Margot Wallström, a Swedish Social Democratic Party politician and diplomat, was appointed minister for foreign affairs in October 2014. She previously served as European commissioner for the environment from 1999 to 2004 and as first vice president of the European Commission, responsible for institutional relations and communication strategy, from 2004 to 2009. From 2010 to 2012, Ms. Wallström was the special representative of the United Nations secretary general on sexual violence in conflict. She has served as chair of the board of Lund University, chair of the Council of Women World Leaders, and as a board member of the Stockholm-based Global Challenges Foundation. She was chair of the board of advisers of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance in 2014, having previously served as a member of the board from 2011 to 2014. Ms. Wallström has received honorary doctorates from the University of Massachusetts Lowell in the United States, and Umeå University, Mälardalen University and Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.

Amina C. Mohamed’s distinguished diplomatic career spans over three decades and includes domestic and international leadership positions. At the international level, she served as Kenya's ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva between 2000 and 2006. In 2011, she was appointed deputy executive director of the United Nations Environment Program. She has held a range of otherl crucial leadership positions in international organizations, including the W.T.O., the World Intellectual Property Organization, the International Labor Organization, the World Health Organization, the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, the U.N. High Commission for Refugees and U.N.AIDS. In Kenya, Ms. Mohamed served as permanent secretary in the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs between 2008 and 2011. She was appointed to her current position as minister for foreign affairs and international trade of the Republic of Kenya in 2013. Her distinguished service has earned various prestigious awards, including Knight of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity and the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun from the Japanese government in recognition of her distinguished contribution to bilateral relations between Kenya and Japan. She also holds Kenya's highest national award of Elder of the Order of the Golden Heart awarded in December 2015 for her unparalleled commitment to public service, and was recently honored by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as one of four UNDP Champions for 2016. Ms. Mohamed graduated from the University of Kiev with a master’s degree in international law, and also completed as postgraduate studies in international relations at the University of Oxford. She has also received an honorary doctorate from Kenya College of Accountancy.

Originally a labor lawyer with a law degree from the University of Seville, Felipe González Márquez entered politics as a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE). After becoming secretary general of the PSOE and serving as leader of the opposition, he was elected prime minister of Spain in 1982, serving consecutive terms until 1996. He was a member of the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of the Spanish legislative authority, from 1977 until 2004. Mr. González is widely recognized for his decisive role in consolidating Spain’s nascent democracy by advocating progressive economic and social reforms and implemeting wide-ranging modernization policies. He also steered the country’s emergence onto the global stage after half a century of international isolation. During his tenure, Spain voted to retain NATO membership following a referendum in 1986, and also became a full-fledged member of the European Economic Community, now the European Union, in the same year. In the international arena, Mr. González served as vice president of Socialist International, the worldwide organization of social democratic, socialist and labour parties, from 1978 until 1999. In 1998, he served as special representative of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (O.S.C.E.) and the European Union for discussions with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to bring an end to the violence in Kosovo. He was appointed as extraordinary ambassador and plenipotentiary for the bicentenary celebrations in commemoration of the independence of Latin America, and became chairman of the European Union’s reflection group on the future of Europe in 2007. Mr. González is currently a member of the National Commission for Follow-up, Impulse and Verification of the Implementation of the Colombia Peace Agreements (CSIVI). He has received numerous awards and honors, including the Charlemagne Prize and the Carlos V European Award.

Hyeonseo Lee is a North Korean defector and human rights activist currently living in South Korea. Her memoir, “The Girl With Seven Names,: A North Korean Defector's Story,” was published in 2015 and has so far been translated into 19 languages. Over nine million people have viewed Ms. Lee’s TED talk about her life in North Korea, her escape to China as a teenager, and her struggle to rescue her mother and brother, guiding them on a life-and-death journey to freedom. Ms. Lee has testified about North Korean human rights abuses in front of a special panel of the United Nations Security Council. She spends much of her time traveling across the globe to raise awareness about North Korean human rights and refugee issues. She has contributed to articles published in The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, and the London School of Economics Big Ideas blog, among others, and has been interviewed by major media organizations around the world. Ms. Lee is currently establishing an N.G.O. that aims to help North Korean victims of human trafficking, including women who have been forced into sexual slavery and marriage against their will.

