ILA 2008 Keynote Speakers

The ILA is pleased to announce our first two confirmed keynote speakers for ILA 2008, Leadership: Portraits of the Past, Visions for the Future.  Stay tuned for future announcements!

• Connie Rice

• Jay Conger

• Christine Loh

Connie Rice

Connie Rice is renowned for her unconventional approaches to tackling problems of inequity and exclusion. For example, she has teamed up with conservatives on education issues and, as counsel to the leaders of the Watts gang truce, enlisted the support of LAPD officers.

In her legal work, Connie has led multi-racial coalitions of lawyers and

In her legal work, Connie has led multi-racial coalitions of lawyers and clients to win more than $10 billion in damages and policy changes, through traditional class action civil rights cases redressing police misconduct, race and sex discrimination and unfair public policy in transportation, probation and public housing. She filed a landmark case on behalf of low-income bus riders that resulted in a mandate that more than 2 billion dollars be spent to improve the bus system.

Together with Co-Directors Molly Munger and Steve English, Connie launched a coalition lawsuit, Godinez v. Davis, that won approximately $1 billion for new school construction in Los Angeles and other urban areas - money previously slated for less crowded, more affluent suburban school districts. With these funds the Los Angeles Unified School District began its nationally recognized program to build over 66 new schools since 2001. After the court in Godinez required California to develop a new system for funding schools construction, Advancement Project was instrumental in assessing the need for adequate schools to serve all children in California and in crafting and shepherding three school construction bond initiatives that raised $25 billion for new and renovated facilities throughout the state, including $5 billion earmarked to relieve overcrowding in urban schools. This funding enabled California to build or renovate over 1 million school spaces since 2000. Connie then chaired the Independent Prop. BB Citizens' Bond Oversight Committee that monitored and evaluated how Los Angeles Unified School District used its allocation of school construction funds.

At the invitation of LAPD Chief William Bratton, Connie investigated the biggest police corruption scandal in Los Angeles history and obtained the commitment of the Chief to reform LAPD's training and incentives system through an internal commission that she co-chairs. Connie also conducted a landmark 18-month assessment of the City of Los Angeles' anti-gang programs and drew the blueprint to reduce gang violence through a regional, multi-jurisdictional comprehensive strategy to right the balance between suppression and prevention.

Prior to co-founding Advancement Project, Connie was Co-Director of the Los Angeles office of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, an associate at the law firm of Morrison & Foerster; and a clerk to the Honorable Damon J. Keith, judge of the United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit. Connie is a graduate of Harvard College and the New York University School of Law. In 2006, Los Angeles Times West Magazine named Connie one of the 100 most powerful people in Southern California, and California Law Business twice been named her one of the top 10 most influential lawyers in California. Connie serves on the boards of the Public Policy Institute of California and public radio station KPCC.  

Jay Conger

Very few speakers offer the breadth of experience or the depth of knowledge and insight on management, leadership and leadership development as Jay Conger. His past research is very extensive and he has a gift for engaging audiences. He is a prolific writer, having written or co-written more than 90 articles and 12 books. Jay has two new books in progress, on best practices in leadership, and CEO leadership. His most recent book is The Practice of Leadership.

Jay Conger is the Henry Kravis Research Professor of Leadership Studies at Claremont McKenna College. He is also Senior Research Scientist at the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and visiting Professor of Organizational Behavior at the London Business School. His former teaching positions include Harvard Business School, INSEAD (France), and McGill University. He is the recipient of the H. Smith Richardson Fellowship from the Center for Creative Leadership

Jay has written books on an impressive range of topics including, but not limited to:

• Leadership and management — the whole body of work
• Best practices in leadership— forthcoming
• Persuasion and strategic communication — Winning ‘Em Over
• Change management — The Leader’s Change Handbook
• Leadership development — Building Leaders, Learning to Lead, Growing Your Company’s Leaders
• CEO leadership / senior executive success — forthcoming
• Succession planning — Growing Your Company’s Leaders
• Corporate governance — Corporate Boards

Jay is very good with senior executives and has a lot of experience with executive education, for which he has won several awards. He was the top-ranked professor at USC’s core MBA program. Harvard Business School invited him to help redesign the school’s organizational behavior course around leadership issues and was ranked in the school’s top ten percent of faculty for teaching. Jay has consulted with a worldwide list of private corporations and nonprofit organizations. Jay was ranked one of the world's top ten management educators and the best business school professor to teach leadership to executives by BusinessWeek Magazine.

