Mark Lowcock worked for the UK's Department for International Development (and its predecessor organisation) for more than 30 years, including as Permanent Secretary from 2011 to 2017. He was United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator from May 2017 to June 2021. He is now a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development and a Visiting Professor of Practice in the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics. He has contributed opinion pieces to the Washington Post, the Financial Times, the Guardian, the Times, Le Monde, and others and is the author of Relief Chief: A Manifesto for Saving Lives in Dire Times.

Ranil Dissanayake served in senior advisory roles in the UK's Department for International Development from 2011 to 2020, including as a Senior Economic Adviser to successive Chief Economists. He also served as a senior adviser to the governments of Malawi and Tanzania, focusing on aid management and debt sustainability. He holds a DPhil in public policy from the University of Oxford and is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development.