Speakers During the Past Three Years

The Hon. Dr. Kevin Rudd AC

Kevin Rudd served as Australia’s twenty-six Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010, then as Minister for Foreign Affairs, before a second term as Prime Minister in 2013. He is currently Australian Ambassador to the United States.

Since leaving government, Dr. Rudd has resided in the United States where he is recognised as a leading analyst of China. In 2015, he became inaugural President of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York and founded its Center for China Analysis in 2022.

Dr. Rudd started his diplomatic career in 1981 with postings to Beijing and Stockholm. He later served as a senior public servant and as a China consultant for KPMG prior to his election to Australian parliament in 1998.

Dr. Rudd is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. He graduated with Honours in Asian Studies from the Australian National University and received his PhD from Oxford University in 2022. He also studied at National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei.

Dr. Rudd is the author of On Xi Jinping: How Xi’s Marxist Nationalism is Shaping China and the World. His previous books include The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping’s China and The PM Years.

General David H. Petraeus

General David Petraeus, US Army (Ret.) is one of the leading battlefield commanders and strategists of our time. He served over 37 years in the US military culminating his career with six consecutive commands as a general officer, five of which were in combat, including command of the Surge in Iraq, US Central Command, and NATO/US Forces in Afghanistan. He subsequently served as Director of the CIA, following confirmation by the Senate by a vote of 94-0, during a period of significant achievements in the global war on terror.

General Petraeus is now a Partner with the global investment firm KKR and Chairman of the KKR Global Institute, which he established in 2013. He also serves on corporate boards, is the Kissinger Fellow at Yale University’s Jackson School, and is the co-author, with Andrew Roberts, of Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine. General Petraeus graduated with distinction from the US Military Academy, earned a Ph.D. from Princeton University, and has held academic appointments at 5 universities in addition to his current position at Yale. He is also Co-Chairman of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Global Advisory Council, Senior Vice President of the Royal United Services Institute, and a member of the Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, and Aspen Strategy Group.

His awards include four Defense Distinguished Service Medals, the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award, the Bronze Star Medal for Valor, the Combat Action Badge, the Ranger tab, and master parachutist wings. He has also been decorated by 14 foreign countries and is believed to be the only person in uniform to throw out the first pitch of a World Series game and do the coin toss for a Super Bowl.

The Hon. Justin Muzinich

Justin Muzinich is CEO of Muzinich & Co. From 2018-2021 he served as the US Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, with broad responsibility for US economic policy. While Deputy Secretary, Justin was also responsible for the roles of Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence and Under Secretary for Domestic Finance, managing the divisions of Treasury that oversee national security policy (including sanctions) and financial policy. Justin played a leading role in the economic response to Covid-19 and represented the US at G7, G20 and OECD meetings. From 2017-2018 Justin served as Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury and helped lead the effort to reform the US tax code. From 2015-2016, he was Policy Director for Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign.

Immediately after leaving public service, Justin served as a Distinguished Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and as a Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School. Before entering public service, Justin served as President of Muzinich & Co. and taught at Columbia Business School. Justin began his career in the mergers and acquisitions group at Morgan Stanley. He earned an AB from Harvard College, a JD from Yale Law School, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is on the boards of The Council on Foreign Relations and New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Gillian Tett

Gillian Tett has served as Provost of King’s College, Cambridge since October 2023. As an author and journalist, she has become an important voice in international economics. She is chair of the editorial board and editor-at-large of the Financial Times for the United States. Her weekly columns cover a range of economic, financial, political and social issues.

She has also written about the financial instruments that were part of the cause of the global financial crisis of 2007-2008. She was prescient in giving early warning that the financial crisis was looming. Tett has written four books including Fool’s Gold: How Unrestrained Greed Corrupted a Dream, Shattered Global Markets and Unleashed a Catastrophe, which won the Spear’s Book Award for the financial book of 2009.

Dame Louise Richardson DBE

Dame Louise Richardson DBE is president of Carnegie Corporation of New York, the philanthropic foundation established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911. Previously, she served as vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford and of the University of St. Andrews, and as executive dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

A native of Ireland, she studied history in Trinity College Dublin before gaining her PhD at Harvard University, where she spent 20 years on the faculty of the Department of Government, teaching courses on international security and foreign policy. She currently sits on numerous advisory boards, while serving as a trustee of, among others, the Booker Prize Foundation and the Sutton Trust. In 2023, the Irish government asked Richardson to serve as the independent chair of its Consultative Forum on International Security Policy.

A political scientist by training, Richardson is recognized internationally as an expert on terrorism and counterterrorism. Her groundbreaking study, What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat was published in 2006, and other publications include Democracy and Counterterrorism: Lessons from the Past (2007), The Roots of Terrorism (2006), and When Allies Differ: Anglo-American Relations during the Suez and Falklands Crises (1996).

