Introducing the leadership panel, Ann Skeet offered these capsule portraits of the panelists.

Linda Lawrence was formerly the vice president of Netscape International Netcenter and responsible for Netscape’s online service business outside the United States. Prior to joining Netscape in 1997, she was vice president of marketing at LiveWorld Productions. She has held other senior marketing positions at Bay Networks and Apple. During her tenure at Netscape, she had front row seats to leadership in the bubble – the way both experience and new tech sector leaders behaved in a period of frenzied growth. She has unique perspectives on regional business leadership and the cult of personalities surrounding many of these business leaders today.

Quinn Tran is chief sales and marketing officer and co-founder of KnowledgeTek software. Prior to that, she was vice president and general manager of worldwide marketing and sales for Xerox ColorgrafX Systems – a Xerox company she also co-founded and grew to over $100 million in revenue in less than five years. She has held senior management roles at Xerox and Sun Microsystems. Quinn came to the United States at the end of the Vietnam War as a refugee. She now serves as an advisor to the Vietnam government and its ministries on the subject of information technology, education and training.

James Austin is the John G. McLean professor of business administration at the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration. He is the founding chair of the school’s Initiative on Social Enterprise. He has served as an advisor to corporations, international agencies and nonprofits, and he is a special advisor to the White House. Jim has authored or edited more than 16 books, including The Collaboration Challenge: How Businesses and Nonprofits Succeed Through Strategic Alliances. Prior to turning his attention to the leadership issues in nonprofit and private public enterprises, Jim developed expertise around managing in Third World countries. As a leader of the Harvard Business School’s social enterprise interests, he’s launched a major research project on corporation and executive involvement in social services. The Financial Times calls him “a singular Western talent and a Third World guru.”

Jan Masaoka is executive director of CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, one of the nation’s leading nonprofit management consulting firms to nonprofit organizations. In 1999 and 2000 she was named by The NonProfit Times as one of the “50 Most Influential People” in the nonprofit sector nationwide. Jan’s community activities include serving as president of the San Francisco Foundation’s Community Initiative Funds, vice president of the San Francisco Telecom Commission, advisory board member to the Asian Pacific Islander Wellness Center and member of the nonprofit technology enterprise network.

If you’ve been in the Silicon Valley for the last decade, it would be hard to miss the impact of Amy Dean. With her political savvy, her rapid-fire speech and commanding presence, Amy, as president and CEO of the South Bay Labor Council, has become a spokesperson for social justice, working on behalf of 100,000 workers represented by her labor council. A New York Times article said Amy has become “the labor movement’s chief navigator, its Christopher Columbus in the rolling and uncharted seas of the new economy.” Amy is the youngest woman to head a U.S. labor organization. She founded Working Partnerships USA, a nonprofit policy and research institute, and has spearheaded plans for temporary workers’ organizations, campaign support for labor endorsed candidates, and a program to educate community leaders on labor issues and ongoing research and developing progressive policy. She is a member of the Santa Clara County Office of Education’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on education and currently working on her first book.

Judy Nadler is currently the senior fellow in government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. She served as mayor of the city of Santa Clara for eight years and became synonymous with ethical, public-style politics in a day when most people think it doesn’t exist anymore. Judy led the development of the code of ethics and values for Santa Clara, and in 2002 the city received the Helen Putnam Award for Excellence from the League of California Cities for its programs, infusing political campaigns with community ethics and values. Before her two terms as mayor, Judy served on the Santa Clara City Council and was an editor at Sunset Magazine. She’s also served on the Northern California Power Agency and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. And she has a lifelong love affair going with the public library system.