Ricken Patel

Civic Leader

Canada

Ricken Patel is co-founder and executive director of Avaaz.org, the largest global political web movement in history with 20 million subscribers in 193 countries. Avaaz has a simple democratic mission: to close the gap between the world we have and the world most people want. Patel was voted Ultimate Game Changer in Politics in 2009 by Huffington Post and was named a Young Global Leader by the Davos World Economic Forum.

Prior to founding Avaaz, Patel lived in Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and other countries in conflict, working with various organizations including the International Crisis Group, the Rockefeller Foundation, the International Center for Transitional Justice and Res Publica.

Dr. George Perkovich

National Security Expert

United States

Dr. George Perkovich is vice president for studies and director of the Nonproliferation Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His research focuses on nuclear strategy and nonproliferation with a concentration on South Asia and Iran and on the problem of justice in the international political economy.

Perkovich is author of the award-winning book “India’s Nuclear Bomb” and is co-author of the ground-breaking paper “Abolishing Nuclear Weapons.” He is also co-author of a major Carnegie Endowment report “Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security,” a blueprint for rethinking the international nuclear nonproliferation regime offering a fresh approach to deal with states, terrorists, nuclear weapons and fissile materials. Perkovich served as a speechwriter and foreign policy adviser to then-Senator Joe Biden.

Amb. Thomas Pickering

Diplomat

United States

Ambassador Thomas Pickering is a former U.S. diplomat who held the personal rank of career ambassador, the highest in the U.S. Foreign Service. In a diplomatic career spanning five decades, he served as U.S. ambassador to Russia, India, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria and Jordan. From 1989 to 1992, he served as ambassador and representative to the United Nations in New York. He speaks French, Spanish, Swahili, Arabic, and Hebrew.

Pickering is currently vice chair of Hills & Company, an international consulting firm providing advice to U.S. businesses on investment, trade and risk assessment issues abroad, particularly in emerging market economies. He retired in 2006 as senior vice president of international relations for Boeing.

Pickering is on the Global Zero Board of Directors. He is co-chair of the Nuclear Crisis Group and a member of the Global Zero Commission on Nuclear Risk Reduction, Global Zero NATO-Russia Commission, Global Zero U.S. Nuclear Policy Commission and the Global Zero Commission.

Amb. Steven Pifer

Diplomat

United States

Ambassador Steven Pifer is director of the Brookings Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative. A former ambassador to Ukraine, Pifer’s career as a Foreign Service officer focused on Europe, the former Soviet Union and arms control. In addition to Kyiv, Ukraine, Pifer had postings in London, Moscow, Geneva and Warsaw, as well as on the U.S. National Security Council. At Brookings, Pifer focuses on arms control, Ukraine and Russia.

Pifer is a member of the Global Zero NATO-Russia Commission.

Dr. John Polanyi

National Security Expert

Canada

Dr. John Polanyi is a professor in the department of chemistry at the University of Toronto and a 1986 Nobel Laureate. He is a fellow of the Royal Societies of Canada, of London and of Edinburgh, as well as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences. Polanyi is a founding member of the Committee on Scholarly Freedom of the Royal Society and the Canadian Committee for Scientists and Scholars, where he currently serves as president. He was also the founding chairman of the Canadian Pugwash Group and has worked as an advisor to the Canadian Centre for Arms Control and Disarmament.

Polanyi was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1974 and a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1979. He received the Royal Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1989, along with a number of other awards for his achievements. In addition to his scientific papers, he has published extensively on the control of armaments and peacekeeping including co-editing “The Dangers of Nuclear War.”

Dr. William C. Potter

National Security Expert

United States

Dr. William Potter is the Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar professor of Nonproliferation Studies and the founding director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. He has served as a consultant to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the RAND Corporation and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He sits on the National Academy of Sciences’ Nonproliferation Panel and is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Pacific Council on International Policy and the international advisory board of the Center for Policy Studies in Russia.

Potter has been extensively involved in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review process. He was an advisor to the delegation of Kyrgyzstan for the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference and was an advisor to eight sessions of the NPT Preparatory Committee, as well as the 2000 and 2005 NPT Review Conferences. Potter’s current research focuses on nuclear terrorism and forecasting proliferation developments.

Mr. Vladimir Pozner

Civic Leader

Russia

Vladimir Pozner is a Russian journalist and former president of the Russian Academy of Television. Pozner was the host of several Russian shows and is well known in the West due to his frequent appearances on a number of American programs. Pozner worked as chief commentator for the North American service of the Radio Moscow network, as host of “Moscow Meridian” and as co-host of “Pozner/Donahue” on CNBC, among others. In 1997, Pozner founded the School for Television Excellence in Moscow.

Dr. Qu Xing

National Security Expert

China

Dr. Qu Xing is currently president of the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS). Since 1985, he has taught at China Foreign Affairs University, serving consecutively as director of the Teaching and Research Section of China’s Foreign Relations under the Department of Diplomacy, deputy dean of the Department of Diplomacy, assistant to the president of the University and vice president of the University. He was also a professor and doctoral supervisor therein. From January 2006 to August 2009, he served as minister at the Chinese Embassy in France.