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Jingjing Zhang
Jingjing Zhang is a prominent Chinese environmental lawyer and a lecturer in law at the University of Maryland School of Law. She is the director of the Transnational Environmental Accountability Project and the founder of the China Accountability Project. She works on cutting-edge transnational environmental and climate lawsuits in the international development arena. Her team tests various legal avenues to ensure Chinese companies under China’s Belt and Road Initiative comply with environmental laws and international human rights norms in Africa and Latin America. Through her work as the inaugural litigation director of the Beijing-based Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims between 1999 and 2008, Jingjing won several milestone environmental…
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Lai Yahaya
Lai Yahaya is a lawyer, political economy analyst, and public policy policy advisor with more than 20 years’ experience advising development finance institutions, senior government officials, and leading corporatations in Sub-Saharan Africa on infrastructure development, public private partnerships, and energy sector reform. He is currently Senior Special Assistant (Planning and Strategy) to President Muhammadu Buhari in Nigeria and was most recently Senior Policy Advisor to Rt. Hon. Raila Odinga, in his role as African Union High Representative for Infrastructure Development in Africa. Lai previously led the Senior Advisors Group of the Power Africa Initiative, working with a group of former Heads of State and industry leaders, advising them on how…
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WEN Yuanhua
WEN Yuanhua manages the Corporate Banking, International Trade Finance, e-Banking, Information Technology, and Research and Product Development departments of the China Construction Bank, Tianjin Branch. He is responsible for over 6,000 employees and has led successful reform, reorganization, and restructuring efforts resulting in increased competitiveness and market share for CCB. He has extensive experience with banking reform in China and has held a variety of management positions at several of China’s major banks. Previously, Yuanhua worked for China CITIC Bank and Central Huijin Company Ltd., a shareholder of the Big 4 Chinese banks. There, he took part in the financial restructuring of ICBC, the largest commercial bank in China, and…
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Daniel Weisfield
Daniel Weisfield is a founder of Three Pillar Communities, a values-driven real estate investment firm. Three Pillar Communities acquires and operates manufactured housing communities in the United States. The firm has a two-part mission: to deliver safe, reliable housing to residents and safe, reliable returns to investors. As a consultant at McKinsey & Company, Daniel co-authored the McKinsey Global Institute’s report on tackling California’s high housing costs. His research on real estate and housing has been featured in the New York Times, the LA Times, and the Wall Street Journal. Daniel holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, an M.B.A. from Yale School of Management, and a B.A. in humanities,…
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Zoe Weinberg
Zoe Weinberg is the founder of ex/ante, a technology incubation fund that works to counter digital authoritarianism. Prior to graduate school, she worked on the Hillary for America campaign, serving as the assistant to the Chief Administrative Officer. She previously worked at the International Finance Corporation at the World Bank, based in Washington, D.C. and Nairobi. She worked on projects in over a dozen countries, including Somalia, South Sudan, Rwanda, and Liberia. Prior to IFC, she worked in Goldman Sachs’s alternative investments group in New York. Zoe has degrees from Harvard University, Yale Law School, and Stanford Graduate School of Business. At Yale Law School, she was a student director…
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Amit Wanchoo
Amit Wanchoo is Managing Director of Eaton Laboratories, the first pharmaceutical manufacturing unit of Kashmir actively involved in low cost healthcare. He is also the CEO of Space Communications, 1st Events, Sports and Film shoot Management Company of Jammu and Kashmir. He blends health and entertainment in healing, supporting, and providing employment to the people of Kashmir. Born and raised there, Amit has been actively engaged in social activism, entrepreneurship development, reviving art, culture, heritage, and tourism in the region. Amit was the President and Founder of the Rotary Club of Kashmir, which has contributed to various health and literacy initiatives. Amit also runs a documentary film company which has…
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Chetna Gala Sinha
Chetna Gala Sinha is an activist, farmer, and banker. In the early 1980s, while still a student in Mumbai, she joined the Jayaprakash Narayan movement and travelled through the country championing land rights and other social issues. In 1996, Chetna founded the Mann Deshi Foundation in Mhaswad, a drought-stricken area of Maharashtra, with the aim of economically and socially empowering rural women. In 1997, she set up the Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank – India’s first bank for and by rural women. Today, the Mann Deshi Bank has over 100,000 account holders, has loaned over $50 million, and regularly creates new financial products to support the needs of female micro-entrepreneurs….
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Tuokanjo Sem Shikongo
Taukondjo Sem Shikongo is currently the Senior Programme Management Officer for the Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) Unit, which is mandated to serve the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on ABS at the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The Unit has as its mission to provide support to Parties, in their policy development, coordination, implementation and review of issues related to access and benefit-sharing under the Convention and its Nagoya Protocol, in an integrated, mainstreamed and efficient manner and to arrange for and service the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol. Prior to this Taukondjo served as Director for Tourism…
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Rita Sciarra
Rita Sciarra is an expert in international development and serves as Team Lead for inclusive Growth and Poverty Reduction for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Hub in Panama. She previously served as Strategic Advisor with the UNDP in Mexico supporting the country during its economic recovery process after the earthquake in 2018. Originally from Italy, she is fluent in four languages, with more than 14 years of experience in three different continents, in post-conflict and normal development conditions. Prior to this, Rita served as Head of Poverty Reduction with UNDP in Haiti. She has managed a portfolio of projects to ensure the transition from emergency to development, with a…
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Henrique F. Salas-Römer
Henrique F. Salas-Römer is President of Proyecto Venezuela, one of the political parties that make up the Mesa de la Unidad Democrática, a coalition of opposition parties in Venezuela. Henrique is also Assistant Chairman of the International Democratic Union, a working association of over 80 Conservative, Christian Democrat, and other parties of the center and center-right from over 60 countries. Elected to the National Congress at age 32, Henrique served for two years before being elected Governor of Carabobo, the third largest state in Venezuela. He was elected to four terms as Governor of Carabobo, serving from 1995 to 2004 and from 2008 to 2012. As Governor, Henrique worked to create a…
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