Mexico 2024 Speakers

Andriy Kostin was appointed Prosecutor General on 28 July 2022 and has been a member of the National Security and Defense Council since 4 August 2022. He has an extensive legal career with over 20 years of experience. Since 2000 he has been a member of the International Bar Association and, between 2013-2015 a member of its governing body—the IBA Council.

In 2019, he was elected to the Ukrainian Parliament, where he chaired the Legal Policy Committee for 2 years. He also represented Ukraine in the negotiations with the Russian Federation held within the framework of the Trilateral Contact Group.

From his first days as the Prosecutor General, Mr. Kostin placed a strong emphasis on investigating and prosecuting Russia's war crimes and implementing human-centered approaches in the criminal justice system.

Concurrently, he consistently concentrated on combating corruption and organized crime, upholding the integrity and independence of prosecutors as a foundation of an efficient prosecution service based on the principles of the rule of law and the inviolability of human rights.

Liev Schreiber is an actor, director, and writer. He is a co-founder of BlueCheck and inspired the initial ideas that helped bring the initiative to life. Of Ukrainian heritage, Liev has supported cross-cultural ties through his work, in particular his directorial debut “Everything is Illuminated,” which follows a young American Jewish man to western Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather during the Holocaust.

Ernesto Zedillo is a Senior Fellow at the Jackson School of Global Affairs and Frederick Iseman ’74 Director of the Program for the Study of Globalization; Professor in the Fields of Economics and Political Science; and Professor Adjunct of Environmental Studies at Yale University. He served as President of Mexico from 1994-2000.

He is a member of The Elders, an independent group of global leaders using their collective experience and influence for peace, justice and human rights worldwide. In 2020 he was asked to serve on the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR), mandated by the World Health Assembly to analyze the Covid-19 pandemic’s early emergence, global spread, health, economic and social impacts, and how it was controlled and mitigated.

Currently he serves on the Global Commission on Drug Policy and on the Selection Committee of the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity and the Hilton Humanitarian Award. From 2016 to 2021 he served as Chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation Economic Council on Planetary Health and formerly was Chair of the Board of the Natural Resource Governance Institute, Chair of the Global Development Network, and Co-Chair of the Inter-American Dialogue.

He is a Member of the Group of 30, a consultative group on international economic and monetary affairs. In 2011 he was elected an international member of the American Philosophical Society. Besides op-eds and journal articles, his edited volumes include: Trade in the 21st Century: Back to the Past? (2021); Africa at a Fork in the Road: Taking Off or Disappointment Once Again? (2015); Rethinking the War on Drugs through the US-Mexico Prism (2012); Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto (2008); and The Future of Globalization: Explorations in Light of Recent Turbulence (2008). He earned his Bachelor’s degree from the School of Economics of the Natìonal Polytechnic Institute in Mexico and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University.

Ambassador John J. Sullivan, former US deputy secretary of state and former US ambassador to the Russian Federation, is a partner in Mayer Brown’s Washington DC and New York offices and co-lead of the firm’s National Security practice. He is also a Distinguished Scholar at the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University and a Distinguished Fellow at the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University. He serves as a Contributor to CBS News, is quoted frequently in international media as a leading authority on foreign affairs, and has written a book on his experiences as ambassador, Midnight in Moscow, which is forthcoming from Little, Brown and Company in August 2024.

Ambassador Sullivan advises clients on global risk and foreign policy, as well as US sanctions and export controls, international trade disputes and regulation, foreign investment, and other sensitive issues at the intersection of international commerce and national security policy. He is often consulted as an expert and has testified before Congress, including the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in that capacity. In addition to his expertise in foreign policy and, in particular, US-Russia relations, he has worked extensively on trade issues important to multinational companies doing business around the world after serving as the US deputy secretary of commerce.

Ambassador Sullivan’s career spans four decades in public service in prominent diplomatic and legal positions under five US presidents and in private law practice at Mayer Brown. Before rejoining the Firm in January 2023, he was the US ambassador to Russia from December 2019 to October 2022. During his tenure, he led the US Embassy through the most challenging period in US-Russia relations in generations.

Prior to his post in Moscow, Ambassador Sullivan served for almost three years as the deputy secretary of state after a bipartisan 94-6 confirmation vote in the US Senate in 2017. In this senior role, he was responsible for both the formulation and conduct of US foreign policy and the management of the State Department’s global operations. He was the acting secretary of state in March-April 2018, among the longest tenures in history of anyone in that position.

In private practice at Mayer Brown, which he first joined in 1993, Ambassador Sullivan has been a member of the Supreme Court and Appellate practice and was a co-founder of the National Security practice. From 2010 to 2016, he served by appointment of the Obama Administration as chair of the US-Iraq Business Dialogue, a government advisory committee of business leaders on US commercial relations with Iraq.