Christine Loh

Christine Loh is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of the independent, non-profit public policy think tank, Civic Exchange.

Prior to this, Loh had a highly successful career in politics. She was appointed to the Hong Kong Legislative Council in 1992 and then ran two successful elections in 1995 and 1998. As a politician, she championed many issues, which included the successful reform of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance, access to information, rural land inheritance rights for the indigenous women of the New Territories, equal opportunity legislation and passed the historic Protection of the Harbour Ordinance. Loh chose to not stand for re-election in 2000.

Prior to her career in politics, Loh had a successful 14-year career in the private commercial sector. She was engaged in commodities trading and strategic planning for Philipp Brothers, and Phibro Energy, divisions of the US multinational Salomon Inc [subsequently Salomon Smith Barney and now Citigroup]. Her last position with the company was as regional Managing Director. She was among the first group of business people to be posted to work in Beijing in 1980 and helped set-up the first US representative office there. In 1992, she helped the Hong Kong-based CIM Company Ltd put together an international consortium to bid for the development of Hong Kong Container Terminal No. 9, and also brought the famous LoFt retail licence from Japan to Hong Kong.

Loh writes extensively about politics, energy/climate change, and sustainable development, and has been widely published in Hong Kong and abroad in both mass circulation as well as academic publications. Loh’s e-Newsletter provides up-to-date political analysis and has a large circulation. She is columnist in Hong Kong and regional publications. Apart from many research papers on various areas of public policy, she has written, co-authored and edited many books, including Getting Heard: A Hong Kong Citizen’s Handbook (2002); Building Democracy: Creating Good Government for Hong Kong (2003); At the Epicentre: Hong Kong and the SARS Outbreak (2004); Functional Constituencies: A Unique Feature of the Hong Kong Legislative Council (2006); Being Here: Shaping a Preferred Future (2006), Reflections of Leadership 1997-2007 (2007); From Nowhere to Nowhere – A Review of Constitutional Reform in Hong Kong, 1997-2007 (2007); and Idling Engine – Hong Kong’s Environmental Policy in a Ten Year Stall 1997-2007 (2007).

She is a frequent speaker at academic and international forums at home and abroad on politics, economics, urban planning, air quality and climate change. She has also anchored radio and television public affairs programs. Loh is well known also for her work in designing and facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogue processes to help deepen and broaden understanding on public issues. She calls these processes Sustainability Tools, which she is continuing to develop by working with various international organizations.

She is an International Adviser to the G8+5 Climate Change Dialogue, an elected Director of the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, Member of the Court of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Non-executive Director of the Association for Sustainable and Responsible Investment in Asia (ASRIA), Board Member of Community Business, Member of the Peking University Environment Fund, Board Member of the Tällberg Foundation (Sweden), Member of Asia Society’s International Council (USA), and the Co-chair of Human Rights in China (USA). Christine Loh has been widely recognized for her achievements, including as one of the World Economic Forum’s “Global Leaders for Tomorrow” in 1994; being twice recognized by Business Week as one of ‘The Stars of Asia’ in 1998 and again in 2000. More recently, she was named ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ in 2003 for the success of Civic Exchange, named by Asia Inc as one of Asia’s “Under-50 Movers and Shakers”; given the Peter Bryce award for outstanding civic work in 2004, named ‘Woman of the Year’ by Hong Kong Business for 2006, and received an OBE in 2007.

Loh holds an English law degree from the University of Hull, England, and a Masters of Law degree in Chinese and Comparative Law from the City University of Hong Kong. She has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Law, honoris causa, by the University of Hull.

Her background in law, business, politics and media has helped her to be a leading voice on public policy. In her private life, she is an art collector. She has made short videos, and she likes to hike.

Conferences : Keynote Sessions