Sumo G. Kupee served as a senator in the National Legislature of Liberia, being elected to the position in 2005. Kupee was also the chair of the Senate Ways, Means, Finance and Budget Committee. In the past, Kupee has served in various capacities at the Ministry of Finance, starting as Commissioner, Bureau of Income Tax, progressing to Special Assistant and Policy Adviser to the Minister of Finance, and later becoming Commissioner of Customs and Excise, the latter being a position he held immediately prior to elections. With an MSc in Development Economics from the People’s Friendship University of Russia (PFUR), Kupee taught at the University of Liberia from 1986-1997, and served as Chairman of the Department of Economics for six years.

At the time of this interview, Eric Kamwi was the Commission Secretary for the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ). He joined the ECZ in 2001 as Assistant Legal Counsel and worked his way up to the position of Commission Secretary in 2010 and head of the legal department as well. Kamwi’s responsibilities as Commission Secretary included convening meetings, recording information from those meetings, and providing general legal advice concerning elections. Before working for the ECZ, Kamwi practiced law with a private firm.     

At the time of this interview, João Geraldo Piquet Carneiro was the chairman of the Hélio Beltrão Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to the improvement of public administration.  Piquet started his career as a lawyer.  As an economics law professor he became interested in the operation, control and efficiency of governmental bodies.  From 1979 to 1985 he served in the national program of debureaucratization, starting as legal council and eventually assuming the post of  Special Minister when the incumbent left to take another office. In the 1990s, Piquet served as an adviser to the Deregulation Committee of the Presidency convened under the Fernando Collor administration, which constantly posed ethical questions in connection to corruption related to excessive regulation.  In 1991 he returned to government to participate in the State Council on Reform created by President Fernando Cardoso.  As a result of the council’s recommendations for improvement of ethical conduct in public service, the Public Ethics Commission was created in 1999.  Piquet Carneiro served as its chairman from its inception until 2004. 

At the time of this interview, Jeremy Cronin was the deputy minister for transport of South Africa and an African National Congress member of Parliament, as well as deputy general-secretary of the South African Communist Party. He was appointed as deputy minister of transport in 2009 and had been an MP since 1999. He previously worked on the South African Reconstruction and Development Programme, and he served as deputy general-secretary of the South African Communist Party since 1995. He was a political prisoner under apartheid for seven years, from 1976-1983. A respected poet, Cronin also worked as a lecturer in political philosophy at the University of Cape Town in the early 1970s.

At the time of this interview, Dora Nkem Akunyili was the minister of the Federal Ministry of Information and Communication in Nigeria. She was appointed to this position in December 2008. Prior to this appointment, she was the director general of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) for nearly eight years, taking office in April 2001. As director general, Akunyili was an integral part of the campaign that worked tirelessly and with significant success for the eradication of counterfeit drugs and unsafe food in Nigeria. A pharmacist before becoming a governmental administrator, Akunyili was a senior lecturer and a consultant pharmacologist in the College of Medicine at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) until her appointment as director general. She was also the zonal secretary of Petroleum Special Trust Fund (PTF) for four years. She has received international recognition and numerous accolades for her work in pharmacology, public health, and human rights, including a Grassroots Human Rights Campaigner Award by International Service in 2005.

At the time of this interview, Juan Miguel Luz was serving as an associate dean of the Center for Development Management (CDM) at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM). Earlier on, from 1997-2005, he was a member of the business and development management faculty at AIM, and also served as the managing director of the AIM Center for Corporate Responsibility from 1999-2002. In 2002, he entered public service as undersecretary of the Philippine Department of Education, where he was in charge of finance and administration. He held this position until 2006, and during his tenure, was part of significant reform within the department, including the numerous Textbook Count projects that helped improve the quality and availability of textbooks to local schools. From 2006-2008, Luz served as president of the International Institute for Rural Reconstruction, an international NGO with programs in Southeast Asia and East Africa. He rejoined AIM in September 2009, and remains actively involved with a number of non-profit organizations, including the Knowledge Channel, the Philippine Center for Population Development, and Philippine Business for Education. He has also authored books on the strategic management of non-governmental organizations, corporate-community relations and education management. 

Francesco Giambrone served the Municipality of Palermo under Mayor Leoluca Orlando as Councilor of Culture from 1995-1999. He then became the General Manager of the Teatro Massimo in Palermo for three years. From 2006 to 2010, he worked as the General Manager of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence. Currently, he is the President of the Conservatory of Palermo and teaches management of musical performance at the University of Palermo. Originally trained as a cardiologist, Giambrone worked as a critic, journalist, and essayist on music, dance, and culture after his medical education and before his appointment to the Palermo City Council.