Karim El Aynaoui is Executive President of the Policy Center for the New South. He is also Executive Vice-President of Mohammed VI Polytechnic University and Dean of its Humanities, Economics, and Social Sciences Cluster. He worked in senior roles at the Central Bank of Morocco and the World Bank. He is a member of the Malabo Montpellier Panel, the Scientific Council of the Moroccan Capital Market Authority, the International Board of Leonardo Med-Or Foundation, the Advisory Council of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy of the American University of Cairo, Morocco's Chapter of the Confrérie des Compagnons de Gutenberg, and a global member of the Trilateral Commission. He is advisor to the CEO and Chairman of OCP Group, a board member of OCP Foundation, and Commendatore of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
Arkebe Oqubay is a British Academy Global Professor at SOAS University of London. He was a Senior Minister, and a Special Advisor to three Prime Ministers of Ethiopia. He is the former Mayor of Addis Ababa and led the boards of key public enterprises, including Ethiopian Airlines. He gives policy advice to, and consults for, African governments and international organisations. The NewAfrican recognised Arkebe as one of the 100 Most Influential Africans of 2016. His books with Oxford include Made in Africa, How Nations Learn (with Ohno), China-Africa and an Economic Transformation (with Lin), five Oxford Handbooks in economics, and more. He is Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, Honorary Professor at the University of Cape Town, and Distinguished Professor at Fudan University and Nanyang Technological University. He is an ODI Distinguished Fellow and a UNU-WIDER Honorary Research Fellow.