Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Former Director of the CIA and Former Secretary of Defense
President of Eurasia Group
Chair of President Obama’s Global Development Council
Former Foreign Minister of Egypt
Former Finance Minister of Lebanon
International Oil Expert
Advisor in the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia
Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
David Cameron was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland from May 2010 until July 2016. He led a Conservative and Liberal Democrat Coalition Government from 2010 until 2015 and continued as Prime Minister from May 2015 leading a Conservative Government, after winning an outright majority at the 2015 General Election. He was the Conservative Member of Parliament for Witney in West Oxfordshire from 2001 to 2016.
Former Director of the CIA and Former Secretary of Defense
Co-founder of the Panetta Institute for Public Policy, Leon Panetta returned to the Institute on February 27, 2013, after serving as the 23rd Secretary of Defense.
A Monterey native and Santa Clara University School of Law graduate, Mr. Panetta began his long and distinguished public service career in 1964 as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, and upon discharge went to work in Washington as a legislative assistant to U.S. Senate Minority Whip Tom Kuchel of California. In 1969, he was appointed director of the U.S. Office for Civil Rights, where he was responsible for enforcing equal education laws, and later he served as executive assistant to the mayor of New York City. He then returned to Monterey, where he practiced law until his election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1976.
Serving his Central Coast district in Congress for 16 years, Mr. Panetta was a key participant in agriculture, healthcare, marine and federal budget issues, and from 1989 to 1993, he chaired the House Budget Committee. He authored a wide range of legislation, including the Hunger Prevention Act of 1988, Medicare and Medicaid coverage for hospice care for the terminally ill, and numerous measures to protect the California coast, including creation of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.
In 1993, Mr. Panetta left Congress to serve as director of the Office of Management and Budget for the incoming Clinton administration. There, he was instrumental in developing the policies that led to a balanced federal budget and eventual budget surpluses. In 1994, he accepted appointment as the President’s chief of staff, and immediately brought order and focus to White House operations and policy making.
Upon leaving the Clinton administration in 1997, Mr. Panetta joined with his wife Sylvia to establish and co-direct the Panetta Institute for Public Policy, based at California State University, Monterey Bay. Reflecting Mr. Panetta’s own ideals and personal example, the nonpartisan, not-for-profit study center seeks to attract thoughtful men and women to lives of public service and prepare them for the policy challenges of the future. In addition, Mr. Panetta developed programs for the Institute, such as its Leon Panetta Lecture Series, Congressional Internship Program and Leadership Seminar, that help to inform Americans about the critical issues facing our communities, states and nation in the 21st Century. Institute programs also aim to inspire a deeper engagement in the democratic process while simultaneously setting a public example of service and commitment.
Returning to public service in the Obama Administration as director of the CIA, he ran the operation that brought Osama bin Laden to justice, and, as Secretary of Defense, led the effort to develop a new defense strategy, helping bring two wars to an end, and opened up opportunities for everyone to serve in the military. Mr. Panetta chronicles his life in public service in his memoir Worthy Fights, which was published by Penguin Press in the fall of 2014.
Over the years Mr. Panetta has served on numerous boards and commissions. He co-chaired California Forward, the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative and Governor Schwarzenegger’s Council on Base Support and Retention. In 2006, he served on the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan national commission seeking a new course for the war in Iraq. In 2016, Mr. Panetta launched the CSIS Commission on Countering Violent Extremism, which he co-chairs with former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Mr. Panetta is the recipient of many awards and honors. His most recent awards include: the California Teachers Association’s “Friends of EducationAward”; the Judicial Council of California’s “Stanley Mosk Defender of Justice Award”; “The Harry S. Truman Good Neighbor Award”; the Sons of Italy Foundation’s “National Education & Leadership Award”; the “Peter Benchley Ocean Awardfor Excellence in Policy”; and the Intelligence and National Security Alliance’s “William Oliver Baker Award”.
President of Eurasia Group
Ian Bremmer is the president and founder of Eurasia Group, the leading global political risk research and consulting firm. He is a prolific thought leader and author, regularly expressing his views on political issues in public speeches, television appearances, and top publications, including Time magazine, where he is the foreign affairs columnist and editor-at-large. Once dubbed the “rising guru” in the field of political risk by The Economist, he teaches classes on the discipline as global research professor at New York University. His latest book is the national bestseller “Superpower: Three Choices for America's Role in the World.”
In 1998, Ian established Eurasia Group with just $25,000. Today, the company has offices in New York, Washington, San Francisco, London, Sao Paulo, and Tokyo, as well as a network of experts and resources in 90 countries. As the firm's president and most active public voice, Ian advises leading executives, money managers, diplomats, and heads of state.
Ian is credited with bringing the craft of political risk to financial markets—he created Wall Street's first global political risk index (GPRI)—and for establishing political risk as an academic discipline. His definition of emerging markets—“those countries where politics matters at least as much as economics for market outcomes”—has become an industry standard. “G-Zero,” his term for a global power vacuum in which no country is willing and able to set the international agenda, is widely accepted by policymakers and thought leaders.
In 2007, Ian was named a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, where he is the founding chairman of the Global Agenda Council on Geopolitical Risk. He is the Harold J. Newman Distinguished Fellow in Geopolitics at the Asia Society Policy Institute and serves on the President's Council of the Near East Foundation, the Leadership Council for Concordia, and the Board of Trustees of Intelligence Squared.
