Stephen Goldsmith is Daniel Paul Professor of Government and the Director of the Innovations in American Government Program (on leave) at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Stephen was recently named Deputy Mayor for Operations by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City. He is former Chair of the Corporation for National and Community Service and previously served two terms as Mayor of Indianapolis, America's 12th largest city. As mayor, he reduced government spending, cut the city's bureaucracy, held the line on taxes, eliminated counterproductive regulations, and identified more than $400 million in savings. He reinvested the savings by leading a transformation of downtown Indianapolis that has been held up as a national model. Stephen was the chief domestic policy advisor to the George W. Bush campaign in 2000 and was district attorney for Marion County, Indiana from 1979 to 1990. Stephen has authored a number of books, including Governing by Network: the New Shape of the Public Sector,Putting Faith in Neighborhoods: Making Cities Work through Grassroots Citizenship and The Twenty-First Century City'; Resurrecting Urban America.
Gigi Georges is Director of the Innovation Strategies Initiative at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. She was previously a Managing Director and co-founder of the New York office of The Glover Park Group, a leading strategic communications consulting firm. Georges also served as Communications Director for the New York City Department of Education, where she was a key strategist in the development of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s reform agenda for the nation’s largest public school system. She previously served as State Director for Senator Hillary Clinton and as a Special Assistant to the President in the Clinton Administration, where she coordinated domestic policy issues for the National Economic Council. Georges has also held key roles in a number of political campaigns, including Hillary Clinton’s 2000 and 2006 Senate campaigns. In 2008‐09, Georges was a Harvard Kennedy School Visiting Fellow, and a contributing author to Stephen Goldsmith’s The Power of Social Innovation: How Civic Entrepreneurs Ignite Community Networks for Good (Jossey‐Bass, 2010). She is also co‐author and editor of two books: 100 Successful College Application Essays and The Harvard Independent’s Insider’s Guide to Prep Schools, both published by Penguin Books. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wellesley College, received her master’s degree in public affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and is a Ph.D. candidate at NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service.
Tim Glynn Burke, research associate at the Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, coordinates research, content development and dissemination related to social innovation. He managed the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation-funded Executive Session on Transforming Cities through Civic Entrepreneurship at Harvard. Tim is a 2006 graduate of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he studied international relations with a focus on democracy promotion in U.S. foreign policy. Prior to joining the Ash Center, Tim enjoyed nonprofit roles in the areas of affordable housing, youth development, and community relations. Tim received a B.S. in public health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1997.
