Patrik Jonsson joined Lilly in 1990 as a sales representative in Sweden after earning an MBA from Lund University. Jonsson held numerous positions in sales and marketing in Sweden before assuming a regional marketing role for Europe in 1998. He was appointed general manager of Sweden in 2001, general manager of Scandinavia in 2005 and general manager of Italy in 2008. In 2012, he assumed additional responsibility with the creation of the Italian hub, including Eastern Europe. He was promoted to his current position as president and general manager of Japan in 2014.

Van Jones is a U.S. media personality, entrepreneur and world-class changemaker. Jones has a rare track record of bringing people together to do hard things – in areas as diverse as clean energy solutions, criminal justice reform and racial inclusion in the tech sector. In 2007, Van was the primary champion of the Green Jobs Act, signed into law by George W. Bush. In 2009, he worked in the Obama White House as the Special Advisor for Green Jobs. In 2018, he helped pass the FIRST STEP Act, signed into law by Donald Trump; the New York Times calls that legislation the most substantial breakthrough in criminal justice in a generation.

In 2021, Jones was the first recipient of Jeff Bezos’ Courage & Civility Award. He has since founded Dream Machine Innovation Lab and launched RAPPORT.co, which uses A.I. to increase firms’ EQ. A Yale Law School graduate, Van is a CNN host, an Emmy Award-winning producer, a 3X New York Times best-selling author and the creator of the Van Jones Substack

Peter L. Scher is the Vice Chairman of JPMorganChase.
Scher oversees several business functions for the firm including cross-business leadership teams in all U.S. markets; Morgan Health, focused on improving the quality and delivery of employer-based healthcare; and the J.P. Morgan International Council. He led the firm’s business expansion in the Mid-Atlantic region, one of the largest economic regions in the United States.

For more than a decade, Scher led the firm’s Corporate Responsibility efforts, shaping its strategy and growing focus on addressing economic and environmental issues in communities around the world. The JPMorganChase Institute and PolicyCenter were created under his leadership, as well as key commitments including The Annual Challenge to advance equity and economic opportunity in communities around the world, The New Skills at Work commitment to create career pathways for underserved populations, employee engagement programs including The Service Corps and The Fellowship Initiative, and the firm’s Second Chance efforts to help remove barriers to employment for people with criminal records.

Scher developed and led the firm’s $200 million economic development investment in the City of Detroit following the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. The firm’s role in the revitalization of Detroit has been featured on 60 Minutes, profiled by Fortune Magazine in ranking JPMorganChase number one on its list of companies “Changing the World” and chronicled by Harvard Business School as a case study for inclusive capitalism.

Business Insider named Scher as one of 10 people in the country “transforming how we think about capitalism” and Washington Life Magazine called him one of the most influential people in the U.S. Capitol. The Washington Business Journal recognized him as one of the top business executives in the Washington, D.C. region.

Prior to joining JPMorganChase, Scher was the Managing Partner of the Washington, D.C. office of law firm Mayer Brown and earlier served as the Chairman of their Government and Global Trade Practice. He was selected by Chambers USA as one of its “Leading Lawyers,” recognized for his “depth of understanding” about international markets.

Scher spent nearly a decade in public service. Nominated by President Clinton, he was confirmed by the United States Senate as U.S. Special Trade Ambassador and served as one of the lead U.S. negotiators on China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. He previously served as the Chief of Staff for the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. Department of Commerce, Staff Director for the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and Chief of Staff to U.S. Senator Max Baucus.

Scher is a co-founder and served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Greater Washington Partnership. He was appointed by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Scher is also a member of the Board of Directors of the secure identity company CLEAR, healthcare provider Centivo, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Board of Advisors for the Center for New American Security and the Advisory Board of the Stanford University Emerging Technology Review.

Scher received his B.A. from American University and his J.D. from American’s Washington College of Law.

Todd Park is Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Devoted Health. Prior to co-founding Devoted, Park served as White House technology advisor based in Silicon Valley until January 2017. In this role, he focused on bringing top technology talent and best practices into government to improve service delivery, national defense, public engagement, and more. Prior to this role, Park served from March 2012 to August 2014 as U.S Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and, in that position, served as an Assistant to the President. Park joined the Obama Administration in August 2009 as CTO of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where he functioned as an “entrepreneur-in-residence,” helping HHS harness the power of data, technology, and innovation to improve the health of the nation. For his work at HHS, Park was named one of Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business” in 2010.

Prior to his work in government, Park co-founded Athenahealth in 1997 and co-led its development over a decade into a leading provider of cloud-based software and services for physicians and health care practitioners. He also co-founded Castlight Health, an innovative online health benefits platform company, in 2008, and has served as a senior advisor to Ashoka, a global incubator of social entrepreneurs, where he helped start a venture to bring affordable telehealth, drugs, diagnostics, and clean water to rural India. Park graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College with an A.B. in economics. He currently serves on the boards of New America and the Biden Cancer Initiative. Park was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration in 2017, and is a member of the 2017 Class of Henry Crown Fellows within the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute.

Claude J. Pirtle, MD, MBA, MSACI, FACP, FAMIA is the Interim Executive Director at the Heartland Whole Health Institute, where he leads initiatives to enhance patient care through advanced information technology and data analytics. His vision focuses on improving care quality, reducing costs, and expanding access to services, ultimately driving innovative healthcare solutions that meet community needs.

Before joining the Heartland Whole Health Institute, Dr. Pirtle was the Chief Medical Informatics Officer at Walmart, Inc., where he optimized technology to advance the clinical enterprise and support Walmart Health’s mission of accessible healthcare. His leadership in designing strategic initiatives demonstrated his commitment to leveraging technology for enhanced patient care.

Dr. Pirtle also served as Vice President – Chief Medical Information Officer for West Tennessee Healthcare and Assistant Chief Medical Officer at Jackson Madison County General Hospital, where he led significant projects like an enterprise-wide Epic conversion and a telehealth program. He holds a Bachelor’s in Biochemistry from LSU, a medical doctorate from LSUHSC, a Master’s in Applied Clinical Informatics from Vanderbilt University, and an MBA in Healthcare Administration from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Clinical Informatics and is a Fellow of both the American College of Physicians and the American Medical Informatics Association.

Jeetu Patel is Cisco’s Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer. He combines a bold vision, steeped in product design and development expertise, operational rigor, and innate market understanding to create high growth businesses. He is relentlessly focused on building world class products that solve Cisco customers’ biggest problems – bringing the power of the Cisco portfolio together to connect and protect every aspect of their organization in the era of AI.

Previously he was Cisco’s Executive Vice President and General Manager of Security and Collaboration where he led the strategy and development for these businesses and held P&L responsibility for the multibillion-dollar portfolio. In this role, Jeetu led with his creative vision and intense focus on innovation and swift execution. Together with his team, he transformed and positioned our Security and Collaboration portfolios for success and growth. In both areas, he reinvigorated organic innovation, championed key inorganic investments, and drove simplification across these portfolios with a fanatical focus on design and user experience.

Prior to joining Cisco in 2020, Jeetu was the Chief Product Officer (CPO) and Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at Box, a role he pioneered. He led the company’s product and platform strategy, setting the company’s long-term vision and roadmap for cloud content management in the enterprise. He transformed Box from a single product application to a multi-product platform used by 100K customers representing 69% of the Fortune 500. The discipline, quality standards, performance metrics, and stability Jeetu instilled fueled the platform’s growth – nearly quadrupling revenues to $700M+. Box’s growth scaled to reach over 60M users with over 50% of customers using multiple products. He also created the Box Platform business unit where he led product strategy, marketing and developer relations – driving products from incubation stage to mature offerings.

