Ali Muhsin Ismaiel Al Alaq

Ali Muhsin Ismaiel Al Alaq is the Head of the Board of the Central Bank of Iraq and the Acting Governor at Central Bank of Iraq.

Hisham Al Hashimi

Hisham Al-Hashimi is an Iraqi journalist and analyst writing for Asharq Al-Aswat, among others. He is also a member of National Reconciliation Commission in the Iraqi Prime Minister's office and a researcher in Al-Nahrain Center for Strategic Studies. Prior to that, he was the Security Adviser for the Iraqi Journalistic Freedom Observatory, and for the the Iraqi Journalists Union. Al-Hashimi has several publications including two books: entitled The World of ISIS and Inside Daesh Organization. 

Taher Al Masri

Taher Al Masri is a politician and diplomat who has served as Prime Minister, Minister of Defense, and Head of Parliament for Jordan.

Luay Al-Khatteeb

Luay Al-Khatteeb is Minister of Electricity of the Republic of Iraq. He is the founder of the Iraq Energy Institute (IEI) and was a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. He previously served as senior advisor to the Federal Parliament of Iraq for energy policy and economic reform. His experiences in the private sector span more than 20 years, and has been a frequent commentator on issues related to energy security, economic, and politics in the Gulf region. Al-Khatteeb has served in an executive capacity with various international oil companies, including Shell E&P and Crescent Petroleum. 

Ayad Allawi

Deborah Amos

In 2003, Deborah Amos returned to work with NPR after a decade in television news, including ABC’s Nightline and World News Tonight and the PBS programs NOW with Bill Moyers and Frontline.Prior to her work with ABC News, Amos spent 16 years with NPR including time overseas as the London Bureau Chief, and as an NPR foreign correspondent based in Amman, Jordan. Amos won an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award, a Breakthru Award, and widespread recognition for her coverage of the Gulf War in 1991. She spent 1991-92 at Harvard University as a Nieman Fellow, and in 2010 as a Shorenstein Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. 

Aslı Aydıntaşbaş

Asli Aydıntaşbaş is Senior Policy Fellow at ECFR, where she primarily works on Turkish foreign policy and external ramifications of its domestic politics. She has joined ECFR after a lengthy career in journalism, which last included being a columnist at Milliyet (2009-2015) and a commentator on regional issues in international publications and networks. Aydıntaşbaş has hosted a popular daily show, Karşı Gündem on CnnTurk during 2013-2014. Prior to joining Milliyet, she has served as a Washington correspondent and later the Ankara bureau chief for Sabah, one of Turkey’s leading newspapers. She covered the Clinton Administration, the United Nations, the Bush Administration, and the Iraq War in 1997-2004 as a Washington and New York correspondent for NTV and Radikal. 

Joseph Bahout

Joseph Bahout is a visiting scholar in Carnegie’s Middle East Program, an Associate Fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy, and a member of the scientific board of the Institut Français du Proche-Orient. His research focuses on political developments in Lebanon and Syria, regional spillover from the Syrian crisis, and identity politics across the region. Previously, Bahout served as a permanent consultant for the Policy Planning Unit at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2009–2014). He was also a Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Sciences Po Paris (2005–2014) and a senior fellow at the Académie Diplomatique Internationale (2008–2014).He holds his Ph.D. in Political Sciences from the Sciences Po Paris.

Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin

Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin served as president of MEI from 2007 until 2018. She previously was UN Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees. A 29-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service, she was ambassador to Pakistan from 2001 to 2002. She also served as director of global affairs and counter-terrorism at the National Security Council (1991-1993) and as deputy in the bureau of international counter-narcotics and law enforcement affairs (1999-2001). As assistant administrator in the Asia-Near East bureau of the U.S. Agency for International Development from 2002 to 2004, she oversaw civilian reconstruction programs in Iraq and Afghanistan and development assistance programs throughout the Middle East and East Asia. 

Bruce Walker Ferguson

Bruce Walker Ferguson is an educator, entrepreneur and investor with a lifelong interest in technology-based innovation. He joined the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS) as president in 2016. Prior to joining AUIS, he served as Professor of Practice in the Department of Engineering Systems and Management, and as the founding Head of the Institute Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, at the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Ferguson is a co-founder and former chief operating officer of Orbital ATK, a space technology company listed on the New York Stock Exchange; a co-founder and former chief executive officer of Edenspace Systems Corporation, a biotechnology company developing innovative crops for energy and environmental applications; and an early-stage investor in more than a dozen technology companies. Currently vice chair of the Carnegie Institution for Science, he is a former Fellow at the George Washington University Center for International Science and Technology Policy and former vice chair of the Kansas State University Research Foundation. Ferguson received his Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School

Ellie Geranmayeh

Ellie Geranmayeh is senior policy fellow at the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Her work focuses on European foreign policy in relation to Iran, particularly on the nuclear and regional dossiers. Geranmayeh closely followed and advised governments and companies on the nuclear negotiations between Iran and world powers from 2013-2015. Ellie previously worked at Herbert Smith Freehills LLP law firm working on sanctions policy and graduated with a BA in Law from the University of Cambridge.

