Genevieve Thornton is a second year MBA student at Columbia Business School. She is Columbia Business School’s University Senator and serves on the Executive Board of the Business School’s Graduate Business Association. Within the University Senate, she is co-chair of the University Senate’s Student Affairs Caucus and a member of the Senate’s Executive Committee. She graduated with honors from Columbia College in 2002 and is currently co-chair of Columbia College’s Young Alumni Fund Development Council and a member of the Executive Board of Columbia College’s Alumni Association.
Reed Werner is a second-year student at Columbia Business School and an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve. Before coming to Columbia, Reed served for five years in the U.S. government, helping to develop and implement strategies addressing a wide array of Middle East and counterterrorism issues. In 2004, under the auspices of the Coalition Provisional Authority, he served as deputy governorate coordinator in Qadisiyah, a province in the Middle Euphrates Region of Iraq, where he worked with a team of diplomats and foreign militaries to install a representative provincial government. From 2005 to 2006 Reed was a member of the National Security Council staff at the White House, where he served as an executive aide to the president’s senior adviser for Middle East, UN, and human rights policies. He departed the White House in mid-2006 to return to Iraq as deputy director of the Office of Joint Strategic Plans at the U.S. Embassy. In this role, he advised diplomatic and military leadership on the political reconciliation process and on Iran-related issues.
Chris Thurlow is currently a second-year MPA student concentrating in international economic policy at the School of International Public Affairs. Previously he served as director of administration for mainland China’s only human rights organization, where he was responsible for communicating to the international media some of China’s most serious rights violations. He has served as a director for several development projects in southern Africa, such projects encompassing the areas of refugee relief aid, postwar reconstruction, and HIV/ AIDS education. He is also the part-owner and founder of Green Caravan, an organic cashew trading company based in Senegal that utilizes the principles of fair trade, international labor standards, and business-based community development. He sits on the board of Ball for All, a girls’ education and empowerment organization based in West Africa. He holds a BA in psychology from George Washington University.
