Marla Blow is the incoming President and COO of the Skoll Foundation.  Previously, she was North America lead at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, and was Founder and CEO of FS Card Inc., a subprime credit card venture (sold to strategic acquirer).

Ms. Blow won the EY Mid Atlantic Emerging Company Entrepreneur of the Year Award for 2018, and has been listed as one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business. Marla was featured in the April 2018 Vanity Fair “26 Women of Color Diversifying Entrepreneurship” photo shoot, and she is a Henry Crown Fellow as part of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Previously, she was part of the Implementation Team to stand up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and ultimately served as the Assistant Director for Card and Payment Markets, where she shaped the CFPB’s regulatory priorities in these markets.

Prior to joining the CFPB, Marla spent seven years in a variety of functions at Capital One in the credit card business.  Ms. Blow is a member of the US Capital Chapter of YPO, and previously served on the Board of Directors of Care.com (NYSE: CRCM, sold to IAC), and on the Board of Directors of Factor Trust (sold to TransUnion).  Marla holds an MBA from Stanford University and an undergraduate degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Thought Leadership by Blow

Business Insider | A Mastercard SVP shares how the company's recent $500 million commitment is helping to close the racial wealth gap in the US | September 17, 2020

Katie Couric is an award-winning journalist, New York Times best-selling author and a co-founder of Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C). Since its launch in 2008, Stand Up To Cancer has raised more than $600 million to support cutting-edge collaborative science and its research has contributed to six new FDA approved therapies.

In 2017, she founded Katie Couric Media (KCM), which has developed a number of media projects, including a daily newsletter, a podcast, digital video series and several documentaries. KCM works with purpose driven brands to create premium content that addresses important social issues like gender equality, environmental sustainability and mental health.

Previous documentaries produced by KCM include: America Inside Out with Katie Couric, a six-part series for National Geographic.

Couric was also the executive producer of Unbelievable on Netflix and is developing other scripted projects. Couric was the first woman to solo anchor a network evening newscast, serving as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News from 2006 to 2011 following 15-years as co-anchor of NBC’s Today show.

She has won a duPont-Columbia, a Peabody, two Edward R. Murrows, a Walter Cronkite Award, and multiple Emmys. She was twice named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people and was a Glamour Magazine woman of the year three times. She has also received numerous awards for her cancer advocacy work; honored by both the Harvard and Columbia schools of public health, the American Cancer Society and The American Association of Cancer Researchers.

In addition to writing The Best Advice I Ever Got: Lessons from Extraordinary Lives Couric’s memoir will be published in the Fall of 2021.

Photo credit: Andrew Eccles

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Thought Leadership by Couric

Time | I Gave Donald Trump a Chance After He Was Elected. The President's Supporters Should Do the Same for Joe Biden Now | November 8, 2020

Time | Watch Author Margaret Sullivan Explain How the Decline of Local Journalism Undermines American Democracy | August 4, 2020

Before being elected Nevada's Attorney General, Aaron Ford served as the Majority Leader of the Nevada State Senate. He has been the Minority Leader, Assistant Majority Whip, and previously held a leadership role on several legislative committees.  He was recognized as best Senate Freshman by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Rookie of the Year by the Reno Gazette Journal, and Senator of the Year by both Help Animals Nevada and the Nevada Conservation League for his work during the 2013 Nevada Legislative session.

AG Ford earned his B.A. from Texas A&M University in Interdisciplinary Studies and his M.A. in International Education from George Washington University. He also earned an M.A. in Educational Administration, his law degree and Ph.D. in Educational Administration from The Ohio State University.

Before practicing law, AG Ford served as a public school math teacher, shaping hundreds of lives. After teaching, he began his career in law. He clerked for the Honorable Denise Page Hood of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan and the Honorable Johnnie B. Rawlinson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He spent many years in private practice as a Partner at Snell & Wilmer, LLP and later as Partner at Eglet Adams in Las Vegas.

Throughout AG Ford's career, he has always made time to give back to his community. Among his many community accolades, he has served on the Clark County Justice of the Peace Selection Committee and recognized as a Mountain States' "Super Lawyer" and "Rising Star in Law". AG Ford is a former Board Member of the I Have a Dream Foundation, Olive Crest of Nevada, and Junior Achievement of Southern Nevada. In addition, he coached soccer, basketball, and t-ball.

AG Ford married his college sweetheart, Berna Rhodes-Ford, who is also an attorney. Together, they raised four children, Avery, Devin, Aaron II, and Alexander.

