Food+ Forum @ UNGA78

Her Excellency Mariam bint Mohammed Almheiri is the UAE’s Minister of Climate Change and Environment. She leads the nation’s comprehensive efforts to accelerate climate action, safeguard ecosystems, enhance biodiversity, and strengthen food security by developing and implementing impactful strategies, policies, and initiatives. A member of the COP28 UAE Higher Committee, Her Excellency oversees the national preparations for the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to be hosted by the nation in Dubai this year. Her Excellency Mariam Almheiri draws on her wealth of experience as Minister of State for Food Security (appointed in October 2017) and as Minister of State for Food and Water Security (appointed in June 2020). In these roles, she led the monitoring of national food stocks and water supply, directed investments in food technology innovation and built international partnerships. She also led infrastructure development to achieve the country’s food security objectives in line with the goals of the UAE Centennial 2071. Her Excellency also lends her significant expertise and leadership to several national and international organizations. She represents the UAE at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Center for Bio-saline Agriculture (ICBA). She is a member of the Board of Directors of Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority (ADAFSA), and the Board of Trustees of Khalifa International Award for Date Palm and Agricultural Innovation (KIADPAI). She is also a member of the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) Board of Trustees as well as a member of the Board of Directors of the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD) and serves on the International Advisory Board of EAT, a science-based global platform for food system transformation. Her Excellency also Chairs the Emirates Climate Change Council, the Emirates Food Security Council, the Circular Economy Council, and the Emirates Council for Environmental and Municipal Action. Prior to her ministerial appointment, Her Excellency headed the Biodiversity, Fisheries, Coastal & Marine Sustainability, and Marine Research Departments as Assistant Undersecretary for Water Resources and Nature Conservation Affairs at the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (MOCCAE). She has also served on the Board of Trustees for the Dubai Future Foundation (DFF) and the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Food Systems Innovation. Her Excellency Mariam bint Mohammed Almheiri has a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen University in Germany (RWTH).

Dr. Kalibata has served as the President of AGRA since 2014, where she leads the organization’s efforts with public and private partners to ensure a food secure and prosperous Africa through rapid, inclusive,sustainable agricultural growth, improving the productivity and livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers in Africa. From 2019-2021, Dr. Kalibata also served as the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for the 2021 Food Systems Summit, a catalytic process at the start of the Decade of Action to improve food systems around the world to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Paris Agreement. Prior to joining AGRA, Dr. Kalibata was Rwanda’s Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) from 2008 to 2014, where she drove programs that moved her country from a food insecure to a food secure status and became a reference point for other countries that sought to deliver agriculture transformation. Dr. Kalibata also sits on various boards, councils and commissions including the Global Commission on Adaptation, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate,the Global Panel for Agriculture & Food Systems for Nutrition, the Global Agriculture & Food Security Program (GAFSP), the Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum, the Malabo-Montpellier Panel, the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions and the Global Commission on Climate Overshoot, among others. Dr. Kalibata has a distinguished track record as an agricultural scientist, policymaker and thought leader, and she holds a doctorate in Entomology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is recipient of many prestigious awards including but not limited to the Yara Prize, now the Africa Food Prize, in 2012, an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Liège in 2018, an Honorary Doctorate from McGill University in 2019, and the National Academy of Sciences’ Public Welfare Medal in April, 2019 for her work to drive Africa’s agricultural transformation through modern sciences and effective policy thereby improving livelihoods of smallholder farmers. In 2022, she received an Award from World Farmers Organization recognizing her leadership in mobilizing farmers’ contribution to the Food Systems Summit. She was also feted by Prince Albert II of Monaco for leading efforts towards Africa’s food security and prosperity through inclusive and sustainable agricultural growth to secure livelihoods of millions of smallholders farmer since 2014. In 2023, Dr. Kalibata was appointed to the Advisory Committee of the 28th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). As a member of the COP28 President’s Advisory Committee, Dr. Kalibata will contribute to the development and implementation of strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Thomas J. Vilsack was confirmed as the 32nd United States Secretary of Agriculture after being  nominated by President Joe Biden to return to a role where he served for eight years under President Barack Obama, the longest-serving member of President Obama’s original Cabinet. 

