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Michael E. Porter is a leading authority on competitive strategy, the competitiveness and economic development of nations, states, and regions, and the application of competitive principles to social problems such as health care, the environment, and corporate responsibility. Professor Porter is generally recognized as the father of the modern strategy field and has been identified in a variety of rankings and surveys as the world’s most influential thinker on management and competitiveness. He is the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School. In 2001, Harvard Business School and Harvard University jointly created the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, dedicated to furthering Professor Porter’s work. He is the author of 18 books and more than 125 articles, including his latest work, Redefining Healthcare: Creating Value-Based Competition on Results and On Competition.

Willard Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts from 2003 until 2007, when he began an unsuccessful run for president of the United States. Romney is a successful businessman with a political pedigree: his father, George Romney, was the governor of Michigan from 1963-69 and ran for the Republican nomination for president in 1968. (He was defeated by Richard Nixon.) Mitt Romney graduated from Brigham Young University in 1971, and earned both a law degree and an MBA from Harvard in 1975. Romney worked for the management consulting firm Bain & Company before founding the investment firm Bain Capital in 1984. Romney became a national figure in 1999 when he took over as president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee and helped rescue the 2002 Winter Olympics from money and ethical problems. The Salt Lake City Games went off on time and on budget in 2002, and later that year Romney was elected governor of Massachusetts. He served one term, then declined to run for reelection in 2006. In February 2007 he announced a run for the presidency; he ended his run in February 2008, after falling behind John McCain in early Republican primaries. Romney married the former Ann Davies in 1969; they have five sons. Ann Romney was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998... Romney ran for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts in 1994, losing to longtime incumbent Edward Kennedy. Romney is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Romney wrote the 2004 book *Turnaround : Crisis, Leadership, and the Olympic Games*.

As vice president in the O'Neill and Associates communications practice, Cosmo Macero Jr. offers insight on the worlds of media, business and government gleaned from his 17 years in the newspaper business as a reporter, columnist and editor. His strategic counsel helps position and prepare clients to make powerful and lasting impressions on community leaders, the media and the public at large. Prior to joining O'Neill and Associates, Cosmo led the *Boston Herald's Business Today* section to earn top national awards for breaking news coverage and general excellence from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers in 2006. In just under 18 months, as assistant managing editor for business, Cosmo turned the *Herald*'s business section into a daily must-read for the regions corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, investors and savvy consumers. A veteran political, financial and public policy journalist, Cosmo was named Bostons Best Business Columnist in 2002 and 2003 by the *Improper Bostonian* magazine. In 2003, *Boston* magazine recognized him for his unique insights into the states political scene as viewed through the prism of business and the economy. In 1999 *Boston* magazine named Cosmo the best print reporter in Boston. Prior to joining the *Herald* in 1997, he worked as a reporter for the *Union-News/Sunday Republican* and the *Daily Hampshire Gazette*. Cosmo is also a regular contributor to the *Fox 25 Morning News*.

Jennifer Baumgardner is the author of Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics and the co-author of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future and Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism. She is also the producer of the film, I Had an Abortion, and the creator of a corresponding t-shirt, photo, and public education campaign. She has written for Harper's, The Nation, Glamour, Jane, and NPR's All Things Considered, among other venues, and her work has been featured in The New York Times and on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Born in 1938, Cynthia Enloe spent her early life on Long Island in a New York suburb. After completing her undergraduate education at Connecticut College in 1960, she went on to earn an M.A. in 1963 and a Ph.D. in 1967 in political science at the University of California, Berkeley. Enloe currently serves as a professor in the Department of International Development, Community, and Environment at Clark University, Worcester. She is also the Director of Clark University's Women Studies program and a frequent lecturer. In addition to serving as an editor for such scholarly journals as *Signs* and the *International Feminist Journal of Politics*, Cynthia Enloe has written nine books, mostly published by the University of California Press. Much of Enloes research centers on womens place in national and international politics. Her books cover a wide range of issues encompassing gender-based discrimination as well as racial, ethnic and national identities.

