Speaker Biographies 2017

Jacob Abernethy is an assistant professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He finished his PhD in computer science at the UC Berkeley, and was a Simons postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. Jake's primary interest is in machine learning, and he enjoys discovering connections between optimization, statistics, and economics.

Dirk Achten is secretary general at Belgium’s Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation (FPS Foreign Affairs). Prior to becoming a political analyst in 2001, he had worked for nearly twenty years at De Standaard newspaper, including as chief editor. In 2002, he became political director of the Flemish Liberals and Democrats (VLD), where he coordinated the political action of the party and was in charge of research. In 2004, Achten was appointed foreign minister’s chief of cabinet and was the first non-diplomat to perform this function. Three years later he became director general for bilateral affairs, and was then promoted to chairman of the Executive Committee in the U.S. Department of State. 

BBC Europe editor Katya Adler is one of the most popular and well-known of British journalists. Currently she provides analysis and context on TV, radio, online via her Europe Editor blog on the BBC news website and, in social media via Twitter. She joined the BBC in 1998, covering European affairs from the studio in London and across the continent for BBC World Service whilst also commuting to Berlin to appear regularly as a news anchor on Deutsche Welle Television. She appeared regularly as a news presenter on BBC World News, as an investigative reporter for the BBC's award-winning daily analysis program, Newsnight, and has written/presented a number of acclaimed one hour current affairs documentaries. In 2014 Adler was appointed BBC's Europe editor, making her the broadcaster's leading voice on Brexit and the EU, populism across Europe, the future of the EU, and much more. 

Alberto Alemanno is an academic, civic advocate, and public interest lawyer. He is currently Jean Monnet Professor at HEC Paris and Global Professor of Law at New York University School of Law. Due to his commitment to bridge the gap between academic research and policy action, Alberto pioneered innovative forms of academic and civic engagement. Both his scholarship and public interest work on openness, transparency, and civic engagement has considerably shaped EU institutional setting and practice. Today Alberto runs The Good Lobby, the first advocacy skill-sharing community aimed at connecting people with expertise with civil society organizations who need them in pursuit of the public interest. Alberto’s new book, Lobbying for Change: Find Your Voice to Create a Better Society (Icon, 2017), provides a timely analysis and guide to leveling the democratic playing field by empowering ordinary citizens to speak up and inform policy decisions at local, national, and international level. Alberto is a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum and European Young Leader at Friends of Europe

Prior to his designation in the Cabinet of His Majesty King Mohammed VI of Morocco in October 2013, Youssef Amrani was minister delegate for foreign affairs and cooperation, a post he had held since January 2012. In November 2008, he was appointed secretary general at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, a position he held until his election as secretary general of the Mediterranean Union in July 2011. Amrani has also served as an ambassador of Morocco to Colombia, Chile, and Mexico. From 2003 to 2008, he served as ambassador and director general of bilateral relations in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. He was the head of office of the secretary of state for the Arab Maghreb Union from 1989 to 1992. Afterwards, he was appointed as consul general in Barcelona. He holds a degree in economics from the University Mohammed V in Rabat and graduated from the Institute of Management in Boston.

Berit Anderson is the CEO and founder of Scout, which explores the social implications of technology by combining reporting and near-term science fiction. Before founding Scout, Berit was the managing editor at Crosscut.com, a civic news site in Seattle, where she reinvented community journalism to help solve local problems and staged scenario planning games to help the city plan for cyber-attacks and deal with climate refugees. She has worked closely with Strategic News Service, a predictive newsletter read by Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos, as well as the SNS FiRe conference, which brings together C-level technology executives, world-class scientists, and Oscar-winning documentary filmmakers to discuss how science and technology are reshaping our world.

Raymond Arnaudo is a retired U.S. State Department official and former senior scholar at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, with over 40 years of experience in international environmental and science policy affairs. He was the senior advisor for the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs and during 2009-13, served on Secretary Clinton’s Policy Planning Staff. Before that, he was the head of the U.S. Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, and prior to this, was the senior advisor for nuclear energy and multilateral nuclear nonproliferation with the Department of Energy at the American Embassy in Moscow from 2006-08. He directed the Office of Oceans and Polar Affairs before that, and has a long history of work in oceans and polar affairs, including serving as the U.S. State Department’s lead Arctic and Antarctic negotiator during the formative period of Arctic cooperation during the 1980-90s. 

Ali Aslan is a seasoned television presenter and journalist. He has worked for global news networks such as CNN, ABC News, Channel News Asia and Deutsche Welle TV, where he hosted the international talk show “Quadriga.” A frequent conference moderator and public speaker, Aslan has also served as a policy and media advisor to the German government, including the Foreign Office. Aslan has been named a Young Leader by the American Council on Germany, the BMW Foundation, The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), the Bertelsmann Foundation, the Munich Security Conference, and the Atlantik-Bruecke. He is the first German recipient of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations International Fellowship and an alumnus of the Koerber Network Foreign Policy. Aslan holds master’s degree in journalism and a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University. He received his bachelor’s degree in international politics from Georgetown University.

Caroline Atkinson is the head of global public policy at Google, where she advises Google’s leadership on policy issues and leads Google’s work with policymakers, government officials, and key political stakeholders. Prior to joining Google, Atkinson served as U.S. President Barack Obama’s deputy national security advisor for international economics. As the president’s senior international economic advisor, Atkinson attended major international economic summits with the president and coordinated the policymaking process for international economic affairs. Before working directly for President Obama, Atkinson held senior roles at the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. Treasury Department, and the Bank of England, and worked as a journalist for The Washington Post, The Economist, and The Times of London. She holds a bachelor’s in politics, philosophy, and economics (PPE) from Oxford University.

