Speakers

Bronte is a leading thinker and advisor in Australian public policy and strategy.

She founded dandolopartners to apply the logic, discipline and approaches she learnt in top level management consulting to achieve public impact.

A former CEO, McKinsey & Co consultant and senior government executive, Bronte was an advisor to a reformist state Treasurer and went on to lead the Victorian Government’s technology arm, reforming government through the use of technology, managing major procurements, attracting foreign investment and stimulating the uptake of technology across commercial, public and community sectors.

Bronte is actively involved in public life. Current and past appointments include: Museums Board of Victoria, Victorian Education and Research Network, Innovation and Science Australia, Australian Institute of Company Directors, Australian Broadband Advisory Council, UNESCO High Commission, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne University Publishing, Australia Council’s New Media and Visual Arts Boards, Innovation Economy Advisory Board, Health Innovation and Reform Council, Rhodes Trust in Australia, Rhodes Selection Committee, John Monash Foundation National Selection Committee, Tertiary Education Expert Advisory Group and a range of other innovation, science and technology advisory and commercialization bodies, and ICT and Gov2.0 advisory bodies.

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Neeti Bhalla Johnson is President of Global Risk Solutions at Liberty Mutual Insurance, the sixth largest global property and casualty insurer. In this role since July 2021, she leads the company’s commercial and specialty insurance business unit, with operations in 24 countries producing $15 billion in net written premium. She joined the company in 2013, as President and Chief Investment Officer, Liberty Mutual Investments. Neeti is a member of the board of directors of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the International Council of the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the board of trustees of the Rhodes Trust at the University of Oxford. A Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Neeti earned an MBA and an MSc in Social Anthropology. She also holds a BA in Economics from Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya.

Sameer Rashid Bhat is a DPhil candidate in Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. His doctoral research focuses on the interaction of legal regimes in armed conflicts.

Before his DPhil, Sameer read for the MSc in Global Governance and Diplomacy and for the Master of Public Policy. Prior to Oxford, he obtained an undergraduate degree in law from Gujarat National Law University, India and is qualified to practice law in India.

At Oxford, Sameer has been involved with several research and student action groups, having served as the Chair of Oxford Pro Bono Publico (OPBP), Student Chairperson of Oxford Transitional Justice Research Network (OTJR) and, President of Linacre College CR.

Sameer is a co-founder of Project EduAccess, a non-profit initiative aimed at increasing access to higher education and creating opportunities of personal and professional growth for learners from marginalised communities in South Asia.

Sameer is the first Rhodes Scholar from Kashmir (India).

Elleke Boehmer is Professor of World Literature in English and Director of the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing at the University of Oxford. Previously, she served as Director of The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities. A Rhodes Scholar from South Africa, she is a founding figure in the field of postcolonial studies and empire. She is a Fellow of the English Academy, of the Royal Society of Literature, and of the Royal Historical Society. Her books include: Postcolonial Poetics; Indian Arrivals 1870-1915; Nelson Mandela; Empire, the National and the Postcolonial, 1890–1920; Stories of Women: Gender and Narrative in the Postcolonial Nation; Resistance in Interaction; and Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors. Her fiction includes To the Volcano, and other stories; The Shouting in the Dark; Sharmilla, and Other Portraits; Nile Baby; Bloodlines; and Screens against the Sky.

Camille is a historian, writer, and poet invested in unearthing the lived experiences of African American women. She is a Ph.D. Candidate in History and African American Studies at Princeton University. Camille graduated magna cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis in 2018 with a B.A. in History and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. After graduation, she moved across the Atlantic, studying at the University of Oxford as a 2018 Rhodes Scholar. There, she received her MPhil in US History with distinction. Last summer, she was the inaugural Program Director for the African American Heritage House at the Chautauqua Institution.

At Princeton, she is writing her dissertation on Black women’s embodied experience of pleasure in the 19^th century. She contributed as a researcher to the Toni Morrison “Sites of Memory” exhibition at the Princeton University Library. Camille’s writing has appeared in the Huffington Post, USA Today, and The Chicago Review of Books.

