Hauser Leaders Program

Jane Harman
Distinguished Fellow and President Emerita, Wilson Center
U.S. Representative (CA-36) (1993-1999; 2010-2011)

During her public career, Jane Harman served nine terms in Congress, including four years after 9/11 as ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. She recently completed a decade at the nonpartisan Wilson Center as its first female president and CEO, where she is now President Emerita and Distinguished Fellow.

Harman is recognized as a national expert at the nexus of security and public policy issues, and has received numerous awards for distinguished service. She has served on advisory boards for the CIA, Director of National Intelligence, and the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and State. Harman is currently a member of the NASA Advisory Council, the Homeland Security Advisory Council, the Aspen Strategy Group, the advisory board of the Munich Security Conference, the Executive Committee of the Trilateral Commission and co-chairs the Homeland Security Experts Group with former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.   Earlier this year, she was named the newest Presidential Scholar-in-Residence at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy.

Her book Insanity Defense: Why our Failure to Confront Hard National Security Problems Makes us Less Safe was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2021.

David Ignatius
Novelist and Foreign Affairs Columnist, The Washington Post

David Ignatius writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. Ignatius has written 11 spy novels: The Paladin (2020), The Quantum Spy (2017), The Director (2014), Bloodmoney (2011), The Increment (2009), Body of Lies (2007), The Sun King (1999), A Firing Offense (1997), The Bank of Fear (1994), SIRO (1991), and Agents of Innocence (1987). Body of Lies was made into a 2008 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe.

Ignatius joined the Post in 1986 as editor of its Sunday Outlook section. In 1990 he became foreign editor, and in 1993, assistant managing editor for business news. He began writing his column in 1998 and continued even during a three-year stint as executive editor of the International Herald Tribune in Paris. Earlier in his career, Ignatius was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, covering at various times the steel industry, the Departments of State and Justice, the CIA, the Senate and the Middle East.

Ignatius grew up in Washington, D.C., and studied political theory at Harvard College and economics at Kings College, Cambridge. He lives in Washington with his wife and has three daughters.

Honors and Awards: 2018 Finalist team, Pulitzer Prize for Public Service; 2018 George Polk Award; 2010 Urbino International Press Award; 2013 Overseas Press Club Award for Foreign Affairs Commentary; Lifetime Achievement Award, International Committee for Foreign Journalists; Legion D'Honneur awarded by the French government; 2004 Edward Weintal Prize; 2000 Gerald Loeb Award for Commentary; As The Post’s foreign editor, Ignatius supervised the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

Michael Lomax
President and CEO, UNCF

Since 2004, Dr. Michael L. Lomax has served as president and CEO of UNCF, the nation’s largest private provider of scholarships and other educational support to African American students and a leading advocate of college readiness: students’ need for an education, from pre-school through high school, that prepares them for college success. Under his leadership, UNCF has raised more than $3 billion and helped more than 110,000 students earn college degrees and launch careers.  Annually, UNCF’s work enables 60,000 students to go to college with UNCF scholarships and attend its 37 member historically black college and universities (HBCUs).

At UNCF’s helm, Dr. Lomax oversees the organization’s 400 scholarship programs, which award 10,000 scholarships a year.  He also launched the UNCF Institute for Capacity Building, which helps UNCF’s member HBCUs become stronger, more effective and more self-sustaining.

Under Dr. Lomax’s leadership, UNCF has fought for college readiness and education reform through partnerships with reform-focused leaders and organizations and worked to further advance HBCUs with Congress, the administration and the Department of Education.  He serves on the boards of the KIPP Foundation, America’s Promise, Teach for America and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Before joining UNCF, Dr. Lomax was president of Dillard University in New Orleans and a literature professor at UNCF-member institutions Morehouse and Spelman Colleges.  He also founded the National Black Arts Festival, was a founding member of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and served as chairman of the Fulton County Commission in Atlanta, the first African American elected to that post.

Leni Gerona Robredo
14th Vice President of the Philippines (2016-2022)
Chairperson, Angat Pinas, Inc.

Leni Robredo is the 14th Vice President of the Philippines, serving as such from 2016 to 2022. 

During her term, Robredo reinvented the Office of the Vice President of the Philippines, transforming it from its traditional role of performing purely ceremonial functions to an advocacy centered office. At OVP’s helm, she launched the poverty alleviation program called Angat Buhay (“uplifting lives”), energizing private sector partners and providing a space for them to help some of the poorest, farthest, and smallest parts around the country. Through such collaboration, Angat Buhay reached out to hundreds of communities — from rural areas to the urban poor — and brought much-needed interventions on health, education, nutrition and food security, rural development, women empowerment, and housing. Under Robredo’s leadership, the Office of the Vice President also set the standard of swift, efficient response during disasters and calamities, assisting affected communities from relief to rehabilitation.  

