Agenda

Tomas Lamanauskas is Deputy Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union, elected at the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference of 2022, and taking up duties as of January 2023. His 25 years of experience spans across sectors of telecoms and digital policy, regulation and strategy, stemming from executive level positions in agencies, companies, and organizations across Europe, the Middle East, the Caribbean and the Pacific region.

As Deputy Secretary-General of ITU, Tomas focuses on the financial sustainability and operational excellence of the organization. He also works to raise the digital industry’s ambition in fighting the climate crisis through the Green Digital Action initiative and promotes investments into the digital infrastructure as well as digital resilience through the Digital Infrastructure Investment Initiative and other efforts. Additionally, Tomas contributes to the global efforts to harness the opportunities and mitigate challenges of new technologies in particular Artificial Intelligence, including through his role as a co-chair of the United Nations Inter-Agency Working Group on AI. He is also playing a key role in ensuring ITU’s support to other UN-wide development and governance efforts, including through the World Summit of the Information Society process and membership at the Operational Steering Committee of the UN Joint SDG Fund.

Tomas holds Master’s Degrees in Public Administration (Harvard), Leadership and Strategy (London Business School), Telecommunications Regulation and Policy (The University of the West Indies) and Law (Vilnius University).

Mr. Kishore brings to this position nearly three decades of experience in disaster risk reduction, climate action and sustainable development at the global, regional, national and local levels, having worked in government, the United Nations and civil society organizations. 
Prior to joining UNDRR, Mr. Kishore was the Head of Department of the National Disaster Management Authority of India, where he led the G20 Working Group on Disaster Risk Reduction and contributed to the development of the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure.
Mr. Kishore spent nearly thirteen years with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in New York, Geneva, and New Delhi where he contributed to advancing policy and supported post-disaster recovery. 
 
Prior to UNDP, he served as Director of Information and Research, and Manager of Extreme Climate Events Programme at the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre in Bangkok (1996-2002) and as an Architect at the Action Research Unit for Development (1992-1994) in New Delhi where he worked on post-earthquake reconstruction projects.

Ms Johanna Hill began her role as Deputy Director-General in November 2023. With over 30 years of experience in international trade, Ms Hill, a native of El Salvador, has collaborated with governments and businesses to foster economic development through international policy and trade negotiations.

Before joining the WTO, Ms Hill advised firms and SMEs on trade regulations, foreign direct investment strategies, and market access. She has also held senior roles in financial institutions and has leadership experience in telecommunications regulation. Additionally, she served as Vice Minister of Economy for El Salvador, where she oversaw trade policy formulation and negotiated both bilateral and multilateral trade agreements.

She holds a bachelor's degree from Tufts University and a master’s degree from Columbia University and serves on the board of TradeExperettes.

 Ms. Rosemarie McClean of Canada brings to the position over 32 years of progressively responsible experience in pension administration and management. Previously she was Chief Operating Officer of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan in Toronto where she managed a sizable budget and was responsible for operational activities including financial operations for pension administration and investments, information technology, project management, and process improvement.
 
Before that position, Ms. McClean served as Senior Vice-President of Member Services in the Pension Plan and was accountable for all aspects of service delivery to retired and working teachers in Ontario. Named as one of the Most Powerful Women in Canada by the Women’s Executive Network in 2008, she has mentored young leaders throughout her career.
 
Ms. McClean holds a Master of Business Administration from the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, and a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration and Management from the University of Waterloo. She holds a Certified Public Accountant designation.
 
 

Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona is Director of UNRISD since 1st November 2024. Before taking up this position she was Executive Director of the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Senior Research Associate at UNRISD.  Her 22-year career has focused on the intersection of poverty, development and human rights and has bridged research and policy formulation.  She worked as a researcher at the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights, a staff attorney at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, as the Co-Director of the Department of International Law and Human Rights of the United Nations-mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica (2002-2004) and as a Research Director at the International Council on Human Rights Policy, in Geneva (2006-2012).

Ms. Sepúlveda was United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, United Nations Human Rights Council (2008-2014), Member of the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (2013-2017) and Member of the United Nations High Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity for Achieving the 2030 Agenda. 

She holds a Ph.D. in International Law from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, an LL.M. in human rights law from the University of Essex in the United Kingdom and a post graduate diploma on comparative constitutional law from the Universidad Católica de Chile. She speaks English, French and Spanish.