William Lacy Swing
Director-General, International Organisation for Migration
Photo and biography to follow.
Photo and biography to follow.
Grant F. Reid was appointed as CEO/Office of the President for Mars, Incorporated in 2014 and joined the Board of Directors in 2015. Based in McLean, Virginia, Mars has net sales of over $35 billion and operates in diverse global categories, including petcare, confectionery, food and drinks.
Mars was founded in 1911, when Frank C. Mars made the first Mars candies in his Tacoma, Washington kitchen. In 1932, his son, Forrest Mars, Sr., moved to the United Kingdom and built a diversified business based on the objective of creating “mutuality of benefits for all stakeholders.” This objective is one of The Five Principles – Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency and Freedom – that unite and guide more than 115,000 Mars Associates around the world.
As CEO, Reid has led significant shifts in purpose, portfolio, structure and culture in support of business performance, as well as advocating a focus on operating with speed and agility. Reid has ushered in multiple acquisitions, including VCA, BluePearl Veterinary Partners and Pet Partners animal hospitals; Whistle GPS Pet tracker; Preferred Brands International, Indian and Asian food products sold primarily under the Tasty Bite brand; and Turin Chocolates, a premium Mexican chocolate business. He also announced a strategic partnership with KIND in late 2017. Reid led the business to the buy-out of Berkshire Hathaway’s minority ownership stake in Wrigley, allowing for the combination of the Mars Chocolate and Wrigley businesses into one segment: Mars Wrigley Confectionery – the largest confectionery business in the world.
On a cultural front, Reid has led a re-focus on customers. During the last few years, Mars has tripled the number of customers who rank it in the top quartile of performance with the trade. Mars has also consistently improved its ranking as a great workplace; currently 4thon the Great Place to Work® Multinational list. In 2017, Reid spearheaded the launch of Mars’ Sustainable in a Generation Plan– the company’s new sustainability ambitions, commiting $1Bover the next three years.
Reid is active in promoting the positive role of business in addressing societal issues. He’s a member of the Board of Directors of the Consumer Goods Forum, which encourages adoption of responsible practices and standards serving the consumer goods industry and is the co-sponsor of the Consumer Good Forum’s Sustianability Pillar.
Before being appointed to his current role, Reid was Global President of Mars Chocolate, leading more than 17,000 Associates in delivering some of the world’s best-loved brands like M&M’S®, SNICKERS®, DOVE®, GALAXY® and TWIX®. Reid led the Chocolate business to record sales, growing market share in mature and emerging markets. He was a champion of industry efforts to collaborate on the issue of cocoa sustainability, expanding the Mars leadership role via the Sustainable Cocoa Initiative, which puts farmers first and increases crop productivity through training, certification and breakthrough research.
In his three decades with Mars, Reid has worked across all aspects of the business, including general management, procurement, manufacturing, marketing and sales. He has led the entire span of product operations and has extensive end-to-end supply chain expertise from raw material procurement to customer merchandising.
While he has lived in the U.S. for more than 25 years, Reid is a native of Scotland. He holds an honors degree in management economics as well as certification in marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
Reid is committed to lifelong learning and development, a core tenet of the Mars culture. He loves challenging himself and being active, and enjoys strength and conditioning training, running, mountain biking, mixed martial arts, historic car racing, and spending time with his family and dogs.
Biography to follow.
Marie is the founder and creative energy behind The FAIR Hiring Initiative (TFHI) and brings a worldwide reputation and vast knowledge of the international labour migration arena to the operation of The FAIR Hiring Initiative Inc (a social enterprise ethical recruitment agency that serves as a living laboratory to develop and test ethical recruitment approaches and strategies that are in turn used as basis for ethical recruitment-related training, assessment and consulting). She is currently leading the development of a labor agency certification program (On The Level). Previously with Verité, she spearheaded supply chain initiatives worldwide to address recruitment-related debt bondage and modern-day slavery. Marie is certified by the International Register of Certified Auditors (IRCA) as a Lead Tutor for the Electronics Industry’s Auditor Accreditation Program, that she helped to develop, and served on the Global Reporting Initiative’s Stakeholder Council. Marie advises a number of different stakeholder groups, including businesses, NGOs, investors and academe on market-led recruitment reform.
Didier Bergeret is Director of Social Sustainability and the Global Social Compliance Programme (GSCP). The main focus of his work is to develop collaborative and practical solutions for the industry to advance responsible supply chains. He notably supports the implementation of the first industry resolution to fight forced labour in global supply chains recently launched by the CEOs of the Board of the Consumer Goods Forum.
With professional experience in both private and public organisations, Didier’s expertise lies in building key partnerships to foster sustainable business performance, NGO management, procurement and consulting services for private and public actors. From an educational background in Political Science and International Economics in France, Germany, Spain and the UK, his international experience and language skills serve him well in his daily work.
Mustain Billah is a Dhaka-based business sustainability development professional, working mainly in the area of social & environmental compliance, supply chain integration and skills development. He has been working with the Bangladesh leather industry in different capacities and was responsible for managing strategic interventions aimed at driving private sector-led green growth and employment generation. Mustain is the Head of Policy & Resource at Leathergoods and Footwear Manufacturers & Exporters Association of Bangladesh. He is currently serving as an advisory Board member of ILO Business Network on Forced Labour. Mustain was one of the members of Bangladesh Leather Sector Roadmap development committee. He is an ardent advocate of human rights, pluralism, environmental ethics and biodiversity. He is keenly interested in digital technologies, innovation and real-world solutions that propel creation of value, and maximise common good and social equity.
Marc Capistrano is no stranger to regional/international forums on Labour Migration and Ethical Recruitment such as these. He has participated on different occasions as speaker, panelist, adviser and resource person for conferences and meetings of the ILO, IOM, and the PSI among others. Soon after he earned his degree in Organizational Communications from the University of the Philippines, Marc Capistrano went to work. Staffhouse International Resources, the company he helped found 19 years ago and continues to manage today, has earned an enviable reputation in the Philippine recruitment industry built solidly on integrity, transparency and reliablity.
Marc is a champion for ethical recruitment and an advocate for the Overseas Filipino Worker. Today, Marc continues to work with the ILO as a member of the Project Advisory Committee of the Fair Recruitment Project in the Philippines, while Staffhouse is currently taking part in IOM’s International Recruitment Integrity System’s (IRIS) Pilot.
Jay Celorie leads the Human Rights Office at HP Inc. Jay also leads the conflict minerals program and responsible mineral sourcing programs. Jay has and continues to engage with a variety of stakeholders on human rights, anti-human trafficking, and responsible minerals. Jay is a part of the Sustainability team at HP, driving programs to implement social responsibility into HP’s products and supply chain, from design and materials through manufacturing, distribution, and end-of-life.
Jay joined HP in 1998. Prior to his work at HP, he was a Senior Project Manager at CH2M HILL where he directed multi-million dollar environmental remediation projects.
Jay holds a BS and MS in Civil Engineering from Oregon State University. Jay is also a registered professional engineer.
Laura Chapman Rubbo is Director, Responsible Governance and Supply Chain in the Global Public Policy department of The Walt Disney Company. In this capacity, she leads policy analysis, strategy development, and external stakeholder engagement for global human rights issues across all of Disney’s businesses. As the largest licensor of consumer products in the world, particular attention is paid to global supply chains and in that regard, Laura oversees Disney’s Supply Chain Investment Program, which has contributed nearly US $17M to United Nations agencies, human rights NGOs, and social enterprises to support and scale innovative programs that help create and implement new models for improving working conditions in global supply chains.
In addition, Laura is Chair of the Corporate Responsibility and Labor Policy Committee of the United States Council for International Business, an Advisory Board member of the ILO Business Network on Forced Labor, an Advisory Board member of Social Accountability International, a Stakeholder Board member of the Association of Professional Social Compliance Auditors, a Senior Fellow at the University of Southern California’s Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab, a Board of Overseers member of the University of Connecticut’s Human Rights Institute, and a two-time memberof the United States delegation to the International Labor Organization’s International Labor Conference for the committees on the Forced Labor Protocol (2014) and Decent Work in Global Supply Chains (2016).
She previously worked at Business for Social Responsibility and Gap, Inc. and has a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from theGeorge Washington University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and German from the University of Connecticut. She is a dual citizen of the United States and Australia.
Catherine is a Director of Investments focused on leading Humanity United’s work to address human trafficking and exploitation in South Asia and the Middle East. She also leads the Partnership for Freedom, a public-private partnership announced by President Barack Obama and led by HU and key federal government agencies to combat human trafficking.
Catherine has spent more than a decade developing and implementing anti-trafficking programs internationally and in the US. Prior to joining HU, she led a US Department of Justice program to train and build capacity of more than 40 anti-trafficking task forces across the United States to better identify and assist human trafficking victims. She also served as the anti-trafficking and child protection advisor for Save the Children US for several years, including two years working in Indonesia following the Indian Ocean tsunami to prevent child sex trafficking and exploitation of domestic workers.
Catherine began her career as a management consultant at Towers Watson in San Francisco. She received her master’s degree in public health from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health with a focus on forced migration, and her bachelor’s degree in human biology from Stanford University.
Declan Croucher is a Director at Verité, a Massachusetts-based international not-for-profit consulting, training, and research organization that has been a leader in supply chain social responsibility since 1995. Declan’s background is in global human resources and business management with multinational manufacturers in the consumer electronics, building products and renewable energy sectors. He has extensive factory and division-level international human resources management experience as well as a track record of creating business partnerships and alliances across multiple sectors and geographies. With Verité, Declan’s work is focused on helping companies and their advisors detect and prevent forced labor and human trafficking in global supply chains through risk assessments, code of conduct and compliance plan development, communications and training, reporting and internal control mechanisms, investigations, monitoring and evaluation of program effectiveness.
He holds undergraduate and masters degrees in business and human resources management.
Photo and biography to follow.
Leigh Anne is a Senior Advisor in the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons where she focuses on addressing human trafficking in global supply chains. She engages with governments, the private sector, and civil society to develop partnerships, craft innovative policy solutions and share best practices that will reduce worker vulnerability to exploitative labor practices.
Leigh Anne’s career has focused primarily on human rights, international law, corporate social responsibility and government relations. Prior to joining the Trafficking in Persons Office, she served as a Senior Congressional Advisor at the State Department and was responsible for all of the Department's interactions with Congress on human rights, refugees, humanitarian assistance and human trafficking. She holds a J.D. from George Washington University Law School and an M.A. in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies.
Phil Fishman is currently Senior Technical Advisor in the FUNDAMENTALS Branch of the ILO. The FUNDAMENTALS Branch promotes policy development, carries out research, and provides technical advisory services to constituents on child labor, forced labor, non-discrimination and freedom of association and collective bargaining. For the past three years, a major focus of his work has been promoting fair recruitment in supply chains, specifically the establishment of fair recruitment corridors in specific sectors to demonstrate that fair recruitment is possible and makes good business sense. He has led the ILO effort to establish a fair recruitment corridor between Nepal and Jordan in the garment sector.
