Category: Invited guests

Ambassador of South Korea to the Kingdom of Morocco. Previously, he has worked as a Director-General at the International Economic Affairs Bureau of MOFAT, responsible for Korea’s foreign policy on international economy, OECD, development co-operation and energy & climate change. He studied at Seoul National University, and was graduated from the Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland. He co-authored The New Round (1995) and The International Law in the 21st Century (2001).

Professor of Economics at the University Mohammed V, Rabat. She holds a Masters and a PHD in Economics with a specialization in international trade and finance obtained at Arizona State University. She previously served as an Advisor to the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research. She is a member of the Economic Research Forum and of the Arab Development Portal Strategic Advisory Board. She was invited as a teacher and researcher to many universities and conducted consultations for various organizations such as UNCTAD, UNDP and the World Bank. She also coordinated research projects related to international trade, pro-poor growth and migration.

Former Managing Director of the IMF, he is Honorary Governor of Banque de France and Chairman of the French Financing Corporation (SFEF). In September 2009, he was appointed Special Commissioner tornmonitor French banks’ bonus payments practices. He is a member of the Africa Progress Panel, chaired by Kofi Annan, and of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation. He earned postgraduaterndegrees in Economics at the Institut d’études politiques de Paris and the École nationale d’administration.’

Ambassador of France. President, FBE International Consultants. Former Senior International Adviser and member of the European Advisory Board of Citi, after having been Chairman of Citigroup France. Former Ambassador of France to the United States and to Canada, diplomatic Adviser to Prime Minister Jacques Chirac and special Assistant to President Charles de Gaulle. Former Director of international relations at the French Atomic Energy Commissariat. He is a graduate of the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, of the École Nationale d’Administration, and of the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.

Head of the Energy Efficiency and Environment Division at the International Energy Agency in Paris. He has participated in the negotiations of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol, Nitrogen Oxides Protocol to the Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution Convention, The Montreal Protocol on Ozone Depleting Substances, and Agenda 21 of the UN Conference on Environment and Development. Dr Bradley received his PhD in Natural Resource Economics from the University of California, Riverside.

Senior fellow of Henry A. Kissinger for US foreign policy at the Council of Foreign Relations. He was senior fellow at Rand Corporation (2008-2010) and United States Ambassador to India. He was also Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Planning under President George W. Bush. He served as Presidential Envoy to Iraq and was the Administration’s Coordinator for US policies regarding Afghanistan and Iran. As a Harvard Faculty member, he was Associate Dean of the Kennedy School of Government.

Former Ambassador of Serbia to France. Director of the Institute for Balkan Studies, Belgrade, and President of the Serbian Committee of AIESEE (Association Internationale d’Etudes du Sud-Est Européen), he also served as Ambassador to Canada, Ambassador at large, Advisor to the President of Serbia and Ambassador to the Hellenic Republic. He holds a Ph.D. “France and the creation of parliamentary democracy in Serbia 1830-1914” from the University of Paris-Sorbonne, Paris IV.

Former Chairman of Merrill Lynch Investment Banking Italy. In the US State Department he was Principal Deputy of the Policy Planning Staff (1974-1977), Assistant Secretary of State for Politico-Military Affairs (1979-1981), Undersecretary of State for International Security Affairs (1989-1992), and held senior positions in the White House (NSC) and the Department of Defense. Abroad he was US Ambassador to Lebanon (1983-1986), Spain (1986-1989), NATO (1992-93) and Italy (1993-1997). Upon retirement, he joined Merrill Lynch Investment Banking as Vice-Chairman Europe and Chairman Italy (1997-2011). He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth and a M.A. from the University of Chicago.

Former Foreign Secretary of India

Director General of the Royal Institute for Strategic Studies since 2007 (Rabat, Morocco). He is the Honorary President of the Moroccan Association of Regional Science, and a member of various scientific committees. In 1979, he joined the Prime Minister Department. He held various positions within the ONA Group. He was Director of Studies and Financial Forecasts at the Ministry of Economy and Finances (Morocco) (1995-2003). In 2003, he was appointed at the Royal Cabinet, as in Charge of Mission. He graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole des Mines, Paris.

