Category: Invited guests

Chairman and CEO of Maurinvest Group, which he founded in 2011. It is a company that develops industries and add values through fundings with international partners. He is also the Chairman/CEO of MAURILOG a logistics services & transport company for Industrial Projects, Oil & Gas and Mining activities in Mauritania. Through Maurilog, and in global partnership with the world leader in logistics DB Schenker, the group plays a central role in major projects in West Africa, such as the GTA gas project. He has established key international partnerships, including a 30-year exclusive representation of Yamaha Motor in Mauritania through MAY SARL, and a collaboration with the French Saros group in the agri-food sector, leading to the creation of MIP Frigo, a factory specializing in the processing of seafood products targeting European and Japanese markets. He served as in Charge of the Promotion of Private Investments between 2007 and 2008. He graduated from ENSM (Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Mécanique) in France.

Deputy Director-General at the World Trade Organization since 2013. He has extensive experience in world trade and economics, both as a senior government official and subsequently as China’s ambassador to the WTO. Prior to becoming China’s ambassador to the WTO in 2011, he was Assistant Minister and subsequently China’s Vice Minister of Commerce in charge of multilateral and regional trade negotiations and cooperation. Besides his contribution to China’s WTO accession, he played a leading role in negotiating numerous free trade agreements (FTAs), including the China-ASEAN agreement, China’s first FTA. He also worked as a diplomat at the Chinese Embassy in the United States for more than four years from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. He obtained a Master’s degree in economics from Nankai University in China in 1999.

Managing Director, Middle East Region, Electricité de France (EdF)since 2014, based in Abu Dhabi. She is an advisor to the French Foreign Trade since 2011. In 2012, she became Managing Director for MENA and Turkey for Alstom Transport. She was Country President for Near East at Alstom in Amman (Jordan) (2009-2012). In 2008, she was Project Manager at Bouygues Travaux Publics (Construction). In 2005, she settled in Jakarta (Indonesia) and held the position of Deputy Sales Director for Areva Transmission & Distribution until 2007. She graduated from the French school SUPELEC.

Chairman and CEO, AccorHotels. He began his career in the finance sector in 1985 in the United States. In 1997, he joined Colony Capital to install and develop from Paris the European branch of the private investment firm. Within 15 years, he managed and participated in a number of investments in the hotel sector. Member of AccorHotels’ board since 2005, he was appointed as Chairman and CEO of the Group in 2013. He is also Vice-Chairman of the supervisory board of the Gustave Roussy Foundation and member of the Board of Directors of GE. He holds a master in Economics from the Sorbonne University of Paris.

President and CEO of Qatar Petroleum since November 2014. He joined Qatar Petroleum (QP) in 1986 as a student, studying Petroleum & Natural Gas Engineering at Pennsylvania State University, USA. Immediately after graduation, he joined QP’s Reservoir & Field Development Department, where he progressed through various positions. He then became the Manager of Gas Development responsible for North Field management and development. From 2006 until this appointment, he was the Director of QP’s Oil & Gas Ventures Directorate. In September 2014, he was appointed as QP’s Managing Director. He graduated from Pennsylvania State University, USA.

Chief Financial Officer of Cellectis, a NASDAQ-listed biotechnology company using its gene editing platform to develop life-saving cell and gene therapies, notably in oncology. Arthur oversees the finance, business development and investor relations functions. He began his career at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition, controlling global pharmaceutical mergers such as the Novartis/GSK and Sanofi/Boehringer Ingelheim asset swaps, Pfizer’s acquisition of Hospira, and Teva’s acquisition of Actavis Generics. He later became Head of the Hospital Financing unit at the French Ministry of Health, where he led a team responsible for the €80bn hospital budget. Arthur graduated from ENS Ulm & Cambridge University, and holds a diploma in Immunotherapy from the Université Paris-Descartes. Arthur is also a member of the French Corps des Mines and a member of the advisory board of Life Science Cares, a not-for-profit US organization.