Kevin Rudd joined the Asia Society Policy Institute as its inaugural president in January 2015. Mr. Rudd served as Australia’s 26th prime minister from 2007 to 2010, then as foreign minister from 2010 to 2012, and prime minister again in 2013. He led Australia’s response during the global financial crisis, the only major developed economy not to go into recession— and helped found the G20. As prime minister and foreign minister, Mr. Rudd was active in global and regional foreign policy leadership. He was a driving force in the expansion of the East Asia Summit (EAS) to include the United States and Russia in 2010. He also initiated the concept of transforming the EAS into a wider Asia-Pacific community to help manage deep-rooted tensions in Asia by building over time the institutions and culture of common security. He served as chair of the Independent Commission on Multilateralism (ICM), a two-year review of the United Nations system, releasing the ICM chair’s report “UN 2030: Rebuilding Order in a Fragmenting World,” in August 2016. In 2014, Mr. Rudd was a senior fellow at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government where he completed a major policy paper entitled “US-China 21: The Future of US-China Relations Under Xi Jinping.” He is a distinguished fellow at Chatham House in London, a distinguished statesman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. and a distinguished fellow at the Paulson Institute at the University of Chicago. Mr. Rudd is a member of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization’s group of eminent persons. He is proficient in Mandarin, serves as a visiting professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and co-chairs the World Economic Forum’s China Council. He co-authored a report of the United Nations Secretary General's High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability, and chairs the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Fragile States. He also remains actively engaged in indigenous reconciliation in Australia.

Prokopios Pavlopoulos was born in 1950 in Kalamata, Greece. In 1968 he was accepted at the Athens Law School from which he graduated, with distinction, in 1973, before moving to Paris for postgraduate studies. In 1974 he obtained a Master of Advanced Studies (DEA) in Public Law from the University Paris II and in 1977 he obtained his PhD (Doctorat d’ État) with distinction. In 1982 he started his academic career at the University of Athens Law School where he was elected Assistant Professor (1983), Associate Professor (1985) and Professor in 1989. Moreover, he taught and conducted research as a visiting Professor at Paris II University (1986) Among many other works, he is the author of the following: “La directive en droit administrative”, Paris 1978, “The Law and Practice Relating to Pollution Control in Greece” (in collaboration with Dr. Gr. Timagenis) 1982, “The constitutional guarantee of the writ of annulment: A contemporary viewpoint of the rule of law” 1982, “Courses in administrative science” 1983, “The civil liability of the State” vol. I 1986, vol. II 1989, “Guarantees of the right to judicial protection in European community law” 1993, “The public works contract” 1997, “Articles, 1987- 2003” 2003, “Constitutional Reform- looked at from the parliamentary experience” 2010, “The Twilight of Political Leaderships: Cause or effect of the economic crisis?” 2011, “Public Law at the time of economic crisis” vol. I, 2nd edition 2014, “Public Law”, 3rd edition 2015, collective work in collaboration with professors A. Gerontas, S. Lytras, Gl. Siouti and S. Flogaitis. President Pavlopoulos has also been a very active politician, ever since he held the position of Secretary to the first (interim) President of the Republic, Michael Stassinopoulos (1974-1975). He served as Deputy Minister of the Presidency responsible for the Media and Government Spokesman during the Xenophon Zolotas National Unity Government (1989-1990). In 1990 he was appointed Director of the Presidency’s legal office during the presidency of Konstantinos Karamanlis, a position he held until 1995, while afterwards serving as spokesman of the New Democracy party between 1995-1996. In 1996 he was elected Member of Parliament for the State for the New Democracy party and was head of the party’s Public Administration, Public Order and Justice department (1996-2000). From 2000 to 2014 he was elected to Parliament representing the constituency of Central Athens. He was Parliamentary spokesman for the New Democracy party (2000-2004) and from 2004 until 2009 he served as Minister of the then integrated Ministry of the Interior in the Kostas Karamanlis Government. On February 18, 2015 he was elected President of the Republic with a large majority of 233 votes out of 300.

