Speakers

Charlie Francis is a municipal finance expert. He has more than forty  years of local government financial management experience in both the public and private sector, including twenty years of experience as a Chief Financial Officer. Most recently, he served as the Director of Administrative Services and Treasurer for the City of Sausalito. He has also served as a finance manager for the Town of Colma, CA and as CFO for the Cities of Indian Wells, CA, Tracy, CA and Treasure Island, FL. 

He began his career as an auditor for the Illinois Department of Revenue and, after serving as an accountant for the Denver Renewal Authority and a consultant for the Wyoming Association of Municipalities, Francis attained many financial reporting awards for Treasure Island, FL, a feat he would repeat in many future roles.

Francis has also consulted with national and international governments. He assisted post-invasion Iraq with macroeconomic reforms, worked with Estonia on local government finance, and advised the San Francisco Housing Authority and the Berkeley Housing Authority on financial matters.

George Jackson is VP of events at GovExec – the largest and most-influential media company in the public sector marketplace. He joined the company in 2020 to enhance the scale of their events and audience experiences. In 2021, George launched GovExec TV (streaming video content) and received the company’s Entrepreneurial Spirit Award, part of their first-annual Icon Awards.

George graduated from The Ohio State University in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in English. In 2006, he earned his master’s in broadcast journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park.

George spent the first five years of his journalism career at WJHL-TV in Johnson City Tenn. – beginning as an overnight producer for the station’s 6 a.m. broadcast. He advanced to lead on-air reporter for WJHL’s 11 p.m. newscast.

As a reporter, George examined the earnings of two non-profit hospital systems, felony charges filed against a local sheriff, predatory paving companies, a health benefits backlog for local veterans, and a series of cold-case murder investigations. He received an honorable mention for Best TV Reporter in the 2011 Tennessee AP Broadcast awards and won a Best Investigative Reporting award from Media General in 2010.

George joined DC’s ABC affiliate WJLA-TV in 2012 to produce Capital Insider, which won him an Emmy award. One year later, he developed and recorded the pilot episode of Government Matters – a program about the business of government. It debuted as a weekly show on Sunday, August 4th of 2013. George led Government Matters through September of 2020, expanded its reach to a daily worldwide audience, and produced its first feature-length documentary The Dawn of Generation AI.

George is from Toledo, Ohio. He lives with his wife, twin daughters, and a pair of rescue dogs in Northern Virginia.