Details:

Date:  10/25/22
Time:  7:00 - 8:30 pm

This virtual program is free to all members and non-members!

Robbie Bach is best known for founding and leading the team that created the Xbox. Today he is an entertaining storyteller and catalyzing voice who writes books and speaks to audiences on leadership, creativity, strategy, and civic issues.

During his twenty-two years at Microsoft, Robbie worked in various marketing and business management roles—including supporting the successful launch and expansion of Microsoft Office and leading the creation and development of the Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox Live. Then as Microsoft’s President of the Entertainment and Devices Division, he was responsible for the company’s worldwide gaming, music, video, phone and retail sales businesses until he retired in 2010.

He currently chairs the board of the Bipartisan Policy Center. He also serves on the national board of governors for Boys and Girls Clubs of America and Magic Leap, an augmented reality company. He previously served as a board member of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Sonos Inc., Brooks Running Company, the Space Needle Inc., and Year Up Puget Sound. He is the co-owner of Manini’s, Inc., a gluten-free pasta and baking company.

He and his wife, Pauline, reside in Medina, WA with their yellow lab, Roscoe. They have three grown children and one grandchild. He loves peanut M&Ms, upholding heroic ideals, and those motivated to save the world—although not necessarily in that order.

In 2015, he published his first book, Xbox Revisited: A Game Plan for Corporate and Civic Renewal. The Wilkes Insurrection (2021) is his first novel.

This contemporary thriller has been receiving outstanding reviews. Here’s a sampling:

· An independent, professional reviewer at Men Reading Books—a review outlet that specializes in mysteries and thrillers—called Robbie’s novel “without question the best thriller I’ve read this year.”

· Another independent, professional review outlet, The Best Thriller Books, gave The Wilkes Insurrection a glowing review, calling it “…an edge-of-your-seat ride that is extremely uplifting. Perseverance and one strong-willed woman highlight the best of America in this great debut.”

· In an interview on The Culture Buzz, host John Busbee said that the novel is “truly a page-turner,” and that “These characters draw you in, the story just zips along . . . . I recommend this: Start reading it early in the evening because once you start, the sights & sounds of the house are going to disappear and you’re going to be immersed in the story and keep reading & reading into the wee hours of the morning.”

· Meanwhile Dan Skinner, host of the Kansas Public Radio show, Conversations, called the debut novel “an engaging story” and

Paul W. Smith in a review for Network Datapedia said, "The dangerous divisiveness that exists in America today is fertile ground for a riveting story… Robbie Bach does a masterful job of maintaining suspense from cover to cover – it’s a hard book to put down, and a tough one to forget."