A discussion with Baroness Catherine Ashton, Irina Bokova, and Ambassador Arun K. Singh, moderated by Philadelphia Inquirer’s Trudy Rubin.

Baroness Catherine Ashton GCMG, PC served as the European Union’s first High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy from 2009 to 2014. She now holds a number of portfolios in foreign and security policy. She is Global Europe Chair at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington D.C., a Senior Policy Advisor to Chatham House, and a consultant to the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. On behalf of the UN Security Council, she chaired the negotiations that ultimately resulted in the agreement with Iran on its nuclear program. She also worked with the Prime Ministers of Serbia and Kosovo leading to the Brussels agreement, for which they were all nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Previously, she was the first female E.U. Commissioner for Trade. Prior to becoming an E.U. Commissioner, she was a U.K. government minister in the House of Lords. She served in the Education and Justice departments, before being promoted to the Cabinet as Leader of the House of Lords

Irina Bokova served two terms as the Director-General of UNESCO, from 2009 to 2017. She was the first woman and the first Eastern European to lead the organization. Bokova began her career at the United Nations Department of Bulgaria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She went onto be elected twice as a Member of Parliament in Bulgaria, and served in government as First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and as Secretary for Foreign Affairs. From 2005 to 2009, Bokova was Ambassador of Bulgaria to France, Monaco, and UNESCO. During her tenure as Director-General, Bokova was actively engaged in UN efforts to adopt the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, and advocated for the protection of the world’s cultural heritage from destruction by extremist groups in Mali, Syria, and Iraq. Bokova graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, and was a fellow at the University of Maryland, Washington, as well as following an executive program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Currently, she is engaged in several activities, including serving as a board member of the Ban Ki Moon Centre for Global Citizens, as a member of the Concordia Leadership Council, and as a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Geneva. This year, she was elected as an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Ambassador Arun K. Singh served as Ambassador of India to the United States from April 30, 2015 to August 31, 2016, having served earlier as Deputy Chief of Mission from October 2008 to April 2013. During his tenures (spanning the Obama presidency and following the signing of the Indo-U.S. Civil Nuclear Agreement), the relationship between India and the U.S. consolidated significantly. Ambassador Singh joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1979, serving in a range of senior positions around the world. Before serving as Ambassador of India to the United States, he served as Ambassador of India to Israel (2005-08) and to France (2013-15). Ambassador Singh has extensive experience with the United Nations, including as Counsellor at the Permanent Mission of India to the UN. Ambassador Singh earned his Master’s Degree in Economics from Delhi University, specializing in econometrics, development policy, macroeconomics, and Indian economic history.

Trudy Rubin is the foreign affairs columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer. In 2019, Ms. Rubin received the Overseas Press Club of America’s Flora Lewis award for Best Commentary on International Affairs. In 2001 and 2017 she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary. She is the author of Willful Blindness: The Bush Administration and Iraq. Prior to joining The Inquirer, she was Middle East correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor and staff writer for The Economist. In recent years, she has written from China, Russia, Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Britain, France, Italy and Germany. She is a graduate of Smith College, where she received her B.A., and the London School of Economics, where she earned her M.Sc. (Econ).