Building Our Collective Brain

Anya Schiffrin is the director of the media and communications specialization at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She is the editor ofs “Global Muckraking: 100 Years of Investigative Reporting from Around the World” New Press, 2014). Her previous book (Co-edited with SIPA alum Eamon Kircher-Allen) was “From Cairo to Wall Street: Voices from the Global Spring” (New Press, 2012).

Armin Effendi is Country Chairman of Korn Ferry Malaysia. He has lived and worked in Asia, Europe and North America for both public and private sector organisations in both corporate and advisory roles addressing strategic, operational, finance, technology and human capital issues across a wide array of industry sectors. He is deeply passionate in helping people and organisations release their potential, adapt to an ever-changing environment, to achieve sustained impact, and he is curious to discover innovative leadership founded on wisdoms of the past.

Bryan Lim joined Khazanah as Assistant Vice President, Investments in December 2005. Prior to Khazanah, he was with Ernst & Young, Rating Agency Malaysia Bhd (“RAM”) and ECM Libra Securities Sdn Bhd. Bryan holds a Master’s in Business Administration from the MIT Sloan Fellows programme at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor of Commerce and Management degree from Lincoln University, New Zealand. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (“CFA”) charterholder.

Charles Leadbeater is a best-selling author and strategic advisor to companies, governments and cities. His books include We-Think: mass innovation, not mass production and The Frugal Innovator. Earlier this year, he published The Problem Solvers, his exploration of how education can prepare young people for turbulent times. His TED talks on innovation have been watched by several million people. 

Charles was Industrial Editor and Tokyo Bureau chief at the Financial Times before becoming Assistant Editor at the Independent where he helped Helen Fielding devise Bridget Jones’s diary. He went on to become an advisor to Tony Blair and then David Miliband. He a is devout Arsenal fan. 

Dain Said is an award-winning Malaysian writer, visual artist and filmmaker whose stories explore themes of memory, cultural hybridity and the human condition. His versatile directing career spans features, tv commercials, creative documentaries and video installations that have been produced and screened internationally. His critically acclaimed features, Bunohan (2011), Interchange (2016), and Dukun (2018), have led to Dain’s recognition as a tour de force in Malaysian cinema. 

Dale Cottrell is the regional managing partner of Bain & Company’s Asia Pacific region, based in Hong Kong. He has more than 30 years of consulting experience, advising clients throughout Asia Pacific and Europe.

Dale has worked across a number of industries including Energy & Natural Resources, packaged consumer goods, retail, financial services, telecommunications and healthcare. He holds deep expertise in corporate transformations, strategy, operational performance improvement and organisation. He also has considerable corporate finance experience including lead advisory work, mergers and acquisitions, business valuations, bid/defense work, corporate turnaround and recovery work, MBOs and financial investigations.

Dale holds an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of New South Wales. He is a Chartered Accountant and an Associate of the Securities Institute of Australia. 

Dino Varkey serves as the Chief Executive Officer of GEMS Education. He is responsible for providing vision, insight and strategy across the organisation, as GEMS Education looks to become the world’s most valued education company. In his 14 years with the company, he has undertaken multiple leadership roles, serving as Senior Director of Business Development, Group Chief Operating Officer, Group Executive Director and Managing Director, before being appointed Chief Executive Officer in February 2017.  

He is a frequent speaker at global conferences and gatherings. He is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Education, Gender and Work. He was also a Founding Board Member of the YPO Dubai Chapter. He attended Winchester College, and is an Honours graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Studies from the University of Sheffield, UK.

Dominic Barton is a Senior Partner and served as Global Managing Partner of McKinsey & Company from 2009 to 2018. Dominic has advised clients in industries including banking, consumer goods, high tech and industrials. Previously he was based in Shanghai as McKinsey’s Asia Chairman from 2004 to 2009 and led the Korea office from 2000 to 2004.

Dominic is the Chancellor of the University of Waterloo, the Chair of the Canadian Minister of Finance’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth, a director on the board of Teck Resources and one of the founders of Focusing Capital on the Long Term. He has also authored over 80 articles and 4 books on leadership, Asia, history, business, and markets worldwide.   

Frank Gardner is the BBC’s Security Correspondent, reporting for TV, radio and online on global security and terrorism stories. In 2004 he was shot six times by terrorists while reporting from Saudi Arabia but survived with major injuries. He holds a degree in Arabic & Islamic Studies from Exeter University and honorary doctorates from seven UK universities. He has reported first-hand from almost every Arab country and from around the world. 

