Ministerial Roundtable II: Reshaping global and regional value chains

Rebeca Grynspan, of Costa Rica, became UNCTAD's eighth Secretary-General on 13 September 2021 and is the first woman to lead the organization.

Prior to her UNCTAD appointment, she was the Ibero-American secretary-general from 2014 to 2021, also the first woman to head the organization. During her mandate, she has coordinated the 22-member Iberoamerican Conference and led four key summits of Heads of State and Government. 

In 2010 she was appointed Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and prior to that was UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean.  

Prior to joining the United Nations, Ms. Grynspan served as Vice-President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998. She was also Minister of Housing, Minister Coordinator of Economic and Social Affairs, and Deputy Minister of Finance. In 2021 she was named Special International Advisor to the newly created Economic and Social Council of Argentina and invited to join as member of the G20 High-Level Independent Panel on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.

In addition to her experience as a lecturer and advisor to several international organizations, she has been actively involved in key United Nations initiatives, such as the Millennium Project's Task Force on Poverty and Economic Development and the High-level Panel on Financing for Development.  

In 2014 and 2015, she was recognized as one of the 50 leading intellectuals of Latin America.  And she was recognized as one of the 100 most powerful women in Central America by Forbes magazine.

Ms Grynspan holds a degree in Economics by the University of Costa Rica and a MSc in Economics by the University of Sussex. She has been awarded a Doctorate Honoris Causa by the University of Salamanca, the University of Extremadura and the European University of Madrid in recognition of her outstanding professional achievements. 

David Bahati is the Minister of State for Trade, Industry and Co-operatives, responsible for supervising the implementation of the Industrialization programmes of the country.

Prior to this role, he served as the Minister of State for Finance, Planning and Economic Development (Planning), from 2015 to 2021. During this role, he was responsible for economic development planning of the country.

Currently, he is Member of Parliament (MP) for Ndorwa County West. Since 2006 he has consistently been voted the best performing Member of Parliament and Minister of the Republic of Uganda by the Institute of Strategic Studies.

Throughout his 15 years of Public Service, has been a passionate community leader and advocate with a proven track record of results in the areas of National Planning and Economic Development, Public Sector Financing of SMEs, health, job creation and entrepreneurship.

He holds a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from Cardiff University (UK), Bachelor of Commerce from Makerere University Kampala, is a Fellow of the Certified Chartered Accountants (FCCCA-UK), and a Member of the Institute of Certified Public Accounts of Uganda (ICPAU).

Elisabeth Winkelmeier-Becker has been Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy since November 2019. In this role she is responsible for economic policy, industrial policy as well as digital and innovation policy.

She has also been appointed as the Federal Government's special representative for the implementation of the Raw Materials Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) in Germany (D-EITI). She also represents the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy on the supervisory board of Deutsche Bahn AG and DEG - Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH.

John W.H. Denton AO is the Secretary General of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). He is a global business leader, international advisor on policy and a legal expert on international trade and investment.

He serves as Board member of the UN Global Compact, Founding Member of the Business 20 (B20), and Co-Chair of Italy B20 working group on Finance and Infrastructure. He is Co-Founder of the Australia-China CEO Roundtable and Patron of UNHCR in Australia.

Board member of the IFM Global Investors - a global institutional investment manager, John is also Chair of the Asia Pacific advisory board of Veracity, a global advisory group based in New York, and Chair of the Moeller Institute advisory board at the University of Cambridge.

He also serves on the Boards of the UNDP (New York) impact investing steering group, and of UNICEF's global education initiative: GenU. He joined the Advisory Board of the African Green Infrastructure Investment Bank (AfGIIB) and the G7 Working Group on Impact Investment.

Mohammed Ali Al Shorafa Al Hammadi is a member of the Executive Council and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (ADDED). He has joined Hub71 Abu Dhabi as its Chairman in January 2020.

He plays a senior role in numerous leading organisations in Abu Dhabi including being on the board of the Strategic Partnership Council of the Department of Health Abu Dhabi and heads the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO). He also currently serves as Chairman of the Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development (KFED).

With years of extensive leadership and industry experience, he has been a steadfast contributor to the progression of Abu Dhabi's economy and financial landscape.

He holds a Master in Business Administration (MBA) degree from London Business School and has completed numerous programmes in leading institutes such as MIT Sloan, Citibank Global Asset Management and Harvard Business School.