Indermit Gill is the Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics at the World Bank Group, a role he assumed on September 1, 2022. He previously served as Vice President for Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions, where he helped shape the Bank’s response to the global shocks facing developing economies since 2020. Before returning to the World Bank, he was a professor of public policy at Duke University and a non-resident senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution. Indermit also led the influential 2009 World Development Report on economic geography and introduced the widely used concept of the “middle-income trap.” He also guided the 2024 World Development Report, which outlines how countries can adopt modern technologies and boost innovation to avoid stagnation. He has published extensively on sovereign debt, green growth, natural-resource wealth, labor markets, and inequality. Indermit has taught at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago and holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.

Takaaki Nomoto is the Director of the Multilateral Development Banks (MDB) Division at Japan's Ministry of Finance (MoF), overseeing Japan's involvement with institutions like the World Bank & African Development Bank, leveraging his extensive experience from roles at the Africa Development Bank (as Executive Director) and the Asia Development Bank.

Keijiro Otsuka  is an Emeritus Professor at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) and one of Asia’s most renowned development economists. His research covers agricultural transformation, industrial upgrading, and rural development in Asia and Africa. Over four decades, he has produced seminal work on productivity growth at the farm, firm, and sector levels. His comparative perspective provides powerful insights into how countries transition from low productivity to sustained growth.

Erik Berglof is Chief Economist of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Prior to joining AIIB in September 2020, he was Director of the Institute of Global Affairs, London School of Economics, and Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development from 2006 to 2015, where he was part of creating, and co-led, the Vienna Initiative, a European crisis response team credited with mitigating the impact of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. He is an expert in transition economics and institutional transformation through private sector development. 

Tetsushi Sonobe is President of the Japanese Association for Development Economics (JADE) and a Professor at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS). A leading scholar in development economics, specializing in industrial development, poverty reduction, and development strategy. He previously served as Dean and CEO of the Asian Development Bank Institute, where he strengthened Asia-focused research and policy engagement. His research spans Africa, South Asia, and East Asia. 

Fukunari Kimura is President of the Institute for Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO) and an authority on international trade and global value chains. His research has been developed along the three pillars: (i) the analysis on the evolving mechanism of the international division of labor with deepening globalization, (ii) empirical and policy studies on trade and industrial promotion policies and economic integration/World Trade Organization (WTO) responding to globalization, and (iii) the formation of development strategies for newly developed and developing countries that effectively utilize globalization forces. He has served as Chief Economist at the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) for 16 years while teaching and conducting research at Keio University. 

Bambang Brodjonegoro is the Dean of the Asian Development Bank Institute and one of Indonesia’s most distinguished economists. He has served in several cabinet roles, including Minister of Finance and Minister of National Development Planning, guiding major fiscal and structural reforms. His work focuses on inclusive growth, industrial transformation, and infrastructure financing. He brings deep experience bridging research, policy, and implementation across emerging economies.

Somik Lall is Senior Adviser in the Office of the World Bank Group Chief Economist. Dr. Lall has recently directed the World Bank's 2024 World Development Report that examines how middle-income countries can break into the ranks of the wealthiest economies. He is also a co-founder of the Growth Academy, a joint initiative between the World Bank and the University of Chicago to advance joint research programs on economic growth with think tanks in emerging economies. Previously, he headed the climate economics and policy team in the World Bank’s Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions vice presidency. His other roles include being the Global Lead for territorial development and Lead Economist for the World Bank’s Cities Practice. Dr. Lall also teaches at Johns Hopkins University and has been a Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy in New Delhi.

Ufuk Akcigit is a Research Professor and Head of the Research Group on the Economic Gap between East and West Germany at the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH). He also serves as Co-Director of the Growth Academy, Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and Research Affiliate with the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).

Kenichi Ueda is Director of the Center for Advanced Research in Finance at the University of Tokyo. His research spans macro-finance, financial stability, and the role of financial systems in macroeconomic growth. Before joining academia, he served as an economist at the International Monetary Fund. He brings both rigorous financial modeling and practical policy insight to discussions on Japan’s economic transformation.