Dr Jonny Broomberg is CEO of Vitality Health International and Global Head of Health Insurance for the Discovery Group. He has been with Discovery for 18 years, including serving as CEO of Discovery Health, South Africa’s largest health insurance business, for 10 years. He is now responsible for Discovery’s global health operations outside of South Africa and the UK. He is deeply interested in improving public and private health systems, public health and global health policy issues. Prior to joining Discovery, he was a founding partner of a specialist healthcare private equity business, and in his earlier career, he worked in in health economics and policy research, and served as Special Advisor to the Minister of Health in South Africa’s first post-Apartheid government.  

Jonny studied Medicine in South Africa, and then read PPE at Balliol College before completing MSc and PHD degrees in Health Economics at the University of London. 

Eleanor Brown is a Co-Founder of DiversiBoard, a Techstars/JP Morgan company that uses AI to enable African and Caribbean technical talent to apply to universities overseas at a fraction of the typical cost. She is also a Professor of Law at Fordham University and an affiliated faculty member at the Rock Ethics Institute of Penn State where she was previously a Professor. She was previously a chair of the Jamaica Trade Board.  Brown was appointed by Andrew Holness, the Prime Minister of Jamaica, to the CARICOM Commission.  She has served on the boards of several publicly traded Caribbean companies and was the youngest director of two subsidiaries of the Bank of Nova Scotia (Jamaica), one of the largest subsidiaries of the largest Canadian bank (by market capitalization). Brown was the youngest director of JPSCo, the electric utility owned by Korea Electric Power Corp., Marubeni Corp. of Japan, and the government of Jamaica. Brown holds a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology from Brown University and a master’s degree in politics from Balliol.

Sylvia Burwell is a broad-ranging, effective leader who has served at the highest levels of government, philanthropy, and academia. In 2018, she was inaugurated as the 15th president of American University, and the first woman president.  

 Burwell previously held two positions in the President’s Cabinet – serving as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for President Barack Obama. As HHS Secretary, she managed a trillion-dollar department with 12 operating divisions – including NIH, FDA, and the Medicaid and Medicare programs. As OMB Director, she worked with Congress to negotiate a two-year budget deal following the 2013 government shutdown.   

 Burwell also held leadership positions at two of the largest foundations in the world – the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Walmart Foundation.  

 Burwell is originally from Hinton, West Virginia. She lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband Stephen and their two children. 

Edwin Cameron served as a judge for 25 years, the last eleven in the Constitutional Court. Educated at Pretoria Boys' High, Stellenbosch and as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, he practised as a human rights lawyer under apartheid. He has fought for LGBTI equality, including the historic inclusion of sexual orientation in the SA Constitution. Living with HIV, he fiercely criticised President Mbeki's AIDS denialism and fought for access to antiretroviral treatments. His has written two prize-winning memoirs, Witness to AIDS (2005) and Justice: A Personal Account (2014). He is involved in many charitable and public causes. After retiring as a judge, he was elected Chancellor of Stellenbosch University and appointed inspecting judge of prisons. 

Sanjay is Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Pan Am Equities, a New York City wealth management firm specializing in real estate and dedicated to generational growth by meeting future challenges with innovative, technology-driven solutions.  In this role, he partners with the executive team to develop institutional processes for risk management, portfolio strategy, technology integration, asset management, financial planning, reporting and analysis.

In his previous positions as Chief Operating Officer of A&E, CFO of Jonathan Rose Companies and CFO & Partner at Urban American, Sanjay helped launch multi-disciplinary, green, transit-oriented acquisition and redevelopment funds focused on impact investing in the work force and affordable segments of multi-family housing.   Additional responsibilities included providing strategic and operational support, directing investment strategy, governance, portfolio management and investor relations.  As part of his portfolio management functions, Sanjay managed capital for dozens of limited partners, including many prominent pension plans, endowments, family offices, and high net worth individuals. 

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Chisanga Chekwe is President of the Masomo Education Foundation, a Canadian charitable organisation that provides scholarships to young men and women from low-income families. He also serves as a member of the Ontario Council of Social Workers and Social Service Workers, sitting on the Discipline Committee as well as the Fitness to Practice committee. 

