Derick Anderson, CBE

Derrick Anderson, CBE, retired as Chief Executive of Lambeth Council in December 2014, having been the Chief Executive since 1st March 2006. He was previously Chief Executive of the City of Wolverhampton Council for 10 years.

Derrick, who was born in London, has had more than 30 years' senior management experience in local government and more than 35 years in the public sector. Derrick was voted Public Leader of the Year in the Guardian Public Services Awards 2012.

Derrick holds a portfolio of non-exec Directorships. He is currently a non-exec Director of UK Municipal Bond Agency Plc, non-exec Director of Social Finance Ltd, and the Chair of Trustees of the Wave Trust charity. He is also a member of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games Organising Committee.

He has participated in a number of national organisational reviews including that of the Arts Council England and has sat on a number of independent commissions and task forces including:- South African Local Government Peer Review; Birmingham University Policy Commission on ‘The future of public services in The Big Society’; Independent Commission on Youth Crime and AntiSocial Behaviour; London Apprenticeship Task Force; Central Council for Physical Recreation Facilities Inquiry; UK City of Culture Independent Advisory Panel and Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) UK Committee.

Andy Burwell

Director for International Trade and Investment at CBI

His responsibilities extend across the full spectrum of international trade and investment policy and how it delivers sustainable, inclusive prosperity for all. From the interdependence with UK domestic policy, how the UK shapes its independent trade agenda and how the UK leads on the international stage including in multilateral bodies such as the WTO and G7. This involves working with the 190,000 businesses the CBI represents to understand how they can drive prosperity forward across the UK, working with Government to ensure their policy supports this and communicating with stakeholders to help demonstrate the impact business can have.

Andy joined CBI from the UK civil service, having an 11-year career across international trade and investment, business, and national security. During that time, he spent five years in Hong Kong and China, working with foreign investors and British business to support UK growth and has responsibility for the UK regional offices in China, India, and the U.S.

Deborah Cadman, OBE

Interim Chief Executive, Birmingham City Council

After gaining a degree in politics, she began her career in 1984 with the London Borough of Newham, before moving to Birmingham City Council where she worked on major regeneration projects and gained a master’s degree in economics. 

Moving to Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council in 1996 as Head of Policy, Deborah gained a second master’s in management, before taking up a two-year secondment with the Department of Environment Transport and the Regions as Local Government Advisor to the Ministerial Team.

In 2003, after being appointed the Audit Commission's Best Value Service Lead Inspector for the London region, she became Chief Executive at St Edmundsbury Borough Council, before becoming Chief Executive of the East of England Development Agency.

Deborah was Chief Executive of Suffolk County Council from 2011 to 2017 and has also been interim Chief Executive of Waveney District Council, Babergh District Council and Mid-Suffolk District Council.

She is a trustee of the Joseph Rowntree Trust and Joseph Rowntree Housing Foundation and as a dedicated and passionate female advocate at the forefront of the public sector, Deborah recently won the First Women Award for Public Service.

Deborah is listed in Local Government Chronicle’s ‘100 Most Influential in the Sector’ and was awarded an OBE in 2006 for services to local government.

Professor Sir Charles Godfray

Director of the Oxford Martin School

Charles Godfray is a population biologist with broad interests in the environmental sciences and has published in fundamental and applied areas of ecology, evolution and epidemiology. He is interested in how the global food system will need to change and adapt to the challenges facing humanity in the 21st century, and in particular in the concept of sustainable intensification, and the relationship between food production, ecosystem services and biodiversity.

Charles is the Director of the Oxford Martin School and Professor of Population Biology at Oxford University, and directs the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food. He is also Chair of Defra’s Science Advisory Council, a Trustee Director of Rothamsted Research and a Trustee of the Food Foundation. He sits on the Balzan (science) and Heineken (environmental science) Prize committees. In 2017 he was knighted for services to scientific research and for scientific advice to government.

Professor Shahbaz Khan

Director of UNESCO’s Regional Science Bureau for Asia and the Pacific

Khan has advised the Australian government on water management programs, such as the Prime Minister's 2007 rural water security plan. He coordinated multidisciplinary research programs under the Australian Cooperative Research Centre initiative.

Khan was previously Professor of Hydrology and Director of the International Centre of Water at the Charles Sturt University, Australia, and Research Leader/Director of Irrigated Systems and Rural Water Use areas of CSIRO Australia. He was also part of the team who developed a computer-based early warning system for floods in Pakistan, known as the Flood Early Warning System (FEWS).

