Leslie Vinjamuri
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri is director of the US and the Americas Programme at Chatham House. Since 2007, she has been a permanent member of the academic faculty of the politics department at SOAS University of London. She is a co-chair of the Task Force on Reforming Multilateral Institutions of the Think 20 (T20) for 2023. She has written extensively on the US, geopolitics and international order, and is co-editor and contributing author of Anchoring the World (with Charles A. Kupchan, Foreign Affairs, 2021), US foreign policy priorities (Chatham House, 2020) and Human Rights Futures (with Stephen Hopgood and Jack Snyder, Cambridge University Press, 2017). Leslie is deputy chair of the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission and a trustee of the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs. She previously worked at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, in the Asia Bureau at USAID, and was a fellow at the Olin Institute, Harvard University. Leslie has a BA from Wesleyan University (Phi Beta Kappa), an MSc (distinction) from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a PhD from Columbia University.
Mark Malloch-Brown
Mark Malloch-Brown is president of the Open Society Foundations, the world’s largest private funder of independent groups working for justice, democratic governance and human rights. At the United Nations, Mark spearheaded the global promotion of the UN Millennium Development Goals as head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) from 1999 to 2005, under the then UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan. He later served as Kofi Annan’s chief of staff, and then as UN deputy secretary-general, before joining the British government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, as minister responsible for Africa and Asia from 2007 to 2009. Mark was knighted for his contribution to international affairs and is currently on leave from the British House of Lords. He is chairman emeritus and founder of International Crisis Group, a member of the faculty of the Queen Elizabeth II Academy for Leadership in International Affairs at Chatham House, and has been a visiting distinguished fellow at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.
Jim O’Neill
Lord O’Neill of Gatley is a member of the House of Lords, sitting on the cross benches since he stepped down as commercial secretary to the Treasury in September 2016. In July 2021, he became a member of the Panel of Senior Advisers to Chatham House, having finished his term as chair. Jim recently became chair of Northern Gritstone, a private investment business to support and expand start-up businesses originating from the universities of Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield. Jim chaired the Cities Growth Commission in the UK, which formed the basis for the government’s approach to devolution and the concept of the Northern Powerhouse. He is vice-chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership. Jim chaired an independent review into antimicrobial resistance (AMR) for the David Cameron government, helping drive the UK government’s strategy as well as providing key input to the United Nations high-level agreement in 2016. In 2018, Jim published a book, Superbugs (Harvard University Press), on AMR with two of his colleagues from the review. Jim created the acronym ‘BRIC’ and worked for Goldman Sachs from 1995 until April 2013, spending most of his time there as chief economist. He received his PhD from the University of Surrey and is now a visiting professor there.
Helen Clark
Helen Clark is a respected global leader in sustainable development, gender equality and international co-operation. She served three successive terms as prime minister of New Zealand between 1999 and 2008. While in government, she led policy debate on a wide range of economic, social, environmental and cultural issues, including sustainability and climate change. She then became the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator for two terms from 2009 to 2017, the first woman to lead the organization. She was also the chair of the United Nations Development Group, a committee consisting of the heads of all UN funds, programmes and departments working on development issues. In 2019 she became patron of The Helen Clark Foundation. She chairs a range of international organizations and is an active member of others.
Bernice Lee
An expert on the politics of climate change, innovation for sustainability, international trade and the geopolitics of resources, Bernice is a member of the UK Global Resource Initiative Task Force, the UK Climate Change Committee’s International Advisory Group and the Energy Foundation China Board. Bernice has previously been director of climate change and resource security initiatives at the World Economic Forum, director of the Energy, Environment and Resources Department and Global Economy and Finance Department at Chatham House, and the founding director of the Hoffmann Centre for Sustainable Resource Economy (now relaunched as the Sustainability Accelerator) at Chatham House. In 2011, she was awarded an OBE for services to UK–China climate change cooperation. Her work has been covered in the Financial Times, the New York Times, Wired, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Caijing, the Harvard Business Review and the Americas Quarterly.
Cynthia Liang Liao
Cynthia Liang Liao is currently an Academy associate at Chatham House. Previously, as the Schwarzman Academy Fellow at Chatham House, her research examined emerging development strategies from China and the West and how developing countries, particularly in Africa, are evolving their approaches to development in the context of COVID-19 recovery and climate change. Cynthia’s expertise also stems from her thesis research on the impact of China’s Belt and Road Initiative during her time as a Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua University. Cynthia previously served as a global health practitioner at the Clinton Health Access Initiative. She implemented projects with government, multilateral institutions and private sector partners to improve healthcare access across Africa and Asia, including on pandemic response and preparedness. She also has experience as an investor in the clean energy transition and infrastructure finance in both developed- and developing-country contexts. Cynthia’s career has spanned North America, Europe, Africa and China. She holds a master’s degree in global affairs from Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University and a bachelor’s in business administration from the Ivey Business School, Western University. She is Canadian and originally from Shanghai, China.
