Mainstage Closing Session

Julie Benko joined the annals of theatrical legend and lore for her sensational understudy-to-star trajectory as Fanny Brice in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl, for which she received Theatre World’s Dorothy Loudon Award for Excellence in the Theatre, was named the 2022 “Breakout Star for Theater” by The New York Times, one of “10 Broadway Stars to Watch for 2023” by Variety, and honored as one of “40 Under 40” for Crain’s New York Business, among other accolades. Other Broadway credits include Harmony (Ruth), Fiddler on the Roof, and Les Misérables. She has starred in numerous off-Broadway and regional productions, including Jane Eyre, Once (Wilde Award), The Fantasticks (BroadwayWorld Nomination), Our Town, Rags (SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle, Theatre Bay Area Awards Nominations), and more. She will make her screen acting debut in the upcoming feature film “Caravan.” Benko has released 3 albums with her pianist-composer spouse, Jason Yeager, and enjoys a vibrant concert career, having headlined sold-out solo shows at venues around the country such as the San Francisco’s Venetian Room and New York’s Café Carlyle, as well as performing as a guest artist with numerous symphonies. Visit her website, www.JulieBenko.com, or follow her on TikTok/Instagram @Jujujuliebee to discover more!

Juju Chang is an Emmy® Award-winning co-anchor of ABC News’ “Nightline.” She also reports regularly for “Good Morning America” and “20/20.”

Chang has been recognized for her in-depth personal narratives set against the backdrop of pressing national and international news. From mass shootings to the Opioid Epidemic, Chang is a veteran journalist with a wide-ranging body of work. Chang reported on the recent rise of hate crimes toward the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community as anchor of the ABC News Live special “Stop The Hate: The Rise In Violence Against Asian Americans” and the “20/20” special “Murder In Atlanta” following the Atlanta mass shooting.

Chang’s decades-long career has been recognized with numerous awards, including multiple Emmy’s, Gracie’s, a DuPont, a Murrow and Peabody awards. In 2017, she was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Front Page Awards.

Born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in Northern California, Chang graduated with honors from Stanford University. A former news anchor for “Good Morning America,” Chang joined ABC News just after college. Chang is a co-founder of the Korean American Community Foundation and a recipient of the Justice in Action Award from the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. She is a pandemic gardener, devoted wife and mother to 3 sons who identify as “50% Korean and 100% Jewish.”

Yasmin Green is the CEO of Jigsaw, a unit within Google that addresses threats to open societies. She leads an interdisciplinary team that researches and develops technical solutions to a range of global security challenges, including violent extremism, repressive censorship, hate and harassment, and harmful misinformation.

Prior to Jigsaw, Yasmin’s roles at Google include deal negotiation for syndication partnerships, heading operations for Sub-saharan Africa, and serving as the Head of Sales Strategy for Southern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Yasmin is a member of the Aspen Cybersecurity Group and additionally servies on the the board of the Tory Burch Foundation. Yasmin has been named one of Fortune’s “40 Under 40” most influential young leaders, and one of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business.”

Named one of the “100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century” by Life magazine, Billie Jean King is the first woman athlete to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom and will be the first individual woman athlete to receive the Congressional Gold Medal. She is the founder of the Women’s Sports Foundation, the Women’s Tennis Association and the Billie Jean King Foundation. She is part of the ownership groups of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Angel City FC and a member of the Advisory Board of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL).

In her legendary tennis career, King captured 39 Grand Slam singles, doubles and mixed doubles titles, including a record 20 Wimbledon championships. Her historic win over Bobby Riggs in the 1973 Battle of the Sexes, is one of the greatest moments in sports history. In June 2022, she received France’s highest order of merit, the Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur, from President Macron, and was inducted into the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee Hall of Fame as a special contributor.

King has an extensive portfolio of brand partnerships, involving many leading corporations focused on her values of equality and inclusivity, including Gainbridge, Microsoft, e.l.f. Beauty, QVC, Atria Senior Living and adidas. In 2024, Wheaties released a limited edition box honoring King for her accomplishments in sports and in life. She serves on the board of the Women’s Sports Foundation and is the Honorary Lifetime President of the Elton John AIDS Foundation and a past member of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition.

In 2020, Fed Cup, the world cup of women’s tennis, was renamed the Billie Jean King Cup, making it the first global team competition to be named after a woman. In 2019, King’s Southern California roots were recognized with the opening of the Billie Jean King Main Library in her hometown of Long Beach, California. In 2006, the home of the US Open was renamed the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in honor of her accomplishments on and off the court. In 2017, Fox Searchlight released the critically acclaimed film, Battle of the Sexes, which depicts the cultural and social impact of the groundbreaking match.

