Eisenhower Fellowships
2024 Annual Meeting
PHILADELPHIA | MAY 14-15, 2024
Eisenhower Fellowships welcomed nearly 380 attendees from 28 countries for two days of
extraordinary events to mark its 2024 Annual Meeting on May 14 and 15 in Philadelphia.
Women in Politics: Leading the Nation
Eisenhower Fellowships (EF) hosted a thoughtful conversation on women’s leadership in politics with Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker (an Eisenhower USA Fellow in 2010) and two EF Trustees, Vice Chair and former two-term New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman and former nine-term U.S. Rep. Jane Harman at Philadelphia City Hall on May 14.
They drew from their deep experience to discuss unique challenges and opportunities facing women political leaders in our polarized body politic in a conversation with Eisenhower Fellow Alison Young (USA 2017), Managing Partner at RWB Strategies and a former senior White House official.
This dynamic discussion launched the EF Women’s Webinar Series, a series of large-scale Zoom gatherings featuring women Eisenhower Fellows that aims to reach hundreds of young women and girls over the next year to build global awareness, foster a sense of community and learn leadership skills.
The webinar series is one of two related twin projects under the Igniting Future Women Leaders initiative. In addition, this fall EF plans to host its fourth Women’s Leadership fellowship program since 2010, focusing on women leaders advancing civil discourse and good governance in their societies. More than 1,100 women from around the world applied for 22 slots in the program.
An Evening with David Rubenstein
Distinguished lawyer, business leader and philanthropist David Rubenstein joined more than 90 Eisenhower Fellows from around the world as our featured speaker at a special dinner reception at the Masonic Temple on May 14.
Mr. Rubenstein’s extraordinary life’s journey took him from humble working-class beginnings in Baltimore to become co-founder and co-chairman of the Carlyle Group, a global private equity investment firm based in Washington, D.C. In gratitude for his illustrious business career, Mr. Rubenstein has become one of the world’s most prominent philanthropists, donating much of his fortune to worthy charitable causes.
Annual Awards Dinner
More than 330 people crowded into the National Constitution Center on Wednesday evening, May 15, for the 2024 Annual Awards Dinner. The master of ceremonies, veteran broadcast journalist Ray Suarez, hosted the program. Featured speakers were EF President George de Lama, 2023 USA Fellow Christina Snider-Ashtari, California Tribal Affairs Secretary, and 2024 Global Fellow Oscar Fernandez, the first Eisenhower Fellow from Cuba. Capping the evening was 2024 Global Fellow Richard Jlah Doe, the Dr. Walter T. Gwenigale Fellow in health care from Liberia, who sang a soulful rendition of the song, Stand By Me.
2024 Distinguished Fellow Award
Secretary Gates presented the 2024 Distinguished Fellow Award to two extraordinary Fellows from Vietnam, Tin Huu Mai and Thao Nguyen Griffiths, for their dedication and exemplary engagement with Eisenhower Fellowships, their exceptional leadership of the Vietnamese chapter of Fellows and their outstanding professional achievements.
Tin, a former two-time member of the National Assembly despite not belonging to any political party and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of U&I Investment Corporation, and Thao, Meta’s Public Policy head for Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar, are deeply engaged, professionally successful Eisenhower Fellows whose inspired leadership has helped make the Vietnam chapter of Fellows one of the most robust and dynamic in the entire EF global network.
2024 Dwight D. Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service
Secretary Gates presented the organization’s highest honor, the 2024 Dwight D. Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service, to legendary film director Steven Spielberg for his extraordinary artistic achievements in presenting America’s culture and history to the world and his enormous contributions to advancing global understanding.
Many of Spielberg’s films and creative productions resonate deeply with the values and ethos of the 70-year-old nonprofit institution, Gates said, because of their relevance to the organization’s namesake: Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers, about the D-Day invasion of Normandy and the push towards Nazi Germany, which Eisenhower commanded; Schindler’s List about the Nazi death camps that Eisenhower’s forces eventually liberated; Masters of the Air, about a U.S. Army Air Force bomber squadron under Ike’s command; and Bridge of Spies, which tells the little-known tale of the aftermath of the Soviet shootdown of a U.S. spy plane in 1960 while Eisenhower was president.
Mr. Spielberg, the son of a World War II U.S. Army Air Corps veteran and the recipient of numerous awards, has devoted much of his time and resources to philanthropic causes. After directing Schindler’s List, he used all his profits from the film to found what is known today as the USC Shoah Foundation—The Institute for Visual History and Education, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving Jewish memory that has recorded more than 55,000 stories of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides. In 2021 Mr. Spielberg and his wife, Kate Capshaw, launched The Hearthland Foundation, a fund to help build a more just, equitable and connected America.