february 5-7, 2021 | washington, dc
THE MARRIOTT MARQUIS

Steve Forbes is Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media.

Steve’s newest project is his podcast called, What’s Ahead, where he engages the world’s top newsmakers, politicians and pioneers in business and economics in honest conversations meant to challenge traditional conventions, as well as featuring his signature views on the intersection of society, economy, and policy.

Steve helped create the recently released and highly acclaimed public television documentary, In Money We Trust? which was produced under the auspices of Maryland Public television. The film was inspired by the book he co-authored, called, Money: How the Destruction of the Dollar Threatens the Global Economy – and What We Can Do About It. 

Steve’s latest book is Reviving America: How Repealing Obamacare, Replacing the Tax Code and Reforming The Fed will Restore Hope and Prosperity, co-authored by Elizabeth Ames (McGraw-Hill Professional).

Steve writes editorials for each issue of Forbes under the heading of “Fact and Comment.” As a widely respected economic prognosticator, he is the only writer to have won the highly prestigious Crystal Owl Award four times. The prize was formerly given by the U.S. Steel Corporation to the financial journalist whose economic forecasts for the coming year proved most accurate.

In both 1996 and 2000, Steve campaigned vigorously for the Republican nomination for the Presidency. Key to his platform was introducing a flat tax, medical savings accounts, a new Social Security system for working Americans, parental choice of schools for their children, term limits, and a strong national defense. Steve continues to energetically promote this agenda.

Representative Justin Amash represents Michigan’s Third District as an independent in the 116th United States Congress. Justin announced his independence on July 4, 2019, writing: “The two-party system has evolved into an existential threat to American principles and institutions. . . . We owe it to future generations to stand up for our constitutional republic so that Americans may continue to live free for centuries to come.”

Justin was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He received his bachelor’s degree with High Honors in economics from the University of Michigan and his juris doctor from the University of Michigan Law School. In Congress, he chairs the House Liberty Caucus, a member organization dedicated to the principles of limited government, economic freedom, and individual liberty.

Justin was elected to his first term on November 2, 2010.

John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market, has led the natural and organic grocer to a $15.7 billion Fortune 500 company with more than 460 stores and 87,000 team members in three countries. The company has been included on Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list for 20 consecutive years.

Mackey has been recognized as one of Fortune's "World's 50 Greatest Leaders," Ernst & Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year Overall Winner for the United States,” Institutional Investor’s “Best CEO in America,” Barron’s “World’s Best CEO,” MarketWatch’s “CEO of the Year,” Fortune’s “Businessperson of the Year,” and Esquire’s “Most Inspiring CEO.”

A strong believer in free market principles, Mackey co-founded the Conscious Capitalism Movement (http://consciouscapitalism.org/) and co-authored a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling book entitled “Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business” (Harvard Business Review Press 2013) to boldly defend and reimagine capitalism, and encourage a way of doing business that is grounded in ethical consciousness.

Vernon L. Smith, George L. Argyros Chair in Finance and Economics and President, International Foundation for Research in Experimental economics.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, 2002, for having established laboratory experiments as a tool in empiricalceconomic analysis, especially in the study of alternative market mechanisms; has held appointments at Purdue University, Stanford, Brown, University of Massachusetts, USC, California Institute of Technology, U. of Arizona, U. of Alaska-Anchorage, George Mason University, and Chapman University. Professor Smith received his bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from California Institute of Technology (1949), his masters in Economics from the University of Kansas (1951), and his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard (1955). He has authored or co-authored over 300 articles and books on capital theory, finance, natural resource economics, experimental economics, the housing origins of economic instability, 1920-2014, and in 2018, Humanomics, Cambridge press, with Bart Wilson.

Professor Smith is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Purdue University awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Management degree in 1989. He was elected member, National Academy of Science, 1995. In 1996 he received Cal Tech's Distinguished Alumni Award. He became Kansan of the year (Topeka Gazette) in 2002, received a Distinguished Alumni award from the University of Kansas in 2011 and in 2014 an Honorary Doctor of Science degree. He has served on numerous editorial and editorial advisory boards, and as president of several national economic associations. He has served as a consultant on the liberalization of electric power in Australia and New Zealand, and has participated in numerous private and public discussions of energy privatization and liberalization in the United States and around the world. In 1997 he served as a Blue Ribbon Panel Member, North American Electric Reliability Council.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb spent 21 years as a risk taker (quantitative  trader) before becoming a researcher in philosophical, mathematical and (mostly) practical problems with probability.