King, and her partner Ilana Kloss, were named the most powerful out LGBTQ people in sports, on the first ever Outsports Power 100 List in 2023. King also was included in the Class of 2024 by the Hollywood Walk of Fame and will receive her star among the Hollywood Legends next year, becoming the first female athlete to receive a star on the Walk of Fame.

In 2018, King received a Lifetime Achievement Award as part of the prestigious BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards. In 2021, she received the Laureus Lifetime Achievement Award and the Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award. King is a New York Times best-selling author and her memoir, ALL IN: An Autobiography, was published by Knopf in 2021 and released in paperback in 2023.

Ray Kurzweil is a world class inventor, thinker, and futurist, with a thirty-five-year track record of accurate predictions. He has been a leading developer in artificial intelligence for 61 years – longer than any other living person. He was the principal inventor of the first CCD flat-bed scanner, the first omni-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition software. Ray received a Grammy Award for outstanding achievement in music technology; he is the recipient of the National Medal of Technology, was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and holds twenty-one honorary Doctorates. He has written five best-selling books including The Singularity Is Near and How To Create A Mind, both New York Times best sellers, and Danielle: Chronicles of a Superheroine, winner of multiple young adult fiction awards. His new book, The Singularity Is Nearer was released in June 2024 and debuted at #4 on the New York Times Best Seller list. He is a Principal Researcher and AI Visionary at Google.

Jonathan A. Greenblatt is the CEO of ADL (Anti-Defamation League) and its sixth National Director. As chief executive of ADL, Jonathan leads all aspects of the world’s leading anti-hate organization. He is an accomplished entrepreneur and innovative leader with deep experience in the private, public and nonprofit sectors.

Since becoming CEO in July 2015, Greenblatt has modernized ADL while refocusing it on the mission it has had since its founding in 1913: to fight the defamation of the Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.

Under Greenblatt, ADL has modernized its operations, innovated its approaches to counter antisemitism from all sides and enhanced its efforts to combat extremism in all forms. During his tenure ADL rebooted its Center on Extremism that analyzes and monitors extremists and hate groups; launched “Never Is Now” the largest annual convening in the world focused on antisemitism and hate; created the Center for Technology and Society in Silicon Valley to fight the rising tide of online hate and harassment; developed the Sports Leadership Council to engage athletes, teams and leagues to confront bigotry and discrimination more effectively; and executed Stop Hate for Profit, the successful campaign that organized businesses, celebrities, nonprofits and policy makers to fight the rampant racism, antisemitism and extremism on Facebook.

In 2022, Greenblatt released It Could Happen Here, a book that sounds an alarm, warning that hate and systemic violence is gathering momentum in the United States – and that violence on a more catastrophic scale could be just around the corner.

Jonathan serves on numerous corporate and non-profit boards and has been recognized on multiple occasions for his leadership at ADL. He has been named by The NonProfit Times to its list of Top 50 Nonprofit Leaders from 2016-2022. Recode named Jonathan to its inaugural “Recode 100,” a list of the top 100 people in business and technology. He has been named among the Top 50 Most Influential Leaders in the global Jewish community by The Jerusalem Post and as one of the Top 50 Jews to follow on Twitter by the JTA.

Before ADL, Greenblatt served in the White House as Special Assistant to President Obama and Director of the Office of Social Innovation. He came to that role after a long career in business. In 2002, he co-founded Ethos Brands, the business that launched Ethos Water, a premium bottled water that helps children around the world access clean water. Ethos was acquired by Starbucks Coffee Company in 2005. Following the acquisition, Jonathan was named VP of Global Consumer Products at Starbucks and joined the board of the Starbucks Foundation.

In 2009, Jonathan founded All for Good (AFG), the largest database of volunteer opportunities on the Internet. Incubated at Google, AFG developed an innovative strategy to organize the world’s volunteer listings. AFG was acquired by Points of Light in 2011. Jonathan also served as CEO of GOOD Worldwide, a diversified media company and as an executive at REALTOR.com, joining the company as a product manager and eventually heading up its consumer products division. REALTOR went public in 1999 (HOMS) and was acquired by News Corp in 2014.

