Throughout its history International House has been honored to welcome distinguished speakers including:

• President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia, Nobel Peace Prize winner
• Federal Reserve Chairs: Janet Yellin, Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan and Paul A. Volcker
• Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
• Dr. Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan Ambassador to the United Nations
• George Takei, Actor and Activist
• Maria Cuomo Cole, Filmmaker and Humanitarian
• Penny Abeywardena, Commissioner, Mayor’s Office for International Affairs, City of New York
• Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation
• George Packer, Journalist, New Yorker magazine, author “The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America”
• Wes Lowery, Journalist, Washington Post, author “They Can’t Kill Us All”
• Gilbert King, Author “Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys and the Dawn of a New America
• Jelani Cobb, Professor, Journalist and contributor to New Yorker magazine
• Joshua Oppenheimer, Two-time Oscar nominee, Director – The Act of Killing and Look of Silence
• Nelson Mandela, Former President of South Africa
• General Colin Powell, Former Secretary of State
• Theodore Sorenson, Former advisor to President Kennedy
• John C. Whitehead, former Deputy U.S. Secretary of State
• Rudolph A. Giuliani, Mayor of New York City
• Isaac Mizrahi, Designer
• Allan Ginsberg, Poet
• George Stephanopoulos, Presidential Advisor
• Isaac Stern, Violinist
• Geoffrey Canada, President & CEO, Harlem Children’s Zone
• Carl Bernstein, Journalist
• Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Ambassador
• Madeleine Albright, Former Secretary of State
• Helen Keller
• Eleanor Roosevelt
• Paul Robeson
• Jesse Jackson
• Desmund Tutu
• Judith Jameson
• Dean Obeidallah
• Greg Pak
• Tracy Chou
• Ariane Daguin, Founder, Owner and CEO of gourmet food company D’Artagnan
• Professor Xiaoxing Xi
• Les Gelb