Clive Bates has had a diverse career in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. Starting out with IBM, he then switched career to work in the environment movement. From 1997-2003 he was Director of Action on Smoking and Health (UK), campaigning to reduce the harms caused by tobacco. In 2003 he joined Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Strategy Unit as a civil servant and worked in senior roles in the public sector and for the United Nations in Sudan. He is now Director of The Counterfactual, a consulting and advocacy practice focussed on a pragmatic approach to sustainability and public health.

Fiona Patten is a former independent Australian politician. She has campaigned on harm reduction policies for over 30 years and ran the Australian adult industry association (Eros) for 20 years. While in parliament Fiona initiated and delivered reforms including voluntary assisted dying, abortion law reform, the decriminalisation of sex work and drug law reform. Since leaving parliament she has continued to work on social reform issues including criminal justice reform, regulating adult use of cannabis, access to medicinal cannabis, drug harm reduction including for tobacco, and a greater separation of church and state. She currently sits on a variety of health and justice boards. Fiona is passionate about tobacco harm reduction and constantly disappointed with her own country’s approach to it. She was the recipient of the 2025 Michael Russell award. Her autobiography is called -‘Sex, Drugs and the Electoral Roll’. She is the owner of a registered wildlife sanctuary.

Cecilia Kindstrand has spent the last 15 years working for Swedish Match in Brussels, a company with tobacco harm reduction at the core of its business. She predominantly focuses on EU regulatory matters, especially the TPD 2014/40, the legislation banning the ‘proof of concept’ of tobacco harm reduction in 26 of the 27 Member States. Since PMI’s acquisition of Swedish Match, she now represents PMI. The focus of her work remains the same.