Hannah Gebresilassie is an emerging and one of the very few journalists from the Horn of Africa working in a mainstream media in the United States.

Merera Gudina (PhD) is a prominent opposition political party leader and a renowned scholar. He is the chairman of the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), one of the parties that make up the front: the Ethiopian Federal Democratic Unity Forum a.k.a. Medrek.

Although it has been just a year serving in Ethiopia, Irish ambassador to Ethiopia, Sonja Hyland, is no stranger to the country anymore.

Ambassador Torbjorn Pettersson, the Swedish ambassador to Ethiopia and the African Union, has been a representative of an important partner to Ethiopia.

Dawit Birhanu is the chief executive officer of Websprix, an IT solutions and services provider. The company is the first licensed private internet service provider in the country.

Sergey Lavrov is the Foreign Minister of Russia, taking office since 2004. Previously, he was the Russian Representative to the UN, serving from 1994 to 2004.

Víctor M. Treviño has been Ambassador of Mexico to Ethiopia and Permanent Observer to the African Union since August 2016. He joined the Mexican Foreign Service in 1982 and has previously served as Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of Mexico in Australia; Consul General in Phoenix, Arizona; Head of the Consulate in Brownsville, Texas; and Deputy Consul General in Los Angeles, California, among others.

Haddis Desta Tadesse is the director for Ethiopia and representative to the African Union (AU) at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Ian Chesterman is the Chief of Party for the Feed the Future Ethiopia Value Chain Activity, a program funded by USAID.

On the heels of a number of high-profile, historic visits by the members of the Norwegian government and monarchy, Norway’s ambassador to Ethiopia, Andreas Gaarder, reflects with The Reporter’s Samuel Getachew on the long bond between Ethiopia and Norway, on the ideals of the Scandinavian nation in helping change the narrative of Ethiopia, on migration, trade and the “middle power” role his nation is playing in the world. Excerpts: