Tom Perriello is the former U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan and has advocated for the Sudanese people since co-founding DarfurGenocide.org in 2004. For the past three decades, Tom has served as a diplomat, member of Congress, philanthropist, and founder of organizations dedicated to peace, justice, and democracy. After representing Virginia's Fifth District in Congress, he served as U.S. Special Envoy for the African Great Lakes Region and lead for the second Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development review for President Obama. He was previously CEO of the Center for American Policy Action and Open Society Foundations for the U.S, Senior Advisor to the Prosecutor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and an advisor on transitional justice in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Tom has also taught at the University of Sierra Leone and University of Virginia School of Law. He has written for the New York Times, The Atlantic, Democracy Journal, Newsweek, Forbes, and Politico.

Kate Almquist Knopf is a senior advisor on Sudan to the European Institute of Peace (EIP) and a senior advisor to WestExec Advisors, a strategic advisory firm based in Washington, D.C. Ms. Knopf is a former director of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, an academic institution within the U.S. Department of Defense. She previously served as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Assistant Administrator for Africa, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Africa, Mission Director for USAID/Sudan, and Senior Policy Advisor to the USAID Administrator. Ms. Knopf also served as the U.S. representative to the international Assessment and Evaluation Commission monitoring implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan. She has served as a special adviser to The Brenthurst Foundation, a South Africa-based think tank; a senior advisor for the Crisis Management Initiative, a conflict mediation organization founded by former Finnish President and Nobel Laureate Martti Ahtisaari; and a visiting policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, a think tank in Washington, D.C. Ms. Knopf began her career with the international non-governmental organization World Vision. 

Ambassador Donald Steinberg serves as Executive Director of the non-profit Mobilizing Allies for Women, Peace, and Security, which works to expand the leadership and participation of women in global security issues and peace processes and supports women-led organizations in more than 30 conflict-affected countries. From 2021-2024, he was Expert Advisor to the Administrator of USAID, expanding locally-led development, realigning U.S. assistance policies with the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, and promoting the leadership and engagement of marginalized groups in USAID’s development and humanitarian assistance programs. In four decades of public service, he served as a deputy administrator at USAID under President Obama, U.S. Ambassador to Angola, Director of the Department of State’s Joint Policy Council, White House Deputy Press Secretary, NSCl Senior Director for Africa, Special Haiti Coordinator, and the President’s Special Representative for Humanitarian Demining. He has received multiple awards for his work, including lifetime Distinguished Service Awards from the State Department and USAID.    

Anthony Lake is a former Executive Director of UNICEF (2010-2017) and has held high-level foreign policy, national security, humanitarian, and development roles. He served as a senior foreign policy adviser to the election campaigns of both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, was National Security Advisor under President Bill Clinton, and Director of Policy Planning in President Carter’s administration. He served as the US President’s Special Envoy, first in Ethiopia and Eritrea, contributing to the Algiers Agreement that ended the war between the two countries, and later in Haiti. He also played a leading role in shaping policies that led to peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Northern Ireland. He has served as an international adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross and Chair of the Marshall Legacy Institute, which works in conflict-affected countries to remove landmines, assist survivors, and advance children's rights.

Sara Pantuliano is Chief Executive at ODI Global, an independent global affairs think tank, where she was previously Managing Director and Director of Humanitarian Programmes. She has been appointed by the UN Secretary-General as an independent eminent person for the 2025 Peacebuilding Architecture Review, having served as Chair of the Seventh Advisory Group of the UN Peacebuilding Fund. She is the Chair of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Future Council on Reimagining Aid, as well as a member of its Humanitarian and Resilience Investing initiative’s High-Level Group. She previously led a high-profile UN response in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains, headed the Peacebuilding Unit in UNDP Sudan, acted as an observer at the IGAD Sudan peace process and lectured at the University of Dar es Salaam. Sara is the Editor-in-Chief of Disasters journal and a trustee on the boards of Muslim Aid and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy. 

Hilde F. Johnson joined the European Institute for Peace as a senior advisor in January 2020, after more than 20 years of high-level leadership experience in peacemaking, peacebuilding, and development. She previously served as Norway’s Minister of International Development (1997-2000 & 2001-2005), where she played a key role in the Sudan peace negotiations (CPA, 2005); the SRSG of UNMISS in South Sudan (2011 – 2014); and Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF (2007-2011). She also served on the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (2014-2015). 

Hilde F. Johnson is also the author of three books on Sudan, South Sudan, and peace processes and has had a distinguished political career as elected MP (1993-2001), and as Secretary General of the Christian Democratic Party of Norway (2016-2019).