General Session

2011 turned out to be a banner year for Jose Rene “J.R.” Martinez. Not only did he and his dance partner Karina Smirnoff take ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” season 13 coveted mirror ball trophy, he was also named the 2012 Tournament of Roses Grand Marshal. He is an actor, spokesman and retired soldier. Martinez played “Brot Monroe” on the Emmy Award-winning daytime drama “All My Children.”

After high school he joined the army. Martinez was proud to serve, as a way to give something back to a country that had already given so much to him and his family. In March 2003, Martinez was deployed to Iraq, and on April 5, less than a month into his deployment, he was serving as a driver of a Humvee in Karbala when his left front tire hit a landmine. Three other soldiers with Martinez were ejected from the burning vehicle, but he was trapped inside and suffered smoke inhalation and severe burns to more than 40 percent of his body. Martinez travels the country to spread his message of resilience and optimism. He devotes himself to showing others the true value in making the most of every situation.

Dr. John J. Medina, a developmental molecular biologist, has a lifelong fascination with how the mind reacts to and organizes information. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School—a provocative book that takes on the way our schools and work environments are designed. Medina is an affiliate professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He is also the director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University.

Candi Castleberry-Singleton is the chief inclusion and diversity officer at UPMC, a $10 billion, 20-hospital global health system and health plan. She is responsible for developing UPMC’s inclusion strategy, including its Dignity & Respect Campaign and Cultural Competency Initiative, as well as for overseeing progress toward system-wide goals involving 55,000 employees. In 2008, she launched the UPMC Center for Inclusion.

An experienced strategist, Castleberry-Singleton created The Integrated Inclusion Model, a systems integration model that helps companies transition from compliance-driven processes led by human resources, to integrated activities that shift the responsibility for achieving an inclusive culture to every employee. The model is featured in Crossing the Divide: Intergroup Leadership in a World of Difference (Harvard Business School Press, August 2009). Her inclusion initiatives have been implemented at Motorola, where she was vice president of global inclusion and diversity, and at Sun Microsystems, where she led the Global Inclusion Center of Expertise.

Recently, Castleberry-Singleton was named a 2010 Top Woman of Substance in Healthcare by Heart & Soul Magazine, one of the 25 Influential Black Women by The Network Journal, Top 100 African Americans in Corporate America by Savoy Magazine and a Woman of Humility by Point Park University in Pittsburgh. In 2009, Castleberry-Singleton was named one of the 50 Women of Excellence by The New Pittsburgh Courier and recognized by Diversity MBA Magazine as a Top 50 under 50 Executive Leader.

2011 Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist, trained social worker and women’s rights advocate. She is Founder and President of the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa, head of the Liberia Reconciliation Initiative and Co-Founder and Executive Director of Women Peace and Security Network Africa (WIPSEN-A). She is also a founding member and former Liberia Coordinator of Women in Peacebuilding Network/West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WIPNET/WANEP). Gbowee’s leadership of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace – which brought together Christian and Muslim women in a nonviolent movement that played a pivotal role in ending Liberia’s civil war in 2003 – is chronicled in her memoir, "Mighty Be Our Powers," and in the documentary, "Pray the Devil Back to Hell." In addition, Gbowee is the Newsweek/Daily Beast's Africa columnist. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Gbowee Peace Foundation USA, Nobel Women’s Initiative and the PeaceJam Foundation, and she is a member of the African Women Leaders Network for Reproductive Health and Family Planning. She holds a M.A. in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University (Harrisonburg, VA). She is based in Monrovia, Liberia and is the mother of six.

Malcolm Gladwell has an incomparable gift for interpreting new ideas in the social sciences and making them understandable, practical and valuable to business and general audiences alike.

He’s become so successful at this that, in 2005, Time Magazine named Malcolm one of its 100 Most Influential People. He was chosen for Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers 2010 and 2009 list and is ranked number ten on The Thinkers 50 2011. And Newsweek chose him for the “Top 10 New Thought Leaders of the Decade.”