Before that he served as Deputy Minister of the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, Women’s Issues, and Seniors’ Affairs, in addition to being secretary general of the Order of Ontario.  

In 1994 Chisanga served as a United Nations Observer and Adjudication Officer to the historic South African election that brought Nelson Mandela to power.  Two years later he served as supervisor of the election in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

In addition to his PPE degree at Oxford, Chisanga has LL. B and LL. M degrees from the Universities of Birmingham and London. 

Chisanga is the author of five books on South Africa, Zambia and Investor Migration Programmes. 

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Mat has worked for the past 23 years as a senior Estates professional in the higher education sector in Oxford, delivering a number of important University of Oxford building projects with a combined value of approximately £200m, which create educational spaces to support 21st century learners. 

Having assisted the Rhodes Trust with the ‘Big Build’ business plan and consultant appointments in 2018, Mat joined the Rhodes Trust full time in 2019 as Director of Estates to oversee the design, planning, procurement and construction of the project which will transform Rhodes House and prepare it for another century of service to the Rhodes Trust.

Mat is a recognised global expert on the subject of Next Generation Learning Spaces, with a particular focus on the impact of technology on pedagogy and self-led learning, and the consequent impact on educational architecture. 

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Professor Carolyn Evans has been Vice Chancellor and President of Griffith University, Queensland Australia since 2019. She was educated in Law and Arts at the Melbourne and Oxford universities and held the roles of Dean of Law and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Melbourne. She is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, President of the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association, former Chair of the Innovative Research Universities, former board member of Open Universities Australia from 2019-2023 and current Board member of Universities Australia. She researches in the areas of religious freedom and academic freedom and has published widely in these areas. She has been awarded a Rhodes Scholar and a Fulbright Senior Scholar. 

Jory Fleming works at the University of South Carolina as a climate scientist and education specialist. He holds an MPhil in environmental change and management from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, an MBA from the Quantic School of Business & Technology, and a BS in geography and marine science with a minor in geophysics from the University of South Carolina. Alongside his service dog Daisy, Jory is invested in children’s education and raising awareness about disabilities. He loves the ocean and hopes to keep the planet beautiful and alive for the next generation. Jory lives with several disabilities, including autism. In his spare time, Jory is an avid bird watcher, board game enthusiast, and Scottish country dancer. 

Aria is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Liberation Ventures (LV), a field catalyst and intermediary accelerating the Black-led movement for racial repair in the US. Previously, she was an Engagement Manager in McKinsey & Company’s Washington D.C. office, where she served clients on issues related to strategy, organizational design, racial equity, and financial sustainability. Aria also helped develop the firm’s early thinking on how to support clients on topics of racial equity and inclusive growth, which has now evolved into the McKinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility. She co-authored several research reports on the topic.

Prior to McKinsey, Aria helped launch the first-ever round of programs for civic leaders at the Obama Foundation, and was a nonprofit practitioner and organizer in East Palo Alto, California. Aria received a BA from Stanford University, an MBA from The Wharton School, and an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Nanette Fondas is an author, activist, mother, and former professor of business administration. She writes about the work people do and the care they give. Her scholarship focuses on leadership, work-family, and the care economy; it has been published in scholarly journals, newspapers, and magazines, including The Atlantic, Harvard Business Review, Ms., and Psychology Today. Her 2010 book, The Custom-Fit Workplace, argues that flexible work arrangements are prudent, practical, efficient, and necessary. Currently she is writing a book about early Rhodes women and a second book about lost World War II men.

Dr. Atul Gawande is the Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID. He is a surgeon, writer, and public health leader. Prior to joining the Biden-Harris Administration, he was a practicing general and endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

He was founder and chair of Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and of Lifebox, a nonprofit making surgery safer globally. He also co-founded CIC Health, a public benefit corporation supporting pandemic response operations across the United States. He served as a member of the Biden transition COVID-19 Advisory Board.