As Vice President, Robredo also took on the challenge of leading government efforts in addressing the country’s massive problems in housing and illegal drugs. Early in her term in 2016, she was appointed chairperson of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, which oversaw the work of several offices meant to address the long-standing housing woes in the country. She held the post for only six months, but introduced meaningful reforms to properly assess the country’s backlog and streamline the process of accessing government support for socialized housing. 

In 2019, she surprised allies and adversaries alike when she accepted the dare to co-chair the government’s Inter-agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs. Robredo got right into work: She harnessed the expertise and cooperation of concerned government agencies and organizations who shared in the advocacy, visited communities that struggled with the proliferation of drugs, and pushed for a holistic and health-based approach. While her stint was cut short after just 18 days, such resulted in the most comprehensive assessment of the Philippines’ massive drug problem, which she made readily available to the administration and the general public. 

When COVID-19 hit the Philippines, Robredo led a multipronged response operations to address the complex problems brought by the pandemic. This included the immediate provision of personal protective equipment and medical supplies, free dormitories and shuttle services, and other forms of support for medical frontliners; food and other relief supplies to poor communities on lockdown; jobs and livelihood assistance to affected sectors; and interventions for students, their families, and teachers when schools were suddenly closed down. Robredo’s office also launched a free teleconsultation platform that served thousands of both COVID and non-COVID cases, and worked with local government units and the private sector to help ramp up vaccination both in urban centers and provinces. 

Prior to her colorful stint as Vice President, Robredo first entered the Philippines’ political scene in 2013, when she was elected Member of the House of Representatives, representing the Third District of her home province, Camarines Sur. While a neophyte in politics, she was an active member of the 16th Congress, pushing for transparency, accountability, and people empowerment in governance. This was reflected in legislation she authored, which included the Full Disclosure Policy Bill, which sought to mandate government agencies to disclose their budget and financial transactions to the public; the People Empowerment Bill, which aimed to allow more space for citizens to take part in government decision and policy-making; and the Participatory Budget Process Bill. She was also a staunch advocate for equality, filing the Comprehensive Anti-Discrimination Bill, and supported the peace process for Mindanao by taking an active part in crafting the law that established the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. 

A lawyer by profession, Robredo has been working with the poor and marginalized for over three decades, both in private sector and in government. Her work as an elected official was heavily inspired by her years as a public interest lawyer. She began her legal career in the Philippine government’s Public Attorney’s Office, where she represented indigent clients who were unable to afford legal services. Her work for the underserved then found roots in the alternative lawyers’ group Sentro ng Alternatibong Lingap Panligal (SALIGAN), whose primary advocacy is to empower the marginalized by educating them about their rights under the law. For 10 years, she fought alongside farmers and fisherfolk, abused women and children, laborers, indigenous peoples, informal settlers, among others—translating the law in a manner that would be easier to understand, training community paralegals, and offering free legal services. 

Robredo returns to private life after nearly a decade as an elected official. Soon after her term as Vice President, she set up Angat Pinas, Inc., a non-government organization that now carries the Angat Buhay Program. The program now focuses on education, health, disaster relief and response, and community engagement. It aims to build the largest network of volunteers in the Philippines, as it continues with the mission to uplift more Filipino lives.

Dov Seidman
Founder and Chairman of The HOW Institute for Society and LRN

“When you press the pause button on a machine it stops. But when you press the pause button on human beings, they start.” – Dov Seidman 

Dov Seidman is a successful entrepreneur and CEO, best-selling author and writer, and a teacher. He has devoted his life and professional career to making philosophy and philosophical frameworks practical in the business arena and across all sectors of society on a global scale. Seidman is the author of the New York Times bestseller HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything, which offers a philosophical framework for individual and organizational behavior in a world that is increasingly interconnected and interdependent.

Most recently he founded The HOW Institute for Society, a global nonprofit that aims to elevate humanity by nurturing a culture of moral leadership, values-based behavior, and principled decision making. Today, the HOW philosophy is being used to impact how businesses operate, cities are run, soldiers are trained, school systems prepare their students and staff, and professional sports franchises use values for competitive advantage. Prior, he spent more than 25 years as the CEO of LRN, a global ethics and compliance management firm he founded to inspire organizations to put purpose, trust, values, and ethics at the center of business endeavor. 

Seidman has been named a “Game Changer” by TIME magazine, a “Groundbreaker” by The New York Times, “One of the Top Thought Leaders of the Past Decade” by The Economic Times, and “the corporate whisper” by Fortune magazine because of his “ability to take the challenges that CEOs and other leaders face in their day-to-day roles and place them in a broader context of decision-making.” Led by a lifelong pursuit and passion for ethical leadership, he became the exclusive partner of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity Prize in Ethics in 2008, as the institution was in its 20th year of celebrating ethical decision-making among America’s youth. Seidman regularly writes about business behavior, leadership and corporate culture for Fortune magazine and The New York Times. 