Dr. Robert D. Atkinson is one of the country’s foremost thinkers on innovation economics. With an extensive background in technology policy, he has conducted ground-breaking research projects on technology and innovation, is a valued advisor to state and national policymakers, and a popular speaker on innovation policy nationally and internationally. Before founding ITIF, Atkinson was vice president of the Progressive Policy Institute and director of PPI’s Technology and New Economy Project. He received his master's in urban and regional planning from the University of Oregon and was named a distinguished alumnus in 2014. He received his PhD in city and regional planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1989.

Nick Baird has been Group Corporate Affairs director of Centrica plc since March 2014. Before this, Baird had a long and varied career in government. He was CEO of U.K. Trade and Investment, the Government department which supports British exporters and foreign companies looking to invest in the U.K. from June 2011-December 2013. Baird was the director general in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) leading its work on Europe, the Global Economy and Consular issues (2009-11) and the British Ambassador to Turkey (2006-09). Earlier in his career, Baird was director for Immigration Policy in the Home Office and held posts in the U.K. and overseas (Brussels, Kuwait, Oman) on European Union issues and the Middle East. He was a member of the Board of the FCO from 2009-13 and of the Department of Business, Innovation, and Skills (BIS) from 2011-13. 

Rosa Balfour is a senior fellow based in The German Marshall Fund of the United States’  (GMF) Brussels office, and also is the acting director of the Europe Program. Rosa’s expertise is in the international relations of the EU and its member states, as well as political and institutional developments within the EU. She has researched European foreign policy and external action, relations with the Mediterranean region, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, EU enlargement, European Neighborhood Policy, and on the role of human rights and democracy in international relations. She holds a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science and is the author of Human Rights and Democracy in EU Foreign Policy, (Routledge 2012). Prior to joining GMF Rosa was Director of the Europe in the World Programme at the European Policy Centre in Brussels.

Kevin Baron is executive editor of Defense One. He is also national security and military analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. Baron has covered the military, the Pentagon, Congress, and politics for Foreign Policy, National Journal, and Stars and Stripes. He previously ran investigative projects for five years at the Boston Globe’s Washington bureau, and cut his muckraking teeth at the Center for Public Integrity. Baron is twice a Polk Award winner and former vice president of the Pentagon Press Association. He earned his master’s degree from George Washington University and bachelor’s degree from the University of Richmond.

Kristine Berzina is a transatlantic fellow in The German Marshall Fund of the United States' (GMF) Brussels office. She leads GMF's energy security programming and provides analysis on energy issues, foreign policy in the Baltic States, and transatlantic relations more broadly.

Carl Bildt has served as both Prime Minister of Sweden in 1991-94, and Foreign Minister of Sweden in 2006-14. During the first period, his government initiated major liberal economic reforms, as well as negotiated and signed membership agreement with the European Union. Subsequently, he served in international functions with the EU and UN, primarily related to the conflicts in the Balkans. He was Co-Chairman of the Dayton peace talks on Bosnia and became the first High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995-97. He later served as the Special Envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to the region. Returning as Foreign Minister of Sweden, he came to be seen as one of the most prominent and vocal of European foreign ministers during his year in office. He was one of the initiators of EU’s Eastern Partnership and pushed the EU forward on issues of the Middle East. 

Tamás Boros is a political analyst and the co-director of policy solutions political research institute, which is based in Budapest and Brussels. He is also a member of the Scientific Council of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS). Tamás Boros is regularly invited by Hungary’s leading news channels as a political commentator, and he also frequently gives interviews to the most important Hungarian and international newspapers (Financial Times, The Economist). His publications and articles mainly focus on Hungarian politics, euroscepticism, right-wing extremism, and populism. Tamás previously worked as a specialist in European affairs and communications for the European Commission and the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He had also served as the director of a nonprofit organization, Pillar Foundation, for four years.

Mayor Jim Brainard is Carmel’s first six-term mayor. During his terms in office, Carmel has grown in population from 25,000 to almost 90,000. Parkland, greenspace, and trails have increased. The development of an Arts and Design District, a downtown called City Center, and a new Midtown project joining the two together, has helped in the creation of a vibrant, thriving city where companies want to locate, where employees want to live, and where families want to raise their children. Brainard is frequently asked to speak around the world about city planning, climate change, redevelopment, and roadway networks. Brainard spearheaded the redevelopment in the Old Town area of Carmel into an Arts and Design District, which has transformed a much neglected original center of town into a thriving district with galleries, restaurants, shops, and community events attracting thousands of visitors each year as well as the attention of the national and international media. 

Darko Brkan is founding president of Zašto ne (Why Not), a Sarajevo-based nongovernmental organization that promotes civic activism, government accountability, and the use of digital media and new technologies in deepening democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is one of Bosnia and Herzegovina's leading organizations in these fields. In addition, he is a founding member of Dosta! (Enough!), one of Bosnia’s most prominent citizens’ movements for social justice and government accountability. Darko began his career in civic activism more than ten years ago as a coordinator of the Campaign for Conscientious Objection to Military Service in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He graduated from the Faculty of Electric Engineering in Sarajevo, majoring in information technology with the thesis "Use of Information Technologies in Election Processes." He is an MBA candidate at the School of Economics and Business in Sarajevo majoring in Strategic Information Management. 

Reinhard Bütikofer is a member of the European Parliament (Greens/EFA) and the co-chair of the European Green Party (EGP). He sits on the Committee of Industry, Research, and Energy (ITRE), is the vice chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with the People’s Republic of China, a member of the delegation to the United States, as well as a substitute member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET). Since October 2016 he is a board member of the Green European Foundation (GEF).

Christopher Caldwell is a senior editor at the Weekly Standard and the author of Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West. His essays, columns and reviews appear in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Spectator, Le Monde and other publications in Europe and the United States. He is working on a book about the rise and fall of the United States’ post-1960s political order.

