We invite you to join us  for the Center for Houston's Future 2024 Annual Meeting, taking place on Thursday, February 1, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Partnership Tower. 

We look forward to highlighting our productive year in 2023 with a review of our achievements in our strategic initiatives, Business/Civic Leadership Forum and community engagement. We will also look ahead to our plans for 2024, and Houston City Controller Chris Hollins will speak. 

There will be a short reception following the meeting, which will start promptly at 5:30 p.m.

Join us on Tuesday, January 23, from 5:30 to 8 p.m., for a program at Holocaust Museum Houston with Ben McBride, a celebrated advocate for peace and justice, bringing a message of hope and unity. Drawing from his profound experiences and insights shared in his latest publication, "Troubling the Water," McBride will take us on a journey exploring the power of transformative relationships to create a world where everyone belongs.

•   Tickets are $30 and include a copy of Ben's book and access to the reception. The reception is sponsored by the Leadership Houston Foundation.
•   Guests will have access to the Kinsey African American Art and History Collection after the program. 

The program is presented in collaboration with Center for Houston's Future, American Leadership Forum - Houston/Gulf Coast Chapter, Leadership Houston, Holocaust Museum Houston and Brazos Bookstore.

The Center for Houston’s Future’s signature fall event, Dinner and Conversation, will feature renowned physician-scientist Dr. Peter J. Hotez in conversation with William F. McKeon, President and CEO of the Texas Medical Center. Dr. Hotez is internationally recognized for his work in neglected tropical diseases and vaccine development.

Our annual Eugene H. Vaughan Civic Leadership Award will be presented to Mayor Sylvester Turner for his lifetime of leadership and service that has made a lasting impact in our region.

We will also honor Bob Harvey, retiring as Greater Houston Partnership's President and CEO, for his service and commitment to the Center for Houston's Future.

Join Center for Houston's Future and the Houston Business Coalition on Health (HBCH) on Monday, October 23, for a thought-provoking discussion on the important topic of health equity as an employee benefit.

The discussion, which features leaders from government, academia, employers and nonprofit organizations, will explore innovative strategies that align with employer values, gain management support, incorporate employee perspectives, foster collaborations between health plans and vendors, and address community needs.

Panelists Include:

• Brett Perlman, CEO, Center for Houston's Future

• Chris Skisak, PhD, Executive Director, HBCH

• Doug Lawson, PhD, CEO, St. Luke’s Health System

• Quianta Moore, MD, JD, Executive Director, Hackett Center for Mental Health, Executive President of Health Equity

• Shreela Sharma, PhD, Director, UT School of Public Health, Center for Health Equity

• Renae Tomczak, CEO, Mental Health America Houston 

Who Should Attend:
Houston employers, equity focused organizations, health systems, independent healthcare providers, academic institutions, city and county officials.

Program Objectives:

• Create awareness among Houston employers to incorporate equity in benefits design
   

• Understand the health inequities that exist in employer sponsored health benefits design and its relationship to employee and community health outcomes
   

• Describe the value of multi-stakeholder community initiatives that benefit the employer, its employees and families and communities

• Learn about a current employer-community equity-based initiative pilot that can serve as a template for other initiatives

Admission to the program is free.

Join us at 5 p.m. on Thursday, February 23, for a town hall discussion around immigration reform and its impact on children, co-hosted by Rice University’s Baker Institute Center for the United States and Mexico, Center for Houston’s Future, Children at Risk, Lorelle Media and Rational Middle.

Nearly 17 million children in the United States have at least one foreign-born parent who is either a naturalized citizen, a lawfully present immigrant or an undocumented immigrant. These immigrant children are particularly vulnerable and require special protections under U.S. and international law. How do immigration policies impact immigrant children? And what protections do they need?

At this town hall event, a panel of experts will discuss the unique challenges facing these children and their families. They will also consider the effect of U.S. immigration policies on the health and wellbeing of immigrant children, as well as common-sense solutions to address the immigration crisis. Journalist and business owner Linda Lorelle will moderate the discussion and engage the audience in this interactive town hall, where all are invited to ask questions and participate in the dialogue.

Join us for an exclusive cocktail reception in the historic River Oaks home of Marilyn and George DeMontrond and engage in conversations with influential visionaries creating Houston’s future.

