Walter Isaacson is a longtime journalist and the author of Einstein: His Life and Universe (April 2007), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003), and Kissinger: A Biography (1992), and coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986).

Isaacson, who began his career at the Sunday Times of London and then the New Orleans Times-Picayune/States-Item, joined Time Magazine in 1978, eventually becoming its 14th editor in 1996. He went on to become chairman and CEO of CNN in 2001.

In 2003, he was named president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies institute based in Washington, D.C. He also is the chairman of the board of Teach for America, which recruits recent college graduates to teach in underserved communities, and chairman of the board of the U.S.-Palestinian Partnership, set up by the U.S. State Department to promote economic and educational opportunities for the Palestinian people. After Hurricane Katrina, he was named vice-chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.