Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is a principal of The Albright Group LLC, a global strategy firm, and of Albright Capital Management, an investment advisory firm focused on emerging markets. Dr. Albright served as the 64th Secretary of State of the United States. From 1993 to 1997, Dr. Albright was United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations. She chairs the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and the Pew Global Attitudes Project. She serves as President of the Truman Scholarship Foundation and on the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Institute. She is the founder of the Aspen Atlantic Group and a member of the Aspen Strategy Group.

Ashraf Ghani is chairman of the Institute for State Effectiveness, established in 2005 to promote the ability of states to serve their citizens. He is the former finance minister of Afghanistan and chancellor of Kabul University, and he served as a UN adviser to the process that led to the Bonn Agreement for Afghanistan in 2001. He became chief adviser to Afghan President Karzai during the interim administration and then served as finance minister for the duration of the transitional administration. He is credited with the design of Afghanistan’s integrated political, economic, and security strategy between 2001 and 2005. He is a member of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, an initiative of the UN Development Program.

Ambassador John Bruton is European Union Ambassador to the United States and a former Irish Prime Minister. As the EU Commission's head of delegation in the US, Ambassador Bruton explains major EU developments and discusses the importance of the EU-US relationship in matters of trade, counterterrorism, public health, energy, the environment, and the promotion of peace, democracy, and human rights around the world. He has served as a member of the Irish Parliament as well as Ireland's Minister of Finance, Minister for Industry and Energy, Minister for Trade, Commerce and Tourism, and Parliamentary Secretary. He was a member of the convention that drafted the first European Constitution, and was vice president of the European People's Party from 1999 to 2005.

Ambassador Harriet (Hattie) Babbitt is Senior Vice President of Hunt Alternatives Fund and directs their Washington DC office. Ambassador Babbitt previously served as Deputy Administrator of the Agency for International Development, overseeing democratization, women’s empowerment, economic growth, education, health, environmental and population programs. She was U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States (1993-97), has served as a Senior Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and spent almost 20 years as a practicing attorney. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Sir Ian Forbes joined the Royal Navy in 1965. He spent much of his career at sea and been engaged in active operations off Iceland, the Falklands, in the Gulf and Adriatic. He was the Commander onboard HMS INVINCIBLE and HMS ILLUSTRIOUS during the crisis with Iraq in 1998, and returned to the Gulf onboard HMS INVINCIBLE in the wake of OPERATION DESERT FOX the following year. He later relocated to the Adriatic to command the UK maritime contribution to NATO operations in Kosovo. He was promoted to Admiral in December 2001 and served as NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic (SACLANT).

Resources

• Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World by Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart
• John F. Kennedy School of Government Program on Networked Governance