Elena Calistru is the chair and founder of Funky Citizens, a Romanian nongovernmental organisation. Funky Citizens builds research-based, data-driven advocacy tools. Funky Citizens’ tools aim to be educational and actionable, encouraging citizens to engage in accountability and government responsibility initiatives in which they can see an impact. Elena has more than five years of experience in civil society projects, both at national and international level. Her expertise is mainly in the area of good governance, transparency, public finance, and advocacy. She strongly believes that data and online tools can empower citizens to influence public sector reform.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jonathan Capehart is a member of The Washington Post editorial board and writes about politics and social issues for the PostPartisan blog. He is an MSNBC contributor and has served as a substitute anchor on The Cycle, Martin Bashir, and Way Too Early. He also has been a member of the Reporters Roundtable on ABC News’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, and substitute host on The Brian Lehrer Show and The Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC. Capehart was the deputy editorial page editor of New York Daily News from 2002 to 2004, and served on that newspaper’s editorial board from 1993 to 2000. In 1999, his 16-month editorial campaign to save the famed Apollo Theatre in Harlem earned him and the board the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing.

James Carafano, a leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges, is The Heritage Foundation’s vice president for foreign and defense policy studies, E. W. Richardson Fellow, and director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies. Carafano is an accomplished historian and teacher as well as a prolific writer and researcher. His most recent publication is an e-book, Surviving the End, which addresses emergency preparedness. He also authored Wiki at War: Conflict in a Socially Networked World.Before assuming responsibility for Heritage’s entire defense and foreign policy team in December 2012, Carafano had served as deputy director of the Davis Institute as well as director of its Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies since 2009. His recent research has focused on developing the national security required to secure the long-term interests of the United States — protecting the public, providing for economic growth, and preserving civil liberties.

Margaret Carlson is an American journalist and a columnist for Bloomberg News. She was also a weekly panelist for CNN's Capital Gang from 1992 until its cancellation in 2005. Carlson joined Time in January 1988 as managing editor and in 1994 became the first female columnist in the magazine's history. Carlson earned a bachelor's degree in English from Penn State University and a law degree from George Washington University Law School in Washington, DC. She is the author of Anyone Can Grow Up: How George Bush and I Made It to the White House and The Canning Season.

Douglas Carswell was a founder member of Vote Leave, which won the recent EU referendum.  He believes Brexit marks the beginning of a liberal revolution. He has written extensively about the transformation that digital technology is bringing to politics and communication. His book, The End of Politics and the Birth of iDemocracy, anticipated many of the changes that we are now seeing throughout the Western world. His new book, Rebel — How to Overthrow the Oligarchy will be published in April. In recognition of his efforts to bring change to Westminster, Carswell has been named Insurgent of the Year by the Spectator. Carswell worked for Invesco fund management, in their European division, before entering Parliament. Prior to that, he worked in commercial television in Italy. 

Bogdan Ceobanu works as policy officer in the Startups and Innovation Unit of the European Commission, within the Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content, and Technology. Within the Startup Europe initiative he engages into policy, programs, events and analysis around startup ecosystems, community building and mechanisms to enhance the launch and growth of European startups. As a former entrepreneur he creates value by approaching problems from an interdisciplinary perspective using new technologies. He believes that best innovation often come from combining ideas from different and often disparate fields. He searches for new experiences and ways to bring new ideas into life while solving big challenges together with some of the most creative entrepreneurs. You can connect with him @studios.

Carolina Chimoy is a political correspondent, news presenter, and a host of Quadriga, the international talk show of Germany’s international television network, Deutsche Welle (DW). Chimoy has interviewed head of states from Latin America, ranging from Evo Morales to international figures as Patricia Espinosa. Chimoy is also correspondent of DW in different Latin American countries. She has recently covered the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff as well as the presidential elections in Peru and the current crisis in Venezuela. She also anchors the primetime news program and produces and presents the flagship business show “Business Brief.” Chimoy has served as a policy advisor in the German parliament, consulting the chairman of human rights in topics related to Latin America. She also works as a media trainer for the German Armed Forces in Berlin. Prior to joining DW and parliament, Chimoy worked extensively on development policy and fostering cooperation between Germany and Latin America.

Derek Chollet is executive vice president and senior advisor for security and defense policy at The German Marshall Fund of the United States, and author of the book, The Long Game: How Obama Defied Washington and Redefined America’s Role in the World (PublicAffairs, June 2016). He is a regular contributor to Defense One, and is also an advisor to Beacon Global Strategies and an adjunct senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. Mr. Chollet is author, co-author, or co-editor of six other books on U.S. foreign policy, including The Road to the Dayton Accords: A Study of American Statecraft (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), America Between the Wars: From 11/9 to 9/11, co-authored with James Goldgeier (PublicAffairs, 2008), and The Unquiet American: Richard Holbrooke in the World, co-edited with Samantha Power (PublicAffairs, 2011), and his commentaries and reviews on U.S. foreign policy and politics have appeared in many other books and publications.

Steve Clemons is editor-at-large of The Atlantic and editor-in-chief of AtlanticLIVE, the premium division of The Atlantic 3D journalism. Clemons is also foreign policy and politics contributor to MSNBC. Clemons also founded and serves as senior fellow of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, a centrist policy think tank in Washington, DC where he previously served as executive vice president. Prior to this, Clemons served as executive vice president of the Economic Strategy Institute, was senior economic and international affairs advisor to Senator Jeff Bingaman, and was the founding executive director of the Nixon Center, now renamed the Center for National Interest. Clemons writes and speaks frequently on consequential national security, politics, and economic policy issues.

