Rufus H. Yerxa (born 1951) is currently Deputy Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO). He has served in this position since 2002. He was the former Chief International Counsel for Monsanto Company.

As an American public servant (under both Republican and Democratic administrations), he was US Ambassador to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in Geneva; he played a key role in the Uruguay Round Negotiations. Yerxa served as a Deputy U.S. Trade Representative and U.S. Envoy to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, in Geneva. Prior to 1989, he served as the Assistant Chief Counsel of the House Ways and Means Committee and Staff Director of its Subcommittee on Trade.

From 1977 to 1981, he was the Legal Advisor to the Chairman of the International Trade Commission. An attorney and a member of the Washington State and District of Columbia Bars, Yerxa is a graduate of the University of Washington and the University of Puget Sound, and holds an LL.B. in international law from Cambridge University (UK). Prior to being named as Monsanto's international counsel, Yerxa was Monsanto's European general counsel.

Nandan Nilekani (born June 2, 1955) is an Indian entrepreneur. He currently serves as the Chairman of the new Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), after a successful career at Infosys Technologies Ltd. He is also now heading Government of India's technology committee, TAGUP.

Nandan Manohar Nilekani was born in Sirsi town in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, as the younger son of Durga and Mohan Rao Nilekani.His father worked as a General Manager of Mysore and Minerva Mills. His father, who subscribed to Fabian Socialist ideals, had an influence on Nandan during his early years. He has an elder brother, Vijay, who works in the Nuclear Energy Institute.

He studied at St. Joseph's High School Dharwad,studied at the Bishop Cotton Boys' School, Bangalore and later in Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai where he graduated with a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering in 1978. His early years were marked by his father’s job transfers and re-locations. He spent the first twelve years at Bangalore, and then moved in with his uncle’s family in Dharwad, after his father had been transferred.

Gautam Thapar (Hindi: गौतम थापर) is an Indian businessman, who is the chairman and the chief executive officer of the Avantha Group. Thapar is a billionaire and appears on the Forbes list with an estimates net worth of $2 billion. He received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Manufacturing in 2008.

Gautam Thapar belongs to the third generation of the business family founded by his grandfather Karam Chand Thapar, in Kolkata. Karam Chand had initially offered the reins of the family business to Gautum's father, Brij Mohan Thapar, bypassing his oldest son Inder Mohan Thapar. However, Brij Mohan passed on the chance to his younger brother Lalit Mohan Thapar, giving lack of desire and inability to shoulder the responsibility as the reasons.

Gautam was educated at the prestigious Doon School. He then studied chemical engineering at Pratt Institute in the United States. When he failed to find a suitable job and found his US visa running out, Gautam returned to India.

Gautam Thapar began his career as a factory assistant in a manufacturing unit of the Avantha Group. At this time, Lalit Mohan (a lifelong bachelor), had been grooming Inder Mohan Thapar's son Vikram as his successor. However, Gautam gained Lalit Mohan's attention, and rose rapidly through the ranks. He first turned around the Group's ailing company, Andhra Pradesh Rayons (APR). Then, he nurtured the group company BILT's new export oriented businesses — leather, shoes and foods. Gautam didn't like the group's management style, and made his dissent clear. Impressed with him, Lalit Mohan gave him the responsibility to turn around the BILT's chemical division, which was suffering losses due to labour agitations and shortage of water and power. Gautam showed profits within a year, by scrapping the company's expansion plans, selling off a few assets and dealing firmly with the labour.