Lucy Ferguson is a trainer and specialist in gender equality in the tourism sector. She was the Lead Expert for the Global Report on Women in Tourism, 2nd Edition. She has worked to produce both Gender Mainstreaming Guidelines and is currently collaborating with the UNWTO Centre Stage project through trainings for the public and private tourism sector.

Lucy has also worked extensively as a trainer and researcher for the UN Women Training Centre, and produced the Working Paper Series. She has collaborated with a range of international organisations on gender equality, including UN Women, Asian Development Bank, Commonwealth Secretariat, European Commission and UNDP. She is the author of "Gender Training: A Transformative Tool for Gender Equality" along with a range of academic publications in the field of feminist knowledge transfer and feminist pedagogies.

Over the past 20 years, and throughout her career Ansam Ousama Malkawi has worked in various positions at MOTA, as Director of Institutional Development, Director of workforce development and capacity building, Currently she is the Minister’s Advisor and Director of Communications and International cooperation as well as being responsible for Gender portfolio at MOTA.

Her Career covers tourism research and product development, tourism awareness and local community outreach, Gender Equity, institutional development, strategic planning, Monitoring and Evaluation and international communication.

Dr. Yasmeen Yasim has been in the Malaysian civil service since 1997 and her experience is mainly in policy and international relations matters. Her prior appointments include the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs, the Ministry of Agriculture and Agro Based Industry, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia and currently serving as Senior Director in the Tourism Policy and International Affairs Division, Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Malaysia

Dr. Yasmeen Yasim received her Ph.D. in Law (competition law) from the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom in 2013. She completed her LLM from Cardiff University, United Kingdom in 2004. She holds an honours Bachelors Degree in Law from the Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.
 

Shivangi Shrivastava is an Inter-Agency Coordination Specialist at UN Women. She has over 15 years of experience with the UN on policy development, program management, inter-agency coordination, advocacy and partnerships focused on gender equality, child and youth rights. Most recently she served as the Program Manager for a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded one million dollar UN Women program on gender-responsive SDG implementation in East Africa. Shivangi holds a MA in International Relations & Economics from the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and is a University Gold Medalist from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, where she earned a BA in Economics.

Daniela Moreno Alarcón is a Chilean/Spanish researcher, trainer, and consultant in the field of tourism, gender mainstreaming and sustainable development. She gained her Ph.D. in 2017 from the Complutense University of Madrid, focusing on Gender Responsive Tourism Policies in Nicaragua. She has an extensive experience spanning over 12 years in Gender Responsive Tourism Planning, Gender-integrated programme design and implementation as well as Gender and Tourism Capacity Building, with many organisations including: UNWTO, UN Women, ITC-ILO, ECLAC, FIIAPP, World Bank, Global Women Institute at the George Washington University (GWI) and OAS.

Layali Nashashibi was one of the first women to work in the hospitality sector in Aqaba, since 2000.  She has enjoyed a prominent presence in Jordan’s hospitality sector ever since, receiving a Royal decoration from His Majesty King Abdullah, and numerous other accolades in her own personal capacity and on behalf of Movenpick Hotels and Resorts.

Most recently Nashashibi was selected among Aqaba’s leading community figures to brief His Majesty the King on the importance of developing the hospitality sector's infrastructure to support Aqaba and Jordan's economic landscape as a whole. She is also the President of the Women National Federation in Jordan and the Vice President for the Jordan Environment society.

Julia Karst joined GIZ in India in 2018 where she leads Project “Her&Now”, which supports aspiring and existing women entrepreneurs in India in partnership with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MoSDE) and on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Julia has been working with GIZ since 2012 both in Germany and abroad in different projects. Julia holds degrees in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science, in Public Policy and Management from the University of Konstanz in Germany as well as in Business Administration from the Frankfurt School of Management in Germany. 

Cynthia Castro Villalobos is the co-Founder of Boomerang Effect, consulting company on inclusion strategies. Consultant for more than 50 companies in 17 countries conducting training, diagnosis, strategies and management systems to close gender gaps in organizations. Cynthia has worked on sustainable development strategies through tourism in more than 50 communities in Costa Rica. Consultant and international speaker for UN Women, UNDP, ILO, World Economic Forum, UNHCR, UNWTO, IDB and Tedx events. Selected by Forbes among the 100 most powerful women in Central America. Master in Psychology of economic life from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences. Degree in Psychology from the University of Costa Rica. Graduated from the Master's degree in Human Development from Flacso Argentina.

Anna Fälth heads the Secretariat of the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) – a set of principles offering guidance to business on how to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace, marketplace and community. Anna provides advice to the private sector on how to advance on the WEPs journey – from setting the direction, to execute actions and assess the results.

An economist, Anna has more than 20 years of experience as economic advisor within the UN system, including UNCTAD, UN-DESA, UNDP and UN Women. She has a MSc in Economics from Lund University, Sweden, and a Masters in Law and Economic from Hamburg University, Germany.