Named one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in the World for 2017, Gretchen Carlson is one of the nation's most highly acclaimed journalists and a warrior for women. In 2016, Carlson became the face of sexual harassment in the workplace after her lawsuit against Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes paved the way for thousands of other women facing harassment to tell their stories. Carlson's advocacy put her on the cover of TIME, and her new book, Be Fierce: Stop Harassment and Take Your Power Back, joined the New York Times best-seller list the week it was published. She became a columnist for TIME's online "Motto" newsletter in 2017, focusing on gender and empowerment issues.

Carlson's ongoing work on behalf of women includes advocating for arbitration reform on Capitol Hill; in 2018, she plans to testify before Congress about workplace inequality and forced arbitration clauses in employment contracts. Carlson also created the Gift of Courage Fund and the Gretchen Carlson Leadership Initiative to support empowerment, advocacy and anti-harassment programs for girls and underserved women.

Carlson hosted "The Real Story" on Fox News for three years; co-hosted "Fox and Friends" for seven years; and in her first book, Getting Real, became a national best-seller. She co-hosted "The Saturday Early Show" for CBS in 2000 and served as a CBS News correspondent covering stories including Geneoa's G-8 Summit, Timothy McVeigh’s execution, 9/11 from the World Trade Center and the Bush-Gore election. She started her reporting career in Richmond, Virginia, then served as an anchor and reporter in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Dallas, where she produced and reported a 30-part series on domestic violence that won several national awards.

An honors graduate of Stanford University, Carlson was valedictorian of her high school class and studied at Oxford University in England. A child prodigy on the violin, she performed as a soloist with the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra at age 13, and in 1989, became the first classical violinist to win the Miss America crown.

Ever grateful for the opportunities provided to her and imbued with a "never give up" attitude, Carlson has mentored dozens of young women throughout her career. She serves as a national trustee for the March of Dimes, a member of the board of directors for the Catherine Violet Hubbard Animal Sanctuary in Newtown, Connecticut and a trustee of Greenwich Academy, an all-girls preparatory day school in Greenwich, Connecticut. Carlson is married to sports agent Casey Close and mom to their two children.

Vy Higginsen's Gospel Choir of Harlem is a celebrated group of performers elevated from the Mama Foundation for the Arts' Music School of Gospel, Jazz and R&B. The Foundation, founded by the writer/producer of Mama, I Want to Sing!, is a highly respected and influential source of education and self-development for young people. The award-winning, nationally recognized program offers performance choirs small, medium, and large and has been seen accompanying many of today's pop icons including Ariana Grande, Chance the Rapper, Pharrell Williams, Alessia Cara and Madonna.

In addition to various performances and collaborations throughout New York City, the choir enjoys weekly performances in Harlem. They can be seen every Sunday headlining Ginny Supper Club's Gospel Brunch at Marcus Samuelson's acclaimed restaurant, Red Rooster, which is ranked one of the top five gospel brunches in the nation. The choir will begin Saturday performances in The Harlem Gospel Concert Series beginning April 15th at The Dempsey Theater in Harlem.

David Brooks became an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times in September 2003. He is currently a commentator on "The PBS Newshour," NPR’s "All Things Considered" and NBC's "Meet the Press."

He is the author of Bobos in Paradise and The Social Animal. In April 2015, he released with his fourth book, The Road to Character, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller.

Brooks also teaches at Yale University, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Born on August 11, 1961 in Toronto, Canada, Brooks graduated a bachelor of history from the University of Chicago in 1983. He became a police reporter for the City News Bureau, a wire service owned jointly by the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times.

He worked at The Washington Times and then The Wall Street Journal for nine years. His last post at the Journal was as Op-ed Editor. Prior to that, he was posted in Brussels, covering Russia, the Middle East, South Africa and European affairs. His first post at the Journal was as editor of the book review section, and he filled in as the Journal's movie critic.

He also served as a senior editor at The Weekly Standard for 9 years, as well as contributing editor for The Atlantic and Newsweek.

Chris Anderson is the Curator of TED, a nonprofit devoted to sharing valuable ideas, primarily through the medium of 'TED Talks' -- short talks that are offered free online to a global audience.

Chris was born in a remote village in Pakistan in 1957. He spent his early years in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where his parents worked as medical missionaries, and he attended an American school in the Himalayas for his early education. After boarding school in Bath, England, he went on to Oxford University, graduating in 1978 with a degree in philosophy, politics and economics.

Chris then trained as a journalist, working in newspapers and radio, including two years producing a world news service in the Seychelles Islands.

Back in the UK in 1984, Chris was captivated by the personal computer revolution and became an editor at one of the UK's early computer magazines. A year later he founded Future Publishing with a $25,000 bank loan. The new company initially focused on specialist computer publications but eventually expanded into other areas such as cycling, music, video games, technology and design, doubling in size every year for seven years. In 1994, Chris moved to the United States where he built Imagine Media, publisher of Business 2.0 magazine and creator of the popular video game users website IGN. Chris eventually merged Imagine and Future, taking the combined entity public in London in 1999, under the Future name. At its peak, it published 150 magazines and websites and employed 2,000 people.

This success allowed Chris to create a private nonprofit organization, the Sapling Foundation, with the hope of finding new ways to tackle tough global issues through media, technology, entrepreneurship and, most of all, ideas. In 2001, the foundation acquired the TED Conference, then an annual meeting of luminaries in the fields of Technology, Entertainment and Design held in Monterey, California, and Chris left Future to work full time on TED.

He expanded the conference's remit to cover all topics, including science, business and key global issues, while adding a Fellows program, which now has some 300 alumni, and the TED Prize, which grants its recipients "one wish to change the world." The TED stage has become a place for thinkers and doers from all fields to share their ideas and their work, capturing imaginations, sparking conversation and encouraging discovery along the way.

In 2006, TED experimented with posting some of its talks on the Internet. Their viral success encouraged Chris to begin positioning the organization as a global media initiative devoted to 'ideas worth spreading,' part of a new era of information dissemination using the power of online video. In June 2015, the organization posted its 2,000th talk online. The talks are free to view, and they have been translated into more than 100 languages with the help of volunteers from around the world. Viewership has grown to approximately one billion views per year.

Continuing a strategy of 'radical openness,' in 2009 Chris introduced the TEDx initiative, allowing free licenses to local organizers who wished to organize their own TED-like events. More than 8,000 such events have been held, generating an archive of 60,000 TEDx talks. And three years later, the TED-Ed program was launched, offering free educational videos and tools to students and teachers.