In addition, Atul was a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker magazine and has written four New York Times best-selling books: Complications, Better, The Checklist Manifesto, and Being Mortal. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the winner of two National Magazine Awards, AcademyHealth’s Impact Award for highest research impact on healthcare, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the Lewis Thomas Award for writing about science.

Mark German is the Executive Director, Rise. An initiative of Schmidt Futures and the Rhodes Trust, Rise will build a lifelong community of students, teachers, and institutions across sectors who aim to serve others. In this role, Mark leads the Rise team and manages a wide array of partners and stakeholders in bringing the program from concept to reality.

Formerly supporting initiatives for Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, E-Line Media, Intel Education, XPRIZE, World Science Festival, and other organizations, Mark has led the development of over 200 products and a dozen large-scale programs that have enhanced the lives of more than 12 million students and educators in 75 countries.

Mark has a Master of Arts in Communications Management from the University of Southern California, a Master of Arts in Teaching from National College of Education, and a Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Social Policy from Northwestern University.

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Dr. Vishal Gulati is a specialist venture capital investor backing scientists and tech founders bring their innovations to market. Vishal’s investment thesis is based around the convergence of healthcare, data and engineering.

In his venture capital career, Vishal has held roles at leading firms such as Atlas Venture, Oxford Science Enterprises and Molten Ventures, whilst making independent private investments in ground breaking healthtech companies.

Vishal has served on the boards of over fifteen public and private health and life sciences companies; from Horizon Discovery to the world’s most scalable DNA synthesis platform (Evonetix). His portfolio of over 30 VC and angel investments makes him one of the most active investors in this space.

Vishal chairs the investment committee of Cancer Research UK seed fund, and holds similar roles at The Francis Crick Institute, (KQ Labs), British Heart Foundation, Medical Research Council, and Innovate UK. Vishal also serves on the advisory board of Reuben College.

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Cameron Hepburn is Professor of Environmental Economics at the University of Oxford, and Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.  He also serves as the Director of the Economics of Sustainability Programme, based at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School.

Cameron has published widely on energy, resources and environmental challenges across disciplines including engineering, biology, philosophy, economics, public policy and law, drawing on degrees in law and engineering (Melbourne University) and masters and doctorate in economics (Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar).  He has co-founded three successful businesses and provides advice on energy and environmental policy to government ministers (e.g. China, India, UK and Australia) and international institutions (e.g. OECD, UN). 

Professor Prabhat Jha is a University Professor at the University of Toronto, Endowed Professor in Global Health and Epidemiology and Canada Research Chair at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and the founding Director of the Centre for Global Health Research at St. Michael's Hospital.

Professor Jha is the lead investigator of the Million Death Study in India, which quantifies the causes of premature mortality in over 3 million homes from 1998 to current. His publications on tobacco control have enabled a global treaty now signed by over 180 countries. He founded the Statistical Alliance for Vital Events, which focuses on reliable measurement of premature mortality worldwide.

Earlier, Professor Jha served in senior roles at the World Health Organization and the World Bank. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2012. Professor Jha holds an M.D. from the University of Manitoba and a D.Phil. from Oxford University.

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Susan L. Karamanian is Dean of the College of Law at the Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha.  She was previously the Provost at the American University of Sharjah and the Associate Dean for International and Comparative Legal Studies and Burnett Family Professorial Lecturer at the George Washington University Law School. Before joining GW Law, she was a Partner in Locke Lord LLP in Dallas. She serves on the governing bodies of the American Society of International Law (ASIL), the Center for American and International Law (CAIL), and Texas Appleseed. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Council on Germany and a life fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the Texas Bar Foundation.

Dr. Aly Kassam−Remtulla is a globally-minded leader with a profound commitment to education, philanthropy, and environmental and social justice.
 
As Vice Provost for International Affairs at Princeton University, Aly leads a team of 250 people on three continents.  His portfolio includes oversight of a 48,000-acre campus in Kenya, one of the leading research institutes on the African continent.  Prior to Princeton, he worked at the MacArthur Foundation, where he awarded more than $60 million in grants across three portfolios.
 
Aly is a governance expert and has served on numerous non-profit boards.  He currently chairs the board of the United World College-USA and serves on the board of Allegheny College.  He was recently a consultant to the Luce Foundation.
 
