Kirsten Fontenrose is a nonresident fellow at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. Previously, Kirsten was director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs until December 2021. Focused on the issues that keep policymakers up at night, her team engages technical experts and decision-makers globally to develop bipartisan approaches to burning and long-term obstacles to regional security. Kirsten spent 2018 as Senior Director for the Gulf at the National Security Council, leading the development of U.S. policy toward nations of the GCC, Yemen, Egypt, and Jordan. Prior to this service at the White House,  Kirsten spent a year in the private sector consulting on specialized projects in the national security space. Her interagency experience includes five years at the Department of State leading the Middle East and Africa team in the interagency Global Engagement Center. Prior to this Kirsten worked with a field team studying foreign populations for US Department of Defense Theater Special Operations Commands.  For seven years ending in 2006 Kirsten was responsible for building relationships with military officers and diplomats from the Middle East and South Asia for the Near East Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, after spending a year establishing this Center for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Her career began in the non-profit sector at the National Council on US-Relations, and in the private sector working on US-Arab business projects. She holds a BA in Middle East Studies from the College of William and Mary, an MA in Middle East Studies from Indiana University, funded by a US government grant, and an MBA from Harvard Business School’s General Management Program.  She has appeared on CNN, Fox News, CNBC, Al Arabiya, BBC, Al Jazeera and other international news media outlets. She is quoted in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and has published articles in the Washington Post, the National (UAE), Defense One, the National Interest and other international news publications.

Tuqa Nusairat is an expert on US policy in the Middle East and the director for strategy, operations, and finance at Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East Programs. In addition to managing a team of Washington-based fellows and staff, her research focuses on political reform, civil society, and human rights broadly in the region, with a special focus on Jordan and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since joining the Council in 2012, she has played a key role in shaping the direction and growth of the Council’s Middle East related programming, publications, outreach and development and has been instrumental in advancing relationships with vital stakeholders including donors, board members, and high-level contacts. Previously, she worked at the Project on Middle East Democracy and the National Endowment for Democracy. Nusairat holds an MS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a BA in Government and International Politics from George Mason University.

Alain Délétroz has been serving as the Director General of Geneva Call since January 2018, bringing with him a longstanding experience of nearly three decades in conflict-stricken areas and politically tense contexts.Mr. Délétroz has extensive expertise in conflict assessment and resolution, democratic reforms, and humanitarian aid. He has worked on the ground in various regions, including Russia, North/South Caucasus, Central Asia, the Andean countries, and West Africa.Prior to his current role, Mr. Délétroz served as a Fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy from 2014 to 2017 and as Vice-President of the International Crisis Group from 2002 to 2013. He was also Director of the Open Society Institute in Tashkent from 1998 to 2002 and a Delegate for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Moscow from 1994 to 1998.Mr. Délétroz's passion for humanitarian and development work began in Peru, where he focused on adult literacy and capacity building from 1986 to 1991.

Mr. Skinnari worked as a Minister of International Trade and Development of Finland 2019-2023 as a key minister for the Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s Cabinet. He is a well known Nordic speaker in foreign affairs with a focus on solution driven thinking and ambitious thoughts. Currently he serves as a Member of Parliament and chairs the Qatar friendship group. Mr. Skinnari has masters degree in commercial law and business degrees in finance and marketing.

Dr. Hussein Mwinyi is the President of Zanzibar and Chairman of the Revolutionary Council. He had served as a Minister in the Tanzanian Government in different Potfolios since 2000.He was born in Zanzibar. He graduated with a degree in Medicine in Turkey at the University of Marmara in Istanbul and proceeded for specialization in Internal Medicine in UK from King's College at Hammersmith Hospital in London. Before joining Politics he worked as a medical Practitioner at Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton UK, Muhimbili National Hospital Tanzania and Hubert Kairuki Memorial Hospital in Dar es Salaam. He also taught as a senior lecturer at Hubert Kairuki Memorial University Medical School. DR. Mwinyi has been the Minister of Defence and National Service for ten years. In 2020 Dr. Mwinyi was elected as President of Zanzibar. 