Prior to returning to USDA, he served as president and CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council. He also served two terms as the Governor of Iowa, served in the Iowa State Senate and as the mayor of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. He received his bachelor's degree from Hamilton College and his law degree from Albany Law School in New York. Prior to returning to USDA, he served as president and CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC) from 2017 until February 2021.

Under Secretary Vilsack’s leadership, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is building back better by restoring the American economy, strengthening rural and historically underserved communities, responding to threats of climate change, creating good-paying jobs for American workers and the next generation of agricultural leaders, and investing in our kids and our families.

Dr. Mayesha Alam is vice president of research at FP Analytics where she oversees the research team and leads research development for clients and partners. She previously helped establish and served as deputy director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, and has also worked with the United Nations, World Bank, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and various nongovernmental organizations. Dr. Alam is the author of two books, Women and Transitional Justice and, with Robert Egnell, Women and Gender Perspectives in the Military, as well as reports on conflict, climate change, health, and gender. Her commentary has appeared in the Washington Post, CNN, NPR, Newsweek, and elsewhere. A nonresident senior fellow of the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research, Dr. Alam has taught at Georgetown University and New York University, and holds a Ph.D. from Yale University.

Allison Carlson is the Executive Vice President of FP Analytics & Events at Foreign Policy. She oversees FPA’s cross-cutting research at the intersection of policy, technology, and global markets as well as Foreign Policy’s global dialogues and convenings. Prior to these roles, Carlson led FP Analytics’ energy and technology team for more than a decade, evaluating evolving climate and emissions policies and identifying opportunities for advanced technology deployment internationally. Before joining FP, she led the Latin America program for a boutique consulting firm assisting European companies on investing in emerging markets’ energy and financial sectors. Carlson has presented her work at a variety of international conferences and before the U.S. Senate. She is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, where she received a master’s degree in international relations and international economics.

Deputy Administrator Coleman is responsible for USAID’s policy and programming, overseeing the Agency’s Regional and Pillar Bureaus. As Deputy Administrator, she guides USAID’s crisis response, including on the National Security Council, and supports efforts to address the root causes of conflict. She also is responsible for overseeing Agency efforts to promote food security and strengthen education, health, democracy, and economic growth.

Ambassador Isobel Coleman is a foreign policy and global development expert with more than 25 years of experience working in government, the private sector, and nonprofits. Previously, she was the Chief Operating Officer of GiveDirectly and from 2014-2017, she was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations for Management, Reform and Special Political Affairs. Dr. Coleman spent more than a decade as a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where she directed CFR’s Women and Foreign Policy program. She started her career with McKinsey & Co. A graduate of Princeton University, she earned MPhil and DPhil degrees in International Relations from Oxford University, which she attended on a Marshall Scholarship.

In her current role, Hanneke leads Unilever’s Nutrition Business Group, including full P&L responsibility, strategy, M&A, innovation, marketing, digital and a supply chain of more than 200 factories and contract manufacturers around the world. Nutrition is a very profitable €12bn turnover business, present in more than 150 countries. It is known for iconic global brands Knorr and Hellmann’s, emerging brands like The Vegetarian Butcher and Maille, as well as local brand leaders like Horlicks and Boost functional nutrition, Brooke Bond tea, Bango soy sauce, and Calve peanut butter.

Prior to becoming Nutrition President, Hanneke was President of Unilever’s Foods & Refreshment Division (May 2019 – June 2022). Under Hanneke’s leadership, the Division’s growth accelerated significantly. She reshaped the portfolio with the disposal of most of the global Tea business and the acquisition of Horlicks/Boost and The Vegetarian Butcher. During her tenure, Foods & Refreshment was elected #1 in the World Benchmarking Alliance’s rating of 350 Food and Agriculture brands for responsible/sustainable business.

Hanneke joined Unilever in January 2018 as President Unilever Europe. She has been a member of Unilever Leadership Executive since that time.

Before joining Unilever, Hanneke was a member of the Executive Committee of global retailer Ahold Delhaize and held various international leadership roles at Procter & Gamble.

