Laurence Brahm is a global activist, social entrepreneur, international lawyer, political-economist, crisis mediator and author of over twenty books on Asia. He is the architect of the Himalayan and African Consensus, serving as executive director and co-founder of the African Consensus Forum. He divides his time between Asia and Africa convening multi-stakeholder dialogue between civil society, business and governments. Concurrently, he is advisor to China's Ministry of Environmental Protection and the European Commission's Directorate-General for the Environment, blueprinting green growth policies aimed at reducing total carbon in China through renewable and efficient energy replacement. He is a member of the United Nations Theme Group on Poverty and Inequality, NGO spokesperson to the United Nations Earth Summit 2012 (Rio+20) and was selected by ScenaRio as one of '100 Opinion Leaders Advising Rio+20'. Brahm is also a Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center for geopolitical research in Hawaii. His previous books include Zhu Rongji and The Transformation of Modern China (John Wiley, 2002), a bestseller in Asia, Searching for Shangri-La (Marshall Cavendish, 2006) and The Anti-Globalization Breakfast Club (John Wiley, 2009).