Speaker Biographies
December 7, 2005

Paul Applegarth joined the German Marshall Fund of the United States in 2005 as a senior transatlantic fellow, examining how to improve the delivery, efficiency, and impact of development assistance and foreign aid to developing countries. He also examines how the United States and Europe can better coordinate trade and development policies while mobilizing public- and private-sector resources. Mr. Applegarth comes to the German Marshall Fund after distinguished service at the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), where he served as its first chief executive officer. As CEO of the MCC, he spearheaded a strategy of assistance to countries that rule justly, invest in their people, and promote economic freedom—three prerequisites for sustainable growth and poverty reduction. Prior to this, Mr. Applegarth was managing director of Emerging Markets Partnership, an asset management firm specializing in international private equity and debt investments in emerging markets. He previously served as chief operating officer of the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund and has also held leadership posts at American Express/Lehman Brothers, the United Way of America, and the World Bank.

Chad Dobson joined Oxfam America as director of policy in 2003. He is the agency’s primary representative in Washington, D.C., where he supervises all aspects of Oxfam America’s policy work. He has a long and distinguished career as a policy advocate and campaigner. Most recently, he was the director of the Consumer Choice Council, a group that champions the issue of eco-labeling in the United States. In that capacity, he worked alongside the Oxfam America coffee team and promoted the fair trade coffee certification process along with similar certifications for other products. Mr. Dobson also founded and directed the Bank Information Center, which has been a major ally of Oxfam America and Oxfam International in advocating the reform of International Financial Institutions and debt relief.

John S. Gardner served as general counsel of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from July 2001 to June 2005. Before that, he served as deputy assistant and deputy staff secretary at the White House for President George W. Bush. He held a similar office in the administration of President George H. W. Bush from 1989 to 1992. In Reagan administration, Mr. Gardner was a speechwriter for the administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration and for the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. Mr. Gardner has worked on four presidential campaigns, most notably as assistant director of research for George Bush for President and Bush-Quayle ’88. He has also worked as a research analyst for the Schwab Capital Markets division of Charles Schwab & Co., focusing on antitrust issues in both the United States and Europe, and as vice president for federal government affairs for AT&T. Mr. Gardner’s writings have been published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, European Administrative Law Journal, The Weekly Standard, First Things, and Tech Central Station. He has extensive knowledge of international development, particularly with regard to East and South Asia, and international health issues and food and drug law.

F. Wallace Hays leads FWH and Associates LLC, a non-partisan consulting firm specializing in international energy issues. He has over sixteen years of experience in foreign policy, international relations, and political and economic risk assessments, and has provided intelligence analysis and political risk assessments on American foreign policy issues to a variety of clients, including foreign governments in Europe and the Middle East, as well as several major energy companies. The primary focus of Mr. Hays’ work is energy and the environment, as well as international trade and investment, specializing in the Middle East, the post-Soviet states, and Central and Eastern Europe. His recent projects include strategic advising for a major multinational corporation building a pipeline in the Caspian Sea region; providing analysis for a private investor exploring the political risks of investment in Middle Eastern markets; and advising a consortium working on social and environmental issues in Central Asia. Formerly, Mr. Hays was the senior associate at Andreae, Vick & Associates, an international consulting firm, where he focused on U.S. international economic policy with special emphasis on the Middle East, Asia, and the former Soviet Union. Since 1995, Mr. Hays has provided international companies and foreign governments with political counsel regarding American policies to Iran and Iraq and has authored papers on the U.S. Congress and its views of the Caspian Sea region as well as analyses of the political risk to non-American companies investing in Iran. Prior to joining the private sector, Mr. Hays spent seven years working in the U.S. Congress, serving as a staff assistant in the House of Representatives for Congressman Lee Hamilton. Mr. Hays served in a number of positions on Congressman Hamilton’s personal staff and on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, which Mr. Hamilton chaired. Mr. Hays has been a guest lecturer at Johns Hopkins University and has published articles and made numerous presentations on Caspian energy issues and U.S. foreign policy priorities.