Baroness Chakrabarti CBE is a lawyer currently serving in the British shadow cabinet as shadow attorney general for England and Wales. She received her bachelor’s degree in law from the London School of Economics and was called to the bar in 1994. She worked as a lawyer in the British Home Office from 1996 until 2001, serving under Labour and Conservative governments. In 2001, Ms. Chakrabarti joined Liberty, also known as the National Council for Civil Liberties, serving as in-house legal counsel. Liberty is a cross-party membership organization campaigning for the protection of civil liberties and the promotion of human rights through the courts, Parliament and throughout society. She was appointed director of Liberty in 2003, and was a member of the panel of the Leveson Inquiry, the judicial inquiry into phone hacking in the United Kingdom, in 2011. She took up her post as shadow attorney general in October 2016. Ms. Chakrabarti has received numerous awards and honors. She is an honorary professor of law at the University of Manchester, an honorary fellow of Mansfield College at the University of Oxford, and Master of the Bench of Middle Temple, She previously served as chancellor of the University of Essex from September 2014 until July 2017. She was appointed a commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2007, and was appointed to the House of Lords as a life peer in September 2016. Ms. Chakrabarti is a regular commentator on human rights advocacy issues and author of “On Liberty,” published in 2014.

He Jiahong was born in Beijing in 1953 and is a prominent scholar, renowned jurist and leading author. Over the last two and a half decades, he has occupied a number of positions at the School of Law at the Renmin University of China, one of Beijing’s most prestigious universities. These include professor of law, director of the Center for Anti-Corruption and Rule of Law, director of the Center for Common Law, and director of the Institute of Evidence. Prof. He has also served in a range of advisory capacities at the state agencies of legal supervision of the People’s Republic of China, including specially invited adviser of the Supreme People’s Court, and expert adviser of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate. In addition, he was seconded to the Department of Dereliction of Duty and Infringement of Human Rights of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate in 2006, where he served as deputy director general. He has published dozens of law books and five crime novels in Chinese. His law book, “Back from the Dead: Wrongful Convictions and Criminal Justice in China,” has also been published in English, French, and German. His crime novels have been translated into French, Italian, Spanish, and English. Prof. He received his doctor of laws degree (S.J.D.) from Northwestern University near Chicago in the United States in 1993.

Philip Fernbach is a cognitive scientist and assistant professor of marketing at the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business. He is also an associate member of the university’s Institute of Cognitive Science He graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts in 2001, and received his Ph.D. in cognitive science from Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island in 2010. He has undertaken postdoctoral training as a research assistant and lecturer at the department of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences at Brown University, and then as a research scholar at the center for research on consumer financial decision-making at Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado. His research interests focus on consumer behavior and he has published widely on causal reasoning, probability judgment, financial decision-making and moral judgment. Alongside articles in scholarly publications including the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing Behavior, Psychological Science, the Journal of Experimental Psychology, Dr. Fernbach’s work has also received print, broadcast and digital media coverage in the Harvard Business Review, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, BBC, Discovery Channel, and many other outlets. He is the co-author of “The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone,” published in March 2017 by Riverhead Books. Dr. Fernbach’s work has received myriad honors, awards and research grants and he is frequently called upon to present seminars at prestigious universities in the United States and beyond, as well as being invited to speak at key international conferences He lives in Boulder, Colorado, with his wife and two children.

