His Highness Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani assumed his duties as Amir of the State of Qatar on 25th June 2013, following the announcement of His Highness The Father Amir, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani’s decision to hand over his power to his Heir Apparent in an address to the Qatari people, and the pledge of allegiance to His Highness Sheikh Tamim  as the new Amir.
His Highness the Amir pursued his higher education in the United Kingdom where he attended the Royal Military Academy of Sandhurst, graduating in 1998.
Upon graduation from Sandhurst, His Highness joined Qatar’s Armed Forces where his military and academic studies were combined with practical experience to enhance his leadership skills.

H.H Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud is Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. His Highness served as the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alsalam Aerospace Company and then Chairman of the Board (2001 - 2013). He was Member of the Board of Directors of Saudi Military Industries Corporation 2017, Advisor to the Crown Prince (Jan 2017 - April 2017), and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Senior Advisor at the Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Washington (2017 - 2019). H.H. was the Ambassador of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques to the Federal Republic of Germany 2019 and the Minister of Foreign Affairs 2019.

H.E. John Forbes Kerry is an American diplomat who is currently the first United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 68th United States Secretary of State from 2013 to 2017 alongside Former President Barack Obama. An attorney and former naval officer, H.E. is a decorated Vietnam veteran turned anti-war activist, and has served as a Prosecutor and as Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, before serving as United States Senator from Massachusetts from 1985 to 2013.

H.E. Josep Borrell Fontelles is the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission. H.E. was President of the European Parliament from 2004-2007. In 1982, he became Minister of Economy and Finance until 1984 before being appointed as Secretary of State for Finance (1984–1991). From 1991 until 1996, he was Minister of Public works, Transport, Telecommunications and the Environment. He was a member of the Spanish Parliament until 2003. He then served as Chair of the Committee on Development (2007-2009), President of the European University Institute in Florence (2010-2012), Jean Monnet Chair of European Economic Integration at Complutense University of Madrid (2013-2016), Minister of Foreign Affairs for the European Union and Cooperation with Spain (2018-2019).

H.E. Emine Dzhaparova is the First Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. She served as Attaché at the Department of Social and Humanitarian Affairs of the MFA Department of Cultural and Humanitarian Cooperation, Adviser to the Minister of Information Policy on Crimea, First Deputy Minister of Information Policy of Ukraine.

Filippo Grandi became the 11th United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on 1 January 2016. He was elected by the UN General Assembly to serve a five-year term, then re-elected to June 2023. As High Commissioner, he heads one of the world’s largest humanitarian organizations. UNHCR has twice won the Nobel Peace Prize. Its 17,000-strong workforce spans 130 countries providing protection and assistance to nearly 80 million refugees, returnees, internally displaced people and stateless persons

Børge Brende is the President of the World Economic Forum. He has been Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway and before that Minister of Trade and Industry and Minister of Environment. He served as 1. Deputy Chairman of the Norwegian Conservative Party as well as a Member of the Norwegian Parliament. Brende has been Chairman UN Commission on Sustainable Development and Secretary-General Norwegian Red Cross. He has also been Member of the board of Equinor, of the Norwegian School of Economics, and is currently on the board of the Bilderberg Meetings.

Kristalina Georgieva is Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. She was previously CEO of the World Bank (2017-2019) during which time she served as Interim President of the World Bank Group. She helped shape the agenda of the European Union in her role as European Commission Vice President for Budget and Human Resources (2014-2016) and as Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response (2010-2014). She began her career in public service at the World Bank as an Environmental Economist in 1993 where she went on to serve for 17 years in senior positions including Vice President and Corporate Secretary (2008-2010). She holds a PhD in Economic Science from the University of National and World Economy in Bulgaria.

H.E. Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu is the President of Kosovo. She served as Advisor to the Former President of Kosovo, Fatmir Sejdiu before her election to the Assembly. H.E. Dr.Osmani held the position of Speaker of the Assembly, and also served as acting President between November 2020 and March 2021. Upon her election as President, Osmani became the second woman to hold the position.

" Ivan Korčok has been appointed Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic on 8 April 2020 after some thirty years of experience in the Slovak Foreign Service. As a career diplomat, Ivan Korčok served as Slovak Ambassador to the United States (2018-2020), Germany (2005-2009) and as Permanent Representative of Slovakia to the European Union (2009-2015). Ivan Korčok served twice as State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (2015-2018 and 2002-2005). In 2016, he was Government Plenipotentiary for the Slovak Presidency in the Council of the EU. Minister Korčok is a graduate of the University of Economics in Bratislava. He also completed post-graduate studies at the Institute of International Relations at the Comenius University in Bratislava."

Ambassador Mutlaq Al Qahtani has held the post of Special Envoy of the Foreign Minister for Counterterrorism and Mediation of Conflict Resolution since 2016. He previously served as the Director of the Department of International Organizations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has also served as the Chief of Cabinet of the Presidency of the 66th Session of the General Assembly from 2011 – 2012, was legal adviser to the Minister of State of Foreign Affairs from 2010 – 2011, and served as the Deputy Chief of Mission of the Permanent Mission of the State of Qatar to the United Nations. Dr. Al Qahtani hold extensive expertise in the field of counterterrorism, antimony laundering and countering terror financing, and has taken a leading role to introducing C/PVE initiatives to the region. Dr. Al Qahtani holds a Ph.D. in Public International Law from the University of Glasgow and an LLM from The American University in Washington, D.C. He has written extensively on international law, international courts and tribunals, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, and international organizations laws. In 2015, he was awarded the Ambassador of Peace Award by the Universal Peace Federation.

Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu is a Turkish diplomat and politician who has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey since 24 November 2015. He is a member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, where he represents Antalya Province. First elected to Parliament in the 2002 general election, Çavuşoğlu is a founding member of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and was elected as Member of Parliament from Antalya for the 22nd, 23rd and 24th Parliamentary Terms. Additionally, he was the president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from 2010 to 2012 and is the first Turkish parliamentarian to hold this office, and was granted the title of Honorary President of the PACE in 2014.

Sanam Vakil is the deputy director of the Middle East North Africa programme, where she leads project work on Iran and Gulf Arab dynamics.
Sanam’s research focuses on regional security, Gulf geopolitics, and on future trends in Iran’s domestic and foreign policy. She is also the James Anderson professorial lecturer in the Middle East Studies department at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS Europe) in Bologna, Italy.

Ambassador (ret.) Wolfgang Ischinger is the President of the Foundation Council of the Munich Security Conference Foundation. He served as Chairman of the Munich Security Conference (MSC) from 2008 to 2022.
A German career diplomat, he was State Secretary (Deputy Foreign Minister) from 1998 to 2001. From 2001 to 2006, he was the Federal Republic of Germany's Ambassador to the U.S., and from 2006 to 2008, to the Court of St James’s.
He is a Senior Professor at the Hertie School, Berlin, and serves on the boards of companies as well as non-profit-institutions, including Atlantik-Brücke/Berlin, the American Academy/Berlin, and the Atlantic Council of the United States/Washington D.C.

Prof. Ibrahim Kalin, is Presidential Spokesperson, Ambassador, Chief Adviser, Deputy Chairman of the Security and Foreign Policy Council of Turkish Presidency. He served as Assistant Undersecretary of State and Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister of Turkey. Prof. Kalin is the founding-director of the SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research based in Ankara, Turkey and served as its director from 2005 to 2009. He was a fellow at the Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University. He received his Ph. D. from the George Washington University. As a broadly trained scholar of philosophy and Islamic studies, he has taught courses on Islamic philosophy, comparative philosophy, Islam-West relations and Turkish foreign policy. His field of concentration is post-Avicennan Islamic philosophy with research interests in comparative philosophy and Muslim-Christian relations. He has served as spokesperson for A Common Word, a major initiative to improve Muslim-Christian relations. Since 2019, he has been giving lectures to graduate students in the field of Islamic philosophy at Ibn Haldun University.

Steve Clemons is Editor at Large of The Hill and host of the popular weekly news show, The Bottom Line, that runs on the global network of Al Jazeera English. He previously served as Washington Editor at Large of The Atlantic, was Executive Vice President and Founder of the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation. Clemons also was the founding Executive Director of the Nixon Center and was Senior International Affairs and Economic Advisor to Senator Jeff Bingaman in the U.S. Senate.

Ali Aslan is an internationally renowned TV presenter, talk show host, moderator and journalist. His international career in broadcast journalism spans more than two decades and three continents and includes work for CNN in Washington DC, ABC News in New York, Channel News Asia in Istanbul and Deutsche Welle TV in Berlin, where he was the host of DW’s flagship talk show „Quadriga", which reached over 200 countries and more than 100 million viewers weekly worldwide. Aslan is a globally sought-after moderator and Master of Ceremonies of international conferences & summits, including for the United Nations, the G20, the EU, the World Bank, the IMF, NATO, FIFA and the OECD. Aslan has interviewed and shared the stage with many global leaders and public figures, including former US President Bill Clinton, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, Philanthropist Melinda Gates, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri, Environmental pioneer Jane Goodall and Grammy award winner will.i.am to name a few. Aslan holds masters degrees in International Relations and Journalism from Columbia University in New York and a bachelor's degree in International Politics from Georgetown University in Washington DC.

Scott Worden is the Director of Afghanistan and Central Asia Programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He holds an extensive background in reconstruction, development, democracy and governance, and policy matters as well as extensive regional expertise on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Prior to joining USIP, Worden was Director of the Lessons Learned Program at the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), and served as Acting Director of Policy as well as a Senior Policy Advisor for the Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In the latter position, he was responsible for advising senior officials on strategies for sustainable development in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Scott Worden has a decade of experience working on Afghanistan issues and working in the field.

Dr. Majed Al-Ansari currently serves as Adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and official spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Qatar. He is President of the Qatar International Academy for Security Studies (QIASS), Vice-Chairman of the Qatar Press Center and a member of the board of trustees with the Strategic Studies Center at the Qatari Armed Forces. Formerly he was a Professor of Political Sociology at Qatar University and headed the Policy Department at the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute (SESRI).

H.E. Jean-Yves Le Drianhas served as French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs since May 2017, alongside President Emmanuel Macron. He previously served as Minister of Defence from 2012 to 2017 with President François Hollande. Additionally he has served on several elected positions in France including President of the Regional Council of Brittany, National Assembly Deputy for the Morbihan Department, and as Mayor of Lorient.

His Excellency is the sixth President of Ukraine. His background in the entertainment industry offered him visibility, while his strong anti-corruption and anti-establishment stance earned him support of the Ukrainian people in the 2019 elections. H.E. is a proponent of e-government and has been involved with structural reforms to modernize the Ukrainian economy.

Ambassador Akram is currently the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations in New York, with the rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. Ambassador Munir Akram previously served as Pakistan’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, after serving as Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva from 1995 to 2002. Between 1988 and 1992, Munir Akram was Pakistan’s Ambassador to the European Council, Belgium and Luxembourg.

H.E. Mahdi Mohammed Gulaid is the Deputy Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Somalia.H.E was the Acting Prime Minister of Somalia, and the former Vice President of the country from March 2017 to July 2020. Prior to taking office, he practiced law in Somaliland and has worked with the second Electoral Commission of Somaliland as legal advisor.   Since holding this office, the Deputy Prime Minister has helped set Somalia’s national and developmental agendas, and manages a wide portfolio of governmental priorities. H.E. oversees the cabinet and chairs a range of committees at the ministerial level, particularly in the economic and social sectors. He also chairs sessions of the Somalia Development and Reconstruction Facility (SDRF).

Wadah Khanfar is the President of Al Sharq Forum, an independent network dedicated to developing long-term strategies for political development, social justice and economic prosperity of the people of the Middle East. He previously served as the Director General of Al Jazeera Media Network. He has been ranked by Foreign Policy Magazine in 2011 as the first in The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers, and in Fast Company as the first in the 100 Most Creative People in Business,  and as one of the most 'Powerful People in the World' by Forbes magazine, in 2008 World Economic Forum named Khanfar as one of the 'Young Global Leaders'. During his tenure Al Jazeera went from a single channel to a media network with multiple properties including the Al Jazeera Arabic channel, Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera Documentary, Al Jazeera Sport, Al Jazeera's news websites, the Al Jazeera Media Training and Development Center, the Al Jazeera Center for Studies, Al Jazeera Mubasher (Live), and Al Jazeera Mobile

Jawdat Shawwa is the Chairman and Managing Director and Owner at IMCO Engineering and Construction Co WLL, based in Kuwait. His company is among the most prominent players in the oil and gas, marine shipping, power distribution and security sectors of the GCC and broader Middle East.

His Excellency Giovanni Vincenzo Infantino is the President of FIFA and a member of the International Olympic Committee. Prior to this, H.E. has served as Secretary General of the International Center for Sports Studies, and as  Secretary General of UEFA. In his current role at FIFA, he has focused on bringing wide-ranging reforms to the organization, expanding global participation in FIFA’s flagship competitions and boosting FIFA’s investment in football development through the Forward Programme.

Issandr Amrani is the regional director for the Middle East-North Africa region. Based in Amman, he oversees Open Society Foundations’ grant making, advocacy, and research in the region.
Prior to joining Open Society, Amrani served as the North Africa project director for International Crisis Group, leading research and strategy for conflict-prevention organizations in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt. He was engaged in high-level advocacy and was the International Crisis Group representative at the United Nations, the Arab League, the African Union, and with governments, NGOs, and media. He was also a journalist and consultant on Middle Eastern affairs, and his reporting and commentary on the region appeared in the Economist, London Review of Books, Financial Times, the National, the Guardian, Time, and other publications.

Robert Malley is an American lawyer, political scientist and specialist in conflict resolution, who was the lead negotiator on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).[1] He is currently the U.S. Special Representative to Iran, tasked with bringing the United States and Iran into compliance with the Iran nuclear deal abandoned by President Donald Trump. Malley was Director for Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs at the National Security Council from 1994 to 1996 and Program Director for Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group and Assistant to National Security Advisor Sandy Berger from 1996 to 1998. He served in the National Security Council under President Barack Obama from 2014 to 2017.In 2015, the Obama administration appointed Malley as its "point man" on the Middle East, leading the Middle East desk of the National Security Council. In November 2015, Malley was named as President Obama's new special ISIS advisor. After leaving the Obama administration, Malley was President and CEO of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels[6] non-profit committed to preventing wars.

Nick Clark is the environment editor at Al Jazeera English. He has also worked as a network presenter and correspondent, and is a Royal Television Society award winner. He was a 2014 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. His role at Al Jazeera involves overseeing environmental output of the channel, in addition to reporting from the field. Clark is responsible for anchoring live news broadcasts to 70 million households worldwide, while reporting from locations globally, including Sudan, Afghanistan, Libya, USA and Greenland, as he plays a leading role in shaping the channel’s environmental coverage.

H.E. Abdulla Shahid is the President of the United Nations General Assembly. H.E. is widely recognized as an exceptional politician and a seasoned diplomat, with a long and distinguished career serving in both the Government and legislature of Maldives.
Since his appointment as Minister for Foreign Affairs in 2018, for the second time, Mr. Shahid has worked incessantly to reposition Maldives as a responsible and respected member of the international community, by renewing previously strained relationships and building new ones, both in the bilateral and the multilateral domains. He has reinvigorated the country’s efforts in the multilateral arena and led national efforts to rejoin the Commonwealth. As a strong advocate for gender equality, he is credited with achieving gender parity among the country’s diplomatic Heads of Missions for the first time, as well as in the country’s foreign service.

Dr. Dalia Fahmy is Associate Professor of Political Science at Long Island University where she teaches courses on US Foreign Policy, World Politics, International Relations, Military and Defense Policy, Causes of War, and Politics of the Middle East. Dr. Fahmy is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Policy in Washington DC, and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights and UNESCO Chair at Rutgers University for 2018. Dr. Fahmy's books include The Rise and Fall of The Muslim Brotherhood and the Future of Political Islam (forthcoming), and two co-edited volumes Illiberal Intelligentsia and the Future of Egyptian Democracy, and International Relations in a Changing World.

Fawzia Koofi is an Afghan parliamentary lawmaker, accomplished author, and internationally known outspoken advocate for the rights of women and children, democracy, and moderate Islam. She is the first female in the Afghan parliament to be elected as Second Deputy Speaker, and she heads the parliament’s Women Affairs Commission. Not only has Koofi humanized the otherwise faceless international discussion of the struggles and abuse of Afghan women, she is on the forefront of educating the international community as to the consequences for her, and other advocates of reform should the international community and their security forces be withdrawn.
Koofi started her political career in 2001 when she began to promote a “Back To School” campaign targeted at the rights of women in Afghanistan to an education. By 2002 she took employment as a Child Protection Officer with UNICEF, and in 2005 she was elected as a parliamentary representative for Badakhshan province in northern Afghanistan.

H.E. Shahriar Alam is Minister for Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. He was first sworn in as the State Minister for Foreign Affairs in 2014; and again reappointed in 2019 for his continued success at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
As the State Minister for Foreign Affairs, H.E.  has been actively representing the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh in various international forums. He has served as the Vice Chairman of All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) on Climate Change, Education and Poverty Reduction; and on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), World Trade Organization and Bangladesh Development Forum, among others.
Prior to his ministerial roles, H.E. has thrice been elected as a member of the National Parliament, in 2008, 2014 and 2018.

Rina Amiri is the current US Special Envoy for Afghan Women, Girls, and Human Rights. Ms. Amiri was formerly a senior fellow at the NYU Center on International Cooperation and a senior fellow at the NYU Center for Global Affairs. Ms. Amiri also previously directed the Afghanistan and Regional Policy Initiative, which served as a platform to raise awareness about Afghanistan and the region’s peace, security, and development challenges. Ms. Amiri has over two decades of political expertise, advising and working with governments, the United Nations, and think tanks in various conflict settings in West and the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, Central and South Asia, and Europe. Prior to that she served as a member as a Senior Mediation Expert in the United Standby Team of Mediation Experts. Under the Obama Administration, she served as a senior advisor to the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Notis Mitarachi is Minister of Migration and Asylum and an MP in the constituency of Chios. During the Hellenic Presidency of the Council of the EU (2014) he served as President of the Council of the European Union – Foreign Affairs (Trade). In the period 2012-2015 he served as Deputy Minister for Economic Development and Competitiveness, responsible for Strategic and Private-Sector Investments, Public-Private Partnerships, Exports and International Trade Relations. He also served as Alternate Governor in the Board of Governors of the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD) and as Governor in the Board of Governors of the Black Sea Trade & Development Bank (BSTB). In 2019  he was appointed as the Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, responsible for the Social Security & Pension System.

