Berkley Center

Rev. Calvin Butts is the Pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City and President of the State University of New York at Old Westbury. He also is the founder and Chairman of the Abyssinian Development Corporation (ADC), which has been responsible for investing over five hundred million dollars into housing and commercial development in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. Butts has served on numerous boards and commissions and has been a proponent and activist for families suffering from AIDS and against discrimination, especially against homosexuals, for many years. A native of New York City, he has earned degrees from Morehouse College, the Union Theological Seminar, and Drew University, as well as numerous honorary degrees.

Richard Danzig is a lawyer and the board chairman of the Center for a New American Security, a national security think-tank. He also is a Director at the RAND Corporation and a member of the Defense Policy Board. Previously, Danzig served as Under Secretary of the Navy and then Secretary of the Navy during the Clinton Administration, as well as a senior advisor on national security matters to Barack Obama during his presidential campaign. He has taught law at Stanford and Harvard Universities and was awarded a Prize Fellowship of the Harvard Society of Fellows and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship. He also worked as a partner in the international law firm Latham & Watkins. Danzig is an alumnus of Reed College, received his JD from Yale Law School, and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where he earned his PhD.

John J. DeGioia is the forty-eighth president of Georgetown University. For nearly four decades, DeGioia has worked to define and strengthen Georgetown University as a premier institution for education and research. As the first lay president of a Jesuit university he places emphasis on sustaining and strengthening Georgetown’s Catholic and Jesuit identity and its responsibility to serve as a voice and an instrument for justice. He has also been an advocate for interreligious dialogue. He continues to teach an Ignatius Seminar each fall, part of a program offering first year students the opportunity to encounter unique courses of study inspired by the Jesuit educational theme of cura personalis (“care for the whole person”). He is a member of the Order of Malta, a lay religious order of the Roman Catholic Church dedicated to serving the sick and the poor. Before becoming president, DeGioia served at Georgetown as senior vice president, responsible for university-wide operations, and dean of student affairs. DeGioia earned his B.A. and Ph.D at Georgetown University.

Carly Fiorina is a former business executive who unsuccessfully sought the 2016 Republican nomination for president; she briefly served as Ted Cruz's running mate. She has served on several boards, including Revolution Health Group, the World Economic Forum, American Conservative Union Foundation, and Opportunity International. Fiorina previously served in several high-profile executive positions, including CEO of the Hewlett-Packard Company and AT&T. In 2008, Fiorina challenged incumbent Barbara Boxer for a California Senate seat, winning the Republican primary but losing to Boxer in the general election. In the 2016 campaign Fiorina referenced her Christian faith in arguing that people of faith make better leaders; she defended her support for same-sex civil unions by distinguishing them from the "spiritual" act of marriage. She also criticized Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton for accomplishing little as senator and secretary of state. An alumna of Stanford University, Fiorina holds a M.B.A. from the University of Maryland, College Park and M.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Michael J. Gerson is a nationally syndicated columnist who appears twice weekly in the Washington Post. He is also a policy fellow at ONE, a bipartisan organization fighting against extreme poverty and preventable diseases, and a visiting fellow with the Center for Public Justice. From 2001 to 2006, he served as a speechwriter and advisor to President George W. Bush.

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is the director of retirement security at the Economic Policy Institute and the former lieutenant governor of Maryland (1995-2003). She was the founder of the Center for Retirement Initiatives at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy.

Michael Nutter is the current mayor of Philadelphia, having assumed the office in 2008. He previously served as Philadelphia's 4th District Councilman from 1992-2006. Nutter's time as mayor has been characterized by the successful closing of a city budget gap and the trimming of public services, as well as measures to prevent discrimination. A native of Philadelphia, he is an alumnus of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Nutter won re-election as mayor in 2011, winning another four year term.

Peter Orszag is an economist who served in the Obama administration as Director of the Office of Management and Budget from 2009-10. He currently serves as the Vice Chairman of Global Banking at Citigroup, an adjunct senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, and as a columnist at Bloomberg. Orszag previously served as the Director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2007-08 and in a number of economic advisory positions during the Clinton Administration. He also worked as a senior fellow and Deputy Director of Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution. An alumnus of Princeton University, Orzag received a Master of Science and a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics; he was a Marshall Scholar.