BUSINESS FOR PEACE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Chairman of Fransabank / Lebanon
Adnan Kassar is Chairman of Fransabank. Kassar has been a driver of growth and development in Lebanon for many decades, often in the absence of political stability and security. Through motivating the private sector, his work has contributed to the prosperity of the country and its attractiveness to foreign investors, thus maintaining and securing the livelihood of Lebanese citizens.
Green Belt Movement Founder and Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2004. Dr Wangari Maathai was the founder of the Green Belt Movement, a non-profit, grassroots organisation based in Kenya. Dr. Wangari and the GBM was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for "their contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace." Wangari Maathai sadly passed away in 2011.
Her efforts to the benefit of mankind will be long remembered, and the movement she founded will continue its important work, bringing hope to the lives of millions. Wangari Maathai's support for our foundation has been significant, and we will always remain grateful for her contribution.
Eric Maskin is the Adams University Professor at Harvard. He has made contributions to game theory, contract theory, social choice theory, political economy, and other areas of economics. In 2007, he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (with L. Hurwicz and R. Myerson) for laying the foundations of mechanism design theory, which is the study of how to achieve social or economic goals when information about citizens' preferences is incomplete.
Winner of the Sveriges Riksbanks Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2004, Finn E. Kydland is the Henley Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He also holds the Richard P. Simmons Distinguished Professorship at the Tepper School of Business of Carnegie Mellon University.
His main areas of teaching and interest are business cycles, monetary and fiscal policy and labor economics.
Harald Norvik is a former chairman, president, and chief executive of Norwegian oil firm Statoil, a former chairman of telecommunications company Telenor and a director of ConocoPhillips. Between 1979 and 1981 he served as personal secretary to the Prime Minister of Norway, Odvar Nordli, and also as State Secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. From 1981 to 1988 he was finance director and a member of the board at Aker. He served as Statoil President and CEO from 1988 to 1999.
Job Titles:
- Chairman and CEO of General Electric / United States
- Chairman of the Board and CEO of the Conglomerate General Electric
Jeffrey Immelt is Chair of the board and CEO of the conglomerate General Electric since 2000. Under Mr Immelt's leadership, GE implemented a new initiative, "ecomagination," to ramp up development of clean technologies and lighten the company's environmental footprint. GE committed itself in 2005 to double its research-and-development investments in eco-friendlier technologies from 2004 to 2010, more than ten times the 2005 federal US R&D budget for solar and wind combined.
Job Titles:
- Founder and Managing Director of Victoria Seeds / Uganda
Josephine Okot is the Founder and Managing Director of Victoria Seeds, a full line seed company in Uganda. She founded Victoria Seeds for the purpose of delivering quality seeds to "small holder" farmers who produce over 90% of agricultural output in Uganda. Okot's goal is to reverse the decline in agricultural productivity in Uganda and other countries of the region where Victoria Seeds exports.
Job Titles:
- CEO of Semilla and Founder of Peace Startup / Colombia
Juan Andrés Cano is CEO of Semilla, an ethics consultancy firm, and Value4Chain, a technological platform dedicated to sustainability management for businesses. Value4Chain helps to identify gaps and opportunities in managing ethics, compliance, and corporate governance, as well as generating social and environmental value, human rights, and peace. Cano is also Founder of PeaceStartup, an initiative of Value4Chain and Business & Human Rights (Spain). PeaceStartup focuses on creating sustainable solutions to the challenges of peacebuilding for businesses and entrepreneurs, using information and communication technologies.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director of the Women Peace
Leymah Gbowee is executive director of the Women Peace and Security Network Africa and a founding member and former coordinator of the Women in Peacebuilding Programme/West African Network for Peacebuilding. For the 2013-2014 academic year, she was a Distinguished Fellow in Social Justice at Barnard College of Columbia University.
Job Titles:
- Chairman, CEO, and Co - Founder of Salesforce
- Founder and CEO of Salesforce / United States
Marc Benioff is Chair, CEO, and Co-Founder of Salesforce and a pioneer of cloud computing. Salesforce is the #1 provider of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software globally. Benioff established the ‘1-1-1 model' of corporate philanthropy, whereby a company contributes one percent of technology, equity, and employee hours back to the communities it serves. Today, Salesforce is a Fortune 500 company with 54,000 employees and 150,000 customers worldwide. He is an outspoken advocate for business leaders supporting causes such as LGBT rights, education inclusion, wealth reallocation and alleviating homelessness. Benioff is leading a revolution in the tech sector to create a more equal, fair, and sustainable way of doing business.
