When it Mattered

Ep. 47 – A diplomat’s travel forces his psychologist wife to reinvent her career which she does by talking to terrorists / Anne Speckhard, Director, International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism. When her husband was named US ambassador to Belarus, Anne Speckhard was forced to give up her thriving private counseling practice in Virginia and reinvent her life and work. Some security-related projects led her to begin talking to terrorists and it led to a most unique second career researching terrorists. “When I went into Palestine was the first time I went in and just announced myself. I was very honest about what I wanted. And people told me would be suicide, terrorists are never going to talk to you,” says Speckhard. But they did. To date, Speckhard has interviewed and debriefed nearly 800 terrorists and their family members and supporters — including in Western Europe, the Balkans, Central Asia, the Former Soviet Union, and the Middle East. “And I was always looking for literally what makes a suicide bomber tick? Why do they get into it? How do they get on the terrorist trajectory?” says Speckhard, “And since I'm a psychologist, I wanted to know, could it have been prevented or can we take them back off of it?” Speckhard has founded and directs the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism. She and her team have converted ISIS terrorist interviews into counter-narrative videos that have been used to deter terrorist recruiting through more than 125 Facebook anti-terrorism campaigns globally. With the advent of Covid-19, Speckhard says there's been chatter from some terrorist leaders urging their followers to protect themselves from the coronavirus but also exhorting those who become infected to spread the disease to their enemies. Read the Transcript Download the PDF Chitra Ragavan: Anne Speckhard was thriving in her private counseling and research practice in the Washington D.C. area, when her husband was named US ambassador to Belarus. It threw a curve ball into her clinical work and career trajectory. Speckhard got involved in a variety of security related research projects, and she suddenly found herself in the unusual position of talking to terrorists. Chitra Ragavan: Hello everyone, I'm Chitra Ragavan, and this is When it Mattered. This episode is brought to you by Goodstory, an advisory firm helping technology startups find their narrative. Chitra Ragavan: I'm joined now by Anne Speckhard, Director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism or ICSVE. Speckhard is one of the few American national security scholars with substantive access to terrorist groups. She has interviewed and debriefed more than 700 terrorists and their family members and supporters, including in Western Europe, the Balkans, Central Asia, the former Soviet Union, and the Middle East. Chitra Ragavan: Speckhard has used many of those interviews to build the Breaking the ISIS Brand Counter Narrative Project. This unique project consists of counter narrative videos that have been used in more than 125 Facebook antiterrorism campaigns globally, with the goal of deterring terrorist recruiting. Chitra Ragavan: Anne, welcome to the podcast. Anne Speckhard: Thank you, Chitra. Glad to be here. Chitra Ragavan: What was it like to uproot yourself from your practice and to go off to Belarus with your husband, Dan, as he launched his diplomatic career? Anne Speckhard: Well, Daniel and I decided to see it as an adventure, but it was very disorienting because I'm someone that puts my roots down deeply and we had three kids. So I had to close my practice and become entirely dependent upon him and that was not something I'd ever done before. Chitra Ragavan: You're fiercely independent, so that must have been even more difficult. Anne Speckhard: It was difficult. And also we were moving on the other side of what I thought of as the ...

Ep. 43 –– A physics major pursues a grounding in philosophy and finds his niche in Silicon Valley / Courtney Bowman, Director, Privacy and Civil Liberties Engineering Team, Palantir. Courtney Bowman thought he was destined for a career in physics until he took a philosophy class. It triggered a deep skepticism of the ability of hard sciences to solve mankind's biggest problems. When Bowman told his academic mentor and family about the desire to pursue philosophy, they were alarmed and tried to dissuade him, fearing a dead end to his career. But Bowman went with his gut and ignored conventional wisdom and it paid off strangely enough in Silicon Valley where Bowman found his niche in a one-of-a-kind Privacy and Civil Liberties Engineering team that he leads at Palantir, the big-data analytics platform deployed by the U.S. government and other governments around the world to contain the spread of #coronavirus. #COVID-19 raises unprecedented legal, ethical, moral, even existential questions around the use of mobility tracking, contact tracing, immunity passports, and other powerful big data tools. "We're talking about contact tracing applications that rely on mobile phones and specific applications on mobile phones. But not everyone carries a mobile phone. Not everyone has a mobile phone, or is technologically savvy and use of their mobile phones. So then you raise all sorts of issues about the 'digital divide.' Does this mean that the people who maybe are most advantaged and most privileged because they have access to technology, are going to get a disproportionate advantage in the use of that technology?” asks Bowman. "Meaning that some of the most vulnerable communities that are less technology savvy are not receiving the public health benefits of something like contact tracing. And those are real concerns, particularly when you have kind of disproportionate spread of a disease and disproportionate accessibility and availability of public health resources. So there's real, kind of, broader cultural and sociological, and environmental concerns that come into play when you're talking about applying this type of technology to the real world." That's where Bowman's unique philosophical grounding and non-traditional perspectives come in handy as nations around the world ponder these weighty questions over how to put the lid on the pandemic. Note: I was a senior advisor at Palantir Technologies from 2007-2015 and own equity in the startup. Read the Transcript Download the PDF Chitra Ragavan: Courtney Bowman thought he was destined for a career in physics until he took a philosophy class that triggered a deep skepticism of the hard sciences and the ability of science alone to address the issues raised by technological advances. Chitra Ragavan: Bowman decided to pursue his quest for a philosophical underpinning for his life and work, which unexpectedly gave him the tools to address some of the most challenging and salient technology questions of the day. Chitra Ragavan: Hello everyone. I'm Chitra Ragavan, and this is When It Mattered. This episode is brought to you by Goodstory, an advisory firm helping technology startups find their narrative. I'm joined now by Courtney Bowman, a former colleague and Director of Privacy and Civil Liberties engineering at Palantir Technologies. Bowman's work addresses complex issues at the intersection of policy, law, technology, ethics, and social norms. Bowman is working closely with the U.S. government and governments around the world to address the issues around the collection and analysis of massive amounts of data from the COVID-19 pandemic. Courtney, welcome to the podcast. Courtney Bowman: Chitra, thank you so much. It's an honor to be invited to your podcast and I really appreciate it. Chitra Ragavan: So what were you doing in life when you first began to understand the need for philosophy as an underpinning for your life and work?

Ep. 14 — A federal prosecutor kidnapped at gunpoint fights for his survival and discovers what’s truly important in life / Stanley Alpert, Environmental Lawyer and Author. Federal prosecutor Stanley Alpert was enjoying the cold January New York air as he walked to his Greenwich Village home when he felt the gun pressing into his back and realized he was being held up for money. But what started out as an armed robbery quickly turned into a kidnapping when the thugs learned of Alpert’s significant bank balance. In an instant, the prosecutor’s plans to spend his 38th birthday the next day with his family and friends changed dramatically. So did his life priorities. Alpert’s goal: Convincing his captors to let him go and learning enough to put them behind bars if he survived the ordeal. For the next 25 hours, as he was held hostage and his captors tried to empty his bank accounts and max out his credit cards, Alpert made some strategic and tactical decisions that convinced his captors to let him go. In the process, Alpert learned some vital lessons about himself. Transcript Download the PDF Chitra Ragavan: Hello, and welcome to When it Mattered. A podcast on how leaders are forged in critical moments and how they overcome adversity. I'm Chitra Ragavan. This episode is brought to you by Goodstory, an advisory firm helping technology startups find their narrative. My guest today is Stanley Alpert, an environmental lawyer, among other positions in his distinguished career, Alpert served for 13 years as a successful federal prosecutor handling environmental cases for the U.S. Department of Justice in the Eastern District of New York. Chitra Ragavan: On the eve of his 38th birthday, Alpert was kidnapped near his Greenwich Village home, and held captive for than 24 hours. He was lucky to released but not before his captors got his ATM password and withdrew large sums of cash from several banks. Alpert wrote a memoir about the incident and what it taught him, called The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival Chitra Ragavan: Stanley, welcome to the podcast. Stanley Alpert: Thank you for having me, Chitra. Chitra Ragavan: So this was on cold January night in 1998, and you were walking to your house in Greenwich Village and you were in a really good mood. Stanley Alpert: I sure was. I just met a young woman on the train. We'd gone and found some chocolate chip cookies. I got my box, and she got hers, and she went upstairs to go to her apartment and then I walked up the street going towards mine, and that's when my life changed. Chitra Ragavan: What happened? Stanley Alpert: As I got to the corner of 10th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, I felt a tug on my elbow. I spun around, there was an automatic machine pistol in my gut. Two men behind me with guns. They pushed me into the street into a car, and shut me in the car. They demanded my personal information, my bank information, my name, et cetera. And then they drove me to the bank where they began to withdraw my money. Chitra Ragavan: Tell me a little bit about who these guys were. What did they look like, what did they sound like, what information were you able to get in those frenetic first moments? I'm sure you were terrified? Stanley Alpert: I was absolutely terrified. It was a shock and I purposely kept my eyes down toward my knees in the car because I did not want them to think that I was looking at them, so I got only the barest glimpses of them. They were three young men, very agitated, very excited. The leader of the gang, who went by the street name of Lucky, had a very professional air about him. He spoke well. He demanded all my information, so he could take the money out of the machine. Stanley Alpert: So they drove me to the bank and they asked me how much money I had, and I told them I had $110,000 in my savings account. And even though I was a federal prosecutor who did not make the most mon...

