Andrew Yang
Founder, Forward Party
Black Thought
The Roots
Jill Abramson
Senior Lecturer, Harvard University
Jennifer Rubin
Opinion Columnist, The Washington Post
Michael Nutter
Former Mayor of Philadelphia
Ali Velshi
MSNBC host and business correspondent, NBC News
Jack Stollsteimer
District Attorney, Delaware County
Emily Bazelon
Staff writer, New York Times Magazine
Will Guidara
Restaurateur, author, and co-host of The Big Brunch
Thaddeus Kirkland
Mayor of Chester, Pennsylvania
Daniel Biss
Mayor of Evanston, Illinois
Errin Haines
Editor-at-Large, The 19th
Ian Harris
Business Development Lead, BlocPower
Carol Coletta
President & CEO, Memphis River Parks Partnership
Steven Gretsky
Commissioner, Chester Police Department
Michael Ellison
Founder & CEO, CodePath
Father Greg Boyle
Founder, Homeboy Industries
Erin Harkey
Commissioner, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events
Marc Howard
Founding Director, Prisons and Justice Initiative, Georgetown University
Cherri Gregg
News anchor, WHYY
Michael Steele
Former Chairman, Republican National Committee
Bill Golderer
President & CEO, United Way of Gr. Philadelphia & S. New Jersey
Jane Golden
Executive Director, Mural Arts Philadelphia
Claudia Vargas
Investigative reporter, NBC10
Christopher Baxter
Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief, Spotlight PA
Kenneth L. Shropshire
Senior Advisor to the Dean, Wharton School, Penn
Rev. Charles “Chaz” Lattimore Howard
University Chaplain and V.P. for Social Equity & Community, Penn
Andrew Yang
Founder, Forward Party
Andrew Yang was a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and a 2021 candidate for mayor of New York City. Named by President Obama as a Presidential Ambassador of Global Entrepreneurship, he is the founder of Humanity Forward and Venture for America. Yang’s New York Times bestselling book The War on Normal People helped introduce the idea of universal basic income into the political mainstream. Yang graduated with degrees in economics and political science from Brown University, and completed Columbia Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review.
Black Thought
The Roots
Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter is an American rapper, actor and the frontman for the Philadelphia-based hip hop group The Roots, which he co-founded with drummer Questlove (Ahmir Thompson). Regarded as “one of the most skilled, incisive, and prolific rappers of his time,” he is widely lauded for his live performance skills, continuous multisyllabic rhyme schemes, complex lyricism, double entendres, and politically aware lyrics. With the Roots, he fronts the house band for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Jill Abramson
Senior Lecturer, Harvard University
Jill Abramson spent 17 years in senior editorial positions at The New York Times, where she was the first woman to serve as Washington bureau chief, managing editor and executive editor. Before joining the Times, she was deputy Washington bureau chief and an investigative reporter at The Wall Street Journal. Among Abramson’s three books is Strange Justice, which she co-authored with Jane Mayer. She is currently a lecturer in Harvard’s English Department, and formerly taught at Princeton and Yale. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
Jennifer Rubin
Opinion Columnist, The Washington Post
Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion for The Washington Post. She covers politics and policy, foreign and domestic, and provides insight into the conservative movement, the Republican and Democratic parties, and threats to Western democracies. Rubin, who is also an MSNBC contributor, came to The Post in 2010 after three years with Commentary magazine. Prior to her career in journalism, Rubin practiced labor law for two decades, an experience that informs and enriches her work.
Michael Nutter
Former Mayor of Philadelphia
Michael A. Nutter is a former two-term mayor of Philadelphia who previously spent nearly 15 years in the Philadelphia City Council. Since leaving public office in 2016, he has remained active in public policy, government and civic life. He is the inaugural David N. Dinkins professor of professional practice in urban and public affairs at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and holds fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago and the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics.
Ali Velshi
MSNBC host and business correspondent, NBC News
Ali Velshi brings his sharp analysis and point of view to the weekend morning show, Velshi, airing from 8 to 10am ET on Saturdays and Sundays on MSNBC. Velshi has covered a wide range of domestic, global and economic issues throughout his career, including climate change, the spread and defeat of ISIS, the refugee crisis, the Iran nuclear deal, tensions between Russia and the west, the Greek debt crisis and the global financial crisis.
Jack Stollsteimer
District Attorney, Delaware County
Jack Stollsteimer is the 33rd District Attorney for Delaware County, an office where he began his career as an assistant D.A. Stollsteimer has also served as a policy analyst for the U.S. Department of Justice, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for Project Safe Neighborhoods in the Eastern District of PA, PA’s Safe Schools Advocate for the School District of Philadelphia, and Deputy State Treasurer. As D.A., he established a countywide Child Abuse & Exploitation task force, successfully prosecuted a case through PA’s Construction Workplace Misclassification Act, and formed the Partnership for Safe Neighborhoods in Chester.
