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Tekedra Mawakana

co-Chief Executive Officer, Waymo

Tekedra N. Mawakana is the co-CEO of Waymo, an autonomous driving technology company with a mission to make it safe and easy for people and things to get where they’re going.

As co-CEO, Tekedra is responsible for overall company strategy, with her primary focus on ensuring Waymo’s transformational technology — the Waymo Driver — is commercialized and widely adopted.

Tekedra has more than two decades of experience advising consumer technology companies on how to advance their business interests around the world and is an expert in navigating complex high-profile issues. She began her career working with regulated technology and telecom industries, and leading global technology transactions. She has served as a trusted advisor to CEOs managing growth and risk-mitigation strategies.

Tekedra previously served as COO of Waymo. Prior to Waymo, Tekedra led global teams across five continents at eBay, Yahoo, AOL and Startec. She started her career at the DC-based law firm Steptoe & Johnson LLP.

Tekedra is a social impact-focused angel investor, and an LP with Operator Collective. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Intuit, and on the Advisory Board for Lyte. She also sits on the Board of Directors for Saving Promise, a non-profit dedicated to the prevention of partner violence. As a tech industry veteran, Tekedra is on the Board of Industry Leaders for the Consumer Technology Association; and previously, she served as the Chairwoman of the Board of the Internet Association.

She has been recognized by Automotive News in 2020 as among the 100 Leading Women in the North American Auto Industry, “Top 20 in 2020 Influential Women in Mobility” by Vulog, and as one of the most influential black leaders in corporate America by Savoy magazine in 2020 and 2019. She was named a Visionary Leader by ALM and InsideCounsel in 2016, and a Tech Titan by Washingtonian magazine in 2015.

Tekedra received her JD from Columbia Law School and her BA with honors from Trinity College.

Falguni Nayar

Founder and CEO, Nykaa

Falguni Nayar is the founder, Executive Chairperson & Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of our Company. She holds a post-graduate diploma in management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. She has over 26 years of experience in e-commerce, investment banking and broking. Prior to founding our Company, she was associated with Kotak Mahindra Capital Company Limited for 18 years where she also served as a managing director. She has also served on the boards of various companies, including Tata Motors Limited and Aviva Life Insurance Company India Limited Presently, she serves as an independent on the boards of various companies including, Kotak Securities Limited, ACC Limited and Dabur India Limited. She has won many awards, including ‘EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2019 – Start-up’ by Ernst and Young and ‘Businesswoman of the Year’ at the Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence, 2019. She was listed as one of Asia’s Power Businesswomen, 2019 by Forbes Asia and named as ‘Business Person of the Year’, 2019 by Vogue India.

HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum

Chairman and Chief Executive, Emirates Airline and Group President, Dubai Civil Aviation Authority

Over the past 35 years HH Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum has been at the forefront of Dubai’s remarkable economic development spearheading the successful expansion of aviation, which constitutes a substantial part of Dubai’s GDP, and formulating economic, investment and fiscal policies and strategies in support of the emirate’s overarching vision.

Sheikh Ahmed embarked on his career in the aviation industry in 1985 when he was appointed President of the Dubai Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) – the governing body that oversaw the activities of Dubai International (DXB) and Dubai Duty Free, among others. In the same year Emirates airline – Dubai’s international carrier was launched with Sheikh Ahmed as its Chairman. He is now the Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates Airline & Group, which includes dnata – one of the world’s leading providers of air services and travel services, and other aviation related entities.

Emirates is an award-winning international airline, and one of the world’s most recognised airline brands with a global footprint across six continents, connecting passengers and facilitating global trade. The airline operates one of the most modern and efficient aircraft fleet comprised of spacious and comfortable Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 aircraft. Under his leadership, Emirates has been profitable for over 30 years. A trusted partner for over 300 airline customers worldwide, dnata offers ground handling, cargo and catering services at 126 airports in 19 countries and operates over 200 travel outlets around the world. In the financial year 2019-20 dnata handled 681,000 aircraft, moved 2.9 million tons of cargo, uplifted more than 93 million meals and handled over 3.5 million travel bookings.

Dubai Duty Free has become one of the biggest single airport retail operations in the world with US$2.543 billion in annual sales in 2020.

Under Sheikh Ahmed’s leadership, the DCA underwent an organisational restructuring in April 2007 resulting in the creation of the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority (DCAA) as the local regulatory body, and Dubai Airports as the owner and operator of Dubai’s airports – DXB and Dubai World Central (DWC).

Following the restructuring, Sheikh Ahmed became the President of DCAA and Chairman of Dubai Airports.

The fact that Dubai is now firmly established as the region’s leading tourist destination and business, trade and transport hub is due in no small measure to the efforts of Sheikh Ahmed. Under his leadership, DXB has developed into the world’s busiest airport for international passengers and among the largest cargo hubs with a network of 220 destinations served by more than 75 airlines. This was enabled by the timely and progressive expansion of the hub which included the spectacular opening of DXB’s Terminal 3 on October 14, 2008; the opening of Concourse A, the world’s first purpose-built A380 facility in early 2013, as part of a $7.8 billion expansion plan designed to boost DXB’s capacity to 90 million passengers; followed by the flawless opening of the $1.2 billion Concourse D in February 2016.

Earlier in 2008, in another first to Dubai’s long list, flydubai was launched. With Sheikh Ahmed to lead the airline as its Chairman and now in its 11th year of operation, flydubai has created a network of more than 70 destinations in 45 countries served by a fleet of more than 50 Boeing 737 aircraft.

In June 2016, Sheikh Ahmed was appointed as President of Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences. In January 2019 Sheikh Ahmed was awarded the Honorary Sash of Mohammed Bin Rashid by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, and Ruler of Dubai, for winning the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Government Excellence Award for his leadership in aviation.

In November 2019, Sheikh Ahmed was appointed to temporarily oversee Dubai Holding and Meraas, and in June 2020 Meraas merged under the umbrella of Dubai Holding with Sheikh Ahmed confirmed as its Chairman.

In January 2020, Dubai Council was formed, and Sheikh Ahmed was appointed as the Commissioner General of “Dubai economy” pillar to oversee the Department of Economic Development, Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing, and Dubai’s free zones, airports, ports and customs.

Sheikh Ahmed holds several government positions and plays an increasingly pivotal role in leading the emirate’s finance and energy sectors. Despite his numerous business activities, he is Patron to many charitable organisations. He has also received numerous accolades from various Governments and multinationals organisations (see the attached addendum).

Sheikh Ahmed has a bachelor’s Degree from the University of Denver, Colorado, USA. He is well known internationally for his contribution to the development of aviation in the region. The Royal Aeronautical Society, one of the industry’s oldest and most respected professional associations honoured his achievements in aviation with a fellowship of the Society at the 1994 Farnborough Air Show in the UK. In May 2013, he was presented with an honorary Degree of Doctor of Science from City University London – Cass Business School in recognition of his outstanding leadership in the development of professional sectors including aviation, finance, banking and entrepreneurship among others in the UAE.

Jacek Olczak

Chief Executive Officer, Philip Morris International

Mr. Olczak was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Philip Morris International (PMI) in May 2021. Prior to this appointment, he served as PMI’s Chief Operating Officer from January 2018, having formerly been Chief Financial Officer, beginning in August 2012. Mr. Olczak is committed to delivering PMI’s smoke-free future and expanding the company’s product portfolio beyond nicotine. He has been a key driver of the company’s commercial transformation, turning a primarily business-to-business company into an increasingly business-to-consumer company. Throughout his nearly three-decade career with PMI, Mr. Olczak has established deep institutional and industry knowledge and awareness of PMI’s products, systems, and values—as well as a comprehensive understanding of the regulatory environment in which PMI operates. Mr. Olczak began his career with PMI in 1993. He started in finance and general management positions across Europe, including as Managing Director of PMI’s markets in Poland and Germany and as President of the European Union Region, before being appointed Chief Financial Officer in 2012. Prior to joining PMI, Mr. Olczak worked for BDO Binder. Mr. Olczak holds a master’s degree in economics from the University of Lodz, Poland.

Piyush Gupta

Chief Executive Officer, DBS Group

DBS is a leading financial services group in Asia, widely recognised for being at the forefront of leveraging digital technology to shape the future of banking. The bank has been accorded accolades including “World’s Best Bank” and “World’s Best Digital Bank” by several global publications. In addition, in 2019, DBS was listed among the top ten most transformative organisations of the decade by Harvard Business Review.

Piyush is Vice-Chairman of the Institute of International Finance, Washington. In addition, he is a member of Singapore’s Advisory Council on the Ethical Use of AI and Data, McKinsey Advisory Council, Bretton Woods Committee - Advisory Council, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development - Executive Committee. He sits on the boards of Enterprise Singapore, Singapore’s National Research Foundation, and the Singapore’s Council for Board Diversity. Previously, he has been a member of the Singapore Emerging Stronger Taskforce, aimed at defining Singapore’s future in a post-Covid world, and the UN Secretary General’s Task Force on Digital Financing of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Roger Ver

Founder, Bitcoin.com

In 1999 Roger began his career by founding MemoryDealers.com at the age of nineteen while still attending college. Under his leadership the company quickly grew to become a market leader, employing dozens of people across the world and generating millions of dollars in revenue.

In 2005 Roger saw an opportunity in the market for fibre optic transceivers used in networking subsystems, so he founded Agilestar.com. Agilestar went on to become a world leader in optical transceivers used by fortune 100 companies around the world.

In 2011 Roger heard about Bitcoin for the first time. The price was still under one U.S. Dollar each, but he already knew that it was one of the most important inventions in the history of humankind.

His company Memorydealers became the first established business in the world to start accepting Bitcoin for payments. Roger then went on to become the first person in the world to start investing in Bitcoin startups. He nearly single handedly funded the entire first generation of Bitcoin and Blockchain businesses including Bitcoin.com, Blockchain.com, Bitpay.com, Kraken.com, purse.io, and many many more. Those businesses have gone on to raise hundreds of millions of additional funding, and serve tens of millions of customers around the world. Subsequent investors in the companies that Roger helped provide the seed funding for have been people such as Sir Richard Branson, Virgin, Google Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Founders Fund, and many more. Roger has devoted his full time attention to Bitcoin and blockchains ever since.

Nandan Nilekan

Chairman and Co-founder, Infosys, and Founding Chairman, UIDAI (Aadhaar)

Nandan Nilekani is the Co-founder and Chairman of EkStep, a not-for-profit effort to create a learner centric, technology based platform to improve basic literacy and numeracy for millions of children. He was most recently the Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in the rank of a Cabinet Minister. Nandan Nilekani was previously the Co-chairman, Infosys Technologies Limited, which he co-founded in 1981.

Born in Bengaluru, Nilekani received his Bachelor’s degree from IIT, Bombay. Fortune magazine conferred him with “Asia’s Businessman of the Year 2003”. In 2005, he received the prestigious Joseph Schumpeter prize for innovative services in economy, economic sciences and politics. In 2006, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan. He was also named Businessman of the Year by Forbes Asia. Time magazine listed him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2006 and 2009. Foreign Policy magazine listed him as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers in 2010. He won The Economist Social and Economic Innovation Award for his leadership of India’s Unique Identification initiative (Aadhaar). In 2017, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from E&Y. CNBC-TV 18 conferred India Business Leader award for outstanding contribution to the Indian economy in 2017 and he also received the 22nd Nikkei Asia Prize for Economic and Business Innovation, 2017.

Nandan Nilekani is the author of “Imagining India” and co-authored his second book with Viral Shah, “Rebooting India: Realizing a Billion Aspirations”.

Ugur Sahin

Chief Executive Officer, BioNTech

Prof. Ugur Sahin, M.D., Co-Founder and CEO of BioNTech, is a physician, immunologist and leader in the development of novel approaches to fight cancer and infectious diseases. Sahin is one of the world’s foremost experts on messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) medicines. He has pioneered several breakthroughs enabling the development of mRNA vaccines and other types of immunotherapies. Sahin initiated and oversees “Project Lightspeed,” the historic development of the first mRNA vaccine for COVID-19, moving from lab and clinical testing to conditional approval within an unprecedented 11-month period. He also leads BioNTech’s research and development of neoantigen specific mRNA cancer vaccines which are individually tailored and produced on demand according to the profile of non-synonymous mutations identified by next-generation sequencing in patients’ tumors. Based on his contributions to scientific discovery, Dr. Sahin has received numerous awards and recognitions, including the German Sustainability Award, the Mustafa Prize, and the German Cancer Award. He is married to Dr. Özlem Türeci.

