Ideas We Should Steal Festival | Past Festival Speakers

The Citizen has hosted over 150 speakers on the Ideas We Should Steal stage. Here are some highlights:

Black Thought

The Roots | 2022

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.

Josh Shapiro

Governor of Pennsylvania | 2019 and 2023

John Oliver

Last Week Tonight host | 2019

HBO’s Emmy winning Last Week Tonight with John Oliver host covers news, politics, and current events. Oliver has won two Peabody Awards and is accredited with the “John Oliver Effect,” a title given to the actions and attention his show brings in the political world.

Jill Abramson

Senior Lecturer, Harvard University | 2022

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.

Michael Eric Dyson

Author and Professor | 2020 and 2024

Michael Eric Dyson has authored more than 20 acclaimed books and is a widely celebrated professor, prominent public intellectual, ordained Baptist minister, and noted political analyst. The two-time NAACP Image Award winner also won the American Book Award for Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster. Dyson’s book The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America was a Kirkus Prize finalist, and he co-authored Unequal: A Story of America and Represent: The Unfinished Fight for the Vote with Marc Favreau. A native of Detroit, Michigan, he currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Debra Winger

Actor and Activist | 2024

Debra Winger began a career in TV and film and on stage in the mid 70’s. Her work includes Terms of Endearment, Officer and a Gentleman, Urban Cowboy, Big Bad Love, The Sheltering Sky and most recently The Lovers and Patriot. Raising 3 sons, writing the book Undiscovered, teaching a fellowship for Dr. Robert Coles’ noted course “The Literature of Social Reflection” and producing several documentaries including the Academy Award nominated film Gasland, about the oil and gas industry, led her to take note of how her own industry has been changed by corporations; how this not only affected the way business was done and films were made and released, but the livelihood of artists as well. Her support for and involvement with American Promise has been unwavering since its inception.

Andrew Yang

Founder, Forward Party | 2022

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.

Michael Steele

Former Chairman, Republican National Committee | 2022

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.

Emily Bazelon

Staff writer, New York Times Magazine | 2022

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.

Piper Kerman

Author of Orange is the New Black and Activist | 2021

Piper Kerman is the author of the memoir Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison from Spiegel & Grau. The book has been adapted by Jenji Kohan into an Emmy-winning original series for Netflix, which ran for seven seasons. Piper collaborates with nonprofits, philanthropies, and other organizations working in the public interest and serves on the board of directors of the Women’s Prison Association and the advisory boards of the PEN America Writing for Justice Fellowship, InsideOUT Writers, Healing Broken Circles and JustLeadershipUSA. Follow her on Twitter @Piper.

Ali Velshi

MSNBC Chief Correspondent | 2018-2024

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.

Trymaine Lee

Journalist and MSNBC Correspondent | 2023 and 2024

Trymaine Lee is a Pulitzer Prize- and Emmy Award-winning journalist and correspondent for MSNBC. As host of the Into America podcast, he explores the intersection of race, politics and justice through the lens of the Black experience in America. Lee is contributing author of The 1619 Project, has reported for The New York Times, HuffPost, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and The Philadelphia Tribune, appeared on Ebony’s “Power 100” and The Root’s “Root 100.” He is currently writing a book on race, trauma, and gun violence in America.

Roy Wood Jr.

Comedian | 2020

Roy Wood Jr.’s comedy has entertained millions across stage, television and radio. In addition to stand-up comedy, producing and acting, Roy is currently a correspondent on Comedy Central’s Emmy and NAACP Award-winning The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. During his tenure, he has used The Daily Show’s brand of satire to shed light on serious issues including gun violence, police reform, LGBTQ+ discrimination, ICE deportations and PTSD in the Black community.

Jennifer Rubin

Opinion Columnist, The Washington Post | 2022

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 Rubin

Kynetic majority owner/CEO & Reform Alliance co-founder | 2021

Michael Rubin started GSI Commerce, which he sold to eBay for $2.4 billion in 2011. He subsequently co-founded Kynetic, a holding company for e-commerce retailers Fanatics, Rue La La and ShopRunner. In 2019, inspired by his friend Meek Mill’s experience in the criminal justice system, Rubin and Mill founded REFORM Alliance, to dramatically reduce the number of unfairly-incarcerated people in America.

Batya Ungar-Sargon

Newsweek Opinion Editor and Author | 2024

Batya Ungar-Sargon is the opinion editor of Newsweek and co-host of Free Press Live. She is the author of Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy and Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men and Women.

Will Guidara

Restaurateur, author, and co-host of The Big Brunch | 2022

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.

Majora Carter

Macarthur "Genius" Fellow, Real Estate Developer | 2023

Majora Carter is a MacArthur Fellow, Peabody Award-winning broadcaster, and two-time TED speaker with eight honorary PhDs who believes low-status communities suffer under the weight of the nonprofit industrial complex and will do well to adopt a talent-retention strategy to community redevelopment. She is quoted on the walls of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, “Nobody should have to move out of their neighborhood to live in a better one” which is also the subtitle of her bestselling book, Reclaiming Your Community.

