About the Award
After spending two years researching Cassandras and the tragedies they predicted but failed to prevent, the value of finding and listening to Cassandras is poignantly obvious to us, the authors of Warnings. We looked at many instances where experts had repeatedly tried to warn the public of impending disaster, only to be ignored. While we think the book will open some eyes to the importance of Cassandras, we need to do more to create awareness and incentives to identify the Cassandras hidden amongst us.
To find these ignored but credible warnings, we are launching an annual “Cassandra Award.” Our goal is to elevate, every year, a new Cassandra into the public spotlight to convince decision makers that they should take this person (and threat) more seriously.
The winner of the Cassandra Award will be chosen by the Cassandra Award Board, made up of experts and high profile figures such as General Michael Hayden, Ambassador Frank Wisner, and Meredith Whitney.
About the Award
After spending two years researching Cassandras and the tragedies they predicted but failed to prevent, the value of finding and listening to Cassandras is poignantly obvious to us, the authors of Warnings. We looked at many instances where experts had repeatedly tried to warn the public of impending disaster, only to be ignored. While we think the book will open some eyes to the importance of Cassandras, we need to do more to create awareness and incentives to identify the Cassandras hidden amongst us.
To find these ignored but credible warnings, we are launching an annual “Cassandra Award.” Our goal is to elevate, every year, a new Cassandra into the public spotlight to convince decision makers that they should take this person (and threat) more seriously.
The winner of the Cassandra Award will be chosen by the Cassandra Award Board, made up of experts and high profile figures such as General Michael Hayden, Ambassador Frank Wisner, and Meredith Whitney.
Cassandra Previous Award Winners
The Cassandra Award Foundation has presented the Cassandra Award to Tristan Harris, Founder of the Center for Humane Technology, for his warnings on the social media emergency.
The Award has also been presented to Dr. Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University, for his warnings on the climatic consequences of nuclear conflict.
Choosing a Winner
The winner of the Cassandra Award will be an expert that most closely aligns with the Cassandra Characteristics outlined in Warnings. This means the Cassandra will:
- Be a proven technical expert in his or her field
- Have a clean track record of predictions
- Be empirically minded and data driven
- Be an orthogonal thinker, i.e. will be addressing their cause from a new perspective
- Address an issue that threatens to significantly disrupt society
Consider donating to the mission today
The Cassandra Award Foundation is a registered 501-C-3 non-profit. All donations are 100% tax deductible.
If you have any questions about the Cassandra Award, please feel free to contact the administrators at: award@findingcassandra.com
Thank you for your participation.
Nominate a Cassandra
Part one of this form is information about you, the nominator. Part two is about the Cassandra, the nominee.
Meet the Cassandra Award Board
R.P. Eddy
Co-Author, Warnings; CEO, Ergo
Richard A. Clarke
Co-Author, Warnings; CEO, Good Harbor Security Risk Management
Mark Gerson
Co-Founder and Chairman, GLG
Meredith Whitney
Senior Vice President, Arch Capital
General Michael Hayden
Former Director, CIA and NSA
Commissioner David Cohen
Former CIA Director of Operations
Ambassador Frank Wisner
Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and U.S. Ambassador
Richard Clarke
Co-Author, Warnings; CEO, Good Harbor Security Risk Management
Richard Clarke is CEO of Good Harbor Security Risk Management which advises companies and governments on cyber security.
He served for thirty years in the United States Government, including an unprecedented ten continuous years as a White House officiat serving three consecutive Presidents. In the White House he was Special Assistant to the President for Global Affairs, Special Advisor to the President for Cyberspace, and National Coordinator for Security and Counter-terrorism.
Since leaving government in 2003, Mr. Clarke has served as an on-air consultant for ABC News for ten years, taught at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government for five years, and is the author of eight books. His first book, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror (2004) was a New York Times #1 best seller. In 2017, he published Warnings, 14 case studies of experts whose predictions of impending disaster were ignored. His ground-breaking work, Cyber War, was voted by a cyber expert panel as one of the field’s foundational works.
R.P. Eddy
Co-Author, Warnings; CEO, Ergo
R.P. Eddy is the CEO of Ergo, a leading intelligence and advisory firm. Previously, he served as Director at the White House National Security Council, Chief of Staff to the US Ambassador to the UN, Richard Holbrooke, Senior Advisor to Secretary of Energy, Bill Richardson, and Senior Policy Officer to the Secretary-General of the UN, Kofi Annan, where he served as an architect of the Global Fund to Prevent AlDS, TB, and Malaria.
Eddy was a member of the State Department Senior Executive Service and achieved the diplomatic rank of Minister-Counselor. He was a Managing Director at the Gerson Lehrman Group and a Team Leader at the Monitor Group. The World Economic Forum at Davos honored him as a “Global Leader for Tomorrow” and Foreign Policy noted him as one of the United States’ 100 “most esteemed terrorism and national security experts.”
He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Board of the Middle East Institute. Eddy was the Founder of the Center for Policing Terrorism (which advised the NYPD after 9/11), and Co-Chairman of the Mayor of Los Angeles’ Advisory Board on Counterterrorism. He has been a Senior Fellow or associate at Harvard University, the Madison Policy Forum, and the Manhattan Institute. He has a B.Sc. in Neuroscience from Brown University.
