How to Be a Better Leader

Chip Conley is the founder and CEO of Modern Elder Academy, the world’s first midlife wisdom school. A hospitality entrepreneur and five-time best-selling author, Chip founded Joie de Vivre Hospitality at age 26 and grew it into the second-largest boutique hotel company in America. At age 52, he was recruited by Airbnb’s young founders to help them scale the company, serving as Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy for four years.

Chip is a three-time TED speaker and the New York Times bestselling author of Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder and Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age.

In 2018 he co-founded MEA to help people in midlife find their own meaningful way to create fulfilling and exciting next chapters for themselves. Since then he has dedicated much of his life to reframing the concept of aging and helping people navigate midlife with renewed purpose and possibility.

Derek Gehl is a serial e-commerce entrepreneur, speaker, and author. After spending the first decade of his professional career growing one of world’s first Internet marketing companies to over $30 million in sales, he decided that leading a company of 100 employees in offices in two countries wasn’t for him – so he sold the company to a private equity group and refocused his life on the things he loved most: spending time with his family, pursuing his passions, and building and growing online businesses. In 2024, after doing some consulting for MEA, Derek had his own transformational experience at a Navigating Transitions workshop, which inspired him to join the company as Chief Marketing and Technology Officer and then take on the role as CEO, spearheading our mission to reimagine midlife and build a global pro-aging community that inspires people to thrive in the second half of life.