Members of the Commission

Theodore B. Olson, Co-chair

Theodore B. Olson is a Partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Washington, D.C. office, a member of the firm’s Executive Committee, Co-Chair of the Appellate and Constitutional Law Group and the firm’s crisis Management Team.

Mr. Olson was Solicitor General of the United States during the period 2001-2004.  From 1981-1984 he was Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice.  Except for those two intervals he has been a lawyer with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. since 1965.

Mr. Olson has argued 55 cases before the United States Supreme Court.  He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.  He is currently Co-Chair of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy.  Mr. Olson is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Ronald W. Reagan Presidential Foundation and a Member of the Board or Directors of the National Center for State Courts.  He was a Visiting Scholar at the National Constitution Center, 2006-2007.

Marissa Mayer, Co-chair

Marissa Mayer joined Google in 1999 as the company’s first female engineer. Today, she leads the company’s product management and design efforts for search and search properties as well as the overall user experience, including the Google.com homepage. Google’s search product portfolio includes web search, images, news, books, products, maps, toolbar, iGoogle, and more. She also works with the company’s user experience team, developing designs and setting standards for the look-and-feel that keep the company’s products simple, intuitive, and useful.

Marissa serves as Co-Chair of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy. She also is a member of the board of trustees for the San Francisco Ballet, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Her contributions and leadership have been recognized by numerous publications includingNewsweek, BusinessWeek, Fast Company, Portfolio, and The New York Times. In 2008, at 33, Marissa became the youngest woman ever to be included on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women’s list (#50).

Concurrently with her full-time work, Marissa has taught introductory computer programming classes at Stanford University, which has recognized her with the Centennial Teaching Award and the Forsythe Award for her outstanding contributions to undergraduate education. Marissa earned both her B.S. in Symbolic Systems and her M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford, specializing in artificial intelligence for both degrees. She also holds an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology.

danah boyd, Commissioner

danah boyd is a social media researcher at Microsoft Research and a Fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Her research focuses on how people integrate technology into their everyday practices. She has been analyzing different social media phenomena for almost a decade.

Dr. boyd received her Ph.D. from the School of Information at the University of California-Berkeley. Her dissertation “Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics” examined teen engagement with social network sites like MySpace and Facebook. Her work was part of a MacArthur Foundation-funded project on digital youth and informal learning. The findings of this project are documented in the co-authored book Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media.

At the Berkman Center, danah co-directed the Internet Safety Technical Task Force to help identify risks and potential technical solutions for keeping children safe online. With support from the MacArthur Foundation, danah and her Berkman colleagues have created a Youth and Media Policy Initiative to further examine how research can inform policy.

Dr. boyd received a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Brown University and a master’s degree in sociable media from MIT Media Lab. She has worked as a researcher for various corporations, including Intel, Tribe.net, Google, and Yahoo! She sits on corporate, education, and non-profit advisory boards, and regularly speaks at industry conferences and events. She also created and managed a large online community for V-Day, a non-profit organization working to end violence against women and girls worldwide.

Dr. boyd actively shares her research on her blog (http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts) and via Twitter (@zephoria).

John S. Carroll, Commissioner

John S. Carroll has been Editor of the Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sunand Lexington Herald-Leader. He was a reporter in Vietnam, the Middle East and Washington. He was a member of the Pulitzer Prize board for nine years and was its chair in 2003. He is a graduate of Haverford College, has had fellowships at Harvard and Oxford and was the Knight Visiting Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School in 2006. He is now writing a nonfiction book and serving on several nonprofit boards.

Robert W. Decherd, Commissioner

Robert W. Decherd is Chief Executive Officer of A. H. Belo Corporation. A. H. Belo Corporation owns and operates The Dallas Morning News, Texas’ leading newspaper and winner of eight Pulitzer Prizes; the Denton Record-Chronicle; The Providence Journal, the oldest continuously-published daily newspaper in the U.S. and winner of four Pulitzer Prizes; and The Press-Enterprise, serving southern California’s Inland Empire region and winner of one Pulitzer Prize. A. H. Belo owns and manages various Web sites associated with the newspapers, as well as certain niche products, direct mail and commercial printing businesses.

