Topic: Sustainability

Manisha Tank

Charismatic, dynamic and intellectually curious, Manisha Tank is a highly experienced emcee and moderator, who leverages warmth and empathy to serve the needs of clients and engage audiences, eliciting insight from panellists in an authoritative manner.

With 25 years of broadcast experience as a news anchor and correspondent, at Reuters, the BBC and CNN International, she’s adept at riding minute to minute adjustments, following time cues and navigating fast paced, in-depth, often deeply technical conversations in live situations. Over those years Manisha has interviewed hundreds of CEOs, founders, policy experts, A-List celebrities and political leaders, on a wide range of topics, from geopolitics to business and entertainment.

Increasingly, her work focuses on Net Zero transition, digitalisation and new technologies for enterprise transformation including blockchain, artificial intelligence and cloud and she is a regular face on Singapore’s high-profile conference and event circuit. Concurrently she is the host of various podcast series for a range of blue chip clients including Standard Chartered CCIB and Accenture.

In November 2023, Manisha hosted Earthshot +, a part of The Earthshot Prize’s first ever Earthshot week, hosted in Singapore, as well as commanding the 7000 + seat festival stage at the world renowned, Singapore Fintech Festival, for which she has been the host for five years.

Manisha is also an angel investor in companies focused on achieving The United Nation’s SDGs, with a personal passion for gender equality, rural development and sustainable transition technologies.

Carlos Alvarado Quesada

Carlos Alvarado Quesada, the forty-eighth President of the Republic of Costa Rica, completed his constitutionally limited term in May 2022. As of July 1, 2022, he joined the faculty of The Fletcher School at Tufts University as Professor of Practice in Diplomacy, Executive Education Keynote, and Senior Fellow in the Edward R. Murrow Center for a Digital World.

Widely praised for his innovative approach to sustainable energy, his ambitious climate policies, and a highly successful response to the COVID-19 pandemic, President Alvarado joins Fletcher’s world-renowned multi-disciplinary faculty with a focus on small states diplomacy and preparing tomorrow’s leaders to address the most pressing global issues.

In June 2022, at the United Nations Ocean Conference in Lisbon, President Alvarado was awarded the 2022 Planetary Leadership Award by the National Geographic Society for his outstanding commitment and action toward protecting the ocean. The Planetary Leadership Award honors world leaders who have successfully established globally significant protected areas, such as national parks, wilderness areas, or marine reserves, that are shielded from exploitation. In November 2019, President Alvarado was named as one of TIME’s 100 Next emerging leaders from around the world who are shaping the future and defining the next generation of leadership. In September 2019, he received on behalf of his country the Champion of the Earth Award for policy leadership, presented by the United Nations Environment Program.

Under President Alvarado’s leadership, Costa Rica has contributed to global efforts to combat climate change, and defended human rights, democracy, and multilateralism, including the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) initiative with the World Health Organization to facilitate faster, equitable, and affordable access to COVID-19 health products for people in all countries. Furthermore, his administration has overseen historic fiscal reforms to strengthen the country’s economy.

In February 2019, President Alvarado launched Costa Rica’s National Decarbonization Plan, the first of its kind since the Paris Agreement of 2015 which established the road map to decarbonize the country’s economy by 2050, organized the run-up to U.N. Climate Change Conference – COP25 in Madrid, and created with France and the United Kingdom the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People that now includes more than one hundred member states. He was responsible for Costa Rica’s accession to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), marking the fourth Latin American country and the first in Central America to do so.

Before inauguration as his nation’s president in May 2018, President Alvarado served as Minister of Human Development and Social Inclusion (2014 – 2016) and as Executive President of the Joint Social Welfare Institute, responsible for implementing social protection and promoting poverty alleviation programs. He then served as Minister of Labor and Social Security (2016 – 2018) in the presidency of Luis Guillermo Solís for whom he served as the presidential campaign’s communications director (2013 – 2014). Before entering politics, President Alvarado worked for Procter and Gamble, Latin America.

