John W.H. Denton AO is the Secretary General of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). He is a global business leader, international advisor on policy and a legal expert on international trade and investment.

He serves as Board member of the UN Global Compact, Founding Member of the Business 20 (B20), and Co-Chair of Italy B20 working group on Finance and Infrastructure. He is Co-Founder of the Australia-China CEO Roundtable and Patron of UNHCR in Australia.

Board member of the IFM Global Investors - a global institutional investment manager, John is also Chair of the Asia Pacific advisory board of Veracity, a global advisory group based in New York, and Chair of the Moeller Institute advisory board at the University of Cambridge.

He also serves on the Boards of the UNDP (New York) impact investing steering group, and of UNICEF's global education initiative: GenU. He joined the Advisory Board of the African Green Infrastructure Investment Bank (AfGIIB) and the G7 Working Group on Impact Investment.

H.E. Mr. Souleymane Diarrassouba is the Minister of Trade and Industry of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire.  

Before joining the Government in January 2017, Souleymane Diarrassouba was the Managing Director of the Atlantic Business International Group, the financial, control and development holding company of the Atlantic Bank and Insurance entities in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

His expertise in the banking sector earned him the positions of President of the Federations of Banks of the West African Monetary and Economic Union, President of the Professional Association of Banks and Financial Establishment of Côte d'Ivoire, and Vice-President of the Ivorian Employers' Association. 

He previously served as Côte d’Ivoire’s Minister of Trade, Crafts and Small and Medium-Enterprise Promotion, and Minister of Industry and Mining.

James Kenneth Galbraith is an American economist. He is currently a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and at the Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Senior Scholar with the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College and part of the executive committee of the World Economics Association, created in 2011.

Galbraith holds degrees from Harvard University (BA) and in economics from Yale University (MA, M.Phil, PhD). He was Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress in the early 1980s. He chaired the board of Economists for Peace and Security from 1996 to 2016 and directs the University of Texas Inequality Project. He is a managing editor of Structural Change and Economic Dynamics.

In 2010, he was elected to the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. In 2014 he was co-winner with Angus Deaton of the Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economics. In 2020 he received the Veblen-Commons Award of the Association for Evolutionary Economics.

Claver Gatete is a Rwandan politician and diplomat who has been serving as the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa since 2023. 

Prior to this, Mr. Gatete was the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Rwanda to the United Nations in New York. Mr. Gatete has served in senior government positions, notably as Minister of Infrastructure (2018-2022) and Minister of Finance and Economic Planning (2013-2018). 

He has also served as Governor (2011-2013) and Deputy Governor (2009-2011) of the National Bank of Rwanda, Rwanda’s Central Bank, and Secretary General and Secretary to the Treasury at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning in Rwanda (2003-2005). 

He was Director General for Economic and Social Affairs in the Office of the President of Rwanda (2000-2003), during which time, he served as the President’s Representative to the New Partnership for Africa’s Development and Coordinator of the National African Peer Review Mechanism. 

Mr. Gatete holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in agricultural economics from the University of British Columbia in Canada.

Javier Juan Vicente Ramón González-Olaechea Franco is a Peruvian political scientist, diplomat and politician. He has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Government of Peru since 7 November 2023.

He previously he held the positions of advisor to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, as well as in the portfolios of Labor, Interior and Energy and Mines. 

Mr. González-Olaechea has served as an executive member of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Organization of American States (OAS) and the International Labor Organization (ILO).

Eva Granados Galiano is currently serving as the State Secretary for International Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Spain.

Spokesperson for the Socialist Parliamentary Group in the Senate from 2021 to 2023, member of the Catalan Parliament (from 2010 to 2021), member of the National Secretariat of the UGT of Catalonia (from 2002 to 2010), where she served as a representative on the Labour, Economic and Social Affairs Council of Catalonia and Spain. She has worked in the area of corporate social responsibility at Alstom (2007-2010) and has been on leave of absence since then.

Her political work has focused on improving social protection, promoting employment and building the Spanish common project. At university, she was a driving force behind the Fundació Solidaritat-Universitat de Barcelona for the defence of human rights.

She holds a degree in Political and Administrative Science from the University of Barcelona and an Executive Master in Public Management from ESADE. 

In September 2021, Rebeca Grynspan was appointed Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), becoming the first woman to lead the organization in its 60-year history.

Rebeca Grynspan, an economist and former Vice President of Costa Rica, is an experienced leader of international institutions with a substantive track record in government, UN diplomacy, economic policy and multilateral cooperation at the global level.

Prior to joining the United Nations, she was Vice President of Costa Rica and held cabinet positions as Minister of Housing, Minister Coordinator of Economic and Social Affairs and Deputy Finance Minister.

Previously, she served as Secretary-General of the Ibero-American Conference (2014–2021), chairing regional summits of Heads of State and Government; United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); and UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean. She was a member of the UN Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti, representing the UN Secretary-General.

