Melani Cammett is Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs in the Department of Government and Director of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. Cammett specializes in the politics of development, identity politics and the Middle East; teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on comparative politics, development and Middle East politics; and consults for development policy organizations. Her current research focuses on governance and the politics of social service provision by public, private, and non-state actors, identity politics, and the historical influences of economic and social development with an empirical focus in the Middle East.
Dr. Rebecca Bill Chavez is president and CEO of the Inter-American Dialogue. She is an expert on democracy, the rule of law, and regional security issues with a distinguished career in public service and academia. Chavez served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere Affairs during the Obama administration and was a tenured political science professor at the US Naval Academy. Raised in Austin, Texas, she received her MA and PhD in Political Science from Stanford University and her BA in Public and International Affairs from Princeton. She is a member of the Truman Center Board of Directors, the Leadership Council for Women in National Security (LCWINS) Steering Committee, and the Council of Foreign Relations. Chavez lives in Washington, DC with her husband Pablo and their two children, Oscar and Penelope.
Jason Fish is a private investor and a co-founder and member of the management committee and the board of directors of Alliance Partners, an asset management firm based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. He also serves on the board of Congressional Bank. Fish has served as chairman of the advisory board of Teach for America in the Bay Area for the past eight years and is a member of the board of trustees of the San Francisco Ballet.
Tijani Babatunde Folawiyo is the chairman and chief executive officer of the Yinka Folawiyo Group, a conglomerate with interests in energy, agriculture, shipping and real estate. Folawiyo was educated at the London School of Economics, where he obtained a B.Sc. degree in economics and an LL.B. He also obtained an LL.M degree from the University College-London. He is a barrister of the Inner Temple of England and Wales and was also admitted to the Nigerian Bar in 1986.
John Irwin co-founded Brookside Capital Partners in 2001 and is the president of Brookside International LLC, a private equity firm which he co-founded in 1977. Irwin also currently serves as president of Orchard Ultrasound, an ultrasound semiconductor innovation lab in California which he co-founded. He is the chairman of the Achelis and Bodman Foundation and the Watson Foundation and a trustee of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Fresh Air Fund.
Aliya Kanji serves on the advisory boards for the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, the M.S. Chadha Center for Global India at Princeton, the Mpala Research Centre at Princeton, the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, and the Harvard Business School Alumni Board. She graduated from Princeton in 1997 with a cum laude…
James Leitner serves as president of Falcon Management Corporation. He earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from Yale with an emphasis on Russia and Eastern Europe. He also holds a master’s degree from Columbia University specializing in international finance and Russian studies and a J.D. from Fordham University Law School. Leitner serves on the Dean’s Planning Council and the advisory board of the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham University Law School.
Jeffrey Lewis-Oakes began his legal career with Davis Polk and Wardwell in 1979 in New York and was a partner in Davis Polk’s corporate department. Lewis-Oakes is presently senior counsel with Davis Polk. When he retired, Lewis-Oakes was head of the firm’s European financial institution’s group and recognized as one of the leading capital market’s lawyers in Europe. Lewis-Oakes was a specialist in financial institutions and advised on offerings by European financial institutions following the 2008 financial crisis. Since retirement, Lewis-Oakes has been writing history essays for the Education Department of the New York Historical Society.
Evan Lieberman ‘92 is the Total Professor of Political Science and Contemporary Africa, the Director of the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He directs the Global Diversity Lab (GDL) and MIT’s global experiential learning program, MISTI. He conducts research on the political-economy of development, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. In particular, he studies the democratic politics of governing ethnically and racially diverse societies, including with respect to the challenges of public health, climate adaptation, and ensuring respect for human dignity. Lieberman received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Previously, he was professor and associate chair in the Department of Politics at Princeton University (2002-14).
