Tycely Williams, an award-winning C-Suite executive, leads inclusive and innovative teams who have raised and managed more than $600 million dollars in her twenty-five-year career. Prior to joining Liberty Fellowship, she served as chief development officer for The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), where she crafted strategies to fuel the best ideas from both political parties to promote health, security, and opportunity for all Americans.
Prior to BPC, Tycely served as chief development officer for America’s Promise Alliance, the largest alliance of youth-serving organizations in the U.S. She’s also advanced philanthropy as vice president of development of YWCA USA, chief development officer for the American Red Cross National Capital Region, association director of Major Gifts for the YMCA of Metropolitan Washington, director of development for two health and human services organizations, artistic director of two community-based dance studios, and executive director for a nonprofit organization founded by a Fortune 500 company.
She chairs the governing boards of The Nonprofit Alliance Foundation, and YWCA National Capital Area. She serves on the boards of directors for Leadership Greater Washington, The Institute for Responsible Citizenship, and The Blackbaud Giving Fund in Charleston, S.C., where she represents the not-for-profit sector at the 10th largest donor-advised fund in America. Since 2020, The Blackbaud Giving Fund has transferred over $1 billion to more than 195,000 nonprofits.
Tycely is past president of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) Washington DC Metro Chapter, the inaugural chair of AFP’s Global Women’s Impact Initiative, and a former past chair of AFP’s Global Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access Committee. She is an inaugural 2024 fellow at The Washington National Cathedral’s Sacred Spaces: Racial Justice and Spirituality in Action.
A cum laude graduate of Wake Forest University, Tycely earned a bachelor’s degree in communication with distinguished departmental honors and a minor in journalism. Tycely possesses an executive master’s degree in leadership from The McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University and postgraduate certificates in fundraising from Boston University, nonprofit management from Duke University, and a public leadership credential from Harvard University. She virtually teaches fundraising and leadership at The Pennsylvania State University’s World Campus.
Tycely currently resides in Charleston, S.C. and also spends time in Elloree where she helps operate her family’s farm. She is a joyful divorcée who enjoys stamping her passport, crashing charitable fundraising galas, taste-testing fried green tomatoes and conversing with values-driven leaders. In her spare time, she volunteers with The Junior League, The Links, Incorporated, and Tri Delta. Tycely also helps to sustain The R.J. Anderson Community Center, named in honor of her grandfather, a well-respected civil rights leader who was instrumental in desegragrating Elloree’s school system in 1965. The Center is Elloree’s oldest standing educational building and a historic Rosenwald School.
Tycely is a Certified Fundraising Executive (CFRE) and was recognized in 2023 as one of the Top 50 Power & Influence by The Nonprofit Times. She was also named to the Washington Journal’s Women Who Mean Business list in 2022 and the 2020 Fundraiser of the Year by the Association of Fundraising Professionals Washington, D.C. Metro Chapter.
Summer Dickson is a communications strategist who specializes in building collaborative initiatives for the betterment of South Carolina.
Summer previously served as the Director of Marketing for The Riley Institute at Furman University. She also served as the Director of Communications for the South Carolina Council on Competitiveness, where she guided the organization through rebranding and helped launch the state’s aerospace and logistics industry clusters and a statewide education initiative. She has also worked as a consultant in the private sector managing media relations and developing strategic communications plans for her clients.
While working as a family law paralegal, Summer received her associate’s degree in public service from Central Carolina Technical College, her bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy from the University of South Carolina, and her master’s degree in political management from George Washington University. She is a native of Manning, and she currently resides in Greenville with her wife and children.
Janice Wilkins has been with Liberty Fellowship since its founding in 2003. In her current role as Seminars Manager, she is responsible for planning and managing all gatherings and events in addition to a variety of administrative functions.
Janice served as a Faculty Administrative Assistant to the Wofford College Department of Biology prior to joining the Fellowship. Her professional experience also includes various positions in education and business as a bookkeeper, executive assistant, and secretary.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Janice currently lives in Spartanburg. She is an active member of the arts community and has served multiple terms on the Spartanburg Little Theatre Board of Directors. In addition to performing in local and regional musical theatre venues, she serves as a cantor and choir member of Saint Paul the Apostle Catholic Church.
Todd Breyfogle joined the Aspen Institute as Director of Seminars in January 2008 and oversees the Institute’s open-enrollment executive leadership seminars.
