Elvin Guri is a distinguished private equity investor and entrepreneur. He is the CEO of Empower Capital and Invenio Partners. Elvin has a successful track record of investment in various sectors, including financial institutions, telecoms, technology, biotechnology, healthcare, and real estate.

Kawa Hassan is a distinguished figure in the realm of international relations and diplomacy, particularly regarding the Middle East and North Africa region. With a career spanning various high-profile roles, he has been instrumental in leading Track 1.5 and Track 2 diplomacy initiatives focused on trust-building, conflict prevention, and resolution. As a Nonresident Fellow at the Stimson Center, Kawa has a rich history of engagement in strategic projects and dialogues that have significantly contributed to regional stability. Kawa is currently a member of the NATO Mission Iraq Strategic Assessment Capability, where he provides valuable insights into the security dynamics of Iraq. Kawa was the Director of the Brussels office of the East West Institute and played a key role in establishing Stimson’s presence in Europe. He was a member of the Atlantic Council Taskforce on the future of Iraq. Kawa is a frequent contributor to the Financial Times, Washington Post, BBC, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Al Jazeera.

Parag Khanna is a leading global strategy advisor, world traveler, and best-selling author. He is the founder and CEO of Climate Alpha, a company that helps investors and businesses adapt to climate change. He is also the founder and managing partner of FutureMap, a data and scenario based strategic advisory firm. He has written seven books on geopolitics, globalization, and the future of humanity, including The Future is Asian, How to Run the World, and MOVE. He has traveled to more than 150 countries and holds a PhD from the London School of Economics. He is a frequent contributor to CNN, TIME, and Fortune. He has provided expertise to many governments including the US, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, UK, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Italy, Estonia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Japan, China, India, Australia, South Korea, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mongolia, Bhutan, and numerous others. In 2016 he served on the Singapore government's Committee on the Future Economy.

Upon graduating from Yale, where he received the Gordon Brown Memorial Prize awarded each year to the outstanding member of the Junior Class, and the Harvard Business School where he was named a Baker Scholar, Jack Perkowski spent 20 years on Wall Street, rising to head of Investment Banking at PaineWebber. Over the course of his career on Wall Street, Jack held a variety of positions in PaineWebber’s Investment Banking Division. He completed private placements, mergers and acquisitions and public offerings, rebuilt PaineWebber’s Real Estate Group after it was decimated by defections, and dramatically increased investment banking revenues as head of Investment Banking from 1985 to 1988. In 1987, Jack negotiated, and then renegotiated after the stock market collapse on Black Monday, October 19th, a $300 million equity infusion into PaineWebber by the Yasuda Life Insurance Company of Japan. In 1990, well before others recognized the significant role that China would play in the global economy, he spent three years investigating opportunities in Asia and China, leading to the founding of ASIMCO Technologies in 1994, a major industrial enterprise in China’s automotive industry, which he built and ran for fifteen years before it was sold to Bain Capital in 2009. Jack served as Chairman of ASIMCO’s Board of Directors and was Chief Executive Officer of the company from 1994 to 2008. Jack developed the strategy, raised the capital and assembled the management team that has enabled ASIMCO to become one of the most important players in China’s automotive components industry. Headquartered in Beijing with 12,000 employees throughout the country, ASIMCO is a unique foreign-invested company that was established specifically to serve the China market. ASIMCO operates 17 manufacturing facilities in China and has 52 sales offices throughout the country, as well as offices in the United States, Europe and Japan. ASIMCO derives 85 percent of its sales from China, its main market. Within China, ASIMCO has a dominant position in the commercial vehicle segment where up to 25 percent of the components used in a diesel engine made in the country may come from ASIMCO factories. Under Jack’s leadership, ASIMCO gained a reputation for developing local management and integrating a broad based China operation into the global economy. ASIMCO was three times named one of the “Ten Best Employers in China” in surveys conducted by Hewitt Associates and leading news organizations in Asia. In 2008, Jack was designated by China Auto News one of “30 Outstanding Entrepreneurs in China’s Auto Components Industry over the 30 Years of Economic Reform,” the only foreigner to receive this distinction. Jack serves on the China Advisory Council of Magna International Inc., one of the world’s largest auto suppliers; the Board of Advisers for the Center For Emerging Markets at Northeastern University in the United States; and the Board of Advisers of Transmetrics, Inc., a European logistics software company. He is the Chairman of the International Advisory Board of Management and Economics (IABME) at Tianjin University in China; the Non-Executive Chairman of OC3 Entertainment, Inc., a leading facial animation company; and the Non-Executive Chairman of Talkr, Inc., a creator of mobile phone applications. Jack also served on the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Special Committee of Fushi Copperweld, Inc., a leading bimetallic company that was listed on NASDAQ before taken private by its Chairman. Widely recognized as an expert on doing business in China, Jack authored Managing the Dragon: Building a Billion Dollar Business In China.