Ep. 58 — A shocking loss leads a grieving daughter and budding communications leader to rethink the meaning of human connectivity / Susan McPherson, founder and CEO of McPherson Strategies, and author, “The Lost Art of Connecting: The Gather, Ask, Do Method for Building Meaningful Relationships.” When Susan McPherson was 22 years old, her parents were on vacation in Puerto Rico when the unthinkable happened. It was New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1986. Her dad had dropped her mother off at the casino of what then was the Dupont Plaza hotel in San Juan. At 3:30 pm, three disgruntled employees of the hotel who were embroiled in a labor dispute with the owners, set fire to the hotel, killing nearly 100 people — including McPherson’s mother — and causing hundreds of injuries. It was the most catastrophic hotel fire in Puerto Rican history and the second deadliest fire in U.S. history. The three men who set the fire were brought to justice and received long jail sentences and there were big changes to hotel fire safety laws and protocols. But it was small comfort for McPherson, for whom the shocking loss of her mother was a profound moment of grief and transformation. I recently had the privilege of talking with McPherson about her amazing life story and how her parents inspired her to be who she is today. She is the founder and CEO of McPherson Strategies, a communications consultancy focused on the intersection of brands and social impact. McPherson is a super-connector, angel investor, and corporate responsibility expert with 25+ years of experience in marketing, public relations, and sustainability communications. She’s a popular speaker and a regular contributor to high-profile business publications. McPherson also is the author of The Lost Art of Connecting: The Gather, Ask, Do Method for Building Meaningful Relationships — particularly relevant in today’s pandemic fueled anti-social world.

Ep.53 — A journalist upends her life and career to help identify and bring to justice the network of militants who murdered her friend and fellow correspondent at The Wall Street, Daniel Pearl / Asra Nomani, journalist, author, activist and co-founder, The Pearl Project. On January 23rd, 2002, Asra Nomani was waiting at her home in Karachi, Pakistan, for her dear friend, Daniel Pearl, a correspondent at The Wall Street Journal, to return from a reporting assignment. Pearl and his wife, Mariane, who was pregnant with their first child were staying with Nomani while he was investigating the Al-Qaeda networks that had conspired to pull off the 9/11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil just a few months earlier. But Pearl never returned home. Pakistani militants kidnapped and held Pearl hostage before murdering him a week later. His captors then released a video of the beheading, shocking the world and galvanizing Nomani in her long and difficult quest to identify Pearl's killers and help bring them to justice. In this riveting episode, Nomani describes how Pearl’s murder helped shape her as a journalist, author and a feminist Muslim. And she shares how the tragedy gave her the courage to become an activist challenging the rise of Islamic extremism and what she perceives as the dangerous influence of Islamists in American politics — particularly on the Democratic Party. Nomani also discusses why she is speaking up against the growing influence of “critical race theory,” both in the U.S. public school systems and on American society as a whole. Read the Transcript Download the PDF Chitra Ragavan: On January 23rd, 2002, Asra Nomani was waiting at her home in Karachi, Pakistan, for her dear friend, The Wall Street Journal correspondent, Daniel Pearl to come back from a reporting assignment. Pearl and his wife, Mariane, who was pregnant with their first child were staying with Nomani while he was investigating the Al-Qaeda networks that had conspired to pull off the 9/11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil just a few months earlier. But Danny Pearl never returned home. Pakistani militants kidnapped and held Pearl hostage before murdering him a week later. His captors then released a video of the beheading, shocking the world and galvanizing Nomani in her long and difficult quest to identify Pearl's killers and help bring them to justice. Chitra Ragavan: Hello everyone. I'm Chitra Ragavan. Welcome to When it Mattered. This episode is brought to you by Goodstory an advisory firm helping technology startups with strategic brand positioning and narrative. I'm joined now by Asra Nomani. She's a journalist, author, activist and co-founder of The Pearl Project, a 31,000 word award-winning global investigative journalism report identifying the network of militants who perpetrated the heinous. Asra, welcome to the podcast. Asra Nomani: Oh, thank you so much, Chitra. I feel like I'm with such a good dear friend going into one of the darkest moments of my life, but I hope we can share some light with everyone. Chitra Ragavan: It's been 19 years, almost exactly two days shy of that fateful day, January 23rd, 2002, when your world and that of Danny Pearl and his whole family turned upside down. Tell me when you found out that something had badly gone wrong. Asra Nomani: Well, that day began like any other day for journalists in, posting overseas. We all wakened, Danny and his wife Mariane were visiting a house that I had rented in Karachi, Pakistan. And Danny, went about the business of all his flurry of interviews he had planned for the day. I found a car for him and we stood outside this home that I'd rented and waved goodbye to Danny. And I said, "See you later, buddy," because it was just an interview like any other that we go off to do and then come back home and write down our notes and write our dispatches. But that night, Mariane kept calling and calling Danny's phone number and he never picked up.