Joanna Semel Rose was an American art patron and collector, publisher, philanthropist, and connector, whose salons and dinners in her New York home brought together an international group of intellectuals, artists, authors and educators. For many decades the chairman of the board of Partisan Review magazine, she became known to the wider public from an award-winning exhibition of early American patchwork quilts from her collection that was mounted in honor of her 80th birthday.

Daniel Rose is an American real estate developer, philanthropist and essayist. He is best known professionally for developing the large-scale Pentagon City complex adjacent to Reagan National Airport; building the One Financial Center and Keystone Building office towers that anchored the redevelopment of downtown Boston; and conceiving and reinventing a New York real estate apartment complex into the internationally renowned Manhattan Plaza for the Performing Arts. A forceful advocate for private philanthropy and public service, he founded the acclaimed inner-city youth education program, the Harlem Educational Activities Fund, established a wide range of academic and professional educational programs, and served multiple government administrations in unpaid advisory roles. His award-winning essays and speeches have covered subjects as diverse as economics, inner city education, racial problems, social injustice, real estate, food & wine, and housing.