Aya Suzuki is a development economist, professor at the Department of International Studies, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, the University of Tokyo, and the Senior Vice Rector of the United Nations University. Her primal research interests are in poverty reduction and the role that high-value agriculture can play to achieve that goal. She has studied various issues that smallholder farmers in Africa and Asia face, particularly in regards to their linkages with the global food systems, based on field surveys and randomized controlled trials. She is a founding board member of the Japanese Association for Development Economics and an editorial board member of the Asian Development Review, published by the Asian Development Bank. She obtained her Ph.D. from the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, the University of California, Davis. She also serves as a Special Assistant to the President and a Deputy Director General, Division of University Corporate Relations at the University of Tokyo. 

Wempi Saputra serves as the Executive Director of the Office Executive Director of the World Bank Group of Southeast Asia, which represents Brunei Darussalam, Fiji, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Singapore, Thailand, Tonga, and Vietnam. He previously served as Indonesia’s Assistant Minister of Finance, where he contributed to fiscal reform and international economic cooperation. At the World Bank, he engages directly with global policy and lending decisions. His work highlights the unique growth priorities of the region’s emerging economies.

Jaehan Cho is Director of the Industrial Innovation Policy Division at the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade. His work focuses on industrial upgrading, technological competitiveness, and the evolution of manufacturing ecosystems. He has advised the Korean government on innovation strategy and policy reforms. His analysis blends empirical research with insights from Korea’s rapid industrialization.

Yukiko Saito is a Professor at Waseda University specializing in special economics and network analysis. She received a Ph.D in physics from the University of Tokyo, and worked for a private research instutute, Fujitsu Research Institute for 10 years.  Then she moved to a public research institute, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI) in 2012 and started academic research for policy implication. Her main research interest is spatial economics.

Rachita Gulati is a Research Economist at the Asian Development Bank Institute. She is also a faculty member at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, India. Previously, she held the prestigious Subir Chowdhury Visiting Fellowship (2017–2018) at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences. She has also served on the faculty at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kashipur. With over 15 years of academic and research experience, she specializes in banking and financial institutions, regulation and financial stability, corporate governance, inclusive banking, bank digitalization, applied econometrics, and efficiency and productivity analysis. Her research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, such as Omega, Empirical Economics, Computational Economics, Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Asia-Pacific Journal of Management, Economic Modelling, Research in International Business and Finance, and The North American Journal of Finance and Accounting, among others. 

Hisaki Kono is a Professor of Economics at Kyoto University, His research focuses on quantitative analyses on poverty reduction, design of microcredit and insurance for the poor, education, market integration, and trade. Both of economic theory and econometrics are quite helpful to identify the impact of poverty reduction programs, to evaluate the effectiveness of market system, and to consider better program design.

Keun Lee is a Distinguished Professor at School of Economic, Chung-Ang University; emeritus from Seoul National University (Econ. Dept), and the winner of the 2014 Schumpeter Prize for his monograph on Schumpeterian Analysis of Economic Catch-up (2013 Cambridge Univ. Press), as well as 2019 Kapp Prize from EAEPE (European Association of Evolutionary Political Economy). He is a leading global scholar on innovation systems and economic catching-up. He studies how latecomer economies build technological capabilities and move up global value chains. 

Jose Ramon Albert is a Senior Research Fellow at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), where he leads policy research at the nexus of data analytics, emerging technologies, and inclusive development. He holds a B.S. in Applied Mathematics (summa cum laude) from De La Salle University (1988), an M.S. in Statistics (1989), and a Ph.D. in Statistics (1993), all from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In 2025, he participated in the World Bank-supported Growth Academy at the University of Chicago, advancing his expertise in economic growth strategies. Albert's research spans critical policy domains, including poverty and social protection, basic education, the middle class, gender equality, disability and social inclusion, innovation and ICT, and climate change.

Rachel Gong is a Deputy Director of Research at Khazanah Research Institute (KRI). Her research aims to improve digital inclusion and digital governance. She established KRI’s research track on digital technologies with the book, "#NetworkedNation: Navigating Challenges, Realising Opportunities of Digital Transformation” and continues to lead the team working on digital transformation and digital policy. She has published work on digital health records and artificial intelligence, and her ongoing interests lie in digital public infrastructure, specifically digital identity, digital payments and data exchange.

Izumi Ohno specializes in international development policy, Japanese development cooperation, industrial development cooperation, business and development. She is a Professor Emeritus and Adjunct Professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Japan, where she served as Professor during 2002-2024 (March). During Oct. 2018-Sept. 2020, she was Director of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development, and continues to serve as Senior Research Advisor to the JICA Ogata Research Institute. Prior to joining GRIPS, she worked at JICA, the World Bank, and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). She graduated from the Tsuda College (Tokyo), and holds a MPA from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) at the Princeton University in USA. She was awarded the 2023 Foreign Minister’s Commendation for her contribution to the promotion of international cooperation.

