Heads of State & Royalty
Philippe of Belgium
Reigning monarch of Belgium since 2013; at Harvard for the HKS graduation of his daughter, Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Brabant.
Barham Salih
President of Iraq (2018–2022) and former Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region; elected UN High Commissioner for Refugees in December 2025. At the time of this meeting, a Senior Fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center.
Olaf Scholz
Chancellor of Germany (2021–2025); previously Vice-Chancellor, Federal Minister of Finance, and First Mayor of Hamburg.
Jamil Mahuad
President of Ecuador (1998–2000) who negotiated the historic peace agreement with Peru, ending the longest-running armed conflict in the Western Hemisphere.
Nobel Laureates
Esther Duflo
Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at MIT and co-founder of J-PAL; the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
Michael Kremer
2019 Nobel laureate for his experimental approach to alleviating global poverty; Director of the Development Innovation Lab at the University of Chicago.
Ministers, Mayors & Diplomats
Dr. Rania Al-Mashat
Egypt's Minister of Planning, Economic Development and International Cooperation at the time of this meeting; appointed UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCWA in 2026.
George Yeo
One of Singapore's most respected statesmen; Foreign Minister (2004–2011), previously Minister for Trade & Industry, Health, and Information and the Arts.
Shashi Tharoor
Four-term Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram, former UN Under-Secretary-General, and author of more than 20 acclaimed books.
Muhamad Chatib Basri
Indonesia's Minister of Finance (2013–2014) and former Chairman of its Investment Coordinating Board; leading Southeast Asian economist.
Ambassador Nicholas Burns
Veteran American diplomat who served six presidents and nine secretaries of state; now the Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy at HKS.
Shelley Berkley
Mayor of Las Vegas and former U.S. Representative for Nevada's 1st district (1999–2013). Met through the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative.
Economists & Policy Thinkers
Raghuram Rajan
Former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (2013–2016) and Chief Economist of the IMF; the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth.
Edward Glaeser
The world's preeminent urban economist; author of “Triumph of the City,” which he gifted at this meeting.
Rachel Glennerster
President of the Center for Global Development; former Chief Economist of the UK's FCDO and longtime Executive Director of J-PAL at MIT.
Laurence Tubiana
France's Climate Change Ambassador for COP21 and a key architect of the Paris Agreement; inaugural Dean of the Paris Climate School at Sciences Po.
Gregory C. Allen
One of Washington's most influential voices on AI policy; former Director of Strategy and Policy at the U.S. Department of Defense Joint AI Center.
Harvard & MIT Faculty
Marshall Ganz
Legendary community organizer who worked with Cesar Chavez for 16 years and shaped the grassroots organizing model of Barack Obama's 2008 campaign.
Juliette Kayyem
National security and crisis-management expert; former U.S. DHS Assistant Secretary and CNN analyst. Gifted her book “The Devil Never Sleeps” at this meeting.
Sheila Heen
Co-author of the bestsellers “Difficult Conversations” and “Thanks for the Feedback”; a leading global authority on negotiation.
Robert Wilkinson
Expert on negotiation and leadership effectiveness, teaching some of HKS's most sought-after leadership courses.
Gordon Hanson
One of the world's leading economists on globalization and labor markets, best known for pioneering research on the China trade shock.
Rahul Mehrotra
Architect, urbanist, and educator; founder of RMA Architects and long-serving chair of Harvard GSD's Department of Urban Planning and Design.
Vikram S. Gandhi
Former senior investment banker turned impact investor; founder of Asha Ventures and HBS faculty member teaching sustainable investing.
Ramesh Raskar
Head of the Camera Culture research group and Project NANDA, building the “Internet of AI Agents.”
Claude Bruderlein
Leading authority on negotiation in complex and hostile environments; longtime adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Steve Jarding
World-renowned political strategist who has advised campaigns and leaders across the globe; voted HKS Teacher of the Year in 2016.
Neil McGaraghan
Teaches negotiation and mediation at Harvard Law School, training the next generation of dispute-resolution practitioners.
Allison Shapira
Former opera singer turned communication expert; author of “Speak with Impact” and longtime teacher of leadership communication at HKS.
Arts, Industry & Public Life
Priyanka Chopra
One of the world's highest-profile artists and a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador; delivered the keynote at the Harvard India Conference 2026.
Jessica Chastain
Academy Award-winning American actress and producer, known for iconic films including “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Interstellar,” “The Martian,” and “Molly's Game.”
Ananya Birla
Indian entrepreneur and artist; founder of Svatantra Microfin, one of India's leading microfinance institutions serving rural women.
Satyam Trivedi
Sports business leader with 20+ years across IPL, ILT20, and WPL properties; led GMR Sports, co-owners of IPL's Delhi Capitals.
Bill Hanway
Global sports infrastructure leader who has master-planned Olympic Games sites including London 2012 and Rio 2016.
Claude Grunitzky
Togolese-born media entrepreneur; founded TRACE magazine and TRUE Africa, championing African voices in global media.
Kirk Kinnell
One of the world's foremost crisis negotiators; trains police forces and leaders globally in high-stakes negotiation.
Field Visits
NYPD, New York City
Site visit at NYPD to understand the latest technological interventions for increased citizen safety.