One of three founders of Connected Women Leaders, Hafsat Abiola is the president of Women in Africa Initiative, the foremost platform organizing the continent’s leading women into a force for sustainable development.

An economist with degrees from Harvard and Tsinghua; a pro-democracy activist who lost both parents to her country’s democracy struggle; and a former member of her state’s cabinet in charge of the Millennium Development Goals and trade and investment portfolios; she believes women’s equal engagement in the economy and governance systems at all levels will lead to a better world.

Meredith Adler is the executive director of Student Energy, a global youth-led organization creating the next generation of energy leaders who will accelerate the transition to a sustainable energy future. With a network of over 50,000 students in 120 countries, Student Energy is the leading energy organization for youth empowerment, skills development and intergenerational collaboration for our energy future. Ms. Adler knows that youth innovation can deliver the sustainable solutions needed and that they need a seat at the table wherever their future is being determined. She works to develop young people’s capacity to be change agents while working with the energy industry, governments and organizations to create space for intergenerational collaboration. She is also part of the Generation Climate Initiative.

Naseef Ahammed is a carbon entrepreneur and an environmentalist based in Leeds, England. As the founder and director of Reshift, he helps SMEs in the U.K. to create and sustain their net-zero journey through Zero Carbon — the first-ever automated platform to help businesses monitor their products’ carbon footprint as well as plan their future net-zero pathway. He is a founding member of Muslims Declare Climate and Ecological Emergency, alongside his involvement in Extinction Rebellion and Zero Carbon Yorkshire.

Andreas Ahrens leads the global climate agenda for Inter IKEA Group and the full IKEA value chain — from material extraction and processing to product end of life. He also leads the connected strategic initiative to ensure that IKEA develops as an organization to meet its strategic commitments and targets to become climate positive by 2030, by reducing more greenhouse gas emissions than the IKEA value chain emits, while growing the IKEA business. He has previously worked extensively with sustainability integration, product development and supply-chain management with a particular focus on climate and the circular economy.

Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr OBE was sworn in as mayor in May 2018, with a commitment to transform Freetown using an inclusive, data-driven approach to address challenges in the city. The three-year Transform Freetown plan details 19 concrete targets across 11 sectors, with community-owned climate action initiatives to facilitate job creation and improve living standards at its heart. A finance professional with over 25 years of private-sector experience, her public-sector engagement began with her work during the Ebola epidemic in 2014. She is a chartered accountant with an M.Sc. in politics of the world economy and a B.Sc. in economics.

Jim Andrew joined PepsiCo in 2016. He heads the firm’s Beyond the Bottle business unit, including the SodaStream and SodaStream Professional businesses. He also leads PepsiCo’s sustainability agenda, including its strategic framework, governance and integrated plans, while ensuring that sustainability is woven into the operating plans of all business units. Previously, he served as chief strategy and innovation officer for Philips and as C.E.O. of Philips Group Innovation, based in Amsterdam. Prior to this, he held roles with Sears and Boston Consulting Group.

Monica Araya works with leaders in governments, business, philanthropy and activism to accelerate the shift toward fossil-free, sustainable mobility. She is a distinguished fellow at the ClimateWorks Foundation, where she advises on the Drive Electric campaign and coalition and is special adviser to the U.N. high-level champion for climate action.

Manish Bapna is president and C.E.O. of the Natural Resources Defense Council. An economist by training, he got his start at McKinsey & Company and the World Bank, before pursuing a career in advocacy at the Bank Information Center, a small nonprofit. Most recently, he was executive vice president and managing director of the World Resources Institute. He has master’s degrees in business and political and economic development from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from M.I.T.

Kathy Baughman McLeod leads the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center’s work to reach one billion people worldwide with climate resilience solutions by 2030. She also chairs the Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance that is helping appoint chief heat officers and she is spearheading the global push to name and categorize heat waves. She was formerly global executive for environmental and social risk at Bank of America, managing director for climate resilience at the Nature Conservancy, and a Florida climate commissioner. She is the recipient of the Fuqua School of Business 2021 Leader of Consequence Award from Duke University.

​​Paul Behrens is an author and academic in environmental change at Leiden University. His popular science book, “The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures From the Frontiers of Climate Science,” (Indigo Press) describes humanity’s trajectory and possible future in paired chapters of pessimism and hope. He is also editor and author of “Food and Sustainability” (Oxford University Press). His research on food, energy and climate change has appeared in The New York Times, Scientific American magazine and journals Nature Communications, Nature Energy and PNAS, as well as the BBC and elsewhere.

Tzeporah Berman has been designing and winning campaigns in Canada and internationally for 30 years. She currently serves as international program director at Stand.earth, formerly known as ForestEthics, which she con-founded, and chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Committee. She is co-founder of the Global Gas & Oil Network the former co-director of Greenpeace International's Climate and Energy Program. She is the author of “This Crazy Time: Living Our Environmental Challenge” and an adjunct professor of York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of British Columbia in 2013 and received the Climate Breakthrough Project award in 2019. In 2021, she gave a widely viewed TED talk presenting the case for a global treaty to phase out fossil fuels.

Edward Brial is one of the co-founders of Materra, reducing the fashion industry's environmental impact by developing climate resilient farms and intelligence systems to grow radically more sustainable cotton. His role combines his experience in strategic thinking and hands-on implementation, driven by an ambition to ensure a contextually aware design and innovation process working for farmers and the environment.

Pam Brunton is chef and co-owner of Inver Restaurant on Scotland’s remote western coast. Her 20-year food career bounces from academia to kitchens and back again; from remote Scottish islands to Scandinavia via London, Belgium and France. She started cooking after embarking on a philosophy degree, returning to university nine years later and earning a master’s degree in food policy before spending four years on food charity and campaign work, learning to think anew about restaurants and their role in the world.

Kayla-Megan Burns is a climate and social justice activist who has led campaigns that resulted in the divestment and sustainable reinvestment of millions of pounds and secured significant targets for carbon reduction within their university community. Originally from Enniskillen, N.Ireland, Mx. Burns moved to Glasgow to pursue studies in biomedical science at the University of Strathclyde, playing a key role both locally and nationally in campaigns surrounding the right to education for all, the climate emergency and gender equality through the National Union of Students and as president and vice president of community at Strathclyde Students’ Union. Mx. Burns is also part of the Generation Climate Initiative.