Taleb is the author of a multivolume essay, the Incerto (The Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, Antifragile, and Skin in the Game) covering broad facets of uncertainty. It has been translated into 39 languages.

In addition to his trader life, Taleb has also written, as a backup of the Incerto, more than 70 scholarly papers in statistical physics, statistics, philosophy, ethics, economics, international affairs, and quantitative finance, all around the notion of risk and probability.

Taleb is currently Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering (only a quarter time position) [and, finance related bio only: scientific advisor for Universa Investments]. His current focus is on the properties of systems that can handle disorder ("antifragile").

Taleb refuses all honors and anything that "turns knowledge into a spectator sport".

Magatte Wade is a serial entrepreneur, inspirational speaker, and visionary business leader with a passion for creating positive change in Africa. She is the founder and CEO of SkinIsSkin.com, “the lip balm with a mission,” and is dedicated to reducing discrimination while creating jobs and prosperity in her home country of Senegal. Throughout her career, she has created successful high-end retail brands inspired by diverse African traditions. She is a Forbes “20 Youngest Power Women in Africa”, a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum at Davos, a TED Global Africa Fellow, and "Leading Woman in Wellness” award winner by the Global Wellness Summit. Wade also serves on the Advisory Board of the Whole Planet Foundation, of Whole Foods Market. She has written for The Guardian, HuffingtonPost.com, and Barron’s, and is a frequent speaker at business conferences and on college campuses, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, MIT, and the Wharton School of Business.

Watch Magatte Wade in “How We Thrive: Made in Mekhé,” A FEE documentary about doing business in her home country of Senegal. 

Watch Magatte Wade on “The Power of Entrepreneurship” at FEECon

Watch Magatte Wade’s TED Talk, “Why it’s too hard to start a business in Africa—and how to change it.”

Dr. Rainer Zitelmann holds doctorates in history and sociology. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he worked at the Central Institute for Social Science Research at the Free University of Berlin. He was then appointed section head at the major daily newspaper, Die Welt. In 2000, he founded a real estate public relations company. Having established the company as the market leader, he sold it in 2016. Zitelmann is the author of 23 books, which have been translated into numerous languages and published all around the world. In March 2020, his book "The Rich in Public Opinion" will be published.

Dr. Lark serves as a professor in both the Department of Engineering Systems and Environment and the Applied Mathematics Program of the Department of Engineering and Society at the University of Virginia.  He is an affiliated faculty member of the Department of Statistics at the University of Virginia.  He was a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Public Choice at Virginia Tech.  He was an Earhart Foundation Visiting Fellow at the Center for Research in Government Policy and Business at the University of Rochester.  He is the author of publications in mathematics, operations research, and artificial intelligence.  His solution procedure for partially observed Markov decision processes is known in the research literature as the “Lark algorithm” (or “Lark filtering algorithm”).

He serves as the Region 5 representative on the Libertarian National Committee.  He is a member of the LNC’s Executive Committee and the LNC’s representative to the International Alliance of Libertarian Parties.  He served as chairman of the Libertarian Party during the 2000-2002 term.  He is a member of the Libertarian Party’s Hall of Liberty, the Party’s highest honor (for lifetime achievement).  He is also the recipient of the 2004 Samuel Adams Award (outstanding activism), the 2008 Thomas Jefferson Award (outstanding leadership, high character, and dedication to the principles and goals of the Party), and the 2012 Thomas Paine Award (outstanding communication of Libertarian ideas).  He is the only person to win each of these awards.

He is the secretary of the Board of Directors of Liberty International, and serves as a member of the Board of Advisors of Students For Liberty.  He served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Advocates for Self-Government from 2003 until 2016; he served as the chairman of the Board from 2009 until 2016.  He is a member of the Foundation for Economic Education Faculty Network.  He is the recipient of the Foundation’s 2017 Leonard E. Read Distinguished Alumni Award for Leadership.

