The Honorable Mary Beth Long is a foreign policy and security expert with decades of intelligence and defense-related government service, followed by ongoing successful leadership roles in commercial and multi-lateral negotiations worldwide.

In her last position in Defense, Ms. Long was the first woman confirmed by the US Senate as an Assistant Secretary of Defense where she led International Security Affairs as a four-star military equivalent. She was also the first female to Chair NATO’s senior most nuclear and missile defense body, the High-Level Group (HLG). In these roles, Ms. Long regularly briefed and represented the secretary of defense with his foreign counterparts as well with the president. She also regularly served as the senior defense official to the National Security Council (NSC). As a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC), Ms. Long implemented over $1B in capacity-building programs in Iraq and Afghanistan. She received the Department of Defense’s highest civilian honors from Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael G. Mullen.

To those credentials, Ms. Long adds Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) clandestine operational experience abroad (1986–99), receiving numerous awards. After leaving CIA, Ms. Long worked as an associate at Williams & Connolly PLLP where she specialized in civil litigation. She also founded two multimillion-dollar advisory firms that worked with several Fortune 50 companies. In addition, her government contracting company, Metis Solutions, LLC, was included in Forbes Inc. Magazine’s list of Fastest Growing Companies in America before being sold to private equity.

More recently, Ms. Long was a professor of practice at The Pennsylvania State University’s Graduate School of International Affairs where she taught globalization, foreign policy, and intelligence. She currently serves as member of the university’s global advisory board and has received its highest alumna honors. She remains an active student mentor for the university, as with as through the Leadership Council for Women in National Security (LCWINS).

Ms. Long is currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Wilson Center. Her ongoing activities include international negotiations efforts with global leaders, building on her service as a Senior Subject Matter Expert for the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, senior advisor to the Minister of Defense of Colombia, and as a member of the US Defense and Aerospace Export Council. Her daily Middle East security digest is read by thousands in English and Arabic.

Finally, Ms. Long serves on commercial boards of directors, including AeroVironment (NASDAQ: AVAV), as well as for charitable organizations. An active member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), she has recently presided over meetings on NATO, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and global threats.

Kevin O’Connell is a recognized expert on space commerce, the global space economy, international intelligence and U.S. national security matters. For almost four decades, he has focused on space commercialization and technological competitiveness and how to advance them in global markets. He has also focused on how these innovations impact U.S. and allied national security.

His U.S. government assignments include the Department of Commerce (SES), The Department of Defense, The Department of State, The National Security Council, The Office of the Vice President, and The Office of the Director of Central Intelligence. Within the private sector, Mr. O’Connell was a senior research analyst at RAND and was the first Director of RAND’s Intelligence Policy Center. In 2007, he founded Innovative Analytics and Training, LLC, a consulting firm specializing in assessing high-tech market areas including geospatial markets, cloud computing, and cyber analytics.

Mr. O’Connell’s most recent role was Director of the Office of Space Commerce (OSC) within the U.S. Department of Commerce. He was the principal architect of outreach to U.S. private space companies to facilitate innovation and encourage increased market growth and viability. He focused on the growing role of the private sector in space, encouraged new space partnerships, worked to ensure the competitiveness of the U.S. commercial space industry, and advanced American leadership in space safety and sustainability. Mr. O’Connell testified before Congress on space policy and regulatory issues, American space competitiveness, and the growth of space commerce. He was awarded the Vice President’s Dedicated Service Award for his support to the National Space Council.

Mr. O’Connell also expanded international outreach on space commerce issues with a wide range of U.S. allies and partners, especially to compare notes on regulation, encourage new partnerships and advance space safety and sustainability. His overseas space engagements included participation in the U.S.-Japan Comprehensive Space Dialogue, as part of a Space Delegation to Luxembourg, and including high-level discussions with the EU, India, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and Commonwealth partners.