James P. Kaiser, Jr. is professional staff and counsel to the House Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, chaired by Congressman Mark Souder. The Government Reform Committee has plenary oversight jurisdiction over government operations and limited legislative jurisdiction relating to government reorganization. The Subcommittee’s primary focus is on public health, the $12.4 billion drug control budget (including eradication, interdiction, prosecution, prevention, and treatment), the Food and Drug Administration, federal cultural institutions, the President’s Faith Based Initiative, and bioethics. Beginning in 2005, Mr. Kaiser’s primary assignment has involved performing the Subcommittee’s oversight function in relation to United States Agency for International Development (USAID) grantees operating internationally. Prior to joining the Government Reform Committee staff, he served as both senior policy analyst and project coordinator for multiple, international faith-based non-governmental organizations working in the Philippines and Mexico.

André Madec is manager of global community relations for Exxon Mobil at its corporate headquarters in Irving, Texas. He joined Exxon’s French affiliate Esso France in 1972, serving in refinery assignments for the next ten years. He then moved to the exploration and production field. In 1992, he transferred to Exxon’s international headquarters in New Jersey as strategic planning manager. From 1994 to 2002 he was development executive in charge of the Chad/Cameroon Project. Mr. Madec is a Knight of the National Order of the Republic of Chad and a Knight of the Value Order of the Republic of Cameroon.

Nick Nichols is the founder and retired chairman and CEO of Nichols Dezenhall Communications Management Group, Ltd. He currently develops and teaches graduate-level crisis management courses at the Johns Hopkins University. With over three decades in the communications business, he specializes in crisis management and risk communications. Mr. Nichols began his career as an investigative news correspondent. He subsequently became chief of staff for the Wisconsin legislature’s joint committee on finance, and was later appointed state deputy secretary of revenue. He relocated to Washington, D.C. to become senior media spokesperson for the Cuban-Haitian Task Force under the Carter and Reagan administrations, where he managed crisis communications following the controversial 1980 Mariel boatlift. Before forming Nichols Dezenhall, Mr. Nichols was senior vice president and account group manager at Needham Porter Novelli (Omnicom), then the fourth largest public relations agency in the world. He has appeared as a spokesperson on television network news programs including ABC’s Nightline, NBC’s The Today Show and the CBS Evening News. His opinions and recommendations on eco-terrorism have been the topic of Congressional testimony and featured in national, regional, and business publications. Mr. Nichols has addressed state and federal legislators, federal agency executives, numerous international and domestic trade associations, academic institutions, corporations, and policy groups including the American Legislative Exchange Council and the State Legislative Leaders Foundation. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise and the author of Rules for Corporate Warriors (2001).

John D. Sullivan has served as executive director of the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, since 1991. In 1983, he was associate director of the bipartisan Democracy Program, which created the National Endowment for Democracy, which in turn supports CIPE. After the Endowment was established, Mr. Sullivan returned to the Chamber of Commerce to help create CIPE, where he served as program director. From 1977 to 1982, he worked at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s public affairs department and special project division. In 1976, Mr. Sullivan joined President Ford’s election committee in the research department on campaign strategy, polling, and market research. Prior to this, he worked with the Institute for Economic Research and the office of minority business enterprise in the U.S. Department of Commerce in Los Angeles, on projects to stimulate small and minority enterprise. He is the author of a number of articles and publications on the transition to democracy in Central and Eastern Europe, corporate governance, and market-oriented democratic development.

Morton Winston is professor and chair of the department of philosophy and religion at the College of New Jersey. His areas of specialization include human rights theory and practice, biomedical ethics, cognitive science, and philosophy of technology. His most recent books include On Chomsky (2001) and Society, Ethics, and Technology (2006). He has held a visiting faculty fellowship at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (1989-90) and has been the recipient of two Fulbright senior scholarships to South Africa (1992) and Thailand (1999-2000). In addition to his academic career, he is a noted human rights activist, working with Amnesty International. From 1985 to 1991, he served as director of the South Africa coordination group of Amnesty International USA. He also served as a member of Amnesty International U.S.A.’s board of directors from 1991 to 1997, and as chair of the board from 1995 to 1997. He was chair of Amnesty International’s standing committee on organization and development from 1998 to 2004 and was founding chair of the business and human rights program of Amnesty International U.S.A. He was elected honorary chairman of the board of directors of Amnesty International U.S.A. in 2003.