Since 2011, Durk is the Executive Director of Water Europe, a multi-stakeholder association with over 250 members, representing the entire range of actors in the innovative water ecosystem.

Durk brings a 20-year of experience in the European water sector. From 2004 to 2011, he worked as a Deputy Secretary General at EUREAU. Prior to that, he was a Senior Legal Policy Officer for the water department of the provincial government of Friesland, Netherlands.

Durk Krol holds a master’s degree in International Law and a master’s degree Languages and Cultures of Latin America from the University of Leiden (NL), and an MBA from United Business Institutes in Brussels. Additionally, he followed an Executive Development Programme at Vlerick Business School (B), an Executive Master International Association Management at Solvay Brussels School (B), and the Programme on Negotiation Global Online from Harvard Law School.

Durk Krol was born in Rio de Janeiro (Br) and raised in the province of Friesland in the Netherlands. Since 2004, he has been living with his family in Brussels. He is married and a father of three teenage daughters.

Tanja Miškova is Ambassador-at-Large for Water Diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of Slovenia. During her diplomatic career she served as Director General for Multilateral Affairs and Development Cooperation, as head of Department for Emerging Challenges, as Ambassador to Egypt (non-resident to Jordan, KSA, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman), as Diplomatic Adviser to the President of Slovenia and as Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of Slovenia to Israel. In her current work, she is focusing on the priority areas of the Slovenian water diplomacy: water & peace nexus, transboundary water cooperation, and water & climate change nexus. She also serves as a Deputy Commissioner of Slovenia to the International Sava River Basin Commission.

Phoebe Koundouri is Professor in Economics and Director of ReSEES Laboratory at the School of Economics of the Athens University of Economics and Business, part-time Research Professor at the Department of Technology, Management and Economics at the Technical University of Denmark – DTU, and Director of the Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) at ATHENA Information Technology Research Center. She holds a MPhil and a PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge, and has held academic positions at the University of Cambridge, University College London, University of Reading, and London School of Economics. She is recognized as a pioneer in innovative, human-centric, interdisciplinary systems for the sustainable interaction between nature, society, and the economy. She has published 15 books and more than 600 scientific papers, co-edited a number of prestigious academic journals, organized numerous international scientific conferences, supervised more than 30 PhD students, and gave keynote speeches and public lectures across the world. In 2019, she was elected President of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE) and she is now chairing the World Council of Environmental and Natural Resource Economists Associations (WCERE). She is the director of the Alliance of Excellence for Research and Innovation on Aeiphoria (AE4RIA), linking the research and innovation work of 5 research centers, 5 innovations accelerators and numerous science-policy networks, with more than 200 researchers and 100 large interdisciplinary competitively funded projects involved (with applications in more than 120 countries). She is chair of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Global Climate Hub and co-chair of SDSN Europe, with 2000 universities involved. She is elected member of Academia Europaea (European Academy of Science), the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, the World Academy of Art and Science, and member of the InterAcademy Partnership Board. She is commissioner for the Lancet Commission on COVID19 Recovery and invited member of the Program on Fraternal Economy of Integral and Sustainable Development of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. In 2022 she received the prestigious European Research Council Synergy Grant and in 2023, she was awarded the Academy of Athens Excellence in Science Award, awarded every four years. She is member of the Nominating Committee for the Prize in Economics Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science.