May 23, 10:30 AM – 11:45 AM
McCosh Hall, Room 50

Moderator:

Peter Barzilai
Editor, Princeton Alumni Weekly

Panelists:

Paul Haaga Jr. ’70
Retired Chairman, Capital Research and Management

Peter Elkind ’80
National Reporter, ProPublica

Eric Dodds ’10
Director of Revenue Strategy, The Associated Press

Louise Connelly ’15
Producer, CNBC Strategic Content

Sponsored by the Alumni Association of Princeton University

Moderator:

Peter Barzilai
Peter Barzilai was appointed editor of Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW) in July 2022 and oversees all aspects of the magazine, including editorial content, print and digital strategy, and community outreach. During his tenure, he has focused on delivering breaking news as well as thoughtful, in-depth reporting on timely topics and events. Prior to joining PAW, Barzilai spent 19 years at USA Today, where he held several positions, including deputy managing editor of sports. His journalism career also includes roles as an editor and reporter at the New York Daily News, Palm Beach Post, Asbury Park Press and Los Angeles Times. He is a graduate of California State University, Fullerton, and remains a Californian at heart.

Participants:

Paul Haaga Jr. ’70
Paul Haaga retired as chairman of Capital Research and Management Company in 2012 after 28 years, following service with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and work as a partner at Dechert law firm. Haaga has served on many nonprofit boards, including Princeton University, Penn Carey Law School (former chair), NPR (former chair and acting CEO), Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (former chair), Ralph M. Parsons Foundation (current chair), Pasadena Polytechnic School (former chair), Huntington Library, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (current vice chair) and Salzburg Global Seminar. His Princeton volunteering includes membership on the board of the Princeton Rugby Endowment, serving as a mentor for Princeton Internships in Civic Service, fundraising for Annual Giving and a five-year term as president of the Great Class of 1970. He spends most of his time now with his seven grandchildren and his wife, Heather, an honorary classmate of 1970.

Peter Elkind ’80
Peter Elkind’s focus at ProPublica is now on the Trump administration and business. Before joining ProPublica in 2017, he worked at Fortune for 20 years, was a writer at Texas Monthly and edited the Dallas Observer. Elkind is co-author of the bestseller “The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron” and also wrote “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer” and “The Death Shift: Nurse Genene Jones and the Texas Baby Murders.” He’s written about FBI director James Comey’s mishandling of the Hillary Clinton investigation, profiled Donald Trump’s shadowy accountants, investigated how America’s biggest oxygen company repeatedly cheated Medicare and elderly patients, and revealed how Steve Jobs concealed his fatal battle with pancreatic cancer. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, newyorker.com and The Washington Post.

Eric Dodds ’10
As a director of revenue strategy at The Associated Press, one of the world’s largest and oldest news agencies, Eric Dodds leads the organization’s efforts to optimize its content licensing business and develop new revenue streams. Previously, Dodds was a director of strategy and business development at NBCUniversal, where he managed relationships with local stations, regional sports networks and streaming properties. After a stint as sports editor of The Daily Princetonian, he began his career as a reporter at TIME magazine covering culture, sports and global news, with a particular focus on the publisher’s flagship Person of the Year and TIME100 issues (though he is most proud of his oral history of “The Mighty Ducks” film franchise). A history major at Princeton, he earned an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Louise Connelly ’15
Louise Connelly is a producer at CNBC, where she develops alternative revenue streams for the network. Previously, she produced documentaries, long-form investigative stories and prime-time series for CNBC. She was also a founding team member of CNN+, helping to launch the network’s original streaming platform. At Princeton, Connelly majored in the School of Public and International Affairs and was a member of the Princeton University Press Club; she now serves on the Press Club’s advisory board. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and is based in New York.