Jerry Nickelsburg is an economist who plays a key role in the economic modeling and forecasting of the national, California and regional economies. He joined the UCLA Anderson School of Management and the UCLA Anderson Forecast in 2006. Since 2017, he has served as faculty director of the Forecast and has conducted special studies for the Forecast on manufacturing, trade, and labor markets. Nickelsburg travels regularly with students to Asia as professor and advisor in global immersion courses. He developed forecasting tools for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and has advised banks, investors, and financial institutions. 

He earned a PhD in economics at the University of Minnesota and was a Fulbright Research Scholar in Ecuador and Peru. His current research is on transportation economics focusing on the development of new data and the application of economic theory and statistical methods to sector-specific policy issues.

Formerly a professor of economics at the University of Southern California, Nickelsburg has held executive positions with McDonnell Douglas, FlightSafety International and Boeing during a 15-year span in the aviation business. He developed forecasting tools for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and has advised banks, investors, and financial institutions. From 2000 to 2006, he was the managing principal of Deep Blue Economics, a consulting firm he founded. 

Nickelsburg is frequently cited in the national media. He has published more than 100 scholarly and popular articles on economic policy, monetary economics, statistics, labor economics and industrial organization. He is the author of two books on monetary economics and exchange rates.

A Florida native, Jim Stavridis attended the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, and spent 37 years in the Navy, rising to the rank of 4-star Admiral. Among his many commands were four years as the 16th Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, where he oversaw operations in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, the Balkans, and counter piracy off the coast of Africa. He also commanded US Southern Command in Miami, charged with military operations through Latin America for nearly three years. He was the longest serving Combatant Commander in recent US history. Following his military career, he served for five years as the 12th Dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

In the course of his career in the Navy, he served as senior military assistant to the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of Defense. He led the Navy’s premier operational think tank for innovation, Deep Blue, immediately after the 9/11 attacks. Admiral Stavridis was promoted directly from 1-star rank to 3-star rank in 2004.

He won the Battenberg Cup for commanding the top ship in the Atlantic Fleet and the Navy League John Paul Jones Award for Inspirational leadership, along with more than 50 US and international medals and decorations, including 28 from foreign nations. He also commanded a Destroyer Squadron and a Carrier Strike Group, both in combat. In 2016, he was vetted for Vice President by Secretary Hillary Clinton and subsequently invited to Trump Tower to discuss a cabinet position with President Donald Trump.

He earned a PhD from The Fletcher School at Tufts, winning the Gullion prize as outstanding student in his class in 1983, as well as academic honors from the National and Naval War Colleges as a distinguished student. He speaks Spanish and French.

Admiral Stavridis has published thirteen books on leadership, character, risk, the oceans, maritime affairs, and Latin America, as well as hundreds of articles in leading journals. An active user of social networks, he has tens of thousands of connections on the social networks. His TED talk on 21st century security in 2012 has close to one million views. He tweeted the end of combat operations in the Libyan NATO intervention. Two of his most popular books are the novel 2034: A Novel of the Next World War which was a New York Times bestseller and is being published in 22 languages; and To Risk It All: Nine Conflicts and The Crucible of Decision. His most recent book is 2054 which is about artificial intelligence and geopolitics.

Admiral Stavridis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, Chief International Security Analyst for NBC News, and Vice Chairman of The Carlyle Group.

He is happily married to Laura, and they have two daughters – one working at Google and the other a Nurse Practitioner and former naval officer, both married to physicians.

With an accomplished career in finance spanning more than three decades, LA28 CFO Karen Sturges is leading LA28 to a fiscally responsible Olympic and Paralympic Games. With just over 400 employees today, the organization will grow to 5,000 in 2028 when the city will welcome the world to LA. Karen’s leadership touches every functional area in the organization. Her oversight of the finance function and implementation of hundreds of strategic initiatives will allow the organizing committee to deliver Games that will make and leave a positive impact on Los Angeles.

Karen reports directly to LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover and is a key player on the senior leadership team. As an advisor on all business decisions, she works to optimize and protect LA28’s financial assets and ensure proper investment on the road to the LA28 Games.

Since joining LA28, Karen has developed and implemented a vision for how the finance function operates at LA28 and is executing how the team delivers value to the organization. Not afraid to think differently, Karen’s approach blends quantitative data with a qualitative perspective, leaning into relationships and partnerships with key stakeholders in the Olympic & Paralympic Movement: hundreds of organizations from the International Olympic Committee and International Paralympic Committee to the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee, dozens of commercial partners, the City of Los Angeles and beyond.

Known as a leader by example, as Karen drives LA28’s financial strategy and operations, she prioritizes people, teamwork and employee development and growth. Karen is a trusted voice and reliable teammate for the entire organization. Karen’s leadership was recently acknowledged in an award presented to her by the Los Angeles Business Journal. She was named CFO of the Year – Non-Profit and Public Service, 2023.

Throughout Karen’s career, there has been a clear path of opportunity and promotion paired with new challenges and career advancement. She has led major organizations through wholesale industry changes and COVID-related financial distress. Prior to LA28, Karen held two CFO roles; at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and NBCUniversal. In her experiences leading up to those two CFO appointments, she held executive roles at Endeavor Content, Sony Pictures Entertainment and WarnerBros Entertainment. Karen started her career at Arthur Anderson, qualifying as a CPA during her tenure. Prior to that post, she studied and earned her BS in Accounting at the University of Southern California, then returned to USC to get her MBA, with an emphasis in Finance and Management Information Systems.

As a two-time cancer survivor, Karen unlocked her gift of mentorship. After fighting both ovarian and uterine cancer, Karen became a mentor to numerous women waging similar battles. Karen’s ability to relate to others, bring them together and provide hope is something she learned in her youth, when at age 12, her team from Tustin, Calif., won the Bobby Sox Softball National Championship. For anyone, a national championship at any level is quite an accomplishment, and for Karen, she points to this formative experience to this day, which taught her perseverance, courage and teamwork.

Karen’s passion for building up others and as an extension, Los Angeles, is the thread woven throughout her career. She co-founded the Witness to a Dream Foundation, in partnership with her husband, Tom Sturges and in conjunction with the Foshay Learning Center in South Los Angeles. She helped create a unique mentorship program that paved the way for inner-city high school students to graduate from high school and enter four-year colleges. The program leveraged music, creativity and live performances to inspire and fuel the next generation. Throughout its existence, 231 students graduated and 214 matriculated to four-year universities. These unlikely heroes are now doctors, lawyers, social workers, real estate agents, and there is even a pharmacist. Karen and Tom continue to stay in touch and mentor them.

While at the LA Philharmonic, Karen made it her intended purpose to expand the reach, depth and impact of the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) program; Gustavo Dudamel’s signature effort to bring music to children all over the city. And now, at LA28, she’s reaching back to her roots in sports as the organization commits millions of dollars in programming support to remove barriers and expand access to youth sports across the region.