Anne Caprara has managed and consulted with Democratic candidates and elected officials at every level of state and federal government. She currently serves as the Chief of Staff for Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. Before serving as Pritzker’s Chief of Staff, Anne was the campaign manager for his successful gubernatorial campaign. Before that, Anne served as the Executive Director for Priorities USA Action, the main SuperPAC supporting Hillary Clinton for President in 2016. She has been selected for several professional honors, including being named to Politico Playbook’s Power List in 2019 and selected as one of the 50 most powerful women in Chicago by Chicago magazine in 2020. Anne was born and raised in the Philadelphia area and is an avid surfer and a tried and true Eagles fan.

Claire Craanen has served as speechwriter to the NATO Secretary General and NATO Deputy Secretary General since 2018, and writes speeches, press statements, op-eds and other written material in both English and French. Claire is a member of the non-profit organisation Women in International Security (WIIS) in Brussels. She co-founded WIIS-Brussels in 2015 and served as its first Secretary General from 2015 to 2022. She has a master’s degree in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, and a certificate in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Claire is Dutch and French. She is married and has two children.

Juliana Dahl is Principal Speechwriter and Spokesperson in the Communication division within the Secretary General Department of the European Stability Mechanism. She joined the ESM in May 2018. On leave from the ESM, she worked as Speechwriter at the Office of the Federal President of Germany in 2021. Previously, Mrs. Dahl worked in the European institutions department at the European Central Bank as well as in the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs and in the Spokesperson Service of the European Commission. She also worked as Public Relations Manager at CHANEL. Mrs Dahl graduated with a B.A. in Management and International Economics from the Bocconi University and the Central European University in Budapest. She obtained a M.Sc. in European Economics from the Maastricht University and the Catholic University Louvain-La-Neuve. She also holds a B.A. in Marketing and Communication.

Kristina Drye is a speechwriter, communications professional, and national security expert. Currently speechwriter to U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM), she previously served as speechwriter and communications analyst at USAID, writing for Administrator Samantha Power. She holds a Master of Arts in Security Studies from Georgetown University. Her writing has appeared in publications like The Bitter Southerner, USA Today, the Albuquerque Journal, and the Georgetown Security Studies Review.

Terry Edmonds was chief speechwriter for President Bill Clinton during the President’s second term. He was the first African American to serve as chief speechwriter for the President of the United States. Terry also spent four years as a chief speechwriter in the Obama Administration—first as speechwriter for the CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), which directs the Federal government’s national service programs, including AmeriCorps, and later as senior advisor and speechwriter for NASA Administrator, Charles Bolden. He has also written for top executives at IBM, Columbia University, Time Warner Inc, AARP, NAACP and the National Urban League. He is a 2021 Fellow in Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative and is currently a Senior Editor with the ALI Social Impact Review. His Harvard and volunteer efforts are focused on social justice and uplifting the lives of minority and underserved youth. He is also a published poet.

For more than 18 years, Katie Garcia has helped leaders and emerging leaders across industries to improve their ability to lead and to communicate effectively. She is a Senior Advisor at Logos Consulting Group and a Senior Fellow at the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership. Katie is a contract lecturer at the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Columbia University and Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, where she teaches classes on communication and navigating difficult conversations.

Whether raising her own voice, or helping leaders and executives raise theirs, Karen Gross is passionate about communication that makes an unforgettable impact—or as she calls it, Communication That Sings™. Since 2013, Karen has run a boutique communications consultancy drawing on her experience as a journalist, speechwriter and singer. Karen’s clients have included the University of Pennsylvania, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Core States Group. Karen has presented on Communication That Sings™ at global conferences.

Kathleen Hessert is founder of Communication Concepts and Sports Media Challenge, which have provided strategic communications, brand-building and reputation management for the past four decades. Her clients have included C-level executives of major corporations, government, and entertainment and some of the world’s most renowned celebrity brands in sports. Kathleeen famously launched NBA super star Shaquille O’Neal on Twitter in 2008. She was the social media mastermind behind Pope Francis’ historic 2015 visit to the United States. And for 30 years, she has been chief confidant and speechwriter for NFL and media sensation Peyton Manning. She is also a past winner of the Cicero Speechwriting Award.

Phoebe Judge is the host and co-creator of Criminal, This Is Love, and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Criminal was named the “best true crime podcast of all time” by Entertainment Weekly, and one of the Best Podcasts of 2023 by The New York Times, which described it as a “venerated series” that has “grown only more impressive with time.” The ACLU has praised Criminal for creating “an unexpected and critical look at true crime that often leaves you questioning the criminal legal system and always shows there is more to the story.” Previously, Judge was a host at WUNC North Carolina Public Radio, a producer for The Story with Dick Gordon and a reporter based on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. She covered the BP oil spill and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for Mississippi Public Broadcasting and National Public Radio. Judge’s work has won multiple Edward R. Murrow and Associated Press awards.

Randy Lee grew up a foreign service brat in Latin America, Asia and Africa, then attended West Point, serving in military assignments around the world. He has been speechwriter to a Navy admiral in charge of all U.S. military operations in the Asia-Pacific region, a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a Secretary of Defense, the president of a major university, two presidents of a top trade association, two Directors of National Intelligence, and three directors of the National-Geospatial Intelligence Agency. He recently founded Standing O Speeches.

John Lillig is an English teacher at Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois and serves on the Advisory Board of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. Before returning to high school teaching and sports coaching, he worked as a lawyer in private practice whose clients included writers, artists, and nonprofit organizations. He was also an adjunct professor of legal writing at DePaul University College of Law. He is a graduate of Georgetown University, where he majored in English, and has an M.A. in English Literature from DePaul University and a J.D. from DePaul University College of Law.