Professor Bill O'Farrell of Columbia Business School is a 30-year veteran of the start-up world. He most recently co-founded and was CEO of Body Labs, Inc., a computer vision and AI company focused on 3D human body modeling. Body Labs was acquired by Amazon in 2017. Formerly, he was co-founder and CEO of such companies as SpeechWorks, acquired by Nuance, OpenAir.com, acquired by Netsuite, and the Company of Science & Art, which created the After Effects product line, acquired by Adobe. Bill is an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia Business School where he teaches “Launch Your Start-up.” Bill received his undergraduate degree from Brown University and a JD from Harvard Law School.

Paul Fox is a Co-Founder and the Chief Strategy Officer of Evie Networks, an infrastructure company for the future of electrified transportation. Evie is building Australia’s largest electric vehicle charging network for private and public charging. Paul has been an entrepreneur and investor in clean energy for over 20 years in Australia and Silicon Valley. He had previous roles at AGL Energy, Southern Cross Ventures, the California Clean Energy Fund, Flextronics and the United Nations. He has held multiple board and advisory roles at high growth and technology companies in Australia and the USA.

Dr. Adam Posen is the President of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Under his leadership, the Peterson Institute has earned global recognition as the leading independent think tank in international economics. Dr. Posen's influential work spans monetary and fiscal policies, European integration, and US-China relations. He co-authored the groundbreaking work “Inflation Targeting" with eminent economists like Ben Bernanke. He served as an external voting member of the Bank of England's interest rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee, where he was a leading voice globally for active policy response to the financial crisis. The Atlantic named him in its line-up of global "Superstar Central Bankers" and he was made an honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Dr. Posen has also served seven terms on the Panel of Economic Advisers to the US Congressional Budget Office. He received the Order of the Rising Sun from the government of Japan in 2021 for his distinguished achievements in advancing US-Japanese economic relations. With prestigious affiliations including the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, and as an Agenda Contributor at the World Economic Forum, Dr. Posen's expertise makes him a sought-after adviser to global policymakers and investors.

Ben Nelson is the Founder of the Minerva Project and Minerva University. Ben is a visionary entrepreneur with the aim of transforming higher education. Ben established Minerva University in 2012 using $25 million in venture funding from Benchmark Capital. Students learn an innovative curriculum through proprietary video conferencing software while living in 7 different cities around the world over the course of a 4 year bachelor's degree. Minerva is recognized as the most competitive university in the world with a 1% acceptance rate which is lower than Harvard. Before founding Minerva, Ben helped build and eventually became the CEO of a startup called Snapfish, where he helped build the company from startup to the world’s largest personal publishing service.

The Honorable Dr. Nadia Schadlow began her career at the Pentagon as the Country Director for Ukraine, a role in which she established the US relationship with the newly formed Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. Dr. Schadlow was the primary author of the 2017 US National Security Strategy, achieving the full endorsement across all Cabinet Secretaries. She delivered the National Security Strategy to Congress in the record breaking time of just 9 months. Dr. Schadlow is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and a Visiting Fellow at The Hoover Institution at Stanford University. She is a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal and Foreign Policy Magazine. She is also a full member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Steven Hirth is the Founder of S. H. Hirth & Associates, an international merchant banking and advisory boutique which co-invests with other families and High Net Worth Individuals in small to mid-size growth companies. S. H. Hirth & Associates is very active in the family office world and co-investment arenas. Areas of focus include consumer products, health and wellness, food and beverage, agriculture, environmental / clean energy, and real estate.