Forum on Leadership 2026 Speakers and Honorees

2026 George W. Bush Medal for Distinguished Leadership Recipient

David M. Rubenstein

Co-Founder & Co-Chairman, The Carlyle Group
David M. Rubenstein is an investor, philanthropist, interviewer, author, and historian. He is Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest and most successful private investment firms. Established in 1987, Carlyle now manages $474 billion from 27 offices around the world.

Mr. Rubenstein is a Baltimore native and is the Chairman, CEO, and principal owner of Major League Baseball’s Baltimore Orioles.

A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Mr. Rubenstein is Chairman of the Boards of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Gallery of Art, the Economic Club of Washington, and the University of Chicago; a Trustee of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Brookings Institution, and the World Economic Forum; an Emeritus Trustee of Johns Hopkins Medicine; and a Director of Moderna, Inc. and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, among other board seats.

Mr. Rubenstein is a leader in the area of Patriotic Philanthropy, having made transformative gifts for the restoration or repair of the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Monticello, Montpelier, Mount Vernon, Arlington House, Iwo Jima Memorial, the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, the National Archives, the National Zoo, the Library of Congress, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Mr. Rubenstein is an original signer of The Giving Pledge; the host of The David Rubenstein Show, Bloomberg Wealth with David Rubenstein, Longevity with David Rubenstein, and Iconic America: Our Symbols and Stories with David Rubenstein; and the author of The American Story, How to Lead, The American Experiment, How to Invest, and The Highest Calling.

Panelists

Michelle Ferrari

Director, Producer, Writer, 42nd Parallel Films

As a director, producer and writer, Michelle Ferrari has been creating elegant, enlightening documentary narratives for more than two decades. Her work has been seen on PBS, HBO, and at film festivals nationwide, and has garnered honors from a host of prestigious organizations, including the George Foster Peabody Awards, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Writers Guild of America, the Western Writers Association, and the Organization of American Historians.

Michelle’s most recent film, The American Vice President, was broadcast on the celebrated PBS series American Experience in October 2024. A dramatic account of the events that gave rise to the passage and first uses of the 25th Amendment, the hour-long film offers a lively, surprising survey of the vice- presidential office from the constitutional convention to the present and earned Michelle a 2025 WGA nomination for Best Documentary Script.

Also notable among Michelle’s recent work is The Riot Report, winner of the 2025 OAH Erik Barnouw Award and a 2025 Emmy nominee. A timely look back at the Kerner Commission––which was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967 to investigate the violent urban uprisings that had plagued the nation that summer––the film features interviews with the commission’s last surviving member, Senator Fred Harris (since deceased), as well as several staffers, and draws upon a rich but forgotten archive documenting the commission’s work. Directed and produced by Michelle, and co-written with journalist Jelani Cobb, The Riot Report had its world premiere at DOC NYC in November 2023 and was broadcast on American Experience in May 2024.

A longtime contributor to American Experience, Michelle also was the writer/producer/director of the Peabody Award-nominated documentary The Vote, which premiered in July 2020. Timed to coincide with the centennial of the 19th Amendment, the two-part, four-hour series chronicles the epic crusade waged by American women to win the right to vote and delves deeply into the animating controversies that again and again impeded their path to the ballot box. Hailed by the Wall Street Journal as an “expansive…tautly constructed… quite beautiful journey through the national memory,” The Vote brings to life not only the unsung heroes of the woman suffrage movement, but also the issues that continue to dominate political discourse in the United States today.

Other work for American Experience includes Sandra Day O’Connor: The First, WGA-nominee Rachel Carson, and The Eugenics Crusade, a two-hour film that traces the little-known American eugenics movement of the early twentieth century, and explores both its impact on Nazi Germany and its implications for contemporary medical genetics. Variously described by critics as “eye-opening,” “jaw-dropping,” and “sobering,” the film was awarded the 2019 WGA Award for Best Documentary Script.

Prior to directing and producing her own films, Michelle worked as a documentary screenwriter. Although her credits include numerous American Experience films––among them, The Perfect Crime (2015), Writers Guild award-winner Silicon Valley (2013), Roads to Memphis (2010), and Writers Guild-nominee and Western Writers Association Spur Award-winner Kit Carson (2009)––she is perhaps best known for the highly-rated Seabiscuit—an hour-long documentary that was praised as “essential viewing,” “superior television,” and a “wire-to-wire winner.” Michelle’s work, in particular, was hailed by critics as “sleek” and “notably stylish,” and earned her both a Writers Guild of America nomination and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing.

Michelle also was the writer of the landmark PBS series Half the Sky, winner of four RealScreen awards, as well as the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences “Television with a Conscience” award, and of Reporting America at War, a 2004 Emmy nominee for Best Documentary. The Washington Post called Reporting America at War “thoughtful and ambitious…uncommonly intelligent and provocative television.” “This is television that matters, that should be seen,” the Los Angeles Times declared. “[It is] a visual document of power and clarity…[that] uses graceful and muscular language to convey complicated and sometimes contrary ideas…At its best moments, and there are many, Reporting America at War goes beyond the facts, capturing a bit of poetry’s shine.”

Meanwhile, as a story editor and creative advisor, Michelle has contributed her skills to dozens of television and feature documentaries, including two-time Emmy nominee Blue Vinyl and the Peabody and Emmy award-winning Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present, both for HBO.

Michelle’s début effort as a screenwriter, the historical documentary Out of the Past, was the winner of the 1998 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award. Bruce Diones of the New Yorker called Out of the Past “an engaging dialogue between the past and the present, and an emotionally textured treatise on alienation and marginalization that is intelligent and, thankfully, entertaining.” The film was broadcast nationally on PBS.