Richardson’s many awards have recognized the excellence of her teaching and scholarship, including the Centennial Medal bestowed on her in 2013 by Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for “having the vision to assess emerging threats, for transformative leadership, and for moving seamlessly between the roles of scholar and teacher.” She has been awarded nine honorary doctorates, including from the universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and St. Andrews in Scotland; Trinity College Dublin and Queen’s University Belfast in Ireland; the University of Notre Dame in the U.S.; the University of the West Indies; Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel; and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in Russia. Richardson is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Academy of Social Sciences in the United Kingdom, as well as an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy and a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

In June 2022, Richardson was appointed a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (DBE) in recognition of her services to higher education.

Dr. Richard Haass

From January 2001 to June 2003, Dr. Haass was director of policy planning for the Department of State, where he directed the policy planning staff and was a principal advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Confirmed by the U.S. Senate to hold the rank of ambassador, Dr. Haass also served as U.S. coordinator for policy toward the future of Afghanistan and U.S. envoy to the Northern Ireland peace process.

Dr. Haass has extensive additional government experience. From 1989 to 1993, he was special assistant to President George H.W. Bush and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the staff of the National Security Council. In 1991, Dr. Haass was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal for his contributions to the development and articulation of U.S. policy during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Previously, he served in the Departments of State (1981–1985) and Defense (1979–1980), and was a legislative aide in the U.S. Senate.

A Rhodes Scholar, Dr. Haass holds a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and master’s and doctorate of philosophy degrees from Oxford University. He has also received numerous honorary degrees and was a member of the faculty of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and Hamilton College. Dr. Haass is the author or editor of fourteen books on American foreign policy, one book on management, and one on American democracy. His latest book, The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens, was published by Penguin Press in January 2023 and became a New York Times best seller.

The Hon. Mark T. Esper

Dr. Mark T. Esper became the 27th Secretary of Defense in July 2019. Upon graduating from West Point Dr. Esper served in the Gulf War on active duty and commanded what is now the 173d Airborne Brigade. Dr. Esper served in the Army for 21 years.

Upon leaving the Army, Dr. Esper was chief of staff at The Heritage Foundation. Later he served as senior staff on several Senate and House committees including the Senate Government Affairs Committee, and House Armed Services Committee. Dr. Esper was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy from 2002 to 2004 and National Security Advisor for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist from 2004 to 2006.

From 2006 to 2007 Dr. Esper was the Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Defense and International Affairs at the Aerospace Industries Association. He was a senior executive at the Raytheon Company from 2010 to 2017. From 2017 to 2019 Dr. Esper served as Secretary of the Army.

Dr. Esper holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Military Academy, a Master of Public Administration degree from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a doctorate in Public Policy from George Washington University.

Dr. Esper also serves on a number of private equity and venture capital company portfolio boards. He is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations. His memoir, A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times, chronicles his service while Secretary of Defense.

The Hon. John Lehman

John Lehman is Chairman of J.F. Lehman & Company, a private equity investment firm. Dr. Lehman was formerly an investment banker with PaineWebber Inc. Prior to joining PaineWebber, he served for six years as Secretary of the Navy. He was President of Abington Corporation between 1977 and 1981. He served 25 years in the naval reserve.

He has served as staff member to Dr. Henry Kissinger on the National Security Council, as delegate to the Force Reductions Negotiations in Vienna and as Deputy Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Dr. Lehman was also a member of the 9/11 Commission and a member of the National Defense Commission.

Dr. Lehman holds a B.S. from St. Joseph’s University, a B.A. and M.A. from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University. Dr. Lehman has written numerous books, including Where are the Carriers? U.S. National Strategy and the Choices Ahead, Oceans Ventured, On Seas of Glory, Command of the Seas and Making War.

He currently serves as Chairman of the Princess Grace Foundation USA and is a member of the Board of Overseers of the School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Elizabeth Cleland

Dr. Elizabeth Cleland has worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art since 2004. As Curator in the department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, she is responsible for the curation, research and acquisition of the museum’s post- medieval European textiles. She co-curated, with Adam Eaker, the major loan exhibition The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England (on view at The Met until Jan. 08, 2023).

