Michel Barnier is the former European Union Chief Negotiator, heading the Task Force; between 2016 and 2021, for the Preparation and Conduct of the Negotiations with the United Kingdom following the 2016 Brexit referendum.

He is married to Isabelle and a father of three children. He graduated from the ESCP European Business School in Paris.

Michel Barnier engaged at an early age in the Gaullist party in his native Savoie, in the French Alps and was elected at the age of 27 as Member of the French National Assembly, and then as President of the department. In that capacity he organised, together with the triple gold medalist Jean-Claude Killy, the XVI Olympic Winter Games in 1992 in Albertville.

Michel Barnier has served as minister in several governments in France, as Minister of Environment (1993-1995), for European affairs (1995-1997) and for Foreign affairs (2004-2005).

From 1999 to 2004, he was European Commissioner responsible for Regional policy and Institutional reform. In 2007, the newly elected French President Nicolas Sarkozy appointed him Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries.

In June 2009, Michel Barnier led the French campaign for the European elections and a few months later he was a second time appointed European Commissioner for Internal market and Services. It is in this capacity that he proposed and built the Banking Union.

Michel Barnier has also been a special advisor to Jean-Claude Juncker over security and defense matters.

Michel Barnier has published a dozen of books including, Each One for All, the Ecological Challenge (1990/Stock) , The Atlas of Major Risks ( Plon / 1992) – Who will the feed the World ( Acropole / 2007) – And more recently, My Brexit Secret Diary (Polity / 2021).

On April 6th, 2017, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe was appointed Chairman Emeritus of Nestlé S.A. Previously, he led the Nestlé Group from 1997 to 2008, first as CEO till 2005, and then as Chairman and CEO. In April 2008, he handed over the office of CEO and remained Chairman of the Board of Nestlé S.A. Born in 1944 in Austria, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe graduated from the University of World Trade in Vienna with a degree in Economics. After joining the Nestlé Group in 1968, he spent a significant part of his career in Latin America, before being transferred to Nestlé’s International Headquarter in Vevey as Senior Vice-President. Appointed Executive Vice-President as of 1992 and Member of the Executive Board, he was in charge of the Strategic Business Units, Marketing & Sales, as well as Corporate Communications.

Pamela Coke-Hamilton has served as Executive Director of the International Trade Centre since 1 October 2020. She joined ITC from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, where she was Director of the Division on International Trade and Commodities. She served with the Jamaican Government, the Caribbean Forum in trade negotiations, and multilateral institutions, including the Organization of American States and InterAmerican Development Bank. She previously served as Executive Director of the Caribbean Export Development Agency, strengthening the private sector and MSMEs through investment promotion. She holds a Juris Doctor in Law from the Georgetown University School of Law in Washington, DC.

Mathias Cormann is the 6^th Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

His five-year term commenced on 1 June 2021.

Working with OECD members, his priorities as Secretary-General are:

• Optimising the strength and the quality of the post COVID recovery while responding to the economic and social impacts of the war in Ukraine.
• Leadership on climate action to help secure global net-zero by 2050 in a way that is effective and fair.
• Seizing the opportunities of the digital transformation while better managing some of the associated risks, challenges and disruptions.
• Helping to ensure well-functioning global markets and a global level playing field with a rules-based trading system in good working order.
• Global engagement: advancing OECD standards, through membership and partnerships and a sound approach to development.

Prior to his appointment to the OECD, Mathias served as the Australian Minister for Finance, the Leader of the Government in the Australian Senate and as Federal Senator representing the State of Western Australia.

In these roles, he has been a strong advocate for the positive power of open markets, free trade and the importance of a rules-based international trading system.

Mathias was born and raised in the German-speaking part of Belgium.

He migrated to Australia in 1996, attracted by the great lifestyle and opportunities on offer in Western Australia.

Before migrating to Perth, Mathias had graduated in law at the Flemish Catholic University of Louvain (Leuven), following studies at the University of Namur and, as part of the European Erasmus Student Exchange Program, at the University of East Anglia.

Between 1997 and 2003, he worked as Chief of Staff as well as Senior Adviser to various State and Federal Ministers in Australia and for the Premier of Western Australia

Between 2003 and 2007, Mathias worked for major Western Australian health insurer HBF in a range of senior management roles.

Justin is the CEO of Herbert Smith Freehills, overseeing its client, people, practices and growth strategies. 

He works closely with the firm’s largest clients, both in his personal practice role and as a regional and global business leader, and leads the firm’s 5,000-plus team of talented people. 

