Topic: World Affairs

Isabelle Kumar

Isabelle is a journalist with more than 20 years experience and has covered countless big business and political stories in Europe during that time. She anchored prime time evening news on Euronews for several years. She has also traveled the world interviewing heads of state and government, CEOs and celebrities generating more than 2 million views on YouTube.

Isabelle moderates at high level events, including the first ever EU Presidential debate, deep dives at the Davos World Economic Forum, business analysis at the Consumer Goods Forum and drilling down into the digital health transformation at the influential HIMSS conference. She has presented award ceremonies for the UN and chaired a private lunch with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Before heading to Euronews, Isabelle worked for CNN, APTN and Reuters.

Jeremy Bash

Jeremy is the founder and Managing Director at Beacon Global Strategies. He has been serving there since 2013. Beacon is a strategic advisory firm specializing in International Policy, Defense, Cyber, Intelligence, and Homeland Security.

Mr. Bash has spent the past 15 years advising national leaders and chief executives on a range of strategic, management, legal, and policy issues.

He is the only Obama Administration official to have served as Chief of Staff in two national security departments or agencies: first as Chief of Staff to the Director of the CIA (2009-2011) and most recently as Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense (2011-2013). As a senior advisor to Leon E. Panetta in both roles, Mr. Bash worked on a number of key initiatives, including the creation of a new defense strategy, formation of two defense budgets, the drawdown of two wars, counterterrorism operations, a new cyber strategy, and a range of sensitive intelligence operations. He traveled with Secretary Panetta to more than 50 countries. From August 2010 to May 2011, he was a member of the CIA’s senior management team overseeing the operation that killed Osama Bin Laden.

At the Pentagon, Mr. Bash managed the Office of the Secretary of Defense, an entity with 2,500 employees and a budget of $4 billion.

From 2004-2008, Mr. Bash served in a variety of roles on Capitol Hill, including Chief Counsel to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and as a senior national security advisor to Congresswoman Jane Harman. In 2008, he was a member of the Obama-Biden transition team.

Mr. Bash practiced law at O’Melveny & Myers LLP, where his practice focused on litigation, high-profile investigations, and strategic counseling to CEOs of several publicly traded companies.

In 2000, Mr. Bash was the Defense and Foreign Policy Director of the Presidential Campaign of Vice President Al Gore. He was a member of Gore’s legal team during the 36-day recount in Florida.

In 2000, he served as an Associate with Fontheim International, one of the preeminent consulting firms advising major corporations on trade policy, business social responsibility, and political risk.

He is a recipient of the Department of Defense’s Distinguished Public Service Medal, the CIA Director’s Award, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, and the Donovan Award from the National Clandestine Service. In 2010, Time Magazine named Mr. Bash one of the nation’s Top 40 Civic Leaders Under 40.

Mr. Bash graduated from Georgetown University, magna cum laude, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his law degree from Harvard Law School, where he graduated cum laude and was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Mr. Bash is a Global Fellow with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Mr. Bash is a frequent commentator on national security matters on NBC, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC.

Francis Fukuyama

Francis Fukuyama is Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), resident in FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, effective July 2010. He comes to Stanford from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University, where he was the Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy and director of SAIS' International Development program.

Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues relating to democratization and international political economy. His book, The End of History and the Last Man, was published by Free Press in 1992 and has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His most recent book, The Origins of Political Order, was published in April 2011. Other books include America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy, and Falling Behind: Explaining the Development Gap between Latin America and the United States.

Francis Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation from 1979-1980, then again from 1983-89, and from 1995-96. In 1981-82 and in 1989 he was a member of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State, the first time as a regular member specializing in Middle East affairs, and then as Deputy Director for European political-military affairs. In 1981-82 he was also a member of the US delegation to the Egyptian-Israeli talks on Palestinian autonomy. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University. He served as a member of the President's Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004.

Dr. Fukuyama is chairman of the editorial board of The American Interest, which he helped to found in 2005. He is a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins SAIS Foreign Policy Institute, and a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Center for Global Development. He holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University (Japan), Kansai University (Japan), and Aarhus University (Denmark). He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Rand Corporation, the Board of Directors of the National Endowment for Democracy, and member of the advisory boards for the Journal of Democracy, the Inter-American Dialogue, and The New America Foundation. He is a member of the American Political Science Association and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.

Chris Patten

Christopher Patten, Baron Patten of Barnes CH PC (born 12 May 1944) is a British public servant. He is a former chairman of the BBC Trust and serves as Chancellor of the University of Oxford.

Patten began his career in the Conservative Party (UK), serving as Member of Parliament for Bath and joining the cabinet.

Patten served as Minister for Overseas Development at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1986 to 1989. In 1989 he was appointed to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for the Environment.

In July 1992, he became the 28th and the last Governor of Hong Kong until its transfer of sovereignty to the People's Republic of China on 30 June 1997. He was given an official Chinese name, Pang Ding-hong (Chinese: 彭定康), a name with an etymology based on the words "stability" and "health". Unlike most previous Hong Kong Governors, he was not a career diplomat from the UK Foreign Office although he was not the first former MP to become a Governor of Hong Kong. After the handover ceremony he left Hong Kong, together with Prince Charles, on board the British royal yacht, HMY Britannia. Patten was noted to be in tears throughout the day, notably after his speech at Tamar.

From 1998 to 1999, he chaired the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland, better known as the Patten Commission, which had been established in 1998 as part of the Belfast Agreement.

In 1999, he was appointed as one of the United Kingdom's two members to the European Commission as Commissioner for External Relations.

Patten was Chancellor of  Newcastle University from 1999 to 2009, and was elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 2003.

On the advice of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government led by Prime Minister David Cameron Lord Patten of Barnes was appointed by the Queen-in-Council as Chairman of the BBC Trust, and he took office on 1 May 2011. He resigned on 6 May 2014.

In the 1998 New Year Honours, Queen Elizabeth II appointed him a Companion of Honour.