Mr. Pedro Manuel Moreno of Spain is the Deputy Secretary-General and Acting Secretary-General of UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
He has over 20 years of experience of working for multilateral and intergovernmental organizations in programme, management and strategic positions both in the field and at headquarters.
He was Deputy Secretary-General of the Communication for Development Committee at the Spanish National Commission with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (1999-2004), and for the United Nations Development Programme, at the Country Office in Ecuador and, in New York City, as part of the Human Development Report team, at the Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean and at the Executive Office.
In 2014, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Ibero-American Conference in Madrid, where he coordinated key political processes and South-South cooperation projects.
In September 2021, he was named Chief of Staff and Director of the Office of the Secretary-General of UNCTAD.
Nan has over 25 years’ experience in strategic management roles both with the United Nations and the private sector across Asia, Africa, North America and Europe. She currently leads a global team in investment and sustainable finance research, policy, investment promotion and facilitation, enterprise development, and technical assistance to governments in over 160 countries. She chairs the Governing Board of the UN Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative, leads the World Investment Forum and the inter-governmental Working Group on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting.
Before joining UNCTAD, she served as the Global Director of Sustainable Investments and Innovation at UNOPS, where she led a team to promote infrastructure investments in many developing countries and co-invest with DFIs and private investors. She served as UNOPS focal point in the UN Inter-agency Task Force on Financing for Development.
Previously, she served as the Head of UNDP SDG Innovative Finance and as Head of South-South Cooperation and Investment at UNDP's Asia Pacific Center in Bangkok. She led a team to engage public and private investors and developed national policy dialogues and networks on SDG investment, piloted SDG-aligned funds, bonds and projects in multiple countries. She helped to position UNDP as a pioneer in the UN on sustainable investment and innovative finance. She also held positions as Policy Specialist in Capacity Development and Public-Private Partnerships in New York and Johannesburg since 2009, overseeing a regional portfolio in Eastern and Southern Africa.
Before joining UNDP, she spent about 10 years in the private sector in China and the USA, covering market entry and investment strategy, merger and acquisition, business development and sustainability. She holds a master’s degree in business administration from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and participated in the Executive Leadership program at IESE, and Finance Executive program at Tsinghua University.
H.E. Ms. Hend Abdalrahman Al-Muftah is the Permanent Representative of Qatar to the United Nations Office, the WTO, and other international organizations in Geneva. She was appointed in July 2022.
H.E. Ms. Al-Muftah has had a wide-ranging career since 2004, including different academic, research, and professional positions. From May 2015 to January 2021, she was Vice President for Administration and Finance and Associate Professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. She taught at Qatar University from 1990 to 2016, starting as a teaching assistant, and finishing as an associate professor of management (2010 to 2016). She was Executive Director of the Childhood Cultural Centre of the Qatar Foundation from April 2012 to September 2014. She also served as Director of Human Resources at Qatar University from 2004 to 2008.
In 2017, H.E. Ms. Al-Muftah was appointed as a member of the Shura Council of Qatar, one of four ladies joining the Council for the first time for a four-year term. She has been a member of, or consultant to various national and regional bodies and has many publications.
H.E. Ms. Al-Muftah has a Ph.D. in human capital formation-human resources management from Exeter University, United Kingdom (2004). She also has a master’s degree in management science from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, United Kingdom (1999), and a bachelor’s degree in public administration from Qatar University, Qatar (1990).
Omar Zniber is Morocco’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva since 2018. He is currently President of the GSTP Committee of Participants and President of the Group of Francophone Ambassadors in Geneva. He previously served as Ambassador to Germany, Austria, Slovakia, and Slovenia, and held senior positions in Morocco’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He holds a doctorate in public international law from Paris II Panthéon-Assas University.
Dr. Maria Vassalou joined the Pictet Group in January 2024 to build and head the Pictet Research Institute, a resource for Pictet Group which focusses on long-term strategic research topics ranging from macro and geopolitics to portfolio implementation issues. Prior to joining Pictet, Dr Vassalou was the co-Chief Investment Officer of Multi-Asset Solutions (MAS) within Goldman Sachs Asset Management and a member of the MAS Investing Core, where she managed groupwide investment policies, research, and investment resources.
Dr Vassalou was a partner and portfolio manager at Perella Weinberg Partners, where she ran the global macro business based on her own quantitative global macro strategies. Previously, Dr Vassalou was a global macro portfolio manager at SAC Capital and Head of Global Macro Investment Strategies at Soros Fund Management.
Before her career in asset management, Dr Vassalou was an associate professor of finance at Columbia Business School. She also served as President of the European Finance Association and was a research affiliate of CEPR. Dr Vassalou served on the Board of Directors of Tsakos Energy Navigation and Titan Cement International. She is a member of the Board of Overseers of the Gennadius Library at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
Maria Vassalou earned a BS in Economics from the University of Athens and a PhD in Financial Economics from London Business School.
