The Comm

Emily Rafferty

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Emily Rafferty

President of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Emily Rafferty is president of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the nation’s largest and most comprehensive art museum, which she has served since 1976. Ms. Rafferty has also served since 2008 as chairwoman of NYC & Company, the City’s official tourism and marketing agency. In addition, Ms. Rafferty is a member of the board of directors of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. In 2012, she received the New York University Lewis Rudin Award for Exemplary Service to New York City, and was named one of New York’s 100 most influential women by Crain’s New York Business between 2009 and 2013.

Rafferty provided an update on the Smithsonian Women’s Museum in Washington D.C. at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards, 2019 and spoke about constructing the Women’s History Museum at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards 2017.

Chemi Peres

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Chemi Peres

Managing General Partner and Co-Founder of Pitango

Chemi Peres is a Managing General Partner and Co-Founder of Pitango. In 1992, he founded the Mofet Israel Technology Fund, an Israeli venture capital fund publicly traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Prior to Mofet, Chemi held managerial positions at Decision Systems Israel (DSI). Chemi also served as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force for 10 years.

He currently serves on the boards of numerous Pitango portfolio companies. Chemi also serves as a board member in several non-for-profit organizations. He is chairman of the Peres center for Peace, board member at Social Finance Israel and serves on the board of Governors of The Jewish Diaspora Museum.

Peres spoke at The Common Good in 2017: "No Room for Small Dreams: Courage, Imagination and the Making of Modern Israel".

Twitter: @chemiperes

Jose Antonio Vargas

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Jose Antonio Vargas

Journalist, filmmaker, activist

Jose Antonio Vargas is a journalist, filmmaker, and immigration rights activist. He was part of The Washington Post team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting in 2008 for coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings online and in print. Vargas also has worked for The San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Daily News, and The Huffington Post. He wrote, produced, and directed the autobiographical 2013 film, Documented, which CNN Films broadcast in June 2014.

In a June 2011 essay in The New York Times Magazine, Vargas revealed his status as an undocumented immigrant in an effort to promote dialogue about the immigration system in the U.S. and to advocate for the DREAM Act, which would provide children in similar circumstances with a path to citizenship. A year later, a day after the publication of his Time cover story about his continued uncertainty regarding his immigration status, the Obama administration announced it was halting the deportation of undocumented immigrants age 30 and under, who would be eligible for the DREAM Act. Vargas, who had just turned 31, did not qualify.

Vargas is the founder of Define American, a nonprofit organization intended to open up dialogue about the criteria people use to determine who is an American.

Vargas was awarded the American Spirit Award for Citizen Activism at The Common Good Forum & The American Spirit Awards 2014.

Twitter: @joseiswriting