Programs | CECP Corporate Philanthropy Summit - June 3 & 4, 2008 in New York City

Andre Agassi began his professional tennis career in 1986 at the age of 16. His performance on the court earned him 60 career men’s singles titles, including eight Grand Slam singles championships. Mr. Agassi is the only male player in the world to win all four Grand Slam titles and an Olympic gold medal.

In 1994, he established The Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation to provide recreational and educational opportunities for at-risk youth in his hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada. Since its inception, the Foundation has raised more than $70 million for programs designed to enhance a child’s character, self esteem, and career possibilities.

He is married to former tennis superstar Stefanie Graf, and the couple has two children, Jaden Gil and Jaz Elle.

Byron Auguste is the worldwide managing director of McKinsey’s Social Sector Office, which houses McKinsey & Company’s practices in Global Public Health, Economic Development & Opportunity Creation, Education, and Philanthropy. McKinsey’s Social Sector works with leading intergovernmental organizations, NGOs, philanthropic foundations, and private companies to develop and implement solutions to pressing societal challenges.

Based in Washington DC since 2007, Mr. Auguste spent 14 years in McKinsey’s Los Angeles Office, where he was elected principal in 1999 and director in 2005. His private sector client work focuses on helping technology, media, and services companies to achieve faster growth, greater productivity, and higher profitability, and on designing and building information and service businesses across a wide range of industries. He founded and led McKinsey’s High Tech Services Sector globally, has served on the global committees that elect and evaluate new partners, and leads the firm’s Diversity initiative globally.

Mr. Auguste received a B.A. in economics and political science summa cum laude from Yale University, where he was chosen as a Truman Scholar, and a M. Phil. and D.Phil. (doctorate) in economics from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar.

Sheila Bonini is a senior expert consultant based in the Silicon Valley Office of McKinsey & Company. She has been with McKinsey for over 8 years working out of their New York, Madrid, Copenhagen, London, and Santiago offices. Ms. Bonini is one of the leaders of the Business in Society and Regulatory Strategy service line within McKinsey’s Strategy Practice.

Ms. Bonini has significant experience advising clients across sectors on the impact of social and regulatory issues, including multiple engagements on corporate social responsibility, sustainability, stakeholder management, and regulatory strategy. Ms. Bonini joined McKinsey after working for both Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch in their investment banking divisions. She also took a 3-year leave from McKinsey to work in the nonprofit/foundation sector.

Ms. Bonini holds an A.B. in applied mathematics from Harvard University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Jean Case is an actively engaged philanthropist and a pioneer in the world of interactive technologies. Her career as a technology executive in the private sector spanned nearly two decades before she and her husband, Steve Case, created the Case Foundation in 1997. Its mission focuses on investing in individuals and organizations that aim to connect people, increase giving, and catalyze civic action.

In 2006, Ms. Case was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as Chair of the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation. A key priority for the Council is leveraging the professional skills of individuals and companies through pro bono service programs to help the nonprofit sector achieve more meaningful outcomes for communities.

In 2007, she was appointed by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to serve as a co-chair of the U.S.-Palestinian Partnership to promote economic opportunity for the Palestinian people, prepare Palestinian youth for the responsibilities of citizenship and good governance, as well as marshal new private investment in the West Bank.

In addition to this work at the Case Foundation, on the President's Council, and at the US-Palestinian Partnership, Ms. Case serves on the boards of PlayPumps International, Points of Light/Hands On Network, Malaria No More, Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure (ABC2), ePals, Millennium Promise, America's Promise, and the Potomac School. She also serves on the advisory council of the National Geographic Society and the advisory board to the National Conference on Citizenship.

Margaret M. Coady spearheads the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy’s online Corporate Giving Standard (CGS) measurement and benchmarking program. The tool’s primary applications include data collection, reporting, benchmarking, and analysis. Companies have submitted nearly $50 billion in domestic and international giving data since 2001.