Özlem Türeci

Chief Medical Officer, BioNTech

Özlem Türeci, M.D., Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of BioNTech, is a physician, immunologist, and cancer researcher with translational and clinical experience. Türeci has helped lead the discovery of cancer antigens, the development of mRNA-based individualized and off-the-shelf vaccine candidates and other types of immunotherapies which are currently in clinical development. Türeci leads the clinical development of BioNTech’s “Project Lightspeed,” the company’s successful effort to develop and distribute an mRNA-based vaccine against COVID-19, a historic achievement completed in less than one year. She currently serves as President of the Association for Cancer Immunotherapy (CIMT) in Germany. She is a recent recipient of the German Sustainability Award, among other notable recognitions.

Anthony Tan

Group CEO and Co-founder, Grab

Anthony Tan is Group CEO and Co-Founder of Grab, Southeast Asia’s leading mobile technology company. By focusing on a hyperlocal business strategy and building strategic partnerships, Mr Tan and his team transformed Grab from a taxi booking app to the leading superapp platform in Southeast Asia, providing everyday services that matter to consumers. Grab today offers a wide range of on-demand services in the region, including mobility, food, package and grocery delivery services, mobile payments, and financial services.

Anthony is at the forefront of the “Grab for Good” social impact programme - which include partnerships and initiatives to drive digital literacy, economic inclusion and the development of technology skills across Southeast Asia.

Anthony is passionate about servant leadership and serving others in his community. In his personal capacity, he supports a range of causes in the region, such as Transform Cambodia which rescues and protects street children and offers them healthcare, education and life skills.

His leadership and vision have earned him several accolades, including Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in 2018, The Bloomberg 50 in 2017 and Fortune’s 40 Under 40 in 2018 and 2016. Under Anthony’s leadership, Grab has also received global recognition for its innovation and impact in the region, including ranking second on Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in 2019, being on CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list for the last four years consecutively, and making Fortune’s Change the World list in 2020.

Anthony has a Bachelor of Arts (Economics and Public Policy) from the University of Chicago, and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

Helena Lopes Caldeira

CFO & Investor Relations Officer, Inter

Helena Lopes Caldeira is the CFO and Investor Relations Officer for Inter. She joined the bank in 2016 and lead the Business Development team for a year, before moving to Investor Relations in 2017. In 2019, Helena became Inter's IRO and in early 2020 stepped in as the CFO. She was part of some of Inter's most important transactions such as its IPO at B3 in 2018, as well three follow-on offerings in the following years and key M&A deals. Formerly, Helena served as Fixed Income Portfolio Manager at Araújo Fontes (2009 - 2013) and as Business Development Advisor at Grupo Ferreira Lopes (2014). Helena holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics from Ibmec (2009), an MBA from London Business School (2016), and is certified by ANBIMA as Investment Manager (CGA).

Dan Schulman

President & CEO, PayPal

With extensive corporate experience and a lifelong commitment to social justice, Dan Schulman believes the private sector has a responsibility to serve multiple stakeholders and to improve the state of the world.

In 2021, Dan was ranked third on Fortune’s list of the World’s Greatest Leaders, an honor that recognized individuals for their leadership throughout the pandemic. The New York Urban League presented Dan with the 2021 Frederick Douglass Award, for his commitment, dedication, and influence to advance the rights of generations of underserved Black Americans. In 2020, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights honored Dan with the Ripple of Hope Award, for demonstrating a commitment to social change and a passion for equality, justice and basic human rights. He has frequently been recognized by Fortune as one of the top 20 Businesspersons of the Year, and has received "Visionary Awards" from the Financial Health Network in 2018 and the Council for Economic Education in 2017 for his promotion of economic and financial literacy. Dan received the 2017 Brennan Legacy Award, established to honor the late Supreme Court justice and his career-long commitment to social justice and “common human dignity”.

Dan is dedicated to building a world where everyone has access to economic opportunity, which he advances through his work as a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and co-chair of the World Economic Forum's Steering Committee to promote global financial inclusion. He is also an avid mixed martial arts practitioner.

Kaisa Hietela

Board Member, ExxonMobil

Kaisa Hietala is an experienced business and sustainability executive who helps companies to transform the challenges of environmental megatrends into business opportunities and growth.

Ms. Hietala is an experienced leader in strategic transformation in the energy sector who began her career in upstream oil and gas exploration and crude oil trading. Ms. Hietala served as the EVP of Renewable Products at Neste, a petroleum refining and marketing company, for five years ending in 2019. During her tenure, the Renewable Products segment’s revenues grew by 1.6x and operating profits grew by 4x. She played a central role in the strategic transformation of Neste into the world’s largest and most profitable producer of renewable products, which was named by Harvard Business Review as one of the “Top 20 Business Transformations of the Last Decade” in 2019.

Currently, Ms. Hietala serves on the Board of Exxon Mobil and the Board of Smurfit Kappa Group, a global corrugated packaging company and is the Chairman of the Board at Tracegrow, a private Finnish sustainable fertilizers company. She is a member of the Supervisory Board of Oulu University and was a former Board member of Kemira Oy, a Finnish specialty chemicals company, for the past 5 years.

Ms. Hietala holds a Master of Philosophy degree from the University of Cambridge, UK and a Master of Science degree from University of Oulu, Finland.

Carlos Tavares

CChief Executive Officer, Stellantis

Carlos Tavares was appointed Executive Director of Stellantis with effect from January 17, 2021 and Chief Executive Officer on January 17, 2021. Previously, he served as Chairman of the PSA Managing Board from March 31, 2014, having joined the PSA Managing Board on January 1, 2014. Born in Portugal in 1958, Carlos Tavares graduated from École Centrale de Paris.

He held various positions within the Renault Group between 1981 and 2004, before joining the Nissan Group. Carlos Tavares was appointed Executive Vice President, Chairman of the Management Committee Americas and President of Nissan North America in 2009, before being appointed as Chief Operating Officer of Renault, a position he held until 2013. Carlos Tavares also serves as a director of Airbus Holding S.A., and is a member of the board of directors of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA)

Alexander Lacik

President & Chief Executive Officer, Pandora A/S

Alexander Lacik has 30 years of experience in international business, marketing and business management. Prior to joining Pandora, he was CEO of Brittax Ltd., a British manufacturer of childcare products. He has also held CEO and senior management positions at Kasthall Golv & Mattor, Procter & Gamble and Reckitt Benckiser, where he held a number of positions including head of Reckitt Benckiser North America. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Växjö, Sweden.

Shari Redstone

Non-Executive Chair, ViacomCBS

Shari Redstone is a media executive with wide-ranging experience in the entertainment industry and related ventures. Through National Amusements, a world leader in the motion picture exhibition industry, Ms. Redstone and her family are the majority voting shareholders of ViacomCBS, which is home to brands such as CBS, Showtime, Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, BET, CBS as well as Paramount Pictures and streaming services Paramount+ and Pluto TV. Ms. Redstone is Chairperson, CEO and President of National Amusements and Non-Executive Chair of the Board of ViacomCBS.

Ms. Redstone also is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Advancit Capital, an investment firm launched in 2011 that focuses on early-stage companies at the intersection of media, entertainment and technology. Current investments include Masterclass, Headspace, Public, Thrive Global and The Athletic, to name a few.

Ms. Redstone serves on the Board of Trustees for the Paley Center for Media and is actively involved in charitable, civic and educational organizations. She is a member of the Board of Trustees at Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

Ms. Redstone earned a BS from Tufts University, and a JD and a Masters in Tax Law from Boston University. She practiced corporate law, estate planning and criminal law in the Boston area before joining National Amusements.

Bhavish Aggarwal

Founder and CEO, Ola

Bhavish Aggarwal is the Founder & CEO of Ola, India’s largest mobility platform. With the mission of building mobility for a billion people, he started Ola in 2010. Prior to Ola, Bhavish, an alumnus of IIT Mumbai, worked with Microsoft Research, filing two patents and having three papers published in international journals.

Today, Ola is one of India’s most valuable organizations with over 2.5 million driver partners, serving over 250 million customers across 3 continents.

Ola continues to move the world to sustainable mobility through its ride hailing platform as well as through advanced electric vehicles manufactured at its Futurefactory, the largest, most advanced and sustainable two wheeler factory in the world. Ola also operates its new auto retail platform with Ola Cars bringing seamless, digital buying, selling and ownership of vehicles to consumers.

Ola is dedicated to transitioning the world to sustainable mobility and making the world better than we found it.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski

Chief Executive Officer, Klarna

Degree of Master of Science, M.Sc. (Economics and Business), Stockholm School of Economics, 2007.

Board member since 2005 and CEO since 2010.

Board assignments:

Board member and CEO of Klarna Holding AB
Board chair or board member of other Group companies
Board member in a number of small private holding companies without any operational activities.

Chris James

Founder, Engine No1

Chris has a more than 30-year career investing in and building businesses across multiple industries in transition. He founded Engine No. 1 based on his vision that capitalism can be harnessed for positive change and companies that align the interests of their shareholders and stakeholders are better, stronger companies as a result.

Prior to the launch of Engine No. 1, Chris founded Partner Fund Management, where he served as Co-Managing Partner and Portfolio Manager. Previously, he co-founded Andor Capital Management, and before that, served as a member of the management committee of Pequot Capital Management. Early in his career, Chris was an analyst at Ethos Capital (later sold to Moore Capital) and started his career at JGM Management.

Chris received a BA in Economics from Tulane University, where he also formerly chaired the Investment Committee. Chris is the Chair of Tipping Point Community, an organization that fights poverty in the Bay Area, and he is actively involved in broader poverty relief as well as initiatives focusing on conservation and education.

Rob Kaplan

Founder & CEO, Circulate Capital

Rob is Founder and CEO of Circulate Capital, a Singapore-based impact investment management firm dedicated to financing companies, projects, and infrastructure that prevent the flow of plastic waste to the world’s ocean and advance the circular economy in South and Southeast Asia (SSEA).

With 60% of the plastic waste in the oceans originating from Asia, Rob moved to Singapore from the US to be closer to the core of the world’s plastic crisis in Asia.

In December 2019, the Singapore-based Circulate Capital Ocean Fund (US$106M) will be launched. Circulate Capital along with investors from several leading corporations; PepsiCo, Chevron Phillips Chemical, Danone, Dow, Procter & Gamble, The Coca-Cola Company, and Unilever aim to prevent the flow of plastic waste into the ocean through financing Asia’s waste ecosystem and incentivize private capital investment in the recycling value chain across the region.

Prior to founding Circulate Capital, Rob was the Co-Founder of and Senior Advisor to Closed Loop Partners, an innovative platform for impact investing, sustainability, and the circular economy focused in North America. He oversaw strategy and new business model development, as well as day-to-day operations. The Fund has deployed more than $40M into recycling and circular economy investment opportunities.

Prior to Closed Loop, Rob also served as the Director of Sustainability for Walmart Stores, Inc. where he was responsible for packaging, customer engagement and integration with the Consumables business, including personal care and household cleaning. Rob led Walmart’s cross-functional efforts to eliminate 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas from the supply chain.

Before joining Walmart, Rob helped lead corporate responsibility and brand strategy for the Brown-Forman Corporation, which produces and markets spirit brands such as Jack Daniel’s. Rob developed marketing strategies to engage consumers, improve social and environmental performance and advance business objectives.

Eric Norris

Head of Lithium, Albemarle

Eric Norris joined Albemarle in January 2018 as Chief Strategy Officer. In this role, he managed the company’s strategic planning, M&A, and corporate business development programs as well as its investor relations efforts. In August 2018, he was appointed President of the Lithium global business unit.

Prior to joining Albemarle, Norris served as President of Health and Nutrition for FMC Corporation. Following FMC’s announcement to acquire DuPont Agricultural Chemical assets, he led the divestiture of FMC Health and Nutrition to DuPont. Previously, Norris served as Vice President and Global Business Director for FMC Health and Nutrition, and Vice President and Global Business Director for FMC Lithium. During his 16-year FMC career, he served in additional leadership roles including Investor Relations, Corporate Development and Director of FMC Healthcare Ventures.

