow at d.school (Institute of Design at Stanford), where he created the d.forum, a global community of senior leaders driving Design Thinking within their organizations.

Sam came to SAP ten years ago when Hasso Plattner formed the Design Services Team, a multi- disciplinary group in the Office of the CEO, to accelerate the adoption of Design Thinking at SAP and improve SAP’s user experience. This was the reason for Sam to join SAP and is still his passion.

Before joining SAP, Sam was co-founder of Covigna, Inc., an enterprise software company that delivered project management solutions. At Covigna he has led the design, engineering and strategic customer engagement. Sam is a native of San Francisco and has a Ph.D. in Design Theory and Methodology from Stanford University.

Dr. Leslie Saxon is a Professor of Medicine, Clinical Scholar, at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Dr. Saxon specialises in the diagnosis and treatment of cardiac arrhythmias and preventing sudden cardiac death. She is also the Executive Director of the internationally-acclaimed USC Center for Body Computing (CBC) and newly announced USC Virtual Care Clinic.  Dr. Saxon participates in the pre-clinical and clinical development and testing of wearable and implanted technology, including networked devices used in medicine, wellness, and fitness disciplines. With her clinical expertise, she is a valuable strategist in developing device models and software solutions that offer engaging user-feedback based on real-time physiologic data.

Dr. Adam Gazzaley obtained an M.D. and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, completed clinical residency in Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania, and postdoctoral training in cognitive neuroscience at UC Berkeley. He is the founding director of the Neuroscience Imaging Center at the UC San Francisco, an Associate Professor in Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry, and Principal Investigator of a cognitive neuroscience laboratory. His laboratory studies neural mechanisms of perception, attention and memory, with an emphasis on the impact of distraction and multitasking on these abilities.

Meg is a screenwriter and producer, and is currently nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for co-writing the script for Pixar’s Inside Out. She also co-wrote the script for The Good Dinosaur and is currently writing the script for the live-action Captain Marvel movie. Story telling is an interesting subject for performance professionals to look at because it gives the opportunity to influence and connect with people, and can prove to be incredibly insightful when identifying how people work and develop. Part of this development relates to the story of emotion, and Meg has the ability to ‘find heroes’ which could relate back to sport where you’re looking to inspire and influence your team or organisation, and get emotional responses from your players or personnel. This can also relate to athletes themselves, a story can make them understand the obstacles and personal development tasks that they must overcome to become successful. 

Melissa Painter is the Executive Producer at 5D Global Studio where she helps clients think about the intersections of their industries and emergent technologies. Painter is an award-winning filmmaker who has directed three features, and produced two. Her films have premiered at Sundance, Cannes, The New York Film Festival, SXSW, and Telluride. She was a writing and directing fellow at the Sundance Lab, and a recipient of a Warner Brother Fellowship. She holds a BA from Columbia University in Ancient Greek and an MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts in Film. She is co-author of the book Edie Sedgwick, Edie: Girl on Fire. Previously to working at 5D Global Studio, Melissa served as Managing Director of a contemporary dance company, and worked at WONDROS in content strategy and as co-director of short form documentaries for clients such as the NRDC, The Teaching Gardens, Gladstone Institute, The Gates Foundation, The California Endowment, and Columbia Journalism School.

Matthew coaches some of the most disciplined performers in the world. He’s been coaching with Cirque du Soleil since 2000 and is currently heading up La Nouba, the exclusive Cirque du Soleil show at Walt Disney World Resort. With over 30 years experience he’ll share expertise on coaching and development from his perspective and show how this relates to the wider world of sport.