At UNCTAD, Grynspan has been at the centre of critical negotiations to address global trade and development challenges. She played a decisive role in the successful Black Sea Grain Initiative brokered between the UN, Türkiye, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, which enabled the safe export of over 32 million tons of grain, lowered global food prices by 22% and prevented millions from falling into food insecurity.  She also leads the UN Global Crisis Response Group on food, energy and finance, and has represented the UN in G20 summits.

Her leadership has been recognized widely. In 2024, she received the Doha Negotiator of the Year Award for spearheading UN efforts to restore Black Sea trade routes. In 2025, Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation awarded her the inaugural Isabel Oyarzábal Women in Multilateralism International Prize for her contribution to multilateralism.

Ms. Grynspan holds degrees in economics from the University of Costa Rica and the University of Sussex, and honorary doctorates from several European universities.

António Guterres, the ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations, took office on 1st January 2017.

Having witnessed the suffering of the most vulnerable people on earth, in refugee camps and in war zones, the Secretary-General is determined to make human dignity the core of his work, and to serve as a peace broker, a bridge-builder and a promoter of reform and innovation.

Prior to his appointment as Secretary-General, Mr. Guterres served as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from June 2005 to December 2015,  heading one of the world’s foremost humanitarian organizations during some of the most serious displacement crises in decades. The conflicts in Syria and Iraq, and the crises in South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Yemen, led to a huge rise in UNHCR’s activities as the number of people displaced by conflict and persecution rose from 38 million in 2005 to over 60 million in 2015.

Before joining UNHCR, Mr. Guterres spent more than 20 years in government and public service. He served as prime minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002, during which time he was heavily involved in the international effort to resolve the crisis in East Timor.

As president of the European Council in early 2000, he led the adoption of the Lisbon Agenda for growth and jobs, and co-chaired the first European Union-Africa summit. He was a member of the Portuguese Council of State from 1991 to 2002.

Mr. Guterres was elected to the Portuguese Parliament in 1976 where he served as a member for 17 years. During that time, he chaired the Parliamentary Committee for Economy, Finance and Planning, and later the Parliamentary Committee for Territorial Administration, Municipalities and Environment. He was also leader of his party’s parliamentary group.

From 1981 to 1983, Mr. Guterres was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where he chaired the Committee on Demography, Migration and Refugees.

For many years Mr. Guterres was active in the Socialist International, a worldwide organization of social democratic political parties. He was the group’s vice-president from 1992 to 1999, co-chairing the African Committee and later the Development Committee. He served as President from 1999 until mid-2005. In addition, he founded the Portuguese Refugee Council as well as the Portuguese Consumers Association DECO, and served as president of the Centro de Acção Social Universitário, an association carrying out social development projects in poor neighbourhoods of Lisbon, in the early 1970s.

Mr. Guterres is a member of the Club of Madrid, a leadership alliance of democratic former presidents and prime ministers from around the world.

Mr. Guterres was born in Lisbon in 1949 and graduated from the Instituto Superior Técnico with a degree in engineering. He is fluent in Portuguese, English, French and Spanish. He is married to Catarina de Almeida Vaz Pinto, Deputy Mayor for Culture of Lisbon, and has two children, a stepson and three grandchildren.

Pasi Hellman is Under-Secretary of State for International Development at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland since September 2022. 

Before his current position, Mr Hellman was Finland’s Consul General in Shanghai, China (2019- 2022), with the responsibility to also cover four neighbouring provinces of Shanghai. He was Managing Director in the Nordic Development Fund in Helsinki (2012-18), and has served in the Board of Directors of the Asian Development Bank in Manila, the Philippines (2004-2007). 

In Finland’s foreign service he has held key positions at the Ministry, including Deputy Director General at the Department for Development Policy, Director for International Financial Institutions Division, and Adviser to the Minister for International Development.

He has also worked at the Finnish embassies in the Netherlands and in Kenya. Mr. Hellman has wide experience of board level positions in national and international financial and other institutions, most notably in the African Guarantee Fund, UNU/WIDER, and as Finland’s Governor or Alternate Governor in various international financial institutions (AfDB, ADB, IDB, IFAD). 

Throughout his career collaboration and synergies between the public and the private sector have been key guiding principles in his work. Mr. Hellman is a graduate of the Turku School of Economics (currently part of the University of Turku) in Finland, where he obtained the degree of Doctor of Science in Economics (International Business) in 1996 and Master of Science in Economics in 1991.

Vladimir Ilichev was appointed as Deputy Minister in 2020. Within the Ministry, Mr. Ilichev focuses on developing foreign economic activity based on multilateral and bilateral cooperation.

In 2012-2020, Mr. Ilichev headed the Department for Internal Market Protection of the Eurasian Economic Commission. In 2011-2012, he acted as a Director of Department for Foreign Commerce Protective Measures of the Secretariat of the Customs Union Commission.

In his previous roles, he contributed to national trade and development as the Director of Trade Policy and Law Centre LLC (2006-2010), Director of the Department of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation (2004-2006), etc.

In 1998, Mr. Ilichev graduated from the Moscow State Open University, and in 2015 from the Kutafin Moscow State Law University.