Ali Noorani currently serves as President of the Barr Foundation. He joined the foundation from his role as Program Director of U.S. democracy at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Prior to that, he served for 14 years as President and CEO of the National Immigration Forum in Washington. Ali is fellow at the University of Chicago Center for Effective Government, a fellow of the fourth class of the Civil Society Fellowship, and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. He is the author of two books also serves on the US board of More in Common. Ali lives in Boston in the United States.
Edwin Bendyk serves as the President of the Board of the Batory Foundation, one of Poland's best-known foundations. He is a founder of the Collegium Civitas Centre for Future Studies, columnist for the Polityka weekly current affairs magazine, a member of the Polish PEN-Club and a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations. Edwin lives in Warsaw, Poland.
Mayada Boulos is a widely recognized communications expert, having held senior positions in both the private and public sectors. She is currently the CEO of the French advertising and communications agency Havas Paris, a position she has held since September 2022. She previously served as the main communication and press advisor to the French Prime Minister Jean Castex during President Emmanuel Macron's first term. Prior to that, Mayada was a Senior Partner and Deputy CEO of Havas from 2016 to 2020. During her first tenure at Havas, she worked with numerous leaders and companies with high exposure in public relations, public affairs, digital and advertising both in France and internationally. In both her private and public sector roles, Mayada has acquired significant experience in crisis management and communications. Mayada is also highly engaged in societal issues in France and internationally.
Mona Charen, syndicated columnist and author based in the USA, is Policy Editor of The Bulwark, host of the weekly podcast The Mona Charen Show and co-host of the Just Between Us podcast. She is a contributor to TIME magazine and a regular commentator on BBC. A graduate of Columbia University and the George Washington University law school, Mona began her career at National Review magazine, then served as Nancy Reagan’s speechwriter and later as Associate Director of the Office of Public Liaison. Later in her White House career, she worked in the Public Affairs office helping to craft President Reagan’s communications strategy. In 1986, she joined the presidential campaign of then-Congressman Jack Kemp. Mona launched her syndicated column in 1987. It is featured in more than 60 newspapers and websites. She spent 6 years as a regular commentator on CNN’s Capital Gang and Capital Gang Sunday has served as a judge of the Pulitzer Prizes. She is the author of four books: Useful Idiots (2003); Do-Gooders (2005), Sex Matters (2018) and Hard Right (2023). In 2010, she received the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism.
© House of Lords / photography by Roger Harris
Baroness Arminka Helić is a foreign and defence policy specialist and member of the UK House of Lords. Having found refuge in Britain from the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, she studied International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science before working as an adviser for successive UK Shadow Foreign and Defence Secretaries. From 2006-2015 Arminka was Senior Special Adviser to former UK Foreign Secretary William Hague. While in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Arminka was instrumental in establishing the UK's Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, with which she remains closely involved as a member of the Foreign Office Advisory Board for the Initiative.
Arminka was appointed to the House of Lords in 2014, and served two terms on the Lords' International Relations and Security Committee from 2016-2020. From 2015-2021 she was a board member of the Trust Fund for Victims of the International Criminal Court, representing Western European and Other States, and a member of the UN Secretary General's advisory board on Disarmament Matters from 2018-2021. She is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Centre for Geopolitics, University of Cambridge, and from 2022-2023 was a Visiting Parliamentary Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford.
Photo: House of Lords. Used under Creative Commons licence Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0). Image cropped (background only).
Dame Sara Khan is a leading expert and policy specialist on counter-extremism, societal resilience and human rights. She is an inspiring public speaker, author and commentator and her expertise is highly sought after by governments and civil society alike. Sara was appointed Britain’s first Counter-Extremism Commissioner in 2018. She was tasked with leading the Commission for Countering Extremism and carrying out a strategic assessment of extremism in England and Wales. In March 2021, Sara was appointed by the Prime Minister as the UK Government’s Independent Adviser for Social Cohesion and Resilience and in 2024 published The Khan Review: Threats to Social Cohesion and Democratic Resilience.
Sara also has extensive NGO experience having co-founded and led Inspire in 2008, an independent counter-extremism and gender equality organisation. For ten years, Sara worked in partnership with local communities, schools and public bodies. Sara is also author of The Battle for British Islam: Reclaiming Muslim Identity from Extremism (2016). Sara is currently a senior advisor to Crest Advisory, a UK organisation that specialises in justice, policing and public safety and is an advisory board member for the Policy Institute, King’s College London.
Michael Schwarz is Managing Director of the Baden-Baden Entrepreneur Talks (BBUG). The Baden-Baden Entrepreneur Talks is a non-profit network of outstanding leaders from business, politics and society. BBUG is supported by around 120 member companies, including most of the DAX companies. The goal of BBUG is that the participants, young top executives in their companies and institutions, make a contribution to strengthening our society beyond their own organization. BBUG is about learning, exploring, reflecting and acting together across sectors and borders.
Previously, Michael Schwarz was Managing Director of Stiftung Mercator, a private, independent foundation. Through its work, the foundation strives for a society that is characterized by openness, solidarity and equal opportunities. In order to achieve these goals, it promotes and develops projects that improve opportunities for participation and cohesion in a society that is becoming more diverse. Stiftung Mercator wants to strengthen democracy and the rule of law in Europe through its work, addresses the effects of digitization on democracy and promotes climate action. Michael Schwarz helped shape the successful development of the foundation's international work, particularly in China and Turkey. The daughter institutions Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS), the German-Turkish Youth Bridge (DTJB) and the German Network for Education about China (BNC) were founded under his responsibility. He initiated numerous projects in the areas of think tanks, promotion of young talent, international and intersectoral exchange, dialogue and encounters.
He has worked in foundations since 2005, when he joined the Robert Bosch Foundation after working as a consultant at CNC AG (now KekstCNC), an international strategic communications consultancy. At the Robert Bosch Foundation, he first worked as a project manager in the Science and Society division, then as an assistant to the management board and finally as head of communication.
He studied political science and public policy at the University of Konstanz and at Rutgers University.
Graciela Selaimen is a Brazilian journalist, writer, and social innovation strategist who bridges storytelling, technology, and social change. As the founder and executive director of Instituto Toriba, she catalyzes collaborative dialogues that bring together diverse actors to develop creative solutions for a more sustainable, peaceful and prosperous future. A proud mother of two amazing adults, Graciela has a profound faith in human and non-human nature, and approaches her work and life with a deep sense of interconnectedness and hope. From 2013 to 2021, Graciela served as a Senior Program Officer at the Ford Foundation, where she strategically developed portfolios in Technology and Society, Creativity and Freedom of Expression, and Civic Engagement and Government. Currently, she is a member the Research Working Group at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy. Her leadership extends to several prominent organizations, including board positions with Oxfam Brazil, Manos Visibles, and the Brazilian Institute of Consumers' Rights, where she leverages her expertise to drive meaningful social transformation.
