Alexander Feldman serves as the President of the US-ASEAN Business Council, the pre-eminent representative of American business in Southeast Asia tasked with helping to remove barriers and open opportunities for over 125 of the leading American multinational corporations. Working closely with corporate leadership, he regularly engages heads of government and ministers in Southeast Asia as well as senior U.S. Government officials on key issues across multiple sectors.  By bringing together government, business and thought leaders throughout the 10 member countries of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), the Council enables high-level dialogues that help resolve issues in a variety of industry sectors driving trade and investment.  With a career spanning both the private and public sectors, he has been involved in the ASEAN region for more than 20 years including more than a decade where he resided in Asia and conducted business in all 10 ASEAN member countries.  During his six plus years of government service, Mr. Feldman served in both the U.S. State and Commerce Departments, rising to the rank of Assistant Secretary of State with responsibility for global public diplomacy. As a media executive, he held senior positions with STAR TV (News Corporation), CNBC Asia Pacific, and MTV Networks as well as founding streaming media company, B2Bcast.com.  Mr. Feldman is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. On his fellowship to Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand, Mr. Feldman will seek to understand the forces shaping media and communications in Southeast Asia and how various players including popular culture personalities influence national and regional issues and promote regional harmonization through traditional and new media platforms. 

Deborah (Deb) Gordon serves as chief marketing officer and vice president of business development for Network Health, a comprehensive health plan that provides access to high-quality health care to 215,000 Massachusetts residents with low and moderate incomes.  In this role, she manages an $8M marketing budget and a team of 27 staff to direct membership growth, enhance market expansion opportunities and provide leadership in corporate strategic planning.  Ms. Gordon has led the charge in the organization’s pursuit of expansion into neighboring states and built the organization’s first dedicated business development team. She is a frequent lecturer at national and local Medicaid conferences and health care forums.  On her fellowship to Australia, Ms. Gordon will look to identify ways in which healthcare consumers can be empowered to take a proactive role in their healthcare decision making.  

Follow Deb on her travels: http://eisenhowerslastsmoke.com/

Dr. Daniel Isom is the E. Desmond Lee Professor of Policing and the Community at the University of Missouri – St. Louis in their Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice.  The department is ranked second in the nation for scholarly research by the Journal of Criminal Justice and fourth in the nation by U.S. News & World Reports for its doctoral program. Isom had served as the Chief of Police for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, the largest police department in Missouri with 1,401 police officers and 500 civilian employees, until his retirement in January 2013.  The police department has become a national leader in law enforcement and has been at the forefront of technology, policy and research in policing.  Under his direction, crime in the city of St. Louis had decreased each year and is now at the lowest it has been since the 1960’s.  Isom is a progressive advocate for elevating the standards of professionalism for law enforcement and strengthening the relationship between the police and citizens.  He serves on the advisory boards for St. Louis University’s School of Public Service and the New Beginnings C-Star Treatment Center.  On his fellowship to Germany & Ireland, he will seek to identify best practices in elevating the academic rigor of law enforcement training and creating a model of shared responsibility among law enforcement agencies.    

Igor Jablokov is a Principal at 8 Rivers Capital and an Entrepreneur in Residence for Blackstone’s Entrepreneurs Network.  The network, a collaboration between the region’s major universities, its entrepreneurial community and the private sector, represents a unique approach to accelerating the growth trajectory of promising startups.  He previously cofounded Yap, an institutionally funded venture that pioneered cloud-based speech recognition, and as Program Director of IBM’s multi-modality initiatives led a worldwide team that created the world’s first ever speech-enabled web browser.  Mr. Jablokov serves on the boards of Queen City Forward, a non-profit focused on social entrepreneurship, and Veterans for Ventures, which helps veterans transition into high growth ventures.  On his fellowship to Israel and Jordan, he will seek to understand their entrepreneurial ecosystems and how they are helping to increase the competitiveness of veterans in the job market.

