Liz Elting, Founder & CEO, Elizabeth Elting Foundation 

Liz Elting, Founder and CEO of the Elizabeth Elting Foundation, is a New York-based philanthropist and businesswoman, recognized for her outstanding entrepreneurship and focus on developing women business leaders. These recognitions and awards include the Working Woman Entrepreneurial Excellence Award for Customer Service, the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the American Express Entrepreneur magazine Woman of the Year Award, the Distinguished Alumnae Award from NYU Stern’s Women in Business, the Women Worth Watching Award from Diversity Journal, the Trinity College Alumni Medal for Excellence and Gary McQuaid Award, the Enterprising Women magazine Enterprising Women of the Year Award, the National Organization for Women’s Women of Power & Influence Award, the American Heart Association’s 2020 Health Equity Leadership Award, and the Alliance of Women Entrepreneurs’ 2021 Vertex Award for changing the face and direction of women’s high-growth entrepreneurship. In addition, Elting has been named one of Forbes’ Richest Self-Made Women for the past seven years in a row (2015-2021) and is a recipient of the 2019 Charles Waldo Haskins Award for business and public service from NYU’s Stern School of Business.

An accomplished business leader, Elting co-founded TransPerfect, the world’s largest provider of language and business solutions. Headquartered in New York City, the company has over $1.1 billion in revenue and more than 6,000 employees in over 100 cities around the globe.

Elting has been profiled in books including American Dream: Interviews with Industry-Leading Professionals by Jason Navallo, The New York Times bestseller Succeed by Your Own Terms (McGraw-Hill), Leadership Secrets of the World’s Most Successful CEOs (Dearborn Trade Publishing), and Straight Talk About Starting and Growing Your Business (McGraw-Hill). She is featured regularly in the media, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, O, The Oprah Magazine, The Financial Times, Reader’s Digest, Huffington Post, and Crain’s New York Business.

During Elting’s time as Co-CEO, TransPerfect was recognized eight times with the Inc. 5000 Award, six times as one of the Deloitte Technology Fast 500, and earned multiple Stevie Awards, including Company of the Year and Fastest Growing Tech Company of the Year in 2016. Her tenure also saw Crain’s New York Business name TransPerfect one of the largest privately held companies for 12 consecutive years, and one of the largest women-owned companies 11 times. The company was a winner of the 2015 SmartCEO Corporate Culture Awards and has been awarded Best Translation Solution by the Internet Marketing Association for three consecutive years. TransPerfect was also named one of the fastest-growing women-owned/led businesses in North America by Entrepreneur and the Women Presidents’ Organization.

Elting serves on the Board of Trustees at Trinity College and is a Founder of Trinity’s Women’s Leadership Council. Elting also serves on the Board of Directors for GLAM and NYU Stern School of Business and is a regular speaker at both NYU and Columbia Business Schools. Additionally, she is the Founding Ambassador for the NYC American Heart Association’s Circle of Red and serves on the American Heart Association’s New York City Board of Directors and the Go Red for Women National Leadership Council. In 2017, she founded the Elting Family Research Fund to support initiatives for the International Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia Foundation.

Elting holds an MBA in Finance and International Business from The Stern School of Business at New York University and a BA in Modern Languages and Literatures from Trinity College in Hartford, CT.

Deborah Feyerick, CNN National Correspondent/Anchor (ret)

Deborah Feyerick is a highly respected, award-winning journalist who spent 20 years at CNN traveling the United States covering crime, terrorism, cyber-security, and the human condition. As a former National Correspondent & anchor, Feyerick is known for her uncompromising reporting on the Boston Marathon bombing, Pulse nightclub shooting, Sandy Hook elementary school massacre, ISIS terror attacks, cyber-threats, child sex trafficking, the heroin epidemic, and many other major stories.  Winner of more than a dozen awards and nominated for multiple Emmys, Deborah’s work is rooted in an unwavering commitment to investigate thoroughly and report accurately.  She retired from CNN in 2017, continues to travel globally, and is sought out as a speaker, moderator, and subject expert.  www.deborahfeyerick.com

Ruth Messinger, American Jewish World Service

Ruth W. Messinger, President and CEO of American Jewish World Service (AJWS) from 1998 to July 2016, is currently the organization’s inaugural Global Ambassador. In this role, Ruth is continuing her crucial work of engaging rabbis and interfaith leaders to speak out on behalf of oppressed and persecuted communities worldwide and works with rabbis to teach leadership and moral courage.

Ruth’s remarkable 18-year presidency at AJWS began after a 20-year career in public service in New York City as a City Council member and Manhattan Borough President. Under Ruth’s leadership, AJWS grew exponentially—granting more than $270 million to promote human rights in the developing world and launching campaigns to end the Darfur genocide, reform international food aid, stop violence against women and LGBT people, end land grabs and respond to natural disasters around the globe.

A tireless advocate and social change visionary, Ruth mobilizes rabbis and faith-based communities throughout the U.S. to promote human rights and expand advocacy efforts with and on behalf of those most in need of social change. Ruth is also currently serving as the inaugural Social Justice Fellow at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and as the is the Social Justice Activist-in-Residence at the JCC of Manhattan, and she has recently completed with some colleagues a social justice and a racial justice curriculum for Melton Schools.

Ruth has been honored for her leadership with awards from many national Jewish organizations and honorary degrees from five major American rabbinical seminaries.  She is an active member of her congregation, the Society for the Advancement of Judaism—Judaism that Stands for All, and she serves currently on the boards of Aegis Trust and Surprise Lake Camp. She holds a B.A. from Radcliffe College and an M.S.W. from the University of Oklahoma. She is married to Andrew Lachman and has three children, eight grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.