high-level Speakers

PeaceCon 2023 brought together some of the peacebuilding field’s top senior officials, thought leaders, policymakers, and practitioners to explore how the field must evolve, with strategic foresight and innovation, to strengthen existing instruments of peacebuilding and create new strategic approaches and architectures.

Here, we invite you meet our high-level speakers at PeaceCon 2023.

Liz Hume
Executive Director, Alliance for Peacebuilding

Elizabeth (Liz) Hume is the Executive Director at the Alliance for Peacebuilding. She is an international lawyer and a conflict expert with more than 25 years of experience in senior leadership positions in bilateral, multilateral institutions and NGOs. She has extensive experience in policy and advocacy and overseeing sizeable and complex peacebuilding programs in conflict-affected and fragile states in Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa.

Read more about Liz Hume here.

Lise Grande
President, United States Institute of Peace

Lise Grande is the president and CEO of the U.S. Institute of Peace, an independent, nonpartisan, federally funded institute charged with the mission to prevent, mitigate, and resolve violent conflict around the world. She has 25 years of continuous overseas experience leading, managing, and coordinating complex operations for the United Nations. Grande has held leadership positions in humanitarian, stabilization, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and development operations in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Caucasus.

Charles Bolden
AfP Board Vice Chair/Former Administrator, NASA

Maj. Gen. Charles Bolden served as the 12th Administrator of NASA, leading the agency’s efforts in space exploration and the development of scientific partnerships from July 2009 to January 2017. Prior to leading NASA, Charlie had a distinguished 34-year career with the Marine Corps, including 14 years as a member of NASA’s Astronaut Office. He served on four separate missions in space, commanding two and piloting two others. His flights included deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope and the first joint U.S.-Russian shuttle mission.

Robert Jenkins
Assistant to the Administrator, USAID Bureau for Conflict Prevention & Stabilization

Robert Jenkins serves as Assistant to the Administrator for the Bureau for Conflict Prevention and Stabilization (CPS). A career member of the Senior Executive Service, Mr. Jenkins was previously a Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA) and the Director of USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI). 

Prior to joining USAID in 1998, Mr. Jenkins designed and implemented emergency relief and recovery programs with World Vision International in southern Sudan and Sierra Leone. As a Thomas J. Watson Fellow, he worked under Archbishop Desmond Tutu in Cape Town, South Africa, as a liaison between the Anglican Church’s peace and justice office and township communities. 

Awa Dabo
Director and Deputy Head, UN Peacebuilding Support Office, Department of Political & Peacebuilding Affairs

Ms. Dabo is a human rights lawyer with extensive experience in crisis recovery, peacebuilding, transitional justice, humanitarian affairs and development. She has held several senior positions within the United Nations, most recently as Chief of Country Oversight and Support, for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Regional Bureau for Africa. Ms. Dabo was previously Senior Advisor and Head of the Crisis and Fragility Policy and Engagement team for the Crisis Bureau of UNDP, Country Director for UNDP in Tanzania, and Regional Programme Manager and Team Leader with UNDP’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery. 

During her professional career, Ms. Dabo has worked with other UN and non-UN entities including the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the UN Department for Peacekeeping Operations (now DPO) and the African Society of International and Comparative law - an international law NGO based in London, United Kingdom. Ms. Dabo holds an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the University of Nottingham and a BA in Law, Sociology and Social Anthropology from the University of Keele.

Caroline Bahnson
Sr. Operations Officer, World Bank Fragility, Conflict, & Violence Unit

Caroline Bahnson has been a Senior Operations Officer in the Fragility, Conflict, and Violence unit of the World Bank since 2015. She is responsible for managing the Fragility, Conflict, and Violence (FCV) Envelope which provides additional resources to IDA countries facing different kinds of FCV risks. These “top-up” resources enable IDA to target and tailor its support to the prevailing conflict and fragility dynamics specific to each eligible country. Prior to her current position, she worked on social development issues in the Middle East and North Africa region.

Ambassador Deike Potzel
Director General for Crisis Prevention, Stabilisation, Peace Building and Humanitarian Assistance

Deike Potzel was appointed German Ambassador to Ireland in 2017.  She is an experienced diplomat having served in the Foreign Ministry in Bonn 1995-7 and thereafter in Singapore as Press and Political Attachee, in Tehran as Head of the Cultural, Press and Science section and thereafter in Berlin in various positions in the foreign Ministry including as Desk Officer for EU-Enlargement, Deputy Head of Division for Personnel & Staff Development. From 2012 to 2014 she was Head of the Personal Office of Federal President, Herr Joachim Gauck and before coming to Dublin was Deputy Director-General for Central Services at the Foreign Ministry in Berlin. The Ambassador studied English and French Language and Literature at Humboldt University in Berlin and from 1993 to 1995 was a student of the Foreign Service Academy of the Federal Foreign Ministry then located in Bonn.

