Akiko Naka is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Wantedly, a social networking service for professionals. Following its official launch in February 2012, Wantedly grew to 2.5 million monthly active users and 30,000 corporations. Wantedly has become the leading professional social networking service in Japan. Naka was the youngest female founder to take a company public in Japan.

Toshihiro Nakamura is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kopernik based in Indonesia, a social enterprise that finds what works to reduce poverty through lean experimentation. Nakamura founded Kopernik after working for the United Nations in Timor-Leste, Indonesia, Sierra Leone, New York and Switzerland. He also worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company.

Nakamura is also Guest Professor at Osaka University in Japan. He earned an MSc in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science and an LLB from Kyoto University in Japan.

Siamak Namazi endured a challenging 2,898 days of captivity in the infamous Evin Prison before his release in September 2023, earning him the unfortunate distinction of being the longest-held American hostage in Iran. Prior to this ordeal, his career spanned various sectors, including consulting and non-profit work. He provided assistance to major multinationals in strategy development, market entry, and external affairs across the MENA region while also engaging in track-2 diplomacy and championing human rights initiatives. He has been a fellow at the Wilson Center for International Scholars, CSIS, and the National Endowment for Democracy. He has also appeared as a commentator in the international media, including CNN International, BBC World, The New York Times, The Financial Times, Fortune Magazine, Forbes Magazine, The Washington Post, and Business Week, among others.

Mr. Narain is an experienced Private Equity Investor based in Mumbai. He was a Partner and Managing Director for TPG Growth, a global private equity firm, for over ten years and led investments worth $500 million in India and South Asia He served on the boards of AGS, Healthium, American Oncology Institute, India Transact, Asiri Hospitals, Global Gene Corp, Landmark Cars, Landmark Insurance and Dodla Dairy.

Prior to joining TPG Growth in 2007, Mr. Narain was an investor with Bessemer Venture Partners in New York. Previous to that, Mr. Narain was an Engagement Manager in McKinsey's Private Equity Practice in Palo Alto and London. Mr. Narain joined McKinsey from Deloitte Consulting, where he was a Senior Consultant.

He has a Master of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and an M.B.A., from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Selected as a Young Global Leader in 2014, he is an active member of the World Economic Forum and serves on its Advisory Board. Vish was also nominated as an Aspen Fellow in 2014 and is a member of the Aspen Leadership Institute.

A semi-professional sitar player and adventure travel enthusiast, Mr. Narain has worked in 20 countries and traveled to over 80 nations. He was nominated for Business Today’s “40 under 40”, and has been featured in several publications including the cover of Forbes India. He has spoken and taught at various institutions including Harvard Business School and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad

In a three-decade career in media and publishing, Raju Narisetti has an unusual track record in creating, rethinking and managing major media organizations in North America, Europe and Asia, as well as being on the frontlines of digital transformation challenges and opportunities in publishing. Raju has worked as a practicing journalist at The Wall Street Journal, where over 14 years, he rose from a Reporting Intern to be the Editor of WSJ Europe, and Managing Editor, Digital, of the global WSJ; and at The Washington Post, where he was the Managing Editor who helped kick-start the newspaper's print/digital transformation. He is the founder of Mint (livemint.com), India's second-largest business news publication. As a business executive, he was Senior Vice President of Strategy for News Corp and CEO of the Gizmodo Media Group, which then encompassed a group of digital journalism sites that included Gizmodo, Jezebel, Deadspin, Lifehacker, and The Root. As a journalism educator, he led the Knight Bagehot Fellowships in Economics and Business Journalism at Columbia University, where he also was a Professor of Professional Practice at the School of Journalism. Raju serves on the board of Wikimedia Foundation, which manages Wikipedia, the fifth-most visited site in the world. He lives in New York City.

Yusuke Narita is an economist, (social) entrepreneur, and public speaker/writer working across multiple countries and fields. He is an Assistant Professor at Yale University in the US and the founder of the startup Hanjuku-kaso Inc. in Japan. As a researcher, he develops methods that use algorithm, data, and evidence to improve social decision making. He deploys his research output to solve real-world business and policy problems, especially education and health policy issues. He is also active on the media and one of the most widely known academics in Japan. At the intersection of academia, industry, media, and policy, his work won several prizes, including The Prime Minister Prize, the Japanese government’s Open Innovation Award, MIT Technology Review’s Innovators under 35 Japan, KDDI Contribution Award, among others. He obtained a Ph.D. from MIT and a bachelor from the University of Tokyo (with the best undergraduate thesis award given to an outstanding thesis once every few years). He was previously a Visiting Assistant Professor at Stanford University, Visiting Associate Professor at Hitotsubashi University, and currently hold research affiliate positions at MIT, University of Chicago, University of Tokyo, among others.

