Contributors

Adam Sisman is the author of Boswell's Presumptuous Task, winner of the US National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, and the biographer of John Le Carré, A. J. P. Taylor and Hugh Trevor-Roper. Among his other works are two volumes of letters by Patrick Leigh Fermor. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Fellow of the University of St Andrews.

Sulak Sivaraksa (born 27 March 1932 in Siam) is a Thai social activist, professor, writer and the founder and director of the Thai NGO Sathirakoses-Nagapradeepa Foundation, named after two authorities on Thai culture, Sathirakoses (Phya Anuman Rajadhon) and Nagapradeepa (Phra Saraprasoet). He initiated a number of social, humanitarian, ecological and spiritual movements and organizations in Thailand, such as the College SEM (Spirit in Education Movement).
Sulak Sivaraksa is known in the West as one of the fathers of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB), which was established in 1989 with leading Buddhists, including the 14th Dalai Lama, the Vietnamese monk and peace-activist Thich Nhat Hanh, and the Theravada Bhikkhu Maha Ghosananda, as its patrons.
When Sulak Sivaraksa was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1995 for 'his vision, activism and spiritual commitment in the quest for a development process that is rooted in democracy, justice and cultural integrity', he became known to a wider public in Europe and the US. Sulak was chair of the Asian Cultural Forum on Development and has been a visiting professor at UC Berkeley, the University of Toronto, and Cornell.

James G. Skakoon is General Manager of VERTEX Technology, an engineering consulting firm. He lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Leigh Skene is a Canadian who has been involved in financial markets ever since he first purchased equities when he was a teenager. He became involved in debt analysis and trading at the Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada. He moved to the sell side and became Head of Fixed Income Trading at investment bank Burns, Fry and Company (now BMO Nesbitt Burns), then became Chief Economist. In 1980, he left Burns Fry and established himself as an independent economic consultant specializing in financial markets and wrote articles for several publications.
He has been a director of Lombard Street Associates since 2004, and wrote three key reports in 2007; The ABC of 21st Century Risk; The Sub-prime Mortgage Fiasco – The Start of Something Big; and Credit and Credibility which pointed out the dangers of the new financial system, warned of the impending credit crunch and forecast the ensuing financial turmoil. He has written five books on money and credit. His latest, The Impoverishment of Nations (2009) is a treatise on the long term outlook.

Navid Sinaki is an artist, filmmaker and poet. He was born in Tehran and currently lives in Los Angeles. His works have screened at museums and art houses around the world, including Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Lincoln Center, British Film Institute, REDCAT, and Cineteca Nacional in Mexico. His writing has most recently appeared in BOMB Magazine. He is a professor at UCLA Extension and a film programmer, most notably at the Echo Park Film Center www.navidsinaki.com

Jeremy Silver, CEO of Digital Catapult, is an entrepreneur, author and angel investor. He is a Trustee of the British Library and a member of the UK Creative Industries Council. Jeremy sits on the boards of HammerheadVR Ltd, Imaginarium Studios Ltd and FeedForward.AI.

He was previously Executive Chairman of Semetric (acquired by Apple), founder CEO of Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), a strategic advisor to Shazam (acquired by Apple), and CEO of Sibelius Software (acquired by Avid). He was also Worldwide Vice-President of New Media for EMI Group in Los Angeles and Head of Media at Virgin Records where he worked with Genesis, Massive Attack, Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry, among others.

His earlier book Digital Medieval is a history of the music industry online. Jeremy has spoken at TEDx Houses of Parliament, the CBI, SXSW and Midem among many trade events and is an Industry Fellow at the University of Glasgow. He can be found online @JeremyS1.

Fiona Shaw is the author of three previous novels:The Sweetest Thing, The Picture She Took and Tell it to the Bees. She has also written a memoir, Out Of Me. She lives in York.

Lola Shoneyin has published three collections of poems and a children's book. The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives is her debut novel. In 2014 she was named on the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40. Shoneyin is the director of Ake Arts and Book Festival. She lives in Lagos, Nigeria.

Charlotte Shane is a nonfiction author and essayist based in the USA. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times magazine, Harper's, Bookforum, the TLS, and elsewhere.

Anja Shortland is Professor of Political Economy at King's College London, and a world expert in the economics of crime, particularly on art theft and fraud, and hostage and ransom negotiations. We Know You Can Pay a Million is her first trade book. Her books for an academic readership include Kidnap. She lives in Wiltshire.