Dr. Hans Blix

National Security Expert

Sweden

Dr. Hans Blix is a Swedish diplomat and politician, and current head of the advisory board for the United Arab Emirates’ nuclear program. Blix taught international law before joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sweden, first as head of department, then under-secretary of state, and finally as minister of foreign affairs. He was also a member of Sweden’s delegation to the United Nations General Assembly and a member of the Swedish delegation to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. He served as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1981 to 1997 and as executive chairman of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission between 2000 and 2003. Blix was also the chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission.

Ambassador Lincoln Bloomfield, Jr.

Diplomat

United States

Ambassador Lincoln Bloomfield, Jr. is a board member and Chairman Emeritus at the Stimson Center, a nonprofit institution focused on enhancing international security and reducing global risks in the form of transnational threats and weapons of mass destruction. Bloomfield served as the Department of State’s special envoy for the Man-Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) Threat Reduction and as assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs from 2001 to 2005. He has held numerous policy positions at the Department of Defense, including principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs and deputy assistant to the vice president for national security affairs. Bloomfield also currently serves as a senior advisor at Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Ms. Naila Bolus

Civic Leader

United States

Naila Bolus is the president and CEO of Jumpstart, a nonprofit working to recruit and train college students and community volunteers to work with preschool children in low-income neighborhoods. Prior to joining Jumpstart, Bolus was the executive director of Ploughshares Fund. During her tenure at Ploughshares, she tripled the organization’s size and was a leading voice in the effort to secure Senate ratification of the New START treaty. She also helped found the Women Legislators’ Lobby, serving as its political director and successfully recruiting a third of all female state legislators to lobby for environmental protection, human services and peace.

Amb. Lakhdar Brahimi

Diplomat

Algeria

Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi is the former special envoy to Syria for the United Nations and Arab League. Following Algeria’s independence, he served his country as an ambassador, first to Egypt and then to the United Kingdom. As an Arab League special envoy, Brahimi brokered the Taif Agreement of 1989, which ended the civil war in Lebanon. After retiring from his position as foreign minister of Algeria in 1993, he went on to serve the United Nations, focusing on addressing conflict and post-conflict situations and working to improve U.N. peacekeeping. After the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, Brahimi led the U.N. mission to Afghanistan, and in 2004 traveled to Iraq as a special envoy of the secretary-general to help form an interim government. He is a member of The Elders, an eminent group of world leaders working to address difficult global challenges.

Rt. Hon. Lord Des Browne

Political Leader

United Kingdom

The Right Honorable the Lord Browne of Ladyton (Des Browne) is a member of the House of Lords. Browne served as a member of Parliament for Kilmarnock and Loudoun until 2010. He also served as secretary of state for defence and secretary of state for Scotland until 2008, and was appointed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown as the government’s special envoy to Sri Lanka in 2009. Previously, he was chief secretary to the Treasury, minister of state for immigration, minister of state at the Department of Work and Pensions, and under-secretary of state at the Northern Ireland Office. During his concurrent tenures as secretary of state for defence and for Scotland, Browne was also a member of the Privy Council. From 2009 to 2014 he was convenor of the Top Level Group of Parliamentarians for Multi-Lateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-proliferation. He currently serves as vice chair of Nuclear Threat Initiative.

Prime Min. Gro Brundtland

Political Leader

Norway

Former Prime Minister Gro Brundtland, a medical doctor and master of public health, served for 20 years in public office in Norway, including ten years as prime minister. In the 1980s, she gained international respect for her policy work, championing the principle of sustainable development as the chair of the World Commission of Environment and Development (the “Brundtland Commission”). Currently, she serves as a commissioner on the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, co-chaired by Gareth Evans of Australia and Yoriko Kawaguchi of Japan. She is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders and Club of Madrid. She is also deputy chair of The Elders, an eminent group of world leaders working to address difficult global challenges.

Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski

National Security Expert

United States

Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski was national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. In 1981, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his role in the normalization of U.S.-China relations and for his contributions to the human rights and national security policies of the United States.

Brzezinski served as a counselor and trustee of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S. think tank, and was a professor of U.S. foreign policy at the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. Brzezinski received his doctorate from Harvard University (1953) and was a member of the faculties of Columbia University (1960–1989) and Harvard University (1953–1960).

Brzezinski passed away on May 26, 2017.

Amb. Richard Burt

Diplomat

United States

Ambassador Richard Burt is the U.S. chair of Global Zero. He is an accomplished U.S. diplomat with special expertise in the area of nuclear weapons. Burt successfully concluded a nuclear arms treaty as the U.S. chief negotiator in the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks with the Soviet Union in 1991. Previously, he was U.S. ambassador to Germany.

From 1977 to 1980, Burt worked in Washington as a national security correspondent for The New York Times. He earned his bachelor’s degree in government from Cornell University in 1969, and his master’s degree in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in 1971.

Burt currently serves as managing director at McLarty Associates, which provides consulting for corporations and financial institutions worldwide on strategic planning, government issues, market access, mergers and acquisitions and political and economic risk.

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