Since July 2011, Christine Lagarde has been the eleventh and first woman Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. She was reelected to a second five-year term in 2016. A lawyer by background, Christine Lagarde practiced for 20 years with the international law firm Baker McKenzie, of which she became global Chairman in 1999. In 2005, she joined the French Government as Minister for Foreign Trade. Two years later, she became the first woman to hold the post of Finance and Economy Minister of a G7 country.

Donna L. Hoffman is the Louis Rosenfeld Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Marketing and Co-Director of the Center for the Connected Consumer at the George Washington School of Business in Washington, D.C. Professor Hoffman is an internationally recognized academic expert and sought-after industry speaker focused on consumer experience with AI devices, services, and systems.  She has worked with major corporations on the topics of online consumer behavior and digital marketing strategy, including Procter & Gamble, Intel, Microsoft, FedEx.com, Land’s End/Sears, Walmart.com, and many others. She served as an Academic Trustee of the Marketing Science Institute and as a member of the Procter & Gamble Digital Advisory Board.

She co-founded and co-directed the first academic center for electronic commerce in the United States. The New York Times calls her pioneering effort “one of the premiere research centers in the world for the study of electronic commerce” and the Wall Street Journal recognizes the effort as the “electronic commerce pioneer among business schools.”

Professor Hoffman publishes widely on the topics of consumer behavior in online environments and Internet marketing strategy in many of the top academic and managerial journals. Her research has been funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the Marketing Science Institute. Professor Hoffman’s work enjoys wide impact: she has over 26,000 Google Scholar citations and an H-index of 40 and has been awarded many of the field’s most prestigious research awards, including the Robert B. Clarke Educator of the Year Award from the DMEF, the Sheth Foundation/Journal of Marketing Award for long-term contributions to the discipline of marketing, the Stellner Distinguished Scholar Award from the University of Illinois, the William O’Dell/Journal of Marketing Research Award for long-term research impact and the Robert D. Buzzell Marketing Science Institute Best Paper Award Honorable Mention. She is also an MSI “Challenges of Communications and Branding in a Digital Era” research proposal competition winner and was recently named a finalist for the Paul D. Converse Award, for her lasting contributions to the marketing field.

Her Ph.D. is from the L.L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and she was a faculty member at Columbia University, the University of Texas, Vanderbilt University and the University of California before joining George Washington University. She has also served as a visiting professor at UCLA, Stanford and USC. She was named a Distinguished Graduate Alumnus of UNC in 2002.

Frank Sesno currently serves as director of the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, where he leads a faculty of nearly two dozen world-class faculty who research and teach journalism, political communication and the impact of digital media in international affairs.

Sesno is an internationally recognized journalist with more than 30 years of experience reporting from around the world. He joined CNN in 1984 and for seven years was White House Correspondent, after which he moved to the anchor chair for the main domestic and global international newscasts. From 1996 through 2001, he served as the Washington Bureau chief and senior vice president. In this capacity, he oversaw the bureau’s editorial direction and supervised the network’s largest newsgathering operation — including its White House, Congressional, and Pentagon coverage, as well as its political reporting. For seven years, he hosted Late Edition with Frank Sesno, CNN’s flagship weekend interview program.

He has interviewed five U.S. Presidents as well as numerous Nobel prize-winning scientists, renowned economists, Hollywood celebrities, CEOs, best-selling authors and leaders including Hillary Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and broadcast legend Walter Cronkite.

Sesno continues to conduct interviews and moderate conversations with political leaders and decision-makers, including through The Conversation Series at GW. He is the creator of Planet Forward at GW, a user-driven web and television project that highlights innovations in sustainability. Sesno hosts and facilitates the Planet Forward Salon Series focusing on topics such as energy policy, green jobs and food production.

Sesno graduated cum laude with a B.A. in American History from Middlebury College. He was conferred an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters in 1995 by the Monterrey Institute of International Studies in California and two Honorary Doctorates by his alma mater, Middlebury, in 2009 and Eckerd College in 2017.

Gabriel (Gabe) Galvan is an executive director at the MITRE Corporation. As a member of MITRE’s executive team, he works across the company to help promote safety in the United States and with governments across the world. He concentrates on MITRE’s cyber outreach and partnerships. Engaging across the globe on issues of security, his overseas efforts often include the themes of smart cities, cyber security and resilience, research and development.

Today he leads an effort to launch a public-private partnership to increase cyber defense and to share valuable actionable information for its members in industry and the region. He is active in the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative, a Virginia-based effort to help align cyber and related technologies investments with activities of research, education and economic development in the region.

Gabe has held executive roles and international assignments in a variety of companies including the IBM Corporation, BMC Software and HP. His experience in business, management consulting, sales, services and public policy has been used to launch new businesses and help transform governments and organizations across the world.

Gabe graduated with highest honors as valedictorian in his MBA studies from the George Washington University. He is a native Washingtonian and earned a BS in Business Administration from George Mason University and has additional studies in International Transactions from George Mason’s School of Public Policy. He remains active supporting the local university community and serves as a Board of Trustee to Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia.

