2009 Speakers
The 2009 Believers in Business conference will examine the intermingling of work and faith with several dynamic speakers well-versed in both business and faith.
Dennis Bakke
Dennis Bakke is Co-Founder and CEO of Imagine Schools, an education company that develops and operates K-12 public charter schools nationwide. Prior to starting Imagine Schools in 2003, Mr. Bakke was Co-Founder, President and CEO of the AES Corporation (AES). He was President and CEO of the Company from 1994 to 2002. Formed in 1981 to generate and sell electricity, AES has grown into a leading global power company with businesses in over 30 countries, nearly $40 billion in assets, and revenue of over $10 billion per year.
Mr. Bakke is the author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, entitled Joy at Work: A Revolutionary Approach to Fun on the Job about his philosophy of organization and his efforts of creating the most fun workplace ever. He is also the co-author of the book Creating Abundance – America's Least Cost Energy Strategy published by McGraw-Hill in June of 1984. Prior to 1981, Mr. Bakke was Deputy Director of the Energy Productivity Center, Carnegie-Mellon University. During this time he was also Director of the Gas Requirements Agency of the American Gas Association and a private energy consultant. Previously, Mr. Bakke served in the US Government as an energy conservation executive in the Federal Energy Administration. In addition, he served for 18 months as Chairman of the International Energy Agency Conservation Group in Paris, France. He left FEA to attend the National War College, graduating with Distinction in 1977.
Mr. Bakke also held positions in the Federal Government’s Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in the Management Planning Group from 1970-1973.
Mr. Bakke graduated with Honors from the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington, in 1968. He received an MBA from Harvard University, 1970, an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Eastern University, 1998, and an Honorary Doctorate in Humanitarian Service from University of Puget Sound, 2000. He was born and raised in rural northwest Washington State.
Over the past 20 years, he has served as a member of the President's Advisory Council of University of Puget Sound; Trustee and Treasurer of Rivendell School, Chairman, Church Deacon Board; member of the President's Advisory Board of Winthrop College, SC; Moderator of Washington Community Fellowship Church; Director of Van Horn Designs, Inc., and Board member of MacroSonix Corporation. In June 1992, Mr. Bakke and Roger Sant, Chairman of the Board of The AES Corporation, were jointly awarded Entrepreneur of the Year® for the Washington area, in the category of social responsibility. In September 2000, Mr. Bakke was awarded CEO of the Year 2000 by ING Barings and Emerging Markets in the Developed Market category.
He is married to the former Eileen Harvey of Beaufort, SC and father of five children. Mr. Bakke currently serves as a Director of Young Life of Washington, DC, and is Founder and Co-Chairman of the Mustard Seed Foundation.
Rev. Bonita Grubbs
Rev. Bonita Grubbs has been Executive Director of Christian Community Action since December 1988.
Prior to that, she was employed as Assistant Regional Administrator in Region V (Northwest Connecticut) for the Department of Mental Health within the State of Connecticut.
She has served as a board member of the Greater New Haven Community Loan Fund, board member of International Festival of Arts and Ideas, a member of the Judicial Review Council for the State of Connecticut. Interim Pastor of Christian Tabernacle Baptist Church on Hamden, Connecticut, president of the CT Coalition to End Homelessness, Co-chair, Steering Committee of New Haven’s Fighting Back Project, member of the Board of Trustees Mercy Center in Madison, Connecticut, Connecticut Center for School Change and Dwight Hall at Yale University.
Present board and voluntary involvements include: board member of the Hospital of Saint Raphael and chairperson of its Mission Effectiveness Committee, the Connecticut Voices for Children, the Connecticut Housing Coalition, the Community Economic Development Fund and the Quinnipiac Bank and Trust Company. She has also served as a Lecturer in Homiletics at Yale Divinity School
Rev. Grubbs holds an undergraduate degree in Sociology and in the Afro-American Studies from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She received two degrees from Yale University---a Master of Arts in Religion and a Master of Public Health. She received an honorary degree from Albertus Magnus College in 2001.
She was ordained to the Christian Ministry within the American Baptist Church in November 1987.
George F. Kettle
George F. Kettle, a native Washingtonian, is well known in the Washington, D.C. area as a successful businessman and philanthropist. He has been honored as “Washingtonian of the Year” and “Entrepreneur of the Year”.