Previously, she was lead curator of the major loan exhibition Grand Design: Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry (The Met 2014-15), and curated Relative Values: The Cost of Art in the Northern Renaissance (The Met, 2018-21). With the Cleveland Museum of Art, she guest-curated Renaissance Splendor: Catherine de’ Medici’s Valois Tapestries (CMA 2018- 19). She lectures and teaches regularly, and has published widely on fifteenth-, sixteenth- and twentieth-century tapestries. In addition to the award-winning catalogue to Grand Design: Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry, which has been translated into Dutch and French, her books include: Renaissance Splendor. Catherine de’ Medici’s Valois Tapestries (Yale, 2018), co-authored with Marjorie E. Wieseman; Tapestries from the Burrell Collection (Philip Wilson Publishers, 2017), co-authored with Lorraine Karafel; and Tapestry in the Baroque: New aspects of production and patronage (Yale, 2010), co-edited with Thomas P. Campbell.

She undertook her undergraduate and postgraduate studies (the latter as an Arts and Humanities Research Council scholar) at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. She has received awards from the Ohio Museums Association (2018) and Association of Art Museum Curators (2014), and was recipient of the Leo and Julia Forchheimer Research Fellowship in 2004, and the Patricia Fay Memorial Fund scholarship in 1997. She and her husband live in New York with their daughter.

PUBLIC DUTIES

The Duke of Gloucester carries out a significant number of public duties, many as Patron, President or Fellow of a number of charities with which he is involved. The Duke has an association with over 150 charities and organisations in total and in addition to this he holds honorary military appointments with The Royal Anglian Regiment, The Royal Army Medical Corps, The Royal Logistic Corps, 6th Battalion – The Rifles, The Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers (Militia) and Royal Air Force Odiham.

The Duke is Grand Prior of the Order of St. John. In addition to many other activities, he was appointed Chancellor of the University of Worcester and is Joint President of Cancer Research UK.

The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester live at Kensington Palace and have three children and six grandchildren.

Topic: Ukraine War

General Sir Nicholas Carter

General Sir Nick Carter is an accomplished strategic leader and advisor. He has over 45 years’ military experience culminating at the top of his profession as the Chief of the Defence Staff where he was the principal military advisor to the Prime Minister, Secretary of State for Defence and the National Security Council, and the Head of the UK Armed Forces. He also served as the Chief of the General Staff, professional Head of the British Army.

General Carter has commanded on operations at every level of command and in a variety of different contexts, including the Troubles in Northern Ireland, UN peacekeeping in Cyprus, NATO peace enforcement in Bosnia and Kosovo, and commanding the UK-led Brigade in Iraq in 2003-04. He has multiple years of experience in Afghanistan since 9/11 until the present day, designing approaches to counter insurgency and acting as the facilitator to build confidence between the Afghan and Pakistani governments.

Topic: Churchill and the Russians

Allen Packwood

Allen Packwood BA, MPhil (Cantab), is a Fellow of Churchill College at the University of Cambridge, the Director of the Churchill Archives Centre, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He was awarded an OBE for services to archives and scholarship in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours. His book, How Churchill Waged War, was published by Pen & Sword in 2018.

The Churchill Archives Centre is located in the grounds of Churchill College, and is home to the papers of Sir Winston Churchill, Baroness Thatcher, Sir John Major and almost seven hundred of their contemporaries: politicians, diplomats, civil servants, military leaders and scientists of the modern era. It is still collecting.

Topic: He spoke on his recently published book The Afghanistan File 1979 — 9/11/2001 and the return of Taliban rule as well as regional developments.

HRH Prince Turki al Faisal al Saud

Former Head of the Intelligence Services of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Former Ambassador to the United States
Former Ambassador to Great Britain and Ireland

Dame Karen Pierce, DCMG

Prior to arriving in Washington D.C., Dame Karen Pierce was the United Kingdom’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York since March 2018. Prior to this assignment, Dame Karen served as the Director General for Political Affairs and Chief Operating Officer of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, from 2016.

Dame Karen joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1981. Her first assignment was in Tokyo between 1984 and 1987, after which she returned to the UK to work in the Security Policy Department. She worked in Washington as the Private Secretary to the British Ambassador to the United States between 1992 and 1995. Between 1996 and 2006, Dame Karen held several positions in London including Team Leader for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, Deputy Head of Eastern Adriatic (Balkans) Department, Head of Newsroom, Head of EU Department (Bilateral) and concurrently Head of Afghanistan Political Military Unit after 9/11 before returning to the Balkans as Balkans Coordinator from 2002 to 2006.

In 2006, Dame Karen moved to New York for the first time to be the Deputy Permanent Representative and Ambassador at the UK Mission to the UN. In 2009, she returned to London to become the Director of South Asia and Afghanistan Department and the UK’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2012, Dame Karen started her second multilateral role, this time in Geneva, where she was the Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UK Mission to the United Nations, World Trade Organization and Other International Organisations until 2015. Between 2015 and 2016 Dame Karen was the UK’s Ambassador to Afghanistan.