Job Titles:
- Chairman and Former CEO of Carlson / United States
Marilyn Carlson Nelson is the Chair and former CEO of Carlson. Nelson's pace-setting approach to responsible business focuses on engaging in dialogue with stakeholders about local causes and global issues. Across a range of challenges her approach contributes to peace through the creation of shared value. Notably, she is a strong advocate for the abolition of sexual exploitation of children.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director
- Managing Director
Job Titles:
- Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Winner of the Sveriges Riksbanks Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2001. Michael A. Spence is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and Philip H. Knight Professor Emeritus of Management in the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. He is the chairperson of an independent Commission on Growth and Development, which was created in 2006 to focus on growth and poverty reduction in developing countries.
Job Titles:
- President of Abdul Latif Jameel Co. Ltd
Mohammed Jameel is President of Abdul Latif Jameel Co. Ltd. Jameel has developed several community programmes which promote job opportunities for thousands of young Saudi men and women each year. Jameel has been the driving force behind the Grameen Jameel Pan Arab Initiative, which aims to reduce poverty through micro credit. In addition, he opened the first Bab Riza Jameel (Gateway to Prosperity) Centre, creating employment opportunities for women. The centre also offers financial support for start-ups and loans for vocational training in both the public and private sector.
Grameen Bank Founder and Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2006. Mohammad, together with the bank he founded, Grameen Bank, won the Nobel Peace Prize for "for their efforts to create economic and social benefit from below." Grameen Bank was established in the belief that credit is a fundamental human right and with the objective to help poor people escape from poverty by providing loans on terms suitable to them. Replicas of the Grameen Bank model currently operate in more than 100 countries worldwide.
Job Titles:
- Marine Biologist and the CEO
Nina Jensen is a marine biologist and the CEO of Rev Ocean. She is the former CEO of WWF Norway, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and serves on the board s of The Plastic REVolution Foundation, The C4IR Ocean and The Brain Tumour Association.
Job Titles:
- Member 2016 - Present
- President of the Tunisian Confederation of Industry
Ouided Bouchamaoui is the President of The Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts (UTICA). Bouchamaoui works to help Tunisia pull through its challenges by pushing for national reconciliation, protecting both enterprises and employment policy, and assisting the urgent need to restore security. For this work, Bouchamaoui was made a Business for Peace Honouree in 2014. In addition, UTICA is one of the four organisations that make up the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015.
Job Titles:
- Executive Chairman
- Founder
- Founder and Executive Chair
Per L. Saxegaard is the founder and executive chairman of the Business for Peace Foundation. Per has been an investment banker and investor for over 30 years and is founding partner of the Norden Realkapital Group, which operates various advisory and investment service businesses. Per holds a master's degree in business administration from the Norwegian School of Economics.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of Tata Group / India
Ratan Tata is Chair of the Tata Group, India's largest conglomerate. His personal view is that the Group's sense of social responsibility does not collide with the creation of shareholder value. Tata donates on average eight to fourteen per cent of its net profits every year through dedicated philanthropic programmes.
Human Rights Advocate and Winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize. Since receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Ebadi has lectured, taught and received awards in different countries. She has also defended people accused of political crimes in Iran. She has traveled to and spoken to audiences in India, the United States, and other countries. Along with five other Nobel laureates, she created the Nobel Women's Initiative to promote peace, justice and equality for women.
Job Titles:
- External Relations Director
Job Titles:
- Managing Director of the YTL Corporation Berhad
- Managing Director of YTL Corporation Berhad / Malaysia
Sir Francis Yeoh is managing director of the YTL Corporation Berhad, Malaysia's leading integrated infrastructure conglomerate. He believes that a sustainable business means one which can thrive in the long term and that true sustainability has four equal components: social, economic, environmental, and cultural.
Job Titles:
- Founder and Owner of Virgin Group
- Founder and Owner of Virgin Group / United Kingdom
Sir Richard Branson is the founder and owner of Virgin Group. Branson uses his reputation to influence important issues also outside business. He is a signatory of the non-profit Global Zero campaign for the elimination of nuclear weapons. He has taken a strong stand against climate change scepticism, and created The Elders, a gathering of independent global leaders working together for peace and human rights.