Since joining CECP in early 2005, Ms. Coady has tripled the number of companies actively involved in benchmarking their giving using the CGS system; 150 companies, including nearly 70 of the Fortune100, currently participate in the initiative. This work has generated an unprecedented storehouse of data, and Ms. Coady authors a growing library of reports for giving professionals based on her analysis. She often lectures for national and international audiences on these publications. In addition, Ms. Coady consults one-on-one with survey respondents to create company-specific giving profiles, which corporate philanthropy professionals find essential in planning giving strategy and presenting findings to senior management.

Prior to joining CECP, Ms. Coady worked as a Senior IT Consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers and played a key technical role in several global custom software implementation projects for Fortune 500 clients. She graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Williams College and currently lives in New York.

Douglas R. Conant was appointed president and chief executive officer of Campbell Soup Company in January of 2001. He also was elected a director of the company at that time. Mr. Conant is Campbell’s 11th leader in the company’s nearly 140-year history.

Under Mr. Conant’s leadership, Campbell has reversed a precipitous decline in market value and employee engagement. The company has made significant investments to improve product quality and packaging, strengthen the effectiveness of its marketing programs, and develop a robust innovation pipeline. Campbell also has improved its financial profile, enhanced its relationships with its customers, and consistently improved its employee engagement through investments in its organization.

Mr. Conant joined Campbell with 25 years of extensive food industry experience from three of the world’s leading food companies: General Mills, Inc., Kraft Foods, and Nabisco. Mr. Conant began his career in 1976 in marketing at General Mills. After 10 years with General Mills, he then moved to Kraft, where he held top management positions in marketing and strategy. Immediately prior to joining Campbell, Mr. Conant was president of the $3.5 billion Nabisco Foods Company, where he led that unit to five consecutive years of double-digit earnings growth.

A native of Chicago, he earned his B.A. from Northwestern University and his master’s degree in business administration from the J.L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern.

Katie Couric is the anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, a 60 Minutes correspondent, and anchor of CBS News primetime specials. When the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric debuted on Sept. 5, 2006, Ms. Couric became the first female solo anchor of a weekday network evening news broadcast.

Ms. Couric completed a 15-year award-winning run as co-anchor of NBC News’ “Today” on May 31, 2006. While at NBC, she was also contributing anchor for “Dateline NBC.” She was a “Today” substitute co-anchor from February 1991 before taking over the job permanently two months later. Ms. Couric joined NBC News in 1989 as deputy Pentagon reporter before serving its first national correspondent in June 1990, which included two stints covering the Gulf War.

Ms. Couric has interviewed an extraordinarily diverse collection of newsmakers, from presidents and prime ministers to captains of industry and cultural icons, including Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush; Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, and Sandra Day O’Connor; and many first ladies. She has interviewed major world leaders including Kofi Annan, Tony Blair, Ariel Sharon, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah (in his first U.S. television interview), Benjamin Netanyahu, and Shimon Peres.

After losing her husband to colon cancer, Ms. Couric launched the National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance in March 2000 in association with the Entertainment Industry Foundation and Lilly Tartikoff. She also played a leadership role in establishing The Jay Monahan Center for Gastrointestinal Health at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell.

Michael D. Fraizer is chairman, president and chief executive officer of Genworth Financial. He has held this position since the completion of Genworth’s IPO in May of 2004. Prior to that he was a senior vice president of GE since June 2000 and served as chairman of the board and president and chief executive officer of GE Financial Assurance Holdings, Inc.

Mr. Fraizer also was a director of GE Capital and General Electric Capital Services, Inc. Mr. Fraizer led the Consumer Savings and Insurance Group, a predecessor of GE Financial Assurance, from February 1996 until October 1996. Prior to that, Mr. Fraizer was president and chief executive officer of GE Capital Commercial Real Estate from July 1993 to December 1996. From July 1991 to June of 1993, he was vice president—Portfolio Acquisitions and Ventures of GE Capital Commercial Real Estate.