Yasmin Green is the Director of Research and Development for Jigsaw, a unit within Google building technology to make the world safer from global security challenges. In her role, Yasmin leads an interdisciplinary team to forecast threats and validate technology interventions. She has pioneered new approaches to counter violent extremism and state-sponsored disinformation, including seeding the world's first online network of former violent extremists and survivors of terrorism, launching a new advertising-based program to confront online radicalization called the Redirect Method, and informing cross-platform responses to coordinated disinformation campaigns.  

Yasmin actively advises and leads security initiatives outside Jigsaw. She is a member of the Aspen Commission on Information Disorder and the Aspen Cyber Strategy Group, a Senior Advisor on Innovation to Oxford Analytica, and a Board Director at the Anti-Defamation League.

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Thought Leadership by Green 

Business Insider | Why artificial intelligence models are often biased, according to the Google exec who heads Alphabet's internal tech incubator Jigsaw | August 3, 2020

Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex, is a humanitarian, military veteran, mental wellness advocate, and environmentalist.

As co-founder of Archewell, he is focused on raising awareness around the root causes of some of the world’s most pressing challenges, including challenges across the online world, and is equally dedicated to pursuing collaborative and substantive solutions to address them. The mission at Archewell—which currently includes Archewell Foundation, Archewell Productions, and Archewell Audio—is united behind the deeply held belief that compassion is the defining cultural force of the 21st century.

The Duke has dedicated his life’s work to advancing causes that he is passionate about both personally and as a continuation of his mother’s legacy. Through his charitable work, he has devoted his efforts to fostering community, compassion, and connection among people around the world.

He spent the first 10 years of his adulthood serving in the British Army, during which he undertook two tours of duty in Afghanistan as a forward air controller and an Apache helicopter pilot.

Since completing his military service, The Duke founded and created the globally renowned Invictus Games, as a platform for wounded, injured and sick service personnel to use sport as part of their rehabilitation. This international event has been universally recognized for its impact in celebrating those that serve, and inspiring people all over the world.

In addition to serving as patron to a number of charities and organizations, The Duke is President of African Parks, a non-governmental organization focused on protecting Africa’s ecosystems in partnership with local communities and governments. He also co-founded Sentebale in 2006 at the age of 22, with his dear friend Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, in memory of their mothers’ charitable work in combating the HIV crisis.

The Duke’s commitment to environmental stewardship is widely regarded. In 2019, he founded Travalyst, a not-for-profit entity comprised of several of the largest online travel agencies in the world. Its mission is to redefine the tourism industry using travel as a catalyst for good. Travalyst seeks to create truly sustainable travel so that destinations are protected for generations to come, and those communities that depend on tourism can benefit from safeguarding them.

Along with his wife, Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex, The Duke has built Archewell. Through non-profit work, as well as creative activations, Archewell drives systemic cultural change across all communities, one act of compassion at a time.

The Duke lives in California with his wife, their son Archie, and two dogs.

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Thought Leadership by The Duke of Sussex

Fast Company | ‘Time is running out’: Prince Harry calls for social media reform after U.S. Capitol riot | January 22, 2021

TIME | Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Discuss Voting and the Importance of Combating Misinformation | September 22, 2020

Color Of Change | Civil Rights X Tech: Stop Hate For Profit | August 9, 2020

Fast Company | Prince Harry: Social media is dividing us. Together, we can redesign it | August 6, 2020

Will Hurd is currently a managing director at Allen & Company and former member of Congress, cybersecurity executive, and undercover officer in the CIA. For almost two decades he’s been involved in the most pressing national security issues challenging the country whether it was in the back-alleys of dangerous places, boardrooms of top international businesses or halls of Congress.

After stopping terrorists, preventing Russian spies from stealing our secrets, and putting nuclear weapons proliferators out of business, Will helped build a cybersecurity company that prepared businesses for the next domain of conflict – cyberspace.

While in Congress, Texas Monthly and Politico Magazine called Will “The Future of the GOP,” because he put good policy over good politics at a time when America was often consumed with what divides us rather than what unites us. He was able to get more legislation signed into law in three terms than most congressmen do in three decades – substantive legislation like a national strategy for Artificial Intelligence.

