Join Us on October 30
Thursday, October 30
2:30 – 6:30 p.m.
Georgetown University
Rafik B. Hariri Building, Lohrfink Auditorium
The Future of Global Business Conference 2025
Reimagining the Future of Global Business: Transformation, Leadership, and Impact
The global business landscape is becoming increasingly fragmented and unpredictable. Challenges from previous years — ranging from shifting trade policies and geopolitical tensions to the rapid pace of technological change — not only persist, but are growing in more complex and unprecedented ways.
In this context, the imperative for business leaders of today and tomorrow is clear though difficult: to reimagine the future of global business through a lens of adaptability, innovation, and impact.
This moment calls for a new approach to leadership, one that is informed by global transformation, grounded in leadership, and driven by a commitment to long-term value creation. Join us for the third annual Future of Global Business Conference to explore these issues alongside global executives, policymakers, academics, and students.
Speakers
Joseph Baratta (B’93)
Joseph Baratta is the global head of private equity strategies and a member of Blackstone’s Board of Directors. He is also a member of their management committee and serves on many of the firm’s investment committees.
Baratta joined Blackstone in 1998, and in 2001, he moved to London to help establish Blackstone’s corporate private equity business in Europe. Since 2012, he has served as the firm’s global head of private equity in New York City.
Baratta has served on the boards of many past Blackstone portfolio companies. Currently, he serves as a member or observer on the boards of Ancestry, Candle Media, First Eagle Investment Management, Medline, and Merlin Entertainments Group. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees at Georgetown University, is a trustee of the Tate Foundation, and serves on the board of Year Up, an organization focused on youth employment.
Before joining Blackstone, Baratta was with Tinicum Incorporated and McCown De Leeuw & Company. Baratta also worked at Morgan Stanley in its mergers and acquisitions department. He graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University.
Gina M. Raimondo
Gina M. Raimondo was the 40th U.S. Secretary of Commerce. As Secretary, she focused on making America more competitive by driving job creation, fostering innovation, and strengthening national security. Under her leadership, the Department of Commerce made historic investments in internet access, manufacturing, workforce training, and climate readiness through initiatives like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act. She oversaw $39 billion in incentives for chip manufacturing, $40 billion in broadband grants, and significant investments in climate resilience and minority business support.
Raimondo has also led efforts on AI development, launched the U.S. AI Safety Institute and established an international network of AI Safety Institutes. She has been recognized as one of TIME’s Most Influential People and is known for her role in advancing national security through technology and international cooperation.
Before her tenure as Secretary of Commerce, Raimondo served as the 75th Governor of Rhode Island, becoming the state’s first female governor. During her time in office, she revitalized Rhode Island’s economy by attracting new businesses, reducing unemployment, and creating thousands of jobs. She prioritized infrastructure, education, and job training, making record investments in these areas. Notably, she launched the first statewide program offering tuition-free community college to all high school graduates, a groundbreaking initiative to provide accessible higher education.
Raimondo is a graduate of Harvard University, Oxford University (as a Rhodes Scholar), and Yale Law School. She is married to Andy Moffit, and they have two children.
Moderator: Nicholas Errico (B’26)
Nicholas Errico is an undergraduate student at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business where he studies finance and is a member of the Global Business Fellow program.
Previously, Errico worked as a climate resilience intern for Project Last Mile through the Baratta Center’s short co-curricular internship program, and he will be working in investment banking upon graduation.
Moderator: Ashley Thomas Lenihan
Ashley Thomas Lenihan is a professor of the practice of international affairs and deputy director of the M.S. in foreign service program in Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. She is an expert on economic statecraft, foreign investment, and national security, and the author of Balancing Power without Weapons. Her policy work in the U.K. and Europe focuses on improving the impact of research on policymaking, and she regularly provides testimony to the U.K. Parliament and consults for public and private sector bodies internationally. She is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an individual member of the U.K.’s Parliamentary and Scientific Committee.
Lenihan was previously the head of policy and engagement at the British Academy of Management, a senior policy advisor at the Academy of Social Sciences and its Campaign for Social Science, and a senior fellow at the Legatum Institute. She was also an associate at the foreign policy think tank LSE IDEAS, and a non-resident fellow at the Centre for International Studies at the London School of Economics (LSE). Lenihan has taught at SOAS, University of London, and currently teaches master of science in foreign service students at Georgetown. She began her career as an investment banking analyst at DLJ/CSFB, and obtained her bachelor of science in foreign service and Ph.D. in government from Georgetown University.
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Urban Ahlin
His Excellency Urban Ahlin has been the Ambassador of Sweden to the United States since September 2023. Ambassador Ahlin most recently served as Sweden’s Ambassador to Canada.
Prior to that, he was a member of the Swedish Parliament, representing the Social Democratic Party. Following the 2014 parliamentary election, Ambassador Ahlin was elected speaker of the Swedish Parliament, Sveriges Riksdag, from 2014 to 2018.
Ambassador Ahlin first became a member of Parliament in 1994. Since then, he has worked on foreign policy in numerous capacities. He was chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs between 2002 and 2006, and later deputy chair from 2006 to 2014. He has also been a member of the War Delegation, the Swedish Defence Commission, and a member of the Committee on European Affairs.
As part of his work for the Social Democratic Party, Ambassador Ahlin served as the party’s Foreign Policy Spokesperson and has also been a member of the party’s Executive Board.
In addition, Ambassador Ahlin is one of the founding members of the first pan-European think-tank, the European Council on Foreign Relations, which was established in 2007.
Ambassador Ahlin is a teacher and graduated from the University of Karlstad with a master of science. He is married and has two daughters.