Previously, Phil worked for the ILO’s Better Work program in Jordan, establishing the program in 2008 and serving as its Program Manager until 2015. The program brought diverse groups together – governments, global brands, factory owners, and unions and workers – to improve working conditions in the Jordan’s garment industry and make the sector more competitive.
Phil came to Better Work after many years in the American labor movement including 12 years as a Country Director for the AFL-CIO’s Asian-American Free Labor Institute in the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand promoting worker rights.
As AFL-CIO Assistant Director for International Affairs from 1991 to 2005, Phil participated in the development, interpretation, and enforcement of international labor standards as a member of U.S. delegation to the International Labor Organization for 14 years, representing the AFL-CIO on the Committee on the Application of Standards (CAS) and acting as the worker spokesperson on important forced labor cases such as Myanmar.
In addition to his work with the AFL-CIO, Mr. Fishman has worked with unions, companies, and non-governmental organizations in the areas of corporate social responsibility, advocacy, and policy analysis.
Mr Forrest is Australia’s biggest and most active philanthropist and one of the most effective business leaders of his generation.
As Fortescue’s Founder and Chairman he has led the company from inception to its Top 20 status in the Australian economy, during which time Fortescue invested more than US$20 billion in the resources sector. In 2001, Mr Forrest co-founded the Minderoo Foundation with his wife Nicola, which has supported over 250 initiatives across Australia and internationally in pursuit of a range of causes. In May 2017, the Forrests announced one of Australia’s largest private philanthropic donations of AU$400 million.
Mr Forrest was awarded an honorary doctorate by The University of Western Australia, is an Adjunct Professor of the Central South University in China, a lifetime Fellow of the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, and a leading global representative of the resources sector.
He is Co-Chairman of the Senior Business Leaders' Forum, the leading formal dialogue for China and Australia's most senior business leaders. Mr Forrest is Global Patron of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, recipient of the Order of Australia Medal and the Australian Sports Medal and Vice-Patron of the SAS Resources Fund. He is also a Councillor of the Global Citizen Commission, which made a series of human rights recommendations to update the Universal Declaration of Human Rights presented to the United Nations Secretary General in April 2016.
Mr Forrest was appointed in 2013 by the Prime Minister and Cabinet of Australia, to Chair the Review of Indigenous Training and Employment Programmes, with the specific aim of ending Indigenous disparity through employment. He was named the 2014 Business Leader of the Year at the Australian Institute of Management Western Australia Pinnacle Awards and was Western Australia’s 2017 Australian of the Year for his outstanding contribution to the community.
Deborah France-Massin is Director of the Bureau for Employers’ Activities (ACT/EMP) at the ILO. As Director she is responsible for a global team of professionals who provide the link between the ILO and its employer constituency and seek to ensure employer priorities are reflected in ILO work. The Bureau also works direct with employer organisations on their organisational strategies.
Prior to joining the ILO, Ms. France-Massin was Deputy Secretary General of the International Organisation of Employers (IOE) in Geneva. Between 1997 and 1999 she worked as a human resources consultant for a number of multinational companies with particular emphasis on global strategies and negotiating European Works Councils agreements. From 1989 to 1997 she was Head, International Social Affairs with the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) where she was a member of the Business Europe Social Affairs Committee and participated in a number of European level social partner negotiations.
From 1995 to 1999 she was an Employer titular member of the ILO Governing Body and a member of the Committee on Freedom of Association. Between 1985 and 1989 she worked in commercial and human resources management with large UK retailers.
Elizabeth Frantz leads IMI’s Fair Work programme area, which advances just and equitable working conditions for migrants and refugees in multiple regions. This involves collaboration with civil society, government and private sector actors to identify new solutions to address exploitative labour practices. She previously managed the programme’s grantmaking in Asia and the Middle East. She has been working as a researcher and advocate in the migration field for fifteen years.
Prior to joining IMI, she served as a consultant for the Open Society Foundations’ Arab Regional Office and UN Women in Amman developing strategies to advance the rights of migrants. She also worked at the American University in Cairo’s Center for Migration and Refugee Studies on the first comprehensive study of the livelihood strategies of Palestinians in Egypt. Elizabeth has a PhD in anthropology and a master’s degree in anthropology and development with first class honors from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her doctoral work looked at migrant domestic workers from Asia working in Jordan. She was a Fulbright Fellow in Sri Lanka in 2007 and a Global Public Policy Fellow at the National University of Singapore in 2010. She has published work in peer-reviewed academic journals and other media and has carried out field-based research on issues relating to migration in Bangladesh, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Sri Lanka and Turkey. Earlier in her career, she worked as an editor and journalist in Jordan and Egypt, as well as a paralegal with a criminal defense firm in New York. Elizabeth is based in London.
Steve is a co-founder of Ergon and is a specialist in international legal standards. He has over 25 years experience in devising and delivering consultancy, research, advice and training on a range of labour and human rights issues. He is a UK-qualified lawyer.
He has consulted to major international institutions, multinational companies, not for profit organizations and trade unions, including the ILO, World Bank Group, EBRD, the European Commission, London 2012, the ETI, the UK Department for International Development and OSCE. He has worked in country on projects in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Peru, Philippines, Namibia, Zambia, Ukraine, Jordan, Albania, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Panama, Bulgaria, Kyrgyzstan and Hong Kong. He acts for a number of leading international companies as a consultant, advisor and trainer. He has worked on projects across many sectors, including oil and gas, mining, retail, agribusiness, the finance sector and clothing and merchandise supply chains. Recently he has been leading workshops for companies on the Modern Slavery Act.
