Richard Samans

Richard Samans is a Member of the Managing Board of the World Economic Forum (WEF). He leads the Forum’s action and policy oriented multistakeholder initiatives on major global challenges as head of its Centre for the Global Agenda. He is also responsible for the Forum’s relations with international organizations and coordinates its portfolio of public-private partnership projects. From 2011 to 2013, he served as Director-General of the Global Green Growth Institute, a new international organization headquartered in Seoul, Republic of Korea. He led the organization’s transformation from a start-up non-governmental organization to a treaty-based intergovernmental institution active in over 20 countries. Before an earlier stint at the World Economic Forum from 2001 to 2011, Samans served in the US White House as Special Assistant for International Economic Policy to President Bill Clinton and Senior Director for International Economic Affairs at the National Security Council. Prior to that, he was Economic Policy Adviser to US Senate Democratic Leader Thomas A. Daschle and served in a range of roles in other public, private, and research institutions. Since 2007, he has also served as Chairman of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board, a consortium of business and environmental organizations that has established a common framework for reporting of carbon-related corporate performance and risks in mainstream reports to the investment community.

Jennifer Blanke

Jennifer Blanke is Chief Economist at the World Economic Forum, overseeing economic research activities and leading the Global Challenge on Economic Growth and Social Inclusion. She joined the Global Competitiveness and Benchmarking team in 2002, and was head of the team from 2007-2014. She has written and lectured extensively on issues related to national competitiveness and has edited a number of competitiveness reports, with a particular regional focus on Western Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. From 1998 to 2002, she was Senior Programme Manager responsible for developing the business, management, and technology sections of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Before joining the Forum, Dr Blanke worked for a number of years as a management consultant for Eurogroup and Mazars Group in Paris, France, where she specialized in banking and financial market organizations. Dr Blanke has a Master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University, US, and an MA and PhD in International Economics from the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva.

Gemma Corrigan

Gemma Corrigan is an Economist on the Economic Growth and Social Inclusion Team at the World Economic Forum. She is responsible for the development of a new benchmarking tool, which measures how well countries deliver inclusive outcomes from growth, and is a lead author of the Inclusive Growth Report 2015, the Forum’s first publication in this area. She has also co-authored the Global Competitiveness Report 2014-15 and the Global Risk Report 2014. Prior to joining the World Economic Forum, she worked in the Division of Country Programmes at the International Trade Centre (UNCTAD/WTO) in Geneva, where she focused on export strategies and issues related to trade competitiveness. Her research interests include new institutional economics and development policy aimed at tackling poverty and inequality. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and History from Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, and a Master’s in Political Economy from the London School of Economics, UK.

Margareta Drzeniek Hanouz

Margareta Drzeniek Hanouz is Head of the Global Competitiveness and Risks Team at the World Economic Forum. She leads the Forum’s work on national competitiveness and global risks and is lead author or editor of a number of regional and topical reports and papers, including The Global Competitiveness Report and the Global Risks Report series. Before joining the Global Competitiveness and Risks Team, Dr Drzeniek Hanouz was in charge of the economics section of the Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos. Prior to that she worked with the International Trade Centre in Geneva, Switzerland, where she was in charge of relations with Central and Eastern European countries. Dr Drzeniek Hanouz has a Diploma in Economics from the University of Münster and holds a PhD in International Economics from the University of Bochum, both in Germany.