Topic: Conversation will include remarks about Mr. Panetta’s time as CIA director, the special USA-UK relationship, what to expect from a Biden Administration, especially with regard to China and Russia

Leon E. Panetta

Former Secretary of Defense
Central Intelligence Agency Director, White House Chief of Staff,
Office of Management and Budget Director, Congressman from California

The Twenty-third Secretary of Defense, Leon E. Panetta has had a fifty year career in public service at the highest levels of government: as Secretary of Defense, 2011-2013, he established a new defense strategy; as Director of the CIA, 2009-2011, he successfully led the operation that brought Osama bin Ladin to justice

Secretary Panetta began his public service career in 1964 as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, receiving the Army Commendation Medal, and then served as a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator from California, Tom Kuchel. In 1969, he was appointed Director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare responsible for enforcing equal education laws.

Elected to Congress in 1976, Secretary Panetta represented the California Central Coast for sixteen years. In 1993, he was sworn in as Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, 1993-1994, for the Clinton Administration and later appointed White House Chief of Staff, 1994-1996, achieving a balanced federal budget.

In 1997, Secretary Panetta established The Panetta Institute for Public Policy, a nonpartisan, not-for-profit study center to inspire men and women to lives of public service.

He chronicled his life in public service in his best-selling memoir Worthy Fights, which was published by Penguin Press in the fall of 2014.

Matthew Barzun

Matthew Barzun is a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom (2013 to 2017) and to Sweden (2009 to 2011). In 2008 he joined President Barack Obama’s National Finance Committee where he developed the Obama campaign’s grass-root fundraising and volunteering strategies which were to prove instrumental to electoral success. He later also served as National Finance Chair for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. He is currently board chair of Tortoise Media (tortoisemedia.com) an online news service he co-founded with the former Director of News at the BBC and the former president of the Wall St. Journal.

Earlier in his career, he helped shape the early development of the internet, joining technology news and reviews website CNET as its fourth employee in 1993 and left in 2004 having served in a number of roles within the company. From 2004 he has advised and invested in start-up internet companies.

Matthew has served on the boards of many not-for-profit organisations with a focus on education, civics, and interfaith relations. Born in New York City and raised in Lincoln, Mass., Matthew currently resides in Louisville, KY with his wife, Brooke Brown Barzun, and their three children and is the owner/publsiher of Louisville Magazine and Louisville.com. He is a graduate of Harvard College.

His upcoming book about leadership, The Power of Giving Away Power: How the Best Leaders Learn to Let Go, will be published by Penguin/Portfolio in 2021.

The Honorable Kevin Rudd AC served as Australia’s 26th Prime Minister (2007-2010, 2013) and as Foreign Minister (2010-2012). He led Australia’s response during the Global Financial Crisis—the only major developed economy not to go into recession—and helped found the G20. Mr. Rudd joined the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York as its inaugural President in January 2015. In 2015-16, Mr. Rudd led a review of the UN system as chair of the Independent Commission on Multilateralism. He is Chair of the Board of the International Peace Institute, Chair of Sanitation and Water for All, and was recently appointed to the IMF Managing Director’s new External Advisory Group. He is a Senior Fellow with Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, a Distinguished Fellow at Chatham House in London and a Distinguished Statesman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. Mr. Rudd is proficient in Mandarin Chinese. He also remains actively engaged in indigenous reconciliation.

Robert Bruce Zoellick is an American public official and lawyer who was the 11th president of the World Bank Group, a position he held from July 1, 2007, to June 30, 2012. He was previously a managing director of Goldman Sachs, United States Deputy Secretary of State (resigning on July 7, 2006) and U.S. Trade Representative, from February 7, 2001, until February 22, 2005. Zoellick has been a senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs since ending his term with the World Bank. He is currently a Senior Counselor at Brunswick Group.

A graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard University, Zoellick served as White House Deputy Chief of Staff under James A. Baker III from 1992 to early 1993.

Max Hollien

Max Hollein is an Austrian art historian and the current CEO and Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He served as Director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco from July 2016, until April 2018, the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that Hollein would become its 10th director.

Hollein oversaw both the de Young and the Legion of Honor museums, which together are the seventh most-visited art institutions in the United States, with 1.4 million visitors in 2016. Hollein joined the Fine Arts Museums in July 2016 from his position as the director of Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Städel Museum^[6] and the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung.

William J Clinton

William Jefferson Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again from 1983 to 1992. Clinton, whose policies reflected a centrist “Third Way” political philosophy, became known as a New Democrat. He is the husband of Hillary Clinton, who was a U.S. senator from New York from 2001 to 2009, secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 and the Democratic nominee for president in 2016.