An event co-convened by the United Nations Association of New York, the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, the Campaign for a Woman Secretary-General, GWL Voices, and Envoy magazine
with
H.E. Mr. Rein Tammsaar
Permanent Representative of Estonia to the United Nations
Dr. Jean Krasno
Chair, Campaign for a Woman Secretary-General
Jesselina Rana
Lawyer and UN Advisor, CIVICUS Alliance (New York)
Moderator
Stéphanie Fillion
Editor-in-Chief, Envoy magazine
Opening Remarks
Eli Karetny
Deputy Director, Ralph Bunche Institute
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Tuesday | 8 September 2026 | 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Admission FREE
Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies
CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Registrations for this event coming soon
As the United Nations approaches one of the most consequential leadership transitions in its history, a global conversation is underway: who should lead the UN into its next era, and what kind of leadership is needed to confront the complex challenges of the twenty-first century?
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Join us for an exceptional panel of international affairs speakers in a timely discussion inspired by Envoy magazine's special issue, Who Will Lead the World Next? This public forum will examine the future of UN leadership, the evolving process for selecting the next Secretary-General, and the growing international movement advocating for the election of the first woman to hold the Organization's highest office. The discussion comes at a pivotal moment, as many observers argue that the UN's current challenges — from armed conflict and geopolitical fragmentation to climate change and sustainable development — require fresh perspectives and renewed public confidence in multilateral institutions.
Since the founding of the United Nations in 1945, all nine Secretaries-General have been men. Yet growing numbers of diplomats, scholars, civil society leaders, and former UN officials have argued that the time has come for the Organization to demonstrate its commitment to equality and representative leadership by electing its first woman Secretary-General. Advocates contend that such a choice would not simply be symbolic, but could help bring renewed energy, innovative thinking, and broader perspectives to the challenges facing the international community.
This event offers participants a unique opportunity to engage directly with leading voices on one of the defining questions of global governance: what qualities will be required of the next UN Secretary-General, and what vision of leadership does our changing world now demand?
Please join us this evening for an important conversation about the leadership of women — and the role of the UNSG. Guest panelists confirmed to date will include: H.E. Mr. Rein Tammsaar, Permanent Representative of Estonia to the United Nations; Dr. Jean Krasno, Chair, Campaign for a Woman Secretary-General; and Jesselina Rana, Lawyer and UN Advisor, CIVICUS Alliance (New York). The discussion will be moderated by Stéphanie Fillion, Editor-in-Chief at Envoy magazine, which co-ordinated this event. Opening remarks will be delivered by Eli Karetny, the Deputy Director at CUNY’s Ralph Bunche Institute.
Panelists
H.E. Mr. Rein Tammsaar
H.E. Mr. Rein Tammsaar is the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Estonia to the United Nations since August 2022.
Ambassador Tammsaar was born in Tallinn in 1968. In 1992, he graduated from the Tallinn Pedagogical University and he has a master’s degree in political science. He also attended a PhD programme at the University of Tartu and graduated from the Estonian School of Diplomacy and the Spanish School of Diplomacy.
Mr. Tammsaar joined the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1994. He started in various positions at the Political, Policy Planning and Public Diplomacy departments as well as at the Estonian Embassy in Moscow. Between 2004 and 2009, Tammsaar worked at the Policy Unit of the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Javier Solana and from 2011 to 2015, he worked at the European Union’s delegation in Moscow. From 2015 to 2017, he was the foreign policy adviser to the prime minister of Estonia and from 2017 to 2018, he was the director general of the Policy Planning Department.
More recently, in 2018 and 2019, he represented Estonia at the European Union’s Political and Security Committee (PSC) and in 2020, he was Estonia’s permanent representative to the European Union. Before his appointment as Estonia’s permanent representative to the UN, Tammsaar worked as the undersecretary for Political Affairs at Estonian MFA since 2020.
Ambassador Tammsaar speaks English, Spanish, French and Russian. He is married and has two children. His hobbies are football, fishing, gym and travel.
