Bettina Cornwell is a Professor of Marketing and head of the Department of Marketing at the University of Oregon's Lundquist College of Business. She was also named Philip H. Knight Chair, one of the university's highest faculty honors. Prior to joining the University of Oregon, she was Professor of Marketing and Sport Management at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on marketing communications and consumer behavior and often includes international and public policy emphases.

Bettina's research on corporate sponsorship of sports, arts and charity has recently appeared in the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and Psychology & Marketing. She was the recipient of the 2009 American Marketing Association Sports Marketing and Special Events Special Interest Group's award for Distinguished Contributions to the Scientific Understanding of Sports Business.

John Hardy has many years experience in Economics, Finance, Consulting and Treasury, in both developed and developing regions of the world. Since 2001, John has worked has a Development Finance Advisor on projects offered by international development agencies (World Bank, EU, and USAID etc.). These assignments typically involve advising corporates, SMEs, banks, governments and other institutions on financial and business development issues.

John has held several management positions, including Managing Director at Intercap Investments Inc., Department Head in the International Treasury Division of Chemical Bank (now JP Morgan Chase) and member of the bank’s Treasury Executive Committee, Managing Consultant in the Economics Group at PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), and Managing Director of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). John’s experience spans most regions of the world, including Africa, Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East.

Hans Herren is an internationally recognized scientist who lived and worked for 27 years across Africa in agriculture, health, and environmental research and capacity development. As Director of the Africa Biological Control Center of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria, he conceived and implemented the highly successful biological control program against the cassava mealy bug and the green mite that saved the cassava crop, the staple of 200 million Africans and averted Africa’s worst-ever food crisis. For this achievement, he was awarded the World Food Prize in 1995. Hans advocates for holistic and multi-stakeholder approaches to development planning that take cognizance of the three dimensions of sustainability, and result from a shared vision of sustainability by all the key actors. Hans holds numerous awards that recognize his distinguished and continuing achievements in original research and advocacy. These include the Right Livelihood Award, Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, Brandenberger Preis, and the Kilby Award. He is a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Science (NAS), a Member of the Academy of Sciences for Developing World (TWAS) and a Full Member of the Club of Rome. Hans earned his PhD at the Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, and completed post-doctoral research at University of California, Berkeley. He is also the founder of Biovision Foundation, Switzerland.

Birgit Kopainsky is professor in System Dynamics at the University of Bergen, Norway. She holds a PhD in agricultural economics from ETH Zurich and a master's degree in Geography and Environmental Studies from the University of Zurich, Switzerland. She is the program leader of the International Master Program in System Dynamics and on the program board of the master in sustainability. She also served as the past president (and the first female president) of the international System Dynamics Society. Her research explores the role that systems thinking and modeling can play in facilitating sustainability transitions, from negotiating a shared understanding among stakeholders with conflicting views and priorities to the use of simulation models as learning tools where stakeholders are better able to continuously test, learn about and develop knowledge and understanding in order to cope with change and uncertainty. She has extensive empirical research and project management experience in a variety of sustainable development domains cutting across scientific disciplines, geographical contexts and societal actors.

Sammy Mulanga is a financial markets and economic development policy expert with a career spanning over 26 years. Currently, he is engaged as a Senior Consultant working on a Pan African digital trade project as a Regulatory Specialist on Cross-border e-Commerce/e-Payments anchored under the African Continental Free Trade area. In 2021, Sammy was also appointed by Reall UK Limited as Country Consultant for Kenya to lead the market engagement strategy building strategic alliances with government agencies, banks and other financial institutions. In this capacity, Sammy is also championing adoption of RightProfile, a digital credit assessment solution developed by Syntellect from India to enable SMEs access affordable finance. Leveraging on this technology, structuring partnerships, policy engagements and other interventions, Sammy is driving Reall’s vision to enable access to affordable housing finance for people in the bottom 40% of the income pyramid covering the unbanked, underserved and the informal sector.

Sammy holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Nairobi. In addition, he has certificates in Entrepreneurship from Harvard University; Economic Development from the University of Oxford; Fundamentals of Market Structure from the New York Institute of Finance; Market Development and Regulation from the US SEC; and Corporate Governance for Directors from the Commonwealth Secretariat and Centre for Corporate Governance.