Gary Ginsberg has seen the inner working of the White House. As a former political strategist and legal aide to the Clinton administration, Gary became fascinated by those individuals whom presidents would call on for a meal, a game of golf, or a late-night phone call.

In his NYT-bestselling book First Friends: The Powerful, Unsung (and Unelected) People Who Shaped Our Presidents, he offers remarkable insights into the influential friends of American Presidents.

Joshua Speed shared a bed for four years with Abraham Lincoln, during which Speed saved his friend from crippling depression. Richard Nixon’s ‘near-total reliance’ on a Miami businessman caused some people to speculate they were lovers. David Ormsby-Gore, the British ambassador and old friend of J.F. Kennedy, helped guide the president through the Cuban Missile Crisis, and later proposed to the president’s widow, Jackie, after his assassination. Bill Clinton dispatched Vernon Jordan to dissuade Hillary Clinton of divorce for his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

These are just some of the people whose friendships with presidents have, in some way, altered US political history.

Speaking in the UK for the first time, for a Fireside chat with ‘First Friends’ author Gary Ginsberg, in conversation with Alexandra Mousavizadeh a Partner at Tortoise Media.

Speakers:

Gary Ginsberg is a lawyer, American political operative, and corporate advisor, serving as a strategist in both the public and private sectors for more than 25 years. Ginsberg has witnessed some of the most important events in recent American history and was known as “the connection to Washington on multiple instances” while working for names such as Bill Clinton, Rupert Murdoch, and Jeff Bewkes. He served as the Senior Vice President and Global Head of Communications at SoftBank Group Corp. Before joining SoftBank, Ginsberg served as Executive Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Communications at Time Warner and as Executive Vice President of Global Marketing and Corporate Affairs at News Corp. Ginsberg is the author of First Friends: The Powerful, Unsung (and Unelected) People Who Shaped our Presidents published in July 2021, which reached The New York Times Best Seller list. Throughout his career, Ginsberg arranged lunches with Bill Clinton, orchestrated a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton and arranged a meeting between Rupert Murdoch and Barack Obama. He was a point man for News Corp’s 2007 purchase of Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, served as a senior adviser to Time Warner’s CEO Jeff Bewkes and met with Jared Kushner at the White House about the Trump administration’s concerns about CNN. Ginsberg gives a behind-the-curtain look at how the powerful members of our government and businesses make world-changing decisions.

Alexandra Mousavizadeh is a Partner at Tortoise Media, the slow-news media company founded by James Harding launched in April 2019. Alexandra is the Director of the Tortoise Intelligence team which specialises in global and industry indices and data analytics. Creator of the Global AI Index launched in December 2019, and the recently released Responsibility100 Index. She has 20 years’ experience in the ratings and index business and has worked extensively across Central Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Previously, she directed the expansion of the Legatum Institute’s flagship publication, The Prosperity Index, and all its bespoke metrics-based analysis & policy design for governments. Prior roles include Sovereign Analyst for Moody’s with specific focus on Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Director of Country Risk Management, EMEA, Morgan Stanley and CEO of ARC Ratings, a global emerging markets-based ratings agency. She holds a degree in economics and mathematics from the University of Copenhagen.

Attendance is restricted to Conduit members

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