Brussels Forum Session: NATO at 75: Past, Present, Future – Part II 

Mircea Geoană became NATO deputy secretary general in 2019. He is the first Romanian—and the first from any country that joined the alliance after the end of the Cold War—to hold that position. He previously served as a diplomat and a politician. In 2009, he was his party’s candidate to be president of Romania.  

Geoană studied at Bucharest’s Polytechnic University, the University of Bucharest’s Faculty of Law, and the Ecole Nationale d’Administration in Paris. He holds a PhD from the Economic Studies Academy of Bucharest. 

Brussels Forum Session: Allied Competitiveness: Can It Be Achieved? National vs. Allied Approaches to Competitiveness

Karan Bhatia leads global public policy at Google through a 450-person team based in more than 50 countries. He is principal adviser to Google’s CEO, board, and senior management on policy issues. He leads the company’s work with policymakers and key political stakeholders worldwide.

Before joining Google in 2018, Bhatia served as president of General Electric government affairs and policy. During his 10 years at that firm, he helped drive its expansion into government-facing global markets. He supported more than $40 billion in government-related industrial orders, secured international regulatory approvals for critical mergers and acquisitions, and led policy advocacy efforts on issues ranging from climate change to international trade.

Earlier in his career, Bhatia served in senior positions in the US government, including at the Commerce and Transportation departments, shaping international economic policy. In his last role as deputy US trade representative, he oversaw trade policy with Asia and Africa. Prior to his government service, he was a partner in the Washington, DC law firm Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, where he was a member of the international and corporate groups.

Bhatia has written and spoken widely on international economic policy, taught at Georgetown University Law Center, and testified on many occasions before Congress. He sits on the boards of the Urban Institute, the US Global Leadership Coalition, and the Partnership for Public Service.

Bhatia holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, a master’s degree from the London School of Economics, and a law degree from Columbia University. 

Brussels Forum Session: Security South: Transatlantic Strategy in a Time of Crisis

Ana Santos Pinto is assistant professor in the Department of Political Studies and assistant vice-dean of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at NOVA University of Lisbon (NOVA FCSH). She is also executive director of the Portuguese Institute of International Relations (IPRI-NOVA), a member of the board of trustees of the Luso-American Development Foundation (FLAD), and a member of the advisory council of the Anna Lindh Foundation. The NATO secretary general nominated her in 2023 to chair a group of independent experts delivering a report on the alliance's approach to its southern neighborhood.

Santos Pinto was Portugal’s secretary of state for national defense from 2018 to 2019. Before that, she worked as an associate researcher at Portugal’s National Defense Institute; a research consultant for the UN’s Alliance of Civilizations Project; an adviser for the international relations minister of national defense of Portugal’s 17th constitutional government; and a research assistant at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies.  

Santos Pinto’s main areas of research are identities in international politics, EU foreign and security policy, and the geopolitics of the Middle East. She holds a PhD in international relations from NOVA FSCH, a master’s degree in history of international relations from the Higher Institute of Labor and Business Sciences (ISCTE-IUL), and a degree in political science and international relations from NOVA FSCH.

Brussels Forum Session: Democracy on the Line: A View From the United States

Michael R. Pence served as the vice president of the United States between 2017 and 2021. He is now a distinguished visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and the Ronald Reagan presidential scholar at Young America’s Foundation, a conservative youth organization.

Pence served as governor of the US state of Indiana from 2013 to 2017. While in office, he increased school funding, expanded school choice, created the first state-funded pre-kindergarten plan, and prioritized career and technical education in high school. He also enacted the largest income tax cut in Indiana’s history and invested in roads and schools while producing balanced budgets that left the state with strong reserves and AAA credit ratings. The state’s unemployment rate fell by half during his term.

Starting in 2001, Pence represented east-central Indiana for 12 years in the US House of Representatives, where he championed limited government, fiscal responsibility, economic development, and educational opportunity. His Republican colleagues unanimously elected him to serve as House Republican Study Committee chairman and House Republican Conference chairman.

Before going to Congress, Pence practiced law, led the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, and hosted The Mike Pence Show, a syndicated talk radio show and a weekly television public affairs program in Indiana.  

Pence attended Indiana University School of Law and holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Hanover College.

Brussels Forum Session: Allied Competitiveness: Can It Be Achieved? National vs. Allied Approaches to Competitiveness

Eva Maydell is a member of the European Parliament and serves as a lead negotiator on both the Chips Act and the Artificial Intelligence Act. She is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. Her policy priorities include innovation and the use of new technologies to support European competitiveness and fostering cooperation among likeminded global partners in the tech and democracy space.

Maydell has also worked on the updated EU Network Information Security Directive, as well as on the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act.

In the European Parliament, Maydell is vice-chair of the Delegation for Relations with Japan and a member of the Delegation for Relations with the United States.

Maydell was the first woman and first Eastern European to serve as president of the European Movement International, the largest organization of associations and civil societies in Europe. She is a board member for World Economic Forum’s Digital Europe program and a member of the WEF Global Future Council of Europe.

