Glenn Hubbard

Former Dean of Columbia Business School; Chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers (2001–2003)

Glenn Hubbard is dean Emeritus and Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia Business School.  He is a specialist in public finance, managerial information and incentive problems in corporate finance and financial markets and institutions.  Hubbard has applied his research interests in business (as a consultant on taxation and corporate finance to many corporations), in government (as chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers, as deputy assistant of the U.S. Treasury Department and as a consultant to the Federal Reserve Board, Federal Reserve Bank of New York and many government agencies) and in academia (in faculty collaboration or visiting appointments at Columbia, University of Chicago and Harvard).

In addition to writing more than 100 scholarly articles in economics and finance, Mr. Hubbard is the author of three popular textbooks and The Wall and the Bridge, as well as co-author of The Aid Trap: Hard Truths About Ending Poverty, Balance: The Economics of Great Powers From Ancient Rome to Modern America, and Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: Five Steps to a Better Health Care System.  His commentaries appear in Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Washington Post, Nikkei, and the Daily Yomiuri, as well as on television and radio.

From 2001 until 2003, Mr. Hubbard was chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers. From 1991 until 1993, Mr. Hubbard was deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.  In the corporate sector, he serves on the boards of BlackRock Closed-End Funds, MetLife, TotalEnergies.

Mr. Hubbard is co-chair of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, he is a past chair of the Economic Club of New York and he is a past co-chair of the Study Group on Corporate Boards.

Mr. Hubbard received his BA and BS degrees summa cum laude from the University of Central Florida and also holds a PhD degree in economics from Harvard University.

Rishad Tobaccowala

Former Chief Growth Officer and Chief Strategist at Publicis Groupe

Rishad is the author of “Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data”, a speaker and an advisor. Rishad most recently was the Chief Growth Officer and member of the Management Committee of Publicis Groupe, the world’s third largest communication firm with 80,000 employees. He remains a Senior Advisor to Publicis Groupe. He was named by BusinessWeek as one of the top business leaders for his pioneering innovation and TIME magazine dubbed him one of five “Marketing Innovators.”

Prior to his current role, Rishad was the Chief Strategist and Member of the Directoire/+ of Publicis Groupe. Before his corporate role, Rishad was the Chairman of DigitasLBi and Razorfish, two global firms owned by the Publicis Groupe with over 10,000 employees around the world focused on marketing and business transformation.

Rishad has 43 years of experience around the world and helped grow, founded/co-founded or incubated a variety of companies including VivaKi, Leo Burnett, Starcom, SMG Next, Starcom IP, Giant Step, Play, and Denuo. Rishad is a current Board member of GCP’s portfolio company Trendline Interactive.

Rishad has a BS in Mathematics from the University of Bombay and an MBA in Marketing and Finance from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.

Mitch Barns

Former CEO of Opus Agency; former CEO of Nielsen

Mitch is the former CEO of Nielsen (January 2014 – December 2018) when the company was recognized as one of the world’s “Most Innovative Companies” by Forbes magazine, one of the “Top 40 Companies for Leaders” by Chief Executive magazine, one of the “Best Run Companies” by the Wall Street Journal, and a “Top 50” company for diversity by DiversityInc magazine. During his CEO tenure, Nielsen was an S&P 500 company with over 40,000 employees operating in over 100 countries and over $6 billion in annual revenues.

Before becoming CEO of Nielsen, Mitch lived and worked on three continents and held leadership roles across all major parts of Nielsen’s business, including President of Nielsen’s client service organization worldwide, President of Nielsen’s Media business, and President of Nielsen’s Greater China business, based in Shanghai. The first 12 years of his career were with Procter & Gamble in marketing research and brand management.

From 2021-2024, Mitch stepped in as the CEO of The Opus Group, GCP’s first pre-fund platform investment, during and post the Covid shutdown.  As a producer of in-person corporate events, Opus was dramatically impacted by the shut down of in-person activities during the Covid epidemic.  Mitch was instrumental in stabilizing that business, leading it through the crisis, and back to growth and industry leadership.

At present, Mitch is a member of the board of directors of multiple data & analytics firms, including Kynetec (agriculture industry), Consumer Edge (financial industry), Dynata (multiple industry segments), and Qualsights (consumer goods).

Mitch continues to serve The Opus Group as a board director, and he previously served on the board of directors for The Stable, a GCP Fund I portfolio company from 2020 until it was acquired by Accenture in 2022. Other former board positions include Zappi, a consumer research technology platform based in London and Monsanto from April 2016 until its June 2018 acquisition by Bayer AG. His non-profit/not-for-profit activities have included board roles for the Global Leadership Network, CECP, the American Heart Association’s CEO Roundtable, the March of Dimes of Ohio, and the Paley Center for Media.

Mitch is a graduate of Miami University in Ohio and the Stanford Executive Program at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.