During his 23-year career with Herbert Smith Freehills, Justin has overseen the growth of many successful businesses, including the firm’s market-leading Disputes practice and rapid expansion in Asia. 

A thought leader and skilled practitioner in arbitration and dispute resolution, Justin has appeared before tribunals around the world and regularly sits as arbitrator. 

The founder of the firm’s first LGBT+ network in 2007, Justin is a strong advocate and active supporter of diversity and inclusion in the firm and the wider community. 

He currently chairs the firm’s Global Executive and is Executive Sponsor of IRIS, the firm’s global LGBT+ network. 

Mexican, CEO of Orestia, business leader, strong advocate of business ethics, board member of several business organizations. She was VP of Employers at the 98th Session of the International Labour Organization. She is currently Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce and is part of the group of advisors and leaders of the B20 and the United Nations Internet Governance Forum. 

 Maria Fernanda Garza is a Mexican businesswoman, CEO of Orestia, a manufacturing home improvement- water solutions company, with exports to USMCA region, Latin-America and Asia. 

 Her interest in improving the business environment, made her a prominent business leader at a young age. Board member of Mexico´s leading business organizations such as COPARMEX, CCE, ALIARSE, among others. 

 For ten years, Mexico’s Employer Delegate to the International Labour Organization Conference, where she became appointed Employer’s Vice Chair at the ILO’s 98th Session. 

 Maria Fernanda Garza was Chair of ICC México from 2014 – 2020.  

 Regional Coordinator for the Americas 2012-2020. 

 Member of the Governing Body of the International Court of Arbitration. 

 She is currently, Chairwoman of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). 

 Member of the Advisory Committee on Sustainable Urbanization of the President of the UN General Assembly’s. 

 Member of the International Advocacy Caucus of Indonesia B20, and 

 She was appointed to serve on the United Nations Secretary-General’s inaugural Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Leadership Panel for two years since 2022. 

In March 2022 Gilbert F. Houngbo was elected by the Governing Body of the International Labour Organization (ILO) as its 11th Director-General, becoming the first African to hold the position. He took up the role on 1 October 2022. 

Prior to that post, Mr Houngbo was the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, based in Rome, Italy. First elected in 2017, he was re-elected in 2021.  He previously was Deputy Director-General for Field Operations and Partnerships at the ILO.   

In 2008, Mr Houngbo was asked to serve as Prime Minister of Togo, a position he held until 2012.  Prior to that he held several posts at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), including Chief of Staff and Assistant Secretary-General and Regional Director for Africa, following several years in the private sector and three years serving as Director of Finance at the International Bank of Mali. 

Mr Houngbo is also Chair of UN-Water, the coordination mechanism of the United Nations for water and sanitation, and Chair of the Board of the Natural Resource Governance Institute.

Kathleen “Kate” Kallot is a world-class technologist who has received sustained global
acclaim in tech for social impact, most notably for her work advancing technology access
across Africa.
She is the Founder & CEO of Amini, an African-born deep tech startup building the largest
climate data infrastructure solution for Africa.
She was a Co-Founder, Chief Impact & Ecosystem Officer at Mara where she oversaw
community, education and developer relations alongside leading the Mara Foundation, a
non-profit dedicated to accelerating blockchain capacity development in Africa.
Prior to co-founding Mara, she was Head of Global Developer Relations and Emerging
Areas at NVIDIA, where she led their expansion into emerging markets (incl. Africa) and
created the United AI Alliance dedicated to using data to drive environmental and social
progress and the NVIDIA Emerging Chapters program.
While leading AI Ecosystem & Developer Relations at Arm, She was one of the founding
member of the Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML) movement which is a fast growing field of
machine learning technologies and applications including hardware, algorithms and
software capable of performing on-device sensor data analytics at extremely low power,
typically in the mW range and below. She was also the chair of the TinyML for Good
Committee in 2021 and 2022.
While at Intel, she led the development of the world’s first AI development kit in a USB
form factor, the Neural Compute Stick (generations 1 & 2), bringing computer vision and Al
to IoT and edge devices for the first time.
She spearheaded many AI4Good initiatives which resulted in many collaborations with
the UN to advance data science and AI capacity building in Africa and other emerging
markets with a goal to train one million African developers to in turn impact a billion lives
over the next five years. She regularly advises international organizations on the power of
tech to drive social impact, speaking at conferences for Gates Foundation WEF, UNECA,
UNICEF and GPSDD.
Kate has won multiple accolades throughout her career, including Business Insider Top
100 and VentureBeat Women in AI Rising Star 2020.