Troy Fitrell
Troy Fitrell, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister Counselor, was the senior bureau official leading the Department of State’s Bureau of African Affairs. He recently served as United States Ambassador to the Republic of Guinea. He previously held positions as director of the Offices of West African Affairs and Southern African Affairs, as chargé d’affaires and as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassies in Ethiopia and Mauritius, and as deputy director of the Office of International Security Cooperation in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.
Fitrell served as a Pearson Fellow on the staff of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and served overseas at the U.S. embassies in Portugal, Guatemala, Zambia, Ghana, and Denmark. He earned a B.A. at the University of Maryland and a M.S. at the National War College. He is the recipient of a Presidential Rank Award, the Cobb Award for Initiative and Success in Trade Development, the Secretary’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Labor Affairs, and numerous superior and meritorious awards. He is a Commander of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Guinea. He speaks French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Swedish.
Vinay Kwatra
Vinay Kwatra assumed charge as the ambassador of India to the United States on August 12, 2024.
Kwatra joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1988. In a career spanning over 36 years, he has served in senior roles both in Delhi and across the globe. Most recently, he served as India’s foreign secretary from May 2022 to July 2024. Prior to that, he served as ambassador of India to Nepal from March 2020 to April 2022, and ambassador of India to France and permanent representative of India to UNESCO from August 2017 to February 2020.
This is ambassador Kwatra’s second stint in Washington, D.C. From May 2010 to July 2013, he served as the head of the commercial wing of the embassy. His previous foreign assignments include the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation secretariat in Kathmandu as director and joint secretary (2006-2010), in Beijing as the deputy chief of mission (2003-2006), and in several other roles spanning Tashkent, Durban, Karachi, and Geneva.
At India’s headquarters, Kwatra has served as joint secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office (2015-2017), and has headed several divisions of the Ministry of External Affairs, including the Americas, public policy and research, and counter terrorism divisions.
Moderator: George James Tsunis
George James Tsunis served as the United States ambassador to Greece from March 2022 to January 2025.
Prior to his nomination, Tsunis was the founder, chairman, and CEO of Chartwell Hotels, LLC. He served as chairman of Battery Park City Authority. He was also a trustee for the New York City Convention Development Corporation and the New York City Convention Operating Corporation and helped manage a 1.5 million square foot expansion of the New York Convention Center, transforming it into one of the world’s most modern and beautiful convention centers. Tsunis served as the chairman of the Nassau University Medical Center, a large public safety net hospital with a focus on providing care to vulnerable communities.
Tsunis earned a B.A. from New York University and a J.D. from St. John’s University of Law. He was an Archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (Order of Saint Andrew), the highest ecclesiastical honor that can be bestowed upon a layman by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, and is the recipient of numerous awards including the Harry Chapin Humanitarian Award for Long Island Cares and the lifetime achievement award for civic engagement for Long Island Business News. Ambassador Tsunis is married and has three children.
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Reggie Aggarwal (L’99)
Reggie Aggarwal is the CEO and founder of Cvent, a leading event and hospitality software company based in McLean, Virginia, with over 5,000 employees and 25,000 customers globally. Cvent’s technology powers millions of in-person and virtual events for more than 50% of the Fortune 1000. Aggarwal founded Cvent in 1999 and guided the company through multiple phases of growth including two public listings (NYSE and Nasdaq). In 2023, Blackstone took Cvent private for $4.6 billion.
Aggarwal has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Businessweek, and was the youngest person ever to be inducted into the Washington Business Hall of Fame. He has been named the #1 Software CEO by The SaaS Report, Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young, and “Most Admired CEO” by the Washington Business Journal.
Thomas Becker
Since May 2025, Thomas Becker has been head of external affairs and sustainability at BMW Group, combining the work of two previous departments that he built up over the last several years.
Becker was previously vice president for sustainability and mobility at the BMW Group in Munich from October 2019 to April 2025, and vice president of government and external affairs at the BMW Group from 2007 to September 2019. During his time in the area of government and external affairs, he supervised the worldwide representation of the BMW Group’s political interests, the company’s approach to integrate political topics into the product, as well as business communications and the steered the sustainability communications of the company.
Becker earned his Ph.D. degree magna cum laude with Professor Dr. Ekkehard Kappler at the Reinhard-Mohn Foundation Chair for Management, Economics, and Social Evolution at the University of Witten/Herdecke. He also holds a diploma in economics from the University of Cologne.
Shyam P. Kambeyanda
Shyam P. Kambeyanda is president and chief executive officer of ESAB Corporation and a member of its Board of Directors. As the leader of ESAB, Kambeyanda has overseen the growth of their fabrication technology business, including expanding the company’s global operations, improving financial performance, and driving ESAB Business Excellence throughout the business.
Before ESAB went public in 2022, Kambeyanda previously served as president and senior vice president of ESAB, then part of Colfax Corporation, starting in May 2016 He also served as CEO and executive vice president of Colfax starting in January 2020. Prior to joining Colfax‚ Kambeyanda served as the president of the Americas region for Eaton Corporation’s Hydraulics Group. Kambeyanda joined Eaton in 1995 and held a variety of positions of increasing responsibility in engineering, quality, e-commerce, product strategy, and operations management in the U.S., Mexico, Europe, and Asia. Since leading ESAB, Kambeyanda has maintained a keen international perspective on driving growth and business development in emerging markets.
Kambeyanda earned a bachelor’s degree in physics and general science from Coe College, a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from Iowa State University, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He currently serves on the board of directors for Veralto, a global leader in essential water and product quality solutions.