Malcolm’s book Outliers: The Story of Success is having an even greater impact than his first two books. In Outliers, Malcolm suggests an exciting new approach to helping people succeed by using the factors that really foster success. Outliers debuted as a #1 bestseller for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, Barnes & Noble, and Publisher’s Weekly.

He is the author of two other New York Times #1 bestsellers, The Tipping Point and Blink. With his first book Malcolm embedded the concept of The Tipping Point in our everyday vocabulary and gave organizations new tools for understanding how trends work.

In Blink he analyzed first impressions—the snap judgments that we all make unconsciously and instinctively— and he explores how we can master this important aspect of successful decision-making.

Malcolm is a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine. His editor describes his work as a new genre of story, an idea-driven narrative that’s focused on the everyday and combines research with material that’s more personal, social and historical. He was previously a reporter for the Washington Post.

Kirsten Powers, a Political Analyst on 'Fox News' and Columnist for The Daily Beast and New York Post, has a unique perspective from her real-world experience working in politics and business.  Known for providing analysis and insight on the cultural and political issues of the day, Powers was a regular member of Fox News’ 2008 election night coverage throughout the primaries and general election.

After beginning her political career in Bill Clinton’s D.C. campaign office in January 1992 and working for the Clinton-Gore Transition team as they prepared for the new administration, Powers landed at the White House where she worked for U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor.  She rose through the ranks to become the Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Public Affairs. Powers served as Press Secretary to Andrew Cuomo’s 2002 governor’s race and continued to work in New York City and state politics, before turning to political commentary and writing. Her writing has been published in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the New York Post.

Gina Rudan is the President of Genuine Insights Inc. a contemporary professional development and training practice whose mission is to leverage the genius within every individual and organization. Gina spoke on the subject of genius at the 2010 TED Global conference at Oxford University and is the author of PRACTICAL GENIUS: The Real Smarts You Need to Get Your Passions and Talents Working for You which was published by Touchstone/Simon & Schuster in the fall of 2011.

Gina has been a guest lecturer, trainer and strategist for organizations including Merck Co., the BET Network, the Interpublic Group, the United States Department of Agriculture and the Stern School of Business at New York University among many others. She is the curator of TEDxMIA, an independent movement to spread genius in southern Florida and is a member of the Visionary advisory board for the Wolfsonian – FIU Museum. Before launching her own practice, Gina held management positions at Fortune 500 companies including Avon Products and PR Newswire, where she was responsible for spearheading multicultural and international marketing efforts.

In 2010 Gina was selected as one of Poder Magazine’s top “20 Under 40” Hispanics in the United States. A native New Yorker, Gina graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Binghamton University and is a National Urban Fellow holding a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Baruch College in New York City.

Tony Schwartz is President and CEO of The Energy Project, a company that helps individuals and organizations perform better and more sustainably. He spent the first part of his career working as a journalist. He is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review (HBR) and is one of HBR’s most popular bloggers. He also blogs regularly on the Huffington Post and on Oprah.com.

Condoleezza Rice is Professor of Political Economy in the Graduate School of Business, Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University.

From January 2005 to 2009, she served as the 66th secretary of state of the United States. Before serving as America’s chief diplomat, she served as assistant to the president for national security affairs (national security advisor) from January 2001 to 2005.

Rice joined the Stanford University faculty as a professor of political science in 1981 and served as Stanford University’s provost from 1993 to 1999. She was a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution from 1991 to 1993 and returned to the Hoover Institution after serving as provost until 2001. As a professor, Rice won two of the highest teaching honors: the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.

She is the author of Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family (October 2010), which shares how her upbringing in segregated Birmingham, Alabama—along with her strong, caring family and parents—helped to shape the course of her life. She has also has authored and co-authored several other books, including Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft (1995), with Philip Zelikow; The Gorbachev Era (1986), with Alexander Dallin and Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984).

Rice served as a member of the boards of directors for the Chevron, Charles Schwab and Transamerica corporations. She was a founding board member of the Center for a New Generation, an educational support fund for schools in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park, Calif., and was vice president of the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula. She currently serves on the board of the Boys and Girls Club of America.