Melanie Greenberg
Managing Director, Peacebuilding, Humanity United

Melanie Greenberg is Managing Director for Peacebuilding at Humanity United, a philanthropic organization dedicated to cultivating the conditions for enduring peace and freedom. Before joining Humanity United she was CEO of the Alliance for Peacebuilding, and President of the Cypress Fund for Peace and Security. Previously, Melanie researched the links between peacebuilding and transitional justice as a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, and helped broaden the scope of international peacebuilding funding as director of the Conflict Resolution Program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. In her academic career, Melanie served as associate director of the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation and deputy director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation.

Melanie has helped design and facilitate public peace processes in the Middle East, Northern Ireland, and the Caucasus. She is a frequent writer, lecturer, and trainer in the areas of international law, international security, and peacebuilding, Melanie holds an AB from Harvard and a JD from Stanford Law School, and lives in McLean, Virginia.

María Paula Prada
Advisor to the Presidency, Colombian Truth Commission

María Prada Ramírez has been engaged in dialogue, peacebuilding and transitional justice work for over 17 years, focusing on policy and project design and implementation, dialogue facilitation and creating strategic networks for political engagement and social ownership. María has extensive experience holding senior positions for Colombian State institutions and has been a consultant and trainer with several international organizations in Colombia, Germany, Sri Lanka and the United States of America. Maria was a permanent advisor to Francisco de Roux, the President of the Colombian Truth, Reconciliation, and Non-Repetition Commission and led the design and implementation of the outward-facing and sustainability strategy as the Director for Cooperation and Partnerships of the Truth Commission from 2018 to 2022.  She worked as an advisor for peace pedagogy and territorial peace for the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace during the peace negotiations between the Government and the FARC. Maria is currently preparing her fellowship at the University of Notre Dame where she will contribute from the Kroc Institute for Peace Studies to global policy and academic debates on peacebuilding and transitional justice resulting from the Colombian experience. Maria is an accomplished economist with graduate education in international cooperation and humanitarian assistance, and mother of two daughters.

María Victoria Llorente
Executive Director, Fundación Ideas para la Paz

María Victoria Llorente is Executive Director of Fundación Ideas para la Paz. Before joining Fundación Ideas para la Paz in 2007, she worked as an associate researcher of the Center for Studies on Economic Development at the Universidad de Los Andes from 1998 to 2006, where she coordinated the Public Peace Studies Group, which conducted multiple research projects on violence, security and justice in Colombia. She has also worked as a consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Colombian National Police Force and the Office of the Mayor of Bogotá on several projects related to citizen security policies, prevention of juvenile delinquency, and police reform. From 1990 to 1994, she worked as an adviser for the Presidential Council for Defense and National Security and for the Ministry of National Defense on the design of citizen security policies and police reform in Colombia. Ms. Llorente has written extensively on these topics and is co-author of several books, including Reconocer la guerra para construir la paz (Norma 1999), Caracterización de la violencia homicida en Bogotá (Alcaldía de Bogotá, 2002) and Violencia en las familias colombianas: costos socioeconómicos, causas y efectos (BID-DNP-CEDE, 2004). She earned a political science degree from the Universidad de Los Andes.

Rajaa Altalli
Co-Founder, Center for Civil Society & Democracy

Ms. Rajaa Altalli is the co-founder of the Center for Civil Society and Democracy CCSD and she is a member of the Syrian Women’s Advisory Board (WAB) for the UN Special Envoy for Syria since it was established in January 2016 to ensure that women’s perspectives and leadership is taken into account in the Syrian peace process. Ms. Altalli is a senior fellow at the Center for Peace and conflict Studies at Seton Hall University. Ms. Altalli was the Sergio Vieira de Mello Endowed Visiting Chair in Spring 2022 in the school of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University and was a member of the Executive Committee and the co-chair of the US. Civil Society Working Group on Women, Peace and Security 2021-2022. Ms. Altalli was 12 years old when her father was arrested by the Syrian government for being part of a political party. Ms. Altalli got her Masters in Applied Mathematics from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts (2009) through the Fulbright Scholarship award. When the Syrian revolution started, she started documenting human rights violations, and worked with Syrians inside Syria and with Syrian refugees especially in the Middle East. Ms. Altalli has acted as a liaison between grassroots networks and national and international decision-makers, and conducted research to shine a light on the influence of religion on Arab-Kurdish relations in the Northeast of Syria, and the role of Syrian women in building peace. Ms. Altalli addressed the UN Security Council on behalf of CCSD in December 2019 and submitted a six-point plan for a political solution in Syria. She has spoken to advance the political transition in Syria in multiple international conferences and events.

