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Emil Chireno

Attorney, Executive Director, United Nations Association of the Dominican Republic, Dominican Republic

Emil Chireno is a Dominican attorney and the current executive director of the United Nations Association of the Dominican Republic. Chireno was appointed by the President of the United Nations Association of the Dominican Republic, Dr. Leonel Fernández, in 2013.

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He was elected by the General Assembly of the World Federation of United Nations Associations as a member of the Executive Committee in 2015 to serve for 3 years. He has visited and worked in 12 countries with various international organizations including the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, the International Labor Organization, the World Health Organization, and the Organization of American States. Chireno has been actively involved in the global consultations of the UN Post 2015 Agenda; he was an active participant in the Open Working Group of Sustainable Development Goals of the Economic and Social Council bringing the perspective the Dominican Society to the UN through a national consultation.

Julia Contrea

General Manager, European Network for Women in Leadership, France

Julia Contrea is a development, programs, and events specialist in the nonprofit and cultural sectors. Contrea is currently the general manager for the European Network for Women in Leadership (WIL Europe). 

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WIL is a platform for European women in senior management positions, aimed at leveraging their participation in leadership, by organizing high-level networking events that enable them to connect and exchange. Previously, she worked at the development department of the W.J. Clinton Foundation, and as programs manager for Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence, where she overlooked the supervision of all programs dedicated to help women business owners increase their revenues and create new jobs. She has an extensive background organizing high-level events in the public and private sectors. She has a bachelor’s degree in law and a master’s degree in political sciences from the University of Rennes, France. She also holds a master’s degree in public affairs from Baruch College, NY.

John Dionisio

Senior Investment Director, Meridiam, USA

John M. Dionisio is currently a senior investment director at Meridiam, an investment firm that manages $5 billion of capital to invest in infrastructure projects and Public Private Partnership (“P3”) assets in the Americas, Europe, and Africa. 

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Recruited to Meridiam in 2005 as one of the firm’s founding members, Dionisio has served in leadership roles in both the United States and Europe spanning an array of responsibilities including financial analysis, project execution, business development, government relations, asset management, strategic fundraising, and corporate and finance activities. As an investment professional and project developer, he has played active roles in major P3s, including the Port of Miami Tunnel Project, the Long Beach Courthouse Project, the Purple Line Project in Maryland, and the LaGuardia Airport Central Terminal Redevelopment Project in New York. Dionisio currently serves as a staff member on the United States Investment Advisory Council which was created by the U.S. Department of Commerce in 2016 and tasked with increasing Foreign Direct Investment into the United States. Outside of work, he serves as a board member at the Children’s Museum of the East End on Long Island, New York which focuses its outreach on creating stimulating learning experiences through interactive play. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and is a candidate for a master’s degree at Columbia University’s School of Public and International Affairs.

 

Cire Dye Ba

Executive Director, CIRTECH-CTC, Senegal

Cire Ba is Executive Director, CIRTECH-CTC and has over six years of experience in political consulting. After the completion of his master’s degree in management studies from the Bordeaux Management School, he began his professional career in the management of development projects before specializing in public communications. 

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His experience led him to work for nongovernmental organizations and governments. In order to acquire state of the art skills to cater to his clients, he took a professional development hiatus that led him to the Al Jazeera Training Center, Decker Communications, and Harvard University. Ba currently works as an advisor to numerous African statesmen and politicians on political strategy and public policy. He has managed over 20 victorious campaigns. Very active in the volunteering field, he is also the outgoing curator of the Dakar Hub of Global Shapers Community of the World Economic Forum and is a Mandela Washington Fellowship Alum.

Carlos Gerardo Martinez Gonzalez

Dean, Campus Nuevo Laredo Instituto Internacional de Estudios Superiores – IIES Universidad, Mexico

Carlos Gerardo Martínez González is the dean and founder of the Instituto Internacional de Estudios Superiores Campus Nuevo Laredo, a private university in the border between Mexico and the United States that promotes the logistics competitiveness of North America.

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He has a master’s degree in Latin American studies by the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University and he studied law in the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey. In his professional experience, he has been special advisor to the Mexican attorney general, international senior advisor to the Mexican Customs Brokers Association and president of Poldesa, a consultancy firm for political affairs for the Western Hemisphere. He is Substitute Mexican Customs Broker and international and national editorialist for El Mañana de Nuevo Laredo. For two years he was Washington chief correspondent for El Mañana de Nuevo Laredo. He was president of the Young Entrepreneur Commission of Coparmex in Nuevo Laredo and executive vice president of the Nuevo Laredo Customs Brokers Association. In his early years, he was president of Gente Nueva a group of young leaders that organize conferences promoting values and respect in society. The major achievement was to organize the visit of Edson Arantes Do Nascemento Pele to Nuevo Laredo that produce an important positive impact in young generations. His expertise topics are international politics, North American trade, education, and global affairs.