Mr. Kettle started his real estate brokerage office in 1965. In February 1973 he purchased the CENTURY 21 master franchise for Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Delaware, and Eastern Pennsylvania. In 1996 when he sold the franchises to HFS he had over 430 offices and 6,000 sales associates. In more recent years George has been involved in a number of business ventures and commercial real estate development. He serves on the board of a number of companies.
Mr. Kettle brought the “I Have a Dream” program to Washington. He has helped more than 90 students from the inner city with their college education. He has also recruited more than a dozen other sponsors in cities across America.
George has also been deeply involved in meeting needs in Russia and Africa and has devoted many hours to the Youth for Tomorrow Home for troubled teenagers, Calvin Woodland’s work with the inner city children of Washington, D.C., and with Campus Crusade for Christ and Prison Fellowship Ministries. He has spoken at several prisons in Moscow, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic and at facilities across the United States.
Mr. Kettle is currently a member of the Board of Visitors at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.
Matthew McCreight
Matthew McCreight is a managing partner at Robert H. Schaffer & Associates (RHS&A). He has been with the firm since the late 1980s, consulting with a wide variety of organizations across all sectors – private, public and non-profit.
RHS&A has been a pioneer in the development and practice of successful approaches to performance improvement, leadership and organizational change for 50 years. For example:
- The firm created the “Rapid Results" approach which uses short-term, results-producing projects as vehicles for learning about and accelerating large-scale change.
- The firm was a part of the original team that worked with General Electric to develop the WorkOut methodology, and subsequently "wrote the book" on WorkOut.
- The firm worked with the World Bank to adapt the Rapid Results approach to improving results and capacity building in development efforts. Three years ago the firm launched the non-profit Rapid Results Institute, to transform the impact of development efforts in Africa.
Seven books document the firm’s work. The eighth book, Simplicity Management, is due to be published in late 2009 by the Harvard Business School Press
RHS&A’s clients include such companies as: GE, Glaxo, AEP, Avery Dennison, Pfizer, BMW, Pepsi, J&J, Centerra Gold, Zurich Financial Services, Fidelity and Cisco Systems. The firm has also worked with many public sector and non-profit organizations, including the Africa Development Bank, IMF, Technoserve, Say Yes to Education and the Governments of a number of countries including recently Madagascar, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda.
Before joining the firm, Matthew earned his BA in Economics from Wesleyan University, and his MPPM from Yale School of Management (class of '89).
Matthew is married to Kathryn Greene-McCreight. Kathryn is an Episcopal Priest, theologian and award-winning writer. They have two children, Noah a sophomore in college and Grace a junior in High School. They live in New Haven and are members at St John's Episcopal Church (where Kathryn also serves as assistant priest). Matthew is on the board of the Overseas Ministry Study Center, also based in New Haven.
Ed Meese, III
Edwin Meese III, the 75th Attorney General of the United States of America, is a prominent leader, thinker and elder statesman in the conservative movement – and America itself.
Mr. Meese holds the Ronald Reagan Chair in Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation, responsible for keeping the president's legacy of conservative principles alive in public debate and discourse. He also is the Chairman of Heritage's Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, founded in 2001 to educate government officials, the media and the public about the Constitution, legal principles and how they affect public policy.
Mr. Meese spent most of his adult life working with Reagan when the former actor was President and Governor of California. He served as the 75th Attorney General of the United States from February 1985 to August 1988. As the nation's chief law enforcement officer, he directed the Justice Department and led international efforts to combat terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime. In 1985, he received the Government Executive magazine's annual award for excellence in management.
Mr. Meese had a career outside of government and politics, too. From 1977 to 1981, he was a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego, where he also was Director of the Center for Criminal Justice Policy and Management.
In addition to his background as a lawyer, educator and public official, Mr. Meese has been a business executive in the aerospace and transportation industry, serving as Vice President for administration of Rohr Industries, Inc. in Chula Vista, Calif. He left Rohr to return to the practice of law, engaging in corporate and general legal work in San Diego County.
Mr. Meese is the author or co-author of three books: Leadership, Ethics and Policing, published by Prentice Hall in 2004; co-editor of Making America Safer, published in 1997 by Heritage; and the author of With Reagan: The Inside Story, which Regnery Gateway published in June 1992.
