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 was a member of the Victorian parliament in Australia from 2014 to 2022. She campaigned on harm reduction policies for 30 years and ran the adult industry association (Eros) for 20 years. She 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 medicinal cannabis, drug harm reduction including for tobacco, criminal justice reform and greater separation of church and state.

In 2018 she published her autobiography -‘Sex, Drugs and the Electoral Roll’. She is also the owner of a registered wildlife sanctuary.

CECILIA KINDSTRAND-ISAKSSON, SWEDEN Cecilia Kindstrand is Director of Public Affairs for Swedish Match, a company with tobacco harm reduction at the core of its business. The company divested its cigarette business in 1999 and is now offering products that are recognized as safer alternatives to cigarettes. She is based in Brussels and has worked extensively with the EU regulatory matters, especially the TPD 2014/40 a legislation banning the ‘proof of concept’ of tobacco harm reduction in 26 of the 27 Member States.