Todd was previously a Fellow and Program Officer at Liberty Fund and directed the University Honors Program at the University of Denver. He has lectured at universities in the U.S. and abroad and in 2012 was elected to the Senate of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Todd serves on several non-profit boards and is editor emeritus of The American Oxonian, the quarterly publication of the Association of American Rhodes Scholars. A Colorado native, he was a Boettcher Scholar at Colorado College, where he earned his B.A. in Classics-History-Politics. He attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and earned his Ph.D. as a Century Fellow and Javits Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought. Breyfogle is editor of Literary Imagination, Ancient and Modern: Essays in Honor of David Grene (University of Chicago Press, 1999) and has authored a number of articles ranging from Augustine to J. S. Bach to contemporary political theory. He lives in Denver, Colorado.
Dr. John E. Deasy is the President of The Bezos Family Foundation.
Prior to this position John was the senior partner with Cambiar Education and a partner and co-founder of Rethinc. John also served as the Executive Vice- President of Education at The Wonderful Company, and is the former Superintendent of schools for the Stockton Unified Public Schools in Stockton CA. He retired in July of 2020 from public education after 40 years of public service.
Prior to that he has led several ventures. He served as the Board Chair and CEO of Reset: New Day, New Year, which was an alternative to incarnation for young men 18-25 in the Bay Area of California. He has also been the Editor-In-Chief of The Line. The Line is a magazine dedicated to civil discourse in dealing with the most pressing matters for those on the front lines of social justice, entrepreneurship, and education. You can visit at TheLineK12.org.
John has also served as a Superintendent consultant for the Broad Center and facilitated work in the Broad Academy while coaching a number of current and emerging national education leaders. John has maintained a management consulting practice and is active on numerous boards and advisory boards.
John earned a bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Providence College and a Doctorate from The University of Louisville in Kentucky. John has taught at numerous universities and speaks frequently at State and nation- al events and conferences.
John led dramatic improvements in each school district that he served as Superintendent which propelled student achievement, high school graduation rates, and access rates to high quality courses and schools to historic levels, while simultaneously reducing suspension and dropout rates in each district while he was the leader. When Dr. Deasy served as superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, he championed a “youth first” agenda credited with reversing the district’s school-to-prison pipeline, raising achievement, and helping more students graduate ready for college and the workplace than any time in the district’s history. John also served as superintendent in prince George’s County Public Schools in Maryland, Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District in California, and Coventry Public Schools in Rhode Island. Deasy was also former superintendent of the year, high school principal of the year, and teacher of the year.
John is an Aspen Fellow from the inaugural cohort of the Aspen Institute’s fellowship of Entrepreneurs in Education and is a senior moderator for The Aspen Institute.
John Cannon Few is a Justice with the Supreme Court of South Carolina.
He was Chief Judge of the South Carolina Court of Appeals from 2010 to February 2016 and a trial court judge from 2000 to 2010. Before that, he worked in private practice in Greenville, South Carolina, and was a judicial law clerk for The Honorable G. Ross Anderson, Jr., United States District Judge. John earned a B.A. from Duke University and a J.D. from the University of South Carolina School of Law, where he served as an editor on the South Carolina Law Review. John teaches law at the University of South Carolina School of Law. He is a former member of the faculty of the National Judicial College, in Reno, Nevada, and a former Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Charleston School of Law. John is a Fellow of the third class of Liberty Fellowship and lives in Greenville, South Carolina.
Betsy Fleming was President of Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, from October 2005 to June 2016.
Prior to her role at Converse, she was Executive Director of the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, South Carolina.
Betsy holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, a M.A. from the Royal College of Art in London, and a Ph.D. in the History of Art from Yale University. Betsy is on the Board of Directors for BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, on the Board of Advisors of CTE, one of North Carolina’s largest privately held companies, and is a Trustee to The Lachaise Foundation. She has previously served on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Charlotte Branch, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, the Council of Presidents for the Association of Governing Boards, and the Council of Independent Colleges Steering Committee on the Future of Higher Education. Betsy is a Fellow of the inaugural class of Liberty Fellowship and lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Ms. Gulati is currently the Chief Growth Officer at NOW™, a B2B payments start-up that helps businesses accelerate invoice payments, and has served in this position since October 2021.
From January 2021 to October 2021, Sejal served as Senior Vice President and Growth Leader at Genpact Limited, a NYSE-listed global services firm focused on delivering digital transformation for hundreds of Fortune 500 companies. From 2017 to 2020, she served as General Manager and Vice President of Global Commercial Services for American Express. From 2016 to 2017, Sejal served as Chief Marketing Officer for EZETAP, a venture-funded start-up company that facilitated B2B payments.
