With more than 300 members, the Emerging Leaders community is a dynamic cross-sector network of Chicago’s visionary, globally minded, locally committed leaders.
Jamie Jones works with students, alumni, and members of the community to apply business principles for positive societal and/or environmental impact. Before her time at Duke, she was at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where she launched the Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge and co-hosted the Impact Investing Summit.
Murali Kanakasabai is a leader in the derivatives industry, having designed and launched exchange-traded products in several industries. Before Exponential, he was a member of the founding team at the Chicago Climate Exchange, which pioneered environmental derivatives, and the American Financial Exchange/Ameribor, a market-based LIBOR alternative.
Jayesh Kannan, CFA, researches global technology, media, and communication services companies and makes recommendations regarding their investment attractiveness for the firm’s global and international investment portfolios. He focuses on understanding the business model, competitive advantages, and evaluating the corporate performance of companies across economies of the world.
Nadav Klugman is a partner at White & Case LLP and formerly at Mayer Brown’s projects and infrastructure group. He has worked on a wide range of debt, equity, and tax monetization financings, restructurings, acquisitions, divestitures, and joint ventures in the US and abroad. Much of his practice focuses on renewable energy and other clean technology assets.
Rebecca Knight is an assistant general counsel with Aon's law and compliance team. She is a business-focused attorney with over 15 years of experience partnering with leaders to meet strategic objectives, mitigate risk, and drive growth. She regularly negotiates complex commercial agreements and counsels the businesses she supports on the development of innovative offerings.
Seth Kravitz is the former co-founder of Technori, a publication that celebrates entrepreneurship, and Bow Truss, a premium coffee roasting company. After falling in love with the Chicago entrepreneur community, Kravitz started mentoring at the Coleman Center at DePaul University, the Knapp Center at IIT, Excelerate Labs, and Code Academy.
William Krehbiel is the founder and CEO of Topography Hospitality, LLC, and co-managing partner of Ballyfin Demesne, a luxury hotel in Ireland. He previously founded and led A Better Chicago, a venture philanthropy fund supporting high-impact nonprofits serving low-income communities.
Natasha Krol's work has included facilitating collaboration across distributed higher education systems, supporting the government of Nigeria in reducing poliovirus cases, and designing innovation labs. Recently, Krol supported Chicago and UILabs in their winning bid to launch a $320M public-private "Digital Lab" to support advanced manufacturing technology research, development, and demonstration.
Shermin Kruse is also a TEDx speaker; an accomplished negotiator, facilitator, and mediator; the author of the critically acclaimed, best-selling novel Butterfly Stitching; a contributor to the Huffington Post; a director of the ACLU of Illinois; cofounder and director of Pasfarda Arts and Culture Exchange; a director of Heshima Kenya; and a mother of four.
Alex Kruzel is an author, entrepreneur, business advisor, and CEO and founder of Telesto Strategy, a Chicago-based management consulting firm. Her recent book, The Courage to Continue: Stay the Course on Sustainability to Secure our Future, explores how businesses can integrate sustainability into risk management as well as align environmental security with national security priorities.