Hanneke is a member of the Board of Directors of Tapestry Inc. Prior to joining Tapestry in 2021, Hanneke served a five-year term on the Supervisory Board of Bayer AG, the life sciences company.

Hanneke holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration and a Bachelor’s degree in Communications from the University of Houston, which she attended on a full athletic (diving) scholarship. She was a seven-time Dutch National Champion.

Hanneke was recognised by Fortune magazine as one of the most influential international women in business, as #23 in the latest ranking issued in 2021.

Hanneke is married and has a son and two daughters.

Teresa leads the Oceans initiative for the Walton Family Foundation, which aims to protect oceans through sustainable, climate resilient fisheries.

The foundation works in the three largest markets for seafood to set a global expectation for sustainable fisheries and on the ground with fishing communities to support stewardship of fisheries resources.

Before joining the foundation, Teresa was the seafood project manager for the Corporate Partnerships Program at Environmental Defense Fund, where she worked with leading seafood buyers to develop and implement sustainable seafood purchasing policies. She co-founded FishWise, an early leader in the sustainable seafood movement, and served on its board of directors. Teresa has a master’s degree in marine science and joint bachelors in environmental studies and marine biology from the University of California at Santa Cruz. She recently completed a certificate in Corporate Finance at the Harvard Extension School.

C.D. Glin is President of the PepsiCo Foundation and Global Head of Philanthropy for PepsiCo. In this role, Glin leads the organization’s social- and community-driven impact efforts and a portfolio of global employee engagement programs. Glin oversees the Foundation's strategic direction, leading internal and external engagement around The PepsiCo Foundation's three core pillars of creating equitable access to nutritious food, safe water, and economic opportunity.

Prior to joining PepsiCo, Glin began his career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in South Africa during the Mandela administration. He also served as President and CEO of the U.S. African Development Foundation, Associate Director of The Rockefeller Foundation and Vice President for Business Development at PYXERA Global. Further, as an appointee in the Obama Administration, Glin was the first Director of Intergovernmental Affairs and Global Partnerships for the Peace Corps. In 2011, Glin was honored as a Champion of Change in Civic Engagement and International Service by the White House.

Glin earned his B.A. from Howard University, a Masters-level diploma in Strategy and Innovation from the Said Business School at the University of Oxford and completed the Leadership for Senior Executives Program at Harvard Business School. He and his wife, Jacqueline, have three daughters.

Mark Isbell, a fourth-generation rice farmer from North Little Rock, Arkansas, is a partner at Isbell Farms and Generation Farms. He is a member of the Board of Field to Market and the Board of Ag Heritage Farm Credit Services and he chairs the USA Rice Sustainability Committee. Active in public policy, he has testified before both the House and Senate Ag Committees on issues impacting agriculture and sustainability.  Additionally, he is a co-founder of Arva Intelligence, a company using AI to unleash environmental opportunities in agriculture. In 2016, he was recognized as the Rice Farmer of the Year at the 19th Annual National Conservation Systems Cotton & Rice Conference. Mark lives in Arkansas with his wife and two children.

Sam Kass is the former Senior Policy Advisor for Nutrition in the Obama administration, Executive Director of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Campaign and the Obama family chef. He is a Partner in Acre Venture Partners. 

After cooking for the Obamas in Chicago for two years, Sam joined the White House kitchen staff in 2009. During his White House tenure, he took on several additional roles including Executive Director of First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign and Senior White House Policy Advisor for Nutrition. Sam is the first person in the history of the White House to have a position in the Executive Office of the President and the Residence. As one of the First Lady’s longest-serving advisors, he helped the First Lady create the first major vegetable garden at the White House since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden. 

Currently Sam is a Partner at Acre Venture Partners. Acre is a venture capital fund investing in the future of food with a mission to improve human and environmental health in the food system. The fund focuses on early stage, highly disruptive impactful companies in the food system focused on agriculture, supply chain and consumer. 

In 2011, Fast Company included Sam in their list of 100 Most Creative People, and in 2012, he helped create the American Chef Corps, which is dedicated to promoting diplomacy through culinary initiatives. He is an MIT Media Lab fellow and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago. 

Sam is the author of Eat a Little Better: Great Flavor, Good Health, Better World, which was published by Clarkson Potter on April 17, 2018.

