Garry Kasparov was the highest-rated chess player in the world for over twenty years and is widely considered the greatest chess player that ever lived. On Thursday, 10th March, 2005 Kasparov announced his retirement from competitive chess. He remains the highest-rated player in the history of chess and the only true icon in a game with over 100 million players.Today this master of strategy applies the insights and unique perspective from his extraordinary chess career to the issues of leadership, logical thinking, strategy, and success on the speakers' circuit and to Russian politics.Known as an extremely intuitive chess player, Kasparov emphasizes intuition's role in reaching one's full potential as an individual and achieving superior performance as the leader of a group or organization. His contests with the super-computer "Deep Blue" were worldwide headline news and he was at the forefront of innovation in chess for over twentyyears. He was at the cutting-edge of research and the battles between humans and computers as far back as 1989.His global reach is fed by a steady stream of keynote speaking engagements, predominately in Europe and the United States. His speech topics vary from country to country, but he is never far from what he knows best – strategy and logical thinking. He takes his listeners into the worlds of calculation, seeing the big picture, the analytical mind, achieving potential, and what constitutes intelligence without reducing the answers to plain black and white. Most remarkably, Kasparov's speeches are customized for each corporation or language group to include local facts and items of interest.Mr. Kasparov is a contributing editor to "The Wall Street Journal" and has contributed editorials to dozens of other major publications. Volume I of his new "Modern Chess Series" was released in 2007. This came on the heels of his best-selling series of chess books "My Great Predecessors," which sold over 100,000 hardcover copies in various languages - a record for chess literature. Kasparov is the founder and inspiration behind the Kasparov Chess Foundation, whose mission is to introduce chess into the educational system worldwide.In 2007 his first mainstream book, "How Life Imitates Chess" was released and it will soon be available in 17 languages. It is part memoir, part business book, and all about how to make better decisions. Mr. Kasparov is making hundreds of major media appearances to support the book worldwide. In the first quarter of 2007 he was profiled in TIME, The Times (UK), and the New York Times. Without a pause Kasparov moved from chess to the political front lines. Russia today is sliding into a corrupt dictatorship. Despite the high price of oil, most of the population has little to show for it. Kasparov is busy campaigning the length and breadth of Russia for democracy and civil liberties. As he explains, "We are not fighting to win elections - we are fighting for having elections. The goal is to bring all opposition groups into a broad coalition to return Russia to the path of democracy."In December 2004, Garry Kasparov was elected Co-Chairman of the ALL RUSSIA CIVIL CONGRESS and in May of 2006 he became Chairman of the UNITED CIVIL FRONT OF RUSSIA. These and other political and human rights leaders have now come together under the coalition banner of THE OTHER RUSSIA, which organizes pro-democracy rallies nationwide.