Michael Raftis is the Vice President of Corporate Taxation at Erie Insurance Group, where he oversees all aspects of the corporate tax life cycle, including tax accounting, compliance, policies, and tax credit investments. Mike joined Erie Insurance Group in 2020 after spending a decade in the Pittsburgh office of Ernst and Young LLP as a senior manager in the tax advisory group.

Mike is an active member of the Erie Insurance Derivative Risk Committee and the Tax Credit Investment Committee, a participating member of the Investment Committee and Audit Committee of the Board, and Board Director for several subsidiaries in the Erie Insurance Group structure. Mike is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a B.S. and M.S. in Accounting, both from Pennsylvania State University.

Mike is an active community member, serving as Board treasurer for several organizations, including the Erie Downtown Equity Fund, the investment arm of the Erie Downtown Development Corporation and Erie DAWN.

Bruce Katz is the Co-Founder and inaugural Director of the Nowak Metro Finance Lab. Katz regularly advises global, national, state, regional and municipal leaders on public reforms and private innovations that advance the well-being of metropolitan areas and their countries. Katz is the co-author of The New Localism: How Cities Can Thrive in the Age of Populism (Brookings Institution Press, 2018) and The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy (Brookings Institution Press, 2013). Both books focus on the rise of cities and city networks as the world’s leading problem solvers.

Katz was the inaugural Centennial Scholar at the Brookings Institution from January 2016 to March 2018, where he focused on the challenges and opportunities of global urbanization. Prior to assuming this role, Bruce J. Katz was a vice president at the Brookings Institution and founding Director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program.

Before joining Brookings, Katz served as chief of staff to U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros and was the senior counsel and then staff director for the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Housing and Urban Affairs. After the 2008 presidential election, Bruce co-led the housing and urban transition team for the Obama administration and served as a senior advisor to new Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Secretary Shaun Donovan, for the first 100 days of the Administration.

Katz is a visiting Professor at the London School of Economics. He gives dozens of lectures and presentations annually before public, corporate, civic and university audiences across the world. In 2006, he received the prestigious Heinz Award in Public Policy for his contributions to understanding the “function and values of cities and metropolitan areas and profoundly influencing their economic vitality, livability and sustainability.” Katz is a graduate of Brown University and Yale Law School.

Steve Glickman is the Co-Founder and former CEO of the Economic Innovation Group (EIG), which co-authored the Opportunity Zone legislation. EIG is a bipartisan research and policy organization in Washington, D.C. focused on addressing economic inequality through the creation of a new marketplace for private equity investments in distressed communities.

Steve currently serves as CEO of Develop LLC, the first full service, independent advisory firm dedicated to building and supporting Opportunity Zone Funds, and he is one of the nation’s top Opportunity Zones experts who is a sought after speaker at industry gatherings around the country.

Under Steve’s leadership, EIG was the architect of the $6 trillion Qualified Opportunity Zones program, the largest community investment incentive in U.S. history. EIG conceptualized the program and drafted the underlying legislation — the “Investing in Opportunity Act” — championed by Senators Tim Scott (R-SC) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), which received nearly 100 bipartisan congressional cosponsors before being passed into law in 2017. Steve has worked with hundreds of investors and dozens of communities to help them take advantage of this new powerful tax incentive.

Steve is also an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, where he teaches on economic diplomacy and international trade in the School of Foreign Service. He sits on Georgetown’s Board of Governors and the Board of The NewDEAL.

Steve previously served in the Obama Administration from 2008-2013 – as a senior economic advisor at the White House, where he managed trade and investment issues, manufacturing, and small business issues for the National Security Council and the National Economic Council. Steve also held the position of Deputy Associate Counsel at the White House, as well as Chief of Staff for the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service at the Commerce Department.

Steve received his B.A. and M.A. from Georgetown University, J.D. from Columbia Law School, and LL.M. from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Steve’s work has been featured in the AP, Atlantic, Axios, Barron’s, Bisnow, Bloomberg, Chicago Tribune, CNN, Crain’s, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, Impact Alpha, Inc., The Los Angeles Times, Marketplace, The New York Times, NPR, PBS, Politico, San Francisco Chronicle, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Vox, Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.

Steve lives with his wife and two sons in Washington, DC.

After serving almost 15 years in the Philadelphia City Council, Michael Nutter was elected the 98th Mayor of his hometown in November, 2007 and took office in January 2008.

