Meet our advisory board

Bringing together leaders and experts from politics, government relations, and big tech.

José Manuel Barroso — Advisory board chair

José Manuel Durão Barroso was President of the European Commission during two mandates (2004/2009 and 2009/2014) and served for twelve years in the Government of Portugal in several positions including as Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. On behalf of the European Union, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012.

His academic appointments included visiting professor of Georgetown University and visiting professor at Princeton University. He is currently a visiting professor at the Catholic University of Portugal and at the European University Institute, School of Transnational Governance, Florence.

After being Chairman of the Board of Goldman Sachs International since 2016, he is now Chairman of International Advisors of Goldman Sachs. He has served as the Chairman of the Board of GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance until December 2025.

Since 2025, José Manuel has brought his wealth of experience from both the public and private sectors to Efekta Education where he serves as Chairman, International Affairs Committee and is also chairing Efekta’s advisory board.

Sir Nick Clegg

Sir Nick Clegg is the former UK Deputy Prime Minister (2010-2015) and former President, Global Affairs at Meta (2018-2025). Prior to being elected to the UK Parliament in 2005, he worked in the European Commission and served for five years as a member of the European Parliament. He became leader of the Liberal Democrat party in 2007 and served as Deputy Prime Minister in the UK’s first coalition government since the war, from 2010 to 2015. He joined Meta, then called Facebook, in 2018 and became the company’s chief policy decision-maker and its principal interlocutor with world leaders, governments and policymakers around the globe. He has authored numerous publications, including, How to Save the Internet: The Threat to Global Connection in the Age of AI and Political Conflict; Politics: Between the Extremes; and How To Stop Brexit (And Make Britain Great Again).

In December 2025 Sir Nick Clegg announced he was becoming a General Partner at Hiro Capital, fostering the growth of leading spatial computing technologies in Europe alongside prominent figures in the tech industry, such as Professor Yann LeCun and Sir Ian Livingstone.

Mari Kiviniemi

Mari Kiviniemi has held senior leadership roles in Finnish government, international organisations and business, focusing on economic policy, governance and institutional reform. She served as the 41st Prime Minister of Finland (2010–2011) and was OECD Deputy Secretary-General (2014–2018).

She was Managing Director of the Finnish Commerce Federation from 2019 to April 2024. She previously held ministerial portfolios including Minister of Public Administration and Local Government (2007–2010) and Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade (2005–2006). Elected to the Finnish Parliament at the age of 26, she served as a Member of Parliament from 1995 to 2014.

Currently, she is Chair of the Board of the University of Vaasa and a member of the Board of Directors of Metsä Board (listed). She is also a member of the International Advisory Panel of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and a member of Club de Madrid.In addition, she works as a speaker, lecturer and consultant through her company, MarKiv Oy.

Born in 1968, she studied economics at the University of Helsinki and holds a Master of Social Sciences.

Deepak Agarwal

Deepak Agarwal is LinkedIn’s Chief AI Officer focused on empowering the global workforce, delivering economic opportunity, and ensuring LinkedIn remains at the forefront of building with AI in a responsible and compliant way.

Prior to his current role, Deepak was the Chief AI Officer and VP of Consumer and Trust Engineering at Pinterest, where he delivered transformative AI innovations that redefined the member experience. Before that, he spent 8 years as LinkedIn's VP of AI, leading key initiatives to infuse AI into the fabric of the company culture and closely integrate the technology into all facets of how the platform was built.

Deepak is also on the advisory board for VentureBeat Transform, has written a book - Statistical Methods for Recommender Systems - and published extensively at top-tier conferences. He has a PHD in Statistics from the University of Connecticut.

Phil Waymouth

Phil Waymouth is the founder of Frontier Impact, an advisory firm focused on helping businesses take strategic advantage of AI. 

Previously, Phil spent almost two decades at Microsoft, most recently serving in the Office of the CTO as a Technical Advisor on AI. He held a front-row seat to the industry's AI transformation, leading negotiations for Microsoft's multibillion-dollar collaboration with OpenAI and helping manage the multi-year partnership. He also helped establish Microsoft's AI Supercomputer and AI for Science programs. 

Phil has worked in both the UK and US, with experience spanning software engineering, strategic partnerships, and business development. He started his career as a software engineer making video game platforms and products before leading international business development and strategy teams. He also worked at a London-based mobile software startup and co-founded a UK-based charity supporting student-led education in Africa. 

Phil holds a degree in Natural Sciences (Maths, Computer Science) from Durham University, where he was a Fujitsu Microelectronics Ltd. Scholar, and an MBA from London Business School, where he was a Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation - Yoshitoki Chino Memorial Scholar.