Advisory Roundtable
IVO DAALDER
Ivo H. Daalder is president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Prior to joining the Council in July 2013, he served as the US Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for more than four years. He also served on the US National Security Council staff as director for European Affairs from 1995-97. Before his appointment as Ambassador to NATO by President Obama in 2009, Daalder was a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, specializing in American foreign policy, European security and transatlantic relations, and national security affairs. Prior to joining Brookings in 1998, he was an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. A widely-published author, his most recent books include The Empty Throne: America’s Abdication of Global Leadership (with James M. Lindsay), In the Shadow of the Oval Office: Profiles of the National Security Advisers and the Presidents they Served—From JFK to George W. Bush (with I. M. Destler) and the award-winning America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy (with James M. Lindsay). Other books include Beyond Preemption: Force and Legitimacy in a Changing World (2007); Crescent of Crisis: U.S.-European Strategy for the Greater Middle East (2006); and Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo (2000). Daalder is a frequent contributor to the opinion pages of the world’s leading newspapers, and a regular commentator on international affairs on television and radio. For his services at NATO, Ambassador Daalder was awarded the US Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service, the Order of Merit by the Federal Republic of Germany, the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana of the Republic of Estonia, and the Order of the Three Star of the Republic of Latvia. He was educated at the Universities of Kent and Oxford, Georgetown University, and received his PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also received an honorary Doctor of Civil Law from the University of Kent. Ivo Daalder was born in the Hague (the Netherlands) in 1960. He is married to Elisa Harris, and they have two sons.
STEDMAN GRAHAM
Stedman Graham is a business advisor, chairman and CEO of S. Graham and Associates, a management and marketing consulting firm. He is the author of 12 books, including two New York Times best sellers and one Wall Street Journal bestseller. As a businessman, educator and speaker, Graham lectures and conducts training programs for corporations and educational organizations worldwide on the topic of Identity Leadership, based on the philosophy that one cannot lead anyone else until you first lead yourself. He has delivered Identity Leadership programs in The Netherlands, Germany, China, Canada, the UK, Bermuda and South Africa. His proven Nine Step Success Process® drives his powerful message. This success process is based on the principle that it doesn’t matter how the world defines you, it only matters how you define yourself. Graham is honored as a distinguished visiting professor at colleges and universities throughout the country. He is a former adjunct professor at the Northwestern Kellogg School of Business where he taught the course, “The Dynamics of Leadership.” Graham’s clients include Gulfstream, Aerospace, Microsoft, Deloitte, Wells Fargo, Lenovo, General Dynamics and the US Department of Labor and Education. As a proud native of Whitesboro, New Jersey, Graham has demonstrated an enduring dedication to youth and community. His New York Times best seller, Teens Can Make it Happen has become a program utilized in numerous middle and high schools in the US and abroad. With dedication to community development, Graham is the founder of the Concerned Citizens of Whitesboro and the Concerned Citizens of Lake Wacamaw, North Carolina. He is also the Co-founder of the Community Alliance for Youth Success (CAYS) and a member of Horatio Alger. Stedman Graham has served in the United States Army and played professional basketball in the European League. Graham holds a Bachelor Degree in Social Work from Hardin-Simmons University and a Master’s Degree in Education from Ball State University and has been awarded three honorary Doctorates. Graham serves on several boards and has received numerous awards.
STEVE KOCH
Since 2020, Steve Koch has been a managing partner of mHUB Accelerated Incubation, a hardtech and manufacturing innovation center that invests in seed and early stage hardtech companies. Koch served as the Deputy Mayor of Chicago from September 2012 to August 2017. His responsibilities included economic development, planning, job creation and development, budget issues, municipal finance, and revenue. He played a key role in rebuilding Chicago’s finances and boosting its post-recession economy. Prior to that, he spent 27 years at Credit Suisse, where he advised on transactions across a broad range of industries and held a number of senior leadership roles, including serving as the co-chairman of the global mergers and acquisitions business. Koch is a member of the Board of Directors of Chicago Community Trust, Greater Chicago Food Depository, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, mHUB and The Joyce Foundation, among others.
