Through the IGF 2020 High-Level Leaders Track, experts and leaders from all stakeholder groups, including governments, civil society, private sector, technical communities, intergovernmental and international organisations and from all parts of the world, engaged in dialogues on "The role of Internet Governance in the Age of Uncertainty".
Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs | United Nations
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Mr. Liu Zhenmin of China as the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs effective 26 July 2017. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Liu was Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs of China since 2013. Among his various diplomatic assignments, he served as Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva and Other International Organizations in Switzerland (2011-2013).
Mr. Liu brings to the position more than 30 years of experience in the diplomatic service, with a strong focus on the promotion of bilateral, regional and global issues. He was deeply involved for 10 years in climate change negotiations including the conclusion of the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. He also widely participated in the international activities on the protection of our planet including Antarctica and the oceans. Over the last several years, in various capacities, he has been consistently highlighting and advocating for sustainable development issues.
Mr. Liu started his career at the Foreign Affairs Ministry in 1982. Since then, he has served the Ministry in various capacities, including as Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs (2009-2011); Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations (2006-2009); Director-General, Department of Treaty and Law (2003-2006); and Deputy Director-General, Department of Treaty and Law (1998-2003). He also served in the Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva and Other International Organizations in Switzerland (1992-1995) and in the Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations (1984-1988).
As Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Mr. Liu guides UN Secretariat support for the follow-up processes of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. He also oversees the substantive services to many intergovernmental processes, including the annual meetings of the Second and Third Committees of the General Assembly, the meetings of the Economic and Social Council, including its Development Cooperation Forum, and the work of the subsidiary bodies of ECOSOC.
In addition to intergovernmental processes, Mr. Liu oversees DESA’s policy analysis and capacity development work. He also serves as the Convenor of the Executive Committee on Economic and Social Affairs, and advises the United Nations Secretary-General on all development-related issues, including climate change, internet governance, and financing for development.
Mr. Liu holds a Master of Laws from the Law School of Peking University. He was born in August 1955 in Shanxi Province, China. Mr. Liu is married.
President | UN General Assembly, 75th session
Mr. Bozkir has served for 39 years in Turkey’s foreign service. He was elected to Parliament in 2011, and over the next nine years held a range of positions including Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Chairman of the Turkey-United States Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Caucus, Chairman of the Turkey-Australia Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group and Co-Chairman of the Turkish-Russian Civic Forum. From 2014 to 2016, he served as Minister for European Union Affairs and Chief Negotiator.
Over the course of his career, Mr. Bozkir has also held positions including Permanent Representative of Turkey to the European Union, Ambassador to Romania, Consul General in New York, Counsellor of the Permanent Representation to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), First Secretary of the Embassy in Iraq and Vice Consul General in Stuttgart, Germany.
In addition, he served as the Foreign Policy Adviser to Prime Minister Turgut Özal, Chief of Cabinet and Chief Foreign Policy Adviser to Presidents Turgut Özal and Süleyman Demirel, Deputy Undersecretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs responsible for European Union Affairs, and Secretary-General for European Union Affairs.
Mr. Bozkir has been awarded the Order of the Star of Romania, the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic with the rank of “Knight”, and the 100th Anniversary Medal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
He is married and has two children and three grandchildren.
Chair | Swiss Digital Initiative Foundation & Former President of Switzerland
Born 1963, Swiss citizen, married to Dr. Roland Hausin.
Study of law at the University of Zurich. Attorney at law.
After years in the private sector she was elected 1999 in the national council of the federal parlament.
2004 president of the CVP, the christian democratic peoples party.
2006 election in the Bundesrat, the Swiss Government (7 members). She quit Government december 2018.
2009 and 2016 vicepresident, 2010 and 2017 president
2006-2010 she was leading the Federal Department of economic affairs, trade, agriculture and innovation. In this function she was Governor for the World Bank, presented Switzerland at the OECD, ILO, FAO, WTO etc.
From November 2010 until december 2018 she was leading the Federal Department for Environment, Transport, energy and communication. In this function she presented Switzerland at different UN institutions like UNEP or IGF, the Paris climate negotiations, OECD, WEF, transport and digital conferences etc.
2018-2019 she was member of the UN High Level Panel on digital cooperation
Today she is back in the private sector and member of the Boards of the Coop-Group, Bell Food Group, Transgourmet International and Stadler Rail.
She works for different institutions
- President of the Ulrico- Hoepli- Foundation,
- Co-President Steering Committee Europa Forum Luzern
- President of the Swiss Digital Initiative, Geneva
- Member of the ETH Foundation
- Member of the Kofi-Annan-Foundation
Attorney General and Minister | Ministry for Economy, Civil Service and Communications, Fiji
Mr. Sayed-Khaiyum is the Fijian Attorney-General and the Minister for Economy, Public Enterprises, Civil Service, Communications and the minister responsible for climate change. He is the second-ranking elected official in the country. Mr. Sayed-Khaiyum oversaw the creation of a climate change unit in the Office of the Attorney-General to examine legal matters pertaining to climate change that are often omitted from public discussion, such as how to protect the human rights of people who are displaced by the effects of climate change.
He is a strong proponent of climate adaptation and increasing access to climate finance, and is working with governments, multilateral organisations and development banks to allow countries such as Fiji to obtain adequate levels of funding– on the basis of vulnerability – to build their resilience to climate change. He is also leading advocate of granting concessional finance to vulnerable countries in the aftermath of a severe weather event. He completed his Masters’ in Law degree at the University of Hong Kong and his BA from the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia, majoring in political science and development studies.
Secretary-General | ITU
Houlin Zhao was re-elected ITU Secretary-General at the 20th Plenipotentiary Conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in November 2018.
Mr Zhao is an information and communication technology (ICT) engineer who has served in a variety of senior management positions at ITU, began his second, and last, four-year term on 1 January 2019.
Prior to first being elected as ITU Secretary-General in 2014, Zhao served eight years as ITU Deputy Secretary-General. In that role, he assisted the ITU Secretary-General, in close cooperation with the other elected officials of the Union, to manage the implementation of the ITU Strategic Plan and the operations of the ITU Secretariat, in particular with a view to increasing the transparency and efficiency of the organization.
He was responsible for implementing important innovations, including the promotion of a new category of membership open to the global academic community, internal efficiency measures such as the move to a near-paperless work environment, the increased use of remote participation systems, and measures to increase revenue from sales and cost-recovery services. In addition, he focused closely on membership-driven priorities including maintaining and extending ITU's commitment to accessibility, to multilingualism, and to broad multistakeholder participation in the work of the Union.
He also served two elected terms as Director of ITU's Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), which develops technical standards to ensure worldwide ICT interoperability.
During his two terms as TSB Director, he spearheaded the introduction of new efficiency measures to improve ITU's standards-making environment through fostering even closer cooperation with industry members, while strengthening the promotion of ITU's leadership in global ICT standards development.
Before that, he was a Senior Counsellor with TSB for 12 years.
Before joining ITU, Mr Zhao served as an engineer in the Designing Institute of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications of China, taking an active role in his country's expert meetings on telecommunication standards and national plans, as well as participating in ITU work as a Chinese delegate. He contributed important articles to a number of prestigious Chinese technical publications, and in 1985 was awarded a prize for his achievements in science and technology within the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.
Born in 1950 in Jiangsu, China, Mr Zhao graduated from Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and holds an MSc in Telematics from the University of Essex in the United Kingdom.
He is married with one son and two grandchildren, and is fluent in three official ITU languages: English, French and Chinese.
Mr Zhao is committed to further streamlining ITU's efficiency, strengthening its membership base through greater involvement of the academic community and of small- and medium-sized enterprises, and to broadening multistakeholder participation in ITU's work.
Executive Director | Association for Progressive Communications
Chat Garcia Ramilo is the Executive Director of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC). She served as APC’s Deputy Executive Director and led APC’s women’s programme before being appointed in her current position in 2017. Ms. Ramilo has considerable organisational, management and gender expertise developed over 30 years of leading multi-country and multi-disciplinary projects, programmes and networks. Chat is from the Philippines.
Professor | Columbia University, Center for Sustainable Development
Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned economics professor, bestselling author, innovative educator, and global leader in sustainable development.
He is widely recognized for bold and effective strategies to address complex challenges including debt crises, hyperinflations, the transition from central planning to market economies, the control of AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, the escape from extreme poverty, and the battle against human-induced climate change.
Sachs serves as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he holds the rank of University Professor, the university’s highest academic rank. Sachs held the position of Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University from 2002 to 2016. He is President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development, and an SDG Advocate for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. From 2001-18, Sachs served as Special Advisor to UN Secretaries-General Kofi Annan (2001-7), Ban Ki-moon (2008-16), and António Guterres (2017-18).