Honoring Dr. Stephen L. Klineberg with the Eugene H. Vaughan Civic Leadership Award

Tuesday, November 15, 2022
5:30 – 7:30 p.m.

VIP Reception: 5:30 – 6:00 p.m.

2115 River Oaks Boulevard
Houston, Texas 77019

The chemical industry is a major source of industrial greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and in the United States. Innovation is the most important strategy to reduce these emissions. Options that are approaching maturity include carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and the use of low-carbon fuels. Over the longer-term, new pathways may emerge, such as chemical recycling and electrochemistry based on carbon dioxide and water. New policies will be needed to enable key innovations to emerge, become affordable, and be adopted widely.

Please join us as we share new work from ITIF, George Mason’s Center for Energy Science and Policy, and the Center for Houston’s Future that investigates these pathways and explores policy options to decarbonize chemical production.

We are pleased to bring back our Summer Salon breakfast programming with an important conversation on immigration, an issue that is critical to our region’s future.

Join us Friday, July 22, from 7:30 to 9 a.m. for a breakfast program on immigration reform with Ali Noorani, former President and CEO of the National Immigration Forum, as he discusses his new book, Crossing Borders: The Reconciliation of a Nation of Immigrants, with CHF Board Member Stan Marek, President and CEO of Marek Companies. Linda Lorelle, CEO of Lorelle Media, will moderate the conversation at the Junior League of Houston.

In his book, Noorani shares strategies designed to stem the tides of fear and hate, finding trails that lead to the reconciliation of our nation of immigrants. He finds hope for the future of immigration policy in rural America where the challenges of demographic and cultural change are embraced by local leaders.

Tickets are $20 and include breakfast.

When
Friday, July 22
Registration and Networking: 7:30 to 8:00 a.m.
Program: 8:00 to 9:00 a.m.

Where
Junior League of Houston
1811 Briar Oaks Lane, Houston, TX 77027

As our nation careens from one crisis to the next, there is a growing cry for fresh leadership. Those in charge have repeatedly fallen short, and trust in institutions has plummeted. So, what does great leadership look like? And how are great leaders made? In his new book Hearts Touched by Fire: How Great Leaders are Made, David Gergen offers a playbook for the next generation of change-makers. By linking lessons of the past with the ever-changing practice of leadership today, Gergen reveals the time-tested secrets of dynamic leadership.

Join us for a conversation with David Gergen, professor of public service and founding director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School, and Mia Mends, CEO of Impact Ventures, Sodexo North America & Global Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer, to understand how great leaders are made and the fundamental elements of effective leadership.

We are pleased to present this program as part of a special partnership with Leadership Now Project and the Harvard Business School Club of Houston.

At noon CT on Tuesday, May 24, Center for Houston’s Future and Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) will host a webinar as part of the Center's Energy & Climate Thought Leadership Webcast Series. The webinar will be framed around position papers from HARC's new Climate Risk and Resilience series. This paper, "Powering the Future: Texas Power Sector Pivoting to Climate Resilience," was released last week.

The virtual panel discussion will focus on how the Texas power sector is responding to climate risks in a fast-changing regulatory landscape as well charting a path to a climate-resilient future for the Texas power sector. Points include sector implications around pressures for low-carbon and resilient business operations; what climate-resilience means to power sector stakeholders; and the role of innovation, infrastructure, and incentives.

The virtual panel will feature:
- Jill Cetina, Vice President Banking Supervision, Federal Reserve of Dallas
- Victor Flatt, Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources (EENR), University of Houston
- Amanda Hsieh, Vice President, Environmental, Social, and Governance, ClimeCo

HARC's Vice President of Research, Gavin Dillingham, will moderate the discussion.

Join us at 6 p.m. CT on Wednesday, May 18, for a conversation with Rawi Abdelal, Professor at Harvard Business School and the Director of Harvard's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, and JR DeShazo, Dean of The University of Texas LBJ School, to understand the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on U.S. and global markets and the broader implications of political instability domestically and abroad.

Rawi Abdelal is the Herbert F. Johnson Professor of International Management at Harvard Business School, the Faculty Co-Chair of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, and the Director of Harvard's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. Professor Abdelal's primary expertise is international political economy, and his research focuses on the politics of globalization and the political economy of Eurasia. In 1999 Abdelal earned a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University, where he had received an M.A. in 1997. At Cornell Abdelal's dissertation won the Kahin Prize in International Relations and the Esman Prize.