Dr. Jean Krasno
Dr. Jean E. Krasno is a lecturer and tenured member of the faculty in the Department of Political Science at the City College of New York (CCNY) where she holds the position of Acting Director of the MA Program in International Relations. She held the position as Director previously for eight years. She is also a lecturer at Columbia University in the Political Science Department and was a Senior Fellow and lecturer at Yale University from 1995 to 2016.
She was Executive Director of the Academic Council on the United Nations System from 1998 to 2003 when the organization was housed at Yale. At Yale, she conducted the Yale-UN Oral History Project with James Sutterlin, which is housed at the Dag Hammarskjöld Library. Recently in 2023, she started up the UN Oral History project again with a focus on mediation and negotiation. Dr. Krasno has taught courses on the United Nations, UN peacekeeping, International Law, International Organization, Climate Change, Biodiversity and the Political Process, Research Methods, Peace Making and Negotiation and Nuclear Security and Non-Proliferation.
Dr. Krasno was authorized by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to organize his papers for publication which was published as a five-volume set by Lynne Rienner Publishers in March 2012. She was then asked by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to publish his papers online through JSTOR and this curated set is now available. In working with Kofi Annan on his papers and later with Ban Ki-moon, Dr. Krasno discovered previously classified papers that dealt with many global issues, including climate change and the formation of the MDGs and the SDGs. Eradicating poverty, improving the lives of the most vulnerable, and addressing climate change are some of the themes that have emerged from her research in reading and curating these collected papers for publication.
In 2017 and 2018, she was asked by the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, to assist in writing, editing, and organizing the Annual Report of the UN Secretary-General. She is now leading a campaign to elect a woman UN Secretary-General (www.womansg.net).
Dr. Krasno received her Ph.D. from the City University of New York Graduate Center in 1994.
Jesselina Rana
Jesselina Rana, a human rights lawyer and feminist activist from Nepal, is the United Nations Advisor at CIVICUS' New York Hub. She leads civic space engagement, civil society participation, and international law/policy research at the UN headquarters, drawing from her prior grassroots work in Nepal, where she significantly contributed to the country's politico-legal feminist discourse. Her advocacy resulted in impactful reforms, including changes to rape laws, menstrual-health tax policies, and acid violence legislation, positively transforming Nepal's legal landscape. As the co-founder of Pad2Go, a menstrual health enterprise in Nepal, she has earned national and international acclaim.
A graduate of Harvard Law School, Jesselina is fluent in English, Nepali, Hindi, and conversational Urdu.
Moderator
Stéphanie Fillion
Stéphanie Fillion is Editor-in-Chief of Envoy magazine, a publication which has become an important forum for exploring the pressing questions facing international cooperation and global governance.
Fillion is a New York-based reporter specializing in foreign affairs and human rights and a United Nations correspondent. Her work was published in outlets like Forbes, Foreign Policy, Radio-Canada, La Stampa and the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun.
She has a master's degree in journalism, politics and global affairs from Columbia University and a BA in political science from McGill University.
In recent years, her UN coverage received two UN Correspondent Association awards as well as a Gracie award from the Alliance for Women in Media.
She writes in French, English and Italian.
Opening Remarks
Eli Karetny
Eli Karetny, JD, PhD, is the RBI’s deputy director. He is the Principal Investigator on several core research projects, directs the Project on UAP Studies and International Security, manages the Diplomat in Residence Program, supervises graduate student research and oversees the Visiting Scholars Program, and serves as the Institute’s grants director, financial officer, and legal advisor to the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (GCR2P) and the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity (CSHGCAH), and is a member of the advisory boards of both organizations.
Eli completed his PhD in International Relations at the CUNY Graduate Center. His dissertation explored monarchic themes in the work of Leo Strauss, focusing especially on Nietzsche’s influence on Strauss’s view of the role of teachers and advisors as regime-changers. He got his JD/MBA from Temple University, served in the Peace Corps in Ukraine, and received his Master’s Degree in International Relations from NYU. Eli is also researcher at the Hotam School of Anthroposophy and Kabbalah, which informs his interest in how esoteric wisdom influences human affairs.
As the director of the Project on UAP Studies and International Security, Eli hosts the UAP Working Group on UN Engagement. He is an advisory board member of the Society for UAP Studies and teaches a Masters course in UAP Studies and National Security at the CUNY Graduate Center.