The Role of Business Leaders in Addressing Bias and Hate

Jewish and Muslim leaders have worked together for years advocating for issues of common concern. A primary focus has been combatting the rise in bias and hate crimes in our country. CEOs Stanley Bergman and Farooq Kathwari will share their experiences in leading these efforts.

Speakers

Since 1989, Stanley M. Bergman has been Chairman of the Board and CEO of Henry Schein, Inc., a Fortune 500® company and the world’s largest provider of health care products and services to office-based dental and medical practitioners, with more than 25,000 Team Schein Members worldwide and operations or affiliates in 33 countries and territories. Henry Schein is a member of the S&P 500® index. In 2024, the Company’s sales reached $12.7 billion. Henry Schein has earned a top score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index since 2015.

Stanley is a former past President of the AJC (American Jewish Committee), Co-Founder of the AJC’s Africa Institute, Co-Chair of the Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council and Chair of The Wits Fund, Inc.

Mr. Bergman serves as a board member or advisor for numerous institutions including New York University College of Dentistry; the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine; Hebrew University; the University of the Witwatersrand Fund; The World Economic Forum’s Health Care Governors; the Business Council for International Understanding and the Metropolitan Opera. Mr. Bergman is an honorary member of the American Dental Association and the Alpha Omega International Dental Society. Mr. Bergman is the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor; the CR Magazine Corporate Responsibility Lifetime Achievement Award; the 2017 CEO of the Year award by Chief Executive Magazine, the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW) Dirk Van Dongen Lifetime Achievement Award; Honorary Doctorates from The University of the Witwatersrand, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Western University of Health Sciences, Hofstra University, A.T. Still University’s Arizona School of Dentistry and Oral Health, Case Western Reserve University, and Farmingdale State College (SUNY); and Honorary Fellowships from King’s College London – Dental Institute and the International College of Dentists.

Stan and Dr. Marion Bergman, and their family are active supporters of organizations fostering the arts, higher education, and cultural diversity, as well as grassroots healthcare and sustainable entrepreneurial economic development initiatives in the United States, Africa and other developing regions of the world.

Mr. Bergman is a graduate of The University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and is a South African Chartered Accountant and a NYS Certified Public Accountant (CPA).

Farooq Kathwari has been the chairman and CEO of Ethan Allen Interiors Inc. since 1988. He serves several nonprofit organizations, including the Board of Overseers of the International Rescue Committee; the advisory board of the Center for Strategic and International Studies; and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is chairman emeritus of Refugees International; an advisory member of the New York Stock Exchange; former chairman of the National Retail Federation; former chairman of the American Home Furnishings Alliance; a director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University; and a member of the International Advisory Council of the United States Institute of Peace.

Founder of the Kashmir Study Group, he served as a member of the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders from 2010 to 2014. He was also tapped to join the bipartisan, congressionally mandated United States Institute of Peace Task Force on Extremism in Fragile States, co-chaired by Governor Tom Kean and Representative Lee Hamilton, who formerly led the 9/11 Commission.

Among his recognitions, Mr. Kathwari is a recipient of the 2018 Ellis Island Medal of Honor and has been inducted into the American Furniture Hall of Fame. He has been recognized as an Outstanding American by Choice by the U.S. government. He has also received the Yale School of Management’s Chief Executive Leadership Institute Lifetime of Leadership Award; the National Human Relations Award from the American Jewish Committee; the National Retail Federation Gold Medal; and Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Mr. Kathwari is the author of Trailblazer: from the Mountains of Kashmir to the Summit of Global Business and Beyond, a memoir published in September 2019. He serves on the board of the Western Connecticut State University Foundation, the advisory board of The Hebrew Home at Riverdale, and has been recognized by Worth magazine as one of the 50 Best CEOs in the United States.

For more information, visit farooqkathwari.com.

Moderator

Deborah Amos is a Ferris Professor of Journalism in Residence.

A longtime international correspondent, Amos spent much of her award-winning career at National Public Radio. Her reporting on the Middle East and refugees in the U.S. regularly featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, and All Things Considered. She recently covered the Syrian and Iraqi refugee crises, the economy in the Middle East, and the Arab youth surge. Previously she reported for ABC’s Nightline and PBS’s Frontline.

Amos is the author of two books: Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile, and Upheaval in the Middle East, and Lines in the Sand: Desert Storm and the Remaking of the Arab World. She has won several major journalism honors, including a Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women’s Media Foundation, a George Foster Peabody Award, an Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award, and an Emmy.