Dana Beth
Ardi
David
Bell
Allen
Blue
Arthur B.
Cohen
Mary
D’Souza
Giselle
Fernandez
David
Fisher
Norman M. Friedland
Tsvi
Gal
Uri D.
Herscher
George
Hornig
Leon
Janks
Sherry
Lansing
Mark
Minevich
Courtney
Mizel
Barry
Munitz
Armando
Nuñez
Chelsea
Peters
Rosemary
Sanger
Marty
Secada
Michael Jay Solomon
Lorraine
Spurge
Jacqueline
Valouch
Michelle
Weise
Sarah
Zapp
© Copyright 2024 by Structural Unemployment, LLC dba WorkingNation
Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.
Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.
Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.
Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.
Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.
Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.
David Bell, Executive Committee, served as chief executive officer of two of the world’s largest Advertising Marketing Services holding companies, NYSE-listed True North and Interpublic. He was also CEO of Bozell Worldwide, which he helped grow from modest mid-western roots to a top-ten global agency. When Bozell was acquired by True North, he was named CEO. When True North was acquired by Interpublic, he was named CEO.
David was elected by his peers into the Advertising Hall of Fame in 2007. He is the only Industry Executive ever to lead four Industry Groups: the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4’As); the American Advertising Federation (AAF); the Ad Council; and the Advertising Educational Foundation (AEF). In 2013, The Hall of Fame established the David Bell Award to go to one inductee who best has demonstrated this kind of industry service.
After retiring from Interpublic, David set out to create a new kind of Global B2B Agency. Gyro became Ad Age’s Global B2B Agency of the Year and the BMA Global B2B Agency of the Year in 2014-2016.
David was a senior advisor to Google from 2006-2009 and has been in a similar position with AOL/Oath since 2009. He has also served as Chairman of the National Forest Foundation, the Industry’s, PAC, and the Ad Council’s Advisory Committee. He was also a two-time trustee for his Alma mater, Macalester College, which awarded him their Distinguished Citizen Award. He has served on numerous listed company boards, as well as many early and growth stage companies in the marketing and media technology space.
Allen Blue, Executive Committee, is Vice President of Product Management and Co-founder of LinkedIn, the online professional network. At LinkedIn, he is responsible for LinkedIn’s overall Product Strategy. He also sponsors LinkedIn’s Work and Education products within the Economic Graph team, including the products and platforms supporting Skillful.com (a joint effort to close the middle skills gap in the US between LinkedIn and the Markle Foundation) and TechHire.
He advises several startups in Silicon Valley, most focused on improving health and education. He sits on the U.S. Commerce Department’s Data Advisory Council, helping guide the department’s efforts to make its data broadly available to American businesses.
Allen serves on the board of the Hope Street Group, a non-profit which focuses on bringing economic opportunity to Americans through a combination of policy and practice. Allen focuses on Workforce projects at Hope Street.
Before LinkedIn, Allen co-founded SocialNet.com, an online dating service, and graduated from Stanford University.
Arthur B. Cohen, Executive Committee, is a Founding Partner of HealthCor Management, L.P. and HealthCor Partners Management, L.P. Mr. Cohen is a Portfolio Manager at HealthCor Management which invests in all sectors of healthcare across multiple strategies. He also serves on the Investment Committee of HealthCor Partners which is focused on late stage venture and growth equity private investments in healthcare.
Prior to the launch of Healthcor in 2005, Mr. Cohen served in senior investment roles as a portfolio manager for S.A.C. Capital Advisors and as a managing director at Tiger Management. Mr. Cohen graduated from the University of Virginia in 1983 with a B.S. in Commerce and received his M.B.A. from Hofstra University in 1986.
He is actively involved in many charitable causes including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Israel Education Foundation.
Mary D’Souza, Executive Committee, is the chief investment officer of Misha Investments and CFO & director of a biotech company. She is also an investor and senior advisor at Star Mountain and a board member of Community Access. Mary has extensive experience in investing and capital markets. She has 20+ years of private credit, equity, real-estate, fund investing, commercial, and investing banking and C-level operational experience through various senior roles at GE Capital, Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, and Four M Investments.
