Past Speakers

Wendy Pangburn

we.jpg

Wendy Pangburn

Seasoned Executive

Wendy S. Pangburn is an executive with over three decades of success in creating and implementing international and national programs and special projects. She also advises global clients on good governance, public relations and change management. Her particular leadership and expertise in nonprofit and association management has benefited not-for-profit organizations, as well as high profile individuals, and government, corporate and political entities.

Wendy Pangburn spoke on the progress of the Smithsonian Women’s Museum in Washington D.C. at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards, 2019.

Pete Peterson ✝

ap_18079647556038.jpg

Peter Peterson ✝

Investment banker, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce

Peter George Peterson was the founder and chairman of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to raising awareness of America’s long-term fiscal challenges and promoting solutions to ensure a better economic future. Prior to starting the Foundation, Peterson spent more than 50 years working in business and public service. In 1985, he co-founded The Blackstone Group, and over the next two decades he helped grow the firm into a global leader in alternative investments. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, Peterson served as chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers and Lehman Brothers, Kuhn, Loeb Inc. Before working in Washington, Pete was Chairman and CEO of audio-visual equipment manufacturer Bell & Howell, and an executive at advertising firm McCann Erickson.

Peterson’s public service began in 1971, when President Richard Nixon named him Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs. One year later, he was named U.S. Secretary of Commerce. At that time, he also assumed the chairmanship of President Nixon’s National Commission on Productivity and was appointed U.S. Chairman of the U.S.-Soviet Commercial Commission. He again took on a public service role from 2000 to 2004, when he chaired the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

In addition to his work with the Foundation, Peterson was chairman emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, founding chairman of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC, and founding president of The Concord Coalition. Along with former U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow, he co-chaired the Conference Board Commission on Public Trust and Private Enterprise. He served as a director of numerous corporations and was the author of five books, including the best-selling Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It (2004) and his recently published memoir, The Education of an American Dreamer: How a Son of Greek Immigrants Learned His Way from a Nebraska Diner to Washington, Wall Street, and Beyond.

Peterson passed away at the age of 91 on March 20th, 2018.

He was hosted by The Common Good in 2008: The Crisis We Don't Like to Talk About.

Doug Schoen

xx.jpg

Doug Schoen

Political analyst

Douglas Schoen is an American political analyst, pollster, author, and commentator. He is currently a political analyst for Fox News. Schoen partnered with political strategist Mark Penn and Michael Berland in the firm of Penn, Schoen & Berland.

Doug Schoen has been one of the most influential Democratic campaign consultants for over thirty years. A founding partner and principal strategist for Penn, Schoen & Berland, he is widely recognized as one of the co-inventors of overnight polling.

He has worked on the campaigns of many Democratic party candidates, including Ed Koch and Bill Clinton, as well as on behalf of corporate clients. He also worked for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and was a consultant for Jeff Greene in the 2010 Florida Senate election.

He is the author of multiple books, most recently publishing, The End of Democracy.  He is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and various other newspaper and online publications. He is also a Fox News Contributor, making appearances on various news programs several times a week.

Schoen spoke at The Common Good in 2010: Election Insurrection: The Mid-Term Elections 2010.

Doug Schoen participated in Recap: Final Presidential Debate Panel on October 23, 2020. Schoen, Bitecofer and McFadden help unpacked what happened during the final Presidential debate. 

Twitter: @DouglasEShoen

Alan Schwartz

BN-XW461_SCHWAR_8SR_20180315133133.jpg

Alan Schwartz

Businessman

Alan Schwartz joined Guggenheim Partners, a global, independent, and privately held financial services firm in June, 2009. Guggenheim Partners is a premier asset management and investment advisory firm with expertise in fixed income, equity, alternatives, and advisory solutions. Schwartz was previously Chief Executive Officer of The Bear Stearns Companies. During his career with Bear Stearns, he also served as President and Chief Operating Officer, and Head of Investment Banking. He previously worked in various capacities with Wertheim & Company and R.W. Pressprich & Company.

Alan Schwartz is a member of the boards of the Robin Hood Foundation, Marvin and Palmer, MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership, American Foundation for AIDS Research, NYU Langone Medical Center, Clinton Health Access Initiative and Madison Square Garden.

Schwartz spoke alongside Stephanie Ruhle in “Growing a Fair Economy” at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards, 2019 on May 10th, 2019, and spoke at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards 2016. Schwartz also moderated the History in the Making: Post-Election Panel 2016 with Carl Bernstein, Kellyanne Conway, and Governor William Weld.

Brian Schweitzer

ff.jpg

governor Brian Schweitzer

23rd Governor of Montana

Brian David Schweitzer is an American politician who was the 23rd Governor of Montana between January 2005 and 2013. Schweitzer had one of the highest approval ratings among governors in the nation, with polls regularly showing a rating of above 60 percent. Schweitzer also chaired the Western Governors Association, chaired the Democratic Governors Association, and served as President of the Council of State Governments in 2011.

The same year Schweitzer completed his term as Montana Governor he was named to the board of directors of Stillwater Mining Company on May 2, and was subsequently chosen as non-executive Chairman on May 17, 2013.

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

Twitter: @brianschweitzer

Sally Quinn

df.jpg

Sally Quinn

Washington Post journalist, columnist, television commentator

Sally Quinn is a longtime Washington Post journalist, columnist, television commentator, Washington insider, and founder of the religious website On Faith from the Washington Post. She writes for various publications and is the author of The Party: A Guide to Adventurous Entertaining, Regrets Only, Happy Endings, Finding Magic: A spiritual memoir and We’re Going to Make You a Star, a memoir based on her experience as the first female network anchor in the United States. She lives in Washington, DC.