Anthony Burns is the C.O.O. of ACS Clothing, empowering fashion retailers and brands to strategically embed and embrace circular business models. Under his leadership, ACS has been transformed into a circular fashion enterprise with clothes rental offerings for women, men, children and babies. Having already achieved zero waste to landfill and carbon neutrality and now working toward net-zero emissions, he has expanded the company’s expertise into garment refurbishment, whereby clothes normally deemed unusable by retailers are transformed into new garments to be resold. As part of his mission to improve the sustainability of the fashion industry and be more socially accountable, he has focused the business on a social responsibility agenda by becoming an accredited Living Wage provider, a Disability Confident employer and signing the Race at Work Charter. ACS has also been praised for its employee health and well-being initiatives and is currently working toward B Corp status.

Mark Campanale is the founder of the Carbon Tracker Initiative and conceived the ‘unburnable carbon’ thesis. Prior to forming Carbon Tracker, he gained 20 years of experience in sustainable financial markets. He is a co-founder of some of the first responsible investment funds at Jupiter Asset Management, NPI (now Phoenix Life), AMP Capital and Henderson Global Investors. He served on the World Business Council for Sustainable Development working group on capital markets leading up to the 1992 Earth Summit and was a member of the Steering Committee of the U.N. Environment Program’s Finance Initiative . He continues to advise a number of investment funds.

Joao Campari is global leader of WWF’s Food Practice, leading the network´s efforts to enhance the sustainability of the global food system. His primary areas of focus are sustainable agriculture and aquaculture, sustainable diets and food loss and waste. He is also the chair of the U.N. Food Systems Summit Action Track 3 on boosting nature-positive production. Prior to WWF, he was special sustainability adviser at the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, where he also served as president of the Low-Carbon Agriculture Platform and as executive secretary of the Agribusiness Commission on Sustainable Development. He holds a Ph.D. in environmental economics and his research and publications focus on the nexus of rural poverty and natural resources management in agricultural frontiers.

Mark Carney is currently the U.N. special envoy on climate action and finance and Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s finance adviser for COP26. He sits on the board of the Arnhold Distinguished Fellowship Program within Conservation International. He is also an external member of the board at Stripe, a global technology company building economic infrastructure for the internet. He was previously governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020 and governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013.

Lauren Chin worked as a strategy consultant at EY. Interfacing with C-suite executives to both facilitate strategic conversations and gauge client needs, she honed her skills on various projects across SMEs to large multinational corporations. After pivoting to a climate track through the start of her M.Sc. in energy, society and sustainability at the University of Edinburgh, she has gained a wealth of knowledge in sustainability and climate change – leading to her employment at the university’s Centre for Business, Climate Change and Sustainability. Aside from driving and managing the center’s projects around COP26, she has also worked as a research consultant for Green Angel Syndicate – the U.K.’s only climate-focused angel investing syndicate. She has conducted numerous in-depth interviews to understand green investment strategies and investor thoughts around innovation. She and her team also placed second in the Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge, where they presented to leading figures in the sustainable finance world.

Audrey Choi is Morgan Stanley’s chief sustainability officer and the founding C.E.O. of Morgan Stanley’s industry-leading Institute for Sustainable Investing, where she oversees the firm’s efforts to promote global sustainability through the capital markets. She also serves on the firm’s Management Committee. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, she held senior policy positions in the Clinton administration. Previously, she was a foreign correspondent and bureau chief at The Wall Street Journal. She serves on the boards of several national nonprofits focused on sustainability, community development and social justice. She is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School.

Elaine Chow is a GreenBiz 30 Under 30 honoree and a nontraditional design entrepreneur who envisions a world built with rapidly renewable and high-performing plant fibers and bio-based resins. Her investigations into circular design led her to co-found Lingrove, a biomaterials company developing beautiful, massively scalable and CO2-negative natural fiber composites for construction and transportation.

Kim Cobb is the faculty director of the Global Change Program at Georgia Tech, which focuses on building capacity for climate solutions. In her research, she uses observations of past and present climate to advance our understanding of future climate change impacts, with a focus on climate extremes and coastal flood hazards. She is honored to be a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report.

Roger Cohen joined The New York Times in 1990. He was a foreign correspondent for more than a decade before becoming acting foreign editor on Sept. 11, 2001 and foreign editor six months later. In 2004, he began writing a column for The International New York Times, formerly known as The International Herald Tribune. Between 2009 and 2020, he was a New York Times columnist, writing mainly on international affairs and American politics, becaming Paris bureau chief in 2020.

Jamie Crummie trained as a lawyer before pursuing his mission of fighting food waste. He is the co-founder of Too Good To Go, the world’s largest marketplace for surplus food, enables consumers to buy unsold food from restaurants and retailers so that it doesn’t go to waste. The app is now active in 17 countries and has 47 million users who have rescued over 90 million meals collectively. Mr. Crummie was named a Trailblazing Activist in the 50 Next class of 2021, a One Young World Entrepreneur of the Year in 2020 and appeared among the Forbes 30 Under 30 in Europe in 2019. He was shortlisted for the Entrepreneur for Good Award at the NatWest Great British Entrepreneur Awards 2019.

Ani Dasgupta is president and C.E.O. of World Resources Institute (WRI), where he works to advance the organization’s global vision to improve the lives of all people and ensure that nature can thrive. A widely recognized leader in the areas of sustainable cities, urban design and poverty alleviation, he developed his expertise in positions ranging from nonprofits in India to the World Bank, where he developed its first knowledge strategy. He took the helm at WRI after seven years as global director of the institute’s Ross Center for Sustainable Cities.

Chris Davies' passion for food and sustainability led him to found Harvest London in 2017, which uses hydroponic vertical farming to offer the food industry high-quality ingredients with reduced environmental impact. He has 10 years of experience in management consulting, working with companies across Europe, Asia and the U.S.

Amy Davis is innovating for a more sustainable world as president New Power at Cummins. With her extensive leadership background and passion for pioneering emerging alternative power technologies, she leads innovators across four continents to accelerate the possibilities of electrified, fuel cell and hydrogen products in commercial and industrial markets.

Brandi DeCarli is the founding partner and C.E.O. of Farm From a Box, a cleantech-powered infrastructure toolkit for community-based local food production. She is an advisory member of Jordanian agritech accelerator Hassad, a rising talent with the Women's Forum and was named among the inaugural Explorer’s Club EC50 list. She is a frequent global speaker on technology's role in climate resilience, economic empowerment and women's leadership, including her TEDx talk, "How technology and togetherness can transform our world."

Cédric De Meeûs is vice president of group public affairs and government relations at Holcim, the world’s leading building materials company and the first cement firm to set a science-based net-zero target. He is an environmental engineer and recognized expert in climate action and the creation of circular models and sustainable construction ecosystems. He currently chairs Construction Products Europe and sits on the steering committees of the World Bank’s Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition and the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction.

