Women's Campaign Forum

Kathleen Carr has been Regional President of Washington, D.C. for Cardinal Bank since 2006. She also serves as Unit President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Ms. Carr served as President and Chief Executive Officer The Adams National Bank from 1998 to October of 2005. She has over 25 years of commercial banking experience, with most of her professional career spent in the areas of commercial lending. Prior to joining The Adams National Bank in 1997, Ms. Carr served as Senior Vice President of NationsBank. She has been a Director of Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond since January 2005. Ms. Carr serves as a Member of the Board of Directors of Royco, Inc. and the Chevy Chase Land Company. She serves as a Member of Advisory Board of So Others Might Eat, Inc., and has served as a Director of Abigail Adams National Bancorp Inc., since 1998. She was also a Director of The Adams National Bank from 1998 to October 2005. She is a member of the Board of Washington Trustees of the Federal City Council, the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the Board of Managers and the Board of Governors for the Washington Home and Hospice, and Co-chair of The City Museum Capital Campaign.

As an experienced film producer, author, and blogger, Jane Hamsher is a multi-talented woman.  Her career took flight when she co-produced the 1994 satirical crime film Natural Born Killers with Don Murphy. Based on a screenplay written by Quentin Tarantino, the film was named the 8th most controversial movie of all time by Entertainment Weekly for it’s violent content. Her 1997 book, Killer Instinct offered an inside look at Ms. Hamsher’s experience producing the film.  In December 2004, Ms. Hamsher launched her blog, FireDogLake, which won the 2005 Koufax award for “Best Series.” She also runs the political action groups Public Option Please, Blue America, Accountability Now, and FDL Action. Ms. Hamsher got her Masters in Fine Arts from The Peter Stark Producing Program at the University of Southern California. She currently resides in Washington, DC.

As Chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises, Inc. from 1988 to 2008, Christie Hefner oversaw the global expansion of Playboy’s legendary brand to a wide array of new platforms and markets, transforming a domestic publishing-based business into a global multi-media and lifestyle company.  Since stepping down, Ms. Hefner has been working with the Center for American Progress, and appearing regularly on cable news to talk about business and public policy.

The first woman elected to the Chicago chapter of the Young Presidents’ Organization, Ms. Hefner helped to found the Committee of 200, an international organization of preeminent women business owners and executives.  She currently sits on the Council of National Advisors for Springboard Enterprises, which supports women-led growth ventures.  Ms. Hefner has received numerous honors and awards including the ACLU Harry Kalven Freedom of Expression Award; Anti-Defamation League ‘s Inaugural Champion of Freedom Award; and the Vanguard Award for Distinguished Leadership, cable industry’s highest honor, for longstanding commitment to the First Amendment rights of cable programmers and operators and for strong advocacy of workplace diversity. She was also named one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in the World by Forbes magazine for three consecutive years (2005-2007), and she was a Democratic National Convention Delegate in 1980 and 1992. 

Ms. Hefner graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brandeis University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and American literature. She is married to real estate developer and attorney William A. Marovitz, a former Illinois state senator.

Carol Jenkins is the former president of The Women’s Media Center and a founding member of its Board of Directors. An Emmy® Award-winning former news anchor and correspondent who covered presidential politics as well as international issues, Ms. Jenkins led the Women’s Media Center’s online publication and its advocacy initiatives. She is a prominent national spokeswoman and political analyst who consistently and effectively argues the case for the inclusion and visibility of women throughout the media. Ms. Jenkins and her daughter, Elizabeth Gardner Hines, are co-authors of Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire, which was selected by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association as one of the best non-fiction books of 2004. She served as an executive producer of the PBS documentary, What I Want My Words To Do To You, which won The Freedom of Expression Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 2003. Most recently, Ms. Jenkins was honored as one of The North Star News Prize Winners of 2008, named after the newspaper that Fredrick Douglass founded in 1857.

First elected to Congress in 1992, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney is recognized as a national leader with extensive accomplishments on financial services, national security, the economy, and women’s issues.  Her career has been a series of firsts. Congresswoman Maloney is the first woman to represent New York’s 14th Congressional District, the first woman to represent New York City’s 7th Councilmanic district (where she was the first woman to give birth while in office); and the first woman to Chair the Joint Economic Committee, a House and Senate panel that examines and addresses the nation’s most pressing economic issues.

