25^th anniversary of the WTO

Bogolo J. Kenewendo is an international economist, Managing Director of Kenewendo Advisory and the former Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry in Botswana. Kenewendo is a member of the United Nations Secretary-General (UN SG) António  Guterres’ High-Level Panel on digital cooperation and group on Financing for Development, a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Future Council for Global Public Goods in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and also a WEF Young Global Leader. She is also the co-founder and chairperson of Molaya Kgosi Trust and sits on several corporate boards. She is an advocate for the empowerment and protection of children and women.

Guy Ryder, Director-General, International labour Organization was first elected in 2012 and started a second term of office in 2017. His vision is for an ILO that anticipates and responds effectively to 21st century realities, reaching the most vulnerable and remaining true to its social justice mandate. He has served the ILO in various capacities including as Executive Director for labour standards and fundamental principles and rights at work. From 2006-10 he was General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), having led the unification of the democratic international trade union movement.

Born in Liverpool (UK) in 1956, Guy Ryder studied Social and Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge and Latin American Studies at the University of Liverpool.

The ILO is a tripartite organization comprising governments and representatives of employers and workers.

Céline Charveriat is IEEP’s Executive Director and has more than 20 years of experience in the field of sustainable development.

Céline started her career at the Peterson Institute and the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington D.C. She worked for 10 years at Oxfam International as campaigns director, leading Make Trade Fair campaign as well as Oxfam high-level representation strategy towards the WTO.

Within IEEP, Céline’s research focuses on SDGs’ implementation in Europe. She created the Think2030 platform and Think Sustainable Europe, a European network of sustainability think tanks.

Céline is a member of the EC’s high-level expert group ESIR and of the Assembly of the Soil Health and Food Horizon Europe mission. She was Chair of CAN Europe Board until 2019 and currently is member of the European Chapter of the Club Rome, the Strategic Advisory Council of IDDRI and the council of ECFR.

In 2020, she was listed in the top 100 CSR influence leaders by Assent Compliance.

Joshua Bolten is President & CEO of the Business Roundtable (BRT). Before joining BRT in January 2017, Bolten was Managing Director of Rock Creek Global Advisors, an international economic and regulatory policy consulting firm, which he co-founded in July 2011. Bolten spent the preceding two years at Princeton University as a visiting professor at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.  Bolten served in the White House under President George W. Bush as Chief of Staff (2006-09), Director of the Office of Management & Budget (2003-06), and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy (2001-03). Bolten’s previous private sector experience includes work at Goldman Sachs in London and O’Melveny & Myers in Washington, DC. Bolten received his undergraduate degree from Princeton and his law degree from Stanford.  

Soumaya Keynes is the Trade & Globalisation Editor for The Economist, based in Washington DC. She also co-hosts the podcast Trade Talks, a weekly discussion of the economics of trade policy, with Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Prior to her current posting she held the positions of US Economics Editor, and Economics Correspondent based in London. She has written extensively on the topic of the Trump administration's trade policy, as well as the status of women in the economics profession. Prior to joining The Economist, she worked at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, doing policy-relevant economic research on the British state pension system and public finances, and before that was a policy adviser at HM Treasury. She has an undergraduate degree and MPhil in economics from the University of Cambridge.

Martin Chungong made history in 2014 by becoming the first African and non-European to be elected IPU Secretary General. For more than three decades he has dedicated his professional life to promoting democracy worldwide.

He is a leader in his field through his work on developing programmes to help parliaments become more transparent, accountable, representative and effective democratic institutions.

Since 2012, he has pushed to strengthen parliamentary engagement on sustainable development and accountability through his role as Parliamentary Representative on the Steering Committee of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation.

In 2020, he was elected Chair of the Global Board of the International Gender Champions, a network of decision makers—male and female—committed to breaking down gender barriers.

He sits on the Board of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and was appointed by the UN Secretary-General as a global leader committed to fighting malnutrition through the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement.

Frank Heemskerk is Secretary General of the European Round Table for Industry (ERT), a forum of around 60 Chief Executives and Chairs of multinational companies from Europe. They are united by a vision for a strong, open and competitive Europe, as a driver for inclusive growth and sustainable prosperity.

Frank Heemskerk began his career at ABN AMRO Bank until 2003, when he pursued a career in politics. He was a Member of Parliament for the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) and Minister for Foreign Trade (2007 – 2010).

From 2013 and 2018, he was member of the Board of the World Bank in Washington, DC.

Frank Heemskerk is a visiting lecturer in Geo-Economics at Leiden University and was recently elected as Chair of the Board of Amnesty International in the Netherlands.

He is married with a daughter and a son, loves reading history books, and - like many Dutch citizens - is an enthusiastic cyclist.

