Wealth27

Mr. Esko Aho served as a Member of the Finnish Parliament from 1983 to 2003, led the Centre Party from 1990 to 2002, and served as Prime Minister of Finland from 1991 to 1995. Following his political career, he was President of the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra from 2004 to 2008. He subsequently joined Nokia Corporation as Executive Vice President of Corporate Relations and Responsibility, serving on its Executive Board until 2012. From 2013 to 2019, Mr. Aho was Executive Chairman of the Board of the East Office of Finnish Industries. He also chaired the Board of Cinia Oy from 2017 to 2023 and served on JPMorgan’s Advisory Council for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa from 2019 to 2024. Between 2013 and 2019, he was an elected member of the Executive Board of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), where he chaired the Policy and Commissions Committee for four years. Currently, Mr. Aho serves as Chairman of the Board of the China Office of Finnish Industries and advises several international and domestic companies and organizations. He is also an invited member of the Club de Madrid, an organization of former heads of state and government promoting democracy worldwide. Mr. Aho has an extensive academic background. He was a Resident Fellow and later a Senior Fellow at Harvard University, served as Executive in Residence at Aalto University from 2015 to 2022, and was a Visiting Professor at Sciences Po in Paris in 2017–2018. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Vaasa and the University of Alberta. In addition to his professional career, Mr. Aho is an author and publisher. He has authored eight books and published over15 books in various languages under the Verbatum label.

PD. Dr. Simona A. Grano is Head of the Research Area China–Taiwan Relations and Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Zurich. She is also Director of the Taiwan Studies Project, which she has led since 2017. Her research focuses on the geopolitical and societal dynamics of China and Taiwan, with particular emphasis on China–Taiwan–US relations, Switzerland’s relations with China and Taiwan, and the implications of US–China strategic competition for Switzerland and other small and middle powers. Since 2024, she has been a Senior Fellow on Taiwan at the Center for China Analysis of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York. She is also a Research Fellow at the European Research Center on Contemporary Taiwan (ERCCT) and a Research Associate at SOAS University of London. Grano is the author and editor of several books and numerous academic and policy publications on China, Taiwan and international relations. She regularly contributes her expertise to Swiss and international media and advises on developments at the intersection of geopolitics, economics and China–Taiwan relations.

Ambassador Thomas Greminger is the Director of the Geneva Center for Security Policy (GCSP) since 1 May 2021. As Director of the GCSP, Ambassador Greminger addresses some of the most pressing issues on the international agenda, including the future of European security and its institutional architecture, the situation in Ukraine, great power relations—particularly between the United States, China, and Russia—the implications of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, and the evolving concept of Swiss neutrality. Under his leadership, the GCSP has reinforced its position as a unique and indispensable platform for inter-state dialogue and conflict resolution. Previously, he served as Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) from July 2017 until July 2020.  In this capacity he acted as an effective crisis manager supporting successive Chairmanships in an increasingly polarized environment and promoted dialogue among the 57 OSCE participating States as one of his key priorities. Ambassador Greminger served as Deputy Director General of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation at the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs from 2015 to 2017 and as the Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the OSCE, the United Nations and the International Organizations in Vienna from 2010 to 2015. He was instrumental in devising the consecutive chairmanships and joint work plan of Switzerland (2014) and Serbia (2015); in 2014 he chaired the Permanent Council of the OSCE and was strongly involved in managing the crisis in and around Ukraine. From 2004 to 2010, he served as Head of the Human Security Division of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. During his tenure, the division offered and supported facilitation and mediation services to more than half a dozen peace processes worldwide and launched a number of important diplomatic initiatives, including those which led to the creation of the UN Human Rights Council, the UN International Tracing Instrument for SALW, and the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development. Ambassador Greminger also served as Deputy Head of the Human Security Division from 2002 to 2004, and from 1999 to 2001 as Country Director at the Swiss Embassy in Maputo, Mozambique. From 1994 to 1998, he served in different posts in the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, including Head of the Policy and Research Unit. Ambassador Greminger holds a PhD in history from the University of Zurich. He is Lieutenant Colonel GS (company and battalion commander of infantry unit of the Swiss Armed Forces; G6 and Deputy Chief of Staff of Infantry Brigade). He has authored numerous publications on military history, conflict management, peacekeeping, development and human rights.

Beata Javorcik is Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in London. She is on leave from the University of Oxford, where she is the first woman to hold a Statutory Professorship in Economics. She is also a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee at ifo Institute, University of Munich, as well as of the Executive and Supervisory Committee of CERGE-EI in Prague. Before taking up her position at Oxford, she worked at the World Bank in Washington DC, where she focused on research, lending operations and policy advice. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale and a B.A. in Economics (Summa cum Laude) from the University of Rochester.