At his inaugural address, Mayor Nutter pledged to lower crime, improve educational attainment rates, make Philadelphia the greenest city in America and attract new businesses and residents to the city. He also promised to lead an ethical and transparent government focused on providing high quality, efficient and effective customer service. With the support of an experienced, professional staff, Mayor Nutter made significant progress on every pledge: homicides were at an almost 50 year low at the end of his tenure; high school graduation and college degree attainment rates increased significantly; Philadelphia added hundreds of miles in bike lanes and trails and launched the first low-income friendly bike share system in America, called Indego; and Philadelphia’s population grew every year since 2008, including the largest percentage of millennial population growth in the nation. Despite the damaging impact of the Great Recession, Philadelphia’s economy demonstrated significant growth—since January 2014, more than $11.5 billion of economic development projects have been completed, are under construction or announced.

Since leaving public service on January 4, 2016, Mayor Nutter has remained active in public policy, government, and civic life. In January 2019, the Department of Homeland Security announced that Mayor Nutter accepted an appointment to the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) announced his appointment as Professor of Professional Practice. In February 2019, CNN news media organization announced that Mayor Nutter became a political commentator for the network and in March 2019, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced his appointment as a Senior Fellow and national spokesperson for the What Works Cities program, working with mayors all across the United States.

Mayor Nutter is a life-long Philadelphian, born and raised in West Philadelphia and educated at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been dedicated to public service since his youth. Mayor Nutter is happily married to his wife Lisa, and a proud parent to Christian and Olivia.

As CEO of ICIC, Steve leads a dynamic and growing team of professionals dedicated to achieving economic prosperity in America’s inner cities. Steve is focused on setting ICIC’s strategic direction, leading the organization through a period of rapid growth and extending ICIC’s national visibility and brand.

Prior to joining ICIC, Steve was elected Treasurer of Massachusetts in 2010 and served in that position from 2011 until 2015. One of his principal achievements in that office was the creation of the Small Business Banking Partnership, a pioneering initiative that was responsible for moving almost $400 million of state deposits into community banks that used these funds to make more than 10,000 loans with a value of over $1.6 billion, with a principal focus on businesses owned by women, minorities, immigrants and veterans.

Prior to taking office, Steve served for 35 years as President of Grossman Marketing Group, a fourth-generation marketing communications firm started by his grandfather. Steve has been an active leader in many civic, philanthropic and political organizations. These positions include former board chair of Brandeis University, former national chairman of the Democratic National Committee, former president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), founding board member of Mass Inc and life trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts. He currently chairs the advisory board of Cambridge College.

Steve graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar. He is married to Dr. Barbara Wallace Grossman, a theater historian and director, who is a professor in the Department of Drama & Dance at Tufts University and serves as vice-chair of the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Steve and Barbara have three sons, David, Ben and Josh, and six grandchildren.

Beverly Norman-Cooper is the former Executive Director of National Supplier Diversity at Kaiser Permanente, where she oversaw increased spend with certified women- and minority-owned companies from approximately $1.3 billion when she took the role in 2015 to more than $2.3 billion when she retired from the health care company in 2018.

In 2014, Kaiser Permanente became the first health care provider in the nation to sit at the prestigious Billion Dollar Roundtable, a small group of industry-leading companies that spend $1 billion with diverse suppliers annually.

Norman-Cooper’s tenure at Kaiser Permanente spanned more than 18 years in various consulting and staff roles. She has led successful projects as Communications and Change Management Director for Kaiser Permanente’s Chief Financial Officer and as Executive Consultant to the Senior Vice President for Finance Operations.

In 2017, the supplier diversity program she led landed the organization on the list of 101 Most Admired Corporations in America by MBNUSA; earned the California Department of Insurance “Supplier Diversity Champion” Award; the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) – Corporation of the Year – Corporate Development Award; Top Supplier Diversity Program by Professional Women’s Magazine; the Western Region Minority Supplier Development Council (WRMSDC) – Supplier Diversity Leader of the Year Award;  WRMSDC – Corporation of the Year Award; Black Enterprise “Top Companies for Supplier Diversity”;  one of the Top 9 corporations for supplier diversity by Diversity, Inc.; and “America’s Top Corporation” by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). Norman-Cooper was also named one of the “Top 25 Women in Power Impacting Diversity” by Diversity Plus. In September 2020, she was a panelist on an Aspen Institute webinar, “Creating a Higher Form of Capitalism: How Business Can Be the Catalyst for the Revitalization of Urban Communities.”

She and her husband earned their MBAs from Columbia University in New York City, where they designed a customized curriculum centered around urban entrepreneurship.  She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism (ABJ) from the University of Georgia.  She now lives in Baltimore, where she serves as a supply chain diversity consultant.

