We look forward to welcoming you on Wednesday, October 8 for the CPL Leadership Council Meeting. Find more information, including the agenda and speakers, below. Please contact Alexandra Clark at alexandraclark@hks.harvard.edu with any questions.
Meeting location:
Harvard Faculty Club
20 Quincy Street
Cambridge, MA
Agenda
12–1:15 p.m.Lunch will be provided. | Prospects and Perils in U.S.-China RelationsDr. Graham Allison AB 1962, PhD 1968, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense, former Harvard Kennedy School dean, and current Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard University
Rana Mitter, S.T. Lee Chair in U.S.-China Relations, Harvard Kennedy School
Jane Perlez, former Beijing bureau chief and foreign correspondent for The New York Times, host and producer of award-winning podcast Face Off: The U.S. vs. China, current fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs |
1:15–1:30 p.m. | Break |
1:30–2:15 p.m. | Fireside ChatFeaturing Thomas Tull, Co-Chairman of TWG Global, founder and chairman of the United States Innovative Technology Fund, former CEO and Founder of Legendary Entertainment
Moderated by Eric Rosenbach, Director of the Defense, Emerging Technology, and Strategy Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School |
2:15–3 p.m. | Enabling Tomorrow's Leaders: The Impact of CPL FellowshipsFeaturing Trent Buatte, Zuckerman Fellow; Willow Fortunoff, 2025 Gergen Summer Fellow; Paige Swem, Gleitsman Leadership Fellow; and Andres “Andy” Vargas, Equity Fellow
Moderated by Nathan Bruschi MPP/MBA 2018, former George Leadership Fellow and David M. Rubenstein Fellow, CPL Alumni Council co-chair, President and CEO of Anchorwork Inc. |
3–3:15 p.m. | Break |
3:15–4 p.m. | Classroom-style WorkshopTimothy O’Brien EdM 2008, EdD 2016, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School |
4–4:45 p.m. | Counsel From the CouncilAnthony Foxx, Director of the Center for Public Leadership; Emma Bloomberg Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School
Jeremy Weinstein PhD 2003, Dean of Faculty, Harvard Kennedy School; Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; Professor of Government, Faculty of Arts and Sciences |
4:45–5 p.m. | Leadership Council Photo |
5–5:45 p.m. | Reception |
5:45–7:30 p.m. | Dinner and Fireside ChatFeaturing Peter Baker, Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times; and Susan B. Glasser AB 1990, Staff Writer for The New Yorker
Moderated by Anthony Foxx, Director of the Center for Public Leadership; Emma Bloomberg Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School |
Dr. Graham Allison
Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
Graham Allison is the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught for five decades. Allison is a leading analyst of national security with special interests in nuclear weapons, Russia, China, and decision-making. Allison was the founding dean of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and until 2017, served as Director of its Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs—which is ranked the #1 University Affiliated Think Tank in the world. As Assistant Secretary of Defense in the first Clinton Administration, Dr. Allison received the Defense Department's highest civilian award, the Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, for "reshaping relations with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan to reduce the former Soviet nuclear arsenal." This resulted in the safe return of more than 12,000 tactical nuclear weapons from the former Soviet republics and the complete elimination of more than 4,000 strategic nuclear warheads previously targeted at the United States and left in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus when the Soviet Union disappeared.
Dr. Allison’s latest book, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (2017), is a national and international bestseller. His 2013 book, Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States and the World, has been a bestseller in the United States and abroad. Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe, now in its third printing, was selected by the New York Times as one of the "100 most notable books of 2004." Dr. Allison's first book, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (1971), ranks among the all-time bestsellers with more than 500,000 copies in print.
As founding dean of the modern Kennedy School, under his leadership, from 1977 to 1989, a small, undefined program grew twenty-fold to become a major professional school of public policy and government.
As Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Clinton and Special Advisor to the Secretary of Defense under President Reagan, he has been a member of the Secretary of Defense’s Advisory Board for every Secretary from Weinberger to Mattis. He has the sole distinction of having twice been awarded the Distinguished Public Service Medal, first by Secretary Cap Weinberger and second by Secretary Bill Perry. He has served on the Advisory Boards of the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and the Director of the CIA.
Dr. Allison was the organizer of the Commission on America's National Interests (1996 and 2000), a founding member of the Trilateral Commission, a Director of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of public committees and commissions, among them the Baker-Cutler DOE Task Force on Nonproliferation Programs with Russia, the IAEA’s Commission of Eminent Persons, and the Commission on Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation, and Terrorism.
