Gitika Bhardwaj works at the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House where she edits content across several platforms and oversees the editorial management of a number of research projects.

She also interviews experts and has interviewed former Australia prime minister, Julia Gillard, and former president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, as part of a series she has been editing focusing on women in international affairs.

Gitika is also on the Board of Trustees of Climate Outreach, a think-tank specializing in climate change communications, and mentors young people from diverse backgrounds with an interest in international affairs.

Inès Burrus is the founder of Equal Profit and Burrus Development, two social enterprises aiming to improve farmers’ financial wellbeing. 

She started her career in the Sustainable Agriculture department of Nestlé where she rolled out pilot projects in various coffee and cocoa origins. This was followed by an experience in Public Affairs managing global partnership at the corporate level. Sponsored by Nestlé, Nespresso and ECOM Agroindustrial, she then pursued a PhD programme at HEC Lausanne, Switzerland in the department of Strategy, Globalization and Society. Her research focuses on how to make farming attractive to youth. 

Chantal Clément is Deputy Director of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), with a mission to promote transition to sustainable food systems around the world. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Carleton University, where her research focused on municipal-level governance arrangements to support sustainable food systems in Canada and the EU. Chantal has over ten years’ experience in food system research and practice including governance methods for food system transition, local food systems, and community food security.

Nadia Correa.  A 27 year old Swiss woman with a bachelor of Biology and a master in environmental sciences, specialized in climate change, governance and impact. She is currently working at the Geneva Industrial Services as a project assistant in energy efficiency. The focus of her work is to reduce the energy consumption of local actors. During her free time, she is active in Plantons Utile an NGO located in Senegal. It aims to plant valuable trees, using mostly sustainable energy as well as sustainable methods that support short circuits, local production and consumption, circular economy, respectful of the environment.

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With the desire to make the world a better place, Sabine Desczka, works on international development policies, diversity and inclusion policies.  Leading the Wageningen Economic Research Unit for International Policy for more than 3 years now, she strives to improve the value chain, food security and livelihoods. She is fully committed to bringing about systemic change through the Wageningen food systems approach.

Jo Grace leads the Hunger Reduction and Livelihoods Team at Save the Children, UK. Jo’s team is made up Food, Security, Livelihoods, Nutrition, and Social protection specialists that support the design and implementation of programmes and policy to prevent and treat child malnutrition and break the intergenerational transfer of poverty. Her and her team focus on are prevention of acute and chronic malnutrition, treatment of acute malnutrition, nutrition sensitive, shock responsive and child sensitive social protection, early warning/early action to food and nutrition crises, and 5. resilient livelihoods.

Jo has almost 20 years of international development experience. Prior to joining Save the Children in 2011 she spent more than 10 years in field-based programme design, management, and research roles, always with a strong food and nutrition security, livelihoods and gender. Her roles included Director of Programmes for the Aga Khan Foundation in Mozambique, leading multi-sectoral programming to reduce rates of stunting, and Team Leader for Rural Livelihoods research at the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) in Kabul focussing on ensuring rural development policy was based on the changing and gendered realities of rural livelihoods across the country.

Dr. Lawrence Haddad became GAIN’s Executive Director in October 2016. Prior to joining GAIN, he was the founding co-chair and lead author of the Global Nutrition Report (GNR).

From 2004-2014 Lawrence was the Director of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), the world’s leading development studies institute, and prior to that, he was a research Director at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). He was the UK’s representative on the Steering Committee of the High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) of the UN’s Committee on Food Security (CSF) from 2009-2010. He is an economist and completed his PhD in Food Research at Stanford University in 1988.

In 2018, Lawrence was awarded the World Food Prize for his: “relentless leadership and advocacy in mobilizing political will to make nutrition the focal point of development strategies.”

In the role of Rurality Coordinator, Dorit Kemter oversees and coordinates together with a global team the work of Earthworm Foundation (EF) on smallholder engagement in global supply chains, working closely with EF members and other partners at international and national level. From 2009 to 2018, Dorit Kemter worked with the International Labour Organization on various topics including green economy, SME development, and strategies to tackle child labour. Prior to this, she worked in the area or rural development and community participation in El Salvador. Her academic background is in environmental management and social sciences.

Atalanti Hadjipateras Moquette received a BA Hons. in Philosophy and Ancient Greek at King’s College London. She continued her postgraduate studies in Art History at the University of Toronto. Atalanit’s passions include education, art, philanthropy and women’s rights.

She started her career on the specialist side of Sotheby’s and has worked on education policy in Toronto and Geneva.

Her involvement in the field of philanthropy follows a family tradition began at the grassroots level, running a life skills programme in a shelter for battered women.

In 2009 Atalanti founded Giving Women, a network of diverse but like-minded women who pool their professional skills and experience to provide advice to strengthen projects directed at vulnerable girls and women globally.