Born in San José, President Alvarado received his bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Costa Rica in 2001 from which he also received a master’s degree in political science in 2006. He went on in 2009 to receive a master’s degree in development studies from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at Sussex University, United Kingdom. Between 2006 and 2010, he served as an advisor to the Citizen Action Party’s group in the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica.

Paul Rogers

Paul is a partner at Buro Happold, leading the company’s work in Germany and Poland as well as the Hospitality sector.

A chartered structural engineer, Paul has had experience working on a variety of projects. His exposure to international work has given him a good founding to understand the nature of special concerns depending on geographic location; environmental, cultural and economic.

While on a three year tour in the Middle East, Paul worked on some of our most high profile projects, including managing the co-ordination of all construction disciplines for a major development in Riyadh City Centre. Fundamental to his success is his grasp of cross-disciplinary skills. He understands the value of applying a breadth of knowledge to a challenge in order to find its most ideal solution, and has done so consistently on each of his projects.

Wael Al-Awar

Wael Al Awar is a Dubai-based architect at the forefront of sustainable architecture, linking craftsmanship and advanced technologies. He won the Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021 for his work on concrete made from salt crystals, an experiment that encourages us to think about the delicate relationship between waste and production on both global and local scales. He is the founding partner of waiwai, a firm based in Tokyo and Dubai.

Wael blends his interest in natural phenomena into an architectural style of light, time, structure and landscape. His research aims to create architecture capable of going beyond mere construction while remaining open to new forms of adaptation; his site-specific designs aim to encourage unexpected experiences. Wael is distinguished by his multidisciplinary approach to design that considers social, environmental, economic and technological aspects.

Sonia Ben Jaafar

Experienced strategic leader with over 20 years of experience in educational development across Canada, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Dr. Ben Jaafar currently serves as the CEO of the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation for Education, one of the largest privately funded philanthropic education initiatives in the Arab world. A key focus of her expertise is promoting the use of rigorous evidence as a means of gaining insight into and collaborating on sustainable solutions to pressing educational challenges. She is committed to assisting key stakeholders in having a collective positive impact on education and enhancing livelihoods.

Her additional role as Chairperson of the Global Council on Sustainable Development Goals focuses on cultivating partnerships that contribute to achieving sustainable development goals with measurable impact in the education and talent ecosystems. During the course of her career, Dr. Ben Jaafar has worked on major educational development projects with organizations including the American Institute of Research, Ericsson, UNESCO, UNICEF, and War Child UK.

Prior to her appointment as CEO of Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation for Education, Dr. Ben Jaafar was Managing Director of EduEval, where she developed partnerships with governments, international agencies, non-profit organizations, and multinational corporations to promote evidence-based education decisions.

She holds a PhD in Educational Leadership from the University of Toronto, as well as a MA in Curriculum Studies. She utilizes her experience as well as her academic background to promote knowledge sharing and education for the greater good.

Alaa Murabit

One of the leading global health and inclusive security experts of her generation, Alaa Murabit is the Director of Health at the Gates Foundation, overseeing global health policy & advocacy. A medical doctor, she is a United Nations High-Level Commissioner on Health Employment & Economic Growth, and one of 17 Global Sustainable Development Goal Advocates appointed by the UN Secretary-General. Alaa’s work has shaped policies in 193 countries and impacts billions. She was most recently named a Canadian Meritorious Service Cross recipient, 2021 Harvard Radcliffe Fellow, and 2022 World Economic Forum Young Global Leader for her work at the intersections of global security, health, gender, and sustainability.

Alaa previously founded and spearheaded The Voice of Libyan Women at the age of 21. Her TED Talk, "What My Religion Really Says About Women" has been viewed seven million times and was selected as the TED Talk of the Day, one of four moving TED Talks you should watch right now by The New York Times, and one of 12 TED Talks That Define the Future of Feminism.