Dr. Allison has served as a Director of the Getty Oil Company, Natixis, Loomis Sayles, Hansberger, Taubman Centers, Inc., Joule Unlimited, and Belco Oil and Gas, as well as a member of the Advisory Boards of Chase Bank, Chemical Bank, Hydro-Quebec, and the International Energy Corporation.
Dr. Allison was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina. He was educated at Davidson College; Harvard College (B.A., magna cum laude, in History); Oxford University (B.A. and M.A., First Class Honors in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics); and Harvard University (Ph.D. in Political Science).
Peter Baker
Chief White House Correspondent, The New York Times
Resident Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics
Peter Baker is the Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times, reporting about President Trump and his administration, and a political analyst for MSNBC. He is covering his sixth presidency for The Times and The Washington Post.
In between stints at the White House, Baker spent four years as Moscow Co-Bureau Chief for The Post along with his wife, Susan B. Glasser, chronicling the rise of Vladimir Putin and the rollback of Russian democracy. During 20 years at The Post, Baker also reported from Afghanistan and Iraq during the opening stages of the U.S. wars there. He served briefly as Jerusalem Bureau Chief for The Times, where he has worked for the past 17 years.
Baker is the author or co-author of seven books, most recently The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017–2021 and The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III, both with Glasser and both New York Times bestsellers. His book, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, was named one of the five Best Nonfiction Books of the year by The New York Times Book Review. He has won all three major awards focused on White House coverage.
Baker attended Oberlin College and got his start in journalism at The Washington Times. He and Glasser live in Washington.
Nathan Bruschi
CPL Alumni Council Co-Chair
President and CEO, Anchorwork Inc.
Nathan Bruschi serves as President and CEO of Anchorwork Inc, a private equity search fund based in Minneapolis. Nathan began his public service as an Intelligence Officer serving in the United States Navy, serving with air, sea, and ground forces before finishing his service in National Security Affairs in the White House under then Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Nathan continued his service in public office when he was elected to represent his hometown in the Legislature of Albany County, the oldest continuously chartered legal entity in the United States. There he served as Chair of the Public Works committee, overseeing tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure improvements, and as Secretary of the Capital Resource Corporation, helping fund millions of dollars in local nonprofit projects.
Nathan serves on several boards supporting education and veteran issues and is a long-time volunteer with the Boy Scouts of America. Nathan graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, a master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where he was a Class Marshal, and a master’s in Business Administration from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. He was named a Millennium Fellow at the Atlantic Council and a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Anthony Foxx
Director, Center for Public Leadership
Emma Bloomberg Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School
Anthony Foxx previously served as the 17th U.S. Secretary of Transportation, where he led the agency’s efforts to advance new transportation technologies, promote public-private partnerships, and address past inequities in transportation decision-making using executive authority. Among his initiatives at the U.S. Department of Transportation were releasing the world’s first national guidance on integrating driverless vehicles into the transportation system, successfully advocating for long-term transportation funding on a bipartisan basis, launching the agency’s first Smart City Challenge, advancing commercial uses of unmanned aircraft systems, starting the Build America Center to advance public-private partnerships in U.S. infrastructure, and updating departmental guidance under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for the first time in 40 years.
Under Foxx’s leadership, transportation fairness became a requirement for discretionary grantmaking, and, having deployed more than $30 billion in grants over his tenure, new examples of more equitable, context-sensitive transportation projects in urban and rural areas are still being planned or are under construction today. Other initiatives to promote greater fairness included a national design challenge known as Every Place Counts and a national summit of Americans to share best practices on impacting the public input process in local and state transportation decision-making.
Prior to his tenure at the Department of Transportation, Foxx served as Mayor of Charlotte, the city’s 54th mayor and the youngest mayor in the city’s history. In that role, Foxx drove passage of the most significant transportation investments in the city’s history, increased job growth, reformed the workforce development system, and led the city to a record low crime rate—all spurring Charlotte’s emergence from the Great Recession. After departing government in 2017, he served as Chief Policy Officer at Lyft and as a member of the company’s Executive Leadership Team. Foxx has appeared as a commentator on CNN, the CBS Morning Show, Fox Business, MSNBC, and other networks and has published pieces in The Washington Post, Newsweek, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, and the Charlotte Observer, among others. In addition to his duties at HKS, Anthony has chaired the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Advisory Committee on Transportation Equity.
Susan B. Glasser
Staff Writer, The New Yorker
Resident Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics
Susan Glasser is a staff writer for The New Yorker, where she is author of the weekly “Letter from Trump’s Washington” and co-host of the popular Political Scene Podcast. Glasser previously led four publications and served as a foreign correspondent and top editor at The Washington Post.