Roberto N. Fattal Jaef is a Senior Economist in the Macroeconomics and Growth team of the World Bank’s Research Department. His research interests cover various areas of macroeconomics, with a special emphasis on economic growth. Current and recent research topics include: 1) understanding the role of market distortions for firm level behavior, entrepreneurship, and long run macroeconomic outcomes; 2) investigating the micro and macro patterns of transition growth paths, 3) studying the role of credit for the business cycle. Prior to joining the Bank, he worked at the International Monetary Fund’s Research department (2011-2013). He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from UCLA. 

Jahen F. Rezki is the Vice Director of Research at the Institute for Economic and Social Research (LPEM-FEB UI) and an assistant professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Indonesia (FEB-UI). His research interests include macro development economics, political economy, applied macroeconomics, and impact evaluation.  Jahen's current research focus is on the impact of industrial policy in Indonesia. He also investigates the role of digital transformation and payment systems on demand for cash. Jahen’s work also focuses on the political economy of development in Indonesia.

Calvin Cheng is the Director of the Economics, Trade, and Regional Integration division at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia. His research covers various topics in applied economics, centering around labour markets, wellbeing, and the design of social transfer programmes. Some of his current projects examine how emerging technologies such as generative AI shape the future of work, wellbeing, and inequality. He also leads the Institute’s economics research across its work areas and coordinates cross‑team projects and external collaborations. 

Ayako Kondo is a Professor of Economics at the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo. Previously, she served as an associate professor at the Faculty of International Social Sciences, Yokohama National University (2013-2016), associate professor at the Faculty of Economics, Hosei University (2011-2013), and assistant professor at the Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University (2009-2011). She received a M.A. in Economics from the University of Tokyo and a Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia University Her research interests are in the areas of labour economics and public economics, and include topics such as long term effects of a recession at youth, evaluation of policies to promote elderly employment, and peer effects from neighbors. 

Kyetaik Oh is the Director of the Industrial Relations Research Division at the Korea Labor Institute, where he also serves as a Research Fellow. A specialist in human resource management, organizational behavior and labor market analysis, he brings more than two decades of experience conducting research on employment creation, wage systems, workplace innovation, and youth labor market dynamics. Dr. Oh earned his Ph.D. in Human Resource Management from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and previously held academic appointments at Chungang University and Hanyang University. His work spans extensive government-commissioned research, publications on strategic HRM and job attitudes, and international teaching and workshop engagements across Asia and Africa.

Yasuyuki Sawada is Vice President of the Japanese Association for Development Economics and a Professor at the University of Tokyo. He previously served as Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank, where he led the institution’s research and knowledge agenda. His work spans the following three issues: First, socio-economic impact assessments of disasters triggered by natural hazards and human activities; second, empirical studies and policy evaluation using micro data, field experimental data, and big data from developing countries; and third, macro-empirical investigations of mechanisms behind phenomenal development success of the Asian economies.

Maria Vagliasindi is Lead Economist in the Development Policy Department of the World Bank Development Economics. She has written widely on the economics of competition, regulation, and public-private partnerships (PPPs), and also on governance of state-owned enterprises. Before joining the World Bank, she worked in the Chief Economist’s Office of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development. She has also been teaching industrial and public economics at the University of Edinburgh. Maria holds an MPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Economics from the University of Warwick.

Zulfikar Yurnaidi is the Head of Energy Modelling, Policy and Planning (MPP) Department of the ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE). It consists of four units, namely, modeling-outlook, data-statistics, economic-finance, and socio-climate. His flagship initiatives include the ASEAN Energy Outlook, ASEAN Energy Database System, ASEAN Energy Investment Report, and ASEAN Climate Change and Energy Project. He was also the Acting Head of Energy Efficiency and Conservation (CEE) Department and the Project Manager of the 7th ASEAN Energy Outlook (AEO7). Prior to ACE, he was a researcher in the Green Technology Center (GTC) and Ajou University, South Korea. With a PhD in Energy Systems, his expertise focuses on energy modelling, green technologies, and energy economics. 

