Michael Gold is the founder and president of Jazz Impact, where he develops and conducts interactive seminars that bring together the two worlds of jazz and business. Gold’s expertise is in creating customized training sessions that reinforce team-building, problem solving and other management skills by drawing upon the lessons of jazz. Gold’s extensive background in music, academia and business was essential in developing Jazz Impact. He held senior management positions in the real estate and financial services industries, holds a Ph.D. in jazz performance and created and ran Vassar College’s first jazz program. He has spent nearly two decades as a jazz bassist in New York having performed with such greats as Lee Konitz, Al Cohn, Tal Farlow, Sheila Jordan, and Warne Marsh. Gold is an ongoing lecturer for The Executive MBA and Leadership Development Programs at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, The MBA Program at Loyola University in New Orleans and The University of Minnesota School of Public Health. He has been a sought-after keynote speaker for top Fortune 500 companies and other organizations worldwide since 2000. He was The Paul D. Fleck Fellow for 2008 at The Banff Centre for Leadership for his outstanding work in the field of Arts Based Learning for Business. He currently lives in Minneapolis. The Jazz Impact website is www.jazz-impact.com and he can be reached at michael@jazz-impact.com.