Glasser was editor of POLITICO, guiding a news operation of 200 journalists in the momentous 2016 election cycle, and founded POLITICO Magazine, the award-winning journal. Before that, she was editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine, relaunching its web site as a daily publication and winning multiple National Magazine Awards while its online readership grew tenfold.
She spent 10 years at The Post where she served as Assistant Managing Editor for National News, editor of the Outlook section, and Moscow Co-Bureau Chief. She directed coverage of the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, chronicled the rise of Vladimir Putin, and reported from the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq. Glasser worked for eight years at Roll Call, the preeminent newspaper covering Congress, where she rose from intern to its top editor.
Glasser is co-author of three books with her husband Peter Baker, most recently The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017–2021 and The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III, both New York Times bestsellers.
A native of New Jersey, Glasser graduated from Harvard University in 1990 and lives in Washington with Baker.
Rana Mitter
S.T. Lee Chair in U.S.-Asia Relations, Harvard Kennedy School
Rana Mitter is S.T. Lee Chair in U.S.-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is the author of several books, including Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II (2013), which won the 2014 RUSI/Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature and was named a Book of the Year in the Financial Times and Economist. His latest book is China’s Good War: How World War II is Shaping a New Nationalism (Harvard, 2020). His writing on contemporary China has appeared recently in Foreign Affairs, the Harvard Business Review, The Spectator, The Critic, and The Guardian. He has commented regularly on China in media and forums around the world, including at the World Economic Forum at Davos. His recent documentary on contemporary Chinese politics Meanwhile in Beijing is available on BBC Sounds.
He is co-author, with Sophia Gaston, of the report “Conceptualizing a UK-China Engagement Strategy” (British Foreign Policy Group, 2020). He won the 2020 Medlicott Medal for Service to History, awarded by the UK Historical Association. He previously taught at Oxford and is a Fellow of the British Academy.
Timothy O'Brien
Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Tim O’Brien is a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he teaches Exercising Leadership and Developing People in degree programs and chairs the Leadership for the 21st Century and Art & Practice of Leadership Development executive programs. Tim designs and delivers leadership development programs for government, business, and nonprofit organizations across the globe. His research interests focus on the complex challenges people hope to address, the understanding they bring, and the meaning-making they need to address those challenges. This lens on leadership development emphasizes self, group, and organizational awareness over content and discrete skills. How to develop and cultivate that self-awareness is the primary concern of Tim’s research. His teaching methods are experiential, collaborative, and reflective in nature and help participants develop the insight, inquiry, and purpose they need to meet the demands of the challenges they face.
Before his appointment at HKS, Tim was a leadership consultant for INSEAD Business School’s Management Acceleration Program and faculty for the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Programs in Professional Education. Tim graduated from New York University and earned his Ed.D. in Human Development and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He earned his 100-ton captain's license directing sail-training programs aboard traditionally rigged wooden schooners in the Atlantic and Caribbean.
Jane Perlez
Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Jane Perlez is a former longtime foreign correspondent for The New York Times. She was Beijing bureau chief and correspondent for The New York Times from 2012 to 2019. Before that she served in Pakistan, Indonesia, Poland, Austria, and East Africa. She was part of the reporting team that won the Pulitzer in 2009 for reporting on Afghanistan and Pakistan. From 1998 to 2001, she was Chief Diplomatic Correspondent based in Washington, D.C.
Ms. Perlez is now producing and hosting the award-winning podcast Face-Off: The U.S. vs. China. She is a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, where the podcast is based. Her colleague, Rana Mitter, distinguished historian of modern China, joins Ms. Perlez in every episode. Soon to enter its third season, the podcast aims to deliver informative and interesting discussion for a non-specialist audience. She has made two other podcasts on China and the United States.
Ms. Perlez graduated from Sydney University BA (Hons). She first visited China in 1967 during the Cultural Revolution on a trip organized by the National Union of Australian University Students.
Eric Rosenbach
Director, Defense, Emerging Technology, and Strategy Program, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
The Honorable Eric Rosenbach is a Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School and is the Director of the Defense, Emerging Technology, and Strategy Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He previously co-led the Belfer Center with former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. Rosenbach currently serves on the Secretary of State’s International Security Advisory Board and on the Secretary of Defense’s Defense Business Board.
Rosenbach teaches graduate courses in policy development, strategy execution, and international security. He also teaches two online courses for HarvardX on managing cyber risk and public sector strategy execution.
