Thursday, April 29, 2021,
6:30 pm – 8:30 pm.
Ann Berry, Chief Investment Officer at Wheelhouse
A one-stop shop for content, talent, brands and capital, Wheelhouse is a disruptive media platform founded by producer and former ITV America CEO, Brent Montgomery, in partnership with Jimmy Kimmel. Ann leads Wheelhouse’s investments in high growth technology and consumer businesses and is a live TV news commentator discussing political and economic issues and appearing on BBC, Bloomberg, CBS, CNBC, CNN, Fox Business, Sky News and Yahoo Finance. Previously a Partner/ Investment Committee member and still a Senior Advisor at the private equity firm, Cornell Capital (New York/Hong Kong), Ann spent over a decade at Goldman Sachs as a dealmaker in London and New York, and supported CEOs with growth, acquisition, and talent development strategies as a director on numerous corporate boards (Blue Mistral, GCA Services, Interline Brands [Home Depot] and US Security Associates). In 2019 and 2020, Ann was interim CEO of PureStar, the Las Vegas-based hospitality services company where she continues to serve as a board director. A passionate traveler, fledgling art collector, enthusiastic tennis player and aspiring writer, she is also an advisor to Brooklyn Magazine. Resident in New York, she was raised in London – and hopes that her accent is not a bar to great conversation!
Jamie Kraft, Senior Managing Editor of NJ Spotlight News
As Senior Managing Editor of NJ Spotlight News, the news division of NJ PBS, this award-winning television broadcast journalist/ executive producer has written, produced and reported for major news outlets (NBC, CNN and CBS). Kraft was previously Senior Executive Producer/MSNBC Live, Dayside at NBC News, leading a team that transformed daytime programming into a breaking news, reporter-driven news network and achieving record ratings. He won an Emmy ® for Rachel Maddow’s “Flint Water Crisis” Special and a Hillman Prize for “Torn Apart,” MSNBC’s coverage of the immigration crisis. Earlier, Kraft was Executive Producer of Nightly News with Lester Holt, Weekend Edition, focused on breaking news, special reports and election coverage. He won another Emmy® for “America’s Addiction: Opioid Crisis” series, served as Senior Broadcast Producer at NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams; Executive Producer at CNN’s American Morning and Senior Producer at Anderson Cooper 360. An award-winning producer for CBS News programs such as 60 Minutes, CBS Evening News and 48 Hours, Kraft holds a BA from Syracuse University and is an adjunct journalism professor at Ithaca College’s School of Communications. Kraft and his family reside in Bergen County where he has run the town’s soccer program for fifteen years.
John Siegenthaler, Former weekend anchor for NBC Nightly News; helped launch MSNBC
An award-winning communications professional, a former anchor and Special Correspondent for NBC News, John is now a Partner for the global communications and public relations agency, Finn Partners. His expertise includes crisis communications, virtual media/presentation training, video production and corporate media relations. Seigenthaler advises CEOs, Wall Street executives, corporate spokespeople, attorneys, university presidents, authors, political candidates and government officials. For more than a decade, he anchored NBC Nightly News with John Seigenthaler on Saturday and Sunday, covering presidential campaigns, political conventions, natural disasters, terror attacks in Europe, the Middle East, and 9/11 in New York. He was the first anchor chosen to help launch MSNBC cable channel in 1996. In addition, he on appeared other TV news programs including Meet The Press, Dateline, TODAY, CNBC and the Discovery Channel. He also spent 3 years as Primetime News Anchor for the cable news channel Aljazeera America. John holds a B.A. degree in Public Policy Studies from Duke University and is a member of the Newseum Board of Trustees, the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors and an RFK Journalism Awards judge. After more than 25 years in New York and Connecticut, John and his wife Kerry moved back to his hometown of Nashville, Tennessee.
Virtual Conversations with Celebrated Hosts
Take advantage of special spring pricing
Click HERE to see the full list of Conversationalists
Any Questions? Please email Gina Moran at gmoran@morrisarts.org.