J. Kyle Bass is a Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Conservation Equity Management, an environmental sustainability private equity firm founded in 2021. Bass is an avid landowner and conservationist in the state of Texas since 2003. He is also the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Hayman Capital Management, an investment manager of private funds focused on global event-driven opportunities.

Mr. Bass is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the recipient of the 2019 Foreign Policy Association Medal for his responsible internationalism. Mr. Bass has testified as an expert witness before the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

Mr. Bass has spoken on global economics, national security, geopolitics, and the architecture of the Chinese financial system at various universities, including Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley, University of Chicago, University of Texas, and the University of Virginia. Mr. Bass is the former Chair of the Risk Committee of the Board of Directors of the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO), which manages approximately $65 billion.

Formerly, he was a Managing Director at Legg Mason and a Senior Managing Director at Bear Stearns. He graduated from Texas Christian University with a degree in finance. Bass is an Advisory Board member of the Hudson Institute’s China Center, an Executive Advisory Board member of the George W. Bush Presidential Center, and an Investment Advisory Board member to RIA NewEdge Wealth. He also serves on the boards of the Texas Wildlife Association Foundation, Texas Department of Public Safety Foundation, and Melinda’s Foods.

Ray Washburne is the Chairman of Sunoco, L.P., and the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Charter Holdings, a private real estate investment company. Washburne is also the former President and Chief Executive Officer of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a self-sustaining US government agency that helps American businesses expand into developing markets by providing them with tools to manage risks associated with foreign direct investment. He served on the president’s Intelligence Advisory Board from May 2019 until January 2021 and the Board of the US Southern Command.

Washburne has a long history of working in business and has held several executive positions. Mr. Washburne is a member of the Advisory Council of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center and he co-founded and co-owns M Crowd Restaurant Group, which owns and operates Mi Cocina and The Mercury restaurants, with various locations around the United States. Additionally, he serves as the president and managing director of Highland Park Village.

Mr. Washburne actively participates in a number of associations, including global business organizations, nonprofits, and real estate councils, such as the World Presidents’ Organization, The Real Estate Council, International Council of Shopping Centers, Urban Land Institute, SMU O’Neil Center Advisory Board, SMU Tower Center, Dallas Museum of Art Committee on Collections, Baylor Health Care System Foundation and the Council of Foreign Relations.

Mr. Washburne recently funded the new Washburne Soccer and Track Stadium at SMU. In 2023, he was inducted into the North Texas Real Estate Hall of Fame and was honored with the SMU Distinguished Alumni Award. He is a graduate of Southern Methodist University and has served as an adjunct professor at SMU Cox School of Business.

Sunny Vanderbeck is an investor, entrepreneur, best-selling author, and former military leader. He is co-founder of Satori Capital, a multi-strategy investment firm founded on the principles of conscious capitalism, and he previously co-founded and served as CEO of technology company Data Return. For more than a decade, Sunny led that company through all phases of growth and transformation and received numerous honors, including an “Entrepreneur of the Year” finalist designation from Ernst and Young.

His experiences with Data Return, along with his subsequent involvement with dozens of private businesses at Satori, led Sunny to publish his first book, Selling Without Selling Out: How to Sell Your Business Without Selling Your Soul. The book serves as a roadmap for business leaders who face the unique challenges and quandaries involved in selling a business or taking on a financial partner.

Prior to founding Data Return, Sunny served as a Section Leader of the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment and led technical teams at Microsoft. Both roles helped him learn the value of principled leadership in extraordinarily challenging situations. Sunny continues to share his thoughts on leadership, strategy, business operations, and long-term value creation as a sought-after speaker and as an advisor and board member to several private companies.

John Phelan is the Founder and Chairman of Rugger Management, LLC a private investment firm based in Palm Beach, Florida. Prior to launching Rugger, he Co-founded MSD Capital, L.P. (“MSD”), which was founded in 1998 and is the private investment firm for Michael Dell, the founder and CEO of Dell Technologies. John was also the Co-founder of MSD Partners, L.P. (“MSD Partners”), a SEC-registered investment adviser that was formed to enable a select group of outside investors to invest in strategies that were initially developed by MSD. John is Chairman Emeritus of MSD and during his leadership at MSD the firm posted double digit net returns and over $20 billion in profits.

Prior to forming MSD, John was a Principal for seven years at ESL Partners, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based investment firm. At ESL, John was responsible for ESL’s Special Situation and Distressed Investments and helped grow the firm from $50 million to over $2 billion in assets under management. Prior to ESL, Mr. Phelan was a Vice President at the Equity Group and was in charge of Acquisitions (Western Region) for the Zell-Merrill Lynch Real Estate Opportunity Funds. John began his career at Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he worked as a financial analyst in the Investment Banking Division.

