Gerald Nadler is president of the Center for Breakthrough Thinking Inc., an international firm of consulting affiliates promoting Smart Questions and other planning and solution-finding approaches. He is also IBM Chair Emeritus in Engineering Management at the University of Southern California. Nadler has written over two hundred published articles and fourteen books, including the second edition of Breakthrough Thinking: The Seven Principles of Creative Problem Solving (with Shozo Hibino, Prima Publishing, 1994), a first-edition selection of the Fortune Book Club, Book-of-the-Month Club, Newbridge Book Club, FastTrack Best Business Books on Tape, and one of Computerworld's Best Books of 1990.

William J. Chandon is a vice president of the Center for Breakthrough Thinking and teaches management at St. Mary’s College. He has over fifteen years’ experience in the fields of organizational development and business transformation and has consulted with many and varied government, non-profit, and commercial businesses from many industries.