Prior to Misha Investments, Mary worked for three years at Four M Investments where she was chief investment officer and CFO for the family office. She was responsible for cash management, tax planning and investments in fixed income, equity, MLPs, preferreds, real estate, and funds.
Mary worked for nine years as a managing director at GE Capital Markets where she was responsible for establishing and running the junior capital business and helped set up the unitranche fund with Allied Capital (later sold to Ares). She built deep relationships with banks, private equity funds, hedge funds, distressed funds, mezzanine funds, insurance companies, BDCs, and other alternate sources of capital. She placed over $13 billion in volume and 150+ deals, which included acquisition financing, refinancing, recapitalizations, restructurings (Radnet, CCA), DIPS (Delta DIP), EXITS (Delta, US Air), amendments, and trading of loans.
Giselle Fernandez, Executive Committee, is a six-time Emmy award-winning journalist. Since the start of her career, Giselle has been known for her cutting-edge reporting in hot spots throughout the world and interviewing prominent global and local leaders.
Today, this veteran anchor, two-time winner of the L.A. Press Club’s Journalist of the Year, showcases her talent each morning on Your Morning on Spectrum News 1, helping Southern Californians get all the information they need to start their day, and on the Emmy Award-winning weekly series L.A. Stories with Giselle Fernandez, highlighting people who shape lives and create an impact throughout the community.
Giselle has held many titles throughout her career. Aside from anchor and journalist for NBC, CBS, the History Channel, and History Channel International, she is an author and philanthropist, as well as president, director and producer of her own production and strategic messaging companies.
She is the recipient of numerous honors and awards in the fields of journalism and philanthropy. Out of Giselle’s portfolio as a reporter, a notable moment was the rare interview she did with Fidel Castro. She is also incredibly proud of her documentary film titled, “Our Story,” which raised awareness of the healthcare crisis facing low income children in the Latin community.
When Giselle is not at the anchor desk you can catch her spending time with her daughter, hiking with her dogs, enjoying music and the power of the arts. She is actively engaged in philanthropic pursuits with City Year Los Angeles and The Grammy Museum and is a passionate collector of Latin art.
David Fisher, Executive Committee, joined Berman Capital Advisors in 2018 as its Executive Chairman, having previously been a member of the firm’s Advisory Board. In January of 2018, David assumed the role of President, where his focus is on continued growth, strategy development and culture.
Prior to joining Berman, David served in several C-suite roles in family/closely-held businesses in a variety of industries including packaging, chemicals, fulfillment, and even summer camping. Working in the non-profit sector, from 2012-2016, Fisher was the President and CEO of the Birthright Israel Foundation, an organization that raises approximately $100MM per year in support of nearly 50,000 young adults educational trips to Israel each year.
David performs consulting work through Coalesce Advisors for Chicago-based The Pritzker Organization and Atlanta-based Selig Enterprises/AAA Parking.
David is a 1987 graduate of Indiana University, with a BA in Political Science. Throughout his career, David has served many local and national organizations as a leader, board member, and contributor. David participated in Leadership Cincinnati Class XXII and was recognized as a Cincinnati ’40 Under 40’, by the Cincinnati Business Courier. David previously was a member of Young Presidents Organization, was National Young Leadership Co-Chair and then National Campaign Chair for the Jewish Federations of North America. David and his wife, Stacey, have been members of the Defining Moments Society.
Norman Friedland, Executive Committee, started his legal career at Cravath, Swaine and Moore.
Friedland has more than three decades of transactional experience in public offerings, private placements, IPOs, and venture investments. He has worked with prominent venture capital funds, entrepreneurs, and firms including Hambrecht & Quist, Robertson Stephens, Montgomery Securities, First Boston, and Morgan Stanley.
