Personal Democracy Forum

Joaquin Alvarado is the Chief Strategy Officer for the Center for Investigative Reporting. Before joining CIR, Joaquin Alvarado served as senior vice president for digital innovation at American Public Media and founding senior vice president for diversity and innovation at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He is the founder of CoCo Studios, which promotes media collaboration and game development for fiber and mobile networks. Joaquin was the founding director of the Institute for Next Generation Internet, which launched in 2005 from San Francisco State University. In 2004, Joaquin began the National Public Lightpath, advocating high-speed, fiber-optic network as the next generation of the Internet. Alvarado holds a bachelor’s degree in Chicano Studies from UC Berkeley and an MFA from the UCLA School of Theatre, Film, and Television. He serves on the boards of TechSoup Global and DEI – the public broadcasting development association. He is the co-author of “Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art.” He lives with his wife and two children in Oakland.

Joe Hurd’s expertise lies at the intersection of policy, business and the law. Currently, he is the Vice President, Global Public Policy and Corporate Affairs for UniversityNow, Inc (unow.com), a San Francisco-based company that seeks to address the challenges of college access and affordability through a network of online private universities. New Charter University (new.edu), the flagship, was launched in April 2012. In his role, Joe runs the public policy and global expansion strategy for UniversityNow, engaging federal, state and local officials worldwide on issues relating to higher education, job creation, skills-based vocational training, college affordability, entrepreneurship, social media and the digital divide.

Prior to joining UniversityNow, between 2009 and 2012 Joe was a political appointee in the Obama Administration, helping Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke and his successor, John Bryson, implement the National Export Initiative. At the Department of Commerce, Joe provided political leadership and policy guidance for the Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee (TPCC). Under Joe’s direction, the TPCC delivered the first-ever National Export Initiative Report to the President in September 2010 (http://bit.ly/aAzKsB) and the 2011 National Export Strategy (NES) to Congress in June 2011 (http://1.usa.gov/qmGndj). He also served as a member of the White House Business Council, travelling around the country to engage with business leaders, state and local government officials, and the public to promote U.S. exports.

Before entering public service, Joe spent ten years in senior business development and international sales/operations positions for AOL Time Warner, Friendster and VideoEgg, opening international sales offices in Japan, Australia, Hong Kong and the Philippines and negotiating internet and e-commerce deals that delivered over $50M in global revenue. Joe is also the Managing Partner of The Katama Group, LLC, a strategic advisory consultancy specializing in international expansion for startups. Earlier in his career, Joe practiced corporate and securities law in London with Linklaters. He is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the New York bar and is a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales. A frequent lecturer and panelist, Joe has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the International Herald Tribune, San Jose Mercury News, Straits Times, Guardian, and other publications worldwide on entrepreneurship, online advertising and social media business issues. Joe was raised in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts and received a J.D. from Harvard Law School, a masters in international affairs from Columbia, and an A.B. in East Asian Studies and Government with honors from Harvard College. He currently lives in Los Altos, CA with his wife, daughter and son.

Joe Mansour leads the digital practice at FP1 Strategies, a full service public affairs firm that combines political expertise, advertising and innovative digital marketing that moves the needle and wins races.

Most recently, as the Digital Director at Public Notice, later known as Freedom partners chamber of Commerce, Joe built and managed an eight-person team. Together, they ran all digital marketing for the organization and its numerous allied groups.

At Public Notice, Joe masterminded the launch of Spendopedia.org, a Wikipedia-like resource of wasteful government spending whose unveiling was featured in The Washington Times. Spendopedia was referred to as “a new sheriff in town… going after the big, wasteful spenders” by Citizens Against Government Waste.

Prior to this, Joe lead digital efforts for a variety of clients and causes including No Labels, PhRMA, the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), Senator Marco Rubio, then-Congressman Jeff Flake and The Heritage Foundation, among others.

As the 43rd Comptroller of the City of New York, John C. Liu is responsible for ensuring the City’s financial health.