Fitsum Girma

Foreign Service Officer, Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ethiopia

Fitsum Girma has been working at Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 2012. Currently, he is working as a Foreign Service Officer in charge of the North African Countries in the office of the Directorate General of the African Affairs where he is in charge of managing and coordinating the bilateral relations of Ethiopia with North African countries.

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Prior to this, he was in charge of the West African Countries in the same office. While working in both positions, among others, he prepared and took part in seven different official visits led by the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Ethiopia to different African countries. He occasionally publishes articles on different subjects in local newspapers. Fitsum is among the young, intelligent, and hardworking generation of Foreign Service Officers at the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs who are expected to play crucial role in shaping and executing the foreign policy of this ancient key African State. He received his bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Relations from Wollega University in 2012 with a great distinction. He obtained a one year long intensive training on Diplomacy and International Relations at the Ethiopian Foreign Service Training Institute. He also took part in different seminars, conferences and attended different courses both at home and abroad. Fitsum lives in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Jessica Gottsleben

#ILookLikeAPolitician Ambassador, Running Start, USA

Jessica Gottsleben is the first-ever elected ambassador of Running Start, a nonprofit organization that trains young women to run for elected office. 

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In 2016, Gottsleben was honored at the 10th annual Young Women to Watch Awards in Washington, DC as the national Political Rising Star award recipient. Gottsleben is a 2016 graduate of the Women’s Campaign School at Yale University, and a 2014 inductee to the Order of Pegasus, the most prestigious and significant award attainable at the University of Central Florida, from which she holds two bachelor’s degrees with honors in radio and television broadcast journalism and political science, and a leadership studies certificate. She previously served as a UNESCO delegate on climate change, as a multimedia journalist and director, as a fellow on global peace and security, and most recently as a U.S. Congressional fellow on interdisciplinary policy and constitutional law.

Pedro Guerra

Special Advisor to the Governor, State of São Paulo, Brazil

Pedro Guerra is special advisor to the São Paulo State Governor since 2013. In this position, he makes contact with São Paulo state’s secretaries, enterprises’ CEOs, national, state-level and local representatives, and mayors in order to provide summarized information and analysis to support the governor’s actions and policies. 

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Guerra has a bachelor’s degree in law from the Escola de Direito de São Paulo of Getulio Vargas Foundation (2011) and a master’s degree in public administration and government, with distinction, at Escola de Administração de Empresas of Getulio Vargas Foundation (2014). His experiences include being editorial assistant of Cadernos Gestão Pública e Cidadania journal (2013) and researcher, having assisted three research projects: the PAC 1 – Growth Acceleration Program of the federal government (2012-13), a project on the case law of the Brazilian Supreme Court (2012), and a case study of the federal controller general in Brazil (2011).

Khaled Igue

Head of Public and Institutional Partnerships, OCP Africa, Benin

Khaled Igue holds a master’s degree in Public Affairs from Sciences Po Paris, an M.A. in Economics and Management from the University of Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne and Engineer of the National Institute of Applied Sciences of Strasbourg. 

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Khaled Igue joined OCP Africa as head of Public and Institutional Partnerships after an experience at Eurogroup Consulting, a European leader in strategy and organization, and seven years of experience at AREVA, a leader in the energy industry. Igue is the founder and president of the think tank Club 2030 Afrique which innovates in the field of ideas for a sustainable economic and social development of African countries. He specializes in energy, industrial, and economic issues. Khaled works with African governments and institutions for the development of structural models for social and economic emergence of the continent.

Soufiane Khebbaz

Program Assistant, Derb Ghaled Association for Development, Morocco

Soufiane Khebbaz is a professor with the Ministry of Education and a program assistant with Derb Ghalef Association for Development. Khebbaz worked in the nonprofit community in Casablanca as an office manager and a program coordinator for the past six years. 

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Khebbaz is a graduate of SIT Graduate Institute, a program of World Learning, where he received a master’s degree in intercultural service, leadership, and management. He was a Fulbright teacher assistant and participated in training for intercultural communication at Stanford University, and has recently joined a Ph.D. research program under the theme “The Intersection of Gender and Ethnic Identities in the Moroccan Tourism Industry.” He also participated in the International Visitors Leaders Program funded by the U.S. State Department and the University of Michigan-Dearborn. He is working on several articles and other projects that grapple with urban social change and its connections to larger political struggles and the remaking of material space.

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