Khan developed the SWAGMAN series of mathematical models of irrigation, drought management, groundwater flow and contaminant transport and surface-groundwater interactions.

He is currently Director of the UNESCO Cluster Office in Jakarta and the Regional Bureau for Science in Asia and the Pacific, serving as UNESCO Representative to Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Timor Leste. In his previous role at UNESCO he was Chief of Section on Sustainable Water Resources Development and Management at UNESCO in Paris. His work at UNESCO includes the Water Education for Sustainable Development, Hydrology for Environment, Life and Policy (HELP), Ecohydrology, Water and Ethics, Energy and Food Nexus within the International Hydrological Programme (IHP).

He advises UN member states on environmental policies, review of curricula, and securing multilateral support for research and education projects especially in the Asia-Pacific region.

Professor Hisham Mehanna

Director of the Institute for Global Innovation & the Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Birmingham

Professor Hisham Mehanna is the chair of head and neck surgery. He has a keen interest in clinical and translational research, heading a research team of 20 researchers, and holding over £15million in research grants. His research has changed clinical practice across the world. His experience of multi-disciplinary research in the field of cancer biology and treatment has made him a strong proponent of multi- and interdisciplinary research, as the way to provide new insights and approaches to address intractable global challenges.

As Deputy PVC, Hisham has responsibility for promoting interdisciplinary research across the University. Also as Director of Institute for Global Innovation (the IGI), Hisham strives to ensure that the Institute inspires, supports and delivers world-leading, multi- and inter-disciplinary research that seeks to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges, that affect humanity at a global level. The IGI’s research themes revolve around the factors that challenge, and sometimes threaten, the sustainability and resilience of individuals, communities, countries and the world as a whole. Our themes include resilient cities, water challenges in a changing world, clean cooling, pollution solutions, antimicrobial resistance, ageing and frailty, gender inequality, artificial intelligence and 21st century transnational crime. Our scholars seek, not only to understand these problems, but develop and implement innovative and often disruptive solutions, made possible by their holistic, inter-disciplinary approaches.

Lenni Montiel

UN Deputy Regional Director UNDP Regional Office Latin American and Caribbean

Lenni Montiel is the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Prior to this appointment of 18 November 2014, Mr. Montiel was an Assistant Secretary-General of Social, Economic and Development Affairs Mr. Montiel has a wide range of experience and expertise with the United Nations in the area of Development. He worked with the United Nations Development Programme as a Resident Coordinator in Turkmenistan and as a Senior Technical Adviser in Vietnam and Ukraine. Mr. Montiel studied at the University of Birmingham where he obtained a PhD in Public Policy, and at the Belarusian Institute for National Economy where he obtained an MSc in Economics.

Dr Joanna Newman MBA FRSA

Secretary General of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU)

Chief Executive and Secretary General of the ACU Dr Newman joined the ACU in April 2017 and is responsible for fostering and promoting the aims of the ACU, as defined by its membership, in developing inter-Commonwealth relations in the field of higher education.

Before joining the ACU, Joanna was the Vice-Principal (International) at King’s College London where she was responsible for all international matters for the university. In previous positions, Joanna represented the UK higher education sector as Director of the UK Higher Education International Unit (now known as Universities UK International) where she negotiated the UK’s role in Brazil’s Science without Borders mobility scheme, launched HE Global and initiated a number of international partnerships on behalf of the UK higher education sector. Before this, she was Head of Higher Education at the British Library where she commissioned the Google Generation report and was responsible for introducing researchers to one of the world’s greatest research libraries.

Joanna is a Senior Research Fellow in the History Faculty at King’s and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Southampton and has taught history at University College London and the University of Warwick. In 2014, she was honoured as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in recognition of her work promoting British higher education internationally.

Joanna is on the board of the School of Advanced Studies, University of London International Academy, University of London; The Conversation UK and the VITAE external advisory board. She has been a judge on the Times Higher Education Awards. She regularly speaks at conferences, roundtables and on international platforms representing the UK on issues relating to higher education and internationalisation.

Professor Fiona Nunan

Professor of Environment and Development, International Development, School of Government, University of Birmingham

Fiona Nunan is a Professor of Environment and Development, in the International Development Department, School of Government, University of Birmingham, and serves as the Academic Lead for the Global Challenges Forum. Between 2014 and 2020, Fiona was Head of the International Development Department and, since January 2020, is the Head of Research in the School of Government.