From December 1989 to June 1991, Mr. Fraizer was president and managing director, GE Japan. From July 1983 to November 1989 Mr. Fraizer served in various capacities as a member of GE’s Corporate Audit Staff and Corporate Business Development after joining GE in June 1980 in its Financial Management Program.

Mr. Fraizer currently is a trustee of the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges and serves on the boards of the Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation, the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business Foundation, and the Richmond Performing Arts CenterStage. He is an active supporter of Richmond community programs and, along with his wife, founded the Mary & Frances Youth Center on the VCU campus in partnership with the University.

Mr. Fraizer received a B.A. in political science from Carleton College in 1980.

Jamie Hartman
Director
Taproot Foundation’s Pro Bono Action Tank

Jamie Hartman leads the Pro Bono Action Tank’s efforts to identify and overcome barriers to the adoption of the pro bono ethic in the professional community and to set national quality standards for pro bono work.

Ms. Hartman brings over twelve years of experience in marketing, business management, and implementation consulting that spans public and private sector organizations around the world. She has a track record of success in advising start-up and established firms regarding strategic plan development, market expansion, business process re-engineering and complex enterprise technology deployments.

Prior to joining the Taproot Foundation, Ms. Hartman has held positions including, Senior Managing Consultant for IBM Business Consulting Services and a Senior Marketing Consultant at J.D. Edwards. Ms. Hartman has a deep-rooted commitment to the public sector. She has worked with Net Impact, United Way, the US Senate Subcommittee for Children and Families and the Children’s Defense Fund among others.

Ms. Hartman holds a MA in Public Policy from Georgetown University and a BS from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Cari Hills is the director of operations and information at the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP), the only international forum of business CEOs and chairpersons pursuing a mission exclusively focused on corporate philanthropy.

Having joined CECP in 2003, Ms. Hills was instrumental in bringing many of CECP’s early projects to life—including the development of the Corporate Giving Standard measurement program that defines world class standards in corporate philanthropy, and the establishment of National Corporate Philanthropy Day. She now spearheads several of the Committee’s signature programs, including CECP's annual Excellence in Corporate Philanthropy Awards selection and recognition events, the ‘Board of Boards’ CEO conference, and the Corporate Philanthropy Summit. Since joining the Committee, Ms. Hills has also led and participated in various research projects on corporate philanthropy.

Ms. Hills also serves as the director of the South Asia Earthquake Relief Fund, a $100M initiative led by President Bush and five distinguished CEOs. She traveled to Pakistan to view the earthquake damage and meet with government and private officials regarding relief and reconstruction efforts and continues to oversee the fund’s operations.

Prior to joining CECP, Ms. Hills was an AVP at JPMorgan Chase Alternative Asset Management in sales and marketing. She was previously a consultant at Accenture LLP in financial services with clients such as Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase in New York City. Ms. Hills holds a Bachelor of Arts in economics from Cornell University and is a member of Cornell's Athletic Alumni Advisory Committee.

Richard C. Holbrooke is president and chief executive officer of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GBC), assuming this role in June 2001.

In addition to his leadership at the GBC, Ambassador Holbrooke is the founding chairman of the American Academy in Berlin, the vice chairman of Perseus LLC, and vice chairman of the Asia Society. He also serves as a board member of American International Group (AIG), The Coca-Cola Company, the Museum of Natural History, the National Endowment for Democracy, Human Genome Sciences, and Refugees International.

Ambassador Holbrooke has played a central role in the development of U.S. policy toward the United Nations, the Balkans, Africa, the Middle East and humanitarian crisis issues with refugee populations and HIV/AIDS. He most recently served as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, where he was also a member of President Clinton's cabinet. From 1994-96 he served as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs, where he most notably lead negotiations for the historic Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia. In 1977, President Carter appointed him Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, a post during which he established full diplomatic relations with China.