Mr. O’Connell is a recognized expert on the policy, security, and commercial aspects of satellite remote sensing technologies and markets. He served as the Executive Secretary of the Independent Commission on the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) in 2000 and later as an advisor to the Director, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. He was a long-standing member of NOAA’s federal advisory committee, ACCRES, including as Chair between 2012 and 2016.

Mr. O’Connell has been a regular author on space commerce issues. He contributed the foreword to "Space Policies for the New Space Age: Competing on the Final Economic Frontier,” by Bruce Cahan and Mir Sadat (NewSpace New Mexico, December 2020). He co-authored Commercial Observation Satellites: at the Leading Edge of Global Transparency (ASPRS/RAND, 2000). He taught graduate courses in Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and the RAND Graduate School for many years and has lectured at academic and research organizations around the world. 

Michael B. Greenwald is the Global Head of Financial Innovation and Digital Assets at Amazon Web Services (AWS). He is also heads up Global Executive Relations for AWS pioneering thought-leadership on artificial intelligence. Michael focuses on working with the U.S. Government (USG) and international governments to incorporate cloud computing into their systems as well as drive responsible emerging technology innovation and implementation within the public sector market. 

In 2023, Michael was appointed by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to represent Amazon on the CFTC’s Technology Advisory Committee. He helps the CFTC carry out its mission of fostering open, transparent, competitive, and financially sound markets and examining the impact and implications of technological innovation in the financial services, derivatives, and commodity markets. He co-authored an Amazon publication titled: The convergence of artificial intelligence and digital assets: A new dawn for financial infrastructure. 

Prior to Amazon, he was a managing director of Digital Asset Education and Chief Geopolitical Risk Officer for global asset management firm AlTi Global. He previously worked for the U.S. Treasury Department for almost a decade. He served in senior policy and intelligence roles in Europe and Africa for two presidential administrations and three Treasury Secretaries culminating with becoming the first U.S. Treasury attaché to Qatar and Kuwait, acting as the principal financial diplomat to the banking sector in those nations. 

He is a Adjunct Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia SIPA and a former Adjunct professor at Boston University Pardee School of Global Studies, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council as well as Center for New American Security, Deputy Director of the Trilateral Commission, member of the Bretton Woods Committee, and senior advisor to Wharton Cypher Accelerator. He was a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center where he published over 50 articles. 

He is a graduate of Harvard Business School and has a Juris Doctor graduate from Boston University School of Law, a Master’s graduate from Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, and a B.A. from George Washington University. Raised in Brookline, Massachusetts, he lives in Palm Beach, Florida with his wife Nolan and served on the Board of The Town of Palm Beach Investment Committee. He was honored by Palm Beach Illustrated as one of the city’s 100 most influential business leaders in 2021.

Max Angerholzer serves as a Managing Director at Spruce House Capital, a New York-based hedge fund. Max is also Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress, a non-partisan policy organization in Washington, DC that applies lessons of leadership and history to current domestic and international challenges and promotes cooperation among the White House, Congress, and the private sector.

Max previously served as Chief Executive Officer of the George & Barbara Bush Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving the historic legacies of President & Mrs. Bush. Headquartered in College Station, Texas with satellite offices in Houston and Washington, DC, the Bush Foundation coordinates and promotes public policy and education efforts at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library & Museum and Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government & Public Service.

Prior to joining the Bush Foundation, Max served as Executive Vice President of the Institute of International Education, a global non-profit organization that partners with governments, multinational corporations, universities, and foundations to design and manage educational and leadership programs, including the U.S. Department of State’s Fulbright Program and the U.S. Department of Defense’s Language Flagship. Max previously served as President & CEO of the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress. He was also Managing Director of the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, a philanthropic institution that awards grants to support scientific and medical research, as well as science and technology policy, education, international relations, and security programs.

Max is a member of the Economic Club of Washington, DC and serves on the boards of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and the St. Paul’s Cathedral Trust in America. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee and a Master of Arts from the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.