Quinn participated in The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards, 2019 on May 10, 2019. She spoke on the “Women & Power” panel alongside former Congresswoman Mia Love, Alessandra Stanley, and Kay Koplovitz, moderated by Juju Chang.

Twitter: @sallyquinndc

Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

Kathleen%2BSebelius.jpg

Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

Former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services

Kathleen Sebelius has been a leader on health care, family and seniors issues for over 20 years. Currently, Sebelius is the CEO of Sebelius Resources LLC and engages in policy work with the Kaiser Family Fund and co-leads the Health Strategy Group for the Aspen Institute.

While leading the Department of Health and Human Services under President Barak Obama, Secretary Sebelius guided the implementation of the historic Affordable Care Act. She was also at the forefront of the Obama Administration’s efforts to build a 21st century health care system, from putting a new focus on prevention to promoting electronic health records to expanding the primary care workforce. Under her leadership, the Department of Health and Human Services has also played a leading role in meeting some of the country’s biggest challenges of the last two years, providing critical support to families during the economic downturn and coordinating the U.S. government response to the H1N1 flu. With partners across the Cabinet, she has launched new efforts to make government work better for the American people, joining with Attorney General Holder to crack down on health care fraud, working with Secretary Vilsack to build a 21st century food safety system, and collaborating with Secretary Duncan to raise the quality of early childhood education.

Before joining the Obama Administration, Secretary Sebelius served as Governor of Kansas, where she was named one of Time Magazine’s Top Five Governors, and Kansas Insurance Commissioner, where Governing Magazine selected her as their Public Official of the Year.

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

Twitter: @SecSebelius

Martin O’Malley

Governor%2BO%27Malley_kidd.jpg

Martin O’Malley

Attorney, 61st Governor of Maryland

Martin O’Malley has served as the Governor of Maryland, Mayor of Baltimore, and a city councilor.

In 1999, O’Malley ran for Mayor of Baltimore. Widely considered an underdog candidate, O’Malley campaigned on the promise of reducing crime, improving schools, and rebuilding broken communities. He went on to earn 90 percent of the vote. In 2007, O’Malley was elected as Governor of Maryland. Under his leadership, Maryland made sweeping investments in public safety, college education, affordable healthcare, and economic growth. The state recovered 100 percent of the jobs lost during the national recession, and was one of only seven states to maintain a AAA bond rating. Recognizing the threat that climate change posed to Maryland’s coastal communities, O’Malley took action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, invest in renewable energy, and grow green jobs. He signed marriage equality into law, abolished the death penalty, and passed the DREAM Act to expand the opportunity of a college education to more local students.

In 2015, O’Malley left office. In 2016, he ran for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

Twitter: @MartinOMalley

Cyrus R. Vance Jr.

Cyrus+R.+Vance+Jr..jpg

Cyrus R. Vance Jr.

District Attorney of New York County

Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., became District Attorney of New York County on January 1, 2010. Mr. Vance is a recognized leader in criminal justice reform and proposed a compelling vision for moving the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office forward, with a focus on crime prevention.

Since taking office, Mr. Vance has reorganized and consolidated the resources of the District Attorney’s Office by creating the Cybercrime and Identity Theft Bureau, the Major Economic Crimes Bureau, the Special Victims Bureau, the Public Integrity Unit, the Violent Criminal Enterprises Unit, and the Hate Crimes Unit.  Additionally, the groundbreaking Crime Strategies Unit for the first time gives Manhattan Assistant District Attorneys, in partnership with the New York Police Department, a geographical understanding of the multifaceted crime issues in all of the communities they serve.

Mr. Vance began his legal career in the Manhattan DA’s Office during  Manhattans rampant crime era the 1980s.  As an Assistant District Attorney, Mr. Vance handled cases involving murder, organized crime, public corruption, and white-collar crime.  After leaving the DA’s Office, Mr. Vance and his wife Peggy McDonnell moved to Seattle, where Mr. Vance co-founded McNaul Ebel Nawrot Helgren & Vance,PLLC, which became one of the pre-eminent litigation firms in the Northwest.  During his time in Seattle, Mr. Vance taught trial advocacy as an adjunct professor at Seattle University School of Law.

In 2004, Mr. Vance returned to New York and became a partner at Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, Anello & Bohrer, P.C. Mr. Vance is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.  He served by appointment of the Governor of New York as a member of the New York State Appellate Division, First Department, Judicial Screening Panel, and was a member of the New York State Commission on Sentencing Reform.  Mr. Vance previously served as a member of the Criminal Justice Council of the New York City Bar Association, the Federal Bar Council, and the New York Council of Defense Lawyers.  He was a member of the Boards of Directors of the Fund for Modern Courts, the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, and the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation. In July 2011, Mr. Vance was voted president-elect of the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York. Today, he serves as co-chair of the New York State Permanent Commission on Sentencing.

Twitter: @ManhattanDA

Read More:

The New York Country District Attorney’s Office: Meet Cy Vance

William Pope.L

img-william-pope-1_132106568608-804x1000.jpg

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

Screen+Shot+2019-06-27+at+11.44.37+AM.jpg

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

1000x-1.jpg

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

jj.jpg

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

%5Bp.jpg

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

Screen+Shot+2019-06-27+at+11.15.28+AM.jpg

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

hh.jpg

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

uu.jpg

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

Screen+Shot+2019-06-27+at+11.10.03+AM.jpg

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

static.politico.jpg

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

EDR5CAHUFAI6RLXKXBP5IRCJ6U.jpg

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