Category: Meeting Announcements

The February meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday, the 21st, at the Capital City Club downtown. 

February’s meeting is especially timely given the recent focus on US-China relations.  Our speaker is Dr. Mary Brown Bullock, China scholar and former president of Agnes Scott College.  Her topic will be “China at Seventy: Implications for the United States.”   

Dr. Bullock has served as a distinguished visiting professor of Chinese studies at Emory University and as the executive vice chancellor of Duke Kunshan University in Kunshan, China.   Dr. Bullock’s most recent publications are The Oil Prince’s Legacy: Rockefeller Philanthropy in China (2011) and as co-editor, Medical Transitions in Twentieth-Century China (2014).  She is a member of the Schwarzman Academic Advisory Committee and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  

A 1966 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Agnes Scott, Dr. Bullock earned her master’s and doctoral degrees in Chinese history from Stanford University.  Bullock and her husband George live in Atlanta.  

The January meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday, January 17th, at the Capital City Club downtown.

We are pleased to have as speaker Dr. Dmitry Shayakhmetov, Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine and David C. Lowance Chair in Human Immunology at Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Shayakhmetov and Roundtable member Henry Wyche are co-founders of AdCure Biotechnologies, LLC.

The focus of Dr. Shayakhmetov’s research is on improving our understanding of how the human immune system initiates and exacerbates inflammation in response to viral and bacterial pathogens. AdCure Bio is a viro-immuno-therapy company, developing potent and safe oncolytic viruses for therapy of solid cancer tumors.

Dr. Shayakhmetov obtained his BS degree in biochemistry and PhD degree in molecular biology and virology under the supervision of one of the leading virologists in Russia. He obtained his postdoctoral training in virology and immunology at the University of Washington in Seattle.

The November meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday, November 15th, at the Capital City Club downtown.

Our speaker is Georgia State University Regents’ Professor Dr. Douglas Gies, director of the GSU Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA). Funded by the National Science Foundation, CHARA operates the CHARA Array on Mt. Wilson in in the San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles, California. The CHARA Array combines starlight from six widely separated component telescopes to act like one enormous telescope in terms of recording the fine details of stars and their environments, and it is the largest such telescope array in the world.

Dr. Gies will speak on “Seeing the Stars Close Up with the CHARA Array” and will provide a down-to-earth description of the discoveries made with this unique astronomical facility.

Doug Gies has enjoyed stargazing since taking it up first as a hobby as a high school student. He has Bachelor, Masters and PhD degrees in astronomy from the University of Toronto. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Texas in Austin, and he came to Georgia State as a professor in 1988. He the author or co-author of some 180 research papers in the scientific literature, and he is a frequent speaker to both expert and non-technical audiences.

The October meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday the 18th, at the Capital City Club downtown.

We’re pleased to have as speaker, Brett Daniels, Chief Operating Officer of the Atlanta Super Bowl LIII Host Committee. The Committee is the liaison between the National Football League, the City of Atlanta and the local community. From the web site: “…we are eager to show football fans what Atlanta is all about on the world’s biggest stage.”

Before leading the host committee, Brett Daniels was Deputy Athletic Director at Georgia Tech. He had previously served as Sr. Director of Corporate Communications and Brand Management for the Dallas Cowboys.

A native of Oklahoma City, Brett graduated from Southern Methodist University and has an MBA from SMU’s Cox School of Business. He and his wife, Carla, a native of Atlanta, have two teenage sons.

The September meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday the 20th, at the Capital City Club downtown.

Our speaker is the popular AJC metro columnist Bill Torpy. His tentative topic is “How to Win Friends and Influence People at City Hall”. You can review Bill’s recent columns at https://www.ajc.com/staff/bill-torpy/.

Bill Torpy joined the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1990. He has covered politics, government and countless stories about police, courts and the justice system. The Chicago native graduated from Southern Illinois University, and previously worked for the Daily Southtown in Chicago.

