Women's Campaign Forum

Mr. Josman is the current director of the National Chorale. He was recently honored by Choral Director Magazine with a major cover and feature article about the company’s acclaimed performances and its unique vocal music education programs in the public schools. In addition to leading concerts and Messiah Sing-Ins at Avery Fisher Hall each season since 1965, Mr. Josman has conducted concerts at Boston’s Symphony Hall, the Seattle Opera House, the Philadelphia Academy of Music, Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, Boettcher Hall in Denver,  St. Louis’ Powell Hall,  Symphony Hall in Phoenix, the Eastman Theater in Rochester, Symphony Hall in Tulsa, the Chautauqua Amphitheater and the Saratoga Performing Arts Festival. Maestro Josman has toured the United States with the National Chorale and conducted the company in 18 summer seasons of Festival of American Music Theater concerts at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park. The Chorale season also has included vocal/instrumental chamber music series; programs of historic American music; and Concerts for Young People. ABC Television chose him to conduct its 90-minute tribute to President John F. Kennedy, and he served as music director and conductor for the PBS-Channel 13 special, “Bach and His Sons: the Overwhelming Legacy”. He has served as the Director of the New School’s Summer Festival and as Consultant for the Performing Arts at the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, and he is an active member of both the Board of Directors of the Arts and Business Council of New York and the Choral Music Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts. He has trained at The Juilliard School, Queens College, and Columbia University. 

Kirstin Downey is the author of the very well-received 2009 novel The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience. Her previous work includes the popular Washington Post column “On the Job,” which ran in dozens of newspapers around the nation, including the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times, and reached a total weekly readership exceeding 3 million people. In 2000, Ms. Downey was awarded a Nieman fellowship at Harvard University, where she studied economic history at the Harvard Business School and participated in the Harvard Trade Union Program. She shared in the 2008 Pulitzer Prize awarded to Washington Post staff for coverage of the campus slayings at Virginia Tech; she profiled two heroic professors, Liviu Libresco and Kevin Granata, who died protecting the lives of their students. Ms. Downey earned her Bachelor’s Degree in journalism at Pennsylvania State University.

Liz Hamburg is a “serial entrepreneur” with extensive experience as an entrepreneur, angel investor and mentor to entrepreneurs and small businesses. She is the founder and President of Upstart Ventures, where she has consulted to and incubated many start-ups including her latest venture, ApplyWise, an online college admissions counseling company.

Ms. Hamburg is the co-host on WOR radio (WOR 710AM) of “New York Uncovered” and “Launchpad”, a weekly radio segment focusing on entrepreneurs and small business. She also blogs about small business for the Huffington Post. She is New York’s SBA Small Business Journalist of the Year.

Ms. Hamburg was Chairman and Founder of Hypnotic, a broadband content and branded entertainment company and was one of the founding managers and Director of the Board of Vimpel Communications (NYSE:VIP), the leading cellular company in Russia.

She has launched new products for Reuters Tokyo and Fujisankei Communications, one of Japan’s largest media conglomerates, where she worked on the first international television home shopping show and played a leading role in the introduction of Fuji’s Nintendo game software into the U.S.

Liz received an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a B.A. from Brown University.  She is a Director of the Board of Safe Space, a New York based non-profit; the President of the Advisory Board of the Brown University Entrepreneurs Program, a member of the New York advisory board of Astia and a member of the Advisory Panel of the Columbia Business School’s Eugene Lang Entrepreneur Initiative Fund. She is a frequent lecturer on topics concerning entrepreneurs and women-owned businesses.

Judith LaBelle became the founding President of Glynwood Farm in 1995. The organization was established with the goal of helping communities in the Northeast to promote rural conservation. An attorney by trade, Ms. LaBelle has over 25 years’ experience with environmental issues, land conservation, real estate and tax-exempt organizations. She was a member of the firm of Berle, Kass & Case and has served as corporate counsel to the National Audubon Society and deputy director and counsel to the New York State Commission on the Adirondacks in the Twenty-First Century. In 1990, the Graduate School of Design at Harvard named her a Loeb Fellow in advanced environmental studies. Ms. LaBelle holds a J.D. from New York University School of Law and an M.A. in political science from Rutgers University. She co-authored Rehabilitating Older and Historic Buildings: Law, Taxation, Strategies (John Wiley & Sons) and has written and spoken widely on land conservation and other topics.