Matt Warner is president of Atlas Network. Under the direction of the CEO, he is responsible for strategy, programming, and personnel management. Matt also leads the development of a research agenda to further demonstrate the invaluable role of think tanks in achieving freedom around the world. Matt is the editor of Poverty and Freedom: Case Studies on Global Economic Development and coined the term "the outsider's dilemma" to describe the challenge of helping low-income countries develop without inadvertently and perversely getting in the way of their most viable paths to prosperity. Matt writes, speaks, and consults internationally on the topics of economics, institution building, nonprofit management, measurement, and impact philanthropy. His work has appeared in Cato Journal, Forbes, The Hill, Harvard's Education Next, Real Clear Markets, Foundation for Economic Education, EconTalk, and Washington Times, among others. Prior to joining Atlas Network in 2010, Matt served in various policy leadership positions at nonprofit think tanks with a focus on energy, education, and property rights. Matt has a master's degree in economics from George Mason University and is certified by Georgetown University in organizational development consulting. He is also a 2019-2020 Penn Kemble Fellow with the National Endowment for Democracy, a member of American Enterprise Institute's Leadership Network and a recipient of America's Future Foundation's 2019 Buckley Award.

Matt and his wife Chrissy, an attorney, live in Vienna, Virginia with their four children.

Dr. Tom G. Palmer is the Executive Vice President for international programs at Atlas Network. He oversees programs in 14 languages while also managing programs for a worldwide network of think tanks. He was named the George M. Yeager Chair for Advancing Liberty at Atlas Network on Nov. 10, 2016. He is also a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and Director of Cato University. 

He was previously an H. B. Earhart Fellow at Hertford College, Oxford University, and a Vice President of the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. He lectures all around the world on political science, public choice, civil society, and the moral, legal, and historical foundations of individual rights. He has been published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Ethics, Critical Review, and Constitutional Political Economy, as well as in publications such as Slate, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Die Welt, Caixing, Al Hayat, the Washington Post, and The Spectator of London. 

He is he author of Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice (expanded edition 2014), and the editor of The Morality of Capitalism (2011), After the Welfare State (2012), Why Liberty (2013), Peace, Love & Liberty (2014), and Self-Control or State Control? You Decide (2016). He has a B.A. in liberal arts from St. Johns College in Annapolis, Maryland, an M.A. in philosophy from The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., and a doctorate in politics from Oxford University.

Brad Lips is the Chief Executive Officer of Atlas Network. He has managed to double the budget and range of the Atlas Network’s programs worldwide within the first ten years of taking on this position. He is a member of the John Templeton Foundation, Templeton World Charity Foundation, and Templeton Religion Trust. He also serves on the Boards of Directors of the American Friends of the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Institute of Economic Studies—Europe. He is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society, and chaired the Organizing Committee of its General Meeting in 2016. 

He has spoken all over the world on the topic of poverty, and he has been published in Regulation, National Review Online, Investor's Business Daily, The Daily Caller, Forbes, Fox News, American Spectator, American Thinker, and RealClearPolitics. He received his MBA from the Goizueta Business School of Emory University and his undergraduate degree from Princeton University. 

Katherine Mangu-Ward is editor in chief of Reason, the magazine of “free minds and free markets.” A few of her more memorable cover stories include a defense of plastic bags, an argument for why you almost certainly shouldn’t vote, and a welcome to our new robot overlords.

She started as Reason intern in 2000, and has worked at The Weekly Standard and The New York Times.

Her writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Slate, and numerous other publications. She is a frequent commentator on radio and television networks such as National Public Radio, CNBC, C-SPAN, Fox Business, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. She is a Future Tense Fellow at New America.

Mangu-Ward is a graduate of Yale University, where she received a B.A. in philosophy and political science. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Robby Soave is a senior editor at Reason. He enjoys writing about culture, politics, education policy, criminal justice reform, television, and video games. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Daily Beast, U.S. News & World Report, The Orange County Register, and The Detroit News. In 2016, Forbes named him to the “30 Under 30” list in the category of law and policy. In 2017, he became a Novak Fellow at The Fund for American Studies. He also serves on the D.C. Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Soave won widespread recognition for setting the record straight in two infamous cases of media malpractice: the 2014 Rolling Stone hoax article about sexual assault at the University of Virginia, and the 2019 incident involving Catholic high school students at the Lincoln Memorial. He won a Southern California Journalism Award for discrediting the former; his writings about the latter prompted several mainstream media outlets to apologize for having wrongly smeared the boys.

