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William Pope.L

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William Pope.l

Artist

William Pope.L, who calls himself “The Friendliest Black Artist in America©” is among the foremost contemporary performance artists. He addresses labor, race, and identity in projects both searing and humorous. Asked if he considers himself an activist, he replied: “When people use the word activism today, it sounds like after-ism…The space I create in my work for others is more formalist, like, ‘change the world’” Among his numerous iconic pieces is The Great White Way, 22 miles, 9 years, 1 street, for which Pope.L donned a cape-less Superman costume, strapped a skateboard to his back, and dragged himself up the entire length of Manhattan’s Broadway—a visceral, ridiculous, poignant display, of, in his words, “public prostration in motion.”

Pope.L was presented with the American Spirit Award for Activism in the Arts by Diandra Luker at The Common Good’s American Spirit Awards 2015.

Twitter: @WilliamPopeL

Stan Pottinger

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Stan Pottinger

Politician, novelist

J. Stanley Pottinger has been a Washington bureaucrat, a lawyer, investment banker, and novelist. He is currently a partner in Edwards Pottinger LLC.

Pottinger held significant roles as a bureaucratic appointee in the Nixon, Ford and Carter Administrations. From 1970 to 1973, he held the position of the Director of the Office of Civil Rights, at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare from 1970-1973 and from 1973-77 served as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the United States Department of Justice.

Pottinger later wrote a best selling book The Fourth Procedure, as well as several other novels.

Erik Prince

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Erik Prince

American businessman, former U.S. Navy SEAL

Erik Prince is an American businessman and former U.S. Navy SEAL officer best known for founding the government services and security company Blackwater USA, now known as Academi. He served as its CEO until 2009 and later as chairman, until Blackwater Worldwide was sold in 2010 to a group of investors. Prince currently heads the private equity firm Frontier Resource Group and is chairman of Hong Kong-listed Frontier Services Group Ltd. He lives in both Middleburg, Virginia and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Prince spoke at The Common Good in 2017: Rethinking the Afghanistan War with Erik Prince.

Ambassador Ron Prosor

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Ambassador Ron Prosor

Israeli diplomat

Ambassador Ron Prosor became Israel’s 16th Permanent Representative to the United Nations in June 2011. With over two decades of experience at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Prosor has carved out an international reputation as one of Israel’s most distinguished diplomats.

Previously, he served for nearly four years as Israel’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom, where he earned plaudits for his articulate and forthright defense of Israel’s position, publishing numerous articles throughout the British press and addressing the widest possible range of audiences throughout the country. Between 2004 and 2007 Prosor served as the Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, overseeing the work of the Foreign Ministry during the disengagement from Gaza in 2005.

His previous overseas service has included roles in Washington, London and Bonn. Mr. Prosor was instrumental in establishing diplomatic relations behind the Iron Curtain following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. He was also a member of Israel’s delegation to the Wye River Summit talks in 1998. Prosor served in Washington between 1998 and 2002 as the Minister-Counselor for Political Affairs at the Israeli Embassy, throughout the transition from the Clinton to Bush administrations after the presidential elections of 2000.

Stephanie Sharis

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Stephanie Sharis

Journalist, advocate

Stephanie Sharis is currently an Executive Strategist at Vaudeville Ventures. She previously served as Chief Executive Offer of DailyClout, a civic tech start-up that enables citizens to become political influencers through voter engagement tools. DailyClout was co-founded by Naomi Wolf, best-selling non-fiction author, and Lisa Thomas, founding CEO of Clif Bar.

In 2015, DailyClout secured a Knight Foundation Prototype Grant, one of only 20 winners from over 800 applicants, to help build its first government transparency product, BillCam. Before joining DailyClout, Stephanie served as Chief Operating Officer of SnagFilms, the pioneering digital distributor of independent film programming.

Sharis spoke at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards 2016.

Governor John Lynch

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Governor John Lynch

Businessman, politician

Governor John Lynch is a strong proponent of improving the quality of education, promoting job creation and economic development, reducing health care costs, ensuring public safety, and protecting New Hampshire’s environment and natural resources.

Governor Lynch has worked with Democrats and Republicans to make kindergarten available to every child, to cut New Hampshire’s high school dropout rate in half, pass the toughest laws in the nation to protect children from sexual predators, to reduce spending by making government more efficient and build the economy by making it easier for companies to retain and hire new workers, increasing job training and providing tax credits for research and development.

