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�԰����� announces the return of the annual Policy Maker Breakfast Series live and in person this spring, once again bringing national and international leaders to San Antonio. This year’s headliners are Anja Manuel and Dan Heath, who will provide lively and informative commentary on emerging topics and trends of the day.

The breakfasts and presentations will take place in the Grand Ballroom at The Westin San Antonio North at 9821 Colonnade Blvd., formerly the Omni Colonnade. Breakfast will be served at 7:30 a.m., and the program begins at 8 a.m. A question and answer session will follow.

Tickets for the Policy Maker Breakfast Series, which includes two breakfasts, cost $90, and tickets for individual breakfasts are available for $50. For information or to register by phone, call �԰�����’s Office of Conferences and Special Programs at 210-999-7601, or visit the . Advance registration is required.

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Anja Manuel

March 3, 2022

The first speaker will be Anja Manuel, a former diplomat, author, and advisor on foreign policy. Along with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former National Security Advisor Stephen Handley, Manuel is co-founder and principal in Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, a strategic consulting firm that helps U.S. companies navigate international markets.��

In addition, Manuel is the director of the Aspen Strategy Group and Aspen Security Forum, a bi-partisan forum on foreign policy in the U.S., and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is also the author of This Brave New World: India, China and the United States, and served as an official at the U.S. Department of State, responsible for South Asia Policy.��

Manuel will be presenting the topic “President Biden: The Future of U.S. Foreign Policy and America’s Role in the World.” She will offer an informed analysis of how the President’s policies might affect the United States’ relationships with both foreign allies and enemies. Drawing on years of experience working at the State Department and as an international business consultant with the firm of RiceHadleyGates & Manuel LLC, Manuel breaks down the sometimes inflammatory foreign policy and trade pronouncements into thoughtful and understandable realities. From the likely direction of U.S. trade policy, relations with China and India, and what the instability of the Middle East and Russia’s assertive policies might mean for U.S. businesses in the near term, Manuel can draw on expertise in every region of the world to provide answers to today's issues.

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Dan Heath

April 26, 2022

The second speaker will be Dan Heath, who is a senior fellow at the Center for Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship, a research and education center at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business that promotes the entrepreneurial pursuit of social impact through the thoughtful adaptation of business expertise.��

An entrepreneur himself, Heath founded Thinkwell, which develops educational multimedia for middle-school through college. Heath is also an author and co-wrote four business books in the past decade: Made to Stick, Switch, Decisive, and The Power of Moments, which explores why certain brief experiences can jolt, elevate, and change us—and how we can create these extraordinary moments in our life and work.��

In 2013, Heath was named to the “Thinkers 50,” a ranking of the world’s 50 most influential management thinkers. He holds an MBA from Harvard and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

Heath will cover the topic “Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen.”��In this talk, he will explain how organizations fall into a cycle of reaction that researchers describe as “tunneling”—when we don’t see the big picture and don’t think about the future, we just keep pushing forward from one crisis to the next. But what if we could instead shift our energies upstream, uncovering and addressing the source of those problems? Heath will reveal how some leaders have learned to spot problems in advance, such as a school district that can predict which students will drop out or an internet service company that can predict which customers are likely to cancel their subscriptions. When we shift from downstream response to upstream planning, it can cause miracles. Heath will share the three forces that push us downstream, as well as the powerful levers we can use to start preventing problems before they happen.