Recently named a prestigious Harvard Radcliffe Fellow for her work “Architects of Peace: Redefining the Role of Women in Today’s Growing Security Agenda” focusing on the unique roles and leadership women have in conflict resolution and global peacebuilding. Alaa is also an MIT Media Lab Director's Fellow, Ashoka Fellow, serves as a board member for The Malala Fund and an alternate board member for Gavi.

She was the Executive Director of Phase Minus 1, which provides thought leadership in conflict resolution and inclusive security from 2016 to 2020, and in 2019 she founded CO-AGENCY, an accelerator for emerging women’s leadership in security, peacebuilding, and policy.

Alaa is the recipient of 100+ honors and awards, including the 2013 New York Times TrustWomen Hero, BBC Top 100 Woman, Forbes 30 Under 30, 2019 WIRED World Global Thought-leader, the2018 Nelson Mandela International Change-maker Award by The Nelson Mandela Family, and one of the 2019 Top 20 Most Influential People in Gender Equality Policy in the world alongside Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Angela Merkel, and Michelle Obama. Her leadership in global policy and in elevating the role of emerging women leaders was recognized by Harvard Law which named her the youngest 2017 Woman Inspiring Change. For her leadership architecting policies in security, health policy, and sustainable development, she was recognized as one of the 100 Most Influential Women in History by the Canadian Government and Canada’s 2021 Woman of Impact. Aside from being selected as a 2022 World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, she has also recently been named a 2021 CNN Leading Woman, 2021 Wikipedia Global Leader, and a 2021 UNWomen Leader We Admire.

Lewis Pugh

The only person to have completed a long-distance swim in every ocean, extreme adventurer and record-breaking swimmer Lewis Pugh talks about pushing yourself beyond 'the possible' into new realms of achievement.

Most recently during 2018's summer, Lewis swam the 530km length of the English Channel in just 49 days, starting at Land's End and finishing in Dover.

In 2016 he helped negotiate the creation of the biggest protected area in the world in the Ross Sea off Antarctica. The negotiations required consensus among 25 countries, a number of which had long standing disputes with one another. The media dubbed his efforts as "Speedo diplomacy" after Lewis took on the challenge of swimming 5 swims in freezing Antarctic waters, wearing just speedos and a swim hat.

As a motivational and keynote speaker, he puts businesses at every level worldwide through their paces with vital messages and strategies for surviving and thriving in a fragile economic climate.

To be the first human to  swim  across the Arctic waters (a mean minus 1.7°C!) requires a shift in mind-set when dealing with a dramatic drop in body temperature and the dangers of killer sea-animals: one must conjure up and maintain a constant focus and flexibility—crucial elements of business management.

Lewis has lived through the repercussions of change and their contributing factors and, a passionate voice for conservation, has been busy honing his front crawl technique in vulnerable ecosystems to raise awareness about their plight.

For example, in 2010, he completed a swim across a glacial lake on Mount Everest to draw attention to the melting glaciers in the Himalayas and the impact the reduced water supply will have on peace in the region. He has now pioneered more swims around famous landmarks than any other swimmer in history!

Teamwork is also vital to the success of his exploits. Lauded as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, Lewis’ influence and endurance was enabled by those around him. His crack teams are always made of those completely committed to excellence and leaders in their field.

Through his adventures, he dreams of making a significant difference. In 2015, Lewis undertook five swims in Antarctica to campaign for a large Marine Protected Area in the Ross Sea - one of the most incredible and diverse areas left on earth – which is now threatened by overfishing and climate change. The media have dubbed his efforts as ‘Speedo diplomacy’.

One of Lewis’ keynote speeches on leadership was voted one of the ‘7 Most Inspiring Videos on the Web’, and TED have described him as a ‘master story-teller’. He has also appeared on various international TV news channels, and his autobiography ‘Achieving the Impossible’ was selected for Oprah’s Exclusive Book List.

Along with the Freedom of the City of London, Lewis has been bestowed with South Africa and France’s highest honours.