John received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa, cum laude with distinction from S.M.U. with a B.A. in Economics and Political Science. John holds a General Course degree with an emphasis in Economics and International Relations from the London School of Economics. He is on the Board of Trustees at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Aspen Art Museum (Chairman), Spirit of America and Third Option Foundation. He is also involved with his respective alma maters and currently serves on the Board of Dean’s Advisors for the Harvard Business School, the Investment Committee for the S.M.U. Endowment, and the North American Advisory Board for the London School of Economics (LSE). John and his wife Amy have permanently endowed free admission to the Aspen Art Museum and recently named the Phelan US Centre at LSE.

Mr. McKnight is Co-Chief Executive Officer of Fortress and a Managing Partner and Co-CIO of the Fortress Credit Funds business. Mr. McKnight serves on the investment committee for the Credit Funds, is a member of the Fortress Management and Credit Leadership Committees and is the head of the firm’s Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Committee. Prior to joining Fortress in February 2005, Mr. McKnight worked at Fir Tree Partners where he was responsible for analyzing and trading high yield and convertible bonds, bank debt, derivatives and equities for the value-based hedge fund. Prior to Fir Tree, Mr. McKnight worked at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in Leveraged Finance and the Distressed Bank Debt trading group.

Mr. McKnight serves on the Board of Advisors for the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, the Center for New American Security, the Board of Advisors for SMU’s Cox School of Business Alternative Asset Management Center, and on the UT Southwestern Medical Center President’s Advisory Board. In addition, Mr. McKnight is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. McKnight received a B.A. in Economics from the University of Virginia.

Paul Carbone is Co-Founder and Vice Chairman of Pritzker Private Capital (PPC). In 2012, Paul joined PPC’s predecessor company and later PPC as Managing Partner and led the Firm’s growth and development for more than ten years. Prior to PPC, Paul was the Director and Managing Partner of Robert W. Baird & Co.’s Private Equity Group (a buyout, growth and venture investor) after serving as Co-Director of Investment Banking responsible for Robert W. Baird & Co.’s Mergers and Acquisitions Advisory practice. Previously, Paul was Senior Vice President in the Investment Banking Group at Kidder, Peabody & Co.

In 2016, Paul received the Stanley C. Golder Award from the Illinois Venture Capital Association in recognition of his contributions to the private equity industry in Illinois. Paul has served as an EY Entrepreneur of the Year regional judge as well as national judge for the Family Business category. In 2020 and 2022, Family Capital magazine named Paul one of the Top 100 most influential people among family investors and family enterprises. In 2024, Paul was named to Family Capital magazine’s FamCap 50 as one of the top investors in the world of family capital.

Paul serves on the board of trustees or directors of The University of Chicago, University of Chicago Medical Center, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Larry H. Miller Company, and Misericordia Home. He also serves on the Board of Advisors for Morgan Street Holdings. In addition, Paul is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago and the Economic Club of Chicago. Paul received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and his B.A., Phi Beta Kappa, from The College of the University of Chicago.

Mr. O’Brien serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of A.G. Hill Partners, LLC, a family office with diverse interests in real estate, energy, private equity, and public securities. The family owns and operates Highland Park Village, a luxury outdoor shopping center in Dallas, Texas, and develops other multi-family, retail, hospitality and senior housing properties across the country. In addition, the family sponsored the launch of Expedition Capital Advisors, LLC, a real estate private equity fund sponsor in 2016. Previously, Mr. O’Brien was a Partner and Chief Operating Officer at Highside Capital, a multi-billion-dollar equity hedge fund in Dallas. He was a Partner and Portfolio Manager at Petra Capital Partners, a private equity fund for six years.

Mr. O’Brien was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs in the private wealth management and prime brokerage divisions. He started his career as an investment banking associate at The Robinson-Humphrey Company in Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. O’Brien graduated from the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce in 1986 and earned his Master of Business Administration from Harvard in 1992. He lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife and three children.

JR Gibbens serves as the Office of Strategic Capital’s Chief Investment Officer in the U.S. Department of Defense. OSC’s mission is to attract and scale private capital in support of national security. OSC’s current focus is on the development and implementation of new financial tools to increase public-private investment in our Nation’s enabling and frontier technologies.

Previously, JR was Director, Private Capital Markets at Capstone Partners and co-founded and served as COO/CFO of Trumbull, a Forbes Top 25 Veteran Founded company and one of Entrepreneur’s 100 Brilliant Companies. JR spent 11 years on active duty where he flew F-16s and was handpicked for a selective unit responsible for the development and employment of advanced uncrewed systems. JR continues to serve in the Air National Guard.

JR has an MBA from Rice University and a Masters of Science in Operations Research from SMU, as well as a Bachelors of Science from the United States Air Force Academy.

Over the past 25 years Nick has gained significant experience across the defense, national security and government contracting sectors of the US, UK, Australia and other allied nations. During this period, he has seen service as a Commissioned Officer in the Royal Navy, has acted as an advisor to government departments on the matter of private capital participation in the national security related innovation ecosystem and has undertaken corporate roles globally ranging from government sector business development to venture capital and lower middle market investment banking focused on the aerospace, defense and the government sector.