Julia Roig
Founder, The Horizons Project

Julia has more than 30 years of experience working for democratic change and conflict transformation around the world, is best known for her ability to convene diverse coalitions and her facilitative leadership of global networks. An organizer at heart, in her role as Chief Network Weaver at The Horizons Project, Julia is committed to bridge-building across sectors, disciplines, and cultures.

Throughout her career she has been called upon to translate between theory and practice, while seeding new approaches, organizing principles, and mindset shifts for social change. After serving for almost 14 years as the President and CEO of PartnersGlobal, one of the preeminent international democracy and peacebuilding organizations, in 2022 Julia launched The Horizons Project to focus on the intersection of peacebuilding, social justice, and democracy in the United States.

Read more about Julia Roig here.

Hiba Qasas
Executive Director, Principles for Peace Foundation

Hiba Qasas is the Executive Director for the Principles for Peace Foundation. She has 17 years of experience in various leadership and expert roles at the UN, both in headquarters and in the Arab States. As the former Chief of the Crisis Prevention and Response Office in Geneva, Hiba Qasas oversaw crisis response efforts for UN Women and previously served as the UN Women Country Representative in Iraq. At the UN Development Programme (UNDP), she led programs in Jerusalem and collaborated with the Crisis Bureau at headquarters.

Anne Witkowsky
Assistant Secretary of Bureau of Conflict & Stabilization Operations, U.S. Department of State

Anne Witkowsky was sworn in as the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations on January 10, 2022.  Before then, she was most recently a non-resident Senior Democracy Fellow at Freedom House, where she co-directed the joint Freedom House, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and McCain Institute Task Force on the U.S. Strategy to Support Democracy and Counter Authoritarianism.  Assistant Secretary Witkowsky previously served in government as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Stability and Humanitarian Affairs (2014-2016) in the Office of the Under Secretary for Defense for Policy; as Acting Principal Deputy Coordinator in the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism (2012-2013); and as the Bureau of Counterterrorism’s Deputy Coordinator for Homeland Security and Multilateral Affairs (2009-2013).  She also served as Director for Defense Policy and Arms Control on the White House National Security Council staff (1993-2000) and spent her early government career in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy.

Assistant Secretary Witkowsky holds a Bachelor of Arts in Russian and East European studies from Yale University and a Master in Public Administration with a concentration in international security from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.  She is the recipient of several State Department Superior and Meritorious Honor Awards, the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Civilian Service, and the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.

Ambassador Makila James
Senior Advisor, Africa, USIP

Ambassador Makila James is a senior advisor within the Africa Center. Ambassador James formerly served as the deputy assistant secretary for East Africa and The Sudans at the Department of State from 2018-2020. Prior to that position, she was on the faculty of the National War College from 2016-2018 and served as the director of the International Student Management Office at the National Defense University (NDU) for eight months. She was the United States Ambassador to the Kingdom of Eswatini from 2012-2015.

During Ambassador James’ 32-year foreign service career, she has held a variety of positions in Washington and overseas, including as the director of the Office of Caribbean Affairs (2010-2012), deputy director of the Office of Southern African Affairs (2007-2009) and principal officer of the Consulate General in Juba, Southern Sudan (2006-2007).

Previously, Ambassador James was a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff and was a research fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. She also served as an international relations officer in the Office of International Organization Affairs, desk officer in the Office of West African Affairs and as a watch officer in the State Department’s Operations Center. Her overseas assignments have included postings as political officer in Zimbabwe, political/economic officer in Nigeria and consular officer in Jamaica.

Ambassador James received a bachelor’s from Cornell University, a master’s in National Security Studies from NDU, and a juris doctorate from Columbia University. 

Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik
Deputy Executive Director, Research & Finance, Alliance for Peacebuilding

Jessica is a field-wide leader with extensive research and peacebuilding experience who has published several ground-breaking reports that bridge the gap between organizational-relevant research and sector-wide learning. She is a design, monitoring, evaluation, and learning (DMEL) specialist and economist with 12+ years’ experience in academia and practical application in international development, humanitarian affairs, and peacebuilding. She has over 7 years of field-based experience living and conducting research abroad in rural, conflict-affected, and transitional communities.

Read more about Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik here.

