2009 Annual Conference and Meeting
Hot Topics Panel Members

Prior to joining the Alliance Mr. Thornburgh served as Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Economy League (PEL) in Greater Philadelphia from 1994 to 2006. Under Mr. Thornburgh’s leadership, PEL became one of the nation’s best regional “think and do tanks”. PEL’s insight and initiatives helped develop more competitive tax policy, improve the quality of the regional workforce, support the growth of arts and culture, and position the region as a center of higher education, entrepreneurship and knowledge-based industries. In the process, the organization quadrupled its project income, doubled its corporate leadership support and grew the organization’s revenues to over $2.0 million, the highest level ever. In that time, PEL received nine national awards, and its One Big Campus campaign to connect young college graduates to Greater Philadelphia was recognized by the Public Relations Society of Philadelphia as the best public relations campaign of 2001.

Mr. Thornburgh has extensive experience in the areas of regional economic development and civic affairs. From 1988 to 1994 he served as Director of the Wharton Small Business Development Center, the consulting and training arm of The Wharton School’s Entrepreneurial Center, named consistently as one of the nation's top five programs in entrepreneurship. Under Mr. Thornburgh's leadership the Center helped 20,000 entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses, raise $40 million in additional capital, and in the process create 4,000 new jobs in the region. In 1990 Mr. Thornburgh founded the Enterprise Center in West Philadelphia, an award-winning urban business accelerator program for high-growth potential African-American entrepreneurs. He also created a highly successful initiative called the Philadelphia 100, now in its 18 th year, that recognized the fastest-growing private companies in the region, and developed and managed entrepreneurial development projects in Russia, China, Hungary, and Japan. Prior to his appointment at Wharton, from 1985 to 1988 he served as Director of Civic Affairs at the CIGNA Corporation in Philadelphia, where he was responsible for the community development work of the CIGNA Foundation and for staff support to CIGNA’s CEO, President and senior officers on civic and public policy issues in Greater Philadelphia.

Mr. Thornburgh has received a number of awards for his professional and civic leadership. In 2006 he was recognized as one of the 101 most trusted and respected civic “connectors” in the Philadelphia area by LEADERSHIP Philadelphia. In 2000, he was awarded an Eisenhower Fellowship and traveled to Australia and New Zealand to meet with leaders in business, government and higher education involved in entrepreneurial development and technology transfer. In 1992 he was named one of 34 national finalists in the prestigious White House Fellows Program. In 1991 he was selected by the Philadelphia Business Journal as one of "40 Business Leaders Under 40" and in 1991 and 1992 was named by the Philadelphia Jaycees as one of five Outstanding Young Leaders in Philadelphia.

A frequent commentator on public policy and regional development issues, Mr. Thornburgh has been quoted often in the Philadelphia newspapers and also in the New York Times, USA Today, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Inc. and Fortune. He has appeared frequently on radio and television in Philadelphia, and has contributed a weekly regional business commentary to KYW Newsradio in Philadelphia since 2003. He has spoken to over 200 business, civic and policy groups, and lectured at Wharton, Penn, Drexel and a number of other universities on topics such as higher education and economic development, entrepreneurship and business planning, and marketing, communications and strategic planning. He holds a BA in Political Science from Haverford College and a Master's Degree in Public Policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He lives with his wife, Rebecca McKillip Thornburgh, a Wharton MBA turned children’s book illustrator, and their teenage daughters Blair and Alice in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia. In what spare time he has, Mr. Thornburgh plays guitar in an alt-country rock band, Reckless Amateurs, and is an avid scuba diver.

Her portfolio includes Mellon Fellowships, campus-community partnerships, Humanities@Work, and The Responsive PhD, training future faculty to meet higher education's new needs. She has taught at Temple University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Swarthmore College. She serves as a board member of the Keystone Research Center. Hadass holds an MBA from Temple University and is ABD in Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. Her B.A. in Linguistics is from The Hebrew University, Jerusalem.