Prior to FMC, Norris founded and led an internet-based firm offering formulation and design tools to the chemical industry. He started his career in a range of leadership roles with the Rohm and Haas Company. 

Norris earned a Master of Business Administration from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and German from Colgate University.

Norris is a member of the board of directors of Communities in Schools of Charlotte-Mecklenburg and is a member of the board of advisors of The Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA). 

Kristen Siemen

Chief Sustainability Officer, General Motors

Kristen Siemen was appointed vice president of Sustainable Workplaces and Chief Sustainability Officer in February 2021. She will help lead General Motors to a future with zero emissions as the company continues to take bold actions against climate change, including GM’s commitment to become carbon neutral in its products and operations by 2040.

In her most recent role as executive director, Global Energy Strategy, Certification, Compliance and Test Labs, Siemen led a cross-functional leadership team responsible for setting corporate energy strategies, including the introduction of fuel economy improvement technologies as well as initiatives aligned with GM’s vision of a zero-emissions future. Siemen worked closely with the Sustainability Office to develop GM’s aspiration to eliminate all tailpipe emissions from new light-duty vehicles by 2035 as well as the development of the company’s sciencebased targets. Siemen has been a member of the General Motors team for over 25 years, and for the past 10 years has held senior leadership positions in various engineering functions.

In addition to her accomplished technical career, Siemen is also passionate about promoting inclusion and gender equality. She was instrumental in creating GM’s career reentry program, “Take 2,” serves as GM’s key executive for the Society of Women Engineers and is the co-lead for the GM Women Ally Program. Her work to improve policies and practices effecting change for women earned her the National Association for Female Executives Women of Excellence Activist Award. Siemen also serves on the Board of Advisors for Catalyst and the Oakland University School of Engineering & Computer Science Advisory Board, where she received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering.

A native of Warren, Michigan, she grew up around the automotive industry with her father, grandfather and grandmother all working in the field.

Mark Cutifani

Chief Executive Officer, Anglo American

Skills and experience

Mark contributes to Anglo American over 40 years’ experience of the mining industry across a wide range of geographies and commodities.

Mark is Chair of the Group Management Committee (GMC), is a non-executive director of Anglo American Platinum, and chairman of De Beers.

Mark was previously CEO of AngloGold Ashanti Limited, a position he held from 2007-2013. Before joining AngloGold Ashanti, Mark was COO at Vale Inco where he was responsible for Vale’s global nickel business. Prior to this he held senior executive positions with the Normandy Group, Sons of Gwalia, Western Mining Corporation, Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines and CRA (Rio Tinto).

Current external appointments

Independent director of Total S.A. and a member of the board of trustees of The Power of Nutrition, an independent charitable foundation.

Paul Graves

Chief Executive Officer, Livent

Paul Graves is the President, Chief Executive Officer and member of the Livent Board of Directors. Before joining Livent, Paul was the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of FMC.

Paul previously served as a Managing Director and Partner in the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs Group in Hong Kong and was the co-head of Natural Resources for Asia. Paul also served as the Global Head of Agricultural Investment Banking and Global Head of Chemical Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs.

He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Accounting and Finance from Nottingham Trent University and is a qualified Chartered Accountant (ACA).

Joji Tagawa

Chief Sustainability Officer, Nissan Motor

Paul Graves is the President, Chief Executive Officer and member of the Livent Board of Directors. Before joining Livent, Paul was the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of FMC.

Paul previously served as a Managing Director and Partner in the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs Group in Hong Kong and was the co-head of Natural Resources for Asia. Paul also served as the Global Head of Agricultural Investment Banking and Global Head of Chemical Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs.

He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Accounting and Finance from Nottingham Trent University and is a qualified Chartered Accountant (ACA).

Richard C. Adkerson

Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Freeport-McMoRan Inc.

Richard C. Adkerson is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Freeport-McMoRan Inc., a leading international mining company with headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona. Freeport is one of the world's largest publicly traded copper producers, with a portfolio of assets that includes the Grasberg minerals district in Indonesia, one of the world’s largest copper and gold deposits, and significant mining operations in North and South America.

He currently serves as Chair of the International Council on Mining and Metals, has been a member of ICMM since 2005 and previously served as Chair from 2008 - 2011. He is a member of The Business Council, the Business Roundtable, the Council on Foreign Relations and serves as Chairman of the Advisory Council of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States. He also serves on Greater Phoenix Leadership and the Dean's Council of 100 for the Arizona State University W. P. Carey School of Business.

For 10 years, he was named The Best CEO in Metals and Mining by Institutional Investor magazine, was named Copper Man of the Year 2009 and is an inductee into the American Mining Hall of Fame. He is past Chairman and currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the National WWII Museum and is on the Board of Visitors of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Mr. Adkerson graduated from Mississippi State University with a B.S. degree in Accounting with highest honors and an MBA degree. In 2010, he received an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from Mississippi State and was named National Alumnus of the Year in 2011. He also completed the Advanced Management Program of the Harvard Business School in 1988.

Before joining Freeport-McMoRan in 1989, he was Partner and Managing Director in Arthur Andersen & Co. where he headed the firm’s Worldwide Oil and Gas Industry Practice. From 1976 to 1978, he was a Professional Accounting Fellow with the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C.

Namrata Thapar

Global Head, Mining, The International Finance Corporation

Namrata Thapar is Global Head of Mining at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), based in Washington, D.C. IFC—a sister organization of the World Bank and member of the World Bank Group— is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. In this role, Ms. Thapar leads the IFC mining sector investment team, promoting the growth of IFC’s mining business in emerging markets with a focus on sustainability and development impact. She oversees a portfolio of about $1 billion, including equity, mezzanine, and senior debt.

Since joining IFC in 1999, Ms. Thapar has managed mining transactions around the world, working with a range of clients and a variety of financing arrangements.

Von Hernandez

Global Coordinator, Break Free From Plastic (BFFP)

Von Hernandez is the Global Coordinator of the Break Free from Plastic movement, consisting of more than 2,500 organizations representing millions of supporters worldwide that have come together to push for systemic and lasting solutions to the plastic pollution crisis.

Prior to his current role, Von was Global Development Director of Greenpeace International where he oversaw the development and performance of Greenpeace’s national and regional offices worldwide. He also served as the Executive Director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia (GPSEA), where he led some of the group’s most successful campaigns and programs in the region. He co-founded and spearheaded various environmental coalitions and partnerships at the national, regional, and global levels including the Ecowaste Coalition in the Philippines, Waste Not Asia, and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA).

In 2003, he was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for his work, which led to the first national ban on waste incineration. For his years of experience campaigning on waste and pollution issues, Von gained recognition from Time magazine as one of the Heroes for the Environment in 2007. He graduated from the University of the Philippines (BA English), and holds a master’s degree in Public Management from the National University of Singapore.

Mark Russell

Chief Executive Officer & President, Nikola Corporation

Mark Russell leads Nikola Corporation, a global leader in zero-emissions transportation and infrastructure solutions. He was named CEO in June 2020 after joining Nikola in February 2019 as president.

Before joining Nikola, Russell served as president and chief operating officer of Worthington Industries (NYSE: WOR) from 2012 to 2018, and prior to that served as president of WOR subsidiary Worthington Steel since 2007. Worthington is a leading manufacturing company with significant automotive focus, supplying makers of more than 50 different components including frames, wheels, suspension systems, transmissions and drivetrains.

Before Worthington, Russell was CEO of Russell & Associates from 2004 to 2007, a group formed to acquire aluminum products companies. From 2002 to 2004, he served as CEO of Indalex Inc., which was then North America’s largest independent aluminum extruder. Earlier he had served as a corporate development manager, and then as general manager of engineered aerospace products for Alcoa (now Arconic) from 1999 to 2002.

After receiving an integrated studies degree from Weber State University in 1987, Russell earned a JD from Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School in 1990. Since 2009, he has served as a member of National Advisory Council of Brigham Young University’s Marriott School.

Mark and his wife Erin have four grown children and three grandchildren. An outdoor enthusiast with a passion for a clean and sustainable planet, Mark enjoys visiting the world’s beautiful places with his family and hiking, biking, climbing, and skiing.

Julie Gorte, Ph.D.

Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing, Impax Asset Management LLC

Julie Gorte is the Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing at Impax Asset Management LLC and Pax World Funds. She oversees environmental, social and governance-related research on prospective and current investments as well as the firm’s shareholder engagement and public policy advocacy. Julie is also a member of the Impax Gender Analytics team.

Julie serves on the boards of the Endangered Species Coalition, E4theFuture, Clean Production Action and is the board chair of the Sustainable Investments Institute. She also serves on the Investment Committee of the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative.

Prior to joining Pax, Julie served as Vice President and Chief Social Investment Strategist at Calvert. Her experience before she joined the investment world in 1999 includes nearly 14 years as Senior Associate and Project Director at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, Vice President for Economic and Environmental Research at The Wilderness Society, Program Manager for Technology Programs in the Environmental Protection Agency’s policy office and Senior Associate at the Northeast-Midwest Institute. She received her Bachelor of Science in Forest Management at Northern Arizona University and a Master of Science and Ph.D. from Michigan State in resource economics.

Paul Eremenko

Co-Founder and CEO, Universal Hydrogen

Paul is a leading clean aviation pioneer, having served as CTO of both Airbus and United Technologies, leading both companies aggressively toward electrification. While at Airbus and UTC, Paul launched E-Fan X and Project 804, two of the industry’s largest hybrid-electric flight demonstrators. He was also responsible for Airbus’ foray into urban air mobility with Vahana and City Airbus, as well as the company’s biofuels efforts. Previously, Paul led DARPA’s X-plane office. Now settled in Los Angeles, he’s also a pilot and proud dog dad.

Mary Jane McQuillen

Head of ESG and Portfolio Manager, ClearBridge Investments

Mary Jane McQuillen is a Portfolio Manager and the Head of the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Investment Program at ClearBridge Investments. Mary Jane co-manages the ClearBridge Sustainability Leaders Strategy, as well as a number of other active equity ESG strategies. She has been with the ESG program at a predecessor firm since 1996 and has 25 years of investment industry experience, and is a member of the ClearBridge Investments Proxy Committee.

Mary Jane is a member of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI) Listed Equities Steering Committee and the ESG Integration Sub-Committee. Mary Jane serves on the Board of Directors for both Net Impact and the Sustainable Investments Institute (Si2). She also serves on the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) Advisory Committee for the Listed Equities Working Group and on the Advisory Board for "The Journal of Impact & ESG Investing."

In 2015, Mary Jane was named to the "Women Worth Watching" list for Financial Services. In 2008, Mary Jane was named a "Rising Star of Corporate Governance" by the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance at the Yale School of Management. She is also a member of Bpeace, a volunteer organization that works to introduce sustainable business skills to women in Rwanda, Afghanistan, El Salvador and Guatemala.

Mary Jane received her MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School. She holds a BS in Finance from Fordham University.

Jean-Dominique Takis Kumbo

Chief Executive Officer, Entreprise Générale du Cobalt S.A

Jean-Dominique Takis has been the Managing Director of Entreprise Générale du Cobalt SA (EGC) since its creation.

Throughout his career, he has held numerous managerial and executive positions in the private sector but also in the public sphere.

In fact, he has accumulated proven experience in the Congolese mining sector as a Director of Gécamines for ten years, member of the strategy committee of the Board of Directors of Gécamines and Director of Sicomines. In addition, he sits on the Board of Directors of the Rawji Foundation, which focuses on the education sector.

In the political arena, Jean-Dominique held a mandate as a national deputy of the DRC for twelve years and as a member of the Economic and Financial Commission of the National Assembly.

Holder of a bachelor's degree in political science and international relations from the University of Geneva, Switzerland (Institut Universitaire des Hautes Études Internationales). He also holds a Master in Business Administration from George Washington University, Washington DC (MBA - Finance).

Eva Gouwens

CEO, Fairphone

With 18 years of experience in the consumer goods business, Eva Gouwens joined Fairphone at the end of 2017 and took over as CEO in 2018. Eva brings her natural ability to inspire and empower people, and transform Fairphone’s impact goals and strategy into actions. She hopes to make the world a bit more beautiful by supporting the growth of social enterprises within the Netherlands, and by inspiring an industry to make a positive change in how we care for people and the planet.

