Firoz Lalji is owner and Chairman of the Board of Zones, Inc., which he co-founded. Zones is a national provider of information technology products and solutions to businesses and the public sector. Lalji is also the owner of Fana Capital Corp., a real estate investment company operating in the United States and Canada. Lalji started his career in Canada in 1973 with the acquisition of an interest in Kits Cameras, Inc., a four-store camera chain in Vancouver, British Columbia, which he leveraged to 225 stores in Canada and the U.S. He moved to the U.S. in 1981, sold Kits Cameras in 1997 and has been active with Zones and Fana since then.

Lalji was born in Uganda and obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the London School of Economics in 1969. He attended Harvard Business School for an OPM program from 1991 to 1993. Lalji is an advisory board member of US Bank of Washington, London School of Economics, University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, and Pacific Northwest Ballet. Lalji supports the United Way and other charitable organizations through the Firoz and Najma Lalji Foundation.

Professor Craig Calhoun is Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. He also is a world-renowned social scientist whose work connects sociology to culture, communications, politics, philosophy and economics. He took a Doctor of Philosophy degree in History and Sociology at Oxford University and a Master’s in Social Anthropology at Manchester, and was a professor at New York University from 1996 to 2012 and president for the Social Science Research Council from 1999 to 2012. Throughout his career, Professor Calhoun has been involved in projects bringing social science to bear on issues of public concern. These have ranged from consulting on rural education and development in North Carolina, to advising the Constitutional Commission of Eritrea, to helping develop communications infrastructure in Sudan.

He co-founded, with Richard Sennett, professor of sociology at the LSE, the NYLON program that brings together graduate students from New York and London for cooperative research programs. He is the author of several books, including Nations Matter, Critical Social Theory, Neither Gods Nor Emperors and, most recently, The Roots of Radicalism (University of Chicago Press, 2012). Describing his own approach to academic work, Professor Calhoun says: “We must set high standards for ourselves, but in order to inform the public well, not to isolate ourselves from it.”

Stuart Corbridge is a professor in International Development and was appointed Provost and Deputy Director of the London School of Economics in September 2013. Prior to this role, he held the position of pro-director for research at the School and also previously served as head of the International Development department. Having been with the LSE since 2001, he has taught previously at the universities of Cambridge, Huddersfield, London (Royal Holloway College), Syracuse and Miami.

He is the author of numerous and widely-cited articles and books, including Capitalist World Development (Macmillan, 1986), Debt and Development (Blackwell, 1993), Seeing the State: Governance and Governmentality in Rural India (2005, Cambridge University Press, with Glyn Williams, Manoj Srivastava and René Véron) and, most recently, India Today: Economics, Politics and Society (2012, Polity Press, with John Harriss and Craig Jeffrey). His research interests include the issues of governance and accountability, including right to information, history of development thinking and the possibility of development studies, as well as participation and empowerment in eastern India.

Professor Thandika Mkandawire is chair of African Development at the London School of Economics. He is the former director of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), a position he held for 11 years. From 1986 to 1996, Professor Mkandawire was director of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) based in Senegal. Prior to his positon with UNRISD, he was a senior research fellow at the Centre for Development Research in Copenhagen and has also taught at the universities of Stockholm and Zimbabwe.

He is an economist with many years of experience in the promotion of comparative research on development issues. He studied economics at Ohio State University and the University of Stockholm and holds a Doctorate in Letters from Rhodes University. He has published broadly on the social sciences in Africa and on problems of policy making, adjustment and democratization. He currently holds the Olof Palme Professor for Peace with the Institute for Future Studies in Stockholm.

Professor Tim Allen is Head of the Department of International Development and Research Director of the Justice and Security Research Programme at the London School of Economics. His expertise covers the fields of complex emergencies, ethnic conflict, forced migration, local conception of health and healing, East Africa (especially Sudan, Uganda and Kenya), development aid and agencies and ethics of aid.

Professor Allen is the author and co-author of several books, and his articles have been published in top development journals including Journal of International Development and Third World Quarterly. He has also appeared on ‘Making a Difference,’ eight 15-minute radio programmes on development management for BBC World Service. He was involved in setting up the first Development Management courses at the Open University, and then at LSE.

Michael Boyd is a founder investor and now managing director of Malachite Advisors Limited, a London-based boutique strategic advisory firm specializing in frontier markets.

Boyd was born in Dublin, Ireland in November 1950, and was educated at Blackrock College, University College, Dublin, The Honorable Society of the King’s Inns, and Harvard Business School. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce, is a Barrister at Law and is a graduate of the HBS Owner President Management Programme. He has worked in international development in numerous countries in Africa, Asia, Caribbean, Europe, Middle East, Latin America and the Pacific. He worked previously for IDA Ireland and the Irish Export Board. He is non-executive chairman of Development Consultants International Ltd (DCI), a company that he founded with others in 1987, and of its subsidiaries in Ireland (TDI and TMS International) and the UK (Landell Mills). DCI was sold to its managers in 2009.

Boyd has served as chairman of British Expertise, the UK industry association for construction firms and engineering and management consultants operating internationally. He is chairman of Pelorus Energy Ltd and Island Shipping Limited in Ireland and is a non-executive director of Bedlam Funds plc in Dublin and ORBIS Ireland and UK, the eyesight charity.