Boise Committee on Foreign Relations upcoming events

September 2026 Meeting (23 Sep 2026)

Wed, 23 Sep 2026 23:30:00 GMT

Speaker: Mark Listes, CEO, Pendulum

Topic: TBC, related to mis/disinformation, foreign influence, and AI

Bio: Mark Listes is the CEO of Pendulum Intelligence (pendulumintel.com), the AI-native intelligence layer that powers the world’s biggest communications agencies, brands, and government agencies.

Prior to Pendulum, Listes served within the US Department of Defense as the Chief Operating Officer and Chief of Staff of the National Security Innovation Network (NSIN), an organization with the mission of connecting bleeding edge technology with warfighter missions, and as the Director of Policy at the US Election Assistance Commission (EAC) during the 2016-18 Foreign Interference in US Elections Crisis. At the EAC, he was the agency’s staff lead for all national security issues – including critical infrastructure defense policy design and implementation during those pivotal years.

Under his leadership, Pendulum has been named one of Bloomberg's "Most Innovative Startups in America," with Listes and Pendulum being cited in The Washington Post, The New York Times, TechCrunch, GeekWire, VICE, and PRWeek. Listes also co-architected SONAR, which is the artificial intelligence backbone for how the world's most ambitious brands now see and steer the narratives shaping their reputation, and he is one of the company’s leads for interfacing with the US and allied governments’ intelligence and defense communities.

A frequent voice in the conversation about the AI revolution, Listes has a love for teaching the next generation of leaders, having often guest-lectured for the Arthur W. Page Society's Future Leaders program, the U.S. State Department, and US Military training programs.

Mark Listes has a JD from William & Mary Law School and a BA from the University of Tennessee. He is a published author on the topics of critical infrastructure, election law, and government policymaking.

October 2026 Meeting (20 Oct 2026)

Tue, 20 Oct 2026 23:30:00 GMT

Speaker: Ambassador Michelle Gavin

Topic: TBA

Bio: Michelle D. Gavin is the Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). She has over 25 years of experience in international affairs in government and non-profit roles. She was formerly the managing director of The Africa Center, a multidisciplinary institution dedicated to increasing understanding of contemporary Africa. From 2011 to 2014 she was the U.S. ambassador to Botswana and served concurrently as the U.S. representative to the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

During Ambassador Gavin’s tenure, the U.S. and Botswana launched the most ambitious HIV prevention study in the world; Botswana hosted Southern Accord, the 1,400-strong joint SADC-U.S. military exercise; and the U.S. embassy helped to found Botswana’s first American Chamber of Commerce. Prior to that, she was a special assistant to President Obama and the senior director for Africa at the National Security Council, where she helped to originate the Young African Leaders Initiative and led major policy reviews of Sudan and Somalia.

Before joining the Obama administration, Gavin was an international affairs fellow and adjunct fellow for Africa at CFR. Earlier in her career she worked in the U.S. Senate, where she was the staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s subcommittee on African affairs, director of international policy issues for Senator Russ Feingold, and legislative director for Senator Ken Salazar.

Gavin received an MPhil in international relations from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes scholar, and earned her BA from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where she was a Truman scholar. She serves on the board of directors of Points of Light.

May 2027 Meeting (26 May 2027)

Wed, 26 May 2027 23:30:00 GMT

Speaker: Dr. Michael Mandelbaum