Twitter: @GovJohnLynch

William Shawcross

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william shawcross

Author, journalist

William Shawcross is a distinguished journalist, broadcaster and commentator who has covered international conflicts and conflict resolution and has reported for the Sunday Times, Time Magazine, Newsweek, and Rolling Stone magazine, among many other publications. He is the bestselling author of many books including biographies of Rupert Murdoch, the Shah of Iran and the official biography of the Queen Mother. In 2003, he was named New Statesman’s Man of the Year. He is a chairman of Article 19, a London based charity and pressure group which defends the rights of free expression enshrined in Article 19 of the Declaration of Human Rights; a board member of the International Crisis Group; and was a member of the High Commissioner for Refugees’ Informal Advisory Group from 1995–2000.

Mike Lux

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Mike Lux

Co-founder and President of Progressive Strategies, L.L.C.

Mike Lux is the Co-Founder and President of Progressive Strategies, L.L.C., a political consulting firm focused on strategic political consulting for non-profits, labor unions, PAC’s and progressive donors.

Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Political Action at People For the American Way (PFAW) and the PFAW Foundation, and served in the Clinton White House from January 1993 to mid-1995 as a Special Assistant to the President for Public Liaison. He also played a role in five different presidential campaign teams. In recent years, he co-founded the influential progressive blog OpenLeft.com, and served in a key liaison role to the progressive community upon being named to the transition team for Barack Obama.

Lux serves on the boards of several progressive organizations, including the Arca Foundation. In addition to serving on the board, he was a co-founder of Americans United for Change, Center for Progressive Leadership, Grassroots Democrats, PoliticsTV, Progressive Majority, and Women’s Voices Women Vote. He also played a role in helping launch the Center for American Progress and Air America.

Twitter: @ProgressiveLux

Gail Sheehy

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Gail Sheehy

Author, journalist

A world-renowned author, journalist, and popular lecturer, Gail Sheehy has interviewed thousands of women and men and written 17 books throughout her 50 years as a writer. Her earliest revolutionary book, Passages, was named by a Library of Congress survey as one of the ten most influential books of our times. Passages remained on The New York Times Bestseller List for more than three years and has been reprinted in 28 languages. Sheehy’s autobiography is called DARING: My Passages. It was published in September 2014 by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins.

Sheehy is also a journalist who has covered national and world leaders. She culminated a decade of following Hillary Clinton for Vanity Fair with the biography, Hillary’s Choice, exploring the personal ambitions and vulnerabilities that drive the world’s most public woman. She has written about the character and psychology of presidential candidates from Robert Kennedy to Barack Obama and world leaders from Margaret Thatcher to Saddam Hussein.

Sheehy convened The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama event at The Common Good in 2009.

Twitter: @Gale_Sheehy

Robert Shrum

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robert Shrum

Political advisor

Robert Shrum has been a senior adviser to the Gore 2000 presidential campaign, the campaign of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and the British Labour Party. In addition to being the chief strategist for the 2004 Kerry-Edwards campaign, Shrum has advised thirty winning U.S. Senate campaigns; eight winning campaigns for governor; mayors of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other major cities; and the Democratic Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. Shrum’s writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The New Republic, Slate, and other publications.

The author of No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner (Simon and Schuster), he is currently a Senior Fellow at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service. He is the Director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics and the Carmen H. and Louis Warschaw Chair in Practical Politics at the University of Southern California, where he is a Professor of the Practice of Political Science in the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Shrum spoke at The Common Good’s Elections 2012 Forecast – Mehlman, Shrum, Wolffe – November 17, 2011.

Twitter: @BobShrum

Cong. Nita Lowey

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representative Nita Lowey

U.S. Representative for 17th district of New York

Congresswoman Nita M. Lowey is currently serving her sixteenth term in Congress, representing parts of Westchester and Rockland Counties. She was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1988 and served in the Democratic Leadership in 2001 and 2002 as the first woman and the first New Yorker to chair the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. She is also the first woman to chair the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

Lowey is a leading Congressional proponent of educational opportunity, health care quality and biomedical research, improved homeland security preparedness, stricter public safety laws, environmental protection, women's issues, a leading international role for the United States, and national security. An outspoken supporter of transportation, nuclear, and infrastructure security, Lowey was appointed to the Select Committee on Homeland Security and recognized by the New York Post as “a key general in the battle to rebuild New York” for her leadership in securing over $20 billion for recovery efforts after September 11, 2001. She has been a champion of education throughout her career, fighting for school modernization, teacher development, and literacy programs. Under Lowey’s leadership, federal funding for after-school programs has increased from $1 million in 1996 to $1 billion today.

