Innovation Summit 2020

Lori E. Lightfoot is the 56th Mayor of Chicago.

Since assuming office on May 20, 2019, following her historic election, Mayor Lightfoot has undertaken an ambitious agenda of expanding opportunity and inclusive economic growth across Chicago’s neighborhoods and communities, with early accomplishments including historic ethics and good governance reforms, worker protection legislation, and closing a record $838 million budget gap, as well as key investments in education, public safety, and financial stability. Mayor Lightfoot also placed Chicago on the path to a $15 minimum wage by 2021.

Prior to her election, Mayor Lightfoot most recently served as a senior equity partner in the Litigation and Conflict Resolution Group at Mayer Brown. Previously, she served as President of the Chicago Police Board, as well as the Chair of the Police Accountability Task Force.

Mayor Lightfoot also served as Chief of Staff and General Counsel of the Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications, interim First Deputy of the Chicago Department of Procurement Services, Chief Administrator of the Office of Professional Standards, and as Assistant United States Attorney.

A native of Massillon, Ohio, Mayor Lightfoot has been a resident of Chicago since 1986.

Penny Pritzker is the founder and Chairman of PSP Partners and its affiliates, Pritzker Realty Group, PSP Capital and PSP Growth. From June 2013 through January 2017, she served as U.S. Secretary of Commerce in the Obama Administration.

 Ms. Pritzker is an entrepreneur, civic leader, and philanthropist, with more than 30 years of experience in numerous industries. Ms. Pritzker founded Vi Senior Living (formerly known as Classic Residence by Hyatt) and co-founded The Parking Spot, Artemis Real Estate Partners, and Inspired Capital Partners. Ms. Pritzker is the former chairman of the board of TransUnion and is a past board member of Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, Marmon Group, and LaSalle Bank Corporation. 

Ms. Pritzker is also a member of the board of Microsoft, chairman of the board of trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a member of the Harvard Corporation, Aspen Strategy Group and the Aspen Economic Strategy Group, and a co-chair of the Cyber Readiness Institute. Ms. Pritzker was formerly a member of the board of the Council on Foreign Relations, the board of trustees of Stanford University, the Harvard University Board of Overseers and founded Skills for America’s Future. Ms. Pritzker also served on President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness and his Economic Recovery Advisory Board. 

Ms. Pritzker earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Harvard University and a Juris Doctor and Masters of Business Administration from Stanford University. Ms. Pritzker and her husband, Dr. Bryan Traubert, co-founded The Pritzker Traubert Foundation, a private philanthropic foundation that works to foster increased economic opportunity for Chicago’s families.

Andy is Chief Security Officer for Huawei Technologies USA overseeing Huawei USA's cyber security assurance program, and supporting Huawei’s global assurance program. Andy is the Huawei global lead for the East-West Institute Global Cooperation in Cyberspace Initiative and serves as the Vice Chair of the Open Group Trusted Technology Forum, which developed the Open Trusted Technology Provider Standard (O-TTPS), recognized as ISO/IEC 20243. Andy was the senior cyber security official of the U.S. Government from 2004-2006. Prior to joining the Department of Homeland Security, Andy was a member of the White House staff where he helped to draft the U.S. National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace (2003), after which he went to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) where he helped to form and then led the National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) and the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT).

Congressman Bill Foster is a scientist and businessman representing the 11th Congressional District of Illinois. He is the only PhD physicist in Congress.

Bill serves on the House Committee on Financial Services. As a member of the Financial Services Committee, he advocates for consumer protection and a fair economy for everyone. In addition, Bill serves as chairman of the Financial Services Committee’s Task Force on Artificial Intelligence. He also serves on the Science, Space, and Technology Committee where he has fought for evidence-based policies and forward-thinking approaches to some of our country’s most pressing issues, including climate change and energy innovation.

Before he became a Member of Congress, Bill worked as a high-energy physicist and particle accelerator designer at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab).

