José Graziano da Silva has worked on food security, rural development, and agriculture issues for over 30 years, most notably as the architect of Brazil’s Zero Hunger (Fome Zero) programme and now as the Director-General of FAO. Graziano da Silva led the team that designed the Zero Hunger programme, and, in 2003, was charged by then-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to implement the programme as Special Minister of Food Security and the Fight against Hunger. He headed the FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean from 2006 to 2011.

Elected Director-General of FAO, he took up office on 1 January 2012. After his first term from 1 January 2012 to 31 July 2015, Graziano da Silva was re-elected for a second 4 year-term (1 August 2015 to 31 July 2019) with the votes of 177 countries during FAO's 39th Conference. At the helm of FAO, Graziano da Silva has sharpened the Organization’s strategic focus; and is strengthening its field presence. He is also working to instill a best value-for-money culture.

At the international level, he is working to build consensus on food security-related issues. He has also encouraged closer cooperation with development partners, supports South-South cooperation, and has increased collaboration with civil society and private sector entities, including farmer organizations and cooperatives for smallholder producers.

Graziano da Silva holds a Bachelor's Degree in Agronomy and a Master's Degree in Rural Economics and Sociology from the University of São Paulo (USP), and a Ph.D. in Economic Sciences from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). He also has post-Doctorate Degrees in Latin American Studies (University College of London) and Environmental Studies (University of California, Santa Cruz).

Dr. Chang-Gyu Hwang is the Chairman and CEO of Korea Telecom (KT), the largest integrated telecommunications and media corporation in Korea.

Since taking office in 2014, his determination to invest in the company’s core assets has driven true growth of KT as well as the Korean telecommunications industry. Thanks to his expertise in technology and insights in into the future, KT launched the world’s first commercial 5G services in April 2019, and has led the global 5G initiative ever since.

Dr. Hwang is also committed to social responsible operations, delivering advanced infrastructure and technologies to those digitally isolated at home and abroad and utilizing ICT assets to address global problems like pollution and infectious disease. Specifically, he has established a “Global Epidemics Prevention Platform” project utilizing big data, which has been proved effective at home and is expanding globally.

Delphine Borione is a French diplomat who has held numerous bilateral and multilateral positions in the areas of sustainable development, economic, cultural and educational cooperation. In 2017, she was appointed Ambassador, Permanent Representative of France to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in 2017. Prior to this, she was the Deputy Secretary General for Social and
Civil Affairs of the Union of the Mediterranean. She also was the Director of Cultural and Language Policies at the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, and President of EUNIC Gobal.

Before joining IFAD, Dr. Triki worked at the African Development Bank (AfDB) as Manager in the Microeconomics, Institutions and Development Impact Division, Chief Economist Complex, at its headquarters in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. She managed the division’s knowledge products as well as a team providing support to AfDB non-sovereign operations. From 2013 to 2017, she was Chief Country Economist at AfDB North Africa Regional Department based in Tunisia where she worked on both private and public sector operations. She also played a leading role in setting up the AfDB Public Private Partnerships Hub for North Africa. Beforehand, Dr Triki held a senior and then principal economist position at AfDB where she was part of the Additionality and Development Outcome Assessment (ADOA) team. Dr. Triki holds a PhD in finance from HEC Montréal.

Economic and Social Development Department (ES) of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) since January 2019. Prior to joining FAO, he was the World Bank Group Executive Director for Argentina, Bolivia, Chile Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay since November 2016 and before the Bank Dr. Torero led the Division of the Markets, Trade, and Institutions at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). His major research work lies mostly in analyzing poverty, inequality, importance of geography and assets (private or public) in explaining poverty, and in policies oriented towards poverty alleviation based on the role played by infrastructure, institutions, and on how technological breakthroughs (or discontinuities) can improve the welfare of households and small farmers. His experience encompasses Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia.

Dr. Torero, a national of Peru, holds a Ph.D. and a Master’s Degree in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of the Pacific, Lima, Peru. He is a professor on leave at the University of the Pacific (Perú) and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at University of Bonn, Germany and has also published in top journals (QJE, Econometric Theory, AER-Applied Microeconomics, RSTAT, Labor Economics and many other top journals).

Dr. Torero has received in 2000 the Georg Foster Research Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, won the Award for Outstanding Research on Development given by The Global Development Network, twice, in 2000 and in 2002 and received the Chevalier de l'Ordre du Mérite Agricole in 2014.

Christophe Larose holds a Master degree in Development Economics from Auvergne University, France (1996). He has been involved in consultancy work and joined the European Commission as administrator since 2003. He has been posted in several EU Delegations: Mauritius (with responsibilities over Seychelles, Comoros and Indian Ocean), Madagascar and South Africa. He came back to Directorate-General for Development and International Cooperation (EuropeAid), European Commission, Brussels in September 2016. He is heading the sector in charge of sustainable agriculture which includes innovation, research and digitalisation in agriculture.

Enrica Porcari is the Chief Information Officer and Director of Technology of the World Food Programme (WFP), and Chair of the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC). Enrica is leading the digital transformation of WFP by fostering the use of technologies, particularly by facilitating the digital relationships between humanitarian operators and the people they support. Internally, her efforts focus on turning WFP into a data-driven organization, while establishing peer-based relationships with the private sector towards the common goal of eradicating hunger worldwide. Prior to her present appointment, Enrica was the first CIO at the CGIAR Consortium, then the Director of Shared Services, which included ICT, procurement and support services. In her assignment with WFP before that, she coordinated ICT global activities and created WFP’s IT Emergency Response Team, which is now the recognized humanitarian emergency technology lead.

Christian Reimsbach-Kounatze is an Internet economist and policy analyst at the OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry (STI). Christian has been working in STI on topics related to the Internet and digital economy since 2008. This includes work on assessing the impact of ICTs on the society (including on skills and employment) and more recently work on the economics of “big data”. He is now co-ordinating OECD’s horizontal project on “the role of data for growth and well-being”, which is part of a broader OECD project on New Sources of Growth (NSG). Before joining the OECD, Christian worked as a researcher at the Institute for Information and Market Engineering of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and at SAP Research in Germany on topics related to information markets, peer-to-peer systems, and distributed incentive mechanisms. Christian holds a Diploma (Master of Science) in Information Science, Engineering and Management and a Diploma in Economics, both granted by the KIT.

Jean-Philippe Grelot is a graduate engineer from the École Polytechnique de Paris and the National School of Geographical Sciences. He has held the positions of Research Engineer, Director of Printing, Commercial Director and Deputy Director General of the National Geographic Institute - France and President of IGN France International. He has taught applied mathematics (statistics) and digital cartography at the National School of Geographical Sciences and has lectured extensively abroad in these subjects. He was elected member of the Executive Committee and Secretary General of the International Cartographic Association. He is currently an expert in geographic data and digital data at the French Ministry of Food and Agriculture.