As a professional intellectual or an “intellectual professional,” there is a wide variety of possible avenues for advancing Objectivism in your professional work. In this session, a panel of distinguished speakers from a variety of professional backgrounds talks about their work and careers.

Dr. Tara Smith is a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. She has published books on individual rights, the foundations of value, Ayn Rand’s theory of egoistic virtues and the requirements of objectivity in judicial review. Current research focuses on psychological aspects of egoism.

John Allison is an Executive in Residence at the Wake Forest University School of Business. He is the retired president and CEO of the Cato Institute and was chairman and CEO of BB&T Corporation. During Allison’s tenure as CEO from 1989 to 2008, BB&T grew from $4.5 billion to $152 billion in assets.

C. Bradley Thompson teaches Political Philosophy at Clemson University and is the Executive Director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism. He received his Ph.D at Brown University, and he has been a visiting scholar at Princeton and Harvard universities and at the University of London.