Frank Anton is CEO of Hanley Wood, LLC, the nation’s premier media company serving the construction and design industries. As CEO, Anton oversees the company’s strategic growth and development both enterprise-wide and within each of the company’s four operating platforms: print and online; tradeshows, conventions and conferences; data; and strategic marketing. Under Anton’s leadership, Hanley Wood has developed and launched major initiatives bringing together top executives from the country’s largest firms in the construction and design industry to discuss industry challenges and debate solutions. Anton also forges and cultivates the company’s strategic relationships, such as those with leading policy think tanks The Brookings Institution and the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Kermit Baker is chief economist for the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Baker analyzes business and construction trends for the U.S. economy and examines their impact on AIA members and the architectural profession. He originated the AIA’s “Work on the Boards” survey, a monthly assessment of business conditions at architecture firms, as well as the AIA Consensus Construction Forecast Panel, and writes a regular economics column for the AIA member electronic newspaper, AIArchitect. Baker also serves as Project Director of the Remodeling Futures Program—research aimed at improving the understanding of the dynamics of the U.S. repair and renovation industry—at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Kent Colton, president of The Colton Housing Group, a housing research and consulting company, is engaged in a wide range of housing and housing-finance activities. He is also a senior fellow at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies and a former member of the Millennial Housing Commission, established by the U.S. Congress. Colton has more than 30 years of experience as a housing scholar and expert in the field of mortgage finance and housing policy, including service as executive vice president and CEO of the National Association of Home Builders, a position he left in 1999 after serving as the CEO for 15 years. Over the years, Colton has written numerous articles and books on housing finance, the secondary mortgage market, housing policy, and a range of management issues.

Ned Cramer is editorial director of the Hanley Wood commercial design group as well as founding editor-in-chief of Architect magazine, and other Hanley Wood publications: Architectural Lighting, Eco-Structure, Metalmag, Pro AV, and the Architect Product Spec Guide. The Avery Architectural Index lists some 100 articles under Cramer’s byline, many of them dating to his eight years on the editorial staff of Architecture magazine—he served two of those years as executive editor. Cramer sits on the board of Archeworks, the Chicago alternative design school founded by Eva Maddox and Stanley Tigerman; he is a member of the selection committee for the National Building Museum’s Vincent Scully Prize; and he recently joined the National Advisory Council for the Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Bob Garfield is a prominent commentator and analyst of advertising and marketing. His new Ad Age column, Listenomics,, explores the frontiers of 21st-century marketing and media. Garfield is co-host of National Public Radio’s weekly Peabody Award-winning magazine program “On the Media,” and he’s a founding contributor to the Watchdog Blog of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. For 25 years, Garfield’s AdReview column in Advertising Age evaluated, vetted, parsed, deconstructed and offered uncanny prognostications ads from agencies worldwide based on such criteria as strategy, communication, taste, ethics, brand relevance, cultural relevance, and craftsmanship. Over the past decade, he has also chronicled the digital revolution, culminating in his 2009 book, “The Chaos Scenario.”

Jonathan Smoke is executive director of research at Hanley Wood, covering all aspects of housing including new construction, remodeling, local market housing conditions, and consumer demand. Smoke’s contributions to the company include Housing IntelligencePro, a platform of comprehensive housing and new construction data covering over 90 percent of home sales in the U.S.; the Residential Remodeling Index, which provides local market insights into remodeling activity in every metropolitan statistical area in the U.S.; and the Hanley Wood Consumer Groups, which provide powerful insights into consumer demand for new homes and remodeling.

Boyce Thompson is editorial director of the residential new construction group at Hanley Wood, including Builder, Multifamily Executive, Residential Developer, Digital Home, and Big Builder magazines. He also directs the editorial council at Hanley Wood. Thompson has 25 years of experience writing and editing articles about home building, architecture, and retailing. He is the founding editor of ProSales, read by 38,000 building-material retailers and distributors; residential architect, a magazine read by 40,000 residential architects and building designers; and Big Builder, a special supplement to Builder received by 10,000 individuals with the biggest home building companies in America.

Mark Zandi is chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, directing research and consulting. A trusted adviser to policymakers and an influential source of economic analysis for businesses, journalists, and the public, Zandi has frequently testified before Congress on topics including the economic outlook, merits of fiscal stimulus, financial regulatory reform, and foreclosure mitigation. He also conducts regular briefings on the economy and is often quoted in national and global publications and interviewed by major news media outlets. Zandi’s recent research has focused on the determinants of mortgage foreclosure and personal bankruptcy, analyzed the economic impact of various tax and government spending policies, and assessed the appropriate policy response to bubbles in asset markets.