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Senior Leadership Team
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Rod D. Martin, J.D.
Founder and Chairman
Rod D. Martin, Founder and Chairman of TheVanguard.Org, is a noted futurist and a leading advocate for the eradication of poverty and the expansion of liberty throughout the world. A writer, speaker and technology entrepreneur, former senior advisor to PayPal.com founder Peter Thiel and policy director to Arkansas Governor and Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, he also serves as President of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) and as a member of the Board of Governors of the Council for National Policy.
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Sherri R. Martin
Co-Chairman
Sherri Ross Martin is Co-Chairman of TheVanguard.Org. She is currently serving her fourth term representing Florida on the board of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) and her third term as chairman of the NFRA's membership committee; she is also a member of the board of directors of the Florida Republican Assembly. She has previously served as a group home mother for retarded and handicapped adults, has been instrumental in the founding and development of Christian schools across the eastern United States, and was the founding principal of Mountain Top Christian School (now Chattanooga Christian School) in Tennessee. She holds a triple-disciplinary B.A. from Covenant College, and is the much beloved mother of three.
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Eric M. Jackson
Executive Director
(Chief Operating Officer)
Eric Jackson is TheVanguard.Org's Executive Director (Chief Operating Officer). An award-winning author and Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Jackson previously oversaw marketing for the online payments giant PayPal.com, where as one of its very first employees he helped catapult the startup dot-com from 0 to 40 million users, from losing $10 million per month to profitability, to the tech sector's first successful post-crash initial public offering, and to a $1.5 billion merger with auctions powerhouse eBay. Most crucially, Jackson developed the methodology to transition PayPal from a free to paid service, the first dot-com to achieve that essential feat.
After leaving PayPal, Jackson founded the independent conservative publisher World Ahead Media and served as its Chairman and CEO, guiding the company to national prominence, a NYT bestseller and multiple book club selections-of-the-month, as well as profitability in its third year of operations followed by its acquisition by WorldNetDaily in January 2008. A longtime advocate of free markets and traditional values, Jackson previously served on the alumni board of The Stanford Review, and has appeared on numerous TV shows including Fox News and Comedy Central's “The Daily Show.” He has been quoted in publications ranging from Publishers Weekly to Forbes, and has lectured for the Cato Institute and the Reason Foundation. His book, The PayPal Wars, won the Writers Notes Book Award and was hailed by Tom Peters as "the best description of business strategy unfolding in a world changing at warp speed." He earned a degree in economics with honors from Stanford University.
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Gil Amelio, Ph.D.
Finance Chairman and Systems Strategist
Gil Amelio is TheVanguard.Org's Finance Chairman and Systems Strategist. He also serves as Lead Director of AT&T.
For three decades, Dr. Amelio has been a transformative leader, in business and technology, in Silicon Valley and around the globe. The savior of National Semiconductor -- taking it (as CEO) from its worst-ever quarter to its best in just three years -- and the man who put a dying Apple Computer on the road back to health, Amelio's leadership of Fortune 500 companies has directly created increased investor value of more than $9 billion. Since 1998, he has been a venture capitalist focusing on early-stage startups.
A former director and chairman of the Semiconductor Industry Association, Amelio has since 1996 been an advisor to the Malaysia Multimedia Super Corridor and to Malaysia's Prime Minister. He is a current or past director of Chiron, Pro-Pharmaceuticals, Pacific Telesis, Sematech, the Georgia Tech Advisory Board (as chairman) and the American Film Institute. He is an IEEE Fellow, has been awarded 16 patents, earned his Ph.D. in physics at Georgia Tech, and is the author of three books, An American Imperative (1993), Profit from Experience (1995) and On the Firing Line: My 500 Days at Apple (1998), the latter two of which were business best sellers.
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Kellyanne Conway, J.D.
Research Director and Senior Political Strategist
Kellyanne Conway is TheVanguard.Org's Research Director and Senior Political Strategist, as well as President and CEO of the polling company™, inc. / WomenTrend. She has provided primary research and advice for clients in 46 of the 50 states and has directed hundreds of demographic and attitudinal survey projects for political races, trade associations, and Fortune 100 companies. An attorney, a nationally acclaimed expert on women consumers, and a regular commentator on national network and cable television, Conway has worked for a diverse portfolio of corporate, political and non-profit entities, including Major League Baseball, ABC News, Lifetime Television, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Cendant, Grocery Manufacturers of America, Mass Connections, the Heritage Foundation, the Republican National Committee, the National Rifle Association, and the Family Research Council.
Conway is co-author (with Celinda Lake) of What Women Really Want: How American Women Are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class, and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live. She was recognized as the most accurate predictor of the 2004 elections, for which she received The Washington Post’s “Crystal Ball” award. |
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Thomas Dodd
Strategic Partnerships Director
Thomas Dodd is TheVanguard.Org's Strategic Partnerships Director. Before joining TheVanguard.Org, he served as a major gifts development officer at The Leadership Institute from 2003 to 2007, working with the Institute's top donors; and as an aide to former U.S. Senator William V. Roth, Jr. (R-DE). A graduate of the University of Deleware, he has also served as a consultant to several national public health studies, and currently serves as Eastern Region Vice President of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) and on the board of the Tocqueville Fellowship in Paris, France.
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Nicholas Stehle
Information Technology and Policy Director
Nicholas Stehle is Information Technology and Policy Director at TheVanguard.Org. He has worked on numerous local, state and federal election campaigns, and been active in both political organizations and Christian ministries; he has also served as IT Director for a billion dollar (sales) company. Nicholas is happily married to the love of his life, Lee Ann, and they are currently expecting their first child.
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Cleta Mitchell, Esq.
General Counsel
Cleta Mitchell is TheVanguard.Org's General Counsel and a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Foley & Lardner, LLP. She has more than 30 years of experience in law, politics and public policy, advising corporations, nonprofit organizations, candidates, campaigns, and individuals on state and federal election and campaign finance law, as well as compliance issues related to lobbying, ethics and financial disclosure. She normally practices before the Federal Election Commission and similar federal and state enforcement agencies, and is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, the State of Oklahoma, the Supreme Court of the United States and federal district and appellate courts.
Mitchell has previously served as legal counsel for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Rifle Association and the Term Limits Legal Institute. She is a former member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, where she chaired the House Appropriations and Budget Committee, and served on the executive committee of the National Conference of State Legislatures. She currently serves on the board of directors of the American Conservative Union, the Board of Governors for the Republican National Lawyers Association, and the board of directors of the Washington Scholarship Fund, a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization committed to expanding and improving educational options in Washington, D.C.
Mitchell has testified before Congress numerous times and is a frequent speaker and guest commentator on election law and politics. In 1999, she authored The Rise of America's Two National Pastimes: Baseball and the Law, published by the University of Michigan Law Review.
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