Bill Antholis, Director of Strategic Planning at the Brookings Institution, works on a wide range of foreign policy and economic issues. Antholis was founder and Project Director of the Trade and Poverty Forum, a global initiative that brings together a range of leaders from leading industrial and developing democracies to discuss issues connected to the current round of WTO negotiations. He also is completing a book that examines prospects for and limits to cooperation by democracies in negotiating global agreements on trade, investment, and environmental challenges. Bill served as Director of the Office Policy Analysis at the State Department’s Bureau of Economic Affairs. Prior to that he served at the White House National Security and National Economic Councils as Director of International Economic Affairs, and at the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff as Special Advisor to the Director. Mr. Antholis co-founded the Civic Education Project in 1991, a nonprofit organization that currently supports over 200 western-trained social science instructors at universities in 19 Central and Eastern European countries.

Steven Bennett: Chief of Staff, the Brookings Institution. Mr. Bennett served as GFI's first Executive Director for three years. He previously worked as Executive Director of Witness for Peace (WFP), an international organization dedicated to changing those U.S. policies and corporate practices that exacerbate poverty and oppression in the Americas. He also served as interim Executive Director/Project Director of National Neighbors, a U.S.-based NGO dedicated to community economic development in poverty-impacted urban neighborhoods, and as an associate at the Center for National Policy.

Susan Davis, External senior advisor to the Director General of the International Labor Organization and consultant to Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, serving as its first Director for the Global Academy for Social Entrepreneurship. Susan is also an International Board Representative for Ashoka's global selection panels. She helped to found and now chairs the board of the Grameen Foundation USA. She also serves on the boards of Project Enterprise and Aid to Artisans. Susan was the Executive Director of a global women's advocacy organization that pioneered new mechanisms for the global women's movement to influence negotiations at global United Nations meetings from 1993-1998. Prior to that, she led innovative initiatives aimed at scaling up microfinance institutions that were owned and governed by poor women at Women's World Banking and the Ford Foundation in Bangladesh. During her four and half years in Dhaka, she helped to start Ashoka in Bangladesh and served as its first volunteer representative. Susan served as the Assistant Director of the first quasi-public export trading company launched in the 1980s by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Susan was educated at Georgetown, Harvard and Oxford universities and is from Louisiana.

Nancy A. Donaldson, Vice President with Dutko Worldwide, has worked as political consultant on domestic and foreign policy matters before Congress and the White House, representing NGOs, corporations & unions for nearly 20 years. During that time, she worked on the successful efforts to win Family and Medical Leave, a raise in the minimum wage, the release of the frozen U.S. payments to the UN, and to stop efforts to unravel environmental and other federal regulatory protections against corporate abuse. She also worked on behalf of peace and nuclear arms control issues and international relations. Prior to joining Dutko, she served as Vice President at the Downey McGrath Group, as Legislative Director for the Service Employees International Union, on the staff of the Democratic National Committee and as the Washington Director for Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND). In addition to her work with GFI, she serves on the boards of Women in International Security (WIIS), Peace PAC and the Holdeen India Fund.

Andrew Evans: Mr. Evans has over 10 years on-the-ground experience in Ukraine, having lectured and published extensively on the country. He has worked at NATO as a political analyst, as a consultant at the Fund for Peace and the Aspen Institute, and as a freelance writer. Mr. Evans holds a master’s degree in Russian studies from Oxford University and speaks both Russian and Ukrainian.

H.E. Roland Eng, Ambassador-at-Large and Advisor to the Royal Government of Cambodia.Ambassador Roland Eng of the Kingdom of Cambodia, joined King Norodom Sihanouk, then in exile, in 1979 in France to spearhead the Royalist cause during the Khmer Rouge regime. He later volunteered at the refugee camps along the Cambodian-Thai border before becoming a freedom fighter with the Royalist forces inside Cambodia. Ambassador Eng worked closely with the UN under the UNTAC operation and, in 1993, was elected to the National Assembly as MP for Kampot province. He was later appointed as Minister of Tourism and then as the first Ambassador to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore upon restoration of diplomatic ties since the end of the country's civil war. The Royal Cambodian ambassador to Washington from 1999 to 2004, Ambassador Eng is currently Cambodia's Ambassador-at-Large and Advisor to the Royal Government of Cambodia.

Gayle Smith, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, spent almost 20 years in Africa as a journalist and advisor to non-governmental organizations. Her areas of expertise include African affairs, economic development, complex political emergencies, crisis prevention and post-conflict management, failed states and transnational threats. During the Clinton Administration, she served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council, and as Senior Advisor to the Administrator and Chief of Staff of the US Agency for International Development. Smith negotiated a ceasefire between Uganda and Rwanda in 1999 and won the National Security Council's Samuel Nelson Drew Award for Distinguished Contribution in Pursuit of Global Peace for her role in the successful negotiation of a peace agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia. She won the World Journalism Award from the World Affairs Council and the World Hunger Year Award in 1991. Smith has also consulted for a wide range of non-governmental organizations, foundations and international governmental agencies, including UNICEF, the World Bank, Lutheran World Relief, Dutch Interchurch Aid and the Canadian Council for International Cooperation.

Kathy Sreedhar is the founding Director of the Unitarian Universalist Holdeen India Program, a grant-making foundation which works with organizations in India that promote long term changes in power relationships, allocation of resources and unjust social conditions. The foundation focuses on organizations of people marginalized on the basis of gender, caste, ethnicity, sexual orientation or economic exploitation, especially landless, bonded, migrant laborers and home-based and domestic workers. UU-HIP provides long-term financial, advocacy, networking and other support the groups require to strengthen their organizations and advance their issues. Since 1962, Ms. Sreedhar has worked in both India and the United States for development, advocacy and government organizations and serves on the Boards of funding, international fellowship and community organizations. She has contributed articles to several books and journals on India's social development and grassroots movements.

Lou Ventino, Senior Director of the Global Trade Organization at Microsoft Corporation, is a recognized authority and leader with respect to global trade matters, and in demonstrating how cross-border trade issues contribute to the efficiency of governments. Mr. Ventino has been instrumental in the design, support, and implementation of major cooperative E-customs and related capacity building initiatives globally. His work addresses a broad range of international trade and policy programs and related global strategic activities. In international development and innovation projects he has worked with many governments to further the understanding and uptake of IT solutions in the development of national priorities. The global initiatives undertaken by his team highlight the seamless integration of technology solutions and services for international market development. Mr. Ventino contributes to, and serves on the Boards of, leading organizations working to influence trade policy internationally.