Cory Booker, the charismatic mayor of Newark, is often cited as a rising leader in American politics.   Booker’s background of achievement and a dynamic leadership style has created high expectations and at TCG’s event with the Mayor he lived up to his reputation — inspiring, smart and energetic.  

Booker, a Rhodes Scholar, earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at Stanford University, studied at Oxford College, received a law degree from Yale, and played varsity football.  He was active as a community organizer while at these various schools and later in Newark.  Booker won an upset victory when elected to the Newark Municipal Council and started taking on issues such as housing, law and order, transparency and efficiency in City Hall with a fervor and an unconventional approach that was all his own.  He ran a heated campaign against Sharpe James for Mayor in 2002 but lost.  Undeterred, he ran against Ronald Rice and took victory with an overwhelming percentage of the vote in 2006. 

Booker has since taken on some of Newark’s toughest issues of corruption, education and crime, and even survived an assassination plot by gang members.  Cory Booker provides a new and exciting era of leadership.