He was general counsel to New York State Economic Development Corporation with responsibility for Times Square Redevelopment and the Rensselaer Technology Transfer Incubator. Friedland has advised health care- and biotech-focused venture capital funds and founding teams of life science companies, including the National Foundation for Cancer Research and a European venture with nanofluidics diagnostic technology. He has deep expertise in Program Related Investments, giving commentary to the IRS and developing financial models using PRIs that have been evaluated by MIT’s Laboratory for Financial Engineering.
Friedland graduated from New York University School of Law, where he was a John Ben Snow Scholar and a Root-Tilden Scholar.
Tsvi Gal, Executive Committee, is a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley. Tsvi has over 25 years of technology and operations experience mostly in financial services global corporations.
Tsvi’s career included work as CTO and CIO in several banks including Merrill Lynch/Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, and Wells Fargo as well as in non-banks including general partner of a private equity firm, president of AT&T.com and CIO of Time Warner Music.
Uri D. Herscher, Executive Committee, is the visionary and founder of the Skirball Cultural Center. He led the Skirball from its inception in the early 1980s and was named Founding President and CEO when the institution opened to the public in October 1995. He served in that role until June 2020. Dr. Herscher is a scholar, administrator, and rabbi whose abiding commitment to Jewish values—which he embraces as universally ethical in essence and practice—has infused the Skirball throughout its history.
Prior to founding the Skirball Cultural Center, Dr. Herscher was Executive Vice President and Dean of Faculty of the four-campus Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC–JIR), a position he held for twenty-five years (1970–1995). During that time, he also held the position of Professor of American Jewish History. Over the course of his academic career, Dr. Herscher authored several influential books on the history and sociology of American Jewry, among them On Jews, America, and Immigration (American Jewish Archives), Jewish Agricultural Utopias in America (Wayne State University Press), A Century of Memories, 1882–1982: The Eastern European Experience in America (American Jewish Archives), and Queen City Refuge (Behrman House).
Among his civic contributions to the city, Dr. Herscher served a five-year term (2001–2006) as one of five commissioners on the Los Angeles Ethics Commission. Throughout his years of institutional and communal leadership, Dr. Herscher sought to build public support and appreciation for the constructive role of immigration in American life. Under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security at a White House ceremony in April 2016, Dr. Herscher was recognized by US Citizenship and Immigration Services as an Outstanding American by Choice. This honor is bestowed upon a select few naturalized citizens who have made significant contributions to this nation through civic participation
Dr. Herscher was born in Tel Aviv in 1941 to German Jewish refugee parents who had fled Hitler’s rise to power and made their way to British Mandate Palestine in the mid-1930s. His grandparents and many relatives were murdered in Nazi death camps. In the mid-1950s, Dr. Herscher immigrated with his family to the United States, settling in San Jose, California. As an undergraduate at the University of California at Berkeley, Dr. Herscher co-founded Cal Camp, a summer camp for underprivileged children in the Bay Area, which continues to operate today. He graduated with honors in 1964 with degrees in history and sociology. He was ordained a rabbi at HUC–JIR in 1970, and received a doctorate in American Jewish history in 1973. Dr. Herscher holds honorary degrees from the University of Southern California, the University of Judaism, and Hebrew Union College.
Dr. Herscher and his wife, Dr. Myna Herscher, have four sons and seven grandchildren.
George Hornig, Executive Committee, is a venture investor, advisor, and director of many public and private companies spanning diverse sectors including fin tech, manufacturing, healthcare, and cybersecurity.
From 2010-2016, George was a Senior Managing Director of PineBridge Investments, an asset manager with over $80 billion under management. George led the restructuring of the operations of this former division of AIG Insurance to make it an independent company after its divestiture, including reducing annualized company expenses by more than $60 million. He is Chairman of The Seed Lab, an early-stage consumer impact fund, and Lasso Partners, an M&A advisory firm.
Prior to joining PineBridge, George spent 11 years at Credit Suisse Asset Management as Global Chief Operating Officer. Prior to that, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Americas, at Deutsche Bank. In 1988, he was a co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Wasserstein Perella and Company, following his tenure at The First Boston Corp. George also practiced law for two years at Skadden Arps at the start of his career.
