Distinguished Voices Lecture Series

Anne Applebaum is a columnist for the Washington Post and Slate. She directs the Transitions Forum at the Legatum Institute in London and is an adjunct fellow of the Center for European Policy Analysis. Formerly a member of the Washington Post editorial board, she has also worked as the Foreign and Deputy Editor of the Spectator magazine in London, as the Political Editor of the Evening Standard, and as a columnist at several British newspapers, including the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs. From 1988-1991 she covered the collapse of communism for the Economist magazine.

Her most recent book, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956, published in 2012, describes the imposition of Soviet totalitarianism in Central Europe after the Second World War. Iron Curtain won the Cundill Prize for Historical Literature, among other prizes, and was shortlisted for the National Book Award. Her previous book, Gulag: A History, was published in 2003 and won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction in 2004. The book narrates the history of the Soviet concentration camps system and describes daily life in the camps, making extensive use of recently opened Russian archives, as well as memoirs and interviews. Both Iron Curtain and Gulag: A History have appeared in more than two dozen translations, including all major European languages. 

Karim Sadjadpour is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment. He joined Carnegie after four years as the chief Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group based in Washington and Tehran, where he conducted dozens of interviews with senior Iranian officials and hundreds with Iranian intellectuals, clerics, dissidents, paramilitaries, businessmen, students, activists and youth, among others.

He is a regular contributor to BBC TV and radio, CNN, National Public Radio, PBSNewsHour, and Al-Jazeera, and he has appeared on the Today Show, Charlie Rose,Fox News Sunday, and the Colbert Report, among others. He contributes regularly to publications such as the Economist, the Washington Post, the New York Times, theInternational Herald Tribune and Foreign Policy.Frequently called upon to brief U.S., EU and Asian officials about Middle Eastern affairs, he regularly testifies before Congress, has lectured at Harvard, Princeton and Stanford universities, and has been the recipient of numerous academic awards, including a Fulbright scholarship.

General Raymond T. Odierno culminated his military career serving as the 38th Chief of Staff of the United States Army from September 2011 to August 2015. During more than 39 years of service, he commanded units at every echelon, from platoon to theater, with duty in Germany, Albania, Kuwait, Iraq and the United States. After his first assignment with U.S. Army Europe, General Odierno was assigned to the XVIII Airborne Corps Artillery at Fort Bragg, N.C., where he commanded two batteries and served as a battalion operations officer.

Since retiring from active military service in August 2015, General Odierno founded and is the Owner and President of Odierno Associates, LLC. In September 2015, he became a Senior Advisor to JPMorgan Chase & Company to provide strategic advice and global insights to Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, the Board of Directors and members of the Operating Committee on a broad range of issues including international planning and country risk analysis, technology, operations and the rapidly evolving issues of physical and cyber security. He also provides his expertise to help structure and carry out the firm's leadership development training programs and assist on other leadership and workforce development issues.

  CNN 's Global Economic Analyst and TIME columnist , Rana Foroohar covers the intersection of business, economics, politics and foreign affairs across all platforms. Reaching a readership 50 million, her column, "The Curious Capitalist," is a must-read for economic and political thought leaders. As an assistant managing editor for TIME, Foroohar has penned numerous cover stories and essays on China and the next global recession, Europe’s economic crisis and what the rise of "localnomics” means for American business. She frequently profiles movers and shakers in finance and corporate America, including Warren Buffett, Bill Gross, Howard Shultz, Mary Barra, Carl Icahn and Fed chair Janet Yellen.

Foroohar served as the deputy editor in charge of international business and economics for Newsweek. She headed up the economics coverage for the annual Davos special issue and spent six years as Newsweek’s European economic correspondent based in London, covering business news throughout Europe and the Middle East. During this time, she was awarded the German Marshall Fund’s Peter R. Weitz Prize for transatlantic reporting. 

  Jon M. Huntsman, Jr. is chairman of the Atlantic Council and co-chairman of No Labels. He began his career in public service as a staff assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He has served each of the four US presidents since then in critical roles around the world, including as ambassador to Singapore, deputy assistant secretary of commerce for Asia, US trade ambassador, and most recently, US ambassador to China. In all three Senate confirmations, he received unanimous votes. Twice elected governor of Utah, Huntsman brought about strong economic reforms, tripled the state’s rainy day fund, and helped bring unemployment rates to historic lows. During his tenure, Utah was named the best managed state in America. Recognized by others for his service, Governor Huntsman was elected as chairman of the Western Governors Association, serving nineteen states throughout the region. This was a far better result than in his run for the Presidency in 2012 where he ultimately placed third in the New Hampshire primary before bowing out.

He currently serves on the boards of Ford Motor Company, Caterpillar Corporation, Chevron Corporation, Hilton Worldwide, the US Naval Academy Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania. In addition, he serves as a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institute, a trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a trustee of the Reagan Presidential Foundation and chairman of the Huntsman Cancer Foundation. Governor Huntsman has served as a visiting fellow at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government as well as a distinguished lecturer at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. He was recently inducted into the American Academy of Diplomacy. Huntsman is the father of seven children, including two adopted daughters from China and India. His two sons are midshipmen at the US Naval Academy, where his oldest son was selected as a Naval aviator. Huntsman is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and has nine honorary doctoral degrees.

Peggy Noonan is a widely admired columnist for The Wall Street Journal and the best-selling author of eight books on American politics, history and culture. In 2008 the National Journal dubbed Noonan’s political column indispensable to an understanding of the presidential year. Forbes Magazine called her column “principled, perceptive, persuasive and patriotic.” Noonan’s essays have appeared in TIME , Newsweek , The Washington Post and other publications, and she provides frequent political commentary on television.

 With experience from both the inside, as a member of the White House staff, and the outside, as an observer of politics, Noonan brings a unique and thoughtful analysis of our nation and its leaders to her speeches. Filled with humorous anecdotes and political insight, her speeches are as entertaining as they are thought-provoking. In a presentation described as “absolutely amazing” and “funny and self-deprecating and so smart,” audiences will leave with a deeper, new and more informed perspective on politics.