Entered the family business in 1991 after finishing his university studies and gaining professional experience in London (Philip Brothers), Giuseppe Lavazza was the company’s Strategic Marketing Director from 2005 to 2011. In 2008, he also took on the role of Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Luigi Lavazza S.p.A.

Giuseppe Lavazza is also on the Board of Directors of the Giuseppe e Pericle Lavazza Foundation, a non-profit organisation owned by the Lavazza family’s holding company Finlav S.p.A., and a member of the Steering Committee of International Coffee Partners, an organisation that promotes support programmes for coffee producers.

In 2019 he was made a Knight of the Order of Merit for Labour by Italian President Sergio Mattarella, like his father Emilio in 1991.

From 27 April 2023 he is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Luigi Lavazza S.p.A.

Patrick Odier has been Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bank Lombard Odier & Co Ltd. since January 1st, 2014. He was Senior Managing Partner of the Lombard Odier Group from 2008 until 2022.

He joined the Lombard Odier Group in 1982 and completed his training in Zurich, New York, and Montreal, before becoming a Managing Partner in 1986. He holds an economics degree from the University of Geneva and an MBA in finance from the University of Chicago.

Patrick Odier is president of Swiss Sustainable Finance (SSF). He is also Chairman of Building Bridges. He is member of the Board of economiesuisse (Swiss Business Federation). He was Chairman of the Swiss Bankers Association from 2009 to 2016. He is also a board member of several Swiss and international academic institutions and philanthropic organizations.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the first woman and first African to hold the position in the 75-year history of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the WTO.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala is an economist and international development expert with more than 40 years of experience, whose service includes Chair of the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (2016–2020), the African Union’s African Risk Capacity Group (2014–2020), and Co-Chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. She was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Rockefeller Foundation. She co-chaired the G20 High Level Independent Panel on Financing for Pandemic Preparedness and was one of the founders of the COVAX Facility, designed to get affordable vaccines to Low and Low Middle-Income Countries. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum and is co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water. She is a member of the G30 Group of top 30 people in International Finance.

Previously Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, among other duties, served as Senior Advisor at Lazard Ltd. and sat on the boards of Standard Chartered Bank PLC and Twitter Inc. She served in 2020 as African Union COVID-19 Special Envoy as well as World Health Organization COVID 19 Special Envoy.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala holds the distinction of being the first woman to serve as Nigeria’s Finance Minister, a post she held for seven years. She also served briefly as the first female Foreign Affairs Minister. As Finance Minister, she implemented policy and institutional reforms to help fight corruption and she spearheaded the complete write-off by the Paris Club of $30 billion of Nigeria’s debt. She spent a 25-year career at the World Bank, rising to the number two position of Managing Director, Operations.

Dr Okonjo-Iweala is the recipient of numerous honors and accolades among which are, being named in 2014 and again in 2021, one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the world. She was also featured on the TIME magazine cover page in 2021. She has been named six times by Forbes as one of the Top 100 Most Powerful Women in the World and in 2020, was named Forbes African of the Year. In 2021 she was named by Financial Times as one of the 25 Most Influential Women in the World. Dr Okonjo-Iweala was ranked by Fortune as one of the 50 Greatest World Leaders in 2015. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala is the recipient of 19 honorary Doctorate Degrees, some of the world’s most prestigious institutions, including Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, Amherst College, Brown University, University of Amsterdam, Luiss University, Italy and Trinity College Dublin.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala holds a Bachelor’s in Economics from Harvard University, from which she graduated Magna Cum Laude, and a PhD in Regional Economics and Development from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Professor Klaus Schwab is Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.

He has championed the multistakeholder concept since the Forum’s inception in 1971. Under his leadership, the Forum has been a driver for reconciliation efforts in different parts of the world, acting as a catalyst of numerous collaborations and international initiatives.

In 1998, with his wife Hilde, he created the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, which seeks to identify, recognize and disseminate initiatives in social entrepreneurship that have significantly improved people’s lives and have the potential to be replicated on a global scale.

The Forum employs over 700 people, with its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, and additional offices in New York, San Francisco, Beijing and Tokyo.

An engineer and economist by training, Professor Klaus Schwab holds doctorates in Economics (summa cum laude) from the University of Fribourg, in Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and a Masters of Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 1972 he became one of the youngest professors on the faculty of the University of Geneva. He has received numerous international and national honours.

