John S. Chen (born July 1, 1955) is chairman, chief executive officer and president of Sybase, , an independent software vendor specializing in enterprise database, information management and mobility technology. He is also a director of Wells Fargo & Company and Walt Disney Company.

A native of Hong Kong, John Chen graduated from Northfield Mount Hermon School, an elite prep school in Northfield, Massachusetts. He then went on to graduate magna cum laude from Brown University in 1978 with a BS degree in electrical engineering. In 1979 he received his MS degree in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology.

With Unisys, John Chen was vice president and general manager of, in turn, the Convergent RISC Platform Division and the Convergent UNIX Systems Group. In 1991 he joined Pyramid Technology Corporation as executive vice president. Chen was elected president, chief operating officer and a director of Pyramid in 1993, serving until 1995.

Chen next joined Siemens Nixdorf as a vice president in 1995. He was promoted to president and chief executive officer of Siemens Nixdorf's Open Enterprise Computing Division in 1996.

John Chen (born 10 June 1986, Kuala Lumpur) is a Malaysian-born New Zealand concert pianist.

In 2004 he became the youngest-ever winner of the Sydney International Piano Competition. He has a Master of Music from the University of Auckland, where he studied with Rae de Lisle. He has performed with most of the major symphony orchestras of Australia and New Zealand, and has made recordings of Henri Dutilleux and Claude Debussy for Naxos and ABC Classics respectively.

William Hunt "Bill" Gross (born April 13, 1944) is an American financial manager and investment author who co-founded Pacific Investment Management (PIMCO). Gross also runs PIMCO's $252.2 billion Total Return Fund.

Gross was born in Middletown, Ohio, the son of Shirley, a homemaker, and Sewell M. Gross, a sales manager for AK Steel Holding. He was raised a Presbyterian. His family moved to San Francisco in 1954. Gross graduated from Duke University in 1966 with a degree in psychology. At Duke he joined Phi Kappa Psi. He then served in the Navy and earned an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management in 1971. Gross briefly played blackjack professionally in Las Vegas, Nevada, and has said that he applies many of his gambling methods for spreading risk and calculating odds to his investment decisions. He is also a CFA Charterholder, earning his credentials while working as an investment analyst for Pacific Mutual Life between 1971 and 1976.

Gross manages one of the world's largest mutual funds, focusing mostly on bonds. Called "the nation's most prominent bond investor" by the New York Times, he co-founded Pacific Investment Management (PIMCO) and currently manages PIMCO's Total Return fund (the world's largest bond fund and fifth largest mutual fund) and several smaller ones.

Tavis Smiley (pronounced /ˈtævɨs/; born September 13, 1964) is a talk show host, author, liberal political commentator, entrepreneur, advocate and philanthropist. Smiley was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, and grew up in Kokomo, Indiana. After attending Indiana University, he worked during the late 1980s as an aide to Tom Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles. Smiley became a radio commentator in 1991, and starting in 1996, he hosted the talk show BET Talk (later renamed BET Tonight) on BET. Controversially, after Smiley sold an exclusive interview of Sara Jane Olson to ABC News in 2001, BET declined to renew Smiley's contract that year. Smiley then began hosting The Tavis Smiley Show on NPR from 2002 to 2004 and currently hosts Tavis Smiley on PBS on the weekdays and "The Tavis Smiley Show" from PRI. In 2010 Smiley and Dr. Cornel West have joined forces for their own radio talk show, Smiley & West. They were featured together interviewing musician Bill Withers in the 2009 documentary film Still Bill.