journalist, blogger, writer
Emma Samson is British expat living in the Netherlands. She works for Searious Business – a company committed to bring plastic pollution back to zero. She is proud to join the fight against ocean plastic by spreading the word to the ears that matter.
Searious Business are game-changers in the plastics industry. A social enterprise business founded in order to prevent plastic pollution, their work involves systemic change on an international level, and accelerating brands towards circular plastic use.
Bradley Schurman is Founder and CEO of The Super Age – a global strategic research and advisory firm helping public and private organizations understand the challenges and harness the opportunities of demographic change, with a focus on population aging. The Super Age works to ensure that these subjects are considered across organizational strategies from human resources, marketing and communication, public policies, and product and service design. Schurman is also the author of the forthcoming book, The Super Age: How Longer Lifespans Are Changing Everything We Know About Work, Life and Learning, which will examine how this shift is driving social and economic change around the world. It will be published by HarperCollins. Prior to launching his company and authoring the book, Schurman was Co-Founder and Managing Partner of EconomyFour, where he led business development in Asia and Europe. He also served at AARP – the world’s largest organization dedicated to improving the lives of older people – where he was Director of Global Partnerships and Engagements. Schurman was instrumental in securing the topics of aging and longevity as focus areas at both the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and World Economic Forum (WEF). He was also responsible for visioning and executing the Aging Readiness and Competitiveness Report – a groundbreaking collaborative research project between AARP and Foreign Policy Group. Schurman has been featured on NBC's TODAY Show and quoted in the New York Times, HuffingtonPost, and USA Today, as well as in local and national media outlets around the world. He speaks regularly at thought leader forums, and has advised national governments and major businesses on their longevity strategies.
Michael is a Senior Program Associate, Conflict Resolution Program at The Carter Center. He oversees The Carter Center’s role as Mali Independent Observer, among other critical assignments.
Before starting at The Carter Center, Michael was on contract as a Project Manager with Sheladia Associates, Inc., an international development consultancy located in Washington, DC. From 2014 to 2018, he served as a Political Affairs Officer with the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali where he analyzed the ongoing political and security situation in Mali and provided strategic advisory services to the Mission on courses of action. Michael has spent most of his 15-year career overseas with bilateral and multilateral development organizations such as the United Nations Development Program, the United States Agency for International Development and the World Bank Group.
A native of Colorado, Michael has lived, worked, studied and/or visited over 35 countries, including, France, Spain, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Morocco, South Sudan, Mali, Kenya, Senegal, Zimbabwe, the Netherlands, Tunisia, South Africa, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Guyana, and many more. He speaks English, French, Arabic, and some Spanish.
Michael holds a master’s degree in International Affairs: Comparative and Regional Studies, Middle East/Africa and International Development from the American University, a bachelor of arts in Political Science, Economics, and History from the University of Colorado, and is a member of the United Nations Association of the United States of America, the United States Fulbright Association and a founding member of the United States Congressional Hunger Center’s Small Grants Committee (he received an Alumni Leadership Award from the Center in 2016).
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Barbara Smith oversees the Carter Center’s democracy, human rights, conflict resolution, and rule of law programs, which operate projects and observe elections in countries across the globe.
Before coming to The Carter Center in September 2020, Smith was principal and founder of the international development consulting firm Mountain Time Development. She also was a senior associate at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, focused on the Human Rights Initiative, conducting field work and research on civil society. Her wide-ranging career also includes assignments at the United States Agency for International Development and with the National Security Council in the White House.
At USAID, Smith held a number of positions, most recently as deputy assistant to the administrator in the Bureau of Policy, Planning, and Learning. She also co-led the team that created the seminal USAID 2013 Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance Strategy, which is applied across the approximately 100 countries where USAID works. Other positions she held at USAID included senior policy analyst, deputy coordinator for Middle East Transition Response during the Arab Spring, and senior field advisor for democracy and governance.
Smith served on the National Security Council as a director for Afghanistan and Pakistan affairs and as senior director for governance and law at the Asia Foundation. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, she was a spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. In Afghanistan, she was assistant country representative for the Asia Foundation, where she also directed the foundation’s efforts to assist Afghanistan in holding its first post-Taliban elections.
Smith earned a bachelor’s degree in government from the University of Texas and a master’s degree in political science from Texas State University.
Cass R. Sunstein is currently the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard. He is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School. In 2018, he received the Holberg Prize from the government of Norway, sometimes described as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for law and the humanities. In 2020, the World Health Organization appointed him as Chair of its technical advisory group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health. From 2009 to 2012, he was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and after that, he served on the President’s Review Board on Intelligence and Communications Technologies and on the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board. Mr. Sunstein has testified before congressional committees on many subjects, and he has advised officials at the United Nations, the European Commission, the World Bank, and many nations on issues of law and public policy. He serves as an adviser to the Behavioural Insights Team in the United Kingdom. Mr. Sunstein is author of hundreds of articles and dozens of books, including Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Richard H. Thaler, 2008), Simpler: The Future of Government (2013), The Ethics of Influence (2015), #Republic (2017), Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide (2017), The Cost-Benefit Revolution (2018), On Freedom (2019), Conformity (2019), How Change Happens (2019), and Too Much Information (2020). He is now working on a variety of projects involving the regulatory state, “sludge” (defined to include paperwork and similar burdens), fake news, and freedom of speech.