Chairman of Convictions AM. In 2000 he was co-founder and Vice President of the Française des Placements’s Governance Board, and formerly a CPR Bank’s General Manager, then Vice President (1988-1999) and Caisse Nationale Crédit Agricole’s government finance Manager (1986-1987). Before, he was Vice President of Crédit Agricole in Chicago (1982-1987) and Head of the Group’s bond issues. He graduated from the Institute of Actuaries of Lyon (ISFA).

Director of Studies and Financial Forecasts; Ministry of Economy and Finance, Kingdomof Morocco

Former Governor, Morocco. He was Director of Cabinet of the Interior Minister, Special Adviser at the Office of the Interior Minister and administrator at the central administration of the Interior Ministry. He studied at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris and graduated from the School of Law in Rabat. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University Paris II.

Head of the Economic Analysis Unit

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan

He is a Certified Public Accountant, Honorary President of the Moroccan Institute of Certified Public Accountant, President and CEO of “Coopers & Lybrand” (Maroc) Ltd. He serves also as a professor at “ISCAE”, the Higher Institute of Business Administration in Casablanca. He is a former member of the Moroccan National Accounting Council standing Committee.

Honorary Chairman of Lafarge, who has merged with Holcim to form LafargeHolcim. He was a Director of LafargeHolcim until May 2018, and was also a director of several international companies, among which Unilever, Allianz, DuPont and Total. From  1966  to  1975,  he  worked  with  the  French  government  in  various positions.  He joined Lafarge in 1975. He was appointed Chairman and CEO of Lafarge in 1989. He was Chairman of Lafarge from 2003 to 2007. In parallel he was Chairman of Institut de l’Entreprise, of AFEP (Association of the large French companies) and of the WBCSD (World Business Council for Sustainable Development). Member of  the Institut de France and Past Chairman of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques. He graduated from the Ecole polytechnique and the Ecole des Mines in Paris. He also holds a French law degree and a PhD in Management from the University of Texas.

International correspondent and TV host, currently working for France Télévisions in Paris, he was TF1 French TV correspondent and bureau chief in the United States (1993-2002) and in Moscow (1986-1993). One of the founders and members of the board of France 24 TV, the French International News Channel, he has been anchor and executive producer of the show “The Talk of Paris”. He was Director in charge of national news at France 3 Televisions, France Télévisions Group. He is a graduate of the Lille Journalism School and author of “The Hillary Clinton Complex,” 1996, Editions Lattes, Paris; “The Secret Story of a Coup d’Etat,” 1991, Editions Lattes, Paris.

Managing Director of Future Standards (SL) Ltd, Enterprise. Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sierra Leone, Minister of Presidential Affairs and Minister of Energy and Environment. University professor, physicist, environmentalist and also expert on renewable energy, he took part in the setting up of the Peace Building Fund for Sierra Leone together with the United Nations for peace consolidation after the war in his country.

Founding member of the French Institute of International Relations along with Thierry de Montbrial, Dominique Moïsi has been the assistant to Raymond Aron at the Foundation Maison des sciences de l’Homme in Paris. He is Visiting Research Professor at London King’s College. He has been Special Advisor at Institut Montaigne since 2016. He authored numerous books such as The Geopolitics of Emotions, translated into more than twenty languages and for which he received the international Spinoza Prize in 2018. He is a columnist for Les Echos newspaper, Radio Classique and Ouest-France. He frequently contributes to The Financial Times and The New York Times.

Thierry de Montbrial is Executive Chairman of the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri), which he founded in 1979. He is Professor Emeritus at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers. In 2008, he launched the World Policy Conference. He has been a member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques of the Institut de France since 1992, and is a member of a number of foreign academies. He serves on the Board or Advisory Board of a number of international institutions. Thierry de Montbrial chaired the Department of Economics at the École polytechnique from 1974 to 1992. He was the first Chairman of the Foundation for Strategic Research (1993-2001). Entrusted with the creation of the Policy Planning Staff (Centre d’analyse et de prévision) at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was its first Director (1973-1979). He has authored more than twenty books, several of them translated in various languages, including Action and Reaction in the World System – The Dynamics of Economic and Political Power (UBC Press, Vancouver, Toronto, 2013) and Living in Troubled Times, A New Political Era (World Scientific, 2018). He is a Grand Officer of the Légion d’honneur, Grand Officer of the Ordre national du Mérite. He has been awarded the Order of the Rising Sun – Gold and Silver Star, Japan (2009), Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2016) and other state honors by the French and several foreign governments. Thierry de Montbrial is a graduate of the École polytechnique and the École des mines, and received a Ph.D. in Mathematical Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