Helen Mountfield, Q.C., is a barrister in England, where she is a founder member of Matrix Chambers, which has a strong international presence. She specializes in constitutional and administrative law and has appeared in many leading cases in the Supreme Court, the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights. These include being leading counsel for the Pigney group of claimants in Gina Miller v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. Helen is also an accredited mediator and sits as a deputy High Court judge. From September 2018, she will also be principal of Mansfield College, Oxford, and currently serves as a Judge at the Qatar International Court.

H.E. Raychelle Awuor Omamo is the current Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kenya. Before her appointment, she served as Cabinet Secretary of Defence and Chairperson of the Defence Council between 2013 and 2020. In 2015, she also served as the Acting Cabinet Secretary of Labour and Social Protection.
Ambassador Omamo is a lawyer by profession having received her training at the University of Kent at Canterbury in the United Kingdom and the Kenya School of Law. She is a Senior Counsel and as a practitioner was elected Chairperson of the Law Society of Kenya and the Vice President of the East Africa Law Society. She was also the recipient of the ICJ (K) Jurist of Year award in 2002.

Sayyid Kamal Kharazi is an Iranian reformist politician and diplomat who was the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 20 August 1997 to 24 August 2005 as appointed by President Mohammad Khatami serving for eight years.

H.E. Choguel Kokalla Maiga is the current Prime Minister of Mali. Prior to this, H.E. served in the Government of Mali as Minister of Industry and Trade from 2002 to 2007 and later as Minister of the Digital Economy, Information and Communication from 2015 to 2016. He also serves as President of his political party, the Patriotic Movement for Renewal.

Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu is Founder and Managing Director of soleRebels, the world's fastest-growing African footwear brand and first to emerge from a developing nation; it is also the first WFTO Fair Trade-certified footwear company. Through soleRebels, Tihahun Alemu has created hundreds of well-paid jobs in Ethiopia that have not only empowered her community and country, but has presented a dynamic face of African creativity to the global market. She continues to shift the discourse on African development from one of poverty alleviation to one about prosperity creation driven by local Africans maximizing their talents and resources. Tilahun Alemu was the first female African entrepreneur to address the Clinton Global Initiative and was named Outstanding African Business Woman by African Business Awards in 2011. She was listed on Forbes magazine's 20 Youngest Power Women in Africa in 2011 and named one of Africa's Most Successful Women in 2012.

Joe Eshun is the Chief Executive Officer for Deloitte in East Africa covering Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Prior to this role, Joe served as the East Africa Regional Strategy & Innovation Leader, Public Sector Industry Leader as well as the Deloitte Global Public Sector Leader for Priority Markets.
Joe has worked with both the public and private sectors in the areas of strategy development, operations improvement, project management and financial management. Throughout his over 25 years of experience, Joe has advised a number of key clients in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia. He also served as the Chair of the Board of Advisors of AIESEC Tanzania Chapter from 2005 - 2017.

H.E. Mohammed Hassan Shiekholeslami is the current Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran, and President of the Institute of Political and International Studies (IPIS), a foreign policy think tank based in Tehran. Prior to this role, he served as Dean of the School of International Relations in Tehran, and as President of the Iranian Association of Diplomacy. H.E. has also published various books and research manuscripts concerning contemporary issues in global and regional politics.

Ms. Wronecka brings over 25 years of experience in diplomacy, international security and Middle East affairs, serving since 2017 as the Permanent Representative of Poland to the United Nations, including during Poland’s membership in the Security Council (2018-2019), and as Under Secretary of State for Arab and African countries, development cooperation and Polish-United Nations relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland (2015-2017).

Dr Maliki served as Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Community Development Youth and Sports (MCYS) of Singapore from 2004 to 2006 and the Ministry of Health (MOH). He moved on to become the Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of National Development (MND), and was promoted to Senior Parliamentary Secretary in 2010.
He currently holds the rank of Minister at the Prime Minister’s office, and serves as Second Minister for Education, and Second Minister for Foreign Affairs of Singapore.

Currently the Undersecretary of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, he served as Former Advisor to the Prime Minister, and Deputy Director of International Projects Coordination Department at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister. Since 2020, he has served as the Polish Government Plenipotentiary for the Three Seas Initiative. He is also a Board member of the Institute of Central Europe.

H.E. is the Minister of State, Minister of Foreign Affairs, The African Integration and Diaspora. She has been a member of the Government of the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire since 2010 and has served as Minister of National Education, Technical Education and Vocational Training. Previously, she was Minister of National Education, Minister Delegate for Higher Education, Scientific Research, Technical Education and Vocational Training, Women and Family and Social Affairs. She has been chairing the affairs of National Education, Technical Education and Vocational Training in Côte d'Ivoire. It should also be noted that Minister Kandia CAMARA, prior to her appointment to the Government she worked as a Special Advisor in the office of the Prime Minister of the Government of National Reconciliation and Transition of Côte d'Ivoire.

Patrick Turner is the Assistant Secretary General for Defence Policy and Planning at NATO. He served as UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Council (2011-15), and Command Secretary, Headquarters Land Command (2010-11). He provided policy and political advice to the British Army, and was HR Director for the Army’s civilian workforce. He served as Minister of Defence at the British Embassy in Washington (2008-10), and as Director, National Security Strategy Team, Cabinet Office (2007). The team produced the first UK National Security Strategy - Director, Deterrent Options Policy, Ministry of Defence (2005-7). Patrick Turner worked for 3 Secretaries General: Manfred Wörner, Willy Claes and Javier Solana

Steve Glickman is Senior Advisor to the Board of Aspiration, a leading financial and sustainability services Public Benefit Corporation, which enables individuals, corporations, and governments around the world to reduce their carbon footprints through its global reforestation program and portfolio of high-quality, nature based carbon credits. Aspiration has been named one of the “World’s 50 Most innovative Companies” and “100 Most Brilliant Companies.” Mr. Glickman is also founder and CEO of Develop LLC, a boutique advisory firm focused on executing cutting-edge strategies at the crossroads between private capital, technology, and public policy, as well as co-founder of Statt, a venture-backed, enterprise software company that automates policy and regulatory data and intelligence.

Ashraf Abu Issa is the Chairman and CEO of Abu Issa Holding, overseeing over 100 sister companies operating around the world under the group umbrella. AIH is known across the GCC region for its corporate management climate and portfolio of businesses across industries, recognized as an experienced and well-positioned partner.

Santiago Bañales Lopez is the Managing Director of IBERDROLA QSTP LLC, Iberdrola’s Smart Grids and Renewable Energy Innovation Centre based in Doha, Qatar. He has over 20 years of energy industry experience fulfilling executive roles in R&D, Engineering, Product Development, Management Consulting, M&A, and General Management (CTO and CEO). During the development of his career, he has experienced a wide breadth of business environments in an international setting, being a part of or doing business with state-owned and public companies, partnership firms, private equities, and family-owned manufacturing businesses. In addition, he has held executive and non-executive Board Directorships assignments in several energy industry associations and institutions and has been involved in graduate and executive education for more than 10 years

Jonathan is CEO of Inter Mediate, the charity he founded in 2011 to work on conflict resolution around the world. He was Chief of Staff to Tony Blair from 1995 to 2007 and from 1997 to 2007 was also Chief British Negotiator on Northern Ireland. He worked on the successful peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the FARC, with ETA in the Basque country and with RENAMO in Mozambique. Inter Mediate is currently working on 10 conflicts around the world. He was appointed Prime Minister David Cameron’s special envoy for Libya from April 2014 – July 2016 From 1978-79 he was a broadcast journalist with the BBC and Granada TV and from 1979 to 1994 a British Diplomat working on the Hong Kong negotiations in the early 1980s, the CSCE negotiations on security and the two plus four negotiations in the late 1980s. He is the author of ‘Great Hatred, Little Room: Making Peace in Northern Ireland’, ‘The New Machiavelli, How to Wield Power in the Modern World’ and ‘Talking to Terrorists, How to End Armed Conflict’. Jonathan is an Honorary Professor at The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast.

Byju Raveendran is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of BYJU’S, the world's leading edtech company. Born in a small village in Kerala, Byju’s passion for teaching intersected with a real need in society for personalised, accessible, and engaging education. Since 2008, Byju’s unique brand of teaching has transformed his passion into a global edtech company with 150+ million learners on the app and products in 120 countries. Over the years, Byju has built a powerful and talented team of visionary founders and entrepreneurs to further the company’s mission to create lifelong learners through tech-driven education.

As Undersecretary of State at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation since February 2014, in the Government of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Benedetto’s portfolio includes relations with Asia-Pacific countries, Canada and Mexico, supporting the internationalization of Italian companies, and economic and financial matters related to the G8 and the G20. Benedetto is a member of the Italian Senate, elected in 2013 with the party founded by former Prime Minister Mario Monti, Scelta Civica. He has a longstanding career as MP both in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, from 2006 to 2013, elected with the Party of Freedom, and as a member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2004, elected with the Emma Bonino List. During his tenure in Strasbourg, Benedetto was a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, and also a member of the Delegation for relations with countries of South Asia and the SAARC.

Martin S. Indyk is distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, he was the John C. Whitehead Distinguished Fellow in International Diplomacy in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. From February 2015 to March 2018, he served as executive vice president of Brookings. Indyk served as the U.S. special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from July 2013 to June 2014. Indyk served as U.S. ambassador to Israel from 1995 to 1997 and again from 2000 to 2001. He also served as special assistant to President Bill Clinton and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs at the National Security Council (1993–95) and as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs in the U.S. Department of State (1997–2000).
He is the author of Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy (A.A. Knopf, 2021) and Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East" (Simon and Schuster, 2009) and the co-author of Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy with Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Lieberthal (Brookings Institution Press, 2012).

Sawsan Asfari co-chairs the Executive Committee of the International Board of the U.S. / Middle East Project. Mrs Sawsan Asfari is a co-founder and Trustee of the Asfari Foundation which aims to help young people make a valuable contribution to society by empowering them through education, research and the power of free thinking. Mrs Asfari has co-produced award winning films such as 'Salt of the sea', 'When I saw you', and 'The idol'. Sawsan is the Executive Director of the Galilee Foundation, supporting the development of the Palestinian community in Israel through educational and cultural initiatives. She is also a board member of the leading Palestinian development organization, the Welfare Association, and is active in various charities across the Arab world. She is a partner in the production company Cocoon Films.

Jerry is the Founder and Chairman of The Lodestar Foundation, based in the US. Lodestar’s mission is to expand philanthropy through two strategies: to encourage philanthropy, public service and volunteerism; and to encourage nonprofits to collaborate and employ other business practices. Some of Lodestar’s projects include: the Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation; The Collaboration Prize, a contest to recognize the best nonprofit collaborations in the U.S.; and the Nonprofit Collaboration Database, an online database of more than a thousand nonprofit collaborations, maintained in partnership with The Foundation Center on the Foundation Center website. Besides these and other projects, Lodestar has facilitated the successful implementation of hundreds of nonprofit collaborations both in the U.S. and internationally, has been actively involved in philanthropy development projects in Asia and Central and Eastern Europe and has been instrumental in the development of the Social Venture Partner Global Network and the Ashoka Partner Network.

H.E. served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Algeria from 2013 until 2017. From 2008 until 2013, H.E. was the Commissioner for Peace and Security of the African Union. During his career, he has served as Algeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and in other senior roles at organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN Industrial Development Organization. Additionally, he was the Permanent Secretary of the Algerian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and served as the Ambassador of Algeria to Austria, Portugal and the United States. Moreover, H.E. has held leading roles in mediation efforts in several conflicts in Africa, including those in Liberia and Mali.

H.E. is a Palestinian politician, academic and economist who became Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority in March 2019. He is a member of Fatah who was elected to its Central Committee in the movement’s 2009 and 2016 elections and is aligned with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. He was named a minister of Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction (PECDAR), in 1996. He served as its director of administration and finance from 1994 to 1996. H.E. was a member of the Palestinian advance team at the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in Madrid in 1991 and was a member of the Palestinian negotiation delegation on subsequent occasions. He was elected minister of public works and housing for the Palestinian Authority in 2005 and 2008

Dr. John Duke Anthony is the Founding President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. In 2000, H.M. King Muhammad VI of Morocco knighted Dr. Anthony, bestowing upon him the Medal of the Order of Ouissam Alaouite. Dr. Anthony’s most recent involvement in America’s policies toward the Middle East and the Islamic world was to serve as a Member of the U.S. Department of State Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy’s Subcommittee on Sanctions (with special reference to Iran).
Dr. Anthony is the only American to have been invited to each of the Gulf Cooperation Council’s Ministerial and Heads of State Summits since the GCC’s inception in 1981. Since 1986 and continuing to the present, he has accompanied more than 200 Members of Congress and their advisers on fact-finding missions to the Arab region. From 1996 to the present, he has also served as the principal scholar-escort for delegations to various GCC countries, Egypt, and Yemen comprised of over 150 officers assigned to the U.S. Central Command.
Dr. Anthony is the author of three books, the editor of a fourth, and has written more than 175 articles, essays, and monographs on topics related to the Middle East and the Islamic world.

Ambassador Jasper Wieck is the Special Representative of the German Federal Government for Afghanistan and Pakistan and Deputy Director General for South Asia and Indo-Pacific Policy. From 2020 to 2021, he was Deputy Director General for East Asia, Southeast Asia and Pacific at the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin. From 2017 to 2020, he served as Deputy Head of Mission of the German Embassy New Delhi. Prior to this, Dr. Wieck was Director for Defense and Security Policy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin. From 2009 to 2012 he headed the Political Section at the German Delegation to NATO, Brussels, after having served as Deputy Head of Parliamentary and Cabinet Affairs Division in the Foreign Office (2006-2009) and as Political Counselor at the German Embassy in Moscow (2002 – 2006). He was also the Deputy Head of Mission at the German Embassy in Baku. Dr. Wieck got his PhD in History in 1995 from the University of Bonn, where he also did his Masters in History, Philosophy and Theology, and holds a Diplôme de l’Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (1993)

H.E. is the current Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of North Macedonia and former Minister of Health. In 2017 he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in charge of European Affairs. He has also served as Secretary of Public Communication of the Presidency of the Democratic Union for Integration.

George Salem is a fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Salem co-founded the Arab American Institute in 1985 and currently serves as its Chairman, and has served as treasurer of United Palestinian Appeal, Inc. since 1982.

Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid Al Hussein is a former Jordanian diplomat who is the Perry World House Professor of the Practice of Law and Human Rights at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the President and CEO of the International Peace Institute.

Hagai El-Ad, is a human rights activist who has served as the director general of B'Tselem since May 2014. Previously, he was director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance.

Dr. Lina Khatib is director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House. She was formerly director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut and co-founding head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Her research focuses on the international relations of and conflict in the Middle East, political transitions and foreign policy. She is a research associate at SOAS, was a senior research associate at the Arab Reform Initiative and lectured at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has published seven books and is a frequent commentator on politics and security in the Middle East and North Africa.

Nihad Awad is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR is the most prominent Muslim lobby group in the US and is frequently sought out by the media and politicians for the Islamic perspective on events. Awad is one of the signatories of A Common Word Between Us and You and participates regularly in the US Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program.

Taher Herzallah is the Associate Director of Outreach & Community Organizing for American Muslims for Palestine. Mr. Herzallah coordinates AMP's grassroots organizing and helps facilitate national coalition building. Mr. Herzallah is one of the 'Irvine 11,' a group of students who were arrested and prosecuted for expressing their constitutionally protected rights of free speech and political dissent when they walked out of a speech given by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren at UC Irvine in 2010. Mr. Herzallah was also one of six people arrested for protesting the appointment of David Friedman as US ambassador to Israel at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in February 2017. Mr. Herzallah has had articles published in various media outlets including the Orange County Register and Al Jazeera English. He has been featured on several media and radio interviews throughout the country and internationally. Mr. Herzallah studied Political Science and International Affairs at UC Riverside.

Osama Abuirshaid is the Executive Director of Americans for Justice in Palestine (AJP Action). He is a board member of the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), an umbrella organization of eight major national American Muslim organizations. He is a non-resident scholar at the Doha-based Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS). He lectures frequently on Middle East and American politics. He is a regular commentator on Palestinian and Middle Eastern affairs as well as on the American domestic and foreign policy on various Arabic satellite T.V. channels such as Aljazeera. He authored or coauthored several books in Arabic and he published dozens of studies and articles in Arabic and English, on issues relevant to the U.S. and the Middle East and their political climates. Abuirshaid completed his PhD in Political Science at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom.

Ambassador Dr. Mutlaq Al-Qahtani is the Special Envoy of the Foreign Minister for Counterterrorism and Mediation of Conflict Resolution. He previously served as the Director of the Department of International Organizations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has also served as the Chief of Cabinet of the Presidency of the 66th Session of the General Assembly from 2011-2012. Before that he was the legal adviser to the Minister of State of Foreign Affairs from 2008 – 2010 and was the Deputy Chief of Mission of the Permanent Mission of the State of Qatar to the United Nations during the Qatar tenure in the Security Council 2006 - 2007. Dr. Al-Qahtani holds extensive expertise in the fields of counterterrorism, and mediation of conflicts, preventive diplomacy, dispute settlement in international law. He holds a PhD. In Public International Law from UK, and holds a Master's degree in Law from USA. He has written extensively on International law, international courts and tribunals, and international organizations laws, States responsibilities and the law of treaties. In 2015, he was awarded the Ambassador of Peace Award by the Universal Peace Federation, and in 2021 he was awarded from the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) as the Best Negotiator of the year 2020.