Steven A. Altman is a Senior Research Scholar and Research Assistant Professor at the New York University Stern School of Business. He is also Director of the DHL Initiative on Globalization at NYU Stern’s Center for the Future of Management, affiliated with NYU Stern’s Department of Management and Organizations. His research focuses on globalization and its implications for business strategy and public policy. He holds a PhD from the University of Reading, an MBA from the Harvard Business School, an MPA from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a BS in Economics from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
Kumar Rishabh is a Research Manager at the AI & the Digital Economy Lab, HEC Lausanne (University of Lausanne), and a Research Associate & Lecturer at the University of Basel, where he teaches an advanced Master's course on Banking and Fintech. Until March 2026, he served as a Technical Advisor in the Monetary and Economic Department at the Bank for International Settlements. He studies how data and AI reshape financial markets and institutions. His recent work maps the global AI supply chain and the concentration of AI production across countries, examines how AI and data drive firm market power, and investigates the use of payment data for lending in developing economies. He received the Young Economist Award from the Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics in 2021. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Basel and previously worked as an Economist at the Reserve Bank of India.
Bridget Shoo is a Counsellor in the Economics Research and Statistics Division at the World Trade Organization (WTO). She is part of the newly established Digital Trade and Frontier Technologies Unit, where she works on research and initiatives related to frontier technologies in the WTO, with a special emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI).
She was previously at the Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry where she led initiatives to grow Singapore's bilateral economic relations with Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, as well as developed policies to strengthen Singapore's supply chain resilience and increase industry adoption of AI.
Carlos D. Sorreta is currently Permanent Representative of the Philippines to the United Nations in Geneva. Mr. Sorreta is a career diplomat and the Philippine Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva. He was the ambassador to the Russian Federation, and non-resident ambassador to Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. He was also the Director-General of the Foreign Service Institute, and Assistant Secretary for American Affairs. For his work in foreign policy, he was conferred the Presidential Order of Mabini twice, with the ranks of Kasugo and Dakilang Kasugo. He was also awarded the Medal for International Cooperation by the Russian Government.
Dr. Mariagrazia Squicciarini is Chief of Executive Office at the Social and Human Sciences Sector (SHS) of UNESCO, where she supports the Assistant Director General and helps the Sector deliver on its mandate. She further acts as SHS’ focal point for the G7 and G20 and leads research and policy relevant work related to the ethics of science and new technologies - in particular, of Artificial Intelligence and neurotechnology -, inclusion, antiracism and gender. In the past, she has led and contributed policy relevant analysis related to the changing determinants of growth and productivity; the economics of Intellectual Property Rights; knowledge-based capital; global value chains; Artificial Intelligence; job and skill dynamics; the digital transformation; and the gender divide.
Mariagrazia holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Essex (UK). Before joining UNESCO, she held positions in academic and policy institutions in seven countries, including the European Commission Joint Research Centre, the OECD Directorate for Science Technology and Innovation, KU Leuven and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. She has published extensively and has been acting as a reviewer for international peer review journals and governments.
Ebehi Iyoha is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School. She is also a Faculty Affiliate at Harvard’s Center for International Development and Harvard's Center for African Studies. Her research sits at the intersection of industrial organization and international trade, examining how inter-firm networks shape productivity, innovation, and trade in both advanced and emerging economies. She combines structural and reduced-form empirical methods to study questions central to firm strategy and economic policy, including how trade policy, global value chains, and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence reshape firm performance and industry dynamics.
Irene Kaggwa is the Programme Manager at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for Giga, a joint ITU-UNICEF initiative that seeks to support governments to connect all schools to the Internet by 2030.
Prior to that, she worked in different roles within Uganda Communications Commission - the regulator in the communications sector in Uganda, for a period of 25 years, including serving as the Acting Executive Director from 2020 to 2023. Her experience spans policy development, research, strategy, communications/ICT regulation, radio spectrum management, cyber security and implementation of the various aspects of fostering ICT and ICT enabled socio-economic development.
A registered engineer, Irene holds a Master of Science in Communications Systems and Signal Processing from the University of Bristol and a Master of Science in Economic Management and Policy (Business Economic Pathway) from the University of Strathclyde in the United Kingdom. She did a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering at Makerere University in Uganda.
Ashutosh is currently responsible for engaging with the UN and other international organizations to facilitate policy discussions that promote the responsible use of technology. This is achieved through programmatic interventions aimed at advancing the Sustainable Development Goals and socio-economic growth while ensuring an enabling innovation ecosystem, inclusion, and a safe, secure, and interoperable internet. Until recently, he was the Director and Country Head of Corporate Affairs and Public Policy for India and South Asia at Microsoft. He collaborated with the Government, Academia, Industry, and Multilaterals to shape policies that promote technology usage, drive digital inclusion, and ensure innovation and safety in the digital ecosystem. With a career spanning over 37 years, Ashutosh has held positions at Mastercard, Wipro Ltd, Intel India, Shell India Pvt Ltd, NIIT, and the National Dairy Development Board. A graduate of the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) in Gujarat, Ashutosh possesses extensive experience in business development, channel management, strategic planning, corporate affairs, government relations, and policy advocacy