After the collapse of Enron, Seidman testified before the U.S. Sentencing Commission arguing that corporations must move from a check-the-box, compliance-only approach to instead focus on fostering ethical cultures and behaviors. His proposals were adopted and today are the very standards by which companies, cultures and programs are judged.

Seidman attended UCLA simultaneously for both bachelor's and master's degrees in philosophy. He then received another bachelor's degree from Oxford University in philosophy, politics and economics, where he was a Newton-Tatum scholar. He is also a graduate of Harvard Law School. Seidman gave the commencement address at UCLA College of Letters and Science. 

Seidman is a member of the board of directors at the 92nd Street Y, The Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine, and Planet Word.  

Seidman was honored with an honorary doctorate from The Hebrew Union College. He was given the Jurisprudence Award by the Anti-Defamation League. He has also been presented with the Corporate Organizational Excellence in Organizational Development Award for demonstrating a 10+ year commitment to organizational development and effectiveness.

Former Hauser Leaders

Tommy Amaker (Spring 2020, Spring 2021) || Thomas G. Stemberg '71 Family Endowed Coach, Harvard Men's Basketball; Director's Visiting Leader, Harvard Institute of Politics

Larry Bacow (2014-2018) || President, Harvard University; President, Tufts University (2001-2011)

Don Baer (Spring 2020) || Chair, Board of Directors, PBS; Walter Shorenstein Media and Democracy Fellow, Shorenstein Center, Harvard Kennedy School

Deborah Borda (2014- ) || President and CEO, New York Philharmonic

LaTosha Brown (2020-2021) || Co-founder, Black Voters Matter Fund; 2020 Leader in Practice, Women and Public Policy Program, HKS; 2020-2021 American Democracy Fellow, Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Harvard University

Michael Brown (2020) || Co-founder and Senior Advisor, City Year; Principal, Public Purpose Strategies

Carol Browner (2019-2020) || Director, White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy (2009-2011); 8th Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (1993-2001)

Geoffrey Canada (Fall 2017) || President, Harlem Children’s Zone

Carol Caruso (2017-2018) || CEO and Co-Founder, Bloom Impact; Innovator-in-Residence, Social Innovation + Change Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School

Alice Chen (2017-2019) || Executive Director, Doctors for America (2011-2017)

Carmen Yulín Cruz Soto (Spring 2022) || Mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico (2013-2020)

Nicholas Ehrmann (2017-2018) || President and Founder, Blue Engine; Visiting Innovator, Social Innovation + Change Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School

Paul Grogan (Fall 2021) || President and CEO, The Boston Foundation (2001-2021)

Claude Grunitzky (2017-2018) || Entrepreneur, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, TRUE Africa; Visiting Innovator, Social Innovation + Change Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School

Donald Kaberuka (2015-2016) || President, African Development Bank (2005-2015)

Tawakkol Karman (Spring 2020) || 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Nicholas Kristof (2017-2019) || Op-ed Columnist, The New York Times; Pulitzer Prize winner

John Kroger (2018-2019) || Chief Learning Officer, U.S. Navy (2019-2020); President, Reed College (2012-2018)

The Hon. Mitchell Landrieu (Spring 2018) || 61st Mayor, New Orleans, Louisiana (2010-2018)

Susana Malcorra (2020) || Dean, IE School of Global and Public Affairs; Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship, Argentine Republic (2015-2017)

Linda Mason (2014-2017) || Chair, Mercy Corps; Founder, Bright Horizons

Desmond Meade (2020) || President and Executive Director, Florida Rights Restoration Coalition

Bruce Mehlman (Spring 2021) || Founder, Mehlman, Castagnetti, Rosen & Thomas; Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Technology Policy to George W. Bush (2001-2003)

Karen Gordon Mills (Fall 2018) || 23rd Administrator, United States Small Business Administration (2009-2013)

Shivshankar Menon (Spring 2022) || National Security Advisor of India (2010-2014); Foreign Secretary of India (2006-2009)

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka (Spring 2022) || UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director, UN Women (2013-2021)

Vivek Murthy (2017-2019) || 21st United States Surgeon General (2021-present); 19th United States Surgeon General (2014-2017)

Ellen Ochoa (Spring 2019-Fall 2020) || 11th Director, NASA Johnson Space Center (2013-2018); Astronaut

Dan Pallotta (Fall 2021) || CEO, Advertising for Humanity

Emily Kernan Rafferty (Fall 2019) || President Emerita, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Paola Ramos (Fall 2021) || Correspondent, VICE and VICE News; Contributor, Telemundo News and MSNBC

Maria Ressa (Fall 2021) || Co-Founder and CEO, Rappler

Henry Timms (2018-2019) || President and CEO, Lincoln Center

Doug Ulman (Fall 2019) || President and CEO, Pelotonia

LTG Nadja Y. West, USA, Ret. (2019-2020) || 44th Surgeon General, United States Army (2016-2019)

Sheryl WuDunn (2017-2019) || Co-founder, FullSky Partners; Pulitzer Prize Winner