A. H. Belo’s newspapers and related assets were spun off in February 2008 from Belo Corp., which Decherd led as CEO for the prior 21 years. Decherd has worked for A. H. Belo Corporation and Belo Corp. since his graduation from Harvard College in 1973. During his years as Belo Corp.’s CEO, the Company grew in revenue from $397 million to $1.6 billion. Net income grew from $20 million to more than $130 million. The Company’s three major newspapers and 20 television stations, including six in the top 14 markets, have won 13 Pulitzer Prizes, 25 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, 22 George Foster Peabody Awards and 38 national Edward R. Murrow Awards.

Decherd has played a significant role in the newspaper and television broadcasting industries, and in freedom of information organizations. He has served on the boards of the Newspaper Association of America and the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, which he helped found, as well as being appointed to Presidential and FCC commissions concerned with television industry issues.

Reed Hundt, Commissioner

Reed E. Hundt was Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from 1993-97. He was a member of Barack Obama’s Presidential Transition Team (2008-09) where he was the economic agency review group head. Reed is currently the Co-Chairman of the Coalition for the Green Bank as well as Principal at REH Advisors, a business consulting firm. Reed has also served as a Senior Adviser to McKinsey & Company, a strategic management consulting firm. He was Co-Chairman of the Forum on Communications and Society at the Aspen Institute (1998-2006). From 1982-1993 he was a Partner in the Washington, DC office of Latham & Watkins, a national and international law firm and was an associate in Los Angeles and Washington offices (1975-1982). Reed is on the Board of Directors of Intel Corporation, Infinera, and Data Domain, all public companies, and a member of the board of Telegent Systems and Vanu, Inc., both private companies. Reed has been Principal at Charles Ross Partners, a consulting firm, since 1997. He serves as a member of the District of Columbia, Maryland and California bars (former).

Books include In China’s Shadow: The Crisis of American Entrepreneurship (Yale University Press, 2006) and You Say You Want A Revolution: A Story of Information Age Politics (Yale University Press, 2000). Reed graduated from Yale College (1969) with a B.A. in History magna cum laude and with honors with exceptional distinction in history. He graduated from J.D. Yale Law School (1974) and is a member of the executive board of the Yale Law Journal. He is married to Elizabeth Katz and has three children: Adam (b. 1982), Nathaniel (b. 1985), and Sara (b. 1989).

Alberto Ibargüen, ex officio

Alberto Ibargüen is president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

The foundation is a leading supporter of journalism in the new media age, as well as the advancement of communities in the United States where the Knight brothers once owned newspapers. Ibargüen was publisher ofThe Miami Herald and of El Nuevo Herald. During his tenure, The Miami Herald won three Pulitzer Prizes and El Nuevo Herald won Spain’s Ortega y Gasset Prize for excellence in journalism. Previously, he was executive vice president of Newsday and earlier practiced law in Hartford, Connecticut.

Ibargüen is chairman of the board of the Newseum in Washington, D.C. and a board member of PepsiCo, AMR (American Airlines), ProPublica, Council on Foreign Relations and the World Wide Web Foundation. He is former board chairman of PBS.

He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. For his work to protect journalists in Latin America, he received a Maria Moors Cabot citation from Columbia University and an honorary doctorate from The George Washington University.

Walter Isaacson, ex officio

Walter Isaacson is the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies institute based in Washington, D.C. He has been the Chairman and CEO of CNN and the editor of Timemagazine.

He is the author of Einstein: His Life and Universe (April 2007), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003), and Kissinger: A Biography (1992), and coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986).

Isaacson was born on May 20, 1952, in New Orleans. He is a graduate of Harvard College and of Pembroke College of Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

He began his career at the Sunday Times of London and then the New Orleans Times-Picayune/States-Item. He joined Time magazine in 1978 and served as a political correspondent, national editor and editor of new media before becoming the magazine’s 14th editor in 1996. He became Chairman and CEO of CNN in 2001, and then president and CEO of the Aspen Institute in 2003.

He is the chairman of the board of Teach for America, which recruits recent college graduates to teach in underserved communities. He is also chairman of the board of the U.S.-Palestinian Partnership, set up by the U.S. State Department to promote economic and educational opportunities for the Palestinian people. He is on the Board of United Airlines, Tulane University, Society for Science & the Public, and the Bipartisan Policy Center. He was appointed after Hurricane Katrina to be the vice-chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

He lives with his wife and daughter in Washington, D.C.

Benjamin Todd Jealous, Commissioner

Benjamin Todd Jealous grew up believing that there was no higher calling than to further the cause of freedom in this country and in the world. It is a mindset he inherited from of his parents and grandparents. Their drive for community betterment blazed the trail for Jealous’ own deep commitment to social justice, public service and human rights activism. Now, as the 17th President and Chief Executive Officer of the NAACP, and the youngest person to hold the position in the organization’s nearly 100-year history, Jealous is well positioned to answer the call.

