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WRI Elects Cardoso, Gore, Okonjo-Iweala, Thomas to Board
WRI Elects Cardoso, Gore, Okonjo-Iweala, Thomas to Board
Published 08-18-05
Submitted by World Resources Institute
"We are honored to have these four distinguished leaders join the WRI family," said Jim Harmon, chairman, WRI Board of Directors. "Our board plays an important leadership role for WRI, and with their experience, knowledge and commitment, these four new members will strengthen both our program and our profile."
Fernando Henrique Cardoso was president of the Federative Republic of Brazil from 1995 to 2003. He is currently chairman of the Club of Madrid and co-chairman of the Inter-American Dialogue. He is also a board member for both the Rockefeller Foundation in New York and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University. Cardoso is a professor at large at Brown University and chair of the Cultures of the South at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. He recently presided over the United Nations Panel of Eminent Personalities on the relationship between the U.N. and civil society.
Cardoso emerged in the late 1960s as one of the most influential figures in the analysis of large-scale social change, international development, dependency, democracy, and state reform. He was a figurehead in Brazil's struggle for democracy to overcome the authoritarian military regime, which lasted from 1964-1985. He was a founding member of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) and served as the country's minister of foreign relations in 1992-93 and minister of finance in 1993-94. Cardoso holds honorary degrees from nearly a dozen universities worldwide and has authored numerous books and essays.
Al Gore served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He is currently chairman of Current TV, a new cable and satellite news and information network for young people. He is also chairman of Generation Investment Management, a London-based fund management firm that plans to create environment-friendly portfolios. Gore serves on the board of Apple Computer, and is a senior advisor to Google. Gore is a visiting professor at Middle Tennessee State University.
Gore was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1976 and the U.S. Senate in 1984 and 1990. He was a central member of President Clinton's economic team, helping to pass the first balanced budget in the United States in 30 years. Since his early days in the House and Senate, Gore has worked to clean up toxic-waste dumps, support the development of a new generation of fuel- and energy-efficient vehicles, and combat global warming in ways that also create new jobs. His pioneering environmental efforts were outlined in his best-selling book "Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit."
Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, is the minister of finance for the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Prior to this appointment in 2003, she was vice president and corporate secretary of The World Bank Group, where she had worked since 1982. Okonjo-Iweala began her career at The Bank as an economist and rose through the ranks because of her work in regions such as the Middle East, North Africa, and East Asia. In 2000, she took a leave of absence from The World Bank to serve as an economic adviser to Nigeria President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Okonjo-Iweala holds a Ph.D. in regional economics and development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has published several papers in development journals, is the co-editor of a recent book entitled "The Debt Trap in Nigeria: Towards a Sustainable Debt Strategy," and co-author of "Teacher of Light," the 2003 biography of famous Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe. Okonjo-Iweala is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, the latest being the Euromarket Forum award for vision and courage on the design and implementation of Nigeria's economic-reform program.
Lee Thomas was administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 1985-89, during which time he led the agency's rulings to phase out domestic production and imports of CFCs and other substances that deplete the ozone layer. He is currently president and chief operating officer of Georgia-Pacific Corporation, overseeing the company's North American and European consumer products, pulp and paper, packaging and building-products businesses. He joined Georgia-Pacific in 1993 as senior vice president of environmental and government affairs.
Thomas is chairman of the School of the Environment Advisory Board at the University of South Carolina, from where he received his master of education (M.Ed.). In addition, he serves on the boards of Airgas Inc., Resolve Inc., the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority, National Merit Scholarship Corp., the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. In 2001, Thomas received the Environmental Law Institute Award. In 2000, he received the National Conference for Community Justice National Brotherhood Award.
The World Resources Institute (www.wri.org) is an independent, non-partisan and nonprofit organization with a staff of more than 100 scientists, economists, policy experts, business analysts, statistical analysts, mapmakers, and communicators developing and promoting policies that will help protect the Earth and improve people's lives.
World Resources Institute
World Resources Institute
The World Resources Institute (WRI) is an environmental think tank that goes beyond research to find practical ways to protect the earth and improve people's lives. Our mission is to move human society to live in ways that protect Earth's environment and its capacity to provide for the needs and aspirations of current and future generations. Because people are inspired by ideas, empowered by knowledge, and moved to change by greater understanding, WRI provides—and helps other institutions provide—objective information and practical proposals for policy and institutional change that will foster environmentally sound, socially equitable development. WRI organizes its work around four key goals:
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