Tani Cantil-Sakauye is president and CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California, where she holds the Walter and Esther Hewlett Chair in Understanding California’s Future. From 2011 to 2022, she served as the 28th Chief Justice of California and led the judiciary as the chair of the Judicial Council—the constitutional policy and rule making body of the judicial branch—the first person of color and the second woman to do so. Before she was elected statewide as the Chief Justice of California, she served more than 20 years on California appellate and trial courts and was appointed or elevated to higher office by three governors. Earlier in her career she served as a deputy district attorney for the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office and on the senior staff of Governor Deukmejian, first as deputy legal affairs secretary and later as a deputy legislative secretary. She holds a BA and a JD from the University of California, Davis.

Chet Hewitt is president and CEO of Sierra Health Foundation and its independent operating partner, the Center for Health Program Management. Since beginning his tenure in 2007, he has focused foundation investments on health disparities, health equity, and the healthy development and well-being of vulnerable youth. Before joining the foundation, he served for five years as the director of Alameda County’s Social Services Agency, where he is credited with transforming its failing child welfare system into a national model and using technology to improve the delivery of human services. Previously, he served as associate director for the Rockefeller Foundation in New York and established and managed its west coast regional office in San Francisco. Chet is a frequent lecturer on philanthropy and public sector leadership and advises organizations across the nation on issues related to the transformation of public systems. He has received numerous awards, including the Terrance Keenan Leadership Award in Health Philanthropy, an Annie E. Casey Foundation Child and Family Leaders Fellowship, and the Grantland Johnson Intergovernmental Cooperation Award; he has also been named Administrator of the Year by Black Administrators in Child Welfare. In 2021, he was elected to the National Academy of Public Administration for his commitment and contributions to public service. He joined PPIC’s board of directors in 2016 and was elected board chair in 2022. He previously served on the PPIC Statewide Leadership Council.

Leon E. Panetta is chairman of the Panetta Institute for Public Policy and former secretary of defense. Unanimously confirmed in 2011 by the US Senate as the twenty-third secretary of defense, he has had a fifty-year career in public service at the highest levels of government: as secretary of defense, he established a new defense strategy, conducted critical counterterrorism operations, and strengthened US alliances; as director of the CIA, he successfully led the operation that brought Osama bin Laden to justice. He began his public service career in 1964 as a first lieutenant in the US Army, receiving the Army Commendation Medal, and then served as a legislative assistant to US Senator Tom Kuchel. In 1969, he was appointed director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, responsible for enforcing equal education laws. Elected to Congress in 1976, he represented the California central coast for sixteen years. In 1993, he was sworn in as director of the US Office of Management and Budget for the Clinton administration, where he was instrumental in achieving a balanced federal budget; he was later appointed White House chief of staff. In 1997, he and Sylvia Panetta established the Panetta Institute for Public Policy, a nonpartisan, not-for-profit study center to inspire men and women to lives of public service. He chronicles his life in public service in his best-selling memoir Worthy Fights, which was published by Penguin Press in the fall of 2014.