Paul Turner
Executive Director, Fund for Peace

In January 2022, Paul Turner joined the FFP as the President and Executive Director. Prior to that, he was Chief of Party overseeing a USAID mechanism focusing on Governance and Stabilization in the Middle East and North Africa. Mr. Turner worked closely with FFP as the Technical Director of the USAID Reacting to Early Warning and Response Data (REWARD) project. Over his 25 year career across the national security paradigm, Mr. Turner has worked on more than 90 conflict affected countries and deployed to over 40 countries as a diplomat, activist, academic, researcher, and peacebuilder. While he served his country on every continent during his time at the U.S. Department of State, much of his career has focused on sub-Saharan Africa. During his career, he helped launch the National Defense University’s Center for Complex Operations, the interagency Civilian Response Corps, and the Global Counterterrorism Forum’s International Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism Capacity-Building Clearinghouse Mechanism. In addition, he has worked across the programming cycle and led research to frame the USAID Middle East Bureau’s approach to Positive Youth Development in Conflict Contexts, designed conflict, governance, environmental security, and atrocity assessment tools, and promoted vertical and horizontal integration to advance the inclusion of local voices.

Read more about Paul Turner here.

Steve Killelea
Founder and Executive Chairman, Institute for Economics and Peace

Steve harbours over a decade’s worth of award-winning experience, delving into the crucial yet misunderstood concept of global peace. He founded the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) in 2007, as an independent not for profit global research institute analysing the intertwined relationships between business, peace, and economic development. Steve’s funding and thought leadership behind the Institute would see him recognised as one of the World’s 100 Most Influential People on reducing the onset of armed violence. IEP global leadership extends to calculating the economic cost of violence, measuring peace, risk analysis of a nation’s threat levels, and a new understanding of “Positive Peace” – an eight- pillar model embracing the attitudes, institutions, and structures required to create and sustain peaceful societies. As one of the world’s most impactful think tanks, its research is extensively used by multi-laterals, including the United Nations, World Bank, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as well as thousands of university courses around the world. He is also the founder of the Global Peace Index, the world’s leading quantitative measurement of global peacefulness, ranking 163 countries, and independent territories.

Read more about Steve Killelea here.

Cristian Sáez Flórez
Research Associate, Peace Accords Matrix

Cristian Sáez Flórez is a Peace Accords Matrix Research Associate and provides research and information management support for the Peace Accords Matrix Colombia Barometer project.

Cristian is a graduate of the Keough School’s Masters of Global Affairs program, with a concentration in International Peace Studies. As part of his studies, he interned in the Missing Migrants and DNA program with the Colibrí Center for Human Rights. 

Outside of academia, Cristian has worked with several human rights and peacebuilding organizations in Colombia. Most recently, he worked as a junior specialist with the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies’ Barometer Project in Colombia and served as a research assistant at the Museo Casa de la Memoria de Medellín. He was also an intern with the Manos a la Paz project with the United Nations Development Programme, which aimed to strengthen democratic governance and peacebuilding capacities.

Eloise Watson
Policy Analyst, Crises & Fragility, OECD

Eloise Watson is a Policy Analyst in the OECD's Crises and Fragility team, the institutional home of the States of Fragility flagship report and data platform. Eloise leads the Development-Peace Dialogue workstream, having previously worked as a field-based analyst with the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Mali (2021-2022), and for the Australian government in a broad range of analytical roles across different security portfolios. She holds a Master's Degree in International Security from Sciences Po, Paris.

Sherrie Westin
President. Sesame Workshop

Sherrie Westin has held leadership positions in media, nonprofit, and public service. She was Assistant to the President for Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs for President George H.W. Bush, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and held senior positions at the ABC Television Network and U.S. News & World Report.

Westin was named a “Leading Global Thinker” by Foreign Policy Magazine, one of Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business”, was also recognized with the Smithsonian’s “American Ingenuity Award”, and the Thomas Jefferson Medal for Citizen Leadership. A staunch advocate for addressing children’s needs, she regularly appears on major media outlets to highlight the value of investing in early childhood development, especially for the most vulnerable children.

Westin is Chair of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, an independent research and innovation lab named for Sesame Street’s founder, and serves on the boards of directors of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, Communities in Schools, and Vital Voices Global Partnership. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. Afghan Women’s Council, and the Early Childhood Peace Consortium Advisory Board.

Doug Burnett
Founder & Chief Good Officer, BUENA

Doug Burnett is the Founder and Creative Director of BUENA, an ad agency dedicated to making good causes famous. In 2018, BUENA ranked #15 globally in PR. The agency specializes in $0-media-budget big ideas and has generated over a billion free media impressions over the past two years.

Previous to BUENA, Doug spent 7 years at Leo Burnett Chicago where he was named an employee of the year, and 5 years of freelance previous to Leo. He has worked on brands including Coca-Cola, Samsung, McDonalds, P&G, Kelloggs, Nike, Playstation, Allstate, and Kraft.

Doug has medaled 31 times between Cannes, D&AD, One Show, Clios, ANDY, and LIA. As an Art Director, the One Show ranked him #25 globally. His art work has exhibited at The London Design Museum, a Tate-curated Gallery, and the MuseumsQuartier in Vienna.

He as spoken at conferences across the world about the importance of good cause advertising.