Before joining Box, Jeetu was General Manager and Chief Executive of EMC’s newly acquired Syncplicity business unit, a cloud service for Enterprise File Sync Sharing (EFSS) and collaboration. One of the first SaaS-based solutions offered by EMC, Jeetu spearheaded the company’s acquisition. He created a world class leadership team, secured some of the market’s largest customers and led the group to become one of the fastest growing EFSS companies in a highly competitive market. Other key roles at EMC included CMO for the Information Intelligence Group and Chief Strategy Officer, where he drove the organic and inorganic strategy for the division’s cloud and mobile growth.

Previously, Jeetu was President of Doculabs, a research and advisory firm co-owned by Forrester Research. The firm focused on collaboration and content management across a range of industries including financial services, insurance, energy, manufacturing, and life sciences.

He currently serves on the boards of JLL, an American commercial real estate services company, and Equinix, the world’s digital infrastructure company™.

Jeetu holds a B.S. in Information Decision Sciences from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family.

Bentonville Mayor Stephanie Orman is in her 6th year in office after being elected to lead the City of Bentonville in 2018. Stephanie has been married to her husband, Terry for more than 20 years. The Orman’s have been Bentonville residents for 20+ years and have two children, Taylor, who attends Bentonville High School and Landry who attends Washington Junior High.

Providing transparent, timely and consistent communication has been a top priority of Mayor Orman’s since taking office. Some of the new initiatives she has launched are 3 City of Bentonville social media outlets, started the Great Neighborhood initiative, and created the Bentonville 311 communication system connecting citizens to city services. She also started the Spirit of Bentonville award, Mayor’s Youth Council, the Community Council, the Connecting Community Needs to Community Resources initiative and the Bentonville Together Initiative. Improving infrastructure has also been a strong focal point. The passing of the bond extension in 2021 will provide funding to continue to support strong sustainable growth. In addition, she is highly committed to preparing, preserving and promoting an excellent quality of life and professional municipal services within our City and in partnership with our community.

Stephanie is a graduate of the University of Arkansas and received her graduate degree from Southwest Missouri State. Prior to being elected Mayor of Bentonville she had a 20+ year career in the marketing industry and began her career at KNWA (NBC) affiliate in Northwest Arkansas.

Stephanie served two terms on Bentonville City Council prior to being elected Mayor of Bentonville. Mayor Orman serves on the Northwest Health Board of Trustees, the NWA Conservation Authority (NACA) Board, and is the Benton County municipal representative on the NWA Economic Development District (NWAEDD) Board of Directors. She also serves in an Ex-officio position on the Greater Bentonville Chamber of Commerce and DBI Board of Directors. She participates in the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission, serves on the Benton County Intergovernmental Council and the Advisory Board for Cities of the First Class for Arkansas Municipal League. She is a graduate of Leadership Benton County, the Bentonville Police Department’s Citizen’s Police Academy, a member of the Bentonville Noon Rotary Club, and an alumni of the Mayor’s Institute on City Designs (MICD) program.

Mayor Orman serves on numerous boards and committees and is very active in community activities, including her children’s schools and sports teams, her church and other community organizations. The Orman Family are active members of Bentonville Church of Christ.

Jen Oleksiw is the Group Vice President and Global Chief Customer Officer at Eli Lilly and Company. Her role involves overseeing the Global Customer Office, which aims to accelerate Lilly’s efforts toward reaching patients faster. The Global Customer Office focuses on accelerating and scaling commercial transformation including preparing our environments for new product innovation and services, closing clinical care gaps and removing friction for patients. To further improve the customer experience, additional focus areas include utilizing AI to generate customer insights and analytics, amplifying global communications and developing our corporate branding.

Before her current role, Jen served as the Chief Consumer Experience Officer, leading the transition from mass marketing to delivering end-to-end, personalized experiences that improved patient outcomes and drove business results. During this time, she established the Customer Experience Hub that transformed market research, product brand strategy, websites, media, social, search, customer support programs, field reimbursement and adherence capabilities.

Jen joined Lilly in 2000 from Ernst & Young and has held various technology leadership positions in Global Services, Manufacturing and Research & Development. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business from Indiana University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She has also played an active role on the board of TechPoint, a nonprofit organization that promotes and supports the tech sector in Indiana, as well as Nextech, a non-profit focused on enhancing the K-12 curriculum to include technology courses. Jen’s true passion lies in her work on the Globant Advisory Board and the High Alpha Advisory Council, partnering with talented entrepreneurs and venture capital firms to identify, expand and scale new technology businesses.

As chief technology officer at OpenAI for the past 6.5 years, Mira spearheaded the development and deployment of revolutionary and safe AI systems that are reshaping industries and expanding human capabilities, transforming the way we work, learn, and create.

Mira joined OpenAI in 2018 and has been one of the driving forces behind groundbreaking projects like GPT, ChatGPT, DALL-E, GPT4-o. Prior to her role at OpenAI, Murati held key positions in aerospace and at Tesla where she worked on cutting-edge projects like Model X.

Mira holds a Bachelor of Engineering and an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Dartmouth College.

Steve Mackin became Mercy President and CEO, effective April 1, 2022. He joined Mercy in March 2017 and has served as Mercy executive vice president, president of Mercy’s east region, president of Mercy Hospital St. Louis and senior executive for business line development with an initial focus on cancer services in Mercy’s east region. Prior to joining Mercy, Mackin spent nearly 19 years with Cancer Treatment Centers of America, a national network of five hospitals that serves adult cancer patients. During his tenure, he progressed from a management fellow to executive positions including chief operating officer and interim president of the organization. In support of community, Mackin serves on the boards of the American Cancer Society’s CEOs Against Cancer of Missouri, Greater St. Louis, Inc.- Executive Committee of the Chair’s Council, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Alice Walton Whole Health Institute.

Sharmila Makhija, MD, MBA is the Founding Dean and Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Makhija, a board-certified gynecologic oncologist, currently serves as Founding Dean, CEO and Professor, Alice L. Walton School of Medicine. In her role, Dr. Makhija works with health systems and institutional partners to enhance medical education and prepare students for their future health care roles in the community and country.

An international expert on gynecologic cancer, Dr. Makhija previously served as the Department Chair of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Women’s Health, Professor of Gynecologic Oncology and the Chella and Moise Safra Endowed Chair at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System in New York. She has held faculty positions at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Emory University, and the University of Louisville.

At the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Makhija was named a Women’s Reproductive Health Research (WRHR) Scholar. She continued as a WRHR Scholar at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she served as a tenured associate professor and received the Argus Teaching Award from the medical school.

At Emory University, Dr. Makhija was Division Chief of gynecologic oncology and the Leach Endowed Chair in obstetrics and gynecology. She was also named a Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Cancer Scholar. At the University of Louisville School of Medicine, she served as Department Chair of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health; tenured professor of gynecologic oncology; Donald E. Baxter Endowed Chair in obstetrics and gynecology; and Chief Medical and Operations Officer for the Center for Women and Infants.

Dr. Makhija earned her Bachelor of Arts in chemistry from Cornell University and a medical degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She completed a residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Louisville Hospital and a fellowship in gynecologic oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. She received her executive MBA from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.

Dr. Makhija is a graduate of the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine program where she has served as an advisor and mentor for women. Recently, Dr. Makhija completed her term on the Clinical Leadership Committee of the American Hospital Association. She is presently a Board member of Every Mother Counts (EMC), a nonprofit founded by Christy Turlington Burns focused on improving maternal health care worldwide. She is the Chair of the Impact Committee for EMC and the Associate Editor-in-Chief of JAAPI, a peer-reviewed medical and health care journal of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin.

Dr. Makhija has received numerous awards for her dedication to women’s health, including the Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Spirit of Achievement. She’s also been named a Good Housekeeping Humanitarian Hero, a Crain’s NY Business Notable Health Care Leader, and an AAPI Health care Hero Honoree.

