James W. Owens is the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Caterpillar Inc., the world's largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines and industrial gas turbines. He has held the posts from 1 February 2004 through 2010.

After joining the company in 1972 as a corporate economist, he has held numerous management positions.

Owens was named chief economist of Caterpillar Overseas S.A. in Geneva, Switzerland in 1975. From 1980 until 1987 he held managerial positions in Peoria in the Accounting and Product Source Planning Departments. In 1987 he became managing director of P.T. Natra Raya, Caterpillar's joint venture in Indonesia. He held that position until 1990, when he was elected a corporate vice president and named president of Solar Turbines Incorporated, a Caterpillar subsidiary in San Diego. In 1993 he came to Peoria as vice president and chief financial officer with administrative responsibility for the Corporate Services Division.

Virginia Marie "Ginni" Rometty (born July 1957 or 1958) is an American business executive; the president and CEO of IBM. She is the first woman to head IBM. Prior to becoming president and CEO in January 2012 she held the position of Senior Vice President and Group Executive for Sales, Marketing, and Strategy at IBM. She has been named to Fortune magazine's "50 Most Powerful Women in Business" for seven consecutive years, ranking #7 for 2011. She was also named to the Time 100 in 2012.

Rometty graduated from the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University in 1979 with high honors, receiving a bachelor's degree in computer science and electrical engineering.

After graduation in 1979, Rometty went to work for General Motors Institute; in 1981, she joined IBM as a systems engineer in its Detroit office. She joined IBM's Consulting Group in 1991. In 2002, she "championed the purchase of the big business consulting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting, for $3.5 billion." Rometty became senior vice president and group executive for sales, marketing and strategy in 2009. Rometty is "credited with spearheading IBM's growth strategy by getting the company into the cloud computing and analytics businesses. She was also at the helm of readying Watson, the Jeopardy! playing computer, for commercial use." On October 25, 2011, IBM announced that she was to be the company's next president and CEO, with Sam Palmisano stepping down but retaining his position as chairman. Rometty's appointment marks the first time a woman has been CEO of IBM. Regarding her promotion, Palmisano stated, "Ginni got it because she deserved it... It’s got zero to do with progressive social policies."

Gerald Celente (born November 29, 1946) is an American trend forecaster, publisher of the Trends Journal, business consultant and author who makes predictions about the global financial markets and other events of historical importance. Celente has described himself as a "political atheist" and "citizen of the world". He has appeared as a guest on television news shows such as The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS Morning News, The Glenn Beck Show, NBC Nightly News, The Alex Jones Show and Russia Today.

Celente was born in The Bronx, New York City, New York. He had early political experience running a mayoral campaign in Yonkers, New York and served as executive assistant to the secretary of the New York State Senate, which Celente called the worst job he ever had. From 1973 to 1979 Celente traveled between Chicago and Washington D.C. as a government affairs specialist. In 1980 Celente founded The Trends Research Institute (at first called the Socio-Economic Research Institute of America), now located in Kingston, New York, publisher of the Trends Journal which forecasts and analyzes business, socioeconomic, political, and other trends.