Rice has been involved in a number of humanitarian pursuits, most notably with PEPFAR (The President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief) and in creating and serving on the board of the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Both endeavors increased aid to developing countries and the world's poorest, most disadvantaged populations. PEPFAR was the largest commitment of funds from any single nation to combat a single disease at any time in history and the Millennium Challenge Corporation promotes sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction.

She currently serves as a member of the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In addition, she is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Rice earned her bachelor’s degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver in 1974; her master’s from the University of Notre Dame in 1975; and her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981.

Tom Brokaw, one of the most trusted and respected figures in broadcast journalism, is a special correspondent for NBC News. In this role, he reports and produces long-form documentaries and provides expertise during election coverage and breaking news events for NBC News.

On December 1, 2004, Brokaw stepped down after 21 years as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News. He has received numerous honors, including the Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award, the Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement and he was inducted as a fellow into the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In addition, Brokaw has received the Records of Achievement Award from The Foundation for the National Archives; the Association of the U.S. Army honored him with their highest award, the George Catlett Marshall Medal, first ever to a journalist and he was the recipient of the West Point Sylvanus Thayer Award, in recognition of devoted service to bringing exclusive interviews and stories to public attention. His insight, ability and integrity have earned him a dozen Emmys and two Peabody and duPont awards for his journalistic achievements. In 2003, NBC Nightly News was honored with the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Newscast, representing the program's fourth consecutive win in this category.

Over the years at NBC, while anchoring NBC Nightly News and Today, Brokaw also reported on 25 documentaries on subjects ranging from race, AIDS, the war on terror, Los Angeles gangs, Bill Gates, literacy, immigration and the evangelical movement. In addition to his long form documentaries, Tom Brokaw Reports, he has collaborated with NBC News' Peacock Productions for Discovery's Emmy-winning documentary Global Warming: What You Need to Know with Tom Brokaw, and History Channel's two-hour documentaries, 1968 with Tom Brokaw and KING.

In 2006, Brokaw reported on race and poverty in Separate and Unequal, which was awarded an RTNDA/Unity Award. The documentary took an honest look at the progress that's been made, and the problems that persist, 40 years after the civil rights movement. Later that year, he reported on illegal immigration in In the Shadow of the American Dream, exploring the economic realities, the social consequences and the political controversies surrounding one of the hottest topics dividing the country today.

In 2005, Brokaw returned to primetime for the first time since leaving the anchor desk with The Long War, an in-depth report on the war on terror. He traveled around the world - to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, France and Washington D.C.—to interview world leaders, intelligence experts and those personally affected by the events of Sept. 11 for this documentary. The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat, quickly followed in July 2005, and in September 2005, Brokaw reported on the religious revolution sweeping the country in In God they Trust. In December 2005, he received wide acclaim for his fourth documentary that year, To War and Back, which took a comprehensive look at what happens when young men go to war, lose friends, get hurt and then come home. Brokaw received his second Peabody in 2004 with the documentary, Tom Brokaw Reports: A Question of Fairness. The report examined the issue of affirmative action through the controversy surrounding the University of Michigan and its affirmative action policy, which detailed the continuing struggle to deal with race, fairness and higher education in America. In 2003, he won an Emmy for Outstanding Interview for America Remembers: 9/11 Air Traffic Controllers.

Prior to stepping down as anchor of Nightly News, Brokaw traveled to Iraq in June 2004 to cover the handover of power and reported for five days for all NBC News programs and MSNBC. In addition to interviewing a mix of newsmakers including Iraq's interim president Ghazi Al Yawer, General David Petraeus, the American General who is charged with rebuilding the Iraqi security forces and securing an exclusive interview with General Ricardo Sanchez, the man who was in charge of the American forces in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was captured, Brokaw patrolled the dangerous Baghdad streets in a humvee convoy with the First Cavalry Division, and also reported on student life in Baghdad with the class of 2004.

