The Board of Directors of the United Nations Association of New York invite you to celebrate
The 2022 United Nations Day
Humanitarian Awards Gala Dinner
Celebrating the 77th Anniversary of the United Nations
Tuesday, November 1, 2022
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The Metropolitan Club
1 East 60th Street and Fifth Avenue
New York City
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Cocktail Hour | 6:30 p.m.
Dinner Program | 7:30 p.m.
Black Tie or National Dress
2 0 2 2 H O N O R E E S
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GRANT F. REID
Chief Executive Officer
Mars
Honored for corporate leadership in driving
sustainable business practices
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DR. NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA
Director-General
World Trade Organization
Honored for a lifetime of public service and advocacy of
sustainable international development
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ELLIE GOULDING
Singer-songwriter and Global Environmental Ambassador
UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
Honored for raising awareness and inspiring action on
numerous global environmental issues
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K E Y N O T E S P E A K E R
AMBASSADOR
LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD
U.S. Representative to the United Nations
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M A S T E R O F C E R E M O N I E S
Richard Lui
Anchor, MSNBC
Reservations | The 2022 UN Day Humanitarian Awards Gala Dinner
NOTE: All reservations for the 2022 UN Day Humanitarian Awards Gala Dinner are now closed. Late requests for attendance may be sent to anicol@unanyc.org for consideration.
For Corporate Dinner Table Sponsorships, please visit the 2022 Gala Dinner Reservations Page for complete information.
2 0 2 2 H U M A N I T A R I A N A W A R D H O N O R E E S
GRANT F. REID
Chief Executive Officer
Mars
Mars is a $45B company that touches millions of people around the globe and has a significant environmental footprint. Grant F. Reid believes that this scale comes with great responsibility. As CEO, he has led a multi-faceted transformation based on holistic objectives; quality growth, positive societal impact, trusted partnerships with stakeholders, and financial performance. In 2017, he spearheaded the launch of Mars’ Sustainable in a Generation Plan and backed it by investing billions of dollars to drive business resilience and positive impact for people and the planet. In October 2021, Mars expanded its GHG reduction targets in alignment with evolving science, and is now working toward net zero emissions across its entire value chain. All of this has been guided by Mars’ Five Principles and in pursuit Mars’ purpose: The world we want tomorrow starts with how we do business today.
Reid is also active in advancing the role of business in addressing societal and environmental issues. He was among the first CEOs to join Business for Inclusive Growth (B4IG), He’s a member of the Governance Board of the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) and serves as co-sponsor of its Forest Positive Coalition of Action. At the invitation of His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, Reid also chairs the Sustainable Markets Initiative’s Agribusiness Taskforce to help accelerate the world’s transition to regenerative agriculture.
At the end of 2022, Reid will leave Mars to dedicate his skills and leadership to his numerous passions, including addressing the climate crisis and advancing inclusion & diversity in business and society.
DR. NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA
Director-General
World Trade Organization
Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala took office as Director-General of the World Trade Organization on 1 March 2021. She is the first woman and first African to hold the position in the 75-year history of the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) and World Trade Organisation.
She is an economist and international development expert with over 40 years of experience. She was Chair of the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (2016–20), the African Risk Capacity (2014–20) and Co-Chair of The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. She served on the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Rockefeller Foundation. Previously, she served as Senior Advisor at Lazard Ltd. and sat on the Boards of Standard Chartered Bank PLC and Twitter Inc. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala served as an African Union COVID-19 Special Envoy, as well as WHO COVID-19 Special Envoy in 2020. She was one of the founders of the COVAX Facility designed to get affordable vaccines to Low and Low Middle-Income Countries. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the World Economic Forum.
Dr. Okonjo-Iweala was Nigeria’s first female and longest serving Finance Minister (7 years). During her tenure she implemented policy and institutional reforms to help fight corruption. She spearheaded the complete write off of $30 billion of Nigeria’s debt from the Paris club. She was also the first female Foreign Minister. She spent a 25-year career at the World Bank rising to the No.2 position of Managing Director, Operations.
In 2021, for the second time in her career, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala was named one of TIME Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world and featured on the cover page. In 2020 Dr. Okonjo-Iweala was named Forbes African of the Year. She has been ranked by Fortune as one of the 50 Greatest World Leaders (2015) and by Forbes as one of the Top 100 Most Powerful Women in the World for five years running. She is the recipient of 17 Honorary Doctorate Degrees including from some of the world's most prestigious universities such as Yale, University of Pennsylvania, Brown and Trinity College Dublin.
She holds a Bachelor’s in Economics from Harvard University, Magna Cum Laude, and a PhD in Regional Economics and Development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
ELLIE GOULDING
Singer-songwriter and Global Environmental Ambassador
UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
Ellie Goulding is a long-standing activist and philanthropist. She is known for using her extensive platform to help large audiences engage with global issues, especially on the climate and nature crisis, diversity and equality.
In 2017 Ellie’s environmental campaigning was acknowledged by the United Nations when she was appointed as a as a Global Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). In that year she was also the recipient of the UN New Voices Award from the UN Foundation.
In her work as a UN Environment Ambassador Ellie has continued to keep the spotlight on the climate and nature emergency. In 2021 she addressed the COP26 summit, closing the Nature Plenary with a keynote speech. She also spoke at the New York Times hub alongside environmentalist, David de Rothschild on ocean protection.
