Tim Daniel Clairmont, MSFS, LACP, is an entrepreneur in financial services and the founder of Clear Financial Partners, specializing in retirement income planning. He created the ClearFP Clock and ClearFP Income Plan, shared globally through the ClearFP Advisor Program. Clairmont is an author, international public speaker and serves as Secretary of the MDRT Foundation. He was the 2024-2025 Chair of the MDRT Academy Global Task Force and currently is a member of the Academy’s North American Task Force.

Juli Y. McNeely, CFP, CLU, grew up in the financial services profession, watching her mother and father serve clients. She currently is an owner of Financial Clarity by Design, an independent firm founded by her father, while also growing her personal coaching practice, Juli McNeely Consulting LLC. She became NAIFA’s first female president in 2014 and was awarded the WIFS “Woman of the Year” award in 2015. In 2016, McNeely released “No Necktie Needed: A Woman’s Guide to Success in Financial Services .”

Alyssa O’Brien is a communications expert with 15 years of experience helping organizations craft compelling narratives and engage their audiences effectively. As client service manager at G&S Business Communications, a firm that partners with financial services clients like MDRT to unify and elevate their messaging, strengthen their brand and achieve their goals through holistic communications, O’Brien has a proven track record of developing and executing integrated communications strategies. She brings deep industry knowledge with an innovative approach to public relations and marketing.

Aileen Mari Palmes is a financial advisor at Insular Life, with 12 years of experience in the life insurance profession. Having a background in the hospitality industry, she is known for combining service and authenticity to build lasting client relationships. Her expertise lies in service-led growth strategies, client retention and insurance portfolio cleanups. Through this unique approach, she has doubled her business and continues to mentor fellow advisors in building authentic, scalable practices.

Katarzyna Pilczuk is a financial advisor, team leader and trainer with more than 15 years of experience in the financial services profession. She specializes in working with premium clients, increasing sales effectiveness and developing strong advisory teams while also mentoring advisors and building leaders. As founder and former president of the Polish Association of Recommended Insurance Advisors, Pilczuk helped increase MDRT membership in Poland more than tenfold in five years.

Jarmila Somolányiová has 18 years of experience in the financial services profession, specializing in financial analysis and planning, cash flow management, insurance, investments, mortgages, and the strategic and creative planning of personal portfolios. Somolányiová was ranked No. 1 VIP consultant at Partners Group for 2023, in the top 10 in personal production for 2024 and has been the first Slovak speaker at various industry events. She is also currently enrolled in MBA studies for digital marketing, with a focus on building a personal brand.

Cynthia Siew Leng Wee has more than 24 years of experience across global financial markets, specializing in international succession planning, cross-border wealth structuring and sophisticated insurance solutions for ultra-high-net-worth families. A regular keynote speaker at international wealth management conferences and exclusive family office forums across Asia, Wee’s dual expertise spans family office advisory services and insurance practice operations in a competitive wealth management landscape.

Saad Anthony Baksh, BSc, is a branch manager for Maritime Financial Group. He leads 30 advisors in a multiline environment and has helped them win numerous Maritime Financial awards. He is an active MDRT and MDRT Center for Field Leadership member, currently serving on the MDRT Academy Committee-Global Member Relations, and as a member of the Brand Champion Task Force for the MDRT Center. Baksh has spoken at conferences in the United States, Barbados, Jamaica and Belize, and earned his degree from the University of London.

Brian D. Heckert, CLU, ChFC, has dedicated his professional life to providing strategic financial advice and services for individuals and businesses. He has been involved with numerous MDRT committees and served as MDRT President in 2016. Through his industry leadership, he has gained a broad world view, and he has been featured and quoted in media outlets such as Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, CNN Money and ThinkAdvisor in addition to speaking to audiences in 49 U.S. states and 35 countries on topics ranging from advanced planning ideas to practice management.

Kevin Miller has spent 15 years researching and reporting on human potential, dedicating his career to deep study of how we create meaning and interpret our experiences. This devotion led him to co-develop the S.A.G.E. process, which equips people to speak and make meaning with personal agency through a revolutionary linguistic model that strengthens inner security — the foundation of mental well-being. He continues to engage in discourse on human potential with today’s most respected practitioners on The Kevin Miller Podcast.  

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Marc Randolph is a veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneur, advisor and investor. As co-founder and first CEO of Netflix, he laid much of the groundwork for a service that’s grown to more than 275 million subscribers, fundamentally altering how the world experiences media. Randolph has founded or co-founded six other successful startups, mentored hundreds of early-stage entrepreneurs and helped seed dozens of successful tech ventures. He is the author of the international bestseller memoir, “That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea,” and host of the top 10 Apple podcast “That Will Never Work.”

