2019 Socrates Benefit Dinner
This dinner is a benefit for the Socrates Program for Emerging Leaders and is Co-Chaired by Laura and Gary Lauder and Bonnie and Tom McCloskey. Kitty Boone, Vice President of Public Programs and Executive Director of the Aspen Ideas Festival, will be honored for her role in shaping the Socrates Program during its formative years. Brian Hooks, President of the Charles Koch Foundation, is the featured speaker.
About the Honoree:
Kitty Boone is responsible for oversight of a broad array of public facing programs and events at the Aspen Institute. She is the primary executive in charge of the Aspen Ideas Festival, a week-long conference that is hosted by the Institute and The Atlantic magazine each summer in Aspen. She also supports and works with colleagues on numerous additional programs which the Institute partners in or manages, including Aspen Ideas: Health, Aspen Abu Dhabi Ideas Forum, City Lab, and various smaller initiatives. Kitty has worked at the Aspen Institute since 2003. Prior to joining the Aspen Institute, where she also had responsibilities for seminar programs, Kitty served as Vice President of Marketing and Sales at Aspen Skiing Company, where she worked for 11 years. A native of San Francisco and a graduate of Stanford University, Kitty began her career in Washington, D.C. as an intern for a national environmental group, ultimately coming to Aspen in 1989, after stints in the public and private sector and earning her Master’s in Public and Private Management at Yale School of Management. She is a proud mom of twins—a junior in college and a Navy Seal recruit. Kitty sits on two boards in Aspen, and is passionate to learn why some people are so curious.
About the Speaker:
Brian Hooks is president of the Charles Koch Foundation and Charles Koch Institute and chairman of The Seminar Network, a network of organizations and business and philanthropic leaders dedicated to breaking barriers that stand in the way of people realizing their potential. Brian also chairs the board of directors of Stand Together and serves on the boards of both the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and the Institute for Humane Studies. Previously, Brian served as executive director and chief operating officer of the Mercatus Center, where he oversaw strategy and operations for a growing research, education, and public policy center. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Brian lives in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and daughter.