Sachs has authored and edited numerous books, including three New York Times bestsellers: The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008), and The Price of Civilization (2011). Other books include To Move the World: JFK’s Quest for Peace (2013), The Age of Sustainable Development (2015), Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair & Sustainable (2017), A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism (2018), and most recently, The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions (2020).
Sachs was the co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, the leading global prize for environmental leadership. He was twice named among Time magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders and has received 34 honorary degrees. The New York Times called Sachs “probably the most important economist in the world,” and Time magazine called Sachs “the world’s best-known economist.” A survey by The Economist ranked Sachs as among the three most influential living economists.
Prior to joining Columbia, Sachs spent over twenty years as a professor at Harvard University, most recently as the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade. Sachs received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard. Sachs is a native of Detroit, Michigan, and currently resides in New York City.
Vice President | WhatsApp
Victoria is the vice president of WhatsApp responsible for setting the overall policy strategy for the product. She also oversees WhatsApp's communications and public affairs. Previously, Victoria was a director at Facebook leading policy programs. Prior to joining Facebook, Victoria was at Google for a decade where she led policy and communications for YouTube and was a director of policy strategy. She holds an B.A. from Middlebury College and a J.D. from Berkeley Law School.
High-school student | Moldova
Pamela Cretu is a 15 years old teenager, originally from the Republic of Moldova, currently living and studying in Austria. Early March 2020, Pamela was admitted to the International Baccalaureate World School, Bilingual Gymnasium Klosterneuburg, one of Austria’s top Public High Schools. At her school, she recently joined European Studies Extracurricular Club. Pamela attended the IGF in Istanbul back in 2014, she joined the Open Government Partnership Summit in Paris in 2016, and assisted with live streaming an Eastern Partnership dedicated session via social media. Pamela is passionate about writing, specifically writing fiction; she is interested in the issues of cybersecurity, personal identity online and online tools for citizen engagement in decision making, and ways technology is impacting democracy; as well as the role of Youth in Internet policy making.
President | United Nations Economic and Social Council
His Excellency Munir Akram
Seventy-sixth President of the Economic and Social Council
His Excellency Munir Akram was elected seventy-sixth President of the Economic and Social Council on 23 July 2020. Ambassador Akram is currently the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations in New York. Ambassador Akram assumed his position as Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations, with the rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, on November 1, 2019.
Ambassador Munir Akram previously served as Pakistan’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York for six years between 2002 and 2008, after serving as Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva for seven years from 1995 to 2002.
Between 1988 and 1992, Munir Akram was Pakistan’s Ambassador to the European Council, Belgium and Luxemburg.
During his term at the United Nations, Ambassador Munir Akram served twice as President of the Security Council in May 2003 and in May 2004; President of the Economic and Social Council in 2005; Chairman of the Group of 77 and China (developing countries) in 2007, and Facilitator on UN Administrative Reform in 2006.
Among the positions he held in various intergovernmental organizations were: Member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament; Chairman of the WTO Trade Policy Review Body; President of the Conference on Disarmament (June 1996).
Ambassador Akram joined the Foreign Service of Pakistan in 1967, holding various positions in the Foreign Ministry as Additional Foreign Secretary and Director-General dealing with the United Nations.
He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Law and a Master’s degree in Political Science from the University of Karachi. He is a prolific writer and has lectured and published several articles and papers on various strategic, political and economic issues.
In recognition of his selfless service and outstanding performance in the field of diplomacy and foreign policy, he was conferred the Award of Hilal-i-Quaid-e-Azam by the President of Pakistan.
President | Centre for Digital Culture, Holy See
Paul Tighe was born on the 12th February 1958. He was ordained a priest of the Dublin Diocese in 1983. From 1990 to 2007, he taught Moral Theology and Ethics at the Mater Dei Institute of Education in Dublin. In 2004, he was appointed to the Communications Office of Dublin Diocese and he established the Office for Public Affairs. In 2007, he was appointed as Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications. In that capacity, he was involved in promoting Church reflection on the importance of digital culture and in the launch of some of the social media initiatives of the Holy See. In 2015, he was nominated to the Pontifical Council for Culture and as titular Bishop of Drivastum. At the Council, where he serves as Secretary General, he follows questions related to digital culture (impact of technology on social and political discourse), ethics and contemporary literature.
Commissioner for the Digital Industry and Start-ups | Government of Germany
Deputy CEO | GAVI Alliance
Anuradha Gupta is the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
Since joining Gavi in 2015, Anuradha has led efforts to put equity and gender at the centre of Gavi’s programmatic planning and to tailor support to countries within Gavi’s strategy. She has also driven efforts to create a new model of country-level Alliance support, through the establishment of a Partners’ Engagement Framework. At the same time, Anuradha has helped improve country ownership and leadership of Gavi-supported programmes besides enhancing accountability for results.
Prior to Gavi, Anuradha served as Mission Director of the National Health Mission in India where she ran the largest - and possibly most complex – public health programme
in the world with an annual budget of US$ 3.5 billion. A passionate and influential advocate of women, young girls and children, Anuradha played a leading role in India’s efforts to eradicate polio transmission, reduce maternal and child mortality and revitalise primary health care.
Anuradha has contributed towards a number of important global health initiatives. She
served as a member of the Steering Committee for ‘Child Survival: Call to Action’,
co-chaired the Stakeholder Group for the London Family Planning Summit 2020 and was a member of the Family Planning 2020 Reference Group. Anuradha served as Co-Chair of the Partnership for Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health (PMNCH) and is currently their Board Member. She also played a role in the shaping of the Global Financing Facility (GFF) and is a member of the GFF Investors’ Group. From 2015-2018 Anuradha was on Merck for Mothers Advisory Board.
Anuradha holds an MBA from the University of Wollongong in Australia and received executive education from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Stanford School of Business and Maxwell School at Syracuse University. She was included on the list of Top 300 Global Women Leaders in Health in 2015 by the Graduate Institute of International and Developments Studies and the Lancet.
Director | CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology & Member | WHO Digital Health Advisory Group, India
Dr. Anurag Agrawal took charge as director of CSIR Institute of Genomics & Integrative Biology (IGIB) on 25th October 2017. He graduated in medicine from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in 1994, followed by specialization in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Disease, and Critical Care from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, (2003) and a PhD in physiology from Delhi University. After serving as a faculty member of the Department of Medicine at Baylor, he joined IGIB in 2007, where he established the Centre of Excellence for Translational Research in Asthma & Lung disease (TRiAL) and the CSIR program for Effective Application of Community Health efforts through new age Information Technology (EACH-IT). His research activities include use of experimental and computational model-systems to study disease, especially asthma. Dr Agrawal believes health data analytics, with artificial intelligence applications, to be the new frontier of medicine and is actively engaged in promoting the confluence of medicine and informatics. He has more than 100 scientific publications, mostly original research findings communicated in high-impact journals. He has been recognized internationally, as an alumnus of Kavli Frontiers of Science program of the US National Academy of Sciences, as well as nationally in the form of the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar award (Medical Sciences, 2014), National Bioscience award (2015), Wellcome Trust DBT India Alliance senior fellowship (2015), Lady Tata Young Researcher Award (2010) and the Swarnjayanti Fellowship of the Department of Science and Technology (2010). Dr. Agrawal is a member and fellow of numerous academic societies and serves on advisory bodies at Public Health Foundation of India, Lady Tata Memorial Trust, Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology, Centre for Brain Research, and Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, amongst others, as well as an advisor for start up companies and healthcare organizations.
Chairwoman & CTO | Diagnostic Robotics
Dr. Kira Radinsky is the chairperson and CTO of Diagnostic Robotics, where the most advanced technologies in the field of artificial intelligence are harnessed to make healthcare better, cheaper, and more widely available.
In the past, she co-founded SalesPredict, acquired by eBay in 2016, and served as eBay director of data science and IL chief scientist.
One of the up-and-coming voices in the data science community, she is pioneering the field of medical data mining.
Dr. Radinsky gained international recognition for her work at Microsoft Research, where she developed predictive algorithms that recognized the early warning signs of globally impactful events, including political riots and disease epidemics. In 2013, she was named to the MIT Technology Review’s 35 Young Innovators Under 35, in 2015 as Forbes 30 under 30 rising stars in enterprise technology, and in 2016 selected as "woman of the year" by Globes. She is a frequent presenter at global tech events, including TEDx, Wired, Strata Data Science, Techcrunch and academic conferences, and she publishes in the Harvard Business Review.