Guru Gowrappan is CEO of Verizon Media Group, a division of Verizon creating what’s next in content, advertising, and technology. Verizon Media brands like Yahoo, TechCrunch and HuffPost keep people informed and entertained, communicate and transact, and create new ways for advertisers and partners to connect. Guru brings global expertise and a product-focus to VMG, leveraging his expertise scaling mobile product and business operations from more than 15 years in the internet industry to chart VMG’s next phase of growth.

Before VMG, Guru was Global Managing Director at Alibaba, where he led international expansion for consumer and enterprise products across commerce, entertainment & media, local services, payments, and the commerce-enabling stack. Prior, Guru was COO at both Quixey and Zynga, focused on growth and product development.

Guru holds an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California and completed the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth’s Business Bridge Program.

Yaël is a Visiting Fellow at Cornell Tech in the Digital Life Initiative, where she explores technology's effects on civil discourse and democracy. She has spent two decades working around the globe as a CIA officer, a national security advisor to Vice President Biden, the Global Head of Elections Integrity Operations in Facebook's business integrity org, a diplomat, a corporate social responsibility strategist at ExxonMobil, and the head of a global risk firm. Yaël works with governments, tech companies, and investors focused on the intersection of ethics, tech, society, and policy.

Yaël is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and provides context and analysis on technology, national security, and political affairs in the media, as a speaker, and through workshops and seminars. She has been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, TIME,WIRED, Quartz and The Huffington Post, has appeared on BBC World News, CNN, CBS News, PBS and C-SPAN, in policy forums, and on a number of podcasts.

Dr. Gayle Schueller is a vice-president and chief sustainability officer at 3M. Gayle started in 3M’s corporate laboratory as a product development engineer and has over 25 years of technical and business leadership experience. Her career spans a broad range of businesses from electronics to healthcare to consumer industries. She has led technical and business teams from around the world including Europe, Asia, Latin America and North America. Gayle’s previous assignments include Vice President of New Platforms for Growth and Commercialization, Directora General for 3M Mexico, Vice President for Global Sustainability, and Vice President of Research & Development and Design for 3M’s Consumer and Office Business.

Randall S. Kroszner served as a governor of the Federal Reserve System from 2006 until 2009. He chaired the committee on Supervision and Regulation of Banking Institutions and the committee on Consumer and Community Affairs. He took a leading role in developing responses to the financial crisis and in undertaking new initiatives to improve consumer protection and disclosure. Previously, Dr. Kroszner was a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). He was involved in formulating policy on a wide range of issues, including responses to corporate governance scandals, government-sponsored enterprise reform, pension reform, terrorism risk insurance, tax reform, currency crisis management, sovereign debt restructuring, the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and international trade and development. Dr. Kroszner is a frequent commentator in the international media. He provides advice to financial institutions, government organizations, and central banks throughout the world.

Poppy Crum is a neuroscientist and technologist. She is chief scientist at Dolby Laboratories and an adjunct professor at Stanford University. At Dolby, Poppy directs the growth of internal science and sensory data science. She leads development efforts in innovation that leverage machine learning and AI to enable personalized and optimized benefits from technology. Her work at Stanford focuses on neuroplasticity and human-computer interaction. Poppy has led multiple international standardization efforts inclusive of efforts in AI. She has been acknowledged for industry contributions with awards from the consumer technology association for work to bring forward over the counter hearing aid devices, the advanced imaging society, billboard magazine, and the audio industry. Poppy is on a mission to build technologies that break out of one-size-fits-all solutions. She believes the technology we surround ourselves in everyday paired with ML and AI can uniquely enhance human capability, wellness, and our interactions with each other and our environments.