Will is a native of San Antonio and earned a Computer Science degree from Texas A&M University. Additionally, he is growing the US transatlantic partnership with Europe as a trustee of the German Marshall Fund, an OpenAI board member, and most recently served as a fellow at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. He is also the author of American Reboot: An Idealist’s Guide to Getting Big Things Done, due March 2022.

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Thought Leadership by Hurd

The Washington Post | Opinion: Will Hurd: If the GOP wants a future, it must look in the mirror | January 22, 2021

NPR | Congressman Hurd On Why He Decided To Leave Congress | December 17, 2020

Jameel Jaffer is the inaugural Executive Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which was established in 2016 to promote the freedoms of speech and the press through strategic litigation, research, and public education. The Institute has undertaken a number of major projects relating to public discourse in the digital sphere. In a series of lawsuits, including one against President Trump, the Institute has successfully argued that the First Amendment’s “public forum” doctrine applies to public officials’ social media accounts. The Institute has also advocated on behalf of journalists and researchers who study the social media platforms, and it currently represents the researchers behind NYU’s Ad Observer, which Facebook has tried to shut down. In a comment that received significant public attention, the Institute recently urged Facebook’s Oversight Board to use its narrow jurisdiction over content-moderation decisions to force Facebook to address more consequential decisions relating to platform design. Before joining the Knight Institute, Jaffer was Deputy Legal Director at the ACLU, where he oversaw that organization’s work relating to free speech, privacy, national security, and international human rights. His recent writing has been published in the New York Times, Slate, and Just Security, a national security blog.

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Thought Leadership by Jaffer

New York Times | Facebook’s ‘Supreme Court’ Faces Its First Major Test | February 17, 2021

Knight First Amendment Institute | Facebook and Free Speech Are Different Things | October 24, 2019

Chris Krebs is a founding partner of the Krebs Stamos Group, and previously served as the first director of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). As Director, Mr. Krebs oversaw CISA’s efforts to manage risk to the nation’s businesses and government agencies, bringing together partners to collectively defend against cyber and physical threats. At CISA, Mr. Krebs also pioneered the Rumor Control program, which was designed to counter disinformation campaigns.

Before serving as CISA Director, Mr. Krebs served in various roles at the Department of Homeland Security, responsible for a range of cybersecurity, critical infrastructure and national resilience issues. Prior to his time at DHS, he directed U.S. cybersecurity policy for Microsoft, and advised industry and government clients on complex cybersecurity and business risk matters, while serving at positions with Obsidian Analysis and Dutko Consulting. He also served in the George W. Bush Administration, advising DHS leadership on domestic and international risk management and public-private partnership initiatives.

Mr. Krebs holds a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia and a J.D. from the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.

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Thought Leadership by Krebs

Wired | Ex-CISA Head Chris Krebs: ‘Impeachment Is the Right Mechanism’ | January 15, 2021

CNN | Opinion: Chris Krebs: We prepared for more Russian interference. But this year the assault on democracy was from within the US. | December 15, 2020

Washington Post | Opinion: Trump fired me for saying this, but I’ll say it again: The election wasn’t rigged | December 1, 2020

Dr. Herb Lin is Senior Research Scholar for Cyber Policy and Security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, and the Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Policy and Security at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford University.  In addition to these positions, he is also Chief Scientist, Emeritus for the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies, where from 1990 to 2014 he served as Study Director of major projects on public policy and information technology. He is also a member of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. His research interests relate broadly to policy-related dimensions of cybersecurity and cyberspace.

Dr. Lin is particularly interested in the use of offensive operations in cyberspace as instruments of national policy and in the security dimensions of information warfare and influence operations on national security.  He has also published studies in cognitive science and science education. He received his doctorate in physics from MIT.

Following the launch of the Commission's final report, Dr. Lin has provided a statement on an additional priority of personal interest, which can be read here.

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Thought Leadership by Dr. Lin

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | The COVID-19 infodemic: What can be done about the infectious spread of misinformation and disinformation | September 10, 2020

Cyber Defense Review | Doctrinal Confusion and Cultural Dysfunction in DoD | Summer 2020

Lawfare | On the Integration of Psychological Operations with Cyber Operations | January 9, 2020

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | The existential threat from cyber-enabled information warfare | June 28, 2019

Oxford Handbook of Cybersecurity | On Cyber-Enabled Information Warfare and Information Operations | May 2019

Lawfare | Developing Responses to Cyber-Enabled Information Warfare and Influence Operations | September 6, 2018

Kathryn Murdoch is the Co-founder and President of the Quadrivium Foundation, which supports powerful, evidence-based solutions for critical societal problems. Kathryn serves on the boards of Unite America, the Climate Leadership Council, Climate Central, and the Environmental Defense Fund. She is a founding board member of SciLine, which provides scientific expertise and context for journalists. Quadrivium has also funded important work by code.org, the Center for New American Security, and the Anti-Defamation League.

