Rudyard Griffiths is the Executive Director of the Centre for Civic Engagement, as well as the director of the Munk Debates and the Grano Speakers Series. He is a co-founder of the Historica-Dominion Institute, and sits on numerous boards including the Canadian Institute for Citizenship. In 2008, he was appointed Honorary Lieutenant-Colonel of the Canadian Forces College. He is the author of Who We Are: A Citizen's Manifesto, and the editor of numerous books on Canadian history, politics and international affairs. Mr. Griffiths is a columnist with the National Post and co-host of the daily Business News Network television show Squeeze Play.

Yash Ghai is a member of the First Board of Directors of the Global Centre for Pluralism. Yash Ghai is the head of the UNDP Constitution Advisory Support Unit in Nepal. Formerly he was the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Human Rights in Cambodia. Mr. Ghai has had an international academic career as a professor of law and as a constitutional expert, beginning with the establishment of East Africa’s first law school in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In 1989, he was appointed Professor of Public Law at the University of Hong Kong. He has advised many countries on draft constitutions, including Afghanistan, Iraq and his home country Kenya, where he was chairman of the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission from 2000-2004.

Iain T. Benson is a member of the first Board of Directors of the Global Centre for Pluralism Iain T. Benson is a lawyer, writer, lecturer and consultant. He is a Senior Associate Counsel for Miller Thomson LLP and is Professor Extraordinary in the Department of Constitutional Law and Philosophy of Law, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa. His writing on the nature of the “secular” and “secularism” has been cited with approval by the Supreme Court of Canada and the Constitutional Court of South Africa. For several years he has been one of eight members of a Continuation Committee to create the South African Charter of Religious Rights and Freedoms.

Kofi A. Annan is a member of the first board of directors of the Global Centre for Pluralism, Canada Kofi A. Annan was the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, serving from 1997 to 2006. While at the UN Mr. Annan established the Peacebuilding Commission and played a central role in the creation of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. He championed responsibility of states to protect people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Mr. Annan was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize for Peace jointly with the United Nations. Since leaving the UN, Mr. Annan has continued to advocate for better policies to meet the needs of the poorest, particularly in Africa. Mr. Annan is the Chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation.