Karen Hale is the Chief Legal Officer at Novartis. She leads legal, public affairs and global security functions, which support the company’s purpose of reimagining medicine while ensuring high standards of ethics and business conduct to reinforce trust with society.

Ms. Hale joined Novartis in May 2021, bringing more than 20 years of experience in resolving legal and compliance issues in the global pharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining Novartis, she held a succession of senior roles at AbbVie including Vice President, Deputy General Counsel and Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer.

Before joining the pharmaceutical industry, Ms. Hale was an associate attorney with the law firm Sidley & Austin in Chicago, Illinois. She gained a bachelor’s degree in economics from Duke University and a Juris Doctor degree from the College of William and Mary. In 2019, Karen was named by Black Enterprise magazine as one of the 50 most powerful women in corporate America.

Jeffrey Hales, PhD Chair of the Standards Board, SASB Sector Chair for Financials and for Renewable Resources & Alternative Energy The Charles T. Zlatkovich Centennial Professor of Accounting, University of Texas at Austin Jeffrey Hales serves as the Chair of the 9-person Standards Board at Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). In his role as Chair, he oversees the agenda setting and due process associated with the SASB standards development and maintenance. Before serving on the Standards Board, he chaired the Standards Council for the SASB. Jeffrey Hales teaches at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is the Charles T. Zlatkovich Centennial Professor of Accounting. He is a graduate of the accounting program at Brigham Young University and received his Ph.D. from Cornell University. His research interests center on accounting standard setting and regulation, individual decision making, and behavioral finance, using techniques from applied game theory, experimental economics, and psychology. His research has appeared in The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Review of Accounting Studies, and the Journal of Financial Economics, among other journals. He has previously been an editor for Contemporary Accounting Research and Accounting Horizons. He also currently serves on the editorial boards of The Accounting Review and Accounting Organizations and Society. During the 2009-10 academic year, Dr. Hales was a Research Fellow at the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in Norwalk, CT. In addition, he served as a member of the FASB’s Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council from 2016-2019. He currently sits on the Climate Disclosure Standards Board and the Financial Reporting Council’s Future of Corporate Reporting Advisory Group.

Jeffrey Hall is the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pan Jamaica Group Limited. He is also the Group Managing Director of JP.

Mr. Hall is Chairman of Kingston Wharves Limited, Blue Power Group Limited, and Lumber Depot Limited. He is also a director to Sagicor Group Jamaica Limited, Sagicor Life Jamaica Limited, Sagicor Bank Jamaica Limited and Sagicor Investments Jamaica Limited, Eppley Caribbean Property Fund and the CARICOM Private Sector Organization.

Mr. Hall has served as Chairman of the Boards of Scotia Group Jamaica Limited, the Bank of Nova Scotia Jamaica Limited, Scotia Investment Limited and as a director on the Boards of the Jamaica Stock Exchange and the Bank of Jamaica.

He holds a Master of Public Policy degree from Harvard University and a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School. In 2022, Mr. Hall was awarded the Officer of Distinction in the rank of Commander by the Government of Jamaica.

Stéphane Hallegatte is a Senior Climate Change Adviser at the World Bank. He joined the World Bank in 2012 after 10 years of academic research in environmental economics and climate science for Météo-France, the Centre International de Recherche sur l’Environnement et le Développement, and Stanford University. His research interests include the economics of natural disasters and risk management, climate change adaptation, urban policy and economics, climate change mitigation, and green growth.

He was the team leader for the World Bank Group Climate Change Action Plan, a large internal coordination exercise to determine and explain how the Group will support countries in their implementation of the Paris Agreement.

Mr. Hallegatte holds engineering degrees from the Ecole Polytechnique (Paris) and the Ecole Nationale de la Météorologie (Toulouse), a master's degree in meteorology and climatology from the Université Paul Sabatier (Toulouse) and a Ph.D in economics from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris).

Kirk-Anthony Hamilton is founder of the Infiniti Partnership Inc.,Tech Beach Retreat and The Destination Experience. He is an architectural designer turned entrepreneur, investor, community curator and He is on a mission to build a new global business ecosystem for the Caribbean with platforms designed to attract investment, innovation, influence and big media to the region with an aim to catalyze new enterprise and wealth creation opportunities. Participants in his knowledge and opportunity exchange platforms collectively control in excess of US$140 billion in equity and investment capital and to date they have seeded over US$300 million in investments across various sectors. In May of 2015 he was celebrated as one of 75 Emerging Global Entrepreneurs by President Obama at the White House and in January of 2016 serving as curator of the Global Shapers Kingston Hub he was selected as one of 50 Global Shapers to participate in the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum. His work and profile have been featured in publications including Forbes, the Wallstreet Journal, Essence and the New York Times. Kirk-Anthony has a Professional Master of Architecture Degree from the Savannah College of Art and Design. 

Dalila Hamou bio

Chartered logistician, regional integration advocate and passionate Pan-Africanist, with two decades of private sector experience in logistics and transport in Ghana, as well as a decade of development expertise across West Africa.

A founding member, past President and current National President for Ghana of Borderless Alliance, an award-winning, private sector led, multi-stakeholder advocacy group that promotes regional economic integration in West Africa and tackles barriers to regional trade and transport.

Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) in Ghana, founding member of the Trade Facilitation Coalition for Ghana (TFCG), a private sector led grassroot-level campaign to enhance trade and business in Ghana, also serving on many high-level national and international advisory assignments.

Jane Han, a humanitarian logistics and supply chain specialist with USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), has over 15 years of experience in rapid onset natural disaster and complex emergencies, chronic/protracted humanitarian crises, and targeted public health projects, in both response and recovery phases.

She has worked in remote sites and capital coordination offices in resource-limited settings across East Africa, the Middle East, North Africa, South East and Central Asia, the Pacific, and the Caribbean.

With experiences at various levels of implementation and coordination, with donor nations, host nation ministries, and implementing organizations (Save the Children, IMC, MSF, UNICEF and others), including interactions with commercial and military logistics actors, Jane has learned how to productively contribute to more coordinated, regionalized/localized disaster response and preparedness strategies.

Across her assignments, she has maintained a focus on building teams and strengthening systems for improved preparedness and response readiness.

Dr. Carsten Hansen is the Director of SourcingHaus Research and Consulting Group dedicated to supporting organizations in developing and implementing sustainable procurement and supply chain strategies. He is further Director for the Sustainable Public Procurement Accelerator Lab (SPP Lab) at the George Weston Centre for Sustainable Supply Chains, Schulich School of Business, collaborating with researchers, government, and industry leaders to deliver against the UN SDG Goal 12.7.  

He is also a Visiting Research Fellow, at the School of Management, Centre for Strategic Procurement and Supply Management at Cranfield University (UK), where he has published on sustainable procurement and supply chain risk management. 

He has served 20+ years in senior management positions with the United Nations (UN), latest as the Chief of Global Procurement Services at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and as Co-Chair of the Inter-Agency Working Group on Sustainable Procurement for the United Nations High-level Committee on Management (HLCM)