Kerry Kennedy is the president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. Since 1981, she has worked on diverse human rights issues including child labor, disappearances, indigenous land rights, judicial independence, freedom of expression, ethnic violence, impunity, women’s rights and the environment. She also founded RFK Compass, which convenes biannual meetings of institutional investors to advance ethical investment strategies by considering the impact of human rights violations in order to manage risk and enhance investment outcomes. Ms. Kennedy is the author of “Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing Our World,” published in 2008. Speak Truth has grown to include a photography exhibit now traveling on four continents, a play by Broadway playwright Ariel Dorfman which has opened in over 20 countries, an award-winning website, a PBS documentary film, and a 12-week education program and toolkit for action currently being taught to millions worldwide. Ms. Kennedy serves on the boards of the United States Institute of Peace, Human Rights First, Ethics in Action, the Sustainable Development Goals Center for Africa and the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation, as well as several public companies. She is the best-selling author of “Being Catholic Now: Prominent Americans Talk about Change in the Church and the Quest for Meaning,” published in 2000. A graduate of Brown University and Boston College Law School, Ms. Kennedy was awarded the Medal for Social Activism at the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in 2017, and is the recipient of numerous other awards and honorary degrees. Ms. Kennedy is the mother of three daughters, Cara, Mariah and Michaela.

Irina Bokova became director general of Unesco in November 2009, and was re-elected for a second term in 2013. She is the first woman to lead the organization. Having graduated from Moscow State Institute of International Relations, and studied at the University of Maryland and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Ms. Bokova joined the United Nations in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria in 1977. In charge of political and legal affairs at the Permanent Mission of Bulgaria to the United Nations in New York, she was also a member of the Bulgarian delegation at the United Nations conferences on the equality of women in Copenhagen in 1980, Nairobi in 1985 and Beijing in 1995. As a member of the Bulgarian parliament from 1990 to 1991 and again between 2001 and 2005, she participated in the drafting of Bulgaria’s new Constitution, which contributed significantly to the country’s accession to the European Union. Ms. Bokova was minister for foreign affairs a.i., coordinator of Bulgaria-European Union relations and ambassador of Bulgaria to France, Monaco and Unesco, as well as personal representative of the president of the Republic of Bulgaria to the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (O.I.F.) As secretary of the council of ministers for European integration and as foreign minister a.i., Ms. Bokova has always been a strong advocate for European integration and an active member of many international networks and in civil society. A president and founding member of the European Policy Forum, she has worked to overcome European divisions and to foster the values of dialogue, diversity, human dignity and human rights. As director general of Unesco, Ms. Bokova is actively engaged in international efforts to advance quality education for all, gender equality, cultural dialogue and scientific cooperation for sustainable development, and is leading Unesco as a global advocate for the safety of journalists and freedom of expression. Ms. Bokova is executive secretary of the steering committee of the United Nations secretary general’s Global Education First Initiative (G.E.F.I.) and co-vice chair of the Broadband Commission. Ms. Bokova has received state distinctions from countries across the world alongside a number of honorary doctorates from leading universities. In addition to her mother tongue, she speaks English, French, Spanish and Russian.

