Maurice M. Owens is former advisor to White House Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough, and Advisor to the Board at Libra Group. Following a career in the US Air Force as an information and communications technology specialist, Maurice Owens joined the White House Communications Agency in 2007 where he operated and maintained a $45million secure communications network integrating US agencies and allied nations. He joined the Chief of Staff’s office in 2012. As Special Assistant to the White House Chief of Staff, Maurice Owens served as the primary liaison between the office of Chief of Staff and Capitol Hill. He was also involved with a number of special projects such as the Affordable Care Act Outreach, Immigration Reform Outreach and “My Brother’s Keeper” – President Obama’s initiative which seeks to help young men of color throughout the USA reach their full potential.

Mr. Barakat joined M&G Investments in September 2008 as Head of Real Estate Finance to begin M&G’s direct lending activity in European commercial real estate. Since that time, Mr. Barakat has been responsible for approximately £10 billion of investments in this sector on behalf of 70+ institutional investors, including Prudential Assurance Company, and has built a team of 23 professionals. Throughout his 30+ year career, Mr. Barakat has been involved in all aspects of real estate including lending, investment, securitisation, loan restructuring and workout, bankruptcy and reorganisation, leasing, mergers and acquisitions and sales. Prior to joining M&G, Mr. Barakat spent 17 years at Goldman, Sachs & Co. where he became a managing director in 1997. His final position at Goldman was as head of the Commercial Property Finance Group in London, having previously been co-head of Real Estate and a member of the investment committee of the Whitehall Street Real Estate Fund from 1998 to 2003. Mr. Barakat graduated cum laude from Georgetown University and earned his MBA with honours from Columbia University.

A native New Yorker, Christopher Choa is based in London and as Director of Cities and Urban Development, leads the Cities practice for AECOM . He speaks frequently about urban performance and works with city and national governments to develop regional-scale strategies. A graduate of both Harvard and Yale, Choa is an external advisor to the Sustainable Urban Development program at Oxford, and an appointed advisor to the Mayor of London’s Infrastructure Delivery Board.