Her interest in social impact investing started when she and her daughter, Elianna, established Step Up, to advise start-up social business and banks on questions of social impact and responsible investing. As a philanthropist Atalanti has held positions on various boards:

• Vice –President of the board of the International School of Geneva
• Vice – President of the board of the International Baccalaureate Organisation
• Founding member of the Executive Committee of Human Rights Watch, Geneva,
• Member of executive Committee of the Fondation Philanthropique Orthodoxe

Over the past ten years, Moyles has worked intimately with rural organizations and communities in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Canada, and East Africa on human rights and grassroots development projects. With an academic background in Cultural Anthropology and International Development, she focuses much of her research and writing on human rights education, food security, sustainable agriculture, and gender equality.

Her second book, a memoir, Lookout: Love, Solitude, and Searching for Wildfire in the Boreal Forest is forthcoming with Penguin Random House in May 2021.

Paul is Co-founder and Chair of IMAGINE, a benefit corporation and foundation accelerating business leadership to achieve the Global Goals. He is also Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce, The B Team, Saïd Business School and The Valuable 500, and Vice-Chair of the U.N. Global Compact.

He was CEO of Unilever for a decade where he demonstrated that a long-term, multi-stakeholder model goes hand-in-hand with good financial performance. During his tenure, Unilever was one of the best-performing companies in its sector, delivering ten years of consistent top and bottom line growth.

Paul was appointed to the U.N. Secretary General’s High-level Panel that developed the Sustainable Development Goals and has played a leading role since in highlighting the business case for the 2030 development agenda, including as a founder member of the Business & Sustainable Development Commission. He remains a U.N.-appointed SDG Advocate.

Paul engages across industry sectors and global organisations to maximise impact, including as a member of FCLTGlobal, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate and the Food and Land Use Coalition, which he chairs. He has received numerous awards, including the Rainforest Alliance Lifetime Achievement Award, the U.N. Environment Programme’s Champion of the Earth Award and the Oslo Business for Peace Award.

He has been honoured with France’s Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, and was named an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to business. He is a recipient of the Public Service Star from the Government of Singapore and received the Treaty of Nijmegen medal.

He founded the Kilimanjaro Blind Trust with Kim Polman, working to improve the lives of blind and visually impaired children in East Africa. He also supports and mentors’ young leaders as a Counsellor and Chair of the Global Advisory Board of One Young World.

Architect Mohammed Rezwan is the Founding Executive Director of the non-profit organization Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha and invented the ‘school-boat’ to ensure access to year-round and quality education in the flood-prone areas of Bangladesh. He developed, expanded, and sustained floating schools over 18 years. Now floating schools are in operation in eight countries.

Drawing on architectural expertise, he designed spaces on boats that successfully accommodated the need of a school, library, training, healthcare to playground. His “school-boat” idea was recognized by the United Nations Funds and Programs (UNICEF, UNEP and UNDP) as an innovation. He also invented the integrated floating farming (vegetable garden along with duck and fish raising on floating structure).

Rezwan’s floating school design was exhibited at the “Design with the other 90%” exhibitions, organized by Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and Bill & Melinda Gates: Mohammed Rezwan’s floating schools design has been the recipient of many prizes globally.

Ruth Szabo has been working with international not-for-profit organisations, including the United Nations and the World Health Organization, for 16 years.  She is a lawyer currently working as an independent consultant advising on governance and human resources issues. She has been involved in a number of charitable initiatives, including with a Children’s Foundation in the Philippines.

Ruth joined Giving Women in 2011 and is coordinator of the Veerni Project Circle. She has also participated in other project circles and Giving Women events. Ruth holds a Bachelors degree in Law from the University of Southampton and a Masters in International Law from University College London (United Kingdom). Ruth was born in Iraq and grew up in London. She has also lived in Paris, New York and in Switzerland since 2005.

Barbara Wetsig-Lynam has been an active Giving Women members since 2017 quickly becoming active in evaluating projects, educational workshops and the annual conference planning committee. In 2018 she joined the Executive Committee.

Barbara’s background is firmly rooted in philanthropy.  Her twenty-year career was inspired by a two-year posting to a rural village in Ethiopia with the U.S. Peace Corps. From there she became a global humanitarian providing disaster relief and recovery primarily in Asia/Pacific and the Middle East. Working with diverse stakeholders in both the public and private sector, she became adept at designing projects addressing complex root causes and measuring for impact. Most recently she was designing engagement strategies for multinational companies as well as the largest global foundations at the World Economic Forum.  She holds a degree in public policy from Duke University as well as an executive MBA from the University of Geneva.

In addition to her own philanthropic activities such as serving as a board member to local associations, Barbara now has her own practice accompanying private individuals and their families on their philanthropy journeys.