Previously, Ambassador Sullivan held senior positions in the Departments of Justice, Defense, and Commerce in two prior administrations. Until January 2009, he was the deputy secretary of commerce under President George W. Bush, following his service from 2005 to 2007 as the general counsel of the department. In President Bush’s first term, he was appointed deputy general counsel of the Defense Department by Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. In the George H.W. Bush Administration, Ambassador Sullivan was counselor to Assistant Attorney General J. Michael Luttig in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

Ambassador Sullivan received his bachelor’s degree from Brown University and his law degree from the Columbia University School of Law, where he was Book Reviews Editor of the Columbia Law Review. He was a law clerk for Associate Justice David H. Souter of the Supreme Court of the United States, and for Judge John Minor Wisdom of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Ambassador Sullivan is a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy and the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves as a Distinguished Senior Fellow in the National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Secretary of State's Distinguished Service Award; the Department of State's Distinguished Honor Award; the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency's Ambassador of the Year Award; the Defense Intelligence Director's Award; the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Joint Meritorious Civilian Service Award; the Secretary of Defense's Medal for Exceptional Public Service; and the Columbia University School of Law, DC Alumni Association, Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Marc Rotenberg is the Executive Director and Founder of the Center for AI and Digital Policy, a global organization of AI policy experts and advocates, based in Washington DC. Marc has served on many international advisory panels, including the OECD AI Group of Experts. Marc helped draft the Universal Guidelines for AI, a widely endorsed human rights framework for the governance of Artificial Intelligence. Marc is the author of several textbooks including the AI Policy Sourcebook and Privacy and Society (West Academic 2016). Marc is a professor at Georgetown Law where he teaches GDPR. Marc has spoken frequently before the US Congress, the European Parliament, the OECD, UNESCO, judicial conferences, and international organizations. Marc has directed international comparative law studies on Privacy and Human Rights, Cryptography and Liberty, and Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Values. Marc is a graduate of Harvard College, Stanford Law School, and Georgetown Law. He is a Fellow of the European Law Institute and the American Bar Foundation, and a Life Member of the Council of Foreign Relations.

Nando Parrado recounts the extraordinary tale of how he and 15 of his teammates survived for 72 brutal days after their plane crashed into the frozen Andes Mountains over 50 years ago. It remains one of the paramount survival stories of all time. From the time the plane crashed on October 13, 1972 until their rescue on December 22, Nando and his fellow Uruguayan rugby teammates were forced to cross both physical and mental boundaries. After waking from a concussion only to learn that his mother had died on impact and his sister was near death, Nando became obsessed with surviving and emerged a hero after he and teammate Roberto Canessa walked for 10 days to find their salvation.

Their story of courage, teamwork, determination and leadership, experienced at a level few have known, will leave you with a heightened awareness of the value of human life. Soon after the rescue of the 16 survivors, Nando worked with Piers Paul Read, the author chosen by the survivors to pen the best-selling book Alive. Twenty years later, Nando served as technical advisor to the Frank Marshall/Kathleen Kennedy production of the film of the same name starring Ethan Hawke as Nando. The success of the film quickly prompted requests for Nando to speak around the world about the "Miracle in the Andes" and he began doing so on a very limited basis in 1995. The requests for presentations continue to far exceed the number that he is able to accept due to business, and family obligations.

His story is one, that many will recognize, but few have an opportunity to hear first-hand. Since his ordeal, Nando has become a successful businessman in Cable TV, television content production, hardware stores and real estate. He hosted several popular television programs in Uruguay including shows on nature, public affairs, autos and travel. He is also a highly sought-after speaker on the international lecture circuit, where he has achieved greatest honors, having been chosen as the keynote speaker for the IASB (International Ass. of Speakers Bureaus) annual meeting, keynote speaker for the NSA (National Speakers Ass.) and cover of the coveted Speaker magazine in June 2009.

Natalie is the Mexico City bureau chief for The New York Times, leading their coverage of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

What Natalie Covers

Natalie's beat encompasses a vast region that includes Mexico and more than a dozen countries in Central America and the Caribbean. She's always trying to find ways to bring readers into these worlds, with stories that reflect the biggest moments in politics, culture and economic life in these places, while also going deep on investigations that uncover the inner workings of institutions that operate in secrecy.

She loves breaking news and revealing facts that governments, businesses and powerful people want to keep hidden. That often requires months of gathering documents, gaining the trust of sources with direct knowledge of the issue and getting as much on-the-record response as possible from the key players involved.

She's written about allegations that the Guatemalan president received a bribe of cash rolled up into a carpet and have pored over 23,000 unpublished text messages between cartel members and the authorities responsible for the abduction and massacre of 43 students in Mexico. She's told the story of a mother in Haiti who tried to save her child from the gang wars, and a mother in El Salvador who supports the president responsible for jailing her son.

Background

Before moving to Mexico, Natalie worked on The Times business desk in New York, covering everything from the Boeing 737 Max crashes to pregnancy discrimination to the economy under President Donald J. Trump. She previously worked as a reporter at Bloomberg and The Los Angeles Times. She has an undergraduate degree in public policy from Princeton University, grew up outside Philadelphia and root for the Philadelphia Eagles (go birds!).

Journalistic Ethics

Natalie is committed to protecting her sources, rigorously fact check her stories, and tries to hear out every side of every issue. She correct errors, does not participate in politics or make political donations and gives those involved in any story the chance to respond to the reporting before publication.

Nobel Peace Prize 1992. She was born on January 9, 1959, in LajChimel, San Miguel Uspantan, El Quiché, Guatemala.

Maya K'iche' woman, social leader, activist, political leader, writer and spiritual guide, she has worked tirelessly to defend and vindicate the rights of women and indigenous peoples and has played an extraordinary role in the processes of peace dialogue in the region. Founder and President for Life of the Rigoberta Menchú Tum Foundation, which has been her platform of work at the national and international level for the last 31 years, from where she has developed initiatives in the fields of education, food security, full respect for Mother Earth, human rights and justice, in favor of the most disadvantaged populations. She is President of the Platform of Indigenous Women of Guatemala and is currently a Professor at the School of Law of the National Autonomous University of Mexico -UNAM.

She has published autobiographical books on peace culture and children's literature, the latter in co-authorship with Dante Liano, in which she promotes the ancestral teachings of Indigenous Peoples.