Robert Hayward’s high-profile career spans over four decades. In the 1970s, he was elected local councilor of Coventry City Council in the West Midlands, England, and also served as vice chairman of the Young Conservatives, the former youth wing of the Conservative Party in Britain. He was elected as member of Parliament for Kingswood, South Gloucestershire in southwest England from 1983 until 1992. After leaving parliament, he served as C.E.O. of the British Beer and Pub Association until 2009, when he decided to focus on electoral and political analysis. An esteemed psephologist, he regularly briefs the British print and broadcast media on elections and polling and is a sought-after speaker at international conferences and events. He accurately predicted the extent of the Conservative Party victory in the 2015 general election, having defined a new demographic character known as ‘motorway man,’ the aspirational, car-dependent middle manager, as a crucial swing voter whose opinions and voting intentions remained below the radar of leading opinion polls. Regarded as a veteran political analyst, he also correctly forecast the ‘Brexit’ outcome of the 2017 E.U. Referendum. He was appointed to the House of Lords as a life peer in 2015. A leading advocate of human rights, Lord Hayward established the Gulf Support Group for friends and family members of Kuwaiti civilians held in Iraq prior to the Persian Gulf War in 1991. He was appointed an officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his efforts, the only occasion when a serving member of Parliament has received the civilian honor for services beyond the realm of politics. He is also a prominent spokesman on gay and lesbian issues, and was formerly the finance chairman of Stonewall, as well as serving on the board. In addition, he is co-founder and vice president of the Kings Cross Steelers Rugby Football Club. He served as the club’s first chairman when it was established as the first-ever gay inclusive rugby union club in the world in 1995. Lord Hayward also served as treasurer of Dignity in Dying, a U.K. N.G.O. campaigning for a change in legislation to allow assisted dying. In addition he is deputy chairman and trustee of Central YMCA, director of YMCA Training, and an advisor to the board of the Terence Higgins Trust. He is also a member of the House of Lords select committee on political polling and the media. An alumnus of the University of Rhodesia, Lord Hayward currently lives in London.

As executive head of the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF), Annika Savill manages a United Nations secretary general's trust fund that strengthens the voice of civil society, promotes the rule of law and human rights, and encourages the participation of all groups in democratic processes. Initiatives range from empowering Syrian women refugees in frontline states to working with civil society to support the peace process in Colombia; from strengthening democratic practices in Ukraine to motivating marginalized youths in Tunisia. Since it was established in 2006, UNDEF has disbursed over $160 million to projects covering over 100 countries in post-conflict, transition and consolidation phases of democratization. Before joining UNDEF, Ms. Savill served in the executive office of the U.N. secretary general from 1997 to 2008, working under Ban Ki-moon and Kofi A. Annan as the secretary general's speechwriter and a senior member of his communications team. Prior to joining the United Nations, she had a 15-year career as an international journalist, serving with The Associated Press, Reuters and The Independent in London, where she was a founder member and diplomatic editor. Ms. Savill has written about democratic processes in a number of societies in transition. She is the winner of two UN 21 Awards for organizational innovation.

Mr. Georgios Kaminis was elected mayor of Athens in November 2010 and re-elected for a second term in May 2014. Prior to this, Mr. Kaminis was lecturer and assistant professor of constitutional law at the faculty of law of the University of Athens. From 1998 to May 2003, he served as deputy ombudsman for human rights. In 2003, he was unanimously elected Greek ombudsman by the Greek parliament, and then re-elected for a second term in 2007 until August 2010 when he stood as an independent mayoral candidate for the City of Athens. Mr. Kaminis studied law at the University of Athens, and holds a doctoral degree from the University of Paris II. He was born in New York City and has lived in Osaka, Paris, Madrid and Heidelberg. Mr. Kaminis is married and has two children.

Mark Thompson became president and C.E.O. of The New York Times Company in November 2012. Since that time, he has directed the Times Company’s strategy and presided over an expansion of its digital and global operations. Previously, Mr. Thompson served as director general of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), where he ensured that it remained a leading innovator with the launch of services including BBC iPlayer. Mr. Thompson joined the BBC in 1979. He left for two years in 2002 to become C.E.O. of Channel 4 Television in the U.K. before returning to the BBC in 2004 as director general. His book, “Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong With the Language of Politics?” based on his lectures as a visiting professor at Oxford University, was published in Britain and the United States in September 2016. Mr. Thompson was educated at Stonyhurst College and Merton College, Oxford.