He was awarded the OBE by HM The Queen in 2005 for services to journalism, the McWhirter Award for Bravery, Spain’s El Mundo Prize for International Journalism, the UAE’s Zayed Medal for Journalism, and appointed Distinguished Visiting Professor of 2015 by the University of Southern California. His Sunday Times bestseller ‘Blood and Sand’, describes his 25 years of Middle Eastern experiences.

Ha-Joon Chang teaches economics at the University of Cambridge and is currently the Director of the Centre of Development Studies. In addition to numerous journal articles and book chapters, he has published 16 authored books (five co-authored) and 10 edited books. His main books include The Political Economy of Industrial Policy, Kicking Away the Ladder, Bad Samaritans, 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism, and Economics: The User’s Guide. By the end of 2018, his writings will have been translated and published in 41 languages and 44 countries. Worldwide, his books have sold around 2 million copies. He is the winner of the 2003 Gunnar Myrdal Prize and the 2005 Wassily Leontief Prize. 

Hashim Shawa is Chairman and General Manager of Bank of Palestine since 2007. He grew the bank into the largest Palestinian Bank. In Q4 2017, Shawa became Chairman of BOP Group comprising: Bank of Palestine, Arab Islamic Bank, PalPay Fintech & Al-Wasata Brokerage.

After obtaining his BSc (Hons) from University College London, Shawa began his banking career at Citigroup in 1997, in Corporate and Private Banking in UK, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. In 2005, he joined HSBC in Switzerland as director of MENA.

Shawa is Chairman of Al-Wasata, and PalPay. His memberships include; board of trustees of Bethlehem University, Emerging Markets Advisory Council- the International Institute of Finance Washington DC; the World Economic Forum.

Imam Hendi is the Muslim chaplain at Georgetown University, the first American University to hire a full-time Muslim chaplain. His undergraduate and graduate education is in Islamic Studies, Comparative religions and inter-religious relations. He is a member of the Public Policy Conflict Resolution Fellows of the University of Maryland School of Law and the Maryland Judiciary’s Mediation and Conflict Resolution Office. 

Imam Hendi is the founder and president of Clergy Beyond Borders. He is a member of the Islamic Jurisprudence Council of North America. He has served as an adjunct faculty member at John Hopkins University, Fordham University, and Hartford Seminary.

In 2012, Imam Hendi earned distinction as one of the world’s 500 most influential Muslims, and in May 2018, he became the first US Imam to deliver a commencement speech at a major community college in America.

Iqbal Khan is the CEO of Fajr Capital, a Dubai-based principal investment firm. He also serves on the board of Bank Islam Brunei Darussalam, Cravia Group, GEMS Education, and Jadwa Investment. Prior to Fajr Capital, Mr. Khan was the founding CEO of HSBC Amanah, where he built the business and team over eight years into one of the fastest growing and most successful emerging businesses in HSBC Group. 

Mr. Khan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics and Chemistry and a Master’s degree in Political Science and International Relations, both from Aligarh Muslim University. He is the recipient of several global accolades, including the Royal Award for Islamic Finance, a biannual prize presented by HM the King of Malaysia, and a Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Prime Minister of the UAE.

Jayati Ghosh is Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.  She has authored and/or edited a dozen books and more than 180 scholarly articles, most recently Demonetisation Decoded: A critique of India’s monetary experiment (with CP Chandrasekhar and Prabhat Patnaik, Routledge 2017), the Elgar Handbook of Alternative Theories of Economic Development (co-edited with Erik Reinert and Rainer Kattel, Edward Elgar 2016) and India and the International Economy, (Oxford University Press 2015). 

Her research output has been recognised through several national and international prizes. She is the Executive Secretary of International Development Economics Associates, an international network of heterodox development economists. She has advised governments at different levels, including as Member of the National Knowledge Commission reporting to the Prime Minister of India, and consulted for several international organisations. She writes regularly for popular media like newspapers, journals and blogs.

Jessica Tan is Deputy Group CEO, COO and Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd.  She is Chairwoman of Ping An Technology and serves on the board for over 10 subsidiaries of Ping An including Ping An Bank, Ping An Life, Ping An P&C and Ping An AMC.

Jessica was previously a partner with McKinsey & Company (Global Director) and Head of Financial Services and Business Technology of Southeast Asia McKinsey. She has worked with global and Asian leading financial companies and regulatory authorities in 15 countries, focusing on strategy, innovation, operations and technology.