Ambassador Holbrooke has been very active in the nonprofit arena, serving as chairman of Refugees International and twice was a member of the board of the International Rescue Committee. He is also an experienced businessman having held senior positions at two leading Wall Street firms, Credit Suisse First Boston and Lehman Brothers.

Aaron Hurst has been widely recognized as a leading social entrepreneur for his work in civic engagement, nonprofit management, and corporate social responsibility.

As the founder and president of the Taproot Foundation, he received the Draper Richards Foundation’s Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurship and was elected into the prestigious international Ashoka Fellowship. He has received numerous awards for his vision and leadership, including the Manhattan Institute Award for Social Entrepreneurship, Social Venture Network’s Innovation Award, and Commonwealth Club’s 21st Century Award. He was also recognized by Fast Company as a 2006 Rising Star.

Mr. Hurst founded the Taproot Foundation in 2001 to engage this country's millions of business professionals in pro bono work to build the infrastructure of the nonprofit sector. As president of the Taproot Foundation, Mr. Hurst leads the development of the organization across the nation, as well as sets the strategy and vision behind the Foundation's work. Under his direction, the Taproot Foundation has become the national leader in pro bono work, serving over 300 nonprofits each year across the country and setting the agenda for the development of the field.

With twenty years' experience advising senior management on issues of strategy, organization and reputation building, John V. Kania now oversees FSG’s consulting practice. While at FSG he has led several dozen strategic planning efforts for foundations, nonprofits and corporate philanthropy programs. Mr. Kania’s FSG engagements include significant experience in international health, U.S. healthcare, U.S. education, the environment and nonprofit capacity building.

Mr. Kania has been instrumental in developing customized applications of FSG’s strategy and problem solving tools for the social sector including the use of scenario planning, adaptive leadership principles, organizational change management processes, and product cost modeling for community foundations. Prior to joining FSG, he was a partner at both Mercer Management Consulting and Corporate Decisions, Inc. He began his career at Leo Burnett Company, a global advertising agency. Mr. Kania has been published in Stanford Social Innovation Review, The Wall Street Journal and The Journal of Business Strategy and is a featured author of Learning from the Future, the leading contemporary text on scenario planning. He speaks frequently around the U.S. on improving the impact of philanthropy and corporate social responsibility.

He has an M.M.A. from Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a B.A., cum laude, from Dartmouth College.

Deidre S. Lind is currently the executive director for Mattel Children's Foundation and Corporate Philanthropy for Mattel, Inc. In this position, she is responsible for leading Mattel's philanthropic presence nationally and internationally and building Mattel's reputation as a responsible corporate citizen. Under Ms. Lind's direction, Mattel and the Mattel Children's Foundation are building partnerships with globally recognized nonprofits as well as local programs directly impacting children in over 40 countries around the world.

Ms. Lind previously served as Kaiser Permanente’s California Division associate director for Government and Community Relations and prior to joining Kaiser Permanente worked on social policy for the Chief of Staff to Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. Ms. Lind currently serves on the board of directors of Community Partners, a nonprofit incubator and leader in community-based strategy and management, and also serves on the Council on Foundations' Committee on Corporate Grantmaking, the Conference Board’s Contributions Council II and the Program Committee for Southern California Grantmakers.

Ms. Lind received her B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and both a Master of Social Work and a Master of public administration from the University of Southern California.

Stanley S. Litow heads the global corporate citizenship efforts at IBM across over 170 countries. Under his leadership, IBM has developed a number of innovative programs and initiatives, including “Reinventing Education”, a program serving over 100,000 teachers and 10 million children globally, IBM's Global Citizen's Portfolio consisting of matching accounts for learning, and a corporate version of the Peace Corps called the Corporate Services Corps to train 600 future IBM leaders.

Before joining IBM, Mr. Litow served as the Deputy Chancellor of Schools for New York City and prior to his service with the City's public schools, he founded and ran Interface, the nonprofit think-tank and served as an aide to both the Mayor and Governor of New York.

