Paul has diverse experience as an entrepreneur and venture capital investor. He was most recently Vice President of Capital Markets at the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), where he managed the bulk of the State’s $2 billion 21st Century Jobs Fund, including the $150 million 21st Century Commercialization Competition, which invests directly in early stage companies, and the $109 million 21st Century Investment Fund, which invests in venture capital and private equity firms. Paul was also co-founder and SVP of business development of Front Door Insights, a mobile technology company that was acquired in May 2013 by Mobivity. Paul began his career practicing law in the Manhattan office of the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. He has a BA History and an MBA from the University of Michigan and received his law degree from Wayne State University.

Geoff Davis is an entrepreneur turned social entrepreneur and impact investor. He has founded, co-founded or advised more than 25 start-ups and investment funds, sat on 21 boards of directors and helped about 75 million people work their way out of poverty. He is currently CEO of the Sorenson Impact Center at the University of Utah, David Eccles Business School. Sorenson Impact combines impact investing, data science, policy and storytelling to drive impact around the world. In addition to his role at Sorenson Impact, he is currently a Senior Advisor at Cicero Group, Chairman of the board of Align17 (a UBS-sponsored impact investing platform for institutional and high net worth investors); an investment committee member of the MIT SOLVE fund; a board member of Summit Series Social Impact Fellows; and a board member at Arctaris Impact Capital. Prior to Sorenson Impact, he was the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Cicero Impact Capital, the private equity impact investing arm of Cicero Group, a top 15 global boutique consulting firm. Cicero Capital combines Cicero’s management consulting expertise with innovative revenue-based financing structures to dramatically scale small and medium enterprises that provide essential services to low- and middle-income families in emerging markets. Geoff led the Cicero Capital team in pre-investment analysis, deal structuring, fund and impact strategy, and fundraising efforts. Previously, Geoff led the Perpetual Education Fund and helped build Self-Reliance Services for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where his team gave 20,000 higher education loans each year and started 50,000 small businesses per year in 100 countries. Prior to that he was CEO of Unitus, a global pioneer in microfinance, and a founding board member of Kiva.org, a pioneering p2p lending platform. Earlier in his career he worked with Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus and helped launch the Grameen Foundation. Geoff has been recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young, an Entrepreneurial Thought Leader by Stanford University, among others. Geoff earned a master’s degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School, a bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University and certificates from Harvard Business School, NYU Stern School of Business, John’s Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and the Center for Creative Leadership, among others. He speaks English, French and Spanish, is a surfer, artist, yogi and a creative chef. He is blissfully married and has three wonderful daughters.

Duggan runs a successful sustainability and strategy consulting firm with a special eye toward support for clean energy, climate resilience & environmental protection, as well as policy translation into actionable outcomes. She has explored ways to implement triple-bottom-line values in business as help cities accelerate the process of solving urban mobility, climate, and equity-related challenges. Duggan is also a Senior Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists.

In 2020, Duggan was appointed by Vice President Biden along with Former Secretary of State John Kerry and Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to the Biden-Sanders Unity Climate Change Task Force to develop the most successful possible agenda for Democrats in advance of the Democratic National Convention.

Ms. Duggan previously served as Deputy Director for Policy in the Office of Vice President Joe Biden, providing direct advice to the Vice President on policy issues, including energy, the environment, climate, national security, infrastructure, clean technology, water, resilient cities, and urban revitalization, finance and R&D.  Simultaneously, she served as President Barack Obama’s Deputy Director of the White House Detroit Federal Working Group, to listen, provide capacity, technical assistance, and resources to support Detroit’s revitalization. In Detroit, she was instrumental in providing technical expertise to support more cost and carbon efficient decisions, from installing LED Streetlights to their first urban solar park, as well as building a resiliency MOU for the City and its closest DOE national lab, Argonne National Lab outside of Chicago. 

Prior to her time at the White House, Duggan served as Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz’s Liaison to the City of Detroit and was embedded in Detroit’s City Hall under Mayor Mike Duggan (no relation). Her previous DOE roles include Director of Stakeholder Engagement, Director of Legislative, Regulatory & Urban Affairs, and Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy.

Duggan previously led federal political and campaigns activities for the non-partisan national League of Conservation Voters, where she worked directly with hundreds of candidates and campaigns in support of a clean energy future at the local, state, and federal level, including direct interviews of major candidates for U.S. House, Senate, and Presidential races.