Mark Gerson
Co-Founder and Chairman, GLG
Mark Gerson is a co-founder and Chairman of GLG. He is also the Chairman of United Hatzalah, the network of first responders that treats victims of pre-hospital trauma in Israel, and the co-founder and Chairman of the Africa Mission Healthcare Foundation, which supports the work of medical missionaries performing clinical care throughout Africa. In addition, Mr. Gerson is a co-founder and co-Chairman of Thuzio, Chairman of Axial Markets and author of The Neoconservative Vision: From the Cold War to the Culture Wars (Madison Books: 1996) and In the Classroom: Dispatches from an Inner-City School That Works (Free Press: 1997). He graduated summa cum laude from Williams College and received his JD from Yale Law School.
Commissioner David Cohen
Former CIA Director of Operations and NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence
David Cohen was the Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence of the New York Police Department from 2002-2013. The first person to hold the position, he designed and implemented programs that are widely credited with protecting New York City from terrorist attack after 9/11. He is also a 35-year veteran of the CIA, where he served at the highest levels of both the Directorate of Intelligence and Operations.
General Michael Hayden
Former Director, CIA and NSA
General Michael Hayden is a retired four-star general who served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA). General Hayden was the country’s first Principal Director of National Intelligence and the highest-ranking military intelligence officer in the country. He also served as Commander of the Air Intelligence Agency and Director of the Joint Command and Control Warfare Center and in senior staff positions at the Pentagon, U.S. European Command, National Security Council, and the U.S. Embassy in Bulgaria. He was also the Deputy Chief of Staff for the United Nations Command and U.S. Forces in South Korea.
General Hayden has been a frequent expert and commentator on major news outlets and in top publications, featured in the HBO documentary Manhunt, which looked at espionage through the eyes of the insiders who led the secret war against Osama bin Laden, and in Showtime’s The Spymasters, a detailed look at the Directors of the CIA.
He is currently a Principal at the Chertoff Group and a distinguished visiting professor at the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government.
In 2013, the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) awarded General Hayden the 29th annual William Oliver Baker Award. General Hayden is also the first recipient of the Helms Award presented by the CIA Officers’ Memorial Foundation. His recent memoir, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror, has been a New York Times Best Seller and was recently selected as one of the 100 Notable Books of 2016.
Meredith Whitney
Senior Vice President, Arch Capital
Meredith Whitney is best known for her ground-breaking work and early identification of the mortgage and broader credit crisis. In 2006, Ms. Whitney presented to the FDIC on the U.S. consumer and the risks in the sub-prime market. In 2007, her prescient forecast of Citibank’s need to raise capital, sell assets, and cut its dividend set off a one day $400 billion drop in the markets. From that point forward, she became the go-to voice on the financial industry.
Named one of the world’s Most Influential People of 2009 by TIME Magazine, Ms. Whitney is widely recognized as “one of the most respected voices on Wall Street.” Also, one of Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.
Ms. Whitney has become a renowned expert in the finance industry and is frequently quoted in Fortune, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and The New York Times. Whitney has participated in the famous annual Jackson Hole Federal Reserve Symposium five consecutive years and has advised five regional Federal Reserves, the FDIC, FINRA and the SEC. Additionally, she has also advised various sovereign wealth funds, several international monetary authorities as well as the IMF. She has guest lectured at Brown University, Columbia Business School, MIT Sloan School, NYU Stern School, Perdue University, The Princeton Economic Club, University of Chicago Booth School, and University of Pennsylvania Wharton.
In June 2013, Whitney published her first book, Fate of the States: The New Geography of American Prosperity, another example of her early identification of major demographic and economic shifts within the US economy.
Currently, Ms. Whitney is Senior Vice President of Arch Capital, a Bermuda based re-insurance company. She manages their Equities and Equity Strategies. Her recognized value as both a financial advisor and equity manager resulted from her years in New York running Kenbelle Capital and Meredith Whitney Advisory Group. Before venturing out on her own in 2009, Whitney was a Managing Director at Oppenheimer and ran financial services research at CIBC World Markets and Wachovia (now Wells Fargo). She graduated with Honors from Brown University.
Ambassador Frank Wisner
Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and U.S. Ambassador to India, Egypt, the Philippines, Zambia
Frank G. Wisner is an International Affairs Advisor at Squire Patton Boggs, LLP. A career diplomat with the personal rank of Career Ambassador, he previously served as Ambassador to India from 1994-1997. Additionally, he held the positions of Ambassador to Zambia (1972-82), Egypt (1986-91), and the Philippines (1991-92). Mr. Wisner has served in a number of positions in the U.S. government, including Undersecretary of Defense for Policy (1993-94), Undersecretary of State for International Security Affairs (1992-93), Senior Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs (1982-86), and Deputy Executive Secretary of the Department of State (1977). During the course of his career, Frank Wisner served in the Middle East and South and East Asia.
After leaving the government service, Mr. Wisner joined the American International Group, where he was named Vice Chairman, External Affairs. He returned to government in 2005 to represent the Secretary of State as her special representative to the Kosovo status talks.
Today, Mr. Wisner is a member of the Boards of Directors of EOG Resources, as well as the boards of numerous non-profit organizations. He is an advisor to SeaOne and American Tunisian Enterprise Fund.
A native of New York, Mr. Wisner was educated at Princeton University.