Radinsky serves as a board member in: Israel Securities Authority, Maccabi Research Institute, and technology board of HSBC bank.
Dr. Radinsky also serves as visiting professor at the Technion, Israel’s leading science and technology institute, where she focuses on the application of predictive data mining in medicine.
Director of the Health Regulatory Science Platform | University of the Witwatersrand
Malebona Precious Matsoso, has over 25 years’ experience at executive management level in the field of health management, ethics, and research. She held the post of Director-General of the South African National Department of Health for nine and a half years. Under her tenure, the largest programme to counter HIV infection in the world with 4.7 million people on treatment; she oversaw the roll-out of the electronic Health Patient Registration System, which has over 44 million patients registered. She was responsible for the development of e-Health, M-Health and Digital Health Strategy for South Africa and was instrumental in the reform of District Health Information Systems and Governance. She chaired the Ministerial Advisory Committee on e-Health. At an international level, she was the Director of Public Health Innovation and Intellectual Property at the World Health Organization (WHO) Director. Prior to that, she served as WHO Director, Department of Technical Cooperation for Essential Drugs and Traditional Medicine. She has served on various advisory bodies both nationally and internationally. Chair of the WHO Executive Board. A member of the UN High-Level Panel on Access to Health Technologies, Chairperson of the Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee for the WHO Health Emergencies Programme. She was the member of the Lancet Global Health Commission on High Quality Health Systems. She was the Co-Chair of WHO Digital Health Advisory Group. She has been recently appointed as the member of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. Ms Matsoso is currently the Director of the Health Regulatory Science Platform, a division of the Wits Health Consortium at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Director and Chief Information Officer | World Health Organization, Department of Digital Health and Innovation
Mr. Bernardo Mariano Junior
Bernardo Mariano Junior is the Director of the Department of Digital Health and Innovation, and the Chief Information Officer of WHO. He is responsible for setting and maintaining the vision and direction of WHO’s strategy of health in the digital age. As CIO, he ensures that the digital transformation of WHO enhances the organization’s collective performance and efficiency to deliver the ‘Health for all’ global development agenda.
Prior to joining WHO, Mr. Mariano held senior managerial positions in the International Organization for Migration as Senior Regional Adviser for Sub-Saharan Africa in the office of the Director-General, Chief Information Officer/Director, Information & Communications Technology, and Regional Director for East and Southern Africa
Moderator | Head European Affairs at Deutsche Welle
Patrick H. Leusch is Head European Affairs at the Director Generals Office of Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international Broadcaster since October 1st 2017. In this capacity Patrick is responsible for international relations especially to European Institutions and partners.
Before taking this position Patrick was Managing Director of the Global Media Forum, the global conference on media and foreign policy, organized annually by Deutsche Welle. He also was CEO of the DW Media Services GmbH, a company owned by Deutsche Welle. Patrick has been for many years Head International Relations of DW Akademie. He was responsible for the organization’s advocacy activities, international networking and fundraising and he represented the organization in a range of partnerships with international agencies, networks and towards political bodies, such as the European Commission or UN.
Patrick is Belgian and grew-up bilingual French-German. He holds a Master in Psycho-Pedagogy. He worked for many years as an independent TV and Radio reporter, editor and producer. He was a senior editor for leading German broadcasters and served as the correspondent for Western Africa or the German public radio, ARD, in Rabat Morocco.
In 1999 he merged his interest in psychology, pedagogy, development cooperation and journalism and became a trainer and consultant for journalists and media executives in Africa, the Arab region and Asia. After joining DW Akademie, Patrick was in charge of all projects in the French speaking part of Africa for many years. In 2008 he became Head Project Development at DW Akademie and build a dynamic team that started successfully developing innovative comprehensive long term media development strategies and projects for international donors and partners.
Commissioner for Economic Affairs | African Union
Professor Victor Harison holds a PhD in Mathematical Sciences, University of Antananarivo.
He is currently Commissioner for Economic Affairs Department of the African Union Commission since August 2017. Previously he held the positions of Director General of the National Institute of Accounting and Business Administration (INSCAE), Antananarivo and Director of Studies and Programming, Ministry of Higher Education and Executive Secretary of the "Human Resources Development" project, administered by the World Bank.
In addition, he was Professor of Mathematics, Leadership, Organizational and Project Management. He conducts research activities such as Thesis Director in Mathematical Sciences and Management Sciences.
Secretary-General | The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
Mukhisa Kituyi, of Kenya, became UNCTAD's seventh Secretary-General on 1 September 2013. After serving an initial four-year term, he was reappointed by the General Assembly in July 2017 for an additional term that began on 1 September that year.
Dr. Kituyi has an extensive background as an elected official, an academic, and a holder of high government office. He also has wide-ranging experience in trade negotiations, and in African and broader international economics and diplomacy.
He was born in Bungoma District, western Kenya, in 1956. He studied political science and international relations at the University of Nairobi and at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, receiving a BA in 1982. He went on to earn an MPhil in 1986 and a doctorate in 1989 from the University of Bergen, Norway.
Dr. Kituyi served as a researcher at Norway's Christian Michelsen Institute from 1989 to 1991, and as Programme Director of the African Centre for Technology Studies in Nairobi from 1991
to 1992.
He was elected to the Kenyan Parliament in 1992, and was twice re-elected.
He was Kenya's Minister of Trade and Industry from 2002 to 2007.
During this period, Dr. Kituyi chaired for two years the Council of Ministers of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the African Trade Ministers' Council.
He also served as chairman of the Council of Ministers of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, and was lead negotiator for Eastern and Southern African ministers during the European Union-ACP Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations. He was convenor of the agriculture negotiations carried out at the World Trade Organization's Sixth Ministerial Conference held in Hong Kong, China in 2005.
From 2008 to 2012, Dr. Kituyi was a member of a team of experts advising the presidents of
the nations of the East African Community on how to establish more effective regional
economic links.
From 2011 to 2012, he was a consultant for the African Union Commission, where he helped
to develop the structure for a pan-African free trade area.
Immediately prior to becoming Secretary-General, Dr. Kituyi was Chief Executive of the Kenya
Institute of Governance, based in Nairobi. The Institute is a think tank and advocacy
organization that focuses on linking academic research and the development of public policy.
During 2012, Dr. Kituyi also served as a non-resident fellow of the Africa Growth Initiative of
the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C. He was a resident scholar there in 2011.
Dr. Kituyi is married and has four children.
Executive Secretary | United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)
Ms. Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific took office on 1 November 2018. Ms. Alisjahbana was Professor of Economics at Universitas Padjadjaran and was Minister of National Development Planning and the Head of the National Development Planning Agency (BAPPENAS), Indonesia from 2009 to 2014. In 2016, Ms. Alisjahbana was a member of the High-Level Independent Team of Advisors to support the ECOSOC Dialogue on the longer-term positioning of the United Nations for the 2030 Agenda. Ms. Alisjahbana obtained her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Washington, USA.
Link to the webpage of the Executive Secretary of ESCAP
Deputy Director-General and Head of regulatory framework for digital policy, postal policy, international affairs and media | German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
Deputy Director-General | The World Trade Organization (WTO)
Mr. YI Xiaozhun has been a Deputy Director-General at the World Trade Organization since October 2013.
Yi Xiaozhun has extensive experience in world trade and economics, both as a senior government official and subsequently as China's ambassador to the WTO.
He represented China as a key negotiator in China’s WTO accession process, making an important contribution to the negotiations.
Prior to becoming China's ambassador to the WTO in 2011, Mr Yi was Assistant Minister and subsequently China's Vice Minister of Commerce in charge of multilateral and regional trade negotiations and cooperation. Besides his contribution to China’s WTO accession, he played a leading role in negotiating numerous free trade agreements (FTAs), including the China-ASEAN agreement, China's first FTA. He also worked as a diplomat at the Chinese Embassy in the United States for more than four years from the late 1980s to the early 1990s.
Mr Yi obtained a Master's degree in economics from Nankai University in China in 1999.
Chief Information Officer and Information Technology Department Director | The International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Ed Anderson began his career with Accenture (Arthur Andersen) and progressed to Senior Manager before going to Verizon Broadband Systems as its Director. Ed left Verizon to join Iridium as the Director of Business Operations and later joined Sodexho as VP of IT.
Ed later became CIO of AmeriChoice Health and the U.S. Peace Corps, before becoming the SVP of Government Services for Anerian LLC. Ed served as the Global CIO of World Vision International.
Ed Anderson is now the CIO and Director for the International Monetary Fund. In light of the increasing role of digital technologies, including for the least developed countries, Ed created the conditions for the IMF to integrate a strong and unbiased digital expertise to its work with governments.