Prior to founding and serving from 2006 to 2016 as Chief Executive Officer of Time Inc. India/TAS Analytical Services, a media analytics company serving Time Inc. and Time Warner, Sejal was the Director of Sales and Marketing for a number of Time Inc. publications, where she earned several industry awards for innovation.
Sejal earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She previously served as a Trustee of Princeton University and was the President of the Harvard Business School Alumni Board.
Tonya Hinch is the managing director of the Henry Crown Fellowship Program.
She was previously CEO of Hinch & Associates, a regional insurance agency, and founder of LifePlanning Unlimited, a coaching and seminar business that supports women in areas such as “raising their cash IQ” and “retiring backwards.”
Prior to this, Tonya successfully created and enjoyed a career that encompassed Fortune 500 companies, a groundbreaking start-up in a highly politicized category, and leadership in one of the most controversial education reform movements in the United States. Tonya was executive vice president of operations at Edison Schools, responsible for $500 million in business and overseeing more than 100 schools in 23 states and over 7,000 employees. She previously specialized in marketing and sales at consumer-packaged goods companies, including Ultrafem, Neutrogena, Clairol and Procter & Gamble. Tonya received a B.S. in marketing from the University of Tennessee. She is a 2007 Henry Crown Fellow as well as a member of and moderator for the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Danielle R. Holley is the twentieth president of Mount Holyoke College. A noted legal scholar and educator, Holley served as Dean of the School of Law at Howard University (2014 – 2023) prior to joining Mount Holyoke in September 2023.
She holds a B.A. from Yale University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Holley also previously served as a law clerk to Judge Carl E. Stewart on the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Her achievements during her tenure at the Howard School of Law include the introduction of a six-year BA/JD program, the launch of experiential learning and career preparation initiatives with World Bank, Microsoft and Amazon Studios, among others, and a 200 percent increase in fundraising success, including a $10 million grant to support public interest law, the largest in the Howard School of Law’s history.
President Holley’s scholarship spans the governance of public schools, increasing access to higher education and diversity in the legal profession. Her contributions to the legal profession and higher education have been recognized with numerous awards including the inaugural Impact Award from the Association of American Law Schools, the American Bar Foundation’s Montgomery Summer Research Diversity Fellowship Distinguished Alumni Award, the Lutie Lytle Conference Outstanding Scholar Award, the National Bar Association’s Heman Sweatt Award and the University of South Carolina Educational Foundation’s Outstanding Service Award. She was twice awarded the Outstanding Faculty Member award during her tenure at the University of South Carolina School of Law.
A lauded and sought-after expert on a wide range of civil rights and equity subjects, President Holley has offered her academic analysis of topics related to desegregation, racial discrimination and affirmative action, the history of the civil rights movement, diversifying K-12 pipelines to higher education, admission of undocumented immigrants to public colleges and universities, women in academic leadership and reproductive rights. She is a leading scholar of the Supreme Court decisions regarding race-conscious college and university admissions. Her insights have appeared in the media on numerous occasions, including MSNBC, The 19th, ABC News, The Boston Globe, NBC Nightly News, Reuters, WBUR and more.
Currently, President Holley serves as the co-chair of the Board of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. She has also served on the board of the Law School Admission Council and on the board of the Howard University Middle School of Math and Science. She is a moderator for the Aspen Institute, a Liberty Fellow through the Aspen Global Leadership Network and a fellow with the American Council on Education. She is also a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, the trailblazing sorority for Black women in higher education founded at Howard University in 1913. President Holley is Mount Holyoke’s first permanent Black president in the College’s 186-year history, and the fourth Black woman in history to lead one of the original Seven Sisters.
Stace Lindsay is president of Fusion Venture Partners, a firm he started in order to bring together.
His company is focused on people of great vision who inspire change, engender trust, and are moved deeply to make a difference; insights that have the power to improve our quality of life, protect that which is in danger, or to fix what is broken in our world; and capital that can be deployed with foresight, patience, and commitment to finding ways to be leveraged for economic and social good.
He is former director of strategic initiatives for the Aspen Global Leadership Network. He has been a strategic advisor to senior business, government, and nonprofit leaders throughout the world, having held senior positions at both Monitor Company and the OTF Group. Stace is the co-founder of the Central American Leadership Initiative and is a 2002 Henry Crown Fellow. He earned his degrees in international relations from Georgetown University and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He and his family make their home in Bozeman, Montana.