Adriana De Palma is a World Economic Forum Young Scientist who uses data-science approaches to collate and synthesize existing data to better understand local and global biodiversity responses to anthropogenic drivers of change, including both land-use change and extreme weather events. She is particularly interested in using robust statistical techniques to identify — and test the efficacy of — potential management practices and policy decisions at different scales to mitigate the impacts of global change on biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Michiel De Smet leads the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's finance initiative, aiming to scale funding for the circular economy. As part of this work, he is a member of the E.U. Platform on Sustainable Finance, working on the E.U. taxonomy. Previously, he was a policy officer at the European Commission, where he worked on innovation and policies toward a circular economy for plastics. Earlier, he led the work on engaging policymakers and international institutions for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's New Plastics Economy initiative. He consulted management executives in the private sector while working at McKinsey & Company, as well as the social sector, through the On Purpose leadership program. He holds a Ph.D. in mathematics and is also part of the Generation Climate Initiative.

Professor Laura Diaz Anadon holds the chaired Professorship of Climate Change Policy at the University of Cambridge. She is also the director of the Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy & Natural Resource Governance (C-EENRG) and a visiting scholar at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. Among other roles and honors, she received the 2018 Banco Sabadell Foundation Award for Economic Research, is an IPCC lead author, and is an adviser to various decarbonization policy initiatives.

John Doerr is an engineer, venture capitalist, chairman of Kleiner Perkins. He is the author of the recently published book “Speed and Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now,” as well as the New York Times best seller" “Measure What Matters: OKRs: The Simple Idea that Drives 10x Growth.” For over 40 years, he has served entrepreneurs with ingenuity and optimism, helping them build bold teams and disruptive companies. He was an original investor and board member at Google and Amazon, helping to create more than a million jobs. A pioneer of Silicon Valley’s cleantech movement, he has invested in zero-emissions technologies since 2006. Outside Kleiner Perkins, he works with social entrepreneurs who are tackling systemic issues across climate, public health and education.

Tjada D’Oyen McKenna is C.E.O. at Mercy Corps, where she leads a global team of 5,400 humanitarians working in more than 40 countries affected by crisis, disaster, poverty and climate change. Previously, she served in leadership roles with CARE and Habitat for Humanity and spent more than a decade working to tackle world hunger in roles with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. government. She earned a B.A. from Harvard College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Yasmine Encelade leads business development for SMO Solar Process, a modular, solar-powered bioenergy system. With carbon capture and utilization technology that turns carbon-based waste into affordable green hydrogen, the system also recycles the carbon into valuable industrial feedstock and can also be used in low-infrastructure locations. With an M.B.A. background, she has worked on innovating multimillion-dollar early-stage projects and felt a strong calling to promote island leadership on climate issues with SMO Solar Process, the first recipient of the Solar Impulse label in the Caribbean.

Emmanuel Faber is the former chair and C.E.O. of Danone, a trailblazer for regenerative food and agriculture practices and social inclusion. He led the multinational company to become an environmental, social and governance leader, which culminated with the adoption by a 99% vote of shareholders in favor of the new French status of Entreprise à Mission in 2020, whereby Danone will become the only publicly listed company in the world that reports its financial earnings on a Scope 3 CO2-adjusted basis. He is the founder and chair of the One Planet Business for Biodiversity coalition, pushing for agricultural biodiversity and soil health, as well as a founder of the G7 Business for Inclusive Growth coalition, co-chaired with O.E.C.D. secretary general. He is a member of the U.K. G7 Impact Taskforce and a member of the Transformational Economics Commission of the Club of Rome. He is also the former co-chair of the Consumer Goods Forum.

Bomi Fagbemi is the co-founder and C.E.O. of Bioloop, a Nigerian biorefinery for upcycling organic waste. Bioloop aims to revolutionize African food systems through the design of closed-loop processes. Prior to founding Bioloop, he worked as a consultant at Sahel Consulting supporting the implementation of agricultural development projects. He holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in politics, philosophy and economics, with a minor in French.

Hannah Fairfield is The Times’s climate editor. She joined The New York Times in the graphics department in 2000, and has focused on data visualization and visual storytelling. She has also taught information design at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Jessica Fanzo is the Bloomberg distinguished professor of global food policy and ethics at the Berman Institute of Bioethics, the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, all at Johns Hopkins University. From 2017 to 2021, she served on the Food Systems Economic Commission, the Global Panel of Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition “Foresight 2.0” report and the U.N. High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition, as well as the EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health.

Jason Farago, critic at large for The New York Times, writes about art and culture in the U.S. and abroad. At The Times, Jason has reported from grand opera houses to underground nightclubs in more than a dozen foreign countries, exploring how culture reflects and informs our transformed cities, transformed economies and transformed climates. He co-founded and edited the culture magazine Even, whose ten-issue run is collected in the anthology “Out of Practice,” published by Motto. In 2017, he was awarded the inaugural Rabkin Prize for art criticism.

As MSCI’s chairman and chief executive officer, Henry Fernandez has led the firm for over two decades to its position today as a premier provider of indexes and portfolio construction and risk management tools, as well as E.S.G. data and research. MSCI is an S&P 500 company that is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It has revenues of over $1.6 billion and a market capitalization of over $30 billion. In 2019 and 2021, Mr. Fernandez was one of 30 leaders named in the Barron’s list of the world’s best C.E.O.s.

Lisa Friedman is a reporter on the Climate desk for The New York Times, focusing on climate and environmental policy in Washington, D.C. She has covered eight international climate talks and chased climate-related stories from the bottom of a Chinese coal mine to the top of snow-capped Himalayan mountains. She previously worked for Climatewire where she led a team of 12 reporters focused on the business and politics of the changing climate. Before Climatewire, she was the Washington bureau chief for The Oakland Tribune and later The Los Angeles Daily News.

Vanessa Friedman was named fashion director and chief fashion critic for The New York Times in 2014. Before joining the paper, she was the inaugural fashion editor of the Financial Times, beginning in 2003. Along with editing the Style pages and the Luxury360 vertical, she wrote a weekly column for the Saturday FT and created the FT's annual Business of Luxury conference.

Kakembo Galabuzi Brian is the founder and director of the WEYE Clean Energy Company, a youth-led social enterprise that uses business as a tool to empower over 700 youth and women to create sustainable and affordable climate solutions. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Makerere University in Kampala, an expert certificate in sustainable energy from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and a certificate in business models for social impact from the Acumen Academy and the Miller Center Global Social Benefit Institute. He is scheduled to complete his M.B.A. in energy and sustainability in November 2021 and is also part of the Generation Climate Initiative.