Born in Kenya and raised in Canada, Aly is a graduate of Stanford and Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.  His commentary has appeared in numerous publications, and he was recently inducted into Stanford’s Multicultural Alumni Hall of Fame.

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Dr Elizabeth Kiss (pronounced ‘quiche’) became Warden of Rhodes House and CEO of the Rhodes Trust in August 2018, the first woman to hold this position. She has launched the 125th Anniversary Strategic plan for the Rhodes Trust which will expand the annual number of Scholars to 125 with a wider global profile. It also includes an ambitious fundraising campaign, deepening the alumni lifelong fellowship, and increasing the connection and impact of our partnership programmes which include The Mandela Rhodes Foundation, Atlantic Institute, Schmidt Science Fellowship programme and Rise.  

Before joining the Rhodes Trust, Dr Kiss served for twelve years as president of Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, Georgia. From 1997 to 2006 Dr Kiss served as the founding director of Duke University’s Kenan Institute for Ethics. She has also taught at Randolph-Macon College (Virginia), Deep Springs College (California) and at Princeton University for eight years. She is a scholar of moral and political philosophy and she has published on moral education, human rights, ethnic conflict and nationalism, feminist theory, and transitional justice.  

Eileen Lach is an international lawyer and American senior business leader currently engaged in cutting edge artificial intelligence consulting, with forty-five years of experience in the global growth of technology, pharmaceuticals, and engineering.  She has experienced many “first female” accolades in her career, including as a partner in a Wall Street law firm, as a senior executive in a Fortune 50 corporation, and as the lead lawyer in a premier global technology think tank.  Ms. Lach serves on several Boards, including the Board of Governors of the University of St. Thomas Law School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Ms. Lach is also a judge/arbitrator in the Civil Courts of the City of New York, where she lives, and has focused her philanthropic work on the protection of victims of gender violence and international trafficking, and on the funding of innovative theatre and arts projects. Ms. Lach is admitted to practice law before the United States Supreme Court, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.

Trudi Makhaya was appointed in April 2018 as economic advisor in the office of His Excellency President Cyril Ramaphosa. In this role, she provided technical support to the President on economic policy. This included regular input on key issues and initiatives (such as the Investment Drive, Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan, just transition and green economy, Operation Vulindlela). She interfaced with
relevant advisory councils and economic policy stakeholders. Trudi also served as South Africa’s G20 sherpa, representing the President in the drafting and negotiations ahead of Leaders’ summits and meetings.

Before taking up this role, Trudi was CEO of Makhaya Advisory, a niche consulting firm with a focus on helping business navigate economic policy, including competition policy (anti-trust), that she founded in 2015. She has held non-executive directorships at Vumelana Advisory Fund and MTN South Africa and is an early-stage investor in a data insights start-up.

John McCall MacBain, a Canadian citizen from Niagara Falls, is the Founder and Chair of the McCall MacBain Foundation and President of Pamoja Capital SA, its investment arm.

From 1987 to 2006, Mr. McCall MacBain was the Founder, President and CEO of Trader Classified Media which was the world’s leading classified advertising company. In 2006, he successfully sold Trader Classified Media and set up the McCall MacBain Foundation.

The McCall MacBain Foundation has committed over $500 million of charitable donations for scholarships and education, health and the environment, especially climate change, in Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Africa. 

Mr. McCall MacBain is a Rhodes Scholar and received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, an M.A. in Law from the University of Oxford, and an Honours BA in Economics from McGill University. While at Oxford, he was Co-Captain of the Varsity-winning Oxford University Ice Hockey Club.

John currently devotes a significant amount of his time to philanthropic activities.  In addition to his role as Chair of the MMF, he is also the Second Century Founder of the Rhodes Trust. Mr. McCall MacBain is currently the Chancellor of McGill University.

