Mike Baker

During a career spanning over 15 years as a covert field operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Mike Baker specialized in counterterrorism, counternarcotics and counterinsurgency operations. He engaged in, organized and supervised operations around the globe, working in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, the former Soviet Union and elsewhere. He was recognized professionally for outstanding performance and for operational achievements in hostile environments.

After leaving government service, Mike co-founded Diligence LLC, a global intelligence, investigations, risk management and security firm that has grown over the past decade into one of the acknowledged industry leaders. As a principal partner he has led the company as it expanded around the world, opening offices in London, New York, Washington DC, Moscow, Sao Paulo, Brussels and Geneva. He also established the company’s security operations in Iraq, building a team of over 300 expat and local personnel involved in security and information collection.

The Diligence Advisory Board has included numerous senior leaders from the intelligence world, government and business. The non-executive Chairman is Judge William Webster, former Director of both the CIA and Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Lord Charles Powell, former National Security Advisor to Margaret Thatcher, Mack McClarty, former Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton and several others have worked with Mike and the Diligence management team to create business opportunities and assist in the company’s growth strategy. Investors and partners have included Haley Barbour, the former Governor of Mississippi and Ed Mathias, senior partner of The Carlyle Group.

Mike is a regular contributor in the national and international media on intelligence, security, counterterrorist issues, geopolitical affairs and cybersecurity. He appears regularly on Fox News and CNN, as well as other major media outlets.

In addition, Mike is the co-host of America Declassified, a weekly series that premiered on the Travel Channel in November 2013.  He is also the co-host of World Access, a new weekly series premiering on Travel Channel in late 2015. Previously, Mike hosted the popular British reality television show “SPY”.

Congressman Peter King

Congressman Peter T. King, a Republican, is serving his thirteenth term in the U.S. House of Representatives, being reelected in November 2016 with 62.5% of the vote.

Rep. King is a member of the Homeland Security Committee and Chairman of the Sub-Committee on [Counterterrorism and Intelligence]. He also serves on the Financial Services Committee and Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Congressman King, who previously served as Chairman of the Committee in 2005-2006 and again in 2011-2012, has been a leader in homeland security and is a strong supporter of the war against international terrorism, both at home and abroad. As Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, he stood up to the pressure from special interest groups and the media to hold a series of hearings on Islamic radicalization. Chairman King led the fight to continue funding to the Secure the Cities Program to protect the New York-Long Island region from nuclear dirty bomb attacks.

During his years in Congress, Rep. King has attained a reputation for being well-informed and independent. Following the ravages of Superstorm Sandy, Rep. King led the successful fight in Congress to obtain $60.4 billion in emergency funding for the victims of the storm. Even Newsday has admitted that Congressman King is a "stand-up guy who isn’t shy about tangling with the powerful, even those in his own party. King has become a national figure who delivers for the region and his district."

Rep. King is a strong supporter of law enforcement, our military and has fought hard to bring veterans’ benefits into the 21st century. Congressman King is also a strong supporter of funding to combat deadly illnesses such as breast cancer and prostate cancer. He has also received the AARP's Legislative Leadership Award for combating elder abuse and exploitation.

Prior to serving in Congress, Pete King was elected to three terms as the Comptroller of Nassau County. Before serving in county government, Rep. King had extensive experience as a practicing attorney and civic leader. He began his political career in November 1977 by winning election to the Hempstead Town Council. Rep. King is a member of numerous civic organizations including the Knights of Columbus, Knights of Pythias, AMVETS and the Fighting 69th Veterans Corps.

Pete King was born on April 5, 1944 in Manhattan and was raised in Queens. He is a graduate of St. Francis College, Brooklyn, and the University of Notre Dame Law School. He is a lifelong resident of New York and has lived in Nassau County for almost 50 years. Rep. King and his wife, Rosemary, reside in Seaford. They have two adult children and two grandchildren.

Steve Kastenbaum

Steve Kastenbaum is an award-winning journalist, with two decades of experience breaking news, crafting long-form and in-depth reports and sharing human stories on deadline everywhere from the streets of New York to the presidential campaign trail and disaster zones worldwide.

The native Brooklynite began his reporting career at New York’s 1010 WINS Radio, the nation’s most listened-to all-news radio station, filing breaking reports and features on everything from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the war in Afghanistan to the 2003 blackout, the murder of a New York City councilmember at City Hall and the 2004 Republican Convention. He also explored the impact of wide-scale education reform on classrooms for an award-winning year long series after New York’s mayor won control of the nation’s largest public school system.

