James (Jim) N. Perry, Jr. is a co-founder and senior advisor of Madison Dearborn Partners, a private equity firm based in Chicago. Jim and his wife, Molly, are philanthropists who support Catholic education, entrepreneurial approaches to assisting the poor and vulnerable, and efforts to promote Catholic culture, evangelization, and the Catholic intellectual tradition in the public square. Jim chairs the board of Empower Illinois, which in 2017 helped pass a landmark tuition tax credit policy that has generated more than $100 million in donations toward scholarships for students from low-income families to attend private schools of their choice. Jim is the lead investor in Sunshine Enterprises, which has provided instruction and coaching to hundreds of inner-city entrepreneurs. He and Molly also provide major financial support for Madonna Campus, a domestic violence shelter in Wrigleyville run by Catholic Charities of Chicago. Jim and Molly also chair the capital campaign for the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS). Jim previously co-chaired the Archdiocese of Chicago’s capital campaign for education that raised commitments of more than $400 million. Jim is a member of the Board of Advisors for the University of Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters and is a member of the University of Chicago Booth School’s Private Equity Council at the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He sits on the board of Bishop Barron’s WordOnFire digital media evangelization enterprise, as well as on the boards of the Institute on Religion and Public Life, the Lumen Christi Institute, the Lab for Economic Opportunity at the University of Notre Dame, and the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Foundation Board. Jim is a 1982 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, and he received an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 1985.

Daniel S. Peters is president of the Lovett & Ruth Peters Foundation in Cincinnati, Ohio. The foundation focuses on improving the quality of K-12 education nationwide. Dan previously spent seventeen years at Procter & Gamble where he held a variety of executive positions in advertising, purchasing, and research and development. Dan is the former chairman of the Philanthropy Roundtable, a national association of grantmakers in Washington, D.C., and co-founder of the Alliance for Charitable Reform, a Washington, D.C.-based organization advocating common-sense reform of the non-profit sector. He currently serves on the boards of Seton Education Partners and Hillsdale College. Dan is a graduate of Phillips Academy in Andover, MA and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he majored in history. He has an MBA from Xavier University. Following college, he served with a jet squadron in the US Navy aboard the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea and participated in the evacuation of Saigon. He and his wife, Kellie, have two children.

Maria Beatriz (Mabe) Rodriguez is president/executive director of CISE (Catholic Inner-City Schools Education), a nonprofit dedicated to supporting ten inner-city Catholic schools and more than 2500 scholars in Cincinnati. She retired from the Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) after a very successful twenty-five-year career in general management, marketing, international business, and as a P&G loaned executive to Cincinnati Museum Center and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. In her career at P&G, Mabe held a variety of key positions in many countries in Latin America and in the U.S. She has spoken at national and international conferences across North and South America, as well as in Spain, and has also taught at universities in Venezuela and the United States. Her nonprofit leadership dates back to 2004, when she served on the Board of Directors for the United Way in Colombia, eventually rising to Vice President in 2007 and President in 2009. She has served on many boards, including the Board of Junior Achievement Colombia, the Colombia and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Colombia Government Investment Agency, Colombia Industry & Trade Association, Colombia Food Bank, the Board of Directors of the Catholic Inner-City Schools Education (CISE), and the Board of Advisors for La Alqueria, in Bogota, Colombia. She currently serves on the Communications Advisory Board of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, the Board of Cincinnati Museum Center, and the Board of the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Mabe now proudly calls Cincinnati her home, where she resides with her husband, Vince Steigerwald, and her daughter, Beatriz Elena, who is currently attending Xavier University.

Stephanie Saroki de García is co-founder and managing director of Seton Education Partners. She helped launch Seton in 2009 to expand opportunities for parents in underserved communities to choose an academically excellent, character rich, and—for those who seek it—vibrantly Catholic education for their children. Scholars in Seton’s schools are achieving academic growth results in mathematics and reading that match or beat the nation’s most acclaimed urban charter schools. Most recently, Stephanie launched and for over five years directed the Philanthropy Roundtable’s K-12 education programs, where she spearheaded a series of conferences, strategy sessions, and publications on breakthroughs in education philanthropy. She co-wrote Saving America’s Urban Catholic Schools: A Guide for Donors and also served on the strategic planning committee for the Archdiocese of New York’s school system, chairing the committee on school leadership. Previously, Stephanie was a Teach for America corps member in Oakland, California, where she taught high school English. She attended Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government as a dean’s fellow. While completing her master’s degree in public policy at the Kennedy School, Stephanie worked at the Office of Management and Budget. She received a bachelor of arts degree in rhetoric from the University of California at Berkeley. Stephanie lives with her husband in San Diego, where she is a proud mom to two children.