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Juan Bendaña is a highly sought-after speaker, entrepreneur and coach who has worked with top CEOs, Olympians, Grammy Award-winning artists, actors and Fortune 100 leaders. He started his first leadership development company more than a decade ago constructing personalized programming for companies such as Disney, Fidelity, Lindt, American Express, Nationwide, Sony Pictures and Zillow. Based on his research of more than 250,000 leaders at institutions such as the University of Oxford, the Pennsylvania State University and the University of Toronto, his science-backed framework helps leaders activate the confidence mindset to lead boldly, thrive through change and ignite extraordinary growth.

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John F. Nichols, MSM, CLU, is the 2026 President of MDRT. He served as Global Council Member of MDRT’s Membership Division in 2020 and Chair of its Bylaws and Ethics Committee in 2019. In 2022, he served as President of the MDRT Foundation, for which he is a Royal Order Excalibur Knight and a member of its Inner Circle Society. Nichols is the founder of Nichols Consulting LLC, a disability insurance benefits practice.  

Surawut Pattanabandit currently serves as a district director at AIA Thailand, with more than 29 years of experience in the financial services profession. He specializes in planning and advising high-net-worth clients. He has received the Thailand Agent of the Year award for more than 10 consecutive years, reflecting his experience, expertise, credibility and strong commitment to professional excellence.

Paweł F. Skotnicki is the current MDRT Country Chair for MCC, Zone 10 Europe, and is the author of the bestseller “Before the Milk Spills.” He has also published several financial e-books, including “Your Legacy — An Introduction to Estate Planning” and “Financial Education for Children,” and has spoken at various MDRT events as well as many insurance conferences around the world.

Ming Hung Lai, RFC, currently serves as district manager at Fueda Insurance Brokerage. With 22 years of experience in the insurance industry, he specializes in personal asset succession, spousal and family wealth management, real estate distribution and inheritance, tax consulting, trust planning and retirement planning. He is also dedicated to promoting the Whole Person life and serves as a volunteer anti-drug education lecturer for the Taiwan Drug-Free Association.

Yuichiro Nakamura began his career in the financial services profession in 2003 and is the 2025 president of the Prudential of Japan Chapter.

Eszylfie Taylor is the founder and president of Taylor Insurance and Financial Services, where he serves individuals, business owners, athletes, celebrities and high-net-worth families. After a standout career as an advisor at New York Life, where he achieved Chairman's Cabinet (top 25 out of 12,000), Taylor had a breakthrough that centered around how to improve his market and focus on solving problems, not selling products. He built upon this and used his successes and failures as teaching tools that would contribute to the start of The Taylor Method, a sales process for financial advisors.

Guy Mankey has dedicated his professional life to discovering better ways to arrange insurance and manage clients and claims since he sold his first policy in 1979. Over the years, he’s not only become a sought-after speaker in Australia, New Zealand and Asia, but has also presented at numerous MDRT meetings around the globe.

Juli Y. McNeely, CFP, CLU, grew up in the financial services profession, watching her mother and father serve clients. She currently is an owner of Financial Clarity by Design, an independent firm founded by her father, while also growing her personal coaching practice, Juli McNeely Consulting LLC. She became NAIFA’s first female president in 2014 and was awarded the WIFS “Woman of the Year” award in 2015. In 2016, McNeely released “No Necktie Needed: A Woman’s Guide to Success in Financial Services.”

Kevin Miller has spent 15 years researching and reporting on human potential, dedicating his career to deep study of how we create meaning and interpret our experiences. This devotion led him to co-develop the S.A.G.E. process, which equips people to speak and make meaning with personal agency through a revolutionary linguistic model that strengthens inner security — the foundation of mental well-being. He continues to engage in discourse on human potential with today’s most respected practitioners on The Kevin Miller Podcast.  

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Sanjay Tolani, Ph.D., MBA, is an internationally recognized estate planning advisor and researcher known for his innovative and groundbreaking financial products. As founder of a revolutionary financial strategy available globally for family offices for intergenerational wealth management, Tolani is sought out by many successful entrepreneurs and multiple startup and venture capitalist funds for guidance on equity compensation plans, fundraising strategies and succession planning. He contributes to the MDRT Foundation and the Goodwill Charity Foundation, which constructs senior-age homes and provides education for children in India.

Dr. Helen Papagiannis is a globally recognized thought leader in immersive technologies, specializing in AI, spatial computing, frontier technologies and their transformative impact. Her work connects advanced technologies with the needs of diverse industries, providing compelling insights into the future of AI, extended reality (XR) and brain-computer interfaces. She is the bestselling author of “Augmented Human: How Technology is Shaping the New Reality” and founder of XR GOES POP, a consulting firm focused on experiential retail, luxury lifestyle and pop culture.