H.E. Abshir was appointed as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation for the Federal Republic of Somalia in 2022. A seasoned diplomat, Abshir has been at the forefront of promoting and protecting Somalia’s interests and image regionally and globally. He was part of the diplomatic negotiations that led to the resumption of diplomatic relations which had remained severed. He was central in pushing for the membership of Somalia to the East Africa Community (EAC) including the EAC verification process in Somalia, which is a major milestone in Somalia’s move to join the EAC.As an entrepreneur, Abshir is committed to developing Somalia’s growing private sector to contribute to the welfare of the Puntland people. He is the Chairman of Huruse & Bros Properties Ltd, a Garowe-based hospitality company that also serves international clients. He is also the executive board member of private enterprises delivering technologically advanced solutions in the field of software development, energy, and communications. Public-private partnership in Puntland’s economic and sustainable development is at the heart of Abshir’s governance agenda.Scholar and PractitionerH.E Abshir is both a scholar and practitioner in the public affairs of Puntland and the entire Republic of Somalia. He is a Master of Arts (Post-War Reconstruction and Development) graduate of the University of York in the United Kingdom. He also holds a Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance (DHA) from Geneva, Switzerland. Abshir is well grounded in the scholarship and practice of humanitarian interventions, negotiations, political crisis response and disaster management. This is so because Abshir has attended numerous humanitarian courses including the International Humanitarian Negotiator’s training in Barcelona, Spain. Overall, Abshir has vast experience in the implementation of humanitarian and social development.As a practitioner, Abshir was a senior Field Officer for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Puntland and Somaliland from 1996-2002. Upon return from his higher education in the United Kingdom, Abshir rejoined ICRC in 2004, where he served for 10 years as a Regional Coordinator. Notably, during the peak of the Somalia civil war, he took leadership in critical disaster response operations in humanitarian intervention and social support.

Julien Barnes-Dacey is the director of the Middle East & North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Jared Cohen is the President of Global Affairs and co-head of the Office of Applied Innovation at Goldman Sachs. He joined as a Partner in 2022 and is a member of the firm’s Management Committee and the Firmwide Client Franchise Committee.Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Cohen was Chief Executive Officer of Jigsaw, which he founded at Alphabet Inc. in 2016. In this role, his work focused on applying frontier technology to the greatest challenges facing humanity. Prior to that, Mr. Cohen was Google’s first Director of Ideas and Chief Advisor to Google’s Chief Executive Officer and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. From 2006 to 2010, he served as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff and as a close advisor to both Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. Mr. Cohen is a New York Times bestselling author of six books, including One Hundred Days of Silence: America and the Rwanda Genocide, Children of Jihad, The New Digital Age: Transforming Nations, Business, and our Lives, which he co-authored with Eric Schmidt, Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America, and the forthcoming Life After Power. He is also the author of the children’s book Speaking of America, which is forthcoming. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, TIME Magazine, Financial Times and Foreign Policy. Mr. Cohen has been named to the "TIME 100" list, Foreign Policy's “Top 100 Global Thinkers,” Fortune’s “40 Under 40”, and Vanity Fair's "Next Establishment." Mr. Cohen is a member of and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and also a member of the Trilateral Commission. He serves on the Board of Directors of Gilded, Stanford University’s Freeman-Spogli Institute and the Chapin School. He serves on the advisory boards of RAND, the National Counterterrorism Center, Schmidt Futures and the Anti-Slavery Collective. He has also previously served as an advisor to Allianz, ScaleAI, RizviTraverse, ASAPP, Andreesen-Horowitz, and the Secretary of State’s Foreign Affairs Advisory Board. Mr. Cohen received his B.A. from Stanford University and his M.Phil in International Relations from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He speaks fluent Swahili.

