Executive Committee

The Executive Committee implements the Board’s fiduciary, strategic, and generative plans, policies, and decisions consistent with the organization’s mission and governing bylaws. The Executive Committee supports the CEO and engages in decision making between Board meetings or in urgent and crisis circumstances. 

Members of the Executive Committee

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David Kuhlman (Chair)

Kuhlman is senior partner and chair at Lotis Blue Consulting (formerly Axiom Consulting Partners), a consulting firm that helps clients identify pathways to profitable growth and align their organizations for long-term success. For over 30 years, he has worked with people-intensive/asset-light businesses including accounting and law firms to establish and realize transformative strategies. Previously, Kuhlman was managing partner of Sibson Consulting, a leading HR consultancy and global head of Human Resources for Russell Reynolds Associates, a premier executive recruiting firm. As chair of the Governing Board, Kuhlman is a member of the Science and Security Boardex officio.

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Virginia Berkeley

Berkeley served as Executive Vice President of CoBiz Bank from 2009-2012 after performing numerous other leadership roles at the organization. She previously served as Senior Vice President and Manager of Business Banking of Bank One, Denver and held several positions with Colorado National Bank. Berkeley’s extensive community involvement includes work with numerous Boards of Trustees, most recently with Colorado Public Radio, where she served as board chair, and the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. Berkeley holds a BS degree in economics from Purdue University and an MBA from the University of Oklahoma.

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Rachel Bronson

Bronson is the president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, where she oversees the publishing programs, management of the Doomsday Clock, and a growing set of activities around nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, climate change, and disruptive technologies. Before joining the Bulletin, she served for eight years at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in a number of capacities including: vice president of studies, vice president of programs and studies, and senior fellow, global energy. She also taught “Global Energy” as an adjunct professor at the Kellogg School of Management. 

Misho Ceko

Misho Ceko

Ceko is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Senior Associate Dean of Business Operations at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy. Prior to Harris, Ceko was the COO for the Chicago Children’s Choir (CCC). He also worked for the United Nations in Mozambique on the Delivering as One initiative under former Secretary General Kofi Annan and as a senior strategy consultant in Accenture’s public sector practice in Washington, DC. Prior to business school, Misho worked as an engineer for St. Jude Medical. In addition, he served as a mayoral fellow in the office of Mayor Richard M. Daley and was a fellow at the National Institutes of Health. He holds an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, and a BS in bioengineering from the University of Illinois.

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Lee Francis

An internist and the CEO of Erie Family Health Center, Francis is assistant clinical professor of internal medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. He is a past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), a national organization dedicated to the prevention of violence and nuclear war, and continues to serve on its Board of Directors.

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Daniel Holz

Holz is a professor at the University of Chicago in the Departments of Physics, Astronomy & Astrophysics, the Enrico Fermi Institute, and the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics. His research focuses on general relativity in the context of astrophysics and cosmology. He is a member of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) collaboration, and was part of the team that announced the first detection of gravitational waves in early 2016 and the first multi-messenger detection of a binary neutron star in 2017. He received a 2012 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the 2015 Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2016. Holz was selected as a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He received his PhD in physics from the University of Chicago and his AB in physics from Princeton University. As co-chair of the Science and Security Board, Holz is a member of the Governing Boardex officio.

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Ania Labno

Labno is a Director at KKR Capstone where she works with the group’s health care industry team. She was previously Managing Director and Partner at the Boston Consulting Group’s Chicago office. She has worked across all health care sectors with a strong focus on innovation including data analytics/AI, digital-driven innovation, and novel treatment modalities such as gene/cell therapy. She has supported both commercial and public sector healthcare innovation and is passionate about responsible use of new technologies to enhance health and wellness. Labno serves as an advisor to the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago and MATTER incubator. She holds a BS degree in biology and physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and PhD in biophysics from UC Berkeley.

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Steve Ramsey

Ramsey is the former Vice President of Corporate Environmental Programs at General Electric, where he managed GE’s environmental strategy. He was previously the head of environmental practice at Sidley Austin in DC and was the first Chief of Environmental Enforcement Section at the US Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. Ramsey has served as a Visiting Fellow at the Yale School of Forestry and Environment, the Chair of the Board of the Institute for Sustainable Communities, and as a Fellow of the American College of Environmental Lawyers. He is a graduate of Princeton University and the University of Texas School of Law.

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Stephanie Woodson

Woodson has worked in and for higher education for nearly 20 years as consultant, strategist, entrepreneur, new product designer, and general manager. She was an executive at one of the earliest online learning ventures, UNext.com. Most recently she launched and served as the Executive Director of Integrated Education Solutions (IES), Adtalem Global Education’s external facing division. Before its sale in 2018, IES provided online learning expertise and services to a broad portfolio of colleges and universities. Prior to that she headed Adtalem’s corporate strategy organization. Woodson has a background in management consulting.