Carine Smith Ihenacho

Chief Governance and Compliance Officer, Norges Bank Investment Management

Carine Smith Ihenacho is responsible for the governance and compliance area, which includes ownership and responsible investment activities, control and operational risk, compliance and legal services.

Carine Smith Ihenacho was appointed Chief Governance and Compliance Officer 6 October 2020. She joined Norges Bank Investment Management in August 2017 as Global Head of Ownership Strategies and was promoted to Chief Corporate Governance Officer on 1 January 2018.

Prior to joining Norges Bank Investment Management, Ms Ihenacho was Vice President Legal and Chief Compliance Officer in Statoil ASA. She has more than 20 years’ experience as a lawyer, working in both financials and the oil and gas industry, as well as in law firms. She also has extensive board experience.

Ihenacho holds a law degree from the University of Oslo, a Master of Law from Harvard Law School and a Master of Economics from the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH).

Christian Mumenthaler

Group Chief Executive Officer, Swiss Re

Christian Mumenthaler started his career in 1997 as associate with the Boston Consulting Group. He joined Swiss Re in 1999 and was responsible for key company projects. In 2002, he established and headed the Group Retro and Syndication unit. Christian Mumenthaler served as Group Chief Risk Officer between 2005 and 2007 and was Head of Life & Health between 2007 and 2010. In January 2011, he was appointed Chief Marketing Officer Reinsurance and member of the Group Executive Committee and became Chief Executive Officer Reinsurance that October. In July 2016, Christian Mumenthaler was appointed Group Chief Executive Officer.

Dr Steve Howard

Chief Sustainability Officer, Temasek International

Dr Steve Howard is Chief Sustainability Officer of Temasek. In addition to chairing We Mean Business, Steve is on the administrative board of SEforALL, and until recently was Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Environmental and Natural Resource Security.

He was Chief Sustainability Officer at IKEA Group and served on IKEA’s Executive Group Management from 2011-2017. In 2015, Steve co-founded We Mean Business, a leading climate change coalition of organisations that helped support the Paris Agreement. Prior to IKEA, Steve was Founder and CEO of The Climate Group, a global NGO that has built networks of cities, states, regions, and businesses committed to a net-zero carbon world. Before the Climate Group, Steve consulted on sustainability for major corporations and institutions, working as a partner at ERM Group in London and a Director at URS Corporation. He has worked with various NGOs and UN bodies on a wide range of global sustainability topics. Earlier in his career, Steve worked in WWF, where he established the Global Forest and Trade Network, chaired the UK Forest Stewardship Council and helped launch and chair The Forest Trust. Steve is trained as an ecologist and has a PhD in Ecophysiology and Environmental Physics based on research in Kenya.

Torbjørg Klara Fossum

VP Global CCS Solutions, Equinor

Torbjørg Klara Fossum graduated with an M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Trondheim and joined Equinor (former Statoil) in 1997. She currently holds the position as Vice President for Global CCS Solutions. Through various leadership positions she has gained insight in Equinor’s unique capability and experience within Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). These capabilities are based on decades of technology development, Technology Centre Mongstad (the world’s largest test centre for developing CO2 capture technologies), more than 25 years of operational experience (Sleipner, Snøhvit, InSalah) and the current development of the Northern Lights project which will kick-start a European value chain for CCS that will help European industry to de-carbonise.

Karsten Temme

co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Pivot Bio

Karsten Temme, Ph.D. is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pivot Bio, a leading nitrogen innovator. Driven by a vision of a more sustainable food system, Dr. Temme has dedicated his career translating new technology into commercial solutions that improve financial and environmental outcomes for farmers.

During his doctoral work in bioengineering, Dr. Temme and his Pivot Bio co-founder invented a breakthrough technology that enables cereal crops to self-fertilize. Together with his co-founder, they launched Pivot Bio in 2011 to lift up farmers and accelerate progress towards cleaner air and water with better nitrogen.

Dr. Temme earned his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in biomedical engineering from the University of Iowa, and his Ph.D. in bioengineering from the University of California-Berkeley Joint Graduate Group.

Bruce Niemeyer

Vice President, Strategy & Sustainability, Chevron Corporation

Bruce L. Niemeyer, is corporate vice president of Strategy and Sustainability for Chevron Corporation, a role he assumed in 2018. He is responsible for guiding development of the company’s key strategies, including capital allocation and sustainability efforts.

Prior to his current role, Niemeyer served as vice president of Chevron’s Mid-Continent business unit from 2013 to 2018. In that role, he was responsible for developing assets in the mid-continent United States, including significant Permian assets in Texas and New Mexico.

Niemeyer was vice president of the Appalachian/Michigan business unit from 2011 to 2013, where he led the company’s development of natural gas from shale in the northeast U.S. Prior to that, he served as general manager of strategy and planning for Chevron North America Exploration and Production Co.

Niemeyer is a member of the Oxford Energy Policy Club.

Niemeyer joined Texaco in 2000 from Atlantic Richfield Co. He earned a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering from the Colorado School of Mines and is a registered petroleum engineer in the state of California.

Dr Dieter Weisskopf

CEO, Lindt & Sprüngli Group

Mr. Weisskopf started his career at Swiss Union Bank. After gaining additional experience in the banking sector in South America, he then changed to the food industry, joining the Jacobs Suchard Group. At Jacobs Suchard and at Klaus Jacobs Holding, he held executive management positions in the area of finance, latterly as CFO in Canada and Switzerland. Mr. Weisskopf joined the Lindt & Sprüngli Group in 1995 as Head of Finance, Administration, IT, Purchasing and Sustainability. Since 2004, he has also been responsible for manufacturing. As of October 1, 2016, he took over as CEO of the Lindt & Sprüngli Group. The Headquarters' functions Group Communications and Group HR are reporting directly to him.

H.E. David W. Panuelo

President, Government of the Federated States of Micronesia

His Excellency David W. Panuelo is the Ninth President of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM).

Born April 13, 1964, Panuelo completed his early education on his home island of Pohnpei, and continued his education in the United States of America where he received his Bachelor’s in Political Science from Eastern Oregon University in 1987. Panuelo returned to his beloved home and, aspiring to serve the Nation and its citizens, started his career with the FSM National Government in the Department of Foreign Affairs as a Foreign Service Officer. A year later, he was confirmed as the Deputy Ambassador for the FSM Embassy to Fiji where he served until 1993 where, upon his return to Palikir, he was re-appointed to serve his Nation in the same role at the FSM Mission to the United Nations from 1993 through 1996.

After nearly a decade serving the FSM abroad, Panuelo returned home and, having been recognized as deep, strategic, and passionate thinker, was immediately offered a Cabinet position in the Pohnpei State Government, which he accepted so as to address more focused and pragmatic issues at the state level. In 1997, Panuelo was named the Director of the Department of Resource Management and Development for the State of Pohnpei and, for the next four years, devoted his energy and cross-cultural experiences to enhance the development of resources in Pohnpei, correlating with Pohnpei’s increased GDP per capita. At the end of the Administration in 2000/2001, he returned to the FSM Department of Foreign Affairs and served as the Assistant Secretary for the Division of American and European Affairs.

In 2003, Panuelo—recalling the Government’s desire to grow the private sector and create jobs for the citizens of the Nation—resigned from government work to re-direct his energy and efforts to the development of the private sector. For the next seven years, Panuelo established various businesses ranging from construction to human services, including the non-profit Care Micronesia Foundation.

Having demonstrated to himself that the FSM is capable of sustaining a healthy private sector, Panuelo entered his name in the national elections of 2011 with the goal of developing the Nation’s economy and human capacity.

On May 11th, 2011, Panuelo was seated as Pohnpei State’s two-year Senator from Congressional District Three to the 17th Congress, and was re-elected unopposed in 2013 and 2015. During the special election of 2015, Panuelo entered the race for, and was seated, as the State of Pohnpei’s four-year at-large representative to the 19th Congress, which he maintained into the 20th Congress.

Panuelo campaigned for the March 5th, 2019 election for the State of Pohnpei’s at-large seat for the 21st Congress, highlighting his various service-centered and people-centered accomplishments—including growing the FSM Trust Fund from $11,000,000 to more than $250,000,000—and on May 11th, 2019, Panuelo was elected by the 21st Congress of the FSM to serve as the Nation’s ninth President.

Panuelo is the loving father of five beautiful children and seven equally beautiful grandchildren.

Kristalina Georgieva

Managing Director, International Monetary Fund

Kristalina Georgieva currently serves as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, a position she was selected for on September 25, 2019 and has served as since October 1, 2019.

Before joining the Fund, Ms. Georgieva was CEO of the World Bank from January 2017 to September 2019, during which time she also served as Interim President of the World Bank Group for three months.

Previously, Ms. Georgieva helped shape the agenda of the European Union while serving as European Commission Vice President for Budget and Human Resources. In this capacity she oversaw the EU’s €161 billion (US $175bn) budget and 33,000 staff, as well as the EU’s response to the Euro Area debt crisis and the 2015 refugee crisis. Before that, she was Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, managing one of the world’s largest humanitarian aid budgets.

Ms. Georgieva began her career in public service at the World Bank as an environmental economist in 1993. After serving for 17 years, and in many senior positions, including Director for Sustainable Development, Director for the Russian Federation, Director for Environment, and Director for Environment and Social Development for the East Asia and Pacific Region, her career culminated in her appointment as Vice President and Corporate Secretary in 2008. In this role, she served as the interlocutor between the World Bank Group’s senior management, its Board of Directors, and its shareholder countries.

Ms. Georgieva serves on many international panels including as co-Chair of the Global Commission on Adaptation, and as co-chair of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Humanitarian Financing. She has authored and co-authored over 100 publications on environmental and economic policy, including textbooks on macro- and microeconomics.

Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1953, Ms. Georgieva holds a Ph.D in Economic Science and a M.A. in Political Economy and Sociology from the University of National and World Economy, Sofia, where she was an Associate Professor between 1977 and 1993. During her academic career, she was visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 2010, she was named “European of the Year” and “Commissioner of the Year” by European Voice in recognition for her leadership in the EU’s response to humanitarian crises. In October 2020, she received the Atlantic Council’s Distinguished International Leadership Award in acknowledgement of exceptional and distinctive contributions during her career of public service.

Antony J. Blinken

Secretary of State, United States

Antony J. Blinken is the 71st U.S. Secretary of State.

He was nominated by President Biden on November 23, 2020; confirmed by the U.S. Senate on January 26, 2021; and sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris the following day.

Over three decades and three presidential administrations, Mr. Blinken has helped shape U.S. foreign policy to ensure it protects U.S. interests and delivers results for the American people. He served as deputy secretary of state for President Barack Obama from 2015 to 2017, and before that, as President Obama’s principal deputy national security advisor. In that role, Mr. Blinken chaired the interagency deputies committee, the main forum for hammering out the administration’s foreign policy.

During the first term of the Obama Administration, Mr. Blinken was national security advisor to then-Vice President Joe Biden. This was the continuation of a long professional relationship that stretched back to 2002, when Mr. Blinken began his six-year stint as Democratic staff director for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Then-Senator Biden was the chair of that committee from 2001 to 2003 and 2007 to 2009.

During the Clinton Administration, Mr. Blinken served as a member of the National Security Council staff, including two years as the senior director for European affairs, the president’s principal advisor on the countries of Europe, the European Union, and NATO. He also spent four years as President Clinton’s chief foreign policy speechwriter, and he led the NSC’s strategic planning team.

Mr. Blinken’s public service began at the State Department. From 1993 to 1994, he was a special assistant in what was then called the Bureau of European and Canadian Affairs. Now he is proud to lead the department where he got his start in government nearly 30 years ago.

Outside of government, Mr. Blinken has worked in the private sector, civil society, and journalism. He was a founder of WestExec Advisors, an international strategic consulting firm focused on geopolitics and national security. He was a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies from 2001 and 2002. Before joining government, Mr. Blinken practiced law in New York and Paris. He was also a reporter for The New Republic magazine and is the author of Ally Versus Ally: America, Europe and the Siberian Pipeline Crisis (Praeger, 1987).