Ramesh Srinivasan, Professor at UCLA in Design and Media/Information Studies, studies and participates in projects focused on how new media technologies impact political revolutions, economic development and poverty reduction, and the future of cultural heritage. His new book 'Beyond the Valley - How Innovators Around the World Are Overcoming Inequality and Creating the Technologies of Tomorrow.   His other books are 'Whose Global Village - Rethinking how technology shapes our world' and “After the Internet”. He has given invited talks at USI in France, ABSA in South Africa as well as other events in the US and overseas. Srinivasan has given TED Talks and has appeared on MSNBC, NPR, Al Jazeera, “The Young Turks,” National Geographic, Radio Pacifica, the Atlantic, and Public Radio International. His writings have been published by Al Jazeera English, CNN, Wired, The Washington Post, Forbes, and The Huffington Post. He holds an engineering degree from Stanford, a Master’s degree from the MIT Media Lab, and a Doctorate from Harvard University​.

Patrick Wilson was appointed as Director of the Office of Business Liaison in November 2018.  The primary mission of the office is to represent private sector interests through strategic engagement on behalf of the Secretary of Commerce. The office also liaises with the leadership of the 12 bureaus of DOC to keep a pulse on business engagement across the Department.

Prior to joining OBL, Wilson led corporate government relations for U.S. headquartered manufacturing companies Cummins Inc. Babcock and Wilcox Company (now BWE) and for the Semiconductor Industry Association. The SIA is a high-tech trade association representing America’s largest chip makers.

He also previously served in the U.S. Congress (House & Senate) last as Director of Coalitions and Senior Counsel for the House Small Business Committee. He also formerly served as Legislative Counsel for then Kansas Senator (now Ambassador) Sam Brownback and as Legislative Director for then Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana. A veteran of Operations Iraqi Freedom and New Dawn, Wilson has served as an artillery officer in the U.S. Army and Virginia National Guard since 2004 and is currently a Civil Affairs Officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in International Studies & Economics from the University of Denver Korbel School and at the Denver Sturm College of Law. Combining his interests in national security and industrial policy, he has since 2006 been a guest lecturer at the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy. Wilson serves on the Board of Directors of the National Capital Area Salvation Army and as a volunteer for the National Archives Foundation.

Tom Wheeler is a businessman, author, and was Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from 2013 to 2017. Presently, he is a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.

For over four decades, Wheeler has been involved with new telecommunications networks and services. At the FCC he led the efforts that resulted in the adoption of Net Neutrality, privacy protections for consumers, and increased cybersecurity, among other policies. As an entrepreneur, he started or helped start multiple companies offering innovative cable, wireless and video communications services. He is the only person to be selected to both the Cable Television Hall of Fame and the Wireless Hall of Fame, a fact President Obama joked made him “the Bo Jackson of telecom.”

Mr. Wheeler’s newest book is From Gutenberg to Google: The History of Our Future (Brookings Press, 2019). He is also the author of Take Command: Leadership Lessons from the Civil War (Doubleday, 2000), and Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails: The Untold Story of How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War (HarperCollins, 2006).

Richard Edelman is the CEO of Edelman, a global communications firm.

The firm was named to Advertising Age’s 2019 A-List and was honored as “PR Agency of the Decade” by both Advertising Age and The Holmes Report.

Richard has extensive experience in marketing and reputation management, having led assignments with major corporations, NGOs and family businesses in over 25 industries around the world. He has counseled countries in every region of the world on economic development programs. As the creator of the annual Edelman Trust Barometer, Richard has become one of the foremost authorities on trust in business, government, media and NGOs.

In 2020, Richard was inducted into the American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Hall of Fame. In 2019, he was named the PR Agency Professional of the Past 20 Years by PRWeek and was inducted into the publication’s Hall of Fame; in 2014, he was inducted in the Arthur W. Page Society’s Hall of Fame. Richard is regarded as an industry thought leader and has posted weekly to his blog since 2004.

He serves on the Board of Directors of the Ad Council, the Atlantic Council, the Children’s Aid Society, the Gettysburg Foundation, the 9/11 Museum and the National Committee on US China Relations. He is a member of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, World Economic Forum and PR Seminar.

Richard earned his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1978 and a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard College in 1976.