Nick served in the Royal Navy with UK Special Forces, deploying in various combat roles with the Special Boat Service alongside other allied special operations units. His military service culminated in an appointment to Naval Headquarters in the United Kingdom where he was responsible for the deployment of special to task mission specific technologies to UK forces deployed on operations. On leaving the Royal Navy he gained experience in strategic business development management within the government contracting sector and was directly responsible for winning more than $200MM of new US, UK and Australian government funded business over a 4-year period. Subsequently Nick co-founded a dual use technology integration startup with the former CEO of a major UK/US defense company.

Nick holds a MSc in Engineering and Management from the University of Portsmouth, BEng (Hons) in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Newcastle, Certificate in Terrorism Studies from the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews, FINRA Series 7, 63 and 79 licenses along with various other professional business, finance and management related certificates and diplomas. Additionally, Nick was recently invited to join as a Fellow the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, an Australian and US government funded think tank focused on national security and addressing the defense challenges emerging in the Pacific.

Manning currently serves as the Chief of Commercial Strategy for DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), a DOD Agency, with an annual +$4.3B budget for high risk, future high value R&D technology research investments.

Manning is a co-founder of 1920 Group, a women-led firm and Element3, a critical material extraction company. Prior, Manning was a technology investment executive at two leading US public energy companies, Pioneer Natural Resources (NYSE: PXD) and Cimarex (NYSE: CTRA), that advanced the US as a “global energy powerhouse”. Manning was co-founder of investment firm Malibu IQ, (NASDAQ: NVTS). Manning was Managing Director of Nanoholdings, a clean-tech venture fund, backed by Schlumberger (NYSE: SLB); and two term Texas Governor Rick Perry appointee to Texas’ $480M+ Emerging Tech Fund.

Manning started her career as an entrepreneur with several successful nanotechnology startup exits, including Zyvex, Authentix (acquired by the Carlyle Group), and former New York new media telecom corporation Winstar (NYSE: IDT), that commercialized DOD wireless communications technology. Manning was voted as one of the “Top 25 Women in Technology” in Texas.

David Rader is a Senior Advisor in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). In this role, he works on economic security, statecraft, and warfare issues across the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), Office of Strategic Capital (OSC), and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Previously, he was the Deputy Director of Global Investment & Economic Security at the Department of Defense. In this role, his portfolio focus was on national economic security, foreign direct investment, trade and industrial policy, and matters under the purview of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Before serving in government, David held roles as a Manager in Transaction Advisory Services at Ernst & Young (EY), a Vice President in the Corporate & Investment Bank at J.P. Morgan, as an Associate in the National Security Research Division at the RAND Corporation, and he also served as an infantryman in the U.S. Army.

David holds a BA in Political Science, MA in Government, JD in Corporate Bankruptcy Law, an MS in Finance, and an MBA in Economics; he is currently completing a graduate degree in International Relations from Cambridge.

Dr. Goodwin is the Associate Dean of Graduate Programs and Executive Education and serves as a Professor of Practice in the Department of Finance at The Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University. His research and teaching focus on M&A, corporate governance, and shareholder activism. Dr. Goodwin held positions at Columbia University and Harvard University and has nearly 25 years of experience in the financial sector with firms such as Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo Securities.

Dr. Goodwin earned a Ph.D. in Business Administration from Oklahoma State University, with a focus on finance. Dr. Goodwin holds an MBA, with a concentration in finance, from the J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and attended The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He graduated cum laude with a BSBA from the Collins College of Business at The University of Tulsa and was the recipient of the Jess Chouteau Outstanding Senior Award.

Dr. Goodwin serves on the Board of Directors of the Principal Private Credit Fund (Audit Chair), Principal Real Asset Fund (Audit Chair), Crystal Clearwater Resources, Harvard University Club of Dallas, NACD North Texas Chapter, Investment Committee of the Dallas Regional Chamber, and the Advisory Board of Truist Financial Corporation (NYSE: TFC). Additionally, Dr. Goodwin serves as an advisor to The Applied Corporate Governance Institute at The Center for Global Enterprise. He was a Managing Director and Head of Investment Banking for the Southwest U.S. at Wells Fargo Securities.

Mr. Sharpe’s investing career spans more than 30 years. He has held positions in investment management for Goldman Sachs, investment banking for Wasserstein Perella, and is the founder and chairman of The Family Office Association (“TFOA”), a peer network of single family offices founded in 2007. In addition, he founded a venture capital incubator in the UK, built a global EB-5 investment business, and worked on strategic initiatives for Dell Inc. Mr. Sharpe is currently an Operating Partner with Satori Capital, LLC, a Texas-based multi-strategy investment firm founded upon the principles of conscious capitalism, a business approach that emphasizes extraordinary long-term outcomes for all stakeholders. Mr. Sharpe also teaches an MBA class on “The Entrepreneurial Family Office” as an Adjunct Professor at SMU Cox School of Business. Mr. Sharpe holds an M.A. from Cambridge University, a M.Phil. from Oxford University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is active in the community and has served on the Board of the Holocaust Museum Houston, the HBS Angels, and the Investment Committee for two Texas-based foundations.