Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is a two-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker whose films have impacted legislative change. Since 2001, she has made more than two dozen multi-award-winning films in over 16 countries around the world. In 2022, she infused her signature style and the verisimilitude she brings to her nonfiction projects to her narrative directorial debut for Marvel’s critically acclaimed series, “Ms. Marvel.” The New York Times included her episodes in its annual list of the best TV episodes, calling them “ingenious and surprisingly moving.”
More recently, it was announced that Obaid-Chinoy will direct a “Star Wars” feature starring Daisy Ridley. She will also direct Paramount’s “Brilliance,” based on the Marcus Sakey novel of the same name.
Obaid-Chinoy is also the recipient of four Emmy Awards, a Knight International Journalism Award, two Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Awards, a RFK Journalism Award and the Tällberg/Eliasson Global Leadership Prize. She was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the world and in 2013, the Canadian government awarded her a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for her work in the field of documentary films and the World Economic Forum honored her with a Crystal Award at their annual summit in Davos.
Rutger Bregman
Rutger Bregman (1988) is a Dutch historian and bestselling author. His books Humankind: A Hopeful History (2020) and Utopia for Realists (2017) were both Sunday Times and New York Times bestsellers, translated into 46 languages.
The Guardian described him as “the Dutch wunderkind of new ideas,” while TED named him “one of Europe’s most prominent young thinkers.” His TED Talk, “Poverty Isn’t a Lack of Character; It’s a Lack of Cash”, was selected by TED curator Chris Anderson as one of the top ten talks of 2017.
In spring 2025, Rutger will publish the English edition of his new book Moral Ambition. He argues that career choices, consisting of 2,000 workweeks, are among the most important decisions of our lives. Yet millions are stuck in pointless or harmful jobs. The antidote to this waste of talent? Moral ambition: the will to be among the best, but with different measures of success.
In 2024, Rutger co-founded The School for Moral Ambition, a nonprofit focused on helping people find impactful work.
Arthur C. Brooks
Arthur Brooks is a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Business School, where he teaches courses on leadership and happiness. He is also a columnist at The Atlantic, where he writes the popular weekly “How to Build a Life” column.
Brooks is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 13 books, including Build the Life You Want in 2023, co-authored with Oprah Winfrey, and From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life.
Brooks is one of the world’s leading experts on the science of human happiness, appearing in the media and traveling the world to teach people in private companies, universities, public agencies, and faith communities how they can live happier lives and bring greater well-being to others.
Gracie Abrams
Since making her debut in 2019, Gracie Abrams has emerged as one of the most compelling singer-songwriters of her generation, earning the highly coveted nomination for Best New Artist for the 66th Annual GRAMMY Awards. Most recently, Gracie earned her second GRAMMY nod, this time for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for the 67th Annual GRAMMY Awards and made her Saturday Night Live debut as musical guest in December 2024. A consummate songwriter she penned her first song at age eight, then went on to amass a devoted following on the strength of her emotionally intimate lyrics. Gracie’s debut project minor arrived in summer 2020, and the seven-song effort features her beloved singles “21,” “I miss you, I’m sorry,” and “Long Sleeves.” In November 2021, Abrams returned with This Is What It Feels Like, a 12-track project followed and kicked off 2022 with her sold-out North American headline tour for This Is What It Feels Like. In 2023, Abrams released her highly anticipated debut album, Good Riddance, in February, followed by a North American headline tour that sold out in under one hour. Following her headlining tour, Gracie toured with Taylor Swift as the opening act on select dates of her blockbuster Eras Tour. She released her sophomore album, The Secret of Us, in June 2024 and it became her first ever #1 in the UK, Australia and the Netherlands and debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 in the US. Her single “Close To You” had over 3 million streams on Spotify on its first day and earned Gracie her first solo debut on the Billboard Hot 100. Another standout track, “I Love You, I’m Sorry,” rose to a new peak of #11 on the US Spotify Chart. The Secret of Us Deluxe, released in October, featured four new tracks, including “That’s So True” which hit #1 on the US Spotify chart and has amassed more than 100 million streams. The song rose to #6 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Gracie’s first Top 10 and also marked the first time she held the #1 spot in the UK for 5 consecutive weeks. This past fall, Gracie embarked on her sold-out headlining tour, The Secret of Us Tour and following the U.S. leg of her tour, Gracie rejoined Taylor for the second North American Leg of the Eras Tour as direct support. She continues The Secret of Us Tour in 2025 with her long-awaited Europe, Australia, and Asia stops. In addition to playing arenas across Europe and Australia, Gracie recently announced her first solo arena tour in North America, The Secret of Us Deluxe Tour, which will include iconic venues such as Madison Square Garden, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, and Kia Forum. Gracie was recently named a Chanel ambassador and starred in the brand’s Spring-Summer 2025 Pre-Collection campaign.
