Why elevation?
Who is Elevation?
Live Aid. 1985.
Forty years ago.
When you reach the
right audience, with the
right message, at the
right moment,
people change.
When you reach enough
people, governments
change.
***
Elevation Global Strategies exists to showcase people, companies, and organizations shaping global affairs through sports, culture, and commerce — from advanced technology and AI-driven supply chains to sustainability and human performance.
Elevation was founded to bring that connected reality into the open — thoughtfully, responsibly, and at scale.
Elevation draws from a Long history of sports and cultural moments that changed the world.
From the Olympic Games to the World Cup to Amnesty Human Rights Now! concerts, mass audiences have repeatedly shown that culture can move ideas, resources, and people.
That dynamic still exists.
Today’s cultural community of athletes, artists, performers, chefs, innovators, and the organizations that sponsor and support them continues to influence how societies respond to shared challenges.
Their work increasingly sits at the intersection of technology, sustainability, economics, and geopolitics.
If you know where to look.
And we do.
Across sectors, those connections are happening.
International sports leaders are embedding sustainability and climate-friendly policies into the core of their operations, from Formula 1 to the Olympics.
Technologies and AI leaders in national security cross over into other sectors like sports, health, human performance, and the arts.
Chefs and farmers are modernizing food systems towards greater resilience, security, sustainability, and taste.
Filmmakers and fashion houses are rethinking business models and supply chains shaped by geopolitics.
Altogether, these efforts reflect a more connected reality than we often acknowledge — one which deserves to be seen, understood, and carried further.
Elevation exists to shed light on the people — and the work — shaping our connected world.
Kevin Baron
Founder & President
Elevation Global Strategies, LLC
Kevin Baron is an international journalist, analyst, media executive, and live events creator with more than 25 years based in Washington, D.C. He has covered global security, defense, intelligence, foreign policy, politics, and more as a reporter, editor, and executive editor, and via live journalism on-stage and on-camera. His work often focuses on the intersection of global affairs, public opinion, and culture.
For 10 years, Baron was the founding executive editor of Defense One, the news brand of Atlantic Media and GovExec. While leading the newsroom, he created and hosted dozens of live events, including the Defense One Summit, Tech Summit, and the State of Defense virtual interview series with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, among others.
Baron is a frequent moderator at major global policy conferences, including the Aspen Security Forum, Brussels Forum, Global Security Forum (Doha, Qatar), Halifax International Security Forum, NATO Engages, and co-hosted the GLOBSEC Bratislava Forum.
Recently, Baron was editorial director of POLITICO Live, leading editorial events with the executive, business, and production teams, while coordinating newsroom coverage. In one year, Baron helped plan and hosted six policy summits and a dozen single-issue events on topics from AI and healthcare to sustainability, as well as the four-day CNN-POLITICO Grills at the 2024 Republican and Democratic National Conventions.
Baron first arrived in Washington in 1998, working for the Coalition for American Leadership Abroad, the United Nations Association-USA, and the Alliance for International Educational & Cultural Exchange, focused on U.S. politics and foreign affairs, congressional spending, international organizations, global development, and key issues including global HIV/AIDS, education, and immigration.
In 2003, Baron began his shift into journalism. His first experience was helping the Center for Public Integrity’s Polk Award-winning team expose $7 billion of Iraq War contracts. From 2004 to 2009, he led several investigative projects for the Boston Globe’s Washington bureau, traveling on assignment from the South Pacific to Sub-Saharan Africa, documenting the hunt for missing World War II pilots, the rise of faith-based foreign aid, partisan rule-making in Congress, and global online test cheating.
In 2008, Baron joined the Pentagon press corps, reporting for 15 years from war zones to world capitals for the U.S. Army’s Stars and Stripes, National Journal, Foreign Policy, and Defense One. He also was VP of the Pentagon Press Association.
On air, Baron has been a reporting analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, and still frequently appears on MS Now. He also has appeared on CNN, BBC, BBC World Service, CNBC International, PBS, NPR, Yahoo, Sky Arabia, al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya, Asharq, ABC Radio Australia, and Canada’s Global News.
Baron earned his M.A. in media and public affairs from the George Washington University, and B.A, in international studies from the University of Richmond. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Raised in Florida, Baron lives in Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., with his partner, Sharon Stirling, and three sons.
Sharad Kharé
Sharad Kharé is an award-winning storyteller and documentarian. He is the founder Human Biography, a content agency that produces original video content for the most incredible humans, brands, and organizations around the globe. His signature work is in intimate thought-provoking interviews. Sharad also creates content with some of the most dynamic organizations in the world to engage audiences, and moderates dialogues on global stages.
Sharad has documented people like Oprah Winfrey, his holiness the Dalai Lama, Meryl Streep, Arianna Huffington, Chip Wilson, Susan Sarandon, Val Kilmer, Indra Nooyi, Helen Mirren, Jack and Suzy Welch, Peter Diamandis, Maye Musk, Jacqueline Novogratz, and Katy Perry as well as many leaders and CEOs from all over the world. Sharad’s work with family legacy has enabled some incredible opportunities for families to work on their own private content for generational information to be passed down. Human Biography has created content with such organizations as TED, Microsoft, UN Women, The David Lynch Foundation, and many more.
Sharad has led lectures in storytelling at Harvard, IIT, Parsons, UPenn, and the United Nations. He currently sits on the board of Beedie Luminaries and Reconciliation Canada. Sharad has a master’s degree in communications and background in media and journalism.