He has written extensively on international economics, U.S. foreign policy, and globalization. His regular opinion columns appear in many internationally recognized publications and he is the author or editor of eight books including Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy. Previously, Naím served as Venezuela's minister of trade and industry and as an executive director at the World Bank.

Dr. Ali Ettefagh serves as a director of Highmore Global Corporation, an investment company in emerging markets of Eastern Europe, CIS, and the Middle East. He is the co-author of several books on trade conflict, resolution of international trade disputes, conflicts in letters of credit, trade-related banking transactions, sovereign debt, arbitration and dispute resolutions and publications specific to the oil and gas, communication, aviation and finance sectors. Dr. Ettefagh is a member of the executive committee and the board of directors of The Development Foundation, an advisor to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, and an advisor to a number of European companies. Dr. Ettefagh speaks Persian (Farsi), English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and Turkish.

Ibsen Martínez is a Venezuelan playwright and novelist. A former telenovela writer based in Caracas, he is now a freelance writer and regular contributor to a number of newspapers, magazines and websites in both Spanish and English. He writes a weekly column for the Caracas daily "Tal Cual." Spanish language newspapers such as Madrid's "El País" and "ABC" as well as Buenos Aires's "La Nación" run his articles on a regular basis. His essays on literary and political subjects have appeared in prestigious magazines such as "La Nouvelle Revue Françoise", Mexico's " Letras Libres", Washington's "Foreign Policy" and The Washington Post's "Outlook" magazine. He also writes a monthly column on Latin American economic issues for the Liberty Fund's website, "Econlib Library (www.econlib.org).

Masha Lipman is the editor of the Pro et Contra journal, published by Carnegie Moscow Center. Lipman is also an expert in the Civil Society Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center. She served as deputy editor of the Russian weekly newsmagazines, Ezhenedel’ny zhurnal from 2001 to 2003, and of Itogi magazine from 1995 to 2001. She has worked as a translator, researcher, and contributor forMoscow bureau of The Washington Post and has had a monthly op-ed column in The Washington Post since 2001.