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Barbara Buchner is Global Managing Director of Climate Policy Initiative. Named one of the 20 most influential women in climate change and one of the 100 most influential people in climate policy, Barbara advises leaders on climate, energy, and land use investments around the world.

Barbara directs the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance (the Lab). The Lab’s public-private approach solicits, shapes, and tests cutting edge climate finance instruments that resolve financing barriers hindering alternative energy, adaptation, and land use projects. Instruments from the Lab have mobilized over USD 3.5 billion for sustainable development in developing economies.

She is also the lead author on the Global Landscape of Climate Finance, which has set the benchmark for climate finance tracking, and Climate Finance in 2013-14 and the USD 100 billion goal – a joint report with the OECD that played a seminal role in the lead up to the Paris Agreement. In addition, Barbara built and directs the San Giorgio Group, which brings together climate finance leaders to engage on critical issues that require collective effort to accelerate the transition to more sustainable, lower-emission economies.

Elisa Calliari is Research Scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and at the Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change

Marta Dassù is a board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations. She is also a senior advisor for Europe at the Aspen Institute and editor-in-chief of Aspenia. Previously, she served as Italy’s deputy minister of foreign affairs. She is a regular contributor to the Italian newspaper La Stampa and the author of various books and essays. She sits on the board of directors of Istituto Affari Internazional and is a member of the strategic council of the European Policy Centre. In 2020, she was appointed as a member of the group of experts to support the NATO 2030 initiative and provide advice on how to further strengthen NATO’s political dimension.

Catherine De Vries has ben President of the Institute for European Policymaking at Bocconi University until December 2025. She is passionate about academic service and leadership. In addition, she cares deeply about political science research and teaching. She examines some of the key challenges facing the European continent today, such as Euroscepticism, political fragmentation, migration and corruption. Currently, she is working on research project (LOSS), funded through a Consolidator grant by the European Research Council, which examines the conditions under which economic hardship affects support for socially conservative political agendas. 

Throughout her career, she has published several books in addition to a large set of research articles. Next to research, she regularly provides commentary in newspaper outlets and is a columnist for the Dutch Het Financieele Dagblad. She also serves as the scientific advisor for eupinions funded by the Bertelsmann Foundation, as a member of European Integration Committee of the Dutch Advisory Council on Foreign Affairs, and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin.  For her societal impact, she was selected a Young Global Leader in the World Economic Forum in 2013. In 2014, she was awarded the Emerging Scholar Award from the Elections, Voting Behavior and Public Opinion Section of the American Political Science Association, and in 2015, the Sophonisba Breckinridge Award for Best Paper in Women and Politics of the Midwest Political Science Association.