A lawyer, a businesswoman, a campaigner and a cabinet minister, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi has had many roles, but she is best known for being the first Muslim to serve in a British cabinet and in 2007 when appointed, the youngest Peer in Parliament. In August 2014 she resigned from Government citing the Government’s “morally indefensible” policy on Gaza. Sayeeda is an International Advisor to Australia Catholic University, a Visiting Professor at St Marys, UK, an Advisor to The Bridge Initiative at Georgetown University, Washington D.C, and Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Bolton. She has also been awarded Honorary Doctorates from Aston, Birmingham City, and Bolton universities, as well as from the University of Law. Sayeeda is a Founder of the Savayra Foundation a womens empowerment charity established in 2002 which has succesfully assisted over 30,000 women in accessing economic empowerment programs. She is also a Trustee of YSP, the largest open air sculpture park in Europe. Sayeeda is also a regular face on daytime TV, political commentary shows and TV and radio documentaries, and the author of The Enemy Within - A Tale of Muslim Britain

Samer Said Khoury is President of Engineering & Construction of the Consolidated Contractors Company, a multi-billion engineering group and the largest construction company in the Middle East.  Samer is at the helm of CCC which today is a large conglomerate with a broad range of activities ranging from its conventional engineering & construction role to the more complex role of an oil & gas and power developer. CCC employs more than 100,000 individuals worldwide. According to the annual Engineering News Record (ENR) surveys, CCC ranks continuously among the top 20 largest International Contractors and first in the Middle East region. Samer is highly involved in business, social and educational activities in the US, the Middle East and Europe focusing on Engineering Innovation, Sustainability, Economic Collaborative Development, Peace & Conflict Resolution Dialogues, Youth Empowerment, Knowledge Societies and Social Enterprise Philanthropies.

His Excellency Dr. Sheikh Faleh Bin Nasser Bin Ahmad Al Thani is the Minister of Environment and Climate Change as well as serving as the head of the Qatar National Food Security Program. He has 19 years of experience in the agricultural and environmental sectors, as well as in the management of water resources. He is also experienced in investment projects with the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME). His Excellency Dr. Sheikh Faleh has served as undersecretary of Agricultural and Fisheries Affairs at the MME since 2005 to 2021. From 2011 onwards, he has acted as the head of Qatar’s permanent committee for the protection of underwater life. Since 2006, he has acted as the head of the permanent committee for farms and wells affairs. Additionally, since 2005 he has also acted as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Hassad Foods Company.

Hugh Lovatt is a senior policy fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations. For the past decade, Lovatt has advised European policymakers on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, domestic Palestinian politics, and Israeli regional policy. In 2016, he co-led a track-II initiative at the request of a European government to draft an updated set of final status parameters to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Lovatt studied Arabic at Exeter University and the Institut Français du Proche-Orient (IFPO) in Damascus.

Daniel C. Kurtzer is the S. Daniel Abraham Professor of Middle East Policy Studies at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. During a 29-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service, Ambassador Kurtzer served as the United States Ambassador to Israel and as the United States Ambassador to Egypt. He was also a speechwriter and member of the Secretary of State George P. Shultz’s Policy Planning Staff; and served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs and as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Research. Kurtzer was a member of the Middle East peace team for Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Secretary of State Warren Christopher. He is the co-author of Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East; co-author of The Peace Puzzle: America’s Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace, 1989-2011; and editor of Pathways to Peace: America and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Kurtzer received his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University.

Amjad Atallah is the Managing Director of Doha Debates. He served as Al Jazeera America's editor-in-chief and Al Jazeera English's bureau chief for the Americas. He also was part of the AJ+ launch team. From 2008 to 2011, Atallah was a Director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation and co-editor of Foreign Policy magazine's Middle East Channel. In 1993, he co-founded Women for Women International, a non-profit humanitarian organization that helps and supports women survivors of war.

Leonard Benardo is Executive Vice President for the Open Society Foundations. In his current role, Benardo oversees the wealth of programmatic interventions at the Foundations. He was formerly vice president of the Open Society Foundations, regional director for Eurasia, and director of the Open Society Fellowship Program. He began his work with the Open Society Foundations at the Soros Foundation Moscow, before going on to oversee the Russia Program’s full range of grant-making activities, as well as those in the Baltics, Hungary, and Poland.

H.E. Ayman Safadi serves as Minister of Foreign Affairs of The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Between 2008 and 2011, he served as an adviser to King Abdullah II at The Royal Hashemite Court, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of State, and government spokesperson. H.E. also served as spokesperson for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq.

Jamal Elshayyal is an international award-winning senior correspondent for Al Jazeera. He joined the network’s English channel in 2006 as part of its launch team and served as its first Middle East Editor. He has led coverage of several political and social movements in the region and has extensive access to major power players in the GCC and the MENA region.

His Excellency Collen Vixen Kelapile is the President of the Economic and Social Council. He is currently the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Botswana to the United Nations in New York. Before his appointment he was the Chief of Staff to the Executive-Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Ethiopia. From 2013 to 2014, he served as the Deputy Director in the Department of Africa and the Middle East at the Ministry of International Affairs and Cooperation of Botswana overseeing Central, East, North and West Africa as well as the Middle East. He was elected by the UN General Assembly as a member of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), where he served 9 years.

H.E. Ambassador Mukhtar Tileuberdi is the Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan. H.E. has served as Permanent Representative of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the UN Office and other International Organizations in Geneva, as Ambassador of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the Principality of Liechtenstein and to the State of Vatican. He served previously as Ambassador to Malaysia, the Republic of Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam and the Republic of  the Philippines, and as Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan (2003-2004).

Throughout her entire career to date, Elizabeth Linder has never held a position with an existing job description. Specializing in modern diplomacy and policy development, Elizabeth has served as Facebook’s first “secretary of state” and originated the Chief Diplomatic Officer role at the board-room level. Most recently, she founded Brooch Associates, a global advisory firm led entirely by women.
Elizabeth started her career at Google/YouTube, specializing in political campaigning the year user-generated content first splashed onto the national political scene in the United States. In 2008, Facebook recruited Elizabeth to join its two-person International Communications team and in 2011 Elizabeth founded and built the Politics & Government division. When Elizabeth stepped down from Facebook following her eight-year tenure as the company’s first envoy dedicated to government, political, and civil society constituencies, she had been at the company longer than 99.2% of employees.
As Director of the Kinross House Meetings, Elizabeth oversees and chairs policy discussions through governmental and Track 2 diplomacy. She co-Chairs the St. James’s Roundtable at Chatham House and serves on the Programme Committee at Ditchley Park.
A California native and Princeton graduate, Elizabeth is based in London. She has physically worked with national-level government leaders in 57 countries

Lana Khalaf joined Microsoft in 2006, where she was responsible for empowering students and teachers across Gulf region to achieve more through technology and fostering innovation focusing on developing STEM students and capacity building for teachers and researchers. In 2010 she moved to Qatar and led the education sector in the country, transforming education in the State of Qatar. In 2014 she was appointed Director of Public Sector in Qatar leading the digital transformation journey across government, health and media. Earlier in her career, Lana worked in a variety of roles at Samsung, and ActiveMania developing smart solutions and building strategy for enabling smart and automated workplace and homes.

Katrina Fotovat currently serves as the Senior Official to the Secretary of State in the Office of Global Women’s Issues (S/GWI), where she leads a team of gender experts promoting gender equality efforts including support of women, peace, and security, countering violent extremism, promoting women’s economic empowerment, and combatting gender-based violence. Ms. Fotovat has over 20 years of experience advocating gender and human rights globally, specifically in conflict and post-conflict settings. Previously, Ms. Fotovat was Director for the Office of Communications, Policy, and Partnerships, in the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations where she oversaw an expert team that provided policy and strategy guidance to respond to atrocities, fragility, increase global stability and peacebuilding, and integrating women, peace, and security efforts in areas of conflict. Ms. Fotovat has also served as the Deputy Director for the Global Programs Office in the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.

H.E. Fuad Hussein is Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iraq, and the former Minister of Finance. He previously served as Chief of Dewan for the Kurdistan Regional Presidency, a Governing Council Member, and Supervisor of the Education Sector. Hussein moved to Baghdad in 1967 and joined the Kurdish Student Union and then the Kurdistan Democratic Party. In 1975, Hussein moved to the Netherlands, where he led the Kurdish Students Union abroad and became the Deputy Head of the Kurdish Institute in Paris in 1987. Hussein graduated from Baghdad University with a BS in Education and obtained a Doctorate in International Relations in the Netherlands. He is the author of publications including ‘The Legal Concept of Self Determination’ and ‘The Kurdish Affair and Economic Growth’ and ‘Development in Iraqi Kurdistan’. He speaks fluent Kurdish, Arabic, Dutch, and English.

Mohamed Al Sowaidi is the Chief Investment Officer, Americas at Qatar Investment Authority.
Prior to his current role, Mohammad was the head of the Industrials, Technology, Telecom, and Media Portfolios at Qatar Investment Authority. He holds a Trium MBA, and graduated from University of Missouri – Columbia with dual Bachelor’s degrees in Mathematical Statistics and Finance, and is a CFA charterholder.

On 1 December 2018 he was appointed Foreign Secretary by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He has previously served as president of the United Nations Global Network on Safer Cities. He was the successful candidate of the PRD-led electoral alliance to serve as Head of Government of the Federal District in the 2006 Federal District election, a position he held until 2012. He also served as secretary-general of the former Mexican Federal District Department, minister of public security, and minister of social development of the Mexican capital. In 2010, Ebrard was nominated as the "world's best mayor" by the Project World Mayor. From 2009 to 2012, he was the chair of the World Mayors Council on Climate Change.

He was appointed as a RUSI Distinguished Fellow in July 2021, having been RUSI Vice-Chair since 2016. He served as Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) from 2004 to 2009. He joined SIS in 1971 and over the next 20 years served in Nairobi, Paris and twice in Moscow as well as several assignments in London. He was appointed Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) in September 2001. On 01 August 2004, Sir John rejoined SIS as its Chief. Sir John’s current roles include Chairman, SC Strategy Ltd; Director, Times Newspaper Holdings; Co-Chair of the Global Advisory Council, Wilson Center, Washington DC; Vice-President of the UK Association de la Legion d’Honneur; Trustee of the French Institute in the United Kingdom and Trustee of the Royal Medical Foundation of Epsom College.

Jane Kinninmont joined the ELN in 2020 as Director of Impact, with a mission to strengthen the influence, policy relevance and impact of the organisation’s research, convening and networks. Previously she was Head of Programmes for The Elders, an organisation of global leaders founded by Nelson Mandela to work for peace, justice and human rights around the world. In that role, she focused on identifying opportunities to promote diplomatic and political solutions to conflicts, to strengthen multilateral approaches to peacemaking, and to advocate for the rights and dignity of refugees.

Yasmine Farouk is a scholar in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her research and publications cover Egyptian and Saudi foreign policies, international relations in the Arab world, and social participation in policy and constitution making. She previously worked at the office of the Egyptian Prime Minister after the 2011 revolution supporting civil society participation in the national dialogue and constitution making processes. From 2016 to 2017, she was the director of research at Cairo International Center for Conflict Resolution, Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding (CCCPA).

Brett McGurk is the National Security Council coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa. He served as special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL at the U.S. Department of State. In this assignment, McGurk led a global coalition of 68 members and coordinated all aspects of U.S. policy related to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. McGurk previously served as deputy special presidential envoy from 2014-15. In President Barack Obama’s administration, he served as a senior advisor in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs with a focus on Iraq and other regional initiatives, as a special advisor to the National Security Staff, and as senior advisor to Ambassadors Ryan Crocker, Christopher Hill, and James Jeffrey in Baghdad, Iraq.

Ambassador Paula J. Dobriansky is a foreign policy expert and former diplomat specializing in national security affairs.  She is a Senior Fellow in the Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and is Vice Chair of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. From 2010-2012, Ambassador Dobriansky was Senior Vice President and Global Head of Government and Regulatory Affairs at Thomson Reuters. In this position, she was responsible for designing and implementing a corporate approach for engagement in Washington, D.C. and other key capitals around the globe.  During this time, she was also appointed the Distinguished National Security Chair at the U.S. Naval Academy.  Ambassador Dobriansky served as Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs from 2001 to 2009.  Among her primary accomplishments, she established and led the U.S.-India, U.S.-China, and U.S.-Brazil Global Issues Fora, which advanced crucial work and international cooperation on environment, energy, health, development, and humanitarian issues.  Additionally, she was head of delegation and lead negotiator on U.S. climate change policy.Secretary of State’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal, for her contribution to the historic devolution of power in Belfast. During her more than 25 years in national security affairs, Ambassador Dobriansky has held many Senate-confirmed and senior level positions in the U.S. Government including Director of European and Soviet Affairs at the National Security Council, the White House, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, Deputy Head of the U.S. Delegation to the 1990 Copenhagen Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and Associate Director for Policy and Programs at the United States Information Agency. From 1997-2001, Ambassador Dobriansky served as Senior Vice President and Director of the Washington Office of the Council on Foreign Relations and was the first George F. Kennan Senior Fellow

His Excellency Al-Sayed is the Chairman and Managing Director of Doha Venture Capital Fund (DVC), Board Member of Qatar Development Bank and Board Member Msheireb Properties. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Qatar Investment Authority and Qatar Holding, where he played a critical role to build, oversee and manage Qatar Sovereign Wealth Fund. During his tenure, he executed mega deals such as the QIA/QH’s investment in Credit Suisse, engineered the Merger of VW and Porsche as well as Xstrata and Glencore, the take-over of Songbird and Canary Warf Group, and the acquisition of Harrods Group, Iberdrola Energy, Tiffany, Heathrow Airport and others

Ying Staton is leading Plastic Energy’s corporate development in Asia, focusing on strategy, business development and finance, from the company’s Asian base in Singapore. She started her career in the British government, where she led research in 10 Downing St under Prime Minister David Cameron and served a number of roles in the UK Department for Transport and Department for International Development, including a year working with the UN on the predecessor to the SDGs and 2 years delivering UK aid programmes in Uganda. After leaving government, she was Head of Asia at strategic advisory firm Global Counsel for 6 years, where she advised multinational companies on cross-border trade and investment issues across Europe, Asia and Africa, with a focus on commodities and sustainability.

Niels Annen is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in the coalition government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz since 2021. He served as Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office from 2018 to 2021 in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel. He has served as member of the Bundestag since 2013. After his first term in the Bundestag from 2005 to 2009, Annen was a Senior Transatlantic Resident at the German Marshall Fund in Washington between 2010 and 2011. From 2011 until 2013 he worked for the department for International Policy Analysis of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Berlin. Annen has served on the executive board of the SPD since 2003 after being chairman of the Young Socialists, the youth organization of the SPD, from 2001 to 2004.

Dr. Patrice Motsepe is a globally respected business leader, entrepreneur and philanthropist. He has business interests globally in mining, financial services, renewable energy, technology, real estate, farming, agriculture, sports and entertainment.In 2017 Forbes Magazine commemorated its 100th Anniversary and honoured Dr. Motsepe as one of the “100 Greatest Living Business Minds” in the world alongside Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos and others. In 2013 Dr. Motsepe and his wife, Dr Precious Moloi-Motsepe joined the Giving Pledge which was started by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates. The Motsepe family committed to give half of their wealth to the poor and for philanthropic purposes during their lifetime and beyond. In 2019, Forbes Magazine stated that US$500 million was donated by the Motsepe family to the poor and for philanthropic purposes. Dr. Motsepe is a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) International Business Council (IBC) which is made up of 100 of the most highly respected and influential global chief executives from all industries. He is also a member of the WEF Board of Trustees and the Harvard Global Advisory Council. Dr. Motsepe is the President of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and Vice President of FIFA. 

She comes to UNAIDS from Promundo, where she served as the Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa. Working under the aegis of UN Women Arab States, she has led ground-breaking work on men and masculinities, including the International Men and Gender Equality Survey in seven countries across the region.In addition to her programmatic leadership, she is a prominent advocate for sexual and reproductive health and rights, through her book Sex and the citadel: intimate life in a changing Arab world, as well as documentaries, TED talks and other media, building on her experience as a health-care journalist with The Economist and Al Jazeera.She started her career in biomedicine with a PhD in molecular immunology from the University of Cambridge. She is Egyptian, Canadian and British and speaks English, French and Arabic.

Fadi Quran is a Campaigns Director at Avaaz, a 60-million person strong global movement mobilizing for change. He leads Avaaz counter disinformation efforts, with a focus on investigating influence operations and pushing for social media platform accountability. He also leads efforts on building transformative leadership across the Middle East and North Africa, supporting human rights struggles across the world, and ensuring accountability for war crimes, and community organizing in Palestine. Fadi is also an entrepreneur in the alternative energy field, where he has founded two companies bringing wind and solar energy to Palestine and other countries in the region.

Dr. Amal Mohammed Al-Malki is the Founding Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar Foundation. Before that, she was the Executive Director of the Translation and Interpreting Institute, which she founded in 2011. She also was an Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar where she taught courses in writing composition, postcolonial literature, theories of translation, and Islamic feminism. Dr. Al-Malki holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of London-SOAS, where she also earned a master’s degree in English-Arabic Applied Linguistics and Translation.

