Nicole Bacharan is a historian, political analyst and radio and television consultant specialized in American society and relations between the United States and Europe. She is a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California, and an affiliated scholar with the National Foundation for Political Science (Science-Po) She is the author of numerous essays and books, including several bestsellers; among them: Le guide des élections américaines 2012 ((The guide to the 2012 US Election, with Dominique Simonnet), 11-Septembre, le jour du chaos (also with Dominique Simonnet, 2011), Les Noirs américains, des champs de coton à la Maison Blanche (American Blacks: From the Cotton Fields to the White House, 2010), Faut-il avoir peur de l´Amérique? (Should We Fear America?, 2005). She frequently appears on television - TF1, France2, France3, France5, TV5, M6, Arte, Histoire, Bloomberg, Télévision Suisse Romande, CNN - and gives interviews to the local, national and foreign press – Le Figaro, La Croix, L’Express, Le Point, Le Nouvel Observateur, Le Monde, Libération, Le Parisien, the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR. She is also a radio contributor for Europe 1 on international politics, questions concerning the United States and transatlantic relations. On September 11, 2001, live from the France 2 evening news show hosted by David Pujadas, she left a mark on French television-watchers when she said “Tonight, we are all Americans,” a phrase repeated the following day in the newspaper Le Monde.

Joel Benenson, founder and CEO of Benenson Strategy Group, is the only Democratic pollster in history to have played a leading role in three winning presidential campaigns — making him the "go-to guy for any politico wanting to take the public´s temperature," according to GQ magazine. Joel has been the chief pollster and a senior strategist for President Barack Obama since the beginning of his 2008 campaign, and worked on President Bill Clinton’s polling team during the 1996 race. Since founding BSG in 2000, Joel has served as a strategic advisor and consultant to heads of state, domestic political leaders at all levels, Fortune 100 CEOs, and leaders of major advocacy and nonprofit institutions. His unique combination of communications expertise and astute analysis has led clients across sectors to win in the most challenging competitive situations. Joel’s corporate clients have included CEOs and top executives at Campbell Soup Company, HBO, Toyota, the NFL, Procter & Gamble, Panera Bread Co., Hearst, Blue Star Energy, and MSNBC. In the advocacy and nonprofit sector, he has worked with leading institutions including AARP, League of Conservation Voters, SEIU, Clean Energy Works and Grocery Manufacturers of America. Joel has been named "Pollster of the Year" by the American Association of Political Consultants, among the "most powerful" people in D.C. by GQ magazine, and a part of "the new lineup in Washington" by Newsweek magazine. He was also included on The New Republic´s "The O-List," which identified the 30 most influential players in Obama´s 2008 run for office. Joel and the firm also won the Ogilvy Award Gold Medal for Government and Public Service. Before becoming a pollster in 1995, Joel was a political journalist for the Daily News in New York and served as communications director for Governor Mario Cuomo’s 1994 campaign. He was also previously a Vice President at the New York ad agency FCB.

Mario Calvo-Platero has been covering the U.S. since 1980 and Presidential elections since the Reagan Mondale contest of 1984. As part of his duties, Mr. Platero covers most of the President’s international trips. He is the author of several books, including Il Modello Americano, Egemonia e Consenso nell’Era della Globalizzazione, an award winning book on the American model for economic development and multilateralism. He has founded a media company in New York which now belongs to il Sole 24 Ore Group, has launched and edits ReviewItaly a monthly English language publication about business and politics in Italy, as well as the website America24. He is also the host of a daily 15 minute talk show in Italy about America on radio 24, the equivalent of NPR in Italy.