As Co-Chair of the board of Unite America, Kathryn supports a movement of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who are working to bridge the partisan divide.  She champions political reforms that put voters first, aiming for a more representative and functional government. Previously, she served on the advisory board of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford University and the Board of Trustees at Rockefeller University.

As a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University and the Director of ReSource 2012, she convened scientists, academics, investment professionals, and entrepreneurs to promote the judicious use of natural resources.

From 2007 to 2011 Kathryn served as Director of Strategy and Communications for the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI), where she managed the CCI 's partnership with Microsoft to develop software to track global greenhouse gas emissions.  She was Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from 2009 to 2012.  Previously, Kathryn was a marketing and communications executive in New York and Hong Kong and an owner of the clothing and accessories brand Thakoon, until its sale in 2015.

She lives in New York with her family.

Dr. Safiya U. Noble is an Associate Professor of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the Department of Information Studies where she serves as the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2). She also holds faculty appointments in African American Studies and Gender Studies. She is a Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford and has been appointed as a Commissioner on the Oxford Commission on AI & Good Governance (OxCAIGG). Dr. Noble is a board member of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, serving those vulnerable to online harassment. She is the author of a best-selling book on racist and sexist algorithmic bias in commercial search engines, entitled Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (NYU Press), which has been widely-reviewed in scholarly and popular publications, and is a member of many scholarly editorial and advisory boards.

Rashad Robinson is the President of Color Of Change, a leading racial justice organization driven by more than 7.2 million members who are building power for Black communities. Color Of Change uses innovative strategies to bring about systemic change in the industries that affect Black people’s lives: Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Hollywood, Washington, corporate board rooms, local prosecutor offices, state capitol buildings and city halls around the country. Under Rashad’s leadership, Color Of Change designs and implements winning strategies for racial justice, among them: forcing corporations to stop supporting Trump initiatives and white nationalists; framing net neutrality as a civil rights issue; holding local prosecutors accountable to end mass incarceration, police violence and financial exploitation across the justice system; forcing over 100 corporations to abandon ALEC, the secretive right-wing policy shop; changing representations of race and racism in Hollywood; moving Airbnb, Google and Facebook to implement anti-racist initiatives; and forcing Bill O’Reilly off the air.

Rashad is widely consulted on strategies for corporate accountability, transforming the criminal justice system, media and tech reform, culture change and narrative infrastructure, and building Black political power. He is a sought-after keynote speaker at events across the country, and appears regularly as a quoted source, interview guest and opinion writer in major media, as well as a chapter author in essay collections focused on social justice. In addition to media appearances, Rashad has been profiled by The New York Times, Wired, The Root, The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Fast Company, The Huffington Post, PBS, BET and several other outlets. Color Of Change has been named three times in Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list—in 2015, 2018 and 2020—and was profiled by the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Rashad is the proud recipient of awards from organizations as varied as ADCOLOR, the United Church of Christ, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Foundation and Demos. Rashad was a member of the inaugural cohort of Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equity, and serves on the board of the Hazen Foundation. Previously, Rashad served as Senior Director of Media Programs at GLAAD.

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Thought Leadership by Robinson

Yahoo Finance | ‘We are sending more powerful messages to the next generation’: Color of Change President on using technology | February 23, 2021

Color Of Change | Color Of Change Responds to Facebook’s US Election Policy Updates | September 3, 2020

Color Of Change | Color Of Change Responds to Report Exposing Facebook and Twitter Misinformation Campaign Linked to Russian IRA | March 12, 2020

Deb Roy is Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT, where he directs the MIT Center for Constructive Communication. He leads research in applied machine learning and human-machine interaction with applications in designing systems for learning and constructive dialogue, and for mapping and analyzing large scale media ecosystems.

Roy is also co-founder and Chair of Cortico, a nonprofit social venture that is developing and operating the Local Voices Network to foster constructive public conversations across political and cultural divides. Roy was co-founder and CEO of Bluefin Labs, a media analytics company that analyzed the interactions between television and social media at scale. Bluefin was acquired by Twitter in 2013, Twitter’s largest acquisition of the time. From 2013-2017 Roy served as Twitter’s Chief Media Scientist.

