Since November 2019, Christine Lagarde has been the President of the European Central Bank. Between 2011 and 2019, she served as the eleventh Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Prior to that, she served as the French Economic Finance Minister from 2007 to 2011 after having been the Trade Secretary from 2005 to 2007. A lawyer by background, she practiced for 20 years with the international law firm Baker McKenzie, of which she became global chairperson in 1999. She was the first woman to serve in all of these positions.

In 2020, Lagarde was ranked the second most influential woman in the world by Forbes and has been named by TIME as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Christine Lagarde was named Officier in the Légion d'honneur in April 2012 and Commandeur dans l’ordre national du mérite in May 2021.

Roberto Azevêdo is the sixth Director-General of the WTO. His appointment took effect on 1 September 2013 for a four-year term and was reappointed for a second term beginning 1 September 2017. He joined the Brazilian foreign service in 1984, serving in several diplomatic postings before being assigned to the Permanent Mission of Brazil in Geneva in 1997. From 2001-2005 he was the head of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry’s Dispute Settlement Unit, after which he served as the Vice-Minister for Economic and Technological Affairs at the Foreign Ministry in Brasilia from 2006-2008. He was subsequently appointed Permanent Representative of Brazil to the WTO. Ambassador Azevêdo holds a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Brasilia. He subsequently attended the ‘Instituto Rio Branco’, the graduate school of diplomacy run by the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Relations.

Ulrik Vestergaard Knudsen currently serves as Permanent Secretary of State of Denmark’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and will assume the role of Deputy Secretary-General to the OECD in early 2019. Mr Vestergaard Knudsen, a former Danish Ambassador to the OECD and to UNESCO, was Permanent Under-Secretary of State in Denmark’s Prime Minister’s office between 2010 and 2013 and State Secretary for Strategic Development from 2009 to 2010. In 2013 he was Group Director for International Policy for the Vodafone Group. He has twice been Chair of the OECD Global Strategy Group, the Organisation’s high level forum on global and strategic issues, most recently from 2014 to 2017. He holds a Master of Economics from the University of Copenhagen.

Pierre Moscovici has served as the EU Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs since 2014. He previously served as France’s Minister of Finance from 2012 to 2014 and as Minister for European Affairs between 1992 and 2002. He also has served as a Member of the French National Assembly, and as a Member of the European Parliament. He holds a Master’s degree in economics and political science, a postgraduate degree in economics and philosophy and is a graduate of the Ecole nationale d’administration.

Ernesto Zedillo is a leading voice on globalization and its impacts on relations between developed and developing nations.  He served as the President of Mexico from 1994 to 2000 and is currently the Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. Prior to assuming the Mexican Presidency in 1994, he held a number of government positions including Secretary of Education and Secretary of Economic Programming and the Budget. Professor Zedillo also chaired the Global Development Network (2005 to 2011) and chaired the High-Level Commission on Modernization of World Bank Group Governance. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the School of Economics of the Natìonal Polytechnic Institute in Mexico and his M.A. and Ph.D. at Yale University.