Speaker Bio:
In 2018, Nikki Mark’s healthy 12-year-old son, Tommy, went to bed and never woke up. Doctors still don’t know why. After more than two decades building fast-paced startup companies in Los Angeles, Nikki suddenly faced a venture she never wanted: restarting herself. With no religious or spiritual framework to lean on, she drew from her entrepreneurial skills and applied them to grief. What emerged was a living legacy for her son that has become a symbol of hope to those who have lost, and an unconventional model of human transformation for a world so deeply in need of healing.
Nikki Mark is the author of Tommy’s Field: Love, Loss, & the Goal of a Lifetime, which
Publisher’s Weekly praised as an “inspirational debut” and which actress and activist Laura
Dern called “a gift to a world in need of healing.” She is the Co-Founder and President of
the TM23 Foundation, which has raised more than $3.5 million to build three state-of- the-art
athletic fields – called Tommy’s Field – for the City of Los Angeles, and one in Africa. Nikki’s
writing has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Oprah Daily, Katie Couric
Media, Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper, TODAY, and elsewhere. She has also been featured
in People Magazine and on national TV, including The Kelly Clarkson Show. Through her
weekly essays, alternative healing toolkit, and online resources at NikkiMark.com, she has
helped thousands of people navigate grief and begin to heal their hearts.
Talk Title:
Talk Summary:
I




Charlotte Chun Ph.D.,M.S.