Scott Kupor is an investing partner focused on growth-stage companies building in the bio and healthcare industries, manages the firm’s investor relations team, and is responsible for the firm’s growth initiatives.

Scott was the first employee at Andreessen Horowitz and managed the firm’s growth from $300 million in AUM to more than $40 billion. Prior to joining the firm, Scott worked as vice president and general manager of software-as-a-service at Hewlett Packard. Before that, he held numerous executive management positions at Opsware, including senior vice president of global field operations, vice president of financial planning and vice president of corporate development. Prior to Opsware, Scott represented software companies in both financing and mergers and acquisitions transactions at Credit Suisse First Boston and Lehman Brothers.

Scott is the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It, and serves on the boards of Cedar, Formation Bio, Foursquare, Headway, Labster, SnapLogic, Talkiatry, Tanium, and Ultima. He also served as chairman of the board for the National Venture Capital Association.

Scott graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in public policy with honors and distinction. He also holds a law degree with distinction from Stanford University and is a member of the State Bar of California.

Bob is a Partner at Venrock and focuses on health tech and services investments. He currently serves on the Boards of Devoted Health, Virta Health, Aledade, Lyra Health, Need, Accompany Health, Candid, and Premera Blue Cross. He is a Board Observer at SmithRx, Stride, Suki, and The Public Health Company.

Additionally, he is an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine and a Non-Resident Senior Scholar and Advisory Board Member at the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics at USC. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the National Institute of Healthcare Management (NIHCM).

Prior to Venrock, Bob served in the Obama Administration as Special Assistant to the President for Healthcare and Economic Policy on the National Economic Council and was a Partner at McKinsey & Company.

Bob received an undergraduate degree from the University of Washington and a medical degree from George Washington University. He completed a research fellowship with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Institutes of Health, and went on to complete his internal medicine residency training at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Harvard Medical School.

Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation, a $16 billion international social justice philanthropy with offices in the United States and ten regions around the globe. He chaired the philanthropy committee that brought a resolution to the city of Detroit’s historic bankruptcy. Under his leadership, the Ford Foundation became the first non-profit in US history to issue a $1 billion designated social bond in US capital markets for proceeds to strengthen and stabilize non-profit organizations in the wake of COVID-19.

Before joining Ford, Darren was vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation, overseeing global and domestic programs including the Rebuild New Orleans initiative after Hurricane Katrina. In the 1990s, as COO of the Abyssinian Development Corporation—Harlem’s largest community development organization—he led a comprehensive revitalization strategy, including building over 1,000 units of affordable housing and the first major commercial development in Harlem since the 1960s. Earlier, he had a decade-long career in international law and finance at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and UBS.

Darren co-chairs New York City’s Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers, and serves on The Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform and the UN International Labour Organization Global Commission on the Future of Work. He co-founded both the US Impact Investing Alliance and the Presidents’ Council on Disability Inclusion in Philanthropy. He supported his friend Agnes Gund in creating the pioneering Art for Justice Fund and serves on many boards, including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the National Gallery of Art, the High Line, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. In the private sector he is on the boards of Ralph Lauren, PepsiCo and Bloomberg Inc. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and is the recipient of 16 honorary degrees and university awards, including Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Medal. In 2022, he was awarded France’s highest cultural honor, the Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his leadership in the arts. In 2023 he was also appointed by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II to the Order of the British Empire for services to UK/US relations.

Educated exclusively in public schools, Darren was a member of the first class of Head Start in 1965 and received his bachelor’s and law degrees from The University of Texas at Austin, which in 2009 recognized him with its Distinguished Alumnus Award—its highest alumni honor. He has been included on numerous leadership lists, including TIME’s annual 100 Most Influential People, Rolling Stone’s 25 People Shaping the Future, Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, Ebony’s Power 100, and Out magazine’s Power 50. In 2020 Darren was named Wall Street Journal’s 2020 Philanthropy Innovator of the Year and 2023 Foundation Leader of the Year by Inside Philanthropy.

Walter Harris is President, Health Strategy & Delivery of Art and Wellness Enterprises. He also oversees operations for health care transformation initiatives for Alice Walton’s nonprofits including Alice L. Walton School of Medicine.

A mission-focused leader with an extensive history of leadership roles at nonprofit institutions, Harris most recently served as Senior Vice President of Administration and Finance at the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine in Pasadena, California. Prior to that role, he served as Vice President and COO at the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Global COO for the Food and Drug Administration, Chief Management Official for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Chief Information Officer for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He also held positions within the Veterans Health Administration.

Harris earned a Bachelor of Arts in Management and Communications from Concordia University and a Master of Business Administration from Regis University. He proudly served in the U.S. Air Force from 1982 to 1991 and as a liaison to the Office of the Secretary of Defense under the Honorable Casper Weinberger. Harris has received several honors, including the Exemplary Service Award, Secretary’s Commendation Award, Blacks in Healthcare Award, Leadership in Government Award, and Distinguished Service Award. He is a certified executive coach, project management professional, and a member of the International Coaching Federation. He is a member of the board of directors for the Mercy Health System, where he serves as Chair of the Co-workers Committee and as a member of the Stewardship Committee

Regina is an internationally recognized business executive, producer, engineer-artist, taskmaster, and product developer. She has led world-class, global teams, and hundred-million to multi-billion dollar efforts to deliver breakthrough products at Facebook, Google, Motorola, as the 19th Director, and first woman to lead, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). FORTUNE described Dugan as one of the world’s leading experts on product innovation, “the kind that unhinges old ways of operating, juices competition and creates new growth.” She has been named to the Verge 50 list, Fast Company’s ‘Most Creative People in Business 1000,’ CNN’s ‘Top 10 Thinkers’, and CNBC’s ‘NEXT LIST’. As executive producer, she has 4 Annie Awards, 1 Emmy, and 1 OSCAR nomination.

She holds her PhD from Caltech, where she is a Distinguished Alumnus (one of 256 historical honorees including Carver Mead and Gordon Moore) and her BS/MS from VaTech, where she was inducted to Academy of Engineering Excellence,and later received the 2022 University Distinguished Achievement Award. Dugan is co-author of Harvard Business Review cover article, ‘Special Forces Innovation,’ the 2013 HBR McKinsey Award finalist; she has spoken at events ranging from the Code Conferences D9 and D11 to Washington Post summit on U.S. Competitiveness to TED where her 2012 talk was one of the top 10 trending Twitter topics worldwide.

Ross DeVol is CEO and Chairman of the board of Heartland Forward. Heartland Forward’s goal is to promote regional innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems that foster job creation, wage gains, health and wellbeing and economic growth for the American Heartland. Heartland Forward pursues its mission through independent, data-driven research, action-oriented convenings, such as the Heartland Summit, and impactful policy recommendations and programs such as Connecting the Heartland and the Community Growth Program and Toolkit.

Heartland Forward works with universities, colleges, the business community, economic development officials, public policy leaders and philanthropy to analyze resources supporting the startup community and identify workforce and talent gaps. DeVol has raised the profile of Heartland Forward through media engagement with quotes in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist and Axios and op-eds in the Dallas Morning News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Des Moines Register as well as TV appearances on Bloomberg and throughout the heartland.

Heartland Forward research on the economic savings attributable to rapid vaccine development and deployment was cited by Pfizer in their quarter earnings call and Intel’s CEO announced their Ohio investment in two new chips plants at the White House as the “Silicon Heartland,” based, in part, on the organization’s research on reshoring manufacturing in the heartland.

DeVol is former chief research officer for the Milken Institute where he spent nearly 20 years, an economic think tank headquartered in California. He oversaw research on international, national and comparative regional growth performance; access to capital and its role in economic growth and job creation; and health-related topics. He has been ranked among the “Superstars of Think Tank Scholars” by International Economy magazine.