Stephen Dunbar-Johnson is the president, international of The New York Times Company and is responsible for revenue oversight and strategic development of The New York Times Company’s international digital and print business. Mr. Dunbar-Johnson was appointed president, international of The New York Times Company in October 2013 to lead the global expansion of the company. Previously, he was publisher of The International Herald Tribune (IHT), a position he assumed in January 2008. Prior to that, he was executive vice president of the IHT with responsibility for worldwide commercial operations and strategic development. He oversaw the IHT’s expansion in Asia, the growth of its advertising revenue streams, the development of its conference business and the luxury conference series in particular, new product development and the restructure of the newspaper’s cost base. Before that, he held the position of senior vice president and commercial director, where his primary responsibility was for newspaper revenue streams. He also played a key role in the integration of advertising and other aspects of the IHT’s commercial operations when The New York Times took full ownership of the IHT in 2003. Before joining the IHT, Mr. Dunbar-Johnson was U.K. advertising director of The Financial Times for 12 years, holding various positions in the paper’s advertising department, including manager in France and vice president of advertising in the Americas, based in New York. Mr. Dunbar-Johnson was educated at Worth School and Kent University in England. He has completed an executive management program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and the Sulzberger program at the Columbia School of Journalism.

With more than 26 years of experience in media, Achilles Tsaltas is currently the vice president of the successful international conferences division at The New York Times. Mr. Tsaltas is a proven and established industry leader, responsible for creating and managing strategic partnerships with some of the world’s most important media corporations. Born in Australia of Greek origin, Mr. Tsaltas started his media career in 1989 when he joined News Corporation at the advertising department of The Australian newspaper. During his tenure, he launched the business magazine, Business Asia, and relaunched the newspaper’s The Australian Magazine, managing the commercial side of the operation. In 1999 he moved to Hong Kong to join the International Herald Tribune (IHT) as deputy managing director, successfully launching print sites and four publishing partnerships for the publication. In 2004, he moved to Paris as the worldwide circulation director. Two years later he was appointed vice president, circulation and development, and joined the paper’s executive committee. In 2012 he was again promoted, assuming the role of senior vice president in charge of conferences, innovation, development and partnerships. Mr. Tsaltas has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Sydney, and a master’s degree in sociology from the University of New South Wales.

Brian Smith is president of the Coca-Cola Company’s Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) group, with responsibility for overseeing the operations of six business units from Western Europe to Russia to southern Africa. Before being promoted to his current position, Mr. Smith was group president of Latin America from 2013 to 2016. Key areas of focus in this and previous assignments in Latin America were the development and effective deployment of talent, and building Coca-Cola leadership in still beverage categories via newly aligned business models and bolt-on acquisitions in juices, teas and dairy. Mr. Smith joined the Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta in 1997 as Latin America group manager for mergers and acquisitions. In this capacity, he was responsible for bottler and brand transactions in Latin America, and helped formulate and execute system franchise strategies. From July 2001 until July 2002, he worked as executive assistant to vice chairman and C.O.O., Brian Dyson. From August 2002 to October 2008, he was president of the Brazil division, before serving as president of the Mexico division from 2008 to 2012.

Sergei Guriev joined the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (E.B.R.D.) in 2016. As the E.B.R.D.’s chief economist, he is responsible for advising the president and other senior members of the Bank’s management team on economic issues of strategic or operational relevance pertaining to the E.B.R.D. region. He received a Ph.D. in applied math in 1994, and his doctor of science research degree in economics in 2002, both from the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1997, he undertook a one-year post-doctoral placement at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and served as a visiting assistant professor at Princeton University in 2003. He worked as a researcher and lecturer at the New Economic School in Moscow between 1998 and 2013, serving as rector from 2004. He then served as a tenured professor of economics at Sciences Po in Paris from 2013 to 2016. Dr. Guriev’s research interests include political economics, labor mobility, corporate governance and contract theory. Dr. Guriev has published widely in international journals including American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of the European Economic Association, Economic Journal, Journal of Economic Perspectives and American Political Science Review. He has also contributed to articles in The New York Times, The Financial Times and The Moscow Times, among others.

