Bader Mousa Al-Saif is an assistant professor of modern and contemporary Middle East history at Kuwait University, a public policy consultant, and a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. He focuses on the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula, namely its political history, international relations, religious affairs, reform dynamics, transnational trends, culture, and gender relations. Al-Saif has over two decades of experience researching and working in the Arab Gulf states, most notably as a deputy chief of staff to a former prime minister of Kuwait and senior vice president of the oil and gas sector at Agility. He is the recipient of various awards and a co-founder of several NGOs in the fields of education, youth empowerment, and transitional justice. Al-Saif has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters; he contributes policy analyses to multiple outlets; and is frequently quoted and interviewed by renowned media platforms and publications around the world. He holds a Ph.D. with distinction from Georgetown University; a Master of Education and a Master of Theology, both with honors from Harvard University; and a Master of Law with honors from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He graduated summa cum laude from Boston College with a double major in political science and history. Al-Saif is on X (formerly Twitter) @bmalsaif 

Dan Murphy is a CNBC’s anchor and correspondent based in the United Arab Emirates, reporting on business, markets, economics and geopolitics from across the Middle East region.Dan is a sought after panel moderator and has hosted more than 80 panels in recent years across a range of topics - including finance and markets, banking, energy and climate, technology, policy, geopolitics, diversity and inclusion, and women in leadership in the Arab world.As the anchor of CNBC’s “Capital Connection” - Dan has presented live programs during major events impacting the Middle East, and has deep experience in interviewing senior business figures and government leaders from around the region.Dan’s panel session with His Royal Highness Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and His Excellency Suhail al Mazrouei of the United Arab Emirates at the World Utilities Congress in Abu Dhabi had a significant impact in the global oil press and market pricing.At the recent Dubai Fintech Summit, Dan’s opening fireside conversation with Franklin Templeton President and CEO, Jenny Johnson, was conducted in the presence of His Highness Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Deputy Ruler of Dubai.

Maryam Nemazee is a television news anchor, correspondent, broadcaster and journalist. 

In a career spanning more than twenty-five years at the United Nations, Michèle Griffin has served as a senior policy advisor and director of policy planning to successive UN Secretaries-General. She currently directs the Summit of the Future/Common Agenda Team in the office of Secretary-General António Guterres. She has played a role in several major summits and reform efforts and previously set up and ran the UN Mediation Support Unit, aiding peace processes around the world. Griffin has been an adjunct professor at Columbia University and a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University. She is an alumna of Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Nobuo Tanaka is Chairman of the steering committee of the Innovation for Cool Earth Forum (ICEF), which was established by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2014. He was Chairman and President of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation for 2015-2020.  As Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) from 2007 to 2011, he initiated a collective release of oil stocks in June 2011. He also played a crucial and personal role in the strengthening of ties with major non-Member energy players, including China and India.He began his career in 1973 in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), and has served in a number of high-ranking positions, including Director-General of the Multilateral Trade System Department. He was deeply engaged in bilateral trade issues with the US as Minister for Industry, Trade and Energy at the Embassy of Japan, Washington DC. He has also served twice as Director for Science, Technology and Industry (DSTI) of the Paris-based international organization, OECD. As CEO of Tanaka Global Inc, he advises several Japanese and International companies.He graduated from University of Tokyo and have MBA from Case Western Reserve University.

Maja Groff, Esq., is an international lawyer based in The Hague, and is Convenor of the Climate Governance Commission, which seeks to propose high impact global governance innovations adequate to meet the climate challenge. She serves as a Co-Chair of the Coordinating Committee for the International Anti-Corruption Court (IACC), Senior Treaty Advisor at Integrity Initiatives International, as well as on The Canadian Task Force Against Global Corruption. As a Principal Legal Officer, she has assisted with the development and servicing of multilateral treaties for more than a decade, also working at various international criminal tribunals (ICTY, STL), teaching at the Hague Academy of International Law and was a Visiting Professor at Leiden University, Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (2020-2022). She has worked on a wide range of existing and potential global treaties addressing contemporary human rights issues and cross-border legal cooperation, conducting extensive liaison work with international organisations, professional associations, NGOs and convening international legal expert groups to develop new international legal norms. She holds degrees from McGill (civil law and common law), Oxford and Harvard Universities, and is an attorney admitted to practice in the state of New York, formerly working in corporate law. She has served on the Governing/Advisory Boards of BCorp Europe and ebbf, organisations devoted to ethical business, and is a NOW Partner. She was a winner of the 2018 New Shape Prize, and is a co-author of the 2020 book, Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century.  

After receiving an M.A. (Oriental History) from Keio University, Mr. HOSAKA Shuji became Special Assistant of the Japanese Embassies in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Since then, he has held various posts in the field of the Middle Eastern studies, including Professor of Kindai University, Osaka. He is currently Board Member of the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ) and Director of JIME Center, Adjunct Professor of Waseda University. He is currently President of Japan Association for Middle East Studies (JAMES). Among his publications are Jihadism (2017), Cyber-Islam (2014), Osama Bin Laden: His Life and Jihad (2011), and Saudi Arabia: Oil Kingdom in Transition (2006).