Vanessa García Polanco works with food, agriculture, climate and sustainability stakeholders to create and strengthen sustainable and just food systems and communities with research, policy and programmatic interventions. She advocates for sustainable agriculture policies and racial equity in agriculture for young, BIPOC, small and diverse growers as the federal policy director of the National Young Farmers Coalition. She creates partnerships and works with networks to address systematic inequalities in our society as a board member of the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society, Michigan Food and Farming Systems and Campo Alante radio station. She is also part of the Generation Climate Initiative.

An investment professional with over 20 years’ experience in finance, principal investments and infrastructure, Tariye Gbadegesin has mobilized over $3 billion of capital for infrastructure projects in Africa. She is currently managing director and C.E.O. of ARM-Harith Infrastructure Investment, a Lagos-based infrastructure private equity fund manager investing in West Africa and establishing several ESG-themed initiatives centered on climate action.

David Gelles is the Corner Office columnist and a business reporter for The New York Times. He has written about mergers and acquisitions, media, technology and more for the paper. Before joining The Times, he was a reporter for the Financial Times in New York and San Francisco. While at the FT, he conducted an exclusive jailhouse interview with Bernard L. Madoff. He is the author of “Mindful Work: How Meditation Is Changing Business From the Inside Out.”

Florence Gschwend is co-founder and C.T.O. of Lixea. She holds a Ph.D. in chemistry and chemical engineering from Imperial College London, where she co-developed the dendronic® process — a sustainable chemical technology enabling the use of waste wood materials for the production of sustainable chemicals and fuels. She has won several prizes for both her research and entrepreneurial efforts and is passionate about using her skills to make a lasting difference to the environment and society.

As vice president, Nike Innovation, Seana Hannah is responsible for setting the long-term vision for sustainability across all product innovation. She leads a team of innovators, scientists and analysts who bring sustainability expertise to the exploration and creation of new sustainable product concepts.

James Harding is co-founder and editor of Tortoise Media. Prior to this, he was director of news and current affairs at the BBC, the world's largest news organization. He was the editor of The Times of London from 2007 to 2012, winning the Newspaper of the Year at the Press Awards twice during his five-years tenure as the paper’s editor.

Katharine Hayhoe is a climate scientist who is the chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy and a distinguished professor and chair at Texas Tech University. She can often be found talking to people about why climate change matters and what we can do to fix it.

Professor Richard Herrington is currently head of Earth sciences at the Natural History Museum and visiting professor at both the University of Exeter and Imperial College London. Trained as an economic geologist, his 40 years of experience includes working in the mining industry, which has framed his approach to developing minerals research that provides solutions to the challenges of discovery and recovery of useful minerals. The bulk of his current research is focused on metals critical for our modern economy, seeking supply solutions that ensure sustainable outcomes.

Carolyn Hogg is founder and managing director of Cascade Water Products, a purpose-driven enterprise developing and commercializing Aqua Gratis, a low-cost, low-energy system that is easy to fit, use and maintain. Carbon-negative, Aqua Gratis reuses domestic greywater and reduces water consumption by 45 percent.

Gilbert F. Houngbo is president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, a specialized United Nations agency dedicated to tackling rural poverty and hunger. He has more than 30 years’ experience in the public, multilateral and private sectors, including as deputy director general of the International Labour Organization . He is also the former prime minister of the Togolese Republic.

Merlin Hyman leads Regen’s mission to transform how we generate, supply and use energy to accelerate the transition to a zero-carbon future. A passionate advocate of a smart, decentralized, low-carbon energy system based on renewables, he is a highly influential figure in energy policy and, in 2019, was awarded an OBE for services to sustainable energy. He was previously director of the Environmental Industries Commission, where he worked to ensure government support for British companies to succeed in the worldwide market for low-carbon products and services.

Professor Tahseen Jafry is director of the pioneering Center for Climate Justice at Glasgow Caledonian University. She has extensive research and development experience on the social justice and equity aspects of climate change and has worked in 14 countries in the Global South. Her most recent areas of attention include the just transition, climate migration and conflict, gender and poverty targeting and the psycho-social impacts of climate change. She is an experienced lecturer, doctoral supervisor and is a sought-after commissioning reviewer for major platforms.

As Salesforce’s first director of ocean sustainability, Dr. Whitney Johnston works to advance nature-based solutions to climate change, while leveraging the full power of Salesforce for the benefit of oceans. Prior to joining Salesforce, she served as ocean policy adviser to U.S. Congressman Sam Farr, as well as vice president customer success at IdeaScale. She holds a Ph.D. in chemical oceanography from M.I.T. and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and is a former Knauss Marine Policy fellow with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Sea Grant program.

​​Lubomila Jordanova is the co-founder and C.E.O. of Plan A, a Berlin-based start-up developing an end-to-end platform that enables companies to measure, monitor and reduce their environmental footprint and improve their E.S.G. performance using machine learning and science. She is also the co-founder of the Greentech Alliance, a community of over 1,000 start-ups that are connected to over 500 venture capital, media and business advisers.

Raj Joshi is founder and C.E.O. of Bridging Ventures and a lead author of “The Decisive Decade: Organising Climate Action,” commissioned by the chief architect of the Paris Agreement, Christiana Figueres, as part of Mission 2020. Mr. Joshi was previously at the B Team for seven years serving as its inaugural managing director working across business, government and civil society, establishing offices in Nairobi, New York and London and developing global initiatives on climate action, good governance and human rights. Prior to this, he led the International Secretariat of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty and was elected to chair the Scottish Youth Parliament for two terms. Born in Scotland, his family is from Kenya and originates from Gujarat, India.

Ilham Kadri is C.E.O. of Solvay, a materials, chemicals and solutions company which, through its purpose, values and science, contributes to protecting the climate, preserving resources and fostering a better life. Dr. Kadri is a world citizen with broad professional experience across a variety of industries on four continents. She has worked with leading industrial multinationals, including Shell, UCB, Huntsman, Dow Chemical and Sealed Air. Prior to Solvay, she was C.E.O. and president of Diversey in the U.S. She holds a degree in chemical engineering from L’École des Hauts Polymères in Strasbourg and a Ph.D. in macromolecular physico-chemistry from Strasbourg’s Louis Pasteur University.

Kamila Kadzidlowska is a documentary filmmaker and one of the central organizers in Rodzice dla Klimatu, a parent climate group in Poland. She has three boys who have suffered from respiratory health problems because of air pollution. She is developing a short-film series called “Fumes of the Black Gold,” which features people whose lives are deeply affected by coal and the climate crisis. She is working closely with former miners, youth and families on the project, including those living in the shadow of the Bełchatów power plant.

