Dr. Noubar Afeyan is founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering, a unique enterprise that systematically makes breakthrough, life-science innovations which improve human health and sustainability.  During his 30-year career as inventor, entrepreneur and CEO, Dr. Afeyan co-founded and helped build over 40 successful start-ups. He is currently a Lecturer at Harvard Business School and was a Senior Lecturer at MIT where he taught courses on technology-entrepreneurship and innovation since 2000.  Noubar received a Technology Pioneer 2012 award from the World Economic Forum (WEF).   Dr. Afeyan is a member of the Corporation (Board of Trustees) of MIT and a member of the Board of Overseers of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He also serves on the boards of the Armenian General Benevolent Union, the IDeA Foundation and the UWC Dilijan International School. Previously, he was a co-founder and board member of the National Competitiveness Foundation of Armenia, a private-public partnership dedicated to promoting economic development in the former Soviet Republic of Armenia. In 2008 he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, an award granted to outstanding Americans who have distinguished themselves as United States citizens and who have enabled their ancestry groups to maintain their identities while becoming integral parts of American life. He was a Great Immigrant honoree of the Carnegie Corporation in 2016.   Dr. Afeyan is engaged in a number of philanthropic initiatives. In 2015, he co-founded the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative. 

Over the years, Marguerite Barankitse received a considerable national and international recognition with international prizes and distinctions. She had honorary doctorates of universities as « Université de Lille », « Louvain-la-Neuve », Duke University and Emory University and 34 prizes among these two decorations by the President of the Republic of Burundi, the Prize of the Foundation Chirac for the conflict prevention, Columba d' Oro per the Pace, valuable guard's realizations for the international development, the Opus Prize, UNICEF Prize, Nansen Prize (UNHCR) for refugees, the Prize Four Liberties, prize World Children for Children Rights, Africa Prize 2012 of the Segal Family Foundation and others. Marguerite Barankitse is also the 2016 Aurora Prize Laureate.

At 2001 he established a meat producing company Dymov. Today it includes 3 plants and 3 cattle-breeding complexes all over Russia. In 2006 he founded a new format bookstores chain named Respublika. Much as he is interested in the history, he takes an active part in the Suzdal development. He also owns a ceramic factory and a restaurant there.

Vladimir Kuznetsov is a Russian diplomat who has been working closely with the UN since 2008. In 2008-2015 he served as Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), based in Rome, Italy, and was responsible for the day-to-day administration of the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to FAO and the other United Nations agencies in Rome, as well as liaison with the United Nations system secretariats. Before serving in Rome, Mr. Kuznetsov was the Deputy Director of the Department of Information and Press of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation from 1999 to 2008.

Mr. Kuznetsov holds a PhD in history from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University).  He also holds a postgraduate diploma from the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, based in Moscow.

Vladimir Kuznetsov was born in 1965.

Oksana Oracheva, General Director of the Foundation since 2014. Prior to joining the Foundation Oksana served as Russia Program Director of the Ford Foundation International Fellowship Program at Moscow office of the Institute of International Education from 2000 till 2010. Oksana was chair of the Governing Council of the Russian Donors Forum in 2015 and 2016. Oksana is a political scientist and has over 20 years of work experience in non-profit sector. Since 1989 she has been teaching different courses on political history and political science. She has written more than 50 scientific publications on federalism, center-periphery relations and good governance.

Oksana holds a MSocSc in political science degree of the University of Birmingham, UK and a PhD in political history from Perm State University and did research as a visiting professor at Yale University. 

Andrei Sharonov joined the SKOLKOVO Business School team in September 2013. Prior to this, he served as Deputy Mayor in the Moscow Government for economic policy. In 2013 was appointed Dean of SKOLKOVO Business School and in September 2016 he was elected President of the Business School. Mr. Sharonov was born in Ufa in 1964. He graduated from Ufa State Aviation Technical University and the Russian Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation; holds a Ph.D. in sociological science. From 1989-1991 Mr. Sharonov was People’s Deputy of the USSR, and until 1996 was Chairman of the State Committee of the Russian Federation for Youth Affairs. Between 1996 and 2007 he served in the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation as department head, deputy minister and state secretary.

Ruben Vardanyan is an Armenian-Russian impact investor and social entrepreneur. He serves on the advisory boards of the IFC (World Bank Group) and Fundação Dom Cabral business school in Brazil. He is also a board member at Ameriabank (a major Armenian bank), SOLLERS (Russia’s auto major) amongst a host of other companies, NGOs, public and professional organizations.

A prominent financier, Ruben is known both for his commercial projects (investment companies Troika Dialog and Vardanyan, Broitman and Partners) as well as his deep reaching philanthropic programs, such as the first UWC college in Eastern Europe (Dilijan, Armenia) and the Tatev Revival Project, part of which includes the construction of the world’s longest cableway leading to an ancient monastery. Together with their partners, Ruben and his family have invested about $500M in projects in Armenia, developing a commercial approach that relies on involving blended financing to find solutions to social problems. They have also raised over $500M to finance the first private business school in Russia – a pioneering institution both in terms of scale and in its collaborative nature.