Prof. Dr. Rudolf Minsch ist Chefökonom und stv. Vorsitzender der Geschäftsleitung von economiesuisse. Er leitet innerhalb des Dachverbandes der Schweizer Unternehmen den Bereich Wirtschaftspolitik & Aussenwirtschaft. Minsch ist Mitglied der Wettbewerbskommission und Präsident der Energieagentur der Wirtschaft. Darüber hinaus wirkt er als Referent an der Weiterbildungsstufe der Universität St. Gallen und als Gastprofessor für Wirtschaftspolitik an der Fachhochschule Graubünden (FHGR), wo er bis zu seinem Stellenantritt bei economiesuisse vollamtlicher Professor für Volkswirtschaftslehre war. Rudolf Minsch hat an der Universität St. Gallen Volkswirtschaftslehre studiert und absolvierte im Anschluss daran das ‘Program for Beginning Doctoral Students‘ bei der Stiftung der schweizerischen Nationalbank in Gerzensee. Danach vertiefte er seine Studien an der Boston University. Im Jahre 2002 promovierte er mit der Arbeit ‚Relative Prices and Inflation. An Empirical Analysis of Firm-Level Price Data from Selected Swiss Service Industries’. Seit etlichen Jahren arbeitet Rudolf Minsch mit verschiedenen Partnern zusammen in der angewandten Forschung mit den Schwerpunkten Geldpolitik, Konjunktur, Tourismus und Aussenhandelspolitik. Rudolf Minsch lebt mit seiner Familie in Klosters.

Professor Russell Napier is author of The Solid Ground investment report for institutional investors and co-founder of the investment research portal ERIC- a business he now co-owns with D.C. Thomson.  Russell has worked in the investment business for over 30 years and has been advising global institutional investors on asset allocation since 1995. Russell is author of the book Anatomy of The Bear: Lessons From Wall Street’s Four Great Bottoms (‘a cult classic’ according to the FT) and is founder and course director of The Practical History of Financial Markets at The Edinburgh Business School. Russell is Chairman of Mid Wynd International Investment Trust a closed end investment vehicle listed on the London Stock Exchange. He is a member of the investment advisory committees of three fund management companies, Cerno Capital, Kennox Asset Management and Bay Capital. In 2014 Russell founded the charitable venture The Library of Mistakes a business and financial history library in Edinburgh that now has branches in India and Switzerland. Russell has degrees in law from Queen’s University Belfast and Magdalene College Cambridge. He is a Fellow of The CFA Society of the UK and is an Honorary Professor at both Heriot-Watt University and The University of Stirling. He also writes a regular monthly column for The Toronto Star newspaper. His second book – The Asian Financial Crisis 1995-1998: Birth of the Age of Debt– was published in July 2021.

Mike Savage is Professorial Research Fellow at the London School of Economics. In 2015 he co-founded the International Inequalities Institute (III), one of the world’s largest research centres to address the challenges of inequality across the globe. He was Director of the III from 2015 to 2020 during which time he secured major funding from Atlantic Philanthropies to host the Atlantic Fellows Programme in Social and Economic Equity. Mike has written extensively about inequalities of class, gender and race, and has been recognised through being elected Fellow of the British Academy, and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science.

Dr Daniel Susskind is a writer and economist. He explores the impact of technology, and particularly AI, on work and society. He is the Mercers’ School Memorial Professor of Business at Gresham College. He is also a Digital Fellow at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford University, an Associate Member of the Economics Department at Oxford University, and a Research Professor at King’s College London. He is a member of the UK Government’s Expert Panel on AI and the Future of Work. His latest book, What Should My Children Do? How to Flourish in the Age of AI, is now out in the UK. (And will be published in November 2026 in the US.) He is the author of Growth: A Reckoning (2024), which was chosen by President Obama as one of his ‘Favourite Books of 2024’ and was a runner-up for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year 2024, and A World Without Work (2020), described by The New York Times as «required reading for any potential presidential candidate thinking about the economy of the future” and a runner-up for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year 2020. He is also co-author of the best-selling book, The Future of the Professions (2015). His TED Talk, on the future of work, has been viewed more than 1.7 million times. And his first novel, The Basilisk Stare, will be published in 2027. Previously he worked in various roles in the British Government – in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, in the Policy Unit in 10 Downing Street, and in the Cabinet Office. He was a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard University.

https://www.danielsusskind.com/

Jan Schwalbe is the Editor-In -Chief of the Swiss Business paper «Finanz und Wirtschaft». He has covered business and the economy for more than 20 years and has conducted countless interviews with international business leaders, economists and strategists. He has been published in Businessweek, Bloomberg News, “Finanz und Wirtschaft” and The Daily Telegraph. Before taking his role as Editor-in Chief he was the Head of the Zurich Bureau of Bloomberg News and was working for CNN Money. Jan Schwalbe was on the Board of the Foreign Press Association in New York and a correspondent in New York and London for over a decade.