Jessica graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with Masters of Engineering in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and two bachelor degrees in Electrical Engineering and Economics.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram is Visiting Senior Fellow at Khazanah Research Institute. He was in the 5-member Council of Eminent Persons appointed by Malaysia’s Prime Minister, Professor at the University of Malaya (1986 – 2004), Founder-Chair of International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs), UN Assistant Secretary General for Economic Development (2005 – 2012), Research Coordinator for the G24 Intergovernmental Group on International Monetary Affairs and Development (2006 – 2012), Assistant Director General for Economic and Social Development, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (2012 – 2015) and third Tun Hussein Onn Chair in International Studies at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia (2016-2017). He received the 2007 Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.

Joseph E. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University and has taught at Stanford, Princeton, MIT and Yale. Stiglitz was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1993-95, during the Clinton administration, and served as CEA chairman from 1995-97. He then became Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank from 1997-2000. In 2001, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for his analyses of markets with asymmetric information, and he was a lead author of the 1995 Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He is the author several bestsellers, including The Price of Inequality (WW Norton, 2012) and Globalization and Its Discontents (WW Norton, 2002).

The Honourable Lim Guan Eng is the Finance Minister of Malaysia, the Member of Parliament for Bagan and the State Assemblyman for Air Putih. He was the Chief Minister of Penang from 2008 until 2018. Prior to joining active politics with the Democratic Action Party (DAP), he worked as a senior executive in the Malaysian banking sector. He has been the Secretary-General of the party since 2004. Mr Lim was born in December 1960. He is a qualified accountant and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Monash University, Australia.

His Excellency Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad is the 7th Prime Minister of Malaysia. He was also the 4th Prime Minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003. During this period, he opened up the country to foreign investments, reformed taxation, reduced trade barriers, oversaw the privatisation of numerous state-owned enterprises and created a world-class physical infrastructure. Malaysia developed into one of the most prosperous and dynamic economies in Southeast Asia, with a burgeoning industrial sector, an expanding middle class and enhanced quality of life.

In 2015, Tun Dr. Mahathir came out of retirement and spearheaded a campaign to topple former Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Najib Razak for his complicity in 1MDB, the national sovereign fund entity. The United States Department of Justice described Dato’ Sri Najib as committing the “biggest kleptocracy in the history of its investigation”.

On 9th May 2018, the result of the 14th Malaysian General Election held on 9th May 2018 declared Pakatan Harapan, the coalition led by Tun Dr. Mahathir, as the winner. Tun Dr. Mahathir was sworn in as Prime Minister the following day.

Tun Dr. Mahathir is married to Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah Mohd Ali, a doctor, and they have seven children and sixteen grandchildren.

Mark Wiseman is BlackRock’s Global Head of Active Equities, Chairman of its Alternatives business, Chairman of BlackRock’s Global Investment Committee, and serves on BlackRock’s Global Executive Committee. Prior to BlackRock, Mark was President and CEO of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) from 2012 to 2016.

A Fulbright Scholar at Yale for his Master of Laws, Mark practiced law in New York and Paris for Sullivan & Cromwell, and previously clerked at the Supreme Court of Canada for then-Justice Beverley McLachlin.

Mark is a member of the Advisory Council on Economic Growth, is Chairman of the Focusing Capital on the Long Term initiative, which he co-founded, and serves on the board of several non-profit organizations.

Martin Gilbert is Chief Executive of Aberdeen Standard Investments, the asset management arm of Standard Life Aberdeen plc (SLA). SLA is the leading global investment company, formed from the merger of Aberdeen Asset Management and Standard Life, and is led by Martin and co-chief executive Keith Skeoch. They have responsibility for overseeing £610 billion of assets.

Martin is Chairman of the UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority’s Practitioner Panel, a member of the board of the Institute of International Finance as well as a member of the International Advisory Panel of the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the International Advisory Board of British American Business. He is also Deputy Chairman of Sky PLC.

Martin was born in Kuala Lumpur, educated in Scotland, and has an MA in Accountancy and an LLB from the University of Aberdeen.

Dato’ Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali is the current Minister of Economic Affairs Malaysia. Prior to his appointment to the Cabinet, he served as Chief Minister for the state of Selangor. He has been the Member of Parliament for Gombak and State Assemblyman for Bukit Antarabangsa since 2008. Prior to that, he was the State Assemblyman for Hulu Kelang. 