George is currently of a director of Forrester Research (public technology research company), Chairman of KBL Merger IV (public SPAC), a director of Edelman (communications marketing firm), a director of Babiators (children’s sunglasses company) and a director of Xometry (on-demand manufacturing platform).
George received his AB in Economics from Harvard College, his MBA from Harvard Business School and his JD from Harvard Law School.
Leon Janks, Executive Committee, has more than 45 years of experience in the areas of audit and accounting, tax planning and general business consulting. He advises his clients on matters related to strategic planning, profitability, mergers and acquisitions, and buying and selling businesses. Leon serves clients in a wide variety of industries, including manufacturing distribution and retail.
Leon is a member of the California Society of CPAs and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
On a global scale, Leon represents Green Hasson Janks in HLB International, a 100-country network of accounting firms. He is a member of the Board of Directors and chairs both the Audit and Finance Committees for PriceSmart, a publicly held company in San Diego.
Leon is a member of the Audit Committee at the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles. He is also a Board Member of the World Trade Center and the past Chairman of the Milken Community Schools where he now sits on the Executive Committee of the Board.
Leon has a master’s degree in Accounting and a bachelor’s degree in Commerce.
Sherry Lansing, Executive Committee, spent almost 30 years in the motion picture business, and was involved in the production, marketing, and distribution of more than 200 films, including Academy Award winners Forrest Gump, Braveheart, and Titanic. Throughout her film career, Lansing earned a reputation as a trailblazer, a visionary leader, and a creative filmmaker.
In 1980, she became the first woman to head a major film studio when she was appointed President of 20th Century Fox. Later, as an independent producer, Lansing was responsible for such successful films as Fatal Attraction, The Accused, School Ties, Indecent Proposal, and Black Rain. Returning to the executive ranks in 1992, she was named chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures and began an unprecedented tenure that lasted more than 12 years (1992-2005).
Mark Minevich, Executive Committee, is a president and founding partner of Going Global Ventures, a digital cognitive and AI strategist working with large global corporations and prominent foundations, a global thought leader, an investor, and an artificial intelligence expert.
Minevich dedicates innovation efforts and AI knowledge to amplifying capabilities and positively impacting climate change and social innovation agenda. Throughout his professional journey, he endeavored to showcase how AI can bridge knowledge gaps, drive innovation, and lead humanity toward a brighter, equitable future.
He is a respected voice in the tech innovation community and contributes to several publications, including Fast Company, Forbes, VentureBeat, WEF, Entrepreneur, Observer, TechCrunch, Information Week, CIO Magazine, and Cognitive World. His work has been cited and featured in articles and has appeared in Newsweek CIO Magazine, Hitachi Review Japan, Telegraph UK, CNBC, and other influential media outlets. Additionally, Minevich has published three books, including Our Planet Powered by AI in 2023.
Courtney Mizel, Executive Committee, was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. Her life overflows with educational pursuits, entrepreneurial projects, community leadership, and engagement balanced with family, friends, and trying to make a significant difference in the world.
Mizel attended the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating Cum Laude. From there, she enrolled in the Peter Stark Producing Program at USC. In 1998, Mizel produced her first feature film, Tortilla Heaven. She also produced the comedic play Jewtopia, as well as the feature film adaptation.
Mizel has a long career as a consultant to a number of businesses, from startups to established operations, both for profit and nonprofit, advising them in the areas of operations, business development, marketing, and change management. Her consulting work is industry agnostic, and she continues to look for new opportunities to apply her 22 years of knowledge and experience, but is especially passionate about working with social entrepreneurs, helping them to build sustainable organization that serve the needs of a variety of different communities.
Mizel holds a law degree from USC Law School. She is a co-founder of EndWorldTerror.com, an organization aimed at educating the public about terrorism and the founder of the Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab (The CELL), based in Denver, which is committed to educating and empowering individuals and organizations to combat terrorism.
After being diagnosed with stage 2b breast cancer in 2009, she became a lead advocate and fundraiser for the Cancer League of Colorado, for breast cancer research, as well as providing peer-to-peer support through both Sharsheret and Immerman’s Angels.