HON MAVIS HAWA KOOMSON, is the Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Awutu Senya East Constituency, having won the Parliamentary Election since 2012. She was born on 3rd February 1966 in Secondi, and a native of Salaga in the Northern Region. She had her Teacher Training Education at the Bimbila Training College from 1987 to 1991 and then proceeded to the University of Education, Winneba where she obtained a Diploma in Basic Education in 2006 and a Degree in Basic Education in 2011. Hon. Mavis Hawa Koomson holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Administration (DPA), from GIMPA in 2015, and a Masters ‘Degree in Public Administration with specialization in International Relations and Diplomacy from GIMPA in 2017. She was a professional teacher for over 21 years (1991 to 2012) where she rose from the rank of Assistant Superintendent through to Principal Superintendent in 2011. She became a head teacher from 2004 to 2012.

During the period of her teaching career, she occupied various positions including president of Ghana National Association of Teachers Ladies Society (GNATLAS) (Sekondi local) from 2005 to 2006, treasurer for GNATLAS (Western Region) from 2003 to 2005, and Secretary for GNATLAS (Takoradi local) from 2002 to 2004.

Hon Mavis Hawa Koomson was appointed the Minister for Special Development Initiatives in the year 2017, following the assumption of power of the Nana Addo lead NPP government, a position she diligently served until January 2021. As a member of cabinet, she led the actualization of the vision of His Excellency The President of the Republic, spearheading the implementation of the novel Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Program (IPEP). 

This program seeks to eradicate poverty through the provision of basic infrastructure at the constituency level, mostly rural and deprived communities. The program is a pro poor initiative which involves the annual allocation of USD1M to each of the 2 75 constituencies in the country.

Key achievements includes the initiation of over eight Thousand (8000) varied projects across the country: Clinics, Markets, Warehouses, Water systems, Water Closets, culverts, road reshaping, police stations, school blocks, small earth dams, amongst others. The Ministry also led the procurement and distribution of 307 ambulances to improve on the emergency healthcare system in the country; additionally 10,000 hospital beds were also procured to reduce the “no bed syndrome” in the country.

She has proven her worth locally and internationally over the years through the various seminars and workshops she has attended and contributed to, and her involvement in professional organizations with regards to Education and public service.

She is married with three (3) Children.

CEO/Director General Alzbeta Klein is the CEO/Director General of the International Fertilizer Association (IFA). In her role, she is leading the global fertilizer industry towards helping to feed the world. Fertilizer industry plays a critical role in global food security and in the energy transition, and IFA leads the industry on both. In her previous roles, Ms. Klein led IFC/World Bank Group’s Climate Business, positioning IFC as a lead investor in renewable energy in emerging markets. Prior to this, she led IFC’s Agribusiness investments, Industrial investments, and managed IFC’s $50 bn investment portfolio in emerging markets. Ms. Klein received Masters’ degree in Economics from the University of Ottawa, Canada, where she also studied for her doctorate; engineering degree from Prague University, Czech Republic; and executive education from Harvard Business School and INSEAD. She holds a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. She served on the boards of several agribusiness companies including Grupo Los Grobo in Argentina, HMH in South Africa, LAAD in Latin America, and the New York University Center for Sustainable Business Advisory Board. She currently serves on the boards of Nespresso, FinDev and IFDC.

Maggie Lake is a veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering business, technology, politics, and international affairs. She started her career at Reuters, where she worked in both the New York and London bureaus covering economics and global finance. In 2001, she joined CNN International, where she served as a correspondent and anchor for the network’s flagship business shows. Over the course of her career, she has interviewed the world’s top CEOs, celebrities, and politicians and has been a consistent champion of economic inclusion and sustainable development. She has served as a weekly contributor for NPR and moderated events for the United Nations, World Bank, Council on Foreign Relations, and Global Citizen. She now runs the communications consultancy Maggie Lake Media and is a founding board member of the newly created Rutgers University Center for Women in Business.

