Nicolas Gorjestani is a former Chief Knowledge & Learning Officer at the World Bank. An economist by training, Mr Gorjestani had held a variety of senior staff and management positions at the World Bank for more than three decades, before retiring in July 2007. A global thought leader on organizational knowledge and learning themes Mr. Gorjestani now devotes his time to advising, lecturing and writing on development strategy, knowledge-based development, organizational knowledge sharing and learning, and leadership development issues. Mr Gorjestani is currently a Senior Adviser/Consultant at the World Bank; an Adjunct Professor in Knowledge Ecology at the Polytechnic University in Hong Kong; and has been Executive Director, Secretariat, Global Indigenous Knowledge and Innovation Partnership. He was one of the pioneers of knowledge sharing, learning and innovation at the World Bank, having designed and managed several cutting edge and award winning programs and approaches to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the way to do business in development. Mr. Gorjestani was also Program Director of the World Bank’s Indigenous Knowledge for Development Program. He has also been a member of the Learning Innovation Laboratory (LILA) at Harvard University, and a member of the New Club of Paris, a think tank focused on issues of the global knowledge economy. Mr. Gorjestani has published extensively on knowledge and development topics and keynoted at major international conferences. The World Bank is five-time MAKE Award winner and six-time winner of AQPC Best Practice Partner Awards.

Karim Moustaghfir is Associate Professor and Program Coordinator of Human Resource Development, and member of the Academic Council at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane (The public American-based University in Morocco). He is also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Business Performance – Cranfield School of Management (UK) and Visiting Professor at the International School for Business and Social Studies (Slovenia). After completing his Masters and Ph.D degrees, he worked as Researcher at the University of Salento (Italy). He published different articles and papers in the fields of knowledge asset management, strategic human resource development, entrepreneurial learning, organizational behavior and performance. He also coordinates different national and international research projects in knowledge management, human resource development and e-business management. Karim Moustaghfir is member of several journal editorial boards and conference boards and also member of different professional associations in Morocco, Europe and the US. Prior to his academic career he held management positions in the banking and management consulting fields. Karim Moustaghfir speaks four languages (Arabic, French, Italian and English) and he is father to one child.

JC Spender – www.jcspender.com
BA MA (Engineering) Oxford UK; PhD (Corp Strategy) Manchester Bus. Sch. UK
Served in experimental submarines before Oxford. After graduation, did reactor design and development work with Rolls-Royce & Associates on the UK nuclear submarine program. Moved to IBM as large account salesman and team leader, and then into strategy consulting.
Next to a career in investment banking – but quit commerce in 1971 to enter the Manchester PhD program. Thesis awarded the US Academy of Management AT Kearney Prize in 1980 and published as Industry Recipes (Blackwell 1989).
Served on the faculties of City University (London), York University (Toronto), UCLA, University of Glasgow, and the Chair of Entrepreneurship and Small Business at Rutgers (New Jersey).
After a year’s sabbatical with the Advanced Technology Program (US Department of Commerce) appointed Dean, School of Management, New York Institute of Technology and then Dean, School of Business and Technology, Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), New York. Retired April 2003.
Awarded, jointly with Robert Grant, the Strategic Management Society’s 2007 Best SMJ Paper Prize for the 1996 Special Issue on Knowledge.
Currently Svenska Handelsbanken Visiting Professor at the School of Economics and Management, Lund University (Sweden), Visiting Professor ESADE/Universitat Ramon Llull (Spain), Visiting Professor Cranfield School of Management, and Visiting Professor Open University Business School.