Kristin Kagetsu is a co-founder of Saathi, a social enterprise dedicated to providing a sustainable solution for menstrual hygiene. As an undergrad, she worked on multiple projects with the M.I.T. Design Lab (D-Lab) in Brazil, Nicaragua and India. Her first product launch was a set of natural dye crayons from locally sourced natural materials that she developed with an N.G.O. in Uttarakhand, India. She has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from M.I.T. and is an M.I.T. D-Lab Scale-Ups fellow, an Asia Society Young Leader and TEDx speaker. She has been named among the Forbes list of 30 Under 30, is a Cartier Women’s Initiative finalist and was recognized by the Indian Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. Since its founding, Saathi has been recognized globally by Time magazine, the U.N. Environment Program, the University of St Andrews and Vogue, among many others, for its social impact, innovation and sustainability.

Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka is founder and C.E.O. of Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH), an award-winning N.G.O. that protects endangered gorillas and other wildlife through “One Health” approaches. After graduating from the Royal Veterinary College, she established the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s first veterinary department and founded CTPH after completing a zoological medicine residency and master’s degree at North Carolina Zoological Park and North Carolina State University, In 2015, she founded Gorilla Conservation Coffee to support farmers living around habitats where gorillas are found. Among many accolades and honors, she is a National Geographic explorer, Ashoka fellow and Mulago Foundation Henry Arnhold Fellow.

Bhavreen Kandhari co- founded Warrior Moms, which brings together mothers from all over India to fight air pollution. She has 17-year-old twin girls who have grown up in Delhi, the most polluted capital of the world. She wants urgent action on air pollution to safeguard Indian children’s health.

Ulka Kelkar is director of the climate program at the World Resources Institute India. She is an economist and has worked for the last two decades on climate change impacts and policy in India. Her current work explores low-carbon development pathways for India and supports climate action in Indian cities and states. She lives in Bangalore with her husband and daughter.

On January 20, 2021, John F. Kerry was sworn in as the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate and the first-ever principal to sit on the National Security Council entirely dedicated to climate change. President Biden announced that John Kerry would have a seat at every table around the world as he combats the climate crisis to meet the existential threat that we face. In recent years, Mr. Kerry was the first visiting distinguished statesman at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, having served as the 68th U.S. secretary of state for four years. As America’s top diplomat, he guided the department’s strategy on nuclear nonproliferation, combating radical extremism and the threat of climate change. His tenure was marked by the successful negotiation of the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement.

​​​​Radhika Khosla is associate professor at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford. She also serves as research director of the university’s Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development.

Olav Kjørven is EAT’s senior director of strategy. In this role, he is part of EAT’s leadership team and provides strategic oversight of EAT’s policy work, leads engagement on global policy areas,and guides EAT’s science and knowledge initiatives for maximum impact on food systems policies and practices.

Jennifer Kuhl comes to climate organizing from a health perspective. Raised by a doctor and an occupational therapist and learning about the grave impacts of climate change on people’s health propelled her into youth climate organizing while at university. She helped to launch Leadnow.ca, a digital campaigning organization prioritizing climate and democracy. In addition, she worked with the BC Health Coalition in Vancouver, advocating for improved and expanded public health care for all, including undocumented people. She is also part of the Generation Climate Initiative.

In April 2019, Ban Ki-moon was elected as the chairman of Korea’s National Council on Climate and Air Quality. In April 2018, he was elected as chairman of the Boao Forum for Asia. In January 2018, along with former President of Austria Heinz Fischer, he was inducted as a co-chair of the Ban Ki-moon Center for Global Citizens in Vienna. He was also elected as chairman of the International Olympic Committee’s Ethics Commission in September 2017. Currently, he serves as distinguished professor and honorary chairman of the Institute of Global Engagement & Empowerment at Yonsei University in Seoul.

Max Koene is president and C.E.O. of McCain Foods and serves on the board of directors. He joined McCain in 2012 as its C.F.O. and has embraced McCain’s agricultural roots and the importance of promoting sustainable farming and regenerative agriculture. Under his leadership, McCain became a founding partner of the One Planet Business for Biodiversity (OP2B) coalition and he is also a board member of the Consumer Goods Forum.

Father Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam is coordinator of the sector on ecology at the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. He is also chair of philosophy of science and director of the Institute of Social and Political Sciences at the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome. His passion is to pass on to
younger generations not only a sense of awe and wonder before the grandeur and majesty of the universe, but also a deep sense of concern for the increasingly precarious state of our common planetary home. He has been particularly associated with the study
and diffusion of the 2015 encyclical issued by Pope Francis, “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home.” His most recent publications include “Creation in Crisis: Science, Ethics, Theology” (2014), “The Philosophical Roots of the Ecological Crisis: Descartes and the Modern Worldview” (2017) and “The Ten
Green Commandments of Laudato Si’” (2019).

Rachel Kyte is the 14th dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University. A 2002 graduate of Fletcher’s global master of arts program and a professor of practice at the school since 2012, she is the first woman to lead the nation’s oldest graduate-only school of international affairs, which attracts students from all corners of the globe and at all stages of their careers.

Mark Landler is the London bureau chief of The New York Times. In 27 years at The Times, he has been bureau chief in Hong Kong and Frankfurt, White House correspondent, diplomatic correspondent, European economic correspondent and a business reporter in New York. He is the author of “Alter Egos" (Random House), a comparative study of the foreign policy of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Laura Lane is chief corporate affairs officer at United Parcel Service (UPS). In this role she oversees public policy and government affairs, public relations, employee communications, sustainability, community relations and the UPS Foundation. She is also a member of UPS’s Executive Leadership Team.

Renée Lertzman is a researcher, educator and eco-engagement strategist who uses psychological insights to change our approach to the environmental crisis. Applying her training as a psychosocial researcher specializing in deep human insights, she uses frameworks and methods that empower people to take action and create impact on climate and sustainability issues. She works with companies and organizations looking to strengthen climate and sustainability initiatives, develop more effective campaigns and harness the creativity and innovation needed to solve big problems.

Mindy Lubber is president and C.E.O. of the sustainability nonprofit organization Ceres. She has been at the helm since 2003, and under her leadership, the organization and its powerful networks have grown significantly in size and influence. As a well-known global thought leader, she has inspired coalitions of institutional investors, corporate boards, C-suite executives and capital market leaders to factor sustainability risks and opportunities into decision-making. She regularly speaks to high-level national and global political leaders on clean energy and water policies, and has helped to focus the political conversation around tackling climate change on jobs and the economy.