Distinguished Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He previously served as Vice Chairman of JPMorgan Chase International (2006-2008) and was an unofficial US representative to Taiwan as Director of the American Institute in Taiwan (2002-2006). He was on the National Security Council staff of Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush between 1986 and 1993, as Director of Asian Affairs and then as Senior Director and Special Assistant to the President. Paal held positions in the policy planning staff at the State Department, as a Senior Analyst for the CIA, and at US embassies in Singapore and Beijing. He has spoken and published frequently on Asian affairs and national security issues.

Austrian Ambassador to the State of Qatar since 2016. He joined the Austrian Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 1986. He served as Head of Directorate of COREPER I Affairs regarding EU Single Market including Digital Single Market and Defence Single Market, Open Technology and Innovation, EU Security Research (2012-2016). He was also a national detached expert at the European Commission from 2003 to 2007. He held posts in Kinshasa, Geneva and Tel Aviv among others. He has been a senior lecturer at Danube University, Krems, and Sigmund Freud University, Vienna. He graduated from the University of Vienna and from the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna.

Former Palestinian National Authority Ambassador to the United States (1994-2995) and to Morocco (2005-2009). He is currently CEO and Vice President of the Council on Arab Relations with Latin America and the Caribbean (CARLAC) and a Senior Advisor to the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (FUNGLODE). He also served as deputy representative of the PLO to the UN in New York. He is an active participant in the Peace Process in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, serving as a senior political advisor to the Palestinian negotiating teams at the Madrid Conference of 1991, Wye River Conference and Camp David 2000 Summit. He graduated from the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico and the University of New York.

China Special Envoy on the Middle East Issue since 2014. After graduation, he worked in the Department of West Asian and North African Affairs of the Foreign Ministry, at the Embassy of China to the Arab Republic of Egypt, at the Foreign Affairs Office of the State Council of China and at the Permanent Mission of China to the UN. He served as Head of the Chinese Office to the Palestinian National Authority (at the Rank of Ambassador), Ambassador to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Ambassador to the Republic Turkey. He graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Executive Director of Reach Out To Asia (ROTA). He joined ROTA as Senior Operations Manager in 2009 and was promoted to the role of Executive Director in 2010. Since then he has been responsible for continuing the strategic course set by ROTA’s Board of Directors. Under his leadership, the organization has led a variety of initiatives in 13 countries around Asia and Qatar. He has served on the steering committees of various international and local groups in the field of development and social responsibility. Since 2010, he has been a member of the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) Minimum Standards Working Group. In Qatar, he represents ROTA on the Steering Board of the TAMM Volunteer Network, of which ROTA is a founding member.

President of the Institute for Pan-African Strategies, Peace-Security-Governance (IPS). He has been a member of the National Assembly of Senegal since 2017 and became Vice President in October 2019 until 2022. He was the Special Envoy of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to the Central African Republic from 2014 to 2017 and Special Representative of the OIC Secretary General for Africa from 2016 to 2017. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs in charge of the African Union and Senegalese Abroad from 2000 to 2002, before serving as Senior Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Senegal from 2002 to 2009. Former President of the “Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security in Africa”, he is currently the Special Envoy of the OIF (Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie). He holds a Diploma of Advanced Studies (DEA) from Paris-Sorbonne V University and a Ph.D. in Communication and International Development from Ohio State University.

Executive Vice President, CHO of BGI (Beijing Genomics Institute) Group. Previously, she was the Project Director of The Southern Securities Investment Bank, Vice Dean of School of Economics and Management at Tongji University, Executive Dean of Chinese Academy of Science and Technology Management. She was also a visiting scholar of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (2005-2007) and a visiting scholar of Gothenburg University in Sweden (2012). Her research focuses on innovation management and policy. She has also published a book entitled Power of Innovation and more than 30 papers in high-impact journals and conference domestically and internationally.

Prime Minister of Qatar since 26 June 2013. After serving in different posts in the government, on 15 February 2005, he was appointed Minister of State for Interior Affairs. He was named as Prime Minister on 26 June 2013 in a cabinet reshuffle. He was also named as Minister of the Interior in the same cabinet reshuffle. He graduated from Durham Military College, United Kingdom, in 1984 and received a bachelor’s degree in police sciences in 1995.

