Lesetja Kganyago was appointed Governor of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) with effect from 9 November 2014 and was reappointed by the President of South Africa for a second five-year term in 2019, with effect from 9 November 2019 to 8 November 2024. In 2024, the President reappointed Governor Kganyago for a third five-year term, effective from 9 November 2024 to 8 November 2029. Prior to his appointment as Governor, he served as Deputy Governor of the SARB from 16 May 2011 until his elevation to Governor.

Governor Kganyago is the Chairperson of the Monetary Policy Committee and the Financial Stability Committee. He also chairs the Committee of Central Bank Governors of the Southern African Development Community, the Bank for International Settlements’ Central Bank Governance Group, and co-chairs the Financial Stability Board’s Cross-Border Payments Coordination Group and the Regional Consultative Group for Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, he served as the Chairperson of the International Monetary and Financial Committee, which is the primary advisory board to the International Monetary Fund Board of Governors, from 18 January 2018 to 17 January 2021.

He holds an MSc in Economics from SOAS University of  London and a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Economics and Accounting from the University of South Africa. He also received various training in Finance, Economics and Management.

Claudio Borio was Head of the Bank for International Settlements’ (BIS) Monetary and Economic Department from 18 November 2013 to 31 December 2024.

After joining the BIS in 1987, Borio held various positions in the Monetary and Economic Department, including Deputy Head of the Monetary and Economic Department and Director of Research and Statistics. He also served as the Head of Secretariat for the Committee on the Global Financial System and the Gold and Foreign Exchange Committee (now the Markets Committee).

From 1985 to 1987, Borio worked as an economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in the country studies branch of the Economics and Statistics Department. Prior to that, he was a lecturer and research fellow at Brasenose College, Oxford University.

He holds a DPhil and MPhil in Economics and a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the same university. He is the author of numerous publications in the fields of monetary policy, banking, finance and issues related to financial stability.

Donald Kohn holds the Robert V Roosa Chair in International Economics and is a Senior Fellow in the Economic Studies programme at the Brookings Institution. A 40-year veteran of the Federal Reserve System, he was a member and then Vice Chair of the Board of Governors from 2002 to 2010. He also served as an external member of the Financial Policy Committee at the Bank of England from 2011 to 2021. Kohn is an expert on monetary policy, financial regulation and macroeconomics, and has written extensively on these issues.

Swati Dhingra is the Associate Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics (LSE) and an Associate of the Centre for Economic Performance at LSE.

In February 2025, she was reappointed for a second term as an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, effective from 9 August 2025 to 8 August 2028.

Dhingra is also the Director of The Royal Mint Museum, the Royal Economic Society, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Review of Economic Studies. Recently, she has also been a member of the Steering Group for the Economy 2030 Inquiry, the United Kingdom’s Trade Modelling Review Expert Panel and the LSE’s Economic Diplomacy Commission.

Dhingra graduated from the University of Delhi and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and was a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University.

Rafael Portillo is Chief of the Economic Modelling Division in the Research Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He has also worked in the Western Hemisphere, Monetary and Capital Markets, and African departments. Before this, he worked at the Joint Vienna Institute. His work has focused on macroeconomic modelling and monetary policy issues through surveillance, research and technical assistance. Portillo has co-authored numerous IMF policy papers, working papers and academic publications. He also co-edited Monetary Policy in sub-Saharan Africa published by Oxford University Press.

He received his PhD in Economics in 2006 from the University of Michigan and also holds degrees from the Université Paris I (Panth.on-Sorbonne) and the Université Paris IX (Dauphine).

José Darío Uribe is the Executive President of the Latin American Reserve Fund, a position he has held since 2017. Before this, he served as the General Manager (Governor) of the Banco de la República, Colombia’s central bank, for 12 years. Prior to this, he was the central bank’s Deputy Governor and Manager of Economic Studies. He has been a professor at several universities and has received national and international recognition.

Uribe holds an MSc and a PhD in Economics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He also has degrees in Economics from the University of the Andes and in Business Administration from EAFIT University in Colombia.

Sebastian Barnes is a Head of Division in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Economics Department, where he leads work on various countries, including the United States, China, Italy and Poland. During his tenure at the OECD, he has held roles such as Counsellor to the OECD Chief Economist, delegate to the G20 Framework Working Group and Head of the Euro Desk. He has also worked at the Bank of England and the Banque de France and served as the Chair of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council.

He studied at the University of Oxford, the London School of Economics and the College of Europe.

Refet Gürkaynak is a member of the Center for Economic Policy (CEPR, London), the Center for Financial Studies (CFS, Frankfurt), the CESifo Netwok (Munich) and the Science Academy. He directs the CEPR’s Monetary Economics and Fluctuations programme and serves as the Vice-Chair of the Euro Area Business Cycle Network. After graduating from TED Ankara College, Gürkaynak received his BA and PhD degrees in Economics from Bilkent and Princeton universities. He has also worked as an economist at the United States Federal Reserve Board and as a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Gürkaynak has been a Professor of Economics at Bilkent University since 2014. His research interests include monetary policy, financial markets and macroeconomics. His work on these topics has been published in leading international journals. He has served as a consultant to numerous central banks and international institutions, including the European Central Bank (ECB) ChaMP Research Network, and has received awards from TÜBA, TÜBİTAK, the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye and the ECB. In 2025, he will be a Duisenberg Fellow of the ECB.