Executive Vice President, Global Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer | Walmart
Daniel Trujillo is executive vice president and global chief ethics and compliance officer for Walmart Inc. As the leader of Walmart’s Global Ethics and Compliance team, Daniel develops the company’s strategic vision for our ethics and compliance program.
Daniel joined Walmart in 2012 as senior vice president and international chief compliance officer, leading a rapidly expanding division that supports the implementation of a compliance program over 14 subject matters in 27 countries outside the United States.
Prior to joining Walmart, Daniel spent over 15 years with Schlumberger Ltd., a leading supplier of technology, integrated project management and information solutions for customers working in the oil and gas industry in more than 85 countries. At Schlumberger, he served in many roles around the world, including legal counsel for Europe and Africa, global senior legal counsel, general counsel for Latin America, senior legal counsel for mergers and acquisitions, and deputy general counsel and director of compliance for Schlumberger Ltd.
Prior to Schlumberger, Daniel worked for Cargill, Impregilo S.p.A., a litigation boutique firm, and a civil court in Argentina.
Originally from Argentina, Daniel worked in more than 60 countries before relocating to Bentonville, Arkansas. He speaks five languages. He graduated from Buenos Aires University Law School and has a master of business administration degree (MBA) from Salvador University in Argentina and Deusto, Spain, as well as a master in international commercial law (LLM) from the University of California, Davis.
Daniel and his wife have a daughter and a son.
Founder and Managing Member | Resilience Capital Ventures LLC
Gillian Marcelle, PhD is a senior leader in economic development and international business with a proven track record in attracting investment to emerging markets. She leads Resilience Capital Ventures LLC, a boutique capital advisory practice specialising in blended finance. Resilience has been successful in capital raising, including mobilizing domestic and international investment for renewable energy in the Caribbean. Dr Marcelle has designed and initiated a blended finance partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative, has served in staff roles with the International Finance Corporation, in capital markets at JP Morgan Chase and M&A with British Telecom. As part of her thought leadership practice, she is very active in the impact investment space, where her contributions and perspectives on diversity, inclusion, accountability and alignment with the SDGs are becoming influential. Her Sub-Saharan African activities include serving as a non-Executive Director of Tafari Capital Pty Ltd. She served as a member and Bureau member of the UN ICT Task force has advised several UN agencies, countries, cities and firms on ICT for development. Earlier in her career she was a tenured Associate Professor at Wits Business School, Johannesburg and still maintains deep and wide professional and academic networks in the US, Europe, across the African continent and the Caribbean, bridging the worlds of finance and investment, international development and advocacy.
Co-Chair | Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace
Latha Reddy is the former Deputy National Security Adviser of India where she was responsible for cybersecurity and other critical internal and external security issues. She also served as a Commissioner on the Global Commission on Internet Governance.
Ms. Reddy served in the Indian Foreign Service from 1975-2011. During her diplomatic career she served in Lisbon, Washington D.C., Kathmandu, Brasilia, Durban, Vienna and Bangkok. She served as Ambassador of India to Portugal (2004-2006) and to Thailand (2007-2009). She was Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi (2010-2011) with overall charge of India’s bilateral and regional relations with Asia. She was then appointed as India’s Deputy National Security Advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office from 2011-2013.
Ms. Reddy has extensive experience in foreign policy, and in bilateral, regional and multilateral negotiations. In addition, she has expertise on security and strategic issues and has worked on strategic technology policies, particularly on cyber issues relating to cyber security policy, international cyber cooperation and Internet governance.
Ms. Reddy is involved with several organizations and think-tanks, both globally and in India. She is currently, among other positions, serving as a Distinguished Fellow in the EastWest Institute in the US and the Observer Research Foundation in India.
Secretary General | International Chamber of Commerce
John W.H. Denton AO is the Secretary General of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). He is a global business leader and international advisor on policy and a legal expert on international trade and investment.
He is also a Board member of the United Nations Global Compact and Co-Chair of the Financing Growth and Infrastructure Task Force for Argentina B20 2019, as well as a founding member of the Business 20 (B20), the Australia–China CEO Roundtable and UNHCR in Australia.
Mr Denton serves on the Board of leading global infrastructure group IFM Investors and is Co-Chair of the Trade and Investment Working Group for the G20 Japan.
He co-led the Australian Government’s 2012 White Paper on “Australia in the Asian Century” and previously chaired the APEC Finance and Economics Working Group.
A former diplomat, Mr Denton served for two decades as Partner and Chief Executive Officer of Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Australia’s leading independent law firm.
In 2015, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for his services to
the business community, the arts and the rights of refugees, including as a founder of
Human Rights Watch (Australia) and Teach for Australia.
Mr Denton is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and the University of Melbourne.
Under-Secretary-General of Disarmament Affairs | United Nations
Ms Izumi Nakamitsu assumed her position as Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for
Disarmament Affairs on 1 May 2017. Prior to taking on this post, Ms. Nakamitsu served as Assistant
Administrator of the Crisis Response Unit at the UN Development Programme since 2014.
She has many years of experience within and outside the UN system, most recently as Special Adviser
Ad Interim on Follow-up to the Summit on Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants
between 2016 and 2017. She was previously Director of the Asia and the Middle East Division of the
UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations between 2012 and 2014, and Director of the
Department’s Division of Policy, Evaluation and Training, from 2008 to 2012.
Born in 1963, Ms. Nakamitsu holds a Master of Science degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown
University in Washington, D.C., and a Bachelor of Law degree from Waseda University in Tokyo.
She is married and has two daughters.
CEO | Kaspersky
Eugene Kaspersky is a world-renowned cybersecurity expert and successful entrepreneur. He is a co-founder and the Chief Executive Officer of Kaspersky, the world’s largest privately-held vendor of endpoint protection and cybersecurity solutions.
Eugene began his career in cybersecurity accidentally when his computer became infected with the ‘Cascade’ virus in 1989. Eugene’s specialized education in cryptography helped him analyze the encrypted virus, understand its behavior, and then develop a removal tool for it. After successfully removing the virus, Eugene’s curiosity and passion for computer technology drove him to start analyzing more malicious programs and developing disinfection modules for them. This exotic collection of antivirus modules would eventually become the foundation for Kaspersky’s antivirus database. Today the database is one of the most comprehensive and complete collections in cybersecurity, used in detecting and preventing systems from being infected by more than 500 million malicious programs.
Further pursuing his passion for defensive technologies, in 1990 Eugene started gathering a team of like-minded enthusiast researchers to create the AVP Toolkit Pro antivirus program, which four years later was recognized by the University of Hamburg as the most effective antivirus software in the world.
Wishing to combine their successful track record of antivirus programming with their entrepreneurial vision, Eugene and his colleagues decided to establish their own independent company. In 1997 Kaspersky was founded, with Eugene heading the company’s antivirus research. In 2007 he was named Kaspersky’s CEO.
Today Kaspersky is one of the fastest growing IT security vendors worldwide, operating in almost 200 countries and territories worldwide. The company employs more than 4,000 professionals and IT security specialists in 34 dedicated regional offices across 30 countries, and its cybersecurity technologies protect over 400 million users worldwide.
Kaspersky’s globally renowned team of experts has investigated some of the most complex and sophisticated cyberattacks ever known, including Stuxnet, Flame, and Red October. The company also cooperates extensively with INTERPOL, Europol, and national police bodies to actively assist them in their fight against cybercrime.
Eugene has an Honorary Doctorate of Science from the UK’s Plymouth University. He regularly gives both lectures on cybersecurity at universities around the globe, and keynotes at leading conferences and industry events.
Eugene is both a passionate traveler and dedicated devotee of wild nature and adventure-tourism. He is also a talented photographer, which assists in his prolific chronicling of his exploits in his blog – from polar expeditions and glacier crossings to volcano scaling and jungle trekking.
President | The Global Forum on Cyber Expertise
Chris Painter is a globally recognized leader and expert on cybersecurity and cyber policy, Cyber Diplomacy and combatting cybercrime. He has been on the vanguard of U.S. and international cyber issues for over twenty five years—first as a prosecutor of some of the most high-profile cybercrime cases in the country and then as a senior official at the Department of Justice, FBI, the National Security Council and finally the State Department.
In his most recent government role as the nation’s top cyber diplomat, Mr. Painter coordinated and led the United States’ diplomatic efforts to advance an open, interoperable, secure and reliable Internet and information infrastructure. The pioneering office that Mr. Painter established — the Office of the Coordinator for Cyber Issues — was the first high-level position and office dedicated to advancing the diplomatic aspects of cyber issues ranging from national security to human rights matters. These issues include promoting norms of responsible state behavior and cyber stability, preventing cyber conflict, enhancing deterrence, advancing cybersecurity, fighting cybercrime, promoting multi-stakeholder Internet governance and advancing Internet freedom.