Angie Cooper serves as president and chief operating officer of Heartland Forward, overseeing strategy, public policy, programming and Heartland Forward’s flagship event, the Heartland Summit.

As president, Angie is focused on being a resource for states and communities – turning Heartland Forward’s research into action, creating new partnerships and leading public policy solutions for state and local communities across the 20 states in the heartland region.

For more than 16 years, Angie worked in international and domestic public policy and government affairs for Walmart Stores, Inc., most recently as senior director of global public policy. Angie also worked in various departments within Walmart including, merchandising, public affairs, state and local government relations and the Walmart foundation.

While at Walmart, Angie served as Walmart’s chair of the Women’s Resource Council (WRC). Angie has also been on the board for the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS), the American Council of Young Political Leaders (ACYPL) and served as board chair of Common Threads.

In 2023, Angie was awarded by the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society as the Charles Benton Digital Equity Emerging Leader for her work on the #1 economic issue of our time – providing everyone access to affordable high-speed internet. She is recognized as a Top 100 Women of Impact in Arkansas and in 2024 was appointed to the U.S. Department of Commerce National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee (NAIAC).

Angie is a native of Oklahoma and a graduate of Oklahoma State University.

As vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, Chelsea Clinton works alongside the Foundation’s leadership and partners to improve lives and inspire emerging leaders across the United States and around the world. This includes the Foundation’s early child initiative Too Small to Fail, which supports families with the resources they need to promote early brain and language development; and the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U), a global program that empowers student leaders to turn their ideas into action. A longtime public health advocate, Chelsea also serves as vice chair of the Clinton Health Access Initiative and uses her platform to increase awareness around issues such as vaccine hesitancy, childhood obesity, and health equity.

In addition to her Foundation work, Chelsea teaches at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and has written several books for young readers, including the #1 New York Times bestseller She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World as well as She Persisted Around the World, She Persisted in Sports, She Persisted in Science, Start Now! You Can Make a Difference; Don’t Let Them Disappear; It’s Your World: Get Informed, Get Inspired & Get Going; and Welcome to the Big Kids Club. She is also the co-author of The Book of Gutsy Women and Grandma’s Gardens with Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton and of Governing Global Health: Who Runs the World and Why? with Devi Sridhar. Chelsea’s podcast, In Fact with Chelsea Clinton, premiered in 2021 and is the co-founder of HiddenLight Productions.

Chelsea holds a Bachelor of Arts from Stanford, a Master of Public Health from Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, and both a Master of Philosophy and a Doctorate in international relations from Oxford University. She lives with her husband Marc, their children Charlotte, Aidan and Jasper in New York City.

Dr. Chan is a venture capitalist whose work focuses on startup biotechnology companies founded on novel science. He sits on the boards of several biotech companies, including Aduro Biotech, Synchroneuron, Matrivax, and Stealth Peptides. After completing his doctoral and post-doctoral training at Harvard University, he co-founded the Morningside Group, an investment firm with venture, private equity, and property investments that maintains a strong commitment to social responsibility. 

Gerald is a director of the Morningside Foundation, whose donations led to the founding of the Morningside College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and to the naming of the Harvard School of Public Health after his late father, T. H. Chan. Gerald remains closely associated with the School of Public Health, where he is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow and a member of the Board of Dean’s Advisors. Gerald holds an honorary fellowship at Wolfson College of Oxford University and an honorary Doctor of Social Science degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Blake is a founder and investor. Blake co founded NewLimit with Brian Armstrong (Coinbase founder) to radically extend human healthspan. Blake and Brian self funded Newlimit with $110M and raised another $40M from Founders Fund, Kleiner Perkins and Dimension. Blake was an early investor in over 8 companies that have gone on to IPO including Robinhood (mobile trading), IonQ (quantum computers), Forty Seven (cancer drugs), Arcus (cancer drugs), and SOFI (personal finance). 

Blake’s recent investments include Neuralink and xAI (co founded by Elon Musk), Chai Discovery (AI for Antibody generation), and Harmonic (AI math agents). Blake was a General Partner at GV for a decade where he led investments in enterprise, consumer tech and healthcare companies. Blake holds a PhD in Bioengineering from Stanford and a BS in biomedical engineering and BS in economics from Duke University.

Jenny is a leading expert in federal health policy based in Washington DC, where she helps clients develop innovative solutions to policy and business challenges. Her focus is on patient access to care, prescription drug costs and pricing, and use of health information technology to lower administrative costs. Most recently, she led development of policy and advocacy strategies as Executive Vice President of Policy, Research and Membership at PhRMA, which represents the nation’s largest biopharmaceutical manufacturers. In that role she oversaw regulatory and legislative initiatives as well as a broad portfolio of economic and policy research related to Medicare, Medicaid, health care reform, and changes in the health care delivery system. 

Prior to joining PhRMA, Ms. Bryant was Vice President at The Lewin Group, a national health care consulting firm. Previously, she held management positions at Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, and the State of New York. Ms. Bryant graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and received her MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.

Dr. Abnousi is VP of Health Technologies at Meta and a practicing Interventional Cardiologist. He additionally serves as Professor Adjunct at Stanford University School of Medicine, and Assistant Professor Adjunct at Yale University School of Medicine. He has previously led innovative healthcare efforts at companies such as McKinsey and Google, and has served as Founder and CMO of CorDynamix Inc., an interventional heart failure company. He completed Fellowships in Cardiovascular Medicine and Interventional Cardiology, as well as Residency in Internal Medicine at Stanford University Medical Center. He was previously a resident surgeon at the University of California, San Francisco. He completed his MD at Stanford University School of Medicine, MBA from Oxford University, and MSc in Health Policy, Planning, & Financing from the London School of Economics.

Alice Park is a senior health correspondent at TIME. She covers the COVID-19 pandemic, new drug developments in cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, mental health, HIV, CRISPR, and advances in gene therapy, among other issues in health and science. She also covers the Olympics, and co-chaired TIME’s inaugural TIME 100 Health Summit in 2019. Her work has won awards from the New York Press Club, and recognition from the Deadline Club. In addition, she is the author of The Stem Cell Hope: How Stem Cell Medicine Can Change Our Lives.

Henry Timms is Chief Executive Officer of Brunswick Group, the world’s leading critical issues advisory firm.

Henry has a proven track-record leading and transforming major organizations, as well as advising CEOs and Boards on the complex issues emerging today. He is a bestselling author, and his work on the impact of social media and artificial intelligence has featured in Harvard Business Review. His book ”New Power” was named as a Book of the Year by Bloomberg, Fortune, FT and CNBC.
Before joining Brunswick, Henry served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Over five years, he transformed the Lincoln Center, both commercially and creatively, with the 65-year-old organization named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies. In the face of the pandemic, Henry reimagined the organization, completing the $550 million David Geffen Hall project two years early, and building an outdoor performing arts center to serve the city during such challenging years.

He is the creator and co-founder of “Giving Tuesday”. Designed as a philanthropic counterpoint to Black Friday, it has generated over $13 billion for good causes in the US alone, and now takes place in 100 countries.

Henry was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to the Arts and to Philanthropy. He is a Hauser Leader at Harvard Kennedy School, a Senior Fellow at both Stanford University and the United Nations Foundation, a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Robin L. Washington is currently a member of the board of directors of Alphabet, Honeywell International, and Salesforce. She currently serves as chair of the leadership development and compensation committee for Alphabet and chair of the audit committee for Salesforce.com.

Washington served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of Gilead Sciences Inc., from May 2008 to November 2019 where she oversaw global finance, facilities and operations, investor relations, and the information technology organizations. Prior to Gilead, Washington was the CFO of Hyperion Solutions, later acquired by Oracle Corp. Prior to Hyperion, Ms. Washington spent nearly 10 years at PeopleSoft, Inc., where she served in a number of executive positions.