Dr. Richard Morales, Jr. was selected as the first Hispanic Brigade Commander at United States Military Academy. He then attended Christ Church College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Richard served in the United States Army at Fort Benning, Georgia and Vicenza, Italy as a paratrooper and infantry officer. He continued his 12 years of military service as a US Army physician after graduating from the Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Morales was a faculty member at the University of California, San Francisco prior to private practice. He was appointed Chief of Staff of his hospital and was a key member of the Hospital Foundation Board. Richard and his wife, Penny, founded The Ricardo Fund in his large hospital system. The theme of this program was “Opening Doors” which provided over 225 scholarships for entry level hospital workers of whom the majority were persons of color. Physician mentorship encouraged their advancement through education, training and certifications. Richard’s father came to New York from Puerto Rico as a six-year old orphan to be raised by his maternal aunt. His father exemplified grace and courage in the face of barriers and indignities, and inspired Richard’s determination and awareness of others.

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Professor Arthur G.O. Mutambara is the Director and Full Professor of the Institute for the Future of Knowledge (IFK) at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) in South Africa. He is a world-renowned roboticist, academic, author, Pan-Africanist and technology strategist. Professor Mutambara is also the Director of IFK’s Decentralised Artificial Intelligence and Control Systems (DAICS) Research Group and drives the African Agency in Public Health (AAPH) initiative within the Future of Health (FoH) Research Group. He teaches Control Systems in UJ’s Mechanical Engineering and Electrical and Electronic Engineering Departments.                                                                                                                    Professor Mutambara is the Former Deputy Prime Minister of Zimbabwe. Mutambara was one of the three Principals who created and led the Government of National Unity (GNU) from 2009 to 2013. Professor Mutambara is a distinguished public intellectual across the African continent and globally, where he has conducted presentations on leadership, management, business and engineering, in addition to motivational speeches and seminars.

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Harj is a barrister specialising in climate change law and litigation at Doughty Street Chambers in London. Harj appears in ground-breaking climate litigation before national, regional and international courts. Across his career, Harj has been involved in strategic climate litigation in more than 15 countries, including Vietnam, Chile, Brazil, Japan, the Philippines, Vanuatu and Indonesia. Harj was previously a climate negotiator for a Pacific nation and a policy advisor in the Australian Prime Minister’s Department.

Alongside his court practice, Harj is also a fellow in climate law at leading universities. He is an Honorary Research Associate in climate law and litigation at the University of Oxford, a Visiting Senior Fellow in climate law and litigation at the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics, and also teaches a class on Indigenous rights and environmental law at the University of Cambridge.  

Syrian Oudist and composer, Mohannad Nasser, has emerged as an innovative and creative musician with years of experience in performing on the Middle East musical scenes and expertise in teaching oriental music.

His musical vision is based on the Arabic traditional music with a strong flavor of the Oriental roots.

Mohannad’s journey with the Oud came from his rich period of studies at the Higher Institute of Music in Damascus, where he perfected his knowledge in traditional oriental music and explored the classical Western music.

During his career, he was able to expand the Oud abilities by adapting it to different musical genres, like the classical music, the jazz music, Brazilian music or the flamenco.

In 2017, Mohannad released the first album of his group Oumi ensemble, “Imaginary Dance”, and started his solo project “L’Oud whispers”.

Mohannad received several prizes at international Oud competitions and he is performing his music all around the world.

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David is one of the world’s foremost authorities on ethics and organizational culture. His work has helped to transform the fields of organizational and military ethics, and he advises some of the world’s largest private and public organizations.

A distinguished moral philosopher, David worked for almost two decades at the University of Oxford where he was Co-Director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict and Co-Founder of the Oxford Changing Character of War program.

A Rhodes Scholar from New Zealand, David began his career at Boston Consulting Group. In 2011 he was honored by the World Economic Forum as a “Young Global Leader”, recognizing the most distinguished young leaders in all fields below the age of 40.

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Michael Sandel (Massachusetts and Balliol 1975) teaches political philosophy at Harvard University.  His books--on justice, democracy, ethics, and markets--have been translated into more than 30 languages. He has been described as “a rock star moralist” (Newsweek) and “the world’s most influential living philosopher.” (New Statesman) 

Sandel’s books include The Tyranny of Merit; What Money Can’t Buy; Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?; The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering; and Democracy’s Discontent: A New Edition for Our Perilous Times.

