Business and Society Program

Business and Society Program Staff Profiles

JUDITH SAMUELSON
Executive Director
info[at]aspenbsp.org

Judith Samuelson is the Executive Director of the Business and Society Program. She created the policy program for the Aspen Institute in 1998. The Program is dedicated to developing leaders for a sustainable global society.

Ms. Samuelson's work experience spans the business, government and nonprofit sectors. She joined the Ford Foundation in 1989 and served through 1996 as Director of the Office of Program-Related Investments, the Foundation’s social investment fund. In 1994 she helped launch the Foundation’s Corporate Involvement Initiative, a comprehensive effort to encourage private-nonprofit partnerships and facilitate business opportunities with broad social benefits.

Prior to joining the Ford Foundation, Ms. Samuelson managed a sales and lending team at Bankers Trust Company. From 1974-1980 she worked in Sacramento, California as a lobbyist and legislative aid on state health and education issues and in the Governor’s office of Planning and Research.

Ms. Samuelson holds a Master's degree from the Yale School of Management. She sits on the Board of ACCION-New York.

 NANCY MCGAW
 Deputy Director
 nancy.mcgaw[at]aspeninstitute.org

 Nancy McGaw is Deputy Director of the Business and Society Program at the Aspen Institute and Director of the Center for Business Education. She leads research initiatives to uncover trends in corporate leadership and management education and oversees the Center’s programs including: Beyond Grey Pinstripes, an alternative ranking of business schools and global database; CasePlace.org, an online resource to help faculty and business practitioners integrate social, ethical and environmental issues into their teaching and research; and MBA student attitude research.

She also directs the First Movers Fellowship program, an innovation lab for exceptional business professionals who have demonstrated an ability and passion for imagining new products, services, and business models that achieve profitable business growth and lasting, positive social impacts. The Fellowship provides both a leadership development opportunity for the individual Fellows and an organizational development strategy for the Fellows’ companies. The vision is that nurturing a critical mass of innovators across companies and industries will help ensure that business lives up to its full potential as a vehicle for positive social change.

Ms. McGaw joined the Aspen Institute in 2000 from a career in corporate banking and international development. From 1997 to 1999 she was Director of Corporate Partnerships at The Synergos Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing effective sustainable solutions to global poverty. Previously, she was a Managing Director at the Bank of America where she managed a team of professionals specializing in credit analysis and structuring for multinational corporate clients. She has worked overseas in Japan and England. She has a B.A. from Michigan State University and an M.A. from the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

 LINDA LEHRER
 Communications Director
 linda.lehrer[at]aspeninstitute.org

 Linda Lehrer joined the Business and Society Program in 2007 to lead communication efforts across the program, having previously served as the Communications Director for the whole Aspen Institute in the 1990s. Dr. Lehrer has spent her career in both media and education.

As a journalist, Dr. Lehrer reported for The Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune. Her articles have also appeared in Forbes, Ms., Health and publications of the American Management Association. During her seven years with Dow Jones, she set up and managed business operations for the European edition of The Wall Street Journal and conducted a study on the feasibility of creating an edition of The Journal for Latin America.

Dr. Lehrer has also worked in public television and as Communications Director for Scholastic, Inc., an educational multimedia company. While at Scholastic, she launched "The Magic School Bus," an award-winning children’s television show, as well as the first online service for students and teachers. In 1997, she helped organize the first Bipartisan Congressional Retreat, at which members of the U.S. House of Representatives explored more productive ways to work through their differences and build consensus. 

She received a B.A. in English Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles and a P.h.D. in English from Brown University, where she taught courses in drama and American literature. She has also taught journalism at Fordham and New York University.