Prior to joining the State Department, Mr. Painter served in the White House as Senior Director for Cyber Policy and Acting Cyber Coordinator in the National Security Council. He was a senior member of the team that conducted the President’s Cyberspace Policy Review in 2009 and he subsequently helped create and then structure a new directorate in the National Security Council devoted to these issues.
Among other things, Mr. Painter is currently the President of the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise Foundation, serves on the Board of the Center for Internet Security, is an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, serves on the Advisory Board of Third Way’s cybercrime project, and is on the Public Sector Advisory Board for Palo Alto Networks. He has been a frequent media spokesperson and presenter on cyber issues around the globe. Mr. Painter was named the Bartels World Affairs Fellow by Cornell University for 2017-2018, received The Order of the Rising Sun from the Government of Japan for promoting U.S-Japan cyber cooperation in 2018 and received the Order of Terra Mariana from the President of Estonia in 2020 for promoting cyber cooperation. He is also the recipient of the prestigious RSA Award for Excellence in the Field of Public Policy (2016), the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service, and the Intelligence Community Legal Award (2008). He is a graduate of Stanford Law School and Cornell University and clerked for US Circuit Judge Betty Fletcher.
Co-Director | Cybersecurity Capacity Centre for Southern Africa
Enrico Calandro is the Co-Director of the Cybersecurity Capacity Centre for Southern Africa at the University of Cape Town and a Senior Research Associate at Research ICT Africa. Over the last ten years, he has been exploring the relationship between digitalisation and development with a focus on digital inequalities. His targeted and locally-relevant research has aimed at shaping cyber policy processes and debates and at crafting evidence-based and informed capacity-building initiatives in the field of cyber policy.
He has worked as an advisor for the e-Parliament programme of the SADC Parliamentary Forum and more recently as an expert consultant on cross border data flow for the UNDP Global Centre for Technology, Innovation, and Sustainable Development. In June 2018, Enrico was appointed as a Member of the Advisory Board of the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise, and in June 2020, he was appointed as the Chairperson of the GFCE Research Committee. Since January 2020, he is a Member of the Technical Advisory Board of the Constellation of Cyber Centres led by the Global Cybersecurity Capacity Centre at the University of Oxford.
Enrico is a recipient of the Open Technology Fund fellowship on Information controls, the Amy Mahan scholarship award for the advancement of ICT policy in Africa, and the UNDESA fellowship for international cooperation. He holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration, Programme on managing infrastructure reform and regulation, from the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town.
Moderator | Founding Director of DiploFoundation and the Head of the Geneva Internet Platform
Prof. Jovan Kurbalija is the Founding Director of DiploFoundation and the Head of the Geneva Internet Platform. A former diplomat, Prof. Kurbalija has a professional and academic background in international law, diplomacy, and information technology. He has been a pioneer in the field of cyber diplomacy since 1992 when he established the Unit for Information Technology and Diplomacy at the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies in Malta.
Prof. Kurbalija was a member of the United Nations (UN) Working Group on Internet Governance (2004-2005), special advisor to the Chairman of the UN Internet Governance Forum (2006-2010) and a member of the High Level Multistakeholder Committee for NETmunidal (2013-2014).
Since 1997 Prof. Kurbalija’s research and articles on cyber diplomacy have shaped research and policy discussion on the impact of the Internet on diplomacy and international relations. His book, An Introduction to Internet Governance, has been translated into 9 languages and is used as a textbook for academic courses worldwide. Prof. Kurbalija lectures on e-diplomacy and Internet governance in academic and training institutions in many countries, including Austria (Diplomatic Academy of Vienna), Belgium (College of Europe), Switzerland (University of St. Gallen), Malta (University of Malta) and the United States (University of Southern California).
Minister | Ministry of Technological Innovation and Digitalization, Italy
Paola Pisano is the Minister for Technological Innovation and Digitalization
She holds a PhD in Business Administration and she’s Professor of Innovation Management at the University of Torino. She founded and directed the ICxT's innovation laboratory at the University of Turin and participate to the startup of ESCP Europe Business School In Torino.
She has been visiting lecturer at GCU (Glasgow Caledonian University) and at the University of Westminster and published more than 80 papers on innovation and innovative business administration.
In September 2019 Paola Pisano became Minister of Technological Innovation and Digitalization, since 2016 she was the Deputy Mayor for Innovation and Smart City of the City of Torino where she brought a new vision that is now turning into a laboratory for testing frontier innovation open to the world and defined the strategy of digitalization for the city.
Executive Director | UN Women
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of
UN Women. Now in her second term, she was first sworn into office on 19 August 2013. As the
head of the UN entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, she is a
global advocate and has led the organization’s innovative work on disruption of society’s
norms. Through coalition and movement building among global leaders in public and private
sectors, and with civil society, she is driving the role of women in leadership, and ending
discrimination and violence against women and girls. Before joining UN Women, she served in
the Mandela Government as Minister of Minerals and Energy, and subsequently Deputy
President, working on the fight against HIV/AIDS and coordinating efforts between the private
sector, civil society and government to tackle poverty and education issues. Ms. Mlambo-
Ngcuka also worked as a teacher and gained international experience as a coordinator at the
World YWCA in Geneva, where she established a global programme for young women. She is
the founder of the Umlambo Foundation, which supports leadership and education.
Director General | United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)
LI Yong, Director General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), has had an extensive career as a senior economic and financial policy-maker. As Vice-Minister of Finance of the People’s Republic of China and member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank for a decade, Mr. Li was involved in setting and harmonizing fiscal, monetary and industrial policies, and in supporting sound economic growth in China. He pushed forward financial sector reform, and prompted major financial institutions to establish corporate governance, deal with toxic assets and strengthen risk management. Mr. Li gave great importance to fiscal and financial measures in favor of agricultural development and SMEs, the cornerstones for creating economic opportunities, reducing poverty and promoting gender equality. He played a key role in China’s cooperation with multilateral development organizations, such as the World Bank Group and the Asian Development Bank.
Deputy Executive Secretary | United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
Mario Cimoli is the Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). He was appointed in that position on August 1st, 2018. He is also Chief of the Division of Production, Productivity and Management and Officer-in-Charge of the Division of International Trade and Integration.
He is the co-chair (along with Giovanni Dosi and Joseph Stiglitz) of two of the task forces (industrial policy and intellectual property right regimes for development) of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University (New York).
A PhD in economics from the University of Sussex, his research deals with development paths, economic growth and its relationship with the productive structure, and international trade. His work examines the interconnections between industrial policy, technological development and innovation.
His most important publications include Learning, Technological Capabilities and Structural Dynamics (2011); Innovation and Economic Development: the Impact of Information and Communication Technologies in Latin America (2010); Industrial Policy and Development, The Political Economy of Capabilities Accumulation (with Dosi, G. and J. E. Stiglitz, 2009); and Institutions and policies in developing economies (with Dosi, G., R. R. Nelson, and J. E. Stiglitz, 2009).
President | Internet Society
Andrew Sullivan joined the Internet Society as President and Chief Executive Officer in September 2018.
He has worked on Internet infrastructure and standards since 2001. In 2012 he joined Dyn (later, Oracle Dyn) to establish Dyn Labs and then to manage the DNS development and architecture departments. His activities in this area led to him being appointed to the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) in 2013. His IAB colleagues elected him Chair in 2015 and 2016.
Andrew's IAB tenure coincided with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) stewardship transition. Andrew was deeply involved in the community's efforts around the transition and played a central role in its eventual success. His expertise in the area was acknowledged when he was invited to testify about the transition to the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Before joining Dyn, Andrew was a principal contributor to the Variant Issues Project (VIP) undertaken by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The VIP was an effort to bring together several different, previous efforts in support of internationalized domain names. The VIP was made of teams from all over the world, working on five major writing systems. Andrew worked with all of them to try to gather together the needs of the many different linguistic communities of the world, and the Internet's critical value as an interoperable, neutral platform. The positive results of the VIP are being expressed every day through Internet-scale internationalized domain names.
At the beginning of Andrew's Internet infrastructure career, he worked to launch the .info Internet top-level domain in 2001. Because of that experience, he was part of the team that collaborated with the Internet Society to launch Public Interest Registry, and take over the operation of the .org top-level domain. These registries used PostgreSQL, an advanced open-source database management system. Because of his work in this area Andrew organized the PostgreSQL Anniversary Summit, held at Ryerson University in Toronto in 2006.
