Keynote speakers

Garry Jacobs is President and CEO of the World Academy of Art & Science (founded in 1960) and leads the Academy’s joint project with the United Nations Office in Geneva on Global Leadership in the 21st Century. He is also Chairman and CEO of the World University Consortium, a think tank promoting a transdisciplinary paradigm in higher education; a Full Member of Club of Rome; Professor of Transdisciplinary Social Science at Person-Centered Approach Institute, Italy; and Vice President of The Mother’s Service Society, India, a social science research institute applying the evolutionary thought of Sri Aurobindo to contemporary social issues. He is an American author and international business consultant based in India and served as Secretary of the International Commission on Peace & Food (1989-1994).

Rudy Aernoudt holds Masters degrees in Economy, Philosophy and European economics. He has served as Chief of Staff at European, federal and regional (Flanders and Wallonia) levels. Besides, he was consecutively served as Credit Manager at ING bank, Secretary-General of the Department of Economics and innovation, Director-General of One laptop per child, a spin-off of MIT. Presently, he is Senior Economist at the European Commission, where he is actually dealing with financing issues, industrial, taxation and space policy. He is also professor of corporate finance and enterprise policy at the Universities of Ghent and Nancy; curator of TEDxBrussels; columnist and author of several books and papers on politics and economics.

Andre Folloni is a Full Professor and the Law School Dean of the Pontifical Catholic University of Parana, Brazil. Andre Folloni has been a WCSA member since 2013, and has acted as Chief Communications Officer. He worked for 20 years as a tax lawyer and business consultant and is currently a professor fully dedicated to scientific research and University management. He has a Ph.D. and Master’s degree in Law, and a Bachelor’s degree in Law and another in Philosophy. And, Folloni has worked, published, and taught on Tax Law, complexity theory, and development theory

Dedicated to systems change and the social design, in theory and practice, in research and consulting, Dr Louis Klein is an internationally renowned thought and practice leader for systemic governance and change navigation. He is dean at the European School of Governance. He is president and founder of the Systemic Change Institute and the Systemic Excellence Group. Educated as an economist and social scientist, Dr Louis Klein became a distinguished systems scientist and cybernetician. He serves as director at the International Centre for Complex Project Management (ICCPM), as director at the World Organisation of Systems and Cybernetics (WOSC), as VP of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) and as VP of the International Federation for Systems Research (ISFR). Dr Louis Klein is co-founder of Systemic Change Journal, member of the editorial board member of the Project Management Journal (PMJ) and co-publisher of the German philosophical business magazine agora42. He grew up on a winery in the Mosel Valley in Germany. He is a long-distance runner and mountaineer, a wine lover and wannabe accordionist. Dr Louis Klein is the father of two children and lives in Berlin.

Chris Thornhill is Professor in Law at the University of Manchester, UK. He grew up in the north of England in the 1970s and 1980s, and he received his PhD from Cambridge University. He has previously held professorial positions in different disciplines at Kings College London and Glasgow University and visiting Professorships in Germany, Chile and Brazil. His recent publications are: A Sociology of Constitutions (2011); A Sociology of Transnational Constitutions (2016); The Sociology of Law and the Global Transformation of Democracy (2018); Global law and Democratic Crisis (due 2020).