Bill Carrick is a Democratic strategist and media consultant. He is the founder of the firm, Carrick Consulting, which specializes in the creation, production, and placement of advertising for candidates, ballot initiatives, and organizations. Clients have included: President Bill Clinton, Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt, US Senators Dianne Feinstein and Charles Schumer, California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, Los Angeles Mayors Dick Riordan and James Hahn, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Carrick developed communications and advertising strategies for ballot initiatives including the defeat of tort reform initiatives, school vouchers, San Fernando Valley and Hollywood secession from Los Angeles, and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s redistricting scheme. He was a media strategist for successful campaigns to pass a ballot measure enacting New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s education reform initiatives and to approve a new Los Angeles City Charter. A native of South Carolina, Carrick began his career in politics there and worked for local and statewide candidates, including South Carolina Governor Dick Riley. He went on to work in Washington, D.C. as Senator Ted Kennedy’s political director and as the national campaign manager for the 1988 Gephardt for President Campaign before moving to California. In 2009, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine appointed Bill to serve as member of the Democratic Change Commission to recommend reforms to the Presidential delegate selection process. Carrick has also worked as an on-air political analyst for ABC’s This Week, CNN, KABC-TV, and NPR.

Alex Castellanos is one of the Republican Party´s best known and most successful media consultants and strategists. Castellanos has served as media consultant to seven U.S. Presidential campaigns. He served on the John McCain for President Ad Council, worked as a senior strategist for the 2008 Romney for President campaign and as a key creative member of the Bush-Cheney 2000 and 2004 campaigns. He has been credited with the discovery of the political “soccer-mom,” called “father of the attack ad” and was named by G.Q. Magazine as one of The 50 Most Powerful People in D.C. Castellanos has helped elect nine U.S. Senators, six Governors, and enjoys almost four decades of political consulting experience, both abroad and in the United States. Castellanos brings a wealth of campaign strategy, public opinion research and communications experience to corporate communications and public policy campaigns. In 2008 he was honored as a Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 2009, he became a founding partner of Purple Strategies, the merger between the Democratic firm Issue and Image and the Republican firm National Media Inc. In addition to his Purple Strategies work, he is a CNN contributor, speaks to groups across the nation and offers political commentary for Politico, the Huffington Post and other publications.

Michael Donilon is one of America’s leading media consultants and political strategists. Over the course of his career, he has been part of three winning U.S. presidential campaigns and more than 25 winning U.S. senate and gubernatorial campaigns. These campaigns include the Clinton/Gore campaign in 1992 and the Obama/Biden campaigns in 2008 and 2012, as well as the campaigns of Governor Doug Wilder (VA), Governor Bob Casey (PA), Senator and Governor Jon Corzine (NJ), Senator Bill Nelson (FL), Senator Jack Reed (RI), and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (RI). Donilon has served as Counselor to the Vice President of the United States. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and Georgetown University Law School.

Kevin Madden was Senior Advisor and Spokesmen for the Romney 2012 campaign. He is Executive Vice President of Public Affairs for JDA Frontline, a firm with offices in Washington, D.C. and Charleston, S.C. Prior to joining JDA Frontline, he was a Managing Director with The Glover Park Group, a leading public affairs firm based in Washington D.C. During the 2008 election cycle, Madden served as National Press Secretary and Senior Communications Strategist for the Romney presidential campaign. He previously served as Press Secretary to then-House Majority Leader and now-House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). In that capacity, Madden was a top communications strategist for the House of Representatives leadership office, charged with directing legislative action on a wide range of issues including financial services, energy, national security, legal reform, transportation and telecommunications policy among others. Madden also served as the Department of Justice’s national spokesman on issues ranging from national security to litigation before the federal courts. During the 2004 presidential campaign, Madden was a member of the communications team directing President George W. Bush’s re-election effort and was the president’s campaign spokesman for regional, national and international news organizations.

Steve McMahon is a Democratic strategist and co-founder (with Republican strategists Alex Castellanos and Bruce Haynes) of Purple Strategies, LLC, a bi-partisan advertising, communications and public affairs firm, whose clients include Fortune 500 companies, trade associations and business groups. McMahon got his start in politics on the Senate and political staff of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, where he served as Assistant Press Secretary and, later, as Deputy Director of Kennedy’s PAC, the Fund for a Democratic Majority. McMahon began working as a political strategist and media consultant in 1987, and has worked on dozens of senate, congressional, gubernatorial and mayoral campaigns across the country. He also worked in the U.S. presidential campaigns of House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt and California Governor Jerry Brown. He served as senior political strategist and media consultant for Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign. In 2008, his firm produced the Democratic National Committee’s advertising in support of then-Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign against Senator John McCain. On the international front, McMahon and his partners have worked as strategic advisors or campaign consultants on three successful national campaigns—in Venezuela for Carlos Andres Peres; in Nicaragua for Violetto Chamarro; and in Greece for Andreas Papandreaou. McMahon appears regularly as a political commentator on MSNBC, CNN and FOX News, and has appeared often on the NBC Evening News, ABC World News Tonight, and The Today Show.