She serves on the external advisory board of the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise and the is a Trustee at the University Liggett School.  She is on the corporate advisory boards of Walker-Miller Energy Services and Arctaris Impact Investors Opportunity Zone Fund. Duggan is a board member of the National Council of Science and the Environment and the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. She is a professional member of the International Women’s Forum and the National Wildlife Federation’s Wolfpack, as well as being a proud card-carrying member of the National Press Club.

Duggan earned her B.S. in Environmental Studies from the University of Vermont and her M.S. in Natural Resource Policy & Behavior from the University of Michigan, where she framed the national Coping with Climate Change Summit, and co-authored “Downtown Detroit in Focus: A Profile of Market Opportunity” with The Brookings Institution. 

Duggan lives in Detroit with her husband and two kids.

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.

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.

Tom Hicks is a founding principal and managing director of Mabus Group; a strategic advisory firm specializing supporting companies, both large and small, develop strategies to grow their business in the Defense and Federal markets. Tom Hicks performed the duties of the Under Secretary of the Navy from 2014 to 2016 and again in 2017 representing the Department on all policy, budget, and strategy matters and serving as the Chief Operating Officer/Chief Management Officer of the Navy. In this capacity, Tom led the day-to-day business operations of the Department and served as Department’s senior official on Space, Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Enterprise, Defense Business Council, Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness, Military Health, Military Professionalism, Sexual Assault, Force of the Future, Transgender Integration, Women in Service, Secretary of Defense Senior Leadership Council, and Department of Defense/Joint Staff executive leadership working groups. Concurrent with this role, Tom served as Deputy Under Secretary of the Navy for Management as the Secretary of the Navy’s principal advisor on all business management functions including offices of the Chief Information Office, Strategy and Innovation, Business Operations, and Administration. In this capacity Tom was responsible for overseeing and executing the Secretary’s Innovation Vision to improve use of information, accelerate new capabilities to the Fleet, build an innovation network, and develop advanced war fighting concepts. Prior to these roles, Tom served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy; the Secretary’s senior official on all matters pertaining to energy sourcing, energy efficiency, and alternative fuels managing an energy investment portfolio of $1 billion annually. In concert with the Secretary’s energy vision, Tom established the 1 Gigawatt renewable energy initiative announced by the President which resulted in the procurement of more than 1.2 Gigawatts of renewable energy and cost savings in excess of $100 million. Tom led the creation of the Department’s $800 million public-private partnership accelerating the capacity of the advanced alternative fuels industry to provide hundreds of millions of gallons per year of military-compatible, low-emission alternative fuel price-competitive with conventional fuel. Prior to the Navy, Tom was Vice President of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) and International Programs with the U.S. Green Building Council. Tom oversaw the implementation and expansion from four to seven individual rating systems while increasing presence to more than 120 countries yielding nearly 70,000 building projects totalling over 12 billion square feet. Tom led the wholesale re-engineering of the certification processes and business model, development of the volume certification model, and both brand and reference guide fulfilment, driving ten-fold net revenue growth. Prior to the USGBC, Tom was a Senior Program Manager with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR® program. Tom created and managed the ENERGY STAR commercial building rating system enabling measurement and tracking of building energy performance on a 1 to 100 scale. To date, more than 400,000 commercial buildings totaling over 35 billion square feet of floor space have been benchmarked using the ENERGY STAR rating system and More than 25,000 buildings have been certified as ENERGY STAR with a cumulative cost savings of $3.4 billion and a cumulative greenhouse gas emissions savings of 17 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent. Tom received his Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland.

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.

Jeremy is a serial entrepreneur who has founded, funded, and advised more than 6 dozen startups over the past 20 years. He started his first company, SAETEC, Dartmouth College while still a student with $248 and went on to build the company in its first two years into a worldwide telecommunications firm serving Fortune 1000 clientele. Among his other major projects have been segTEL, a regional fiber optic telecommunications firm that pioneered the development and construction of 4G wireless systems for 4 out of the 5 largest national wireless companies. segTEL was bought by private equity firm Riverside Partners in 2011. He also founded Research Dataware in 2005, a SaaS company that specializes in providing hosted workflow solutions for compliance in pharmaceutical research. This company was bought by private equity firm Arsenal Capital in 2012.

Jeremy serves on the boards of multiple alternative assets funds, for profit companies and philanthropic organizations. Jeremy also co-founded TwinState MakerSpaces, a 501c3 charitable organization dedicated to building makerspaces in low-income communities of New Hampshire and Vermont.

Jeremy is a former member of the Alumni Council of Dartmouth College and presently serves as the treasurer on the board of directors of Dartmouth Hillel. Katz received an AB from Dartmouth in 1995.