Dame Ellen MacArthur made yachting history in 2005, when she became the fastest solo sailor to circumnavigate the globe. She remains the U.K.’s most successful offshore racer ever, having won the OSTAR, the Route du Rhum, and finishing second in the Vendée Globe.

Having become acutely aware of the finite nature of the resources on which our linear economy relies, she retired from professional sailing to launch the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in 2010. The foundation works to accelerate the transition to a circular economy, and has helped establish the subject on the agenda of decision makers around the world.

Dr. Marie Macklin C.B.E. is a groundbreaking business leader who challenges conventional thinking. Her commitment to the environment and to young people is bringing hope to communities across the U.K. In 2014, she was awarded a C.B.E. in the Queen’s New Year’s Honors List for services to economic regeneration and entrepreneurship in Scotland. Twelve years in the making, the HALO Kilmarnock is a £63 million urban regeneration project designed to maximize collaboration between entrepreneurs and U.K.-listed companies, setting the standard for low-carbon energy sites to create sustainable communities powered by renewable energy.

For over two decades, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema has held various positions at the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), including director of the Law Division, deputy director of the Ecosystems Division, acting director of the Corporate Services Division and executive secretary of the UNEP/CMS (Convention on Migratory Species) Secretariat. Her work at UNEP has focused on the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, including multilateral environmental agreements at national, regional and international levels.

Craig Mathieson is founder of the Polar Academy, a project aimed at instilling confidence and self-belief in the youth of Scotland through participation in polar expeditions. He is explorer in residence at the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and a committee member of the Explorers Club Great Britain and Ireland Chapter. He is passionate about inspiring the next generation of leaders and explorers, using his personal experience of ‘inspiration through exploration’ in the military and as a mountaineer in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions.

Dr. Ajay Mathur is the director general of the International Solar Alliance and is one of India’s foremost climate change experts. He has been on the Indian prime minister’s Council on Climate Change and served as co-chair of the Energy Transitions Commission and of clean cooling initiatives at the One Planet Summit. He previously headed the Energy and Resources Institute and the Indian Bureau of Energy Efficiency and was the Indian spokesperson at COP21 in Paris.

Jessica O. Matthews is the founder and C.E.O. of Uncharted, an award-winning platform-as-a-service company that helps cities and developers reduce the cost and complexity of deploying and managing last mile infrastructure.

As chief sustainability officer, Erin Meezan ensures that Interface’s strategy and goals are in sync with its aggressive sustainability vision. Today, Interface has evolved its thinking to go beyond doing no harm to creating positive impacts, not just for Interface and the flooring industry, but for the world at large. She led the company to unveil a new mission — Climate Take Back — tackling the single biggest threat facing humanity: global climate change.

María Mendiluce is C.E.O. of the We Mean Business Coalition that catalyzes business leadership and policy ambition to accelerate the transition to a zero-carbon economy. Formerly managing director of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development covering climate, energy, the circular economy, cities and mobility, she played a pivotal role in guiding over 200 leading companies to take transformative action on climate policy, energy transition, plastic waste and urban mobility. She has also held senior positions at the Economic Bureau of the Spanish prime minister, in the C.E.O.’s office of Iberdrola and at the International Energy Agency.

Erika Mouynes is the minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Panama. She is a staunch advocate of the country’s sustainability policies, which have brought Panama to the forefront of the fight against climate change while keeping a focus on sustainable and inclusive growth. Under the leadership of President Laurentino Cortizo and with the support of the entire administration, the country has made very robust progress on reforestation, emissions reduction and ocean protection, becoming a pioneer in the search for ocean-based solutions to reach the goals of climate ambitions.

Edie Mukiibi lives and works in Uganda and is vice president of Slow Food. He is an agronomist, a food and agriculture educator, social entrepreneur and executive director of Slow Food Uganda. He also played a pivotal role in the development of the Slow Food Gardens in Africa project. Throughout his career, he has focused his efforts on developing ecological and organic agriculture and food systems in both rural and urban contexts in Africa. He was named among the inaugural 50 Next list of people shaping the future of gastronomy.

Dr. Maria P. Neira has been directing the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health at the World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, since September 2005. Throughout her tenure, she has led and advised on policy and management in key areas of environmental health.

Eshe Nelson is reporter for The New York Times in London, where she covers the British economy, business, finance and central banks. Before joining The Times, she was a global economics and markets reporter for Quartz and a currency and bond markets reporter for Bloomberg News. In 2020, she completed the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism at Columbia University.

Benjamin Njenga is the co-founder of Apollo Agriculture, a commercial farming platform that helps small-scale, unbanked farmers maximize their profits. A visionary leader with a passion for Agriculture, he holds an M.B.A. and a B.Sc. in agribusiness management and is dedicated to simplifying access to affordable lending for Africa’s 50 million small-scale farmers. Prior to Apollo, he worked for ACRE Africa as commercial director. He was instrumental in a team that introduced breakthrough micro-insurance products for smallholder farmers across East Africa.

Peter Okwoko is co-founder and C.O.O. at Takataka Plastics. He is passionate about sustainable waste management and moving toward a circular economy through innovative technological solutions. He plays an advisory role to local leaders in Gulu City, Uganda on matters related to waste management. He believes that, through technological innovations, developing countries can switch from a linear to a circular economy.

Ryan Panchadsaram is an engineer and investor focused on solving systemic, societal challenges. At Kleiner Perkins, he serves as technical adviser to Chairman John Doerr, where he invests in founders and technologies that aim to change the world. Together with John Doerr, he co-authored “Speed & Scale: A Global Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now” and collaborated on the number one best seller “Measure What Matters: OKRs: The Simple Idea that Drives 10x Growth.” Under President Obama, he was deputy chief technology officer of the United States, where he championed entrepreneurship, innovation and open data.

​​Rachel Parent is a food and climate justice activist. In 2012, she founded Kids Right to Know, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to educating youth about the connection between food production and climate change, with a focus and transparency in the labelling of genetically modified food and the regulation of pesticides in Canada and the United States. She is widely known for her debate with celebrity host Kevin O’Leary on CBC Television and speaks internationally, including TEDx talks.

Sheela Patel is the founding director of the Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), an N.G.O. that has been working since 1984 to support community organizations of the urban poor in their efforts to access secure housing and basic amenities and seek their right to the city.

Brad Plumer is a climate reporter specializing in policy and technology efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions. He has also covered international climate talks and the changing energy landscape in the United States for The New York Times.