Andrew was born in Buffalo, NY, USA to Canadian parents, and has lived most of his life in Canada. He holds a Baccalaureate of Arts (Hons) from the University of Ottawa, and a Master of Arts from McMaster University, both in Philosophy. His graduate work on the philosophy of economics led him to his interest in free/open source software and open Internet protocols and standards. He carries that interest and passion forward to his position at the Internet Society.
CEO and Founder | The Council on Energy, Environment and Water, India
Arunabha Ghosh is the founder-CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, since 2010, and has led CEEW to the top ranks as one of Asia's leading policy research institutions and among the world’s 20 best climate think-tanks. He has been involved in the design of the International Solar Alliance and is a founding board member of the Clean Energy Access Network. Co-author/editor of four books and with experience in 45 countries, he previously worked at Princeton, Oxford, UNDP (New York), and WTO (Geneva). In 2018, Dr. Ghosh was nominated to the UN's Committee for Development Policy. In 2020, the Government of India appointed him Co-Chair of the energy, environment and climate change track for India’s forthcoming Science, Technology and Innovation Policy. His 2019 TED Talk on air quality (Mission 80-80-80) has crossed 225,000 views. He is co-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Clean Air and is a member of the international high-level panel of the Environment of Peace initiative.
Head of Global Public Policy and Government Relations | Zoom
Josh Kallmer is Head of Global Public Policy and Government Relations at Zoom. He was most recently Executive Vice President for Policy at the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), leading efforts to influence policy development around the globe. Before joining ITI, he acted as counsel for Crowell & Moring LLP and Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Investment.
Director of Sustainable Development | Fingo
Rilli Lappalainen is currently Director of Sustainable Development at Fingo, national platform for Finnish development NGOs. He has worked over 25 years with sustainable development as civil servant, consultant and civil society actor in all continents. He is heavily involved in global work e.g. through Forus (International Forum of National NGO Platforms), Action for Sustainable Development-network, CONCORD (European confederation of relief and development NGOs) and is a founder and chair of Bridge 47 which is a global network to bring people together to share, learn and act towards transformative change with the help of global citizenship education. Integration of learning and education in politics and practice and mixing things up to find new and coherent solutions have been the redline of Rilli´s work and life from local scouts to global networking.
CEO | Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data
Claire Melamed is the CEO of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. This growing network brings together several hundred members -- governments, private sector, and civil society -- to harness and leverage data and data technology towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. She was previously Managing Director of the Overseas Development Institute, and in 2014, she worked in the office of the UN Secretary General, writing the report of the Independent Expert Advisory Group on the Data Revolution, “A World That Counts”. "We say that every life counts, but we still don't count every life", she says in her advocacy to use the knowledge provided by data to improve lives and protect the planet. Claire is based in London and heads up a global team based in six countries. Claire serves on a number of Boards and advisory groups for institutions including the UK Office of National Statistics Data Science Campus, Government of UAE Task Force on Global Data Commons, Overseas Development Institute Human Mobility Initiative, and Mo Ibrahim Foundation Governance Index.
Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences | UNESCO
Gabriela Ramos is the Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO, where she is in charge of advancing social inclusion and gender equality; youth development; promotion of values through sports; anti-racism and anti-discriminatory agenda; and the ethics of science and technology. In this domain, she is overseeing the elaboration of the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence.
Prior to this position, Ms. Ramos served as the Chief of Staff and Sherpa to the G20/G7/APEC in the OECD, contributing to the global agenda as well as leading the OECD's New Approaches to Economic Challenges, Inclusive Growth Initiative, Gender Strategy, the work on well-being and children, and the issues related to the digital transformation. In 2019, she launched the Business for Inclusive Growth (B4IG) platform, bringing together 40 major multinational companies committed to reducing inequalities. Previously, she was Director of the OECD Office in Mexico and Latin America and a member of the Mexican foreign service.
In 2013, she was decorated with the Ordre du Merit by the President of France. Her work to promote gender equality earned her the 2017 and 2018 Forbes Excellence award as well as being included as part of Apolitical’s 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy in both 2018 and 2019. A Fulbright and Ford McArthur fellow, she is member of the board of the Paris Peace Forum, UNICEF Advisory Board, Steering Group of the International Gender Champions Paris Hub, Multi-Stakeholder Council to the Global Solutions Initiative, Lancet Commission on Gender-Based Violence and Maltreatment of Young People, and Lancet Commission on COVID-19.
Moderator | Algerian Television
Minister | Digital Minister for Canada
Following a highly successful 25-year career building an international reforestation company and 4 years in the provincial cabinet of the B.C. Liberal government, the Honourable Joyce Murray was appointed Minister of Digital Government on November 20, 2019.
The Member of Parliament for Vancouver Quadra since 2008, Joyce served as Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board following the 2015 general election, and later as President of the Treasury Board.
During this time she championed and helped lead the development of the Centre for Greening Government. Making federal government operations more environmentally friendly and efficient was a natural project for Joyce, whose entrepreneurial spirit led her to build a company that has planted almost 1.5 billion trees—more than 500,000 of which she planted herself.
She received the Simon Fraser University Dean’s Medal as the top MBA graduate in 1992, was the chair of the board at Brinkman and Associates Reforestation, and served as British Columbia’s Environment Minister and Minister of Management Services in Gordon Campbell’s cabinet from 2001 to 2005.
Joyce Murray has always been a thought-leader, driving progressive new policies in government. Whether advocating for strong, smart environmental measures or being an early advocate of the legalization and regulation of cannabis, Joyce’s ability to envision and deliver on bold new ideas comes from her depth of experience in politics and business.
She is passionate about investing in a fairer, greener economy that empowers future generations, and confident that digital innovation will offer important opportunities for improving services to Canadians.
Deputy Executive Director and Assistant Secretary-General | United Nations Environment Programme
Joyce Msuya is the Deputy Executive Director of UN Environment. She was appointed by UN Secretary-General António Guterres in August 2018. Between November 2018 and June 2019, Ms. Msuya served as Acting Executive Director, overseeing UN Environment’s portfolio in 33 countries and administering nine Multilateral Environmental Agreements on critical environment issues.
With more than 20 years of experience in international development, strategy, knowledge management and partnerships, Ms. Msuya has served as Adviser to the World Bank Vice President, East Asia and Pacific Region in Washington, D.C. and as the inaugural World Bank Special Representative and Head of the World Bank Group Office in the Republic of Korea (2014–2017).
She has worked across the World Bank Group in Africa, Asia and Latin America in both the public and private sectors. A microbiologist from Tanzania, Ms. Msuya began her career at the World Bank as a public health specialist in 1998.
Ms. Msuya was named University of Strathclyde’s Alumna of the Year for 2019.
Global Lead, Sustainability Science | Microsoft
Amy Luers is Global Lead for Sustainability Science at Microsoft. Before joining Microsoft, she served as the Executive Director of Future Earth, an international network of researchers and innovators working to advance global sustainability. She has over 25 years of experience working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. A former Obama White House adviser and senior manager at Google, she is a member of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations and has served on committees of the U.S. Global Change Research Program and the US National Academies of Sciences. She sits on several advisory boards including the Veolia Institute, Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative, the US National Council for Science and the Environment, and Stanford University School of Earth. She has published in both peer-reviewed and popular media on big data and the digital age, science communication, climate policy and vulnerability and resilience of human-environmental systems.
Director and Advisory Board Secretary | UNFCCC - Climate Technology Centre & Network (CTCN)
Dr. Rose Mwebaza (PhD) brings 20 years’ experience providing policy advice on a wide range of climate change, environment and sustainable development issues. She has previously served as Chief Natural Resources Officer at the African Development Bank and held leadership positions within the UN Development Programme. Dr. Mwebaza was a Lecturer at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, serving as the Head of Department for Commercial Law, and Deputy Dean of the Law School. Rose holds a PhD in Environment and Natural Resource Governance from Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
Co-Founder & CEO | Zindi
Celina Lee is a co-founder and the CEO of Zindi (www.zindi.africa), the first data science competition platform of its kind in Africa. Celina has a passion for unleashing the power of data for social good. Celina has a proven track record of thought leadership in the intersect between data and development and has played central roles in launching global initiatives including the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (www.afi-global.org), insight2impact (www.i2ifacility.org), and now Zindi (www.zindi.africa). Celina's work has expansively bridged across the private and public sectors and across various development areas including financial inclusion, micro and small enterprise development, gender, climate change, and public health. She has lived and worked in countries throughout Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Celina holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Applied Mathematics with a minor in Computer Science from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Columbia University and a Master’s of International Affairs with a focus on Advanced Policy and Economic Analysis from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, where she was a U.S. Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellow.