Foreign Desk Editor of Les Echos, the French business newspaper. Previously, she was the daily newspaper’s New York correspondent (2008-2012), where she covered the financial crisis and the two Obama presidential elections. Earlier in her career at Les Echos, she held various positions as an IT writer and created in 2000 a special section dedicated to the internet economy and to innovation. Her first job was as a business writer for 01 Informatique, the leading IT trade magazine in France. She is the author of a book L’irrésistible montée de l’économie sociale, Editions Autrement, published in March 2007. In 2021-2022, she was an auditor at the Collège des hautes études de l’institut diplomatique. Virginie is the vice President of the European-American Press Club in Paris and a member of the French Diplomatic Press Association. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Valparaiso University, IN. and a Master of Journalism from Medill School, Northwestern University, ILL. 

Australia’s Ambassador to the United States since March 2023. He served as Australia’s twenty-sixth Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010, then as Minister for Foreign Affairs, before a second term as Prime Minister in 2013. He was Member for Griffith in the Australian Parliament from 1998 to 2013. He started his diplomatic career in 1981 with postings to Beijing and Stockholm. In 1988, he was appointed Chief of Staff to the Hon Wayne Goss and served him as Premier of Queensland. He was Director-General of the Cabinet Office in Queensland from 1991 to 1995, and Senior China Consultant for KPMG from 1996 to 1998. He graduated with Honours in Asian Studies from the Australian National University and received his PhD from Oxford University in 2022. He also studied at National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei. In 2015, he became inaugural President of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York. In 2020, he was appointed President and CEO of the Asia Society globally and, in 2022, he founded the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis. In 2019, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia for eminent service to Indigenous reconciliation, innovative economic initiatives, and major policy reform, and through senior advisory roles with international organizations.

CEO, He-Sai Photonics Technologies. Formerly Principal Engineer at Western Digital. Before joining Western Digital, he has worked in several Fortune 500 companies including Lam Research and Parker Hannifin. At Tsinghua University, he cohosted “Silk Roads”, an exchange program between students from top universities in China and France. He graduated from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. He holds a Ph.D in Robotics and Pattern Recognition from the University of Illinois.

Professor of International Politics at Keio University, Tokyo. He is Director of Research at the Asia-Pacific Initiative, Tokyo. He is also Senior Researcher at the Nakasone Peace Institute, Senior Fellow at The Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, and Senior Adjunct Fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs. His research interests include postwar international history, British diplomatic history, Japanese foreign and security policy, and contemporary East Asian international politics. He was a member of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Panel on Reconstruction of the Legal Basis for Security from 2013 to 2014, and the Prime Minister’s Advisory Panel on National Security and Defense Capabilities in 2013. He was a Visiting Professor and Japan Chair at Sciences Po in Paris between 2009 and 2010, a Visiting Fellow at Princeton University between 2008 and 2009 and Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge between 2021 and 2022. Professor Hosoya studied International Politics at Rikkyo (BA), Birmingham (MIS), and Keio (Ph.D.).

Technical Director for Energy and Environment at Qatar National Research Fund, a member of Qatar Foundation. He is member of the strategic committee of QF R&D. Before joining Qatar Foundation in 2014, he was Deputy Director General at the French National Research Agency (ANR) in charge of scientific affairs. In 2005, he joined ANR at its inception, first as Head of the Department on Sustainable Energies and Environment up to 2010. He is a member of the strategic water and energy R&D committee of Qatar chaired by the minister of industry and energy. He holds a PhD from University of Strasbourg (France).

Chief coordinator of the High Negotiations Committee, Syria. He was Prime Minister of Syria. He held various posts within the Syrian State, such as member of the national command and the Central Committee of BAATH party. He created the Free National Movement for employees in the institutions of the Syrian State in December 2012 and he stayed its President until March 2015. He is a member of the national coalition for revolutionary forces and the Syrian opposition. He holds a PhD in agricultural engineering.