Eva has twice been awarded the European Parliament's MEP of the Year Award. She has also been included in FT's own “New Europe 100” ranking of Central and Eastern Europe's emerging change-makers, European Forbes' “30 Under 30” list, and others. She has been featured in POLITICO’s list of 40 most influential MEPs,the “POLITICO 28” list of people who are shaping Europe, and POLITICO’s 2018 “Women Who Shape Brussels”.

Brussels Forum Session: The Next Generation of Transatlantic Leaders

Tara Hariharan is managing director of Global Macro Research and head of macro research at NWI Management LP, a New York-based emerging markets-focused hedge fund. She leads top-down analysis of economic activity, policy, and macro-political issues for countries globally, and created NWI’s proprietary “macro dashboard” to identify strategic investment opportunities in fixed income, foreign exchange, equities, and commodities. She regularly presents her assessments of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) economy and US-China relations to senior US policymakers and International Monetary Fund representatives. She is featured on CNBC and Bloomberg Television.  

Hariharan is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Millennium Leadership fellow at the Atlantic Council. She was a 2014 German Marshall Fund Marshall Memorial fellow, a 2016 American Council on Germany (ACG) young leader, and a 2022 Economic Club of New York fellow. She was elected in 2022 to ACG’s board. She is also a member of the US Chamber of Commerce Chief Economists’ Committee. Elected to the Inter-American Dialogue in 2021, she regularly contributes to its publications on trade flows and the PRC’s influence on Latin America.  

Hariharan holds a bachelor’s degree summa cum laude in anthropology from Princeton University and a graduate certificate in international relations from Harvard Extension School. 

Brussels Forum Session: A Voice from Ukraine

Nataliya Drozd is the chairperson of the Dobrochyn Center, an NGO based in Chernihiv, Ukraine. She has more than two decades of experience with participatory democracy, including youth engagement and empowerment, strengthening civil society engagement in local and regional development, and improving government transparency and accountability. Her current focus in ensuring an inclusive Ukrainian recovery, especially through citizens' engagement in local government policies. 

Brussels Forum Session: A Conversation: GMF’s Whistlestops for Ukraine Initiative and The Future of Democracy 

Howard G. Buffett is a farmer, photographer, conservationist, businessman, former elected official, former sheriff, and chairman and CEO of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, a private charitable foundation investing in global food security, conflict mitigation, and efforts to combat human trafficking. He serves on the corporate board of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., and has served on several Fortune 500 boards and held senior corporate executive positions at public and private companies.  

Buffett was a member of the Douglas County (Nebraska) board and served, for 20 years, on the Commission on Presidential Debates. He spent 10 years in law enforcement and was sheriff of Macon County, Illinois.

Buffett has authored 15 books on conservation, wildlife, and the human condition, including two New York Times bestsellers, “40 Chances: Finding Hope in a Hungry World” and “Our 50-State Border Crisis: How the Mexican Border Fuels the Drug Epidemic Across America”. He is the executive producer of two award-winning documentaries, “Virunga”, an Oscar-nominated film about Africa’s oldest national park, and “The River and The Wall”, a film showing the impact of a physical border barrier on the Texas-Mexico border region.  

Buffett has traveled to more than 150 countries and received the highest honors bestowed on a foreign citizen by the governments of Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, Rwanda, and Ukraine for his work in each country.

Brussels Forum Session: Allied Competitiveness: Can It Be Achieved? National vs. Allied Approaches to Competitiveness

Hendrik Bourgeois is Intel’s vice president of government affairs in Europe. He represents Intel before European governments, EU institutions, and public stakeholders on a wide variety of issues to promote the company’s growth and investment strategy in Europe. He is the former president of the American Chamber of Commerce to the EU.

Bourgeois has a long career in the private sector, including at Apple, where he led its government affairs function in Europe and focused on EU digital policy initiatives. Before that, he served for almost two decades in several senior executive positions at General Electric including as its general counsel Europe and its head of European affairs. He also worked as an attorney in private practice in Washington, DC and Brussels.

Bourgeois holds a law degree from the Rijksuniversiteit Gent in Belgium and from Harvard Law School.

Brussels Forum Session: Priorities for European Foreign Policy

Hadja Lahbib is the Belgian minister of foreign affairs, European affairs, foreign trade, and federal cultural institutions since July 2022.

Lahbib has a degree in journalism and communication from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). As a journalist for more than 25 years, she combined presenting the news for the French-language public broadcaster RTBF with field journalism as an international reporter. As a special envoy, she regularly travelled to conflict zones, particularly in the Middle East. She has also worked for ARTE and TV5 Monde. As a producer and director, Lahbib created social and cultural documentaries. She participates regularly in cultural events, for example presenting at the Queen Elizabeth International Music Competition. In 2021, Lahbib was appointed to prepare Brussels' candidature to become the European Capital of Culture in 2030.

Lahbib speaks French, Dutch, and English and has some knowledge of Arabic and Farsi.