During his tenure as Selangor’s Chief Minister, Azmin launched ‘Smart Selangor’, a ten-year strategic programme to transform Selangor into a smart state. He started the groundbreaking ‘Inisiatif Peduli Rakyat’, which comprises over 40 people-centric programmes dedicated to the fair and just distribution of Selangor’s wealth to the people. 

Azmin graduated with a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Economics, and a Master in Education and Economics from the University of Minnesota.

Ms. Nadiah Wan, was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Thomson Hospital Kota Damansara (THKD, formerly known as Tropicana Medical Centre) and Group Chief Corporate Officer of TMC Life Sciences Bhd in June 2017 at age 33. 

Prior to joining THKD, Nadiah worked in Sunway Medical Centre as Chief Operating Officer (Clinical Services) after being promoted from Director of Business Development and Corporate Communications in 2016. She started her career at The Boston Consulting Group in 2007 as an Associate before joining Sunway Group as Manager, Strategy and Corporate Development in 2009. 

Nadiah holds an MSc in Public Health (Nutrition) from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK and an undergraduate degree in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard College (AB cum Laude, ’07).

Nigel Osborne is a composer whose works have been performed by major orchestras around the world. He has been awarded many international prizes, including the Netherlands Gaudeamus Prize, the Opera Prize of Radio Suisse Romande and City of Geneva, the Koussevitzky Award of the Library of Congress Washington, and the British Association of Songwriters and Composers Inspiration Award (BASCA).

He is Emeritus Professor of Music and Human Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, and is well known for his pioneering approach to using creative arts to help children who are victims of conflict – currently among Syrian refugees in Lebanon. He has been awarded an MBE, the Queen’s Prize and the Freedom Prize of the Peace Institute Sarajevo for his therapeutic work. He also develops technology which models musical emotions and the musical brain for both medical and consumer applications.

Dr. Nungsari Ahmad Radhi is an economist and is presently the Executive Chairman of the Malaysian Aviation Commission. In his career of over 30 years, he has been an academic, a Member of Parliament, a consultant, and a policy advocate and has sat on various corporate and statutory boards. His interests revolves around the microeconomics or policy making and has been a contributing columnist for The Edge since 2000.

Nurhisham Hussein is the Head of the Economics and Capital Markets Department of the Employees Provident Fund (EPF). His department oversees economic surveillance of over 20 economies across the globe, contributing to the investment process at EPF. He joined EPF after a stint with the Malaysian Rating Corporation Berhad (MARC), producing country reports, developing economic viewpoints and making quantitative forecasts.

He holds a Bachelors of Science (Econs) in Monetary Economics from the University of London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and a Masters in Economics from University Malaya (UM).

Ravi Kanbur, Cornell University, has published in the leading economics journals, including American Economic Review and Economic Journal, and has served on the senior staff of the World Bank including as Chief Economist for Africa.

He is President of the Human Development and Capabilities Association; Chair of the Board of United Nations University-World Institute for Development Economics Research; Co-Chair of the Scientific Council of the International Panel on Social Progress; member of the OECD High Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance; past President of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality; past member of the High Level Advisory Council of the Climate Justice Dialogue; and past-member of the Core Group of the Commission on Global Poverty.

Robert C. Merton is School of Management Distinguished Professor of Finance at MIT Sloan School of Management and John and Natty McArthur University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He is Resident Scientist at Dimensional Holdings, Inc. He was George Fisher Baker Professor of Business Administration (1988–98) and John and Natty McArthur University Professor (1998–2010) at Harvard.  He received a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT, then served at the faculty as J.C. Penney Professor of Management until 1988. He rejoined MIT in 2010.

Merton received the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1997 for a new method to determine the value of derivatives. His research includes finance theory, lifecycle and retirement finance, optimal portfolio selection, capital asset pricing, pricing of derivative securities, credit risk, loan guarantees, financial innovation, the dynamics of institutional change, and improving the methods of measuring and managing macro-financial risk. 

Ronnie del Carmen joined Pixar Animation Studios in 2000 and has been an integral mind behind many of the studio’s most beloved films, including Inside Out, Up, and Ratatouille. He most recently worked as the co-director alongside Pete Docter on Inside Out, which in 2016 won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay. 