Mr. Litow's articles and essays have appeared in the Yale Law Review, Annual Survey of American Law, Brookings Papers, the American Academy of Sciences, the Journal for the Center for National Policy and the Urban School's Journal, New York Times and Newsday.

He chairs the Global Leadership Network and serves on the board of Harvard Business School's Social Enterprise Initiative, Independent Sector, Citizen's Budget Commission, and the After School Corporation.

Charles H. Moore is currently executive director of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy. He has actively served in the field of international business and finance, athletic administration, and promotion of the arts. After forty years of senior management with multi-national corporations, Mr. Moore returned to his alma mater, Cornell University, to serve as Director of Athletics from 1994 to 1999. A gold medalist in the 1952 Olympics, he served as a Public Sector Director of the United States Olympic Committee from 1992 to 2000, after which he served as chairman for the USOC 2012 Bid City Task Force. He is currently a member of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and a Commissioner of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Senior Fellow and Director of the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School; Director, Business Leadership and Strategy, Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum; Non-resident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

Jane Nelson is a senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government and Director of the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative, at Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She serves as a director at the Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) and is a non-resident senior fellow of the Brookings Institution.

During 2001 she worked in the office of the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, preparing a report for the United Nations General Assembly on cooperation between the UN and the private sector, which supported the first UN resolution on such cooperation. Prior to joining the IBLF, Ms. Nelson was a vice president at Citibank.

Ms. Nelson has authored four books and over fifty reports, papers, book chapters and articles on public-private partnerships and the changing role of business in society, especially in emerging markets, and co-authored four of the World Economic Forum's Global Corporate Citizenship reports. She has a BSc. in agricultural economics from the University of Natal, South Africa, an M.A. in politics, philosophy and economics, from Oxford University, and has been a Rhodes Scholar, a Rotary International student, a fellow of the 21st Century Trust, an Aspen Institute scholar, and recipient of the Keystone Center's 2005 ‘Leadership in Education’ Award.

Sean Parker is the co-founder and chairman of “Project Agape,” a new network that aims to enable large-scale political and social activism on the Internet. Mr. Parker is also a managing partner at The Founders Fund, an early stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco.

Previously, Mr. Parker was the co-founder of the category-defining Web ventures Napster, Plaxo, and Facebook. At Napster, he helped to design the Napster client software and led the company’s initial financing and strategy. Under Mr. Parker’s leadership, Napster became the fastest adopted client software application in history.

Following Napster, he co-founded and served as president of Plaxo, where he pioneered the viral engineering techniques used to deploy Plaxo's flagship smart address book product, ultimately acquiring more than 15 million users. In 2004, he left Plaxo to become the founding president of Facebook, one of the most rapidly growing sites on the Internet today. Mr. Parker sits on the boards of several private companies.

Richard D. Parsons is chairman of the board of Time Warner Inc., whose businesses include filmed entertainment, interactive services, television networks, cable systems, and publishing. From May 2002 to December 2007, Mr. Parsons served as Time Warner’s chief executive officer.

As CEO, Mr. Parsons led Time Warner’s turnaround and set the company on a solid path toward achieving sustainable growth. In its January 2005 report on America’s Best CEOs, Institutional Investor magazine named Mr. Parsons the top CEO in the entertainment industry.

Mr. Parsons joined Time Warner as its president in February 1995, and has been a member of the company's board of directors since January 1991. As president, he oversaw the company's filmed entertainment and music businesses, and all corporate staff functions, including financial activities, legal affairs, public affairs and administration.

Before joining Time Warner, Mr. Parsons was chairman and chief executive officer of Dime Bancorp, Inc., one of the largest thrift institutions in the United States. Previously, he was the managing partner of the New York law firm Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler and held various positions in state and federal government, as counsel for Nelson Rockefeller and as a senior White House aide under President Gerald Ford. Mr. Parsons received his undergraduate education at the University of Hawaii and his legal training at Union University's Albany Law School.