Hafed Al-Ghwell is a senior fellow and executive director of the North Africa Initiative at the SAIS Foreign Policy Institute. Prior to his current role at the Foreign Policy Institute, Hafed Al-Ghwell has had a long, notable career serving in multiple distinct roles as a consultant, advisor, fellow and scholar in world-renowned think tanks, policy institutes and advisory bodies. At the Atlantic Council, Oxford Analytica, Maxwell Stamp Inc. and Foreign Reports, to list a few, Hafed Al-Ghwell specialized in the political economies of the Middle East and North Africa countries, government affairs, international relations, geopolitics and geostrategic risks.

Rima Khalaf-Hunaidi has served in several leadership positions in Jordan and the United Nations, most recently as the Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). Khalaf resigned from her post in 2017 when she refused to withdraw an ESCWA-commissioned report titled: Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid. The report concluded that Israel has established an apartheid regime that oppresses and dominates the Palestinian people as a whole, whether they live in the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, in Israel itself, or in the diaspora. Previously, Khalaf served as director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States with the UN Development Program, initiating projects to promote good governance, human rights, and human development in Arab countries. She was the principal architect behind the pioneering Arab Human Development Report series and has received numerous international prizes, including the Prince Claus Award and the King Hussein Leadership Prize. Before joining the UN Development Program, Khalaf served in senior government posts in Jordan, including deputy prime minister, minister of industry and trade, and minister of planning. She also served as a Senator in the Upper House of the Jordanian Parliament. 

Dr. Amr Awadallah is the CEO and cofounder of Vectara, a company that is enabling organizations to leverage GenAI in business applications by reducing risks from hallucinations, bias, copyright infringement, and model weight pollution.  Amr previously served as VP of Developer Relations for Google Cloud. Prior to joining Google in Nov 2019, Amr co-founded Cloudera in 2008 and as Global CTO, he spent 11 years working closely with enterprises around the world on how to ingest and extract value from big data (he famously coined the concept of “schema-on-read vs schema-on-write”). Cloudera went public in 2017 on the NYSE, and was acquired by KKR + CD&R in 2021 for $5.3b. He also served as vice president of product intelligence engineering at Yahoo! from 2000-2008. Amr joined Yahoo after they acquired his first startup, Aptivia, in mid-2000 which was a search engine for online product information. Amr received his PhD in EE from Stanford University, and his Bachelor and Master Degrees from Cairo University, Egypt.Amr is one of 10 luminary scientists and technologists that were granted honorary citizenship to Saudi Arabia in 2021.

Dr. Al-Kuwari is a Vice-Chairman of the National Human Rights Committee. In 2021, Dr. Mohamed was selected as a member of the advisory group concerned with preparing the third national development strategy 2023-2030. Dr. Al-Kuwari was appointed a member of the Advisory Board of Global Carbon Council (GCC) and Member of the Advisory Committee of the alliance of Civil Society Organizations to Support the Green Middle East Initiative. Dr. Al-Kuwari was selected as one of 30 human rights defenders (HRDs) from the Office of United Nations of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) on the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), "A Defender for a Right". In 2023, Dr. Al-Kuwari was selected as a member of the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions (APF) Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) Working Group. . In 2023, the International Federation for Social Responsibility was appointed Dr. Mohamed as one of the 100 champions of sustainability in the Arab world and North Africa.Dr. Al-Kuwari has authored 23 books on various technical and scientific issues, especially human rights, sustainable development and environmental issues.

Dr. Kim Moloney is an Assistant Professor at the College of Public Policy at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha Qatar. Her research focuses on transnational administration, small states, and social equity / social cohesion. Her latest book, Who Matters at the World Bank, was published by Oxford University Press in 2022. 

Since October 2013, Dr. Fabian Zuleeg has been Chief Executive of the European Policy Centre, with overall responsibility, including providing strategic direction, managing its staff and resources and representing the EPC. He remains Chief Economist at the same time (a post he has held since January 2010). Fabian holds a PhD on the political economy of EU accession from Edinburgh University. Before coming to the EPC, he worked as an economic analyst in academia, the public and the private sector.His analysis focuses on the political economy of the future of European integration in the context of political dis-cohesion within the EU and a contested, challenging global landscape. His current work is concentrated on determining how EUrope can meet the triple challenge of the watershed of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the fundamental transformations EUrope has to go through (technological revolution, climate change mitigation and demographic change), and the Permacrisis, a term he coined with EPC colleagues in 2021. Fabian also focuses on transnational cooperation between European Think Tanks, with the aim of increasing the capacity, ethics and sustainability of the sector. He is currently a Member of the Executive Board of Transparency International EU, Honorary Fellow at the Europa Institute of the University of Edinburgh and Honorary Professor at Heriot-Watt University. He also chairs the International Philanthropy Committee for the King Baudouin Foundation.Fabian works closely with decision-makers in the European institutions, the EPC members and partners, European think tanks and the wider Brussels and member state stakeholder community. Fabian regularly comments on current political and economic issues in the EU in the media. He also chairs and contributes to a wide range of debates, conferences and seminars and has researched and published widely on the future of European integration, global challenges, Brexit and on European economic and social policies.