Lewis addresses audiences on; Business management and teamwork, surviving and thriving in challenging times, achieving the impossible, change and its repercussions and the plight of vulnerable ecosystems. Lewis has been invited to speak at both the Conservative and Labour Party 2018 conferences, and co-hosting the Panda Awards, otherwise known as the Oscars of the wildlife and environmental film and TV awards.

Andrew Wilson

A veteran presenter of live television programmes and an award-winning foreign correspondent, Andrew Wilson is a leading news and communications professional.

Andrew’s is an experienced conference moderator and event host. He is also an expert interviewer having hosted his own current affairs show on Sky for ten years. Those skills have been deployed in any number of corporate productions including a series of International CEO sit-down interviews around the world for Reuters and thought leadership exchanges at the WEF in Davos.

For ten years Andrew worked on the news front line as a foreign correspondent bureau in Moscow, Jerusalem and then Washington DC. He covered conflicts and breaking news, reporting live and presenting programmes from Afghanistan, Libya, Gaza, Chechnya, Haiti, the Asia Tsunami, Ukraine, Egypt, Africa, Lebanon and Iraq. He covered three US elections, two in Israel, two in Russia and any number in the UK.

On his return to the UK his program, Live at 5 on Sky News won best RTS best news program in 2016. He was also awarded numerous international awards for his coverage overseas.

Ever since he covered the first Earth Summit in Rio, Andrew has harboured a special interest in environmental stories. He presented a series of live shows from the Amazon jungle ahead of COP 15 in 2009 and has moderated environmental and business conferences in the City as well as hosting numerous Virgin Formula E events in New York and Paris.

Andrew is an experienced media and skills trainer and regularly works with news presenters and reporters. He works with the John Schofield Trust to mentor young journalists and is a contributor to the Westminster Foreign Affairs think tank Global Strategy Forum and a member of BAFTA.

Carlos Pascual

Carlos Pascual, former senior US diplomat and previously the State Department’s top energy official, joined IHS Markit in January 2015 as Senior Vice President to focus on global energy issues and international affairs. As the former US Energy Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs at the State Department, Mr. Pascual established and directed the new Energy Resources Bureau and served as the Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State on energy issues. In that role, he was centrally involved in U.S. energy policy in the Middle East, China energy diversification, India energy security and natural gas in Europe.

Since joining IHS Markit, Mr. Pascual has led work on Mexico’s energy reforms and energy transition in Latin America. He is centrally involved in incorporating geopolitical risk into IHS market forecasts and working with corporate and government leaders to translate such risks into corporate and policy strategies. Mr. Pascual is a Vice-Chair of the CERAWeek global energy conference.

Mr. Pascual was previously US Ambassador to both Mexico and Ukraine and was Special Assistant to the US president for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia on the National Security Council. Mr. Pascual created the position of coordinator for reconstruction and stabilization in the State Department, establishing the first U.S. civilian response capacity to conflicts. He also was the State Department’s coordinator for US assistance to Europe and Eurasia and held leadership roles at the US Agency for International Development.

At the Brookings Institution, Mr. Pascual served as Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy Studies and launched the Brookings Energy Security Initiative. His book, Power and Responsibility: Building International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats, won a 2009 award for the best political science book published by an independent publisher. Mr. Pascual taught and wrote on the geopolitics of energy as a fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy in the fall of 2014 and continues to serve as a non-resident fellow.

Mr. Pascual holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University and a Master of Public Policy degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Miniya Chatterji

Miniya is CEO of Sustain Labs Paris, an enterprise with offices in France, India, New Zealand, U.A.E, that establishes and manages new institutions and assets that profoundly move the needle towards a sustainable future.

