Silver Ojakol is the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat’s Chief of Staff. In his role, he oversees the implementation of the Agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Mr. Ojakol, a Trade Economist by training and practice, has a strong track record and familiarity with domestic, bilateral, regional and multilateral trade policy and trade development. He has carried business research and conducted multiple trade promotion missions.
He participated in several negotiations for regional integration such as COMESA; EAC; Tripartite COMESA- EAC-SADC FTA and the EAC-EU EPA, developing negotiating priorities. Furthermore, he has been at the forefront in the efforts to eliminate non-tariff barriers to trade at the regional level. More recently, he served as Chief Technical Negotiator and Chairperson of the Negotiating Forum in the negotiations for the AfCFTA.
Sanda Ojiambo of Kenya was appointed Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations Global Compact by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to lead the world's largest corporate sustainability initiative.
As the world grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms. Ojiambo launched an ambitious new UN Global Compact strategy to accelerate and scale the global collective impact of business and delivering the SDGS through accountable companies and ecosystems.
Ms. Ojiambo brings to the UN Global Compact more than 20 years' experience in the public, multilateral and private sectors including as Head of Sustainable Business and Social Impact, Safaricom Plc in Kenya; and capacity development work in CARE International and United Nations Development Programme Somalia.
Ms. Ojiambo holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from the University of Minnesota, USA, and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and International Development from McGill University, Canada.
Linda Okero is a communications and development enthusiast at GrowthAfrica, enhancing socio-economic transformation over the last seven years in the Micro-Finance, Government, Business Acceleration and Advocacy space.
She has served in various capacities and been instrumental in the development of strategic sustainable agendas focusing on inclusive development. Her interest is to accelerate innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges by inspiring, supporting and connecting ecosystem players across countries, organizations, and sectors through communications development.
Linda is passionate about creating opportunities that will enable youth to actively engage in issues that affect them at local and regional levels through mindset and behavioural growth. She is the Coordinator of Youth Action Hub Kenya (UNCTAD Youth), a YALI Alumni and Associate Fellow of the Royal Commonwealth Society. Her vision is to inspire peers to rise and break barriers for social and economic transformation.
Linda graduated Cum Laude from Daystar University (Kenya) with a B.A in Mass Communications.
Quote: In today’s world, talking about change feels a lot like running a never-ending marathon. An achievable dream has become a tiring mission. Yet, the pit of my stomach burns with grit to keep reminding people that all it takes is to imagine the possibilities and refuse to be limited by human deficiencies because we deserve a better world.
Unoma Okolo, CFA, currently serves as an Emerging Market Portfolio Manager at Artisan Partners, a position held since January 2022.
Prior experience includes a role as an Emerging Market Sovereign Analyst at Fidelity Investments from April 2013 to January 2022, where responsibilities encompassed investment coverage for various countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, and South Africa. Unoma's earlier positions at Fidelity also included Emerging Market Research Associate and participation in an Equity Business Associate rotational program.
Prior to Fidelity, Unoma gained experience as a Summer Analyst in the Emerging Market Debt Group at Invesco, supporting credit analysis for Nigerian banks, and in Goldman Sachs' Securities Division.
Unoma holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Stanford University, complemented by studies at East China Normal University and Ardingly College.
Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation. The first woman and first African to hold the position.
She is an economist and international development expert with over 40 years of experience. Dr Okonjo-Iweala was Chair of the Board of Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, African Risk Capacity and Co-Chair of The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, in addition to serving as a Senior Advisor at Lazard and sitting on the Boards of Standard Chartered and Twitter, now X. She is Co-Chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Harvard Kennedy School Global Public Leader.
She served as Nigeria’s first female and longest serving Finance Minister (7 years) and was also the first female Foreign Minister. Her 25-year career at the World Bank culminated in her rising to the No.2 position of Managing Director, Operations. Dr Okonjo-Iweala is the recipient of numerous honours and has authored several books. She holds a Bachelor’s in Economics from Harvard University and a PhD in Regional Economics and Development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Peter Oksen is the Green Technology & Research manager of WIPO GREEN. At WIPO GREEN, Peter is responsible for the Green Technology Book, acceleration projects, research, expert guidance, and development of the database of needs and technologies.
Dr. Peter has more than 25 years’ experience in socio-economic development and natural resources management. He has lived in SE Asia for a decade, working as researcher, consultant, and head of the Danida Environmental Support Programme in Indonesia. Before joining WIPO in 2018, he helped develop the environmental and social safeguard framework and tools for the World Food Programme in Rome.
Dr. Oksen Holds PHD in International Development Studies from the Roskilde University, Denmark; a master’s in Geography from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Marcelo OLARREAGA
Marcelo Olarreaga is Professor of Economics at the University of Geneva, Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) in London and the FERDI in Clermont-Ferrand. He is currently directing a research project on the political economy of trade policy funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Before joining the University of Geneva he worked in the Research Department of the World Bank, as well as in the Economics Research Division of the World Trade Organization. He has also been invited professor at CERDI (France), the Graduate Institute (Switzerland), INSEAD (France), Institute CLAEH (Uruguay), SciencePo-Paris (France), Universidad de la República (Uruguay) and the University of Antwerp (Belgium). He holds an MA from the University of Sussex, and a PhD in Economics from the University of Geneva.
Maria Julia Oliva is the Director of Policy and Sector Transformation of UEBT since 2023.
She previously worked with UEBT from 2009 until 2021 and last served as Deputy Director and Senior Coordinator for Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) and Policy. Her last position was Head of Policy at UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) where she oversaw a team focused on accounting for the value for biodiversity in policy and providing support to incorporate biodiversity management into policy across many sectors.
She is a trained lawyer with internationally recognized expertise on legal and policy issues linked to biodiversity. Julia grew up in Mendoza, Argentina and has an LLM degree from Lewis & Clark Law School in the USA.
Pascal Ollivier is the President of Maritime Street, a digital maritime supply chain strategic advisory firm dedicated to governments, and international financial institutions to shape the future of Maritime Trade Logistics.
He is also the chairman of the International Association of Ports & Harbors (IAPH) Digitalization and Data Collaboration Committee and the founding chairman of the International Port Community System Association.
Pascal is a world-renowned maritime supply chain digitalization strategic advisor dedicated for the last 20 years around the world, to governments of developing and emerging countries, and international financial institutions such as the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the French Development Agency.
He is the IAPH liaison on digitalization and data collaboration with the International Maritime Organisation, the World Customs Organisation, the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum where he is leading many accelerating digitalization initiatives in the maritime supply chain