David Sweanor is an adjunct professor, Faculty of Law, and chair of the advisory board of the Centre for Health Law, Policy & Ethics at the University of Ottawa and has been actively involved in tobacco and health policy issues since the beginning of the 1980s. He has worked globally, and with numerous groups, including the International Union Against Cancer, World Health Organization, World Bank and the Pan American Health Organization and played a key role in achieving many global precedents in tobacco policy. He currently focuses much of his tobacco and nicotine related efforts on risk reduction strategies.

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.

Carissa Düring is the Director of Considerate Pouchers in Sweden, a global consumer advocacy group dedicated to promoting a smoke-free world and consumers' rights to alternative nicotine products. She studies clinical psychology at Uppsala University in Sweden. As an advocate, she writes and speaks about tobacco harm reduction from the consumer's perspective and their right to alternative nicotine products. She highlights how successful nicotine pouches have been in helping Sweden achieve the lowest smoking rates in the EU, and how the rest of the world can follow in its footsteps. Carissa has also been featured in the documentary How Sweden Quit Smoking.

Arkadi Sharkov is a macroeconomist with experience in the public and private sectors. His expertise lies in the field of health economics, sustainable development, and tax policy. He has worked on projects related to drug policy and optimization of public spending in the field of healthcare, as well as on those related to the sustainable development of industry in Bulgaria. He is a member of the Advisory board of the Bulgarian Medical Association and also a participant and member of the Pubilc council of the “Hospital index”.