Twitter: @NitaLowey

Gary Sick

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Gary Sick

Academic

Gary Sick is a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Middle East Institute and an adjunct professor at the School of International and Public Affairs.

Sick served on the National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan. He was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis. Sick was a captain in the U.S. Navy, with service in the Persian Gulf, North Africa, and the Mediterranean.

From 1982 to 1987, Sick served as deputy director for international affairs at the Ford Foundation, where he was responsible for programs relating to U.S. foreign policy. He is a member (emeritus) of the board of Human Rights Watch in New York and founding chair of its advisory committee on the Middle East and North Africa. He is the executive director of Gulf/2000, an international online research project on political, economic and security developments in the Persian Gulf, being conducted at Columbia University since 1993 with support from a number of major foundations.

Zachary Karabell

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dr. Zachary Karabell

Head of Global Strategy at Envestnet

Zachary Karabell is Head of Global Strategy at Envestnet, a publicly traded financial services firm, and is President of River Twice Research. Previously, he was Executive Vice President, Chief Economist, and Head of Marketing at Fred Alger Management, a New York-based investment firm that manages approximately $22 billion. He was also President of Fred Alger & Company, Portfolio Manager of the China-U.S. Growth Fund (CHUSX), and Executive Vice President of Alger’s Spectra Funds. At Alger, he oversaw the creation, launch and marketing of several funds, led corporate strategy for strategic acquisitions, and represented the firm at public forums and in the media. He also ran the River Twice Fund from 2011-2013, an alternative investment fund which used sustainable business as its primary investment theme.

Dr. Karabell has taught at several leading universities, including Harvard and Dartmouth, and has written widely on economics, investing, history and international relations. His most recent book, The Leading Indicators: A Short History of the Numbers That Rule Our World, was published by Simon & Schuster in February 2014. He is the author of eleven previous books. He sits on the board of the New America Foundation and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, and in 2003, the World Economic Forum designated him a “Global Leader for Tomorrow.” He is a Senior Advisor for BSR, a membership organization that works with global corporations on issues of sustainability.

As a commentator, Karabell is a Contributing Editor for Politico and writes the Wealth of Nations column. Previously he wrote “The Edgy Optimist” column for Slate, Reuters, and The Atlantic. He is a regular commentator on MSNBC and was a Contributing Editor for The Daily Beast. He also contributes to such publications as The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times,The Financial Times, and Foreign Affairs.

Twitter: @zacharykarabell

Steve Liesman

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Steve Liesman

Journalist

As CNBC’s senior economics reporter, Steve Liesman reports on topics including the Federal Reserve and major economic indicators. He appears on Squawk Box, as well as other CNBC programs throughout the business day.

Liesman joined CNBC from The Wall Street Journal, where he served as a senior economics reporter covering monetary policy, international economics, academic research and productivity. At the Journal, Liesman worked as an energy reporter and Moscow bureau chief. He won an Emmy for his coverage of the financial crisis and was a member of the reporting team recognized with a Pulitzer Prize for stories chronicling the crash of the Russian financial markets.

Prior to joining the Journal in 1994, Liesman was the business editor for The Moscow Times, where, as the founding business editor for the country’s first English-language daily newspaper, he helped create the publication’s stock index, which was the country’s first. Liesman also has worked as a business reporter for both the St. Petersburg Times and The Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Twitter: @steveliesman

Senator Gordon Smith

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the honorable Gordon Smith

Former U.S. Senator for Oregon

Gordon Harold Smith is a former United States Senator and businessman from the state of Oregon. A Republican, he served two terms in the Senate. Prior to election to the U.S. Senate in 1996, he served in the Oregon State Senate, including one session as President of Oregon’s Senate in 1995. Smith was defeated for reelection in 2008 by Democrat Jeff Merkley. On September 18, 2009, he was named as President of the National Association of Broadcasters.

Smith was hosted by The Common Good in 2006 for a Meet & Greet.