President of the Zinsou Foundation that she founded in June 2005 in Benin. The Zinsou Foundation aims to promote contemporary art in Africa and leads cultural, educational and social actions. So far the foundation has hosted 24 exhibitions and has received 4 500 000 visitors, it has 6 libraries, an exhibition space and a museum. In 2014, the Zinsou Foundation received the grant for young artists of the Japanese Praemium Imperiale. Marie-Cécile Zinsou is chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Literature).

Co-Chair of SouthBridge, a Financial Advisory Service company dedicated to Africa. Chairman of Terra Nova think tank. Former Prime Minister of Benin (2015-2016). He started his career as a lecturer in economics at the University of Paris 13 and was a member of the Department of Industry’s Minister’s Office and the Prime Minister’s Office. In 1986, he joined Danone where he held various positions, including Corporate Development Director and member of the Executive Committee. In 1997, he joined the Rothschild Bank as General Partner; he was Head of the Consumer Products Group, Head of Middle East and Africa. He then served as CEO of the Private Equity firm PAI Partners (2009-2015). He graduated from École Normale Supérieure, Sciences Po, the London School of Economics and La Sorbonne in History and Economics. He is a professeur agrégé de sciences économiques et sociales.

Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where he leads a program of research on financing long-term care. He was a Senior Economist at the Department of Health for England. He is currently leading a multi-site study, funded by the AXA Research Fund, on how private long-term care insurance can supplement state systems in the UK. He graduated in politics and philosophy from the University of Oxford and in economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Member of Total Professeurs Associés, and of the French Energy Council. He was Executive Vice President at Total in charge of Strategy and Risk Assessment (2000-2008). He was Chief Financial Officer of Elf Aquitaine (1994-2000). He began his career at the Ministry for Industry (1972-1978), then he joined the Prime Minister Raymond Barre’s cabinet (1978-1981). He graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique, and the Ecole des mines in Paris. He holds a Master of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Former President of PricewaterhouseCoopers France, a member firm of the worldwide network of PricewaterhouseCoopers International (PWC). He joined Coopers & Lybrand in 1979 and was admitted to the partnership in 1989 on qualifying as Statutory Auditor. During his 30 years with PWC, he has held a number of other senior positions in management and governance within the firm in France, in Europe and at the international level. In 2007, he set up the PricewaterhouseCoopers France Foundation for Culture and Solidarity. In 2010, he published Le patron qui aime les littéraires (éd. Lethielleux/DDB). He is a graduate of the Ecole Supérieure de Sciences Economiques et Commerciales (ESSEC).

Former CEO, board member and a member of the strategy committee of sanofi-aventis. He is Chairman Elect PhRMA in the United States. After beginning his career at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, between 1988 and 2008, he acquired broad international experience in Europe, in the United States and in Canada with the GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) company. In his last position, he was President, Pharmaceutical Operations North America, a member of the board and Co-Chairman of the Portfolio Management Board. He is a graduate of the Queens University (Ontario, Canada) and a certified public accountant.

Deputy Director, El País and President of World Editors Forum since June 2008. He was Brussels Bureau Chief, El País (1994-1999), Chief Editor, El País (1987), Deputy Director of News Services, Spanish Television (TVE) (1985-1986), Economy Editor, El País Barcelona (1982-1985), Economy Editor, El Periódico de Catalunya (1978-1982), Reporter, Diario de Barcelona (1977), Political writer, El Noticiero universal (1976), National news writer, El Diario de Mallorca (1974-1975). He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Law; Barcelona University, a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism; Barcelona Autonomous University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Contemporary History; Barcelona Autonomous University.