Momentum 2026 Speakers

Born and raised in Caracas-Venezuela, Michelle Poler is a creative and passionate social entrepreneur, keynote speaker, fear facer, and branding strategist.

She is the Founder of Hello Fears, a social movement empowering millions to step outside of the comfort zone and tap into their full potential. She has spoken at TEDx, Google, INBOUND, Facebook, ESPN, Netflix, Procter and Gamble, Microsoft, Toyota, World Domination Summit, Festival of Media Global, and many more.

In April 2015, Michelle embarked on a 100-day project that would change the course of her life. Born to a family of Holocaust survivors, Michelle was accustomed to living with fear. But when she moved to New York, she quickly realized that the “big apple” was not for the fearful. In order to rewrite her definition of fear and change her approach to life, Michelle decided to face 100 of her fears in a period of 100 days, uploading every experience to Youtube sharing them with the world.

At around day 40, the project was discovered by the media, becoming a viral phenomenon. Her work has been featured on CBS, CNN, Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Fox News, Telemundo, Glamour, Elle, The Rachael Ray Show, Refinery29, and Daily Mail among many others. Celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher, Sofia Vergara, Zoey Deschanel, Lil Wayne and George Takei also shared Michelle’s project, generating millions of views.

In 2017 Michelle started speaking to the younger generation. Since then, she has empowered over 20,000 students at schools and universities around the world to live with courage, find their authenticity and embrace their growth paths.

Early on in her career she worked as an Art Director at Young & Rubicam for brands such as Hershey’s, Wendy’s, AT&T and Revlon. Michelle holds a Masters in Branding from the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Jim Craig is best known as the backbone of the 1980 Olympic Gold Medal Hockey Team, whose 'Miracle' win was voted by Sports Illustrated as the greatest moment in sports history of the 21st century. Craig, who started every game in goal, was a leading figure in the team's success. One of the enduring images of the 1980 Games was of Craig, wrapped in an American flag, searching the stands for his widowed father in order to share the gold-medal-winning victory.

Before the Olympics, Jim was an All-American goalie at Boston University, leading his team to a NCAA national championship. After the `Miracle' game, Jim went on to play professionally for three NHL teams, where he sustained a career-ending injury while playing for the Minnesota North Stars. He is enshrined in the Boston University Hall of Fame, the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame, the United States Hockey Hall of Fame, and the United States Olympic Hall of Fame and is a co-recipient of both the Lester Patrick award and the Sports Illustrated "Sportsman of the Year" award. He is also a graduate of Boston University and earned his doctorate in humane letters from Mercy College.

Following Jim's professional hockey career, he transitioned his success into the corporate world as a motivational speaker, powerful salesman and corporate consultant. He has been inducted into the Sales Halls of Fame for two different companies, having increased a sales territory from $300,000 to $50 million in annual sales. Following this role, Jim moved on to become the Vice President of a promotional marketing agency. Under his guidance, the agency increased annual dollar sales by 80 percent and its number of clients by 30 percent in just two short years.

For more than 35 years, Jim has inspired, instructed and provided strategic and winning direction to some of the most prestigious companies across the world, including Kellogg's, Bayer, Deloitte, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, and Disney, as the successful owner and president of his company, Gold Medal Strategies. Jim has been selected three times as one of the top five speakers on team building in the United States, and has evolved to not only deliver motivational speeches, but host immersive corporate training programs that teach participants how to think differently and believe in their possibilities. Jim is the co-author of the highly acclaimed business book, Gold Medal Strategies: Business Lessons from America's Miracle Team and recently released his newest book and legacy piece, We Win! Lessons on Life, Business & Building Your Own Miracle Team. In addition to his role with Gold Medal Strategies, Jim serves as a board member of the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, and he has a passion for leveraging his athletic and business success to help others achieve their full potential and lives in integrity with his mission every day!

Passionate, dynamic, inspiring, and coach of Duke University men’s basketball team who led Team USA to three Olympic gold medals, Mike Krzyzewski (known by fans as Coach K) is a master motivator – not only of teams, but of individuals and organizations, spurring them on to succeed beyond even their own expectations.

A member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Coach K shows audiences how they, too, can compile winning numbers in both their professional and personal lives. Perhaps the most accomplished basketball coach in history, Coach K’s journey in the sport was unparalleled in many ways as he accumulated the following career milestones:

• Most NCAA Division I Victories (1,202)
• Most Final Fours (13; five NCAA Championships, second all-time)
• Most Decades with Final Four Appearances (five; 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s)
• Most Olympic Gold Medals as a Head Coach (3; 2008, 2012, and 2016)
• Most World Championship Gold Medals as a Head Coach (2; 2010 and 2014)
• Most NCAA Tournament Victories (101)
• Most NCAA Tournament Appearances by a Coach (36)
• Most Games as No. 1 Team in the Country by a Coach (254)
• Most Weeks as No. 1 Team in the Country by a Coach (127)
• Most Seasons as No. 1 Team in the Country by a Coach (21)
• Most Atlantic Coast Conference Victories (535)
• Most ACC Tournament Championships (15)
• Most NBA Draft No. 1 Selections (4)
• Most NBA Draft Lottery Selections (29)
• Most NBA Draft First Round Selections (46)
• Most NBA Draft Selections (73)

Coach K maps out a clear game plan for achieving success—motivating, leading, and providing powerful strategies for building confidence, trust, communication and teamwork. Like any elite coach, he scouts your organization to discover how to best inspire and renew your people. He is the author of two New York Times best-sellers including Beyond Basketball: Coach K’s Keywords for Success. His most recent book is The Gold Standard: Building a World-Class Team.

A 12-time National Coach of the Year, Sports Illustrated named Krzyzewski its Sportsman of the Year in 2011. Krzyzewski has been honored by USA Basketball seven times as the recipient or co-recipient of the USA Basketball National Coach of the Year Award. He is the only men’s coach to have won gold medals at the Olympics and the FIBA World Cup, while also possessing at least one NCAA Championship (he has five).

In addition to being a Co-Founder of the Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics, Krzyzewski serves as a Professor of the Practice of Leadership at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke. The Coach K Center at Duke has directly influenced the leadership development of more than 6,500 MBA students and executives since 2004. The Board Chair of the Emily Krzyzewski Center in Durham, N.C., Krzyzewski founded the center that has served more than 7,500 students since its inception in 2006. Coach K has been on the Board of Directors at the V Foundation since the beginning in 1993. Annually in Napa Valley, he and his wife Mickie host the V Foundation Wine Celebration, an event that has raised tens of millions of dollars in the fight against cancer.