John David Podesta (born January 8, 1949) was the fourth and final White House Chief of Staff under President Bill Clinton, from 1998 until 2001. He is the former president and now Chair and Counselor of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington, D.C., and is also a Visiting Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center. Podesta was a co-chairman of the Obama-Biden Transition Project.

Podesta spent most of his early years in Chicago, where he was born, growing up in the neighborhood of Jefferson Park on the city's Northwest Side. His mother, Mary (née Kokoris), was Greek-American, and his father, John David Podesta, Sr., was Italian-American. He has a brother, Tony. In 1967, he graduated from Lane Technical High School in Chicago. In 1971, Podesta graduated from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. He attended the Georgetown University Law Center and graduated in 1976. Podesta worked as a trial attorney for the Department of Justice's Honors Program in the Land and Natural Resources Division (1976–1977), and as a Special Assistant to the Director of ACTION, the Federal volunteer agency (1978–1979).

Anthony Kapel "Van" Jones (born September 20, 1968) is an American environmental advocate, civil rights activist, and attorney. Jones is a co-founder of three non-profit organizations. In 1996, he founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, a California non-governmental organization (NGO) working for alternatives to violence. In 2005, he co-founded Color of Change, an advocacy group for African Americans. In 2007, he founded Green For All, a national NGO dedicated to "building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty." His first book, The Green Collar Economy, was released on October 7, 2008, and reached number 12 on the New York Times Best Seller list. In 2008, Time magazine named Jones one of its "Heroes of the Environment".Fast Company called him one of the "12 Most Creative Minds of 2008".

In March 2009 Jones was appointed by President Barack Obama to the newly created position of Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where he worked with various "agencies and departments to advance the administration's climate and energy initiatives, with a special focus on improving vulnerable communities." In July 2009 he became "embroiled in a controversy" over his past political activities, including a public comment disparaging congressional Republicans, his name appearing on a petition for 911Truth.org, and allegations of association with a Marxist group during the 1990s. For these issues, Van Jones was heavily criticized by conservatives. Jones resigned from the position in early September 2009. "On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me," Jones said in his resignation statement. "They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide."

-- | name = Tawakkul Karman | image = Tawakkol Karman.jpg | native_name = توكل كرمان | native_name_lang = Arabic | image_size = | alt = Tawakul Karman | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = (1979-02-07) 7 February 1979 (age 33) | birth_place = Taiz, Yemen | death_date = | death_place = | resting_place = | nationality = Yemeni | party = Al-Islah | movement = Jasmine Revolution | influences = Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela | religion = Sunni Islam | spouse = Mohammed al-Nahmi | children = Three | parents = Abdel Salam Karman | occupation = Journalist, politician and human rights activist | awards = 2011 Nobel Peace Prize }}

Tawakul Karman (Arabic: توكل كرمان ‎ Tawak[k]ul Karmān) (Anglicised: Tawakul,Tawakkol,Tawakkul or Tawakel Abdel-Salam Karman) (born 7 February 1979) became the international public face of the 2011 Yemeni uprising that is part of the Arab Spring uprisings. She has been called by Yemenis the "Iron Woman" and "Mother of the Revolution." She is a co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first Yemeni, the first Arab woman, and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize and the youngest Nobel Peace Laureate to date.

Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. (born January 5, 1942) is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993. He has also co-anchored CBS This Morning since January 2012. Rose, along with Lara Logan, has hosted the revived CBS classic Person to Person, a news program during which celebrities are interviewed in their homes, originally hosted from 1953 to 1961 by Edward R. Murrow.

Rose was born in Henderson, North Carolina, the only child of Margaret Frazier and Charles Peete Rose, Sr., tobacco farmers who owned a country store. As a child, Rose lived above his parents' store in Henderson and helped out with the family business from age seven. Rose admitted in a Fresh Dialogues interview that as a child his insatiable curiosity was constantly getting him in trouble. A high school basketball star, Rose entered Duke University intending to pursue a degree with a pre-med track, but an internship in the office of Democratic North Carolina Senator B. Everett Jordan got him interested in politics. Rose graduated in 1964 with a bachelor's degree in history. At Duke, he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity. He earned a Juris Doctor from the Duke University School of Law in 1968. He met his wife, Mary (née King), while attending Duke.