Mr. Blinken attended grade school and high school in Paris, where he received a French Baccalaureat degree with high honors. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Columbia Law School. He and his wife Evan Ryan have two children.

Christine Lagarde

President, European Central Bank

Since November 2019, Christine Lagarde has been the President of the European Central Bank. Between 2011 and 2019, she served as the eleventh Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Prior to that she served as French Economic Finance Minister from 2007 to 2011 after having been Trade Secretary from 2005 to 2007. A lawyer by background, she practiced for 20 years with the international law firm Baker McKenzie, of which she became global chairman in 1999. In all such positions, she was the first woman to serve.

Valdis Dombrovskis

Executive Vice-President and Commissioner for Trade, European Commission

• Chair the Commissioners’ Group on an Economy that Works for People
• Trade Commissioner and overall lead on building a future-ready economy,
• Support the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility and the European Semester
• Oversee the launch and the implementation of the InvestEU program
• Lead work on deepening the Economic and Monetary Union and strengthening the international role of the euro
• Coordinate the work on the European Pillar of Social Rights and strengthening the role of social dialogue at European level. [Help prepare the Tripartite Social Summit]
• Represent the Commission in the ‘Economic and Financial Affairs’ Council meetings, the Eurogroup, the economic dialogue with the European Parliament, the Macroeconomic Dialogue and the Governing Council of the European Central Bank
• Enhance the democratic accountability of European economic governance and EU trade policy by actively engaging with the European Parliament
• Lead the EU work on the reform of the World Trade Organization and provide further impetus to WTO negotiations on e-commerce
• Lead the work to strengthen Europe’s global leadership on trade and promoting sustainable trading partnerships with the United States, China, Africa and neighborhood and conclude ongoing negotiations. Where appropriate, open new bilateral or multilateral partnerships
• Oversee the implementation of climate, environmental and labour protections enshrined in our trade agreements and ensure that new trade agreements contain a chapter on sustainable development
• Lead the work on protecting Europe from unfair trade practices by seeking a level playing field in procurement and implementing the new system for screening Foreign Direct Investment
• Contribute to the design and introduction of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism
• Co-ordinate the work on the Sustainable Europe Investment Plan, which should unlock sustainable investment
• Manage relations with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB)
• Co-lead the Commission's work on the implementation of Europe’s Industrial and SME strategies, together with the Executive Vice-President for Europe in a Digital Age

Fuxian Yi

Senior Scientist, Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Fuxian Yi, senior scientist in the department of OB/GYN at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the leading advocate for abolishing one-child policy in China.  Since 2000, Dr. Yi has initiated a campaign against China’s one-child policy. At first public opinion was near-unanimously against him. Together his articles, books, and speeches have sparked a growing trend of anti-population control thought in China.

Dr. Yi’s book, “Big Country with an Empty Nest”, published in Hong Kong in 2017, was banned on the Chinese mainland. In 2013, a new edition of his book was released by a publisher under the Chinese State Council, and was picked as one of “the 10 Best Books of March 2013” by Xinhua News and as #1 of “the 100 Best Books of 2013 in China” by China Publishing Today.

Dr. Yi has given more than 100 speeches and distributed brochures to almost every member of the national parliament and provincial and ministerial officials in China. He has been interviewed by hundreds of media outlets including Reuters, AP, AFP, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and BBC. He has also published dozens of papers in academic journals and think-tanks, and one of which was selected in 2020 as one of 116 papers that have the greatest impact on China’s policy-making in 1979-2018. In 2016, he was invited as one of the distinguished panelists (including China’s Premier) to speak at the Boao Forum for Asia. In 2021, he was invited by the Canadian government to speak at the China Roundtable.

Dr. Yi has applied the knowledge and philosophy of medicine (especially reproductive medicine) to demographic research, and his estimates and projections of the China’s population have repeatedly proved to be more accurate than the official ones. He concluded that China's real population in 2020 was not the official figure of 1.41 billion, but only 1.28 billion, and was already declining. He has also applied his expertise in medicine and demography to assess and forecast China’s economy. He predicted that 2012 would be a turning point for the Chinese economy, that China’s economic center would shift to the south and west, that the one-child policy might trigger a Sino-US trade war, and that China's economy is unlikely to surpass that of the US.

Because Dr.Yi questioned China's official demographic and economic data, he was blocked from publishing his third and fourth books in 2015, his blogs and social media accounts hosted by companies in China were shut down in 2016, and most of his online articles in China in the past 20 years were deleted in 2019.

Dr Anthony Fauci

Director, NIAID

Dr Anthony Fauci is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, where he oversees an extensive research portfolio focused on infectious and immune-mediated diseases. He serves as one of the key advisors to the White House and Department of Health and Human Services on global HIV/AIDS issues, and on initiatives to bolster medical and public health preparedness against emerging infectious disease threats. He is the winner of numerous prestigious awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science and the Lasker Award for Public Service.

Lenora Chu

Special Correspondent [Europe and Chinese Affairs], The Christian Science Monitor & Author, HarperCollins

Lenora Chu is a journalist and author of the award-winning Little Soldiers, a narrative account of China’s education system (HarperCollins, 2017). She is also a correspondent for the nonprofit news organization Christian Science Monitor, where she covers Europe and Chinese engagement abroad. With 15 years’ experience in the United States and China, her work illuminates the intersection of culture, education, and global competitiveness — a passion borne in part of growing up with Chinese parents in America. Ms. Chu has appeared on NPR, CBS, BBC, and the CBC, and her articles and op-eds have been published in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, among others, and in 2019 she was named a public intellectuals fellow of the National Committee on U.S.-China relations. She holds degrees in engineering and journalism from Stanford and Columbia universities.

Gabriela Bucher

Executive Director, Oxfam International

Gabriela Bucher is Executive Director of Oxfam International, a global network which fights inequality to end poverty and injustice. Ms. Bucher is an experienced social justice leader and deeply committed to gender equality and human rights, and to tackling economic inequality.

Ms. Bucher, who grew up in Cali, Colombia, is a champion for feminist leadership and believes in the power of collaboration. She worked alongside children and communities affected by Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict and contributed to peace-building, youth active citizenship and influencing the country’s approach on restorative justice for children. Prior to Oxfam, Ms. Bucher was the Chief Operating Officer at Plan International, and led Fundación Plan Colombia.

Alexandra Readhead

Lead, Tax and Extractive Industries, Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development

Alexandra Readhead is the IGF’s Lead, Tax and Extractives and leads the Secretariat’s project to address tax base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) in mining. Her work involves designing mining sector-specific solutions to some of the most difficult taxation challenges for resource-rich developing countries.

Alexandra prepares policy and administrative guidance, provides technical assistance and training, and manages partnerships with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the African Tax Administration Forum, and Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations. She also represents the IGF on the UN Subcommittee for Extractive Industries Taxation.

Alexandra trained as a lawyer in Australia and specializes in international taxation. She has advised numerous tax authorities in Africa and Latin America on strengthening legal frameworks against abusive transfer pricing in the mining sector. She was named in the International Tax Review’s global tax top 50 for 2017.

Alexandra is based in the United Kingdom.

Raphael Bostic

President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

Dr. Raphael Bostic is the 15th president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. He is responsible for all the Bank's activities, including monetary policy, bank supervision and regulation, and payment services. He is currently a voting member on the Federal Open Market Committee, the monetary policymaking body of the Federal Reserve System.

Before joining the Atlanta Fed, Bostic was the Judith and John Bedrosian Chair in Governance and the Public Enterprise at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California (USC). He has also served as assistant secretary for policy development and research at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and spent several years as an economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

Bostic earned a PhD in economics from Stanford University and his undergraduate degree from Harvard.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta serves the Sixth Federal Reserve District, which covers Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, and parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. The Bank has branches in Birmingham, Jacksonville, Miami, Nashville, and New Orleans.

Nathan Law

Hong Kong democratic activist

Nathan Law is a young Hong Kong activist, currently in exile and based in London. During the Umbrella Movement in 2014, Nathan was one of the five representatives who took part in the dialogue with the government, debating political reform. Upholding non-violent civic actions, Nathan, Joshua Wong and other student leaders founded Demosistō in 2016 and ran for the Legislative Council election. Nathan was elected with 50,818 votes in the Hong Kong Island constituency and became the youngest Legislative Councilor in history. Yet his seat was overturned in July 2017 following Beijing’s constitutional reinterpretation, despite international criticism. Nathan was later jailed for his participation in the Umbrella Movement. The persecution sparked global concern over Beijing’s crackdown on human rights and democratic movement in Hong Kong.In 2018, Nathan and his fellow student activists Joshua Wong and Alex Chow are nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by US congressmen and British parliament members. Due to the risk imposed by the draconian National Security Law, Nathan left Hong Kong and continues to speak up for Hong Kong people on the international level. In 2020, he was listed as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME.

Jena Griswold

Colorado Secretary of State

Jena Griswold is Colorado’s 39th Secretary of State, and is the youngest elected Secretary of State in the United States. She knows first-hand how important it is for every vote to count and every voice to be heard, no matter their background or income. As Secretary of State, she has decisively managed elections in the midst of a global pandemic, historic wildfires, and record turnout while making it easier than ever to verify that every vote is counted.

Anote Tong

President (2003 - 2016), Republic of Kiribati

Anote Tong was President of the Republic of Kiribati having served the maximum three term limit between 2003 to 2016. During his terms in office he was responsible for drawing international focus of attention to the human dimension of climate change by highlighting the existential threat faced by his people and those of other vulnerable countries on the frontline of the impacts of climate change, many of which are in the Pacific Region. On leaving office he joined Conservation International as a Distinguished Fellow from 2016 to 2018 and continues to speak on a worldwide basis at conferences and institutions.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) projections of sea level rise will render these island nations uninhabitable and even submerged well within the century and President Tong has been campaigning for credible options for securing the future of these communities. He was responsible for declaring what was then the largest marine protected area when he closed off more than 400 thousand sq. km of the Pheonix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) in 2008 from any extractive industries. PIPA has been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. For his advocacy work on climate change and ocean conservation during his terms in office and since retiring from office, Anote Tong has been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize, was awarded the Sun Hak Peace Prize in 2015, the Peter Benchley Award, the Edmund Hilary Award and a number of other awards in acknowledgements of his works.

He received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Canterbury, NZ, his Masters in Economics from the London School of Economics, UK and an Honorary Doctorate in Engineering from The National Pukyong University, South Korea and an Honorary Doctorate in Law from the University of the South Pacific, Fiji.

He resides in his home country of Kiribati, a group of 33 atoll islands which are narrow strips of land which are on average less than 2 meters above sea level located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He is married with more than twenty grandchildren hence his deep concern for the future of his people and of the global community.

Carlos Scartascini

Leader Behavioral Economics Group, Inter-American Development Bank

Carlos Scartascini is Head of the Development Research Group at the Research Department and Leader of the Behavioral Economics Group of the Inter-American Development Bank. He has published eight books and more than 60 articles in academic journals and edited volumes. He is a member of the Executive Committee of IDB's Gender and Diversity Lab, Associate Editor of the academic journal Economía, and Founding Member of LACEA's BRAIN (Behavioral Insights Network).

Dr Laura de Molière

Head of Behavioural Science, Cabinet Office, UK Government

Dr Laura de Molière leads the Behavioural Science Team in the Cabinet Office of the UK Government, where she and her team consult on major policy initiatives and communication challenges. She is a thought leader in behavioural science, having significantly influenced how the field is practiced by moving it away from 'nudging' towards methods and approaches to understand people in their contexts and has systematically embedded these approaches in UK Government communications and beyond. She also leads the team in the development of novel approaches, such as the recent 'IN CASE' framework to understand behavioural risks.

She is providing consultancy services to policy makers and NGOs across the globe on behavioural challenges and is leading a private consultancy firm in Germany, focussing on behavioural science applied to sustainability behaviours. Dr Laura de Molière holds a PhD in cognitive decision sciences and social cognition from University College London, has taught at the London School of Economics and Political Science and guest lectured in Cambridge, King's College London and UCL, where she is an honorary research associate.