Independently elected and sworn into office on Jan. 1, 2010, Comptroller Liu audits the finances and performance of City agencies, reviews City contracts, reports on the state of the City’s budget and economy, markets municipal bonds, and serves as custodian and trustee of the five New York City Pension Funds.

Since taking office, Liu has worked aggressively to ensure that New Yorkers’ tax dollars are spent wisely. In three years, he has produced more than $3 billion in cost savings for the City by vigorously rooting out wasteful City spending on consultants and technology contracts. Audits of the CityTime automated payroll system and a long-delayed 911 call center have brought to light hundreds of millions of dollars of mismanagement and malfeasance.

One of America’s pre-eminent proponents of government transparency, Liu launched the Checkbook NYC website in order to provide the public with unprecedented access to information about all expenditures in the City budget. Part of “My Money NYC,” a suite of online applications that enables viewing of City contract and pension data and live webcasts of Pension Board investment meetings, Checkbook NYC was judged by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group as the premier municipal transparency site in the country.

Liu earned his bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton in mathematical physics. He lives in Flushing, Queens, with his wife, Jenny, and their son, Joey.

John Keefe is the Senior Editor on WNYC’s Data News Team, which helps infuse the public radio station’s journalism with data reporting, visualizations, crowdsourcing and sensor projects. Keefe was WNYC’s news director for nine years, has been an adjunct instructor at several NYC colleges and universities, and is an adviser to CensusReporter.org. He tweets at @jkeefe and blogs at johnkeefe.net. The team blog is datanews.wnyc.org.

John Lee is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and a member of the executive team at NGP VAN, the leading provider of technology to Democrats and progressive organizations. Prior to the merger of NGP and VAN in 2011, John led Voter Activation Network as its Chief Operating Officer, guiding the growth of the organization while managing high profile projects such as VAN’s integration with Blue State Digital for the Obama campaign’s Neighbor-to-Neighbor program.

Subsequent to the merger, John is aiding in the vision and execution of NGP VAN’s innovative new Social Organizing product, which allows supporters of a campaign to match their Facebook friends to the voter file and claim responsibility for them. Tech President writes that this tool “has the potential to change the way campaigns work.” John is also focused on NGP VAN’s mobile technology strategy via MiniVAN, continuing on the mission that VAN started when it first moved campaigns from paper based electoral rolls and district maps to the digital age.

John Paul Farmer serves as Director of Microsoft’s Technology & Civic Innovation group based in New York City. Previously, John was the Senior Advisor for Innovation in the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, where he co-founded and led the Presidential Innovation Fellows program, which brings top innovators and entrepreneurs from the private sector for tours of duty in government, in order to make game-changing progress on projects of national importance. He also served in the Administration as Senior Advisor for Healthcare, working on healthcare information technology such as Blue Button, delivery system reform and economic analyses. Previously, John worked in the investment industry for Credit Suisse and Lehman Brothers. He played professional baseball as a shortstop in the Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves minor league systems. John holds an MBA with honors from the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University and a BA with honors from Harvard University.

The oldest of 9 children growing up in a 3 bedroom house in inner city Richmond, VA – now the father of 9 children, John Pudner learned at a young age the importance of timing, negotiating and diplomacy. More importantly, he learned how to live on a shoe-string budget. Those early life lessons helped put him on the national political scene when in the 2014 primaries, he jump-started the campaign of Dave Brat, who would ultimately unseat U.S. Majority Leader Eric Cantor in one of the most unprecedented upsets in political history. Later in the general election of the same year, he would help defeat a 32-year incumbent state senator in Alabama’s general election. He managed campaigns for almost three decades. His now-famous strategy of outsmarting instead of outspending the opposition was born out of a hobby of extrapolating statistical data on sports teams. With an affinity for numbers and grassroots initiatives, John became known as the go-to-guy to help upstart candidates that didn’t have the financial backing needed to play in the political sandbox. During his career, he won 3 out of every 4 races in which he was involved. But through all his successes, John Pudner saw firsthand the influence of money on politics—the manipulation of the system and the loopholes that didn’t favor a transparent election— one in which only select major corporate donors and union bosses were the true winners. With a desire to now recreate the system instead of circumventing it, John Pudner will lead this team of ex-political wonks to help change the very industry in which they once thrived.