Mr. Parsons’ civic and nonprofit commitments include co-chairman of the Mayor’s Commission on Economic Opportunity in New York, chairman emeritus of the Partnership for New York City, chairman of the Apollo Theatre Foundation and service on the boards of Howard University, the Museum of Modern Art, and the American Museum of Natural History. He also serves on the boards of Citigroup and Estée Lauder.

Lisa M. Quiroz is the senior vice president of corporate responsibility for Time Warner. She was appointed to this position in December 2003. In this role, Ms. Quiroz is responsible for setting and implementing the strategic direction of Time Warner’s corporate responsibility efforts. In August of 2006, Ms. Quiroz's role expanded to include global diversity and inclusion efforts, including initiatives aimed at better serving and reaching a more diverse marketplace.

Prior to assuming her current position, Ms. Quiroz worked at Time Inc. where she was founding publisher of People en Español, the best-selling Hispanic magazine in the U.S. Under her leadership, the magazine topped Adweek’s “10 Under 40 Magazine” Hot List for three consecutive years. Previously, at Time Inc., she created and launched Time For Kids, an award-winning classroom news magazine for elementary school kids with a circulation of over 3.5 million.

Ms. Quiroz was appointed to the New York City Commission on Human Rights by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. She also serves on the board of directors of a number of foundation and nonprofit groups including the Knowledge Works Foundation, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, the Hispanic Federation, and the College Board. Ms. Quiroz was recently elected to the board of SiTV, the English language television network serving Hispanic consumers.

Ms. Quiroz, of Puerto Rican and Mexican descent, was born and raised in New York City and received both her undergraduate degree and her master's in business administration from Harvard University.

Cynthia Shultz Cusick has more than 15 years of association and nonprofit experience in a variety of roles, including sponsorship and corporate relationships, educational program management, research and policy development, and member services/chapter relations. Her career included positions at the National Association of Counties, the American Podiatric Medical Association, and Transplant Recipients International Organization, Inc., all in the metro-Washington, DC area.

Since 2004, Ms. Shultz Cusick has served as the director of sponsorship and corporate relationships for the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions. In this role, she is responsible for relationship cultivation, budget management, marketing, delivery and assessment of the association’s sponsorship and corporate relationships. She has built the association’s sponsorship and corporate relationships department over her ten-year tenure at NACHRI.

Ms. Shultz Cusick holds a master's of public policy degree, with a concentration in historic preservation and urban planning, from Duke University. She received a Bachelors of Arts degree in economics and history, cum laude, from the University of Delaware.

Lindsay M. Siegel is the marketing and communications specialist for the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy. Having joined the organization in November 2006, she has focused on developing and executing the Committee's strategy regarding media outreach, events, online activities, and internal communication efforts to the CECP community of CEOs and giving practitioners.

Ms. Siegel spearheads the media platform of National Corporate Philanthropy Day, and works closely with the CECP community to promote this outreach initiative. She is also the editor of The Corporate Philanthropist, CECP’s quarterly publication, and is instrumental in increasing the visibility of corporate philanthropy in print, online, and via broadcast media.

Prior to joining CECP, Ms. Siegel was programs manager for Diversified Agency Services, a division of Omnicom Group, where she implemented an international professional development series, convenings for new business directors, and an organization-wide client database. She previously ran a bed and breakfast in rural Ecuador. Ms. Siegel holds a Bachelor of Science in communication studies from Northwestern University.

Secretary Spellings is working to ensure that every young American has the knowledge and skills to succeed in the 21st century. She has partnered with states to implement and enforce the No Child Left Behind Act, which commits U.S. schools to bringing all students up to grade level or better in reading and math by 2014. The law has led to rising test scores and shrinking achievement gaps in states across the country.

Secretary Spellings has been a leader in reform to make education more innovative and responsive. She supported teachers with new financial incentives for gains in student achievement and parents with new educational choices and options. She announced new rules to ensure that students with disabilities and English language learners are educated to the highest standards. She also proposed a landmark Plan for Higher Education that would improve accessibility, affordability and accountability.