Del Carmen attended the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines, where he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Advertising. He moved to the United States in 1989 and worked as a storyboard artist for Batman: The Animated Series and for DreamWorks as a story supervisor. Occasionally he would dabble in comic book work and continues to self-publish his work.

Scott Kalb is Chairman of the Sovereign Investor Institute at Institutional Investor, a leading forum for sovereign and government funds around the world. He is the CEO of KLTI Advisors, helping institutions to invest long-term, and Founder of the Responsible Asset Allocator Initiative at New America, helping institutions to invest responsibly and sustainably.

Scott served as CIO and Deputy CEO of the Korea Investment Corporation (KIC), Korea’s US$130 billion Sovereign Wealth Fund during 2009-2012, growing AUM from US$19 billion to US$60 billion. Prior to KIC, he worked in finance for 25 years, including firms Black Arrow Capital, Tudor and Citigroup.

Scott lived in Asia for 15 years, speaks Korean, and has an MA Degree from Harvard.

Shahril Ibrahim heads Khazanah Americas in San Francisco, focusing on technology investments in Silicon Valley and other innovations centers in North America.

His career spans across the fields of business, technology and media. He was head of technology for Boss Films, where he pioneered digital innovations that are still used in filmmaking today. He worked at NASA Ames on autonomous flight, and founded two Internet startups. Today, he is interested in autonomous vehicles, AI, robotics and blockchain, especially on how these disruptive technologies affect the future of work.

He has a double degree in Engineering and Economics from Harvey Mudd College, and a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Southern California.

Stephen Hagger is a Managing Director and the Head of Equities for Credit Suisse in Malaysia. His team has been rated number one by Institutional Investor more than ten times. He also heads up Credit Suisse Equity Sales in ASEAN and is the country head for Credit Suisse in Malaysia. 

Prior to joining Credit Suisse in 1998, Stephen was the Managing Director and Head of Research at BZW Malaysia. He has also worked as Head of Research at Kim Eng Securities in Kuala Lumpur, in fund management with Hill Samuel Bank, Singapore and as a buy-side analyst for Robert Fleming in London. He received an MBA from Durham University Business School and a Bachelor of Science degree (Agriculture) from the University of Edinburgh. 

Stephen has been based in Kuala Lumpur since 1992.

Dr. Tan See Leng is an Executive Director of IHH since 2012 and has held the position of Managing Director and CEO since January 2014. Under his stewardship, IHH has grown its footprint to 49 hospitals in nine countries worldwide, focusing on accretive opportunities in emerging markets particularly the high-intensity quaternary segment. 

Dr. Tan has over 25 years of experience in the healthcare industry. He has held ministerial advisory appointments and regularly represents regional business leadership and delivers lectures at leading institutions including at Harvard Business School’s healthcare management seminar series. 

He was named Asia Innovator of the Year at the 14th CNBC Asia Business Leaders Awards (ABLA) 2015 and Best Executive in Malaysia at the 2016 Asiamoney Best Managed Companies Awards. In 2017, he won the ABLA Corporate Social Responsibility Award.

Xingdong Chen, born in 1960, graduated from Peking University in 1985, a visiting postgraduate in Oxford University 1986-1988. 

He worked for the World Bank Feb-Aug 1988 and Jun 1990-1993. During 1985-1986 and 1988-1990, he was the economist and section chief of the Economic Reform Commission of PRC State Council.

Mr. Chen joined BNP Paribas since 1998, worked as the Managing Director, Chief China Economist, Chief Representative of BNP Equities Beijing Rep Office, Head of GM Macroeconomic Research, Head of GM Research and member of GM Research Exco.

He frequently makes policy consultations by invitation to various China’s government departments. He is the Deputy Chairman of the Chief Economist Association, the specially invited research fellow of China Economic Reform Association and China Wealth Management 50 Forum. 

Dr. Yilmaz Akyüz was the Director of the Division on Globalisation and Development Strategies at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) when he retired in August 2003. He was the principal author and head of the team preparing the Trade and Development Report, and UNCTAD coordinator of research support to the Group-of-24 on International Monetary and Financial Issues. 

Dr. Akyüz directed research on trade, finance, investment and development, and represented UNCTAD at various international meetings. He also taught at various universities in Europe and published articles and books in macroeconomics, finance, growth and development.

Dr. Akyüz is the second holder of the Tun Ismail Ali International Chair in Monetary and Financial Economics at the University of Malaya, established by Bank Negara. He was Chief Economist of the South Centre between June 2009 and August 2018.