Leighton Lord is President and Chief Strategy Officer of Maynard Nexsen.
He is also Managing Director of Nexsen’s communications and crisis management affiliate, NP Strategy, LLC, which he founded.
Leighton is former Chairman of Santee Cooper, South Carolina’s state-owned electric and water utility. He also is Chairman of the Palmetto Economic Development Corporation, a member of the South Carolina Coordination Council for Economic Development and on the boards of Baruch Foundation and Achieve Columbia. Leighton is an executive committee member of the Urban Land Institute and serves on the Board of Governors of the Palmetto Club. He previously was a law clerk for the Delaware Chancery Court and staff counsel to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He was educated at the University of Delaware and Vanderbilt Law School. A Liberty Fellow, Leighton and his family live in Columbia, South Carolina.
Ranji H. Nagaswami, CFA is a Senior Advisor to Corsair Capital, one of the longest-standing private equity firms focused on investing in the global financial services industry.
Through her 25 plus year career, Ranji held executive and portfolio management positions at three world-class asset management firms: Bridgewater Associates, AllianceBernstein L.P and UBS Asset Management. She also served as Chief Investment Advisor to the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg for the City of New York’s public employee pension plans. Ranji is a Henry Crown Fellow and launched the Finance Fellows program within the Institute’s Global Leadership Network. She has served on numerous boards and investment committees including serving as a member of the Henry Crown Overseers Board at the Aspen Institute, the Yale University Investments Committee, and the Yale School of Management Advisory Board. Ranji earned a Bachelor of Commerce from Bombay University in India, an M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Windsor Westbrook Sherrill is associate vice president for health research and provost distinguished professor at Clemson University.
Windsor’s work has been focused on improving health management education as well as health services for underserved populations. She has served as the faculty representative to the Clemson University Board of Trustees and is an honorary member of the Clemson University Class of 1939, the highest honor bestowed on Clemson University faculty. Windsor earned her doctorate in health policy from the Florence Heller School of Brandeis University where she was a Pew Foundation Health Policy Fellow. She has a masters of health administration and masters of business administration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and an undergraduate degree from Wake Forest University. She is a Fellow of the eighth class of Liberty Fellowship and lives in Clemson, South Carolina.
John L. S. Simpkins is President of MDC, Inc. in Durham, NC. He formerly served as Vice President of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Prior to his position at AGLN he was the Executive Director of Prisma Health System’s Transformative Health Institute where he led collaborative, evidence-based efforts to promote health innovation and equity. John was appointed to the Senior Executive Service in the Obama Administration where he served as general counsel for the U.S. Agency for International Development and deputy general counsel for the White House Office of Management and Budget. Before that, he was of counsel with Wyche, P.A., visiting assistant professor of law at the University of Victoria, and a Fellow at Charleston School of Law. He continues to work as a consultant and researcher in comparative constitutional law and constitutional design. John received his B.A. in government from Harvard College and a J.D. and L.L.M. in international and comparative law from Duke University School of Law. He is a Fellow of the fourth class of Liberty Fellowship.
Ann Marie’s other professional roles in South Carolina include Deputy Executive Director of the University of South Carolina Office of Economic Engagement; Vice President for Economic and Workforce Competitiveness of the South Carolina Technical College System; and Founding Director of the nationally-recognized Apprenticeship Carolina™ initiative.
Long committed to global engagement, Ann Marie previously worked as Vice President of the Ponape Agricultural & Trade School in the Federated States of Micronesia and with the US Peace Corps in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. She also served as a Political Analyst for the Consulate General of Japan in New York and as an International Trade Associate for the State of New Jersey.
Ann Marie has served on numerous professional and volunteer boards throughout her career. She is currently a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Columbia Museum of Art; a member of the Tiffany Circle of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement; Chair of the Central SC chapter of the Tiffany Circle of the American Red Cross; an inaugural member of the Governing Board for the newly-founded national non-profit Apprenticeships for America; and a member of the President’s Advisory Council of Xavier University.
Ann Marie received her M. Phil. (A.B.D.) in Politics and her M.A. in French Studies from New York University, a Diplôme d’études from the l’Université de Paris-la Sorbonne, and her B.A. in History and French summa cum laude from Xavier University. She is a Liberty Fellow from the class of 2016 and an Aspen Institute-certified moderator.