Marylouise Oates is an author and political activist who teaches at The Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at NYU. She holds an M.Div from Yale. She was the youngest national reporter for United Press International, covering the 1964 Democratic Convention, the Philadelphia riots and New Jersey politics. She then moved to the National Desk in New York City. Oates joined the “Dump Johnson” movement, and served as Deputy National Press Secretary to McCarthy for President. She was the journalist-in-residence at The Daily Californian, the University of California, Berkeley, 1968-9. She then returned to Washington, D.C., where she was the press secretary for the National Vietnam Moratorium and subsequently for the National Welfare Rights Organization. She has been involved in the gay and lesbian civil rights movement since the 1970s. She became a reporter and then the nationally syndicated society columnist for the Los Angeles Times, where she refocused coverage to include minority concerns, the power of political money, and the emerging AIDS crisis. She is the author of three novels; one of them, Making Peace, which describes the turmoil and intrigues of the anti-war movement, was praised in the New York Times for capturing the spirit of that era. She worked with First Lady Hillary Clinton in the global initiative to empower women, Vital Voices, and was a founder of the Friends of the Communities of Northern Ireland, which has raised and allocated more than 13 million dollars to community-building and peace-building projects.

Steve Schmidt is a strategic counselor to business leaders and major corporations across the U.S. and globally. Recognized as one of the top public affairs and political strategists in the country, he has been described as a “damage-control master.” Schmidt served as a senior advisor to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign and, before that, as Campaign Manager for the re-election of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006. Before the Schwarzenegger campaign, Schmidt was a member of the White House senior staff as Deputy Assistant to the President and Counselor to the Vice President. In that position, he advised on a wide range of issues and worked at the intersection of public communications, policy development, legislative advocacy and political strategy. During his tenure at the White House, Schmidt directed strategic communications for the nomination of Chief Justice Roberts and led the nomination team for Justice Alito. Schmidt served as one of the top strategists on President Bush’s 2004 re-election and was a member of the senior strategic planning group that directed the campaign. He was responsible for directing and implementing the campaign’s daily tactical and strategic communications effort, overseeing rapid response, regional media, research, Internet, and television and radio operations. Before that, Schmidt worked on Capitol Hill as the Communications Director for the National Republican Congressional Committee where he served as chief communications and media strategist for the U.S. House of Representatives Republican majority during the historic 2002 midterm elections.

Beppe Severgnini has been writing for Corriere della Sera since 1995. Since 2011, he has served as a columnist for the Financial Times. His most recent book is La pancia degli italiani. Berlusconi spiegato ai posteri (Rizzoli, 2010), which was published in English as Mamma mia! Berlusconi´s Italy Explained to Posterity and Friends Abroad (Rizzoli, 2011). Since 1998, Severgnini moderates the online forum ´Italians´ at Corriere della Sera (www.corriere.it/italians). He is the most-followed Italian journalist on Twitter (https://twitter.com/#!/beppesevergnini).

Robert Shrum is a Senior Fellow and Clinical Professor at The Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at NYU. He was senior advisor and strategist for the presidential campaigns of Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. He has been a senior advisor to the campaigns of Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel, the British Labour Party, and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern. He was speechwriter for Senator George McGovern during the 1972 presidential campaign and for Senator Ted Kennedy during and after the 1980 campaign. He served as the Senator Kennedy’s press secretary from 1980 to 1984. From 1985 to 2004, he was the media and strategic consultant to 30 winning U.S. Senate campaigns, 10 winning Governors’ campaigns, and the Mayors of virtually every major American city. Shrum has published widely in various magazines and newspapers including New York Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The New Republic and Slate. He is currently a columnist for The Daily Beast and has frequently appeared as a television commentator on MSNBC, CNBC, CBS’s “Face the Nation,” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.” His political memoir No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner, published in June 2007, was a national bestseller.