Ted Merz is founder of Principals Media, a ghostwriting agency serving business executives. He was one of the pioneers at Bloomberg, the financial media company founded by Michael Bloomberg. He was the 15th person hired in the News Department and built operations in Latin America. He ran, different points, operations in Europe, Asia and the Americas. He served as New York Bureau chief during the 9/11 attacks. In 2006, he moved to the Product division and served as Global Head of News Product at Bloomberg for eight years.

R. Scott Michaud has some 38 years of executive and strategic communications experience with both government agencies and private sector companies. He has worked with senior leaders from some of the largest Fortune 100 companies and major Federal organizations to shape their messaging and communications strategies in good times and in bad. His clients include the President of the United States, the Directors of seven Federal agencies, and the CEOs of Walmart and Lockheed Martin. From scripting multi-day conferences to social media campaigns and annual reports, he’s been relied upon for his sound judgement, command of the language, and strategic messaging expertise. He’s written in-depth articles, op-eds, and testimony on the regulatory issues facing retail, the U.S. mailing industry, U.S. contracting and reconstruction industries, and the U.S. Department of Defense and the /Intelligence Community. And he has the scars to prove it.

Brian Miller is a former magician turned international keynote speaker on human connection, whose TEDx talk has been viewed 3.6 million times. Today, he’s the founder of Clarity Up, a boutique messaging firm that teaches experts how to explain their big ideas to the rest of us. His team has served hundreds of clients across five continents and 20+ industries, with 34 TEDx talks earning a combined 13 million views and 4 Editor’s Picks. Brian is the 2025 Cicero Award recipient for Social Justice. He believes everything can be said clearly—and he’s on a mission to restore humanity’s faith in experts.

David Murray is founder and executive director of the Professional Speechwriters Association and the Executive Communication Council. He is an award-winning journalist and is editor and publisher of Vital Speeches of the Day, one of the world’s longest continuously published magazines. Murray is author of several books, including this year’s communication blockbuster, An Effort to Understand: Hearing One Another (and Ourselves) in a Nation Cracked in Half (Disruption Books, 2021). He lives with his wife Cristie Bosch and daughter Scout Murray, in Chicago.

Joni Nelson is Sr. Manager of CEO Communications at Northrop Grumman, leading strategic CEO communications for one of the world’s leading aerospace and defense companies. Nelson’s career in corporate communications has included roles across executive and employee communications, social media, media strategy and change and crisis communications. Previously, she worked at Frito-Lay, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, and the Susan G. Komen breast cancer organization. Nelson resides in the Dallas, TX, area.

Jim Reische is special advisor for executive communications to Williams College President Maud S. Mandel, a position he has held since the role was created in June 2024. He serves as President Mandel’s chief speechwriter, leadership communications counsel and writing partner, as well as a key advisor on internal campus communications. He worked closely with Mandel on her influential statement on institutional statements (aka, “the unstatement”) in 2023 and developed Williams’ distinctive and surprisingly popular communications strategy during the pandemic. He was co-founder of the Higher Education Leadership Communications Council and facilitates a nationwide networking group for university and college speechwriters and exec comms professionals. Before becoming special advisor, Jim was previously Williams’ chief communications officer and held comparable positions at both St. John’s College and Grinnell College.

Charles Rousseaux has served as a speechwriter for a spectrum of government and university leaders, including Interior, Health and Human Services, NASA, and the Department of Energy, as well as the presidents of Georgetown and the University of Michigan. He has also led emergency response communications at DOE and served as deputy director of public affairs at NNSA. Charles has run about a thousand marathons for “fun” and gone on numerous adventures in Awesome Alaska. An unexpected adventure this past spring was persevering through the sudden departure of his principal after a remarkably short tenure and the shattering experience of learning how to be a one-handed speechwriter.

Allison Shapira is a former opera singer who went from STAGE presence to EXECUTIVE presence. For over 20 years, she has worked with some of the largest and most influential organizations in the world—advising leaders from prime ministers to CEOs. Today, she teaches leaders how to speak with confidence and authenticity, enhancing human connection in an age of artificial intelligence. Allison teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Harvard Business Review. Her book Speak with Impact: How to Command the Room and Influence Others was a Washington Post best-seller. And her next book, AI for the Authentic Leader, comes out this fall.

Henrietta Williams’ deep-rooted fascination with people and their narratives led her to a career in Media and Public Affairs with the Los Angeles City Human Relations Commission. Throughout her tenure in the public sector, Henrietta has written speeches delivered to esteemed national and international organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Pew Charitable Trust Foundation, and the World Bank. Now residing in Woodstock, Georgia, has channeled her passion for storytelling into founding Speakeasy Speechwriting—an agency committed to transforming lives through the power of words. She’s currently writing her debut book, The Speaker’s Playbook.

Jerry Wohletz is head of executive communications at Walmart, where he supports its president and CEO, Doug McMillon. Additionally, he leads a team of expert communicators who support additional C-Suite executives, and has grown an internal practice coaching and supporting highly visible executives with their communications. Previously, he was speechwriter to the CEO of Walmart International. Before joining Walmart in 2019, Jerry held speechwriting and executive communications roles in the healthcare and education industries in Chicago, D.C. and Rochester, New York, where he also taught public speaking. He got started in communications while working on his family’s Kansas farm, where his strategic approach helped grow 6 tomato plants into a thriving local agritourism business.