Mr Nazar Agahanov, appointed Minister of Trade and Foreign Economic Relations of Turkmenistan in July 2025, previously served as Deputy Minister and Head of Foreign Economic Relations.

With experience in the Presidential Office (2016–2024), he holds degrees from MGIMO and the Diplomatic Academy of Russia.

Aristide is project coordinator at UNESCO Regional Office for Central Africa. He coordinates programmes and projects aimed at the social inclusion of youths across 11 countries on themes such as skills, peacebuilding, social entrepreneurship, governance, disability rights, civic education, innovation, women and gender empowerment etc. 

Prior to joining UNESCO, he served as Donor Coordination Officer at the Office of the Resident Coordinator of the United Nations in Cameroon. In this capacity, he supported the UN’s role in facilitating harmonisation and alignment of official development aid to country priorities.

Before joining the UN System, Aristide served as diplomat at Cameroon’s Ministry of External Relations. His main responsibility consisted in facilitating partnerships with bilateral and multilateral donors on development cooperation.

Academically, he is a double holder of a Master Degree in Diplomacy, Business and Trade from Loughborough University, London, United Kingdom and a Master Degree in International Relations from IRIC in Cameroon.

Finally, Aristide is a United kingdom Chevening alumni and publisher of scientific articles on the Academia open access platform.

Faten Aggad is the Executive Director of the African Future Policies Hun (AFPH), a technical support and advisory hub serving primarily the public sector in Africa on the green and digital economy based in Nairobi. Previously she served as a Panel Member of the African High-Level Panel on the Reforms of the Multilateral System, Senior Advisor on Climate Diplomacy and Geopolitics at the African Climate Foundation, Senior Advisor to the African Union High Representative on future relations with the European Union supporting African countries and the African union in negotiations with the European Union. She has experience working for multiple think tanks as well as multilateral agencies. 

Rajesh Aggarwal is Director Officer in Charge, Division of Market Development at the International Trade Centre (ITC) providing technical assistance services in building conducive business environment, research and analytics and trade & market intelligence. More specifically, he is leading programmes aimed at building capacity of the private sector in developing countries to effectively engage in business advocacy with their governments on multilateral and regional / bilateral trade negotiations and national trade policy issues. The programme also encompasses assistance on implementation of trade facilitation reforms, strengthening standards and quality infrastructure to assist developing countries to credibly demonstrate conformity with international standards, and meeting trade and market analysis needs of businesses for competitive intelligence.

Before joining the International Trade Centre in Geneva, he has been India’s negotiator in the WTO covering Agriculture, TRIPS and Public Health, Rules and Trade & Competition Policy for more than 5 years and overall experience of over 22 years working in senior positions in Government of India.

Caroline Aggestam Pontoppidan, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Caroline was granted the degree of Ph.D. in Accounting and Auditing from the Copenhagen Business School (CBS) in 2005. She has worked with public sector accounting for more than 10 years. During the last eight years her research is focused on the regulation of ESG disclosures and the interplay between mandatory and voluntary disclosures both in the public and private sphere. ESG is often referred to as being in the domain of transnational regulation. The regulation of ESG disclosures is done through national (or regional, as in the EU) legislation in combination with private (often international) standards.

Rajesh Agrawal is a distinguished civil servant with more than three decades of service marked by leadership, policy formulation and implementation across a wide spectrum of sectors, including skill development, human resource development, power, fertilizers, agriculture and MSME sectors.

Rajesh has been instrumental in the development of national policies and guidelines for skill development and has served as a focal point for overseeing implementation of the same. He represented India for three consecutive years as an official delegate to the WorldSkills Governing Council. In the past, he has also led institutional and sectoral reforms in the states of Manipur, Jharkhand and Bihar in the domains of power and agriculture.

In the Department of Commerce, he supervised India’s trade negotiations under various free trade agreements and served as the Chief Negotiator for the India–US Bilateral Trade Agreement, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, the India–Australia Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement and the review of the ASEAN FTA. He also focused extensively on export promotion in the agriculture and allied sectors.

Rajesh assumed charge as Commerce Secretary on 1 October 2025. As Commerce Secretary, he continues to guide India’s trade policy, trade negotiations and export promotion, advancing the vision of Viksit Bharat @2047 and working to establish India as a prominent global economic power.

