CEOThe Elders
Alistair Fernie has been Chief Executive of The Elders (a group of independent former world leaders set up by Nelson Mandela) since 2021. He advises Elders on all aspects of their work (climate, conflict, nuclear weapons and pandemics), and leads the Secretariat team supporting them. He reports to the Chair of The Elders (Juan Manuel Santos). Alistair has spent 30 years working in international development, humanitarian aid, foreign policy and human rights. He worked for the UK government for 18 years, in senior roles with the Department for International Development in London, Nairobi, Kabul and Dhaka, and with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as a diplomat at the UN in New York. He has also been a strategy consultant with both McKinsey and his own company (Global Goals), a humanitarian aid worker with Médecins Sans Frontières in Rwanda, Georgia and Liberia, and a human rights campaigner with Amnesty International. He won the top First in Politics from Oxford University in 1992.