Rebecca Henderson is one of 24 University Professors at Harvard, a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a fellow of both the British Academy and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is an expert on innovation and organizational change, and her research explores the degree to which the private sector can play a major role in building a more sustainable economy, focusing particularly on the relationships between organizational purpose and innovation and productivity. She teaches “Reimagining Capitalism: Business & the Big Problems”, and her book “Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire” will be published in April 2020. Rebecca sits on the boards of Amgen and of Idexx Laboratories. Her publications include the books Leading Sustainable Change and Accelerating Energy Innovation: Lessons from multiple sectors. In February 2019 she was named one of three “Outstanding Directors of 2019” by the Financial Times.

As Vice Chairman, Edward Knight manages global government relations and serves as a senior advisor on public policy and litigation.

During his tenure as Nasdaq’s General Counsel from 2001 to 2019, Ed championed many causes for investors and public companies: proxy reform; corporate governance modernization, including the JOBS ACT passage in 2012; regulatory reform; immigration reform; and enhancing the self-regulatory organization model. He has worked tirelessly to ensure Nasdaq’s U.S. equity market maintains its position as the premier global marketplace for capital formation.

Ed currently serves as a Trustee of the University of Texas Law School Foundation, a member of the Advisory Board of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a member of the District of Columbia, Texas and Supreme Court Bars. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and sits on its Committee on Corporate Affairs. Ed is a member of TechNet’s Executive Council and also sits on the Leadership Board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness and the Board of the U.S. Chamber’s U.S.-India Business Council. He is a member of the Nasdaq Dubai Board. He is based in Nasdaq’s Washington, D.C., office.

Before serving as FINRA’s General Counsel from 1999-2001 and then NASDAQ’s General Counsel, Ed served as General Counsel of the U.S. Department of the Treasury from September 1994 to June 1999 — the longest tenure since the position was created in 1934. Upon his departure, he received the Alexander Hamilton Award, the Department's highest honor. He also received the Honor Award from the Secret Service. Before being named Treasury General Counsel, Ed served as Executive Secretary and Senior Advisor to Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen. He also served as a member of the Obama Transition Team at the U.S. Treasury Department in 2008-2009.

Prior, he was a partner with the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld in Washington, D.C. A Texas native, Ed received his Bachelor of Arts, with honors, in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and his Juris Doctorate from the University of Texas School of Law.

Becky Frankiewicz joined ManpowerGroup in July 2017 as the Regional President of ManpowerGroup North America, bringing passion and compassion coupled with strong P&L experience from large and complex global businesses.

Frankiewicz is committed to building a rightly-skilled talent supply to meet the increasing job demand across North America. It's her firm belief that helping people find meaningful and sustainable work benefits individuals, families and communities. She is passionate about advancing women in leadership, developing skills to advance our workforce and advocating for conscious inclusion.

She has delivered this message at high-profile stages across the U.S. including MIT, the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) Social Innovation Summit, and regular appearances on national broadcast.

In January 2020, Frankiewicz was appointed as a Board of Director for Energizer Holdings, Inc. Before joining ManpowerGroup, she led one of PepsiCo’s largest subsidiaries, Quaker Foods North America. There she was responsible for the $2.6B business and was also named by Fast Company as one of the most creative people in the industry, anticipating and adapting to fast changing consumer demands.

Prior to her success at Quaker Foods, Frankiewicz held a variety of senior leadership roles at PepsiCo including leading Innovation, Finance, Strategy, Sales and Marketing across the PepsiCo portfolio. Prior to joining PepsiCo, Frankiewicz worked in strategic consulting with Deloitte and Andersen Consulting. Frankiewicz has an MBA in finance, and a BA in Marketing from the University of Texas.

Luigi Zingales is the Robert C. McCormack Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at the Booth School of Business. According to SSRN, he is the tenth most-cited author in the social sciences. His research on capitalism is summarized in two widely acclaimed books: Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists (2003, with Raghu Rajan) and A Capitalism for the People (2012). Zingales also co-hosts the podcast, Capitalisn’t. 