Sandel’s free online course “Justice” has been viewed by tens of millions. His BBC series “The Global Philosopher” explores the ethical issues lying behind the headlines with participants from around the world. His lectures have packed such venues as St. Paul’s Cathedral (London), the Sydney Opera House (Australia), and an outdoor stadium in Seoul (S. Korea), where 14,000 people came to hear him speak.

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Dr. Varun Sivaram is Group Senior Vice President, Strategy & Innovation, for Ørsted, a $40B renewable energy producer. He previously served in the U.S. Biden-Harris administration as managing director for clean energy and senior advisor to John Kerry, the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, where he spearheaded the First Movers Coalition. Previously, he's served as CTO of ReNew Power, India's largest renewable company; on the faculty of Columbia and Georgetown Universities; as energy director at the Council on Foreign Relations; and as senior advisor to the Los Angeles Mayor and New York Governor. He's been named to the TIME 100 Next, an MIT Technology Review top 35 innovator, and a WEF Young Global Leader. His books include "Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet (MIT Press)." He holds a Ph.D. in condensed matter physics from Oxford University and undergraduate degrees from Stanford University.

Adam Smith is the Director of the Rothermere American Institute. He is the Edward Orsborn Professor of United States Politics & Political History and a Fellow of University College. His specialism is the political history of the United States in the nineteenth century. In 2017, the University of North Carolina Press published his latest book, The Stormy Present: Conservatism and the Problem of Slavery in Northern Politics, 1846-1865, which won the Jefferson Davis Award and was a finalist for the Lincoln Prize. His previous books include No Party Now: Politics in the Civil War North (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).  In 2019 he joined the a board of the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission, which awards scholarships to US students wishing to study in the UK.

Rachel Skokowski is passionate about the power of museums to ignite the imagination and inspire action. She is currently Curator of the Janet Turner Print Museum at California State University, Chico and has worked with museum collections in the US and abroad, including the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the University of Sydney, and the Ashmolean Museum. She completed her DPhil and MSt in Modern Languages at Oxford, where her research focused on 19th century French literature and print culture. She is an advocate for using technology to bring the arts to new audiences and served as a 2022 Innovation Fellow at JSTOR Labs.

Dr. Suliman has played a leading role for 25 years in the growth of global biotech sector leaders such as Gilead and Genentech. She has championed creative business models to enable widespread access to novel therapies for HIV in the developing world. 

She is a champion for Board diversity and a program that has enabled >200 women to be recruited to Corporate Boards. She is at the forefront of leading the biopharma industry’s response to support women’s reproductive health care rights in the United States.  

Dr. Suliman was recognized as a 2017 Fiercest Women in Life Sciences, a Power 50 leader (2021) and a top 100 nationally recognized female business leader. She received her M.D. (MB, ChB) at the University of Cape Town Medical School, South Africa, and holds an M.B.A, with distinction, and M.Phil. degrees from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. Dr. Suliman serves on the Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc. (NASDAQ: RARE) and 10x Genomics (NASDAQ: TXG) Boards. 

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After obligatory stints at Goldman and McKinsey following his D.Phil in International Relations, Pierre spent two decades in and around CDC (now BII), the UK’s development finance organisation (interrupted by periods setting up a private equity fund in Afghanistan in 2006-8 and running a logistics business in Nigeria in 2011-13). 

In 2019, he founded Natural Heritage Capital, a specialist investment firm dedicated to addressing challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, and poverty by scaling nature-positive enterprises in Africa. In that role he was a catalyst for the establishment of the largest forestry fund in Africa, the $200m African Forestry Impact Platform managed by New Forests, and guided BII, Norfund and DFC into a $90m investment into AgDevCo, a leading agribusiness investment platform in Africa. He is now busy raising a new Nature Ventures Fund, fccused on investing in responsible agriculture, nature based solutions and other nature-positive enterprises on the continent.

Claire Wang is a 2019 Rhodes Scholar (Utah & Linacre 2019), 2018 Truman Scholar, and 2018 Udall Scholar focused on climate change and energy policy. While at Oxford, Claire received an MSc in Environmental Change and Management and an MSc Contemporary Chinese Studies. She is currently a Senior Policy Advisor to U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry.    
 
