Twenty-Eighth Term Member Conference

FROMAN: Well, good evening, everybody. I’m Mike Froman. I’m president of the Council. And it is truly great to see all of you here. This is by far the biggest meeting I think we’ve had. There are more people in the building today than I’ve seen in the last three-and-a-half months. It’s great to see people in person, and I know we’re joined by several more on Zoom. It’s really terrific to have you here for what is the Twenty-Eighth Term Member Conference.

First, I wanted to thank the folks who actually already got us started—Reena Ninan, Steven Cook, Mai El-Sadany, Farah Pandith, and Mara Rudman—for the earlier session on the Middle East and the conflict there.

I want to just note that this is the first full Term Member Conference in person in New York City since November of 2019, so I view this as—(applause)—I think we’re going to declare COVID officially over. (Laughter.) This—I don’t want to jinx it. (Laughs.)

I’m going to turn it over to Karen here in just a minute, but I wanted to say a few words about the Term Member Program itself. So the Term Member Program was actually started in 1970, fifty-three...

BODURTHA: Good morning. I’m Nancy Bodurtha. I’m the vice president of meetings and membership here at the Council on Foreign Relations. And I’d like to welcome you. For those of you who were here last evening, I’d like to welcome you back to the 28^th Conference of the Stephen M. Kellen Term Member Program. The conference got off to a very energetic start last night with plenary discussions on the war in the Middle East as well as U.S.-China relations. And then we had a reception that did not want to end. (Laughter.) I am told that some of you may have taken the party offsite. So for any of you who are in need of extra hydration this morning, please know that we have lots of beverage stations that are located throughout the house and they’ll be available all day today.

We have got an extraordinarily full agenda that’s designed to offer you good content, good conversation, and good community. The plenaries today will focus on artificial intelligence, the war in Ukraine, climate change, and we will also have a special keynote conversation with Rockefeller Foundation President Raj Shah, in conversation with Council on Foreign Relations President Mike Froman....

FROMAN: All right. Well, welcome, everybody. This is the last event of what’s been a very busy twenty-four, twenty-eight hours. I think some of you actually used all of those twenty-eight hours and—(laughter)—went to the afterparty last night after the reception. And we’ve got also people online here as well. So I don’t know, how many people do we have online at this point? About forty, OK. There we go.

SHAH: Wow.

FROMAN: It’s great to have you.

SHAH: Thank you.

FROMAN: And it’s great to have—you know, Raj and I are old friends. We’re neighbors. Our children grew up together. So this is not exactly an unbiased conversation, OK? (Laughter.) Just like interest of full—interest of full disclosure. And we’ve had the pleasure of working together in government and outside of government. And so it’s a real—a real pleasure and honor.

So let me start. You have taken over an organization that is more than a hundred years old after a longtime leader—(laughter)—filled with tradition—(laughter)—and you’re trying to make sure it is as relevant as possible going forward to have an impact on all sorts of new issues. I can’t imagine what that must be like. (Laughter.) So how...