As a New York-based national radio correspondent for CNN, he became a fully-fledged multiplatform journalist, delivering on-scene radio, Web and television reporting from across the United States and around the globe. He reported from Haiti and Japan after devastating earthquakes as aftershocks rumbled, and rescuers searched the rubble for survivors — earning several awards including the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Breaking News Reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists.

Closer to home, he reported from Nevada and California as wildfires raged, from Newtown as the community struggled to make sense of the horrific school shooting in that town, and from the presidential campaign trail and party conventions as the nation was gripped by two heated races in 2008 and 2012. He has explored stories spanning the spectrum of human experience, such as the way a police officer’s brain reacts to a life-or-death faceoff and the struggle of a young woman to become the first female African-American chess master.

His reporting has earned more than a dozen local and national awards, including the 2013 Edward R. Murrow Award for Reporting: Hard News for the story When police shoot and the 2013 Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Use Of Sound for the story Saturday Night Fever’s Brooklyn legacy.

He has also worked as a New York-based stringer for both the Associated Press and ABC Radio. He began his broadcast career in 1989 as a disc jockey for 92.7FM WDRE in Long Island, N.Y., playing bands like The Clash, REM and U2. In his free time, Steve runs halfmarathons and plays guitar. He lives in Brooklyn, with his wife and two sons.

Dr. Tara Maller

Dr. Tara Maller is a national security expert with extensive media and communications experience. She serves as Spokesperson and Senior Policy Advisor for the Counter Extremism Project (CEP).  CEP is a not-for-profit, non-partisan, international policy organization formed to combat the growing threat from extremist ideology. Led by a renowned group of former world leaders and former diplomats it will aim to combat extremism by pressuring financial support networks, countering the narrative of extremists and their online recruitment, and advocating for strong laws, policies and regulations.  Maller has appeared as a regular national security and foreign policy commentator on Bloomberg, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Fox Business, Al Jazeera America and HuffPost Live. She has published and presented on a wide range of issues including sanctions, diplomacy, intelligence, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, Iraq, Iran, cybersecurity, homeland security, national service and women in security.

She was previously the Director of Strategic Communications for the newly formed Service Year Alliance, a joint venture of the Aspen Institute and Be The Change. The Franklin Project at the Aspen Institute, where Maller served as Associate Director of Strategic Communications, is now part of this new venture. She is also a research fellow in the International Security Program at New America. Maller previously served as a military analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, where she focused on the Iraq insurgency. She has also worked in the private sector at a NY-based media startup, BrightWire Inc., where she served as Managing Director of Operations and Managing Editor. The company provided curated & custom international economic and political content to corporate clients. She has also done work in the private sector as a security consultant focused on cybersecurity & terrorism threat assessments.

Maller received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a concentration in International Relations and Security Studies.  She was also predoctoral research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. She received her M.A. in International Relations from the University of Chicago and she graduated with a B.A. in Government from Dartmouth College.

Frank Rich

Frank Rich joined New York magazine in June 2011 as Writer-at-Large, covering politics and culture. He is also a commentator on nymag.com, engaging in regular dialogues on the news of the week.

Rich joined the magazine following a distinguished career at the New York Times, where he had been an op-ed columnist since 1994. He was previously the paper’s chief drama critic, from 1980 to 1993. His weekly 1,500-word essay helped inaugurate the expanded opinion pages that the Times introduced in the Sunday “Week in Review” section in 2005. From 2003 to 2005, Rich had been the front-page columnist for the Sunday “Arts & Leisure” section as part of that section's redesign and expansion. He also served as senior adviser to the Times’s culture editor on the paper's overall cultural-news report. From 1999 to 2003, he was also senior writer for The New York Times Magazine. The dual title was a first for the Times. 

Rich has written about culture and politics for many national publications. He won the George Polk Award for commentary in 2005. His books include Ghost Light: A Memoir and, most recently, The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth From 9/11 to Katrina. Since 2008 Rich has also been a creative consultant to HBO, where he is an executive producer of the Emmy-winning comedy Veep, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and executive produced the Peabody Award-winning documentary Six by Sondheim as well as the forthcoming documentary Becoming Mike Nichols.

A native of Washington, D.C., and graduate of Harvard, he lives in New York City with his wife, the writer Alex Witchel.