He has served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the second term in the Barisan Nasional (BN) administration under Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Minister Saifuddin Abdullah since August 2021. He served his first term in the Perikatan Nasional (PN) administration under former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and former Minister Hishammudin Hussein from March 2020 to August 2021 and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bandar Tun Razak since May 2018. He served as the Deputy Minister of Transport in the Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration under former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and former Minister Anthony Loke from July 2018 to the collapse of the PH administration in February 2020 and MP for Tumpat from November 1999 to May 2018. He is a member of the Malaysian United Indigenous Party (BERSATU), a component party of the ruling PN coalition and was a member of the People's Justice Party (PKR), a component party of the PH opposition coalition, Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), a former component party of the former opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) and Barisan Alternatif (BA) coalitions and United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), a component party of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition

Ken is a co-founder and the group CEO of Cellulant. A mobile commerce evangelist and career entrepreneur, Ken previously served as co-founder and Solution Design Director of 3Mice Interactive Media. The company grew from a two-man team to a leading web development firm in East Africa. 3Mice was later acquired by Africa Online- the largest Pan-African Internet Service Provider. Ken is unwavering in his pursuit of seeing Cellulant achieve its mission of building a world class, values-driven $1B business for Africa, by Africans, in Africa. Ken has led the company from an idea sketched on a serviette in 2003 with his co-founder Bolaji Akinboro, to a reputable payments company in Africa. Cellulant currently has more than 300 employees across 11 markets; servicing 34 countries in Africa. Over the past couple of years, Ken has invested time in training and advising the next generation of entrepreneurs, and contributing to the growth of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Africa. In recognition of this, in 2017, Ken was selected as the first Sub-Saharan and Kenyan Global Endeavor Entrepreneur for his commitment to advancing an ecosystem of entrepreneurship in Africa.

Catherine M. Russell became UNICEF’s eighth Executive Director on 1 February 2022. Ms. Russell brings to the role decades of experience in developing innovative policy that empowers underserved communities around the world, including high-impact programmes that protect women and girls, including in humanitarian crises. She has extensive experience building, elevating and managing diverse workforces and mobilizing resources and political support for a broad range of initiatives.From 2020 to 2022, Ms. Russell served in the US government as Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. She previously served from 2013 to 2017 as Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues at the U.S. Department of State. In that post, she integrated women’s issues across all elements of U.S. foreign policy, represented the United States in more than 45 countries, and worked with foreign governments, multilateral organizations and civil society. She was the principal architect of the ground-breaking “U.S. Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls.”

She is first female Minister for Foreign Affairs of Indonesia — sworn in as member of President Joko Widodo’s Working Cabinet in 2014. She has served as Ambassador of Indonesia to the Netherlands (2012-2014), and as Ambassador to Norway and Iceland (2005-2008). Between her ambassadorial positions, she served as Director General for America and Europe at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She was one of the key negotiators for the establishment of the Comprehensive Partnership between Indonesia and the Netherlands. She is the recipient of the Order of Merit (Grand Officer-the Second Highest Decoration) for her extraordinary contribution to the bilateral relations between Indonesia and the Kingdom of Norway, The Ridder Grootkruis in de Orde van Oranje-Nassau from the Netherlands, the Agent of Change Award from the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women from UN Women, the “El Sol del Peru" (the “Sun of Peru"), and the Malalai Medal of Honor from Afghanistan.

Najlaa Mohammed El Mangoush is a Libyan diplomat and lawyer. She has been Libya's Foreign Minister in Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh's government since 15 March 2021. Najlaa El Mangoush is Libya's first female foreign minister, as well as the fifth woman to hold the position of a foreign minister in the Arab World.

Sara Menker is the founder and CEO of Gro Intelligence. Gro illuminates the interrelationships between our earth’s ecology and human economy to help see the big picture and act on the small details. From assessing the impact of climate change in real time to optimizing agricultural supply chains, Gro’s data, analytics and forecast models provide the honest answers to what on earth is going on. Sara has served on various advisory bodies, including the CFTC’s Climate-Related Market Risk Subcommittee, and is currently a member of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Group (HLAG) on Climate Action. Prior to founding Gro, Sara was in Morgan Stanley’s commodities group where she managed an options trading portfolio. Sara was named a Global Young Leader by the World Economic Forum, is a fellow of the Aspen Institute and a Trustee of the Mandela Institute For Development Studies (MINDS).

Previously, Walé was Treasurer and Chief Investment Officer (CIO) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), where he managed $1 billion in endowment and pension assets. He was a Managing Director in the Investments Group of the MacArthur Foundation with oversight of $2 billion in U.S. equities and hedge fund investments and he was a member of the Pension Investments group at Inland Steel Industries (now, ArcelorMittal USA) with oversight of $2 billion in assets. Walé serves on the Boards of several portfolio companies, and he was the former Chairman of the Investment Advisory Committee of the $200 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund. In 2014, he was appointed to serve on President Obama’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa (PAC-DBIA). He currently serves as the Chairman of the Nigeria Higher Education Foundation (NHEF), a Foundation created by the MacArthur Foundation to assist Nigerian Universities. Walé was inducted into the New York Chapter of the National Association of Security Professionals Wall Street Hall of Fame in (2008). Walé Adeosun holds a BA in Economics and Business Administration at Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa where he serves as a Trustee of the Board. He received his MBA from John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri with a concentration in Finance. He was awarded the Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1995 and is a member of the CFA Institute.

Charles Njenga Murito serves as Google’s Regional Director, Sub Saharan Africa, Government Affairs & Public Policy, after almost six years as the Country Director for Kenya and interim Country Director for South Africa. For over two decades, Charles has worked with some of the world’s leading technology and media companies to define their business, content, and marketing strategies. Prior to Google, he held executive positions at Warner Bros. & Turner Broadcasting (now WarnerMedia) where he initiated and led the launch of an Arabic Cartoon Network channel, and conceptualised and launched the Cartoon Network Animation Academy in Abu Dhabi. He is a non-executive board director at Absa Bank Kenya. Outside work, Charles loves good food, art, farming, conservation and is passionate about leveraging technology to drive economic developmen

Malala Yousafzai, is an activist for female education and equality. She is also the world's youngest Nobel Prize laureate, and second Pakistani to ever receive a Nobel Prize. She served as a UN Messenger of Peace and is the co-founder of the Malala Fund, an international, non-profit organization that advocates for girls’ education. Her 2013 autobiography ‘I am Malala’ is an international bestseller that shares the story of her activism in the face of oppression from the Taliban in her hometown of Swat Valley. Time magazine featured her as among the most influential people in the world in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Alongside her activism for access for education and gender equality. Malala develops content to inspire youth across cultures - she is currently involved in a project with the online streaming platform Apple TV+.

H.E. Jakaya Kikwete is the former President of the United Republic of Tanzania. He was former Minister of Foreign Affairs (Tanzania), Chairperson of the African Union, and The Southern African Development Community Troika on Peace, Defense and Security. Kikwete currently serves as the Chancellor of the University of Dar Es Salaam, High-level Representative of the African Union to Libya, and Co-chair of The World Refugee Council. As Chairman of Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete Foundation, he supports innovative, sustainable and transformative solutions in the health and agriculture sectors, in addition to empowering and engaging youth across Africa.

As co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates shapes and approves foundation strategies, advocates for the foundation’s issues, and sets the organization’s overall direction. He works with grantees and partners to further the foundation’s goal of improving equity in the United States and around the world. Bill co-founded Microsoft Corporation in 1975 with Paul Allen and led the company to become the worldwide leader in business and personal software and services. In 2008, Bill transitioned to focus full-time on the foundation’s work. Through his private office, Gates Ventures, he pursues his work in climate change and clean energy innovation, Alzheimer’s research and other healthcare issues, interdisciplinary education, and technology. He is also the founder of Breakthrough Energy, which works to address climate change by supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs, big thinkers, and clean technologies.

Thomas West serves as the State Department’s Special Representative and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Afghanistan. In prior roles in government, he served as Special Advisor to the Vice President for South Asia and Director for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the National Security Council from 2012-2015. From 2011-2012, Tom was the State Department’s senior diplomat in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, where he embedded with U.S. military colleagues and managed the civilian staff of a Provincial Reconstruction Team. From 2008-10, Tom served as Special Assistant for South and Central Asia to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, focusing on growing the U.S.-India strategic partnership. Early in his career, Tom was a political officer at U.S. Embassy Islamabad and Pakistan desk officer in Washington. Before rejoining government in January 2021, Tom was a Vice President at The Cohen Group, a global strategic advisory firm, and a non-resident scholar at The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A native of State College, Pennsylvania, Tom earned an M.A. in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a B.A. in International Studies from Johns Hopkins University.

Serving in the U.S. State Department, Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs, Dilawar Syed advances trade, commercial, and economic policies. Syed supports President Biden’s commitment to promoting trade and investments that prioritize American workers and their communities by championing and advocating for US businesses and entrepreneurs globally. He has driven civic efforts at the federal level and in California in addition to his global career in business and entrepreneurship. In the Obama Administration, Syed played an active role in advancing the State Department’s Global Entrepreneurship Program and connecting Silicon Valley innovators with emerging entrepreneurial ecosystems all over the world. Syed draws from over two decades of experience as an entrepreneur scaling global businesses across software and AI, healthcare, and consumer media. He holds an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. in Economics and Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin.

Dr Bisera Turković is the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Dr Turkovic has been a senior member of the diplomatic service for more than 30 years. She was the first appointed bilateral Ambassador after Bosnian independence in 1993.
She served as Ambassador to Croatia (1993-1994), following which she was appointed as Ambassador to Hungary (1994-1996), Ambassador to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe – OSCE (1996-2000). She was also Bosnia’s Minister for European Integration (2000-2001), and she led the Centre for Security Studies in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as Executive Director (2001-2004).
She also served as Ambassador at the Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Vienna as well as to the IAEA, CTBTO and UNIDO (2004-2005).
HE Dr Turkovic also served as the country’s Ambassador to the United States and to Mexico and Brazil (2005-2009) and as bilateral ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium and Luxembourg. Prior to her current appointment she also served as Ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the State of Qatar (2019-2020).
During her tenure she has given lectures at various international universities.

Hans Grundberg of Sweden has been appointed as UN Special Envoy for Yemen since 5 September 2021. Grundberg succeeds Martin Griffiths (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) Serving since 2019 as Ambassador of the European Union to Yemen, Grundberg brings over 20 years of experience in international affairs, with focus on the Middle East. He previously headed the Gulf Division at the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Stockholm. Grundberg is a career diplomat, having served with both Swedish and European Union missions abroad, with postings in Cairo and Jerusalem, as well as Brussels, where he chaired the Middle East/Gulf Working Group of the European Council during the 2009 Swedish presidency of the European Union. He holds a Master of Science in business and economics from the Stockholm School of Economics.

In addition to his role as the Acting CEO of Qatar Development Bank (QDB), Mr. Abdulrahman Hesham AL-Sowaidi is the Chairman of the Board of Directors at Elan, and the Chairman of Qatar Business Incubation Center as well as Bedaya Center for Entrepreneurship and Career Development.Prior to his appointment as QDB’s Acting CEO, AL-Sowaidi held the position of Executive Director of Strategy and Business Development, where his role involved developing ideas and initiatives as part of the Bank’s mission to enhance Qatar's private sector growth and boost its contribution to GDP in line with the Qatar National Vision 2030.AL-Sowaidi started his professional career as an engineer within the telecom sector before joining QDB. He holds a Telecommunication and Internet Engineering degree and a Master in Project Planning and Management from the University of Bradford, UK, in addition to an Executive Master’s degree in Energy and Resources from Hamad Bin Khalifa University.

Ambassador Markus Potzel is the German Ambassador-designate to Afghanistan, and the
Former Envoy for Afghanistan & Pakistan. Based in Qatar, he continues to play an instrumental role in strategic dialogue, humanitarian aid, evacuations, and ongoing development work in Afghanistan specifically in the health and education sector. Ambassador Markus is the highest-ranking Western diplomat to speak face-to-face with the Taliban-run Afghanistan

Alejandro Aravena is a distinguished architect known for his socially conscious building projects that attempt to break down economic inequality in urban areas. In 2016 he became the first Chilean to win the Pritzker Prize.Aravena earned a degree in architecture in 1992 from Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago. Two years later he established his own practice and was involved in a series of building projects for the university, including the mathematics school (1999), the schools of medicine and of architecture (both 2004), and the technology centre, a structure that appears to be two buildings conjoined and thus dubbed the “Siamese Towers” (2005). From 2000 to 2005 Aravena taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. While in Cambridge Aravena partnered with transport engineer Andrés Iacobelli to establish Elemental (in 2001), a “do tank” (as opposed to a “think tank”) for architectural projects that would have a lasting social impact: civic buildings, public space, infrastructure and transportation initiatives, and some private commissions.

Najla El Zein  is a french lebanese artist and designer. Her artworks explore the relationship between form, use, space and emotion. El Zein uses design and function as a tool of expression. Her creative process is primordial in understanding and analyzing metaphysical states that she has perceived or experienced ""I can dissect every emotion, every thought, every impression by putting a form to it, test it, touch it, make it"". Her work focuses on themes related to the abstract conceptions of the body, femininity, human relations, desire.  Najla holds a master degree in interior architecture and a bachelor degree in product design from the Ecole Camondo, Paris. Her work has been acquired for the permanent collection of museums such as the Dallas Museum of Art, TX and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. She is based in Amsterdam and is represented by the New York based Friedman Benda gallery. Najla is currently working on her first public installation for the Qatar museum cultural district consisting of a series of monumental benches that wish to express the notion of human interactions. It will be finalized in fall 2022.

Sheikha Al Mayassa Bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani is engaged in the fields of formal and informal education. She is Chairperson of Qatar Museums, Doha Film Institute, Reach Out to Asia, and Qatar Leadership Centre. In having the privilege to serve her country in multiple fields – among them culture, leadership, education, and philanthropy – she has been able to facilitate conversations across borders and fields. As a public servant, her objective is to invest in Qatar’s local community and celebrate the country’s diversity using the visual arts as a vehicle for communication. Her current interests are in human development, cultural regionalism, environmental stewardship and sustainability, and economic growth using culture as a catalyst for education, dialogue, and exchange. Through her public work and support of the Qatar Vision 2030, she is building an exciting creative future for the country that will connect artistic communities in all areas of culture.

Vali Nasr is the Majid Khadduri Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins-SAIS, and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. Between 2012 and 2019 he served as the Dean of the School, and between 2009 and 2011 as Senior Advisor to U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is the author of several books and articles and has written for New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy.

Senior Researcher at Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, supervises research on Iran, Turkey and Central Asia 
Alsmadi holds a PhD  in Social Sciences from Allameh Tabatabai University  In Iran. She served as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication In Jordan. She also has written and edited a number of books and research papers including Political Trends in Iran, Women in Politics, Iranian-American Rapprochement and the Future of the Iranian Role, Arab-Iranian relations and The Rise, Impact and Future of the Islamic State.

Dr. Foad Izadi is an associate professor at the Department of American Studies, Faculty of World Studies, University of Tehran, where he teaches M.A. and Ph.D. courses in American studies. Izadi received his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University. He earned a B.S. in Economics and an M.A. in Mass Communication from University of Houston. 
Izadi’s research and teaching interests are inter-disciplinary and focus on United States-Iran relations and U.S. public diplomacy.

Gabriel Munuera Viñals is an EU career diplomat. He has an extensive experience in the Middle East and North Africa region, EU Headquarters and in various diplomatic postings overseas. Prior to this appointment, Gabriel served as Head of Division for the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and Regional Policies at the European External Action Service (EEAS). He served as Deputy Head of EU Delegation to Turkey, First Counsellor at the EU Delegation to Egypt, Desk officer for India, Head of the Economic, Political and Public Affairs Section of the EC/EU Delegation to the Philippines. Earlier in his career, he worked in the Americas Division of the Department of Political Affair, UN Secretariat in New York, as Political Affairs Officer; and as Research Fellow at the Western European Union Institute for Security Studies in Paris.

Seyed Mohammad-Kazem Sajjadpour is President of the Iranian Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS). From 2013 to 2016 he was Advisor to the Minister Foreign Affairs on Strategic Issues. Between 2003 and 2004 he was Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations. Prior to this, he was the Director of the Institute for Political and International Studies, the research branch of Iran’s Foreign Ministry. He has also taught at the College of International Relations of Tehran University, Azad University and Iran’s National Defense University.

Bader Mousa Al-Saif is a professor of history at Kuwait University, a consultant, and a nonresident fellow at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center. He focuses on the modern and contemporary history and politics of the Middle East (particularly the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula), Islamic thought, public policy research, youth empowerment, and gender studies. Dr. Al-Saif is the recipient of various awards, co-founder and member of several NGOs, and has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. He has previously held senior roles in the private and public sectors in Kuwait, including deputy chief of staff to the prime minister of Kuwait and senior vice president, oil and gas sector, Agility. Dr. Al-Saif earned his Ph.D. with distinction from Georgetown University; a Master of Education and a Master of Theology, both with honors from Harvard University, and a Master of Law with honors from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He graduated summa cum laude from Boston College with a double major in political science and history. Dr. Al-Saif may be followed on Twitter @bmalsaif

Farea Al Muslimi Is chairman and co-founder of Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies,
He is also an Associate Fellow at Chatham House. He previously worked for the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut and Middle East  Institute in Washington, D.C. as a visiting scholar where he covered Yemen and Gulf.
In August 2016, UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon appointed Al-Muslimi to the Advisory Group of Experts for Progress Study on Youth, Peace and Security, a study mandated by Security Council resolution 2250 to examine the positive contribution of youth to peace processes and conflict resolution and effective responses at local, national, regional and international levels.
Al-Muslimi's writings and analysis on Yemen and the wider region have been published in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, New York Times, The National, The Independent, The Guardian, Al-Hayyat, Assafir Arabi, Al-Monitor, and many other publications.

Dr Mahjoob Zweiri is a Professor in Gulf Studies and Iran at Qatar University.  He is also is the Director of Gulf Studies Center. Before joining Qatar University in 2010, He was also a visiting professor to School of Government & International Affairs at Durham University. From March 2003-December 2006 he was a research fellow and then a director of the Centre for Iranian Studies in the Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at Durham University.

