Raghida Dergham is Columnist, Senior Diplomatic Correspondent, and New York Bureau Chief for the London-based Al Hayat newspaper since 1989. She is dean of the international media at the United Nations. Dergham is Founder and Executive Chairman of Beirut Institute, an indigenous, independent, inter-generational think tank for the Arab region with a global reach. An authority on strategic international relations, Dergham is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and an Honorary Fellow at the Foreign Policy Association. She served on the International Media Council of the World Economic Forum, and is a member of the Development Advisory Committee of the IAP- the Global Network of Science Academies. She can be reached on Twitter @RaghidaDergham

In addition to covering the crucial American-Soviet Summits in the 80s and the 27th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, she has conducted hundreds of interviews with Heads of State and Government Leaders throughout the world and moderated a roundtable of eight Presidents and Prime Ministers for UNCTAD at Bangkok in 1991. Dergham is Contributor to The Huffington Post, Opinion Writer for Al Arabiya English, and has contributed to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Newsweek. She was Political Analyst for NBC, MSNBC and the Arab satellite LBC for eight years as well as a Contributing Editor for LA Times Syndicate Global Viewpoint. As president of the United Nations Correspondents Association for 1997, Dergham was appointed to the Task Force on the Reorientation of Public Information by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, and served as Chairman of the Dag Hammarskjold Fund Board in 2005.

Dergham is a frequent lecturer at Universities, Think Tanks and Business Councils throughout the world She spoke at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia and Georgetown among other distinguished universities. She is a frequent participant in Policy conferences and is quoted in several books. A recipient of numerous lifetime achievement awards, Dr. Dergham is in SUNY's Hall of Fame as a Distinguished Alumna and has received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the New York State University comprised of 64 institutions.