Ali Massoud Ansari is the founding director of the Institute for Iranian Studies. His research explores the history and politics of Modern Iran, including the relationship between Iranian ideologues and Western ideas of development, especially the way in which Iranian intellectuals appropriated, adapted and engaged with narratives of the Enlightenment; the concept of ‘rights’; constitutionalism; and the establishment of the rule of law. His work examines historical consciousness, and the various narratives and mythologies that have shaped contemporary Iranian identity. He is currently the FCO Fellow looking at the politics of British-Iranian relations in a historical context.

An Iranian-American author, a co-director of the emerge85 Lab, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation and Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, and a senior advisor at Oxford Analytica, Molavi is a widely published thinker focussing on global geo-political risk and geo-economics in the Middle East and Asia.

Zanganehpour’s AI start up, Swae.io, defines a new model for global governance through bottom-up and inclusive decision-making to advance democratic processes that enable the grassroots to voice their concerns and redirect the rise of abuse of power and elitism towards accessing the greater good. An outstanding advocate of informed, meritocratic processes, Zanganehpour promotes better leadership among governments, corporations and communities.