Prior to her tenure as Education Secretary, Ms. Spellings served as assistant to the President for domestic policy, where she helped create the No Child Left Behind Act and crafted policies on education, immigration, health care, labor, transportation, justice, housing, and other elements of the President's domestic agenda. Previously, Ms. Spellings worked for six years as senior advisor to Governor George W. Bush with responsibility for developing and implementing the Governor's education reforms and policies.

Ms. Spellings graduated from the University of Houston with a bachelor's degree in political science.

Laysha Ward
Vice President Community Relations
Target Corporation

Laysha Ward oversees Target Corporation and Target Foundation’s domestic and international grant making, community sponsorships, cause marketing initiatives, volunteerism, and other civic activities.

Ms. Ward started her career with the Target Corporation in 1991. Since opening its first store in 1962, Target has partnered with civic and nonprofit organizations, guests and team members to help meet community needs. Every year Target contributes 5% of income to communities where it does business, equaling more than $3 million a week.

Ms. Ward serves on the boards of the Executive Leadership Council, a national membership organization for African-American executives, the Tiger Woods Learning Center, an education facility located in Southern California, and is a member of The Links, an international women’s service organization.

She received a B.A. in journalism from Indiana University in Bloomington and a master’s in social service administration, with an emphasis in nonprofit management and public policy, from the University of Chicago.

Sanford I. Weill is chairman emeritus of Citigroup Inc. He retired as CEO of Citigroup on October 1, 2003, and served as chairman until April 18, 2006. Formerly, Mr. Weill served as president of American Express Company and chairman and chief executive officer of its Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company subsidiary. Mr. Weill became a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2001 and served in this capacity until December 31, 2006. He also served as a director on the boards of United Technologies Corp., AT&T Corp., and E. I. Du Pont Nemours and Company.

In 2002, Mr. Weill was the recipient of Chief Executive magazine’s CEO of the Year Award. The 1997 recipient of the New York State Governor’s Art Award, Mr. Weill has been chairman of the board of trustees of Carnegie Hall since 1991 and is also a director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He is chairman of the board of overseers for The Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College and Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University, and is a trustee of New York Presbyterian Hospital and an overseer of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Mr. Weill is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Long a proponent of education, Mr. Weill instituted a joint program with the New York City Board of Education in 1980 that created the Academy of Finance, which trains high school students for careers in financial services. He serves as founder and chairman of the National Academy Foundation (NAF), which oversees more than 500 career-themed Academies in 41 states, as well as the District of Columbia. NAF recently began an exciting, new partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Randi Weingarten is president of the United Federation of Teachers, the largest union local in the country representing 201,486 men and women. She is also a vice president of the American Federation of Teachers and of the New York City Central Labor Council (AFL-CIO) and heads the city’s Municipal Labor Committee (MLC), an umbrella organization for 100-plus city unions.

Ms. Weingarten and the UFT have fought to make sure teachers are treated with respect and dignity, have a voice in the education of their students, are given the resources they need to succeed in the classroom, and that every school is a place where parents want to send their children and educators want to work.

The UFT, under Ms. Weingarten, has expanded its outreach to parents and students. Each year the union awards more than $1 million in scholarships to needy high school seniors, and Dial-A-Teacher, its after-school homework help program helps tens of thousands of students and their parents each year. Ms. Weingarten has also led UFT members into areas of reform rarely embraced by more traditional teacher unions. Eager to return the charter school movement to its original purpose of enabling educators to create schools based on classroom-tested best practices, she spearheaded the opening of two union operated public charter schools in East Brooklyn, N.Y. and has partnered with Green Dot schools to start another in the South Bronx.

Ms. Weingarten holds degrees from Cornell University and the Cardozo School of Law. She worked as a lawyer for the Wall Street firm of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan from 1983 to 1986. She is an active member of the Democratic National Committee and numerous professional, civic and philanthropic organizations.