Members of the Council for Inclusive Innovation

As Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, Secretary Gina M. Raimondo focuses on a simple but vital mission—spur good-paying jobs, empower entrepreneurs to innovate and grow, and help American workers and businesses compete. Under her leadership, the Department of Commerce announced the largest investment to support minority and underserved businesses, including $40 billion in grants to connect every American to quality, affordable internet.

Secretary Raimondo was formerly the 75th Governor of Rhode Island and its first woman governor. During her time as Governor, Secretary Raimondo kick-started the state’s economy and made record investments in infrastructure, education, and job training.  

You can learn more about Secretary Gina M. Raimondo on her full bio page. 

As the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Director Kathi Vidal leads one of the largest intellectual property (IP) offices in the world, with more than 13,000 public servants and an annual budget of more than $4 billion. She is the principal IP advisor to the President and the Administration, through the Secretary of Commerce, and is focused on incentivizing and protecting U.S. innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity. 

She leads an agency whose mission is to help American workers and businesses compete and collaborate, especially in ground-breaking technologies and across all demographics. As Director of the USPTO, Vidal is working to expand American innovation for and from all, and to bring more ideas to impact.

You can learn more about Director Kathi Vidal on her full bio page. 

Dr. Laurie Locascio is currently the Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and the director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). From 2017 to 2022, Locascio served as vice president for research at the University of Maryland College Park and University of Maryland Baltimore. She also served as a professor in the Fischell Department of Bioengineering at the A. James Clark School of Engineering with a secondary faculty appointment in the Department of Pharmacology in the School of Medicine. Before joining the university, she was at NIST for 31 years, rising from a research biomedical engineer to leading the agency’s Material Measurement Laboratory.

Locascio is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. Dr. Locascio was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Appointed as Register of Copyrights in October 2020, Perlmutter advises Congress and executive branch agencies on copyright policy, and directs the administration of important provisions of the U.S. Copyright Act, leading a workforce of nearly 500 employees. Prior to her appointment, Perlmutter had served since 2012 as Chief Policy Officer and Director for International Affairs at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. She previously held senior positions at the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry in London, and at Time Warner in New York. Perlmutter also worked at the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva as a consultant on copyright and electronic commerce. While on the faculty at the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America from 1990-1995, she was the copyright consultant to the Clinton Administration’s Advisory Council on the National Information Infrastructure. 

Earlier in her career, she practiced law in New York City, specializing in copyright and trademark counseling and litigation. She is a co-author of a leading casebook on international intellectual property law and policy and has published numerous articles on copyright issues. She is also a research fellow at the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre at Oxford University. Perlmutter received an AB from Harvard University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania.

You can learn more about Register Shira Perlmutter on her full bio page.

Dr. Wendy Wintersteen became the 16th president of Iowa State University on Nov. 20, 2017, after a nationwide search, followed by a unanimous vote of the Iowa Board of Regents. The first woman to hold the university’s highest office, Dr. Wintersteen has served Iowa State for more than 40 years in several capacities. The university’s brand platform, “Innovate at Iowa State,” captures Dr. Wintersteen’s vision of students and faculty using creativity and innovation to develop entrepreneurial approaches to solving problems and creating new business opportunities.

Iowa State has established global prominence in innovation and entrepreneurship in higher education – named the 2023 Entrepreneurial University of the Year for the Americas and ranked among the top 12 undergraduate entrepreneurship programs out of 300 public and private universities by the prestigious Princeton Review. A national research powerhouse, Iowa State is ranked in the top 3% for research out of nearly 500 universities without a human medical school and continues to set new records for external research funding. Iowa State consistently ranks in the Top 100 universities in the nation and worldwide for number of U.S. patents as ISU faculty and staff excel at transferring their research, technology, and innovation to the marketplace to address complex challenges and accelerate the state’s economic progress.

Cristiano Amon is President and Chief Executive Officer of Qualcomm Incorporated, and also serves on the Company’s board of directors. Amon assumed the role of CEO on June 30, 2021. Amon began his Qualcomm career in 1995 as an engineer, and during his tenure, has helped shape the strategic direction for the Company in several leadership roles. 

Prior to becoming CEO, Amon served as president of Qualcomm. In that role, he steered development of a leading and differentiated product roadmap, spearheaded Qualcomm’s 5G strategy – as well as its acceleration and global roll out – and drove the expansion and diversification of the business to serve multiple industries, including automotive, computing, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), networking, and industrial. Additionally, he has overseen the successful execution of mergers and acquisitions to augment Qualcomm’s capabilities in areas such as advanced driver assistance (ADAS), spatial computing, advanced CPU, and RF Front End. Amon holds a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and an honorary doctorate from UNICAMP – Universidade Estadual de Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil. He is a member of the President’s Export Council, vice chair of the US-China Business Council.

Mary Barra is Chair and Chief Executive Officer of General Motors. She was elected Chair of the GM Board of Directors in 2016 and has served as CEO of GM since 2014. Under Barra’s leadership, GM envisions a world with zero crashes, to save lives; zero emissions, so future generations can inherit a healthier planet; and zero congestion, so customers get back a precious commodity – time. She is focused on creating the best customer experience and strengthening GM’s core vehicle and services business, while also working to deliver transformative technologies such as electrification, autonomous driving and software.

Prior to becoming CEO, Barra served as GM executive vice president, Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain, and as senior vice president, Global Product Development. In these roles, Barra and her teams were responsible for the design, engineering and quality of GM vehicle launches worldwide. Previously, she served as vice president, Global Human Resources; vice president, Global Manufacturing Engineering; plant manager, Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly; and in several other executive engineering and staff positions. Barra began her career with GM in 1980 as a General Motors Institute (Kettering University) co-op student at the Pontiac Motor Division. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in 1985, followed by a Master of Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1990. Barra serves on the Board of Directors of the Walt Disney Company, the Duke University Board of Trustees and the Detroit Economic Club.

Christopher Boerner is board chair and chief executive officer at Bristol Myers Squibb. Prior to assuming his current role, he served as executive vice president, chief operating officer and chief executive officer designate from April to November 2023. Chris previously served as executive vice president, chief commercialization officer since August 2018, where he led the worldwide Commercial and Medical organizations and was responsible for driving growth across the company’s key franchises. Prior to that role, Chris was head of international markets at Bristol Myers Squibb, accountable for international commercial activities. Before that, he was head of U.S. commercial markets, responsible for U.S. sales and marketing, government affairs and market access. He joined the company in February 2015.

"We work every day to make sure we're delivering medicines for patients. With the pace of scientific innovation and the best workforce in the industry, my confidence in our future is stronger than ever,” he says. From 2010 to 2015, Chris held leadership roles of increasing responsibility at Seattle Genetics, Inc. From 2002 to 2010, he served in marketing leadership roles at Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, focused on strategy, development and commercialization across multiple oncology products and immunology. Earlier in his career, Chris worked for McKinsey & Company, serving global pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients. Chris received his PhD and MA in business administration from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and holds a BA in economics and history from Washington University in St. Louis. 

 

Dr. Jeffrey Welser is Chief Operating Officer for IBM Research and Vice President, Exploratory Science and University Collaborations. He oversees IBM Research Labs based in California, Brazil and Japan, as well as the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab in Cambridge. He oversees exploratory and applied research to advance data technology and analytics for Hybrid Cloud and AI systems and software, with a strong focus on advanced computing technologies for AI, neuromorphic devices and quantum computing.

After joining IBM Research in 1995, Dr. Welser worked on a broad range of technologies, including novel silicon devices, high-performance CMOS and SOI device design, and next generation system components. He has led teams in both development and research, as well as running industrial, academic and government consortiums, including the SRC Nanoelectronics Research Initiative.
 

Dr. Stephen J. Susalka is the Chief Executive Officer of AUTM, a 3,000+ member non-profit association, focused on supporting and enhancing technology transfer globally, and oversees a cooperative agreement with the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer to support technology transfer for more than 300 federal labs across the US. 

Dr. Susalka earned his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Virginia and is a registered U.S. Patent Agent. He is a past Board member of multiple university-affiliated start-up companies and is both a Registered Technology Transfer Professional (RTTP) and a Certified Licensing Professional (CLP). 
 

Dr. F. Javier Diez got his B.S. and M.S. from Saint Louis University and his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan. He is a Full Professor at Rutgers University in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering with a graduate faculty appointment in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Dr. Diez is the head of the Applied Fluids Laboratory, where over 100 students have done research.

His expertise includes UAV/UUV, aerodynamics and propulsion, aviation, and sensors. He has been funded by NSF, ONR, DIU, AFOSR, FAA, and DARPA, among others. He is the recipient of the 2019 Outstanding Engineering Faculty Award. Dr. Diez has given over 25 invited lectures and authored over 100 journal articles, conference papers, and technical publications. He is the founder, with his graduated Ph.D. students, of two Rutgers startups, SubUAS LLC and XTT LLC. Dr. Diez is the CEO and President of SubUAS LLC, which is commercializing the Naviator, the first unmanned vehicle that can fly, float, swim, dive, and transition between air and water in less than a second. He is also CTO of XTT LLC, which is commercializing aerodynamic flow deflectors for enhancing wind turbine performance.