A Detroit native, and a graduate of the University of Michigan, Soave now lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Carrie, and their two Yorkies, Caesar and Oliver.

His first book, Panic Attack: Young Radicals in the Age of Trump, is currently available for purchase.

Corey A. DeAngelis is the Director of School Choice at Reason Foundation and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. He is also the Executive Director at Educational Freedom Institute.

His research primarily focuses on the effects of school choice programs on non-academic outcomes such as criminal activity, character skills, mental health, and political participation. 

He has authored or co-authored over 40 journal articles, book chapters, and reports on education policy. His research has been published in peer-reviewed academic journals such as Social Science Quarterly, School Effectiveness and School Improvement, Educational Review, Educational Research and Evaluation, Peabody Journal of Education, Journal of School Choice, and Cato Journal. 

His work has also been featured at outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, The Hill, Washington Examiner, and Education Next.

Corey received his Ph.D. in Education Policy from the University of Arkansas. He additionally holds a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Master of Arts in Economics from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Michael Q. McShane is Director of National Research at EdChoice. He is the editor of New and Better Schools (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015), the author of Education and Opportunity (AEI Press, 2014), and co editor of Bush-Obama School Reform: Lessons Learned (Harvard Education Press 2018), No Longer Forgotten: The Triumphs and Struggles of Rural Education in America (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018), Failure Up Close: What Happens, Why it Happens, and What We Can Learn from It (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018), Educational Entrepreneurship Today (Harvard Education Press, 2016), Teacher Quality 2.0 (Harvard Education Press, 2014) and Common Core Meets Education Reform (Teachers College Press, 2013). 

He is currently an opinion contributor to Forbes, and his analyses and commentary have been published widely in the media, including in USA Today, The Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. 

He has also been featured in education-specific outlets such as Teachers College Record, Education Week, Phi Delta Kappan, and Education Next. In addition to authoring numerous white papers, McShane has had academic work published in Education Finance and Policy, The Handbook of Education Politics and Policy, and the Journal of School Choice. He is a former high school teacher, and earned a Ph.D. in education policy from the University of Arkansas, an M.Ed. from the University of Notre Dame, and a B.A. in English from St. Louis University. He is also an adjunct fellow in education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, and a senior fellow at the Show-Me Institute.

Titus Gebel is founder, President & CEO of Free Private Cities Inc. He is a German entrepreneur with a PhD in international law and an extensive worldwide network. Amongst others, he founded Frankfurt-listed mining company Deutsche Rohstoff AG, retired as their CEO in 2015 and emigrated with his family to Monaco. With Free Private Cities, he wants to create an entirely new product in the “market of living together”. If successful, it will fast-track knowledge and progress for humanity. Titus has written the book "Free Private Cities – Making Governments Compete For You“, where he is stating the theoretical and practical groundwork. At the same time he is working with his partners to make the worldwide first Free Private City a reality.

Dale Woolridge has a scientifically-oriented Ph.D. in social psychology from The University of Texas at Austin. He has worn many hats as a manager for government and consulting firms and has taught college courses in psychology.

David French is a senior editor at The Dispatch and a columnist for Time. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and a constitutional lawyer. David most recently worked as a senior writer for National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute. He is a New York Times bestselling author, and his next book, Divided We Fall, will be released in 2020. David is a former major in the United States Army Reserve. In 2007 he deployed to Iraq with the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment and was awarded the Bronze Star. 

Michael Huemer is a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado. He has written over seventy articles in epistemology, ethics, metaethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy. He has written six books: Skepticism and the Veil of Perception, Ethical Intuitionism, The Problem of Political Authority, Approaching Infinity, Paradox Lost, and Dialogues on Ethical Vegetarianism.

David Boaz is the Executive Vice president of the Cato Institute and has played a key role in the development of the Cato Institute and the libertarian movement. He is the author of The Libertarian Mind: A Manifesto for Freedom and the editor of The Libertarian Reader.