Jose Perez-Gorozpe

Head of Emerging Markets Credit Research, S&P Global Ratings

Jose Perez-Gorozpe is the Head Credit Research for Emerging Markets and chairs the credit conditions committee for Emerging Markets. Credit Conditions Committees meet quarterly to review macroeconomic conditions in each of four regions (Asia-Pacific, Latin America, North America, and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa). Discussions center on identifying credit risks and their potential ratings impact in various sectors, as well as borrowing and lending trends for businesses and consumers.

Jose also chairs the Global Emerging Markets Risk and Research Hub. This Hub coordinates our economists, research analysts and senior practice representatives to determine our house view on key macro and credit trends in emerging markets.

Jose spent ten years as part of the Financial Institutions analytical team in Mexico’s City office. He was responsible for the analysis of several financial systems in Latin America. He also performed credit rating analysis for the largest banks in the region and several insurance companies. Previously, he was part of the International Public Finance Ratings team, responsible for the analysis of various local and regional governments, public utilities, and other public entities.

Jose joined S&P Global Ratings in November 2003 and holds a BA in Economics from Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and a Master’s Degree in Banks and Financial Markets from Universidad Anahuac.

Michael Lampariello

Director of Domino Park, Two Trees Management Co.

Michael Lampariello has been involved in the development and management of some of New York’s most notable new parks and public space projects. Mike currently serves as the Director of Domino Park for Two Trees Management Co. and leads the team responsible for the park’s ongoing stewardship. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Domino Park was first to implement social distancing circles as means to create a safe, welcoming, and socially distant park space. Previously at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Mike served as the Assistant Vice President of Park Operations and guided the daily operations of the 85-acre waterfront park. At the High Line, Mike worked on a series of initiatives related to the long-term operational efficiency of existing and future phases of the park. Mike has a degree in Landscape Architecture from Penn State University.

Robin Brooks

Chief Economist, Institute of International Finance

In his role, Mr. Brooks oversees the IIF’s macroeconomic analysis and serves as part of the IIF’s senior management team.

Previously, Mr. Brooks was the Chief FX Strategist at Goldman Sachs based in NY, where he was responsible for the firm’s foreign exchange forecasts and publishing international macro research. Prior to joining Goldman, Mr. Brooks was the FX strategist at Brevan Howard. Before joining the private sector, Mr. Brooks spent eight years as an economist at the International Monetary Fund, where he worked on the IMF’s fair value models for FX, published academic research and participated in missions to IMF program countries.

Mr. Brooks earned his PhD in Economics from Yale University in 1998. He earned a BSc in Monetary Economics from the London School of Economics in 1993.

Arturo Herrera

Visiting Professor of Economics, El Colegio de México

Bio coming soon.

X González

Gun Control Advocate

X González (They/Them) is an 21 year-old gun control advocate born and raised in Parkland, Florida. A survivor of the Marjory Stoneman-Douglas High School shootings, X was instrumental in organizing the historic #MarchForOurLives protest, the largest student demonstration in American history. While in high school, X also served as the President of the Marjory Stoneman-Douglas Gay-Straight Alliance. In addition to their work with March For Our Lives, they are currently pursuing their undergraduate degree.

Dave Carr

Communications Lead, Decentraland Foundation

Dave is the Communications Lead at the Decentraland Foundation. The Foundation is a non-profit organization that supports decentralization, reports on third-party activities and holds intellectual property for Decentraland – the world's first fully decentralized virtual social platform, owned and governed by its users. Dave has close to 20 years' experience in advertising, publishing and corporate communications, working with brands like Disney, Star Wars, LEGO, BBC, Warner Bros, Sony, ITV and Deezer in brand and product development, creative strategy, and managing global campaigns.

Richard Browning

Founder and Chief Test Pilot, Gravity Industries Ltd.

Richard Browning is Founder and Chief Test Pilot of Gravity Industries which designs, builds and flies Jet Suits, pioneering a new era of human flight. The company was founded in March 2017 to challenge the perceived boundaries in human aviation and to inspire others to dare to ask “What if?”. It now scales towards an International Race Series.

Prior to founding Gravity, Richard was a Royal Marines reservist for six years and an Oil Trader with BP for 16 years where he discovered and implemented major new technologies winning the BP Group innovation Award.

When he is not flying around the world, Richard is in Salisbury with his wife Debbie and their two children, Oliver and Thomas, kayaking and camping amongst other things.

Yat Siu

Chairman and Co-Founder, Animoca Brands

Yat Siu, Chairman and Co-Founder of Animoca Brands, has been involved in NFTs since 2018, when he invested in Dapper Labs, (creator of CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot). At Animoca Brands, Yat leads various in-house NFT projects including The Sandbox, the REVV token, REVV Racing, F1 Delta Time, MotoGP Ignition, and Formula E: High Voltage. Animoca Brands' various subsidiaries include BlowFish Studios, GAMEE, Quidd, Lympo, Pixowl, and nWay, all of which have their own crypto token projects. Yat’s vision is to enable digital ownership and Play-to-Earn for the world's 2.7 billion gamers. He is a supporter of various NGOs, a member of BAFTA, and serves on the board of directors of the Asian Youth Orchestra.

Robert Dingemanse

CEO and Founder, PAL-V International BV

Yat Siu, Chairman and Co-Founder of Animoca Brands, has been involved in NFTs since 2018, when he invested in Dapper Labs, (creator of CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot). At Animoca Brands, Yat leads various in-house NFT projects including The Sandbox, the REVV token, REVV Racing, F1 Delta Time, MotoGP Ignition, and Formula E: High Voltage. Animoca Brands' various subsidiaries include BlowFish Studios, GAMEE, Quidd, Lympo, Pixowl, and nWay, all of which have their own crypto token projects. Yat’s vision is to enable digital ownership and Play-to-Earn for the world's 2.7 billion gamers. He is a supporter of various NGOs, a member of BAFTA, and serves on the board of directors of the Asian Youth Orchestra.

Daehoon Kim

CEO and President, IriTech

Daehoon Kim has been CEO & President of IriTech, Inc., USA since the year 2000. They are at the cutting edge of biometric technology, particularly relating to iris recognition.

Prior to his role at IriTech, Daehoon had roles at Korea Institute of Science and Technology, the Mayo Clinic Biomedical Research Unit, and the Korean Agency for Defense Development. Daehoon and his team came up with a so-called Multi-sector Variable iris recognition method, which was granted an international patent. He established IriTech to bring into the iris industry such a great method, which was later on proven superior by NIST. Since then, he has been a well-known scientist in the field with several contributions to build up ANSI and ISO standards for iris biometrics from the beginning.

Daehoon has a doctorate from North Carolina State University, M.S. from KAIST and B.S. from Seoul National University, Korea

He is leading IriTech in the direction of bringing iris recognition technology from government-centric to consumer-centric.

Frédéric Chesnais

CEO of Crypto Blockchain Industries, Atari

Frédéric Chesnais is an investor in blockchain, technology and videogame companies. A former Lazard investment banker, he became deputy CEO of Atari in 2001, bought Atari in 2013 and launched the Atari blockchain initiative in 2018. He is today the CEO of Atari Chain, Ltd, the entity of the Atari Group focusing on blockchain and crypto-currencies. His holding company, Crypto Blockchain Industries (CBI), is developing Alphaverse, a metaverse on the blockchain which includes many brands such as Atari. CBI also invests in blockchain and crypto-currency projects, as well as payment systems in Africa.

Toby Norman

Chief Executive Officer, Simprints

Toby Norman is the Chief Executive Officer of Simprints, a Cambridge-based nonprofit biometrics company with the mission to radically increase transparency and effectiveness in global development. He is passionate about bringing cutting-edge technology to solve challenges in global health and international development. He holds a PhD in Management from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Gates Scholar, and BA in Biology from Harvard University. He has been recognised as a Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur, TechCrunch: Best Tech leader, a 2017 Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year Awardee, and a 2018 GLG Social Impact Fellow.

Andrew Barnes

Founder, Perpetual Guardian and 4 Day Week Global

Innovator, entrepreneur and philanthropist Andrew Barnes has made a career of market-changing innovation and industry digitisation. In New Zealand, Andrew triggered a revolution of the entire fiduciary and legal services industries, and the transformation he has led as the founder of Perpetual Guardian has positive implications both locally and globally.

As the innovator behind the 4 Day Week, Andrew is regularly asked to address international audiences on the future of work and subjects such as governance, philanthropy, business leadership, entrepreneurship, company culture and change management, and presented a TEDx Talk on the topic in 2019.

The 4 Day Week has triggered changes in government thinking and generated interest from companies and academics around the world. Most recently, the Spanish government agreed to support a 4 Day Week trial for interested companies, and California Congressman Mark Takano introduced legislation to reduce the standard workweek from 40 hours to 32.

In response to the demand for more insight, Andrew published a white paper on the 4 Day Week in 2019 and wrote a book on the topic, released in 2020 in North America, New Zealand and Australia, the UK and Europe. He also established 4 Day Week Global, a not-for-profit, international community of people interested in ushering in the work model of the 21st century.

Through this work Andrew is on the advisory boards of both the US and Ireland 4 Day Week campaigns and the board of the newly created Wellbeing Research Centre at Oxford University.

Meghana Reddy

Vice President of People & Operations, Loom

Meghana is VP of People & Operations at Loom, where she brings her vast experience in scaling high-functioning and inclusive teams across different time zones. Of note, she previously led people teams at high-growth companies in Europe and the US, including Framer, Catawiki, and NerdWallet, and also founded Third Tactic, a startup that developed training programs for clients like Pinterest, Venmo, and LinkedIn. Meghana started her career at Bain & Company, where she led teams across six global offices.

Jin Song Montesano

Chief Public Affairs & People Officer, LIXIL Corporation

Jin Montesano is Executive Officer and Chief People Officer of LIXIL. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the LIXIL Corporation. She joined the company in 2014 as Chief Public Affairs Officer, leading global communications and corporate responsibility for the company, including stewardship of SATO, an award-winning global social enterprise tackling the challenges of global sanitation and hygiene. LIXIL expanded Jin’s remit in 2019 to include Global HR and General Affairs. As Chief People Officer, she supports LIXIL’s transformation from a people and culture perspective. Originally from Honolulu, she was educated at Columbia and Princeton universities and has lived and worked in Brussels, Singapore, Bangkok and now Tokyo

Justin Hall

Partner, Golden Gate Ventures

Justin is a partner at Golden Gate Ventures. He joined the firm in 2012 as its first intern, and became one of its four partners in 2018. Alongside Jeffrey Paine, Justin leads the majority of deal-sourcing and portfolio management at the fund, and currently sits on the board for some of its most notable investments, including Homage, BukuWarung, Chilibeli, ALAMI, and Ritase.

Justin Hall received his Master’s of Public Policy from the National University of Singapore, and graduated first with honours in History and Political Science from Trinity, College Dublin. In addition to his role at Golden Gate Ventures, he is also a Kauffman Fellow (Class 20), and an entrepreneur-in-residence at INSEAD.

In 2012, Justin chose Singapore’s entrepreneurship policy for his academic thesis, and first became acquainted with Golden Gate Ventures in a purely research capacity. He joined Golden Gate Ventures shortly after as an intern, before joining full-time as its first (and only) investment associate in 2013. Justin was eventually promoted to Principal following Golden Gate Ventures’ investment into Homage, and to partner in 2018 upon the close of Fund III.

Jacinda Ardern

Prime Minister of New Zealand

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was born in the city of Hamilton, New Zealand, and grew up rurally. She attended high school before graduating from the University of Waikato with a Bachelor of Communication Studies in Politics and Public Relations.

Post-university, she worked as an advisor in the office of then-Prime Minister Helen Clark, in London for the Government Cabinet Office and as an Assistant Director in the Department for Business and Enterprise, and on a review of Policing in England and Wales.

The Prime Minister joined the New Zealand Labour Party at age 18 and entered New Zealand’s Parliament in 2008. Over her twelve years as a representative she has been a strong advocate for children, women, and the right of every New Zealander to have meaningful work.

She became the MP for the Auckland electorate Mt Albert in early 2017, and the Leader of the Labour Party in August 2017. As well as Prime Minister, she holds the roles of Minister for National Security and Intelligence, and Minister for Child Poverty Reduction, an issue particularly close to her heart. She is also the Minister Responsible for Ministerial Services and Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage.

