2019 | Page 6 | Policy Center for the New South

redirection Speakers

Claude Grunitzky

Founder, TRACE and True Africa

A graduate of London University and MIT, where he received an MBA as a Sloan Fellow, Grunitzky is also a trustee at MASS MoCA, a contemporary art museum in Massachusetts, and at Humanity in Action, a foundation that works internationally to build global leadership, defend democracy, protect minorities and improve human rights.

Grunitzky is a Visiting Social Innovator at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Social Innovation and Change Initiative. Grunitzky is currently working with MIT on an ambitious African higher education project aiming to accelerate the continent’s development by enabling and empowering African youth.

Daniel Hamilton

Professor, Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation; Senior Fellow, Johns Hopkins University

Professor at the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation, he is also the Director of the Foreign Policy Institute’s Program on “The United States, Europe, and World Order” at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

He was the Founding Director of the SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations and served 15 years as Executive Director of the American Consortium for EU Studies. He is the Director of the Atlantic Basin Initiative, a network of Eminent Persons, research institutes and private sector leaders. Leading member of the Jean Monnet Network on Atlantic Studies, he sits on the advisory board of the Atlantic Dialogues. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for European Affairs and Associate Director of the Policy Planning Staff for two U.S. Secretaries of State. Relevant publications include A New Atlantic Community, Atlantic Rising: Changing Commercial Dynamics in the Atlantic Basinand Dark Networks in The Atlantic Basin: Emerging Trends And Implications For Human Security.

Jesko Hentschel

Country Director for the Maghreb and Malta, The World Bank Group

At his current post since August 2019, he joined the World Bank in 1992, specializing in poverty reduction, human development and public finance in various departments (Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Europe and Central Asia).

He co-authored the 2013 Report on development in the world, focused on the job market. He is a former Sectorial Director for Human Development in Southern Asia and Director of the Department for Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. Trained as an economist, he has a Ph.D. in International Trade and Development from Constance University (Germany), a Master in Social Science and Planification in developing countries from the London School of Economics (UK), and a Master in Agroeconomy from University of Wisconsin (Madison, USA).

Brigette Hyacinth

International Keynote Speaker; Author

She has authored 4 books including The Future of Leadership: Rise of Automation, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence ranked Top 100 Best Artificial Intelligence Books of All Time.

She is also the founder of MBA Caribbean Organisation, a firm she established in 2008 which specializes in seminars and workshops in leadership, management and education. She is an internationally recognized Influencer with over 2 million followers on LinkedIn.

Paul Isbell

Chief Editor and Senior Writer, Global Alumni Education; Adjunct Professor, IE University School for Global and Public Affairs

Global Alumni Education is a Spanish Ed-Tech company in Madrid that creates online courses for US, European and Latin American universities in Digital Transformation, Business and Finance and Sustainable Development. Paul Isbell is also adjunct professor at Instituto de Empresa University School for Global and Public Affairs and Suffolk University in global political economy and climate change.

Previously he was Senior Fellow for International Economy, Director of the Energy and Climate Change Program, and Senior Research Associate at the Real Instituto Elcano in Madrid as well as the CAF Energy Fellow and Gulbenkian Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, Johns Hopkins University SAIS, in Washington. Recently he has also been a Climate Change Consultant for the World Resource Institute on land restoration in Latin America (WRI) and an Energy and Climate Change Consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) on low carbon transition. He is the Author of Energy and the Atlantic: The Shifting Energy Landscapes of the Atlantic Basin (2012); co-author and editor of The Future of Energy in the Atlantic Basin (2015), and of Energy and Transportation in the Atlantic Basin (2017), all at Brookings Press.

Len Ishmael

Senior Fellow, Policy Center for the New South

She is also a former President of the African, Caribbean & Pacific (ACP) Committee of Ambassadors in Brussels. She is a former Director for the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America & the Caribbean; Director General for the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, Alternate Governor for the World Bank and Director for the Foundation - Leadership for Environment & Development of the Rockefeller Foundation in New York City.

