Dr Bärbel Kofler (SPD) holds the position of Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development. Before being appointed to this role in December 2021, she was the Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Aid for six years. She has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2004, where her previous roles included Development Policy Spokesperson of the SPD parliamentary group and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Dr Kofler has a doctorate in linguistics.

Rita Schwarzelühr-Sutter was born 1962 in Waldshut. She studied economics at the Universities of Freiburg and Zurich and worked in marketing before becoming a Member of the German Parliament in 2005. Rita Schwarzelühr-Sutter has been Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Environment between 2013 and 2021 and has returned to this position in 2025. In the period between 2021 and 2025 she held the role of Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community. She is head of the working group “sustainable mobility” of the national SPD Executive Committee, as well as deputy chair of the Baden-Württemberg SPD.

H.E. Mr. Febrian Alphyanto Ruddyard currently serves as Vice Minister of National Development Planning and Vice Head of the National Development Planning Agency of Indonesia, appointed in October 2024. From 2021 to 2025, he acted as Indonesia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, and other international organizations in Geneva. During his tenure in Geneva, he held several key leadership roles, including President of UNCTAD's Trade and Development Board, President of the UN Conference on Disarmament, Vice President of the UN Human Rights Council, and Chair of various international and regional bodies such as the ASEAN Committee Geneva and the MIKTA Group.
Previously, he served as Deputy Minister for Multilateral Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia (2017–2021), where he also acted as Governor of the Common Fund for Commodities and Co-Chair of major global initiatives. Ambassador Ruddyard has been with the Indonesian diplomatic corps since 1990, holding senior diplomatic and policy positions in Jakarta and abroad, including postings in Vienna, New York, Canberra, and Riyadh. Ambassador Ruddyard holds a Master of Arts in International Studies from the University of Birmingham.

Pamela Castillo is a global leader in environmental policy, biodiversity conservation, and gender equity, with over 20 years of experience designing nature-positive, inclusive, and impact-driven solutions. As Global Director of 30x30 Marine at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), she leads a global strategy to contribute to protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030 across 26 countries—ensuring communities are at the forefront. She also spearheads the Women Ocean Guardians initiative, a global coalition advancing women’s marine leadership with partners including GEF and Conservation International.
Previously, she served as Deputy Minister of Environment of Costa Rica, where she led the biodiversity portfolio, including the national protected areas system and issued the country’s first gender equity directive in the environmental sector. She has co-founded transformative programs and advised major international funders on sustainable finance solutions with a gender lens.

Antje Boetius is the MBARI President and CEO and a globally recognized leader in polar and deep-sea research. With expertise spanning biological oceanography, microbial ecology, deep-sea biology, and ocean biogeochemistry, Boetius has provided vital insight into the impacts of climate change on the ocean and polar ecosystems, especially changes to marine microbial communities. Her groundbreaking work integrates cutting-edge ocean observation technologies with long-term ecosystem studies, particularly in extreme environments. Over the course of her career, Boetius has led or participated in more than 50 international deep-sea and polar expeditions and coordinated numerous national and international research programs to study continental margins, ocean basins, and polar life under ice. Prior to joining MBARI, Boetius was the director of the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in Bremerhaven, Germany, from 2017 to 2025. Boetius is affiliated with the Max Planck Society, the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Royal Swedish Academy, and the UK’s Royal Society. She is also an Adjunct Professor in the Ocean’s Department of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. She has acted as a policy advisor to numerous national and international commissions on climate, biodiversity, and science innovation. Currently, she coordinates a UN Ocean Decade program dedicated to integrated, real-time observation of the Southern Ocean. A champion of science communication, Boetius is known for her work at the intersection of science, art, and society.

Markus Knigge has been Executive Director of Blue Action Fund and Chair of its Management Board since the foundation’s inception in 2017. In his role, Markus has set-up, established and grown the fund, and maintains overall responsibility for the foundation and its Grant Programme. Prior to Blue Action Fund, Markus held various positions with The Pew Charitable Trusts where he built up the European Marine Programme and led Pew’s efforts to end overfishing in the European Union. Markus also worked as EU Marine Programme Officer at the WWF European Policy Office and was a senior fellow of the Ecologic Institute in Berlin and Brussels. As a scholar of the German Academic Exchange Service, Markus graduated with distinction from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. with a master’s degree in International Affairs and International Economics. Prior to that, Markus received a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the Technical University of Berlin. In 2004, Markus was awarded the John J. McCloy Fellowship in Environmental Affairs. In 2025, The Rockefeller Foundation invited Markus to its Bellagio Residency Programme.

Jonathan Kelsey (Moderator) is director of the Bloomberg Ocean Fund, a regranting project of the Bloomberg Ocean Initiative managed in Oceans 5, the leading ocean conservation regranter.  He also oversees the Joint 30x30 Funding Initiative, which invests in ambitious new efforts for effective and equitable paths that make progress toward the global target to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030.  Before joining the Oceans 5 team, Jonathan spent more than 20 years in the U.S. Government as a diplomat and policymaker advancing ocean conservation initiatives in the United States and internationally.