The Conference Board, Inc. is a non-profit, non-partisan business membership and research group. It has approximately 12,000 executives in its network, from 1200 corporations in 60 countries. It holds conferences, convenes executives, conducts economic and business management research, and is seen as an important speaking venue. It holds 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status in the United States.

The organization was founded in 1916 as the National Industrial Conference Board.

It grew from a 1915 meeting at the Yama Farms Inn in New York consisting of presidents of 12 major corporations and six of the foremost industry associations. The gathering included Frederick P. Fish, Frank A. Vanderlip and Magnus W. Alexander, who would become the organization’s chairman and executive secretary. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss

the causes of the increasing strife between employers and their employees and the effect of the rapidly multiplying amount of restrictive labor and social legislation on the conduct of business . . . in order that a proper course of future action might be determined upon, alike beneficial to employers and employees and subservient to the welfare of the nation

Hanna Rosin is an American journalist.

Rosin was born in Israel and grew up in Queens where her dad is a taxi driver. She graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1987, where she won a number of competitions on the debate team. She attended Stanford University, and is married to Slate editor David Plotz; they live in Washington, D.C. with their three children.

Hanna Rosin is a co-founder of DoubleX, a women's site connected to the online magazine Slate. She is also a writer for The Atlantic. She has written for the Washington Post, The New Yorker, GQ and New York after beginning her career as a staff writer for The New Republic. Rosin has also appeared on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on Comedy Central.

A character portrayed by actress Chloë Sevigny in the movie Shattered Glass about Rosin's colleague at The New Republic, Stephen Glass, was loosely based on Rosin.

Rosin is writing a book based on her 2010 Atlantic story, "The End of Men." She gave a TED talk on the subject in 2010. In the past she has specialized in writing about religious-political issues, in particular the influence of evangelical Christians on the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign. She is the author of God's Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America (ISBN 978-0-15-101262-6), published in September 2007. Based on a New Yorker story, the book follows several young Christians at Patrick Henry College, a new evangelical institution that teaches its students to "shape the culture and take back the nation." Rosin's portrayals of the students are part of a larger attempt to chronicle the cultural and political history of the modern Christian right.

Alan Wurtzel is an American businessman, author, speaker, and philanthropist. He spent 13 years as CEO of Circuit City before retiring in 1986. He now acts as trustee for the Phillips Collection and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. He currently lives in Washington, DC and Delaplane,VA with his wife Irene Rosenberg Wurtzel.

On October 9th, 2012, Alan will be releasing his book, Good to Great to Gone, with Diversion Books. Good to Great to Gone: The 60 Year Rise and Fall of Circuit City (October 9, 2012) chronicles the history of appliance giant Circuit City, founded in 1949 by Sam Wurtzel. Alan Wurtzel officially joined the company in 1966, spent seven years in middle and senior management roles, thirteen years as CEO and another fourteen as a board member of Circuit City. His tenure with Circuit City ended in 2001. Under his leadership, the company grew from a Mom and Pop store with only $13,000 in investment, to the the best performing Fortune 500 Company for any fifteen year period between 1965 and 1995.

Anne Golden, CM (born 1941) is a Canadian administrator.

She received her BA in history from University College, University of Toronto in 1962. She received an MA from Columbia University and a Ph.D in American history from the University of Toronto.

She joined the United Way of Greater Toronto, Canada's largest annual fundraising campaign and non-governmental distributor of funds to the social services, in 1982 and was its President from 1987 to 2001. In 2001, she became the President and CEO of The Conference Board of Canada.

She was Chairman of the Greater Toronto Area Task Force for Ontario in 1996. In 1998, Mel Lastman, the Mayor of Toronto, appointed her chair of the Toronto Homelessness Action Task Force.

She was director of research for the Ontario Liberal Party and special advisor to the Leader of the Opposition. She taught at Newark College of Engineering, the University of Toronto, and York University.

In 2003, she was made a Member of the Order of Canada. She has received four honorary doctorates, from McMaster University (2011), the University of Calgary (2011), University of Toronto (2002), York University (2000) and Ryerson Polytechnic University (1997).

Rodney King "Rod" Thorn (born May 23, 1941, in Princeton, West Virginia) is the current president of the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers.

Thorn attracted nationwide attention after a high school basketball career at Princeton High School that saw him average more than 30 points per game as a senior. He was a three-time all-state selection and was a two-time High School All-American. He was also a highly-regarded high school athlete in baseball.

Thorn attended West Virginia University, where he was an All-American guard in basketball, as well as playing three seasons on the WVU baseball team.

In the 1963 NBA Draft, Thorn was the second player selected overall, drafted by the Baltimore Bullets. He was named to the NBA All-Rookie Team, but was traded by the Bullets following his first season. After brief stints with Detroit and St. Louis, he concluded his career as a player with the Seattle SuperSonics (1967–71).

After retiring, Thorn stayed with the SuperSonics as assistant coach and graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in political science.