Abid Qaiyum Suleri is the Executive Director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI). He is a leading expert on sustainable development, the political economy of public policy, food security, and climate change. He serves on leading international and national policy forums and has represented Pakistan in numerous official and civil society delegations worldwide. Dr Suleri currently sits on the Advisory Council of the Asian Development Bank Institute. He chairs the Board of Directors of the National Disaster Risk Management Fund (NDRMF) and serves on the Pakistan Climate Change Council, the Board of Directors of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), and the Board of Governors of the National School of Public Policy.

Yukari Yamashita is Managing Director of the Energy Data and Modelling Center at the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan. She leads Japan’s premier analytical team on energy demand forecasting, technology scenarios, and transition modelling. Her work informs national and industry strategies for energy security and decarbonization. She provides a data-driven perspective on the link between energy systems and growth.

Yerzhan Abish is a Kazakh public policy professional currently serving as Head of Division at the President Administration of Kazakhstan. He previously led international economic cooperation at the Ministry of National Economy, coordinating intergovernmental commissions and securing major development-policy financing from international financial institutions. Prior to that, he worked at the National Bank of Kazakhstan, focusing on macroeconomic analysis and proposals for financial market development. Yerzhan began his career in the retail banking sector and holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics. His expertise spans economic policy, international cooperation, development financing, and strategic reform implementation. 

Nanda Kumar Janardhanan is the Deputy Director of the Climate Change unit at the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) in Japan. His areas of interest include just transition, climate security, energy policy, technology co-innovation, critical minerals, hydrogen, and air pollution. 
Dr. Janardhanan has over two decades of experience in policy research, market analysis, and academia. He has taught at several prestigious institutions, including Kyoto University (Japan), the Federal University of Bahia (Brazil), and Jawaharlal Nehru University (India). 
He has also worked with leading think tanks in India and Japan, such as the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA, India) and the Japan Institute for International Affairs (JIIA, Japan). He previously served as a Fellow with the Climate CoLab initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and currently holds Adjunct Fellow positions with the Institute of Chinese Studies (India) and the Institute of Australia India Engagement (Australia). 

Yuhei Miyauchi’s primary research interest is to understand how socio-economic activity is shaped within cities and across regions. Yuhei tackles these questions using a combination of theory and new sources of granular data, such as cell phone, smartphone transaction data and firm-level transaction data.

Yang Yao is a professor and dean of the Di-shui-hu Advanced Finance Institute (DAFI), Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. He is also a visiting professor at Peking University. He is the founding editor of China Economic Quarterly, a house journal of the China Center for Economic Research, Peking University and served as the dean of the National School of Development, Peking University from November 2012 to January 2024. He chairs the China Economic Annual Conference, the Foundation of Modern Economics, and the supervision committee of CF40. He is a member of China Economist 50 Forum. His research interests include new political economy, economic transition and development in China and political philosophy. He has published more than hundred research papers in international and domestic journals including China Social Sciences, American Economic Review, American Political Science Review, and Management Science. He publishes or edits more than a dozen books on political economy and philosophy, and economic development in China. He is also a prolific writer for magazines and newspapers.Dr Yao obtained a BS in geography in 1986 and an MS in economics in 1989, both from Peking University, and his PhD in development economics from the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1996.

Younghun Shim is an Economist at the International Monetary Fund. His research spans macroeconomics, economic growth, and international trade, with a particular emphasis on the role of technology in the development process. His current and recent projects examine: (1) the transition from technology adoption to domestic innovation as countries develop and the implications for technology policy; (2) how technology transfer through multinational joint ventures has contributed to China’s growth and shaped global competition; and (3) the role of industrial policy and large firms in the development experiences of countries such as Korea. Prior to joining the IMF, he completed his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Chicago. He also holds an MA and a BA in Economics from Yonsei University.

Dr. Doan is an Economist at the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) in Jakarta. Her research interests include industrial organization, international trade, regulatory reform and ASEAN economic integration. She has intensively involved in various research-based policy development projects and capacity building programs at ERIA in collaboration with international think tanks, ASEAN Member States and their dialogue partners. Her works cover topics related to trade facilitation and economic integration; globalization and firms’ behaviour; participation in global value chains and labour market outcome; technology exposure and employment; productivity improvement of the private sector in selected East Asian countries, among others. Before joining ERIA, Dr. Doan was a Research Associate at the Asian Development Bank Institute in Tokyo.