She is a German Marshall Fund Fellow (GMF) and Distinguished Visiting Scholar, and a Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South (Morocco). Dr. Ishmael is also The Fletcher School Tufts University GMAP Endowment Fellow and is a member of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy GMAP Advisory Council. She was an expert witness for the House of Lord’s inquiry into Commonwealth efforts post Brexit to lift countries out of poverty through trade. She is also the Special Advisor (Europe) to the Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies. She was conferred a Doctoral Degree in Development Planning/Development Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, in 1988 and Global Master of Arts from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University in 2018. Her other degrees include a Master’s in Urban Planning from City University, New York City, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics & Geography from the University of the West Indies, Jamaica. Dr. Ishmael operates her practice from Brussels specializing in European affairs, the EU-ACP partnership, EU-Africa relations, EU-USA Trans-Atlantic relations, China in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, political and corporate diplomacy, and international development corporation. Her latest publication: Soft Power & Global Ambition: The Case of China’s Growing Reach in Europewas published by the Fletcher Forum’s World Affairs Vol.34:1 Winter 2019 print edition.

Larabi Jaidi

Senior Fellow, Policy Center for the New South

Larabi Jaïdi is Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, previously known asOCP Policy Center, who focuses on International Economy, Social Development, International Relations, and Mediterranean Studies. He is a former Professor at the Mohamed V University in Rabat- Agdal. His area of expertise includes Economic Policy, International Economic Relations (Europe and the Arab World) and Economy of the Regions. He is a founding member of the Centre Marocain de Conjoncture and of the Groupement d’Etudes et de Recherches sur la Méditerrannée.

He is a member of the Research Group within the Euro-Mediterranean Universities Networks. He has also acted as Adviser to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Economy and Finance. He acts as independent expert to the Moroccan Competition Council and the Moroccan Authority for the fight against Corruption. He is a member of the Adderrahim Bouabid Foundation Board (Body of Research- Action on matters relating to State Reform). Mr. Jaïdi also acts as consultant to Moroccan and foreign entities. He is the author of various publications relating to economic and social development and to international economic relations.

Joseph Olaoye Jaiyeola

Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Economic Summit Group – NESG

Current CEO of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), a private sector led non-profit, non-partisan think tank organization with a mandate to promote and champion the reform of the Nigerian economy into an open, globally competitive economy. He is also the Chairman of Kainos Edge Consulting Limited. He is an innovative, energetic and visionary leader with over 25 years banking experience and exposure, both in the local and international financial markets. He worked with the Central Bank of Nigeria for over ten years and then moved to the private sector where he served as the MD/CEO, Kakawa Discount House Limited (now FBN Merchant) for about a decade.

He is a past president of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), a trustee of the Financial Markets Dealers Association, and a Pioneer Board member of FMDQ OTC Securities Exchange. Mr. Jaiyeola has also served in various committees, groups and professional bodies such as the Nigerian Vision 2020 Committee amongst others. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, a Master’s Degree in Banking and Finance, and a Chartered Banker MBA degree from Bangor University, Wales. Further, he is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), a member of Chartered Institute of Bankers, Scotland; and a fellow, Institute of Chartered Accountant of Nigeria (ICAN).

Sunjoy Joshi

Chairman, Observer Research Foundation – ORF

Former Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, former Director of the boards of national energy companies (ONGC, OVL, OIL and MRPL), former Visiting Associate at the International Institute of Strategic Studies,

London and Distinguished Visitor to the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development, University of Stanford.His field of work has been in Energy and Environment, and he looks at non-traditional security threats and the challenges to growth and employment faced by emerging economies in a world facing technological disruption on a scale never experienced before. Takes keen interest in social development initiatives as Vice President of the Mountain Children’s Foundation, a not for profit organization working with disadvantaged rural children in the Himalayas.

Muhammadou Kah

Vice President of Academic Affairs & Provost; Professor of Information Technology & Computing, American University of Nigeria

Besides his current post in Yola (Nigeria), he serves as the founding Chairman of Zenith Bank-The Gambia. He is also the founder and Chairman of a Start-up Khamsys Technologies located in Bijilo, The Gambia, and a former Vice Chancellor of The University of The Gambia (UTG) (2009-15).

He also served as Vice Rector for Technology & Innovation and Founding Dean of the School of Information Technology & Engineering at ADA University in Baku, Azerbaijan (2015-17). His first full-time academic position was as director of institutional research and strategic planning at Bloomfield College, New Jersey, and also worked at Howard University, George Washington University, Rutgers University, USA, American University of Sharjah, UAE and ADA University, Baku, Azerbaijan. Member of many boards, he also belongs to the Malabo Montpellier Panel and the EuroScience Forum 2018. He has completed his BS, MS. and Ph.D. at the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey, Master of Science in Finance (Financial Engineering) at George Washington University, and a Postgraduate Diploma (DipSI) in Strategy and Innovation from University of Oxford’s Said Business School and Postgraduate Certificate in Corporate Governance from INSEAD.

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