Walter Isaacson is the president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies institute based in Washington, DC. He has been the chairman and CEO of CNN and the editor of TIME magazine.

Isaacson is the author of Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003), and Kissinger: A Biography (1992), and coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986).

His new book, Steve Jobs, was released October 24. Based on more than 40 interviews with Jobs conducted over two years — as well as interviews with over a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues — Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

Born on May 20, 1952, in New Orleans, Isaacson is a graduate of Harvard College and of Pembroke College of Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He began his career at The Sunday Times of London and then the New Orleans Times-Picayune/States-Item. He joined TIME in 1978 and served as a political correspondent, national editor, and editor of new media before becoming the magazine’s 14th editor in 1996. He became chairman and CEO of CNN in 2001, and then president and CEO of the Aspen Institute in 2003.

Isaacson is the chairman of the board of Teach for America, which recruits recent college graduates to teach in underserved communities. He was appointed by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate to serve as the chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other international broadcasts of the United States. He is vice-chair of Partners for a New Beginning, a public- private group tasked with forging ties between the United States and the Muslim world. He is on the board of United Airlines, Tulane University, and the Overseers of Harvard University. From 2005-2007, after Hurricane Katrina, he was the vice-chair of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

Isaacson lives with his wife and daughter in Washington, DC.

Jack Markell took office as Governor of Delaware in 2009, inheriting a record budget shortfall, rapidly rising unemployment, and a stagnant economy. Since then, he has helped open shuttered manufacturing facilities, won the Race to the Top competition for progress in public school reform, and signed new laws to drive improvements in the economy, environment, and education.

Governor Markell began his career in the private sector at Nextel, where he was Senior Vice President for Corporate Development. His other business experience includes a senior management position at Comcast Corporation, work as a consultant with McKinsey and Company and as a banker at First Chicago Corporation. He was elected State Treasurer in 1998, winning three consecutive terms. In July he was named vice chairman of the National Governors Association, selected by his peers in recognition of his leadership and his bipartisan, collaborative approach.

Governor Markell received an undergraduate degree in economics and development studies from Brown University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He is a Henry Crown Fellow and a Rodel Fellow at the Aspen Institute and resides in Wilmington, Delaware, with his wife and their two children.

Mickey Edwards was a member of Congress for 16 years, serving as a senior member of the House Appropriations and Budget Committees, as the ranking member of the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee, and as a member of the House Republican Leadership (chairman of the party's Policy Committee).

After leaving Congress, Edwards joined the Harvard faculty, teaching at both the Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Law School. After 11 years at Harvard, he moved to Princeton, where he taught at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He has also been a visiting professor at Georgetown and George Washington University. Edwards has been a political columnist for the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune and was a regular weekly commentator on NPR's "All Things Considered." He was an advisor to the State Department under Colin Powell.

Edwards' book "Reclaiming Conservatism" was published in 2008 by Oxford University Press, and his article "How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans" appeared in the summer issue of the Atlantic Magazine. He is also a columnist for The Atlantic.com and Politico.com and is a vice president of the Aspen Institute and Director of the Institute's Rodel Fellowship program for elected public officials.

Anton J. Gunn, M.S.W. is Regional Director at the Region IV Office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Before joining the HHS Regional Director’s Office, he served in the South Carolina House of Representatives District 79 (Richland and Kershaw counties). Gunn has been active on all levels in the fight for health care reform. He served on the White House Health Care Task Force of State Legislators for Health Reform and as a partner with Families USA, a national nonprofit, non-partisan organization dedicated to the achievement of high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

Gunn was previously a professional motivational speaker, leadership consultant and author (The Audacity of Leadership, 2009). A Liberty Fellow, he holds a B.A. in History and a Master of Social Work from the University of South Carolina. Founder of the University of South Carolina Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, Gunn lives with his wife and daughter in Columbia.

Kim Smith is co-founder and CEO of Bellwether Education Partners, a non-profit organization working to improve educational outcomes for low-income students. She is widely recognized as an innovative and entrepreneurial leader in education, and was featured in Newsweek’s report on the “Women of the 21st Century” as “the kind of woman who will shape America’s new century.” After serving as a founding team member at Teach For America, she went on to found and lead an AmeriCorps program for community-based leaders in education as well as a business start-up and worked in marketing for online learning. After completing her M.B.A. at Stanford University, Smith co-founded and led NewSchools Venture Fund, a venture philanthropy firm focused on transforming public education, where she helped to create a new, bipartisan, cross-sector community of entrepreneurial change agents.

Smith has helped to incubate numerous education and social change organizations and has authored a number of publications about the entrepreneurial education landscape. She is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she lives with her husband and two daughters.

The Honorable Andy Karsner is Chairman and CEO of Manifest Energy; previously he served as America’s ninth Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) from 2005 to 2008, during a period of unprecedented growth in clean energy technologies, investments and policy formulations. He distinguished himself as a principal architect and contributor to international climate change deliberations toward achieving a post-2012 global energy framework and as America’s top regulator for energy efficiency. Karsner brings twenty years of experience in global energy development and project financing across a wide array of conventional and renewable sources. Prior to the Department of Energy he was CEO of the power development and consulting firm Enercorp, and both Director and Senior Development Manager for Wartsila Diesel. Karsner is currently on the Board of Directors of Argonne National Laboratory, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, Conservation International and Applied Materials, the world’s leading nanomanufacturer. He is a Distinguished Fellow at the Council on Competitiveness and a leader of the Energy Future Coalition and serves as an advisor to the Hudson Clean Energy Fund, Duke Energy and C3.