Meet the Authors
Jean-Marie Guéhenno is currently President & CEO of the International Crisis Group and was appointed in September 2014. In 2012, he was appointed Deputy Joint Special Envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League for Syria. Between 2000 and 2008, he served as the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations for Peacekeeping Operations.
Ayo Obe is a legal practitioner and partner of the Lagos-based law firm, Ogunsola Shonibare. From 2004 to 2008, she was Chair of the Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy. For three years from April 2006, she headed the Elections Program of the National Democratic Institute’s Nigeria office in Abuja. She is the former President (1995–2003) and Vice-President (1992) of the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), Nigeria’s oldest indigenous human rights organisation. Ayo Obe has been Vice-Chair of International Crisis Group’s Board of Trustees since 2012.
Asma Jahangir is a leading human rights lawyer in Pakistan and the former President of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan (2010–2011). She has twice been elected as chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. In 1998, she was appointed United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions and in 2004, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief of the Council of Human Rights. She has been a member of International Crisis Group’s Board of Trustees since 2002.
Lord Christopher Patten of Barnes has served as Chancellor of the University of Oxford since 2003. He is a former European Commissioner for External Relations (1999–2004), Governor of Hong Kong (1992–1997) and UK Minister for Overseas Development (1986–1989). Lord Christopher Patten is a Senior Adviser to International Crisis Group and formerly Co-Chair.
Zainab Hawa Bangura has served as the Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict at the level of the United Nations Under-Secretary-General since 2012. Prior to this, she was the Minister of Health and Sanitation for the Government of Sierra Leone. From 2007 to 2010, she was Sierra Leone’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. She is a Senior Adviser to International Crisis Group.
Mark Eyskens is the former Prime Minister (April to December 1981) and Foreign Minister from (1989–1992) of Belgium. He was made a Belgian Minister of State and a member of the Crown Council of Belgium in 1998. Mark Eyskens has been a member of International Crisis Group’s Board of Trustees since 1995.
Celso Amorim served as Foreign Minister of External Relations (1993–1994, 2003–2010) and as Defence Minister (2011–2014) of Brazil. During his long and distinguished diplomatic career he also served as Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United and Ambassador to the UK. In 2015 Celso Amorim joined International Crisis Group’s Board of Trustees.
Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele is former Deputy Secretary-General of the African National Congress (2002–2007) and served as National Minister for Housing of South Africa (1995–2002). She was the first Female Cabinet Minister to act as State President for South Africa. Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele is a member of International Crisis Group’s Board of Trustees.
Yoriko Kawaguchi is a former Foreign Minister of Japan (2002–2004) and Special Adviser on Foreign Affairs to the Prime Minister of Japan (2005–2013). During her years at the House of Councillors she served as Co-Chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (2008–2010). Yoriko Kawaguchi is a member of International Crisis Group’s Board of Trustees.
Frank Giustra is CEO of the Fiore Group, a firm managing a broad portfolio of private equity investments. He founded Lionsgate Entertainment, now one of the world’s largest independent film companies. A strong believer in philanthropy, he established the Radcliffe Foundation in 1997. He and former President Bill Clinton launched the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (CGEP) in 2007. He has been a member of the International Crisis Group’s Board of Trustees since 2005, and also serves as a board member of Endeavour Mining, Thunderbird Films, Petromanas Energy, CGEP, the Radcliffe Foundation and Streetohome Foundation.
Jonas Gahr Støre is the leader of Norway’s Labour Party. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from October 2005 to September 2012, and then as Minister of Health and Care Services until October 2013, when the cabinet resigned following a loss for the Red-Green coalition in parliamentary elections. Støre studied political science at Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris from 1981 to 1985. He worked for Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland as an adviser and then director general at the Prime Minister’s Office from 1989 to 1997. He later became an ambassador in the Norwegian Delegation to the United Nations Office at Geneva. From 1998 to 2000, he served as executive director (chief of staff) of the World Health Organization. He was executive chairman of the think tank ECON Analyse from 2002 to 2003, and secretary general of the Norwegian Red Cross from 2003 to 2005.