Mike Milken has been at the forefront of successful initiatives in medical research, education, public health and access to capital for more than four decades. Fortune called him “The Man Who Changed Medicine.” In 1982 he formalized his philanthropy by co-founding the Milken Family Foundation. In addition to its annual Global Conference in Los Angeles, the Milken Institute hosts more than 250 events annually, including major conferences in Singapore, Abu Dhabi, Japan, London and Washington, D.C. Mike is the founder and chairman of FasterCures, which works to speed progress against all life-threatening diseases. HarperCollins published his latest book, Faster Cures: Accelerating the Future of Health, which chronicles his personal journey and progress in medical research and public health over the past half century. The Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University was established with an Institute gift, and the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream will open in Washington, D.C. in 2025. As a financier, Mike revolutionized modern capital markets by pricing and rewarding risk more efficiently; the thousands of companies he financed created millions of jobs. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, he earned his M.B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He and his wife Lori have been married since 1968 and are members of the Giving Pledge; they have three children and 10 grandchildren.

James Landay is a Professor of Computer Science and the Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan Professor in the School of Engineering at Stanford University. He specializes in human-computer interaction. Landay is the co-founder and Co-Director of the Stanford Institute for Human-centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI). Prior to joining Stanford, Landay was a Professor of Information Science at Cornell Tech in New York City for one year and a Professor of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington for 10 years. From 2003-2006, he also served as the Director of Intel Labs Seattle, a leading research lab that explored various aspects of ubiquitous computing. 

Landay was also the chief scientist and co-founder of NetRaker, which was acquired by KeyNote Systems in 2004. Before that he was an Associate Professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley. Landay received his BS in EECS from UC Berkeley in 1990, and MS and PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1993 and 1996, respectively. His PhD dissertation was the first to demonstrate the use of sketching in user interface design tools. He is a member of the ACM SIGCHI Academy and an ACM Fellow. He is an ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Research Award winner. He served for six years on the NSF CISE Advisory Committee.

Yolangel (Yogi) Hernandez Suarez, MD, MDA, FACOG, serves as Executive Vice Dean for Alice L. Walton School of Medicine. In this role, she provides oversight and coordination of the School’s clinical and education training programs and learning environments.

Prior to joining the School, Dr. Hernandez Suarez most recently served as Senior Associate Dean for Students at Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. As FIU’s Founding Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs and Graduate Medical Education, she was critical in starting the Faculty Practice Plan and new residency programs. As FIU’s Founding Vice Provost for Population Health and Well-being, she led the University’s COVID-19 Response Team.

A health care leader in Florida for more than two decades, Dr. Hernandez Suarez held positions in private, public, as academic, and hospital settings. She has served as a Hospital Administrator at the Jackson Health System, Miami’s safety net hospital system, and was Founding Chief Medical Officer of Humana’s Care Delivery Organization, where her team delivered care to more than 100,000 seniors across three states in a full-risk, value-based model.

Dr. Hernandez Suarez graduated from Swarthmore College and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She trained in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics. Dr. Hernandez Suarez holds an MBA with specialization in Health Administration and Policy from the University of Miami.

Dr. Adam is the Director of Health Media Innovation and a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Stanford School of Medicine. Her research focuses on measuring the impact of innovative, video-based entertainment-education approaches to global health communication. She produces short, animated films and online courses on topics related to maternal child health, nutrition, mental health and disease prevention. She has designed and produced online educational content for the Stanford School of Medicine for use in their preclinical programs, continuing medical education programs and global health promotion efforts. 

She is the Faculty Lead for the Global Child Health Media Initiative and Associate Director of the Center for Digital Health at Stanford. She is also the lead instructor of eight massive open online courses reaching more than a million learners around the world. Adam is principal investigator on two randomized-controlled trials investigating the impact of digital global health education interventions on health-promoting behaviors. Her research is conducted in collaboration with the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health in Heidelberg, Germany. She is a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Innovation in Global Health and the author of Food, Love, Family: A Practical Guide to Child Nutrition.

Dr. Brent D. Williams is the Dean of the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas and holds the Sam M. Walton Leadership Chair.

Previous leadership roles: As Senior Associate Dean, he oversaw the college’s academic departments, student success initiatives, and insights and analytics function. He also led the College’s strategic planning process and several strategic initiatives. He led the early development of the McMillon Innovation Studio and Walton College at 2nd & Main in Downtown Little Rock. He also previously served as the Chair of the Department of Supply Chain Management.

Dr. Williams received his Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of Arkansas, where he concentrated in Supply Chain Management. He has held previous faculty positions at Texas Christian University and Auburn University.

His research program focuses on how retail supply chains can develop and redesign planning and execution processes to meet the demands of today’s changing marketplace. He has published more than 30 articles in leading business journals, such as Journal of Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, Decision Sciences and Journal of Business Logistics.

Carter Barnhart is an entrepreneur, mental health activist, and the CEO and Co-founder of Charlie Health. Barnhart is credited for redefining high acuity behavioral health treatment by leveraging virtual care. She nas made their mission to tackle the youth mental crisis with Charlie Health’s innovative and scalable approach to care delivery.

Prior to Charlie Health, Barnhart spent over a decade making mental healthcare more accessible to young people and families. Barnhart achieved the distinction of becoming the youngest executive in the C-Suite at one of the nation’s foremost treatment centers – the very same institution she had attended during her teenage years.

DeCarlos Love is the founder and CEO of Thrive AI Health, building the most personalized and insightful health coach that everyone has access to right from their pocket; that is democratizing access to expert knowledge, tools, and know-how, to all.

Most recently, DeCarlos was a product leader at Google, where he led teams across sensors, AI & ML algorithms plus health and fitness experiences, and AI strategy across all devices and platforms, including Fitbit by Google Fitness, Pixel Watch and Wear OS. DeCarlos began his career as an engineer before moving into product management, including roles at Apple and Athos as well as Target and Fox.

DeCarlos is a graduate of Drake University, where he studied Computer Science and Business and played D1 football. Continuing his passion going on to Coach professional, collegiate, and high school athletes, as well as starting a childhood obesity nonprofit.

Michael is the Chief Information and Digital Officer and Associate Dean for Stanford Health Care and Stanford University School of Medicine. Michael oversees Technology and Digital Solutions, responsible for providing world class technology solutions to Stanford Health Care and the School of Medicine, enabling new opportunities for groundbreaking research, teaching, and compassionate care across two hospitals and over 150 clinics. Michael also serves as a Clinical Professor in the Department of Medicine and Division of Hospital Medicine with a joint appointment in the center for Biomedical Research (BMIR). Prior to joining Stanford Medicine, Michael served as the Assistant Vice Chancellor and Chief Information Officer for UCLA Health Sciences, and the inaugural Chief Medical Informatics Officer before becoming CIO. Michael graduated from Brown University with a degree in chemical engineering. He received his medical degree from Cornell University and is board certified in Internal Medicine and Clinical Informatics.

Jessica L. Mega, MD, MPH is a leader at the intersection of technology, life science, and health care. She is a Cardiologist at Stanford and serves on the Advisory Board for Stanford’s Center for Digital Health. She is a Co-Founder of Alphabet’s Verily, and she is on the Board of Directors at Boston Scientific and Danaher Corporation, as well as the Board of Advisors for Research!America and the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy.

As a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, a Senior Investigator with the TIMI Study Group, and a Cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dr. Mega led large, international, randomized trials evaluating novel therapies. She also directed the TIMI Study Group’s Genomics Program, demonstrating and testing the role of CYP2C19 genetic variants on antiplatelet medications, a key pharmacogenetic finding. She has published manuscripts in the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, and JAMA. She served as an Advisor for the California Governor’s Precision Medicine Initiative.