Dominique Simonnet is a writer, publisher and journalist, and former senior editor at the French weekly newsmagazine L’Express. He is the author of numerous fiction and non-fiction books and created and anchored several TV and radio programs on national networks, contributing to popularize science, arts and culture for a general audience. He regularly teaches at French schools of journalism. His last non-fiction book Le Guide des élections américaines, Obama vs Romney (with Nicole Bacharan) was published in France in August 2012 (Perrin Publisher). He is also the author of « 9/11 , the Day of Chaos » (Perrin, 2011). His last fiction book is L’Heure de pointe (Actes Sud, 2010). His best seller La Plus Belle Histoire du Monde sold over 300 000 copies in France and was translated in 25 countries; it appeared in United States as Origins (Arcade Publishing). With Nicole Bacharan, he wrote L’Amour expliqué à nos enfants (Love Explained to Our Children) and a serie of novels for young adults (Nemo). He was also a founding member and a theorician of the French environmental movement.

Ellyn Toscano is Executive Director of New York University Florence. She is the founder of La Pietra Dialogues, a center at NYU Florence which organizes and sponsors public policy conferences, and the producer of The Season at Villa La Pietra, a summer festival which assembles artists, writers, musicians and public intellectuals to produce new works or reinterpretations of classics. Before arriving at New York University Florence, Toscano served as Chief of Staff and Counsel to Congressman Jose Serrano of New York for two decades, was his chief policy advisor on legislative, political and media concerns, directed his work on the Appropriations Committee, and represented the Congressman in delegations around the world. She also served as counsel to the New York State Assembly Committee on Education for 9 years, drafting and negotiating legislation and budget on elementary and secondary education and served on the boards of several prominent arts and cultural institutions. She is currently on the board of trustees of the International School of Florence, Italy. A lawyer by training, Toscano earned an LLM in International Law from New York University School of Law.

Joshua A. Tucker is Professor of Politics and (by courtesy) Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University, a co-Director of the NYU Social Media and Political Participation (SMaPP) laboratory (smapp.nyu.edu), and a co-author of the award winning Monkey Cage blog at The Washington Post. He is also the co-editor of the Journal of Experimental Political Science, the Vice-President of the Midwest Political Science Association and a Member of the Executive Board of the Association for the Study of East European and Eurasian Societies. Professor Tucker specializes in mass political behavior in East-Central Europe and the former Soviet Union, including elections and voting, the development of partisan attachment, public opinion formation, mass protest, and social media. He is the author of Regional Economic Voting: Russia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, 1990-99 (Cambridge University Press, 2006). His work has appeared in numerous academic journals, including the American Journal of Political Science, the British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of Politics, and the Annual Review of Political Science, and his opinions have been published in The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera English, Time, and the International Herald Tribune. In 2006, he was awarded the Emerging Scholar Award for the top scholar in the field of Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior within 10 years of the doctorate. In 2012 he was part of an interdisciplinary four-person team of NYU faculty to win one the National Science Foundation´s inaugural INSPIRE - CREATIV grants. Follow him on Twitter @j_a_tucker.

Paolo Valentino is Senior Foreign Policy Columnist at Corriere della Sera since September 2010. He served as Washington Bureau Chief from 2007-2010, covering the Obama ’08 campaign in depth. Before his departure he was accorded a one on one interview with President Obama in the Oval Office. Before arriving in Washington he served as Moscow Bureau Chief from 1990-1995, covering the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of the new Russia, and as Berlin Bureau Chief from 1995-2007. He has also served as correspondent for Corriere della Sera in Brussels, covering the EEC and NATO, and as a staff reporter at the foreign desk in Milan. In 1988 he covered Jesse Jackson’s presidential primary campaign in the U.S. Mr. Valentino graduated with a degree in Political Science from the University of Florence (1980). He earned an M.A. in International Economics from Cambridge University (1981) and served as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University (1989-1990), where he studied the American Presidency and American foreign policy at the Kennedy School of Government.