Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is a law graduate, having received a Doctorate in Legal and Political Science in 1984. He was a tenured professor at the Faculty of Law of Lisbon University, and has taught throughout his career in various institutions of further education, in Portugal and abroad.

Previously, he worked as a journalist, as the editor of the Expresso newspaper between 1980 and 1983, and for the Seminário newspaper from 1983 to 1987. Subsequently, he appeared on the media as a political commentator on Portuguese TSF radio and, later, the TV stations RTP and TVI.

He works with various civic institutions and associations, as well as in the social sector, as founder, sponsor, director, or simply as a volunteer.

In 1976, he served as a deputy to the Constituent Assembly. He was part of the 8th Constitutional Government as Secretary of State of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and later, as the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs.

He has supported the Portuguese PSD (Social Democratic Party) since it was founded and was its president from 1996 to 1999, contributing decisively to government stability as leader of the opposition. In the international realm, he encouraged the PSD to join the European People's Party, in which he attained the position of Vice-President.

He has held various positions in local government, including Municipal Deputy, Metropolitan Deputy, Councillor and President of the Municipal Assemblies of Cascais, Lisbon, and Celorico de Basto.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was elected President of the Republic for the first time on 24 January 2016 and took office on 9 March.

He was re-elected for a second term on 24 January 2021 and took office on 9 March of the same year.

Teresa Ribera is the Vice President of the Government of Spain and the Minister of the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge. Prior to that, Ms. Ribera was Director of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) from 2014 to 2018, which enabled the Institute to play a key role in the negotiation of the Paris Climate Agreement and the transition towards sustainable development. She served as the Spanish Secretary of State for Climate Change and Biodiversity from 2008 to 2011, responsible for Spanish environmental and climate policies, as well as the country's National Meteorological Agency. She has also been a public official of the Senior Corps of State Civil Administrators and has taught at the Autonomous University of Madrid.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned economics professor, bestselling author, innovative educator, and global leader in sustainable development.

He is widely recognized for bold and effective strategies to address complex challenges including the escape from extreme poverty, the global battle against human-induced climate change, international debt and financial crises, national economic reforms, and the control of pandemic and epidemic diseases.    

Sachs serves as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he holds the rank of University Professor, the university’s highest academic rank. Sachs held the position of Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University from 2002 to 2016. He is President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Chair of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, Co-Chair of the UN Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition, Commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development, Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah Honorary Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Development at Sunway University, academician of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences at the Vatican, and an SDG Advocate for UN Secretary General António Guterres. From 2001-18, Sachs served as Special Advisor to UN Secretaries-General Kofi Annan (2001-7), Ban Ki-moon (2008-16), and António Guterres (2017-18). 

Sachs has authored and edited numerous books, including three New York Times bestsellers: The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008), and The Price of Civilization (2011).  Other books include To Move the World: JFK’s Quest for Peace (2013), The Age of Sustainable Development (2015), Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair & Sustainable (2017),  A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism (2018), and most recently, The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions (2020). 

Sachs was the co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, the leading global prize for environmental leadership. He was twice named among Time magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders.  Sachs has received 38 honorary doctorates.  In 2021, Sachs received the TÜBA Academy Prize from the Turkish Academy of Sciences, the Legion of Honor by decree of the President of the Republic of France, and the Order of the Cross from Estonia, and honorary doctorates from Amrita University, Kerala, India, Macau University of Science and Technology, and the University of Siena, Italy.

Prior to joining Columbia, Sachs spent over twenty years as a professor at Harvard University, most recently as the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Sachs received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard.

António Costa Silva has a degree in Mining Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico, a Master's degree in Petroleum Engineering from Imperial College (University of London), and a PhD in Petroleum Reservoir Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico and Imperial College.

He is Professor Emeritus of the Instituto Superior Técnico, where he did his aggregation in Planning and Integrated Management of Energy Resources.

At the invitation of the Portuguese Government, he prepared the Strategic Vision for the Economic Recovery Plan of Portugal 2020-2030 and chaired the National Monitoring Committee of the Recovery and Resilience Program since May 2021.

He was Chairman of the Executive Committee of Partex between 2004 and 2021.

He was Director of Reservoir and Production Engineering at Beicip-Franlab, the corporate branch of the French Petroleum Institute (Paris, 2001-2003) and Executive Director of Compagnie Géneral de Geophysique in Portugal (1998-2001). He began his professional career in 1980, at Sonangol (Angola), and from 1984 to 1997 he worked at Companhia Portuguesa de Serviços.

Throughout his career, he was responsible for the coordination of several international energy projects, particularly in the Middle East, Algeria, Mexico, Venezuela, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Angola.

He was selected in 2002 by the International Court of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce as an expert in charge of resolving the legal and technical dispute between two of the largest oil companies in the world, in a field off the China Sea.

He was, as of 2018, a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Aveiro, Chairman of the Fuel Board of ERSE, member of the Advisory Board of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Water Initiative of the Catholic University of Lisbon.   

He was a member of the Board of Trustees of ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa and of the Advisory Board of the Gulbenkian Development Aid Program.

He has participated as an invited speaker at international conferences on strategy, energy and geopolitics and is the author of several publications and articles in the areas of energy, strategy, geopolitics and international relations.

Dr. Veerle Vandeweerd, a Belgian national, has more than 35 years of experience in global, national, and local Sustainable Development policy and program development and implementation, including 20+ years at the United Nations system.

