Chairman of the Foundation Board
Rolf Soiron, Swiss entrepreneur, has served or chaired the Boards of Directors of Lonza, Holcim, Synthes and others. His international experience covers a wide-range of industrial and financial sectors. He chaired the Council of Basel University for 10 years and has held several elected political positions at the communal and cantonal levels. He was a member of the Assembly of the International Committee of the Red Cross Council and chaired the Board of the think-tank, Avenir Suisse.
Vice-Chairwoman of the Foundation Board
Beth Krasna has been a member of the Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain since 2003, was vice-president in 2018 and president ad interim from May 2019-January 2020, she was President of the Board’s Audit Committee from 2008-2019. She is also vice-president of the Board of Directors of Symbiotics SA, president of the Boards of Directors of Ethos Services SA and Xsensio SA. Ms. Krasna is also a member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences. She has a degree in chemical engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and an MBA from the Sloan School at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Tamar Manuelyan Atinc has been a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution since 2013. She has over 30 years of experience in the analysis and implementation of development policies and programmes. She was the World Bank’s Vice-President for Human Development, working to advance country policy and programmes to foster human development, reduce poverty and improve economic management. Her recent research focuses primarily on scaling up early childhood development, social impact bonds and data and accountability for better education outcomes.
Christine Beerli is a former member of the Legislative Assembly of the Canton of Bern and of the Upper House of the Swiss Parliament (1991 to 2003), where she chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee and then the Committee for Social Security and Health. She chaired the caucus of the Free Democratic Party (PRD) in Switzerland’s Federal Assembly and also served on committees dealing with security policy and economic and legal affairs. A former director of the School of Engineering and Information Technology at the Bern University of Applied Sciences, since 1 January 2006, she has headed Swissmedic, the Swiss supervisory authority for therapeutic products. She was Vice-President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) until March 2018.
Michèle Lamont is Professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies and Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies at Harvard University. She has published widely on culture and inequality, racism and stigma, academia and knowledge, social change and successful societies, and qualitative methods. Her most recent publications include the co-authored book, Getting Respect: Responding to Stigma and Discrimination in the United States, Brazil, and Israel (Princeton University Press, 2016) the 2017 ASA Presidential Address “Addressing Recognition Gaps: Destigmatization and the Reduction of Inequality” (American Sociological Review 2018); the 2018 British Journal of Sociology Annual Lecture: “From ‘Having’ to ‘Being’: Self-Worth and the Current Crisis of American Society”; and a special issue of Daedalus on “Inequality as a Multidimensional Process” (coedited with Paul Pierson; summer 2019). Lamont is Director of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. She served as co-director of the Successful Societies Program, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research from 2002 to 2019. An Andrew Carnegie Fellow for 2019-2021, she is the recipient of honorary doctorates from five countries. She spent 2019-2020 on sabbatical at the Russell Sage Foundation to write a book on self-worth and inequality in the United States and Europe.
Carlos Lopes is currently Professor at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town and Visiting Professor at Sciences Po, Paris. He has served the United Nations in senior positions for over 25 years, including Resident Coordinator in Zimbabwe and Brazil, Head of Development Policy at UNDP, Director of Political Affairs for Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Executive Director for UNITAR and the UN System Staff College. Between 2012 and 2016 he was UN Under Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa. He has taught in several universities as guest professor and is a member of about 10 academic and Foundations boards. Mr Lopes is widely published and has appeared several times in the lists of most influential Africans. He holds a PhD in History from University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and has been awarded Doctorates Honoris Causa from University Candido Mendes in Rio de Janeiro, Hawassa University in Ethiopia and Polytechnic University in Mozambique.
Jacques Marcovitch is Professor of Management and International Affairs at the University of São Paulo in Brazil and a member of the Global Agenda Council for the Future of Latin America at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Geneva. His past appointments include Rector of the University of São Paulo, President of Electric Utilities of the State of São Paulo and Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies, University of São Paulo. His research and publications focus on environmental challenges, entrepreneurship and Latin America.
Georg Nolte has been Professor of International Law at Humboldt University Berlin since 2008. He is also Co-Chair of the Berlin Potsdam Research Group: “The International Rule of Law – Rise or Decline?” He has been a Member of the International Law Commission of the United Nations since 2007 and acted as its Chair in 2017. He is also a Member of the Institut de Droit International. From 2013 to 2017, he was President of the German Society of International Law.