Bryan Stevenson
Bryan Stevenson is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults.
Mr. Stevenson has argued and won multiple cases at the United States Supreme Court, including a 2019 ruling protecting condemned prisoners who suffer from dementia and a landmark 2012 ruling that banned mandatory life-imprisonment-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger. Mr. Stevenson and his staff have won reversals, relief, or release from prison for over 140 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row and won relief for hundreds of others wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced.
Mr. Stevenson has initiated major new anti-poverty and anti-discrimination efforts that challenge inequality in America. He led the creation of EJI’s highly acclaimed Legacy Sites, including the Legacy Museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. These new national landmark institutions chronicle the legacy of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation, and the connection to mass incarceration and contemporary issues of racial bias.
Mr. Stevenson’s work has won him numerous awards including the prestigious MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Prize; the ABA Medal, the American Bar Association’s highest honor; the National Medal of Liberty from the American Civil Liberties Union after he was nominated by United States Supreme Court Justice John Stevens; the Public Interest Lawyer of the Year by the National Association of Public Interest Lawyers; and the Olaf Palme Prize in Stockholm, Sweden for international human rights.
Christiane Amanpour
Christiane Amanpour is CNN’s chief international anchor of the network’s award-winning, flagship global affairs program “Amanpour,” which also airs on PBS in the United States. She is also host of “The Amanpour Hour,” a Saturday show consisting of forensic interviews with the news makers, game changers and cultural icons shaping our world.
Her illustrious career in journalism spans more than four decades joining CNN in 1983. Amanpour rose through the organization becoming the network’s leading international correspondent reporting on international crisis’ and interviewed most of the top world leaders. She has received every major broadcast award, including fifteen News and Documentary Emmys, four Peabody Awards, three George Polk Awards, three duPont-Columbia Awards, the Courage in Journalism Award, The Columbia Journalism Award and ten honorary degrees.
She was inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame, Broadcast & Cable Hall of Fame and The Atlanta Press Club’s Hall of Fame. She is a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire and an honorary citizen of Sarajevo. Amanpour is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island.
Reese Witherspoon
Reese Witherspoon is an award-winning actress, producer, New York Times best-selling author and founder. In 2016, she established the media brand, Hello Sunshine which puts women at the center of every story across all platforms– from scripted and unscripted television, feature films, animated series, podcasts, audio storytelling, and digital series. Hello Sunshine is also home to “Reese’s Book Club”, a community propelled by meaningful connections with stories, authors, and fellow members. Named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies and TIME’s 100 Most Influential Companies, Hello Sunshine is part of Candle Media, an independent, creator-friendly home for cutting-edge, high-quality, category-defining brands and franchises. Witherspoon is best known for her roles in feature films like “Walk the line”, “Wild”, “Election” and “Legally blonde” as well as Emmy award-winning TV series “Big Little Lies”, “Little Fires Everywhere” and “The Morning Show.”
Giovanna Engelbert
Giovanna Engelbert is a distinguished Creative Director, Editor, and Fashion Consultant with over 20 years of elite industry experience. As the Global Creative Director for Swarovski, she oversees brand image, products, stores, advertising campaigns, and integrated communications. Since joining Swarovski in 2016, Engelbert has driven significant industry relevance and commercial success, including a groundbreaking collaboration with SKIMS.
Engelbert has held numerous roles in fashion, including Fashion Editor at L’Uomo Vogue, co-managing Vogue Gioiello and Vogue Pelle along legendary editor Francesca Sozzani, Senior Fashion Editor at Vogue Japan, Contributing Editor at W Magazine, The New York Times hailed her as one of the “New Heroines of Fashion.”