Lykke Friis, PhD, is Prorector for Education at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. She is Denmark’s former Minister of Climate and Energy and also Minister for Gender Equality. She has published extensively on matters related to European politics and foreign policy, and frequently appears on Danish television as an expert analyst. She has held nearly 20 honorary offices, including as a member of the EU Reflection group appointed by the European Council. She has been a member of Crisis Group’s Board of Trustees since 2012. She is also a board member of the the European Council of Foreign Relations, and serves on the boards of three major Danish companies: The Velux Group, Vestas Wind Systems A/S, and The Rockwool Foundation. In addition, she is a member of the Trilateral Commission and the chairman of the Danish Foreign Policy Society.
Gareth Evans has dedicated his career to advancing global peace and security. He served as the Foreign Minister of Australia from 1988–1996, and played a central role in developing the UN peace plan for Cambodia. As Crisis Group’s president from 2000–2009, he transformed the organisation from a fledgling NGO to the world’s leading source of information and advice on preventing and resolving deadly conflict. He helped develop and promote the concept of the “Responsibility to Protect”, and has worked tirelessly on nuclear disarmament. He has written or edited twelve books, including The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All and Nuclear Weapons: The State of Play 2015. He is currently Chancellor of the Australian National University.
Ed Williams is the Chief Executive Officer of global communications consultancy Edelman UK and Ireland. He previously served as director of communications at the BBC, and prior to that was director of communications at Reuters. As a former reporter, he still likes to turn his hand to speeches and opinion page writing. He began his career in journalism at London News Service and spent five years as news editor at GMTV. He is a member of Crisis Group’s International Advisory Council.
Micheline Calmy-Rey served two terms as President of Switzerland, in 2007 and in 2011. She previously held the post of Vice-President and served as head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs from 2003 to the end of 2011, where she pursued a policy of active neutrality promoting peace, fostering respect for human rights, and advancing the fight against poverty. In May 2012, she was nominated visiting professor at the University of Geneva. She is a member of the International Crisis Group’s Board of Trustees.
Cleopatra Kitti is founder of the Mediterranean Growth Initiative, a stakeholder platform to re-energize thinking and doing for the Mediterranean region based on data, analysis and investor interest. She has 30 years of experience in advising governments and multinational firms on leadership, governance and reputation, market entry and crisis management. She is a member of Crisis Group’s International Advisory Council, as well as a board member of the Cyprus Association of Directors and member of the International Arab Women’s Forum.
Mark Malloch Brown is the Chairman of SGO and its elections division Smartmatic, a leading elections technology company. He served as Deputy Secretary-General and Chief of Staff of the United Nations under Kofi Annan. He previously headed the UN Development Programme. He also served as British Minister of State, covering Africa and Asia, and was a member of Gordon Brown’s cabinet. Other positions have included vice-chairman of George Soros’s Investment Funds, as well as his Open Society Institute, vice-president at the World Bank, and vice-chairman of the World Economic Forum. He is a co-chairman of the International Crisis Group’s Board of Trustees.
Carl Bildt is a former Prime Minister (1991–1994) and Foreign Minister (2006–2014) of Sweden. He was Co-Chairman of the Dayton peace talks on Bosnia and Herzegovina, and became the first High Representative in the country. He also served as the Special Envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to the Balkans region. Currently he chairs the Global Commission on Internet Governance and serves as Co-Chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations. Carl Bildt has been a member of International Crisis Group’s Board of Trustees since 2014.
Emma Bonino is an active member of Italy’s Transnational Radical Party and served as Italy’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from April 2013 to February 2014. As European commissioner for humanitarian aid during the 1990s, she drew attention to crises in the African Great Lakes Region and the Balkans. She later founded the campaign group No Peace Without Justice and advocated for the creation of a special court to try crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia. She joined Crisis Group’s Board of Trustees in 2008.
Steve Killelea is an accomplished entrepreneur and philanthropist who has dedicated much of his time and fortune toward sustainable development and peace. In 1988, he founded Integrated Research (IR), one of Australia’s leading software companies. In 2000, he established The Charitable Foundation, which specialises in working with the poorest communities of the world. He is the founder and executive chairman of the Institute for Economics and Peace, an international think tank established in 2007 to build greater understanding of the interconnection between business, peace and economics.
