Sylvia Ann Hewlett is an economist and the founding president of the Center for Talent Innovation (formerly the Center for Work-Life Policy), a non-profit think tank where she chairs the "Task Force for Talent Innovation" (formerly "Hidden Brain Drain"), a task force of 72 global companies committed to global talent innovation. She also directs the Gender and Policy Program at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. Dr. Hewlett is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the World Economic Forum Council on Women's Empowerment. She is the author of nine Harvard Business Review articles and 11 critically acclaimed nonfiction books including Off-Ramps and On-Ramps and Winning the War for Talent in Emerging Markets (Harvard Business Press). Her writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and the International Herald Tribune and she is a featured blogger on Harvard Business Online and Forbes. In 2011 she received the Isabel Benham Award from the Women's Bond Club and Woman of the Year Award from the Financial Women's Association. She is a frequent guest on television, appearing on Oprah, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Charlie Rose, the Today Show and CNN headline News. Hewlett has taught at Cambridge, Columbia and Princeton universities. A Kennedy Scholar and graduate of Cambridge University, she earned her PhD in economics at London University. Dr. Hewlett is married to Richard Weinert and they live in New York City with the youngest of their five children.

Ripa Rashid, a former Executive Vice President at the Center for Talent Innovation, has worked across Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific and held senior diversity roles at Booz Allen Hamilton and MetLife. Prior to her focus on talent management, Ms. Rashid spent over 10 years as a management consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Mitchell Madison Group, where she served global clients in media and financial services. She is the coauthor with Sylvia Ann Hewlett of "The Battle for Female Talent in Emerging Markets" (Harvard Business Review), a series of BRIC country reports, and Winning the War for Talent in Emerging Markets (Harvard Business Press, August 2011). She has been featured by Fox News, Bloomberg, Newsweek, South China Morning Post and China Radio International. She holds an AB cum laude in astronomy and astrophysics from Harvard University, an MA in anthropology from New York University and an MBA from INSEAD.