Mr. Meese graduated from Yale University in 1953 and holds a law degree from the University of California-Berkeley. He is a retired Colonel in the Army Reserve and remains active in numerous civic and educational organizations. Mr. Meese and his wife, Ursula, have two grown children. They live in McLean, Virginia.
David W. Miller, Ph.D
David Miller is the Director of the Princeton Faith & Work Initiative at Princeton University. He teaches business ethics, as well as other courses through Princeton's Department of Religion.
Prior to this appointment David served as the Executive Director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School, and as Assistant Professor (Adjunct) of Business Ethics. David also led the Center’s Ethics and Spirituality in the Workplace program, and taught business ethics at Yale Divinity School and Yale School of Management. David’s first book, God at Work: The History and Promise of the Faith at Work Movement (Oxford University Press, 2007) challenges business academics and executives, as well as theologians and clergy to think differently about faith in the workplace.
David received his Ph.D. and M.Div. degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary and is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). While doing his doctoral work, David co-founded The Avodah Institute in 1999, and continues to serve as its president. Avodah’s mission is to help leaders integrate the claims of their faith with the demands of their work.
David brings an unusual bilingual perspective to the academic world, having also spent 16 years in senior positions in international business and finance. Prior to academia, David lived and worked in London, England for eight years, where he was an equity partner in a private bank that specialized in international investment management, corporate finance, and mergers and acquisitions. Before that he was a senior executive and director of the securities services and global custody division of Midland Bank plc (now part of the HSBC Group). He first moved to London as the managing director of the European operations of State Street Bank and Trust, a leading US securities services bank. He started his management career in the U.S., after graduating from Bucknell University in 1979, working for IBM for eight years in a variety of sales and marketing management positions in New Jersey and New England. David also speaks German, having lived, studied, and worked in Germany.
David serves as an advisor to several corporate CEOs and senior executives on questions pertaining to ethics, values, integrating faith and work, and becoming a faith-friendly company. He is a frequent speaker at gatherings of business leaders, industry associations, academic conferences, and church programs. His views are often cited in the media, including in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, NPR, ABC, NBC, and CNN.
David finds inspiration in the lives and writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John Stott. Married to Karen, a former lawyer and law school professor, he enjoys being with his nieces, playing tennis, bridge, and tandem cycling. He is active in the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Boon Sim
Boon Sim is a Managing Director of Credit Suisse and Head of Americas Mergers & Acquisitions. Prior to his current position, he co-headed the Bank's Technology Group based in New York. Mr. Sim is a member of the Bank's Investment Banking Management Council and a member of the Bank's Investment Banking Advisory Committee, which oversees the rendering of M&A opinions and formal advice. He has advised both multi-national and domestic clients on numerous, complex M&A assignments in transactions over $400 billion, including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, spin-offs, joint ventures, special committee assignments, dual class and targeted stock plans, proxy contests and hostile transactions.
Mr. Sim has advised companies such as IBM, Bayer, Compaq, Deloitte & Touche, Dun & Bradstreet, HCA, Microsoft, J.C. Penney, Fairchild, First Data, Fiserv, CVS Corp., Avaya, Digex, Gates Rubber, American Cyanamid, Raytheon, Borden, Brooks Automation, RiverDelta, Trading Edge, Intersil, Claxson Interactive, Latin America Money Services, 7/24 Solutions, Agfa, Emcore, Rhône-Poulenc Rorer, American Maize, Reynolds & Reynolds, Fischer & Porter, Investcorp, H.B. Fuller, Rare Medium, ChipPAC and SunGard.
Notable transaction awards include Investment Dealer's Digest ("IDD") 2006 M&A and Healthcare Deal of the Year for the $33 billion sale of HCA, 2005 Overall Deal of the Year and Private Equity Deal of the Year for the $11 billion sale of SunGard to a consortium of private equity firms and Institutional Investor 2002 Deal of the Year for the $7.5 billion acquisition of Aventis Corp Science by Bayer AG.
Prior to joining The First Boston Corporation, a predecessor company of Credit Suisse, Mr. Sim was a Design Engineer at Texas Instruments focusing on semiconductor design. Mr. Sim holds advanced engineering and private & public policy degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University. He graduated first in his undergraduate class at the National University of Singapore.