JAMIE MERISOTIS
Jamie Merisotis is a globally recognized leader in philanthropy, education, human work and talent development, and public policy. He has been president and CEO of Lumina Foundation, the largest private foundation (with assets of $1.5 billion) in the U.S. focused on post-high school learning, since 2008. He previously was co-founder and president of the nonpartisan, Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Higher Education Policy and also served as executive director of a bipartisan national commission on college affordability appointed by the U.S. president and congressional leaders. Merisotis has extensive global experience as a human capital advisor and consultant in southern Africa, the former Soviet Union, Europe, and other parts of the world. A respected global analyst and innovator, Merisotis is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Merisotis also is a trustee and advisor for a diverse array of organizations around the world. He serves as a governing board member of The Ditchley Foundation, based in the United Kingdom, and is past chairman of the Council on Foundations in Washington, D.C. as well as The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, the world’s largest museum for children. He currently serves as shareholder and advisory board member for Certree, a Silicon Valley-based startup, and advises several other organizations on how artificial intelligence and machine learning can address complex challenges related to work and learning. Merisotis also is a board member of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership and several other local entities. He has received numerous awards and holds honorary degrees from several universities and colleges. Merisotis is the author of two acclaimed book America Needs Talent, named a Top 10 Business book of 2016 by Booklist, and Human Work in the Age of Smart Machines, released to wide praise in 2020. He is often requested as a media commentator and contributor. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Journal, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Washington Monthly, Politico, The Hill, Roll Call, and other publications. Merisotis established Lumina Foundation’s impact investing platform in 2011, which currently deploys $50 million in assets to mission-driven education and workforce training investment managers, and which also deploys another $30 million in direct-equity capital for more than a dozen early stage companies focused in the postsecondary learning space.
CHUCK MORAN
Chuck Moran founded Skillsoft in 1998 with venture capital financing from Warburg Pincus, raising more than $20 million, and served as Skillsoft’s Chief Executive Officer and President from inception until December 2015. Chuck and his Team drove the company from zero revenue in FY 1998, to over $600M in recurring, predictable subscription revenue and over $240M in EBITDA in FY2015 through both organic growth and M&A. Skillsoft serves over 7000 customers in both Enterprise and SMB markets, including half the Fortune 500. Skillsoft is a leading global provider of Cloud Based learning and Talent Management solutions, having dual excellence in both Content and SAAS Cloud Technology, serving the Enterprise Learning and Human Capital Management markets. The company went public in January 2000, raising $40 million, and raised $88 million in a secondary offering in July 2001. After 10 years of being public, it has done 2 turns with Private Equity. Unique to today’s SAAS companies, Skillsoft had amongst the highest gross margins (90%), Adjusted EBITDA margins (40%) and generated unlevered free cash flow conversion of approximately 90% of EBITDA. Chuck saw the future changes coming in how software was to be delivered, licensed and accounted for before many others. As a result, Skillsoft was built as a SAAS company from inception (1998) adopting subscription revenue recognition versus the conventional age old practice of software up front license sale with maintenance. In May 2010, Skillsoft was acquired by funds sponsored by each of Berkshire Partners LLC, Advent International Corporation and Bain Capital Partners, LLC in a deal valued at approximately $1.2 billion. Through both organic growth and several acquisitions, in April 2014, Skillsoft was sold to Charterhouse Capital Partners in a deal valued at $2.3 billion. In September, 2014, Skillsoft acquired SumTotal Systems, LLC for approximately $725 million. SumTotal provided flexible, next-generation human resources (HR) solutions to 3,500 customers and the combined company will have over 45 million users worldwide, including many of the Fortune 500. Prior to Skillsoft, Chuck was the President and CEO of NETg, a computer-based IT training company from 1995 to 1997. His successful turnaround of NETg helped position the company for Harcourt Brace’s acquisition of NEC – NETg’s parent company – in 1997 for over $900 million, resulting in an increase of over $750 million in NEC shareholder value of which approx. $500M was attributed to the value created at NETg. Before NETg, Chuck was CFO/COO of Softdesk, a leading AEC/ CAD software application company. Chuck joined in 1993 to become part of the team to take the company public in 2004. Softdesk became the IPO of the quarter in Q1 of 1994. Earlier in his career Chuck held senior level sales and marketing positions where he was responsible for rapidly growing their revenue base. From 1989 to 1992 he was Vice President of Sales for Insite Peripherals and from 1983 to 1989 while at Archive Corporation, he was Regional Sales Vice President (1983-1985), Director of North American Sales (1985-1987) and Vice President of Worldwide Sales (1987-1989). At the time he left Archive Corporation, the company had grown from a private $15 million company to a public company with approximately $200 million in revenues and 3000 employees. Chuck has served as a Board member for Skillsoft (SKI ) as the Chairman from 1998 to 2002, a director from 2002 to 2006, and Chairman from 2006 to 2016. A director at Higherone (ONE) from 2009 to 2014, Workgroup Technology (WKGP) from 1997 to 2001, Clarivate Analytics from 2016 to 2020 and Duck Creek Technologies (DCT) from 2016 to 2022. Chuck currently serves as a Board of Director and or an Advisor to private companies and Private Equity firms. Chuck is currently on the Board of Directors of the following public companies, Manhattan Associates (MANH), Commvault (CVLT) and Intapp Inc. (INTA). Chuck won the E&Y entrepreneur of the Year award for the New England Region for 2015. Chuck holds an MBA from Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts and a B.S. from Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.
Kal Somani