Marc Randolph is a veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneur, advisor and investor. As co-founder and first CEO of Netflix, he laid much of the groundwork for a service that’s grown to more than 275 million subscribers, fundamentally altering how the world experiences media. Randolph has founded or co-founded six other successful startups, mentored hundreds of early-stage entrepreneurs and helped seed dozens of successful tech ventures. He is the author of the international bestseller memoir, “That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea,” and host of the top 10 Apple podcast “That Will Never Work.”

Damon Dunn grew up in a three-bedroom trailer with 10 people, relying on hunting and fishing for food. In high school, he was an all-state football player and was awarded a scholarship to Stanford University. While there, Dunn served as executive director of the East Palo Alto Stanford Summer Academy, providing tutoring and mentorship to underprivileged Latino and African American students. Upon graduation, he played in the NFL for the Jacksonville Jaguars, Cleveland Browns, New York Jets and Dallas Cowboys, and founded the Fighting Giants Ministry to support children with life-changing injuries. Today, he is the CEO of Sagan Sign Talent.

Giselle Ugarte is on a mission to help leaders step into their power and communicate with confidence, lead with authenticity and build meaningful connections that move people to action, online and especially off. Her journey has taken her from blogger to TV and radio host and producer to advertising executive and now global coach, speaker and entrepreneur. Her passion for helping leaders eliminate distractions, become more present and ensure they’re running their careers, their message and their impact — not the other way around — has earned her a following of more than 500,000 people and 20 million views worldwide.

Mark Pollock inspires leaders and their teams to build resilience, optimize performance and collaborate effectively to achieve more than they thought possible. Unbroken by blindness in 1998, Pollock became an adventure athlete, competing in ultra-endurance races, and the first blind person to race to the South Pole. Since 2010, left paralyzed by a fall, he has catalyzed collaborations worth over USD 100 million to help cure paralysis. He is a Wings for Life ambassador, was on the board of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation and is the subject of the documentaries “Blind Man Walking” and “Unbreakable — The Mark Pollock Story.”

Mariana Atencio took the world by storm in 2017 with her viral TEDx talk on authenticity, “What makes YOU special?” — now with more than 25 million views and translated into 13 languages. Her message, what makes you different is what makes you powerful, inspires leaders and teams to embrace a blueprint to thrive through uncertainty, constant disruption and their own self-doubt. Atencio built her journalism career first at Univision in Spanish, then crossed over to English at NBC News, where her boots-on-the-ground reporting earned her a Peabody Award, a Gracie Award, three Emmy nominations and the NAHJ Presidential Award.

Robert Paylor was experiencing the pinnacle of athletic achievement, competing for the Collegiate Rugby National Championship, when he suffered a severe spinal cord injury, leaving him unable to move or feel anything below his neck. Through an unbreakable vision and years of relentless determination, Paylor stood to receive his diploma from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and can now walk 500 yards. His message stirs organizations and individuals to identify and conquer that which paralyzes them by cultivating purpose in their work and fully accessing the resilience of their team while maintaining positivity and gratitude through even the most daunting challenges.

Dandapani Satgunasingam is a Hindu priest, entrepreneur and former monk of 10 years. After earning a degree in electrical engineering, he left it all behind to embrace a life of rigorous personal discipline and spiritual training as an ordained monk. Today, Satgunasingam’s mission is to empower people with timeless tools for self-mastery, helping them cultivate unwavering focus and live with intention. His TEDx talk has garnered more than 7 million views, his teachings have reached tens of thousands of students across more than 120 countries, and his app has been downloaded more than 140,000 times.

Andrew Busch is the former first chief market intelligence officer for the U.S. government and an economic futurist. For the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, he was charged with gathering all the news, information and data on the economy and markets and filtering it into condensed, easily understood research, then communicating it to the government and public. He is a consultant and keynote speaker with a wide range of clients in a variety of fields, including chemicals, financial services, energy, real estate, manufacturing, construction and agriculture, and is author of the book “World Event Trading.”

Dr. José Hernández is a University of California regent and the president and CEO of Tierra Luna Engineering LLC, an aerospace engineering consulting firm. From 2001 to 2011, Hernández worked at NASA's Johnson Space Center in various roles, including as a flight engineer on the Space Shuttle Discovery’s penultimate mission, which completed construction of the International Space Station. Prior to his tenure at NASA, Hernández spent 17 years at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he contributed to the X-ray laser project and co-developed the first full-field digital mammography system for early breast cancer detection.

John F. Nichols, MSM, CLU, is the 2026 President of MDRT. He served as Global Council Member of MDRT’s Membership Division in 2020 and Chair of its Bylaws and Ethics Committee in 2019. In 2022, he served as President of the MDRT Foundation, for which he is a Royal Order Excalibur Knight and a member of its Inner Circle Society. Nichols is the founder of Nichols Consulting LLC, a disability insurance benefits practice.