During his career, he has served as president of the Rosenberg Foundation, director of the U.S. Human Rights Program at Amnesty International and Executive Director of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), a federation of more than 200 black community newspapers. From his early days of organizing voter registration drives up until his nomination and election as NAACP president, Jealous has been motivated by civic duty and a constant need to improve the lives of America’s underrepresented. All things considered, Jealous’ leadership roles and active community involvement have well prepared him for his current duties as president of the NAACP. In fact, his path through journalism and the Black Press is not unlike several other former NAACP presidents, including Roy Wilkins, Walter White, Ida B. Wells and W.E.B. Dubois. As a student at Columbia University, he worked in Harlem as a community organizer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. On campus, Jealous led school-wide movements, including boycotts and pickets for homeless rights, a successful campaign to save full-need financial and need-blind admissions when other national universities were cutting such programs, and an environmental justice battle with the University.

These protests ultimately led to the suspension of Jealous and three other student leaders. Jealous used this time off to work as a field organizer helping to lead a campaign that prevented the State of Mississippi from closing two of its three public historically black universities, and converting one of them into a prison.

He remained in Mississippi to take a job at the Jackson Advocate, an African American newspaper based in the state’s capital. His reporting — for the frequently firebombed weekly — was credited with exposing corruption amongst high-ranking officials at the state prison in Parchman. His investigations also helped to acquit a small black farmer who had been wrongfully and maliciously accused of arson. His work at the Jackson Advocate eventually lead to his promotion to Managing Editor.

In 1997, Jealous returned to Columbia University and completed his degree in political science. With the encouragement of mentors, he applied and was accepted to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar where he earned a master’s degree in comparative social research.

Jealous eventually went on to serve as Executive Director of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA). While at the NNPA, he rebuilt its 90-year old national news service and launched a web-based initiative that more than doubled the number of black newspapers publishing online.

Most recently, Jealous was President of the Rosenberg Foundation, a private independent institution that funds civil and human rights advocacy to benefit California’s working families. Prior to that, he was Director of the U.S. Human Rights Program at Amnesty International. While there he led efforts to pass federal legislation against prison rape, rebuild public consensus against racial profiling in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks, and expose the widespread sentencing of children to life without the possibility of parole.

Active in civic life, Jealous is a board member of the California Council for the Humanities, and the Association of Black Foundation Executives, as well as a member of the Asia Society. He is married to Lia Epperson Jealous, a professor of constitutional law and former civil rights litigator with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. They presently reside in Washington, D.C. with their young daughter.

Mary Junck, Commissioner

Mary Junck joined Lee Enterprises in 1999 as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. She became president in 2000, Chief Executive Officer in 2001 and Chairman in 2002.

She previously held senior executive positions at the former Times Mirror Company. As executive vice president of Times Mirror and president of Times Mirror Eastern Newspapers, she was responsible for Newsday, The Baltimore Sun, the Hartford Courant, The Morning Call, Southern Connecticut Newspapers and a magazine division. From 1993 to 1997, she was Publisher and Chief Executive Officer of The Baltimore Sun. She began her career with Knight Ridder at the Charlotte Observer in 1972 and advanced to Assistant Advertising Director at the Miami Herald, assistant to the Knight Ridder Senior Vice President of Operations, and to publisher and president of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

She serves on the board of directors of The Associated Press and is a former board member of the Newspaper Association of America. In Davenport, she serves on the board of DavenportOne and Putnam Museum.

She received a bachelor of arts degree in English from Valparaiso University in Indiana and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She and her husband, Ralph Gibson, have a son and a daughter.

Lee Enterprises (NYSE: LEE) is a premier provider of local news, information and advertising in primarily midsize markets, with 53 daily newspapers, online sites and more than 300 weekly newspapers and specialty publications in 23 states.

Monica Lozano, Commissioner

Monica C. Lozano is Publisher and CEO of La Opinión, the nation’s largest Spanish language daily newspaper, as well as Sr. Vice President of Newspapers for impreMedia LLC, overseeing the company’s entire publications group. ImpreMedia is the No. 1 Hispanic News and Information Company in the U.S. in Online and Print with newspapers and magazines in most of the country’s top Hispanic markets. In addition to the print platform, impreMedia distributes content through its online portal and newspaper sites as well as mobile platforms.

