Spanning the many tracks and themes of the SXSW Conference, Featured Speakers offer attendees the knowledge, leadership and inspiration to shape their professional careers and personal lives in our ever-evolving path forward.

Explore the full list of Featured Speakers and Featured Sessions below. Stay tuned for more programing announcements throughout the season.

For more high-profile speakers at SXSW, browse the Keynotes page.

• Check My Ads activists and co-founders Claire Atkin and Nandini Jammi in conversation

• Co-founder and CEO of ICON Jason Ballard

• CEO of fuseproject & Co-Founder of August Home, FORME Life and Canopy Space Yves Béhar

• Corporate Vice President, Game Creator Experience and Ecosystem at Microsoft Sarah Bond

• Chairman and CEO of Pfizer Dr. Albert Bourla

• Co-founder of LTK Amber Venz Box

• Artist, urbanist, director, and brand consultant Dario Calmese

• Founder and CEO of Everly Health Julia Cheek, founder and CEO of Maven Kate Ryder, and partner at Lux Capital Deena Shakir

• Academy Award nominated and Golden Globe winning filmmaker and co-founder of The Decentralized Pictures Foundation Roman Coppola in conversation with Decentralized Pictures co-founder Leo Matchett moderated by freelance journalist and media attorney Barbara Bruni

• Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Dell Technologies Michael Dell and CEO of Breyer Capital Jim Breyer

• CEO of Techstars Maëlle Gavet

• Founder and CEO of EMPIRE Ghazi

• Psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin Kathryn Paige Harden

• Author and leadership strategist Ann Hiatt

• Grammy Award-Winning singer/songwriter Jason Isbell; Founder of CLEAN Cause Sparkling Yerba Mate Wes Hurt; and Huntington, WV Director of the Mayor’s Council on Public Health and Drug Control Policy, Jan Rader

• Co-founder and Managing Partner of WndrCo Jeffrey Katzenberg in conversation with founder and CEO of Aura Hari Ravichandran

• Colossal Biosciences founder and CEO Ben Lamm with Colossal Biosciences head of biological sciences Eriona Hysolli

• SVP Chief Customer Experience Officer at Everbridge John Maeda

• WWE Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon in conversation with Barstool Sports CEO Erika Nardini

• Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov

• Creator, professional gamer, Twitch streamer, and YouTube personality Tyler “Ninja” Blevins with gamer, activist, and entrepreneur Jessica Blevins

• Science and culture writer and journalist Jessica Nordell

• Founder and CEO of The Mentor Method Janice Omadeke

• Producer, Songwriter, and Philanthropist Linda Perry; Warner Records SVP of A&R / TheBasement Series CEO Ericka J. Coulter; VANS Director of Global Music Marketing Tierney Stout; and Record Store Day co-founder Carrie Colliton

• Science fiction author Bruce Sterling

• Co-founder and CEO of Robinhood Markets Vlad Tenev

• Host of IHeartRadio’s There Are No Girls on the Internet podcast Bridget Todd

• Professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business and writer Joost van Dreunen

• European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager

• Senior Director of Design at Adobe Khoi Vinh

• Quantitative futurist, author and founder and CEO of the Future Today Institute Amy Webb
  

• 50 Non-Obvious Trends Changing the Future Normal
  A presentation with Non-Obvious Company founder Rohit Bhargava.

• Breaking the Rules to Make Your Experience Matter
  Accenture Interactive CEO, David Droga, will talk with industry disruptor Dara Treseder, SVP, head of global marketing and communications at Peloton, on how to break through the barriers holding brands back from creating the experiences people didn’t even know they needed.

• Chasing Moonshots & Bringing the Future to Today
  Join co-host of the Business Casual podcast Nora Ali as she interviews founder, chairman, and CEO of Wonder and the co-owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Minnesota Lynx Marc Lore. This session will explore how vision, capital, and people come together to make even the wildest ideas come true, from flying cars and the future of sports to Lore’s biggest moonshot, a new city he’s building from scratch to test a new economic model for society.

• A Conversation with Michael Abels
  A conversation with accomplished composer Michael Abels about his collaborations with Jordan Peele, how they developed the unique “gospel horror” sound, and how he found inspiration in everything from The Nutcracker to I Got 5 On It. Abels will be interviewed by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bill Adair.

• Creative Catalysts: Pioneering the Future
  A conversation with VP of Immersive Content Innovation ILMxLAB at Lucasfilm Vicki Dobbs Beck, and LiveArea Director of Strategy Val Vacante about what it takes to innovate, the impact of the ever-evolving emerging technology landscape and how next generation connected experiences will be powered through choice and participation.

• Design Leadership: Creativity Driving Business
  In a post-covid world, General Manager of Design at IBM Katrina Alcorn, co-founder and CEO of Tech Talk | Studio Christie Dames, and Lab Director of D-Ford Sandy Fershee share evolutionary leadership insights from the front lines of organizational transformation and creativity to unleash action, unlock personal talent and potential, and solve wicked business challenges in a “brave new world” that moves beyond the pandemic.