Neil Quilliam is an associate fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme. He was previously senior research fellow heading the Programme’s Future Dynamics in the Gulf project.
Prior to that, he was project director of Syria and Its Neighbours policy initiative and acting head of the MENA Programme, having first joined Chatham House as a senior research fellow in January 2014.
He previously served as senior MENA energy adviser at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO),

Elisabeth Kendall is Senior Research Fellow in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Oxford University Pembroke College. Her current work examines how militant jihad movements exploit cultural traditions and local dynamics. Previously, she held positions at the Universities of Edinburgh and Harvard, as well as serving as Director of a UK government sponsored Center focused on building Arabic-based research expertise.
Elisabeth has lectured at governmental, military, and scholarly institutions all around the world and is a frequent contributor to international television and print media. She also sits on a variety of international boards and is Chairman of a grass-roots NGO in eastern Yemen.
She is the author and/or editor of several books, including ReClaiming Islamic Tradition, Twenty-First Century Jihad and Literature, Journalism and the Avant-Garde. She conceived of the Essential Middle Eastern Vocabularies series, which includes the following titles which she also authored: Diplomacy Arabic, Intelligence Arabic and Media Arabic. She is currently working on a new book called Rock Stars of Jihad. She spends significant time in the field, especially in Yemen.

Ambassador Peter Semneby has been involved in conflict management for the past two decades. He is currently Swedish Special Envoy for the conflict in Yemen, and previously held a similar position for Libya, when Sweden was in the UN Security Council. He was Swedish ambassador to Afghanistan and Lebanon and charge d'affaires in Syria, and was the EU Special representative for the South Caucasus, where he spearheaded EU policy on the conflict areas. He worked in peacebuilding for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe as head of its missions to Croatia and Lebanon. As a specialist on Russia and Eastern Europe, he worked as a Swedish diplomat in the Soviet Union and Ukraine, and also served in Germany.

Adnan Tabatabai is co-founder and CEO of the Germany-based think tank CARPO – Center for Applied Research in Partnership with the Orient. As an Iran analyst he is consulted by European policymakers and businesses on Iran related affairs. Through his work at CARPO, Tabatabai has designed and facilitated track 2 and civil-society dialogue formats between Iran and Saudi Arabia since 2015. He is furthermore involved in a variety of projects at CARPO on regional security in the Arabian Gulf.

Abdullah Baabood is the Chair of the State of Qatar for Islamic Area Studies and a Visiting Professor at the School of International Liberal Studies, Waseda University, Tokyo - Japan, and at the Middle Institute of the National University of Singapore. Dr. Abdullah is the former Director of the Center for Gulf Studies at Qatar University, and the Director of the Gulf Research Center at the University of Cambridge.
His area of academic inquiry is the economic, social and political development of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), as well as their external relations. He holds a Master Degrees in Business Administration and International Relations, and a Doctorate in International Political Economy from Cambridge University.

Elham Fakhro is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Gulf Studies, Exeter University and an Associate Fellow at Chatham House. She previously acted as Senior Gulf Analyst with the International Crisis Group and as a Lecturer in International Law at NYU Abu Dhabi. She holds a Masters in Law from Harvard Law School and a Doctorate from St Antony's College, Oxford University. Her research interests encompass politics, foreign policies, and social movements in the Gulf Cooperation Council states.

Burak Dağlıoğlu is President of the Investment Office of the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey, a position he took up in February 2020. Prior to his appointment as President of the Investment Office, Mr. Dağlıoğlu held a number of posts within the Office; from 2010 to 2015, he worked as Project Director in charge of investment projects from the Gulf Countries, India, Japan, and USA.
From 2015 to 2020, Mr. Dağlıoğlu served as the Vice President of the Investment Office in charge of overseas promotion and lead generation activities. In November 2020 he was appointed Member of the Board of Turkey Wealth Funds.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Dağlıoğlu worked in the private sector in consulting industry at various positions. Mr. Dağlıoğlu holds a BA in Economics from Boğaziçi University and MA degree in Global Master in Finance from IE Business School.

    Diana Buttu is the Palestine-based Director of Communications for the Institute of Middle East Understanding and a frequent commentator and writer on Palestine. Her writings have appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post and she has made numerous appearances on CNN, NBC, BBC and Al Jazeera. Ms Buttu is a human rights lawyer who previously worked as a legal advisor the Palestinian negotiating team.

Peter Beinart is Editor-at-Large of Jewish Currents, Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York, Author of the Beinart Notebook on Substack.Com and a Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

Lady Roslyn Morauta is the Vice-Chair of the Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. She has a long association with the Global Fund having served as alternate Board Member for the Western Pacific Region constituency and as Chair of the Papua New Guinea Country Coordinating Mechanism. From her time also as first lady of Papua New Guinea, she has steadily championed health, HIV programs and gender issues.
Lady Roslyn Morauta has worked in Papua New Guinea for the National Planning Office, the Department of Finance and Treasury and in the private sector, both as a management consultant and running businesses. Originally from Australia, she has lived and worked in Papua New Guinea since 1982. Prior to that, she worked in publishing in England, taught politics at the University of Ghana, the Australian National University and Queensland University.
In addition to her work on the Global Fund Board, she has served as a member of the Anglicare (PNG) board, the Papua New Guinea National AIDS Council, the Asia-Pacific Leadership Forum on HIV/AIDS, the Papua New Guinea Alliance of Civil Society Organisations Against HIV/AIDS and the Papua New Guinea Maritime College Board.

Former Indian diplomat. Served as India's Ambassador to Egypt, Australia and UAE and Consul General in South Africa. Headed the Africa and Public Diplomacy departments in Ministry of External Affairs. Now Distinguished Fellow at ORF, writing on Middle East and Indo-Pacific.
Also a translator of literature from Punjabi into English.

Dr. Abdulaziz Sager - A Saudi strategic expert specializing in international politics and regional security issues, he is the founder and chairman of the Gulf Research Center. Dr. Sager has also been a visiting professor in a number of universities, in addition to being member of various councils, advisory and academic committees, institutes and international research centers.
He participates in international and regional conferences that discuss issues pertaining to the Gulf region. Notably, he has authored and edited numerous publications and has many articles in local and international newspapers related to Gulf affairs and regional issues, and he frequently contributes to major international media outlets. He is also the editor-in-chief of "Araa" a monthly Arabic-language magazine focused on Gulf affairs, and is the editor-in-chief of "The Gulf Yearbook."
Dr. Sager holds a PhD in politics and international relations from Lancaster University, a master's degree from the University of Kent, and a bachelor's degree from the Faculty of Economics and Administration at King Abdulaziz University.

Jeffrey Martini is a senior Middle East researcher at the RAND Corporation, where he works on political and security issues in the Arab World. Martini also spent a year as the North Africa lead at the State Department's Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations. He has published on Arab Gulf security, Syria stabilization, civil-military relations in Egypt, and generational divides within the Muslim Brotherhood. Martini spent four years living in the Arab world, including three as a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco and one in Cairo, Egypt, where he was a 2007-08 fellow in the CASA Arabic language program. He speaks, reads, and writes modern standard Arabic and speaks Moroccan and Egyptian colloquial. Martini received his B.A. in political science and economics from Middlebury College and his M.A. in Arabic studies from Georgetown University

Andrew Parasiliti is president and chief content officer at Al-Monitor and an adjunct political scientist at the RAND Corporation. His previous jobs include director of the Center for Global Risk and Security and international marketing manager for the National Security Research Division at RAND; foreign policy advisor to US Senator Chuck Hagel; director of the Middle East Initiative at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government;  executive director of the International Institute 

Marwan Muasher is Vice President for studies at the Carnegie Endowment, where he oversees the Endowment’s research in Washington and Beirut on the Middle East. Muasher served as foreign minister (2002–2004) and deputy prime minister (2004–2005) of Jordan, and his career has spanned the areas of diplomacy, development, civil society, and communications. He was also a senior fellow at Yale University in 2010-2011. He was senior vice president of external affairs at the World Bank from 2007 to 2010.
He is the author of The Arab Center: The Promise of Moderation (Yale University Press, 2008), and The Second Arab Awakening and the Battle for Pluralism (Yale University Press, 2014). He is a member of the American University of Beirut Board of Trustees, a member of the Global Centre for Pluralism Board of Directors, and a member of the Asfari Foundation Board of Trustees.

Ambassador Anne W. Patterson was the Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern and North African Affairs at the Department of State (2013-2017). She served as US Ambassador to Egypt, to Pakistan, to Colombia and to El Salvador. She was named one of Foreign Policy`s 100 Top Global Thinkers in 2011. Ambassador Patterson has served as head of the US Qatar Business Council, as a member of the Dow Jones Oversight Committee, and on the board of the US/Middle East Project. In 2018, she was a member of the congressionally appointed Commission on National Defense Strategy. Currently, she is a Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute at Yale.

Obaid Younossi is director of the Defense and Political Sciences Department and a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. He is responsible for the hiring and professional growth of about 200 researchers and over 100 adjunct staff located in four major offices .Younossi holds a Ph.D. and M.Phil in public policy from The George Washington University, an M.A. in international affairs from George Mason University, and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from University of Pittsburgh.

Linda Robinson is a senior policy researcher at RAND and best-selling author. Her research at RAND covers  the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, post-conflict stabilization, and special operations.  Among her studies are: "Rethinking U.S. Strategy in the Middle East: Sustainable Partnerships, Strategic 
Investments" (2021) and "Making Victory Count After Defeating ISIS" (2017).

Meghan L. O’Sullivan is an educator, a writer, a former policymaker and diplomat, and an advisor to companies and governments. She is the Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School. She is also the North American Chair of the Trilateral Commission. Meghan is the award-winning author of Windfall: How the New Energy Abundance Upends Global Politics and is co-director of the Energy Transition Practice at Macro Advisory Partners.

H.E. Bader Al Dafa is a Qatari diplomat who has been the Executive Director of the Global Dryland Alliance since 2012. He served from 2007 to 2010 as the United Nations Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). He was appointed to the position by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in July 2007. A seasoned diplomat, Al Dafa has acquired extensive experience in foreign affairs. He was the recent Ambassador of Qatar to the United States and Permanent Observer to the Organization of American States (OAS). In addition, he has served as Qatar's Ambassador to the Russian Federation, France, Egypt and Spain, and as non-resident Ambassador to Switzerland, Greece, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Mexico.

Dr Ghosh is an international public policy expert, author, columnist and institution builder. He is the founder-CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, and has led CEEW to the top ranks as one of Asia's leading policy research institutions and among the world’s 20 best climate think-tanks. He played a formative role in creating the International Solar Alliance, a founding board member of the Clean Energy Access Network, co-Chair of the WEF’s Global Future Council on Clean Air.

Brian Finlay is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Stimson Center. Under his tenure since 2016, Stimson has transformed its business model, launched pioneering new engagements across Asia, and industry-defining programming on environmental security, renewable energy, and technology. The Center also opened its first overseas office in Europe. As a result, the Center has tripled in size and continues to dramatically outperform similarly-sized institutions in global rankings.

Dr. Richard Ponzio is Director of the Global Governance, Justice & Security Program at The Stimson Center. Previously, he directed the Albright-Gambari Commission and served as Senior Adviser in the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Widely published, he has served with the UN in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, New York, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, and the Solomon Islands. He received a doctorate in politics an international relations from Oxford.

Maja Groff, Esq., is an international lawyer based in The Hague, and is a Convenor of the Climate Governance Commission, which seeks to propose high impact global governance innovations adequate to meet the climate challenge. As a Principal Legal Officer, she has previously worked on the development and administration of multiple multilateral treaties, as well as at international criminal tribunals, has taught at the Hague Academy of International Law and is currently a Visiting Professor at Leiden University, Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs. A graduate of Harvard, Oxford, and McGill Universities, and she is an attorney admitted to practice in the state of New York, formerly working in corporate law. She was a co-winner of a major international prize in 2018 on global governance innovation (New Shape Prize), and is a co-author of the 2020 book, Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century. She serves as a Co-Chair of the Coordinating Committee for the International Anti-Corruption Court (IACC), as well as on The Canadian Task Force Against Global Corruption. She also serves on the Advisory Boards of BCorp Europe and ebbf, organisations devoted to ethical business, and is a NOW Partner.

Maria Fernanda Espinosa is an Ecuadorian academic, diplomat, politician and poet. A linguist and with graduate studies in Amazonian Studies and Environmental Geography.  Ms. Espinosa has more than 30 years of professional experience in academia, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and high-level government positions. In Ecuador, she served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in two occasions, Minister of National Defense  and as advisor for the constitutional process of 2008. With a vote of two thirds of its membership, her most recent appointment was to serve as President of the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly (2018 - 2019), becoming the fourth woman in history and the first from Latin America and the Caribbean to be elected to preside this body since its foundation in 1945. Currently Ms.  Espinosa has several advisory roles in the areas of global governance, health diplomacy and multilateralism. Among other responsibilities, she  is a member of the Group of Women Leaders for Change and Inclusion, member of The Lancet  Commission on COVID-19,  The Science Panel for the Amazon and a fellow at the Bosch Academy in Germany.

Born in Stoke-on-Trent, England, Neil Chapman earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from the University of Surrey in 1984. Upon graduating, he joined Esso Chemical Company in 1984 at the Fawley Refinery in the United Kingdom.
Mr. Chapman advanced through engineering, operations, planning and commercial roles in various chemical affiliates in the United Kingdom, Belgium, the United States and Hong Kong prior to the 1999 merger between Exxon and Mobil. He then served as ExxonMobil Chemical Company’s Asia Pacific polyolefins sales manager before becoming the project executive of the Fujian integrated refining and ethylene joint venture project in China.
In 2002, Mr. Chapman took over responsibility for aviation fuels marketing and, later, industrial and wholesale fuels. In 2005, he was appointed vice president of ExxonMobil Chemical Company’s global polyethylene business.
In 2006, Mr. Chapman served as executive assistant to the chairman of Exxon Mobil Corporation and in 2007, as president of ExxonMobil Global Services Company.
Mr. Chapman returned to ExxonMobil Chemical Company in 2011 as senior vice president in charge of the company’s global polymers businesses. In 2015, he became ExxonMobil Chemical Company president, a position he held until joining the Exxon Mobil Corporation Management Committee as senior vice president in 2018.
Mr. Chapman has served as a member of the board of directors and executive committee of the American Chemistry Council, the board of directors of the International Council of Chemical Associations, and the board of directors and executive committee of the National Association of Manufacturers.  In 2014, Mr. Chapman was awarded an honorary doctorate by his alma mater, the University of Surrey.

Osonde Osoba, Ph.D. (oh-shOwn-day aw-shAw-bah) is a researcher working at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) and public policy. Dr. Osoba's research weaves together two strands: the principled application of AI/ML to problems in public policy & the examination of key implications of reliance on automated decision systems. Recurring themes in his work include algorithmic equity, modeling for decision support, & modeling the behaviors of social agents.
Dr. Osoba is currently a senior AI researcher on Fairness at LinkedIn where he works on helping enable the platform's use of AI/ML in a responsible and trustworthy manner.
Prior to LinkedIn, Osoba was a senior information scientist at the RAND Corporation and a professor of public policy at the Pardee RAND Graduate School (PRGS) where he continues to hold an appointment. His RAND research portfolio focused on AI/ML applied to social, economic, and national security problems. At the PRGS, Osoba was the associate director for Tech + Narrative Lab, helping to pioneer a novel program in training the next generation of effective tech policy thought leaders.
Dr. Osoba earned his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from USC with a dissertation on theoretical and applied methods for speeding up machine learning algorithms."

Dr. Okechukwu Enelamah is the Chairman of African Capital Alliance (ACA), a leading independent investment management firm sponsoring funds and managing investments across a variety of sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa.
He served as the Federal Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment in Nigeria from November 2015 - May 2019. Prior to his appointment to the Nigerian Government, Dr. Enelamah worked as the CEO of ACA.
He also serves as the Chairman of the Governing Board for the Nigerian university of Technology & Management (NUTM), a pioneering STEM and Management university focused on nurturing leaders to transform Africa.
Dr. Enelamah's previous private equity experience was gained from Zephyr Management L.P. and Capital Zephyr Limited in New York and Johannesburg. Prior to his career in private equity, Mr. Enelamah worked for Arthur Andersen in Nigeria and London, and Goldman Sachs in New York and London.
After first qualifying as a medical doctor, Dr. Enelamah transitioned to a business career and qualified as a chartered accountant in Nigeria.
He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School where he was a Bakers Scholar and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Richard Okello co-founded and manages Sango Capital, a $110M fund that takes a 360-degree approach to African private equity. Sango invests in funds, direct transactions and bespoke vehicles structured alongside select private equity investors.
Prior to Sango, Richard was a principal at Makena Capital Management, an $18 billion global private endowment. At Makena, Richard was responsible for building and managing a $1.5 billion bespoke manager of manager's portfolio, a $1bln direct active currency overlay program, contributing to investment team decisions covering over 250 fund and direct co-investments in private and public asset classes globally, and managing the research forum, which identified and developed new frontier investment themes. Prior to Makena, Richard was a partner at Bridgewater Associates, where he worked from 1998 to 2007. Richard's responsibilities at Bridgewater included building and refining investment ideas, portfolio construction, building Bridgewater's client-focused analytics team and ultimately managing a $30 billion AUM business unit that included leading North American endowments and foundations. Richard was educated in Africa, UK, and US, receiving an MBA with Honors from Pace University, and a BA with Honors from Swarthmore College in three years. Richard sits on select African fund advisory boards, as well as the boards of Human Horizons USA, and the African Leadership Foundation.

Dr. Savaş  Ünlü currently serves as the Director General of the Presidency of Migration Management, as part of the Ministry of Interior, of the Republic of Turkey. Dr. Ünlü plays an instrumental role in devising policy, developing support mechanisms and strengthening multilateral cooperation to support refugees, in partnership with key regional stakeholders, in addition to coordinating international efforts with the United Nations.

Alderman Vincent Keaveny was elected as the 693rd Lord Mayor of the City of London on 29 September 2021 and took office on 12 November 2021. He previously served as Sheriff of the City of London in 2018-19 and in that capacity supported the then Lord Mayor, undertaking numerous engagements and activities at home and abroad. 