Joan Vennochi writes regularly about national and local politics, and also covers issues relating to business, law and culture. Before joining the op-ed page, she wrote a column on* the Globe*'s business page. Vennochi was City Hall bureau chief, State House bureau chief, and covered national politics for *the Globe*. She began her career at the paper as a researcher on the Spotlight Team, the newspaper's investigative unit. She shared in a Pulitzer Prize awarded to the team for local investigative reporting. Vennochi is a graduate of Boston University and Suffolk Law School.

Amy has just published *Opting In: Having A Child Without Losing Yourself*. Before that she co-authored (with Jennifer Baumgardner)* Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism* and *Manifesta: Young Women Feminism and the Future*. Over the years she has worked as a consultant to Gloria Steinem, Anna Deavere Smith and the Columbia School of Public Health among other places. She is on the board of advisors to *Ms. Magazine* and the counsel of advocates to Planned Parenthood New York City. Amy is also a board member to The Lower East Side Girls Club, Fair Fund, and the Sadie Nash Leadership Institute. And most of her "training" in being an effective activist came from her involvement with the Third Wave Foundation. Since Third Wave's inception in 1992, she helped it grow from an organization struggling to find a place within the feminist movement to being one of only a few organizations for young feminists.

Ellen Smith is Lecturer in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program and the associate director of its Gralla Fellows Program for Religion Journalists. She is also principal of Museumsmith, a firm specializing in museum exhibitions and historic site interpretations throughout the nation. Trained as an academic historian and a museum curator, Smith has published more than three dozen books, articles and catalogs including *The Jews of Boston*, co-edited with Jonathan D. Sarna. Among her recent work are publications and exhibitions *The Jews of Rhode Island*, *Seattle Jewish Women* (Museum of History and Industry, Seattle); *Jewish New Year Postcards*; *American Yiddish Theater *(Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York City); *Colonial American Jewish Portraits* (Jewish Museum, New York City); historic immigrant synagogues; and three exhibitions on the Jews of Boston. Smith was also the Chief Historical Consultant to the Emmy Award-winning WGBH *The Jews of Boston *television production. She was one of twelve nationally selected scholars participating in "The Visual Culture of American Religions" project (1996-2000) funded by the Henry Luce Foundation and the Lilly Endowment. Smith is the former Curator of the American Jewish Historical Society and the National Museum of American Jewish History, and has taught courses in American Jewish Women's History, American Jewish Material Culture, and American Jewish History at Brandeis and Northeastern Universities. In 2005 she toured the country as one of the United Jewish Community's key speakers during the 350th anniversary celebration of Jews in America.

Donal Fox is internationally acclaimed as composer, pianist, and improviser in both the jazz and classical fields. His numerous awards include a 1997 Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition, a 1998 Fellowship from the Bogliasco Foundation (Italy), and 1999, 2001, and 2003 nominations for a CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts. Fox's exciting and innovative "Jazz Duet Series" has included concerts, recordings, and collaborations with Oliver Lake, John Stubblefield, Billy Pierce, Regina Carter, among others. He has recorded as composer and pianist for New World Records, Evidence Records, Music and Arts, Passin' Thru Records, and others. Fox served as the first African-American composer-in-residence with the St. Louis Symphony from 1991 to 1992. In the l993-94 season, Fox was a special guest artist at the Library of Congress in a program that was recorded by NPR, and was a visiting artist at Harvard University where he received a Certificate of Recognition from the President of Harvard College for his contribution to the arts. In 2003 and 2004, Fox held artist-in-residence posts at the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Northern Ireland and the Oberfzer Knstlerhaus in Schwandorf, Germany. He was named Top Ten Jazz Act in 2004 in the company of Herbie Hancock, Sonny Rollins, and Ron Carter by jazz journalist Bill Beuttler of The Boston Globe.