Jon Soltz

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Jon Soltz

Political advocate

Jon Soltz is the Co-Founder and Chairman of the 400,000+ supporter veterans group, VoteVets.org.

He served twice in Iraq—in 2011 as a Major, helping train the Iraqi Army prior to the removal of US Troops, and in 2003, as a Captain during Operation Iraqi Freedom, deploying logistics convoys with the 1st Armored Division. In 2000 he served as a tank Platoon Leader in the Kosovo Conflict. As Chairman of VoteVets.org, Soltz has overseen the creation of a 400,000+ grassroots network of Veterans, military families, and civilian supporters. In his time as Chairman, VoteVets.org has raised over $20 million for VoteVets Action Fund and over $2 million for candidates, via VoteVets Political Action Committee.

Soltz is frequently quoted in major publications and frequently appears on cable shows, including Larry King Live on CNN, Nightline on ABC, PBS’ News Hour, the Dylan Ratigan Show, NewsNation with Tamron Hall, The Ed Show, and The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC, among other shows on many networks. He has been interviewed by the Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, Newsweek, Politico, Roll Call, The Hill, and many other national and local papers.

Twitter: @jonsoltz

Steve Levy

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Steve Levy

Politician

Steve Levy was the seventh County Executive of Suffolk County, New York, elected on November 4, 2003. Originally a fiscally conservative Democrat, Levy joined the Republican Party in an unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination for governor.

Levy has promoted strict anti-immigrant policies and has supported employer verification efforts and restrictions on drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants. On March 19, 2010, Levy announced that he would seek the Republican Party’s nomination for New York Governor, competing with former New York Congressman Rick Lazio and Buffalo developer Carl Paladino for the party nomination. Levy’s platform focused on getting the state’s financial house in order and reining in spending while decreasing property taxes. He also called for the creation of an independent control board, much like the ones formed by the state for counties who are in financial crisis, to help address New York’s fiscal woes.

Twitter: @SteveLevyNY

Maurice Sonnenberg

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Maurice Sonnenberg

American intelligence and financial advisor

Maurice Sonnenberg is a board member of Chertoff Group’s board of advisers. He is currently Co-Chair of the National Commission for the Review of the Research and Development Programs of the United States Intelligence Community, and a member of the Special Navy Advisory Panel to the Secretary of the Navy at the Department of Defense.

His professional experience includes being appointed to the U.S. Observer Team to observe Central American elections during the Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush and Bill Clinton Administrations, as well as being appointed to the President’s Export Council and White House Task Force on International Trade during the Jimmy Carter administration.

Sonnenberg introduced Steny Hoyer at a Breakfast and Discussion at The Common Good in 2009.

Tommy Sowers

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Tommy Sowers

Academic, politician, entrepreneur

Tommy Sowers was the 2010 Democratic nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives in Missouri’s 8th congressional district. He is a former U.S. Army Special Forces officer where he achieved the rank of Major.

In 2010, Sowers ran and lost against incumbent Representative Jo Ann Emerson. After the campaign, Sowers worked as the Senior Advisor to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the nation’s first and largest non-profit focused on improving the lives of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families.

In 2015, Sowers co-founded Goldenkey Networks, Inc., which includes GoldenKey, a venture backed real estate startup. Sowers currently serves as the Southeast Regional Director of MD5 National Security Technology Accelerator, a US Department of Defense program that works with research universities and the venture community to provide solutions for the immediate problems of warfighters.

Twitter: @sowers

Markos Moulitsas

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Markos Moulitsas

Founder of Daily Kos, publisher

Markos Moulitsas is the founder and proprietor of Daily Kos—a weblog focusing on progressive, liberal, and Democratic Party politics. In its first year, Daily Kos attracted over 1.6 million unique visits and about 3 million pageviews. It is now a part of Vox Media.

Moulitsas was named the single most successful entrepreneur of the progressive movement by NY Times magazine writer and author Matt Bai. Moulitsas is also co-author of the critically acclaimed book Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics, and author of Taking on the System: Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era. He is a contributing columnist to Newsweek Magazine and a weekly columnist at The Hill newspaper. He was named one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics in the world by People en Español, clocked in at third in Forbe's Web Celeb 25 rankings, and was listed 26th in PC World's list of the Most Important People on the Web.

Moulitsas spoke at The Common Good as part of the 2008 Democratic National Convention Panel.

Twitter: @markos