Elizabeth Collett is the founding director of Migration Policy Institute Europe, and senior advisor to MPI's Transatlantic Council on Migration. Her work focuses in particular on European migration and immigrant integration policy. Collett convenes MPI Europe’s working group on the future of the Common European Asylum System (EU Asylum: Towards 2020), bringing together senior policymakers from more than a dozen European countries to discuss future asylum policy reform. Collett has produced dozens of working papers, policy briefs, and memos focused on the future of EU immigration and asylum policy, as well as national-level policy developments. She is regularly cited in prominent print and broadcast outlets, doing interviews on all aspects of European migration policy and its broader policy ramifications. Prior to joining MPI, Collett was a senior policy analyst at the European Policy Centre, a Brussels-based think tank, and was responsible for its migration program, which covered all aspects of European migration and integration policy. 

Iain Conn was appointed group chief executive of Centrica plc on January 1, 2015. He is chairman of the Executive Committee and the Disclosure Committee. Conn possesses a deep understanding of the energy sector, built up over a lifetime in the industry with a commitment to customers and safety. Conn was previously held the position of chief executive of Downstream, BP’s refining and marketing division, for seven years. Conn was a board member of BP for ten years from 2004 and had previously held a number of senior roles throughout BP including in trading, exploration, and production, and the management of corporate functions such as safety, marketing, technology, and human resources. He also served as a non-executive director and latterly senior independent director of Rolls-Royce Holdings plc from 2005-14. 

John Crump's academic background is in journalism, communications, and political economy. He has a master's degree in northern and native studies from Carleton University. His practical northern experience began when he migrated to the Yukon Territory in the early 1980s and got hooked on all things northern. After working with CBC Radio in the Yukon, he was cabinet communications advisor to Tony Penikett's NDP government. Crump has worked on policy issues for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, been government relations manager for the Nunavut Planning Commission, and Executive Director of the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee (CARC). He was also executive secretary of the Indigenous Peoples' Secretariat in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in journalism, public administration, and geography at Yukon College in Whitehorse, Carleton University, and the University of Trier in Mosel Valley in Germany.

Massimo D'Alema is an Italian politician, former prime minister and foreign affairs minister. He is also president of a political foundation, Fondazione di cultura politics Italianieuropei, and president of Foundation of European Progressive Studies (FEPS). He is a professional journalist and was chief editor of the daily newspaper L'Unitàfrom 1988 to 1990. Mr. D'Alema's political activities began in 1963, when he joined the Italian Young Communists' Federation (FGCI). In 1975, he was elected secretary general of the organization, and held that post until 1980. In 1986, Massimo D'Alema became a member of the Secretariat of the Italian Communist Party, and in 1987 was elected member of the Italian Parliament (Camera dei deputati). In 1989, he was actively engaged in the process that transformed the Italian Communist Party into the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS).

Sudha David-Wilp is a senior transatlantic fellow and deputy director of the Berlin office. She joined GMF’s Berlin office in September 2011. She oversees GMF’s Congress-Bundestag Forum, a joint program with the Robert Bosch Foundation, and engages with the media as an expert on German-U.S. relations. Before moving to Berlin, she was the director of International Programs at the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress in Washington DC for nearly eight years. At the Association, David-Wilp was responsible for Congressional Study Groups and international programs for current members of Congress and senior Congressional staff.  She received her bachelor’s from Johns Hopkins University, with a major in international relations and a minor in the writing seminars. She received her master’s in international relations from Columbia University.

Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer is a senior transatlantic fellow and the director of GMF's Paris Office. She also leads GMF’s Transatlantic Security Task Force, which brings together a group of high-level U.S. and European security experts and officials three times a year to explore the security priorities for transatlantic cooperation. Formerly, de Hoop Scheffer served as an advisor for U.S. foreign policy and transatlantic relations at the Policy Planning Department of the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (2009-11). From 2010-13, she was an advisor to USEUCOM Commander and SACEUR, Admiral James Stavridis, as part of the Next Generation Advisory Panel. She is an associate professor at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and the Euro-American Campus in Reims, teaching international and transatlantic relations. 

Charlie Dent was first sworn in to the United States House of Representatives in January 2005. He is currently serving his sixth-term. Congressman Dent represents Pennsylvania’s 15th District, which includes all or parts of Berks, Dauphin, Lebanon, Lehigh, and Northampton counties. Congressman Dent currently serves as the Chairman of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee for the House Appropriations Committee. He also serves on the Appropriation Committee's Subcommittees on State and Foreign Operations and on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development. He earned a degree in Foreign Service and International Politics from the Pennsylvania State University in 1982 and a Master's Degree in Public Administration from Lehigh University in 1993. Before entering public service, Congressman Dent worked as a development officer for Lehigh University, an industrial electronics salesman, and an aide to then-Representative Don Ritter. Congressman Dent served eight years in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and six years in the State Senate.

Dr. Karen Donfried is president of The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). Before assuming this role in April 2014, Donfried was the special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs on the National Security Council at the White House. In that capacity, she was the president’s principal advisor on Europe and led the interagency process on the development and implementation of the president’s European policies. Prior to the White House, Donfried served as the national intelligence officer (NIO) for Europe on the National Intelligence Council, the intelligence community’s center for strategic thinking. Donfried first joined GMF in 2001 after having served for ten years as a European specialist at the Congressional Research Service. From 2003-05, she was responsible for the Europe portfolio on the U.S. Department of State's Policy Planning Staff.

Muriel Domenach is the secretary general of the French interagency committee for the prevention of crime and radicalization since August 2016. Prior to heading the committee, she was the general consul of France in Istanbul (2013-16) and the deputy director of the policy planning staff for the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (2007-09). She was also defense advisor to the Permanent Delegation of France to NATO in Brussels and deputy to the deputy assistant secretary for the NATO/ESD strategic affairs. Advisor for international affairs within the Defense Minister Cabinet until 2002, she started her career in 1999 as a special assistant for European security and defense policy at the Delegation of the Strategic Affairs to the Ministry of Defense. She holds degrees from the Paris Institute of Political Sciences (Sciences Po), the College of Europe in Bruges, and the French National School of Administration (ENA).