JR DeShazo is the 12th dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs. He previously served as the founding director of the Luskin Center for Innovation at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), one of the nation's leading environmental policy research centers. DeShazo earned a doctorate in Urban Planning from Harvard University, a master's in Development Economics from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and a bachelor's degree from the College of William & Mary.

Join us Tuesday, May 10, at 12 p.m. CT for a conversation with Daniel Cohan, atmospheric scientist and associate professor of environmental engineering at Rice University, as he discusses his new book, Confronting Climate Gridlock: How Diplomacy, Technology, and Policy Can Unlock a Clean Energy Future. Raj Mankad, Op-Ed Editor at the Houston Chronicle, will moderate the discussion.

Cohan argues that escaping the gravest perils of climate change will first require American diplomacy, technological innovation, and policy to catalyze decarbonization globally. Combining his expertise with insights from more than a hundred interviews with diplomats, scholars, and clean-technology pioneers, Cohan identifies flaws in previous efforts to combat climate change.

He highlights opportunities for more successful strategies, including international “climate clubs” and accelerated development of clean energy technologies. Grounded in history and emerging scholarship, Cohan offers a forward-looking vision of solutions to confronting climate gridlock and a clear-eyed recognition of the challenges to enacting them.

When
Tuesday, May 10
12 to 1 p.m. CT

Daniel Cohan is an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University and a faculty fellow in the Baker Institute’s Center for Energy Studies. He served as a Fulbright Scholar to Australia, received a National Science Foundation CAREER award, and is an author of over 50 peer-reviewed publications. His book, Confronting Climate Gridlock: How Diplomacy, Technology, & Policy Can Unlock a Clean Energy Future, is published by Yale University Press.

Raj Mankad is the op-ed editor at the Houston Chronicle. He believes in making room at the table for voices from across the political spectrum and all our diversity. It’s a job he was born to do. At least that’s what he tells himself when trying to make sense of growing up South Asian in Alabama and Kentucky and never feeling like he belonged anywhere until he moved to Houston 20 years ago.

He has a PhD from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program and has edited and written for publications that specialize in economics, philosophy, literature, architecture, science and health.

Over the last couple of years, carbon management has emerged as a vast opportunity to help tackle climate change as well as a destination for investment. But it is still not clear how to deploy the dollars needed for major developments in CCUS and other technologies in ways that meet the traditional demands of capital markets.

The Houston and Gulf Coast region has many of the ingredients needed to crack the code for profitable investing in CCUS: A concentration of petrochemical assets; aquifers and depleted oil and gas reservoirs; and a progressive investment climate. Coupled with 45Q tax credits and increasing support from the U.S. administration and key stakeholders, there is an emerging belief in the case for investing in CCUS alongside more conventional energy infrastructure

Join Brett Perlman, CEO of Center for Houston’s Future, and Nick Fulford, Senior Director of Energy Transition at GaffneyCline, for a discussion about how helping the climate and investing for future returns are starting to align both in the Gulf Coast area and worldwide.

Center for Houston's Future Leadership Forum Graduates are invited to the newly-rescheduled 2021 Graduate Reunion at Karbach Brewing Co. on Wednesday, November 10, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Immigration remains one of the most contentious policy issues in America. Both Republicans and Democrats agree that the current immigration system is broken, but do not agree on how to fix it legislatively. Since 1996, various attempts to pass major reform have stalled due to the increasing polarization over the issue. Congress can no longer avoid the problem, however. The next decade will mark major demographic turning points for the United States, and the progressive implementation of legal immigration channels that meets the needs of the U.S. economy will be necessary. Part of the solution will involve dealing with the status of the 10.5 million undocumented people already in the United States — many for decades.

At this virtual conference, which features a keynote address from Fort Bend County Judge KP George, experts will discuss the challenges faced by the undocumented immigrant population residing in the U.S. and the alternatives available to policymakers to provide practical solutions that benefit the country and the U.S. economy. Both panel sessions will be followed by a moderated Q&A.

This event is co-sponsored by the Baker Institute Center for the United States and Mexico, Center for Houston’s Future Inc. and the George W. Bush Institute.