She currently is leading several Sustainable Development entrepreneurial initiatives. She is the co-founder of the Global Sustainable Technology and Innovation Conference Series (G-STIC) and was its policy director from 2017 to 2019. In 2020, she set up the Covid Education Alliance (COVIDEA) and the Platform for Transformative Technologies (P4TT), offering collaborative platforms to identify and bring to the market, innovative and integrated industrial solutions that substantially can contribute to the achievements of the Sustainable Development Goals.  She is a board member and the senior sustainability advisor to the Global Entrepreneurship Center (GEC) in Dusseldorf, Germany, a scale-up facility geared towards bringing to the market transformative companies that have the potential to substantially contribute to the achievement of the SDGs and climate goals. She serves on the board of several sustainable development organisations and has been supporting the Technology Facilitation Mechanism (TFM) from the very start.

At the UN, Dr. Vandeweerd held several senior positions at UNEP and directed for 8 years the UNDP Environment and Energy Group. She was the Special Advisor to the UN Global Compact, the leadership platform for responsible corporate policies and practices.

Before the UN, she taught at the University of Zambia, conducted research on African Sleeping sickness, and headed the environmental reporting department in the Flemish Government, Belgium.

Dr. Vandeweerd has a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Antwerp, Belgium (cum Laude), a a master’s in chemistry and bachelor’s degrees in biology and chemistry from the University of Gent, Belgium.

Emmanouil Fragkos was elected as an MEP on 2019. He is a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR). Full member of the Committee of Environment, Public health and Food Safety (ENVI) and the Committee of International Trade (INTA) and substitute member of the Committee of Agricultural Development and of the Delegation for relations with the People's Republic of China.

He has been the responsible co-rapporteur on behalf of ECR for the reports: The future of EU-Africa trade relations, Generalized scheme of tariff preferences, Union environment action programme (2021-2030), EU/China Agreement: cooperation on and protection of geographical indications, Implementation of the common commercial policy – annual report 2018, Enforcement of international trade rules.

And co-rapporteur for the opinions: Implementation of the Updated New Industrial Strategy for Europe: aligning spending to policy, A new EU-China strategy, A European strategy for critical raw materials, Union environment action programme (2021-2030), Just Transition Fund

Emmanouil Fragkos has studied and worked as a veterinarian. He is interested in the cross-sectoral application of innovation and technology.

Mário Campolargo is the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Administrative Modernisation for the Government of Portugal. Previously, he served as the Director-General of DIGIT (Directorate-General for Informatics) in the European Commission. Mário acted as Deputy Director‑General and was responsible for the development of digital services, digital workplace, cloud infrastructures and the implementation of the European Commission Digital Strategy.

He has occupied several positions in the European Commission Directorate General for Information and Communications Technology (DG CONNECT) as the Director for "Future Networks" (5G networks, IoT, Cloud and Next Generation Internet) and for "Emerging Technologies and Infrastructures". Before that, he was Head of Unit for eInfrastructures.

Before joining the European Commission, he worked for 12 years in the R&D Centre of Portugal Telecom as a researcher and a manager.

He holds a Degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Coimbra, a Master of Science in Computing Science from Imperial College London, a Post-graduate in Management from Solvay Business School Brussels and a European Studies Diploma from Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve.

Timmy Dooley is ALDE Party Co-President since 2022 and was Vice President since 2014. He serves as member of the Irish Senate since 2022 and held this position from 2002 to 2007. He was also member of the Irish Parliament (TD, Teachta Dála) from 2007 until 2020 as Opposition Spokesperson for Transport, Tourism and Sport (2011-2016), and Communications, Climate Action, and Environment (2016-2020).

Prof. Dr. Dirk Messner assumed the office of President of the German Environment Agency on 1 January 2020. He is also the Co-Director of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Prof. Messner previously served as Director of the Institute for Environment and Human Security of United Nations University (UNU-EHS) in Bonn, Germany, and Vice Rector of the United Nations University (UNU).

Prof. Messner is an internationally recognised expert on globalisation / global governance, transformation pathways to sustainability, decarbonization of the global economy, sustainability and digital change, and international cooperation and societal change.

He combines his research interests with teaching activities and is currently professor  of political science at the University of Duisburg-Essen. In his scientific career, Prof. Messner has chaired various different international research initiatives and is currently co-coordinator of “The World in 2050”, a global research consortium on the implementation of the Agenda 2030.

Prof. Messner is a member of Earth League, an alliance of prominent sustainability and earth system scholars. He has also been a member of a number of high-ranking policy advisory councils, including co-chairing the German Advisory Council on Global Change  (WBGU), the Sustainable Development Solutions Network Germany and the Science Platform Sustainability 2030. He has also served as a member of the World Bank’s Global Knowledge Council and the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development.

Prior to becoming Director of UNU-EHS in October 2018, Prof. Messner had been Director of the German Development Institute since 2003. Under his leadership, the institute developed an excellent reputation for its scientific and policy-relevant research on global sustainable development. Prof. Messner has a PhD in political science (Dr. rer. pol.) and earned his post-doctoral qualifications at Freie Universität Berlin. He is the author / co-author of more than 300 publications. Examples of his recent work are “G20 und Global Governance” (Oxford University Press, 2018), “The evolution of human cooperation - lessons learned for the future of global governance” (Routledge, 2016), “Germany and the World 2030: What will change. How we must act.” (Econ 2018), “Global cooperation and the human factor in international relations” (Routledge, 2016), “Six Transformations to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals” (Nature Sustainability, 2019). Prof. Messner also served as the Academic Director of the University of Duisburg-Essen’s Institute for Development and Peace from 1995 to 2002. From 1995 to 2003, he worked as a private lecturer in the Faculty for Political Science at the University of Duisburg-Essen and Freie Universität Berlin. He was Professor of Political Science at the University of Munich in 2003.

In addition to being a mother tongue speaker of German, Prof. Messner is also fluent in English and Spanish.