“Lunches With Leaders” Announces Third Year Lineup from Diversified Search

One of the nation’s most renowned presidential historians, the President, Worldwide Hotel Operations of one of the world’s most respected luxury hotel companies, and the man who oversees one of the largest public pension funds in the country will be the speakers for the third iteration of “Lunches With Leaders,” Diversified Search’s acclaimed speaker series. In “Lunches With Leaders,” top executives and experts share lessons and insights with business leaders around the nation in intimate, invitation-only luncheons.

“Given the strong reaction to our first two years presenting this program, we knew there was a real hunger from executives looking to hear firsthand from leaders across the spectrum about the issues facing American business and society today,” said Dale E. Jones, President and CEO of Diversified Search. “We feel our 2019 lineup brilliantly advances the mission of Lunches With Leaders.”

The 2019 series will kick off with a speech and book signing at The Harvard Club in Boston on May 13th featuring Doris Kearns Goodwin, the presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the New York Times bestsellers Leadership in Turbulent Times and Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, the latter of which served as the inspiration for the Steven Spielberg film Lincoln. In 2016, Goodwin became the first historian to receive the Lincoln Leadership Prize from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation. She is also a frequent commentator for major network and cable television news programs, including Meet the Press and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

The series will then shift to the fall, when on October 29th Christian Clerc, President, Worldwide Hotel Operations, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, will address a lunch at the new Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia. At Four Seasons, Clerc oversees global hotel operations, ensuring that each Four Seasons hotel and resort in the company’s growing portfolio represents the highest standards of quality and service. Clerc joined Four Seasons in 2000 as Hotel Manager in one of the company’s flagship locations, Four Seasons Hotel Washington, D.C., and subsequently held posts in New York, Chicago, and Punta Mita, Mexico, before returning to Washington; in 2012, he took over leadership of the legendary Four Seasons Hotel George V, Paris, with regional responsibility for Florence, Milan, Geneva, and Marrakech. He was promoted to President, Hotel Operations in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa in 2014, and to his current position in 2016.

The 2019 series will conclude November 7th in New York with remarks from Jarvis V. Hollingsworth, who leads the public/education law practice group at Bracewell, a leading global law and government relations firm primarily serving the energy, infrastructure, finance, and technology sectors, with ten offices worldwide. Based in Houston, Hollingsworth was reappointed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS), a state agency that manages a nearly $147 billion pension trust fund, as well as an array of benefits, for the more than 1.5 million active and retired teachers and education employees in Texas. One of the most distinguished lawyers in Texas and a former regent on the board of the University of Houston System, where he served as Chairman of the Board, Hollingsworth served as an officer in the U.S. Army and Army Reserve prior to beginning his law career.

About "Lunches with Leaders"

Diversified Search launched its “Lunches With Leaders” series with a pilot program in December 2016, featuring a speech by Stuart E. Jones, the former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Jordan. That was followed by three successful lunches in 2017, featuring Randall Lane, the editor of Forbes magazine, in Philadelphia; Rajiv Shah, the new CEO of The Rockefeller Foundation, in New York; and Indra Nooyi, the CEO and Chairman of Pepsico, in Miami.

In 2018, the firm presented three more “Lunches,” featuring Courtney A. Kemp, executive producer of Lionsgate Television and creator of the award-winning Starz network drama Power, in Philadelphia; Glenn A. Youngkin, co-CEO of the Carlyle Group, in Chicago; and Steve Case, CEO of Revolution and founder of AOL, in Washington, D.C.