International Advisory Board

Dudley Fishburn

Dudley Fishburn started his career as an editor with The Economist. He was part of the team which built the paper’s international reputation, serving as American Editor then Executive Editor for 19 years.

Mr Fishburn was Conservative Member of Parliament for Kensington for 10 years and worked in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major on privatisation and foreign affairs. He was named “Radical of the Year” for his work reforming Britain’s property laws.

Mr Fishburn attended Eton College and Harvard College as an undergraduate. He later became the first non-American to serve on Harvard University’s Board of Overseers. For ten years he chaired the Harvard Library’s visiting committee and now chairs a similar committee at Cambridge University Library. In England, he was chairman of the Trustees of the Open University. He also served a six-year term as treasurer of one of Britain’s largest charities, The National Trust, overseeing a budget of £250 million a year on the country’s historic heritage.

He serves on the boards of HSBC Bank plc and Philip Morris Inc.

Ambassador Lalit Mansingh

Ambassador Lalit Mansingh has served as India’s Foreign Secretary, Ambassador to the United States and High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. His recent engagements include: Professor Emeritus at the Foreign Service Institute of India; Member, Executive Committee of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi; Member, India Council for Sustainable Development and President of the World Cultural Forum-India. Ambassador Mansingh also shares his experiences with the Brookings Institute in the US.

Ambassador Mansingh joined the Indian Foreign service in 1963. After his initial posting in Geneva, he went on to serve as Deputy Chief of Mission in the Indian Embassies in Kabul, Brussels, and Washington. In addition to London and Washington, he has been Head of Mission in the United Arab Emirates and in Nigeria with concurrent accreditation to Benin, Chad and Cameroon.

At headquarters in Delhi, Ambassador Mansingh worked in a variety of assignments: as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Director-General of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Dean of the Foreign service Institute and Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs.

Born on 29 April, 1941, Ambassador Mansingh graduated in History and obtained a Master’s degree in Political Science. He was awarded the University’s Gold Medals for securing the top position in both subjects. Before joining the Foreign Services he worked as a Research Scholar in American Studies at the School of International Studies in Delhi, and as Lecturer in the Post-Graduate Department of Political Science, University of Bhubaneswar, Orissa.

Ruth Parasol DeLeon

Born in 1967 in California, Ruth Parasol - DeLeon graduated with a B.A. in Business from the University of San Francisco in 1988 and a J.D. from Western State University College of Law in 1992.

Ms Parasol began her career as an advisor to her father’s high tech investment and real estate management businesses. In 1994, she co-invested and promoted Internet Entertainment Group and other companies providing adult entertainment over the internet, subsequently selling all her interest in these businesses in 1996.

Drawing on her legal background and experience in website operation and management, Ms Parasol established Starluck Casino Online in 1997 and in 1998, commissioned and then partnered with Anurag Dikshit, to develop p2p software that enabled poker fans worldwide to play together online. Together with Vikrant Bhargava and Russ DeLeon, who joined in 2000 and 2001 respectively, they created what would become the largest online gaming community; PartyGaming Plc, which went on to float on the London Stock Exchange FTSE100 in June 2005 . Ms Parasol was a consultant to PartyGaming until December 2006 and remains a significant company shareholder.

In addition to her work with the Bonita Trust, Ms Parasol has also established, with her husband Russ DeLeon, the DeLeon Family Care Project which has provided extensive philanthropic support to community-related causes in Israel, Poland, and Spain. This includes Tel Aviv University, The Museum of The History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, and the Prodean Animal Rescue Center in La Linea, Spain.

Parasol married Russ DeLeon in 2003. They currently live in Gibraltar with their three children and divide their time between Gibraltar, Israel and the UK.

Brooke Shearer

Brooke Shearer is a trustee of several not-for-profit organisations devoted to cultural heritage preservation and economic and educational opportunities for women; she is also a consultant to several global health organisations.

Ms Shearer formerly served as the first executive director of Yale University’s World Fellows Program. The Programme brought emerging leaders from throughout the world to Yale for study focused on global challenges.

During President Bill Clinton’s first term, Ms Shearer headed the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships. During her eight years of government service, Ms Shearer worked as a Senior Advisor in the Office of the Secretary of Interior where she focused on international conservation issues, including global climate change, water resource management and cultural heritage preservation. She initiated a global conservation partnership with The World Bank and other multilateral development organisations to advance the development of national parks and protected areas. She began sustainable development projects in Jordan, Indonesia, Croatia, and the Republic of Georgia, among others.

Ms Shearer previously worked as a corporate investigator and a journalist.