Since 4 June 2008, Mr Xavier Vidal-Folch, El Pais, Spain, has been the WEF President (see below).

Since 4 June 2008,  Mr Harald Stanghelle, Aftenposten, Norway, has been the WEF Vice-President (see below).

Mr Bertrand Pecquerie is the WEF Director.

The Committee currently has the following members (last update in June 2006):

BRAZIL    Mr Marcelo Rech
Editorial Director, RBS newspapers

Marcelo Rech, 48, is based in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil. He is the Editorial Director of the eight RBS newspapers, whith a combined circulation of 508,000 copies. He is also editor of Zero Hora (178,000) and the director of the editorial comittee of the Brazilian Newspaper Association.
Before becoming editor-in-chief of Zero hora, in 1993, Rech was a reporter, specialized in international affairs.

CANADA     Mr Ed Greenspon
Editor-in-Chief, Globe and Mail

Edward Greenspon has been Editor-in-chief of The Globe and Mail since July, 2002.  He has an honours degree in journalism and political science from Carleton University and was a Commonwealth Scholar at the London School of Economics, earning a masters degree in politics and government with distinction in 1985. Since joining The Globe and Mail in 1986, he has been a business reporter, European Correspondent, Managing Editor Report on Business, Executive News Editor, Founding Editor of globeandmail.com, and Ottawa Bureau Chief. He is co-author of Double Vision, The Inside Story of the Liberals in Power and Searching for Certainty:  Inside the New Canadian Mindset.


 
DENMARK     Mr Erik Bjerager
Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director; Kristeligt Dagblad

Erik Bjerager, born 1958, is editor-in-chief and managing director of the Danish national daily, Kristeligt Dagblad. He is a graduate from the Danish School of Journalism and holds an MA from The American University, Washington, D.C. Before taking his current post in 1994, Mr. Bjerager worked as a journalist in Denmark and abroad.

FINLAND     Mr Risto Uimonen
Editor-in-Chief, Kaleva

Risto Uimonen is the Editor-in-Chief of Kaleva Newspaper, the 4th largest daily in Finland published in Oulu. Before that, he worked as the editorial writer and political columnist for Helsingin Sanomat. Earlier he was the Managing Editor of MTV Television News on the national channel and the head of the Helsinki Office of Turun Sanomat. He has written many books, among other things on politics, media and images. He has also been a political commentator on Finnish politics by the national tv and radio channels in Finland nearly 20 years.
 
 


INDIA - Bachi KARKARIA
Consultant Editor, The Times of India

Bachi Karkaria is the first Indian on the board of the World Editors Forum. She is also on the board of the India AIDS Initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She is a recipient of the US-based, international Mary Morgan-Hewitt Award for Lifetime Achievement. She writes a popular, satirical column, Erratica, in the Sunday Times of India, and is the author of 'Dare To Dream' (Viking-Penguin), the best-selling biography of the pioneering hotelier, M S Oberoi.
 

INDIA     Mr Raju Narisetti
Managing Editor, Washington Post

Raju Narisetti is Editor of Mint, a national business newspaper and website (www.livemint.com) published by HT Media Ltd. in with an exclusive content partnership with News Corp's The Wall Street Journal. Prior to conceiving and launching Mint in February 2007, Raju, a 13-year veteran of The Wall Street Journal, was Editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe as well as a Deputy Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal in the U.S., where he also held overall responsibility for European and Middle East/Africa coverage for all editions of WSJ. Raju was named as a Young Global Leader in 2007 by the World Economic Forum and is on the board of Oxfam India.

ITALY    Mr Gianni Valenti
Vice-Director, Gazzetta dello Sport

Gianni Valenti, 45 years old, vice-director of the Gazzetta dello Sport. Together with  this newspaper's director (Carlo Verdelli), he was the chief of the transformation project of the Gazzeta in full color tabloid. Previously, he worked 17 years for the Corriere della Sera, where he covered the role of chief editor of Italian and international news. Also, he was one of the key figures (in  2005) for  the first transformation project of the Corriere della Sera in the full color format. 

MOROCCO     Mrs Nadia Salah
Editor, L'Economiste

Nadia SALAH is the administrator of Ecomedia Group (2 daily newspapers, a radio station, 2 news  magazines, one web site and professional books publishing). She is also chief editor of the Group's main publication: "L'Economiste". After studying economics and political science in Grenoble (France), she entered the Moroccan press: L'Opinion ( 10 years), then "La Vie Economique" (1 year), before creating the Ecomedia Group in 1991.