Notably, in the UAE, Sustain Labs works as an integrated team with the Dubai World Trade Centre to set up a new institution to move the private sector in the UAE towards net zero emissions as well as establish GITEX Impact. In India, under Miniya’s leadership, Sustain Labs has established India’s first climate university, offering undergraduate, masters, Ph.D degrees, and executive education programs in climate studies. It has also established a state of the art Climate Lab, which is the first of its kind in India as well. In India, Sustain Labs' annual flagship ranking of India's Most
Sustainable Companies is published each year since 2020. Also in India, Sustain Labs founded in 2018 and runs the Anant Centre for Sustainability and the Anant Fellowship for Climate Action. During the pandemic, Miniya initiated and led a coalition of corporate and government partners to establish 28 COVID hospitals across 5 states in India.

Miniya is also Adjunct Professor at SciencesPo Paris, where she teaches since 2016. Miniya is on the Steering Group for Sustainability United Nations Global Compact India, and the World Steel Sustainability Expert Group. She is a member of the Global Alliance on Climate Change and Education that was launched at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai. She is also on the team of the Social Credits initiative, and a member of 100 Women in Hedge Funds.

She is a Jury Member for the Million Dollar Global Teacher Prize, The World’s Best School prize, and a Jury Member for The Circulars Award at Davos. She is on the Board of The School of Collective Intelligence at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Morocco, and of the Institute for Democracy 2I in Prague, besides other organisations. She serves as the elected President of the SciencesPo Alumni Community in India.

Miniya is also the author of the best seller Indian Instincts - essays on equality and freedom in India (Penguin Random House, January 2018). The book is about the social consequences of economic growth in India. It emphasises that the institutions such as government, corporations, religion, that were created by us now limit our freedom. AIndian Instincts was launched and distributed in Switzerland, Singapore, and Sri Lanka. The Bengali language edition of the book was published by Sampark Publishing House in 2021. The French language edition of the book was published by Penguin Random House in April 2020.She is a contributor to the Harvard Business Review and a columnist for the The Indian Express, and The Pioneer newspapers.

Miniya is a Member of the Parliament of Francophone Writers, as appointed by the Government of France and convened by Minister Leila Slimani.

Miniya was Chief Sustainability Officer 2014 - 2017 for Jindal Steel and Power, a USD 3.8 billion business conglomerate whose main interests are in steel, power, infrastructure. At the company Miniya led the following departments - Environment, Energy Management, Corporate Social Responsibility, R&D, Health & Safety, Brand Management, as well as JSPL’s 7 schools, 5 community colleges, and 3 universities. She also oversaw a television company and news website owned by the promoter. Her role at JSPL was to ensure long term, holistic, and strategic growth of the company.

Previously Miniya worked at the World Economic Forum in Geneva 2011 - 2014. There Miniya managed Middle East, North Africa, South Asia regions for the Young Global Leaders community. She was part of the World Economic Forum’s leadership team for the Middle East summit as well as the India summit. She curated working groups, task forces, panel discussions, at the World Economic Forum’s regional summits as well as at the World Economic Forum’s annual summit in Davos where she moderated sessions as well. Miniya was also a Global Leadership Fellow at the World Economic Forum.

Alongside, Miniya is also the founder of The Stargazers Foundation, a not for profit organization that works for improving education and health for women in India.

Earlier, for a few years Miniya was managing two Hedge Funds of $200 million AUM at HSBC in Paris. She was investing in a portfolio of 30 Hedge Funds. Prior to that, she worked in the research team for Hedge Funds at JP Morgan in Paris.

Miniya started on her investment banking career at Goldman Sachs in London in 2007.

Previous to investment banking, Miniya worked in politics from 2002 to 2005 in France as Policy Analyst at Fondapol founded by Jerome Monod, the Chief Advisor to President Jacques Chirac. She worked closely with Jerome Monod and President Jacques Chirac on subjects related to development. She led the mission to organise President Jacques Chirac’s official visit to India in 2006. She also wrote speeches for both Jerome Monod and President Jacques Chirac.

Miniya has a PhD and DEA from SciencesPo Paris, and a B.A. from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. She has Executive Management certificates at The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania, INSEAD, and at Columbia University. She was a PhD fellow at Harvard University and Columbia University in New York, and is a Global Leadership Fellow of the World Economic Forum.

