Rachael Eckles has worked in the health care industry for over twenty years. A lawyer and bioethicist by training, she began her career in clinical research, ran a hospital medical ethics committee, and began a bioethics program at a pharmaceutical company. Her love of shaping the environment evolved into a career in policy and government affairs.

During a brief stint away from health care, she worked in securities litigation. It was then that she began writing fiction, which has evolved into the award-winning Wall Street thriller series, Trading Secrets, with two books released and a third on the way.

Rachael believes each of us has a responsibility to shape the best future possible, and she embodies this through her philanthropic commitments both locally and globally. She donates a portion of her proceeds to local and global programs that empower women and girls through her foundation, Aphrodite Gives.

In her free time, Rachael practices yoga, meditation, and strength training. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and her dog.

Suzanne Swink is Vice President of Government Relations for KORE Power, the leading U.S.-based developer and manufacturer of battery cell technology for the clean energy industry. In this role, she is responsible for the company’s legislative and regulatory strategy for federal and state affairs, community engagement, and sustainability. Ms. Swink joined KORE Power from bp, where she spent the better part of 12 years as a government affairs and strategic communications leader. She has nearly 20 years of government, advocacy, and policy communications expertise. Prior to joining bp, Suzanne was Senior Legislative Assistant to Congresswoman Susan A. Davis (D-CA) and served as the Congresswoman’s lead advisor on a broad domestic portfolio, including energy, environment, infrastructure, trade, tax and judiciary issues. She received her bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Southern Mississippi and her master’s in public relations and corporate communications from Georgetown University, where she also serves as adjunct faculty. Suzanne currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the American Council of Young Political Leaders, the Board of the Public Affairs Council, and is a past president of Women in Government Relations.

Today we are joined by bestselling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist Garrett M. Graff who has spent two decades covering politics, technology, and national security, and is now recognized as one of the nation’s most prolific and wide-ranging journalists and historians. His award-winning work—including nine books on topics ranging from presidential campaigns, Watergate, 9/11, and cybersecurity, to D-Day and the U.S. government’s Cold War Doomsday plans, as well as dozens of magazine articles, essays, podcasts, and documentaries—uses history to explain the story of today, illuminating where we’ve been as a country and where we’re headed as a world. Today, he’s a columnist for the Washington Post, where he writes on leadership, serves as the director of cyber initiatives at the Aspen Institute, and hosts the history podcast, "Long Shadow," which this year received a 2024 Edward R. Murrow Award. The former editor of POLITICO Magazine and a longtime contributor to WIRED and CNN, he’s written for publications like Esquire, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and Foreign Affairs, and authored nine books—including the #1 national bestseller "The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11," and the New York Times bestseller "Watergate: A New History," which was a finalist in 2023 for the Pulitzer Prize in History. His most recent books include "UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government’s Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There" and "When the Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day." Graff is a regular voice and analyst on NPR, PBS NewsHour, the History Channel, speaker at high-profile venues like corporate conferences, presidential libraries, and the Aspen Ideas Festival, and taught journalism and social media at Georgetown University for nearly a decade. Among other multimedia, TV, and film projects, he was executive producer of “While the Rest of Us Die,” a two-season VICE TV series based on his book "Raven Rock," and a consulting producer on the blockbuster Netflix documentary “Turning Point,” about the Cold War.