Justin Vaïsse is the Founder and Director General of the Paris Peace Forum, an independent non-profit. organization he created in 2018 under the impetus of French President Emmanuel Macron. The Paris Peace. Forum is an annual event that aims at reinforcing multilateralism and promoting new rules and solutions to address the global challenges of our time. The inaugural edition convened 75 heads of state and international organizations as well as 6 000 participants from the privatesector, NGOs, foundations and civil society at large. The following editions, gathering world leaders and citizens from around the world, happen every year on Nov. 11-13.Prior to that role, Justin Vaïsse was Director of Policy Planning at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs for more than 6 years. In this role, he advised the Minister on his strategic decisions and provided background analysis and forecast on international affairs.From 2007 – 2013, Justin Vaïsse was Director of Research for the Center on the United States and Europe and a Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, where he initiated several projects, including the Brookings Eurozone Survey and the European Foreign Policy Scorecard with the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) – an annual evaluation of Europe’s performance on the world stage.A historian specializing in international relations and American foreign policy, Dr. Vaïsse is the author or co-author of numerous books on the United States, including Neoconservatism – The Biography of a Movement (Harvard University Press, 2010), a book deemed “essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the contours of our recent political past” by the New York Times. His biography of former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was published in France in 2016, in the US in 2018 under the title Zbigniew Brzezinski – America’s Grand Strategist (Harvard University Press) and in several other countries.A graduate student from L'Ecole Normale Supérieure and Sciences Po, he got his Agrégation in history in 1996, his Ph.D. in 2005 and his habilitation in 2011. He was a teaching assistant at Harvard University in 1996-1997 and an adjunct professor at Sciences-Po from 1999-2006 and at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University from 2007-2013.

Imam Omar Suleiman is the Founder and President of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, and an Adjunct Professor of Islamic Studies in the Graduate Liberal Studies Program at SMU (Southern Methodist University).

Brian Katulis is a senior fellow and vice president of policy at the Middle East Institute. He was formerly a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP), where he built the Center’s Middle East program and also worked on broader issues related to U.S. national security.He has produced influential studies that have shaped important discussions around regional policy, often providing expert testimony to key congressional committees on his findings. Katulis has also conducted extensive research in countries such as Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories. His past experience includes work at the National Security Council and the U.S. Departments of State and Defense.EducationMaster in Public Affairs, Princeton University’s School of Public and International AffairsBachelor of Arts in history and Arab and Islamic studies, Villanova UniversityFulbright scholar in Jordan, 1994 - 1995Regions of ExpertiseEgypt, Israel, the Palestinian territories, JordanIssues of ExpertiseNational security, U.S. foreign policy, diplomacy 

Dr Rayana Ahmed Bou Haka was appointed as WHO Representative in Qatar in June 2022. Dr Rayana Bou Haka is a pediatrician with over 10 years of clinical experience in private practice in Beirut from 1990 to 2000. She also spent 6 years as the Emergency Unit Physician, American University of Beirut Medical Center from 1991 to 1997. Having joined WHO in 2000, Dr Bou Haka had occupied several posts at the three levels of the Organization, starting in headquarters in Geneva and alternating between country offices and the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean in Cairo. She was WHO Representative in Djibouti from February 2011 to August 2014; Medical Officer in the emergency humanitarian action programme in the Regional Office in Cairo from November 2008 to February 2011, as well as from July 2004 to December 2005; Chief of Emergency Operations and Health Cluster Coordinator in the WHO country office in Islamabad, Pakistan, from January 2006 to November 2008; and Medical Officer Health Action in Crises in WHO headquarters from October 2000 to June 2004. Dr Rayana was the Manager, Country Cooperation and Collaboration programme in the Regional Office from August 2014 until she was appointed in her current position as WHO Representative in Qatar. Since May 2017 she had been serving as the Desk Officer for Qatar based in Cairo. Dr Bou Haka has received her Bachelor’s in Sciences-Biology from the American University of Beirut in 1983 and completed her Medical Doctor degree also from the American University of Beirut in 1987. She specialized in pediatrics and received her specialty diploma in 1991 from the American University Medical Center. In 1992, she obtained her Master’s Degree in Public Health from the Faculty of Health Science in the American University of Beirut. In addition, she completed additional training and obtained different diplomas in disaster management, humanitarian programming, sphere standards training, leadership for emergency management and gender. 

Crisis Group RoleMurithi Mutiga is Program Director for Africa. He is based in Nairobi.BackgroundHe previously covered East Africa for The Guardian (UK) and before that served as a Contributing Op-Ed Writer to the International New York Times. Murithi was also an editor and columnist with the Sunday Nation.He holds an MSc in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics.