Rebecca Kantar

RISK-TAKER

• Organization: Minga and BrightCo
• Department: Executive
• Title: CEO

Rebecca Kantar is the Founder and CEO of BrightCo, a social enterprise that connects the world's top young entrepreneurs with leading brands in order to leverage their talents and networks, enabling brands to do well by doing good. Rebecca is the CEO of Minga, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating the global child sex trade by harnessing the power of teens. For her leadership, Rebecca was awarded the TIME Magazine and Bentley University Tomorrow25 Award and a dozen similar honors. Rebecca serves on the U.S. Committee to UNSECO and the World Humanitarian Council. Most recently, Rebecca spoke at StartUp Iceland and at the Cisco IT Executive Symposium.

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David Lee

RISK-TAKER

• Organization: The Stinky Peace Project
• Title: Executive Director

David Lee graduated from Georgetown University in December 2011. In 2008, with the help of the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Commission to UNESCO, he founded The Stinky Peace Project™, which converts organic waste into useable cooking and heating fuel. The project employs over 100 people and operates in Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Currently, David is looking to expand the project into the Democratic Republic of Congo and Guyana at the end of this year. In August, David moved to Thailand to be a visiting researcher at Chulalongkorn University to research alternative energy markets in Southeast Asia.

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Seth Lynn

RISK-TAKER

• Organization: The George Washington University
• Department: The Graduate School of Political Management
• Title: Director of the Center for Second Service and Adjunct Professor of Legislative Affairs

Seth Lynn is an adjunct professor and director of the Center for Second Service at GW University. The Center’s mission is to train veterans to run for office, and grew out of Veterans Campaign, a nonprofit that Seth founded in 2009 while studying International Relations at Princeton. Seth continues his involvement in foreign policy in several ways. He has published articles on national security and politics, and recently traveled to Australia with a State Department-sponsored delegation of six young political leaders. Seth has deployed twice to Iraq with the Marine Corps, and was recently selected for Major in the Reserve.

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Robyn Scott

RISK-TAKER

• Organization: OneLeap
• Department: Executive
• Title: Founder & Managing Director

Robyn Scott is Managing Director and Co-Founder of OneLeap, an online platform that democratises access to attention from people who make things happen. Anyone on OneLeap can pay a modest fee to get their short pitch directly in front of investors, clients, advisers, or employers. The fee, which goes to the recipient's favourite charity, shows the sender is serious. The message is guaranteed to be read, or the fee refunded.

Robyn is also Co-Founder of Mothers for All, Botswana’s only national non-profit, now also working in South Africa. Backed by Barclays Bank and the EU and featured in Oprah’s magazine, Mothers for All teaches entrepreneurship skills to AIDS orphan caregivers. Her first book, Twenty Chickens for a Saddle, is a memoir about growing up in Botswana against the AIDS epidemic. She is currently writing her second book, Big Like Coca-Cola, the true story of a group of maximum security prisoners who adopted AIDS orphans.

She is an Ambassador for the Access to Medicine Index, a Global Ambassador for Sandbox Network, an adviser to several international development charities and social enterprises, and a mentor at Skoll's Emerge Social Venture Lab. She has worked for BP, the FT, and Investec Bank. She has a BSc Bioinformatics from Auckland University and an MPhil Bioscience Enterprise Distinction from Cambridge University, where she was a Gates Scholar. She is a fellow of the RSA and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. She was featured in WIRED Magazine's list of 50 People About to Change the World in 2012.

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Justin Sosne

RISK-TAKER

• Organization: U.S. Department of State
• Department: Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues
• Title: Special Assistant to the Ambassador at Large for Global Women’s Issues

Justin Sosne serves as Special Assistant to the Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues at the U.S. Department of State. In this capacity, he develops and manages policies, programs, and partnerships designed to advance women’s political, social, and economic empowerment globally. Mr. Sosne has received multiple awards for his efforts. He previously served as a Coro Fellow in Public Affairs in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and conducted research at the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin, Germany.

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Benjamin Spatz

RISK-TAKER

• Organization: Self Employed
• Title: Consultant in Fragile States in Africa

Benjamin J. Spatz is an expert on conflict, governance and development, particularly in West Africa. He is a Truman National Security Fellow, a Contributing Editor of the Alaska Quarterly Review and a leading political risk advisor on Liberia. Ben’s previous experience includes serving as Special Advisor to the Government of Liberia, with a relief organization in Darfur, Sudan, with the U.N. Mission in Liberia, and as an international election monitor. He is an international award-winning photojournalist. He holds an M.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and two B.A.s from the University of Washington.

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David Bargueño

PRACTITIONER

• Organization: U.S. Department of State
• Department: Secretary's Office of Global Food Security
• Title: Foreign Affairs Officer, Presidential Management Fellow

David Bargueño is a Foreign Affairs Officer and Presidential Management Fellow in the Secretary’s Office of Global Food Security at the U.S. Department of State. His portfolio covers the $3.5 billion U.S. global food security initiative, Feed the Future, and he is responsible for strategic partnerships with emerging markets. He recently completed a rotation in the Office of Sustainable Development in the USAID Africa Bureau, where he evaluated grant proposals for LGBT and women’s empowerment initiatives and managed the office’s $7.5 million budget. He earned an M.A. in African Studies from Yale, and a B.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. Spanish and English were his first languages, and he is proficient in Zulu, Portuguese, and French.

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Jessica Bartos

PRACTITIONER

• Organization: Export-Import Bank
• Department: Project and Structured Finance Division
• Title: Loan Officer

Jessica Bartos works in infrastructure finance in emerging markets for the Project & Structured Finance division at the Export-Import Bank of the U.S. (Ex-Im). Ex-Im finances U.S. exports to infrastructure projects in sectors ranging from satellite telecommunications to oil and gas to renewable energy. Prior to joining the Structured Finance division, Jessica served as advisor to Alice P. Albright, COO and EVP of Ex-Im, advising on policy and management issues.

Previously, Jessica worked in political risk consulting for the Crumpton Group, focusing on investment in sub-Saharan Africa. She has also served in the Office of African Nations at the U.S. Treasury and in policy coordination at USTR. Jessica worked as an economist at the OECD, where she published original research on export restriction policies. While an undergraduate, she interned for the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France.

Jessica earned her Master’s degree in international economics from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania.

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