Beyond the Green Agenda

Iván Duque serves on the Leadership Council of Concordia and is a member of the World Leaders Circle (WLC) at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. The former President of Colombia (2018–2022), Duque is a Distinguished Fellow at the World Resources Institute, Bezos Earth Fund, Cornell’s Emerging Markets Institute (EMI) and the Atkinson Center for Sustainability, and Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs.

Duque is a Professor of Practice at the Adam Smith Center for Economic Freedom at Florida International University. He also serves on the Council for Hope of the Jane Goodall Foundation and acts as an Ambassador for the World Coalition for Nature. Duque is an active board member of Conservation International and the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), and he serves on the advisory boards of the McKinsey Sustainability Council, the Geopolitical Advisory Council, and the FIFA Foundation.

In 2022, Duque launched the Concordia Amazon Initiative, convening global leaders to protect the Amazon rainforest. That same year, he founded the I+D Foundation to empower young innovators from Colombia’s most remote regions. In 2024, Duque furthered his legacy by launching the Iván Duque Center for Prosperity and Freedom.

Patrick Beary is an accomplished leader in cross-sector partnerships and collaborations for impact. He joined Cornell’s Atkinson Center for Sustainability in February 2019 and serves as the Bruce H. Bailey Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships.

Beary actively engages with Cornell researchers and external private- and public-sector entities — such as NGOs, corporations, and government agencies — to create partnerships and consortia that take sustainability ideas and turn them into real-world impact. While supporting and deepening the Center’s current strategic partnerships, he builds and maintains new relationships with organizations committed to joining Cornell in co-creating large-scale, long-term sustainability initiatives.

Beary is essential to executing the Center’s strategic plan, which focuses on applying “knowledge-to-action” principles in solving sustainability challenges. By acting as the bridge between Atkinson working groups and external partners, he accelerates the co-creation of research agendas and action plans that result in long-term sustainable solutions. Beary also serves as an important resource for faculty who are leading collaborative research initiatives with Cornell and associated universities.

Lourdes Casanova is the Gail and Roberto Cañizares Director of the Cañizares Center for Emerging Markets and a Senior Lecturer at Cornell University’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management. Formerly of the strategy department at INSEAD, Dr. Casanova specializes in international business with a focus on Latin America and multinationals from emerging markets.

In 2014 and 2015, Dr. Casanova was named one of the 50 most influential Iberoamerican intellectuals by Esglobal. She is a member of the board of directors of Boyce Thompson Institute.

Dr. Casanova is a Fulbright Scholar who holds a Ph.D. from Universidad de Barcelona and an M.A. from the University of Southern California.