Roby Senderowitsch currently serves as practice manager in the governance global practice of the World Bank. Prior to this, he was manager for leadership, learning and innovation of the country client services division. Mr. Senderowitsch’s work at the World Bank includes a strong focus on political economy analysis, building coalitions for change, anticorruption initiatives, and the performance-based management of public institutions. In the past, he has served as manager of the Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA), the Bank’s dedicated facility to support governments and civil society organizations facing governance challenges. He was also World Bank country manager in the Dominican Republic, where in addition to managing the Bank’s country program, he also led a participatory anticorruption initiative in collaboration with other international agencies, civil society groups, the private sector, government, and the media. Before joining the Bank, Mr. Senderowitsch worked with several N.G.O.s in Argentina and Cuba, where he served as the field representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. He has lectured in human resource management in nonprofit organizations, and directed educational and community development programs, as well as working in human resource management in the private sector. Mr. Senderowitsch has co-authored and contributed to numerous World Bank publications, including “Democratic Governance in Mexico: Beyond State Capture and Social Polarization,” an institutional and governance review published in 2007; “Performance Informed Budgeting and Trust in Government,” a working paper published in 2010; and “From the International Financial Crisis to Inclusive Growth in the Dominican Republic,” a policy note published in 2010. Mr. Senderowitsch holds a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Buenos Aires, and a master’s degree in public policy from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He has also completed postgraduate courses at Harvard and Stanford.

Born in Bruges, Belgium, David Van Reybrouck is a journalist, a writer of literary nonfiction, a poet and a playwright. Mr. Van Reybrouck studied archaeology and philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and received a master’s degree in world archaeology from the University of Cambridge. He decided to pursue a career as a writer and made his debut on the literary scene in 2001 with his novel, “The Plague.” “A Plea for Populism” was published in 2008 for which he received the Jan Hanlo Essay Prize and the Flemish Critics Cultural Prize. His greatest success to date is “Congo: The Epic History of a People,” published in 2010 in Belgium and the Netherlands. The book presents an intimately researched and monumental overview of the ravaged Belgian colony, and resulted in Mr. Van Reybrouck receiving several literary awards, including the Libris History Prize, the Jan Greshoff Prize and the AKO Literature Prize. The book was a runaway success in a number of European countries and has been translated into several languages. 2013 saw the publication of “Against Elections: The Case For Democracy,” an urgent call for the reform of representative democracy, which has been sold in almost twenty countries to date. In 2016 “A Jihad For Love,” co-authored with Mohamed el-Bachiri, became a best seller and has been published in several languages. His latest work, “Peace Can be Learned: Healing Violence and Terrorism,” co-authored with Thomas D’Ansembourg was published in French in 2016. Mr. Van Reybrouck is one of the most renowned literary and political writers of his generation, as well as a pioneering social activist and advocate of participatory democracy. He is one of the original initiators of the G1000 Citizens' Summit, an innovative experiment in deliberative democracy started in 2011 that attempts to address Belgium's recent political crisis by bringing citizens together. G1000 aims to revitalize Belgium's current representative democratic system by complementing it with deliberative democracy and has led to trials in participatory democracy throughout The Netherlands. He completed his Ph.D. at Leiden University in the Netherlands and currently lives in Brussels.

Keboitse Machangana is director of global programs at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) based in Stockholm, Sweden. She leads and manages a portfolio that covers International IDEA´s democracy support in electoral processes, constitution building, political participation and representation, democracy and development, and citizen-led democracy assessments. She also focuses on integrating gender, diversity, and conflict sensitivity into the work of the institute. For more than two decades, Ms. Machangana has worked in the democracy and governance field, with a specific focus on women´s rights and gender equality, democracy assessment and measurement, and the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of democracy assistance programmes. Before being appointed to her current position, Ms. Machangana previously served in a number of positions with International IDEA. Prior to this, she was democracy and governance advisor at the U.S.A.I.D. regional center for Southern Africa, and executive director and coordinator of the political education project at Emang Basadi Women’s Association in Botswana. Ms. Machangana holds a master’s degree in public administration and a postgraduate diploma in education from the University of Botswana. She also has a master’s degree in pastoral ministry with the Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary in Newburgh, Indiana.

