Celebration & Conversation
An evening of camaraderie and connection
Honoring the dedication and leadership of our Board Members and setting the stage for an exciting year ahead.
Event Details
- Date: Thursday, November 14, 2024
- Cocktail Reception: 6 p.m.
- Dinner and Program: 7 – 9 p.m.
- Location: The Station at Michigan Central
- Address: 2001 15th Street Detroit, MI
- Parking: Valet
- Attire: Business
Welcome Reception
Gary Torgow
Master of Ceremonies
Bill Ford
Welcome
Dinner
Jeff Donofrio
Celebration and a preview of the year ahead
Josh Bolten & Sara Armbruster
A timely post-election exchange on the evolving economic and policy landscape
Dan Gilbert & Sandy Pierce
A conversation exploring innovation, technology and disruption
Dessert & Coffee
Gary Torgow
Chairman of the Board of Directors
Huntington Bank
Jeff Donofrio
President & CEO
Business Leaders For Michigan
Special Guest
We are thrilled to bring our event to the iconic Michigan Central Station, located in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood. The Station reopened this summer as the centerpiece of the magnificent 30-acre Michigan Central innovation campus envisioned by fellow Board Member Bill Ford. The initiative is already attracting startups and entrepreneurs, and quickly becoming a center of gravity for the future of mobility innovation in Detroit and Michigan. Bill Ford will open the evening in a space that pays tribute to history while paving the way for the future.
As executive chair of Ford Motor Company, William Clay Ford Jr. is leading the company that put the world on wheels into the 21st century. He joined the board of directors in 1988 and has been its chair since January 1999. Through the years, his vision for the company has remained unchanged.
“I believe the purpose of a company is to make people’s lives better,” he says. “That is how we became great in the past and it is how we will become even greater in the future.”
Under Bill Ford’s leadership Ford Motor Company has taken aggressive steps to improve the efficiency and focus of its traditional automotive business. At the same time it is accelerating its efforts to be the most trusted provider of smart vehicles and mobility services.
“The ongoing success of Ford Motor Company is my life’s work,” he says. “Nothing is more important to me than our reputation as a family company that people trust to do the right thing.”
Joshua Bolten
CEO
Business Roundtable
Sara Armbruster
President & CEO
Steelcase
Special Guests
Joshua Bolten
The Business Roundtable is an association of more than 200 CEOs of America’s leading companies. Before joining Business Roundtable in January 2017, Bolten was Managing Director of Rock Creek Global Advisors, a consulting firm that he co-founded in 2011. Bolten spent the preceding two years as a visiting professor at Princeton University.
Bolten’s twenty years of government service includes eight years in the White House under President George W. Bush as Chief of Staff (2006-09), Director of the Office of Management & Budget (2003-06), and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy (2001-03). For the preceding two years, he was Policy Director of the Bush 2000 presidential campaign. Bolten’s previous private sector experience includes work at Goldman Sachs in London and O’Melveny & Myers in Washington, DC.
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Bolten received his undergraduate degree from Princeton in 1976 and his law degree from Stanford in 1980. He is a member of the boards of Emerson Electric Co., the ONE Campaign, Princeton University, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Sara Armbruster
Sara Armbruster is the President and CEO of Steelcase Inc., the company trusted by organizations around the world to create inspiring, productive, adaptable, and safe workplaces.
In addition to her role on the company’s Board of Directors, Sara brings executive experience from several positions to the office of CEO, which she assumed in October 2021. Most recently, she served as Executive Vice President of Steelcase and, before that, as Vice President, Strategy, Research and Digital Transformation. As leader of this group, Sara was responsible for advancing digital technologies and digital transformation at Steelcase, as well as providing leadership of the IT organization.
Before joining Steelcase, Sara served as Vice President of Business Development at Banta Corporation, a publicly traded global printing and supply chain services company based in Menasha, Wisconsin. ln that role, she led strategy development and managed all merger and acquisition activity. Sara also worked for McKinsey & Company in Boston, Massachusetts, and Andersen Consulting in New York City. Her consulting experience spanned industries and included work in North America, Europe, and Asia.
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Sara has also had responsibility for a range of innovation activities including global design research, the design and implementation of new business models, and the development of external growth opportunities, including acquisitions and partnerships. ln addition, in past roles Sara has had oversight for the company’s Applied Research + Consulting practice, Steelcase Health, Steelcase Education and the PolyVision subsidiary, which Steelcase divested in 2019.