Rebaz Muhammed Hamlan

Rebaz Muhammed Hamlan is the Minister of the Finance and Economy of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). He is a member of the Gorran Movement, an opposition party in the KRG. He previously served as Deputy Head of the Gorran administration department. He holds a degree in Law.  

Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert

Ms. Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert is a Dutch politician and diplomat who assumed responsibilities as Special Representative for Iraq of the United Nations Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) on December 17, 2018. She was Minister for Defense of the Netherlands from 2012-2017 and a member of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands from 2010-2012.  

Ambassador Stuart E. Jones

Ambassador Stuart E. Jones is President, Regions and Corporate Relations, at Bechtel. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to Jordan before becoming the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq in 2014. He has worked as Deputy Chief of Mission at the American Embassy in Cairo, Egypt and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State at the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. He has also served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the American Embassy in Baghdad. Other foreign tours include Turkey, El Salvador and Colombia. He was also special assistant to the U.S. permanent Representative to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright. He is a graduate of Duke University and holds a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Tarek Mitri

Tarek Mitri is the Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut (AUB). Tarek Mitri has a distinguished record of public service, having served in the Lebanese government as the Minister of Information (2008-2011), Minister of Culture (2005-2008), Interim Minister of Foreign Affairs (2006-2008), Minister of the Environment (2005), and Minister of Administrative Reform (2005). Prior to this, he was also the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General and head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) from 2012 to 2014, as well as the Coordinator of Interreligious Relations and Dialogue and Program Secretary for Christian-Muslim Dialogue at the World Council of Churches, Geneva from1991 until 2005. Mitri holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Paris X.

Denise Natali

Dr. Denise Natali is Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations at the US Department of State. She was previously a distinguished research fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) at the National Defense University (NDU). She also served on the Gulf Relief Crisis Project for the American Red Cross International Division in Washington D.C., as the Director of cross-border operations for a non-governmental organization. She is the author of numerous publications, op-eds, and short analyses on Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Kurds, and countering ISIL. Her books include The Kurdish Quasi-State: Development and Dependency in Post-Gulf War Iraq and The Kurds and the State: Evolving National Identity in Iraq, Turkey and Iran.

Najwa Qassim

Najwa Qassim is a Lebanese presenter for Al Arabiya News Channel. 

Barham Salih

Dr. Barham Salih is President of the Republic of Iraq. He is also the founder and former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani. He is a veteran Kurdish politician with years of public service and leadership in both the Kurdish Region and Iraq. Salih served as Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government most recently from 2009-2012. Dr. Salih became Deputy Prime Minister of the Interim Iraqi Government in mid-2004, Minister of Planning in the Transitional Government in 2005, and then Deputy Prime Minister in Nouri Al-Maliki’s cabinet after the 2005 elections. In addition to his role as Deputy Prime Minister, he was also in charge of the economic portfolio and Head of the Economic Committee. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering and Construction at the University of Cardiff, graduating in 1983 and a doctoral degree in Statistics and Computer Applications in Engineering from the University of Liverpool in 1987. 

Hayder Shesho

Haydar Shesho is a Yazidi military commander in Iraq. He is the founder and supreme commander of the Yazidi self-defense militia Yezidkhan Protection Forces (HPÊ).

Elena Suponina

Dr. Elena Suponina is the Advisor to the Director of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies. Prior to that, Suponina was the Director and Creator of the Middle East and Asia Center in the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies. She was also a member of analytic and press groups belonging to the Kremlin and the Foreign Ministry traveling with Russian Presidents and several Russian Foreign Ministers during their trips abroad.She published over 10 research papers,and several articles. Suponina provides commentaries for various Russian, Western and Arab TV channels and radio stations as a political analyst. Suponina has received International and Russian awards for best publications for her work about Islam in Russia, Russian-Arab cooperation, and International Policy. Suponina holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy.

Shwan Taha

Shwan Taha is the Chairman of Rabee Securities, a premier Iraqi Stock Exchange Firm founded in Baghdad in 1995. He has over ten years of experience in managing money in the MENA region. Taha holds an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve University and an MBA from George Washington University.

Christine van den Toorn

Christine van den Toorn is Executive Director of External Relations and Policy and Director of the Intitute of Regional and International Studies (IRIS) at AUIS, where she has taught Middle East history for four years. She has over 10 years of academic and professional experience in the Middle East, six of which have been spent in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). She has conducted fieldwork all over the KRI, with a particular focus on disputed territories in Ninewa, Diyala and Salahddin, and has published articles and reports in leading publications, as well as delivered talks on her research. She holds an MA in Middle East History from the University of Virginia, and taught the subject at AUIS for 4 years.

Tamara Cofman Wittes

Tamara Cofman Wittes is a the Director of and a senior fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, where her research focuses on US-Israeli and US-Arab relations. Wittes previously served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs (2009-2012). She also oversaw the Middle East Partnership Initiative and served as Deputy Special Coordinator for Middle East transitions. Wittes is a co-host of Rational Security, a weekly podcast on foreign policy and national security issues.  joining the State Department, Wittes was a senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, where she directed the Middle East Democracy and Development (MEDD) Project. Wittes published in November 2016 a Brookings report titled Politics, Governance, and State-Society Relations on the interdependence of governance and stability in the Arab world.