Jonathan has served as an adjunct faculty member at the Anderson School of Management at UCLA and as a senior fellow at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Jonathan graduated cum laude with a BA from Tufts University and earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Larry Scott is the former Commissioner of the Pac-12 Conference. Throughout his career as a student-athlete, professional tennis player, and sports executive, Scott has been a game changer: a bold, innovative leader with a vision for transformative change — from expansion and revitalization of the Pac-12 to equal prize money at Wimbledon. Prior to joining the Pac-12, Scott served as CEO of the Women’s Tennis Association as well as COO of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP Tour).

In 2013 Scott received the Americanism Award for embodiment of the best of American values and morals from the Anti-Defamation League. He is also the Founder and Chair of the Sports Industry Leadership Council for the ADL.

Scott graduated from Harvard University with a BA degree in 1986. Commissioner Scott’s firm belief that sport has the power to be a force for positive change has been the hallmark of his career.

Jessica S. Tisch was appointed the 48th police commissioner of the City of New York by Mayor Eric Adams in November 2024.
Commissioner Tisch is a 17-year veteran of city government who has dedicated her professional life to serving the people of New York. As DSNY commissioner, she managed the city’s waste collection, recycling, and disposal, as well as cleaning and snow removal for approximately 6,500 miles of city streets.

Previously, Tisch served as commissioner of the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT), and citywide chief information officer from December 2019 to January 2022. As commissioner, she ran the largest municipal IT organization in the country, with a wide portfolio ranging from public safety to human services to economic development, as well as New York City 311 and the rollout of the city’s first text-to-911 capability.

Prior to joining DoITT, Tisch spent the majority of her career at the New York City Police Department, where she served as deputy commissioner of the Information Technology Bureau, and oversaw the NYPD’s 911 operations. She spearheaded efforts to use technology to transform the NYPD’s fundamental business processes, including how officers are dispatched and respond to 911 calls, take crime reports, investigate, and search for wanted or missing persons.

She also managed the development and implementation of the flagship Domain Awareness System, which is at the heart of the NYPD’s crime fighting and counterterrorism operations. Under her leadership, every officer was equipped with a smartphone, giving them access to real-time information in the field, as well as improving their accessibility to the public. Tisch also managed the implementation of the NYPD’s body-worn camera program and drove additional efforts to improve transparency and public access to the NYPD, including the modernization of CompStat. She began her public service career in 2008, when she joined the NYPD as a counterterrorism analyst.

Commissioner Tisch is a graduate of Harvard College, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Business School, and is a lifelong New Yorker.

The New York Times described him as one of the most nuanced online commentators on Israel and Jewish people. He is a globally recognized speaker, educator, author, and digital influencer. With an audience of over 600,000 followers across his social media platforms and content reaching more than 100 million users, Hen has become a trusted voice on Jewish issues, appearing as an expert in media across four continents, including outlets like BBC, CNN, The Washington Post, SkyNews, New York Times and more. Named among Algemeiner’s Top 100 People Positively Influencing Jewish Life in 2018 and 2021, Top 50 most influential Jewish LGBT voices, Hen recently received CAMERA’s Portrait in Courage Award. His debut book best-selling, The Wrong Kind of Jew, was released in 2022. This year, Jewish News recognized him as one of the Top 20 Young Jewish Creatives in the UK, and he was named among the Top 25 Most Influential Young Jews by The Jerusalem Post. In 2019, Hen co-founded the Tel Aviv Institute, dedicated to researching and combating online antisemitism.

With nearly 14 million followers, award-winning actress, singer, dancer, and philanthropist Montana Tucker is a leading voice for Gen Z, empowering through her advocacy against hate and anti-Semitism. She began her career modeling and acting at age 9, with her music featured in blockbuster films and her acting in award-winning shows.

Montana’s passion lies in educating others to embrace diversity and kindness. She has been honored by organizations such as FIDF, IAC, and Magen David Adom, as well as by public figures like NYC Mayor Eric Adams and institutions like the National Holocaust Museum.

Her acclaimed docuseries “How To: Never Forget”—chronicling her emotional journey to Auschwitz with her mother—has garnered millions of views and led to appearances on Good Morning America, The Kelly Clarkson Show, and more. She has spoken at major events like the National Menorah Lighting in Washington, the ADL’s “Never Is Now” Summit, and the March for Israel rallies.

Montana’s impactful video at the Nova Music Festival site attracted over 10 million views, and her powerful documentary “The Children of October 7th”, featuring stories of Israeli children affected by terror, premiered in December with President Herzog in attendance. Montana remains a vital advocate against anti-Semitism, reaching millions globally, especially Gen Z.