Kimberly Dozier is senior national security correspondent at The Daily Beast and a CNN Global Affairs analyst. She has covered conflicts across the Middle East and Europe and national security policy in Washington, DC, since 1992, including 17 years as an award-winning CBS News correspondent and 4 years as AP’s intelligence writer. Dozier covered the war in Iraq for CBS News from 2003, until she was wounded in a car bombing in 2006. Her best-selling 2008 memoir Breathing the Fire: Fighting to Survive and Get Back to the Fight detailed the aftermath of the car bomb attack in Baghdad that killed her CBS News team and members of the U.S. Army patrol they were embedded with, and her journey to recovery. Proceeds from her paperback and e-book go to charities for the combat injured, including Fisher House. Dozier holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in foreign affairs.

Paul Dujardin has been the general director and artistic director of the Centre for Fine Arts (BOZAR) since 2002. Prior joining BOZAR, he was CEO of the Philharmonic Society of Brussels. Under his leadership, BOZAR has become an interdisciplinary cultural center with an international scope and has blossomed into a space to exchange of ideas, offering a wide range of events, concerts, and exhibitions. Dujardin has worked tirelessly to ensure that BOZAR becomes an essential actor within the domain of international cultural exchange and a defender of the European cultural values. He represents BOZAR at various international cultural platforms, and has been recognized as an honorary Doctorate from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). He has a bachelor’s degree in art history and archeology and a master’s in management.

Mikuláš Dzurinda is the president of the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies. He is the former prime minister of Slovakia (1998-2006) and has held various positions in government since first entering politics in 1990. Once he became prime minister and formed a coalition government in 1998, Dzurinda introduced far-reaching reforms that have enabled Slovakia to begin the process of joining the EU and NATO. After being re-elected in 2002, Dzurinda led Slovakia to become a member of the EU and NATO in 2004, a process that he actively took part in from the beginning. Since Slovakia gained independence in 1993, Dzurinda has also held the position of minister of transportation and minister for foreign affairs. He is a founding member of the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union — Democratic Party (SDKÚ-DS) and was chairman of the party from 2000 to 2012. From 2012 to 2016 he was a member of the Slovak Parliament.

Steven Erlanger became the London bureau chief of The New York Times in August 2013, after five years as bureau chief in Paris and, before that, four years as bureau chief in Jerusalem. He has served as Berlin bureau chief, bureau chief for Central Europe and the Balkans based in Prague, and chief diplomatic correspondent based in Washington. From 1991 to 1995, he was posted in Moscow, after being Bangkok bureau chief and Southeast Asia correspondent from 1988 to 1991. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, he graduated from Harvard College in 1974 and studied Russian at St. Antony’s College, Oxford.

Nabil Fahmy was foreign minister of Egypt from July 2013 to June 2014. He served for over three decades in Egypt’s Foreign Service including as Egypt’s ambassador to Japan from 1997-99 and the United States from 1999-2008. After completing his diplomatic career, he became the founding Dean and Professor of Practice of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy (GAPP) at The American University in Cairo (AUC). As Minister, Fahmy formulated a strategy to reorient Egypt’s Foreign Policy, ensuring that Egypt had numerous foreign policy options both regionally and globally, while also restructuring the Egyptian Foreign Ministry in order to address the challenges of the future. During his distinguished diplomatic career Fahmy served in numerous government and international positions focusing in his work on international and regional security, disarmament and non-proliferation, and Arab–Israeli diplomacy. A prolific writer on regional and global affairs, Fahmy is the author of numerous publications in both Arabic and English. 

Ambroise Fayolle was appointed vice president of the European Investment Bank in February 2015. He is currently in charge of the operational activities of the Bank in France, Germany, Austria, South Africa, and, for ACP/OCT mandates, West Africa, and Pacific Islands. He is also responsible for EFSI, innovation, the EIB Economic Department, development policy, and is board member of the European Investment Fund. Fayolle represented France at the Executive Boards of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and of the World Bank, in Washington, DC from September 2007 until his appointment as head of Agence France Tresor, the Debt Agency of the French Ministry of Finance in March 2013. He was also a staff member of the IMF between 2003 and 2005. A graduate of the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA), most of his career was spent at the Treasury Department in the Ministry of the Economy and Finance. In particular, he was division chief in charge of the State Financing and Monetary Affairs Bureau — the predecessor to AFT— and, in 2005, was appointed assistant secretary for multilateral and development affairs at the French Treasury, Sous-Sherpa for the G8, and co-chairman of the Paris Club. 

Mary Fitzgerald is a journalist and researcher specializing in the Euro-Mediterranean region with a particular focus on Libya. Arriving in Benghazi days after anti-Gaddafi protests erupted there in early 2011, she spent many months in Libya reporting on the uprising that followed. She has worked on Libya since then and lived there throughout 2014. Her reporting on Libya has appeared in publications including The Economist, Foreign Policy, The New Yorker, and Financial Times. She has conducted research on Libya for the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMED), and the European University Institute (EUI), among others. She is a contributing author to The Libyan Revolution and Its Aftermath, published by Oxford University Press.

Marie-Valentine Florin is the executive director of the International Risk Governance Center at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). She is also managing director of the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC). IRGC's mission is to facilitate the understanding and governance of complex risk issues marked by uncertainty and ambiguity. She organizes IRGC collaborative activities, focusing in particular on the role of IRGC as a multi-stakeholder platform and a convening place at the interface between science and policy. She spent the first part of her career (1984-1999) in an international socio-cultural research and marketing consulting firm. Before joining IRGC in 2006, she was consulting local authorities on strategies and practices for sustainable development. She was also involved in philanthropic and humanitarian organizations. Marie-Valentine graduated from Science Po in Paris with a degree in public policy and management, and then earned post-graduate diplomas in marketing strategy, sustainable development and environmental diplomacy.