Advisory Council Member | U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network and Assistant Professor, Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo
As a water scientist and protector, Dr. Kelsey Leonard seeks to establish Indigenous traditions of water conservation as the foundation for international water policy-making.
Dr. Kelsey Leonard is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo. She represents the Shinnecock Indian Nation on the Mid-Atlantic Committee on the Ocean, which is charged with protecting America's ocean ecosystems and coastlines. She also serves as a member of the Great Lakes Water Quality Board of the International Joint Commission. Dr. Leonard has been instrumental in safeguarding the interests of Indigenous Nations for environmental planning, and builds Indigenous science and knowledge into new solutions for water governance and sustainable oceans.
Moderator | Senior Producer of BBC Digital Planet
Ania is a Senior Broadcast Journalist at the BBC. She has been producing Digital Planet for World Service Radio since October 2018. She has also produced and presented a number of science shows including Science in Action, Health Matters and features for the domestic national channel Radio 4 “The struggle against Polio”. Ania has held many different roles at the BBC including Science Producer on the Today Programme, BBC Radio 4 (the national news breakfast show with c. 6million listeners), World Service Health Correspondent where she was covered the SARS pandemic and Editor, BBC Ebola Regional Response Unit. “Kick Ebola from Liberia” was a weekly radio programme for World Service and radio stations across Liberia. She went to Liberia twice during the Ebola pandemic 2015.
Secretary-General | United Nations
António Guterres, the ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations, took office on 1st January 2017.
Having witnessed the suffering of the most vulnerable people on earth, in refugee camps and in war zones, the Secretary-General is determined to make human dignity the core of his work, and to serve as a peace broker, a bridge-builder and a promoter of reform and innovation.
Prior to his appointment as Secretary-General, Mr. Guterres served as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from June 2005 to December 2015, heading one of the world’s foremost humanitarian organizations during some of the most serious displacement crises in decades. The conflicts in Syria and Iraq, and the crises in South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Yemen, led to a huge rise in UNHCR’s activities as the number of people displaced by conflict and persecution rose from 38 million in 2005 to over 60 million in 2015.
Before joining UNHCR, Mr. Guterres spent more than 20 years in government and public service. He served as prime minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002, during which time he was heavily involved in the international effort to resolve the crisis in East Timor.
As president of the European Council in early 2000, he led the adoption of the Lisbon Agenda for growth and jobs, and co-chaired the first European Union-Africa summit. He was a member of the Portuguese Council of State from 1991 to 2002.
Mr. Guterres was elected to the Portuguese Parliament in 1976 where he served as a member for 17 years. During that time, he chaired the Parliamentary Committee for Economy, Finance and Planning, and later the Parliamentary Committee for Territorial Administration, Municipalities and Environment. He was also leader of his party’s parliamentary group.
From 1981 to 1983, Mr. Guterres was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where he chaired the Committee on Demography, Migration and Refugees.
For many years Mr. Guterres was active in the Socialist International, a worldwide organization of social democratic political parties. He was the group’s vice-president from 1992 to 1999, co-chairing the African Committee and later the Development Committee. He served as President from 1999 until mid-2005. In addition, he founded the Portuguese Refugee Council as well as the Portuguese Consumers Association DECO, and served as president of the Centro de Acção Social Universitário, an association carrying out social development projects in poor neighbourhoods of Lisbon, in the early 1970s.
Mr. Guterres is a member of the Club of Madrid, a leadership alliance of democratic former presidents and prime ministers from around the world.
Mr. Guterres was born in Lisbon in 1949 and graduated from the Instituto Superior Técnico with a degree in engineering. He is fluent in Portuguese, English, French and Spanish. He is married to Catarina de Almeida Vaz Pinto, Deputy Mayor for Culture of Lisbon, and has two children, a stepson and three grandchildren.
President | Swiss Confederation
Simonetta Sommaruga was born on 14 May 1960 and grew up in Sins in the canton of Aargau together with her three siblings. Her father was a plant manager and her mother was a homemaker who tended a large vegetable garden. After obtaining her academic baccalaureate, she attended the Lucerne Academy of Music where she studied to become a concert pianist. After travelling widely, she continued her pianist and educational career at the Fribourg Academy of Music.
In 1993 Simonetta Sommaruga was managing director of the Swiss Consumer Protection Foundation from 1993 to 1999 and president of the foundation from 2000 to 2010. She served as a member of the communal council in Köniz between 1997 and 2005 with responsibility for the fire and civil protection services, and was a member of the National Council between 1999 and 2003.
Between 2003 and 2010, she represented the canton of Bern in the Council of States. She sat on the Economic Affairs and Taxation Committee and served as its chair between 2007 and 2009; she was also on the Social Security and Health Committee, and served as vice chair of the Environment, Spatial Planning and Energy Committee. She was also vice president of the Swiss Delegation to the EFTA Parliamentary Committee and for relations with the European Parliament.
On 22 September 2010, Simonetta Sommaruga was elected to the Federal Council. She was head of the Federal Department of Justice and Police FDJP from 2010 to the end of 2018 and has been head of the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications DETEC since 1 January 2019. She served as President of the Swiss Confederation in 2015.
Simonetta Sommaruga is married to the writer Lukas Hartmann. In the winter she devotes her free moments to playing the piano and reading novels. In summer, she loves spending time in her garden and hiking in the mountains.
Minister | Ministry for Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan
[Career]
September 2020
United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary | Economic Commission for Africa
Minister | Minister of National Planning and Economic Policy, Republic of Costa Rica
In office, Minister Garrido is the leader of the stewardship in public employment, national planning, public investment, State modernization, international cooperation and evaluation; as well as Coordinator of the Technical Secretariat of the National Commission of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). She is also designated as the Coordinator of the Government Economic Team and leader of the Growth, Employment and Welfare Strategy and Coordinator of Costa Rica in the Public Governance Committee of OECD, as well as Co-coordinator of the Accession Process to the State Owned Enterprises Committee of OECD.
Among her results, she was the leader of the creation of the National Development and Public Investment Plan of the Government 2019-2022, the National Evaluation Policy, the Law Project about Public Employment and of different initiatives for the modernization of the State, the evaluation of the public sector employees and the improvement of the public investment process in the country.
Minister Garrido is an Honorary Graduated of Political Sciences, from the University of Costa Rica and has a Master´s degree in Democratic Governance and Public Politics, from the University of Costa Rica; as well as a Master´s degree in Economics from the Trinity College of Dublin.
Secretary of State and The Government Plenipotentiary for Cybersecurity | Chancellery of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland
Responsible for the state policy in the field of computerisation, development of e-services in public administration, civil security in cyberspace, infrastructure and the use of innovative technologies. He also implements the National Educational Network project.
He has been the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Digital Affairs from
16 September 2016 until 17 April 2018 and then the Minister of Digital Affairs until 6 October 2020.
Member of the Parliament of the Republic of Poland.
Previously, he was the Secretary of State in the Ministry of Treasury in 2015-2016. Earlier, in 2006-2007, he worked as the Secretary of State in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
He also served as the President of the Board of the European Fund for the Development of Polish Rural Areas Foundation (in 2005-2006 and 2009-2015). Before that, he worked as a manager in private companies.
State Minister | Ministry of Innovation and Technology, Ethiopia
Dr. Ahmedin is State Minister at the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Ministry of Innovation and Technology since June 2019. He obtained leadership and professional diploma from Florida International University, Miami, USA in 2018. Dr. Ahmedin has PhD Degree in Computer Science from Dalian University of Technology in 2015. His research area includes Mobile Social Computing, Data Management Algorithm, Big-data Analytics, Cloud Computing and IoT. He authored/co-authored 20+ articles in International reputable journals and conference proceedings. He is a certified project manager, IT service specialist, logistics & supplies chain manager, digital identity professional and higher education leader, public manager. He was previously working as an Assistant Professor at Kombolcha Institute of Technology - Wollo University. Dr. Ahmedin is a member of IEEE and PMI since 2012 and 2017, respectively. Currently, he is interested in digital economy, innovation, and future technologies such as AI, blockchain, cyber security, deep learning, etc.
Deputy Minister | Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media, Russian Federation
Maxim Parshin was born on July 23, 1976 in Mytishchi, the Moscow Region.
In 1998 graduated from Lomonosov Moscow State University.
In 2001 completed post-graduate studies in Lomonosov Moscow State University.
In 2008 graduated from Moscow International Business School within Russian Foreign Trade Academy (MBA program).
2002–2013 — changed several positions in the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation.
In 2013 was appointed to the position of Deputy Head of the Russian Post Federal State Unitary Company.
