Executive

Our co-directors

The work of the Commission and all its output will be directed jointly by the two people who have conceived, planned and formed the body –

Berel Rodal, a Canadian national resident in Ottawa, is a former senior Cabinet Office official under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, following which he has worked as a merchant banker and a strategic consultant with many entities including the RAND and MITRE Corporations. He is a co-founder of the North American Forum, which convenes US, Canadian and Mexican political, business and societal leaders to advance continental resilience, and served also as Vice-Chair of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict in Washington, among other public-interest bodies. He was awarded Canada’s Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002, and the Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2013.

Bill Emmott, a British national resident in Dublin and Oxford, is a journalist who served as editor-in-chief of The Economist for 13 years in 1993-2006. The author of 14 books and co-author of one film, variously on Japan, Asia, Italy and the 20th Century, he chairs the boards of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Japan Society of the UK, Trinity College Dublin’s Long Room Hub Research Institute for the Arts & Humanities, and the Wake Up Foundation. He was an adviser to Swiss Re from 2006-19. An Ushioda Fellow of Tokyo College at the University of Tokyo, he was awarded Japan’s “Order of the Rising Sun – Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon” in 2016.