Ghassan Salamé was a professor of International Relations at Sciences Po (Paris) and the founding Dean of its Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA).
He also serves as Vice-Chairman of the Board of the International Crisis Group (Brussels) and sits on the board of the Open Society Institute (New York), the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and other not-for-profit organisations. He is the founding chairman of the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (Beirut).
Earlier, Ghassan Salamé served as Political Advisor to the UN Mission in Iraq (2003) and Senior Advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General (2003-2005 and again since August 2012). In 2000-2003, he was Lebanon's Minister of Culture, in charge of national heritage and the arts, as well as Chairman of the Committee and Spokesman for the Arab Summit (March 2002), and the Francophone Summit (October 2002) in Beirut.
A prolific author, his essays have been published in Foreign Policy, Revue française de science politique, European Journal of International Affairs, The Middle East Journal.
He is the recipient of the Phenix (Beirut), ADELFI (Paris) and Al-Idrissi (Rome, 2012) awards, as well as the Medaille of the Academie Francaise (2003) and Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur (France, 2004). He was also named 'The Arab Cultural Personality of the Year' (UAE, 2004).
Francis Fukuyama
Professor, Stanford University
Francis Fukuyama is a professor at Stanford University, a senior fellow at Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and a longstanding observer of global political and economic issues, with a special emphasis on the development of democratic political systems around the world.
He has previously taught at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, where he was a professor of international political economy and director of the school's International Development Program.
Fukuyama served as a member of the Political Science Department at the RAND Corporation and is currently a member of the Board of Trustees. In 1989, he was a member of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State, first 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 2001-2004, he served on the President's Council on Bioethics, established by President George W. Bush.
Fukuyama received his bachelor's degree in classics from Cornell University and Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University. He holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University and Kansai University in Japan, and Aarhus University in Denmark.
Fukuyama has authored books on issues relating to democratization and international political economy. He is chairman of the editorial board of The American Interest, which he helped found in 2005.
Paul Krugman
Professor, Princeton University
Paul Krugman won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his groundbreaking work on international trade and economic geography. A gifted observer and contributor on policy and economics, he is the author/editor of 20 books and more than 200 papers in professional journals and edited volumes.
As one of the world's best known and most acclaimed economists, Paul speaks on the leading issues of the day affecting the world economy. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Krugman's work in economics has earned him broad acclaim from the economic press and several prestigious awards. He is one of the founders of the 'new trade theory' - a major rethinking of the theory of international trade for which he also received the John Bates Clark medal in 1991 from the American Economic Association.
Paul Krugman is professor of economics at Princeton University. Over the course of 2014 and 2015, he will move to the Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY) as professor of economics and a distinguished scholar at the Graduate Center's Luxembourg Income Study Center.
Paul Krugman was chosen as one of Bloomberg's 50 Most Influential People in Global Finance, 2011. He has also been named among Foreign Policy's Top 100 Global Thinkers for four consecutive years (2009-2012).
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a professor of politics and director of the Alexander Hamilton Center for Political Economy at the New York University, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. Through his New York-based consulting firm (Selectors LLC), he has served as an advisor to the American government on national security matters and to numerous corporations on issues related to forecasting and engineering outcomes in negotiations involving mergers and acquisitions, litigation, regulation, and legislation.
Bueno de Mesquita received his doctorate in political science from the University of Michigan and an honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen. From 2001-2002, Bueno de Mesquita was president of the International Studies Association. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Council on Foreign Relations, and has been a Guggenheim Fellow.
He has been chosen several times by Foreign Policy Magazine as one of the 100 Top Global Thinkers. He has also received a number of distinguished awards including the Karl Deutsch Award from the International Studies Association as the leading scholar of international relations under the age of 40 in 1985. Recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Conflict Processes Section of the American Political Science Association, he was awarded the 2008 Distinguished Scholar Award from the Foreign Policy Section of the International Studies Association, and the 2007 DMZ Peace Prize in South Korea.
Bueno de Mesquita is the author of 19 books, and a regular contributor to the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and International Herald Tribune.
Abdalla S. El-Badri
Secretary General , OPEC
His Excellency Abdalla Salem El-Badri is the Secretary General of OPEC, a position he has held since 1 January, 2007. El-Badri began his career in the oil industry with Esso Standard in 1964 and went on to become the Chairman of the Libyan National Oil Company in 1983, before being named Minister of Petroleum in 1990.
In 1993, he was appointed Minister of Energy, Oil and Electricity and as Deputy Prime Minister of Libya in 2004, before he returned to the chairmanship of the Libyan National Oil Company. In 1994, he was both President and Secretary General of OPEC, and served as its President once again in 1996.
In 2013, he was honored with the Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah International Energy Award for Lifetime Achievement for his contribution to the advancement of OPEC. He graduated from the US with a high degree in accounting and business management.
Ahmed Aboul Gheit
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt
Ahmed Aboul Gheit is the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt – a position he held between 2004 and 2011 when the government of Ahmed Nazif took office.
Prior to taking on this role, he served as Egypt's representative to the UN from 1999 to 2004.
Ahmed Aboul Gheit joined Egypt's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1965, after completing his bachelor's degree. He started his career as Third Secretary in the Embassy of Cyprus. He was then named Second Secretary at the Permanent Delegation of Egypt to the United Nations. In his subsequent roles, he has served as First Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Political Consultant at the Egyptian Embassy in Russia, and as Ambassador of Egypt in Rome, Macedonia and San Marino. He was also Special Political Secretary to the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1982 to 1984, and to the Egyptian Prime Minister from 1984 to 1985.
Aboul Gheit has authored two books 'My Testimony – The Foreign Policy of Egypt between 2004-2011' and 'Witness to War and Peace - The 1973 War and the Peace Process, including Camp David Accords'.
Henry T Azzam
Senior lecturer, American University of Beirut
Dr. Henry T Azzam is a Senior Lecturer of Finance at the Olayan School of Business, American University of Beirut and Chairman of the School's MS in Finance Program.
Prior to joining the American University of Beirut, Dr. Azzam was Chairman and CEO of the Social Security Investment Fund of Jordan, managing a diversified investment portfolio of US$8.5 billion in stocks, bonds, real estate, private equity and direct investments.
In an earlier role, Dr Azzam completed a successful tenure as Chairman and CEO of Deutsche Bank (MENA Region). Before joining Deutsche Bank he worked as CEO of Amwal Invest, an investment bank he founded in May 2005 and guided through the first two years of operations. He has also been associated with the Middle East Capital Group, Saudi National Commercial Bank, Gulf International Bank, and the Arab Fund.
Azzam is currently a board member of Byblos Bank (Beirut), Arab Jordan Investment Bank (Amman) and Rasmala Investment Bank (Dubai).
He has served before as Chairman of the Board of the Dubai International Financial Exchange (now NASDAQ Dubai), a board member of Royal Jordanian Airlines (Amman), Nuqul Group (Amman), Aramex (Amman), Majid Al Futtaim Trust (Dubai), Arabtec (Dubai), and was a member of the International Advisory Board of the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul).
He has five books to his credit, and his forthcoming title 'Middle East Financial Markets and Institutions' will be published in 2015.
He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Southern California and BA and MA from the American University of Beirut.
