Affordable World Security: Financial & Economic Realities

RP Eddy

RP Eddy is CEO of Ergo. Previously, he served as Director at the White House National Security Council, Chief of Staff to the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Richard Holbrooke, and Senior Policy Officer to the UN Secretary-General, where he served as an architect of the Global Fund to Prevent AIDS, TB, and Malaria. Eddy was a member of the State Department Senior Executive Service, and achieved the UN diplomatic rank of Minister-Counselor. Eddy was a Managing Director at the Gerson Lehrman Group and a Team Leader at the Monitor Group. The World Economic Forum at Davos honored him as a "Global Leader for Tomorrow." He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an Associate at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and a Senior Fellow at the Madison Policy Forum. He has a B.Sc. in Neuroscience from Brown University.

Jose W. Fernandez

Mr. Fernandez serves as the Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs. He leads the Bureau that is responsible for overseeing work on international trade and investment policy; international finance, development, and debt policy; economic sanctions and combating terrorist financing; international energy security policy; international telecommunications and transportation policies; and support for U.S. businesses and the private sector overseas.

Nominated by President Obama on August 6, 2009, Mr. Fernandez was sworn in as Assistant Secretary on December 1, 2009. Mr. Fernandez came to the State Department after having served as a partner in the New York office of Latham & Watkins, and Global Chair of the firm's Latin America practice. For nearly three decades, his practice has focused on Latin America, Europe and Africa, advising clients on international mergers and acquisitions, financings, trade and other matters as the economies of these regions have evolved.

Mr. Fernandez was named one of the "World's Leading Lawyers" by Chambers Global for his M&A and corporate expertise, an "Expert" in International Financial Law Review's "Guide to the World's Leading Project Finance Lawyers", and one of the "World's Leading Privatization Lawyers" by Euromoney Publications. He is recognized as a leading Corporate Finance attorney in the Latin American market in the Chambers Global 2008 legal guide and a leading Latin America attorney in the Chambers U.S. 2008 legal guide. He was featured by Hispanic Business Magazine in its "100 Influentials List" for 2006 and 2007.

A lifelong supporter of education, the arts and commercial engagement, prior to his appointment at the State Department Mr. Fernandez served on the Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College and on the Board of Directors of Accion International and the Council of the Americas. He has been chair both of the American Bar Association's Inter-American Law Committee and the Committee on Inter-American Affairs of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and co-chair of the Cross Border M&A and Joint Ventures Committee of the New York State Bar Association. He recently headed the Latin American and Caribbean division of the ABA's Rule of Law Initiative. He has also served on the boards of NPR-station WBGO-FM, Ballet Hispanico of New York and the Middle East Institute. He was a co-founder of TeatroStageFest, a 2-week Latino theater festival in New York City, and was appointed a Commissioner of New York’s Latin Media and Entertainment Commission. Mr. Fernandez is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations.

Mr. Fernandez graduated magna cum laude with high honors from Dartmouth College earning a bachelors degree in history, and also received an honorary degree from the college. He earned a J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law, where he received the Charles Evans Hughes Prize and a Parker School Certificate of International Law with Honors.

Francis Finlay

Francis Finlay, EastWest Institute's Co-Chairman of the Board, is currently a director of several international investment companies and Chairman or a member of a number of endowment investment committees in the US and the UK. Mr. Finlay was formerly Chairman and CEO of Clay Finlay Inc., a global investment management firm based in New York which he co-founded in 1982. The firm was acquired in 2000 and Mr. Finlay stepped down from an executive role in 2006.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Finlay held senior investment management positions at Morgan Guaranty Trust in New York and Lazard Freres in New York and previously Paris, and was a member of the investment committees of both institutions.

Mr. Finlay's interests outside the investment world include serving as Co-Chairman of the EastWest Institute in New York, a Trustee of the British Museum, Chairman of the James Martin 21st Century Foundation, and a Governor and Trustee of the Ditchley Foundation.

Educated at Oxford University, he is an Honorary Fellow of Merton College and a member of the Chancellors Court of Benefactors. Mr. Finlay served as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University School of Business 1981-1986 and was subsequently a Governor of the London Business School 2002-2011. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Carl Horst Hahn

Carl H. Hahn is the former President of Volkswagen, Germany. The automobile manufacturer is known for popular models such as the Beetle, as well as today’s Jetta and Taureg.

Born into an industrialist family, Mr. Hahn was already connected to the beginnings of automotive engineering in Germany. He studied business administration in Germany, Switzerland, and Great Britain, as well as political science in France. In 1952 he completed his doctorate in Bern. Dr. Hahn began his professional career in 1953 as Administrator at the European Productivity Agency of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) in Paris. He joined Volkswagen in December of 1954.

From 1959 to 1964, Mr. Hahn was head of Volkswagen of America. In 1964 he was elected to the board of Volkswagen AG, where he was responsible for the sales department from 1965 onward. From 1973 to 1981, he reorganized the tire manufacturer Conti in Hannover as Chairman, returning to VW in Wolfsburg as chairman of the board.

Mr. Hahn transformed Volkswagen into a global corporation by opening new production plants in China and Eastern and Southern Europe. In 1993 he became a member of the board of directors, which he left in 1997.

He is an honorary professor for Industrial Entrepreneur Strategies at the University of Zwickau. In addition he works in several political, cultural, and social organizations. Mr. Hahn was awarded honorable degrees by nine universities at home and abroad. Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Italy, Spain, South Africa, Kyrgyzstan and Germany decorated him with orders. He is an honorary citizen of Wolfsburg, Chemnitz, Zwickau, and Changchun, China. In 1999 he was named one of ten “Corporate America’s Outstanding Directors.” In 2006 he was included in the European Automotive Hall of Fame.