Geneva Chapter: Lunch Talk
Join us on Friday, March 10th, from 12.15 to 14.00 at Hotel d'Angleterre, Quai du Mont-Blanc 17, 1201 Geneva
Dear alumnae and alumni,
We are honored to invite you to a lunch talk followed by a Q & A with Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director General of the World Trade Organization on
Multilateral Trading System in the 21st Century
The conversation will be moderated by Professor Daniel C. Esty '81, Yale Law School
Talk and Lunch: 12.15 to 14.00 at Hotel d'Angleterre, Quai du Mont-Blanc 17, 1201 Genève
Cost:
CHF 55 (Club members below 35 years old)
CHF 75 (Club members 35 years old and above)
CHF 90 (Non-members – Actual cost)
Add your name to the Waitlist here
Tickets must be purchased in advance - no Tickets will be sold at the event.
Meet Our Guests:
Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the first woman and first African to hold the position in the 75-year history of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the WTO.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala is an economist and international development expert with more than 40 years of experience, whose service includes being Chair of the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (2016–2020), the African Union's African Risk Capacity Group (2014–2020), and Co-Chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. She was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Rockefeller Foundation. She co-chaired the G20 High-Level Independent Panel on Financing for Pandemic Preparedness. She was one of the founders of the COVAX Facility, designed to get affordable vaccines to Low and Low Middle-Income Countries. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum and is co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water. She is a member of the G30 Group of the top 30 people in International Finance.
Previously Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, among other duties, served as Senior Advisor at Lazard Ltd. and sat on the boards of Standard Chartered Bank PLC and Twitter Inc. She served in 2020 as African Union COVID-19 Special Envoy and World Health Organization COVID-19 Special Envoy.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala holds the distinction of being the first woman to serve as Nigeria’s Finance Minister, a post she held for seven years. She also served briefly as the first female Foreign Affairs Minister. As Finance Minister, she implemented policy and institutional reforms to help fight corruption and she spearheaded the complete write-off by the Paris Club of $30 billion of Nigeria’s debt. She spent a 25-year career at the World Bank, rising to the number two position of Managing Director, Operations.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala is the recipient of numerous honors and accolades among which are, being named in 2014 and again in 2021, one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the world. She was also featured on the TIME magazine cover page in 2021. She has been named six times by Forbes as one of the Top 100 Most Powerful Women in the World and in 2020, was named Forbes African of the Year. In 2021 she was named by Financial Times as one of the 25 Most Influential Women in the World. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala was ranked by Fortune as one of the 50 Greatest World Leaders in 2015. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala is the recipient of 19 honorary Doctorate Degrees, from some of the world’s most prestigious institutions, including Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, Amherst College, Brown University, University of Amsterdam, Luiss University, Italy, and Trinity College Dublin.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala holds a Bachelor’s in Economics from Harvard University, from which she graduated Magna Cum Laude, and a Ph.D. in Regional Economics and Development from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Professor Daniel C. Esty
Dan Esty is the Hillhouse Professor at Yale University with appointments in both the Law and Environment Schools and secondary appointments in the schools of Management and Global Affairs. He directs the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy (www.yale.edu/envirocenter) and teaches Yale courses on Climate Change, Corporate Sustainability, Trade Law, and Sustainability: Energy, Environment, and the Economy in the 21st Century. He is an author or editor of 14 books including the pathbreaking 1994 book, Green to Gold, and the recent prizewinning volume, A Better Planet: 40 Big Ideas for a Sustainable Future. He is currently on public service leave from Yale and working at the World Trade Organization in Geneva.