Dr. Mega is a graduate of Stanford University, Yale University School of Medicine, and Harvard School of Public Health. She completed Internal Medicine Residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Cardiovascular Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is board certified in Internal Medicine and Cardiology. She has won the Laennec Society, Samuel A. Levine, and Douglas P. Zipes Awards, and she is a Fellow of the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American College of Cardiology (ACC).

Dr. Yiadom is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Stanford University, leader, and researcher with expertise in clinical operations, care delivery, and strategic care delivery re-engineering. Her leadership involves finding value-generating opportunities to use routinely collected clinical data to inform more precise decision-making in clinical care delivery. This work involves the study, strategic deployment, and iterative redesign of novel care delivery pathway including digital health and artificial intelligence.

Dr. Yiadom was first trained in health care policy in Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. She subsequently worked as a healthcare industry management consultant here in New York City for CSC Global Health Solutions Group, and was the Dean’s Office Chief of Staff at Drexel Medical School in Philadelphia. She completed her medical education at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, a Masters in Public Health (MPH) at Harvard with additional health policy training from Johns Hopkins. She subsequently did residency at Mass General and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals’ Harvard affiliated program, and completed a Masters of Science in Clinical Investigation (MSCI) at Vanderbilt University.

She is the Principal Investigator for the Stanford Emergency Care Health Services Research Data Coordinating Center (HSR-DCC). Her research focuses on applications of evidence-based medicine to optimize clinical operations to target patient pathophysiology for time-sensitive conditions. STEMI is her prototype disease. Her group’s primary methodologies include clinical practice epidemiology, workflow variability analysis, and clinically applied artificial intelligence. Current work includes refining clinical process, using informatics to support evidence-based practice, and performance measurement to identify real-world care improvement opportunities. This research is supported by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), and ED Benchmarking Alliance. The lab website is: https://yiadom-hsrdcc.com

Dr. Yiadom is also the Founding Director of the Emergency Department Operations Study Group (EDOSG), and on the Board of Directors for the Emergency Department Benchmarking Alliance (EDBA).

Alice Walton is committed to increasing access to arts, improving education, enhancing health and advancing economic opportunity for all. In all of her philanthropic work, Alice is dedicated to promoting diversity and equitable access.

Alice’s interest in art began in her childhood. She and her mother often painted on family camping trips or on hikes in the Ozarks. As an adult, Alice began to collect watercolors, and over time, that grew into a broader interest in art history and all types of American art. Today, Alice “has emerged as one of America’s most important arts philanthropists in areas like arts education, boosting Americans’ exposure to world-class art and building a pipeline for diverse leaders in the field,” according to Inside Philanthropy.

Alice Walton’s transformative experiences in the arts led to an interest in wellness and how art, nature and the spaces around us shape and improve our lives. Through numerous projects, she is committed to making a whole-person approach to health care a more accessible option across the country.

Alice Walton’s vision and philanthropic leadership has prompted numerous accolades. She is a recipient of the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art Medal, the John Cotton Dana Medal for Visionary Leadership in Museums, the Leonore and Walter Annenberg Award for Diplomacy through the Arts and the Getty Medal for contributions to the Arts and Humanities. She was recognized by TIME magazine in 2012 as one of the most influential people in the world and was inducted into the International Women’s Forum Hall of Fame in 2018.

Alice is currently on the advisory council for the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum. She has served as a member of the board of the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, the Trustees’ Council of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and was the inaugural chairperson for the Northwest Arkansas Council. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Trinity University and an honorary Doctor of Arts and Humane Letters from the University of Arkansas.

Dr. Reena Thomas, MD, PhD, is a Clinical Professor in Neuro Oncology at Stanford Medicine leading a translational research team in immune-based therapy for cancer. Holding dual degrees in medicine and molecular immunology, Dr. Thomas has worked for more than two decades to integrate clinical expertise with a deep understanding of cellular immunotherapy mechanisms and burgeoning technologies such as CAR-T (Chimeric Antigen Receptor T lymphocyte) cell therapy. These scientific advancements center foremost on improving outcomes for her patients with central nervous system tumors and all those impacted by neurologic complications of cancer.

As a leader in translational research, Dr. Thomas secured a $12 million award in 2023 to spearhead CAR-T cell therapy innovation for glioblastoma brain tumors, working with her team to revolutionize treatment possibilities and outcomes for patients. She brings more than a decade of experience serving as principal investigator on several NIH funded research programs and trials including a study that established the new standard of care for using checkpoint inhibitor immune therapy for melanoma brain metastasis. Her dedication to advancing medical knowledge is grounded in providing hope to families and bringing her diverse lived experience and scientific accomplishments to bear in the fight against cancer.

In parallel to ongoing research efforts, Dr. Thomas has embraced leadership roles in medical education. As the Fellowship Program Director and Education Chief for Neuro-Oncology at Stanford Medicine, Dr. Thomas mentored and trained the next generation of neuro-oncology specialists, fostering a culture of excellence in both clinical care and research. Her commitment to medical education expanded through subsequent roles as Associate Dean and most recently Senior Associate Dean of Medical Education for Stanford Medicine. In these positions, Dr. Thomas has worked to enhance curriculum design, integrate cutting-edge research into clinical training, and promote interdisciplinary collaboration, ensuring that our trainees are well-equipped to lead the future of academic medicine and beyond.

Dr. Thomas’ administrative experience has enabled her to build collaborative teams, secure research funding, and manage large-scale, multi-institutional research programs. Additionally, her deep involvement in education has provided her with valuable perspectives on how to mentor young scientists and clinicians, helping them to navigate the complex intersections of patient care, research, and academic development. This commitment to continuing the pursuit of groundbreaking discoveries in brain tumor immunology while shaping the academic and clinical leaders of tomorrow is the driving force of her career in medicine.

Jonathan H. Chen MD, PhD leads a research group to empower individuals with the collective experience of the many, combining human and artificial intelligence approaches to deliver better care than either alone. Dr. Chen continues to practice medicine for the concrete rewards of caring for real people and to inspire this research focused on discovering and distributing the latent knowledge embedded in clinical data.

Before his medical training, Chen co-founded a company to translate his Computer Science graduate work into an expert system for organic chemistry, with applications from drug discovery to an education tool for students around the world. His expertise is regularly featured in popular press outlets with over 100 publications in leading clinical and informatics venues and awards from the NIH, National Library of Medicine, American Medical Informatics Association, International Brotherhood of Magicians and more.

In the face of ever escalating complexity in medicine, informatics solutions are the only credible approach to systematically address challenges in healthcare. Tapping into real-world clinical data like electronic medical records with machine learning and data analytics will reveal the community’s latent knowledge in a reproducible form. By delivering this back to clinicians, patients, and healthcare systems as clinical decision support, he aims to uniquely close the loop on a continuously learning health system.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders is the 47th Governor of Arkansas.

Inaugurated on January 10, 2023, she is the first woman to serve as governor of the state and currently is the youngest governor in the country.

Since taking office, Sarah has enacted transformational, conservative reforms. Those include Arkansas LEARNS, a sweeping overhaul of Arkansas’ education system, including higher teacher pay and universal school choice; public safety reforms to invest in prison space and get repeat offenders off the streets; tax cuts to give more taxpayer money back to Arkansans; the Natural State Initiative to grow Arkansas’ outdoor economy; and reforms to streamline state government.

In just her first 100 days, Sarah delivered the Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address, offering a bold vision for a new generation of conservative leadership.

Prior to her historic victory, Sarah served as White House Press Secretary for President Donald J. Trump from 2017 to 2019. A trusted confidant of the President, she advised him on everything from press and communications strategy to personnel and policy. Sarah was only the third woman – and the very first mom – to ever hold the job of White House Press Secretary.

Sarah joined the Trump campaign as a senior advisor in February 2016 during the Republican primary and continued in that role through the President’s historic victory that November.