• Elevating Communities that Created Pop Music
  A discussion with Apple Music Global Editorial Head of Hip-Hop and R&B Ebro Darden and Save The Music Foundation CEO Henry Donahue on the necessity of ensuring that today’s youth have direct access in their classrooms to the rich musical and cultural legacies in their communities.

• Future Intersections of Food, Technology & Culture
  A conversation at the intersections of food, technology, and culture, looking towards the future, and how can we learn from the past to create a food system that is more Just, equitable, sustainable and scalable with futurist, engineer, and designer at Google Emily Ma, Senior Director of Corporate Affairs, The Kroger Co. and President of The Kroger Co. Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Foundation Denise Osterhues, and master chef Andrew Zimmern.

• The Future of The Data Economy: Putting People First
  With the world at a crucial turning point that will shape the next 50 years of the data economy, founder of Big Technology Alex Kantrowitz and co-founder of Block (formerly Square) Jim McKelvey discuss how an economy that is people-first by design will give more transparency and efficiency to both businesses and people.

• Guerrilla Tactics & Asymmetric Political Activism
  In this session, co-founder and CFO of the Gravel Institute Henry Magowan; journalist, activist, and documentary filmmaker Skye Wallin; bestselling author, political activist, and former Democratic candidate for president of the United States Marianne Williamson; and Co-Executive Director of The Gravel Institute Henry Williams will discuss lessons learned from the 2020 asymmetrical campaigns of Williamson, Senator Mike Gravel, and Andrew Yang. Speakers will explore which campaigns used social media, film, and provocative progressive language to shift the Overton Window of what is acceptable discussion in democratic politics, and their evolving guerrilla efforts needed to solve the climate crisis, fight the war machine, win elections, and save our democracy.

• In Praise of Friction
  A discussion about the difference between bad and good friction in AI and machine learning, and how to embrace good friction in deploying AI to minimize harm and become human-first with senior lecturer in the Management Science group at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the lead Research Scientist in the Human-AI Interaction group at MIT’s Initiative on The Digital Economy Renèe Richardson Gosline.

• Machine or Human? The Ethics Behind Smarter AI
  A conversation with Smart Eye deputy CEO Rana el Kaliouby and MIT Technology Review CEO and Publisher Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau on what a human-centric AI world can look like, how we can build emotional intelligence into our machines, and the massive potential this has to improve our lives — as well as the possible risks.

• Next Gen Tech & The Live Entertainment Revolution
  Unity SVP of Sports & Live Entertainment Peter Moore will provide a sneak peek into the new fusion of the physical and virtual worlds in live entertainment offering consumers an elevated, personalized, and gamified experience.

• Psychedelics for Therapeutics and Well-being
  A conversation in which early-stage technology investor/advisor and podcast host Tim Ferris questions how psychedelics can be widely used to alleviate human suffering through clinician-guided treatment of illnesses, how investors can make psychedelic medicine accessible by financing academic research and for-profit companies and clinics, and what’s next for the future of psychedelic medicine as it becomes an established treatment and wellness aid with Director of the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Roland Griffiths, PhD; Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Professor of Translational Research and Chair of the Yale Department of Psychiatry John H. Krystal, MD; and clinical psychologist Rosalind Watts, PhD.

• Reimagining Exploration with Jill Tiefenthaler
  CEO of the National Geographic Society Dr. Jill Tiefenthaler shares how the organization is building on its legacy of dauntless exploration by creatively leveraging cutting-edge science and immersive storytelling to illuminate and protect the wonder of our world.

• The Second Renaissance of Creativity
  A presentation from Patreon co-founder Jack Conte on the ways in which the creator economy is thriving, moving past the “struggling artist” stereotype, and where the creator economy will go from here.

• Web3, NFT, Metaverse! 3 Easy Steps To Get Started
  In the far corners of the internet, a new story is being written not by big tech, but by authors such as you and me. In this session, join Senior Vice President and Channel Chief at Unstoppable Domains Sandy Carter as she explains learnings centered around Web3, NFT, the Metaverse, and how you can play your part in reclaiming the internet so that it serves everyone.

• What’s Your Life’s Soundtrack?
  Music is one of a few things that can transport you back to a moment in time, a special memory, and a song would not be whole without the songwriter. In this session, founder and CEO of Hipgnosis Song Management Merck Mercuriadis and Grammy Award-Winning composer, producer, arranger, and guitarist Nile Rodgers talk about where the songwriter currently sits in the economic equation and their mission to change the dynamics as to how songwriters are compensated in the future.

• What’s in A Metaverse?
  CEO of Epyllion Matthew Ball; Head of Brands & Advertisers Solutions for Epic Games’ Unreal Engine Raffaella Camera; tech columnist and author Charlie Fink; and co-founder and CEO of High Fidelity Philip Rosedale answer questions such as how shall we define a metaverse, who else is building – or has built – a metaverse, what technology does a metaverse require, and on which platforms will these virtual, social spaces manifest, when, and how?