Claire received her bachelor's degree in Environmental Sciences & Policy from Duke University, where she led a successful two-year grassroots campaign to stop a series of natural gas plants from being constructed across North and South Carolina. She has previously worked for Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), Evergreen Action, and the Sierra Club.

Meg Whitman was confirmed in a unanimous vote by the U.S. Senate as the eighteenth United States Ambassador to Kenya on July 14, 2022. She presented her credentials to then President Uhuru Kenyatta, on August 5, 2022.  

Ambassador Whitman has significant experience leading business organizations, from start-ups to large multinational companies in Silicon Valley. She has served as the President and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise and the Hewlett-Packard Company, both multinational information technology companies. She also served as President and CEO of eBay Inc, an online marketplace and digital payments company. 

Ms. Whitman has also been a member of a number of corporate boards of directors, including Procter & Gamble and General Motors. Committed to equality in education and protection of the environment, Ambassador Whitman has been National Board Chair of Teach For America and has been a Member of the Board of Trustees of The Nature Conservancy.  

Ambassador Whitman is married to Dr. Griffith Harsh, a neurosurgeon. They have two grown sons and two grandchildren. 

Maxine Williams is the Chief Diversity Officer at Meta, formerly Facebook, and she serves as a member of Meta’s most senior executive leadership team under the CEO.

Maxine’s team works to increase the cognitive diversity of all Meta teams to integrate diverse perspectives into people, policy and product development.

Prior to Meta, Maxine served as the director of diversity for a global law firm. She has worked as an attorney in criminal, civil and industrial courts in her native Trinidad and Tobago and has appeared at the UK Privy Council. Maxine has also worked with multiple international organizations on development and human rights issues and had a career as a broadcast journalist, actress and on-air presenter. Maxine is a director on the board of Doma Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: DOMA). She graduated from Yale University before receiving her law degree with first class honors from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.

Professor Ngaire Woods is the founding Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government and Professor of Global Economic Governance at Oxford University. Her research focuses on how to enhance the governance of organisations, the challenges of globalisation, global development, and the role of international institutions and global economic governance.

She has served as an advisor to the African Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Center for Global Development, the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. She is an independent non-executive director of Rio Tinto, Board member of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Education Foundation and Trustee of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and Van Leer Foundation, and a member of the Conseil d'administration of the Institut National Du Service Public.

Jack Zoeller has founded seven companies in 40 years.  Currently he manages Purefy, an award-winning loan comparison site, and a nonprofit, The Aunt Betty Fund, launched to channel funding to assist borrowers burdened by education debt.

Mr. Zoeller is a Visiting Research Professor at George Washington University specializing in 16^th and 17^th century Anglo-American history. Devoting a year of research into the early life of the first African American Rhodes Scholar, Jack’s article, Alain Locke at Oxford: Race and the Rhodes Scholarship, received broad acclaim.

He graduated first in his class at West Point and served as an infantry company commander in the 82nd Airborne and analyst in the Pentagon, on a team credited with preserving the all-volunteer Army.

Jack holds a Bachelor of Science from the U.S. Military Academy, a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard and M.Litt. in Politics from Oxford.  He resides with his wife Kathryn in Washington, DC.

Zinta Zommers is the Climate Science Lead for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, where she works to reduce the impacts of climate shocks on vulnerable communities. An expert in risk management and climate change adaptation, she was an author of the 2023 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Synthesis Report. Zinta has worked with the United Nations in a variety of capacities – in Kenya with the Chief Scientist’s Office of UN Environment, in Germany with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and in Sierra Leone with the Food and Agriculture Organization, where she helped lead the response to the Freetown landslides. In 2015 she joined the UN Secretary General’s Climate Change Support Team, supporting the negotiation of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Zinta has a M.Phil. in Development Studies and a D.Phil. in Zoology from the University of Oxford. She has authored two books on early warning systems and adaptation to climate change and is a visiting Fellow at Perry World House, University of Pennsylvania.