She has previously worked in leadership roles for U.S. Senators, Governors, and presidential campaigns. In Arkansas, Sarah was a senior advisor to U.S. Senator Tom Cotton’s 2014 victorious campaign and was campaign manager for U.S. Senator John Boozman’s winning campaign in 2010. In 2007 and 2008, Sarah helped lead her father, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, to victory in the Iowa Caucuses and seven other states as his national political director. Sarah also served in the Department of Education during President George W. Bush’s administration.

She has been recognized in Fortune and TIME Magazine “40 under 40.” Sarah is the author of the New York Times bestseller “Speaking for Myself,” a former Fox News Channel contributor, and served on the Fulbright board.

Sarah grew up in Pine Bluff and Texarkana and is a proud graduate of Little Rock Central High and Ouachita Baptist University.

She lives in Little Rock with her husband, Bryan, their children Scarlett, Huck, and George, and their golden retriever, Traveler.

Eleni Linos MD, MPH, DrPH, is the Director of the Stanford Center for Digital Health. She is a Professor of Dermatology and Epidemiology at Stanford University. Dr. Linos also serves as an Associate Dean for Research, leading the KL2 Research Training Program.

Dr. Linos’ research focuses on the use of technology in health, dermatology, public health, cancer prevention and the care of older adults. She is dually trained in epidemiology and dermatology and is the principal investigator of several NIH funded studies aimed at improving the lives of patients. She received her medical degree from Cambridge and Oxford universities in the UK, received a masters and doctoral degree from the Harvard School of Public Health and completed her residency at Stanford.

Dr. Kristan Staudenmayer received her medical degree at the University of Texas at Southwestern Medical School in 1999, and completed her residency in General Surgery at Parkland Hospital in 2006. During her post-graduate training, she conducted NIH T32-funded research at Harborview Hospital evaluating the effects of innate immunity on trauma. She obtained further training in Trauma and Surgical Critical at San Francisco General Hospital, completing her training in 2008. She was subsequently double-boarded in General Surgery and Surgical Critical Care. Dr. Staudenmayer joined Stanford in 2008. She has developed a robust research program and active clinical practice. Her clinical and research interests have contributed to Stanford’s multi-disciplinary approach to the management of surgical trauma. Dr. Staudenmayer’s clinical focus is on trauma, emergency general surgery, and surgical critical care, and her research interests encompass trauma systems of care and vulnerable patient populations such as the elderly. 

Her efforts have been noteworthy and recognized in her 2013 K08 grant from the National Institute on Aging to study trauma in the elderly population. In 2016, Dr. Staudenmayer was honored by becoming the inaugural Gordon and Betty Moore Endowed Faculty Scholar, which helps to support her ongoing research efforts. Additional research accomplishments include being a co-principal investigator on an NIH CTSA award evaluating trauma systems. Dr. Staudenmayer has published over 50 articles and book chapters and has served on the editorial review board of several academic journals. She contributes nationally towards the academic mission by serving on committees for both the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma and the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma. Dr. Staudenmayer was promoted to Associate Professor of Surgery in 2016, and continues her research, policy and advocacy work to improve the care and outcomes for patients with traumatic injuries and critical surgical illnesses.

Hemant is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Zurich office and global co leader of McKinsey Sustainability, helping leading organizations decarbonize, transform their core businesses, scale new climate technologies, and amplify climate investment. He also co chairs the firm’s mission-driven McKinsey Health Institute, which convenes, collaborates, and advances research with stakeholders across seven historically underinvested areas of health: brain health, healthy longevity, equity and health, health worker capacity, sustainability and health, healthy workforces, and infectious diseases.

Drawing on his training as a medical doctor, Hemant has served multiple organizations in innovating and delivering healthcare solutions to patients, across pharmaceuticals, biotech, consumer health, and health systems. A former global leader for McKinsey’s commercial Life Sciences Practice, Hemant’s work has focused on topics including strategy, digital transformations, innovation, and commercial excellence.

Hemant also previously led McKinsey’s Public and Social Sector Practices in Europe and has extensive experience advising clients on public health, education, and sustainable economic development. His work on public health focuses on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), pandemic prevention and response, polio eradication, and helping multilateral organizations with their strategy and operations.

Hemant’s career began in India where he studied medicine. After earning an MBA, he joined McKinsey in Delhi and moved to Europe in 2005. Hemant has also served as a leader for McKinsey’s Transformation Practice in Europe. He is a leading expert on healthy aging and longevity, publishing frequently on the topic. Hemant is also a member of the World Economic Forum global future council on AMR and represents McKinsey as a founding partner of the Trinity Challenge, which is a charitable coalition of partners who seek to learn from the COVID-19 pandemic response to help better prepare against any future health emergencies around the globe.

Arianna Huffington is the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, the founder of The Huffington Post, and the author of 15 books, including Thrive and The Sleep Revolution. In 2016, she launched Thrive Global, a leading behavior change tech company with the mission of changing the way we work and live by ending the collective delusion that burnout is the price we must pay for success.

She has been named to Time Magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people and the Forbes Most Powerful Women list. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. At 21, she became president of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union. She serves on numerous boards, including Onex and The B Team.

Carter Barnhart is an entrepreneur, mental health activist, and the CEO and Co-founder of Charlie Health. Barnhart is credited for redefining high acuity behavioral health treatment by leveraging virtual care. She nas made their mission to tackle the youth mental crisis with Charlie Health’s innovative and scalable approach to care delivery.

Prior to Charlie Health, Barnhart spent over a decade making mental healthcare more accessible to young people and families. Barnhart achieved the distinction of becoming the youngest executive in the C-Suite at one of the nation’s foremost treatment centers – the very same institution she had attended during her teenage years.

Jewel is a multi-platinum singer-songwriter, visual artist, and New York Times best selling author. As a lived experience expert and pioneer in the mental health space, Jewel is passionate about democratizing wellness. Best-known for her musical talents, Jewel’s passion and training in sculpture, drawing, and painting began before her songwriting career. Over the years, she has continued creating, working with paint and clay. In spring 2024, Jewel made her debut in the art world at Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville, Arkansas with ‘The Portal: An Art Experience by Jewel’, featuring an original painting and sculpture.

Throughout her art, Jewel combines her passions for storytelling, experimentation and democratizing mental health. For the past 21 years, Jewel’s Inspiring Children Foundation and Jewel Inc. have brought specially-designed mental health programs to at-risk youth and to leading corporations. Jewel created SELLA, a language arts curriculum for schools integrating social and emotional learning and mental health practices, and co-founded Innerworld, an innovative virtual mental health platform. Jewel’s remarkable journey has taken her from a childhood with no running water on an Alaskan homestead to becoming a multi-platinum recording artist and mental health advocate. She has released 13 studio albums, including her latest release Freewheelin’ Woman, and recently concluded a national co-headlining tour with Melissa Etheridge. In the musical extension to her debut art experience, Jewel released the “The Portal” a 10-minute meditative experience.

Natasha Bray, DO, MSEd, FACP, FACOI, FNAOME is the Campus Dean of the OSU College of Osteopathic Medicine at the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah, OK. Dr. Bray also serves as Associate Dean for Accreditation for OSU Center for Health Sciences.

Board certified in Internal Medicine and Addiction Medicine, Bray earned her Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree from OSU-COM and went on to the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed her internship as the Chief Intern Physician, then completed her residency at Cambridge Health Alliance. Dr. Bray completed a health policy fellowship in 2009 and earned a Master of Science in Medical Education with an emphasis on simulation and competency-based assessment.

Bray has extensive experience in the development, accreditation, and delivery of educational programs for both undergraduate and graduate medical education. Bray serves on several national committees and has dedicated her career to medical education as a vehicle to serve vulnerable and marginalized populations and improve access to quality health care.