Margrethe Vestager

Executive Vice President, European Commission for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age

Margrethe Vestager is the European Commissioner in the Von der Leyen Commission, currently serving as Executive Vice President of the European Commission for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age since December 2019 and European Commissioner for Competition since 2014. Vestager is a member of the Danish Social Liberal Party, and of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party (ALDE) on the European level.

She previously served as Minister for Economic Affairs and the Interior (2011-14) and Minister for Education (1998-2001) of Denmark, and as President of the ECOFIN Council (2012). She was Political leader of the Danish Social Liberal Party (2007-14), and has worked for the Danish Ministry of Finance (1993-95). Ms. Vestager holds an MSc in Economics (University of Copenhagen).

Winnie Byanyima

UNAIDS Executive Director, UNAIDS

Winnie Byanyima is the Executive Director of UNAIDS and an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. A passionate and longstanding champion of social justice and gender equality, Ms Byanyima leads the United Nations’ efforts to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030. Ms Byanyima believes that health care is a human right and was an early champion of a People’s Vaccine against the coronavirus that is available and free of charge to everyone, everywhere.

Before joining UNAIDS, Ms Byanyima served as the Executive Director of Oxfam International, a confederation of 20 civil society organizations working in more than 90 countries worldwide, empowering people to create a future that is secure, just and free from poverty.

Ms Byanyima was elected for three terms and served 11 years in the parliament of her country, Uganda. She led Uganda’s first parliamentary women’s caucus, championing ground-breaking gender equality provisions in the county’s 1995 post-conflict constitution.

Ms Byanyima led the establishment of the African Union Commission’s Directorate of Gender and Development and also served as Director of Gender and Development at the United Nations Development Programme. She founded the Forum for Women in Democracy, an influential Ugandan nongovernmental organization, and has been deeply involved in building global and African coalitions on social justice issues. A global leader on inequality, Ms Byanyima has co-chaired the World Economic Forum and served on the World Bank’s Advisory Council on Gender and Development, the International Labour Organization’s Global Commission on the Future of Work and the Global Commission on Adaptation.

Ms Byanyima is a recipient of several awards, including an honorary doctorate from the University of Manchester, United Kingdom, an honorary doctorate from Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada, and the 2018 Human Rights and Solidarity among Peoples Prize, awarded by the Latin American Council of Social Sciences.

She holds a master of science degree in mechanical engineering from Cranfield University and an undergraduate degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Manchester.

Ms Byanyima is married and has one son. She loves birds, gardening and hiking. Ms Byanyima has seven given names, one of which is Kyegiragire, which means “I can make myself whatever I want to be”. Ms Byanyima says this has shaped her attitude to life!

Thomas Mew

Partner, Buckley Beal, LLP

Thomas "Tom" J. Mew’s practice covers a broad range of employment law matters including both individual and class action wage-and-hour, discrimination, and harassment litigation, as well as in arbitration and mediation. He is also an advisor on employment contracts, releases, and restrictive covenant issues. He has represented clients at all levels in state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court (Bostock v. Clayton County, GA, 140 S. Ct. 1731, 590 U.S. ___ (2020)). In October 2020, Tom was honored to receive the Stonewall Bar Association’s Conspicuous Service to the Stonewall Community Award for his role in the Bostock case.

Tom is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia, School of Law and was a member of the school’s national championship-winning moot court team. Following law school, Tom clerked for Judge Herschel Franks of the Tennessee Court of Appeals and for the Honorable Harold L. Murphy of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. Before joining Buckley Beal, Tom practiced law for many years at Rogers & Hardin LLP.

Tom is the co-author of “Georgia Motion Practice,” a guide to civil motion practice in Georgia’s trial and appellate courts and co-author of “Georgia Employment Law.” He is also a Contributing Author to Employee Benefits Law (3d. Ed.) (Bloomberg BNA 2012) and was named one of the Georgia legal community's "Rising Stars" for 2006, 2007 and 2009.

Dr Soumya Swaminathan

Chief Scientist, World Health Organisation

Dr. Soumya Swaminathan was appointed as WHO’s first Chief Scientist in March 2019. She heads the Science division that was created to strengthen the organisation’s core scientific work and ensure the quality and consistency of its norms and standards. The Division also promotes the use of digital tools and technologies to help achieve the SDGs and will work on governance frameworks to regulate new technologies like Artificial intelligence and genome editing. The division also will have a foresight function that enables WHO to stay ahead of the curve and will promote research and development that leads to products that meet unmet public health needs.

She was previously Deputy Director-General for Programmes (DDP). A paediatrician from India and a globally recognized researcher on tuberculosis and HIV, she brings with her 30 years of experience in clinical care and research and has worked throughout her career to translate research into impactful programmes. Most recently, Dr Swaminathan was Secretary of the Department of Health Research and Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research. From 2009 to 2011, she also served as Coordinator of the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) in Geneva.

She has sat on several WHO and global advisory bodies and committees, including the WHO Expert Panel to Review Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property, the Strategic and Technical Advisory Group of the Global TB Department at WHO, and as Co-Chair of the Lancet Commission on TB. She received her academic training in India, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America, and has published more than 250 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters.

Ritu Kapur

Managing Director and CEO, Quint Digital Media Ltd

Ritu Kapur is the co-founder and Managing Director of Quint Digital Media Limited which runs The Quint, an independent news site in India, alongwith Quint Hindi and Quint Fit.. She has driven digital innovation - from The Quint innovation lab to launching a fact check initiative - WebQoof, that crowdsources fake news.

Ritu has also strived to provide multiple platforms for free speech like The Quint's citizen journalism initiative "My Report", “Talking Stalking” – a campaign to change the laws to make stalking a non-bailable offence and “Me The Change” that focusses on the rights of young women in India.

Ritu spent over two decades in broadcast as the founder of Network 18 where she won awards for a docudrama series “Bhanwar” and for The Citizen Journalist show among others. At Network 18 she led programming on History TV 18 as well as was the Features Editor at CNN IBN, before she exited to launch The Quint.

She is on the advisory board of Oxford University’s Reuters Institute of Journalism, the World Editor's Forum at WAN IFRA and Future News Worldwide. Ritu Kapur has been recognized by Outlook Business as "Woman of Worth 2017 - The Newsmaker".

Bing Chen

President and Co-founder, Gold House

Bing Chen is an impact entrepreneur and new world builder, leveraging storytelling and systems to deliver greater socioeconomic equity. He is President and Co-founder of Gold House, the premier collective of Asian founders, creative voices, and leaders dedicated to uniting the world’s largest populace–Asians & Pacific Islanders–to enable more authentic multicultural representation and societal equity. He is also General Partner and Co-founder of AUM Group, a multicultural film fund; and serves as a Board Director and Advisor to several leading digital media companies including Google's Global Marketing Board, Snap's Yellow Incubator, Omnicom’s Sparks & Honey, Baobab Studios, Oura Health, Musely, and more. Previously, he was YouTube's Global Head of Creator Development and Management, where he was one of the original and principal architects of the multi-billion dollar influencer ecosystem that supports 500 million creators worldwide. He is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree; a Hollywood Reporter Next Gen Leader; a Hollywood Reporter Most Influential Agent of Change; ABC News History Maker; ADCOLOR Catalyst Award Honoree; Asia Society Asia 21 Young Leader; Magic Johnson's 32 Under 32 Leader; and Asian Chamber of Commerce Entrepreneur of the Year. Bing is a third culture kid across North America and Asia, finally graduating from the University of Pennsylvania. He was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, which becomes obvious at $11.99 buffets.

David Greene

Civil Liberties Director/Senior Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation

David Greene, Senior Staff Attorney and Civil Liberties Director, has significant experience litigating First Amendment issues in state and federal trial and appellate courts and was a founding member of the Internet Free Expression Alliance. David currently serves on the, the steering committee of the Free Expression Network, the governing committee of the ABA Forum on Communications Law, and on advisory boards for several arts and free speech organizations across the country. David is also an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, where he teaches classes in First Amendment and media law and was formerly an instructor in the journalism department at San Francisco State University. He has written and lectured extensively on many areas of First Amendment Law, including as a contributor to the International Encyclopedia of Censorship. Before joining EFF, David was for twelve years the Executive Director and Lead Staff Counsel for First Amendment Project, where he worked with EFF on numerous cases including Bunner v. DVDCCA. David also previously served as program director of the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression where he was the principal contributor and general editor of the NCFE Quarterly and the principal author of the NCFE Handbook to Understanding, Preparing for and Responding to Challenges to your Freedom of Artistic Expression. He also practiced with the firms Bryan Cave LLP and Hancock, Rothert & Bunshoft. He is a 1991 graduate of Duke University School of Law.

David's work has been recognized by California Lawyer magazine as a 2013 California Lawyer Attorney of the Year, and by the SPJ Northern California as the recipient of its 2007 James Madison Freedom of information Award for Legal Counsel. He was also awarded The Hon. Ira A. Brown Adjunct Faculty Award by USF Law School in 2012.

Dr Mark McBride-Wright CEng

Founder, EqualEngineers

Mark McBride-Wright, PhD, CEng, MIChemE is a recognised diversity and inclusion leader. He is Founder and Managing Director of EqualEngineers, a company offering a wide array of diversity & inclusion consultancy and training services, as well as creative events. Mark has delivered 18 Engineering & Technology careers fairs since 2017 connecting over 6,000 diverse opportunity-seekers with over 100 inclusive employers. Mark also founded the Equality in Engineering conference, and the Engineering Talent Awards, and established the Masculinity in Engineering research theme leading to a new way to deliver more impactful positive interventions on organisational culture change. EqualEngineers has trained thousands of engineers on creating inclusive cultures.

Mark is also Chair and Co-Founder of InterEngineering, a non-profit industry body that connects, informs and empowers LGBT+ engineers and supporters. In recognition of his diversity work, Mark won the coveted 'Corporate Rising Star' award at the 2016 British LGBT Awards and was ranked #2 in the 2015 Financial Times Future LGBT Leaders list (#6 in 2016). In addition, he was 'Highly Commended' at the Inclusive Networks Awards (2015), shortlisted for the 'Corporate Equality Award' by PinkNews (2016), and is a regular speaker at the London Business School.

He has worked with many Fortune 50 companies on D&I programs and talent engagement strategies and has also authored a white paper for the UK Government on tackling homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in engineering. Mark is a Chartered Engineer (IChemE) by training with a focus on health and safety, having worked at KBR Inc (2013- 2017) and ERM (2012-2013) before pursuing his work in diversity. He also holds a doctorate (PhD) in chemical engineering at Imperial College London (2009-2013).

Krista L. Baughman

Partner, Dhillon Law Group Inc.

Krista L. Baughman is a free speech, defamation and First Amendment attorney with a specialty in anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) matters. She is barred in New York and California, and litigates in state and federal courts across the nation.

As a partner of Dhillon Law Group Inc., Krista has managed precedent-setting cases, including those that expanded protected forums for speech under California’s anti-SLAPP statute, defined the parameters of “revenge porn” claims as applied to elected officials, achieved a landmark settlement to ensure the First Amendment rights of students at UC Berkeley, and eradicated a City’s unconstitutional speech-restricting policies on behalf of its citizens.

Krista’s work strives to ensure that our country’s bedrock First Amendment principles are respected in today’s digital world. She is currently pursuing novel litigation that seeks to establish the form that free and fair speech should take on social media platforms.

Melissa Siska Juminto

Chief Operating Officer, Tokopedia

Melissa Siska Juminto is the Chief Operating Officer at Tokopedia and has been with the company since 2012. Melissa joined Tokopedia as the 44th employee alongside other nine female employees.

Under her leadership, Melissa pushes to create a mother and child-friendly policies to allow female employees to have an equal opportunity and experience within the company, including a 3-month paid maternity leave and additional paternity leave, mother’s transition period as well as miscarriage leave.

Tokopedia’s workspace is also designed to support working parents through complete facilities such as Nursing Room and Kids Play Room, allowing parents to bring their children to office when they need to.

Prior to serving as COO of Tokopedia, Melissa held various posts in Tokopedia including Accounting and Finance, Vice President of Business and most recently as Chief of Staff.

Melissa received her BA in Accounting and Information System from the University of Washington.

Roseanne Archibald

National Chief, The Assembly of First Nations

AFN National Chief RoseAnne Archibald of Taykwa Tagamou Nation, is a strength-based and heart-centered leader, with 31 years of experiences in First Nations politics.

