Ken Dychtwald is the nation's foremost visionary and thinker in marketing, lifestyle, and implications of the age wave. He is an accomplished author and speaker.

Dychtwald's interest in aging initially grew out of his pioneering work from 1973 to 1979 as Cofounder and Co-Director of the Sage Project, a non-profit social service organization funded by the National Institutes of Health and devoted to teaching the elderly how to improve the quality of their lives by taking charge of their mental and physical health. In the late 1970s, as his work branched out into other aspects of gerontology, he was struck by how many of the social, economic, and physical problems of aging were preventable. He repeatedly saw how a lifetime of disregard for personal health usually led to chronic disease. Aging, he came to realize, was not something that begins on one's 65th birthday. Rather, all of the choices we make regarding how we care for ourselves, how we manage our lives, and even how we think about our futures ultimately shape who we become, both personally and culturally, in our later years.

By the early 1980s, Dychtwald had become a member of various scientific and social service advisory panels, a frequent lecturer at academic and business conferences, and a consultant with numerous universities, hospitals and corporations. In 1982, while serving as an adviser to the federal Office of Technology Assessment, the think tank connected with the U.S. Congress, he felt a jolt when he realized that the next population of elders would not be his grandparents' or parents' generation; they would be the baby boom generation...his generation. Just as our social institutions were unprepared for the initial baby boom, Dychtwald feared that our gerontophobia might blind us to the true impact of 78 million boomers barreling toward an entirely new version of maturity. He realized that we were about to confront a demographic shift of enormous magnitude: increasing longevity, declining fertility, and the aging of the baby boom were triggering an enormous "age wave." This wave had the potential to create vibrant new stages of life and an unending stream of new business opportunities - and an equally compelling potential for social, economic and political crisis.

In 1986, in partnership with his wife, Maddy Kent-Dychtwald, Dr. Dychtwald became the founding President and CEO of Age Wave, a firm created to guide Fortune 500 companies and government groups in product/service development for boomers and mature adults. In recent years, he has served as a fellow of the World Economic Forum and is the recipient of the distinguished American Society on Aging Award for outstanding national leadership in the field of aging.

In May 2001, Dr. Dychtwald became a Senior Advisor to North Castle Partners, a private equity firm focused on investment opportunities in the "healthy living and aging" sectors. In addition, he has been actively involved in pioneering research efforts exploring the implications of key demographic trends. He recently completed the groundbreaking Re-Visioning Retirement Project, a landmark survey and segmentation of today's and tomorrow's retirees, developed with Harries Interactive and sponsored by AIG SunAmerica. Dr. Dychtwald has also announced his collaboration with the Concours Group, the global IT and HR consultancy, to lead the Demography is De$tiny Project, a visionary research and development venture exploring the profound effect that demographic shifts will have on all aspects of workforce and management dynamics.

During his career, Dr. Dychtwald has addressed nearly two million people worldwide in his speeches to corporate, association and government groups, and appears frequently on national television and radio programs. Like a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, his explorations and innovative solutions have fertilized and catalyzed a broad spectrum of industry sectors from vitamins and cookies to automotive design and retail merchandising to mutual funds and health insurance. A highly sought-after public speaker and consultant, he is consistently praised for his unique ability to blend cutting edge social science and marketing wizardry with world-class presentation showmanship. His strikingly accurate predictions have been featured in many prestigious publications, including "The New York Times," "The Wall Street Journal," "USA Today," "The Financial Times," "Fortune," "Time," "Newsweek," "Business Week," "Inc.," "U.S. News and World Report" and "Advertising Age."

During the past 30 years, through his sought-after presentations, his breakthrough research and consulting initiatives, and his leadership within both the social science and business communities, Ken Dychtwald has dedicated his life to battling ageist stereotypes while promoting a new and vital image of maturity.