Focus: Government/Politics
Carlos Vecchio
Carlos Vecchio is a Venezuelan lawyer, activist, and politician and was named by Juan Guaidó—and accepted by the United States—as ChargĂ© d'Affaires of the Government of Venezuela to the United States. He is Co-Founder of Voluntad Popular, a Venezuelan social and political movement aimed at youth and working to eliminate poverty peacefully and within a democratic framework. A former Fulbright Scholar, Carlos has worked to expose constitutional and human rights abuses in his country and edited a documentary on political discrimination called The List.Â
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Annemie Turtelboom
Annemie Turtelboom is currently a Member of the European Court of Auditors, the external auditor of the EU, based in Luxembourg. Her portfolio includes audit work related to EU budget, EU public finance, policies related to EU governance, financial instruments and technical assistance in the EU. She is enthusiastic about digital agenda and innovation in auditing. After having served as Deputy First Minister, Minister of Budget, Finance and Energy in the Flemish Regional Government (2014-2016), she returned to the Belgian Federal Parliament, where she was an active member of the Committee for Foreign Affairs until April 2018. Prior to these positions, Annemie served as Minister of Justice (2012-14) in the…
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Kazushige Tanaka
Kazushige "Kazu" Tanaka is a senior government official of Japan working for Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) as Director of Policy Planning and Coordination Division, Trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau. As one of the Japanese ministry’s leading policymakers, Kazu has worked to create a more efficient and environmentally friendly economic system. He has served as a diplomat serving on his country's delegation to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the International Energy Agency (IEA). He has held a number of critical positions in METI and other government agencies, including the Governing Board Representative of Japan to the IEA, and the Vice Chair of the Standing…
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Raenette Gottardo
Raenette Gottardo is a consultant based in South Africa with expertise in public policy, politics, and defense and foreign policy. She was formerly the Director of The Helen Suzman Foundation and Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town. In 1999, at the age of 25, she became the youngest woman ever elected to the South African parliament. As a former Democratic Alliance MP, she was the Shadow Minister of Finance and a member of the Portfolio Committee on Finance. She also served on numerous other parliamentary committees, including the Standing Committee on Public Accounts during the arms deal investigation. From 2011-2015, Raenette served as a member of the…
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Ali Sindi
Ali Sindi is Minister of Planning for the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil where he has contributed to the reconstruction of Iraqi Kurdistan's infrastructure, especially in the health and capacity building sectors, over the last two decades. Since October 2009, his duties as Minister of Planning include leading government efforts on preparing the annual investment budget, strategic plans, human resource development, and issues related to quality control in the region. A surgeon by training, Ali was a senior advisor to Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani from 2002-2009 on health, higher education, capacity building, and donor funds. He is also the honorary president of the Emergency Management Center, an independent NGO…
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Rami Nakhla
Rami Nakhla, also known by his alias Malath Aumran, is a long time democratic advocate who works on political reform in Syria and the Middle East since the mid-2000s. In 2012 and due to the increased dominance of Islamic radicals in the Syrian uprising, Rami resigned from all his political positions to focus on a nonpartisan pursuit of peace and democracy in Syria. Currently, he is working with tech companies to leverage disruptive new technologies and channel them toward positive social impact. Rami has played a prominent role in the leadership of the Syrian democratic movement, serving as a spokesperson for the Local Coordination Committees (LCC) of Syria and as…
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Tarek Masoud
Tarek Masoud is a Professor of Public Policy and the Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. His research focuses on the Muslim world's political development. Tarek is the author of Counting Islam: Religion, Class, and Elections in Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2014), the co-author of The Arab Spring: Pathways of Repression and Reform (Oxford University Press, 2015), as well as of several articles and book chapters. He is a 2009 Carnegie Scholar, a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Democracy, and the recipient of grants from the National Science Foundation and the Paul and Daisy Soros foundation,…
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Norbert Mao
Norbert Mao is a lawyer and politician currently serving as President of the Democratic Party, Uganda's oldest political party. Norbert ran for president in the 2011 Uganda General Elections, emerging third in a field of eight candidates. One of Uganda’s most outspoken advocates for democracy and human rights, Norbert continues to be featured regularly as a speaker in national and international events. He was a Member of Parliament for ten years and most recently the highest elected leader in the Gulu Local Government in Northern Uganda. In that capacity he was a key player in the peace process with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). He continues to champion post-conflict reconstruction…
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Katrin Eggenberger
Katrin Eggenberger was sworn in as the Principality of Liechtenstein's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Justice, and Culture on November 11, 2019 as one of the youngest female ministers worldwide, shortly ahead of one of the most pressing and demanding times for governments in history. Her Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Justice, and Culture brings together three fields in which Liechtenstein actively expresses its autonomy as a country. Policies in these areas contribute significantly to defining the way the country sees itself. In April 2020, Katrin published a joint op-ed with the foreign ministers of Ghana, Indonesia, Norway, Singapore, and Switzerland on the necessity to globally coordinate the response to COVID-19, culminating…
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Orzala Nemat
Orzala Nemat is Director of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) and an Afghan political ethnographer and a senior teaching fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She has two decades of experience in development practice, research, programmatic review, and academia. She is the founder of Humanitarian Assistance for Women and Children of Afghanistan, was a guest scholar at the Cher Michelson Institute in Norway, and has worked with different international organizations including ICCO in the Netherlands as its country representative in Afghanistan. Orzala has served on the boards of national and international development organizations in Afghanistan and is currently a trustee of…
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