The Board

Debapriya Bhattacharya

Debapriya Bhattacharya is a macro-economist and public policy analyst. Currently, he is a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) in Dhaka, where he served as its first Executive Director. He is also a member of the CPD Board of Trustees.

Being appointed by the Interim Government of Bangladesh, Dr Debapriya led the committee for the preparation of the “White Paper on the State of Bangladesh’s Economy – Dissection of a Development Narrative” (November 2024).

Dr Debapriya is the former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and UN Offices of Geneva and Vienna. He was the Special Advisor on LDCs to the Secretary General of UNCTAD, President of the governing board of UNCTAD and Coordinator of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group in the UN System.

He is the Convenor of the Citizen’s Platform for SDGs, Bangladesh – a network of more than 150 partner organisations from civil society and private sector.

He is a ranking member of, among others, the United Nations Committee for Development Policy, a subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the UN General Assembly, and a member of the Supervisory Board of BRAC International, which operates across 10 countries in Africa and Asia.

He was a member of a number of bodies formed by the Government of Bangladesh, including the Macro-economic Policy Advisory Committee, the Banking Sector Reform Committee, the Advisory Committee of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Committee on Utilisation of Gas Resources and the Task Force on “Foreign Aid”. He also held several visiting positions at academic institutions in the USA and Europe and has undertaken numerous consultancy assignments overseas.

He served as the General Secretary of the Bangladesh Economic Association for three consecutive terms. He was a Senior Research Fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS).

He is the founder and founding Chair of Southern Voice – a network of more than 50 think tanks across Africa, Asia, and Latin America and also the founding Chair of LDC Monitor.

He is regularly featured in the local and international media.

Dr Debapriya holds a Master’s and PhD in Economics from the Plekhanov Institute of National Economics, Moscow. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford. He was also a Senior Fulbright Fellow at the Center for Global Development, Washington, DC.

His books, brought out by international publishing house Routledge include the following.

  • Southern Perspectives on the Post-2015 International Development Agenda (2016);

  • Bangladesh’s Graduation from the Least Developed Countries Group – Pitfalls and Promises (2018);

  • COVID-19 and Bangladesh: Inclusion, Disaggregation and Transition (2024);

  • Effective Development Cooperation: New Evidence from the Global South (forthcoming)

Nick Grono

Nick was appointed inaugural CEO of the Freedom Fund in January 2014. The Fund invests in frontline organizations and movements to drive a measurable reduction of modern slavery in high-prevalence countries and industries. It was launched by President Bill Clinton in New York in September 2013, who declared at the time, “This is a huge deal and we should all support this.”

Nick serves on the advisory councils of Global Witness and the McCain Institute. Prior to the Freedom Fund, he was the inaugural CEO of the Walk Free Foundation, a key international actor in the fight against modern slavery. And before Walk Free, Nick was the Deputy President and Chief Operating Officer of the International Crisis Group (ICG), the world’s leading conflict prevention NGO, headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, with offices in over 20 countries.

Nick is a lawyer by background and served as Chief of Staff and National Security Adviser to the Australian Attorney-General from 1999-2001. He has a law degree with first class honours from the University of Sydney and a Master’s in Public Policy from Princeton University. His book, “How to Lead Nonprofits”, was published in July 2024.

Irina Petrova

Irina Petrova is General Counsel for the Natural Resources Defense Council and oversees legal operations and compliance and is involved in internal governance, corporate relations, and risk management issues. Prior to joining NRDC, she was an attorney at Simpson Thacher and Bartlett LLP, where she focused on commercial real estate, mergers and acquisitions, and securities law. Petrova is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and American University. She is based in NRDC’s New York City office.

Robert C. Orr 

Robert C. Orr serves as a professor at the UMD School of Public Policy, the United Nations under secretary-general, and special advisor to the UN secretary-general on climate change. He is also a senior fellow in the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland. 

Orr previously served as dean at the UMD School of Public Policy. Prior to joining the University of Maryland, he served as the assistant secretary-general for strategic planning in the Executive Office of the United Nations secretary-general from 2004 to 2014, and was the principal advisor to the secretary-general on counter-terrorism, peace building, women’s and children’s health, sustainable energy, food and nutrition, institutional innovation, public-private partnership and climate change.

Orr joined the United Nations from Harvard University where he served as the executive director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government. Prior to this, he served as director of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC.

He has served in senior posts in the government of the United States, including deputy to the United States ambassador to the United Nations and director of global affairs at the National Security Council, where he was responsible for peacekeeping and humanitarian affairs.

Orr received his Ph.D. and M.P.A. in International Relations from Princeton University, and his bachelor’s degree from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). He is fluent in Spanish and Mandarin Chinese.