In 2019, Mizel was the first woman elected to the Board of Directors of MDC Holdings, a NYSE-listed public homebuilding company. She currently serves on the Board’s legal committee. With a deep interest in youth and teen mental health, Courtney has served on a number of task forces including BBYO’s international Wellness and Inclusion Committee and Camp Ramah of California’s Teen Safety Initiative.
Mizel is a former member of the Jewish Federations of North America National Young Leadership Cabinet as well as the Milken Institute Young Leaders Circle and is a graduate of the Wexner Jewish Heritage fellowship. She serves on the Board of Directors of Sharewell, where she recently served as the Capital Campaign Co-Chair, playing a significant role in the planning and execution of the new, 20,000 square foot Cayton Children’s Museum at Santa Monica Place. She also serves on the National Board of Sharsheret, and was the co-chair of the California Advisory Counsel. Mizel is involved as a board member of BBYO International (recipient of 2019 Alumnus of the Year), ROSIES Foundation, Camp Ramah of California, and the Mizel Institute. She also served on the board of JQ International and was the recipient of the 2017 Community Leadership Award.
Barry Munitz, Executive Committee, is president of the Cotsen Foundations for the Art of Teaching and for Academic Research, chancellor emeritus of the California State University System, vice chair of the Broad Family Education Foundation (TBC), and senior advisor to the Milken Institute.
Munitz served as president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, overseeing the two museums, the Foundation, the Research and the Conservation Institutes, and supervising the multi-billion dollar endowment portfolio. At California State University, he led the expansion from 18 to 23 campuses, with student enrollment now reaching well over one half million, and more than 50,000 employees.
Munitz is the founding chair of Generation Three (an international family office) and continues as an original director of Rocky Mountain Resources and its subsidiaries, and chaired the San Diego Zoo Global Foundation Board. He was a trustee at the Courtauld Institute in London, chaired the Houston Grand Opera board, and served for 20 years as a director of Navient (formerly Sallie Mae), as well as being a director of the publicly-held entities Sun America Corporation, Kaufman & Broad, and LeapFrog. For a decade, Munitz served as president, then executive vice chair of several publicly-held, for-profit companies. A Princeton University Emeritus Trustee, he also chaired the transition committee for Governor-Elect Gray Davis, continues as a director of Sherry Lansing’s EnCorps Foundation, and was a member of the Radcliffe Board serving on its task force to complete a merger with Harvard University.
Munitz is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and held the White House seat on the Congressional Higher Education Cost Commission. He chaired the boards for Sierra Nevada College, and for the American Council of Education, and was the original (and the only) chair of California’s P-16 Council.
Munitz was chancellor of the University of Houston and academic vice president of the University of Illinois system. He received a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Princeton University, after a Baccalaureate degree (PBK/MCL/Woodrow Wilson Fellow) at Brooklyn College, and taught literature as the Trustee Professor at CSU Los Angeles. Munitz holds honorary degrees from Whittier College, Claremont Graduate University, the California State University, the University of Southern California, Notre Dame, Pepperdine, and the University of Edinburgh.
Armando Nuñez, Executive Committee, is advisor and former CEO, Global Distribution Group for ViacomCBS. In this role, Nuñez counsels the company on content licensing, including worldwide multiplatform distribution and domestic syndication, for ViacomCBS-owned programming to third-party platforms.
Nuñez, who previously transformed CBS Studios International into a worldwide distribution leader, was named chairman, Global Distribution Group and chief content licensing officer for ViacomCBS when Viacom and CBS completed its merger in December 2019. He was charged with leading the integration of CBS and Paramount’s global licensing/distribution and network teams before transitioning to an advisory role.
Executive Committee
Chelsea is an expert social impact leader. She is committed to creating opportunity and connection by working with the world’s leading organizations tackling the world’s most formidable challenges.
