Urujeni Bakuramutsa, is currently Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Rwanda to the United Nations Office at Geneva.

Prior to her appointment to Geneva, Ms. Bakuramutsa had been serving as Ambassador of Rwanda to Jordan since December 2023.  She served as Director of the Cabinet of the Office of the President of Rwanda from March 2020 to December 2023.  She also held the post of Permanent Secretary at the Rwandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation from October 2018 to March 2020.

Ms. Bakuramutsa served as Minister Counsellor and Deputy Permanent Representative of Rwanda to the United Nations in New York from October 2016 to October 2018.  She was Director General of the Imbuto Foundation in Kigali from May 2014 to October 2016.  She started her career working in the private sector, first in California, United States from November 2006 to December 2011, and then in Kigali, Rwanda from January 2012 to May 2014.

Ms. Bakuramutsa holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Sacramento State University in the United States.  

Aishu Balaji is the Coordinator of Research and Programs at Regions Refocus, which is the Co-Chair and Secretariat of the Gender and Trade Coalition.

She has also undertaken research on the development industry through a critical lens as a master student at the London School of Economics and a research assistant to development academics. Her areas of inquiry have included caste-intersectionality in the Indian women movement, the political organizing of asylum seekers, autonomous development in post-independence Somaliland, and the politics of return migration.

Richard Baldwin is Professor of International Economics. He is an expert in global economic policy and theory, specializing in international trade, and is recognized as an authority on the economic drivers and risks of globalization. His research interests include the impact of digital technology on the global economy, the future of work, globalization, regionalism, and European integration.

Baldwin’s work combines perspectives from economics and political economy, providing a comprehensive view that connects historical context, current events, and future trends. Following an initial interest in economic development, his focus switched to trade when he met Paul Krugman in 1982, under whose guidance he worked on his PhD and with whom he would go on to write several articles.

Baldwin advises governments and international organizations around the world on globalization and trade policy issues. During the administration of President George HW Bush, he was Senior Staff Economist for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, following trade matters such as the Uruguay Round and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations as well as numerous US-Japan trade conflicts.

Before joining IMD in 2023, he founded the economic policy portal VoxEU.org to promote research-based policy analysis and commentary by leading economists and has since served as its editor-in-chief. He was a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Trade from 2009 to 2015 and was twice elected to the Council of the European Economic Association. He also served as President of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) from 2014 to 2018.

Baldwin started his academic career as a professor at the Columbia School of Business in New York and has been a visiting professor at many universities, including MIT, Oxford, and EPFL. He was a long-time professor of international economics at the Graduate Institute in Geneva.

Ian Ball is Chairman of CIPFA International and a Principal Advisor at the International Federation of Accountants. Mr. Ball has extensive experience in designing and managing public sector financial systems and implementing public sector financial reforms. Mr. Ball served as IFAC’s Chief Executive Officer from 2002 until March 2013. In this role, Mr. Ball was responsible for developing and managing the execution of IFAC’s strategy. He led a staff of professionals who support independent standard-setting boards in the areas of auditing and assurance, ethics, accounting education, and public sector financial reporting. At IFAC he was also involved in developing guidance and in delivering a range of other programs to support professional accountants worldwide in providing high-quality service to their clients or employers. Mr. Ball is also a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants, where he served as a member of the Council, the Executive Board and the Financial Reporting Standards Board, and of CPA Australia. He has degrees in accounting from Victoria University of Wellington and a PhD from the University of Birmingham, England.

Tamsin joined the PRI in 2022 as Director of Climate and Environment, before taking on responsibility for leading the Investor Initiatives and Collaboration team. Prior to joining PRI, Tamsin was a Senior Civil Servant with the UK Government. In her most recent role in the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs she was responsible for a portfolio of international climate finance programmes and policies to help address the triple challenge of poverty, biodiversity loss and the climate emergency. Tamsin has over 20 years of experience working on sustainable development, climate change and the environment. Tamsin is an economist by background and was a contributing author on Lord Nicholas Stern’s seminal report on the Economics of Climate Change.

Giuseppe Ballocchi most recently served as the head of financial engineering and risk analytics at Pictet & Cie in Geneva, Switzerland. He also lectures at the University of Lausanne, where he is a member of the Steering Committee of the Master in Finance. Previously, he was Chief Investment Officer at Olsen Ltd, a fixed-income manager at the Asian Development Bank in Manila, and a high-energy physicist at CERN. Mr. Ballocchi previously chaired the Audit and Risk Committee of the CFA Institute Board of Governors and is a past president of the Swiss CFA Society. He has been a CFA exam grader, served on the Executive Advisory Board of the Education Advisory Committee of CFA Institute and on the Annual Conference Committee, and was on the Board of Regents of the Financial Analysts Seminar. Mr. Ballocchi holds a laurea (MS) in physics from the University of Bologna, Italy, an MBA from the Open University, United Kingdom, and a PhD in high-energy physics from the University of Rochester, United States. He is the author of 30 academic publications in physics and finance, and served as adjunct professor at the University of Genoa, Italy.

Prof. Dr. Cagnur (Kaytmaz) Balsari was born in 1971 in Izmir, Turkey. She has completed her undergraduate education at Dokuz Eylul University, Faculty of Business Administration, then continued her Master's studies at Loyola University of Chicago and obtained her Doctoral degree from Boston University in 2004. Prof. Dr. Balsari is currently working at Dokuz Eylul University as the Dean of the Faculty of Business. She has served as the academic advisor of the Izmir Chamber of Certified Public Accountants and a member of the International Financial Reporting advisory committee of the Turkish Public Oversight Agency. Prof. Dr. Balsari has worked with the accounting profession extensively in IFRS, IFRS for SMEs and Accounting Ethics areas as an advisor and trainer in Turkey. She has also served as the president of Turkish Accounting Academicians' Collaboration and Research Foundation.

Victor Ban serves as Special Counsel for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, where he coordinates the development of supply chain policy through trade negotiations and inter-agency initiatives.

Before joining USTR, he practiced law at Covington & Burling, clerked for two federal judges, and was a management consultant at McKinsey and Company.

He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, Oxford University, and Harvard College, and is a licensed U.S. customs broker.

Éric Banel has been Director General of Maritime Affairs, Fisheries and Aquaculture since 2 March 2022. Between 2020 and 2022, he was head of the Directorate for Maritime Fisheries and Aquaculture (DPMA), attached to the Secretary of State for the Sea and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, and was co-editor of the report on the prefiguration of a Directorate-General for the Sea.

After a career devoted to the sea and the modernisation of maritime administration, he is now the first Director General of this new structure.

Éric Banel, General Administrator of Maritime Affairs, has held a number of management positions in decentralised services, in Boulogne-sur-Mer, La Réunion and New Aquitaine, in central administration, at the Ministry for the Sea, the General Planning Commission and the General Secretariat for the Sea, and also in the private sector, as General Delegate of Armateurs de France between 2012 and 2017.