Stephen Hall is a Professor of Economics at Leicester University. He was formerly a Professor at Imperial College, a Professorial Research Fellow at the London Business School, an Economic Adviser at the Bank of England and a Research Fellow at the National Institute for Economic and Social Research.

Hall has consulted for the Bank of England, the International Monetary Fund, the Bank of Greece, the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, the European Central Bank, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and several other central banks.

He holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Pretoria, where he has been a visiting professor for many years. He has published over 300 articles and 12 books. He was involved in the formation of the African Econometric Society and is the first distinguished author of the Journal of Applied Econometrics.

Philippe Burger has been the Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS) since 2022 and Professor of Economics at the same university since 2007. He was a Fulbright Exchange Scholar at the Center for Sustainable Development, Earth Institute, at Columbia University in 2016/17. Since April 2022, he has been a Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow at the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), leading the macro-fiscal workstream for the SA-TIED II project.

Burger was a member of the Fiscal Policy and Financial Markets Task Team of the Lancet Commission on COVID-19. In 2009, he was a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund’s Fiscal Affairs Department, where he researched public-private partnerships and the global financial crisis. He was seconded to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris in 2007, 2010 and 2012 to work on public-private partnerships and capital budgeting. He is a past president of the Economic Society of South Africa and former member of the South African Statistics Council.

Burger has held several key leadership roles at the UFS, including Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic from 14 October 2024 to 31 January 2025 and Pro-Vice Chancellor for Poverty, Inequality and Economic Development  from 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2022. He has authored numerous scholarly books and articles on macroeconomics, public finance and fiscal policy.

With a distinguished career spanning several decades, Nicola Viegi has made significant contributions through his research, teaching and leadership roles. His research areas are monetary economics, economic policy theory, monetary fiscal policy interdependence, political economy of monetary institutions, economic policy under uncertainty assets prices and monetary policy, regional integration in Africa, political economy of government debt, the economics of colonisation and decolonisation, macromodelling for emerging countries, and economic growth and institutions.

A graduate of the Scottish Doctoral Programme, Viegi has worked at the University of Strathclyde as well as the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of Cape Town as Associate Professor in Economics. He has held visiting positions at the Toulouse Business School, University of Malta, Fordham University and De Nederlandsche Bank. From 2007 to 2021 he held the position of Deputy Director of Economic Research Southern Africa and is currently coordinating the Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA)-South African Modelling Network (SAMNet) programme, aimed at promoting South African macromodelling.

Andrea Masia joined Morgan Stanley Research in 2007, contributing to model development and economic forecasting for the South African economy. In 2015, he was promoted to Lead Economist and is now responsible for formulating and communicating Morgan Stanley’s macroeconomic views on South Africa to the firm’s global client base. He is highly ranked in global investor surveys such as Institutional Investor and Extel as well as the domestic Financial Mail Ranking the Analysts.

Prior to his role at Morgan Stanley, Masia worked as an economist in the telecommunications sector before moving into a forecasting role at a large South African commercial bank. He holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of the Witwatersrand. His research interests include applied macroeconomics, inflation, interest rate rules and the conduct of monetary policy.

Elna Moolman heads the South African Macroeconomic Research team at Standard Bank South Africa. She has been the top-rated South African economist in the annual Financial Mail analyst ratings 14 times. Her team has also consistently ranked among the top three in the South African currency, economic, and fixed income research categories in the annual JSE Spire Awards.

Moolman holds a PhD in Econometrics from the University of Pretoria and an MA in Economics from New York University. A Fulbright Scholar, she has received multiple research awards, including from the Mellon Foundation and University of Pretoria. She previously served on the Board of Directors of Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA).

Mamokete Lijane is a Strategist in the Global Markets Division at Standard Bank South Africa. She also serves as Chair of the Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA) Board of Directors. From November 2024, she has served as a member of the newly appointed Presidential Economic Advisory Council.

Lijane has 24 years of experience as an analyst in financial markets. Her previous roles include working at ABSA CIB as a strategist and in fixed income sales, at Aluwani Capital Partners as an investment strategist, and at Sasfin Securities and Renaissance Capital as a fixed income analyst. Her career spans all areas of nonequity investment research, including macroeconomics, credit, and rates on both the buy and the sell sides of the investment business. Lijane has a deep interest in the intersection between public policy, economics and financial markets.

Razia Khan has over two decades of experience covering emerging and frontier markets. She is a well-known commentator on Africa and the Middle East and provides regular updates to central banks, finance ministries, institutional investors and corporates in the region. Khan currently serves as a trustee of Save the Children UK. She previously served on South Africa’s Presidential Economic Advisory Council (2022−24) and as a trustee of the Royal Africa Society (2012−24). She received the African Banker Icon Award 2024 for her contribution to macroeconomic research and was named one of the ‘100 most influential Africans’ by New African magazine (2015).

Khan holds BSc and MSc degrees in Economics from the London School of Economics.

Athanasios Orphanides is an Honorary Adviser to the Bank of Japan’s Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, a member of the Shadow Open Market Committee, a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Financial Studies, and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability.

His research interests are on central banking, finance and political economy and he has published extensively on these topics.

Before joining MIT Sloan, he held various positions at central banks. From May 2007 to May 2012, he served a five-year term as Governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus and was a member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank. Following the creation of the European Systemic Risk Board in 2010, he was elected a member of its first Steering Committee. Earlier, he served as Senior Adviser at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, where he had started his professional career as an economist.