Christina Juhasz serves as Chief Investment Officer for Women’s World Banking (WWB) Asset Management, the investment arm of WWB, dedicated to providing investment capital for WWB network members and other microfinance institutions with a strong focus on women and a commitment to responsible provision of microfinance.  WWB is a global network of microfinance institutions committed to ensuring that poor women have access to financial services. Through its network members, WWB reaches about 26 million clients in 27 countries with over US$7 billion in loans and US$3.5 billion in savings products.  As Chief Investment Officer, Ms. Juhasz raised over $30 million from institutional and high-net-worth investors to launch the WWB Isis Fund, the first and only women-focused microfinance private equity fund.  Prior to her work with WWB, Ms. Juhasz spent 12 years working in the financial institutions industry groups of Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank.  Having earned her Bachelor of Science from the United States Military Academy at West Point, Ms. Juhasz also served as a platoon leader in the United States Army.  On her fellowship to Jordan and Turkey, she will seek to better understand the provision and regulation of microfinance in the Middle East and develop long term partnerships to enhance financial inclusion of low-income people, especially women, in the region.

Polly Ruhland serves as the Chief Executive Officer for the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion & Research Board, which is responsible for oversight of The Beef Checkoff, a national commodity promotion, research and education program.  In this role, she also oversees the federally mandated collection of approximately $70 million per year from producers and growers and awards the funds to eligible contractors to perform programs of research, promotion and education.  Ms. Ruhland and her husband also own a cattle herd maintained in a birth-to-market partnership with business partners in Minnesota.  She has spent her career working for beef producers in non-profit organizations to improve the triple bottom line of sustainability (social, environmental, economic) for beef producers.  On her Fellowship to Japan and China (Taiwan), Ms. Ruhland will seek to better understand differentiation and branding of US beef products in these markets as well as the parallels between U.S. and Asian markets in the beef industry.

Follow Polly on her travels: http://pencilplow.wordpress.com/

Michael “Gus” Schmedlen serves as the Vice President of Worldwide Education for Hewlett-Packard’s Printer and Personal Systems division.  In this role, he is responsible for HP’s education strategy, marketing and R&D operations, serving governments, teachers and students in over 170 countries.  Prior to joining HP, he served as Director of Worldwide Commercial and Public Sector Strategy and Marketing for Lenovo, providing executive leadership for strategy, research, product development and marketing for an $8 billion commercial, education and healthcare technology business.  Earlier at Lenovo, he served as Director of Worldwide Education, leading the organization from fourth place to first place market share in worldwide education, doubling revenue, profit and unit shipments.  Mr. Schmedlen also founded the Education Research Initiative (ERI), a collaborative partnership whose mission is to connect students, teachers and researchers around the world to evaluate and quantify the use of technology to improve education.  On his fellowship to the EU and Ireland, Mr. Schmedlen will seek to better understand the evolution of corporate social responsibility and how to increase its impact on creating shared value.  In doing so, he will seek to maximize the positive societal and economic impact of corporate actors in global education and healthcare reform.

Dr. Jennifer Smith serves as the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Vice Chancellor for Students at Washington University in St. Louis.  In this role, her goal is to graduate intellectually engaged, responsible citizens who can bring multiple perspectives to the world’s challenges.  Dr. Smith is an associate professor of earth and planetary sciences and environmental studies, a passionate teacher and a distinguished scholar of human impact on the environment.  She is widely published and has contributed to television programs on earth history on both The History Channel and A&E.  On her fellowship to India, Dr. Smith will explore the ways in which institutions of higher learning are seeking to enhance the innovative capacity of their students, and will look to develop long term relationships that will help in the creation of curricula that develop students as original thinkers.

Follow Jen on her tralves: https://pages.wustl.edu/eisenhowerblog

Neil Boyden Tanner serves as both the Chief Counsel for Cigna Global Health Benefits and Deputy Chief Counsel for Cigna International.  As chief counsel to the world’s leading global benefits provider, he manages all legal and compliance matters for a $1.6 billion business unit that covers over 850,000 expatriates in over 200 jurisdictions.  Mr. Tanner manages legal and compliance professionals around the world and serves as a member of the unit’s Executive Leadership Team overseeing all strategy for the business and its more than 1,600 employees in 17 countries.  He has also represented the company before members of Congress, the White House, Health and Human Services and other agencies concerning the international implications of U.S. Healthcare Reform.  Mr. Tanner also serves on several boards in the region who seek to attract foreign direct investment.  On his fellowship to Brazil, Singapore and Vietnam, Mr. Tanner will seek to better understand best practices in attracting foreign direct investment to a region, as well as how best to organize the various organizations and agencies responsible for attracting investment in a region to make them more effective and efficient.

Follow Neil on his travels: http://intllawguy.weebly.com/