Patrick Chappatte is an editorial cartoonist for The New York Times. Formerly, he had been with The International Herald Tribune since 2001. He won the Overseas Press Club of America’s Thomas Nast Award for best cartoons on international affairs in 2011 and 2015. In the last 20 years, Mr. Chappatte has been exploring comics journalism. His latest project, with his journalist wife Anne-Frédérique Widmann, is a five-part graphic journalism series, “Inside Death Row” published by The New York Times website in May 2016. Through a series of collaborative initiatives called “Crossed Pens,” Mr. Chappatte gathers editorial cartoonists in conflict-ridden countries to foster a dialogue on human rights through cartoons. He also co-founded the Cartooning for Peace Foundation” in Geneva, whose honorary chairman is Kofi Annan. Born in 1967 in Pakistan to a Lebanese mother and Swiss father, and raised in Singapore and Geneva, Mr. Chappatte has lived in New York and Los Angeles and is now based in Geneva.

*Sponsored Session. Marianna V. Vardinoyannis is a Unesco goodwill ambassador for the protection of children, and founder and president of the Marianna V. Vardinoyannis Foundation. She also founded the ELPIDA Association of Friends of Children with Cancer and the Orama Elpidas Association. She has extensive experience of engaging in humanitarian work for the benefit of children and disadvantaged social groups in Greece and abroad, as well as on issues of peace, human rights, education, health and cultural heritage. For more than 27 years, Ms. Vardinoyannis has fought tirelessly to improve the care received by children with cancer through her work with ELPIDA. Thousands of children’s lives have been saved in Greece and the Mediterranean region, including 900 children who have received treatment at ELPIDA’s bone marrow transplant unit, the first in Greece, since it opened in 1993. In 2010, she created the first Pediatric Oncology Hospital in Greece, which currently receives 80% of childhood cancer patients in the country, and has been affiliated with hospitals around the world such as the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in the United States and the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada. She also established the Orama Elpidas bone marrow donor registry. The Marianna V. Vardinoyannis Foundation supports children and families, schools, people in need, and refugees in Greece, as well as Unesco programs for education and culture around the world, with the aim of promoting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The foundation also cooperates with Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights to extend the “Speak Truth to Power” human rights education program in Greek schools. Ms. Vardinoyannis has supported many education institutions, in Greece and beyond. She funded the establishment of the Hellenic Initiative and the Vardinoyannis Library of Hellenic Civilization at New York University, the Constantine G. Karamanlis Chair in Hellenic and Southeastern European Studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and the Alexandria Center for Hellenistic Studies at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt. In Greece, she has supported the Municipal Indoors Athletics Center in Ermioni,, the Kindergarten of Agios Nikolaos in Athens, and many others. She is also behind the revival and reconstruction of Makistos, a village close to ancient Olympia, that was destroyed by fire in 2007. Among numerous organizations, Ms. Vardinoyannis is on the advisory board of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, and serves as trustee of Mentor, a charity that works to reduce alcohol and drug misuse. She is a member of the leadership council of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, and sits on the board of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center in Baku, Azerbaijan. She is a founding member of the Light of Africa Foundation, and president of the honorary committee of the Special Olympics Hellas. She holds a bachelor’s degree in history of art and economics, and a master’s degree in archaeology. She has also received honorary doctorates in law, philosophy and human studies. Ms. Vardinoyannis became an officer of the Legion d'Honneur of the French Republic in 2015, having been named a knight of the Legion d' Honneur in 2006. Among numerous accolades and decorations, she received the Mother Teresa Medal of the Albanian Republic in 2015, and the Golden Cross of the Order of Benefaction of the Hellenic Republic in 2002. She has also received many distinctions such as the Ripple of Hope Award from Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights in 2015, the Grand Prix de la Charte de Paris contre le cancer in 2014, the Pro Bono Humanum Award by Prix Galien Greece in 2013, the Athens Academy Award in 1997, and many others.