William A. Owens
Former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Bill Owens is the CEO and Chairman of AEA Holdings ASIA located in Hong Kong and a managing director of AEA Investors. Through November 15, 2005, he was Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of Nortel. Owens had served on the Nortel Board of Directors and took the helm of Nortel following the disclosure of accounting issues in April 2004. Under his leadership, Nortel was reestablished as a strong, stable, ethical fortune 500 company growing strongly and on the path to reestablish leadership in the telecommunications and enterprise IT global marketplace.
Rajat Gupta
Senior Partner Emeritus of McKinsey & Company
Rajat Kumar Gupta is the Senior Partner Emeritus of McKinsey & Company. He joined the Firm’s New York Office in 1973, assumed leadership of its Scandinavian Offices in 1981, and Chicago Office in 1989. Mr. Gupta served as the Managing Director Worldwide of McKinsey from 1994 to 2003. In his 34 year career in consulting, Mr. Gupta has served many leading companies on a broad set of topics related to strategy, organization and operations. He has played a thought leadership role in organizational thinking throughout his career, and led the Organization Practice for the Firm. Mr. Gupta is very active in many non-profit institutions focused on education, health and development. He served as the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Advisor on UN Reform, is an independent Director of Goldman Sachs, Procter & Gamble, AMR Corporation, Qatar Financial Centre, and is the Chairman of the Board of Genpact and New Silk Route Private Equity.
Bill White
President of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum
Bill White serves as President of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum and the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund. Under his leadership, The Intrepid Museum has emerged as a world-class education attraction welcoming over 700,000 visitors each year and featuring exciting exhibits like the newly acquired British Airways Concorde. White has spearheaded the Capital and Endowment Campaign which will raise more than 100 million dollars to ensure the museum’s future. As President of the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund he has led its fundraising campaign, to date totaling more than $80 million, for the families of military personnel lost in Afghanistan and Iraq, and for the construction of the Center for the Intrepid, the national Armed Forces Physical Rehabilitation Center (opened January 2007), located in San Antonio, Texas. This 65,000 square-foot “state-of-the-world” center serves military personnel and veterans who have been catastrophically disabled in operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and in other combat and non-combat related duties. It combines the latest and best medical rehabilitation technology with an unmatched level of care to these brave men and women.
Scott Mednick
CEO & Founder of Legendary Pictures
Mr. Mednick has completed more than 20 mergers, acquisitions and divestitures and has helped to raise over $900 million in investment capital for both public and private companies primarily focused on entertainment, marketing and technology. In 2004 he was a co-founder of Legendary Pictures. Legendary’s unique partnership brought together $500 million dollars from private equity and created a 25 picture deal with Warner Bros. to create an active production and finance entity. The initial deal included Legendary Pictures partnering with Warner Bros to fund Batman Begins, Batman: The Dark Night and the third as yet untitled installment. Mednick has served as Executive Producer of such motion pictures as Superman Returns, We Are Marshall, U2 3D, 10,000 BC and 300. For 2009 he is Executive Producer of “Where the Wild Things Are” being directed by Spike Jonze.
Chris Kitze
Founder & CEO Yaga, Inc., Xoom, Wine.com, NBCi
A proven entrepreneur with a successful trail of startups, Chris Kitze co-founded Yaga, Inc., a leading provider of advanced payment and commerce services, in September 2000. As CEO and chairman of the board, Kitze provides a strategic vision as well as extensive technology and electronic media expertise, from startups to multibillion-dollar market cap companies. Prior to Yaga, Inc., he was the CEO of NBC Internet, a company created in December 1999 as a result of the XOOM.com and Snap.com merger. Kitze also co-founded XOOM.com in September 1996, took it public in December 1998, and served as chairman of the board and secretary since its inception. With his Internet and marketing savvy, Kitze has started and sold three interactive companies. Prior to XOOM.com, Mr. Kitze co-founded Point Communications Corporation, a Web directory company that was acquired by Lycos in October 1995. Mr. Kitze remained and managed the Point division, as well as served as overall vice president of marketing for Lycos, where he helped take the company public with a $225 million valuation.
Larry Sonsini
Chairman of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Chairman of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Larry W. Sonsini has gained international recognition for his expertise in the areas of corporate law, corporate governance, securities, and mergers and acquisitions. He has been instrumental in many of the IPOs, mergers, acquisitions, and other key transactions of Silicon Valley and beyond, including Google’s historic IPO and Hewlett-Packard’s merger with Compaq Computer. In addition to his duties at the firm, which included serving as chief executive officer as well as chairman for more than 20 years, Larry was a member of the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange from 2001 to 2003. He also served as chairman of the NYSE’s Regulation, Enforcement and Listing Standards Committee from 2003 to 2008 and previously was a member of its Legal Advisory Committee.