Trinity Presents the 2024-25 Policy Maker Breakfast Series

Prior to joining CNN, Smerconish was an MSNBC contributor who served as guest host for Hardball with Chris Matthews, and he guest hosted The Radio Factor for Bill O’Reilly. His presentations provide audiences with a balanced, thought-provoking, and entertaining analysis of the political arena.

He was the first radio host to interview former President Barack Obama live from the White House. In addition to his seven interviews with President Obama, Smerconish has interviewed former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter, as well as former Vice Presidents Joe Biden, Dick Cheney, and Al Gore.

He is the author of seven books including two New York Times bestsellers. His latest book, Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right: American Life in Columns (2018), is a compilation of a selection of the newspaper columns he published in the first 15 years following 9/11.

He has appeared on countless television programs, including The View, Today Show, The Colbert Report, and Real Time with Bill Maher, just to name a few. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Lehigh University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School and today is of counsel to the Philadelphia law firm of Kline & Specter.

Over the course of his career, Zeihan has worked for the U.S. State Department in Australia, the D.C. think tank community, and helped develop the analytical models for Stratfor, one of the world’s premier private intelligence companies. He founded his own firm—Zeihan on Geopolitics—in 2012 in order to provide a select group of clients with direct, custom analytical products. Today, those clients represent a vast array of sectors, including energy majors, financial institutions, business associations, agricultural interests, universities, and the U.S. military.

Zeihan is a critically acclaimed author whose first two books—The Accidental Superpower and The Absent Superpower—have been recommended by Mitt Romney, Fareed Zakaria, and Ian Bremmer. His latest third title, Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World, became available in March 2020. Zeihan’s fourth book, The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization, became available in June 2022.

Prior to her career in broadcast journalism, Rossell served as corporate economist and investment spokesperson for Oppenheimer Funds, one of the nation's largest mutual fund companies.

Before moving to Wall Street, she was an expert witness for Deloitte and Touche in court cases involving economic issues. Rossell began her career as an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Rossell earned a Ph.D. in economics from Southern Methodist University, where she was named one of the Young Alumni of the Year in 2002. She brings a world of experience—from Main Street to Wall Street—when discussing the U.S. economy, international events, and movements in capital markets. Her creative, thought-provoking commentary will ring in the audience members' ears well after she leaves the stage.

Schick was among the first to identify AI as a 'tipping point for humanity.' She articulated this vision years before ChatGPT made AI a global phenomenon. An advocate of responsible AI development, she is the founder of Tamang Ventures, working exclusively with companies at the frontier of AI development. She is proud to advise Synthesia, the world's first video-generation platform, and Truepic, the global leader in authentication technologies. She has collaborated with some of the world's premier companies and organizations, including Microsoft, Adobe, DARPA, and the UN.

Her book, DEEPFAKES (2020), was the first to examine generative AI’s broader impact on society. A renowned public speaker, Schick has appeared on stages including CES, TEDx, CogX, and WebSummit. She regularly appears in worldwide media and has been featured in publications such as MIT Technology Review, WIRED, and Time.

Schick has engaged in dialogues with global thought leaders like Sam Harris, Christiane Amanpour, and Andrew Yang, and she has advised global leaders, including Joe Biden, the president of the United States, and Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former secretary general of NATO.

In tandem with her speaking and advisory roles, Schick has cultivated a robust AI community, boasting more than 100,000 members through her content channels.