As the former co-chair of the Women’s Caucus, Congresswoman Maloney is a nationally-recognized advocate for women’s and family issues, with special emphasis on funding for women’s health needs, reproductive freedom, and international family planning. She has helped to pass legislation that targets the ‘demand’ side of sex trafficking, provides annual mammograms for women on Medicare, and increases funding for law enforcement to process DNA rape kits. The latter piece of legislation, the Debbie Smith Act, has been termed ‘the most important anti-rape legislation in history.’

Congresswoman Maloney has received the Military Order of the Purple Heart for Meritorious and Conspicuous Service for Veterans, the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association’s (NFPRHA) Distinguished Public Service Award, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the Hadassah Myrtle Wreath Award, Peace Action’s Global Peace Award, the Queens Women’s Political Caucus’ Queens Women of Distinction Award, and the Healthy Mothers, Health Babies’ 2000 Special Impact Award. She was the Grand Marshal of New York’s Greek Independence Day Parade in 1996 and 2001. Her legislative efforts have been featured on NBC Nightly News, NBC’s Today, CBS Sunday Morning, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other local, national, and international major media outlets.

Kate Michelman is a political activist known for her involvement in the pro-choice movement. She served as the President of NARAL Pro-Choice America from 1985 to 2004. During her tenure as President of NARAL, she testified against Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. In 2003, she was named to the Politics PA list of “Pennsylvania’s Most Politically Powerful Women.” After leaving NARAL in 2004, Ms. Michelman worked for several years as a political consultant. She has since dedicated her voice to speaking out publically on behalf of the many Americans who share in her deep frustration with the current infrastructuce of the health insurance system. Her powerful story has been presented eloquently on National Public Radio, as well as in her articles for publications including The Nation and The Huffington Post. She also detailed her personal journey in her book of memoirs, With Liberty and Justice for All: A Life Spent Protecting the Right to Choose, which was published in 2006.

Philip Scheffler began his 53 years at CBS News in 1951, while enrolled as a student at the Columbia University School of Journalism. Originally hired as a copy boy in a fledgling TV News department, he rose to become a news writer, reporter, field producer and producer of daily and weekly news programs. In 1964, Mr. Scheffler was appointed a producer at CBS Reports and over the next 16 years he produced more than 100 hours of documentaries and special news broadcasts, including 58 segments for 60 Minutes. He reported from more than 50 countries and all but three of the United States. In 1980 Mr. Scheffler became Executive Editor of 60 Minutes, a position he held until his retirement in 2003. He remained a consultant and contributing editor, and now heads his own editorial consulting firm and is a member of the adjunct faculty at Columbia. Broadcasts that he produced or edited have received many awards including the Peabody, Dupont, and Ohio State, and the last of his 19 Emmy® Awards was for lifetime achievement.

Michael “Buzzy” O’Keefe is the proud owner of Brooklyn’s fine dining restaurant, The River Cafe, which opened its doors in 1977. The restaurant, which serves modern American cuisine, juts out onto the East River and greets patrons with a beautiful garden at its front doors.

Opening the popular restaurant did not come without struggle. Mr. O’Keefe began making plans for the establishment in the late 1960’s, but he was unable to find a bank willing to extend a loan. Naysayers whispered rumors of mob corruption in the neighborhood, and naval architects refused to approve his concept of erecting the cafe entirely on wooden barges. From the moment The River Cafe was opened, though, it drew crowds of hungry New Yorkers who never left unsatisfied. The cafe’s popularity is due in large part to Mr. O’Keefe’s ability to lure culinary talent into his kitchen. A hit parade of superstar chefs can be counted among the cafe’s alumni, including David Burke, Charlie Palmer, Rick Laakkonen and Larry Forgione.

Representative Kim McMillan is running for Governor of Tennessee. Representative McMillan has served for twelve years in the Tennessee House of Representatives and, in 2002, became the first woman to serve as Majority Leader in Tennessee. During her tenure in the House, she was honored with numerous awards for excellence from various organizations, including the Tennessee Chiefs of Police, the Tennessee Education Association, and the Tennessee School Boards Association. In 2006, Representative McMillan did not seek re-election to the state House and accepted an appointment by Governor Bredesen to his Cabinet, where she served as Senior Advisor to the Governor. In 2008, she returned to her hometown of Clarksville as Executive Director of Community and Business Relations for Austin Peay State University, where she is a faculty member in the Political Science Department.

Darcy Burner is the American Progressive Cacus Policy Foundation’s Executive Director. The principal author and organizer of “A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq,” endorsed by more than sixty candidates for the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, she has been a candidate for Congress in Washington State’s 8th District, a Group Program Manager at Microsoft Corporation, and a software developer at Lotus Development Corp. She has a BA in computer science with a special field of economics from Harvard.