Moderators & Staff

Angela Cobb works with education organizations and social enterprises to create positive change in the world. Her 25-year career spans a myriad of social issues in the public and private sectors.

An expert in driving positive organizational change through strong leadership with an equity lens, she also has extensive experience launching and leading large-scale initiatives and social impact ventures. Among them include the New Options Project – a three year, $28M investment of the W.K. Kellog Foundation that focused on connecting opportunity youth to employment; The Purple Purse – An Allstate Foundation signature philanthropic program focused on economic empowerment for survivors of domestic violence; and serving as the first Chief Diversity Officer at Teach for America, the country’s national teaching corps.

Angela spent the early part of her career with Deloitte, where she managed diversity and community outreach programs, worked in change management consulting and was an auditor. Angela received her MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame where she received a B.B.A. in Accounting. She is an Aspen Education Entrepreneurs Fellow and moderator for the Aspen Institute.

John is the recently retired President of the Bezos Family Foundation. Prior to this, he was superintendent of Stockton Unified School District where he oversaw a massive upgrade of new curriculum, technology for all youth, counselors and mental health clinicians in all schools, championed homeless issues, and saw strong improvement in all youth indicators of success.

John led dramatic improvements in each district he served as superintendent. 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, raised achievement and helped more students graduate ready for college and the workplace than at any time in the District’s history. John also served as superintendent in Prince George’s County Public Schools, Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, and Coventry Public Schools.

He was Board Chair and former CEO of Reset: New Day, New Year, an alternative prison for young men, and founding Editor-In-Chief of The Line, a magazine dedicated to civil discourse. John is Superintendent In Residence for the Broad Center, maintains a consulting practice, and serves on the boards of College Summit, UnboundED, and TeacherCraft. He is an Aspen Fellow and a senior moderator for the Aspen Institute.

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.

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.

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 joined the Aspen Institute as Managing Director of the Henry Crown Fellowship Program in early 2014 and took the helm as Executive Director in 2018. She relocated from Crossville, TN after selling her family business, Hinch & Associates, a regional insurance agency, for which she served as CEO. Tonya was also the 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 ground-breaking 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 $500MM in business overseeing over 100 schools in 23 states and over 7,000 employees.

Formerly, Tonya specialized in Marketing and Sales at consumer-packaged goods companies, including Ultrafem, Neutrogena, Clairol, and Procter & Gamble. She received a B.S. in Marketing from the University of Tennessee. Tonya resides in Washington, D.C. and New York City, New York. Tonya is a 2007 Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and a moderator for the Henry Crown Fellowship and the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

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 19^th, 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 Executive Vice President for Leadership at the Aspen Institute, where he leads the development of the Aspen Center for Leadership, strengthening and connecting Aspen’s leadership work and supporting a global community of leaders. A strategic advisor, teacher, and entrepreneur with more than 30 years of experience, he has worked with senior leaders across business, government, and civil society. A Henry Crown Fellow and Senior Moderator, he has spent more than two decades designing and facilitating leadership fellowships and has facilitated Aspen seminars for senior leaders throughout the world.

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.

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. She has served as Associate Vice President of Health Research for Clemson University, Chief Science Officer for Prisma Health Upstate, and the Founding Director of the Clemson University School of Health Research.  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 Master’s of Health Administration and a Master’s of Business Administration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and an undergraduate degree from Wake Forest University. She has held faculty positions with the Medical College of Georgia, the Medical University of SC, USC School of Medicine Greenville, and UNC Charlotte.   Windsor is a Fellow of the eighth class of Liberty Fellowship and lives in Clemson, South Carolina.

John L. S. Simpkins is a constitutional scholar and Senior Moderator with the Aspen Institute. He is the former President and CEO of MDC, an organization working on behalf of racial equity and economic mobility in the South. Previously, he served as VP Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute. Prior to that, he was an executive with Prisma Health, the largest health system in South Carolina. He also has served as a Senior Lecturer at Duke Law School.

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 joining the government, he was of counsel with Wyche, P.A., visiting assistant professor of law at the University of Victoria, and an assistant professor at Charleston School of Law. He continues to work as a consultant and researcher in comparative constitutional law and constitutional design. John received his AB in government from Harvard College and a JD and LLM in international and comparative law from Duke University School of Law. He is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

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.