Mr. Lennox O’Reilly Lewis is a Civil Engineer with over 28 years of technical and managerial experience, in infrastructure development in the Caribbean. Mr. Lewis currently serves as the acting Director of Projects at the Caribbean Development Bank, where he leads staff responsible for the preparation, appraisal and implementation of all CDB-financed economic infrastructure projects in 19 Borrowing Member Countries stretching from Guyana to Belize.

Mr. Lewis’ professional career includes serving as: Water Engineer at the Central Water and Sewerage Authority in St. Vincent and the Grenadines; Sanitary Engineer at the Caribbean Environmental Health Institute; and Solid Waste Manager in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Mr. Lewis is a Past President of the Caribbean Water and Wastewater Association. He holds a B.Eng in Civil Engineering from the University of Manchester and an M.Sc in Environmental Engineering from Cornell University.

João Villaverde (full name: João Victor Villaverde de Almeida) is the Secretary of Institutional Affairs within the Ministry of Planning and Budget of Brazil. He is leading the Routes of South American Integration program since 2023, a policy that deals with infrastructure projects connecting theregion. Joao is also a professor of Public Administration at the São Paulo School of Business Administration (FGVEAESP), where he earned his Master's and Doctorate degrees in Public Administration and Government. He has also conducted research at Columbia University in New York.

Rodolfo Sabonge began his career soon after he graduated as Mechanical Engineer in the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. His first jobs were as industrial engineer in the electronics industry in the US. After four years working in the U.S., he moved to Panama. In 1979 he started working in the Panama Railroad, until he left to the private sector. He was Assistant to the President of Panama´s Cement Group INCEM. In 1986 he started working as Project Engineer in the Locks Division of the Panama Canal Commission. In 1993 he moved on to the Office of Executive Planning as Industrial Engineering Supervisor. In 1995 he was appointed Chief, Transition Planning Division, and in 1997 he became Marketing Manager. In December 1999 he was appointed Director, Corporate Planning, position which was later converted to Executive vice president of Planning and Business Development. He retired in 2013. Since then, he developed his own consultancy firm, and worked in the academia, as researcher, professor, and vice-chancellor of Research, Graduate Studies, and Extension of Panama´s International Maritime University. In the year 2020 he was selected as Secretary General of the Association of Caribbean States, intergovernmental organization with 25 Member States and 10 Associate Members, based in Trinidad and Tobago. His term for four years ended last December 31st.

More recently, the Ministry of Economy and Finance have asked him to develop the Institute of Planning for the Republic of Panama.

Luiz Marcelo Michelon Zardo is a researcher at the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea), linked to Brazil's Ministry of Planning and Budget. His work focuses on regional integration and border studies. He holds a master's degree in International Affairs from the Geneva Graduate Institute.

Verônica is currently the Institutional Relations Manager for Latin America and the Caribbean at Embraer - Brazilian aerospace and defense conglomerate. Previously, Verônica has been the Government Affairs Manager at the Brazilian Chemical Industry Association (ABIQUIM), a Government Affairs Senior Consultant at the BMJ firm, and a research analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS.

Verônica is also the co-founder of the Women Inside Trade network, which gathers over 300 women professionals in international trade in Brazil and abroad, promoting gender equity in the sector.

Verônica holds a Bachelor's degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics (UK), a Master's degree in Public Policy Management from FGV –Fundação Getulio Vargas, and an MBA in Foreign Trade from the same institution.