NETHERLANDS   Mr Marcel van Lingen
Editor-in-Chief, Netherlands Press Association

 
NIGERIA      Mr Azubuike Ishiekwene
Executive Director, Punch Nigeria

He holds a Masters degree in Public Administration and International Affairs from the University of Lagos and a B.Sc in Mass Communications.  Ishiekwene, (or Azu, as he is fondly called) is a member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, the Nigerian Union of Journalists, and lectures part time at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism. Azu joined PUNCH in 1989 and has held various positions including investigative reporter, features writer, features editor, and deputy editor of Toplife magazine (a PUNCH publication). He was Editor of the company's flagship daily THE PUNCH between 2002 and 2006, when he was appointed Executive Director, Publications. He has won many awards including the Babatunde Jose Prize for journalism 1988, the Dame Award for Informed Commentary 1993, 2001, 2004 and again in 2006; and Editor of the year, NMMA 2006. 

NORWAY     Mr Harald Stanghelle
Political Editor, Aftenposten


PAKISTAN     Mr Imtiaz Alam
General Secretary, South Asian Free Media Association


PERU     Mr Alejandro Miró Quesada
Director, Diaro El Comercio

He is a Lawyer and journalist, born in Lima, Perú on September 24, 1944.  Miro Quesada is now the chief editor of El Comercio, Lima, where he began as a sports writer in 1965.  He has been a member of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) Board of Directors since 1986 and its President from 2004-2005. He is also a WEF board member since 2003.

 

PORTUGAL     Mr José Manuel Fernandes
Editor-in-Chief, Publico

He did secondary studies in the Pedro Nunes High School between 1967 and 1974, where he was a students leader and founder and member of the first secretariat of the Communist Students Union (Marxist-Leninist), in 1975/1976. He was a journalist for the weekly "Expresso" between 1980 and 1989, and became Founder and sub-editor of the daily newspaper "PÚBLICO" since May 1989. Sub-editor of "PÚBLICO" between October 1996 and September 1997. Designated Editor and Administrator in September 1998. He is the Author of three books about defense of nature and cultural values: "O Homem e o Mar - O Litoral Português"; "Rios de Portugal"; "Serras de Portugal.
 

RUSSIA     Mr Vladimir Sungorkin
Editor-in-Chief and General Director, Komsomolskaya Pravda


SOUTH AFRICA     Mrs. Ferial Haffajee
Editor-in-Chief, Mail & Guardian

Ferial Haffajee became the editor of South Africa's leading weekly, Mail & Guardian, in February 2004. Ferial trained at the Weekly Mail (now the Mail & Guardian) before moving to the Financial Mail as a senior editor and the South African Broadcasting Corporation as a radio producer and television reporter. In her television days, she was part of the team that interviewed Nelson Mandela and former president F W De Klerk in the run-up to the freedom elections of 1994. Ferial conceived and edited the Little Black Book, South Africa's comprehensive book of black leaders across the country. She is also editor of the annual Book of South African Women. In 2006 Ferial was appointed chairperson of the South African National Editors' Forum.

SWEDEN    Mrs. Elisabeth Bäck
Editor-in-Chief, Vestmanlands Läns Tidnings (vlt)

SPAIN     Mr Xavier Vidal-Folch
Deputy Editor, El País
 
Xavier Vidal-Folch de Balanzo is the Deputy Director of Spanish daily newspaper El Pais. He has been with the paper since 1987, spending one year as Chief Editor and five as Brussels Bureau Chief. Xavier received a Bachelor's degrees in law, journalism, and contemporary history and began his career as a national news writer for El Diario de Mallorca. After that, he served as Economy Editor for El Periodico de Catalunya followed by El Pais Barcelona. He has received several journalism awards, including the Joan Sardá Dexeus award in 1999 for his work in spreading economic information.


TURKEY     Mr Ertugrul Ozkök
Director and Editor-in-Chief, Hürriyet Gazetesi


UNITED KINGDOM     Mr George Brock
President, World Editors Forum
Editor, The Times (Saturday edition)

George Brock is the Saturday Editor of The Times. He has been the paper's Managing Editor, Foreign Editor and Editor of the Op-Ed page as well as bureau chief in Brussels in the early 1990s. He is the co-author of two books and is a regular speaker and broadcaster.

UNITED STATES     Ms Gloria Brown Anderson
Vice President, International and Editorial Development, The New York Times


UNITED STATES     Mr Andrew Nachison
President and Co-Founder at iFOCOS - the Institute for the Connected Society

YEMEN    Mrs Nadia Al-Sakkaf
Editor in Chief, Yemen Times

Nadia has been working in the media since July 2000 when she joined the Yemen Times as a translator and reporter. In September 2000 she took position as assistant editor. After completing her higher studies in Management Information Systems in September 2002 Nadia continued working in the Yemen Times as part time while working as a Systems Analyst at the Arab Experts Center for Consultancy and Systems. Nadia al-Sakkaf became chief editor of the Yemen Times in March 2005. She received the first Gebran Tueni Award 2006 for professional media given from World Association of Newspapers and An-Nahar Newspaper in Lebanon. Nadia is a member of the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate and the International Journalists Syndicate and was a student member of Amnesty International while studying in the UK.

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