RoseAnne is a third-generation Chief in her family whose leadership has been ground breaking and historical for women and youth.

She was the first woman and youngest Chief elected for Taykwa Tagamou Nation (TTN) in 1990 at 23 years of age. She was also the first woman and youngest Deputy Grand Chief for Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) as well as the first female and youngest Grand Chief for Mushkegowuk Council. She served a second term as Chief of TTN, and a second term as NAN Deputy Grand Chief. For nine years, she ran a successful consulting business providing advice and guidance to First Nations leaders, and organizations, specializing in negotiations and facilitation. She returned to elected leadership in 2018 becoming the first woman Ontario Regional Chief leading the Chiefs of Ontario.

Education is a priority and essential to self-determination. RoseAnne holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree and was the first member of her community to complete a Master’s Degree (Humanities). She was awarded the prestigious “Canada 125 medal” for having “made a significant contribution to Canada” through her leadership.

Positive and lasting change requires creative and innovative thinking and ways of being. RoseAnne balances her political life with creativity and art practice. She is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work focuses on political art, landscape and portrait photography, music as well as documentary short films that reflect a personal passion for social justice, political engagement and community building.

RoseAnne has dedicated her adult life to serving and striving to create a better quality of life and future for First Nations people. She represents a generational change, bringing diplomacy and encouraging unity in the First Nations political system, while breaking down barriers since the start of her political career.

Ontario Regional Chief (ORC), RoseAnne worked tirelessly and collaboratively with the Ontario Leadership Council over her three-year term. She made positive changes during her term including a strong and effective pandemic response that focused on saving lives and preserving the health and well-being of First Nation citizens; improved relationships with the federal and provincial governments; and established a Council of Elected Women Chiefs and the creation of an Economic Growth and Prosperity Table.

She was elected to Assembly of First Nations (AFN) National Chief in July 2021.

Carlien Scheele

Director, European Institute for Gender Equality

Carlien Scheele is the Director of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) in Vilnius, Lithuania. EIGE is the only European Union agency focusing exclusively on gender equality. By providing reliable and policy-oriented research, it supports the EU and its Member States to strengthen the promotion of gender equality.

At EIGE’s helm since February 2020, she oversees the Institute's strategic programmes of activities and budgets. Ms Scheele aims to cement EIGE’s position as the EU’s knowledge centre on gender equality and deepen collaboration within and beyond Europe.

Before taking up her post at EIGE, Ms Scheele worked as a Senior Gender Equality Adviser/Senior Human Resources Adviser in the Council of Europe, seconded from the Dutch government.

Previously, she worked as the Director for Gender and LGBT Equality for the Dutch government, where she coordinated the national gender and LGBT equality policies.

Lidia Thorpe

Senator for Victoria, Australian Greens

Senator Lidia Thorpe is a proud Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman. After becoming the first Aboriginal woman elected to the state Parliament of Victoria, Lidia went on to be the first Aboriginal representative of Victoria in federal parliament. This continues a lifelong fight for human rights, social justice and the environment.

Dr Ahmad Sarmast

Founder and Director, Afghanistan National Institute of Music

Dr. Ahmad Naser Sarmast, a laureate of Polar Music Prize, a recipient of the Honorary Membership Award of the Royal Philharmonic Society of the UK, is the Founder and Director of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM). A visionary cultural leader and figure, Dr Sarmast is an advocate for music education and strong believer in the power of music as a force in bringing about social changes, transforming lives, and connecting nations and civilisations. This belief led him to establish in 2010 ANIM, a music school that within a short period of time became one of the most influential educational and cultural entity of the country widely known internationally for its unique mission and vision.

A winner of distinguished alumni award of Monash University, and an Honorary Fellow of the National College of Music, London, Dr. Sarmast received his PhD in Music from Monash University, Australia in 2005; his MA in musicology/ethnomusicology from the Moscow State Conservatorium in 1993; and his Bachelor Degree in performance and music education from the same school. He has been conducting research on music of Afghanistan since 1993, resulting in the landmark book A Survey of the History of Music in Afghanistan. His research areas also include music of North India, Central Asia, and Iran. His other publications include “The naghma-ye chartuk of Afghanistan: a new perspective on the origin of a solo instrumental genre,” and “Ustad Mohammad Salim Sarmast: a 20th century composer, and the first symphonic score of Afghanistan.”

Dr. Sarmast is an inspiring keynote speaker who spoken and continues to speak at important international music and arts conferences and congresses around the world. Sarmast has received many accolades, including the International Music Council (IMC) Musical Rights Award, the David Chow Humanitarian Award, and the Education Award of the Government of Afghanistan. In 2013 he was a finalist for Australian of the Year, and was named “Person of the year” by Radio Azadi, RFE/RL. In 2014 Dr Sarmast received the Charles Ansbacher Music for All Award and was honoured to receive a Monash Univeristy Distinguished Alumni Award. Recently Dr Sarmast has been humbled to receive the Asia Game Changers Award from Asia Society, Cultural Heritage Rescue Prize from Priorita Cultura, Italy and International Citation of Merit from the International Association of Performing Arts (ISPA). In tribute to and recognition of Dr. Ahmad Naser Sarmast’s service to children and Afghan music, the president of Afghanistan awarded him with prestigious state medal of Said Jamaluddin and the honorary Civil Service Excellence and Innovation Award. He is subject of many media reports including the feature documentary Dr Sarmars’s Music School, Dangerous Music and many more.

Dr Sarmast has been the victim of a targeted suicide bombing for the work he has done in Afghanistan in reviving and protecting musical traditions of this country, ensuring musical rights of Afghan children, promoting gender equality and coeducation in music and promoting musical diversity in this war torn nation. In the face of such adversity, Dr Sarmast tenacity and determination has not faltered and continues to grow to the dismay of extremist forces.

Julie Coffman

Chief Diversity Officer, Bain & Company

Julie Coffman is a partner and our Chief Diversity Officer. She is the leader of our Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion practice, as well as a leader in our global Organization practice.

Julie works with clients across industries and regions to develop and deploy effective DEI strategies to meet the needs of their organizations and external partners. Some of her recent client engagements have included leading a DEI ambition-setting and strategy design effort for a global private equity fund for use internally and across its portfolio of companies and supporting the creation of OneTen - a coalition of employers committed to hiring one million Black Americans into family sustaining jobs without requiring a college degree. Internally, Julie leads Bain’s global DEI strategy and mobilization efforts for our people, our business and our communities. She is also the founding chair of Bain's Global Women's Leadership Council, which is focused on increasing the number of women in Bain's leadership ranks.

Julie has co-authored several articles on racial and gender equity including: Belonging, Support, and Trust: Racial Equity at Work, Flexible Work Models: How to create sustainability in a 24/7 World and Charting the Course: Getting Women to the Top. She is also co-author of 10 Proven Actions to Advance Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion- a research-backed paper sharing tactics particularly effective at advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace.

Julie has extensive experience leading organizational redesign efforts to improve both leadership effectiveness and build a more inspired and productive workforce. Major recent engagements have included leading a cultural integration effort across newly merged media conglomerates to enable better teaming, collaboration and innovation, facilitating executive leadership team journeys to improve team health and effectiveness while also role-modelling more inspirational leadership for a healthcare services organization, and developing the operating model infrastructure for population health management inside of a leading Academic Medical Center.

Julie is active in her local community, having served on the board of the Northwestern University Settlement House and co-chairing the board of the Rowe Elementary School (a charter school in Chicago). She is also a member of the Chicago Network of Women Business leaders.

Julie earned her BA from Wesleyan University in Mathematics/Economics with highest honors and her MBA at Stanford University, where she was recognized as an Arjay Miller scholar. Julie also earned her MA in Educational Administration.

Julie and her husband Jim are proud parents of three children. In her personal time, Julie is an avid reader and enjoys staying in motion – she is an OrangeTheory enthusiast and is rediscovering tennis.

Stéphanie Oueda

Head of Gender, Diversity and Inclusion, IDB Invest

Stephanie leads the Gender, Diversity and Inclusion Team at IDB Invest, which she joined in 2018. She is responsible for providing advice to financial institutions and private sector companies in the region in three key areas, definition of the internal gender and diversity strategy for employees; advice for the identification of new markets; and contribution to the development of inclusive value chains. Her areas of specialization include gender equality, and the inclusion of indigenous and traditional peoples; people from African descent; people with disabilities; multiple generations; and LGBTQI people.

Before joining the IDG Group, she was Associate Director for Diversity and Inclusion at Coca-Cola European Partners, based in London, and she was previously Head of International Diversity at L’Oréal, based in Paris.

Stephanie earned a master’s degree in economics and political sciences from Université de Montréal (Canada) and Sorbonne Université (France), and an undergraduate degree in political sciences and administration from Sorbonne Université.

Mark Schoofs

Editor-In-Chief, BuzzFeed News

Mark Schoofs is the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News, where he oversees a global news organization that reaches tens of millions of people each month and features award-winning reporting across tech, politics, culture, investigations, science, and international. Over the course of his 30-year career, Schoofs has earned a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on AIDS in Africa at The Village Voice; shared in another Pulitzer Prize at The Wall Street Journal for reporting on the 9/11 terrorist attacks; led a team of investigative journalists at ProPublica; and, in 2014, created BuzzFeed News’s investigations team, which is a three-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and a winner of the Polk and National Magazine Awards. Under Schoofs’ leadership this year, BuzzFeed News won its first Pulitzer Prize for an investigation uncovering a vast system for the mass detention of Muslims in China. Schoofs began his career editing Chicago's weekly LGBTQ newspaper, The Windy City Times. Schoofs also serves on the faculty at USC Annenberg, allowing BuzzFeed and the school to build a unique collaboration.

Kate Bingham

former Chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce & Managing Partner, SV Health Investors

Kate Bingham is the former Chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, where she led a team of world-class experts from across industry, science, academia and government with the shared purposed of finding and manufacturing COVID-19 vaccine/s. The Vaccine Taskforce helped place the UK at the leading edge of the international effort to fight the pandemic and the UK was the first Western country to start vaccination in December 2020.

Kate has worked in the biotech sector for 30 years and is Managing Partner at life sciences venture capital firm SV Health Investors, where she is responsible for SV’s biotech investments. Her investments have led to the launch of six drugs for the treatment of patients with inflammatory and autoimmune disease and cancer.

Kate is a board member of the Francis Crick Institute. She won the Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by the BioIndustry Association UK in January 2017 and has a first class degree in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford and an MBA from Harvard Business School (Baker Scholar).

Amanda Zamora

Publisher and Co-Founder, The 19th*

Amanda Zamora is publisher of The 19th*, an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Before co-founding The 19th*, Amanda spent nearly two decades as a digital editor, product manager and audience strategist at newsrooms including the Texas Tribune, ProPublica and The Washington Post. A native of Houston, Texas, she's a fan of dancing, cooking, spreadsheets and her two beloved rescue pups.

Gurchaten Sandhu

Non-Discrimination Programme Officer, International Labour Organization

Born to Panjabi Sikh working-class migrant parents in the UK, Gurchaten (Nanoo) Sandhu (he/they) is a Non-Discrimination Programme Officer at the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work Branch. Alongside their B.A. (HONS) in Economics and MSc in Development Economics, their passion for social justice has led him to focus his efforts on promoting the principle of non-discrimination in employment and occupation. Over the past 16 years, Gurchaten has built their expertise and knowledge on promoting social justice through quality, decent and inclusive work for all, in particular to enhance LGBTIQ+ rights at work and economic inclusion. They also finds the time to volunteer as President for UN-GLOBE, the group representing LGBTIQ+ staff in the UN system. As its President, they works to ensure the voice and rights of LGBTIQ+ staff are represented in UN policies and procedures. They also serves as committee member of International Family Equality Day NGO, advising on non-discrimination based on family status in the world of work, a fellow of the Salzburg Global LGBT forum, a Sarbat LGBT Sikhs volunteer and a Board Advisor for We Create Space. Gurchaten is listed as the OUTStanding Executive LGBT Role Model for three consecutive years from 2018 to 2020, an Honouree of the Out & Equal’s 2021 Global LGBTQ Corporate Advocate Outie Award as well as the winner of the British LGBT Award for Exceptional Inclusion 2021.