David Shaffer is currently executive chairman of Cengage, previously known as Thomson Learning. Prior to Cengage, Shaffer held several executive roles at Thomson, including EVP, where he served on Thomson’s executive committee and the Thomson board of directors. Mr Shaffer also served as CEO of Thomson Financial and as president and CEO of Thomson Learning. Prior to Thomson, Shaffer was chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Jostens Learning Corporation, the nation's leading developer of K-12 educational software.

Shaffer's other executive roles included president of OAG and vice chairman of Thomas Cook, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Macmillan Inc., chairman of OAG, and president of the Educational and Professional Publishing Group at McGraw-Hill.

Shaffer is a member of the Advisory Board at Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, one of the top five graduate business schools in the world, and the William F. Achtmeyer Center for Global Leadership at Tuck Business School at Dartmouth University.

Ed Barry was the president of Oxford University Press for 18 years where he developed Oxford University Press’s reference publishing division; initiated a major turnaround in their college publishing program; and expanded the academic division to such an extent that last year it produced a total of 300 new books. 

Barry also spent 21 years with Macmillan, where he was President of Professional Books.

Richard Dumler has 34 years of experience with highly regarded venture capital firms, including Bessemer Venture Partners, Milestone Venture Partners, and Lambda Funds. Dumler's notable investments include ADVO (NYSE:AD), Amdahl, Applicon, Combustion Power, Radiological Sciences, Kronos (Nasdaq:KRON), and Sungard (NYSE: SDS.)

Dumler was a Kronos director for 25 years until its 2007 purchase by the private equity firm, Hellman & Friedman, for $1.8B. Kronos is distinguished by more consecutive years of revenue growth and profitability than any other publicly traded software firm besides Microsoft.

Dumler holds a BA in Economics from Georgetown University (1964) and an MBA from the University of Michigan (1968.)

As CEO, Chris Forbes has piloted Knovel since the company’s founding in 2000, guiding the company to its current position as the leading online technical resource collection for engineers and applied scientists. Forbes helped launch and grow Knovel to serve thousands of subscribers including 75 Fortune 500 companies and over 300 leading technical universities worldwide.

As President of William Andrew Publishing, Forbes leveraged his background in finance, publishing, acquisitions, and general management to boost William Andrew’s market share in technical reference publishing. Before joining William Andrew, he founded and was managing director of Toronto Dominion Securities (USA), now TD Ameritrade in New York City. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Finance from the University of Toronto.

Forbes serves on the Board of Change for Kids, a foundation that brings fine art programs to New York City’s most under-funded schools and is a member of the Young President’s Organization (YPO).

John Patrick, President of Attitude LLC was formerly the vice president of Internet technology at IBM, where he worked for thirty-five years.

During his IBM career Patrick also helped start IBM's leasing business at IBM Credit Corporation, and was senior marketing executive for the launch of the IBM ThinkPad brand. Starting in the early 1990s, Patrick dedicated his time to fostering Internet technologies.

One of the leading Internet visionaries, Patrick is quoted frequently in the global media and speaks at dozens of conferences around the world. His book, Net Attitude, was released in November 2001.

Anthony (Tony) Tjan is CEO and Managing Partner of The Cue Ball Group. He has been a long-standing special advisor to the CEO of The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC), the world's largest information publishing company.

Prior to Cue Ball, Tjan was Senior Partner (youngest elected) with The Parthenon Group, a leading strategy consulting firm where he continues to serve as Non-Executive Vice Chairman. Tjan also sits on the boards of Cyberplex, Cruxy, and From the Top. In 1996, he founded the Internet services firm, ZEFER (now an NEC subsidiary), which grew to more than $100MM in annual revenues and more than 700 people. Tjan started his career with McKinsey & Company where he focused on consumer and media clients. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, and was a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is one of the World Economic Forum's Global Leaders for Tomorrow.

Li Lu was born in China in 1966. In 1989, while studying semiconductor physics and economics at Nanjing University, he became one of the student activists of the Tiananmen Square demonstration. Subsequently, he left China and came to the United States.

From 1990 to 1996, Li Lu attended Columbia University and became one of the first students in the history of the University to receive three degrees simultaneously: a B.A. in Economics from Columbia College, a J.D. from Columbia Law School, and a M.B.A. from Columbia Business School.

Upon graduation, Li Lu worked in the investment banking community until late 1997, when he founded Himalaya Capital, which today manages funds that are focused on publicly traded securities as well as venture capital investments, both on a global basis. Li Lu serves on the board of directors of a number of technology companies as well as non-profit organizations. He is a member of the Young Presidents Organization and a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.