Nina Nashif is Managing Director of Generation Health, an innovation and investment management platform. She was formerly the Founder and CEO of Healthbox, a business accelerator and venture fund created to support early-stage entrepreneurs and stimulate innovation in the healthcare industry. Nashif is best known for her expertise in building businesses and leading high-performing teams to achieve results. She has more than 15 years of global business experience within the public and private sector in more than 10 countries around the world. Prior to Healthbox, Nashif served on the executive team of Sg2, was a consultant to the leadership team of the Health Authority of Abu Dhabi, and was a director of business development in the International Services Division of the Houston Methodist Hospital. She also co-founded a Turkish cotton textile business with operations in New York City and Istanbul. Among many honors, Nashif has been named a “40 Under 40” by Crain's Chicago Business. She is a Member of the Women's Leadership Board at the Harvard Kennedy School, and is active in other leadership and community organizations.

Jonathan is the CEO of Grupo Cemaco, the leading home improvement and home furnishings retailer in Guatemala. Grupo Cemaco is one of the largest Certified B Corporations in Latin America. Jonathan is also the Co-founder of Makbi, a prominent player in the commercial rooftop solar energy markets in Central America. Jonathan is a board member of CentraRSE, Guatemala’s center for business social responsibility. In addition, he participates in the boards of several social impact organizations and is an active member of YPO. Prior to joining Grupo Cemaco, Jonathan was a Senior Associate at Violy&Company, a New York-based boutique investment bank focused on Latin America. Jonathan was named a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. He holds a BS from the University of Colorado and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business.

Senior Partner, Bain & Company, based in Hong Kong, having worked for Bain in Germany, the US, Singapore and Switzerland. Heads Bain's Financial Services practice for Asia-Pacific (APAC). Has 30 years of management consulting experience, addressing the most complex challenges facing financial services leaders. Over the past several years, his work has predominantly focused on digital and customer-led transformations and the re-invention of the insurance industry.
Henrik is a frequent speaker at industry meetings and has been quoted in leading publications like Financial Times, The Economist, Forbes.com and BusinessTimes as well as interviewed e.g. on CNBC and Bloomberg.
Dedicated to social impact, has been acting as an advisor for several non-profit organizations and social entrepreneurs.
World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (2007). PhD in Organizational Theory and Organizational Behaviour, University of St Gallen, Switzerland; degree in Business Administration, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich, Germany.

Adwaita Nayar, an Indian businesswoman, has established herself as a leader in the retail industry. She is CEO of Nykaa Fashion and is Co-Founder of Nykaa, a leading lifestyle retailer in India. Before joining Nykaa in 2013, Nayar held positions at Morgan Stanley, Bain & Company, Citi and CARE Tanzania. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Applied Math from Yale University.

Lesley Ndlovu is Chief Executive Officer of African Risk Capacity (ARC), a specialized insurance company that provides parametric insurance coverage against weather-related risks such as droughts, floods and tropical cyclones. Prior to ARC, Ndlovu held senior leadership positions in the financial services sector in Bermuda, Singapore, France, the United Kingdom and South Africa. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the UN Principles of Sustainable Insurance. Under his leadership ARC underwrote the largest insurance pool in the history of the company, providing insurance coverage to 12 million Africans who are vulnerable to the devastating effects of natural disasters.

Dr. Orzala Nemat, an internationally known Afghan activist and scholar is an expert in political ethnography, holding a Ph.D. in Development Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and MSc in Development Planning from the University College London (UCL). Dr. Nemat experienced how it is to be a war refugee for fourteen years in Pakistan. However, she chose to rise above the situation by putting the focus on developing her career, at the same time, she assisted and helped the marginalized members of society through educational programs, building schools, protection of female victims of violence and peacebuilding for children.

Dr. Nemat founded an organisation, led and worked with various grassroots, national and international organizations in over 17 years of her professional life. She served on various development organizations’ governance boards and attended numerous international and national conferences representing voices from Afghanistan and the Afghan women. She was selected as a Young Global Leader at the World Forum in 2009, Yale Greenberg World Fellows in 2008 and is a recipient of the Isabel Ferror Award for Women’s Education and the Amnesty International Award for Humanitarian Aid to Children and Women. Upon completion of her studies and after teaching international development courses at SOAS, Dr. Nemat returned to Kabul where she worked as the president’s advisor on sub-national governance.
Since 2016 Nemat serves as director of Afghanistan’s top think tank.
orzala@areu.org.af