Fiona’s research interests lie in the governance and livelihoods associated with renewable natural resources in low-income countries, particularly inland fisheries and coastal ecosystems. She first joined the University of Birmingham in 1994, working in the area of waste management and urban/peri-urban environmental and natural resource governance, mainly in India and Ghana. She left at the end of 2002 to work on two fisheries and lake management projects in East Africa.

Fiona returned to the University of Birmingham in 2008 and has since undertaken research into mangrove forest governance in Kenya and Zanzibar, the pursuit of climate compatible development in coastal management, fisheries co-management on Lake Victoria and learning lessons for effective governance across natural resource sectors. She has published three books, Understanding Poverty and the Environment: analytical frameworks and approaches, Making Climate Compatible Development Happen and Governing Renewable Natural Resources: theories and frameworks.

Sandie Okoro

Senior Vice President and General Counsel at the World Bank Group

In addition to her official duties as part of the World Bank Group, Sandie is an ardent defender and champion for female empowerment, gender equality, and justice for all.

Prior to joining the World Bank, Sandie was General Counsel for HSBC Global Asset Management, Deputy General Counsel of HSBC Retail Banking and Wealth Management, and Global General Counsel at Barings. Sandie is an Honorary Bencher of Middle Temple in the United Kingdom and was recognised as Britain’s 5th most influential person of African and African Caribbean heritage by Power list.

She holds Honorary Doctorates in Law from City University London, London Southbank University, and her alma mater, the University of Birmingham. Sandie was appointed to the Management Board and the Panel of Experts of The Hague-based Panel of Recognized International Market Experts in Finance and the Premier League Equality Standards Panel. She is Ambassador for the Law Society of England and Wales Diversity Access Scheme and served as President of the International Lawyers of Africa. Sandie received the Howard University 2019 Vanguard Women Award for her accomplishments as a woman of colour.

Mark Spelman

Non-Executive Director and Member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum 

Mark Spelman is an international business leader who worked at Accenture for 26 years.

His Accenture roles included being global head of strategy, global managing director for thought leadership and executive director for the Accenture Institute for High Performance. 

His current roles include working for the World Economic Forum (WEF) to lead their initiative on the future of the digital economy and society.

He is also chair of an EU-China expert group studying the future of the digital economy. His work involves engaging leading thinkers and decision makers from government, business and civil society on digital disruption, access and internet governance.

Mark was chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce Executive Council in Brussels and a non-executive director at Sport England; his current non-executive roles include The Future Cities Catapult in the UK, Harlequins RFUC and chairman of Leap a charity specializing in helping young people understand the causes and consequences of conflict.

He has an MA in Economics from Cambridge University and a MBA from INSEAD, France.

Heather Widdows

Professor of Global Ethics and Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Birmingham

Heather Widdows is the John Ferguson Professor of Global Ethics and Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research and Knowledge Exchange) at the University of Birmingham. She has served on the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (2014-2020) and previously on the UK Biobank Ethics and Governance Council (2007-2013). Her most recent book, Perfect Me: Beauty as an Ethical Ideal (2018), was described by Vogue as “ground-breaking” and listed by The Atlantic as one of the best books of 2018. She is author of The Connected Self: The Ethics and Governance of the Genetic Individual (2103), Global Ethics: An Introduction (2011), and The Moral Vision of Iris Murdoch (2005). She has co-edited, with Darrel Moellendorf, The Routledge Handbook of Global Ethics (2014). She co-runs the Beauty Demands Network and Blog and the #everydaylookism project.

Antonio Zappulla

CEO, Thomson Reuters Foundation

Antonio is the CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the corporate foundation of the global news and information services company.

Through news, media development, free legal assistance and convening initiatives, the Thomson Reuters Foundation combines its unique services to advance media freedom, raise awareness of human rights issues and foster more inclusive economies.

Antonio is the founder of Openly, the world first platform dedicated to fair, accurate and impartial coverage of LGBT+ stories with global distribution through the Reuters wire. In 2018, he ranked first in the OUT-standing list of third sector LGBT+ executives published by the Financial Times. In 2017, he was named a European Young Leader by Friends of Europe and was awarded the Talented Young Italians Award by Italian Chamber of Commerce in 2016.

Antonio is a One Young World Ambassador and a World Economic Forum agenda contributor. He sits on the boards of All Out and the International News Safety Institute (INSI).

Prior to his present role, Antonio was Director of Communications and COO at the Thomson Reuters Foundation, and Executive Producer at Bloomberg Television in charge of news, factual programming and documentaries for Europe, Middle Easy and Africa, developing award-winning TV series.