In 2015, Ruben co-founded another global project, the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, on behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and in gratitude to their saviors. He spends a significant amount of his time on projects related to the development and professionalization of charity infrastructure in Russia (Philanthropy Infrastructure – PHILIN) and the question of succession and wealth curation (Phoenix Advisors). With support from Ruben, Troika Dialog, SKOLKOVO business school and several charitable foundations, classics of world business literature were published in Russia. Since 2016 he has chaired the judging panel of the PwC “Business Book of the Year in Russia” Award.

Igor Zadorin is a leader at ZIRCON (Center of the Intellectual Resources and Cooperation in Social Sciences) research group, as well as a leading researcher at Moscow City University of Psychology and Education, and a senior researcher at the Sociological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is an expert to many leading analysis centers of Russia, as well as a member of several expert communities.

He graduated from the Department of Control and Applied Mathematics at MPTI (1982) and holds a postgraduate diploma from The Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISRAS).

Igor Zadorin was born in 1958 in Yelets, Lipetsk Oblast, Russia.

Leonid Grigoryev is a Russian economist, the author of more than 300 publications, the co-author and scientific adviser of many monographs and projects. Professor Grigoryev was born in 1947 in Moscow, he graduated from Moscow State University and got his PhD in 1972 (“Cyclical reproduction of fixed capital in USA”). Professor Grigoryev is a co-founder of Economic and Mathematical School at MSU (1967-1971 – President of the School).

He started his career in 1971 as a research fellow of World Economics and International Relations Institute and in 1980 became the head of the Economic activities department.  In 1990 Leonid Grigoryev worked as an expert in the Economic Reformation Commission firstly under the USSR and later Russian Federation Government. He also took part in the composition of “500 days” – unrealized program of the transition from the planned USSR economy to market economy to overcome the economic crisis of 1990s. 

Professor Grigoryev worked as a Deputy of the Minister of Economy and Finance of Russia (1991-1992), adviser in the Russian Directorate of International Bank of Reconstruction and Development, was a head of the Bureau of Economic analysis (1997 – 2001), was the President of the “Energy and Finance Institute” Fund, the adviser of the Minister of Energy (2002), Chairman of the Board of Expert Institute, chairman of World Wide Fund Russia. In 1999 Leonid Grigoryev became a member of International and Defense Policy Council.

Leonid Grigoryev has been the Chief Adviser to the Head of the Analytical center under the Government of Russia since 2013. In June 2013 Leonid Grigoryev became a tenured professor of National Research University Higher School of Economics and in September 2014 he was appointed Head of World Economics Department of NRU HSE.

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries brings a different view to the much-studied subjects of leadership and the psychodynamics of individual and organizational change. Bringing to bear his knowledge and experience of economics (Econ. Drs., University of Amsterdam), management (ITP, MBA, and DBA, Harvard Business School), and psychoanalysis (Membership Canadian Psychoanalytic Society, Paris Psychoanalytic Society, and the International Psychoanalytic Association), Kets de Vries explores the interface between management theory, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, executive coaching and evolutionary psychology. His specific areas of interest are leadership (the bright and dark side), career dynamics, talent management, entrepreneurship, family business, cross-cultural management, succession planning, stress, C-suite team building, executive coaching, change management, management consulting, and organizational development.

The Distinguished Clinical Professor of Leadership Development and Organizational Change at INSEAD, Kets de Vries has been the Founding-Director of INSEAD’s Global Leadership Center. In addition, he is Program Director of INSEAD’s top management program, “The Challenge of Leadership: Creating Reflective Leaders,” and Scientific Director of the Executive Master Program “Consulting and Coaching for Change” (and has received INSEAD’s distinguished teacher award six times). He has also held professorships at McGill University, the École des Hautes Études Commerciales, Montreal, the European School for Management and Technology (ESMT), Berlin, and the Harvard Business School, and he has lectured at management institutions around the world. The Financial Times, Le Capital, Wirtschaftswoche, and The Economist have rated Manfred Kets de Vries among the world’s leading management thinkers and among the most influential contributors to human resource management.

Kets de Vries is the author, co-author, or editor of 49 books. In addition, Kets de Vries has published more than 400 academic papers as chapters in books and as articles. 

Kets de Vries works as a consultant on organizational design/transformation and strategic human resource management for leading U.S., Canadian, European, African, and Asian companies. As a global consultant in executive leadership development his clients have included ABB, ABN-AMRO, Aegon, Air Liquide, Alcan, Alcatel, Accenture, ATIC, Bain Consulting, Bang & Olufsen, Bonnier, BP, Cairn, Deutsche Bank, Ericsson, GE Capital, Goldman Sachs, Heineken, Hudson, HypoVereinsbank, Investec, KPMG, Lego, Liberty Life, Lufthansa, Lundbeck, McKinsey, National Australian Bank, Nokia, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Origin, SABMiller, Shell, SHV, Spencer Stuart, Standard Bank of South Africa, Unilever and Volvo Car Corporation. As an educator and consultant, he has worked in more than forty countries. In his role as a consultant, he is also the chairman of the Kets de Vries Institute (KDVI), a boutique leadership development consulting organization.