Thursday, April 16, 2026
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.
2026 George W. Bush Institute Trailblazer Citation Recipient
Eboo Patel
Founder and President, Interfaith America
Eboo Patel is a civic leader, speaker, and author advancing the notion that diversity is a treasure and cooperation across our difference is the key for everybody to thrive. Recognized as “one of America’s best leaders” by U.S. News and World Report, he is the Founder and President of Interfaith America, the nation’s leading interfaith organization.
Under Eboo’s leadership, Interfaith America has grown into a $20 million-per-year organization that partners with governments, universities, businesses, and civic organizations to transform faith into a bridge of cooperation rather than a barrier of division.
Eboo’s impact extends to serving on President Obama’s Inaugural Faith Council, delivering hundreds of keynote addresses, and authoring five influential books, including We Need to Build: Field Notes for Diverse Democracy. A Rhodes Scholar and Ashoka Fellow, Eboo earned a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University.
2026 George W. Bush Institute Trailblazer Citation Recipient
Joni Carswell
CEO and President, Texan by Nature
Joni Carswell is the CEO and President of Texan by Nature where she is responsible for leading the mission to bring business and conservation together. As a proud, fourth generation Texan, Joni pairs her business strategy, engineering and technology background with her passion for Texas and the outdoors to realize Texan by Nature’s vision of bringing business and conservation together for long term, sustainable impact.
Prior to Texan by Nature, Joni was the President and CEO of LivingTree where she grew the company from 1000 to 73 million interactions and 1M+ users. Under Joni’s tenure, LivingTree was recognized with the Stevie Women in Business Gold Award for Community Involvement Program of the Year and Silver Award for Mobile App of the Year. The National School Board Association also named LivingTree to the Innovation Showcase in 2017. Before LivingTree, Joni held leadership roles in planning and strategy at Polycom and Dell where she managed three-year planning for multi-billion dollar product portfolios.
As a top graduate of the Kellogg School of Management (Masters, Business Administration) and Northwestern McCormick School of Engineering (Masters, Engineering Management), Joni is a member of Beta Gamma Sigma and served on the Advisory Board for the Kellogg Women’s Business Association. Joni holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Texas A&M University #GoAggies! She and her husband Scott reside in Austin with their two boys, Dixon and Rigby.
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 Director, 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 Park 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.
Keisha Senter
Senior Vice President of Culture and Impact, Monkeypaw Productions
Keisha Senter is a cultural strategist and producer with a cross-sector career spanning entertainment, philanthropy, and public service. She has built her career at the intersection of culture, storytelling, and impact — from the halls of Capitol Hill to the front lines of Hollywood. As Senior Vice President of Culture & Impact at Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions, she leads the company’s culture and brand strategy, transforming film and television projects into expansive cultural platforms through strategic partnerships, immersive experiences, and audience-driven campaigns that have helped position Monkeypaw among Hollywood’s most culturally influential production companies.
At Monkeypaw, she has shaped some of the company’s most talked-about cultural extensions, including the Candyman impact campaign and the Clio Award–winning NOPE x Jide Osifeso streetwear collaboration, as well as a first-of-its-kind immersive VR experience developed with Meta. She produced the NO DRAMA short film initiative with Universal Pictures and TIFF to support emerging genre filmmakers and serves as Executive Producer of High Horse: The Black Cowboy, the NAACP Image Award–nominated documentary reclaiming the legacy and cultural influence of Black cowboys.
Before entering entertainment, Senter built a career across philanthropy and public service, developing cultural initiatives for Gucci, the Will & Jada Smith Family Foundation, and The Rockefeller Foundation, where she produced the Insight Dialogues series featuring Robin Wright, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Jada Pinkett Smith. As founding director of President Bill Clinton’s Clinton Global Initiative University, she convened student leaders from around the world to advance solutions to global challenges. She began her career at the Center for American Progress and in the Office of United States Senator Charles E. Schumer.
A Presidential Leadership Scholar, she is an alumna of Florida A&M University and Dublin City University and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. In 2023, she was recognized as one of the Top 50 Women Leaders of Los Angeles by Women We Admire. Her work has been featured in Vanity Fair, GQ, Fast Company, Essence, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, and The New York Times, and she has spoken at the world’s leading cultural and creative stages, including Cannes Lions, Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, Essence Festival, Adcolor, and the African Black Film Festival.
Senter is building a new model for entertainment — one where storytelling, culture, and strategy converge to expand how stories live and travel far beyond the screen.
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.