2014–2015 — Deputy Head of the Federal Labor and Employment Agency.
2016–2018 — Head of the Department for the Development of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses and Competition of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation.
Maxim Parshin was awarded the Certificate of Honour of the Government of the Russian Federation.
On August 16, 2018 was appointed to the position of Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation.
Plenipotentiary for UN IGF 2021 | Republic of Poland
Former President of Estonia
Toomas Hendrik Ilves is an Estonian politician who served as the fourth President of Estonia from 2006 until 2016. Ilves worked as a diplomat and journalist, and he was the leader of the Socialist Democratic Party in the 1990s. He served in the government as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1996 to 1998 and again from 1999 to 2002. Later, he was a Member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2006.
As the Estonian Ambassador to the United States in 1995, he launched the visionary Tiger Leap initiative to computerize and connect all Estonian schools online, later on establishing free Internet spot in every urban centre. As President of Estonia in 2006-2016, Ilves made the digitalisation of public services and the economy one of his top priorities. He is widely known as one of the founders and supporters of Estonia’s e-governance and digitalisation efforts.
Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs | United Nations
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Mr. Liu Zhenmin of China as the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs effective 26 July 2017. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Liu was Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs of China since 2013. Among his various diplomatic assignments, he served as Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva and Other International Organizations in Switzerland (2011-2013).
Mr. Liu brings to the position more than 30 years of experience in the diplomatic service, with a strong focus on the promotion of bilateral, regional and global issues. He was deeply involved for 10 years in climate change negotiations including the conclusion of the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. He also widely participated in the international activities on the protection of our planet including Antarctica and the oceans. Over the last several years, in various capacities, he has been consistently highlighting and advocating for sustainable development issues.
Mr. Liu started his career at the Foreign Affairs Ministry in 1982. Since then, he has served the Ministry in various capacities, including as Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs (2009-2011); Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations (2006-2009); Director-General, Department of Treaty and Law (2003-2006); and Deputy Director-General, Department of Treaty and Law (1998-2003). He also served in the Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva and Other International Organizations in Switzerland (1992-1995) and in the Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations (1984-1988).
As Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Mr. Liu guides UN Secretariat support for the follow-up processes of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. He also oversees the substantive services to many intergovernmental processes, including the annual meetings of the Second and Third Committees of the General Assembly, the meetings of the Economic and Social Council, including its Development Cooperation Forum, and the work of the subsidiary bodies of ECOSOC.
In addition to intergovernmental processes, Mr. Liu oversees DESA’s policy analysis and capacity development work. He also serves as the Convenor of the Executive Committee on Economic and Social Affairs, and advises the United Nations Secretary-General on all development-related issues, including climate change, internet governance, and financing for development.
Mr. Liu holds a Master of Laws from the Law School of Peking University. He was born in August 1955 in Shanxi Province, China. Mr. Liu is married.
Special Adviser on the Preparations for the Commemoration of the United Nations’ 75th Anniversary | United Nations Secretariat
In his current role as Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser to the Secretary-General, Mr. Hochschild is coordinating the preparation for the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the United Nations in 2020 and related celebrations, through a system-wide process of consultations and reflections on the role of the United Nations in advancing international co-operation and in supporting Member States’ ability to respond to emerging challenges and frontier issues.
Prior to his appointment, Mr. Hochschild served as Assistant Secretary-General for Strategic Coordination in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General (2017-2019).
Previously, Mr. Hochschild served as Deputy Special Representative for the UN peacekeeping mission in Central African Republic (MINUSCA) in 2016, UN Resident Coordinator, Humanitarian Coordinator and Resident Representative of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Colombia from 2013 to 2016, and as Director of the Field Personnel Division for the United Nations from 2010 to 2012. He started his careen in 1988 with UNHCR and served in various field settings.
A graduate of the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, he has published studies and articles on leadership, on the protection of civilians, on transitional justice and reconciliation among other topics.
Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist | Google
Vinton G. Cerf co-designed the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet and is Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. He is a former member of the National Science Board and current member of the National Academy of Engineering and Foreign Member of the British Royal Society and Swedish Royal Academy of Engineering, and Fellow of ACM, IEEE, AAAS, and BCS. Cerf received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, US National Medal of Technology, Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, Prince of Asturias Award, Japan Prize, ACM Turing Award, Legion d’Honneur, the Franklin Medal, the Catalunya International Prize and 29 honorary degrees.
Youth Representative | Kenya
Vallarie is an advocate of digital literacy and inclusion for poverty alleviation. She works as a researcher at the Committee of Fiscal Studies which focuses on fiscal policy and development. She researches on issues around Internet Governance and the digital economy.
She is a former Nextgen participant at ICANN 65 in Morocco, a KESIG fellow, an AFRINIC 31 Fellow in Angola and currently the program ambassador for ICANN 68 AND 69 Nextgen participants which will be held virtually. She is also an IGF Youth Ambassador 2020.
Her passion for digital awareness fueled her involvement as a Digital Grassroots ambassador and a representative for YouthIGF movement in Kenya. In both the positions she has championed digital literacy through university training, round table discussions and grassroots awareness with a special focus on getting more youth involved in internet governance.
She is also part of the fair digital business working group convened by the German Informatics Society that gathers young people globally to give their inputs on various thematic areas ahead of the annual IGF.
CEO and President | Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
Göran Marby was appointed CEO & President on 23 May 2016. He brings over 20 years experience as a senior executive in the Internet and technology sector, as well as his leadership as Director General at the independent regulatory body Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS), where he worked closely with international organizations and standards bodies.
Prior to this, he served as CEO and founder of Appgate, a Swedish security software company (now Cryptzone in the U.S), where he grew the organization to a global company with customers in 35 countries and operations in the U.S.
Before his seven years at Appgate, he was CEO for the advanced networks company Cygate Group (now owned by TeliaSonera) where he spearheaded operations in five countries with revenues in the range of 120 million euros. And as Country Manager for Cisco in Sweden, Marby led sales of all products and services.
Marby holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the University of Gothenburg, School of Business, Economics and Law, and is married with three kids. He is fluent in English and Swedish and is a Swedish national.
Director General | GSMA
As Director General, Mats Granryd leads the GSMA in supporting its global membership through a range of industry programmes, advocacy initiatives and industry-convening events.
Mats is a strong proponent of sustainability and led the mobile industry in becoming the first sector to broadly commit to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2016. He is now spearheading initiatives to amplify and accelerate the mobile industry’s impact on all 17 of the SDGs, across both developed and developing markets.
Supporting this, Mats serves on the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, chairing the Working Group on Digital Gender Divide to foster the equal inclusion of women and girls in broadband access and use, and he is also a leader with The B Team.
Prior to joining the GSMA in 2016, Mats was President and CEO of Tele2 and also spent 15 years in a variety of roles at Ericsson.
President | Microsoft
As Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith leads a team of more than 1,500 business, legal and corporate affairs professionals located in 54 countries and operating in more than 120 nations. He plays a key role in spearheading the company’s work on critical issues involving the intersection of technology and society, including cybersecurity, privacy, artificial intelligence, environmental sustainability, human rights, immigration and philanthropy. In his recent bestselling book, coauthored with Microsoft’s Carol Ann Browne, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age, Smith urges the tech sector to assume more responsibility and calls for governments to move faster to address the challenges that new technologies are creating. The New York Times has called Smith “a de facto ambassador for the technology industry at large” and The Australian Financial Review has described him as “one of the technology industry’s most respected figures.” He has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress and other governments on these key policy issues.
Smith joined Microsoft in 1993, first spending three years in Paris leading the legal and corporate affairs team in Europe. In 2002, he was named Microsoft’s general counsel and spent the following decade leading work to resolve the company’s antitrust controversies with governments around the world and companies across the tech sector. Over the past decade, Smith has spearheaded the company’s work to advance privacy protection for Microsoft customers and the rights of DREAMers and other immigrants, including bringing multiple lawsuits against the U.S. government on these issues.
Prior to joining Microsoft, Smith was an associate and then partner at the law firm of Covington and Burling, where he is still remembered as the first attorney in the long history of the firm to insist (in 1986) on having a personal computer on his desk as a condition for accepting a job offer. In addition to his work at Microsoft, Smith is active in several civic organizations and in the broader technology industry. He has served on the Netflix board of directors since 2015 and chairs the board of directors of both Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) and the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship program.
Smith grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin, where Green Bay was the big city next door. He attended Princeton University, where he met his wife, Kathy. He earned his J.D. from Columbia University Law School and studied international law and economics at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland. He can be followed on Twitter and LinkedIn @bradsmi.
Moderator | European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)