Boaz is a provocative commentator and a leading authority on domestic issues such as education choice, drug legalization, the growth of government, and the rise of libertarianism. Boaz is the former editor of New Guard magazine and was executive director of the Council for a Competitive Economy prior to joining Cato in 1981. The earlier edition of The Libertarian Mind, titled Libertarianism: A Primer, was described by the Los Angeles Times as “a well‐researched manifesto of libertarian ideas.” His other books include The Politics of Freedom and the Cato Handbook for Policymakers.

His articles have been published in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, National Review, and Slate, and he wrote the entry on libertarianism for Encyclopedia Britannica. He is a frequent guest on national television and radio shows, and has appeared on ABC’s Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, CNN’s Crossfire, NPR’s Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered, The McLaughlin Group, Stossel, The Independents, Fox News Channel, BBC, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other media.

Before becoming an attorney, James had been a productive member of society working as an exploration geologist in the late 1970s throughout the southwestern United States. However, after several years of dealing with irrational government bureaucrats and environmental policies untethered from reality, James decided that what the world needs is more lawyers — if they are willing to fight for rationality in regulatory regimes, property rights, and liberty.

James has worked with Pacific Legal Foundation since 1983, litigating cases from Alaska to Florida. He is a member of the Federalist Society’s Environmental Law and serves on the Property Rights Practice Group’s Executive Committee.

In 2001, James successfully argued a major property rights case, Palazzolo v. Rhode Island, before the United States Supreme Court, a case which affirmed that rights in regulated property do not disappear when land is bought and sold. He has written extensively on all aspects of property rights and environmental law and frequently speaks on these subjects throughout the nation.

Christina Martin is an attorney at PLF’s Florida office in Palm Beach Gardens. She fights to bring justice to her clients and set precedents that help protect individuals across the country from government overreach.

Christina served as co-counsel and second-chair before the U.S. Supreme Court in Knick v. Township of Scott, a landmark case that opened the federal courthouse doors to federal constitutional takings claims and overturned a bad 34-year-old Supreme Court decision. She was also on the litigation team representing several family landowners, including Markle Interests, in another victorious Supreme Court case, Weyerhaeuser v. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, an 8-0 win for the property owners.

Christina’s current practice focuses largely on ending unconstitutional taking of valuable homes and land as payment for relatively small property tax debts. She is lead counsel before the Michigan Supreme Court in one such case where her client’s entire rental home was taken as payment for an $8.41 tax debt. Her advocacy also led to a new law passed in Montana that will protect homes from such unconstitutional theft of equity. Under the new law, tax delinquent homes in Montana will be sold to the highest bidder, debts paid off, and the extra profits will be refunded to the former owner.

Timothy Sandefur is Vice President for Litigation and holds the Duncan Chair in Constitutional Government. 

Besides litigating important cases for economic liberty, private property rights, free speech, and race-neutral law, he is also the author of several books, including The Ascent of Jacob Bronowski (2019), Frederick Douglass: Self-Made Man (2018), Cornerstone of Liberty: Property Rights in 21st Century America (coauthored with Christina Sandefur, 2016), and The Conscience of The Constitution (2014), as well as dozens of scholarly articles on subjects ranging from Indian law to antitrust, slavery and the Civil War, and political issues in Shakespeare, ancient Greek drama, and Star Trek. 

He is an Adjunct Scholar with the Cato Institute, a graduate of Hillsdale College and Chapman University School of Law.

Scott Barton leads Pacific Legal Foundation’s efforts to elevate the organization’s national profile, activate support for ongoing litigation, and educate new audiences about the power of freedom. Scott’s team accomplishes these goals through media relations, digital strategy, and public outreach.

He joined PLF from the Institute for Humane Studies, where he co-founded and directed IHS’s Learn Liberty online video project and led the marketing and communications team. He is a specialist in brand building and brings extensive experience in digital strategy and video production. Prior to this, Scott spent several years overseeing various public education and outreach programs, mentoring young professionals, and building relationships with freedom-oriented organizations, scholars, and journalists.

Scott is based in PLF’s office in Arlington, Virginia. He graduated from Grinnell College with a BA in philosophy and George Mason University with an MA in Economics. When not talking about PLF, Scott thinks about persuasive communication, political economy, and workplace productivity, sometimes while enjoying craft cocktails.