Robert J. Jackson Jr. was appointed by President Donald Trump to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and was sworn in on January 11, 2018.

Commissioner Jackson has extensive experience as a legal scholar, policy professional, and corporate lawyer. He comes to the SEC from NYU School of Law, where he is a Professor of Law. Previously, he was Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and Director of its Program on Corporate Law and Policy. Commissioner Jackson’s academic work has focused on corporate governance and the use of advanced data science techniques to improve transparency in securities markets. He was the founding director of Columbia Law School’s Data Lab, which used cutting-edge technology to study the reliability of corporate disclosures. Commissioner Jackson has written more than 20 articles in the nation’s most prestigious legal and economics journals. His published work includes a study shining light on trading activity before the announcement of major corporate events, the first study of the effect of mandatory disclosure required by the JOBS Act on trading by individual investors, and the first comprehensive study of CEO pay in firms owned by private equity. In 2012, Columbia Law School students honored Commissioner Jackson with the Willis L.M. Reese Prize for Excellence in Teaching. He has testified on his scholarship before the U.S. Senate, and his work was previously the subject of rulemaking commentary before federal agencies, including the Federal Reserve and the SEC.

Before joining the Columbia Law School faculty in 2010, Commissioner Jackson served as a senior policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Treasury working with Kenneth Feinberg, the Special Master for TARP Executive Compensation. In this role, he oversaw the development of policies designed to give shareholders a say on pay, improve the disclosure of executive bonuses, and encourage TARP recipients to more closely tie pay to performance. Earlier in his career, Commissioner Jackson practiced law in the executive compensation department of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

Commissioner Jackson holds two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of Business, a master’s degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a law degree from Harvard Law School. He was born in the Bronx, New York, and is a lifelong Yankees fan.

Elza Erkip is an Institute Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at New York University Tandon School of Engineering, and a member of NYU WIRELESS, a vibrant academic research center that is pushing the boundaries of wireless communications, sensing, networking, and devices.  Erkip is a pioneer in the field of cooperative communications and has received several awards from the IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.  She is a member of the Science Academy of Turkey and is among Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers. Erkip is currently developing wireless technologies for 5G and beyond to enable low cost, low power, high-speed connectivity.

Saman is a serial entrepreneur and investor, with a primary focus on the way AI is transforming traditional industries. He has built three companies in the areas of e-commerce, IP television, and logistics management, and faced the challenges of building, focusing, and scaling a company. After two exits, Saman started Comet Labs – a fund & incubator focused AI and Machine learning where he invested in nearly 50 companies such as Airmap, Ripcord, Abundant Robotics, Cobalt Robotics, 3Scan, Saleshero, Otosense and more. Saman now leads Baidu Ventures investments outside of China, where, in additional to capital, he is leveraging Baidu’s considerable resources in data-sets, technical talent, and domain expertise in an effort to turbocharge the companies he invests in.  Saman has previously spent roughly 15 years in China, and has held positions at Honeywell, Verizon, Deloitte Consulting and Microsoft in roles ranging from R&D to operations optimization. He received a Bachelors of Engineering from The Cooper Union and a MBA from Tsinghua and MIT.

Allen Blue is vice president of product management and cofounder of LinkedIn, the online professional network. At LinkedIn, he is responsible for LinkedIn’s overall product strategy. He also sponsors LinkedIn’s work and education products within the economic graph team, including the products and platforms supporting Skillful.com (a joint effort to close the middle skills gap in the United States between LinkedIn and the Markle Foundation.) He advises several startups in Silicon Valley, most focused on improving health and education. He sat on the U.S. Commerce Department’s Data Advisory Council, helping guide the department’s efforts to make its data broadly available to American businesses. Blue serves on the boards of the Hope Street Group, a non-profit which focuses on bringing economic opportunity to Americans through a combination of policy and practice, and Change.org, an online destination for making grassroots-driven change easier. Before LinkedIn, Blue cofounded SocialNet.com, an online dating service, and graduated from Stanford University.