Folly Bah Thibault, a journalist and Principal Presenter for Al Jazeera English. She joined the network in 2010, having previously worked at the French news channel, France24 in Paris, Radio France International and Voice of America in Washington D.C. As one of the Senior Anchors, Folly has been part of Al Jazeera's stated goal of giving 'voice to the voiceless', and setting the international news agenda. She has also hosted some of the network's most important specials, including the first-ever debate of candidates to the post of UN Secretary General in July 2016 and the Nobel Peace Prize Interview in Oslo in December 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2021. Folly's ability to break down complex news stories and present them to the viewers in a smart and unbiased way have garnered her praise and recognition. As such, she has moderated panel discussions and high level conferences for organisations like the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union, the African Development Bank and the Qatar Foundation. Folly Bah Thibault holds a Bachelor’s degree in Broadcast Journalism from Howard University and a Masters degree in International Communication from the American University in Washington D.C.

Mr. Godwin Obaseki began his career over 30 years ago and has established track records in Investment Banking, Asset Management, Securities Trading and the Public Sector both internationally and in Nigeria. He Founded Afrinvest West Africa Limited (formerly Securities Transactions & Trust Company Limited (SecTrust)) in 1995 as the pioneer Managing Director. 
Today, as Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki is at the forefront of the renaissance of the Oil Palm Sector in Nigeria. Edo State is the first sub national to become a member of Tropical Forest Alliance (TFA) and is currently pioneering the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) process in investment in the Oil Palm Sector. He is also at the forefront of the Ease of Doing business in the state which birthed the state’s Civil Service Reforms, Benin Industrial Park, Benin River Port, Trailer Park, Tech Park and Tax harmonization projects. Through the successful implementation of his Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (Edo-BEST), Edo State currently has the lowest out-of-school children in Nigeria.
Mr. Godwin Obaseki was first sworn into office as Governor of Edo State, on 12th November, 2016 and was re-elected in September 2020 to serve another term in office.

Todd C. Helmus is a senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation and a member of the Pardee RAND Graduate School faculty. He specializes in disinformation, terrorism, and social media. Helmus' latest research focuses on ways to counter Russian disinformation campaigns in the United States and Europe and assess the impact of international counter violent extremism campaigns. His research also focuses on preventing violent extremism in the U.S. military, identifying ways to enlist key influencers in support of U.S. strategic communications, and detecting and countering online conspiracy theories. Helmus has served as a deployed advisor to U.S. commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan and led studies on U.S. efforts to train Afghan special operations forces. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Wayne State University.

H.E. Mr. Miguel Ángel Moratinos, United Nations Under-Secretary-General, High Representative of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, assumed his new post on 7th January 2019. He has committed his professional and political career to international relationships and development cooperation, notably as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Spain from 2004 to 2010. 

Taha AYHAN graduated from Istanbul Bilgi University, Faculty of Law (LLB) and Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of International Relations in 2009. While continuing his master's (LLM) program of EU Relations at Vrije Universiteit Brussels and Administrative Law at Galatarasay University, he completed his master’s degree (LLM) in the field of Constitutional Law at İstanbul Şehir University. He currently works on his doctoral studies (J.D) in Constitutional Law. He has been giving lectures on public law at Ayvansaray University since 2009, and practices law at his family-owned firm, Ayhan Law. He also engages in various NGOs in the fields of education, youth, sports, and social development. He is currently a Vice President of the World Ethnosport Confederation, the President of the Freedom and Justice Association, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Archers Foundation. In October 2018, Mr. Ayhan has been elected unanimously as the President of the Islamic Cooperation Youth Forum, an affiliated institution to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which has been established by the main national youth structures of the OIC member states and international youth NGOs. Mr. Ayhan is fluent in English and speaks French and Arabic.

In 1978, he travelled to the United States and studied political science at the American University in Washington D.C., and Kent State University, Kent, Ohio. He worked as a researcher at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. He was deputy director for the Gulf Research Center in UAE from 1998 to 2011.
Political career:
Head of Syrian Tribal Council
Sheikh of Al-Jabour tribe in Syria and Iraq
Member of the Executive Board of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC)
Co-founder of the Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC)
Former member and official spokesperson for the High Negotiations Commission (HNC)
Member of the SOC’s political committee for more than one term.
resident of the SOC since 12 July 2021

Safeena is the Founder and Board Member of Educate Girls (EG), an Indian non-profit that mobilises communities toward girls education in some of the hardest-to-reach villages. Under her leadership, EG has enrolled 950,000+ girls in schools till date, impacted over 11.5 million+ beneficiaries, expanded operations to 20,000 villages through a 15,000+ strong team of community volunteers.
An LSE graduate, Safeena has worked extensively with underserved communities in South America, Africa and Asia. She is known for her efforts to bridge the gender and literacy gaps through tech-driven interventions, pioneering the world’s first Development Impact Bond in education and EG becoming the first Audacious project in Asia, which aims to bring 40% of India’s out of school girls back to education.

Hosna Jalil, born and grown up in Afghanistan, is the former Deputy Ministers of Women Affairs and Interior Affairs in Afghanistan. At the ministry of women affairs, she worked to transform the government policies for women from a victim-centric approach to developing Afghan women making 51% of the country's human capital. Her work at the ministry of interior affairs was to support civilian policing, institutional development, diversification and de-politicization of the Afghan police force, inclusion of women in the force and promotion of human rights values. She has, also, served as the policy director at the ministry of mines and petroleum, consultant at the President economic advisory department. She has started her career working for the private sector in Afghanistan.

Mark Leonard is co-founder and director of ECFR. He is the author of best-selling books and writes a column on global affairs for Project Syndicate. He also is a regular speaker on global issues, and his essays have appeared in various international and European newspapers. Previously, he was Director of Foreign Policy at the Centre for European Reform and Director of the Foreign Policy Centre. He also worked for the think-tank Demos, was a Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and was a Visiting Scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. In September 2021, he published his latest book “The Age of Unpeace. How Connectivity Causes Conflict”.

Manuel Pulgar-Vidal is the global leader of Climate & Energy at WWF. He has 35 years of experience in environmental law and policy and served as Minister of the Environment of Peru (2011 to 2016) and President of the Twentieth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - COP20 in 2014. Pulgar-Vidal was the Executive Director of the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law, an influential institution in Latin America. He has a law degree from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, where he is a professor, and has completed studies for a master's degree in Business Law at the Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas. He is a board member of Forest Trends, Amazon Conservation Association and Peruvian Society of Environmental Law and a member of the Assembly of the World Wide Fund for Nature - Colombia. He is part of the Aspen Institute Management and Leadership Advisory Group, chairman of the evaluation council of the French sovereign Green Bonds, a Global Ambassador for the Race to Zero and Race to Resilience initiatives and a member of the IUCN Global Standard Steering Committee. He is an active member of different groups aiming to get strong outcomes as a part of the formal climate talks and the non-party stakeholders' agenda. He has been recognized by the governments of France, Germany and Spain and by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society for his contribution to the Paris Agreement.

Jaydeep Barman, Co-founder and CEO of Rebel Foods, holds an engineering degree and an MBA from INSEAD, France. Post MBA, he joined McKinsey & Co at their London office. After 4 years at the firm, Jaydeep returned to India to start his entrepreneurial journey in partnership with Kallol Banerjee, his friend for 15 years. Over the last 10 years, what started with a simple idea of making and delivering tasty wraps, under the brand Faasos, transformed into an "Internet Restaurant" business, a global food tech pioneer which now runs 50 Restaurant brands across 100 cities in 10 countries. An avid mountaineer, Jaydeep lives in Pune, India with his wife and two daughters.

Jane is an ecologist and author with 30 years of experience of working internationally on the science, policy and practice of wetlands and water management. Previously Jane worked for WWF in Europe and Australia. Since 2004, she has been CEO of Wetlands International, leading a network of 20 offices operating in over 100 countries. This global team works to mobilise the conservation and restoration of all kinds of wetlands, connecting science, policies and practices for biodiversity, resilient communities and reduced climate risks. The long-term aim is to transform whole landscapes and sectors, enabling joined up ecological and social resilience.  Jane is prominent in building partnerships and global dialogues to this end.

Dr. Segun Ogunsanya is the Group Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Airtel Africa PLC since October 2021.  He is an Engineer and Chartered Accountant with over 30 years of cognate experience garnered across multiple geographies, organizations, and diverse sectors ranging from telecommunications, consulting firms, banking, and Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industries.
Dr. Ogunsanya's achievements over his professional career have been very remarkable. He was the first African appointed as the Managing Director and CEO of Coco-Cola in various countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana for a decade in the same organization that made the company profitable under his leadership.
Furthermore, in 2012, he was appointed a member of the Implementation and Technical Committee of Strategic Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Policy by the Federal Government of Nigeria. He was a member of the Business Support Group, which was set up to provide a platform for anchoring the views of the Organized Private Sector on the development of a National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan for the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2013.

Dr. Muna Al-Marzouqi earned her LL.B in Law with Order of Excellence from Qatar University. She holds an LL.M (Master’s degree) from University of California Berkeley in U.S.A. and an S.J.D (Doctorate degree) from Tulane University in U.S.A. in the field of maritime law. She is a faculty member at the College of Law since 2011, where she teaches maritime law and commercial law. She graduated from Qatar Leadership Center in 2018. She was the Associate Dean for Research & Graduate studies at the College of Law from 2018 until her appointment in 2020 as an Associate Vice President for Academic Planning & Quality Assurance, which is her current position. She is a licensed lawyer in the State of Qatar and a judge at Qatar International Court since 2020. She has been awarded several awards including the Education Excellence Award (secondary students category) in 2006, the Excellence Medal from Qatar University in 2011, the Excellence in Teaching Award from Qatar University College of law in 2013. In 2017, she won the Georgetown University Fellowship Award. In 2018, she has been awarded the Education Excellence Award (doctorated degree category) and the Excellence in Research Award from Qatar University College of Law.

Dr Karin von Hippel became Director-General of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) on 30 November 2015. Karin von Hippel joined RUSI after serving for nearly six years in the US Department of State as a Senior Adviser in the Bureau of Counterterrorism, then as a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, and finally, as Chief of Staff to General John Allen, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter-ISIL.

After her education at the London School of Economics, Hande Çilingir completed her master's degree at Shanghai Normal University. After that, she worked as an investment consultant for global companies such as PepsiCo and Vestel. In 2012, she co-founded Insider, an AI-powered B2B marketing technology platform backed by Sequoia, with her co-founders. In 2021, Insider was named as a leader in its industry in Gartner and Forrester by analysts. Today, she is responsible for building a solid corporate culture, managing global growth, and supporting sales and marketing teams for a team of 700+ Insiders from 41 different nationalities. Recently, Insider closed its $121 Million Series D funding round, led by Qatar Investment Authority and joined by Sequoia Capital, Riverwood Capital, Wamda Capital, 212 Capital, Esas Private Equity and Endeavor Catalyst. With this investment, Insider become the first software unicorn company in Turkey.

Dr. Kathryn (Casey) Bouskill is a senior researcher at Meta, where she works on data governance within the organization. An anthropologist by training, Bouskill draws on qualitative and quantitative methods to study a range of issues related to emerging technology and social wellbeing. Bouskill has briefed policymakers and scholars on the cultural dimensions of AI. Her work on the promises and perils of an accelerated future has been featured as well in a TED talk. Bouskill has worked and taught in the United States and Austria, where she served as a Fulbright scholar. In addition, Bouskill has performed multiple collaborative and interdisciplinary projects in the United States, the European Union, Sub-Saharan Africa, South America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Additionally, Bouskill is affiliated with the RAND Corporation and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Bouskill has a Ph.D. in anthropology and an M.P.H. in epidemiology from Emory University.

Maria is a journalist and international news anchor. She presents daily live news shows on TRT World from Istanbul and hosts the flagship news programme ‘News Hour with Maria Ramos’.  She is a highly-acclaimed, engaging and regular conference Master of Ceremonies and Moderator for international events that focus on humanitarian, political and global affairs, particularly with the United Nations. Maria started her TV career at Bahrain International TV and Radio Bahrain as a Newsreader and Reporter. Prior to joining TRT World, she also reported/anchored for the BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC and UNICEF.  Over the past 20 years, she has lived in, and reported from countries all around the globe with long stints in the Middle East, Europe, Africa and Latin America. British-born to Spanish parents, Maria speaks five languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian, basic classical Arabic and is learning Turkish. In the business world, she worked as an advisor to the CEO of Formula E and founded a UK/Spain-based international media consultancy for European blue chip companies.  Maria graduated with a 2:1 in French and Spanish from King’s College London. She is a mentor to aspiring journalists through KCL and Women in Journalism UK.

David Beckham was the first English football player to win league titles in four countries: England, Spain, the United States and France. His career spanned 20 years with some of the most successful clubs in the world: Manchester United, Real Madrid, AC Milan, LA Galaxy, Paris Saint-Germain and the England team, which he captained for six years. Since retiring from football in 2013 Beckham has worked with world-leading brands including Adidas, Diageo, H&M, L’Oreal, Tudor and Sands. He has actively supported Unicef for over 15 years and launched the ground-breaking initiative 7: The David Beckham Unicef Fund in 2015. As a Goodwill Ambassador for the charity, he promotes and protects the rights of the world’s most vulnerable children. In 2019 he also lent his voice to Malaria No More, the campaign to eradicate malaria in Africa. In his role as Ambassadorial President for the British Fashion Council, he is committed to promoting and nurturing British fashion and the United Kingdom’s creative industries. In 2018 he became President of Major League Soccer club Inter Miami CF, the culmination of his lifelong ambition to own a football club, and the start of an exciting new chapter.

Hina Rabbani Khar was the 26th Foreign Minister of Pakistan and is currently serving in Parliament for a third term as member of Pakistan People Party. Her term as Foreign Minister is best remembered for the ‘Regional Pivot’ to Pakistan foreign policy, where she concentrated on building ties with Pakistan’s immediate neighbours. This included the normalization of trade relations with India, a policy of reaching out to all political parties and ethnicities in Afghanistan. Pakistan also pursued an active role in an Afghan led and Afghan owned process of reconciliation. In a difficult time of increasing economic sanctions Pakistan pursued to cement ties with Iran. She also served for four years as Minister of State for Economic Affairs and for two years as Minister of State for Finance & Economic Affairs. During these years, she led Pakistan’s bilateral and multilateral economic diplomacy.

Mr. Khalifa Jassim Al-Kuwari is the Director General of the Qatar Fund for Development, managing the State of Qatar’s foreign aid and international development activities. Since 2014, he led the establishment, strategy-setting, operationalization, partnerships, and funding programs of the Qatar Fund for Development in various developing countries. Previously, Mr. Al-Kuwari was the Chief Operating Officer of the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), where he oversaw the entire business support infrastructure and led several initiatives to improve the performance of support functions. Prior to that, Mr. Al-Kuwari was the QIA Executive Director of Joint Venture and International Business, where he managed the investment joint ventures and government-to-government relations. He has been appointed to the boards of leading companies and institutions such as Harrods, Volkswagen Group, Fairmont Raffles Group, Songbird Real Estate, Qatar Exchange, Katara Hospitality, and Mowasalat. He was also appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Islamic Bank of Britain, and Qatar and Algeria Investment. Mr. Al-Kuwari is a member of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Audit Committee of Qatar Mining Company.

Dr. Heung Chong Kim is currently President of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP). Prior to this Dr. Kim had been Director of Research Planning and Coordination as well as Director of the Center for Regional Economic Studies and Head of European Studies at KIEP. Before joining KIEP in 2001, Dr. Kim was an Honorary Member of Christ Church, University of Oxford (2000~01), where he obtained his MPhil degree in economics (1995). He also served the Advisory Staff to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance & Economy (1996~97). Dr. Kim served the Advisory Staff to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance & Economy (1996~97). He had run the SNU-KIEP EU Centre in 2006~09, the first EU studies centre in Korea sponsored by the European Commission. He is a member of the advisory board for ESiA, ASEF, vice President of the Korea Association of Trade and Industry Studies, and a governing board member of the Korea Association of EU Studies (EUSA-Korea). Dr. Kim was an IV fellow from the State Department of U.S.A. in 1998, and a Fulbright fellow in UC Berkeley in 2008~09. He was a faculty member of the 476 Salzburg Global Seminar. He is now serving as Invited Professor of Korea University, and Adjunct Professor of Ewha Womans University on European Studies. Dr. Kim read economics at Seoul National University, where he obtained his doctorate in economics (1999).

Lisa Curtis is Director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). With over 20 years of service in the U.S. government, her work has centered on U.S. policy toward the Indo-Pacific and South Asia, with a particular focus on U.S.- India strategic relations; the Quad (U.S., Australia, India, and Japan); counterterrorism strategy in South and Central Asia; and China’s role in the region. Ms. Curtis served as Deputy Assistant to the President and NSC Senior Director for South and Central Asia from 2017-2021. During her tenure at the NSC, she coordinated U.S. policy development and implementation of the South Asia Strategy and was a key contributor to the Indo-Pacific Strategic Framework. From 2006-2017, Ms. Curtis was Senior Fellow on South Asia at The Heritage Foundation, where she appeared regularly in the media and frequently testified before Congress. She also served as Professional Staff Member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee under former Chairman of the Committee, Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN; Senior Advisor in the South Asia Bureau at the State Department; and as a senior analyst on South Asia at the CIA during the 1990s.

Senior international experience in sustainable development, the multi-lateral system, accountability, environment, and business. Extensive track record in promoting the adoption of innovative solutions to environmental problems with emphasis on market-based approaches. Best environmental and social practices in the extractive industries. Business development, finance, mergers and acquisitions. Experience in senior management positions with multi-lateral development agencies at the highest levels and in the non-profit sector. Broad experience in multi-cultural settings. Formerly Chairman of the World Bank`s Inspection Panel, Head of Biodiversity at the GEF, Principal Environmental Specialist at the World Bank, Managing Director at Sustainable Forestry Management, among others. International consultant to WB, IDB, IFC, USAID, UNDP, UNEP, FAO, GCF, private foundations, and international NGOs.