Professor of Practical Philosophy; Author, How Economics Can Save the World: Simple Ideas to Solve Our Biggest Problems
Erik Angner is Professor of Practical Philosophy at Stockholm University, where he directs the PPE Program. As a result of serious mission creep, he holds two PhDs – one in Economics and one in History and Philosophy of Science – both from the University of Pittsburgh. His new book How Economics Can Save the World is out with Penguin since early 2023. He is the author of two other books, Hayek and Natural Law (2007) and A Course in Behavioral Economics (3rd Ed., 2020), as well as multiple journal articles and book chapters on behavioral and experimental economics; the science and philosophy of happiness; and the history, philosophy, and methodology of contemporary economics. He lives in Stockholm with his wife and their three children.
Member of the Norwegian Parliament, representing the Labour Party. Elected in 2021 from Finnmark, Norway’s northernmost constituency. Chair of the Standing Committee on Energy and the Environment since March 2022.
Mayor of Hammerfest municipality from 2019-2021, deputy mayor from 2011-2019. Teacher and later principal at Hammerfest Upper Secondary School. Experience from the specialist health services and from housing policy in the Norwegian State Housing Bank.
Master’s degree in special education and adapted training, in addition to courses in educational leadership and project management.
I am a specialist in applied economics in the areas of budgeting, evaluations, social policy and labour market issues in over 30 developed and developing countries with over 30 years’ experience in LAC and North America, Africa, CEE, CIS, Middle East, Far East and EU countries. I have been economic adviser for the UN on three occasions concentrating on women´s economic and social rights. Since the end of 2002, as founding partner of Almenara Estudios Económicos y Sociales, S.L., I was senior researcher for various reports for the European Parliament and European Commission; and also an international consultant for various UN agencies. I have been Expert for Spain (2003-2008) in the 'Group of non-governmental experts in the fight against poverty and social exclusion' for the European Commission; EU senior gender expert (2009-2011) in the Network of Socio Economic experts in the Discrimination Field; Member of the Scientific Board of External Evaluators of the GENISLAB project (2012-2015), a project on gender budgeting applied in public universities; Expert for Spain in the European Social Fund evaluation network (2011-2012); Skillsnet expert (expert on labour market statistics and analysis of skills and occupations, CEDEFOP (2008-2010).Since 2015 I have returned to consulting for UN Agencies and for the European Institute for Gender Equality. I have also taken courses on business and human rights and on data science. My main interests are in gender equality, future of work, applied data science and researching the damage of multi level marketing firms to consumers, in particular women.
Scientific Associate - Ph.D. Candidate, Hellenic Parliament - University of Thessaly
Till January 2015, I have worked as a Social Worker at the National Health Operations Center, Greek Ministry of Health. In 2014 I have accomplished my MSc studies in Health Economics & Management. At the moment I'm enrolling my PhD on Thermal, Wellness Tourism and Rehabilitation aspiring to elaborate on the barriers and perspectives regarding the relevant industry in Fthiotida Regional Unity.
Prior to that I have worked as a Social Worker at the European Cultural & Research Center of Athens in collaboration with Municipalities of Zografos and Kessariani, while in the past I have worked either as a Social Worker, or as an Administrative officer in several private Healthcare Units/Long term care units, such as Polyclinic Group, etc.
As of 2012 and according to a Ministerial mandate I was appointed as a Board Member of Interconnected General Hospitals of Lamia - Amfissa - Karpenisi, keeping this position for approximately one and a half year.
As of October 2016 till November 2019 I have been appointed by the Minister of Labor, Social Insurance & Social Solidarity as the Head of the Board of Directors at the Social Welfare Center of the Region of Central Greece (Public Law Legal Entity - Governmental Organisation) which is the main regional-level social care provision services cluster, trying to contribute to the implementation of the Greek Government's strategic plan on social care, foster care, "DI", family care and people with special needs protection.
In parrallel, between the the same period I have been an Alternate Member of the Board of Directors of the first National Adoption & Foster-care Council in accordance to the relevant Ministerial Desicion.
I have also been an elected Member of the BoD at the Hellenic Healthcare Services Association, carrying duties of the Chief Communications Officer, as of 2017 I am a Member of the European Commission’s SCHEER Committee on Rapid Risk Assessment of Healthcare and Environmental Risks, participating in annual in person one-day/two-day external experts' meetings with focus on public health risks assessment, while as of November 2021 till June 2022 one of the 60 delegates of the European Health Parliament's 7th Edition working as a Member of the Sustainable Health Systems Commitee.
Finally, my current professional capacity is linked to the Hellenic Parliament's function, as I'm an MP's Scientific Associate, providing assistance regarding daily institutional obligations, parliamentary control and cognate activities.
Chandran Nair is the founder of the Global Institute for Tomorrow and member of the Club of Rome. He is also the author of ‘Dismantling Global White Privilege: Equity for a Post-Western World’ and ‘The Sustainable State: The Future of Government, Economy and Society’.