As well as working on consulting and research projects, Steve has a particular expertise in facilitating stakeholder dialogue and also devising and devising and managing grievance and dispute resolution mechanisms in line with the UN Guiding Principles, including the procedure for the London 2012 Olympic Games. He is a expert member of the Independent Complaints Mechanism of DEG and FMO.
Steve also has many years experience delivering a range of learning and development and training programmes, including co-founding the UK's leading innovative online training company for lawyers CPDCast®. He is a regular conference speaker.
Isabel Hilton is an international journalist and broadcaster. She worked for the Daily Express and the Sunday Times before joining the launch team for The Independent in 1986. In 1992 she became a presenter of the BBC's flagship news programme, The World Tonight and a columnist for The Guardian. In 1999 she joined the New Yorker as a staff writer.
Her work has appeared in the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Granta, the New Statesman, El Pais, Index on Censorship and many other publications. Isabel is CEO of independent online media platform Chinadialogue.net.
Frances has twenty years’ experience in the field of business and human rights and brings an important blend of strategic planning and practical programme delivery on the ground in a number of regions. In her current role, Frances is responsible for the overall operational management of IHRB as well as having a particular focus on delivery of IHRB’s Migrant Worker programme and its leadership activities with global brands around tackling modern slavery in supply chains. She works closely with IHRB’s trustees on strategy, governance and financial oversight.
Before joining IHRB, Frances was Policy Director at the International Business Leaders Forum, Vietnam Researcher with Human Rights Watch, and worked with the European Commission in Brussels and Vietnam on humanitarian programmes with asylum-seekers. A former trustee of Amnesty International UK, Care International UK and Streetkids International UK, she also sits on IKEA’s Stakeholder Advisory Board.
Rosey Hurst founded Impactt in 1997 with the mission of improving the performance of international supply chains in bringing benefits to workers. At Impactt she has used her experience of the developing world and the corporate and NGO sectors to innovate a wide range of tools, solutions and services to make a positive impact on workers in supply chains.
Hurst has led many innovations in ethical trade, founding Sedex and the Local Resources Network, pioneering and normalising the use of participatory techniques in China, devising and rolling out the Benefits for Business and Workers Programme in India, Bangladesh and Myanmar, working with Awaj Foundation on building workers’ negotiation capability, and using techniques derived from social psychology to re-humanise relations in the workplace.
Rosey and the team at Impactt specialise in developing a real on-the-ground understanding of the issues faced by migrant workers, so as to develop remediation, both at an individual, policy and institutional level. Rosey has worked on delivering remediation to hundreds of migrant workers, with a particular focus on getting working children back to school in India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Turkey. She was closely involved in the development of the Gangmaster Licensing Authority in the UK and has an interest in the regulation of labour providers globally.
Currently, Rosey and her team are working with the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy as the external monitor of labour conditions in the construction of stadiums for the Qatar 2022 FIFA World cup. This has resulted in the development of the Universal Payment, a demand side instrument which changes the burden of proof so that workers are deemed to have paid recruitment fees, and thus are due reimbursement unless their employer can demonstrate that they have covered all the costs of recruitment.
A graduate in Information Technology from the Multimedia University in Malaysia. As a student, Anne was involved in the student movement which was affiliated to Pax Romana-International Movement of Catholic students.
For seven years after that, she worked for the empowerment of the student movement, both in the northern & southern region of Malaysia. She has also worked in conflict areas like Patani, Thailand & West Papua. Aside from that, Anne has also worked with several other NGOs, covering women empowerment, gender equality, human rights, trade unionsand migrant workers.
Currently, she is the founding board member of the North South Initiative(NSI), a Human Rights NGO which works on Conflict Resolution, Migration, Environmental Justice, Empowerment of Indigenous Youth and Integrity, which was founded in October 2011. She is also one of the advisors to the International Movement of Catholic Students Asia Pacific, based in Manila, Philippines since 2016.
Anne currently handles cases of migrant workers in collaboration with the various migrant worker communities in Malaysia and also does policy advocacy within Malaysia and at the ASEAN Forum on Migrant Labour(AFML).
Ray Jureidini is an Australian professor of migration ethics and human rights at the Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics at the Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar. His human and labor rights based research and activism centers on migrant labor exploitation, human trafficking, racism, debt bondage and slavery-like practices in the Middle East. He completed his doctorate in 1986 in economic and industrial Sociology at Flinders University in South Australia. After teaching Sociology in several universities in Australia, he spent 6 years at the American University of Beirut from 1999 where he began researching and publishing on human rights issues concerning migrant domestic workers and conducted the first survey of domestic workers in the region.
At the American University in Cairo from 2005-2011, he became director of the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies and conducted a number of research projects on migrant and refugee issues, including household domestic workers, child domestic workers, Egyptian families of migrant workers abroad and trajectories of Somali and Ethiopian asylum seekers in Yemen, Syria and Turkey. In 2012, Dr Jureidini spent a year as research consultant for the Center of Design Innovation at Qatar Foundation in Doha. He was one of the authors of the Qatar Foundation’s 2013 Mandatory Standards for Migrant Worker Welfare and the author of a 2014 report, Migrant Labour Recruitment to Qatar for the Qatar Foundation. More recently, he authored the ILO White Paper publication, Ways Forward in Fair Recruitment of Low-skilled Migrant Workers in the Asia-Arab States corridor. Dr. Jureidini is also a consultant and advisor on human trafficking, labour recruitment, labour supply chain evaluations and migrant labour reform advocacy.