Jim Leape was a co-founder and leader of the Blue Food Assessment.  He is the William and Eva Price Senior Fellow and co-director of the Center for Ocean Solutions in the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Before coming to Stanford in 2014, Jim was Director General of WWF International and leader of the global WWF Network, one of the world’s largest conservation organizations. Previously, he directed the conservation and science programs of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation; served as executive vice president of WWF-US; and was a legal advisor to the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi, Kenya.  Jim has served on several boards; from 2007 to 2017, he was a member of the China Council for International Cooperation in Environment and Development, which advises the Premier of China. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

Purnima Menon is the Senior Director for Food and Nutrition, where she oversees three units within IFPRI/CGIAR: Nutrition, Diets, and Health (NDH), Poverty, Gender and Inclusion (PGI), and Markets, Trade and Institutions (MTI) and is based in New Delhi, India. In her work in India, Dr. Menon directs POSHAN (Partnerships and Opportunities to Strengthen and Harmonize Actions for Nutrition in India), an initiative to support more use of evidence for nutrition in India. She conducts implementation research on scaling up maternal and child nutrition interventions, including on evaluating large-scale behavior change communications programs in nutrition and health. Dr. Menon has research experience in India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Haiti, Viet Nam and Nepal, has published extensively, and invests deeply in research translation in her engagements with policy communities.

In addition to her research, Dr. Menon co-convenes a global nutrition policy course with the Institute for Development Studies in the United Kingdom, and has designed and taught many adaptations of this course in India as well. She serves on several national and global advisory groups, including the State of the World's Children, the Global Nutrition Report, and the Countdown to 2030.

Dr. Menon has a PhD in International Nutrition from Cornell University and an MSc in Nutrition from the University of Delhi. She speaks many languages, and has lived both in India and the United States of America. She lives in India with her husband, Jitendra Balakrishnan, and their daughter.

Scott Nathan is the Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). He was confirmed by the Senate on February 9th, 2022.

Mr. Nathan has worked across the public and private sectors. Most recently, Mr. Nathan served as the Senior Advisor to the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. He previously served during the Obama-Biden Administration as the Associate Director for General Government Programs at Office of Management and Budget and as the Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs at the State Department.

Prior to public service, Mr. Nathan was for nearly two decades a partner, management committee member, and the Chief Risk Officer of The Baupost Group, a private investment partnership based in Boston. He has a B.A., J.D., and MBA from Harvard. Additionally, he attended Emmanuel College, Cambridge University in England as the Lionel de Jersey Harvard Scholar. Mr. Nathan lives with his family in Washington, D.C.

Andrew S. Natsios is an Executive Professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University (2012-present) and Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs. He currently serves as Chair of the Program Advisory Committee for HarvestPlus, which is part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, and as a Fellow of the Michael E. DeBakey Institute for Comparative Cardiovascular Science and Biomedical Devices at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences.

He was previously a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service (2006-2012). Professor Natsios served as Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development from 2001 to January 2006. He was the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan (2006-2007) to deal with the Darfur crisis and the North-South peace agreement. He served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1975-1987) and in state government (1999-2001) as the Secretary of Administration and Finance. He was the CEO of the Big Dig in Boston, the largest construction project in American history after a cost-overrun scandal. Professor Natsios was VP of the NGO World Vision U.S. (1993-1998). He was a member of the U.S. Army Reserves for twenty-three years, served in the Gulf War in 1991, and was a Lt. Colonel when he retired in 1995. He is a graduate of Georgetown University (BA history) and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government (MPA).

Professor Natsios, with President George H. W. Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., recently edited Transforming Our World: President George H. W. Bush and American Foreign Policy. This book, available in print in December 2020, brings together a distinguished collection of foreign policy practitioners—career and political—who participated in the unfolding of international events as part the Bush administration to provide insider perspective by the people charged with carrying them out.

Professor Natsios is the author of three books: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1997), The Great North Korean Famine (2001), and Sudan, South Sudan, and Darfur: What Everyone Needs to Know; collaborated on thirteen other books; and has published opinion pieces in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. He has published twenty-eight journal articles in, among others, Foreign Affairs, the Washington Quarterly, the Foreign Service Journal, Parameters, and PRISM.

