M.R. Sukhumbhand Paribatra

is the Governor of Bangkok. A scholar, politician and philanthropist, he was a Democrat Party Member of Parliament for Bangkok between 1996 and 2008, serving as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1997 and 2001. He holds degrees from Pembroke College, Oxford University, and Georgetown University. Before being elected to Parliament, he was an associate professor at Chulalongkorn University, serving as Director of its Institute of Security and International Studies (1987-93). While an academic, he held many positions, including those of Advisor to the House of Representatives Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs, Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister, Chatichai Choonhavan, and Chairman of the Ministry of Commerce's Advisory Committee on International Commerce. He has also held the post of President of the Social Science Association of Thailand and is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London. Since 1986, he has been Chairman of the Chumbhot-Pantip Foundation, one of Thailand's largest philanthropic organizations. Since 1999, he has served as Chairman of S.E.A. Write Award, the only regional literary awards in Southeast Asia. In 1994 he was selected one of Time Magazine's "Global 100", a list of potential leaders for the 21st century.

Dewi Fortuna Anwar

was C.V. Starr Distinguished Visiting Professor in Southeast Asian Studies at the SAIS (Johns Hopkins University) in Washington DC from January to May 2007. She is Director for Program and Research at The Habibie Center, Research Professor and Deputy Chairman for Social Sciences and Humanities at The Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), and member of the Board of Advisors of CIDES (Center for Information and Development Studies) in Jakarta, Indonesia. Dr Anwar briefl y held the position of Assistant to the Vice President for Global Affairs (May-July 1998) and that of Assistant Minister/State Secretary for Foreign Affairs (August 1998-November 1999), during the Habibie administration. Dr Anwar had worked as a Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore (1989) and as a Congressional Fellow at the US Congress in Washington D.C. (1990-1991). Dr. Anwar is a Member of the International Council, the Asia Society, New York, a member of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (WMDC), based in Stockholm, a member of the International Advisory Board of the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy, ANU, Australia, a Council Member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies IISS (London) and UN Secretary General's Advisory Board Member on Disarmament Matters. She obtained her PhD from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, while her BA (Hons) and MA were obtained from SOAS, University of London.

Yonosuke Hara

earned his doctorate in Agricultural Economics from the University of Tokyo, and is currently professor of Asian Economy, Economic Development and Agricultural Economics, National Gradate Institute for Policy Studies, and Emeritus Professor at the University of Tokyo. Author of many publications, his most notable have been Towards a New Paradigm of Asian Economic Development (1992), Economic Development in Southeast Asia (1996), and Evolution of Agricultural Economics in Modern Japan (2006). Since the early 1970s, he has made many different research trips to different Asian countries, including Korea and Hong Kong, which lie at the centre of Asia-Pacifi c dynamism, and ASEAN countries which are catching up with the centre. He has come to believe that active contacts with foreign economies through trade and investment and guarantee of freedom in economic activity are the prerequisites for economic development.

M Rajaretnam

is currently "Special Advisor to the ASEAN Secretary General on Community Building and Outreach". Before taking on his current appointment he was the Director and Chief Executive of the International Centre Goa, India. He was until recently the Executive Director of the Information & Resource Center, Singapore. He was educated in Singapore and the United States and started his career in 1971 as a Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Singapore). Upon leaving the ISEAS in 1981 he spent a brief period in the private sector. In 1985 he established the Information & Resource Center as a private think tank and consultancy focused on Asian-Pacific affairs. In the 1990s he focused his work on Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar through capacity-building activities, regional integration initiatives, conferences, and publishing. In 1991, IRC initiated a major regional integration project, Interaction for Progress: ASEAN-Vietnam that challenged the Vietnamese political and intellectual leadership to be part of the larger Southeast Asian community. He was concurrently Executive Director of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (1993-95), Coordinator of the Singapore Institute of Pacific Economic Cooperation (SINPEC, 1993-95), and Secretary of Singapore-CSCAP (Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, 1994-96). In 1994, he was appointed advisor to the Institute for Policy Research, a policy think tank in Malaysia and helped design and coordinate the Institute's Asian Renaissance Project. His primary activities in the last decade have been directed to the building of a Southeast Asian community. In 2003 he convened a "fellowship" of "friends and citizens of Asia", informally called the Asian Dialogue Society, committed to the pan-Asian idea of "building a better Asia". He is the Convener of the Building a Better Asia 'Young Asian Leaders' Retreat Programme' for China and India.

Shuichi Ohno

is Executive Director at The Nippon Foundation. A graduate of Kyoto University, he worked for the trading house, Marubeni Corporation, for almost thirty years. An economist by training, he worked for various economic and development organizations such as the OECD and World Bank during his employment with Marubeni. He joined The Nippon Foundation in 2001 as Director of International Affairs, and was appointed Executive Director in 2004. Under his leadership, The International Program Department of The Nippon Foundation has been developing and supporting a wide range of programs aimed at alleviating poverty and promoting human development around the world.

Amitav Acharya

is Professor of International Relations at the School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC. He is also Chair of the University's ASEAN Studies Center. His previous appointments include Professor of Global Governance and Director of the Centre for Governance and International Affairs at the University of Bristol and Professor, Deputy Director and Head of Research of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at Nanyang Technological University. Professor Acharya's publications number over 20 books and 200 journal and magazine articles. His books include: Reassessing SecurityCooperation in the Asia Pacific (MIT 2007); Singapore's Foreign Policy; The Search for Regional Order (World Scientifi c 2007); The Age of Fear: Power Versus Principle in the War on Terror (New Delhi: Rupa and Co. and Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2004), Asia Rising: Who is Leading? (Singapore and New York: World Scientifi c, 2007). His most recent book is Whose Ideas Matter: Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism (Cornell, 2009). He has published in journals including International Organization, International Security, World PoliticsJournal of Peace Research, Pacific Affairs, and Washington Quarterly. His international media appearances have been with CNN International, BBC World Service, CNBC and Channel News Asia. His current affairs commentaries have appeared in Financial Times, Foreign Affairs (Online); International Herald Tribune, Straits Times, The Nation, Jakarta Post, Canberra Times, Far Eastern Economic Review, JapanTimes, and Yale Global Online covering such topics as Asian security, the war on terror, and the rise of China and India.

Louis Goodman

has been Professor and Dean of the School of International Service since 1986 and in 1992 served as the President of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs. Prior to assuming this position, he directed the Latin America Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Latin America and Caribbean Program at the Social Science Research Council and served on the faculty of Yale University's Sociology Department. The author of numerous books and articles, Dr. Goodman's current research focuses on democracy-building and civilian control of the armed forces in Latin America. His Small Nations, Giant Firms: Capital Allocation Decisions in Transnational Corporations (Holmes and Meier: 1987) discusses the determinants of capital allocation decisions in transnational corporation and the impact of transnational corporations on national development. The Military and Democracy in Latin America (D.C. Heath-Lexington: 1990) and Lessons from the Venezuelan Experience (Johns Hopkins: 1995) are volumes he has co-edited which focus on the role of the military in political and economic development. His publications also include works on international affairs education including International Affairs Education on the Eve of the 21st Century (APSIA, 1994).