Archana Kotecha is a counter-trafficking expert and activist with extensive experience in the areas of advocacy, policy work and casework relating to trafficking in persons. Ms Kotecha is a UK qualified barrister and London School of Economics graduate who started her career practicing corporate law with KPMG then with DLA Piper. After 7 years as a corporate lawyer, Ms Kotecha joined the UN Refugee Agency's Legal Protection Team in London and subsequently the Immigration Advisory Service and Stop Trafficking UK in London. She has worked on a number of trafficking related asylum cases and produced an anti-trafficking toolkit for UK lawyers. She has served on the Victim Care Committee of the UK Human Trafficking Centre that was instrumental in setting up the National Referral Mechanism of the UK in 2009. She was also a committee member of the NSPCC's anti-trafficking hotline and contributed to a number of anti-trafficking and refugee stakeholder groups in the UK.
Following a move to Hong Kong, Ms Kotecha has joined Liberty Asia as Head of Legal. Since joining Liberty Asia Ms Kotecha has produced a Hong Kong focused Victim Identification Toolkit/NGO training and several other publications focused on modern day slavery and related issues in South-East Asia and beyond. Ms Kotecha is involved in lobbying at the Legislative Council level and advising human rights practitioners and governments on trafficking in persons. She is recognized as a regional subject matter expert and regularly advises various ASEAN bodies and specialist inter-agency teams in different countries in the region. Ms Kotecha is also responsible for running regional legal projects including a regional Legal Impact Hub that aims to build access to justice for victims and promote creative use of laws across the region to combat trafficking by promoting a better understanding of laws, using strategic litigation and forging better partnership amongst various stakeholders within and across borders.
Disrupting activities’ of traffickers by improving modern slavery’s visibility within financial institutions, educating NGOs and lawyers on anti-trafficking legal frameworks and victim identification are also key aspects of Ms. Kotecha’s work. Through her work with Liberty Asia, Ms Kotecha engages extensively with financial institutions, regulators and other corporations with a view to improving human rights due diligence processes that highlight human rights related risks and liabilities. In addition, Ms Kotecha has been focusing on the application of anti-money laundering frameworks and existing risk structures within these institutions to identify and disrupt human trafficking networks.
In June 2017, Ms Kotecha was named as one of the top ten innovative lawyers in Asia Pacific by the Financial Times Asia and she is also an alumni of the prestigious International Visitor Leadership Program run by the US Department of State.
Bhim Kumar Newar is a Nepali citizen currently working in the Gulf as a migrant worker. Bhim has been in the Gulf since 2013. Besides his full-time work as an operation associate, he volunteers for Shramik Sanjal, a migrant-led network of Nepali migrant workers, most of whom are low-income migrant workers in Gulf countries and Malaysia. The network focuses on crisis assistance and advocating to the Nepal government for stronger laws, and higher capacity in Nepali embassies. Prior to working in the Gulf, Bhim was a community youth volunteer in Nepal. Bhim received his bachelor's degree in business management from Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu.
Emily Kunen is the Global Leader for Responsible Sourcing for palm oil and seafood at Nestlé, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She is responsible for overseeing the ethical sourcing of these commodities across Nestlé’s global supply chains. This work includes mapping supply chains and addressing environmental and social issues, ensuring that sourcing practices are in line with Nestlé’s Responsible Sourcing Guidelines, as well as international standards and industry commitments such as zero deforestation.
Previously, Emily worked on international sustainability issues in the non-profit and government sectors at Winrock International and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Emily holds an MPhil in engineering for sustainable development from the University of Cambridge, UK, and a bachelor’s degree in environmental engineering from Brown University, RI.
Mr Dennis Kwok Wing-hang is a member of the Legislative Council representing the legal profession in Hong Kong. He was elected in 2012 and then re-elected in 2016. He is currently the Executive Committee Member (Party Development) of the Civic Party and the Convenor of The Professionals Guild.
Mr Kwok is a founding member of the Civic Party, The Professional Commons (a think-tank on public policies) and The Professionals Guild (an alliance formed among functional constituency Members in the Legislative Council). He was also a non-executive director (non-official) on the Board of the Urban Renewal Authority from 2012 to 2016. He is currently serving as a member of the Competition Commission, a member of the Hong Kong Housing Authority, and a director of the Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation Limited.
Mr Kwok graduated from King’s College London in 1999 where he received his LLB. He was admitted as a solicitor in the High Court of Hong Kong in 2002 and to the Roll of Solicitors of England and Wales in 2003. He was called to the Hong Kong Bar in 2006.
Mr Kwok was trained and worked as a solicitor at an international law firm Herbert Smith for five years. His current practice as a barrister focuses on civil cases, international arbitration and judicial review.
Shawn MacDonald is CEO of Verité, a civil society organization that works to promote workers’ rights in global supply chains through research, consulting, training, assessments, and policy advocacy. Before his appointment as CEO in 2016, Shawn had led Verité’s research, program, and policy work since 2003. Shawn has broad international and domestic experience in labor rights, corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, workplace health, and multi-sector partnerships. Before joining Verité, he was Director of Accreditation at the Fair Labor Association, Vice President of Ashoka, Senior Advisor at Meridian Group International, and co-founder of the Development and Employment Policy Project. Additionally, he worked for a variety of civil society organizations in Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe. He holds a Ph.D. from George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and an AB in History from Harvard University.
Marcela Manubens is Global Vice President for Integrated Social Sustainability at Unilever. She joined in 2013 and led the Social Impact strategy and the expansion of the USLP Enhancing Livelihoods ambitions, specifically driving Unilever agendas on Human Rights and Women’s Empowerment. In 2016, her role was expanded to assume new responsibility for all areas of Supply Chain Social Sustainability in addition to continue leading its human rights agenda.
Prior to joining Unilever, Ms Manubens was Corporate Social Responsibility Officer at PVH Corp, notably establishing one of the first Human Rights and Social Responsibility programmes in the early 1990s. Ms Manubens participated in initiatives to eradicate sweatshops and advance human rights. She was a member of the Fair Labour Association (FLA) Board of Directors and its Executive Committee and chaired the Board of Global Social Compliance Programme (GSCP) for three years. Ms Manubens gave testimony in the United States Congress as an expert witness upon the invitation of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus and represented US business in the launching of the Global Report on Child Labour by the ILO at the United Nations. In September 2013 she spoke alongside the UK Foreign Secretary and the UK Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills at the unveiling of the UK Action Plan to implement the UN Guiding Principles.
Ms Manubens taught Business and Human Rights at Columbia University, New York. She has been a Board, Association and Advisory Group member on various organizations such the Consumer Good’s Forum Social Sustainability Committee, Vice-Chair of the WEF Council on Human Rights; Hillary Clinton's International Council on Women’s Business Leadership (ICWBL) and the Advisory Group on Human Rights to the UK Foreign Secretary.
As Vice President of Global Human Rights at Mars, Incorporated, Marika is responsible for human rights strategy, policy, and governance. Her portfolio encompasses human rights in company operations, supplier workplaces, and extended supply chains across 85 countries with a focus on issues such as modern slavery and child labor. This work is carried out in collaboration with a range of leading organisations including Verité, the International Labour Organization and the Institute on Business and Human Rights. Marika also co-chairs The Consumer Goods Forum’s taskforce on forced labour, mobilising 400 of the world’s leading consumer goods companies to take action on this critical issue.
Marika joined Mars in 2015 after spending ten years with The Coca-Cola Company, where she was responsible for sustainability and international affairs strategy and programmes related to across a range of topics including sustainable agriculture, affordable nutrition and human rights. She developed Coca-Cola’s ground-breaking programme to economically empower 5 million women entrepreneurs in its value chain – 5by20 – which has reached 1.7 million women since 2010. She also led multi-stakeholder, award-winning global partnerships with UN Women, Oxfam, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID.
Marika began her career in the non-profit sector, working for Oxfam America on economic development and human rights and serving as an AmeriCorps fellow focused on hunger and poverty issues. She earned her Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in 2005. She is a member of The Aspen Institute’s Leaders Forum, and in 2010 she served as an Aspen Institute First Movers Fellow. Marika hails from Hawaii and has lived in Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Sri Lanka. She lives in the Washington, DC area with her husband and three children.
Bob leads the strategy and implementation for major social and environmental supply chain issue areas for the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA), including the protection and empowerment of vulnerable workers, anti-trafficking and forced labour, environmental sustainability and process chemical management. During his time at the RBA, he has launched major initiatives such as the Responsible Labor Initiative and Responsible Raw Materials Initiative, both focused on multi-industry, multi-stakeholder approaches to solving persistent supply chain human rights and environmental issues. Prior to joining the RBA, Bob worked for Hewlett Packard and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, with over 10 years leading sustainability programs for the company. He was most recently the Director of Global Social & Environmental Responsibility at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, leading a team of professionals in human rights, supply chain responsibility and conflict minerals, among other areas. Bob also served on the RBA Board of Directors for nearly four years and was Vice Chair in 2016. He holds an MBA from the University of Arizona, and a bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia.
Ms Jennifer Morris was appointed as a Non-Executive Director of Fortescue Metals Group in November 2016. Ms Morris is a former Partner in the Consulting Division of Deloitte, where she specialised in complex large-scale business transformation programs and strategy development. Ms Morris holds a senior position at the Minderoo Foundation as Chief Executive Officer of the Walk Free Foundation and part of her role is leading the Bali Process Government and Business Forum. She has senior corporate governance experience and is currently a Commissioner of the Board of Australian Sports Commission, a former Director of the Fremantle Football Club and the Western Australian Institute of Sport. She was also the Chairperson of the Board of Healthway, the government’s peak health promotion body.
Ms Morris was previously a member of the Australian Women’s Hockey Team, where she won Olympic gold medals at the Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. In 1997, she was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM). She is a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, a Fellow of Leadership WA, an affiliate member of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, a member of the Vice Chancellor’s List, Curtin University and holds a Bachelor of Arts (Psychology and Journalism) received with Distinction and completed the Finance for Executives at INSEAD.
John Morrison has extensive experience working with leading companies on issues of corporate responsibility and human rights. He worked previously with The Body Shop International plc and led the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights from 2003 to 2009. He has also worked for a number of civil society and governmental organisations on issues of migration, human trafficking and forced labour.
John has acted as an advisor to a number of governments during their presidencies of intergovernmental organisations and has chaired a wide range of conferences and initiatives in many parts of the world.
Doug Nystrom is Director, Human Rights – Supply Chain for Wal-Mart Inc. Doug is responsible for developing and implementing Walmart’s human rights supply chain initiatives to promote the dignity of workers. His work includes overseeing Walmart’s efforts on forced labor and responsible recruitment in the supply chain. While at Walmart, Doug has also helped coordinate Walmart’s Dhaka and third-party inspection teams to inspect Bangladesh factories supplying apparel products to Walmart in accordance with the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety standards. Doug has over 30 years of experience as an attorney and CFO in corporate, private and non-profit worlds.
Anna Platonova is Head of Labour Migration and Human Development Unit at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Thailand, and currently manages a portfolio of regional and national initiatives on labour migration governance, skill development and ethical recruitment. In the past nine years she held various regional positions at the IOM, guiding the organization’s work on labour migration and immigrant socio-economic inclusion in the European Union, Central and North America and the Caribbean. Prior to joining the IOM, she has worked on migration and freedom of movement issues in Eastern and South-East Europe, Southern Caucasus and Central Asia at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and on European Union affairs in public administration in her native Latvia.
Greg has been a key figure in the development of IKEA Group sustainability strategy, “People and Planet Positive”. He leads the development, integration and compliance of sustainability approaches, policies and standards including the IKEA supplier code of conduct, IWAY.
An ongoing priority is the integration of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights with a special focus on issues related to the ethical recruitment of migrant workers, living wage and children’s rights. Greg is also responsible for Inter IKEA’s external engagement on sustainability and for developing partnerships to support the company’s social and environmental goals.
Greg has been working in the sustainability area for the past 18 years, with both a consumer facing and supply chain focus. He has been on the board and advisory group of several global sustainability related initiatives.
Greg is Canadian and lives in Sweden with his wife and son. He has an MBA from the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto, with a major in Business Sustainability.
Photo and biography to follow.
Tu Rinsche is responsible for global business and human rights issues and partnerships across a portfolio of thirty unique brands at Marriott International. As part of the Social Impact and Public Affairs group, she serves as the company’s human rights expert and co-Chairs Marriott’s internal Human Rights Council which aims to advance human rights within business policies and operations. Since joining Marriott in 2016, she has been able to develop from the ground-up a robust human rights program prioritizing the enhancement of internal policies, development of strategic external partnerships and implementation of innovative solutions to human rights challenges. This proactive approach and bias for action has led to Marriott educating over 300,000 associates on all forms of human trafficking and co-creating a skills-training and employability program for victim survivors as the first corporate partner of the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery.
Previously, she developed and led a multi-million-dollar supply chain innovation fund that supports unique human rights initiatives while at The Walt Disney Company. Prior to her work in the private sector, she served as the expert on global forced and child labor issues and programs for the Human Rights Bureau (DRL) at the U.S. Department of State where she developed and monitored federally-funded programs to promote worker rights and address forced labor. Tu started her career in public service with the U.S. Peace Corps delivering community-based solutions to prevent water-borne diseases as a W.A.S.H. volunteer in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. Tu’s introduction into human rights began 20 years ago as a volunteer human rights teacher in Washington, D.C. with Amnesty International. Tu received her B.A. in International Affairs from the George Washington University and M.A. from Columbia University. Originally from Vietnam, Tu resides in the Washington, D.C. area.
Pia Rudolfsson Goyer is a human rights lawyer and since 2007 has been Senior Advisor at the secretariat of the Council on Ethics of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global. The Council on Ethics is an independent advisory council that issues recommendations to the Norwegian Central Bank on exclusions of companies that have activities that are in violation of the Fund's ethical guidelines. In her work at the Council, Goyer primarily deals with human rights cases. Before joining the Council, she was a researcher at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo, for nine years, teaching and writing articles and reports on business’ responsibility for human rights. Goyer started her career at the human rights department at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Sweden. Since 2016, she has been a board member at Norsif – Norwegian Forum for Responsible Investment.
Andrey Sawchenko is IJM’s Field Office Director in Bangkok, leading a diverse and capable team partnering with Thai authorities and civil society organizations to eradicate slavery from the Thai fishing and seafood processing industries. Andrey has led counter-trafficking programs with IJM in southern India, the Philippines, and Chiang Mai, Thailand since 2004. In each of these roles Andrey led teams of national staff to achieve lasting results, protecting victims and vulnerable communities from human trafficking crimes, and demonstrating effective anti-trafficking practices. After four years of IJM’s partnership with local law enforcement in metro Cebu, independent auditors found a stunning 79% decrease in the availability of children for commercial sex.
Before joining IJM, Andrey served as an associate attorney at Ellis, Li & McKinstry PLLC, in Seattle, WA. Andrey holds a J.D. from the University of Washington School of Law and a B.B.A. from Trinity Western University.
David Schilling joined the staff at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) in 1994 and has worked with ICCR members and allies to engage corporations, cross-sectoral and multi-stakeholder initiatives on human rights in corporate operations and global supply chains. He has participated in delegations to a number of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America visiting factories and meeting with workers and non-governmental organizations. For the past ten years, David has provided staff leadership for ICCR’s programmatic initiatives to counter human trafficking and modern day slavery in the US and globally.
David is coordinator of ICCR‘s Bangladesh Investor Initiative, a global collaboration in support of the Accord for Fire and Building Safety, a member of the Steering Committee of the Leadership Group for Responsible Recruitment, the Advisory Group of the newly formed EICC’s Responsible Labor Initiative and former chair of the Advisory Board of the Global Social Compliance Program.
David has a bachelor's degree from Carroll College in Wisconsin in philosophy and religion; masters of divinity from Union Theological Seminary; a graduate of the International Fellows Program, Columbia University and has an advanced professional studies certificate from Pacific School of Religion.
Photo and biography to follow.
Subash currently serves as the CEO of F1Soft International Pte Ltd, Nepal’s largest and leading FinTech company. Having been in the software industry for almost 15 years, he is one of the few experts in the digital payments domain and has been instrumental in establishing mobile financial services in Nepal. Today, F1Soft’s products connect around 4 million people to various financial services through technology that primarily uses mobile phones as a financial tool. By converting small shops into mobile payment zones, Subash and his company have been successful in establishing a network of around 30k mobile money agents
across the country.
Subash believes in bringing about meaningful change through innovative solutions that are simple, secure and affordable for everyone. One such innovation is Pravas, a digital recruitment platform that utilises the widespread access of F1Soft’s agent network to provide aspiring migrants with a transparent and low cost migration recruitment experience. The system not only offers workers more choice and confidence in their employment terms but also looks to significantly reduce broker dependency.
Scott Stiles is Co-Founder and CEO of Fair Employment Foundation, a Hong Kong-based organisation that builds market solutions to end the forced labour of migrant workers across Asia. After interning in Hong Kong, Scott spent his last year at university developing a business plan for an ethical placement agency to set a new standard for the broken recruitment market. Scott moved to Hong Kong where he and his co-founders realised the plan as Fair Employment Agency. In the three years since launching, Fair Employment Agency's team of 20+ people has placed more than 2000 workers in safe jobs without recruitment debt. Since 2014, FEF initiatives have set new standards for recruitment and training, improving the eco-system of migrant worker recruitment in Hong Kong and the Philippines.
Recognised as one of Forbes “30 Under 30” social entrepreneurs in Asia, Scott is now based in Manila, building out the next stage of FEF’s interventions to end exploitative recruitment at greater scale, in other migrant work industries and geographies.
Scott is convinced that business can solve forced labour globally.
Mark's background in business consulting/investment and work with supply chains and private sector development initiatives in Asia shapes the direction of Issara’s business analytics and sustainability initiatives. Prior to joining Issara, Mark was the Regional Private Sector Advisor for the Australian Government’s aid programs throughout mainland Southeast Asia, based in Thailand and Laos. He has held senior technical and leadership positions including as Managing Partner of Emerging Markets Consulting, and Chairman of the Board for Emerging Markets Entrepreneurs, one of Cambodia’s first business accelerators. He has been a mentor for SMEs and social enterprises, and worked with impact investors and a Southeast Asia private equity fund. Mark holds an MBA from Georgetown University and is a Landegger Honors Program graduate from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service.
Biography to follow.
Lara White is the Senior Labour Migration Specialist for the Labour Mobility and Human Development (LHD) division of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), based in Geneva, where she provides technical and policy guidance related to temporary and permanent labour migration. She also acts as the division’s primary liaison with the private sector and other governmental, intergovernmental or civil society stakeholders on the protection of migrant workers’ rights throughout the labour migration process, including the promotion of ethical labour recruitment practices. In this capacity, she is one of the principle architects of the International Recruitment Integrity System (IRIS), a voluntary multi-stakeholder certification process for international labour recruiters.
Before joining IOM, Lara worked for the Government of Canada, bringing with her extensive experience in policy development and implementation of labour market programs administered by Economic and Social Development Canada (ESDC). Most recently she was manager of the operations unit of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), charged with the national implementation of federal legislation, regulations and policies governing the program. Prior to this, she was the senior policy analyst for the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP), a bilateral managed migration program designed to facilitate the movement of temporary foreign workers in the Canadian agricultural sector. Additionally, she has worked in several divisions of the Employment Insurance program as a policy analyst, adjudicator and training development officer.
Neill specialises in the human rights challenges faced by migrant workers and the companies who recruit and employ them. He has undertaken a number of initiatives with the apparel, construction and hospitality sectors and the international employment industry to promote responsible recruitment. Neill also helped oversee the development of the Dhaka Principles for Migration with Dignity, a key framework for responsible business practice relating to migrant workers.
Neill is responsible for the strategy and day to day management of the IHRB migrant workers programme along with matters relating to forced labour, trafficking and other abuses of workers rights. Currently much of his focus is on promoting responsible recruitment and the prohibition of recruitment fees being paid by migrant workers.
Neill worked for 15 years as a forestry contractor before returning to education as a mature student. After university he joined the Campaigns Team at The Body Shop International working on a number of environmental and human rights campaigns. Neill also owns and manages a popular website providing fundraising ideas to charity groups, schools and sports teams.
Dan Viederman is a Managing Director at Humanity United, focused on efforts to engage entrepreneurs and tech innovators in pursuit of new tools to scale improvements for vulnerable workers in global supply chains.
Before joining HU, Dan was CEO of Verité, a leading non-profit organization working against global forced and child labor through in-depth research and corporate engagement. In recognition of Verité’s impact, Dan was winner of a 2007 Skoll Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship and was named Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year in 2011. He has also managed China offices for World Wildlife Fund and Catholic Relief Services.
Dan is a graduate of Yale University, the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs and the Chinese language program at Nanjing Teacher’s University.
Having trained as a labour lawyer in New Zealand, Brent has spent the last 28 years representing companies and their representative organizations across a range of labor and human rights issues in countries around the world.
Prior to joining Coca-Cola as director of Global Workplace Rights in April of 2015, for the last 15 years, Brent has been based in Switzerland with the International Organization of Employers (IOE) representing the interests of business in 150 countries on global labor and social policy matters across the UN and wider multilateral system, particularly within the International Labour Organization. As a result, Brent has directly engaged with Global Union Federations, NGOs, Governments, other stakeholders and opinion makers in the negotiation and resolution of issues.
In particular, Brent was engaged from the outset in the stakeholder discussions that led to the creation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, working closely with Professor John Ruggie and his team, and more recently with the UN Human Rights Working Group on their follow up to the implementation of the Principles. Brent also served on the Board of the UN Global Compact in his last role as IOE Secretary General and was co-chair of their multi-stakeholder Labor and Human Rights Working Group.