Ambassador Harriet ("Hattie") Babbitt

Ambassador Harriet ("Hattie") Babbitt, Senior Vice President of Hunt Alternatives Fund, has directed the Washington, DC, Office of Inclusive Security: Women Waging Peace and the broader Hunt Alternatives Fund since 2002. Ambassador Babbitt previously served as Deputy Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), where she managed a large array of programs in the fields of democratization, women's empowerment, economic growth, education, health, the environment, and agriculture. Prior to joining USAID, Ambassador Babbitt served from 1993 to 1997 as U.S. permanent representative to the Organization of American States.

Ambassador Babbitt also served as a senior public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and spent nearly 20 years as a practicing attorney. Today she serves on numerous Boards of Directors, including the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), the American Bar Association Central Europe and Eurasia Legal Institute (ABA-CEELI), and the Council for a Community of Democracies (CCD)..

Michael Barone

Michael Barone is Senior Writer of U.S. News & World Report. Mr. Barone is the principal co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, published by National Journal every two years.  He has written for many publications, including The Economist, The New York Times, The Detroit News, The Detroit Free Press, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, National Review, The American Spectator, American Enterprise, The Times Literary Supplement and The Daily Telegraph of London.

Mr. Barone is a regular panelist on the McLaughlin Group, and is a contributor to the Fox News Channel. He has appeared on many other television programs. Mr. Barone lives in Washington, D.C. He has traveled to all 50 states and all 435 congressional districts. He has also traveled to 37 foreign countries and has reported on the most recent elections in Russia, Mexico, Italy and Britain.

Peter Bergen

Peter Bergen is a print and television journalist and author of Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden. A documentary based on Holy War, Inc. was nominated for an Emmy in 2002 in the research category. Mr. Bergen is CNN's terrorism analyst and an Adjunct Professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He has written for several leading news publications, and is on the editorial board of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism.

As a Fellow at the New America Foundation, Mr. Bergen researches and writes on the al-Qaeda network and on the problem of global terrorism. His articles concern the continued threat posed by al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, the global market in nuclear and radiological weapons, and the risk that those weapons may fall into the hands of terrorists.

The Honorable Lael Brainard 

Lael Brainard is currently Vice President and Director of the Global Economy and Development Center at the Brookings Institution.  Prior to her role at Brookings, she served as Deputy Director of the National Economic Council for President William J. Clinton as well as Deputy National Economic Advisor.  Brainard was part of a select team advising the President on issues including China's accession to the World Trade Organization and the 1997-98 international financial crisis. She served as the Staff Coordinator for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders meetings, NAFTA implementation, and the G8 Jobs Conferences.

Before joining the White House, Brainard was Associate Professor of Applied Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School, where she also taught International Trade and Competition and International Financial Policy and Markets. Brainard has written extensively on international economics, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves as a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She earned her B.A. from Wesleyan University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard.

Steven C. Clemons

Hernando de Soto

Hernando de Soto is a Peruvian economist known for his work on the informal economy. He is the Director of Peru's Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD), which is designing and implementing capital formation programs to empower the poor in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and former Soviet nations. He a Member of the World Commission on the Global Dimension of Globalization, and has served as an Economist for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), as President of the Executive Committee of the Intergovernmental Council of Copper Exporting Countries (CIPEC), as Managing Director of Universal Engineering Corporation, as a Principal of the Swiss Bank Corporation Consultant Group, and as a Governor of Peru's Central Reserve Bank. De Soto was Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori's Personal Representative and Principal Advisor until he resigned two months before the latter's coup d’etat in April, 1992.

Mr. de Soto has published two books about economic and political development: The Other Path, in the mid 1980s, and The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, at the end of 2000. In 1999, Time magazine chose de Soto as one of the five leading Latin American innovators of the century.

Dr. Johanna Mendelson Forman

Dr. Johanna Mendelson Forman is the Senior Program Officer for Peace, Security, and Human Rights at the United Nations Foundation. Prior to joining the UN Foundation, Dr. Mendelson was Senior Fellow at the Association of the United States Army’s program on the Role of American Military Power in the 21st Century. For the last eight years she has held senior positions at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), most recently as a Senior Policy Advisor for the Bureau for Humanitarian Response, where she managed the Agency’s policy on post-conflict reconstruction, security, and governance.  

Dr. Mendelson holds a faculty appointment at The American University's School of International Service in Washington, D.C. and at Georgetown University’s Center for National Security Studies. She is on the Advisory Board of Women in International Security and also serves on the board of the Institute for World Affairs.

David Hale

David Hale is the founder of Chicago-based Hale Advisors, LLC. A global economist, Mr. Hale advises investment management companies and multinational companies in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and South Africa on global economic trends. Mr. Hale also serves as Chairman of the Board of China Online, LLC, a service provider for business and economic news about China. Before launching his own firm, Mr. Hale was the Global Chief Economist for the Zurich Financial Services Group.

Mr. Hale's articles have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, Far Eastern Economic Review, Financial Times, The New York Times, and Foreign Policy. He is also a frequent television commentator on breaking news events that affect the global economy.

Seymour Hersh

Seymour M. Hersh is one of America's premier investigative reporters. He has won more than a dozen major journalism prizes, including the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting and four George Polk Awards.

Hersh is the author of six books, including The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award; The Target Is Destroyed: What Really Happened to Flight 007 and What America Knew About It, and The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and America’s Foreign Policy.

Sherle Schwenninger

Sherle Schwenninger is Director of the New America Foundation's Global Middle Class Program, which seeks to identify the main elements of a middle-class-oriented international economic strategy that would enable emerging economies to evolve into successful middle class societies. He also directs the foundation's Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program, which provides financial, professional, and institutional support to 25 Fellows each year.

Mr. Schwenninger was Founding Editor of the World Policy Journal from 1983 to 1992 and served as Director of the World Policy Institute at the New School University from 1992 to 1996. Prior to that he was Director of the Institute's Policy Studies Program and of its transnational academic program. More recently, Mr. Schwenninger served as Senior Program Coordinator for the Project on Development, Trade, and International Finance at the Council on Foreign Relations, and is the author with Walter Mead of "A Financial Architecture for Middle Class Oriented Development." He is also a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute.

Jay Winik

Jay Winik is one of the nation’s leading public historians, an acclaimed best-selling writer and expert on war and diplomacy, and a frequent television and radio guest.  His award-winning book April 1865: The Month That Saved America, about the end of the Civil War, was a number one national bestseller, appearing for twenty-two weeks on multiple bestseller lists.  One of those rare books considered an instant classic, it is to be released as part of a special “Modern Classic” series by HarperPerennial.  After President George W. Bush took April 1865 to Camp David following the 9/11 attacks, Winik and April 1865 were the subject of major media features around the world. 

Winik has had a distinguished government career in national security and foreign policy, advising two Secretaries of Defense and helping create the landmark United Nations Plan for ending the Cambodian civil war.  He has been in the thick of civil wars around the globe, from the former Yugoslavia to El Salvador, Nicaragua and Cambodia.  Winik contributes regularly to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.