Congressman Jeff Fortenberry represents Nebraska’s First Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. He is a member of the House Appropriations Committee, which is responsible for the expenditures of the United States government. He serves on three subcommittees with importance for our national and economic security: Energy and Water, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and State and Foreign Operations. In Congress, Jeff serves as co-chair of the Nuclear Security Working Group, co-chair of the Caucus on Religious Minorities in the Middle East, and co-chair of the Congressional Study Group on Europe. Prior to serving in Congress, Jeff worked as a publishing industry executive in Lincoln, where he also served on the Lincoln City Council from 1997-2001. Jeff also has significant personal experience in small business, public policy analysis, and economic development. Jeff earned a bachelor's degree in economics and two master's degrees, one in public policy. His work in Congress is rooted in the belief that the strength of our nation depends on the strength of our families and communities.

Vice Adm. Michael T. Franken graduated from the College of Engineering at the University of Nebraska and from the College of Physics at the Naval Postgraduate School. He attended the Brookings Institute, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Seminar XXI program, the Darden School, and various other executive education courses. Franken’s previous flag assignments include service as the initial director of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), special assistant to the director of the Navy Staff, the Joint Staff J5 interim chief of staff, the Department of the Navy chief of legislative affairs, command of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HoA) in Djibouti, Africa, and nearly three years as vice director, Strategy, Plans and Policy (J5) at U.S. Central Command. Franken is the U.S. Africa Command’s deputy for military operations.

Maria Freitas works as a policy advisor at the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), the only progressive think tank at the EU-level. Freitas is responsible on the issues of democratic participation, extremism, and new political movements. At FEPS she is also leading the Millennial Dialogue, a global youth engagement initiative that aims to create a better understanding of the priorities and values of the millennial generation and their interaction with politics, political systems, and institutions.

Roland Freudenstein is the policy director of the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies. He was previously director of the Warsaw office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and its head for Foreign and European Affairs in Berlin. Prior to that, he represented the German city state of Hamburg to the EU. He has contributed to debates and published extensively on international security, European integration, and the EU's eastern and southern neighborhoods.

Frank Friedman is global COO of Deloitte, leading the $37 billion network’s operational leaders in helping to drive Deloitte’s global strategy. He is a member of the Global Executive Committee and chairs the Global Operating Committee, linking strategy, execution, and accountability, as well as aligning Deloitte’s global network. Friedman previously held several senior leadership roles at Deloitte in the United States — until June 2016, he served as COO and from June 2011 through May 2016 as CFO. He also had the distinct honor of being asked to serve as the interim CEO in 2014-2015. With his unique C-Suite perspective, he is a frequent commentator on issues impacting businesses and the economy, speaking to outlets such as Bloomberg, CNBC and Fox Business. Friedman joined Deloitte’s Kansas City office in 1979 after graduating from the University of Kansas with a BA in accounting and business administration. 

Geraldine Ide Gardner is the director of GMF’s Urban and Regional Policy (URP) program, where she leads the program’s transatlantic initiatives to convene policymakers and practitioners from U.S. and European cities to explore key issues in the transatlantic urban agenda. Gardner’s expertise lies in the integrated policies and cross-sector partnerships needed to build sustainable and inclusive cities, while increasing the economic competitiveness of city-regions in the global arena. Under her leadership, the five-member URP team actively stewards an transatlantic network of urban leaders in over 25 cities and manages signature initiatives including  BUILD, Dialogues for Change, Transatlantic Cities Network, and the URP Policy Fellowship. Through a recognized model of peer-to-peer learning, Gardner facilitates the exploration of key urban policy issues and thoughtful transfer of new ideas to the unique context of each city.

Anthony Gardner served as United States ambassador to the European Union from February 2014 to January 2017 and is currently visiting fellow at the College of Europe in Bruges. Prior to becoming the United States ambassador to the European Union, Ambassador Gardner was managing director for six years at Palamon Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in London that focuses on providing growth capital to fast growing businesses in a wide variety of service sectors throughout Western Europe. In that capacity he managed financing, legal, and tax structuring issues related to the firm’s acquisitions and divestitures. He is the author of A New Era in U.S.-EU Relations?: The Clinton Administration and the New Transatlantic Agenda and numerous articles on EU affairs.

Jānis Garisons is state secretary of the Ministry of Defense of Latvia since 2015 (No. 2 in the Ministry of Defense). In this capacity Garisons is overseeing rapid defense budget and capabilities increase, to prepare Latvia for the challenges it faces. In his previous position, as undersecretary of state — policy director in Latvia’s Ministry of Defense, he was an architect and organizer of Latvia’s defense policy, defense planning, and international operations’ policy. This position required him to  represent Latvia within NATO, the EU, and other international fora. He joined Latvia’s Ministry of Defense after an established career within Latvia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he served as a director of the Security Policy Department. In his nine years in foreign service he oversaw  arms control issues, Russia and CIS, and was posted as the first secretary within the Embassy of Latvia in Oslo, Norway

Mario Gavenda is a doctoral researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies Vienna and teaches EU politics at the University of Vienna. His research focuses on the role of political parties in the political contestation of European integration. From January to March 2017, he is a visiting fellow in the political science department at the University of Munich. He holds a joint master's degree in global studies from the University of Leipzig and the University of Wrocław, and spent time at universities in South Africa and France. He is a member of the Young Academics Network of the Foundation of European Progressive Studies (FEPS).

