Olli-Pekka Heinonen became the 8th Director General of the IB in 2021. Prior to this, he was Director General of the Finnish National Agency for Education where he worked from 2016. Mr Heinonen had an active career in politics in Finland between 1994-2002: as Minister of Education and Science (1994-1999); Minister of Transport and Communication (1999-2002) and as a Member of Parliament (1995-2002). From 2002-2012, Mr Heinonen was Director of Yle, the Finnish national public broadcasting company, before joining the Finnish Prime Minister's Office in 2012 as State Secretary. He has also been responsible, as State Secretary, for the portfolios of the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Development and the Ministry of Finance of Finland. He holds a Master of Laws from the University of Helsinki and has been awarded honorary doctorates by the University of Jyväskylä and the University of Turku in Finland.

Charles Fadel is a global education thought leader and author, futurist and inventor; founder and chairman of Center for Curriculum Redesign; chair of the education committee at BIAC/OECD; Member of the OECD AI Experts group; co-author of "Education for the Age of AI" (2024), "Artificial Intelligence in Education" (2019); "Four-Dimensional Education" (framework in 23 languages) and "21st Century Skills". He has worked with education systems and institutions in more than 30 countries, and spent 25 years in technology management (M/A-COM; Analog Devices; and as founder of Neurodyne AI). Formerly: Global Education Lead at Cisco Systems, visiting scholar at MIT ESG and Wharton/Penn CLO, project director at Harvard Graduate School of Education (2011-2018); member President's Council at Olin College of Engineering, angel investor with Beacon Angels. BSEE, MBA, seven patents awarded & one pending. Full Bio: http://curriculumredesign.org/about/team/#charles