Vice-President of the Board, Polish Oil and Gas Company (PGNiG). He worked at the Ministry of Finance and at the Ministry of Economy, where he led the Oil and Gas Department (2003-2008). He represented Poland at IEA Governing Board meetings. He was Poland Prime Minister’s chief adviser on Energy Security (2008-2010). He represented Poland in the Visehrad Four High-Level Group on Energy and the EC’s Group for the Baltic Energy Market Interconnection Plan. He advised the Environment Minister and Chief Geologist on the geological and mining law reform on shale gas (2011-2013). He graduated from Cracow University of Economics and the National School of Public Administration.

Author and journalist, specialising in geopolitics as a contributing editor to The Economist and Project Syndicate. A graduate in Arabic from Cambridge University and in education from London University, he taught at the University of Libya and then at the American University of Beirut before embracing journalism in time for the Lebanese civil war. His subsequent career with The Economist included positions in London as industry editor and Asia editor, along with foreign postings that ranged from Hong Kong and Singapore to Brussels, Paris, Los Angeles and Washington DC. More recently he has worked with the UN Environment Programme, with the Rockefeller Foundation on fragile states and with BBVA’s OpenMind on world conflicts. In July 2021 he became head tutor for The Economist‘s first online course on global trends in geopolitics, with a particular focus on China and the USA.

Secretary General of the Qatar National Commission for Education, Culture and Science, since 2014. She has been an education researcher and Director of Cultural Relations Department and Evaluation Institute. She is an active member of the Committee of Trustees of the State Appreciation and Recognition Awards, National Coordinator for Education for All 2030, member of the Executive Council of ISESCO, member of the Executive Council of the ALESCO, Chair of the Committee of Co-operation Agreement between the State of Qatar and UNESCO, Executive Chairperson of “Education Excellence Award”. She graduated from Qatar University. She also has a Master’s Degree in education from Ain Shams University. She holds a PhD from this same university.

A Saudi expert on Gulf politics and strategic issues, Dr. Abdulaziz Sager is the founder and Chairman of the Gulf Research Center, a global think tank based in Saudi Arabia with a well-established presence and worldwide network of partners and offices in both the Gulf region and Europe. In addition to having authored and edited numerous publications, Dr. Sager frequently contributes on major international media channels. He is also the editor-in-chief of Araa a monthly Arabic-language magazine focused on Gulf affairs and is the editor-in-chief of The Gulf Yearbook. Dr. Sager has also chaired and moderated the Syrian opposition meetings in Riyadh in 2015 and 2017. Dr. Sager holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations from Lancaster University, with a focus on Gulf security affairs.

General Manager, Editor in Chief of Al Arab News Channel. He began his career as a correspondent for the Saudi Gazette daily. From 1991 to 1999, he was a foreign correspondent to cover events in countries such as Afghanistan, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the Middle East. He was Deputy Editor in Chief of Arab News. In 2003, he became Editor in Chief of Al-Watan daily and then was appointed as media advisor to Prince Turki Al Faisal, the Saudi Ambassador in London and later Washington. In 2007, he returned to Al-Watan as its Editor in Chief. He graduated from the Indian State University.

Qatar University’s 6^th President since 2015. He was previously Vice-President for Research, Qatar University (2007-2015). He also served in several roles at Qatar University including Associate Vice President for Research and Head of Civil Engineering at the College of Engineering. His research interests include construction productivity, project optimization, legal contracts and procurement. He is also a member of several professional international societies and organizations. He holds a PhD from the University of South Wales, UK, and a Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering from Georgia Tech, USA.

Director of Public Health Department, Ministry of Public Health of Qatar. He is also, among others, Chair of the National preventive health care committee, Qatar since 2013 and Chair of the International Health Regulations Committee, Qatar since 2011. He has been a Member of the Executive Committee for GCC Countries, Saudi Arabia since 2008 and Representative, Qatar Health in the World Health Assembly, Switzerland since 2007. He has a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University and an EMBA from HEC Paris.

Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey (2014-2016). Previously, he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs (2009-2014). Following the November 2002 elections he was appointed as Chief Adviser to the Prime Minister and Ambassador-at-Large and continued to serve until 2009. Between 1995 and 2002, he taught and also had administrative duties at different universities in Istanbul. He published several books and articles on foreign policy. He graduated from Bosphorus University. He holds a PhD from the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Bosporus University.