Pamela Wilhelms
President, Wilhelms Consulting Group, Co-Steward, SoL Sustainability Consortium Founder, Faith and Sustainability Network
Pamela Wilhelms is President of WCG, a company she founded 22 years ago which provides organizational consulting and executive coaching. As a social architect, she has worked internationally in both the public and private sectors to develop the leadership capacity to create high performing organizations and facilitating leadership teams to that end. Focusing organizationally at the intersection of strategy, leadership and culture, she builds learning communities which link the energy, passion and skills of the individuals with mission outcomes. Her coaching with executives focuses on the leadership presence and behaviors that catalyze systemic change and tap the collective intelligence and soul of the group. WCG also designs, staffs and leads multi-year leadership academies which develop leadership capacity for learning organizations.
Currently, most of her clients are companies working to drive a triple bottom line in their organizations and industries: economic, social, and environmental sustainability. Her great passion is a recent project with a group of leading companies focused on the shift to a regenerative economy. With Peter Senge, she is Co-Steward of the Society for Organizational Learning's Sustainability Consortium. Pamela founded the Faith and Sustainability Network which hosts multi-sector conversations with leaders in the Christian faith tradition who are exploring systemic issues of theology and economic, social, environmental justice and prosperity. She is a contributing author to The Justice Project (to be published Spring 09), edited by Brian McLaren, in which she explores the ‘Business of Justice’. Academic studies include civil engineering, architecture, urban design, theology, psychology, and leadership. Holding degrees from UC Davis and Denver Seminary, she has managed a private consulting practice, been a senior consultant with a number of firms, held executive positions, and taught as adjunct faculty for academic institutions including the University of California and University of Colorado.
Jim Ziglar
Jim is a Senior Vice President in Deloitte's U.S. Infrastructure and Project Finance Advisory practice, where he is focused on helping both sell-side and buy-side clients develop and finance infrastructure projects around the United States. As the traditional primary method of financing infrastructure in the U.S. - municipal bonds - suffers under the credit crisis and depleted municipal revenues, developing innovative financing solutions involving the private sector, public-private partnerships and the Federal government are becoming more critical to meet the nation's mounting infrastructure needs. Jim's career has centered around helping clients solve such strategic, financial and marketing problems, with a particular passion for helping to resolve "public goods" challenges using a combination of efficient private and public sector tools.
Prior to joining Deloitte to help start the practice, Jim spent almost 8 years as a public finance investment banker at UBS and Goldman Sachs, serving small and large state and local municipalities around the country, and also spent about 7 years at Bain and Company and Brierley and Partners, where he assisted companies from Fortune 500 to small high-tech start-ups solve their strategic, marketing, organizational and CRM problems.
Jim has been an Elder at Emmanuel Presbyterian Church (PCA) in New York City since 2003, where he oversees the church's faith-and-work and discipling/accountability ministries and its finances, provides pastoral care and discipling for a number of members, and leads a weekly Bible Study.
Jim received his B.A. in economics from Yale, and his M.B.A in Finance and Strategic Management from Wharton. He and his wife, Dr. Louisa Ziglar, live in New York City
Opening Remarks By:
Rick Schneider
Senior Fellow at the Rivendell Institute at Yale University
Rick graduated from Harvard in 1982. He worked in political campaigns, as a campus minister, and in several high-tech sales positions in the US and in Russia. In 1993 the Schneiders moved to Moscow where Rick was V.P. of TRI and Director of the Christian Embassy, Russia. In 2002, Rick completed his Ph.D. in Russian political sociology before returning with his family to Yale where he is a Senior. Fellow at the Rivendell Institute. Rick travels regularly to Russia where he continues to teach on Civil Society (including the role of free market economic institutions) as an Adjunct Prof. at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. Rick is married to Soozie Reynolds Schneider and has 3 delightful and talented teenagers.
Spiritual Heritage Tour Of Yale Hosted By:
Jon Hinkson
Teaching Fellow at the Rivendell Institute at Yale University
Jon is a teaching fellow of the Rivendell Institute at Yale University, which has as its mission to bring Christ and His Gospel to bear on all the life and labors of the University. He has been a campus minister at Yale since 1985. As the son of missionary parents he grew up in Europe where he has served extensively. He has studied at Princeton, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and the University of Cambridge (UK), and has published in the areas of Missions, Evangelism and Church History. He is married to Anita (Yale '88) with whom he is raising three daughters: Vienna, Geneva and Isabella Milan.