We look forward to seeing you on the 20th.

And, if you have not already done so, pay your dues for the 2018-2019 season—see https://atlantabusinessroundtable.org/dues/.

The May meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday the 17th, at the Capital City Club downtown.

Our speaker is Tom Croteau, the Deputy Commissioner, Global Commerce for the Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD). In this role, he leads Georgia’s Global Commerce team to increase jobs and investment through locating and expanding businesses. The Global Commerce team includes Georgia’s international representatives in 11 strategic regions around the world.

Prior to joining GDEcD, Mr. Croteau worked in the economic development divisions of MEAG Power (currently Electric Cities of Georgia) and the Metro Atlanta Chamber. He has also worked for Ernst & Young and the Florida Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Croteau holds a degree in Economics from Florida State University. He lives in Roswell with his wife Suzanne and their three children.

The April meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday the 19th, at the Capital City Club downtown.

We’re pleased to have as speaker Jennifer Bonnett, the General Manager of the Advanced Technology Development Center. In January, her Roundtable presentation on ATDC was outstanding. She returns to highlight ATDC’s Tech Square Innovation Week, scheduled for May 7-10. From the web site: “The Tech Square neighborhood is one of the nation’s most successful ecosystems of ideation and disruption”.

ATDC is the technology incubator for the state of Georgia. Founded in 1980, ATDC has developed a global reputation for fostering technological entrepreneurship. Forbes Magazine named ATDC to its list of “Incubators Changing the World” in 2010 and 2013.

Jennifer Bonnett is a technology entrepreneur with more than 25 years experience in the Information Technology/Software Development field with a specialty in web and mobile applications. She has served as Founder/Chief Technology Officer of a number of venture- and angel-backed firms.

The March meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday the 15th, at the Capital City Club downtown.

We’re pleased to have as speaker Ms. Katherine “Kitty” Cohen, President of the Georgia Bar Foundation. The foundation is the charitable arm of the Georgia Supreme Court and funds justice system projects, most notably legal services for the poor.

Katherine Cohen is Of Counsel for the international law firm Eversheds Sutherland. She manages tax issues affecting health care providers and tax-exempt organizations. Since 1987, she has served as outside tax counsel to the State Bar of Georgia.

Before joining Eversheds Sutherland, Katherine worked as a staff member of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, first with the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and later with the Subcommittee on Health and Environment.

Katherine’s undergraduate degree is from Wellesley College and her J.D. is from the University of North Carolina Law School.

The February meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday the 15th, at the Capital City Club downtown.

We’re pleased to have as speaker Kim Williams, Executive Director of Year Up Atlanta. Year Up is a national program that provides young urban adults with the skills, experience, and support that will empower them to reach their potential through professional careers and higher education. Year Up achieves this mission through a high support, high expectation model that combines marketable job skills, stipends, internships and college credits.

You can learn more about Year Up at https://www.youtube.com/user/YearUpInc.

Before taking over Year Up Atlanta, Ms. Williams was Chief Operating Officer of iCorps Technologies. Prior to iCorps, she spent 17 years at Microsoft in multiple senior leadership roles. Williams has a BS in Business from the University of Maryland University College.

The meeting of the Roundtable is at noon, Thursday, January 18th, at the Capital City Club downtown.

We’re pleased to have as speaker Jennifer Bonnett, the General Manager of the Advanced Technology Development Center.

ATDC is the technology incubator for the state of Georgia. Founded in 1980, ATDC has developed a global reputation for fostering technological entrepreneurship. Forbes named ATDC to its list of “Incubators Changing the World” in 2010 and 2013, alongside Y Combinator and the Palo Alto Research Center.

ATDC’s leader, Jennifer Bonnett, is a technology entrepreneur with more than 25 years experience in the Information Technology/Software Development field with a specialty in web and mobile technologies. She has served as Founder/Chief Technology Officer of a number of venture- and angel-backed firms.