As a journalist and practitioner, Matthew Bishop has helped focus attention on how to create positive social and environmental impact. He wrote some of the earliest articles about impact investing in The Economist, where he spent 25 years as a writer and editor, chairing its first conferences on investing for impact. He was official report author for the G8 Taskforce on Social Impact Investing, and highlighted how philanthropists can harness the power of business and finance to drive social innovation in his book, “Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the World”. He co-founded the Social Progress Index, to help decision makers move beyond a narrow focus on income and GDP as a measure of performance, and the #givingtuesday campaign. He is increasingly focused on how to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals, writing an influential report, “Getting to the Global Goals”, for the Rockefeller Foundation, where he led the work of the Bellagio Center. In the mid-1990s, as chair of the  pension fund committee of the London Borough of Sutton, he adopted a pioneering green investment policy.

Brian Modoff is executive vice-president of strategy and M&A for Qualcomm Incorporated. In this role, Modoff partners closely with the Executive Committee to help define Qualcomm’s strategic direction and long-term vision in order to ensure strong cohesion and alignment with all strategic planning efforts throughout the organization. Modoff also has oversight of Qualcomm’s venture investment portfolio.

Prior to joining Qualcomm, Modoff served as a technology analyst for Deutsche Bank covering the wireless networking and communications systems sector for more than 20 years. Modoff was an institutional investor, top ranked analyst for his sector over the past five years. He has advised investors and fund managers on how to best position their portfolios ahead of industry technology evolutions, identifying the best-positioned companies in the industry based on their technological edge, financial stewardship and managerial performance metrics. Prior to working at Deutsche Bank, he was a manufacturing supervisor in the defense electronics industry for seven years at Rockwell International. He also served in the United States Navy as a Communications Specialist.

Modoff holds a master’s degree in International Management from the American Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird) in Glendale, Arizona and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from California State University, Fullerton.

Charlotte Howard is the New York bureau chief and energy and commodities editor. She joined The Economist in 2004.

From 2015 to 2018 she was the consumer goods and retail correspondent, covering e-commerce, traditional retail and consumer companies around the world. From 2011 to 2014 she was The Economist‘s health-care correspondent, writing about the health industry, health-care policy in America and global health. From 2007 to 2011 she was The Economist’s Midwest correspondent, covering American politics and a range of policy issues, including education, agriculture and transport.

She is a graduate of Yale University.

Tom Standage is the editor at of The World in. He is also responsible for the newspaper's digital strategy and the development of new digital products, including Espresso and Economist Films. He is also the author of six history books, including Writing on the Wall (2013), A History of the World in 6 Glasses (2005) and The Victorian Internet (1998). He studied engineering and computing at Oxford University and has written for other publications including the New York Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian and Wired, taking a particular interest in the internet's cultural and historical significance. He joined The Economist as science correspondent in 1998 and was subsequently appointed technology editor, business editor and digital editor.

Vijay Vaitheeswaran is the United States business editor of The Economist. He joined the editorial staff in 1992 as the newspaper’s London-based Latin America writer, and opened its first regional bureau in Mexico City.

As an award-winning senior correspondent, Mr Vaitheeswaran opened the magazine’s Shanghai bureau in 2012, and he was the China business editor and bureau chief until mid-2017. He also serves as chairman of The Economist Innovation Summit, a provocative series of global conferences on innovation held annually in Chicago, Berlin and Hong Kong.

His latest book (published by HarperCollins) is Need, Speed and Greed: How the New Rules of Innovation Can Transform Businesses, Propel Nations to Greatness, and Tame the World’s Most Wicked Problems. He previously co-wrote ZOOM, with Iain Carson, and Power to the People, two award-winning books about the future of cars and energy.

Mr Vaitheeswaran is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an adviser on sustainability and innovation to the World Economic Forum. His commentary has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and New York Times. He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.