La Opinión’s award winning editorial content has established the paper as a leader in coverage of issues important to the Latino community and has been recognized by numerous journalistic, civic and business organizations. The paper has received numerous awards including “Best Hispanic Daily Newspaper” from the National Association of Hispanic Publications and the coveted Ortega y Gassett Award from Spain, the highest honor in Spanish language publishing for Lifetime Achievement.

The newspaper has been involved in important public information campaigns designed to empower the Latino community in the areas of health, economic advancement, immigration and education. La Opinión and impreMedia were national partners to the “Ya es hora” campaign targeting Latino civic participation in the presidential elections resulting in historic levels of voting in November 2008. It has also been selected as a national partner for the upcoming 2010 Census and has a program underway to support small business through these challenging economic times.

Lisa MacCallum, Commissioner

Lisa MacCallum is the Managing Director and General Manager of the Nike Foundation, a nonprofit organization supported by NIKE, Inc. that is dedicated to investing in adolescent girls as the most powerful force for change in the developing world. Lisa oversees all functions of the Foundation including its investments and portfolio, accounting and finance, strategic planning and operations, and branding and communications. In addition, she ensures that all aspects of the organization are coordinated and deliver against the Foundation’s mission to achieve maximum impact. She brings more than 15 years of business management experience to the Foundation.

Lisa has been with NIKE, Inc. since 2001. She served as the Business Development Director for USA Apparel, a $1.2 billion business division of NIKE, Inc. In that capacity, she was responsible for long-term business strategy, go-to-market strategic planning and overseeing the resolution of time-sensitive business issues critical to the long-range success of the business. Lisa was also the Strategic Planning Director for NIKE, Inc.’s USA Region, a $5.3 billion combined consumer products and marketing organization (Athletic Footwear, Apparel and Equipment).

Previously, Lisa was a co-founder and Company Director of Tokyo-based Business Breakthrough, Inc., a satellite and Internet broadcasting company committed to strengthening management leadership in Japan through innovation in business management training.

During her time in Tokyo, Lisa provided independent consulting for Ohmae & Associates focused on joint ventures and partnerships between Japanese companies and those based in the United States, Australia and other Asian countries. Earlier in her career, Lisa was responsible for driving growth planning initiatives for Coca-Cola’s interest in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific Islands. She began her professional career with KPMG and as a Certified Chartered Accountant.

Lisa has contributed to editorials focused on the evolving dynamics of the global economy. Her work has appeared in Time Magazine, Japan Times, Wall Street Journal and Australian Financial Review. She serves on PEPFAR’s Steering Committee for an HIV-Free Generation and is a member of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy.

Lisa was born and raised in Queensland, Australia.

Andrew Mooney, Commissioner

Andrew J. Mooney is the Executive Director of Local Initiatives Support Corporation/Chicago (LISC). Founded thirty years ago, LISC is a not-for-profit development intermediary that provides grants, loans and equity — as well as technical assistance — to community organizations engaged in the revitalization of their neighborhoods.

Under Mr. Mooney’s leadership, LISC/Chicago has become one of the nation’s leading community development agencies. Since 1996, he has raised approximately $120 million in grants and loans to invest in the city’s neighborhoods, leading in turn to the development of approximately 23,000 units of housing, 2.5 million square feet of commercial space, and numerous community facilities, leveraging over $2.5 billion in total investment.

Mr. Mooney and his colleagues are best known for cutting-edge community development strategies that have become national models, including the New Communities Program (NCP), a comprehensive effort at neighborhood development supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Other initiatives include the Centers for Working Families; Elev8, a community schools program; the Chicago Neighborhood News Bureau (CNNB); the Digital Excellence Demonstration Communities (DEDC); and Neighborhood Sports Chicago.

Mr. Mooney has devoted his career to community development and has held leadership positions in a number of agencies. Early in his career, he led the Chicago Housing Authority, and in more recent years, served a second term on the CHA Board, co-authoring the latter’s groundbreaking “Plan for Transformation”. He has been on the governing boards of a number of public and private agencies, and is a member of the Knight Foundation’s Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy.

A native of Chicago, Mr. Mooney is a graduate, summa cum laude, of the University of Notre Dame, and of the University of Chicago, where he was a Danforth Fellow.