Professor Andy Purvis is a research leader at the Natural History Museum in London. He heads the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) project, which aims to model globally how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human pressures in order to use these models to project potential biodiversity futures under alternative scenarios of socioeconomic development. He was a coordinating lead author on the first IPBES Global Assessment of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and scientific adviser on Sir David Attenborough’s BBC documentary, “Extinction: The Facts.”

Tom Rand is an experienced venture capitalist from Toronto and managing partner at ArcTern Ventures. With over 20 years experience of investing and scaling new technologies for reduced emissions and increased sustainability, he is a committed clean-tech capitalist. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and has used his knowledge on how we form belief systems to agitate for change and climate awakening in his books, “Kick the Fossil Fuel Habit: 10 Clean Technologies to Save Our World” and “Waking the Frog; Solutions for Our Climate Change Paralysis.” His most recent title, “The Climate Capitalism: Solutions for a Planet in Peril,” extends this thinking.

Stanley Reed has been writing for The New York Times on energy, the environment, and the Middle East from London since 2012. Prior to that he was London bureau chief for BusinessWeek agazine. He has reported from more than 40 countries. He won the Best of Knight-Bagehot Award from Columbia Journalism School in 2003 for his coverage of the war in Iraq. He is the co-author with Alison Fitzgerald of a book on BP.

Mary Robinson was the first woman president of Ireland and is a former U.N. high commissioner for human rights, and former U.N. special envoy for climate change. Chair of The Elders, she is a passionate advocate for gender equality, women’s participation in peacebuilding, human dignity and climate justice.

Avinash Rugoobur is president of Arrival, joining the company following a successful career at General Motors and Cruise Automation, as well as his own award-winning ventures Curve Tomorrow and Bliss Chocolates. At Arrival, he is responsible for business and product strategy and international expansion. He oversaw Arrival’s public listing in March 2021, which was the U.K.’s biggest I.P.O. ever, with a $13 billion float on Nasdaq. He also played a leading role in raising over $300 million in investment from blue-chip investors, including Hyundai, Kia, UPS and funds managed by BlackRock.

M. Sanjayan is a global conservation scientist specializing in the role of nature in preserving and enhancing human life. His work spans genetics and wildlife migration to nature’s impacts on human well-being. He has served as Conservation International’s C.E.O. since 2017. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Oregon and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz. His peer-reviewed scientific work has been published in journals including Science, Nature and Conservation Biology.

Adam Satariano is a technology correspondent for The New York Times in Europe. He covers technology policy, privacy, disinformation and other ways technology is reshaping the way we live and work, as well as how people and governments are responding to these changes.

Jacqueline Savitz is Oceana’s chief policy officer for North America. She oversees Oceana’s campaigns in the United States, Mexico and Belize to build fishery abundance and protect our oceans from the impacts of pollution and climate change. She is a co-founder and a member of the board of directors of Global Fishing Watch, an online platform that offers the first free global view of commercial fishing, in partnership with SkyTruth and Google. Prior to her work at Oceana, she served in various capacities for other environmental N.G.O.s, including Coast Alliance, the Environmental Working Group and Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

Somini Sengupta, the international climate reporter for The New York Times, tells the stories of communities and landscapes most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. A George Polk Award-winning foreign correspondent, she has reported from a Congo River ferry, a Himalayan glacier, the streets of Baghdad and Mumbai, and many places in between. As The Times’s United Nations correspondent, she reported on global challenges from war to women’s rights. Her first book, “The End of Karma: Hope and Fury Among India’s Young,” was published in 2016 by W.W. Norton. She grew up in India, Canada and the United States, graduating from the University of California at Berkeley.

Reto Schmid studied architecture at the University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland and the University of Sheffield, completed in addition a master’s degree in industrial design and worked in various architectural and design offices in Switzerland, Argentina and southern Africa. Fascinated by the interface of design, technology, sustainability and communication, he played a decisive role in the development and design of the first Joulia shower tray. Since co-founding the company in 2010, he has served as managing director since 2013, responsible for the firm’s product portfolio, marketing and business development.

Andrew Scott joined Orbital as C.E.O. in 2015, where he leads on corporate strategy, business planning, management of the Orbital team and all aspects of technology development. He has a degree in mechanical engineering from Strathclyde University in Glasgow and a master’s degree in energy from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. In 2019, he was awarded the Lennard-Senior Memorial Prize for outstanding achievement in the field of marine energy by the Society of Underwater Technology. He is a board member of the Ocean Energy Europe trade association.

Robyn Scott is co-founder and C.E.O. of Apolitical, a global network and learning platform for government. Prior to Apolitical she founded several companies and social enterprises, wrote an acclaimed memoir about growing up in Botswana, and worked for the Financial Times. She is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and a Gates Foundation Cambridge scholar. She has a B.Sc. in bioinformatics from Auckland University and a master’s degree in bioscience enterprise from Cambridge University.

Geeta Sethi is the Advisor and Global Lead for Food Systems at the World Bank. She is the lead architect of the World Bank’s Food System Transformation agenda, a food system that provides the triple bottom line — prosperity, sustainability and healthy people. She also manages the World Bank’s program on Food Loss and Waste Reduction. She has more than 20 years of experience working as an economist on fragile, low-, and middle-income countries. Her work has focused on issues of rural development, service delivery and intergovernmental fiscal policies around the world.

Kim Severson is national food correspondent for The New York Times covering trends and news. She was previously The Times’s Atlanta bureau chief and, before that, a staff writer for the Dining section. She won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for public service for her contributions to the team that investigated sexual harassment and abuse against women. She has also won four James Beard Foundation awards and the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism for her work on childhood obesity. Her first full-time food writing job was with the San Francisco Chronicle. She also spent seven years as an editor and reporter at the Anchorage Daily News in Alaska. Before writing about food, she covered crime, education, social services and government for daily newspapers on the West Coast.

Li Shuo is a senior global policy adviser at Greenpeace China. He leads the organization’s engagement with multilateral environmental agreements, including the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity. He also supports Greenpeace’s advocacy for better ocean governance under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, various regional fishery management organizations and the Antarctic Treaty. Domestically, he directs the organization’s policy campaign on a wide range of issues, including air pollution, water, renewable energy and fishery.

Peter Smith has over 20 years collective experience as an architect, carpenter and Passivhaus designer, with the last 10 years spent with Roderick James Architects, one of the U.K.’s leading timber frame specialists. Living sustainably and carefully, while considering our impact on the world, has been ingrained in his thinking from an early age. Sustainable architecture has played an ever-increasing role in his building designs and led to the development of the zero-carbon, timber-framed “COP26 House.”

