John Gillespie was an investment banker for 18 years with Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns and served as the executive vice president and CFO for a nationwide human services company with 24,000 employees. Prior to his career in business, he worked in Massachusetts state government and as a speechwriter. He graduated from Harvard College where he studied American history and literature and was an editor of the Harvard Lampoon. He has an MBA from the Harvard Business School. He is married to New Yorker writer Susan Orlean.

David Zweig has worked at Time Inc. and Dow Jones and co-founded salon.com. He has recently served as senior editor of the World Business Academy. He consults on improving the performance of executive groups. He graduated from Yale College where he was the editor of the Yale Daily News and has an MBA from the Harvard Business School.