Thursday keynotes

RootsTech is less than 3 weeks away! I’m going to post the keynotes and a little bit about them, each week until RootsTech starts.

Thursday:

Steve Rockwood: Stephen T. Rockwood is the managing director for the Family History Department and President/CEO of FamilySearch International. Prior to joining FamilySearch, Rockwood specialized in creating unique service offerings for worldwide customers of such brands as MasterCard International, AT&T, Disney, Office Depot, and Citibank among others. He also started two companies that were later acquired by larger companies. Most recently Steve served as director of the international division at FamilySearch.

Steve received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Brigham Young University and later his MBA from the University of Colorado in Boulder, CO.

He has served in a number of Church callings including full-time missionary in the Argentina Cordoba Mission, elders quorum president, bishop’s counselor, stake mission president’s counselor, bishop, stake young men president, stake president’s counselor, seminary teacher, and high counselor.

Steve was born in Rock Springs, Wyoming on March 2, 1963. He married Jill Ansley Forbes in August 1985. They are the parents of four children. Steve and his wife, Jill, reside outside of Denver, Colorado.

Paula Madison: Paula Williams Madison is Chairman and CEO of Madison Media Management LLC, a Los Angeles based media consultancy company with global reach.

In 2011, Madison retired from NBCUniversal, where she had been Executive Vice President of Diversity as well as a Vice President of the General Electric Company (GE), then the parent company of NBCU. During her 22 years with NBCU, she held a number of successful leadership roles, including President and General Manager of NBC4 Los Angeles, Los Angeles Regional General Manager for NBCU’s Telemundo TV stations, and Vice President and News Director of NBC4 New York.

Madison is the executive producer and subject of Finding Samuel Lowe: From Harlem to China, a compelling documentary that chronicles her journey to her maternal grandfather’s homeland in China and the reconnection of her family with his 300 descendants. HarperCollins published a memoir on the journey, Finding Samuel Lowe: China, Jamaica, Harlem in April 2015.

Honored for corporate leadership and community outreach, Madison was named one of the “75 Most Powerful African Americans in Corporate America” by Black Enterprise magazine in 2005 and included in the Hollywood Reporter’s “Power 100.” She’s also been honored by Asian organizations, having been recognized in 2014 as one of the Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business and was recently honored by the East West Players and AARP with their Visionary Award.

In August 2013, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appointed Madison to the Los Angeles Police Commission, where she served as vice president until 2015. Madison is a Board Member of the Greater Los Angeles United Way, the California Science Center Foundation, Vice Chair of National Medical Fellowships, the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, Cardinal Spellman High School, Chair of The Nell Williams Family Foundation, as well as a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

A native of Harlem, Madison and her husband Roosevelt reside in Los Angeles.

*I’ve already had the privilege of hearing a little bit from Paula Madison during a RootsTech ambassador meeting, and her keynote is definitely one you won’t want to miss!

Bruce Feiler: Bruce Feiler is one of America’s most popular voices on contemporary life. He writes the “This Life" column for the SundayNew York Times and is the author of six consecutive New York Times bestsellers, including Abraham and The Council of Dads. He is the writer and host of the PBS series Walking the Bible andSacred Journeys with Bruce Feiler. His most recent book, The Secrets of Happy Families, is a bold playbook for families today. It collects best practices for busy parents from some of the country’s most creative minds, including tops designers in Silicon Valley, elite peace negotiators, and the Green Berets. Featured on World News,Nightline, GMA, the Today Show, and TED, and excerpted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Parade, the book was a Top 5 New York Times bestseller.

Since 2001, Bruce has been one of the country’s preeminent thinkers, writers, and speakers about the role of religion in contemporary life. Walking the Bible describes his perilous, 10,000-mile journey retracing the five books of Moses through the desert. The book was hailed as an “instant classic” by the Washington Post and “thoughtful, informed, and perceptive” by the New York Times. The book spent more than a year and a half on the New York Times bestseller list, has been translated into 15 languages, and is the subject of a children’s book.

Abraham recounts his personal search for the shared ancestor of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. “Exquisitely written,” wrote the Boston Globe, “100 percent engaging.” The book was featured on the cover of TIME magazine, debuted in the top 5 of the New York Timesbestseller list, and inspired thousands of grassroots interfaith discussions around the world. Bruce Feiler has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, the New York Times magazine, and Gourmet, where he won three James Beard Awards. He is also a frequent contributor to NPR, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. A former circus clown, he has been the subject of Jay Leno jokes and a JEOPARDY! question, and his face appears on a postage stamp in the Grenadines.

A native of Savannah, Georgia, Bruce lives in Brooklyn with wife, Linda Rottenberg, and their identical twin daughters.

I got all the biographies from the RootsTech website.

I'm so excited only 19 days left!