Building Bridges: 2025-26 Presidential Event Series

Building Bridges as we together confront the pressing questions of our time. Continuing the work begun in last year’s exploration of Polarization, the series turns its focus to work that involves reaching across perspectives, experiences, and ideologies to create spaces of dialogue, understanding, and shared purpose. Through conversations with thought leaders, this series will highlight the power of listening and empathy in building and strengthening connection and community. Watch this site for upcoming events and join us!

Ezra Klein is a columnist on The New York Times opinion page, host of the award-winning “Ezra Klein Show” podcast, and author of two bestselling books: Why We’re Polarized and his latest, Abundance, which explores how America can break through stagnation and rekindle a sense of shared national possibility. Before that, he was the founder, editor-in-chief, and then editor-at-large of Vox, the explanatory news platform, which has won a bevy of awards and now reaches more than 50 million people each month. He was also a creator and executive producer of its hit Netflix show, “Explained”. 

Prior to starting Vox, Klein founded and led The Washington Post’s Wonkblog. He is also a columnist for Bloomberg News and a regular contributor/policy analyst for MSNBC. The Economist named him one of the “Minds of the Moment.” In 2011, TIME named his blog one of the 25 best financial blogs and the Society of American Business Editors and Writers named Klein as their 2011 Opinion Columnist of the Year. In 2012, GQ named him to their 50 Most Powerful People in Washington list and Esquire named him to their 79 Things We Can All Agree On list, saying, “Ezra Klein gives economics columnists a good name.”

The challenges of growing up black and female in apartheid South Africa have been the foundation of the Rev. Nontombi Naomi Tutu’s life as a motivational speaker and advocate for human rights. Those experiences taught her that our whole human family loses when we accept situations of oppression, and how the teaching and preaching of hate and division injure us all. Rev. Tutu's professional experience ranges from being an economist and development consultant in West Africa to being a program coordinator for programs on Race and Gender and Gender-based Violence in Education at the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town. In addition, the Rev. Tutu has taught at the University of Hartford, the University of Connecticut and Brevard College in North Carolina. She served as Program Coordinator for the historic Race Relations Institute at Fisk University and was a part of the Institute’s delegation to the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa.

Growing up the “daughter of Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu” has offered Naomi many opportunities and challenges in her life. Perhaps one of the greatest struggles was the call to ministry. She knew early in life that the one thing she would never be was a priest. She always said, “I have my father’s nose, I do not want his job.” It refused to be silenced, even as she carried her passion for justice into other fields. The call to preach and serve as an ordained clergyperson continued to tug at her. Finally, in her 50s, she responded and went to seminary. She is an Episcopal priest who most recently served as Associate Rector at All Saints, Beverly Hills. She currently resides in Atlanta, where she is a priest associate at All Saints’ Episcopal.