Previously with the Times Newspaper London, the U.N. Environment, and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, Nick was the Director of Communications and Spokesperson for the Paris Agreement of 2015. More recently, he has served as the Director of Communications for the Global Climate Action Summit that took place in San Francisco in September 2018.

Pär is an award winner in communication, social sustainability, and intrapreneurship, listed multiple times by Trust Across America as one of the Top Thought Leaders in Trust. He is the current appointed expert for setting environmental targets for sea and coastal regions in Sweden and for the coalition group for climate-neutral Swedish industry by 2045.

Chrysi Laspidou is a Professor at the Civil Engineering Department, University of Thessaly and a collaborating faculty at the ATHENA Research Center in Greece. She is the Vice-President of Collaboration at Water Europe and a member of the Steering Committee of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus Knowledge Action Network at Future Earth. She is the Chair of the COST Action Network on the Nexus NEXUSNET and the coordinator of the 15-million European project ARSINOE. She leads a multidisciplinary research team to promote innovation, sustainability, resilience, citizen engagement and well-being through European research projects and multinational collaboration.

Since 2011, Durk is the Executive Director of Water Europe, a multi-stakeholder association with over 250 members, representing the entire range of actors in the innovative water ecosystem. Durk brings a 20-year of experience in the European water sector. From 2004 to 2011, he worked as a Deputy Secretary General at EUREAU. Prior to that, he was a Senior Legal Policy Officer for the water department of the provincial government of Friesland, Netherlands. Durk Krol holds a master’s degree in International Law and a master’s degree Languages and Cultures of Latin America from the University of Leiden (NL), and an MBA from United Business Institutes in Brussels. Additionally, he followed an Executive Development Programme at Vlerick Business School (B), an Executive Master International Association Management at Solvay Brussels School (B), and the Programme on Negotiation Global Online from Harvard Law School.

Alexis joined Xylem in 2011, where he had multiple global and regional management roles in Process Engineering, Business Strategy and Vertical Marketing. With a pure-play background in the water sector, he is an expert in water and wastewater management, with special interests in the digital transformation of the water sector, decarbonization of water and wastewater operations, and sustainable management of water resources. Prior to joining Xylem, Alexis worked for five years as Lead Process Engineer for Suez in Barcelona, Spain. He obtained his master’s in business administration from ESADE in 2011, and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Yale, New Haven, in 2007.

Letícia Carvalho is the Head of the Marine and Freshwater Branch of the United Nations Environment Programme. During her tenure at UNEP, she has participated in history-making plastic pollution policy-making, as well as mainstreaming ocean and freshwater ecosystem-based management into the relevant global and regional MEAs and governance arrangements, and spearheading ocean literacy and advocacy across UNEP and its Member States. Ms. Carvalho has led several multilateral agreements including International Maritime Organisation Conventions, the Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from land-Based Activities, the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management, the Minamata Convention on Mercury and chemicals and waste conventions. She has served as the Director of Environmental Quality at Industry in the Ministry of the Environment of Brazil, responsible for chemicals and air quality. Ms. Carvalho has published nationally and internationally on issues relating to chemicals management, air emissions, fisheries, Brazil's marine and coastal policies and environmental international law. She is an oceanographer and holds a Master’s degree in Sustainable Development from University of Brasília.

Dr. Adeel serves as the Executive Director of the Pacific Water Research Centre at SFU, and as faculty member at the SFU School of Sustainable Energy Engineering. He has over 25 years of experience in a range of environmental engineering, science, and policy issues, including 18 years of work as a senior UN official. He served as the Director UNU-INWEH (2006-2016). He also served as the chair of a group of 60+ organizations called UN-Water (2010-2012) and co-chaired the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment team that produced the global desertification synthesis in 2005. His research focuses on the intersection of water security, technological innovation, and community-engaged research activities. He is the Series Editor of the Springer series: "Water Security in a New World."