Emily Bazelon
Staff writer, New York Times Magazine
Emily Bazelon is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, the Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School (her alma mater), a co-host of the Slate podcast Political Gabfest — and a Philadelphia native. She is also the author of two national bestsellers: Charged, about the power of prosecutors, and Sticks and Stones, about preventing bullying. Bazelon formerly wrote and edited for Slate.
Will Guidara
Restaurateur, author, and co-host of The Big Brunch
Will Guidara is the former owner of Make it Nice, a hospitality group of both fine dining and fast casual restaurants, including the acclaimed Eleven Madison Park, NoMad, Davies and Brook, and Made Nice. A co-founder of The Welcome Conference and the Independent Restaurant Coalition, Guidara authored Unreasonable Hospitality and is one of three judges — others are Dan Levy and chef Sohla El-Waylly — on The Big Brunch on HBO Max.
Thaddeus Kirkland
Mayor of Chester, Pennsylvania
Thaddeus Kirkland has served as Mayor of Chester since 2016. In and beyond this role, he has advocated for education and educational equity and for members of the senior and disability communities. Kirkland has also sponsored legislation relating to prayer in school, Braille, video surveillance, absentee ballots, technical training, and Head Start. Prior to serving as mayor, he represented Pennsylvania’s 159th Legislative District and worked as a community service coordinator at Crozer-Chester Medical Center. He is the pastor of Community Baptist Church and a graduate of Cheyney University.
Daniel Biss
Mayor of Evanston, Illinois
Daniel Biss began his career as a mathematics professor at the University of Chicago before becoming an organizer and then an elected official. He served as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives and Illinois Senate and ran an insurgent grassroots campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor, coming in second in a crowded field. His campaigns and public service have all featured a strong commitment to public engagement, political reform, and economic justice. He was elected to his current position as Mayor of Evanston in 2021.
Errin Haines
Editor-at-Large, The 19th
Ian Harris
Business Development Lead, BlocPower
During his time with BlocPower, Ian Harris has helped hundreds of houses of worship, multi-family buildings and nonprofits become energy efficient. Outside of that role, Harris is a member of his local community board and chair of a $158 million economic development investment into Jamaica, Queens. Prior to BlocPower, he worked for the New York State Department of Labor and the Queens County Board of Elections, where he trained thousands of poll workers in New York City.
Carol Coletta
President & CEO, Memphis River Parks Partnership
Carol Coletta is an esteemed creative placemaker currently leading the development, management and programming of six miles of riverfront and five park districts along the Mississippi River in Memphis. Coletta has served as senior fellow in the American Cities Practice at The Kresge Foundation, vice president of Community and National Initiatives for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, leader of the two-year start-up of ArtPlace, and president and CEO of CEOs for Cities. She has also been executive director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, a partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. Conference of Mayors and American Architectural Foundation.
Steven Gretsky
Commissioner, Chester Police Department
Commissioner Steven Gretsky began his career in the patrol division of the City of Chester Police Department in 2003. He attained the rank of sergeant, then major, in his division in 2015 and 2016. He became Deputy Commissioner in January 2020, helming investigations. In October 2020, he was promoted to Commissioner.
Michael Ellison
Founder & CEO, CodePath
Michael Ellison is the founder and CEO of CodePath, a nonprofit that aims to create the next generation of CTOs by eliminating inequities in engineering education. CodePath partners with more than 70 universities to deliver curricula informed by the industry and centered on the needs of Black, Latino/a, Indigenous, and low-income students. Prior to founding CodePath, Ellison co-founded ClassMetric, a customer data hub that later became Segment, acquired by Twilio for $3.2B. He is also a founding board member of Women Who Code.
Father Greg Boyle
Founder, Homeboy Industries
Father Gregory Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world. Homeboy Industries works to employ and train former gang members in a range of social enterprises. Boyle has authored three books, including the New York Times bestseller Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion, and his latest, The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness. He has received the California Peace Prize and been inducted into the California Hall of Fame. In 2014, President Obama named him a Champion of Change.
Erin Harkey
Commissioner, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events
Erin Harkey guides cultural policy and arts strategy for the City of Chicago, where she’s worked in arts and culture since 2016. For the past 20 years, she’s worked in nonprofits and government agencies to helped individuals and communities succeed through the arts, including at the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and the Arts Council for Long Beach. Harkey has two master’s degrees in Public Art Administration and Urban Planning from the University of Southern California and is a graduate of Howard University.
