Matthew Kukah is a Catholic Reverend Father and former Secretary-General of the Catholic Secretariat in Nigeria. He served on Nigeria's Presidential Truth Commission into Past Human Rights Violations. Until recently a Senior Fellow at St Antony's College, University of Oxford, Dr Kukah is a rigorous scholar and respected commentator, Dr Kukah received his PhD from the University of London.
He is the author of the critically acclaimed work, Religion and Politics in Northern Nigeria since Independence (Spectrum, 1994), and most recently of Democracy and Civil Society in Nigeria (Spectrum, 2002). Father Kukah is a regular commentator on complex social and political issues in Nigeria.

Professor Bart O. Nnaji is currently the Special Adviser to the President on Power and Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Power – an organ charged with the reform of the Nigerian Power Sector. He is the founder Geometric Power Limited - the first indigenously owned private sector power Company in Nigeria. Geometric is currently building a US$400 million Integrated Power Project (IPP) in Aba to generate more than 188 MW. He served as Federal Minister of Science and Technology of Nigeria in 1993. Professor Nnaji has a B.S. in Physics from St. John's University, New York with distinction; an M.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Virginia. Until 2007, he was the William Kepler Whiteford Professor of Engineering and Director of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for e-Design. An author of 5 books and over 100 technical articles, his book, Computer Integrated Manufacturing and Engineering, won the 1994 world best text book prize for Manufacturing Engineering. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Design and Manufacturing.
He is a recipient of numerous awards including an Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He was awarded the U.S. Secretary of State's Distinguished Public Service Award (1995); Distinguished Scientist Award by the World Bank – IMF Africa Group (October 1998); the 2004 Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM) – Nigeria's highest intellectual merit award and in 2010 the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) – an award merited by high level of accomplishments and service to the Nation. He holds the traditional title "Onwa Nkanu".

Pat Utomi, a professor of political economy and management expert is a Nigerian entrepreneur whose ultimate goal is to positively affect humanity. In 1982, he was appointed special assistant to President Shehu Shagari. Following the demise of the Second Republic, he became assistant general manager, corporate affairs, Volkswagen of Nigeria Limited, Lagos, 1983-93.
Utomi co-founded the Lagos Business School, now Pan African University in 1994 with the Opus Dei, a Catholic religious group. He was scholar-in-residence, American University, Washington DC, USA, 1996 and research associate, the Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, 1996. He coordinated the establishment of several civil society groups on good governance and accountability such as Transparency in Nigeria and the Restoration Group. In the business sphere, Utomi is the vice-chairman, Platinium–Habib Bank. He is an accomplished columnist, and chairman, BusinessDay Media Limited and creator of Patito's Gang, a television talk show. Utomi has published several books on political economy and management. He was a presidential candidate in the 2007 elections in Nigeria.

Richard Dowden first worked in Africa as a volunteer teacher at a bush school in Uganda in the early 1970s. On his return to Britain he was employed by a peace organisation in Northern Ireland and then became a journalist, and was made Editor of The Catholic Herald in 1976.
After joining The Times foreign desk in 1980, he reported from the Middle East and Africa, before being appointed Africa Editor at The Independent when it was founded in 1986. During the next nine years he visited almost every country in sub Saharan Africa. He later became Diplomatic Editor. In 1995 he was invited to join The Economist as Africa Editor continued to travel regularly to Africa. He left The Economist in 2001 and a year later, began working as a freelance journalist and writer. In November 2002 he was appointed Director of the Royal African Society.
In addition to writing extensively about Africa, he has made three full length documentaries on Africa for Channel 4 and the BBC as well as several shorter films. He also continues to write on African issues and appears frequently as a commentator on African affairs on the BBC, CNN, Sky News and other broadcast media. His book: Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles was published by Portobello Books in September 2008 .

Paul Onwuanibe began his career in the 'built environment' with a formal education in Architecture, Property Development and Construction Management, together with a London Business School MBA with a merit in "Value Engineering".
Paul has 20 years in the professional property environment with experience of design and execution projects (Africa, USA, Europe). He served as Development Director with Beacon Housing, a UK based house builder producing over 1000 homes.
Paul was the Executive with responsibility for the Property and Logistics team of Regus Plc during its rapid expansion years, which oversaw the opening of 190 business centres in 62 countries globally. He has expert knowledge of commercial property and workplace management and led Landmark's expansion into America, Europe and Africa.He has a deep and passionate interest in real estate in Africa, knowledge, experience and fresh views.