Donna Nicely, Commissioner

Donna Nicely has served as Director of the Nashville Public Library since 1995. Prior to that, she was Director of the DeKalb Public Library in Decatur, GA. She is involved in many leadership positions in her community and the library profession, including the boards of Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, the Nashville Downtown Partnership, Country Music Foundation, and Nashville’s Agenda Steering Committee. Donna has served on the Urban Libraries Council Executive Board, and was Chair from 2004-2005. In July 2009 she was awarded the Charlie Robinson Award from the Public Library Association which recognizes a library director for innovation and risk-taking.

Michael Powell, Commissioner

Michael K. Powell served as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission at a time of revolutionary change in technology and communications. He was appointed by President Clinton in 1997 and was designated Chairman by President Bush in 2001.

As chairman, Mr. Powell created the right regulatory conditions to stimulate the deployment of powerful technologies that put more power in the hands of the people. He clearly saw the importance of the rise of digital technologies and the impact they would have on our lives, from health care to education. As chairman, he focused on initiatives that encouraged market-driven solutions that promoted consumer interests and drove innovative approaches to getting broadband technology out to people—such as broadband over power lines, WiFi hotspots, cable broadband and DSL. From campaigning for the right to keep your phone number when switching wireless carriers to fighting to block unwanted telemarketing calls with a Do-Not-Call list to cautiously policing the airwaves for indecency, Mr. Powell put consumers at the forefront in this exciting and dynamic marketplace.

Chairman Powell previously served as the Chief of Staff of the Antitrust Division in the Department of Justice.

Mr. Powell was an associate in the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers, and he clerked for the Honorable Harry T. Edwards, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Mr. Powell graduated in 1985 from the College of William and Mary with a degree in government. He earned his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.

Mr. Powell is currently a Senior Advisor of Providence Equity Partners. He is also a board member of Cisco, ObjectVideo, the Rand Corporation, the Aspen Institute, and America’s Promise. He is also working to raise resources to build the American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Rey Ramsay, Commissioner

Rey Ramsey is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of One Economy Corporation. Mr. Ramsey led the organization’s growth from four employees working in basement to a global organization that has taken root on four continents. Since 2000, One Economy has helped bring broadband access into the homes of over 300,000 low-income Americans. More than 16 million people have visited One Economy’s multilingual web properties. Mr. Ramsey has been on the forefront of driving the creation and distribution of public purpose media, most notably through the Public Internet Channel, which he founded. Through One Economy programs, hundreds of youth have delivered nearly 50,000 hours of service to their communities.

Prior to the founding of One Economy, Mr. Ramsey served as President and Chief Operating Officer of the Enterprise Foundation. Before joining Enterprise, Mr. Ramsey served in the cabinets of two governors of Oregon as the state’s director of housing and community services and practiced law. He was the chairman of Habitat for Humanity International from 2003-2005. He holds a bachelors degree in political science from Rutgers University and is a graduate of the University of Virginia Law School.

Paul Sagan, Commissioner

Paul Sagan, president and CEO of Akamai, joined the company in October 1998. Sagan was elected to the Akamai Board of Directors in January 2005, and he became CEO in April 2005.

Previously, Sagan served as senior advisor to the World Economic Forum from 1997 to 1998, consulting to the Geneva-based organization on information technology for the world’s 1,000 foremost multinational corporations.

In 1995, Sagan was named president and editor of new media at Time Inc., a division of Time Warner, and worked in that role until 1997. Previously, he served as managing editor of Time Warner’s News on Demand project and was a senior member of the team responsible for the development of the company’s online, cable online, electronic publishing, and Internet publishing activities. He was a founder of Road Runner, the world’s first broadband cable modem service, and Pathfinder, one of the Web properties that pioneered Internet advertising. Sagan joined Time Warner in 1991 to design and launch NY 1 News, the cable news network based in New York City.

Sagan’s career began in broadcast television news. He joined WCBS-TV in 1981 as a news writer and was named news director in 1987, a position he held until 1991.

Sagan, a three-time Emmy Award winner for broadcast journalism, became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008 and was named a Global Leader for Tomorrow in 1996 by the World Economic Forum. He is a director of EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC), and previously served as a director of Dow Jones & Company and Digitas Inc. before they were acquired.

Sagan is a trustee of Northwestern University; a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism; co-chairman of the Medill Board of Advisors; a member of the Dean’s Council at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; a member of the advisory board of the Shorenstein Center On the Press, Politics & Public Policy at the Kennedy School; an advisor to the MATCH charter public school in Boston; and a member of the Presidential Advisory Council at Berklee College of Music.