Sara currently serves on the boards of directors of Winnebago Industries, Catalyst, and Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose. She also sits on the boards of BIFMA, Business Leaders for Michigan, and the Steelcase Foundation, and is a member of Business Roundtable.
Sara holds a bachelor’s degree in Slavic languages and literatures from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut; a master’s degree in international relations from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C.; and an MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.
Dan Gilbert
Founder & Chairman
Rocket Companies
Sandy Pierce
Corporate Board Executive, CEO Advisor, Community Strategist
Special Guests
Dan Gilbert and Sandy Pierce will dive into a wide-ranging conversation on innovation, technology, and industry disruption.
Dan Gilbert
Dan Gilbert is the Founder and Chairman of Rocket Companies (NYSE: RKT), which includes Rocket Mortgage, the nation’s largest retail mortgage lender. He is also the majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers and serves as the Founder and Chairman of ROCK and real estate development firm Bedrock Detroit.
Through his “For More Than Profit” philosophy, the Rocket Community Fund and the Gilbert Family Foundation committed $500 million over 10 years to Detroit through investments in organizations and programming to support housing stability, educational attainment and economic mobility. Additionally, Gilbert and the Family of Companies have committed more than $1 billion to medical research and community initiatives around the country.
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Gilbert moved his businesses to Detroit’s urban core in 2010. His investment in the revitalization of downtown led to the creation of Bedrock. Since its founding in 2011, Bedrock and its affiliates have invested and committed more than $7.5 billion to acquire, develop and operate more than 140 properties in Detroit and Cleveland.
Gilbert is an active investor in fintech, sports-related and consumer-direct companies. He founded Detroit Venture Partners (DVP) to fund startup and early-stage technology companies. In 2016, he co-founded Detroit-based StockX, the world’s first ‘stock market of things’, combining the visible, liquid, anonymous and transparent benefits of a stock market with the online consumer secondary market.
Gilbert is a fourth generation Detroiter and a graduate of Michigan State University. He obtained his Juris Doctor from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Sandy Pierce
Sandy Pierce is a board member of Penske Automotive Group, American Axle & Manufacturing and chair of ITC Holdings, Inc. She also serves as chair of Henry Ford Health Foundation, chair of Detroit Economic Club, and is a board member of Barton Malow Company and Renaissance Venture Capital. Pierce was appointed by Governor Whitmer to Michigan State University’s Board of Trustees in December 2022. She served on the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Detroit Branch from 2016 to 2021, vice chair of Business Leaders of Michigan, and served as Chair of the Detroit Financial Advisory Board from 2012 through 2014. Current business associations and civic involvements include Detroit Economic Club (Board of Directors; Executive Committee); Detroit Regional Chamber (Prior Chair); Downtown Detroit Partnership, and The Parade Company (Executive Committee, Prior Chair, Board of Directors).
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Pierce spent 45 years in financial services most recently with Huntington Bank where she was a member of Huntington’s executive leadership team. She led several revenue segments across its eleven-state footprint, including the Private Bank, Insurance Agency, and Auto Finance. Pierce also had management responsibility for Regional Banking and Community Development.
Prior to the Huntington merger with FirstMerit, Pierce was appointed to Vice Chairman of FirstMerit Corporation and Chairman and CEO of FirstMerit Michigan. Pierce had direct oversight of and responsibility for Retail Banking, Wealth Management Services, and Corporate Marketing for FirstMerit Corporation and coordination of FirstMerit’s business activities in the state of Michigan.
Prior to joining FirstMerit, Pierce was Midwest Regional Executive, President and CEO for Charter One Bank, Michigan, a division of RBS Citizens, N.A. where she had responsibilities for commercial banking and all state bank activities in Michigan as well as oversight of all state activities in Illinois and Ohio and was a member of Citizens Financial Group’s Executive Leadership Group and the Midwest Regional Advisory Board.
Pierce began her successful and diverse career in 1978 when she joined NBD Bancorp as a teller while attending Wayne State University. Upon graduation, she held a number of significant roles in commercial banking, retail banking, marketing and private client services at NBD and its successor organizations First Chicago NBD, Bank One, and JPMorgan Chase. In 2002, Pierce became regional executive of the Retail Midwest Region at Bank One. In this role, Pierce managed 350 bank branches that served over one million households and provided a full suite of consumer services, including: mortgages, small business loans, consumer loans and investments.
A native of Detroit, Pierce is a 1980 graduate of Wayne State University with a Bachelor of Business Administration / Marketing degree. She earned a Master of Business Administration / Finance degree from Wayne State University.
Pierce and her husband of 45 years have three children, two sons-in-law and six grandchildren.