Natalia Aguilar Delgado is an associate Professor at HEC Montreal, in the International Business Department. She earned a PhD in Strategy and Organization at McGill University, where she completed her thesis about the inclusion of Indigenous peoples' voices in the Nagoya Protocol negotiations.

Her main current research interests lie in the intersection of international development, gender studies and regenerative value chains.  She is currently the associate director of Pole Ideos, a Social Impact research hub focused on producing knowledge about, among other things, gender inclusion through social innovations.

Bernard is currently in the position of Chief Executive Officer at the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (IRBA), the statutory audit regulator in South Africa. Prior to that appointment, he was the Technical Director at the IRBA and largely responsible for audit and ethics standard setting for the profession in South Africa. During that period, he was instrumental in the adoption and implementation of the International Standards on Auditing (ISA) in South Africa and participated in the international standard setting activities of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) in his role as technical advisor to the South African member, as well as providing technical support on the redrafting of 3 of the ISAs for IFAC in terms of their 5 year Clarity Project. Before joining the IRBA, he was the Project Director: Technical at the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) responsible for the public sector (accounting and auditing). During this period he was technical advisor to the South African member on the international public sector accounting standard setting body of IFAC. Prior to joining SAICA, he headed up the technical department at the Office of the Auditor General, during which time he was responsible for harmonising the private and public sector auditing standards. He started his career in the profession at one of the global networks. He is currently the chairman of the Standards Coordination Working Group of IFIAR which has the responsibility of monitoring and commenting on developments in international standards on auditing and ethics, and engaging with the chairmen of the relevant boards and structures. Bernard is a member of the King Committee for Corporate Governance.

Mr Wisdom Ahiataku-Togobo has a BSc degree in Physic and Mathematics from the University of Ghana, Legon and an MSc degree in Renewable Energy from the University of Oldenburg, Germany. He also has a post graduate Diploma in Economics (Investment Appraisal and Risk Management) from Queens University, Kingston Canada. He is currently pursuing his PhD on Sustainable Energy Policy at the University of Energy and Natural Resources, Sunyani. 

He started his carrier in the renewable energy sector in 1989 as an Associate Programme Officer with the then National Energy Board and has over the years developed his skills and capacity in the implementation of various renewable energy programmes for rural energy access. He is currently the Founder and Director of Alternative Technology Consult, Ghana (AT Consult Ghana) after his retirement as the Director Renewable Energy at the Bui Power Authority, a state owned company dedicated to the generation of electricity from renewable and clean energy resources. 

He was the Director of Renewable Energy at the Ministry of Energy, Ghana for eleven (11) years and was very instrumental in the development and passage of the Renewable Energy Act, 2011 (Act 832). He also played a leading role in the development and amendment of the Bui Power Authority Amendment Act 2020 (Act 1046) and the Renewable Energy Amendment Act 2020 (Act 1045). Mr. Ahiataku-Togobo also chaired the Committee that developed the Ghana Renewable Energy Master Plan (REMP) in 2019. 

Before then, he was the Renewable Energy Expert for the World Bank - Ghana Energy Development and Access Project (GEDAP). He has also worked as the Project Coordinator for the UNDP Household Energy Programme in Ghana. 

Mr. Ahiataku-Togobo is a Board Member of the Ghana Nuclear Institute and a founding member of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). He is also a visiting lecturer at the University of Oldenburg, Germany and has a number of publications, articles and reports on renewable energy and sustainable development to his credit. 

He is the candidate of the Republic of Ghana for election in November 2024 for the position of the Director General of the International Solar Alliance.

Tauhid Ahmad is executive director at INDEF. His subject of interests are state financing, monetary, fiscal decentralization and autonomy. He also specialized in manufacturing and international trade.

Tauhid received his master degree in Faculty of Economics and Business at University of Indonesia. He received his doctorate degree in Bogor Institute of Agriculture in 2018 with Global Value Chain of Forestry Commodities as his dissertation. He has research experiences with both government and NGOs. Among them are World Bank, UNDP, AUSAID, and The Asia Foundation.