Kemi Adegoke, was the feisty, outspoken Conservative Party candidate for Dulwich and West Norwood in south London in the recent elections in the UK. She otherwise works as a systems analyst within the RBS Group. She studied Computer Systems Engineering (M.Eng) at Sussex University, graduating in 2003, and is also a Chartered Member of the British Computer Society.
In June 2009, she completed an undergraduate degree in Law at the University of London (Birkbeck). She is a school governor at St. Thomas the Apostle College and the Jubilee Primary School in Southwark and Lambeth boroughs respectively. She is also on the board of Charlton Triangle Housing Association, part of the Family Mosaic group of housing associations. She was born in Wimbledon although lived in Nigeria until she was 16 and now lives in Herne Hill ward within the Dulwich and West Norwood constituency.
She stood for Parliament under the Conservative Party during the last elections in the UK. Before her selection, she was the Deputy Chairman of the Dulwich and West Norwood Conservative Association and worked as a project leader for the Conservative Party Globalisation and Global Poverty Policy Group in 2006 and 2007.

Remi Okunlola is co-founder and executive director of Africa's first indigenous offshore drilling company, SeaWolf Oilfields. Prior to his joining in establishing this first of its kind enterprise, Remi had established an international reputation as a respected Nigeria focused energy and natural resource lawyer - in his capacity as partner of Perchstone & Graeys, a Lagos based firm of Solicitors. Remi holds an MBA from the University of Dundee and an LLB from the University of East London. He is an English Barrister, a New York Attorney and a Nigerian Legal Practitioner. In his 16 years or so since returning to live in Nigeria, Remi has participated, initially as lawyer, and now on the business side, in delivering some of Nigeria's most internationally regarded transactions - including the first of its kind and award winning Nigeria LNG financing transaction, the Brass LNG project, and now Africa's first offshore drilling contractor.

Hannah Pool is, in her own words, British-Eritrean, Eritrean-British. She was born in Eritrea in 1974 and was adopted at the age of six months by a British scholar who lived and worked in the Sudan. She was raised in Manchester, England, believing that both her parents had died shortly after her birth. She now lives in London where she works as a columnist for The Guardian.
At the age of nineteen, she received a letter from her brother informing her that her father was alive and she had a sister and several brothers who lived in Eritrea. It took ten years for her to make the decision to meet with her birth family. She then embarked on a journey which took her back to her origins and which she recounts in her book titled My Fathers' Daughter (Hamish Hamilton, 2005.)

Michela Wrong has spent the last 16 years writing about Africa. As a correspondent for Reuters news agency, based in first Cote d'Ivoire and then Zaire, she covered the turbulent events of the mid 1990s in west and central Africa, including the fall of Mobutu Sese Seko and genocide in Rwanda. She then moved to Kenya, where she became Africa correspondent for the Financial Times. In 2000 she published her first book, "In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz", the story of Mobutu, which won a PEN prize for non-fiction. Her second book, "I didn't do it for you", focused on the Red Sea nation of Eritrea. Her third book, "It's Our Turn to Eat", tracks the story of Kenyan corruption whistleblower John Githongo. It has been described as reading "like a cross between Le Carre and Solzhenitsyn".

Muhtar Bakare retired from banking after 12 years, in June 2004, to launch the publishing house; Kachifo Limited. In 2005, Kachifo published the West African Paper Edition of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus. It was widely received in the country and remains one of the most read Nigerian books.
It was soon followed by work from established names such as Sefi Atta, Biyi Bandele and Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and newcomers such as Eghosa Imasuen. Kachifo is not just publishing but organises through its affiliate non-profit organisation; Farafina Turust, writing and editing workshops. It ran a free-online magazine, Farafina, where it highlighted the work of emerging and established writers. Aside having introduced Nigerian writers like Segun Afolabi, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, to a Nigerian audience, he is on the verge of some exciting new projects on the cultural scene in Nigeria.
Bakare is a confident believer in the power of ideas as change leaders in society. He recently told a conference audience that "The internet is our own Gutenberg moment; it is going to democratize knowledge in Africa." He is also a social entrepreneur who believes that African leaders and intellectuals should spend more time pandering to their own internal audiences, markets, and citizens than to foreign donors and other agents of the subsisting global power structure. While Farafina is still Nigeria's leading independent publisher, it is still struggling - perhaps the greatest setback is the lack of distribution networks - but because of Bakare's vision, writers are energised and Nigerians are beginning to see literature as viable again.

Winnie currently works as African services manager for Positive East and was one of the first people from the African community in the UK to have the courage go public with her HIV status. After discovering she was HIV positive, Winnie spent the following eight years volunteering; writing, researching and speaking about issues affecting HIV positive Africans.
To counter the stigma and discrimination she encountered within her community, in 1999 she took the bold step of becoming the first woman to announce her status on the front cover of this magazine, something it still takes courage to do. As well as her hard work at Positive East, Winnie is chair of the African HIV Policy Network (AHPN) and trustee of National Aids Trust (NAT).