Steve Nelson is Co-Founder, was launch CEO, and became the initial Chairman of Carbon, Inc., a digital 3D manufacturing company, founded in 2013, raising the initial funding and Series A from Forbes Magazine’s Midas List #1 as “World’s Smartest Tech Investor,” Jim Goetz. Jim was appointed Steward where he led the global partnership at his best in history, venture capital firm, Sequoia Capital.

Carbon’s mission is to reinvent how polymer products are designed, engineered, manufactured, and delivered towards a digital and sustainable future. Launched in North Carolina and now based in Silicon Valley, Carbon brings together innovations in software, hardware, and material science to deliver industry-leading digital manufacturing solutions. With Carbon’s ground-breaking Digital Light Synthesis™ technology and broad family of programmable liquid resins, manufacturers can unlock new business opportunities such as mass customization, on-demand inventory, and previously impossible product designs. Carbon’s Continuous Liquid Interface Production technology (CLIP) was introduced simultaneously at TED 2015 and to the scientific community on the cover of Science Magazine (Science, March 2015).

Steve is also Co-Founder of RE-INC. The purpose of RE—INC is to re—imagine women’s sports – how athletes are supported, the fan experience, and the business of this magnificent unifying force in womankind. We know we’re amidst a global revolution in women’s sports. We meet today’s new order with a re—imagined ecosystem across content, community, and commerce where everyone is a Creator, Athletes thrive on and off the field, and Fandom is built around a common set of values: opportunity creation, cheering for one another, creating deep personal connections and sharing knowledge that moves us forward, together. And, we’re also going to keep using sports to change the world for the better.

Steve is also the lead investor, and initial outside board member in Howso Corporation, a groundbreaking technology startup dedicated to keeping humanity in AI. Howso believes in Responsible AI, meaning machines ought to preserve, amplify, and empower the best intentions of humanity. Dr. Michael Capps, PhD, is a well-known technologist and co-founder of Howso, his cutting-edge AI company focused on explainable and transparent methods. Prior to Howso, Mike had a legendary career in the videogame industry as President of Epic Games from when they had only 10 employees, and now as iconic makers of huge blockbusters, Fortnite and Gears of War plus the Unreal game engine. His tenure included a hundred game-of-the-year awards, dozens of conference keynotes, multiple lifetime achievement awards, and a successful free-speech defense of videogames in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Steve is also a founding advisor of the Whole Health Institute (WHI), to the WHI leadership team and its founder, visionary, legend, and philanthropist, Alice Walton, and is an original board member at Alice L. Walton School of Medicine (AWSOM) and now on the board of the renamed Heartland Whole Health Institute (HWHI).

Dr. John Findley, MD, serves as the Chief Medical Officer for Heartland Whole Health Institute. In this role, Dr. Findley works with partners to reduce costs, improve outcomes, and expand access to whole health care in the Heartland.

Most recently, Dr. Findley served as the president of Bryan Health Connect, a Physician Hospital Organization (PHO) in Lincoln, NE, representing 2,000 providers, 25 Critical Access and 3 PPS Hospitals, over 250 clinics and an Accountable Care Organization (ACO) with 90,000 covered lives across nine value-based agreements. He has a wealth of experience working with providers, health system administrators, employers, and payers in myriad value-based arrangements.

He has served in various leadership roles during his medical career including Medical Director for Caravan Health, where he was responsible for leading and developing physician engagement strategies, content development, clinical programs and clinical analytics; Chief Medical Officer and Interim CEO at a rural Community Hospital; Medical Director of a Health and Wellness Clinic focused on obesity management; Planetree Physician Consultant advocating for the importance of patience experience; and founder of LifeWoRx, a clinic-based Lifestyle Medicine program. He was also in private practice for 15 years in Western Colorado.

Dr. Findley earned his Bachelor of Science in biology and mathematics from Regis University and his medical degree from Creighton University Medical School. He completed his Family Medicine Residency at the University of Colorado.

Dr. Kayse Shrum is a native Oklahoman and the first female to lead a research university in the state serving as the 19th President of Oklahoma State University System. She earned her Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree from the OSU College of Osteopathic Medicine and has completed executive leadership and management training programs at Harvard University and Stanford University. She joined the medical school faculty at OSU Center for Health Sciences (OSU-CHS) in 2002.

In 2011, she was named provost of OSU-CHS and dean of the OSU College of Osteopathic Medicine. In 2013, she was promoted to president of OSU-CHS, becoming the youngest president and dean of a medical school in the state of Oklahoma. Shrum held the George Kaiser Family Foundation Chair in Medical Excellence and Service and the Saint Francis Health System Endowed Chair of Pediatrics. In March 2019, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt appointed her to his cabinet as Secretary of Science and Innovation. In April 2021 she was named System President of Oklahoma State University assuming the position July 1, 2021.

Shrum has been recognized for her leadership, service and many contributions to Oklahoma. Her honors include: 2022 Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame, 2022 Doctor of the Decades, Journal Record 2019 Woman of the Year, 2019 Inductee into Connors State College Alumni Hall of Fame, 2018 Newsmaker Award by the Association for Women in Communications Tulsa Chapter, 2014 Oklahoma Osteopathic Association’s Outstanding & Distinguished Service Award, 2013 Inductee into Connors State College Athletics Hall of Fame, and 2012 Tulsa Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women’s Pinnacle Award for Health.

Maryann P. Feldman is the Watts Professor of Public Policy and Management at the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions at Arizona State University and research director at the Global Center for Technology Transfer.

Professor Feldman chairs the Policy Forum of the Science, Technology and Economic Policy Board of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, where she also chairs a congressional mandated assessment of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

She is a senior fellow at Heartland Forward, a nonpartisan “think and do tank” focused on improving economic performance. Feldman serves on the advisory board of the Canadian Institute for Advance Research (CIFAR) global program on Innovation, Equity and the Future of Prosperity. She is a board member of the Ontario Brain Institute. Feldman is an editor of the journal Research Policy, the leading journal in the field of innovation studies.

Professor Feldman was a winner of the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research for her contributions to the study of the geography of innovation, the commercialization of university research and the role of entrepreneurial activity in the formation of regional industry clusters. Feldman is a prolific and highly cited author. She received the Distinguished Scholar award from the Technology and Innovation Management division of the Academy of Management.

Her recent research focuses on place-based economic development and the factors that promote economic restructuring and resilience.

Lloyd B. Minor, MD, is a scientist, surgeon, and academic leader. He is the Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine and Vice President for Medical Affairs at Stanford University. Dr. Minor also is a professor of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery and a professor of Bioengineering and of Neurobiology, by courtesy, at Stanford University.

As dean, Dr. Minor has had an integral role in setting strategy for the clinical enterprise of Stanford Medicine, an academic medical center that includes the Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford Health Care, and Stanford Medicine Children’s Health. With his leadership, Stanford Medicine leads the biomedical revolution in Precision Health. His book, “Discovering Precision Health,” describes this shift to more preventive, personalized health care and highlights how biomedical advances are dramatically improving our ability to treat and cure complex diseases. In 2021, Dr. Minor articulated and began realizing a bold vision to transform the future of life sciences at Stanford University and beyond – a multi-decade journey enabled by Precision Health.

In August 2023, Dr. Minor was appointed Vice President for Medical Affairs to lead all matters related to health and medicine at Stanford University.

Before Stanford, Dr. Minor was provost and senior vice president for academic affairs of Johns Hopkins University. Prior to this appointment in 2009, Dr. Minor served as the Andelot Professor and director (chair) of the Department of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and otolaryngologist-in-chief of The Johns Hopkins Hospital.

With more than 160 published articles and chapters, Dr. Minor is an expert in balance and inner ear disorders perhaps best known for discovering superior canal dehiscence syndrome, a debilitating disorder characterized by sound- or pressure-induced dizziness. He subsequently developed a surgical procedure that corrects the problem and alleviates symptoms.

In 2012, Dr. Minor was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.