Troy Carter

Founder, chairman and CEO of Coalition Media Group | 2023

Troy Carter is the founder and CEO of Venice Music, a music technology company that provides SaaS and premium services for independent music artists. Previously, as founder and CEO of Atom Factory, Carter nurtured the careers of Lady Gaga, Meghan Trainor and John Legend. The West Philadelphia native was the Global Head of Creator Services at Spotify, Entertainment Advisor to the Prince Estate, and an early investor in consumer tech and CPG companies. Carter is a trustee for the Aspen Institute, Henry Crown Fellow, member of the United Nations Global Entrepreneur Council and board member of Rock and the Roll Hall of Fame, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and SoundCloud.

Cheryl Dorsey

Retired LAPD Sgt. | 2020

Acclaimed author of autobiography Black and Blue: The Creation of a Social Advocate, Cheryl Dorsey is a Los Angeles native who joined the LAPD in 1980. During her twenty year career, she worked exclusively in patrol and specialized units in all four Bureaus within the City of Los Angeles and was assigned to the infamous gang unit Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (C.R.A.S.H.).

Andre Perry

Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Community Uplift, Brookings Institute | 2024

Andre M. Perry is Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Community Uplift, Brookings Institution and is also a professor of practice of economics at Washington University of St. Louis and a scholar-in-residence at American University. Perry is the author of Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities and the forthcoming book Black Power Scorecard Measuring the Racial Gap and What We Can Do to Close It (April 2025).

Marc Howard

Founding Director, Prisons and Justice Initiative, Georgetown University | 2022

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.

Aqeela Sherrills

Director, Newark Community Street Teams | 2021

Aqeela Sherrills is a spirit-centered organizer and activist who has worked for three decades to promote community ownership of public safety and facilitate healing from violence in marginalized communities. A nationally recognized expert in victim service and community-based public safety, Sherrills has created and led multi-million-dollar nonprofit organizations focused on reducing violence and fostering safety in urban communities, and advised hundreds of organizations. Follow him Twitter @aqeela28.

Dalila Wilson-Scott

Comcast Corporation and Comcast NBCUniversal Foundation | 2022-2024

Dalila Wilson-Scott is Executive Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer of Comcast Corporation and President of the Comcast NBCUniversal Foundation. In these roles, she oversees diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and philanthropic strategy for the corporation, focusing on advancing digital equity and economic mobility through Project UP. Wilson-Scott leads Comcast’s community impact initiatives and oversees efforts to bring greater attention to the company’s philanthropic partners. Before joining Comcast, she was Head of Global Philanthropy and President of the JPMorgan Chase Foundation.

Sonja Trauss

Executive Director, Yes In My Back Yard

Sonja Trauss is the founder of Yes In My Back Yard (YIMBY) Law and, according to some, of today’s YIMBY movement. Originally from Philadelphia, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2011 after receiving a masters in Economics from Washington University in St. Louis.

Stew

Singer-songwriter and playwright | 2021

These days, Stew, a Tony and two-time Obie award-winning playwright and performer, critically acclaimed singer-songwriter and veteran of multiple dive-bar stages, is focusing on creating song-driven films, alternative TV and teaching. He is currently composing songs for Spike Lee’s upcoming (and yet-to-be-titled) full-length movie musical, and he teaches at Harvard, Sarah Lawrence and The New School, where his classes are hothouses of multi-disciplinary, self-challenging experimentation that encourage celebratory transformation via myth-making. Follow him on Twitter @StewTNP.

Fran Dunphy

Head Men's Basketball Coach, La Salle University | 2023

Fran Dunphy is the all-time winningest coach in Philadelphia Big 5 history and is in his second season as head men’s basketball coach at La Salle University.

Dunphy, a member of the Philadelphia Big 5, La Salle Athletics, Penn Athletics and Philadelphia Sports Writers Halls of Fame, has amassed nearly 600 victories over his 30 years as head coach at Penn (1989-06) and Temple (2006-19). He is the only coach to oversee multiple Big 5 men’s programs; his teams have competed in 17 NCAA Tournaments.

Bruce Katz

Nowak Metro Finance Lab Founding Director, Drexel University | 2022-2024

Bruce Katz is the Founding Director of the Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Previously he served as inaugural Centennial Scholar at Brookings Institution and as vice president and director of Brooking’s Metropolitan Policy Program for 20 years. He is a Visiting Professor in Practice at London School of Economics, and previously served as chief of staff to the secretary of Housing and Urban Development and staff director of the Senate Subcommittee on Housing and Urban Affairs. Katz co-led the Obama administration’s housing and urban transition team. He is coauthor of The Metropolitan Revolution and The New Localism: How Cities Can Thrive in the Age of Populism, editor or coeditor of several books on urban and metropolitan issues, and a frequent media commentator.

Molly Baldwin

Founder and CEO, Roca | 2023

Molly Baldwin is the founder and CEO of Roca, which works to disrupt incarceration, poverty and racism among high-risk young adults. Since 1988, Baldwin and Roca have served more than 25,000 youth, relentlessly engaging with more than 1,700 young adults each year across 25 communities in Massachusetts, Hartford, CT and Baltimore, MD. Today, Roca is one of the nation’s most effective interventions for young adults at critical risk.

Michael A. Nutter

Former Mayor of Philadelphia | 2023

Michael A. Nutter was two-term mayor of Philadelphia and 15-year veteran of Philadelphia City Council. Since leaving public office in 2016, he has remained active in public policy, government and civic life. Nutter 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 Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics.