Mark Stephens CBE, Chair
Specialising in International,
Appellate and Complex litigation, Constitutional, Human Rights, IP, Media & Regulatory work, defamation,
privacy, media, art and cultural property, data protection and freedom of
information, intellectual property and international arbitration, Mark Stephens
has undertaken some of the highest profile cases in the country and abroad.
In 2011 Her Majesty the Queen appointed Stephens Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to law and the arts.
Mark is also extremely active in many other areas having been appointed by the Foreign Secretary to the FCO Free Expression advisory board and the Lord Chancellor to be a Champion for the Community Legal Service.
In December 2009, Mark first appeared in “Who’s Who” where he is described as “lawyer, broadcaster; writer; lecturer”. He has written and contributed to five books.
Mark has been described by the ‘Law Society Gazette’ as, ‘the patron solicitor of previously lost causes’. It is this reputation for creativity with law that leads clients to his door.
Mark has created a niche in international comparative media law and regulation. His expertise also covers specialisms in Creative Arts & Cultural Industries, Human Rights, Judicial Review, Complex Commercial Litigation, Intellectual Property law, Privy Council cases - Ultimate Appeal Court for parts of the Commonwealth, as well as, Regulatory Cases & Inquiries.
Mark has practised before every level of Court in England and Wales and has also practised abroad and before international tribunals and courts. He is also a Privy Council agent regularly working with a range of overseas lawyers. Mark is also a qualified mediator.
He has been retained by a number of Governments to advise and to represent their interests including, Republic of Cyprus, Republic of Greece, Jamaica, Libya, Mauritius, Romania and the Russian Republic.
Additionally, Mark has litigated in countries as diverse as Anguilla, Antigua, Australia, Cyprus, France, India, Iraq, Iran, Italy, Jamaica, Malaysia, Netherlands, Pitcairn Islands, New Zealand, Russia, Rwanda, Samoa, Singapore and the USA.
Mark chairs a number of bodies including the Design Artists Copyright Society, Global Network Initiative, the University of East London, the Management Committee of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy Wolfson College, Oxford Centre for Socio Legal Studies, the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation and sits on the boards of Censorship Commonwealth Lawyers Association, Human Rights Council of the International Bar Association and Internews Media Law Defence Initiative Independent Schools Inspectorate and is Hon Solicitor to Index of Censorship.
Mark regularly appears in print and on radio and television and enjoys debating.
Stephen Peel
Stephen
Peel is the founder of SMP Policy Innovation Limited, a non-for-profit
organization aiming to promote, design and assist advanced government
policy. Mr. Peel now dedicates himself
to policy and philanthropic activities after recently stepping down from a
successful 25-year career in the global private equity industry.
From 1997 to 2014, Mr. Peel was a managing partner at one of the world’s largest global private investment firms, TPG Capital, most recently heading up the firm's activities across Asia and Eastern Europe. Mr. Peel was one of the early partners of TPG Capital, a founder of its European office in 1997 and head of Europe from 1997 to 2008. He was part of the leadership team that grew the firm from some $3 billion of assets under management to over $60 billion. During his investment career, he had experience investing, managing, growing and turning around substantial businesses in over 15 different countries including the UK, Germany, Spain, Norway, Finland, the Baltics, China, India, Japan, Indonesia, Turkey and Russia.
Prior to TPG Capital, Mr. Peel was in the Principal Investment Area of Goldman Sachs from 1989 to 1997.
Mr. Peel received his BA and MA from Cambridge University in 1987 and represented Great Britain in the Olympic Games in 1988. He received a Master of Advanced Studies from the Jackson Institute of Global Affairs at Yale University in 2015. Mr. Peel serves or has served on Boards of Directors including: China Grand Automotive Services Co., Ltd., HCP Holdings, Inc., Strauss Coffee B.V., FESCO Transportation Group, Grohe AG, Lenta Limited, Mey Alkollü Içkiler, Punch Taverns, Spirit Group Limited, Findexa Limited and Pivovarni Ivana Taranova.
He is a member of the Global Partners Council of the economic think tank Institute of New Economic Thinking, a member of the Advisory Board for the Institute of State Effectiveness, an Advisory Board member of the Open Contracting Partnership, on the Jackson Institute’s Advisory Council at Yale University, a board member in Asia of the charity Right to Play, and a founder and former trustee of the Private Equity Foundation.
Samuel Nguiffo
Samuel Nguiffo studied law and political science, and is the Director of the Center for Environment and Development (C.E.D.), the lead
native environmental NGO in the Congo Basin.
Samuel has worked extensively on issues related to forestry, mining, land, climate change, investments and (local and indigenous) communities' rights. He is now paying special attention to the issue of environmental defenders in the Congo Basin.
He devotes a large amount of his time training young professionals and exploring new and emerging issues.
Patrick Alley, Director and Co-founder of Global Witness
Since posing as a timber buyer in Global Witness’s first investigation into the Thai-Khmer Rouge timber trade in 1995, Patrick has taken part in over fifty field investigations in South East Asia, Africa and Europe and in subsequent advocacy activities.
Patrick has focused on Global Witness’s campaigns on conflict resources, notably former Liberian President Charles Taylor’s ‘arms for timber’ trade, the minerals trade in Eastern DRC and more recently the Central African Republic, as well as providing strategic direction for Global Witness’s work on forest issues, especially challenging industrial scale logging and land grabbing in the tropics. In addition, he is involved in the strategic leadership of Global Witness.
Charmian Gooch, Director and Co-founder of Global Witness
Charmian Gooch jointly led Global Witness's first campaign, exposing the trade in timber between the Khmer Rouge and Thai logging companies and their political and military backers. Subsequently, Charmian developed and launched Global Witness’s ground-breaking campaign to combat ‘blood diamonds’; Global Witness was nominated for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize as a result of this work. In 2014 Charmian was awarded the TED Prize, given to an ‘extraordinary individual with a creative and bold vision to spark global change’. In 2014, Charmian along with Global Witness co-founders Patrick Ally and Simon Taylor, received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, awarded to ‘transformative leaders who are disrupting the status quo’. She was also named one of Fast Company’s 100 most creative people in business.
Simon
Taylor, Director and Co-founder of Global Witness
Simon Taylor is co-founder of Global Witness. Simon launched Global Witness’ oil and corruption campaign in 1999. This work began the global call for transparency of payments made by extractive industry companies to governments for the oil, gas and minerals that they extract– revenue streams that for many countries almost make up all government income. Exposing corruption in these sectors led to Global witness’ conception of the Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Campaign, which Simon co-launched in 2002 with George Soros and other NGO’s including Transparency International (UK) and Save The Children Fund UK. The launch of PWYP, which now consists of over 840 civil society organisations in more than 64 countries worldwide, led directly to the 2002 creation of the extractives industries transparency Initiative (EITI) by the UK Government. EITI is now an independent global multi-stakeholder initiative that places civil society in the central role of holding governments and companies to account for the revenue streams developed from extraction. Simon is increasingly focusing on climate change, with a particular interest in the way in which the fossil fuel industry has corrupted and co-opted global politics to such an extent that it has been able to prevent appropriate action to address the climate crisis.
Jessy Tolkan
Jessy Tolkan is the Executive Director of Here Now, a
movement lab working to supercharge the climate and clean energy movement. She
spent the 15 years as an activist and movement leader working for progressive
change, specialising in large-scale advocacy campaigns that disrupt politics,
culture, and polluting industries.
Jessy has consulted with some of the leading social change organizations in the U.S., having led an international effort to build electric vehicle infrastructure for several major auto companies and as a senior advisor to the Working Families Organization and the Center for Working Families. She served as Co-Executive Director of both Citizen Engagement Laboratory and Energy Action Coalition and as State Director of the New Voters Project, where she helped register more than 130,000 young voters, facilitating one of the highest youth turnout rates in the country and providing the foundation for the historic youth strategies employed in the 2008 presidential election. She also led the largest youth gathering on global warming in U.S. history – POWER SHIFT 2009, a conference of more than 12,000 youth representing all 50 states which culminated in the single largest lobby day on Capitol Hill focused on global warming. POWER SHIFT has since spread to more than 25 countries, and the first Global Power Shift has since convened in Europe.
Jessy received her B.A. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and holds a J.D. and MBA from Georgetown University.
She's been featured in Time Magazine, Glamour Magazine, The New York Times, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and Vanity Fair Magazine. In 2008, Rolling Stone Magazine named her one of the 100 agents of change in America