The must-attend CX event for healthcare executives

Steven Kotler is a New York Times–bestselling author, award-winning journalist, and founder and executive director of the Flow Research Collective. He is the author of sixteen books, including eleven bestsellers. His work has been nominated for three Pulitzer Prizes, translated into over 80 languages and appeared in over 100 publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Wired, Atlantic Monthly, TIME, and the Harvard Business Review. His book Stealing Fire was named Best Business Book of the Year by both CNBC and Strategy + Business, and helped spark today’s psychedelic renaissance. His other titles—The Art of Impossible, The Rise of Superman, and Gnar Country—are considered foundational texts in the field of performance neuroscience. At various times, Kotler has been a staff writer or blogger for Forbes, Psychology Today, GQ, Bikini, Freeze, V-Life, Blue, and Penumbra. Kotler is the host of Flow Radio, a top-ten Apple iTunes science podcast regularly featured on “best-of” lists across the web. He has lectured globally, and has appeared on platforms including Fareed Zakaria GPS, NPR, CNBC, Big Think, and The Joe Rogan Experience.

Recognized as a pioneer in applied performance neuroscience, Kotler publishes peer- reviewed research on flow, altered states, creativity, intuition, and consciousness. He
has been called “one of the world’s leading experts in ultimate human performance” by The New York Times. His training programs have reached individuals in 156 countries
and over 28 industries—including U.S. Navy SEALs, Olympic athletes, and executive teams at Google, Meta, Microsoft, Audi, and Accenture. He is also known for radical self-experimentation: flying a MiG-17 fighter jet into G-LOC to explore the neurobiology of near-death experiences, free falling 150 feet into a circus net to study flow and time perception, and breaking upwards of 80 bones along the way. As an entrepreneur, Kotler has launched or helped found sixteen companies. He was instrumental in the creation of several media and tech firsts, including Buzznet (one of the first online magazines), Bikini (the first punk lad-mag), Freeze (the first freeskiing magazine), Maxim (the first men’s magazine to exceed a million subscribers), EcoHearth (an early green marketplace), and Transcape (the first biofeedback-based branching video game). In 2021, Forbes named the Flow Research Collective one of the fastest-growing companies in America. Kotler lives in a small town in the big mountains of northern Nevada, with his wife, author Joy Nicholson, and too many dogs.

Sam Sebastian is the leader for the North American regions business of Google Cloud. In this role he is responsible for scaling the Cloud and AI go to market functions for the region and for bringing Google’s technology and innovation to large enterprises across the US and Canada. Prior to this role Sam was the VP & Country Manager for the Cloud/AI business in Canada. Prior to Google, Sam was the President and CEO of Pelmorex Corp, one of the largest weather data multi-platform media companies in the world. Sam joined Pelmorex from Google, where he held many executive-level positions in the US and Canada, including VP & Country Manager for Canada. Prior to his first stint at Google, he was a General Manager and Senior Vice President at a large online classified business, Classified Ventures (cars.com, apartments.com), and started his career as a consultant with Arthur Andersen in Chicago.

Murali Gandhirajan is Global Healthcare and Life Sciences CTO at Snowflake with strong background in data, analytics and AI in healthcare and life sciences. With a passion for thought leadership, he has consistently set and executed strategy that delivered significant business value through data-driven insights for various business functions across healthcare and life sciences organizations. He is focused on innovating healthcare through AI and committed to helping healthcare and life sciences organizations build next-generation data and AI platforms by harnessing the full potential of Snowflake’s capabilities.

Mohamed El-Demerdash brings over 25 years of global healthcare technology leadership to his role as President of TELUS Health. Prior to joining TELUS, he spent 27 years at GE HealthCare, where he held a series of senior leadership positions across technology innovation, commercial operations and global market expansion. In his current role as President of TELUS Health, Mohamed leads a global team of nearly 7,000 team members who are on a mission to leverage our world-leading technology innovation to improve the health and wellbeing of individuals around the world. His passion for improving global health outcomes – shaped by his diverse international experiences – is what led him to TELUS Health and its holistic approach to primary and preventive health and wellbeing. By integrating advanced healthcare technology with comprehensive employee support services, he is focused on scaling TELUS Health’s innovative digital health platforms that empower healthcare professionals, employers and governments to deliver personalized care efficiently, expanding access for all, and driving innovation that enhances care and wellbeing worldwide.

Prior to this, Mohamed led GE HealthCare’s service business across the U.S. and Canada. Under his leadership, the business delivered sustained profitable growth and introduced transformative operational solutions that improved efficiency and care delivery for large hospital networks.

Earlier in his career, Mohamed served as Chief Technology Officer for GE HealthCare’s MRI business, where he led global R&D teams in launching award-winning innovations. These included the industry-first air coil technology – recognized as Best New Radiology Device – and the first FDA-approved AI-based deep learning reconstruction for MRI.
A seasoned international executive, Mohamed has lived and worked across Africa, the Middle East, India, Turkey, Russia and Southeast Asia. He successfully established new operations and go-to-market strategies in multiple regions, managing both direct and indirect commercial channels.
He holds advanced degrees in Engineering Management from Marquette University and is widely recognized for his ability to lead cultural transformation, build high-performance teams and translate vision into scalable impact.