John Sampson joined Microsoft Corporation’s U.S. Government Affairs division in April 1998 and since then has worked in the company’s Washington, D.C.-based Federal government affairs office as its liaison to Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. With 25 years of experience working on and with Capitol Hill, John is widely recognized as an articulate industry ambassador, familiar with technology and Internet trends, and skilled at communicating the complexities, meaning of and policy challenges posed by technological change. In his 14 years at Microsoft, John has developed a proven record of establishing partnerships in support of strategic, long-term, big-bet initiatives.

In March 1998, John completed a ten-year stretch working for the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives, a period during which he developed a rare combination of legislative, political, management, publishing and technology experience. His Hill career culminated as a senior policy aide to House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas, a chief architect of the Contract with America and champion of such causes as the Military Base Realignment and Closure process, educational choice, elimination of agricultural subsidies, and the flat tax.

Starting in 1989, John spent his first three years on the Hill as an analyst writing for the Legislative Digest, the House Republican leadership’s weekly journal of bill summaries distributed to House Republicans, their staff and a mailing list of Washington decision makers. In 1992, John took the helm of the publication as its editor, and over the next two-and-a-half years overhauled its design, distribution and coverage. Always eager to embrace technology to enhance efficiency, John deployed a number of new tools, including the first computer-based broadcast fax network on Capitol Hill.

After Republicans swept the historic November 1994 elections, John was appointed to the House GOP transition team to aid in the development of the House’s new administrative structure. He soon thereafter oversaw the selection of computer and information systems for incoming Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Majority Leader Armey. The purchase included a sophisticated project management system — a key tool used by the leadership to help manage the frenetic first 100 days of the Contract with America.

In April 1995, John returned to the policy realm in the Majority Leader’s Office where, for the following three years he represented and advised Mr. Armey on a variety of issues, working with a cross-section of members and staff in support of his responsibilities as the manager of the House’s legislative calendar and floor schedule. During election years, on personal leave from the Majority Leader’s Office, John campaigned with Mr. Armey around the country for GOP incumbents and challengers.

A 24-year resident of the Washington, D.C. metro area, John was asked in 2002 to serve as President of the Board of Court Appointed Special Advocates of D.C. for Children, a non-profit social welfare organization that recruits and trains volunteers to represent the interests of abused and neglected foster children in the D.C. Family Court. He continues to serve CASA as a standing board member.

John was born and raised in San Francisco, California and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of California at San Diego in 1988. He lives in Arlington, Virginia with his wife, Kathryn Sheller, a graphic designer and former Art Director at The Washington Post, their eight year-old son, Paul, and five year-old daughter, Gwendolyn.

John Sullivan directs the Public Affairs Office at the U.S. Mission to the European Union. He previously served in press and cultural positions in U.S. Embassies in Central and South America, the Middle East, Korea, and Ukraine, as well as several tours in Washington DC. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Mr. Sullivan worked as a journalist and professor of theater arts.

Mr. Sullivan has a BA in Political Science and an MFA in theater arts, both from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is fluent in English and Spanish and also speaks Ukrainian and Korean.

John Wonderlich is the Interim Executive Director for the Sunlight Foundation and one of the nation’s foremost advocates for open government. John spearheads Sunlight’s goal of changing government at every level, by opening up key data sources and information to make government more accountable to citizens. He is one of the foremost authorities on transparency policy, from legislation and accountability in Congress to ethics and information policy in the executive branch. John has spoken internationally on technology and transparency and has testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. He has appeared on NPR, Fox News and C-SPAN, and his expertise has been cited by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other media outlets.