Before her appointment as Minister of Trade and Industry, Soraya Hakuziyaremye was Senior Vice President in Financial Institutions/Financial Markets Risk at ING Bank in London. She also worked in various senior positions at BNP Paribas Group in Paris, Fortis Bank and the Bank of New York Mellon in Brussels. Minister Hakuziyaremye also served as Senior Advisor to Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2012 to 2014. She was a board member of Ngali Holdings as well as the Brussels-Africa Hub. She brings a rich experience in global banking and advisory as well as international exposure to help local businesses become more competitive.

She holds a postgraduate degree in International Management from the Thunderbird Graduate School of Global Management at Arizona State University in the United States and a Masters in Business Engineering (Ingénieur de Gestion) from the Solvay Business School at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium.

Dennis Shea serves as Deputy United States Trade Representative and Chief of Mission, Geneva, where he represents the United States as Ambassador to the World Trade Organization.

Before joining USTR, Ambassador Shea served as a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a bipartisan organization that annually assesses the U.S.-China security, economic, and trade relationship, including China’s compliance with its WTO commitments. Each year from 2012 to 2017, he served as the Commission’s Chairman or Vice Chairman.

Ambassador Shea has an extensive background in law and public policy, and previously served as Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was deputy chief of staff and counsel to then-Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole.

Ambassador Shea received his J.D. from Harvard Law School, his A.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and his A.B. from Harvard College.

Ambassador Cheryl Kay Spencer is Jamaica’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and its Specialized Agencies at Geneva, Permanent Representative to the World Trade Organization and Ambassador to the Swiss Confederation. She is a career Diplomat with thirty years in the Jamaican Foreign Service.  Before her appointment as Jamaica’s Permanent Representative, she was High Commissioner to the Republic of South Africa from January 2015 – February 2018. She was also non-resident High Commissioner/Ambassador to the other countries of the Southern African region as well as those of East Africa. From 2010 to 2014, Ambassador Spencer was the Senior Director for the Foreign Trade Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade. Prior to that she served in several other key posts including:  Deputy Permanent Representative of Jamaica to the United Nations and its Specialized Agencies here in Geneva, Switzerland; Deputy High Commissioner in the Jamaican High Commission in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago and First Secretary at the Embassy of Jamaica in Brussels, Belgium. She served as the Chairman of the WTO Committee on Balance-of-Payments Restrictions in 2019 and has been Coordinator of the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group in Geneva since March 2019. A graduate of the University of the West Indies, Mona, Kingston, Ambassador Spencer’s education and training is in International Relations and Trade.

Wang Shouwen, is currently Vice Minister of Commerce and Deputy China International Trade Representative, Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) of China. Prior to these positions, Wang was Assistant Minister of Commerce from 2013-2015, Director-General of the Department of Foreign Trade of MOFCOM from 2006-2013 after his tenure as Deputy Director General and Director-General of the Bureau of Fair Trade of MOFC OM starting from September 2003. Wang was Deputy Director-General of the Department of Foreign Trade Administration from 2001-2003.

Wang obtained a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Hunan University, a master’s degree in economics from the University of International Business and Economics and a doctoral degree in economics from Peking University.

At present, Dr Sabine Weyand is Director-General for Trade of the European Union.

She was Deputy Chief Negotiator of the Commission Task Force for the Preparation and Conduct of the Negotiations with the United Kingdom under Article 50 of the TEU from October 2016 to May 2019.

She joined the European Commission in 1994 where she worked on industry and trade issues before serving in the Cabinets of Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy and Commission President Barroso and heading the private office of Development Commissioner Louis Michel.

She then became Director in the Secretariat-General of the Commission in charge of policy coordination on economic, social and environmental policies before joining DG Trade in 2016 as Deputy Director-General, covering multilateral trade policy, trade relations with North America and European neighbourhood countries as well as trade defence.

George Yeo Yong-Boon is a Singaporean business executive and a former politician. He is the current chairman and executive director of Kerry Logistics Network.

Yeo was also the Chancellor of Nalanda University and member of the University Governing Board (earlier the Nalanda Mentor Group).

Yeo represented the People's Action Party (PAP) in the Singapore parliament as a Member of the Aljunied Group Representation Constituency from 1988 until in 2011, where his team was defeated by the opposition Workers' Party (helmed by then-Secretary General Low Thia Khiang), after which he announced his retirement from politics.

Yeo was a Cabinet member for Information and the Arts (1990–99), Health (1994–97), Trade and Industry (1999–2004) and Foreign Affairs (2004–11).

Prior to entering Parliament, Yeo was a Brigadier-General in the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF). He served as the Chief of Staff of the RSAF from 1985 to 1986, and as the Director of Joint Operations and Planning at the Ministry of Defence from 1986 to 1988.

Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin, Vice President of the Swiss Confederation

Head of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER)

9 December 2015: Elected to the Federal Council