Marc Howard
Founding Director, Prisons and Justice Initiative, Georgetown University
Marc Howard is the founding director of the Prisons and Justice Initiative at Georgetown University, where he is also a lauded professor of Government and Law. Howard is also the founder and president of the Frederick Douglass Project for Justice, a nonprofit organization that aims to change public attitudes about criminal legal reform. A leading voice and advocate for restoring humanity to the American criminal punishment system, Howard has authored many scholarly articles and three books, including Unusually Cruel: Prisons, Punishment, and the Real American Exceptionalism. His Georgetown course Making an Exoneree re-investigates likely wrongful convictions and has contributed to exonerations and releases of four people.
Cherri Gregg
News anchor, WHYY
Cherri Gregg is an afternoon drive host and news anchor for WHYY FM radio, the Philadelphia affiliate of NPR. Prior to her current position, Gregg covered civil rights, social justice, race and public affairs issues in the Philadelphia region at KYW Newsradio. A licensed attorney, Gregg is a founding member of the board of directors of the Law & Justice Journalism Project, a nonprofit focused on shifting the journalist narrative around public safety, crime and justice.
Michael Steele
Former Chairman, Republican National Committee
Michael Steele became the first African American elected to statewide office as the Lt. Governor of Maryland in 2003. He was also the first Black chairperson of the Republican National Committee, where he led efforts that broke records for fundraising and seat pickup in the U.S. House of Representatives, along with state governorships and legislatures. Today, Steele is a political analyst for MSNBC, the host of the Michael Steele Podcast, and the author of Right Now: A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agenda.
Bill Golderer
President & CEO, United Way of Gr. Philadelphia & S. New Jersey
Bill Golderer leads United Way of Greater Philadelphia & New Jersey‘s mission to fight poverty and expand opportunity by harnessing the collective power of more than 100,000 regional donors, advocates and volunteers. As senior pastor at Arch Street Presbyterian Church and founder of Broad Street Ministry, Golderer has a natural ability to embolden and inspire people from all walks of life to work together for a more equitable and inclusive community.
Jane Golden
Executive Director, Mural Arts Philadelphia
Jane Golden has been the driving force of Mural Arts Philadelphia since its inception, overseeing its growth from a small city agency into the nation’s largest public art program. Under Golden’s direction, Mural Arts has created over 4,000 works of transformative public art through community engagement. In partnership with innovative collaborators, she has developed groundbreaking and rigorous programs that employ the power of art to transform practice and policies related to youth education, restorative justice, environmental justice and behavioral health. Sought-after nationally and internationally, Golden has received numerous awards, including the Philadelphia Award, the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship Award and the Katharine Hepburn Medal. This year, she has been awarded the Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Greater Philadelphia Honors Award, the 2022 Philadelphia Titan 100 Award and The Philadelphia Sketch Club Medal. Currently, Golden serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a Critic-in-residence at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Claudia Vargas
Investigative reporter, NBC10
Claudia Vargas’ reporting for NBC10 and Telemundo62 includes investigating lack of racial equity in law enforcement recruitment, fraud related to line-of-duty death benefits, the abuse City’s subsidized workforce housing program, and the intersection of criminal justice reform, climate change, migration and education with race in Philadelphia. Previously, she was a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, New York.
Christopher Baxter
Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief, Spotlight PA
Christopher Baxter leads Spotlight PA, Pennsylvania’s largest statewide newsroom. Launched in 2019, Spotlight PA performs deeply reported investigative and public service journalism focused on state government and statewide issues to more than 90 newsrooms.. Previously, Baxter was the Mike Wallace Fellow in Investigative Reporting with the Knight-Wallace Fellowships at the University of Michigan, statehouse investigative reporter for The Star-Ledger and a local reporter for The Morning Call in Allentown.
Kenneth L. Shropshire
Senior Advisor to the Dean, Wharton School, Penn
Kenneth Shropshire is Senior Advisor to the Dean at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a sports industry advisor, author, speaker, attorney and podcaster. Shropshire formerly launched and led the Global Sport Institute at Arizona State University. He founded and directed the Wharton Sports Business Initiatives and serves as the David W. Hauck Professor Emeritus at Wharton and Professor Emeritus of Africana Studies, where he is currently focused on launching and leading the Wharton Coalition on Equity and Opportunity.
Rev. Charles “Chaz” Lattimore Howard
University Chaplain and V.P. for Social Equity & Community, Penn
The Reverend Charles “Chaz” Lattimore Howard is University Chaplain and Vice President for Social Equity & Community at the University of Pennsylvania. Lattimore Howard has spent more than 25 years fostering a dynamic spiritual and religious community on and around Penn’s campus. He has taught at the College of Arts and Sciences and Graduate School of Education. His writing has appeared in academic and news publications, and he has also authored five books, including Black Theology as Mass Movement, Pond River Ocean Rain and The Bottom: A Theopoetic of the Streets.