George McCabe is the founder and chief investment officer of Portolan Capital Management. McCabe works with the Portolan team on investments across numerous sectors including Consumer, Technology, and Healthcare. Prior to founding Portolan, George served as a research analyst at the Boston-based Lynch Foundation and the Family Office of Peter S. Lynch. McCabe covered a wide range of sectors across the cap-spectrum with a focus on small and mid-cap public, growth equities as well as investments in private companies. McCabe started his career at a NYC based Pilot Capital Corporation, where he focused on private and public market investments. McCabe has an A.B. from Princeton University. He serves as a trustee of the Achelis and Bodman Foundation and as a member of the investment sub-committee of the United Nations Foundation.
Arka Mukherjee is the founder and CEO of Global IDs, Inc. in New York City. The company provides information integration solutions for major corporations at a global level. Mukherjee gained prior management experience from companies such as IBM, Accenture and KPMG, with expertise in sales, consulting, finance and technology. Mukherjee holds an M.S. from the Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur) and a Ph.D. from Princeton.
Julie Newton ’83 is the principal investigator of the University Consortium. She is a research fellow of the Russian and Eurasian Studies Centre at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, an associate professor of the Department of Politics and History at the American University of Paris (AUP) and a Visiting Professor of…
Ashish Shastry began his career at Lehman Brothers in New York before moving to Singapore to join TPG Capital in 1998. By the time he left TPG in 2011, he was a partner and the head of Southeast Asia. Shastry then served for five years as a managing partner of Northstar Group which at the time, managed US $2 billion in private equity and venture capital funds with a focus on Southeast Asia. In 2016, Shastry joined KKR as a member and head of Southeast Asia. Shastry grew up in Indonesia before attending Princeton University, where he studied economics.
Doris Sohmen-Pao is chief executive officer of the Human Capital Leadership Institute (HCLI). Sohmen-Pao joined HCLI from the Singapore Public Service Division where she was the Director for External Outreach, with a focus on developing relationships and synergies between the public and private sector. Before joining the Singapore Civil Service, Sohmen-Pao was one of the founding leaders of Yale-NUS College. Her first role at the college was the EVP of administration where she set up and oversaw the admissions, finance, human resources, public affairs and grounds and building departments. Her last posting at Yale-NUS was as the EVP for Institutional Projects. Sohmen-Pao graduated with a B.A. in politics and environmental studies from Princeton and an MBA from Harvard University. She has experience working on a number of boards of educational institutions including Princeton, United World College (SEA), and the INSEAD Advisory Committee of Southeast Asia. Currently, she serves on the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, and Singapore National Gallery Boards. She is also an EXCO member of the International Women’s Forum Singapore.
Sanjay Swani currently serves as head, investment strategy and technology investing, at Growth Curve Capital. Swani was also a partner with Tailwind Capital, and a member of its management committee from 2020 to 2021. Prior to Tailwind, Swanispent 17 years at Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe as co-head of the information and business services group and also a member of the firm’s management committee. Swani is also a co-founder of Saroras Private Capital. Swani attended Princeton , where he majored in molecular biology, and holds graduate degrees from Harvard Law School and the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Jennifer Wythes Vettel has committed her career to education which is underscored by her passion for global issues. Her experience includes teaching, curriculum development, foundation development and community outreach in both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. After receiving her master’s degree in education from Stanford University, she taught at the secondary level. More recently, she is engaged in raising awareness for Eastside College Prep, an independent school for first-generation college-bound students. At Princeton, she is also is a member of the advisory council for the Paul and Marcia Wythes Center on Contemporary China.
Steven Wilkinson is Nilekani Professor of India and South Asian Studies and professor of political science and international affairs at Yale University, where he is also the Henry R. Luce Director of the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. He has worked on the causes of ethnic violence and is also interested in corruption in politics. He has authored several books on these topics, and his current project, with co-author Saumitra Jha, is a book on war and political change. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Peter Yu is a managing partner of Cartesian Capital Group, a global private equity firm that he founded in 2005. Prior to forming Cartesian, Yu founded and served as president and chief executive officer of AIG Capital Partners. Before that, he was director of the National Economic Council, the White House office responsible for developing and coordinating economic policy, during the Clinton administration. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Yu was president of the Harvard Law Review and served as a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.