Dear Council on Competitiveness Community,
The 2026 sprint continues! Coming off an incredibly successful Maryland edition of the “Competitiveness Conversations Across America” at the end of March, we pivoted fast to an early 2026 Board Meeting – combined with a special, virtual meeting of our Executive Committee and National Commission on Innovation and Competitiveness Frontiers.
The exciting news to emerge from our Board session: the election of the Council’s next, great Business Vice Chair. I am very honored to announce and welcome to the Council on Competitiveness Mr. Sundar G. Raman, CEO of Fabric & Home Care and P&G Ventures at Procter & Gamble.
Sundar is renowned as a transformational leader who drives growth by reinventing business models and pioneering new approaches to R&D, supply chain, and brand-building at global scale. His forward-looking mindset and sustained track record of results — including leading P&G's largest business sector through a decade of growth — make him exactly the kind of leader our 40th anniversary agenda demands. The Council team looks forward to the energy and insight he will bring to our collective endeavors, alongside our other dynamic Board Members, Erik Fyrwald, Joan Gabel, Kenny Cooper, and Chad Holliday.
And Sundar’s election could not have come at a more auspicious moment. Immediately following his election, he joined the rest of the Board, our Executive Committee, and the National Commissioners in a special session to begin building the draft a “40th anniversary report”: the first half comprising a review of the U.S. and global competitiveness landscape; and the second half responding to the assessment with a focused, strategic and powerful call-to-action for policymakers.
Our goal is to create a distinctive and powerful report outlining the most important competitiveness priorities for the nation – and the actions we must undertake to optimize our society for a future ever more dependent on innovation-based growth. Much more to come on this in the summer months – as our Board, Executive Committee, and National Commission plan to meet in person in early May to iterate a next draft. We are excited soon to share a concrete piece for our Members’ reviews and input.
As I mentioned, at the end of March we convened the 11th edition of the “Competitiveness Conversations Across America” series in Maryland — two extraordinary days at Morgan State University and the University of Maryland, College Park, focused on unlocking American innovation in the AI and quantum era. My co-hosts — Dr. David K. Wilson, President of Morgan State University, and Dr. Darryll J. Pines, President of the University of Maryland, College Park — helped bring together a remarkable gathering of nearly 200 leaders, who heard from more than 60 leaders focused on turbocharging the State’s place-making innovation ambitions — from Governor Wes Moore to leaders from Congress, MITRE, Lockheed Martin, the U.S. Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, IonQ, and more. Each voice offering a vivid and inspiring window into how one region is translating extraordinary institutional assets into a coherent development strategy. We will publish a summary report from the Maryland Conversation soon.
And as you read this, we will have just completed our 12th Conversation — two days in Omaha with our co-host Dr. Jeffrey Gold, President of the University of Nebraska System, and nearly four dozen speakers exploring Nebraska’s place-making innovation efforts around the future of the bioeconomy. With a kick off from Nebraska Lieutenant Governor Joe Kelly, the Conversation will feature a range of leaders, including: U.S. Department of Agriculture Under Secretary Scott Hutchins; Gen. (Ret.) Anthony J. Cotton, former Commander of U.S. Strategic Command; Omaha Mayor John Ewing; and a strong array of private sector leaders, across the bioeonomy’s value chain and many at the heart of the Council’s larger “future of bioeconomy” initiative, like Jim Stutelberg, CEO, Primient; Gustavo Sergi, CEO, Sustainea; and more.
And looking ahead, our Technology Leadership and Strategy Initiative members head to Fort Worth on June 9 for their Spring/Summer Dialogue. Lockheed Martin leadership will host the group of CTOs across industry, academia, and the national labs at the LM F-35 production facilities — for a vivid deep dive into the connection between deep science and research, engineering, development, and scale-up manufacturing. If interested to learn more, touch base with Chad Evans ([email protected]).
Then in July, after celebrating our nation’s special birthday, we continue our westward trajectory for 2026, heading to San Diego. Dr. Pradeep K. Khosla, Chancellor and Joan and Irwin Jacobs Chancellor’s Endowed Chair, UC San Diego, will host the 13th edition of the Competitiveness Conversations, taking place July 21. On the beautiful UCSD campus, we will explore the full “San Diego innovation stack” – from transformative computing (AI and HPC), to the future of the bioeconomy, to the applications of sensor tech to adjacent industries, to autonomous systems for terrestrial and off-world uses, to the future of next generation energy. Registration is complimentary and will be open soon – so, definitely plan to join us. In the meantime, feel free to contact Chad Evans ([email protected]) for more information.
Of course, thanks to all of our Members and Friends, for your support and engagement. In this defining moment — the Council's 40th year alongside the nation's approaching 250th birthday — we remain more committed than ever to the conviction that what we choose to build, scale and lead together today will determine the next quarter century of American prosperity.And I want to close this month’s newsletter with a special thanks to and recognition of our outgoing Business Vice Chair, Mr. Dan Helfrich, who continues his own competitiveness journey with U.S. Soccer.
Sincerely,
Deborah L. Wince-Smith
President & CEO
Council on Competitiveness
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Read the full edition of the April 2026, Compete Connect newsletter, including much more about the Council's upcoming engagement opportunities and initiatives led by Council Members, below:
