20 June 2007

On 6 June 2007, CEOs and scientists gathered at American University in Washington, DC, USA to explore the growing use of stress-reducing meditation on the job. The event was a special luncheon conference entitled 'Executive Health, Creativity and Leadership: Exploring the Growing Use of Transcendental Meditation in the Boardroom'.

The conference boasted an array of distinguished speakers including: 30-year practitioner of Transcendental Meditation Ramani Ayer, Chair and CEO of The Hartford Financial Services Group; Jeffrey Abramson, partner of The Tower Companies, one of Washington's largest commercial developers where over 50 per cent of employees practise Transcendental Meditation; Steele Belok, MD, an internist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School; and Andras Simonyi, Hungarian Ambassador to the United States.

Quentin Pastrana, MBA student at Georgetown University opened the event, and Robert Roth, Vice President, David Lynch Foundation served as Master of Ceremonies. Other speakers included: John Hagelin, PhD, the Director of the Center for Leadership Performance; 31-year practitioner of Transcendental Meditation Bob Brown, who is Former Division President of Ziff-Davis Inc; Fred Travis, PhD, the Director of the Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition at Maharishi University of Management, who conducted a live EEG demonstration of the brain wave changes that occur during the practice of Transcendental Meditation; and medical education specialist Sarina Grosswald, EdD.