Peter Kaldes, Esq., is president & CEO of Next50, which he joined in 2023, bringing more than 23 years’ experience leading mission-driven organizations.

Prior to Next50, he was president & CEO of the American Society on Aging (ASA), where he successfully navigated ASA through the pandemic, innovated its brand identity and programming, and launched ASA RISE, a social justice and leadership academy for rising leaders of color, plus increasing ASA’s membership by 35%.

Kaldes also served as President & CEO of the South Florida Institute on Aging, a community-based organization providing support to older adults, where he launched innovative technology training and economic programs, while growing revenue.
As a senior executive at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Kaldes led the global bank’s philanthropic investments in economic development. And he served in the White House as an economic policy advisor to President Barack Obama, in the U.S. Senate as legal counsel to Sen. Debbie Stabenow, and practiced law at the global firm of Weil Gotshal.

He’s a proud graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Tufts University. Kaldes lives with his husband in Denver.

Jonathan T.M. Reckford is chief executive o􀆯icer of Habitat for Humanity International, a global Christian housing organization that has helped more than 62 million people construct, rehabilitate or preserve their homes.

Since 2005, when he took the top leadership position, local Habitat organizations in all 50 states and in more than 70 countries have grown from serving 125,000 individuals each year to helping more than 3 million people last year build strength, stability and self-reliance through shelter.

After graduating from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill where he was a Morehead Scholar, Jonathan worked as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs. He was also the recipient of a Henry Luce Scholarship, which enabled him to do marketing work for the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee and coach the Korean rowing team in preparation for the 1988 Olympics.

He earned his Master of Business Administration degree from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business before spending the first part of his career in the for-profit sector, including executive and managerial positions at Marriott, The Walt Disney Co., and Best Buy. While serving as executive pastor at Christ Presbyterian Church near Minneapolis, Minnesota, he was recruited for the CEO position at Habitat.

Jonathan is the chair of Leadership 18, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Global Future Council on the Future of Cities for the World Economic Forum, and a board member of the Barron Collier Companies.

Named the most influential nonprofit leader in America in 2017 by The NonProfit Times, Jonathan is the author of Our Better Angels: Seven Simple Virtues That Will Change Your Life and the World.

He and his wife, Ashley, have three children and live in Atlanta.

Cookie Johnson is a successful entrepreneur, author and philanthropist. Cookie uses her platform to raise awareness against HIV / AIDS, advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community, and works to uplift women spiritually and physically. She has a strong spiritual foundation and through speaking engagements her support for non-profit organizations, she seeks to uplift and build these communities.

A businesswoman at heart, in 2009 Cookie used her fashion degree and experience to launch a premium denim line, CJ by Cookie Johnson. CJ by Cookie Johnson was an aspirational collection of premium denim that combined style, comfort, sophistication for women with curves.

After closing her premium denim company, Cookie ventured on to become a New York Times bestselling author, with her memoir Believing in Magic. Released in September 2016, it tells her story about love, overcoming adversity, and keeping God’s faith. Currently, Cookie is working on her newest book, focused on parenting with the LGBTQIA+ community.

Cookie Johnson is a graduate of Michigan State University. She is a devoted wife, married to Earvin “Magic” Johnson for over 30 years, mother to their three children, André, Earvin Johnson III (EJ), and Elisa and grandchildren, Gigi and Avery. She serves on the board of Sodexo MAGIC and is proud to be a member of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture Council.

Douglas M. Brooks, MSW, is a nationally recognized leader in social work and public health practice, policy and advocacy, with much of his career having been focused on HIV prevention, care and treatment. In each of his positions, Mr. Brooks has used his platform to advocate for marginalized communities and to improve the social determinants that foster equitable health outcomes. Mr. Brooks began his career as a case manager and program coordinator, followed by work as a social work clinician and program director in Massachusetts. Through progressively increasing roles and responsibilities he eventually led a team of professionals in managing a community health center, congregate and assisted-living housing services, and social service programs as the Senior Vice President for Community Health at the Justice Resource Institute (JRI), a regional health and human service agency in New England. While at JRI, Mr. Brooks also collaborated with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province Department of Health on strategies for developing partnerships between government and people living with HIV. Mr. Brooks was particularly instrumental in the development of an effective, and later nationally recognized, pre-antiretroviral treatment strategy known as the Integrated Access to Care and Treatment (I ACT) Program.

Mr. Brooks’ career has taken him from local community health practice to the pinnacles of the nonprofit and the corporate worlds and to the White House where he served as the Director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP) under President Obama and spearheaded an update to the National HIV/AIDS Strategy. Compelled by CDC and NIH incidence and prevalence data which revealed disparate impact on certain people and places, Mr. Brooks and his team focused ONAP’s attention on the populations most affected by HIV —including gay and bisexual men of all races and ethnicities, Black and Latino communities, and people living in the Southern U.S. Prior to ONAP, Mr. Brooks was appointed to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) and was subsequently named that body’s liaison to the CDC/HRSA Advisory Committee under President Obama.

Building on his experience at the White House, Mr. Brooks served as the Executive Director of Community Engagement at Gilead Sciences, where he partnered with internal and external teams to create and execute programs designed to mitigate inequities in health outcomes domestically and globally. Later, as Vice President of Advancing Black Equity and Community Engagement, Mr. Brooks led an enterprise-wide strategic framework to tackle systemic issues of structural, anti-Black racism and health-based inequities. Over his time at Gilead, he helped the company manage complex issues, particularly in the field of HIV, and contributed to the design of programs that continue to make real and sustained change. He was one of the architects of Gilead’s COMPASS Initiative®, a 10-year, $100 million commitment to addressing HIV in the Southern United States, and Gilead’s largest corporate giving program. He also pioneered a partnership with the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine to assess and develop recommendations for addressing racial inequities in the treatment of COVID-19 and other significant health issues.

Mr. Brooks joined SP2 in March of 2023 as the first Senior Leadership Fellow and has worked closely with the offices of the Dean and the Associate Dean for Student Services to develop programs focused on leadership and student engagement. He is also serving as a formal and informal mentor to students and an advisor to the Dean. In Spring 2024, Mr. Brooks worked as part of a Philadelphia Health Department-funded project team, led by Dr. Tamara Cadet, to engage older adults living with HIV in focus groups to understand their medical, psychosocial and social-service needs.

Mr. Brooks holds a BS from Lesley University and a MSW from Boston University. He has served on multiple nonprofit, government and foundation boards and advisory committees, including the Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, Chair of the Board of Trustees of AIDS United, a national advocacy/grantmaking organization and Co-Chair of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

Mr. Brooks has received numerous awards and honors. In 2015, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Fordham University. He has received the Bayard Rustin Award from the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, the Cleve Jones Leadership Award from the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, the Harlem United Community Impact Award and the Paul Revere Award, the highest award of the Massachusetts Public Health Association.