Raymond Edwin Mabus, Jr. served as the U.S. Secretary of the Navy from 2009 to 2017. In this role, he opened all jobs to women, aggressively moved to alternative energy as a warfighting measure, built more than twice as many ships during his term than in the preceding eight years and developed the Gulf Coast Restoration Plan after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. During Mabus’ tenure as Governor of Mississippi from 1988 to 1992, Mississippi experienced record growth in jobs, education, tourism and exports. From 1994 to 1996, Mabus was the U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and was CEO of a Foamex from 2006 to 2007. Today, Mabus is a chairman of InStride and a director of two public companies. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Explorers Club. Mabus received a bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Mississippi, a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University, and a law degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School.

David Evans Shaw is prominent social and business entrepreneur, and currently serves as CEO of Black Point Group, with interests in public service and building sciencebased companies.

As a CEO and board member, Shaw has helped build more than a dozen successful technology companies in healthcare and other industries. Additionally, he is an experienced investor in science-based ventures via a career that has included partner and advisory roles with leading firms such as Venrock Associates, SVB Leerink, and Polaris Venture Partners. Shaw’s career began in government, in the State of Maine Executive Department, followed by several years building a leading food and agribusiness consulting firm with professor Ray A Goldberg at Harvard Business School. The opportunity to harness transformational technology in healthcare caused Shaw to found IDEXX Laboratories in 1983 and to serve as CEO and board chair for nearly 20 years. IDEXX is a world leader in veterinary medicine with a staff of more than 6000 people worldwide. Shaw has since played leadership roles in building Ikaria, Covetrus, Ironwood, Modern Meadow, Ovation, Cyteir and other firms.

Shaw’s career has included extensive public service in science, arts, conservation and public policy. He has served on the faculty of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the advisory board of the Center for Public Leadership with interests in leadership, corporate governance and business social responsibility. He is Chairemeritus of The Jackson Laboratory, and led a period of transformational growth for this leading global genetics research institute. Shaw is Treasurer emeritus, trustee and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) publisher of Science. He has been a global leader in science-based conservation of nature, both marine and terrestrial, as a trustee of the National Park Foundation during the US national park centennial, as founding chair of the Sargasso Sea Alliance and Aspen High Seas Initiative, as a Patron of Nature to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, as a member of Ocean Elders, and as founder of Second Century Stewardship for America’s national parks. Shaw was appointed by President Clinton to the executive committee of the US-Israel Science and Technology Commission. He has served on the board of the US Olympic and Paralympic Museum, Maine Medical Center, Hurricane Island Outward Bound, the scientific advisory board of Discovery Communications, the advisory board of Just Capital, and a Fellow of The Explorers Club, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Leadership Council of the Service Year Alliance.

Shaw has been awarded honorary degrees by Colby College, Bates College, Maine College of Art, and the University of Southern Maine. He is a recipient of the Leslie Cheek Medal from the College of William & Mary. Other honors have included induction into the Teddy Roosevelt Society, International SeaKeeper of Year, Blue Ocean Festival Wavemaker, Life Science Foundation Biotech Hall of Fame, honoree New York Restoration Project, UNH Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, Maine Hall of Fame.

Beyond his leadership roles in business and public service, Shaw is active in supporting the arts including music, sculpture and film. He is founder of the Shaw public sculpture park at the Portland (Maine) Museum of Art, and a founding Advisory Board member of Curiosity Stream, a leading documentary film streaming service. Shaw has produced more than 100 documentary films videos, often for advocacy purposes, including these:

• 50th anniversary of Earth Day: https://vimeo.com/408566180
• Second Century Stewardship: https://vimeo.com/166811651
• Sargasso Sea Declaration: https://vimeo.com/89868953
• Sages and Scientists 2016: https://vimeo.com/193956813
• JAX: ~ century of mammalian genetics https://vimeo.com/345562129
• Gorillas of the Virunga volcanoes https://vimeo.com/280430507

He has published articles in several journals including this piece in the AAAS journal Science Diplomacy: https://www.sciencediplomacy.org/letter-field/2014/protectingsargasso-sea. Additionally he has lectured widely around the world on social and business entrepreneurship.

Shaw is a survivor of viral encephalitis, an often-lethal brain injury, and this provided inspiration for a new institute for integrated brain health as Harvard Medical School and Mass General Hospital. He has since been a frequent speaker on neuroplasticity and contemplative science, at the Sages and Scientists Symposium, and other forums.

David Shaw is a father of 3 and grandfather of 11. He resides in Prouts neck, Maine and New York City.