In 2019 Ellie made it her mission to promote climate risk and tipping points at the World Economic Forum at Davos. She joined Greta Thunberg and Christiana Figueres to promote the work of Dr Gail Whiteman and the pioneering Arctic Basecamp Project. Ellie continues to promote Arctic science and visited the Arctic Basecamp at COP26.
In 2022 Ellie became a WWF Ambassador, joining the global NGO’s Council of Ambassadors. This builds on a long-term relationship with WWF that includes Ellie visiting the Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland alongside climatologists to see the rapid rate of ice loss first hand. In March 2022 she was the recipient of a TIME 100 Impact Award in recognition of her longstanding work toward advancing climate change awareness.
In June 2022 Ellie Goulding was invited to speak by the UN General Assembly at Stockholm +50. In her speech she pointed out that the climate emergency cannot be tackled without acting to stop the destruction of nature and drew on her own strong connection with the natural world. She also chaired a panel of climate youth leaders, some of whom she has continued to mentor. In July 2022 she gave a celebrated address to young people at the O2 in London as part of Overheated with Billie Eilish during which she called on young people to claim their space in the global movement for environmental change.
Inspired by meeting the young Ukranian climate activist Ilyess El Kortbi days after they had been forced to flee their home in Kharkhiv, Ellie travelled to Kyiv in summer 2022 to meet President and First Lady Zelensky. ‘I was acutely aware having met young people from conflict zones and highly traumatic circumstances who had taken the trouble to come to the UN and lobby for action on climate on behalf of all of us, that now it was my turn to show up.’ Her call for an urgent shift from fossil fuels that fund wars made waves across the globe. She has continued to offer support to activists from conflict zones and the frontline of the climate crisis.
Ahead of COP27 Ellie has joined a UN mission to Egypt to work with climate and reef scientists on the last functioning reef systems in the region. This mission will form a key part of communications for COP27 from UNEP.
Ellie is passionate about reducing her own industry’s carbon and resource footprint and has worked to remove single use plastic from physical album releases and merchandise and ran her last UK tour on renewable energy. She continues to urge artists and the music industry to step up and show up in the name of stopping climate and nature destruction. She continues to use her platform to call for real change that meets the ambitions of young people across the world for a safe and just future.
K E Y N O T E S P E A K E R
AMBASSADOR LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD
U.S. Representative to the United Nations
Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield was nominated by President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. to be the Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations as well as the Representative of the United States of America in the Security Council of the United Nations on January 20, 2021. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on February 23, 2021, and sworn in on February 24, 2021 by the Vice President of the United States of America.
Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a career diplomat, returned to public service after retiring from a 35-year career with the U.S. Foreign Service in 2017. From 2013 to 2017 she served as the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, where she led the bureau focused on the development and management of U.S. policy toward sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to this appointment, she served as Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources (2012-2013), leading a team in charge of the State Department’s 70,000-strong workforce.
Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield’s distinguished Foreign Service career includes an ambassadorship to Liberia (2008-2012), and postings in Switzerland (at the United States Mission to the United Nations, Geneva), Pakistan, Kenya, The Gambia, Nigeria, and Jamaica. In Washington, she served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of African Affairs (2006-2008), and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (2004-2006).
After retiring from the U.S. State Department in 2017, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield led the Africa Practice at Albright Stonebridge Group, a strategic commercial diplomacy firm chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She was also the inaugural Distinguished Resident Fellow in African Studies at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University from fall 2017 to spring 2019.
Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield was the 2017 recipient of University of Minnesota Hubert Humphrey Public Leadership Award, the 2015 recipient of the Bishop John T. Walker Distinguished Humanitarian Service Award and the 2000 recipient of the Warren Christopher Award for Outstanding Achievement in Global Affairs. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Louisiana State University and a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin, where she also did work towards a doctorate. She received an honorary Doctor of Law degree from the University of Wisconsin in May 2018 and an honorary Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Liberia in May 2012.
M A S T E R O F C E R E M O N I E S
RICHARD LUI
Anchor
MSNBC News
Richard Lui is an American journalist and news anchor for MSNBC and NBC News. Previously, he anchored at CNN Worldwide. Lui focuses on stories related to humanitarian issues, and his enterprise reporting has included topics of gender/racial equality, affordable housing, and human trafficking.
Because of his work in these areas, NGOs have invited Lui to help their organizations. Along with Freida Pinto and Marcia Cross, Lui is ambassador for Plan International USA, part of a 70-country federation working for child gender equality. He also is an ambassador for the Epilepsy Foundation, and the anti-slavery organization Not For Sale. Lui is a UN Foundation Fellow, and sits on the President's council for America's largest food source to the poor, Food Bank for New York City. His community work spans 30 years and six continents. He has received civil rights awards from several national organizations, including AAAJ (the equivalent of the NAACP for AAPIs), AAJA, WWAAC, and OCA.
Lui is an active columnist, contributing to publications. Most of his writing, speaking, and social media activity involve issues related to his charitable and humanitarian work. In the last several years, Lui spoke at over 200 events, and twittercounter.com has him in the top 1%.
He anchors the Western edition of Early Today on NBC and various programs on MSNBC from 30 Rockefeller Plaza. At CNN Worldwide, he became the first Asian American male to solo-anchor a daily, national cable news show in the U.S.
Before journalism, Lui spent 15 years in business with Fortune 500 and tech companies. He patented a global payment system and co-founded a Citibank carve-out. Business Insider recognized Lui as one of 21 dynamic careers to watch alongside Mark Cuban and Warren Buffett.
Read about and see photos from
The 2019 Humanitarian Awards Dinner
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