Rosenbach previously held several senior level appointee jobs in government. As the Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense from 2015-2017, Rosenbach was one of the senior-most leaders in the Department of Defense. He served as Secretary Ash Carter’s closest strategic advisor on key policy initiatives, such as the war to defeat ISIS, the “rebalance” to Asia, and the effort to check Russian aggression. Rosenbach also led the Department’s efforts to improve innovation by forging and managing key initiatives such as the Defense Digital Service and the Defense Innovation Unit.
Before serving as Chief of Staff, Rosenbach was the Senate-confirmed Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Security and Homeland Defense. His diverse portfolio as Assistant Secretary included cyber, space, countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, antiterrorism, continuity of government, and defense support to civil authorities. Earlier, Rosenbach served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Cyber Policy.
Rosenbach previously served as national security advisor for then-Senator Chuck Hagel and as a professional staff member on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, where he led oversight of Intelligence Community counterterrorism programs. A former Army intelligence officer and commander of a telecommunications intelligence unit, Rosenbach led a team that worked closely with the NSA to provide strategic intelligence in direct support of commanders in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Rosenbach has published widely and authored several books, including Confronting Cyber Risk: An Embedded Endurance Strategy. The LA Times called his book Find, Fix, Finish, co-authored with Aki Peritz, “an important volume in the secret history of a nasty war.”
As a Fulbright fellow, he conducted research on privatization programs in Eastern Europe. He holds a Juris Doctor from Georgetown, a Master of Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, and a Bachelor of Arts from Davidson College.
Thomas Tull
Co-Chairman, TWG Global
Thomas Tull is a visionary investor and business leader, serving as Co-Chairman alongside Mark Walter, of TWG Global, a diversified holding company focused on scaling innovative businesses across AI, technology, financial services, energy, and sports. Under his leadership, TWG has forged major partnerships and built a portfolio that includes industry leaders such as Guggenheim Investments, Colossal Biosciences, and the Cadillac Formula 1® Team through TWG Motorsports.
A longtime advocate for technological innovation, Tull recently led TWG’s Joint Venture with Palantir Technologies and collaboration with xAI to deliver scalable AI solutions for financial institutions, reinforcing TWG’s role at the forefront of enterprise AI adoption.
Tull is also the founder and chairman of the United States Innovative Technology Fund (USIT), which invests in breakthrough companies advancing quantum computing, AI, cybersecurity, space, and biotechnology. USIT’s portfolio includes leading-edge firms like Anduril Industries, Celestial AI, and Saronic Technologies.
Previously, Tull was the founder and CEO of Legendary Entertainment, where he pioneered data-driven film production. After growing the company to a global industry leader, he sold Legendary to a multinational corporation. Outside of TWG Global, Tull remains a part-owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Yankees and an active philanthropist through the Tull Family Foundation.
Tull is affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he serves as an advisor to the Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer, a member of the School of Engineering Dean’s Advisory Council, and a member of the MIT Corporation. He also serves on the boards of Carnegie Mellon University, the Smithsonian Institution, the Basketball Hall of Fame, and the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Jeremy Weinstein
Dean of Faculty, Harvard Kennedy School
Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Professor of Government, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Jeremy Weinstein is Dean and Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. He is an award-winning researcher and teacher with expertise on civil wars and political violence; ethnic politics; the political economy of development; democracy and accountability; and migration. He is the author of Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence, co-author of Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action, and co-editor of Crime, Insecurity, and Community Policing. For his research, Weinstein received the International Studies Association’s Karl Deutsch Award, given annually to the scholar under 40 who has made the most significant contribution to the study of international relations.
In recent years, he has also written on issues at the intersection of technology and democracy, including in a co-authored book System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot.
Before coming to Harvard, he was the Kleinheinz Professor of International Studies at Stanford University, where he led major initiatives, including Stanford Impact Labs and the Immigration Policy Lab, which catalyzed partnerships between researchers and practitioners with the goal of generating innovative policies, programs, and interventions to meaningfully address important social problems.
Weinstein has also held senior roles in the U.S. government at the White House and State Department, most recently as Deputy to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations during President Obama’s second term. As Deputy, Weinstein was a standing member of the National Security Council Deputies’ Committee—the subcabinet policy committee with primary responsibility for advising the National Security Council, the Cabinet, and the President on foreign policy issues. Before becoming Deputy, he served as Chief of Staff at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.During President Obama’s first term, he served as Director for Development and Democracy on the National Security Council staff at the White House.
Weinstein holds a BA from Swarthmore College and an MA and PhD in political economy and government from Harvard University.