He is a member of the Atlantic Council and the Greater Washington Board of Trade, and he currently chairs the NVTC Committee on Cybersecurity and Privacy.

Jennifer S. Vey is a senior fellow and the Director of the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Center for Transformative Placemaking at the Brookings Institution. Jennifer’s work primarily focuses on the connection between placemaking and inclusive economic development in the digital economy. She is the author or co-author of numerous Brookings publications, including “Why we need to invest in transformative placemaking,” “Assessing your innovation district: A how-to guide,” and “Building from strength: Creating opportunity in Greater Baltimore’s next economy.” She also co-edited Retooling for Growth:  Building a 21^st Century Economy in America’s Older Industrial Areas, published by the American Assembly and Brookings Institution Press.

Prior to joining Brookings in June, 2001, Jennifer was a Community Planning and Development Specialist at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. She earned a Master of Planning degree from the University of Virginia, and holds a B.A. in Geography from Bucknell University. She lives with her family in Baltimore.

Recognized as a global strategic retail and brand marketing expert, as the vice president and chief marketing officer for Luxottica’s Pearle Vision Business, Doug has led the transformation of the brands global strategic marketing, e-commerce, visual merchandising, product promotion, and store design functions. His work with Pearle Vision is currently the subject of a Harvard Business case study on brand rejuvenation.

Doug has earned an impressive array of honors for his marketing and brand building work, including The Innovation Award from The CMO Club, a Silver Clio Award, El Sol Award, Effie Award for Health Care Services Marketing (twice), WWD’s Best Executed Launch Strategy Award, the American Legacy’s Silver Halo Award for Cause Related Marketing, and the Bulldog Drummond Social Media Award for Best Social Media Platform.

He’s also been named “Marketer of the Next Generation” by Brandweek and “One of the 15 to Watch” by The Youth Marketing Newsletter.

His public presence includes appearances on all of the major broadcast networks; in Forbes, The Economist, The New York Times, and The Huffington Post; and as a guest lecturer at many top universities, such as Harvard, NYU, Duke, Xavier, Miami of Ohio, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Jon Miller, honored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame as the 2010 Ford C. Frick award winner for baseball broadcasting excellence, the “Voice of the Giants”, enters his 22nd season in the broadcast booth on KNBR Radio, NBC Bay Area and NBC Sports Bay Area. Miller was thrilled to broadcast his 16th World Series in 2014 as the Giants won it all for the third time in five years. Miller was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2014.

In 1990, when ESPN TV first began its coverage of Major League Baseball, Miller was chosen as the first play-by-play commentator on the award-winning ESPN Sunday Night Baseball game of the week broadcast. Miller and his Hall of Fame partner, Joe Morgan, teamed up on the prime time telecast for 21 seasons. During his tenure at ESPN, he was nominated twice for a national Emmy Award, and broadcast 13 consecutive World Series on ESPN Radio. He has broadcast 16 World Series overall. He was also nominated six times for an “ACE” award, emblematic of cable television excellence, and won the award in 1991 - the first ESPN play-by-play announcer to win the award, and 1996.

Miller was named National Sportscaster of the Year by the American Sportscasters Association (ASA) in 1998. That same year, Miller was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association of America (NSSAA). In 2016, Miller received a Northern California Emmy Award, the third local Emmy for his Giants television work. Prior to his work on ESPN, Miller broadcast an occasional game on NBC-TV with either Tony Kubek or Joe Garagaiola.

Miller spent 14 years with the Baltimore Orioles before coming to the Giants. Prior to joining Baltimore in 1983, the talented broadcaster spent two seasons with the Texas Rangers (1978-79) and three seasons with the Boston Red Sox (1980-82). Miller got his first baseball play-by-play job in 1974 at age 22 calling radio and TV for that year’s World Series Champion Oakland Athletics.

The Bay Area native has also broadcast NHL hockey, NBA basketball and championship soccer games on national television in his distinguished career. In 2018, Miller was inducted into the College of San Mateo (CA) Hall of Fame. Miller began his broadcasting career as a student at CSM and broadcast baseball, football and basketball games on KCSM, the college’s radio and TV stations.

Jon and his wife, Janine, reside in Moss Beach. They are parents to three daughters, Misha, Holly (married to Paul Gallagher) and Emilie, and a son, Alexander.

Kristalina Georgieva is the Chief Executive Officer of the World Bank. Her role is to build support across the international community to mobilize resources for poor and middle-income countries and to create better opportunities for the world’s most vulnerable people.

Previously, Georgieva, a Bulgarian national, played a leading role in shaping the agenda of the European Union, first as Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, and later as Vice President for Budget and Human Resources, in charge of the European Union's €161 billion budget and 33,000 staff around the world.

Before joining the European Commission, Georgieva held multiple positions at the World Bank, including, most recently, Vice President and Corporate Secretary (2008-2010), and from 2007 to 2008, Director for Sustainable Development in charge of 60 percent of the World Bank’s policy and lending operations.