Originally broadcast at 10:45 a.m. ET Thursday, August 18, 2022.

This program is made possible by the Barbara A. Georgescu Lectureship Endowment.

Chip Bergh is the president and chief executive officer of Levi Strauss & Co., one of the world's largest brand-name apparel companies and a global leader in jeanswear, where he also serves on the company’s board of directors. Widely recognized for his position on values-driven leadership, in April 2019, Chip was named one of the “World’s Greatest Leaders” by Fortune Magazine.

LS&Co. designs and markets jeans, casual wear and related accessories for men, women and children under the Levi's®, Signature by Levi Strauss & Co.™, Denizen®, Dockers® and Beyond Yoga brands. Its products are sold in more than 110 countries worldwide through a combination of chain retailers, department stores, online sites, and a global footprint of approximately 3,100 retail stores and shop-in-shops. During his tenure, the company has experienced a dramatic turnaround marked by outstanding performance, a return to the center of culture and purpose-driven leadership. LS&Co. returned to the public markets with a successful IPO in March 2019. Prior to LS&Co., Chip spent 28 years at Procter & Gamble in roles of increasing scope and complexity in brand management, general management and executive leadership.

In July 2017, Chip was named non-executive chairman of the board of HP Inc., the market-leading printing and personal systems company. He has served as an HP board member since 2015. He previously served on the board of directors for VF Corporation and the Economic Development Board of Singapore. A graduate of Lafayette College, Chip is a veteran of the U.S. Army.

Chip will be interviewed by Darren Walker, who is partnering with Chautauqua Institution in the week on “New Profiles in Courage,” for his installment of the Chautauqua Lecture Series. Walker is president of the Ford Foundation, a $16 billion international social justice philanthropy. Under his leadership, the Ford Foundation became the first non-profit in US history to issue a $1 billion designated social bond in US capital markets for proceeds to strengthen and stabilize non-profit organizations in the wake of COVID-19.

Before joining Ford, Walker was vice president at Rockefeller Foundation, overseeing global and domestic programs. In the 1990s, he was COO of the Abyssinian Development Corporation — Harlem’s largest community development organization.

A member of the Reimagining New York Commission and co-chair of NYC Census 2020, Walker also chaired the philanthropy committee that brought a resolution to the city of Detroit’s historic bankruptcy. He co-chairs New York City’s Mayoral Advisory Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers, and has served on the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform and the UN International Labour Organization Global Commission on the Future of Work. He co-founded both the US Impact Investing Alliance and the Presidents’ Council on Disability Inclusion in Philanthropy and is a founding member of the Board Diversity Action Alliance. He serves on many boards, including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the National Gallery of Art, Carnegie Hall, the High Line, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. In the summer of 2020, he was appointed to the boards of Block, Inc and Ralph Lauren. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Medal; most recently, he was named Wall Street Journal’s 2020 Philanthropy Innovator.

Walker holds a Bachelor of Arts in government and a Bachelor of Science in speech communication from the University of Texas at Austin, and a J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law.

About Chautauqua Institution: Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. As a community, we celebrate, encourage and study the arts and treat them as integral to all of learning, and we convene the critical conversations of the day to advance understanding through civil dialogue. CHQ Assembly is the online expression of Chautauqua Institution's mission.