Francesco Starace has been C.E.O. and general manager of Enel since May 2014. He joined the Enel Group in 2000, holding several senior executive positions including head of business power and managing director of the market division. From 2008 to 2014, he served as C.E.O. and general manager of Enel Green Power, the group’s renewable power generation company and a leading player in the global renewables industry. In November 2010, he oversaw the initial public offering of the company and its listing on the Milan and Madrid stock exchanges with a market capitalization of 8 billion euros.

Iain Stirling and his brothers set up Arbikie Distillery in 2014 and aim to be one of the world’s most sustainable distilleries. They distil their family of field-to-bottle, luxury spirits from the crops on their farms at Lunan Bay on Scotland’s sunny east coast. These include Nàdar, the world’s first climate-positive gin and Highland Rye, the world’s only rye Scotch whiskey, rated 9 out of 10 by Forbes Magazine.

Dr. Gunhild A. Stordalen, a physician with a Ph.D. in pathology/orthopedic surgery and an environmentalist, is the founder and executive chair of EAT, a global, nonprofit platform for food system transformation. She sits on several boards and advises on councils, including the lead group of the U.N. Scaling Up Nutrition Movement, the World Economic Forum’s Stewardship Board on Food Systems and UNICEF’s Advisory Group. She is a member of Africa Europe Women Leaders Network and sits on the International Advisory Board of the Stockholm Resilience Center.

Pavan Sukhdev is a scientist by education, an international banker by training and an environmental economist by passion. Years of work in sustainability and the invisible economics of nature led to his appointment as head of the United Nations Environment Program’sGreen Economy Initiative and leader of its G8+5 TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) study.

Manik Suri is founder and C.E.O. of Therma°, a technology start-up that combats climate change by eliminating energy and food waste from the global refrigeration system. Powered by the internet of things and machine learning, Therma° is building the world’s smart cold chain. Previously, Mr. Suri co-founded the GovLab at N.Y.U. and held positions at global investment firm D. E. Shaw & Company and the White House National Economic Council. He holds an A.B. in government summa cum laude from Harvard College, an M.Phil. from Cambridge University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Johan Swinnen is director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and global director for systems transformation at CGIAR (​​the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research). He earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Göttingen in Germany and the Slovak University of Agriculture. He has published extensively on agricultural and food policies, international development, political economy, institutional reform, trade and global value chains. His body of work has been widely cited and received multiple awards.

As captain of Moonshots, Astro Teller is responsible for steering X’s projects through the bumps and scrapes they meet along the road to reality. Prior to X, he founded and grew five companies including BodyMedia, which developed wearable body-monitoring devices. Before moving to the business world, he was an engineer and researcher for Phoenix Laser Technologies, and Stanford University’s Center for Integrated Systems, where he also taught a computer science class.

Ambassador Peter Thomson is the United Nations secretary general’s special envoy for the ocean. He drives global support for U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 14, to conserve and sustainably use the ocean’s resources. He served as president of the U.N. General Assembly from 2016 to 2017. As Fiji’s permanent representative to the U.N. between 2010 and 2016, he led the executive board of the U.N. Development Program, the U.N. Population Fund and the U.N. Office for Project Services and was elected as president of the International Seabed Authority’s Assembly and Council. He is a founding co-chair of the Friends of Ocean Action and is a supporting member of the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy.

Hank Torbert is chair of leading thermal storage technology company Sunamp, which designs and manufactures thermal batteries using breakthrough patented phase-change materials which store four times more energy than water. He has a distinguished background as a banker, investor and entrepreneur and is a seasoned business leader operating at the nexus of finance, strategy, innovation and operations within the industrial and energy sectors. He has been active in the launch of several businesses in the cleantech, mobility and utility tech sectors. He currently serves as president of Alta Max, a US-based provider of services and products for the defense industries, and C.E.O. of the Frontier Conference, an ecosystem of industrial innovation leaders focused on next-generation technologies. He also sits on the advisory boards of several entities including the Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee and the Center for Innovation Commercialization.

Peter Vanacker is president and C.E.O. of Neste, a company that refines waste, residues and innovative raw materials into renewable fuels and sustainable feedstock for plastics and other materials. With a background in polymers and the chemicals industry, he has proven expertise and a track record of performance in company transformations. Before joining Neste in 2018, he had an extensive career in various leadership positions in companies such as Bayer, Treofan and CABB.

Alexa Varah is ​​an ecologist studying the environmental impacts of agriculture and how to reduce them, using fieldwork and models to estimate multiple outcomes of different farm management strategies. These include biodiversity, pollination, carbon stocks and water quality, as well as assessing economic and production outcomes. She has worked in U.K. agroforestry systems and conventional arable farms, recently focusing on estimating the economic impacts of herbicide resistance. Previously, she was a science teacher in U.K. secondary schools.

Florence Verzelen started her career as a financial analyst in investment banking in New York. She then moved to the public sector, working at the European Commission in Brussels where she was responsible for trade relationships between the E.U. and China, as well as of the antitrust case against Microsoft. She subsequently joined the team of the French minister of European affairs as his advisor on trade and industry in 2007.

Ajay Vir Jakhar is a citrus farmer based in Maujgarh village in Punjab, India. He is chairman of Bharat Krishak Samaj, or the Farmers’ Forum India, a farmers’ association. He sits on the advisory board of the EAT Foundation and is an ambassador for the Food and Land Use Coalition. He is also a member of the Abohar Cooperative Marketing Society and serves as chairman of the Punjab State Farmers’ and Farm Workers’ Commission.

Giles Whittell is world affairs editor at Tortoise, where he also edits the “Sensemaker” newsletter. He was previously chief leader-writer at The Times of London and a correspondent for the paper in Washington, D.C., Moscow and Los Angeles. His books include “Bridge of Spies,” a biography of snow and “The Greatest Raid,” a new history of the commando raid on St. Nazaire in March 1942.

Melati Wijsen is a 20-year-old full-time changemaker and movement builder. She founded Bye Bye Plastic Bags at the age of 12. She has spoken on world stages such as TED and the United Nations and has recently co-chaired the World Economic Forum’s Global Plastic Action Partnership committee. She sat on the inaugural Expert Advisory Panel for the Earthshot Prize and her film, “Bigger Than Us,” premiered at the 74th Cannes Film Festival 2021. She recently launched her new company, YOUTHTOPIA, focusing on youth empowerment through short, meaningful peer-to-peer programs and providing them with the tools they need to be changemakers. Her vision is to make YOUTHTOPIA the go-to platform for young people to learn about frontline skills.