Building the Walking Dead: What It Takes to Break Through

Adam Mendler is a nationally recognized authority on leadership, renowned for his unique ability to deliver perspective-shifting insights shaped by interviewing more than 500 of America’s most successful leaders. The creator and host of the top-rated business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, Adam regularly elicits insights from America's top CEOs, founders, athletes, celebrities, and political and military leaders. A keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations, Adam has written extensively on business and leadership, having authored more than 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc., and HuffPost. A Los Angeles native and lifelong Angels fan, Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA, serves on the board of UCLA’s Master of Applied Statistics & Data Science program, is an emeritus member of USC’s Board of Governors, and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders.

David Alpert is CEO and co-founder of Skybound Entertainment, a multi-platform media company creating award-winning, chart-topping content across comic books, TV, film, video games, podcasts, merchandise, and beyond. Alpert co-founded Skybound in 2010 with the belief that there was a better entertainment model: one that empowers creators with greater control of their intellectual property. This philosophy inspired Skybound's business model, “The Wheel of Awesome,” which centers unique IP to incubate, launch, and scale incredible content across all platforms to best serve the creator and fan experience. As CEO, Alpert oversees operations, creative development and production, corporate development, and strategic business initiatives for the company and its ventures. This includes leading Skybound’s international push, buying and building companies in Europe and Asia, sourcing and producing content around the world, and overseeing Skybound's foreign-language productions. Alpert most recently led the acquisition of Maple Media, which owns a portfolio of category-leading apps across both iOS and Android. A prolific producer, Alpert has earned numerous credits, including the biggest cable TV show of all time, The Walking Dead, and its spinoffs. He also produces current Skybound megahit Invincible, now airing its third season, which debuted at number one on Prime Video in over 100 countries. The series boasts back-to-back seasons with a 100% Certified Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, while Season 2 ranked as PV's top revenue-generating title worldwide. On the feature film side, Alpert oversees a decade-long relationship with Universal and has produced movies including Renfield (Nicolas Cage), American Ultra (Jesse Eisenberg), and Spare Parts (George Lopez). He also produced Impact Winter, the all-time top original podcast for Audible and the first Audible original subsequently released off-platform, which has topped the charts on both Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Alpert has been a partner at management/production company Circle M&P since 2001 and is Chairman of the Board of Saga Film, the largest and oldest Icelandic TV and film production company. He is also a board member of the publicly traded Norwegian company 5th Planet Games, a game finance company, and on the board of Megacat, a Pittsburgh-based video game developer. Alpert was the winner of the 2021 Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” award and is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO). He graduated with honors from Harvard University and received his JD from New York University School of Law.