In 2024, Engelbert achieved significant success at the Met Gala, designing five couture dresses for the red carpet. These dresses, representing Swarovski’s brand colors and the gala’s garden theme, showcased the brand’s creative possibilities, with Anok’s blue crystal catsuit breaking the internet and resulting in record media value for Swarovski. Giovanna and her team operate out of NYC, London, and Stockholm.
Betelhem Dessie
Betelhem Dessie is a 25 years, Ethiopian women, renowned youth technology education entrepreneur, that has captured international attention in the country’s emerging tech scene. Recognized by CNN and BBC as a young pioneer, and featured on Quartz’s list of African innovators to watch, Betelhem’s journey showcases her curiosity of technology and its transformative power. Born and raised in Harar, Ethiopia, Betelhem’s fascination with computers ignited at the tender age of 8. By 10, she embarked on her coding journey, continuing to learn multiple facets of computer science and robotics by her mid-teens. Partnering with iCog Labs, Ethiopia’s first AI and robotics lab, she spearheaded the iCog Anyone Can Code (iCog-ACC) initiative, driven by her vision to provide children in the developing world with equal opportunities she had as a youngster
Currently serving as the Chief Advisor at iCog Labs and CEO of iCog Anyone Can Code, a subsidiary of iCog Labs, Betelhem channels her efforts into community outreach and research, placing a strong emphasis on access to tech and tech education. Her projects aim to decentralize access to technology and empower children and youth with the essential skills needed to innovate and create using emerging technologies. Under Betelhem’s leadership, iCog-ACC has empowered over 30,000 students to take their first strides in coding, unlocking a boundless realm of possibilities. Along with that she works on research projects that tackle pressing challenges in Agriculture, Healthcare, and Education such as leveraging the power of Artificial Intelligence to provide farmers with optimized fertilizer suggestions based on satellite data, , as well as analyzing social media data to enhance communication on sexual reproductive health among the youth.
Leading a team of 60 talented individuals, Betelhem’s company lays a strong foundation for young children and adults, enabling them to thrive in the 21st century, fostering local capacity, and inspiring homegrown solutions. Programs like ‘for (her),’ a girls-onlycoding initiative in public high schools, exemplify her resolute commitment to narrowing the gender gap in STEM fields. The Digiturck (a moving training center) a mobile off the grid classroom, reaching remote areas and projects like ‘leyu’ working on crowdsourcing data for low resource languages powering AI tools while also creating job opportunities for marginalized communities. Betelhem Dessie’s achievements have earned her widespread recognition. Her story was part of the ‘Rebel Girls 100 Change Makers’ Children’s’ book. She has been given the “Young Technologist Award” by Booking.com’s Tech Playmakers Awards.Her remarkable contributions not only ignite the aspirations of Ethiopia’s youth but also eventually position the country at the forefront of the global tech landscape.
Andrew L. Cohen
Andrew L. Cohen is the Executive Chairman of the Global Private Bank and a Global Chair of Investment Banking at J.P. Morgan. He oversees 23 Wall, J.P. Morgan’s Institutional Wealth Management practice, and leads the partnership between the firm’s Corporate & Investment Bank and Private Bank. In this role, Mr. Cohen focuses on servicing the Private Bank’s largest and most sophisticated clients globally. He is a member of the Asset & Wealth Management Operating Committee, Global Private Bank Operating Committee, and Global Investment Banking Management Team.
Prior to this role, Mr. Cohen was Chief Executive Officer of J.P. Morgan’s International Private Bank, which operates in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Latin America. Before relocating to Hong Kong in 2010 as the Asia Private Bank’s Chief Executive Officer, he was Head of the Southern California region, based in Los Angeles. Previously, he worked with ultra-high-net-worth families in Northern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean region.
Mr. Cohen holds a Bachelor of Economics degree from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and attended the Executive Program of Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
He sits on the Board of Directors of the Serpentine Galleries, the Board of Governors of Tel Aviv University, the Board of Directors of the American Turkish Society, and the Board of Directors of the Young Global Leadership Foundation. He is an alumnus of the Young Global Leaders Forum (World Economic Forum) and a member of the Hong Kong Forum. Mr. Cohen is also the Executive Sponsor of the BOLD (Black Organization for Leadership Development) initiative in EMEA. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, sailing, philanthropy and traveling.