In 1992, Michelle left academia to pursue a career in documentary film. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of California, Berkeley, holds an M.A. in American History from Columbia University, and is the founder of 42nd Parallel Films. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

David French

Opinion Columnist, The New York Times

David French is a columnist for The New York Times. A graduate of Harvard Law School, David was previously a senior editor at The Dispatch and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He is a former constitutional litigator and a past president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. David is a New York Times bestselling author, and his most recent book is Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation. David is a former major in the United States Army Reserve and is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he was awarded the Bronze Star.

Grace Lee

Executive Editor, National Park Trust

Grace has a lifelong passion for America’s parks and the great outdoors. As a first-generation Chinese American, her parents instilled a love of our country’s parks as she and her family spent numerous summers camping and hiking at national and state parks while driving cross-country in their Chrysler station wagon. This passion, established early in life, motivates her dedication to protecting our national parks and inspiring future generations of park enthusiasts and stewards, including her own children.

She joined National Park Trust in 2006 and has overseen the significant expansion of the organization’s mission, including a renewed focus on the purchase of important private lands to expand and protect the integrity of our national park sites and the launch and rapid growth of the Park Trust’s nationally recognized youth and family programs. These programs introduce the wonders of our parks to tens of thousands of students each year living in under-resourced communities from kindergarten through high school, college students as well as members of our military including those serving on active duty, veterans, Gold Star families, national guard and reserves, and caregivers – something that resonates on a personal level as the spouse of a Navy veteran.

Over the past 20 years, she has also worked to build the board and staff, providing a broader range of expertise and leadership diversity for the Park Trust’s programs to meet the increased challenges facing our national parks.

Grace holds an AB degree in chemistry (biologic specialization) from Duke University, worked as an analytical chemist at the National Institutes of Health, and then as an editor for the journal Analytical Chemistry published by the American Chemical Society.

For 10 years, Grace served on the board of a Maryland nonprofit and held leadership roles in two capital campaigns, the annual fund, and strategic planning. According to Grace, that work, combined with her love for parks and her ability to multitask and juggle the schedules of her busy young children, prepared her well for her tenure at the Park Trust.

Grace also serves as the chair of the National Advisory Board for the Duke University Chapel.

Jeff Reinbold

President and CEO, National Parks Foundation

Jeff Reinbold is President and CEO of the National Park Foundation, the official nonprofit partner of the National Park Service. The Foundation raises private funds and leverages partnerships to support America’s national parks – some of our most treasured places.

Working closely with the National Park Service and more than 470 park partners nationwide, NPF sees the needs of parks across the entire system and helps direct private support where it can make the greatest difference. NPF provides grants to improve infrastructure, protect natural and historic resources, and enhance the visitor experience at parks across the country. It is currently leading a historic $1.25 billion Campaign for National Parks in collaboration with NPS.

Jeff brings more than 30 years of experience with the National Park Service. Most recently, he served as superintendent of National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C. He previously led the Park Service’s Office of Partnerships and Civic Engagement and oversaw the creation of Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania.

Taylor Sheridan

Filmmaker, President of Four Sixes Ranch

Taylor Sheridan is an Academy Award®-nominated screenwriter, Emmy®-nominated producer, and the creator, writer, director and executive producer of multiple record-breaking Paramount Network series including YELLOWSTONE, MAYOR OF KINGSTOWN, TULSA KING, 1883, 1923, LIONESS, and LANDMAN.

Sheridan currently has numerous projects in various stages of development and production, the latest of which is F.A.S.T., an original thriller starring Brandon Sklenar and directed by Ben Richardson, set for release with Warner Bros. in April 2027. Written and produced by Sheridan, F.A.S.T. follows an ex-special-forces commando who is tapped by the DEA to lead a strike against CIA-affiliated drug dealers.

His next show, THE MADISON, is set to release on March 14, 2026; it stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Kurt Russell, Matthew J Fox, and Patrick J Adams and is a heartfelt study of grief and human connection following a New York City family in the Madison River valley of central Montana. Sheridan, alongside Blake Shelton and Keith Urban, is also an executive producer of THE ROAD for CBS. Released in fall 2025, THE ROAD is a music competition series where 12 aspiring artists compete as opening acts for Urban’s tour across America.

Season two of LANDMAN, the hit series created by Sheridan and Christian Wallace, returned to Paramount+ on November 16, 2025. Season 3 of Sheridan’s LIONESS, starring Zoe Saldaña, Laysla de Oliveira, and Nicole Kidman, is currently in production.

Sheridan made his debut as a writer/director with his critically acclaimed film WIND RIVER, the conclusion to his modern frontier trilogy, in 2017, earning Best Director honors at the Cannes Film Festival. He previously wrote HELL OR HIGHWATER, a drama which was nominated for four Academy Awards®, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.

Sheridan owns and operates two Texas ranches including the legendary Four Sixes (6666) Ranch and Bosque Ranch. He also opened the Four Sixes Ranch Steakhouse at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, a pop-up restaurant featuring Sheridan’s own Four Sixes Ranch Brand Beef, which retails premium quality beef sourced from 6666 and a network of various ranches. Sheridan previously hosted several events, including the annual equine sports competition “The Run For A Million” the week of August 8-16, 2025 in Las Vegas and the inaugural “Bosque Ranch Live” concert on Saturday, September 13, 2025 in Weatherford, Texas.

Mark K. Updegrove

President and CEO, LBJ Foundation
Mark K. Updegrove is the president and CEO of the LBJ Foundation and the presidential historian and political analyst for ABC News. He is the author of six books on the presidency, including his most recent, Make Your Mark: Lessons in Character from Seven Presidents. Earlier in his career, he was the director of the LBJ Presidential Library and publisher of Newsweek, and he has written for the New York Times, Politico, and TIME. He has interviewed and hosted seven U.S. presidents.