Omar H. Rahman is a Fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, and a Nonresident Fellow at the Baker Institute for Public Policy. Mr. Rahman is also the Editor of Afkār, the Middle East Council's publication on current Affairs in the Middle East and North Africa. Previously, Mr. Rahman was a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution's Doha Center and a Research Associate at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. Before working as a policy analyst, Mr. Rahman was a journalist and holds a Master's degree from the Columbia University School of Journalism. His writing has been published in The Washington Post, Foreign Policy magazine, The Guardian, The National Interest, and Al-Jazeera English, among many other outlets.

Cristina Petcu is the Deputy Director of the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) in New York, working on expanding the use of IEP’s Positive Peace Framework as a training tool and an evidence-based metric for peace-centered development. Before joining IEP, Cristina worked with the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) as a Civil Affairs Officer, leading the Mission's work on strengthening civil society's capacities to participate in the implementation of the 2015 Peace Agreement and Mali's return to constitutional order. Prior to her deployment in Mali, Cristina was a Research Analyst with the Global Governance, Justice & Security Program at the Stimson Center, where she published widely on topics related to UN reform. As a member of the Steering Committee of the Coalition for the UN We Need, Cristina also significantly contributed to mobilizing global civil society action on an ambitious program for the renewal and innovation of the UN system and other global institutions. She a native of Romania and holds a MA in International Affairs from The New School and a BA in Philosophy and European Studies from the University of Bucharest.

Dr. Elif Selin Calik is the author of “The Renaissance of Smart Energy"" and the CEO of Women in Smart Energy UK (WSE-UK) with herESG and Sustainable Financial Strategy Education at University of Oxford. She provides ESG consultancy services to SMEs, banks, and other institutions specializing in energy politics, renewable energy, and climate change resilience. Dr. Calik has been a U.N. Climate Change Observer since 2015. During COP 27, she moderated the session “Road to Net Zero with Women’s Resilience and Smart Energy.” She has also worked with various governments in relation to the Mediterranean Maritime Dispute and Sustainable Investments. Dr. Calik is an executive member of the International Rotary Club, Environmental Sustainability Action Group, and in 2022, she gave an annual speech on “Women Empowerment on Smart Energy” at British National Liberal Club. Dr. Calik is an international TV analyst and has been interviewed by BBC, CGTN, TRT WORLD, AL JAZEERA and BLOOMBERG on the global energy transition.

Zaheer Laher is the Chief Director: United Nations Political, Peace and Security at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) of South Africa. He has served in the Foreign Service for over twenty six years in which he has mainly worked in the area of multilateral diplomacy.  This includes serving for over eight years at the Permanent Mission of South Africa to the United Nations in New York where he also coordinated South Africa’s participation at the  Security Council. His current responsibilities include working on South Africa’s engagements on global peace and security issues including multilateral peace and security, transnational organised crime, disarmament and non-proliferation. His academic qualifications consist of a BA LLB LLM (WITS) and a Certificate in Conflict and Dispute Resolution (NYU).  He is an admitted Attorney of the High Court of South Africa.

Deemah AlYahya is a Saudi digital economy expert and a tech diplomat who serves as the Secretary-General of the Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO).AlYahya is the founding Secretary-General of the DCO since her election in April 2021. The DCO is the world’s first standalone intergovernmental global organization focusing on accelerating digital transformation and advancing digital economy, while empowering women and youth. As the Secretary-General, AlYahya is an advisor, connecting heads of state, government ministers and private sector digital economy leaders together. She facilitates multilateral, multistakeholder digital cooperation to bridge the gap, bringing all digital economy key stakeholders to co-create and co-design high-impact initiatives leading to a world where every country, business, and person has a fair opportunity to prosper in an inclusive and sustainable digital economy. As a lifelong tech enthusiast with a passion for empowering women in the ICT sector, AlYahya founded Women Spark, a non-profit organization to enable developers, tech founders, and investors with the tools they need to grow, through training and mentorship. AlYahya additionally serves on several boards, including Riyad Capital, SAIP – Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property, SCAI – Saudi Company for Artificial Intelligency, and SAFSCP - The Saudi Federation for Cyber Security and Programming.In 2018, AlYahya was recognized with the “Digital CEO of the Year” award by Entrepreneur Middle East magazine.