Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and county Supervisor Lindsey Horvath are among the scheduled speakers Wednesday at a Milken Institute 28th annual Global Conference session titled “Rising Strong: Los Angeles’ Path to Recovery.”
Cinny Kennard, the executive director of the Annenberg Foundation, and Evan Spiegel, the CEO and a co-founder of the technology company Snap Inc., are also set to participate in the 1 to 2 p.m. discussion at The Beverly Hilton.
The Century City-based foundation helped organize the FireAid concerts and makes grants to support response across the Southland in areas victimized by the Eaton Fire, Palisades Fire and other fires. Most of the grants are concentrated on families, students, children and foster youth, who lost homes, schools and “other safe havens,” according to the foundation.
Spiegel was among those providing seed money for the Department of Angels, which bills itself as “a grassroots, community-driven network focused on ensuring impacted residents have control over their recovery.”
The home of Spiegel’s father was destroyed by the Palisades Fire. It was the first headquarters of Snapchat Inc., the original name of Snap Inc.
In other sessions, the 12-time Grammy-winning singer, songwriter and record producer Babyface will join Sherrese Clarke Soares, the founder and CEO of the Newark, New Jersey-based investment firm HarbourView Equity Partners, in a discussion on “the intersection of investment, art and cultural impact” from 11:30 to 11:50 a.m.
Noa Argamani, who was abducted by Hamas during the Re’im music festival massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, will participate in conversations with attorney and author Richard Sandler titled “Bring the Hostages Home Now” from 1 to 1:15 p.m. and “Time to Act” from 1:15 to 1:30 p.m.
Argamani was among four hostages rescued from Gaza on June 8 after 245 days in captivity in a joint operation by the Israel Defense Forces, Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, and the Israel Police. Her boyfriend Avinatan Or remains as a hostage.
The theme of the four-day conference is “Toward a Flourishing Future.”
“This conference is where the world comes to connect ideas with capital, science with policy, and vision with action,” Milken Institute CEO Richard Ditizio said in a statement.
“In a time of division and disruption, the Global Conference is a unique space for people who are ready to take nuanced learnings from our dialogues and lead.”
Organizers said they expect the conference to draw approximately 5,000 attendees from 80 nations. It began Sunday with 14 invitation-only sessions and three welcoming events and concludes Wednesday.
The conference’s 170 public sessions will be streamed at www.globalconference.org. The livestream schedule is available at milkeninstitute.org/events/global-conference-2025/livestream
The Milken Institute bills itself as a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank focused on accelerating measurable progress on the path to a meaningful life, with a focus on financial, physical, mental and environmental health.