Brokaw was the only network evening news anchor to report from Normandy, France during the D-Day 60th Anniversary ceremonies in June 2004. He had exclusive interviews with French President Jacques Chirac in Paris and President George W. Bush at the American Cemetery Normandy Beach in Colleville-sur-Mer, France on June 6, the 60th Anniversary of D Day. In February 2004, Brokaw returned to the Asian subcontinent to report on the challenges Pakistan and Afghanistan face as they continue to fight the war on terror. In addition to securing exclusive interviews Pakistan president Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Afghan president Hamid Karzai, Brokaw traveled with the Pakistani army to mountainous and barren terrain along the border with Afghanistan as they hunted for Al Qaeda and also reported from Southeastern Afghanistan, the base of the 10th Mountain Division, where U.S. soldiers are not only hunting for Al Qaeda, but trying to win the hearts and minds of the people as well.

In 2003, as the international controversy escalated over the increasing likelihood of war with Iraq, Brokaw traveled overseas to the diplomatic and military hotspots throughout the Middle East and the Gulf. On March 19, 2003, Brokaw was the first American news anchor to report that the war with Iraq had begun, and in April 2003, he landed the first television
interview with President Bush after the President declared the end of major combat. During the summer of 2003, Brokaw was the first evening news anchor to return to Baghdad to report for five nights for NBC Nightly News and Dateline NBC on post-war Iraq and the reconstruction efforts.

He has an impressive series of additional "firsts," including the first exclusive U.S. one-on-one interview with Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, earning an Alfred I. duPont- Columbia University Award. Brokaw was the first and only anchor to report from the scene the night the Berlin Wall fell, and was the first American anchor to travel to Tibet to report on human-rights abuses and to conduct an interview with the Dalai Lama. Brokaw has also reported in documentaries of international importance, including The Road to Baghdad where he documented the path to possible war with Iraq through the eyes of half a dozen people at the center of the crisis, and The Lost Boys, a story about how the ongoing war in Sudan forced the "lost boys" out of their villages in the 1980s, which won a National Press Club Award.

In 1997, Brokaw was awarded with another Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism for Why Can't We Live Together, a documentary that examined the hidden realities of racial separation in America's suburbs. His first Peabody award in 1989 was for To Be An American, a documentary about the American tapestry: award in 1989 was for To Be An American, a documentary about the American tapestry: who we are, how we got here and what it means to become a new citizen.

The NBC News anchor also has a distinguished record as a political reporter. He has interviewed every president since Lyndon Baines Johnson and has covered every presidential election since 1968. Brokaw was NBC's White House correspondent during the national trauma of Watergate (1973-1976). From 1984 to 2004, he anchored all of NBC's political coverage, including primaries, national conventions and election nights, and moderated nine primary and/or general election debates.

Complementing his distinguished broadcast journalism career, Brokaw has written articles, essays and commentary for several publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, TIME, The New Yorker, Men's Journal, Sports Illustrated, Life, National Geographic, Outside and Interview.

In 1998, Brokaw became a best selling author with the publication of The Greatest Generation. Inspired by the mountain of mail he received from his first book, Brokaw wrote The Greatest Generation Speaks in 1999. His third book, An Album of Memories, waspublished in 2001. In November 2002, Brokaw's fourth best selling book A Long Way from Home, a reflective look about growing up in the American Heartland, was released. In his fifth best-selling book, BOOM! Voices of the Sixties, Brokaw shares a series of remembrances and reflections of the time based on his experiences and over 50 interviews with a wide variety of well known artists, politicians, activists, business leader, and journalists, as well as lesser known figures, including a daughter of a former Mississippi segregationist governor, Vietnam veterans, civil rights activists, health care pioneers, environmentalists and war protesters.

Brokaw began his journalism career in 1962 at KMTV in Omaha, Nebraska. He anchored the late evening news on Atlanta's WSB-TV in 1965 before joining KNBC-TV in Los
Angeles. Brokaw was hired by NBC News in 1966 and from 1976-1981 he anchored NBC News' Today program.