In 2019 Miniya was awarded as India’s most influential business leaders of the year under 40 years of age by Business World. In 2018 she was bestowed the award of ‘Most influential Sustainability leader in India’ at the India Sustainability Leadership Summit and Awards. In 2016 she was awarded by the Navoothan Foundation for her personal social commitment. She has also been awarded the prestigious CSR India award 2016 for corporate social responsibility. In the same year, Miniya’s contribution to the field of sustainability was the cover story of Business World
Asia.

Gunter Pauli

Gunter Pauli was born in Antwerp, Belgium, in March 1956. In 1979 he graduated as “Licencié en Sciences Economiques” from Loyola's University (today University of Antwerp) in Belgium and obtained his masters in business administration from INSEAD in 1982 at Fontainebleau, France thanks to a scholarship from the Rotary International Foundation. During the time he was studying, he held the most diverse jobs in order “to sustain family, education and to save money, which permitted extensive traveling during the summer holidays". In 1978 he was elected as national president of the students’ union AIESEC.

He was the founder and Chairman of PPA Holding and of more than 10 other companies, founder and CEO of the European Service Industries Forum (ESIF),  Secretary General of the European Business Press Federation (UPEFE), founder and president of the Foundation “Mozarteum Belgicum“, Chairman and President of Ecover, and advisor to the Rector of the United Nations University in Tokyo (Japan).

His entrepreneurial activities span business, culture, science, politics and the environment. Under his leadership, Ecover pioneered an ecological factory in 1992, featured on CNN Prime Time News. He founded the "Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives" (ZERI) at the United Nations University in Tokyo, and subsequently established The Global ZERI Network as a foundation, redesigning production and consumption into clusters of industries inspired by natural systems.

He is dedicated to design and implement a society and industries, which respond to people’s needs using what is locally available. His visionary approach supported by dozens of projects on the ground landed him an invitation to present his cases at the World Expo 2000 in Germany. There he constructed the largest bamboo pavilion in modern days presenting 7 breakthrough initiatives. It became the most popular pavilion with 6.4 million visitors. Unfortunately, the pavilion was destroyed after the Expo. However the original built in Manizales, Colombia still stands as a symbol for the Coffee Region.

His latest initiatives include the design of a solution for the plastic soup floating in the oceans and the creation of a protective zone with islands to avert rising sea levels. He is actively involved to ensure that the largest herd of rhinos (2,400 in Kaziranga National Park in India) will be free of poachers thanks to an intensive economic and community development program in coordination with organic tea plantations.

He has been visiting lecturer and professor at universities in on all continents, and Member of the Board of NGOs and private companies in Asia, USA and Latin America. He has advised governments, entrepreneurs and industry leaders on how to implement breakthrough innovations that permits society to better respond to the basic needs of all, starting with water, food, housing, health and energy. He works with what is locally available, focuses on the generation of value.

He is a Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences (San Francisco, USA), a creative Member of the Club of Budapest (Hungary), Member of the Club of Rome, moderated the Roundtable of Nobel Science Laureates hosted by HM King of Jordan State and obtained a Doctorate from the Italian Government in systems design. He has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Pécs, Hungary.

Gunter has published 20 books (written 16 - edited 4), which have been printed in +30 languages and 365 fables bringing science and emotions to children. Over 17 million copies have been distributed worldwide. One of his fables “The Strongest Tree” is available in over 100 languages. His latest  book published in April 2015 "The Blue Economy 2.0: 200 projects implemented, $4 billion invested and 3 million jobs created" is the new reality inspired the vision of his Report to the Club of Rome presented on November 2, 2009.

His next book "From Deep Ecology to Blue Economy: 21 Principles of the New Business Model" will be forthcoming in the Fall of 2016. He is father of five sons, one daughter (Adopted) and married to Katherina Bach. Fluent in seven languages and having resided on 4 continents, he is a world citizen.