His latest books are The Fourth Industrial Revolution (2016), a worldwide bestseller translated into 30 languages,  Shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution (2018), COVID 19: The Great Reset (2020),  Stakeholder Capitalism (2021), and The Great Narrative (2022).

Soren Toft joined MSC as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in December 2020, reporting to Group President Diego Aponte.

In the role, Soren oversees MSC’s global cargo businesses, including all ocean liner and logistics businesses, and is also a member of the Board of Directors of Terminal Investment Ltd (TiL).

Soren has more than 25 years of experience in the shipping industry. Before joining MSC, he was Chief Operating Officer and a Member of the Executive Board at Maersk, previously holding various leadership positions in Europe and Asia after joining Maersk in 1994. Soren was also Chairman of Hamburg Süd, Maersk Oil Trading, Maersk Container Industry and A.P. Moller Singapore, and Board Member at Maersk Line, Limited. He holds an executive MBA from the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Tatiana Valovaya is the 13th Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva and the first woman to occupy this position. Ms. Valovaya has more than 35 years of experience in public service, diplomacy and journalism. She began her career in 1983 in the editorial office of the Economic Gazette in Moscow, first as a correspondent and later as deputy editor for the Department of World Economy. She then served at the Permanent Mission of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to the European Union and at the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the EU, with responsibility for financial and economic cooperation. From 1995 to 1997, Ms. Valovaya worked at the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation, where she managed relations with the statutory bodies of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). She then served as Head of the Monetary and Financial Policy Directorate at the Ministry for the CIS. 1999-2012, Ms. Valovaya worked in the Government administration of the Russian Federation as Deputy Director and then Director of the Department of International Cooperation. She joined the Eurasian Economic Commission in 2012 as a Member of the Board (Minister), responsible for integration and macro-economic issues. In this capacity, she led on the implementation of integration policies within the Eurasian Economic Commission.

She authored more than 170 scientific and journalistic publications on issues of international monetary and credit relations, European and Eurasian economic integration and multilateral cooperation in the CIS framework.

Philippe Varin started his career in 1978. He held various R&D, Plant and Business Unit Management roles at Péchiney in France and the USA and he was the Group Executive Vice President for the Aluminum sector when he left Péchiney to become the CEO of the Anglo Dutch steel company, Corus in 2003. The Corus turnaround ended with its acquisition by the Indian Group Tata in 2007. Philippe Varin remained two years with Tata, in Mumbai and in London, and he then moved to the French car making group Peugeot Citroen where he was Chairman of the Managing Board between 2009 and 2014. He has  then  been Chairman of the nuclear energy companies Areva and Orano until 2020. He has also been Chairman of « France Industrie » and Vice Chairman of the “Conseil National de l’Industrie” from 2017 to 2021 . Philippe Varin was on the board of Saint Gobain until 2021. In 2020, he was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of Suez that he left in 2022 after the bid of Veolia. 

Philippe has also chaired The World Materials Forum since 2015. He currently chairs the Critical Raw Materials task force for the French Government. He has been appointed First Vice Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce. 

Philippe graduated from Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Mines de Paris. He has been appointed officer of the “Legion d’Honneur” and  knight of the national order of  Merit in France , and Commander of the British Empire in the UK.

Marjorie Yang is the Chairman of Esquel Group, a knowledge-based innovation company that continuously pushes for positive change in the textile and apparel business, expanding into new territory to evolve with the industry and its customers.

As a strong believer in sustainable development and environmental conservation, Marjorie is a member of the High Level Steering Committee of UN Global Compact Action Platform on “Sustainable Infrastructure for the Belt and Road Initiative to accelerate the SDGs” and the Advisory Council of China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED).

She is the appointed representative of Hong Kong, China to APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC).  She also serves as Chairman of the Seoul International Business Advisory Council (SIBAC) with the purpose of providing advice to the Mayor of Seoul and joins the Executive Board of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).

Marjorie is dedicated to promoting education and innovative technologies. She is the Co-chairman of the advisory board of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Chairperson of the Steering Committee of CoolThink@JC, which is created and funded by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. She also serves as a member of various advisory boards including Harvard University, Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, Tsinghua University’s School of Economics & Management, the University of Hong Kong’s Innovation Academy of the Faculty of Engineering and Guilin Tourism University.

Marjorie is an Independent Non-executive Director for Budweiser Brewing Company APAC Limited.

She served as a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference from 2003 to 2018 and was the Chairman of the Council of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University for six years until 2015.

She has a Bachelor of Science degree from MIT and an MBA from Harvard Business School.