Hassan Shahriar – Bangladesh
President Emeritus
Hassan Shahriar is executive editor of Bangladesh’s leading and most influential mass circulation newspaper Daily Ittefaq. He began his career with the Daily Ittefaq, working in Karachi and Dhaka. An analyst on South Asian affairs, he has covered many international events and interviewed world leaders and dignitaries. He also represents USA’s Newsweek magazine and India’s Deccan Herald newspaper. In the past, he worked with Pakistan’s Morning News, Dawn and Evening Star, Dubai’s Khaleez Times and India’s Indian Express, and Asian Age newspapers. A former President of Bangladesh’s National Press Club, Overseas Correspondents’ Association Bangladesh (OCAB) and CJA Bangladesh branch, he is President Emeritus of CJA and one of the most influential journalists in the media in Bangladesh.
Murray Burt – Canada
Past President & Serving Honourary Secretary & Treasurer
Murray Burt has been a journalist for nearly 60 years, starting as a cadet reporter in New Zealand, and doing two stints with wire services on Fleet Street before settling in Canada in the newspaper business. He is a retired managing editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, and former city and national editor of The Globe and Mail in Toronto. He is a past-president of the CJA and has been a life member since 2003, participating in each of its conferences and CPU’s conferences since 1990. He is a director of the Advisory Council of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, based in New Delhi; president of Manitoba’s newly-reconstituted Royal Commonwealth Society; and has directorships in the Duke of Edinburgh Awards and the Canadian Forces Liaison Council (western Canada).
Ray Ekpu – Nigeria
Past President
Derek Ingram – Britain (UK)
President Emeritus
Co-founder and first president of the CJA, ex-deputy editor of the Daily Mail and founder and editor of Gemini News Service. Derek covered all 21 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings from 1971 until 2009. He was adviser to the Commonwealth Observer Group in Zimbabwe 1980 and the EU election unit in South Africa 1994. He has known leaders such as Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, Thabo Mbeki, Malcolm Fraser and Michael Manley and was one of the last journalists to interview Nehru just before he died. Derek is the author of several books and Winner of the Commonwealth Press Union Astor award for furthering Commonwealth Understanding 1978. He was awarded an OBE in 1998.