ATLANTA/MACON – Mercer University's Executive Forum, presented by BB&T, will welcome Nina Easton, senior editor and Washington columnist for Fortune magazine, on Tuesday, Nov. 12. Easton will speak to Executive Forum members and invited guests during a lunch presentation at the Capital City Club in Atlanta at noon and a dinner presentation in the Presidents Dining Room of the University Center in Macon at 6:30 p.m.
Easton covers politics and economics in the nation's capital for the global business magazine, which was founded in 1930 and is published by Time Inc. to a readership of more than five million.
She is also a bestselling author, most notably penning “Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Ascendancy,” a historical account of post-Reagan conservatism released in 2002. She has also co-authored a book on individuals involved in the Reagan presidency and a biography of John Kerry.
Easton is a regular FOX News contributor and panelist on both “FOX News Sunday” and “Special Report with Bret Baier.” She has contributed commentary to NBC's “Meet the Press,” CBS's “Face the Nation,” ABC's “This Week” and several PBS programs. She also provided primetime commentary throughout the 2008 election on FOX News and the 2004 election on CNN.
She has won several national awards as a writer for the Los Angeles Times Sunday magazine, and she has served as deputy bureau chief of the Washington bureau at The Boston Globe.
Easton is a California native and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of California at Berkeley. In 2012, she was named a Goldsmith Fellow at Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy and a fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics.
The Executive Forum will continue early next year, as John Jung, managing director of BB&T Capital Markets, will share insights from his years of experience in the banking industry on Feb. 11, 2014.
A member of the executive committee at BB&T Capital Markets and the senior leadership team at BB&T, Jung focuses on integrating the BB&T Capital Markets platform with BB&T bank operations. He has 24 years of experience in capital markets – the first 13 as an investment banker, fixed-income trader, and head of sales and training at Craigie Inc. (a merger partner of BB&T); and the last 11 as a member of the BB&T Capital Markets managing group.
He graduated from the University of Virginia with a Bachelor of Science in systems engineering. After two years in the management consulting practice at Ernst & Whinney, he returned to The Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, where he earned his MBA.
Jung serves on the board of directors of Scott & Stringfellow, is chairman of the Greater Richmond Chamber Foundation and a trustee of the Virginia Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Additional speakers for March and April 2014, including a health care expert, will be announced at a later date.
The Executive Forum is a membership organization composed of businesses, organizations and individuals. Events are by invitation only to members. For more information on membership, call (800) 837-2911 or (478) 301-2943, or visit forum.mercer.edu/membership/.
About the Executive Forum, presented by BB&T
The Executive Forum, presented by BB&T, is a business outreach program of Mercer University's Eugene W. Stetson School of Business and Economics and the Office of University Advancement. The Executive Forum provides business professionals with an opportunity to hear nationally noted speakers while networking with other business leaders. For more information, call Mercer's Office of University Advancement at (800) 837-2911 or (478) 301-4169, or visit forum.mercer.edu/.