Creon Butler
Creon Butler leads the Global Economy and Finance Programme at Chatham House. He joined Chatham House in 2019, since when he has written and published on a wide range of global economic policy issues, including the interaction between macroeconomic policy and climate change, sovereign debt distress, the challenge of funding global health priorities, and the long-term implications for the international economic system of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Before joining Chatham House, Creon served in the UK Cabinet Office as director for international economic affairs in the National Security Secretariat and G7/G20 ‘sous sherpa’, advising the UK prime minister on global economic policy issues. Creon first joined the Cabinet Office in 2013 as director in the European and Global Issues Secretariat, and designed the UK’s global Anti-Corruption Summit in May 2016. He was also the British deputy high commissioner in New Delhi from 2006 to 2009 and has served in senior positions in HM Treasury and the Bank of England.
Theo Beal
In Theo’s previous role as Richard and Susan Hayden Academy Fellow at Chatham House, his research examined issues of aid and development, primarily how Japan’s aid strategy interconnects with its foreign policy ambitions in the Indo-Pacific.
Before joining Chatham House, Theo worked in the UK civil service at the Department for International Trade in commercial roles focusing on Brexit, official development assistance and government-to-government agreements. While in the civil service, Theo completed an MSc in emerging economies and international development at King’s College, London with a focus on the issue of ‘aid for trade’.
Rob Yates
Rob Yates is a political health economist specializing in universal health coverage (UHC) and progressive health financing. He is executive director of the Centre for Universal Health at Chatham House. He is also an honorary associate professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and a long-term consultant to The Elders on its health programme. His principal area of expertise is in the political economy of UHC, with a focus on advising political leaders and governments on how to plan, finance and implement national UHC reforms. He has previously worked as a senior health economist with the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the World Health Organization, advising numerous governments in Asia, Africa and Europe on health financing policy and health systems reforms. He holds a BA degree in natural sciences and economics from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from the University of Leeds.
Tim G. Benton
Professor Tim G. Benton leads the Environment and Society Programme at Chatham House. He joined Chatham House in 2016 as a distinguished visiting fellow, at which time he was also dean of strategic research initiatives at the University of Leeds. From 2011 to 2016 he was the ‘champion’ of the UK’s Global Food Security programme, which was a multi-agency partnership of the UK’s public bodies (government departments, devolved governments and research councils) with an interest in the challenges around food. He has worked with UK governments, the EU and the G20. He has been a global agenda steward of the World Economic Forum, and is an author of the IPCC’s Special Report on Food, Land and Climate (2019), and the UK’s Climate Change Risk Assessment (2017, 2022). He has published more than 150 academic papers, many tackling how systems respond to environmental change. His work on sustainability leadership has been recognized with an honorary fellowship of the UK’s Society for the Environment, and a doctorate honoris causa from the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium.
Rebecca Christie
Rebecca Christie is a non-resident fellow at Bruegel, the Brussels-based economic policy think-tank. Her work focuses on financial stability, tax, EU politics and regulation. She was lead author on the European Stability Mechanism’s institutional history, Safeguarding the Euro in Times of Crisis: the Inside Story of the ESM (European Union, 2019); has served as an expert adviser to a European Economic and Social Committee panel on taxation; and has authored policy briefs for the European Parliament. Her policy work comes after a long career in journalism: most recently, she was a political correspondent in Brussels for Bloomberg News from 2011 to 2016, and from 1 December 2022 she will be the EMEA columnist for Reuters Breakingviews.
Lilia Caiado Couto
Lilia Caiado Couto is a research fellow with Chatham House’s Global Economy and Finance Programme and a PhD candidate at University College London. She previously worked as a researcher at the Institute of Applied Economic Research, as a consultant with the United Nations Environment Programme, and as an adviser for climate change, energy and sustainable finance at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in Brazil. Lilia served as a contributing author and chapter scientist for the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. She holds a BSc in economics and an MSc in energy planning from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Lilia’s research interests are the economics of energy transition and climate policy.
Marianne Schneider-Petsinger
Marianne Schneider-Petsinger is a senior research fellow in the Global Economy and Finance Programme at Chatham House, responsible for analysis at the nexus of political and economic issues, and project lead for the Global Trade Policy Forum. She is also a non-resident fellow at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS), which is affiliated with Johns Hopkins University and located in Washington, DC. Before joining Chatham House in 2016, she managed the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue, an international membership body representing consumer organizations in the EU and the US. Marianne also worked for a think-tank on transatlantic affairs in the US, and for the Thuringian Ministry of Economic Affairs in Germany. She completed her master’s degree, focusing on international trade and finance, at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
