Rick Caruso and Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt to Discuss Key Issues Surrounding 2024 Election at President’s Speaker Series
On Thursday, October 31, 2024, at 4 PM in Smothers Theatre on the Malibu campus, the President’s Speaker Series will welcome business innovator and civic leader Rick Caruso (JD ’83) alongside Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt, who will represent both sides of the political spectrum as they explore timely issues and solutions surrounding the 2024 election.
Rick J. Caruso
A renowned business innovator, dedicated civic leader, and philanthropist, Caruso is the founder and executive chairman of Caruso®, one of the largest privately held real estate companies in the United States. Under Caruso’s leadership, the company has achieved a world-class portfolio that continues to expand and includes internationally renowned and award-winning retail, residential, and mixed-use properties, including its newest addition, Rosewood Miramar Beach in Montecito, California. Caruso’s flagship property, the Grove, was ranked number two on Fortune’s list of the 10 highest sales-generating shopping centers in the country.
Early in his career, Caruso served as the youngest commissioner in the city’s history when mayor Tom Bradley appointed him commissioner for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Following his success in that role, Caruso was selected as president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, where he led the effort to overhaul the Los Angeles Police Department and recruited William Bratton as chief of police. Together they reduced the city’s crime rate to the lowest levels in 50 years.
Among the many nonprofit organizations that he and his wife, Tina, support through the Caruso Family Foundation, Caruso is actively involved with Operation Progress, Para Los Niños, St. Lawrence of Brindisi School, and Verbum Dei High School, all focused on the historically underserved area of Watts, Los Angeles. In 2019 Caruso announced a $50 million commitment to the Pepperdine School of Law, which was renamed the Rick J. Caruso School of Law in recognition of the historic gift, to expand educational access to exceptional, historically underserved student populations and fuel several initiatives to strengthen the School of Law’s academic programming.
Caruso is deeply involved with numerous organizations and higher education institutions, including the University of Southern California, Loyola High School, St. John’s Hospital, and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation. In April of 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Caruso became part of both a federal- and state-level task force, providing expertise on reopening the economy safely.
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt
Governor Stitt is leading Oklahoma with a vision to become top 10 in job growth, infrastructure, education, and more. With only $1,000 and a computer, Governor Stitt founded Gateway in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2000, which he grew into a nationwide mortgage company operating in 42 states and servicing more than $20 billion in residential mortgages. In 2018 he led Gateway through a merger and established Gateway First Bank, which today is one of Oklahoma’s 10 largest banks by assets with over $2 billion in assets, 166 mortgage centers across the US, and more than 1,600 employees.
Oklahomans spoke in record numbers that they wanted Governor Stitt to use his business acumen to transform the state. In 2018 he received more votes than any gubernatorial candidate in state history in his first bid for elected office of any kind.
Governor Stitt has taken a groundbreaking approach to his administration by appointing the most female cabinet secretaries in state history and tapping expert advisors from the private sector, including the first chief operating officer in state history. He is committed to delivering taxpayers more for their money, and his fiscally conservative leadership helped the state build its largest savings account in history, which proved to be prophetic in the face of an oil and gas downturn.
For more information and to register to attend the event, visit the President’s Speaker Series website.