Admiral James Stavridis is Vice Chair, Global Affairs of The Carlyle Group and Chair of the Board of Trustees, Rockefeller Foundation.

A Florida native, Jim Stavridis attended the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, and spent 37 years in the Navy, rising to the rank of 4-star Admiral. Among his many commands were four years as the 16th Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, where he oversaw operations in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, the Balkans, and counter piracy off the coast of Africa. He also commanded US Southern Command in Miami, charged with military operations through Latin America for nearly three years. He was the longest serving Combatant Commander in recent US history. Following his military career, he served for five years as the 12th Dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

David Pogue was the New York Times weekly tech columnist from 2000 to 2013. He’s a six-time Emmy winner for his stories on CBS Sunday Morning, a New York Times bestselling author, a five-time TED speaker, host of 20 NOVA science specials on PBS, and creator/host of the CBS News/Simon & Schuster podcast Unsung Science.

He’s written or cowritten more than 120 books, including dozens in the Missing Manual tech series, which he created in 1999; six books in the For Dummies line (including Macs, Magic, Opera, and Classical Music); two novels (one for middle-schoolers); his three bestselling Pogue’s Basics books of tips and shortcuts (on Tech, Money, and Life); his how-to guides, iPhone Unlocked and Mac Unlocked; and his 2021 magnum opus, How to Prepare for Climate Change.

Statesman, historian, soldier, author, Michael Oren has had a long and distinguished career.

Born in New York and educated at Princeton and Columbia, he was a visiting professor at Harvard, Yale, and Georgetown. He has received fellowships from the US State Department and the British and Canadian governments. He was the Lady Davis Fellow at Hebrew University, a Moshe Dayan Fellow at Tel Aviv University, and the Ambassadorial Scholar at the Atlantic Council. Oren holds four degrees in Middle East history and has received four honorary doctorates.

Moving to Israel in the 1970s and joining the IDF, Dr. Oren served as a lone soldier in the paratroopers. He fought in the 1982 Lebanon War, and later served as an army spokesman in the Second Lebanon War and several Gaza operations, reaching the rank of major. He served as an advisor to Israel’s delegation to the UN, to former Foreign Minister Abba Evan, and to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. A passionate oarsman, he won two gold medals in the Maccabiah Games.

Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy-making process.

Karl has been described by respected author and columnist Michael Barone in U.S. News & World Report as “…unique…no Presidential appointee has ever had such a strong influence on politics and policy, and none is likely to do so again anytime soon.” Washington Post columnist David Broder has called Karl a master political strategist whose “game has always been long term…and he plays it with an intensity and attention to detail that few can match.” Fred Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard, has called Karl “the greatest political mind of his generation and probably of any generation. He knows history, understands the moods of the public, and is a visionary on matters of public policy.”