Ian earned a master's degree and a doctorate in political science from Stanford University, where he went on to become the youngest-ever national fellow at the Hoover Institution. He received his bachelor's degree in international relations from Tulane University. Ian has published nine books including the national bestsellers “Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World” and “The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations?”
Chair of President Obama’s Global Development Council
Dr. Mohamed A. El-Erian is an internationally respected economist and financier with experience at the highest level of business and government. Markets hang on his analysis and insight, and audiences interested in issues of finance and global markets buzz when El-Erian comes to the podium. Meeting planners share their praise for his ability to connect with audiences through a humorous laid-back style, and to clearly explain the complex issues of the global economy.
Former Foreign Minister of Egypt
Nabil Fahmy was Foreign Minister of Egypt from July 2013-June 2014 besides serving as Egypt’s Ambassador to Japan from 1997-1999 and the United States from 1999-2008. He is the founding Dean, and Professor of Practice of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy (GAPP) at The American University in Cairo (AUC).
Fahmy steered the course of Egypt’s diplomacy during a time of immense challenge. During his tenure as Minister, Nabil Fahmy formulated a strategy to reorient Egypt’s Foreign Policy, ensuring that Egypt had numerous foreign policy options both regionally and globally, while also restructuring the Egyptian Foreign Ministry in order to address the future challenges confronting Egypt’s foreign policy.
During his distinguished diplomatic career Fahmy served in numerous government and international positions focusing in his work on international and regional security, disarmament and non-proliferation, and Arab-Israeli diplomacy. He was a member of the Egyptian Delegation to the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference; the Review Conferences of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons; Rapporteur of Committee on Principles in the United Nations Conference on Promoting International Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy; United Nations Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters; International Atomic Energy Agency Board and general conferences as well as numerous sessions of the United Nations General Assembly since 1977. He was elected Vice Chairman of the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security Affairs) of the 44th Session of the General Assembly in 1989.
Following his retirement from active government service in 2009 Fahmy engaged in several initiatives in the field of research and academia as well as serving as a non-resident chair of the Middle East Non Proliferation Project at the James Martin Center for Non Proliferation Strategies, Monterey, CA. USA since May 1998. After his tenure as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt, Fahmy resumed his position as Dean of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the AUC.
A prolific writer on regional and global affairs, Nabil Fahmy is the author of numerous publications in both Arabic and English.
He is married with three children and currently lives in Cairo.
Former Finance Minister of Lebanon
Georges CORM studied in Paris and graduated from The Institut d’Etudes Politiques (with majors in Economy and Public Finance) in 1961 and from the Faculté de Droit et de Sciences Economiques (Ph.d. in Constitutional Law in 1969). He began his career with the Lebanese Civil Service in 1963. In 1969 he entered the field of Arab and International banking. In 1980 he became Advisor to the Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon and in 1985 he established an independent Economic and Financial Consultancy in Paris for Arab and International Financial Institutions, as well as several private financial institutions and companies. In December 1998 he was appointed, Minister of Finance of the Lebanese Republic (up to October 2000). During his tenure, he designed and began to implement a Five Years Fiscal Stabilization Plan (1999-2004), contributed to the elaboration of the Privatization law adopted in spring 2000, paid all State arrears to the private sector and prepared the introduction of VAT (draft law and implementation regulations and training).
After his tenure as Minister of finance, he reopened in Beirut his economic and financial consultancy office to serve international (ESCWA, World Bank, EU, UNDP, AFD, ILO and others), as well as private institutions.
Since 2001 he is Professor at Saint-Joseph University where he teaches MA Seminars in “International Economic Cooperation”, “Public policies in the Arab World”, “Conflicts dynamics in the Middle East” and “Arab contemporary political thought”.
International Oil Expert
Dr Mamdouh G. Salameh is an international oil economist. He is acknowledged as one of the world’s leading experts on oil. He is also a visiting professor of energy economics at the ESCP Europe Business School in London. Dr Salameh holds a PhD in Economics specializing in the economics & geopolitics of oil and energy.
Dr Salameh has given 86 papers so far at numerous international energy conferences on the economics and geopolitics of oil and energy and has been frequently invited to lecture on these topics at universities around the world.
He has written four books on oil: “Is a Third Oil Crisis Inevitable?” (published in London in April 1990), “ Jordan’s Energy Prospects & Needs to the Year 2010: The Economic Viability of Extracting Oil from Shale” (published in London in October 1998), “ Over a Barrel” (Published in the UK in June 2004) and “What is Behind the Steep Decline in the Crude Oil Prices: Glut or Geopolitics?” (published by the Arab Centre for Research & Policy Studies in Qatar in June 2015) as well as 49 research papers published in international Oil and Energy Journals. Dr Salameh has undertaken research assignments for the US Department of Energy, the Institute of Energy Economics in Japan, the Indian Government, OPEC, the Canadian Energy Research Institute, Boston University working on the Encyclopedia of Energy and also the Handbook of Energy and the government of Jordan among others. He regularly appears on TV to discuss oil prices and other developments in the global oil market.
Dr Salameh is a member of many International Institutes and Associations including the International Association for Energy Economics (IAEE) in the US, the British Institute of Energy Economics, the International Energy Foundation in Canada and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London.
Advisor in the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia
Natalia Tamirisa is Advisor in the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department and the IMF Mission Chief for the United Arab Emirates. During her 20-year career at the IMF, she has worked on a broad range of topics in international economic policy and a diverse set of countries. Her research interests include the economics of international capital flows and macroeconomic forecasting. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Hawaii, U.S.A.