John “Rick” MacArthur is the President and Publisher of Harper’s Magazine, as well as an award-winning journalist and author. He writes monthly columns for the Providence Journal and for Montreal’s le Devoir newspaper. Mr. MacArthur’s critically acclaimed first book, Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War, won the Illinois ACLU’s 1992 Harry Kalven Freedom of Expression award. Mr. MacArthur initiated the foundation-sponsored rescue of Harper’s Magazine in 1980, and became president and publisher in 1983. Since 1994, the magazine has received eleven National Magazine Awards, the industry’s highest recognition. He has been a guest on Charlie Rose, 60 Minutes, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and C-SPAN. His commentaries have appeared on NPR’s “Morning Edition” and “Marketplace.” Before joining Harper’s Magazine, Mr. MacArthur was an assistant foreign editor at United Press International and a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, Bergen Record, Washington Star, and Wall Street Journal. He writes for newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, The Progressive, The Nation, The Columbia Journalism Review, Le Temps (Geneva) and La Croix  (France). Mr. MacArthur received the 1993 Mencken Award for best editorial/op-ed column for his New York Times expose of “Nayirah,” the Kuwaiti diplomat’s daughter who helped fake the Iraqi baby-incubator atrocity. A tireless human rights advocate, Mr. MacArthur founded and serves on the board of directors of the Death Penalty Information Center and the MacArthur Justice Center. Along with members of his family he founded Article 19, the International Center on Censorship, based in London, and in 1989 he initiated and helped organize the PEN/Article 19/Author’s Guild rally for Salman Rushdie. He is on the board of directors of The Author’s Guild and The Overseas Press Club and a fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities. Mr. MacArthur earned his Bachelor’s Degree in history at Columbia College.

Terry O’Neill was elected President of NOW in June 2009. She is also president of the NOW Foundation and chair of the NOW Political Action Committees, and serves as the principal spokesperson for all three entities.

Previously, Ms. O’Neill has served as president of Louisiana NOW and New Orleans NOW and as a member of the National Racial Diversity Committee. She is a the former president of Maryland NOW and has served on the NOW National Board twice, representing the Mid-South Region (2000-2001) and the Mid-Atlantic Region (2007-2009). O’Neill was NOW’s Membership Vice President from 2001 to 2005, when she oversaw NOW’s membership development program as well as finances and government relations. She has also taught law courses at both Tulane University and at the University of California at Davis. She has testified before committees in the Maryland House of Delegates and has written federal amicus briefs on abortion rights for Louisiana NOW, Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union.

O’Neill is a skilled political organizer, having worked on such historic campaigns as Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and the campaign leading to the election of Louisiana’s first woman U.S. senator, Mary Landrieu. She also worked to elect women’s rights supporters to judgeships and the state legislature in Louisiana, as well as the successful campaign to elect former Maryland NOW president and NOW National Board member Duchy Trachtenberg to the Montgomery County (MD) Council. O’Neill holds a Bachelor’s Degree in French with distinction from Northwestern University and a law degree magna cum laude from Tulane University. She has one child, a daughter who is a proud feminist.

Penny Kotterman is running for State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Arizona. Penny Kotterman is a lifelong educator with over 30 years of experience and an impeccable record of teaching students, developing education policy, and improving the profession of education for new and experienced teachers alike. As president of the Arizona Education Association for 6 years, Ms. Kotterman engaged with Governors Jane Hull and Janet Napolitano to build the policies that are central to education in Arizona today. Additionally, she has been instrumental in the development of policy related to student standards and assessments and teacher certification.

Secretary Elaine Marshall is running for U.S. Senate from North Carolina. In 1996, Elaine was elected to serve as North Carolina Secretary of State, making her the first woman to hold statewide office in that state. She is now in her fourth term as Secretary of State, and has been credited with the modernization of her office and the reform of state lobbying laws. In her former position in the North Carolina State Senate, Secretary Marshall made women’s issues a priority, sponsored bills combating domestic violence, improving rape crisis services, and supporting social workers. She has also served as an attorney, a teacher, and a small business owner.