Zainab Salbi is the co-founder of Daughters for Earth, a fund and a movement of Daughters rising up worldwide with climate solutions to protect and restore Mother Earth. She has frequently been named as one of the women changing the world by leading publications ranging from Newsweek to The Guardian. Oprah Winfrey identified her as one of the women changing the world to People Magazine and President Bill Clinton identified her as one of the 21st-century heroes to Harper’s Bazaar. At the age of 23, Zainab founded Women for Women International, a humanitarian organization dedicated to women survivors of wars. Under her leadership (1993–2011), Women for Women International grew from helping 30 women upon its inception to helping more than 420,000 women and distributing more than 146 million dollars in aid. Zainab is the author of several books, including the best seller Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny; Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam (with Laurie Buckland); The Other Side of War; Women’s Stories of Survival and Hope; If You Knew Me You Would Care,(with photographs by Rennio Maifredi); and her latest Freedom is an Inside Job; Owning our Darkness and Our Light to Change Ourselves and the World. She is also the Executive Editor and Host of several shows including Through Her Eyes with Yahoo News, #MeToo, Now What? with PBS, The Zainab Salbi Project with Huffington Post, and The Nida’a Show with TLC Arabia. She is a Young Global Leader with the World Economic Forum and serves on the Boards of Vital Voices, International Refugee Assistance Program (IRAP), and Synergos International.

She is the lead architect of the World Bank’s Food System Transformation agenda, a food system that provides the triple bottom line—prosperity, sustainability and healthy people.  She also manages the World Bank’s program on Food Loss and Waste Reduction. She has more than 20 years of experience working as an economist on fragile, low-, and middle-income countries. Her work has focused on issues of rural development, service delivery and intergovernmental fiscal policies around the world. She has delivered many lending programs to the World Bank Board and published books and articles in refereed journals on issues relating to rural labor markets, trade policy and fiscal decentralization. Previously, she was the Chief of Staff to the Climate Change Vice President and Special Envoy, the Operations and Strategy Manger for Climate Change, and worked as the Program Manager for the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program. She has an MBA and PhD in Economics.

Dr. Kateryna Shynkaruk is a Senior Lecturer at the Bush School of Government and Public Service in Washington DC, where she teaches courses in East European Politics, European Security, and in International Relations Theory. Dr. Shynkaruk is a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She has over 15 years’ experience of working in academia, with think tanks, and diplomatic missions. Her research interests cover Ukraine’s foreign and security policy, European security, and the role of ideas in International Relations. She holds a Ph.D. in Global Political Affairs (2011) from National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv. In 2013-2020, during a critically important period in the US – Ukraine relations,  Dr. Shynkaruk worked as a Political Analyst at the US Embassy in Ukraine. She received several high-level awards from the Department of State, including Superior Honor Award (2018).

Andrew Sollinger is the publisher and CEO of Foreign Policy, which he joined in 2018. Previously, he was executive vice president at Business Insider, executive director of Capital New York (now Politico NY) and managing director of the Financial Times Americas. Sollinger was part of the executive team that built Money-Media, a digital news startup focused on the fund management industry, and sold it to the FT. A former reporter and editor for Institutional Investor magazine's newsletter division, Andrew has lived in London, Hong Kong and New York. He is a graduate of Clark University, where he was executive editor of The Scarlet.

Mark Viso joined Food for the Hungry (FH) as part of a lifelong commitment to help the most vulnerable and marginalized in our world find their voice, overcome poverty, and have hope for a brighter future. His 30-year career in international relief and development began as a short-term volunteer with FH during a devastating famine that ravaged Ethiopia. 

Mark’s extensive experience in the global relief and development sector includes key executive leadership roles, including President of the Institute for Development Impact (I4DI); nearly 11 years as President and CEO of Pact (a non-governmental organization working in nearly 40 countries); Senior Vice President for International Development at World Learning; and serving as Vice President of International Programs at World Vision US. 

Through these roles, Mark gained significant field experience by living and working overseas for over 15 years. In addition to serving on several boards, he has also been active with various global fora and initiatives, including the World Economic Forum, Clinton Global Initiative, BSR, Society for International Development, the Global Battery Alliance, and others.

He is a proud native of California and received his BA in International Affairs from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and completed graduate work at George Washington University.