Brian Hoskins has mathematics degrees from Cambridge. He has been a Professor of Meteorology in the University of Reading for 40 years, was the Founding Director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London and is now its Chair. His research is in weather and climate, in particular the understanding and modelling of atmospheric motion on all scales. He has had many international roles, including being vice-chair of the Joint Scientific Committee for the World Climate Research Programme, President of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences and involvement in the 2007 IPCC international climate change assessment. In the UK his roles include being a member of the UK Climate Change Committee for its first 10 years. He is a member of the science academies of the UK, USA, China and Europe, and was knighted in 2007 for his services to the environment.

Lord Thomas has been President of the Qatar International Court since 2018. Lord Thomas was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1969, becoming a Queen’s Counsel in 1984. In 1996, he was appointed a High Court Judge and was assigned to the Queen’s Bench Division, serving on the Commercial Court. In 2003, he became a Lord Justice of Appeal and was appointed to the Privy Council. He served as the Senior Presiding Judge from 2003 to 2006. In 2008, he was appointed Vice President of the Queen’s Bench Division and Deputy Head of Criminal Justice. In 2011, he became President of the Queen’s Bench Division. Thereafter, in 2013, he succeeded Lord Judge as Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. He retired from that post in 2017, prior to taking up the present position in Qatar where he succeeded Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers. Lord Thomas holds several extra-judicial posts, including as Honorary Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge and Fellow of the Universities of Cardiff, Aberystwyth, Swansea and Bangor and Honorary Doctor of Law of the Universities of South Wales, the West of England, Wales and of Cardiff Metropolitan University. He is a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. In 2016, he formed the Standing International Forum of Commercial Courts. He was appointed Chairman of the Financial Markets Law Committee in November 2017. He has been Chancellor of Aberystwyth University since January 2018.

Justice Shah was elevated to the bench at the Lahore High Court in 2009 and after serving as the Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court for almost two years was elevated to the Supreme Court of Pakistan in early 2018. He did his schooling at Aitchison College, Lahore and got his law degree from the University of Cambridge, UK, as well as, the University of the Punjab, where he also obtained a degree in master’s in economics. As a corporate litigator he took keen interest in public interest litigation with special focus on environmental issues and sustainable development. His areas of special interest are the constitutional law, human rights, climate and water justice, environmental sustainability, disability rights, criminology, digital surveillance, privacy and proportionality. Justice Shah gave one of the early climate change decisions (Leghari v Pakistan in 2015) and the important recent decision (DG Khan Cement Company v Punjab, April 2021).

After graduating from Ecole Nationale d’Administration in 1978, Bruno Lasserre became a member of the Conseil d’État, an independent advisory body for the Government and the Parliament on the preparation of bills, ordinances, decrees, as well as the highest administrative jurisdiction in the country. Between 1989 and 1997, he served as Director for Regulatory Affairs, and then Director General for Posts and Telecommunications. He returned to the Conseil d’État in 1998, where he became assessor at the 10th Chamber, chaired the 1st Chamber for three years, before becoming Deputy-President for all litigation activities. After serving as Member of the board of the Conseil de la concurrence, he was appointed President in July 2004, and in this capacity pushed through a major reform that transformed it into the Autorité de la concurrence. He chaired the Autorité until September 2016. At that time, Bruno Lasserre came back to the Conseil d’État to head the department for Home Affairs. He was appointed vice-president of the Conseil d’État on 16th May 2018. He took office on 29th May and was installed in its functions by the Prime Minister on 6th June 2018 and retired on 4th January 2022.

Nikos Tsafos is the James R. Schlesinger Chair in Energy and Geopolitics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Nikos has testified before Congress, the Canadian House of Commons, and the Alaska State Legislature. He has written hundreds of articles, including for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the National Interest, EURACTIV, and The Hill, and he has spoken at universities and events around the world. Nikos has appeared on the BBC and al Jazeera, and his views are often found in outlets like the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, CNN, and others. Nikos serves on the Chair’s Committee on Climate of the Export Import Bank (EXIM) of the United States. Before CSIS, Nikos worked as a consultant, having advised companies and governments in over 30 countries on some of the world’s most complex energy projects. He also spent several years as an advisor to the Alaska State Legislature on the Alaska liquefied natural gas project. From 2016 to 2019, he taught at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He holds a B.A. in international relations and economics, with a minor in statistics, from Boston University, and an M.A. in international relations from Johns Hopkins SAIS.

Sunao Nakamura professional career: Apr 2021 Senior Managing Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Optimization Dept. JERA Co., Inc. (JERA) Apr 2019 Managing Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Optimization Dept. JERA Jul 2016 Senior Executive Vice President Energy Transactions and Projects Dept. JERA Apr 2016 Executive Officer, General Manager, Fuel Department TEPCO Fuel & Power, Incorporated Jun 2014 Executive Officer, Vice President and General Manager, Fuel & Power Company Apr 2013 Executive Officer, Vice President, Fuel & Power Company Oct 2012 General Manager, LNG Strategy & Coordination Group, Fuel Dept. Jul 2012 General Manager, LNG Purchase & Investment Strategy Group,Fuel Dept. Sep 2011 Vice President, Tochigi Branch Office Jul 2009 Managing Director, TEPCO Trading Co., Ltd. Jan 2001 Visiting Researcher, The Center for Japan-U.S. Business and Economic Studies, New York University Apr 1986 Joined Tokyo Electric Power Co., Inc. EDUCATION: Mar 1986 Graduated from Keio University, Faculty of Economics

Tatiana Mitrova has served as a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies since September 2015 and as a Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University since May, 2016. From February 2017 to December 2020, she was the Executive Director of the Energy Centre of the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO, a graduate business school, where she continues to serve as a professor. She has also been the Head of Research in the Oil and Gas Department in the Energy Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 2011; a visiting professor at the Paris School of International Affairs, since 2014; and an assistant professor at the Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas since 2008. Dr. Mitrova is a member of the board of directors of PAO Novatek, a Russian independent natural gas producer, since April 2020, and is chairwoman of its strategy committee and she is also a member of the board of directors of the global oil service company Schlumberger since July 2018. She has more than 200 publications in scientific and business journals and co-authors 10 scientific books.

Anatol Feygin has served as Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer since September 2016. Mr. Feygin joined Cheniere in March 2014 as Senior Vice President, Strategy and Corporate Development. Mr. Feygin also currently serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer of Cheniere Partners and as a director and Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer of Cheniere Holdings. Prior to joining Cheniere, Mr. Feygin worked with Loews Corporation from November 2007 to March 2014, most recently as its Vice President, Energy Strategist and Senior Portfolio Manager. Prior to joining Loews, Mr. Feygin spent three years at Bank of America, most recently as Head of Global Commodity Strategy. Mr. Feygin began his banking career at J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. as Senior Analyst, Natural Gas Pipelines and Distributors. Mr. Feygin earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University and an M.B.A. in Finance from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University.

Alyse Nelson is President and CEO of Vital Voices Global Partnership. A cofounder of Vital Voices, Alyse has worked for the organization for more than 25 years, serving as vice president and senior director of programs before assuming her current role in 2009. Under her leadership, Vital Voices has expanded its reach to 20,000 women leaders across 184 countries.

Ambassador Mark Green (ret.) serves as the President and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, an institution chartered by Congress to “strengthen the fruitful learning between the world of learning and the world of public affairs.” He has served as the Administrator of the US Agency for International Development where he used America’s development and humanitarian tools to help countries on their “journey to self-reliance.” He also serviced as Executive Director of the McCain Institute and President/CEO of the International Republican Institute. Green served as the U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania (mid-2007 to early 2009), and before that, he served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives representing Wisconsin’s 8th District. He has been honored for his work by the Republics of Tanzania and Colombia, and institutions including the Scowcroft Institute at Texas A&M and Georgetown University.

Prof. Saleemul Huq is the Director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) and Professor at the Independent University Bangladesh (IUB) as well as Associate of the International Institute on Environment and Development (IIED) in the United Kingdom as well as the Chair of the Expert Advisory Group for the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) and also Senior Adviser on Locally Led Adaptation with Global Centre on Adaptation (GCA) headquartered in the Netherlands. He is an expert in adaptation to climate change in the most Vulnerable developing countries and has been a lead author of the third , fourth and fifth assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and he also advises the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). He has published hundreds of scientific as well as popular articles and was recognised as one of the top twenty global influencers on climate change policy in 2019 and top scientist from Bangladesh on climate change science.

Marine scientist and environmental entrepreneur Dr. Deborah Brosnan has 25 years experience spanning academic and private sectors. The Founder and President of Deborah Brosnan & Associates, she helps clients worldwide find solutions that build resilience against climate change and environmental risks. One of her specialties is pioneering nature-based solutions (marshes, reefs, and dunes) to protect against hazards and climate risks, while restoring biodiversity and creating financial return on investment. She has held academic positions and visiting scholar status at Virginia Tech, Stanford University, University of California, Davis, and University of Washington. Dr. Brosnan has helped move the needle on important global conversations around climate change, resilience, and sustainability - most recently on CNN, BBC, Washington Post, and The Hill. She has testified before the U.S. Congress and represented Governments at the U.N. General Assembly and CoP26. Dr. Brosnan is President and Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Ireland America Science Forum, past Board Chair of the University of California SeaDoc Program, and sits on the boards of several non-profit organizations, including PADI AWARE.

Dr. John Gong is professor of economics at the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE), where he teaches and researches in areas of finance, industrial organization, and antitrust and competition policies. Dr. Gong is a prolific researcher and writer with a list of publications in leading international academic journals. He was the executive editor of the Journal of Chinese Economic and Foreign Trade Studies (JCEFTS) published in UK. He is also a renowned op-ed columnist for several leading English newspapers and medias in Asia, including the South China Morning Post, Global Times and CGTN (China Global Television Network), writing extensively on economic and political issues.

His Excellency Mr Ali bin Ahmed Al Kuwari was appointed Minister of Commerce and Industry in November 2018. He was appointed Minister of Finance in October 2021. His Excellency Mr Ali bin Ahmed Al Kuwari has more than 30 years of experience in the banking and financial sectors in Qatar. He became QNB Group Chief Executive Officer in July 2013 and held this position until 2018. Prior to this role, he was the Executive General Manager and Group Chief Business Officer of QNB. HE Mr Al Kuwari is also Chairman of the Board of Directors for a number of organisations, including KATARA Hospitality, Qatar Stock Exchange, Qatar Development Bank and Masraf Al Rayan. He additionally is Chairman of the Advisory Council of the Investment Promotion Agency (IPA) and Acting Chairman of the Board of Directors of QFCA.

Tom Cargill serves as the Chief Executive of Wilton Park, an organization that works for the development of international policy, advancing practical solutions to critical global issues.
Previously the CEO of British Expertise International, he is a distinguished expert of UK foreign policy, trade, international development and infrastructure.
Tom has served as founder, CEO and remains Chair of the not-for-profit British Foreign Policy Group.He previously developed international Business Development Strategy for the engineering multinational, Bechtel, and held a decade long engagement, leading the world's largest independent center for policy research on Africa's international politics at Chatham House.

As Senior Director of JCI Ventures, Dr. Tarraf invests in AI, cybersecurity, energy resilience, and carbon market technologies across the space of smart, healthy, and sustainable buildings. Prior to joining Johnson Controls, Dr. Tarraf was with the RAND Corporation where Dr. Tarraf advised senior decision-makers on AI posture and technology strategy in the context of global competition. A control theorist by training, Dr. Tarraf started her career on the Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty at Johns Hopkins University, where Dr. Tarraf founded and led a research lab at the intersection of control and computer science. Dr. Tarraf is the recipient of NSF CAREER, AFOSR Young Investigator, JHU Excellence in Teaching, and RAND Silver Medal awards. Dr. Tarraf received her BE from AUB (Mechanical Engineering), her SM and PhD (Control Theory) from MIT, and was a postdoctoral fellow at MIT and Caltech

Dr. Chris Pernin is a senior physical scientist and director of the Engineering and Applied Sciences Department at the RAND Corporation. Since joining RAND in 1999, Pernin has been involved with or led a wide range of national security and domestic research projects on decisionmaking, institutional reform, acquisition, technology development, and strategic planning, for both national and international clients. Pernin has served on various advisory panels throughout his career, including being an ad hoc member of the Army Science Board and member of the Defense Acquisition Research Journal editorial board. Prior to joining RAND, Pernin spent time at Argonne National Laboratory, working on early development of the Advanced Photon Source facility. Pernin received his B.S. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and his M.S. and Ph.D., also in chemistry, from Northwestern University.

Khalid served as the Acting Minister of Finance, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. In a career spanning over 10 years at the Ministry of Finance, Afghanistan, Khalid served in a series of roles including the Deputy Minister of Finance overseeing fiscal policy, budget and treasury management, Director General for the Macro-Fiscal Performance Directorate General and Senior Policy Adviser. Before joining MoF, Khalid worked with the World Bank on multi-donor trust fund for Afghanistan’s reconstruction and macro-economic and fiscal issues. Khalid also worked with a number of international development agencies and think-tanks on economic development and public financial management issues. Khalid Payenda co-founded the first private university in Afghanistan and taught economics and leadership courses for over a decade. Khalid Payenda is a Fulbright scholar and graduated from University of Illinois with a Master’s degree in economics. Payenda also holds an MBA.

Fatima Gailani is one of Afghanistan’s 21 negotiators in the peace talks with the Taliban, bringing decades of relevant knowledge and experience to the team. Gailani was on the commission that drafted the current Afghan constitution in 2003, one of the most progressive national documents in the region. Gailani was also a participant in the 2001 Bonn Conference, the Emergency Loya Jirga that mandated the transitional administration, and the 2004 constitutional Loya Jirga. During the 1980s, she was a spokesperson of the Afghan Mujahideen. From 2004 to 2016, Gailani was President of the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARSC), an independent public humanitarian organization, where from 2008 to 2016 she was concurrently Chairman of its Governing Board, an oversight body she founded—she still sits on the board. Gailani chaired the 32nd International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, their highest statutory meeting and led the Compliance and Mediation Committee of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies from 2008 to 2011.

David Edwards, PhD is General Secretary of Education International, the voice of teachers and other education employees around the world. Through its 386 member organisations, Education International represents over 32.5 million teachers and education support personnel in 178 countries. Dr Edwards leads the organisation since 2018, after seven years as Deputy General Secretary directing education policy, advocacy, research and communications. Prior to joining Education International, Dr Edwards was an Associate Director at the National Education Association of the United States. He has worked as an Education Specialist at the Organization of American States and began his career as a public high school teacher.

Michael Kocher has been the General Manager of the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), based in Geneva, since 2013. He leads AKF’s multi-sector efforts in agriculture and food security, economic inclusion, education, early childhood development, health and nutrition, and civil society across 20 countries of South and Central Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, North America and Western Europe. Within these contexts, Kocher closely engages AKF’s sister agencies of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) and a broad range of external partners. Before joining AKF, Kocher was the Vice President of International Programmes at the International Rescue Committee in New York City, where he led efforts in its multi-sector development, emergency response, and support for refugees and internally displaced persons. His field assignments have been extensive, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Indonesia, Kenya, South Sudan, Haiti, Bosnia and other places.

Before being appointed as Chief Executive Officer of WISH in February 2018, Sultana Afdhal was WISH’s Partnerships and Outreach Manager. In that capacity she worked to forge strong relationships between WISH and major local stakeholders, including Hamad Medical Corporation, the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of Education, and the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy. Within Qatar, Sultana has put significant effort into the creation and implementation of innovative learning programs for children with autism and special needs. Outside Qatar, Sultana has been instrumental in creating fruitful new partnerships with a diverse range of organizations that have an interest in the health and wellbeing of societies, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Carter Center, an organization founded by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter to improve global health and to promote peace. In 2016, Sultana presented WISH research outcomes to ambassadors at the United Nations in Geneva and in 2017. Prior to joining WISH, Sultana worked at the Doha International Family Institute. She holds a master’s degree in English Literature from Oxford University and is a published novelist, with the proceeds of her first book The Mango Tree donated to the Fight for Sight charity.

Jerome H. Kim, M.D., is an international expert on the development and evaluation of vaccines and is the Director General of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI), whose mission is to discover, develop and deliver safe, effective and affordable vaccines for Global Health. He has authored over 300 publications. He is a graduate of the University of Hawaii, with high honors in History and highest honors in Biology and received his M.D. from the Yale University School of Medicine.

As CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Mark Suzman leads the organization in service of our vision – to help every person have the opportunity to live a healthy, productive life. Knowing that we cannot achieve that vision alone, Mark brings a deep commitment to building partnerships and ensuring that the culture of foundation directly enables the impact we aspire to have. Bachelor's degree (Hons), Harvard; Doctorate in International Relations, Oxford University; Rhodes Scholar. Former Correspondent, Financial Times, Johannesburg, London and Washington DC. 2000-05, Policy Director, Office of the Administrator, United Nations Development Programme. 2005-07, Senior Adviser, Policy and Strategic Communications, Office of the UN Secretary-General; 2007, joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as Director, Global Development Policy, Advocacy and Special Initiatives, then held dual titles as Chief Strategy Officer and President of Global Policy & Advocacy, leading a team that helps build strategic relationships with gov't, NGOs and other key partners to increase awareness, action and resources devoted to global dev. and health priorities; also oversees regional offices and strategic presence in Europe, Africa, and China. He became CEO February 2020.

His Excellency Hassan Al Thawadi is the Secretary General of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, the organization which oversees infrastructure and development projects for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™. A lawyer by profession, Al Thawadi previously served as General Counsel for Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and Qatar Holding, entities founded by the State of Qatar in 2005 to strengthen the national economy by diversifying into new asset classes and growing Qatar’s long-term strategic investments.