An author of over 160 academic papers, his popular TED talk Birth of a Word presents his research on his son’s language development that led to new ideas in media analytics.  A native of Canada, Roy received his Bachelor of Applied Science from the University of Waterloo and PhD in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT.

Alex Stamos is a cybersecurity expert, business leader and entrepreneur working to improve the security and safety of the Internet through his teaching and research at Stanford University. Stamos is an Adjunct Professor at Stanford’s Freeman-Spogli Institute and a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution.

Prior to joining Stanford, Alex served as the Chief Security Officer of Facebook. In this role, Stamos led a team of engineers, researchers, investigators and analysts charged with understanding and mitigating information security risks to the company and safety risks to the 2.5 billion people on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Before joining Facebook, Alex was the Chief Information Security Officer at Yahoo.

In 2004, Alex co-founded iSEC Partners, an elite security consultancy known for groundbreaking work in secure software development, embedded and mobile security. After the 2010 acquisition of iSEC Partners by NCC Group, Alex formed an experimental R&D division at the combined company, producing five patents.

Alex has been involved with securing the US election system as a contributor to Harvard’s Defending Digital Democracy Project and involved in the academic community as an advisor to Stanford’s Cybersecurity Policy Program and UC Berkeley’s Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity. He is a member of the Aspen Institute’s Cyber Security Task Force, the Bay Area CSO Council and the Council on Foreign Relations. Alex also serves on the advisory board to NATO’s Collective Cybersecurity Center of Excellence in Tallinn, Estonia.

Stamos worked under Prof. David Patterson while earning a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley. He lives in the Bay Area with his wife and three children.

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Thought Leadership by Stamos

Foreign Affairs | The Insurrection Hiding in Plain Sight: How Thousands of Americans Were Convinced to Storm the Capitol—and What Comes Next | January 14, 2021

The Washington Post | Opinion: Enough is enough. Here’s what we should do to defend against the next Russian cyberattacks | December 15, 2020

Lawfare | The Lawfare Podcast: Alex Stamos on Fighting Election Disinformation in Real Time | August 20, 2020

Dr. Kate Starbird is an Associate Professor at the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington (UW). Kate’s research is situated within human-computer interaction and the emerging field of crisis informatics—the study of how social media and other information-communication technologies are used during crisis events.

Currently, her work focuses on the production and spread of online rumors, misinformation, and disinformation in the context of crisis events. Professor Starbird received her BS in Computer Science from Stanford (1997) and her PhD in Technology, Media and Society from the University of Colorado (2012). In 2019, she co-founded the UW Center for an Informed Public.

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Thought Leadership by Dr. Starbird

NPR | Researchers Prepare For Deluge Of Election Night Misinformation | November 1, 2020

NBC News affiliate| What's the difference between misinformation and disinformation? UW professor explains | October 3, 2020

The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review | Cross-Platform Disinformation Campaigns: Lessons Learned and Next Steps | January 14, 2020

Amanda Zamora is co-founder and publisher of The 19th, an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting at the intersection of gender, politics and policy. She has spent nearly two decades at the forefront of digital journalism, working as a reporter, digital producer and editor, product manager, audience strategist and fundraiser. As publisher of The 19th, Amanda leads editorial, product and business operations in pursuit of the nonprofit’s mission to empower women, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community with the information, resources and community they need to be equal participants in our democracy.

Before helping launch The 19th, Zamora led double-digit audience gains and a 65% increase in membership revenue as chief audience officer at The Texas Tribune. Prior to the Tribune, Zamora was ProPublica’s senior engagement editor, where she helped produce Pulitzer Prize-winning projects and established the industry touchstone for crowdsourced journalism. Before that, over nearly eight years at The Washington Post, Zamora covered mass school shootings and hurricanes; led digital coverage of U.S. and international elections and the Iraq war; produced online reports for investigations into the online gambling industry, police shootings and the rise of improvised explosive devices; created a field video strategy for a team of foreign correspondents; developed feature podcasts and breaking news videos; and managed one of the first social media teams at a major U.S. newspaper.

Throughout her career, she has prioritized centering readers with journalism that meets communities where they are. A native of Houston, Texas, Zamora graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 2002 with a journalism degree.

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Thought Leadership by Zamora

Poynter | Overcoming systemic racism begins in our own newsrooms | June 26, 2020