Formerly the Deputy Executive Director & Chief Strategy Officer at the Walton Family Foundation, as well as SVP & Chief Regional Strategy & Operations Officer at UNICEF USA, Chelsea excels in accelerating growth across sectors, industries and geographies by uniting diverse stakeholders around a shared vision for impact. She has led organizational restructures, strategy design and management, and global development efforts that have rapidly scaled community-driven outcomes, policy change and record-breaking fundraising.
Chelsea was selected to Fortune’s Most Powerful Women and is a Founding Member of Chief.
In 2022, Chelsea was named an Aspen Ideas Fellow and joined the Executive Committee of WorkingNation to prepare the nation’s workforce for the careers of the future.
Marty Secada, Executive Committee, is the founder of Broad and Wall Advisors (BWA). BWA are advisors to institutional investors and alternative funds, assisting them with strategy, networking, global deal-sourcing, business development, fund-raising initiatives, and investor relations outreach and strategies.
Marty and his team have reviewed and/or made recommendations on more than 30,000 deal and fund sponsor offerings. Areas covered are alternative investments, private equity, private credit, venture capital, hedge funds, real estate strategies, crypto, NFTs and SPACs, and many other parts of the investment stack.
He is the founder of multiple networks and is an expert convener for purposes of capital raising and financial product dissemination for peer to peer investor networks. These networks create cooperative work situations for different investment themes where there may be arbitrage opportunities. That includes the Ivy Family Office Network (IVYFON) which over more than 15 years has had more than 50,000 participants ranging over the gamut of investment strategies and opportunities.
Other groups Marty founded include multiple networks of hedge fund, private equity, and venture capital investors. In total, he has led more than 350 investor forums and meetings in more than 30 cities.
He is the owner of High Plains Capital, a holding group, and has owned businesses that have included Goldman Sachs, UBS, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, and Chase as their clients.
He is a thought and action leader on diversity in alternative funds having presented several hundred women-, minority-, and veteran-owned funds to his audience.
Marty has a Masters of Business Administration in Finance from the Wharton School of Business, a Bachelors Degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a Masters in Artificial Intelligence and Big Data from Drexel University and he studied Alternative Investments at New York University. He has lectured at the Wharton School of business and Drexel University graduate school of business on these topics.
Michael Jay Solomon, Executive Committee, has been the largest distributor of American television content in the world for the last 40 years. He has run major media companies and pioneered the international marketplace for the American television industry, literally putting most of the U.S. TV networks on the air in Latin America.
He was hired by MCA (now Comcast, Universal, NBC) to start their Latin American television division. After14 years with MCA and eight years with United Artists, he founded Telepictures Corporation where he was chairman and CEO. Seven years later, Telepictures merged with Lorimar to form Lorimar Telepictures Corp., and he became the new company’s president and served on its Board of Directors.
When Lorimar Telepictures was acquired by Warner Bros. Michael then became president of Warner Bros. International Television, heading up the company’s sales and marketing to television, cable and satellite companies internationally. Under his leadership, Warner Bros. became the largest TV program distribution company in the world.
He is a co-founder of HBO Latin America, the leading pay-TV service in Latin America.
Following a five-year tenure at Warner Bros., Michael left to launch his own television communications company, Solomon Entertainment Enterprises.
Michael served on the Board of Overseers of New York University’s Stern School of Business for three decades and is a special advisor to the president of Emerson College in Boston. He is a founder of The Sam Spiegel Film & Television School in Jerusalem and was founding chairman of The Jerusalem Foundation of the West Coast of the United States.
He was educated at New York University’s Stern School of Business and Boston’s Emerson College, where he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Law degree.
Lorraine Spurge, Executive Committee, has more than 40 years of business and financial experience and is the founder and CEO of Maplestone Capital Advisors, LLC, a family office.
Spurge began her career in finance in the 1970s and became one of the most successful women on Wall Street. She managed the capital markets group for Drexel Burnham Lambert in the 1980s. At Drexel, she helped raise more than $200 billion for middle market growth companies.
For the next two decades, she was an entrepreneur and CEO of International Capital Access, Knowledge Exchange and Spurge Ink!