During Hulusi Akar’s military career of 49 years, he served in various positions in the Turkish Armed Forces and NATO, including as commander of the Turkish Task Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Following his promotion to the rank of General in 2011, he served as the Deputy Chief of Turkish General Staff (2011-2013), Land Forces Commander (2013-2015) and as Commander of the Turkish Armed Forces (2015-2018).  Akar was appointed as the Minister of National Defence with the Presidential Decree issued in July 2018. He has been awarded the Turkish Armed Forces Courage and Self-Sacrifice Medal, Distinguished Service Medal and Medal of Honor along with several medals by other countries.

Sheikh Ali Alwaleed Al Thani currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Qatar’s Investment Promotion Agency. In 2018, he was also appointed as Coordinator of Economic Affairs at the Office of the Prime Minister, State of Qatar. Additionally, he occupied the post of Director of the State of Qatar’s Office to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, Switzerland in 2015, where we worked on negotiations and standing committees in the WTO related to Market Access, Agriculture, Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, Technical Barriers to Trade, Subsidies and other key areas. He has also served as the Commercial Attaché to Qatar’s permanent mission to the United Nations, covering negotiations and standing committees in the UNCTAD and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Lindsey Olin is an American politician, serving as the senior Senator of South Carolina. Graham was elected to the United States Senate in 2002 and was re-elected in 2008, 2014, and 2020. He became the first person in South Carolina history to garner over one million votes in the 2008 general election.  As a member of the Republican Party, Graham served as chair of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 2019.

Graham currently serves as the Ranking Member on the Senate Committee on the Budget. Graham also serves as a member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, and Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Prior to serving in the Senate, Graham was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 as the first Republican from the Third Congressional District of South Carolina since 1877.

His Excellency Dr. Khalid bin Mohamed Al Attiyah was appointed Minister of State for Defense Affairs in January 2016 and Deputy Prime Minister in November 2017. From 1987 to 1995, His Excellency was a fighter pilot in the Qatar Emiri Air Force. In 1995, he established the Khalid bin Mohamed Al Attiyah Firm for Legal Consultations and Services, where he practiced law until 2008. In 2003, His Excellency was appointed President of the National Committee for Human Rights. In 2008, His Excellency held the post of Minister of State for International Cooperation; and in 2009, he was appointed the Acting Minister of Business and Commerce. In 2009, His Excellency became the Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of Qatar’s Stock Exchange. Between 2009 and 2012, he was the Vice-Chairman of Qatar Financial Centre Authority, and between 2009 and 2013, he was the Vice-Chairman of the Supreme Council for Information Technology and Communications. In 2011, His Excellency was appointed Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and a Member of the Council of Ministers. From 2013 to 2016, HE Dr Khalid bin Mohamed Al Attiyah was Minister of Foreign Affairs. His Excellency has a BA in Aviation Studies from King Faisal Air Academy, a BA in Law from Beirut Arab University, an MA in Public Law from Cairo University and a PhD in Law from Cairo University.

Achim Steiner became UNDP Administrator on 19 June 2017. In April 2021, the General Assembly confirmed his appointment to a second four-year term beginning in June 2021. He is also the Vice-Chair of the UN Sustainable Development Group, which unites 40 entities of the UN system that work to support sustainable development. Over nearly three decades, Achim Steiner has been a global leader on sustainable development, climate resilience and international cooperation. He has worked to champion sustainability, economic growth and equality for the vulnerable, and has been a vocal advocate for the Sustainable Development Goals. Prior to joining UNDP, he was Director of the Oxford Martin School and previously led the United Nations Environment Programme (2006-2016). He was also Director-General of the United Nations Office at Nairobi, and previously held other notable positions including Director General of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and Secretary General of the World Commission on Dams. Achim Steiner has lived and worked in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Latin America and the United States.

Ayman Mohyeldin is the host of the MSNBC prime time show “AYMAN.” The eponymous perspective program is Ayman’s critical take on the world of politics, current affairs, culture, and everything in between. His program features headline making interviews, thought-provoking commentary, and insightful conversations. Before helming his weekly opinion program, Ayman was the host of ‘Ayman Mohyeldin Reports’, a daily hour-long news program during MSNBC’s dayside coverage. During his time in the anchor chair, Ayman was involved in the network’s special coverage of the 2020 Elections, the insurrection at the Capitol and the inauguration of President Joe Biden. In addition, Mohyeldin has field anchored during some of the networks biggest domestic and international news stories over the past decade including the coverage of massive social justice and racial equality protests across the United States, the immigration crisis in Guatemala, the wave of terrorist attacks in Europe and the rise of global extremism. He has interviewed global leaders, US politicians and officials, journalists and analysts on the most pressing US and international political, social, and cultural news items of the day. TIME Magazine named Mohyeldin as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2011. He has received multiple international awards including a Peabody, a Sigma Delta Chi Award, Argentina’s Perfil International Press Freedom Award, the UK’s Cutting Edge Media Award, and the European Union’s Anna Lindh Foundation Award. In addition, he has been named as Journalist of the Year by GQ Magazine and Esquire Magazine.

Lord Mandelson is Co-founder and Chairman of Global Counsel (GC). He is a former European Trade Commissioner and British First Secretary of State. As Trade Commissioner between 2004 and 2008, he negotiated trade agreements with many countries and led European negotiations in the WTO Doha World Trade Round. Before this, he held several Cabinet posts under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown including Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Northern Ireland Secretary and Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. He was Member of Parliament for Hartlepool in the UK from 1992 until 2004 and Director of Campaigns and Communications for the Labour Party between 1985 and 1990. Lord Mandelson is on the group holding board of The Bank or London and a member of the International Advisory Committee of BlueVoyant. He is President of Great Britain China Centre and Governor and Member of the Council of Management at the Ditchley Foundation. He is Chairman of the Design Museum in London and Chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University. He has deep roots in Qatar having visited on many occasions as a government minister and now in his role as the Chairman of GC. The GC team work with a number of Qatari entities to support on policy development and analysing political and regulatory risks. GC established a permanent presence under the license of the QFZ in April 2021.

A serial entrepreneur and one of the first female CEOs in her home country, Afghanistan. As CEO of Digital Citizens Fund, Bright Citizen (coffee and tea) and EdyEdy, Roya’s work is focused on digital literacy to bridge the gap between education and the job markets. Digital Citizens Fund has 15,000 graduates from its 13 digital classrooms and has incubated ten female startups. Roya is currently in development with the Afgan government to build STEM schools in Afghanistan to unlock new opportunities for the inclusion of female entrepreneurs in hard to reach places using airspace and blockchain technology. Roya is also the champion and coach of the world renowned Afghan Girls Robotics Team, the Afghan Dreamers, who are inspiring a nation to see the potential of girls differently. Roya was named as one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in 2013, and received the 2014 Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award, The Advancement of Gender Equality through Education Award, Young Leader of World Economic Forum, Wonder Women 2018, 2019 Education Award Winner, the prestigious Presidential Leadership Scholarship , D.Sc. Honorary Doctor of Science of Engineering from McMaster University  and is a founding Leader of The NewNow, a group of rising global leaders tackling global challenges.

Carl Bildt has served as both Prime Minister (1991-1994) and Foreign Minister (2006-2014) of Sweden. He has served in international functions with the EU and UN, primarily related to the conflicts in the Balkans. He was Co-Chairman of the Dayton peace talks on Bosnia and become the first High Representative in the country. Later, he was the Special Envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to the region. After stepping down as leader of the Moderate Party of Sweden in 1999 and leaving Parliament in 2000 he was also engaged in corporate boards in Sweden and the US as well as different international think-tanks. Returning as Foreign Minister of Sweden in 2006, he come to be seen as one of the most prominent and vocal of European foreign ministers during those years. He was one of the initiators of EU:s Eastern Partnership, and pushed the EU forward also on issues of the Middle East. Currently he is Co-Chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, contributing columnist to Washington Post as well as monthly columnist for Project Syndicate. He recently chaired the Global Commission on Internet Governance. He serves as one of the Senior Advisors to the Wallenberg Foundations in Sweden and is on the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation in the US.

Anas El Gomati is the founder and director of the Tripoli-based Sadeq Institute, the first public policy think tank in Libya's history, established in 2011. He has held several positions in the MENA region and Europe, as a former visiting fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut, Lebanon and former visiting lecturer at the NATO defence college in Rome, Italy.

Ketan is the Chairman of ‘Force for Good’, and leads its ‘Capital as a Force for Good’ initiative which examines and engages the world’s leading global financial institutions, in support the UN Secretary General’s roadmap for sustainable development. He co-founded and leads the investment firm, Greater Pacific Capital (GPC), which invests in high growth enterprises making an impact locally and internationally, profitably and sustainably. GPC’s research work, focused on peace, prosperity and freedom, including the rise and fall of great power, the changing world order, sustainability, mass inclusion and the eradication of slums. Ketan was formerly a Managing Director, and head of the Strategic Group, at Goldman Sachs, providing strategic counsel to leaders internationally. Prior to that, he was a partner at KPMG and a member of the Board. He holds positions as a fellow, trustee and board member of the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS). He is a member of the working group of the UN SDSN Senior Working Group on Joint Implementation of EGD and SDGs and the Lancet Commission COVID 19 Green Recovery Task Force focused on Sustainable Finance. Ketan is the author of ‘The Master Strategist’ (Random House, 2005), foreword by Nelson Mandela. 

Imam Omar Suleiman is a world renowned scholar and theologically driven activist for human rights. He is the Founder and President of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research and a professor of Islamic Studies at Southern Methodist University. He’s also Co-Chair Emeritus of Faith Forward Dallas at Thanks-Giving Square, a multi-faith coalition of clergy for peace and justice. He frequently writes for CNN, USA Today, The Guardian, Huffpo, and The Dallas Morning News amongst others. The Yaqeen Institute, which he founded, is a think-tank dedicated to tackling some of the most difficult conversations surrounding Islam, while inspiring contribution through positive Muslim identity formation. It has brought together intellectuals, scholars, and academics of various backgrounds to inspire meaningful change about how Islam is discussed and lived in even the most challenging spaces. Through his work at Yaqeen and elsewhere, Imam Omar has been at the forefront of Islamic contributions in media, academic, and policy spaces worldwide. He has been named one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre of Jordan, been recognized by CNN as one of the 25 most influential Muslims in America, and included amongst the Fredrick Douglass 200 most influential Americans whose modern day work embody the legacy of the great abolitionist.

Dr. Andreas Rechkemmer is a senior professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa's College of Public Policy and coordinates its Master of Public Policy (MPP) program. Prior to joining HBKU, he was a tenured full professor and held the American Humane Endowed Chair at the University of Denver, USA. Professor Rechkemmer held senior positions with the United Nations, including that of Executive Director of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change at the United Nations University. He also served as Chief Science and Policy Advisor of the Global Risk Forum in Davos, Switzerland. His previous academic appointments and affiliations include the University of Cologne, Free University of Berlin, Beijing Normal University, Colorado State University and the United Nations University. He was principal investigator of various funded projects and managed grants from major science funders, including the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Research Council of Norway and the Federal Government of Germany. Dr. Rechkemmer has authored, co-authored and edited several books as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters.

A Graduate of Ecole Polytechnique and Chief Engineer of the French Corps des Mines, Patrick Pouyanné held various positions in the French Industry Ministry and in ministerial offices from 1989 to 1996, including Environment and Industry Technical Advisor to the Prime minister (E. Balladur) from 1993 to 1995 and Chief of Staff to the information technology and space minister (F. Fillon) from 1995 to 1996. He joined Total in January 1997, as Chief administrative Officer of Total E&P Angola and became Group Representative in Qatar in 1999. In August 2002, he was named Senior Vice President, Finance, Economics and Information Systems in Exploration & Production, then Senior Vice President, Strategy, Business Development and R&D in Exploration & Production in 2006. In January 2012, Patrick Pouyanné was appointed President, Refining & Chemicals and member of the Executive Committee. On October 22, 2014, the board of directors of Total appointed him Chief Executive Officer and President of the Executive Committee. On May 29, 2015, he was elected as Member of the board of directors of Total. On December 16th, 2015, Total’s board of directors appointed Patrick Pouyanné as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Total. Patrick Pouyanné is a Knight of the Legion of Honor. He is member of the Board of Cap Gemini.

Head of Research at the Global Challenges Foundation and Research Fellow at Lund University School of Economics and Management. PhD in Philosophy, has done research in political philosophy, evolutionary game theory and the theory of rational choice. Currently, the main research focus has been climate policy, and the possibility of decoupling economic growth from climate impact. Has been Chair of the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society, a member of the Council for Peace and Security at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and a board member of the Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation, as well as columnist and opinion editor at the newspaper Sydsvenskan.

During her public career, Jane Harman served nine terms in Congress, including four years after 9/11 as ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. She recently completed a decade at the nonpartisan Wilson Center as its first female president and CEO, where she is now President Emerita and Distinguished Fellow.
Harman is recognized as a national expert at the nexus of security and public policy issues, and has received numerous awards for distinguished service. She has served on advisory boards for the CIA, Director of National Intelligence, and the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and State. Harman is currently a member of the NASA Advisory Council, the Homeland Security Advisory Council, the Aspen Strategy Group, the advisory board of the Munich Security Conference, the Executive Committee of the Trilateral Commission and co-chairs the Homeland Security Experts Group with former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Earlier this year, she was named the newest Presidential Scholar-in-Residence at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy.
Her book "Insanity Defense: Why our Failure to Confront Hard National Security Problems Makes us Less Safe" was published by St. Martin's Press in 2021.

Nasser Hadian, Ph.D in Political Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is professor of Political Sciences, Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, University of Tehran, where he also served as the Director of Graduate Studies (1996-98). He was the Director of the Political Development Program at the Center for Strategic Research (1992-95). He was a Visiting Professor and Research Scholar at the Middle East Institute and Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures Department, Columbia University (2001-04).  His areas of scholarly and research interests include, Iranian Contemporary Politics, Iran’s Nuclear Program and Political Islam. He recently authored several articles on the nuclear debate in Iran for the Contemporary Security Policy, Political Quarterly and the Research Letter of Politics Science.

Hadley Gamble is CNBC’s Anchor based in Abu Dhabi. Hadley anchors Capital Connection from CNBC’s Middle East Headquarters based within Abu Dhabi Global Markets. The show, broadcast daily, gives you a reading on Asia's markets mid-day and sets you up for the Middle East and European trading day. In addition, Hadley also fronts CNBC’s popular documentary franchise, Access: Middle East where she speaks to world leaders, international CEOs and philanthropists. Recent guests include Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir and HRH Princess Reema bin Bandar Al-Saud. Hadley speaks to world leaders, international CEOs and philanthropists. Hadley has profiled some of the biggest names in business including the man behind the world's tallest tower, Emaar Chairman Mohammed Alabbar, bitcoin brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss and the only Western investor to hold a telecom license in North Korea, billionaire Egyptian businessman Naguib Sawiris. Hadley regularly reports for CNBC from the World Economic Forum in Davos, moderating panels on topics ranging from the geostrategic outlook for the Middle East to the future of education and infrastructure. Hadley is also a passionate advocate for women in the workplace and their advancement across the Arab world. She moderated the first ever women's business forum in Saudi Arabia and provided exclusive content to CNBC as the Kingdom lifted its decades-old driving ban. An experienced journalist, Hadley has also worked for ABC News and Fox News in Washington, DC producing news programmes and covering national and international political events, including the 2008 Presidential Debates, Election Night 2008 and the Inauguration of US President Barack Obama.

Ghida Fakhry is a broadcast tv journalist with 25 years experience in international news. She currently hosts ‘Bigger than Five’, TRT World’s flagship political program from Washington DC. She is also the Moderator of the newly-relaunched Doha Debates focusing on global issues. Previously, Ghida Fakhry was an anchor for Aljazeera English. She presented the network’s Newshour and the award-winning program Witness. Throughout her career, she has reported extensively from the United Nations, conducting in-depth interviews with Heads of State and Government and other senior international officials. Ghida Fakhry moderates high-level panels around the world for the UN and its specialized agencies, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum and leading NGOs, facilitating debates on international affairs, human rights, women’s empowerment, climate change and other issues. She has also been a Contributor to the Huffington Post. Ghida Fakhry holds an MA degree in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and an MA degree in International Relations from Boston University. She is fluent in English, French and Arabic and is conversational in Spanish.

Becky Anderson is one of CNN International's highest profile anchors. She hosts Connect the World with Becky Anderson and is based at CNN's Abu Dhabi bureau, where she also serves as Managing Editor. She provides CNN’s global audience with a regional perspective on the emerging politico-economic trends in the Gulf, the key geo-political rivalries shaping the region and the crises stemming from years of political instability. Becky has conducted one-on-one interviews with leaders including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir, Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed and leading humanitarians such as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. Becky has spent much of her time travelling across the Middle East at an extraordinary time of upheaval and change. Becky and the team were the first team to broadcast from Riyadh after the ban on women driving were lifted. She has broadcast special shows bringing a range of interviews, reports and packages to CNN International viewers around the globe. She is as comfortable sitting with global leaders for exclusive interviews as she is anchoring special editions of her show from a superyacht anchored in Yas Marina for the pinnacle of the F1 season.

Adriana Erthal Abdenur is a Brazilian policy expert and the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Plataforma CIPÓ, an independent, women-led research institute dedicated to issues of global governance, climate and peace in Latin America and the Caribbean and across the Global South.  She is also an Adjunct Lecturer in International Affairs at Sciences-Po Paris and has published widely on global governance, including the edited volume Emerging Powers at the UN. She is a member of the UN ECOSOC Committee on Development Policy (CPD) and sits on the Strategic Advisory Board of Germany's Weathering Risk initiative on Climate and Security.   Dr. Abdenur earned her PhD in development sociology from Princeton University in 2006 and lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Robin Niblett became the Director of Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs) in January 2007. From 2001 to 2006, Dr Niblett was the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Dr Niblett is an expert on UK foreign policy, European political and economic security and transatlantic relations. He is a Non-Executive Director of Fidelity European Values Investment Trust and the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Geopolitics. He was a Special Adviser to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (2015-17); a member of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Europe (2018-19) and Global Future Council on International Security (2016).