The Honorable Nina Turner is the founder and President of We Are Somebody, a collation-building organization for the working class. She is also a Senior Fellow at The New School Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy. Nina Turner served on Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns as a national surrogate in 2016 and national co-chair in 2020. She continues to fight tirelessly to advance policy that improves the material conditions of working people across the United States of America and the world. She has also taken her message abroad to the United Kingdom.

Taifa Smith Butler is the President of Dēmos, a nonprofit public policy organization working to build a just, inclusive, multiracial democracy and economy. She has 30 years of experience in strategic communications, public policy research, and data analysis in the public, nonprofit, and private sectors. Prior to her tenure at Dēmos, she spent nearly a decade at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, where, from 2015 to 2021, she served as its president and CEO.

Darrick Hamilton is the University Professor and Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy at The New School, where he also founded and directs the Institute on Race, Power & Political Economy. He additionally serves as Chief Economist at the AFL-CIO. 

Widely regarded as one of the nation’s foremost public intellectuals, Professor Hamilton reimagines how an economy should work—identifying bold opportunities to invest in our human capacity and fostering collaborations that advance economic inclusion, social equity, and civic engagement in the United States and around the world. 

A pioneer in the economics subfield of identity group stratification, Professor Hamilton’s research has been featured in The New York Times, Mother Jones, Bloomberg Businessweek, and The Wall Street Journal. He has developed and advised on transformative policy proposals—such as baby bonds, guaranteed income, and a federal job guarantee—that have inspired legislation and shifted billions of dollars toward building a fair and inclusive economy. 

In 2025, Professor Hamilton was named the Katherine Hampson Bessell Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute and was recognized as a Freedom Scholar by the Marguerite Casey Foundation in its 2020 inaugural class. He has advised national and global leaders on economic policy, including the U.S. Joint Economic Committee and the Senate Banking Committee and also serves on the board of directors of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). 

Born and raised in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, Professor Hamilton earned his bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Fredrick D. Redmond is the secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO. On June 13, 2022, he was unanimously elected to the position as the highest ranking African American officer in the history of America’s labor movement. 

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond was first elected to this position by the AFL-CIO Executive Council on Aug. 20, 2021. He filled the vacancy of the executive vice president position from March to June 2022. He had previously served on the federation’s Executive Council since 2008. 

Redmond’s path to the federation’s second-highest office began in 1973, when he went to work at Reynolds Metals Co. in Chicago and became a member of the United Steelworkers (USW). He was active in his local union almost immediately, serving as shop steward and eventually vice president. He served three terms as local president. 

In 1996, Redmond joined the USW staff, working with local unions in the Chicago area before accepting a position at the international union’s headquarters in Pittsburgh in 1998. For decades, Redmond served the USW in various staff and leadership roles, assisting local unions, developing and conducting training programs, and bargaining contracts. 

As international vice president for human affairs, a position to which he was first elected to in 2006, Redmond oversaw the union’s Civil and Human Rights Department and worked with USW allies across the country in responding to attacks on voting rights and in combating economic inequality. 

Redmond has spent his entire life fighting for racial justice in the workplace and throughout our communities. In 2016, he was appointed to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s Advisory Commission on African American Affairs, and in 2020, Redmond was tapped to chair the AFL-CIO Task Force on Racial Justice, a body focused on taking concrete action to address America’s long history of racism and police violence against Black people. 

Redmond has served on the board of directors of Working America, the TransAfrica Forum, the Workers Defense League, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, Interfaith Worker Justice and, since 2007, has served as chair of the board of directors of the A. Philip Randolph Institute. In 2021, Redmond was elected president of the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas, a prestigious international post.

Elizabeth Wilkins is the president and CEO at Roosevelt. Elizabeth formerly served as chief of staff to the chair and director of the Office of Policy and Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. Before joining the FTC, Elizabeth was senior advisor to the White House chief of staff. 

Elizabeth has also worked in several senior leadership roles at the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, including senior counsel for policy and chief of staff. Elizabeth previously served as a law clerk to Associate Justice Elena Kagan of the US Supreme Court and to then-Chief Judge Merrick Garland of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Before law school, Elizabeth was a policy advisor in the White House Domestic Policy Council. She began her career as a political organizer for SEIU 32BJ in New York City. Elizabeth holds a BA from Yale University and a JD from Yale Law School.

Keesha Gaskins-Nathan is a nationally recognized leader in democratic reform, racial justice, and civic innovation. She currently serves as Director of the Democratic Practice–United States program at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, where she also led the now-completed Racial Justice Initiative (2020 - 2023). Her work centers on strengthening democratic systems and cultivating democratic culture to ensure full and fair political and economic opportunity for all.

With a career spanning organizing, litigation, and policy advocacy, Keesha brings a multidimensional lens to democratic transformation. Prior to joining the Fund, she was Senior Counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, where she directed the Redistricting and Representation Program. Her portfolio included voting rights, redistricting reform, and election law, with a particular focus on combating voter suppression.
Early in her career, Keesha served as Executive Director of both the League of Women Voters Minnesota and the Minnesota Women’s Political Caucus. She practiced for several years as a civil trial attorney and served as a Special Assistant Appellate Public Defender for the State of Minnesota.

Keesha currently serves as a Commissioner on the New York State Public Finance Board and is Co-Chair for the Funders Committee on Civic Participation. She is also a trustee of the League of Women Voters Education Fund and a board member of the Stonewall Community Foundation and Jobs with Justice Education Fund. Her advisory board roles include The Partnership Funds, Trusted Elections/Moxie Fund, and CIRCLE (Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement) at Tufts University.
She is a Senior Fellow at Atlantic Global, where she contributes to the Decolonizing Futures initiative. Her past honors include being a 2022–2023 Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity, the 2021–2022 Daynard Public Interest Fellow at Northeastern University School of Law, a 2019 Aspen Ideas Scholar, and a 2008 Feminist Leadership Fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute.

From 2020 to 2025, Keesha served as an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, teaching courses on democracy, movements, and public policy. She is also scheduled to guest lecture at the A.I. and Democracy course at William and Mary Law School with Prof. Margaret Hu.