Jacqueline Valouch, Executive Committee, is the Head of Philanthropy for Deutsche Bank Wealth Management, based in New York. She leads global philanthropy efforts, working closely with private bankers, clients and their advisors on strategic philanthropy and charitable solutions. To that end, she helps clients align their charitable legacy with their overall wealth planning objectives. In addition, she counsels clients who wish to include the next generation in their charitable plans and who are seeking far-reaching and innovative approaches to their giving.
Jacqueline has over 20 years of experience in the philanthropic area. After nearly a decade in private practice, Valouch joined Fidelity Charitable where, for the past 15 years, she led a team of charitable planning experts, and advised individuals, families and their advisors on how to incorporate charitable giving into their long-term planning goals.
Jacqueline has been featured as a subject matter expert at numerous conferences and panels on a variety of charitable planning topics. She holds a B.A. from the State University of New York at Albany and a J.D. from New York Law School, where she served as an adjunct professor of law teaching Charitable Organizations. Jacqueline sits on the Board of Directors for the Armory Foundation and is also a leadership member of the local Chapter of the EllevateNetwork, a global professional network dedicated to the economic engagement of women worldwide.
Dr. Michelle Weise, Executive Committee, leads Long Life Learning Strategies, a consulting firm for organizations seeking to prepare working-age adults for a longer future of work. Her award-winning book, Long Life Learning: Preparing for Jobs that Don’t Even Exist Yet, was recognized by University Professional and Continuing Education Association as the most outstanding work of continuing higher education literature in 2021. That same year, Thinkers50 named her one of 30 management and leadership thinkers in the world to watch.
Michelle’s consulting expertise was honed through varied experiences leading strategy and innovation for higher education institutions, funders, and workforce development organizations. Some of those leadership roles include serving as Vice Chancellor of Strategy and Innovation at National University System, Senior Advisor at Imaginable Futures, Chief Innovation Officer of Strada Education Network as well as of Southern New Hampshire University. With Clayton Christensen, she co-authored the book, Hire Education: Mastery, Modularization, and the Workforce Revolution (2014) while leading the higher education practice at Christensen’s Institute for Disruptive Innovation.
Her service work includes advising and mentoring numerous non-profit and venture-backed startups as well as serving as a commissioner for Massachusetts Governor Baker’s Commission on Digital Innovation and Lifelong Learning, Harvard University’s Task Force on Skills and Employability, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education.
In addition to a TED talk, Michelle’s commentaries on redesigning higher education and developing more innovative workforce and talent pipeline strategies have been featured in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Harvard Business Review and on PBSNewshour.
Michelle is a former Fulbright Scholar and a graduate of Harvard and Stanford. She received her doctorate from Stanford in 2008, and in 2024, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Indiana Tech.
Sarah Zapp, Executive Committee, is an entrepreneur, award-winning journalist, and relationship curator.
She is the CEO and Founder of Beyond Board. Beyond Board is a nationwide community of today’s best board members and board-eligible executives with live events, virtual offerings, board placement opportunities, and a mission to place more women and diversity on boards.
In 2019, one of the largest private investment banks, Brown Brothers Harriman, named her one of the 19 “Women to Watch.” She also advises, consults, and sits on the board of advisors for various start-ups. Zapp is a speaker and panelist on the topic of building relationships and board diversification, recently featured at national TED Women’s conference, Goldman Sachs Women’s Symposium and Harvard Business Review.
Formerly, she was the director of strategic relationships for IVY, where she built a national thought leader and investor relations program for 20,000 young professionals.
As a TV host, reporter, and producer, Sarah earned multiple Telly awards and 8 Emmy nominations. She worked for Comcast as their national entertainment and political reporter, interviewing some of today’s biggest names in entertainment and politics. She also executive produced and hosted her own weekly talk show, New England Newsmakers. She spent time in local news at WB56 in Boston and anchored the morning and noon news at KARK (NBC) in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Zapp graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and holds a Master Degree in Communication Studies from Boston University.