Dr. Su Ge is president and a senior research fellow at CIIS. He joined CIIS in 2000 as a senior research fellow and vice president. Before that, he was a professor and doctoral supervisor at China Foreign Affairs University (CFAU) and adjunct professor and doctoral supervisor at Tsinghua University. Since 2003, he has served consecutively as minister counselor in Chinese Embassy in the USA, ambassador to the Republic of Suriname and ambassador to the Republic of Iceland. Dr. Su received his master and doctorate degrees in international relations and regional studies from Brigham Young University. He was a post-doctorate at Harvard University and Beijing Foreign Studies University. He was a Smithsonian Institution Fellow, Senior Fulbright Fellow at Georgetown University, John Hopkins University and the George Washington University. 

Mircea Geoana is the founder and president of the Aspen Institute Romania and a prominent international public figure. He serves on the boards of trustees of the Aspen Institute United States, Aspen Germany, and Aspen Italia. Mircea ran for the presidency of Romania in 2009. In an unprecedented narrow and contested election, he received 49.6 percent of the casted ballot. He served as the president of the Romanian Senate between December 2008 and November 2011 and president of the Social Democratic Party, from 2005 to 2010. He previously was appointed ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of Romania to the United States of America at age 37, the youngest ambassador in the Romanian diplomatic corps. He is author of several books: “Romanian Foreign Policy in the Beginning of the XXIth century —The Road to Europe and Transatlantic World, America, Europe, and Romania’s Modernization: Bases for a Romanian Societal Model, and The Romanian social model: the way towards a new Romania.

Gabriel Glöckler has been with the European Central Bank since the creation of the euro in 1999. He recently joined the Bank’s senior management as principal advisor in the Directorate General Communications, where he focuses, in a deputy spokesman role, on the ECB’s outreach toward the general public, politics, and academia and the strategic direction of the Bank’s communications. Prior to that, he headed the General Secretariat and, as assistant secretary to the ECB’s Executive Board and Governing Council, was deeply involved in top-level decision-making.  Before that, he was deputy head of the EU Institutions Division and in charge of the Bank’s interaction with “Brussels,” including as member of the European Union’s Economic Policy Committee. Previously, he served five years as counsellor/chief of staff to the ECB’s vice president Lucas Papademos and before that as (senior) economist. 

Rose Gottemoeller took up her position as deputy secretary general of NATO in October 2016, after serving nearly five years as the under secretary for arms control and international security at the U.S. State Department. As under secretary, Gottemoeller advised the secretary of state on arms control, nonproliferation, and political-military affairs. She was acting in this position from 2012 to 2014, while concurrently serving as assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance (2009-2014). In this capacity, she was the chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation, which entered into force on February 5, 2011 and is currently in implementation. She received a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University, and a master’s degree from George Washington University.

Nik Gowing was a main presenter for the BBC’s international 24-hour news channel BBC World News from 1996 to 2014. He has presented The Hub with Nik Gowing, BBC World Debates, Dateline London, plus provided location coverage of major global stories. For 18 years, he worked at ITN where he was bureau chief in Rome and Warsaw, and diplomatic editor for Channel Four News. He has been a member of the councils of Chatham House, the Royal United Services Institute, the Overseas Development Institute, the board of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, and the advisory council at Wilton Park.

Charles Grant helped to found the Centre for European Reform (CER) in 1996. In January 1998, he left The Economist to become the CER’s first director. He is the author of numerous CER publications, including Russia, China, and global governance (2012); and How to Build a Modern European Union (2013). He works on, among other subjects, EU foreign and defense policy, Russia, China, the euro, and Britain’s relationship with the EU. Charles is a regular contributor to the Financial Times, the International New York Times and many other publications.

Dr. Ulrike Guérot is professor at the Donau University Krems and head of the department for European Policy and the Study of Democracy. She is founder and director of the Berlin based European Democracy Lab (EDL) at the European School of Governance and is advocating for a brighter, more democratic vision of Europe. She is the author of Warum Europa eine Republik werden muss! Eine politische Utopie (Why Europe Needs to Become a Republic! A Political Utopia).

Jeffrey Gullo is an advisor in AARP’s policy, research, and international department. He joined the organization’s international team in 2014, responsible for diplomatic outreach and management of AARP’s international visitor program. His current work focuses on savings and planning, as well as workforce and employment issues. Gullo serves as an editor of AARP The Journal, an award-winning international publication that highlights key topics related to global population aging. He also manages AARP’s relationship with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), including collaborative research, where years-long engagement has helped to elevate and reframe the issue of longevity. In his role, Gullo has worked closely with AARP’s executive team, including its chief executive officer, to identify and facilitate international engagement opportunities. Before joining AARP, Gullo served as assistant director in the Washington program at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where he worked from 2008 to 2014. 

James Hairston is the head of public policy for Oculus and leads Facebook's global policy work on virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI). James was previously a policy advisor in the Obama administration and served on the president's Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force. Prior to joining the Obama Administration, James was a researcher on the economic policy team at the Center for American Progress. James holds a JD from Stanford and a BA from Harvard.

Jane Harman resigned from Congress February 28, 2011 to join the Woodrow Wilson Center as its first female director, president, and CEO. Representing the aerospace center of California during nine terms in Congress, she served on all the major security committees: six years on Armed Services, eight years on Intelligence, and eight on Homeland Security. During her long public career, Harman has been recognized as a national expert at the nexus of security and public policy issues, and has received numerous awards for distinguished service. She is a member of the Defense Policy Board, the U.S. State Department Foreign Policy Board, and the Homeland Security Advisory Committee.  She also serves on the Executive Committee of the Trilateral Commission and the Advisory Board of the Munich Security Conference. Harman is a Trustee of the Aspen Institute and the University of Southern California.  She is also a member of the Presidential Debates Commission.

Ryan Heath is senior EU correspondent at POLITICO. He began writing for national newspapers in his native Australia in 1999, and is the author of two books including the cult classic Please Just F* Off, It’s Our Turn Now, an account of how the baby boomers / 68er generation are viewed by the millenial generation. After working as a speechwriter for the British civil service, he joined the European Commission working for President Jose Manuel Barroso and Vice President Neelie Kroes as a spokesperson. Ryan is regular policy commentator on outlets such as BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and Deutsche Welle. He has reported from major events such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, G7 summits, and U.S. political conventions.

David M. Herszenhorn is chief Brussels correspondent of POLITICO. Before joining POLITICO, Herszenhorn worked for more than 20 years at The New York Times, as a reporter, Washington correspondent, and foreign correspondent based in Moscow. During stints in Washington, D.C. from 2007-11, and 2015-16, Herszenhorn covered Congress and U.S. politics, and policy, including coverage of the financial crisis in 2008, the bank and auto industry bailouts, the economic stimulus plan, the Dodd-Frank financial regulation overhaul, and the development and passage of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, as well as numerous budget fights and stand-offs over the debt ceiling. As a foreign correspondent based in Moscow from 2011-15, Herszenhorn was responsible for coverage of the former Soviet Union, including Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency, the white-ribbon street protests in Moscow, the Sochi Winter Olympics, and the uprising and revolution in Ukraine, including the annexation of Crimea. 

Joan Hoey heads a large team of analysts covering Europe, in the Economist Intelligence Unit's Country Analysis division, and is personally responsible for compiling political and economic forecasts for a number of countries in the region, including the U.K. and Greece. Hoey is an expert on Greece, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe; and has specialised in political risk, geopolitics, democracy, and post-communist transition. Hoey is a frequent commentator for news services such as the BBC, Sky, CNN, and CNBC. She often presents at conferences, and has often been invited to share her perspectives on Europe with senior corporate executives, academics and diplomatic officials. Hoey is the Editor of the EIU's flagship annual Democracy Index. The 2016 edition, Revenge of the "deplorables", was published in January 2017. The link can be found here.

Max Hofmann has been Deutsche Welle’s (DW) Brussels bureau chief since 2014. In his role, he has covered the EU Council Summits, the Paris attacks, COP 21, and the migration crisis, among other news stories affecting Europe. Since joining Deutsche Welle in 2004, Hofmann has worked as the station’s senior North America correspondent, a host for DW-TV, an editor, and as the news anchor for the “Journal” program. In 2010, he was awarded the RIAS- Prize for New Media in 2010 along with the journalist Christoph Lanz for the animation “! Eingemauert” (Walled In!)’ Hofmann has a bachelor’s and master’s in journalism and communications. 

Ted Howard is the co-founder and president of The Democracy Collaborative. Previously, he served as the executive director of the National Center for Economic Alternatives. In July 2010, Ted was appointed the Steven Minter Senior Fellow for Social Justice at The Cleveland Foundation, a position he held for four years. Working with the foundation, he was a member of a team that developed the comprehensive job creation and wealth building strategy which resulted in the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative. Ted lectures frequently about community wealth building, most recently at the Clinton Global Initiative-America, the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, the Co-operatives United World Conference (Manchester, England), various regional Federal Reserve Banks, as well as at universities including the University of Pennsylvania, Yale, MIT, Georgetown, Oberlin, Michigan State, and the Ohio State University.

Tomi Huhtanen is the executive director of the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies. He was a political adviser and subsequently a senior adviser for the EPP, focusing on economic and social policies. In 2007, he was put in charge of launching the political foundation of the European People’s Party, the Centre for European Studies (renamed the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies in 2014); in the same year, he was nominated as the Centre's director.

Rod Hunter is a Washington, DC-based partner at Baker McKenzie and is a non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the US. He served as a senior director at the White House's National Security Council under President George W. Bush and as a senior counsel in the Office of the USTR under Ambassador Robert B. Zoellick. Earlier in his career, he practiced regulatory law for more than a decade with an international law firm in Brussels.

Rudolf Huygelen is a Belgian diplomat, currently the director of the minister of foreign affairs’ cabinet. In his diplomatic career, he has held various posts in the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in Belgium’s diplomatic missions in Europe, North America, and Africa, including as ambassador to Portugal. He also served as Belgium’s permanent representative to NATO.

Alina Inayeh joined GMF in 2007 as the director of the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation, a project dedicated to strengthening cooperation and fostering development in the Black Sea Region. She is an active practitioner in the field of international development and democratization, having run the Freedom House office in Ukraine in 2004 and the NDI office in Russia between 2000-03, with a focus on civic education and political processes. She has trained nongovernmental organizations throughout Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union on issues related to NGO development and democratization. Inayeh has been a leading civic activist in the 1990s in her own country, Romania, and an active promoter of the nongovernmental organizations sector in the country. Inayeh received her bachelor's degree in geology from the University of Bucharest and a master's in public policy from the Woodrow Wilson School, University of Princeton. She is fluent in English and Russian in addition to her native Romanian.

Ambassador Masafumi Ishii  is ambassador of Japan to the Kingdom of Belgium and Japanese Government Representative to NATO, a position he has held since September 2014. He joined Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1980 and throughout his career he has been deeply involved in the fields of policy planning and security. His overseas posts include Washington, DC and London. In Tokyo he has held the positions of personal assistant to the foreign minister, ambassador for policy planning, and international security policy, director general for global issues, and legal advisor.

Wade Jacoby is a senior fellow at the Transatlantic Academy and a professor of political science at Brigham Young University. His books include Imitation and Politics: Redesigning Modern Germany (2000) and The Enlargement of the EU and NATO: Ordering from the Menu in Central Europe (2004). Jacoby has published articles in many journals including World Politics, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Politics and Society, The Review of International Political Economy, The Review of International Organizations, and The British Journal of Industrial Relations. Jacoby previously was an assistant professor of political science at Grinnell College (1995-2000) and has been a visiting professor in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bonn, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Cagliari, and at the EUI in Florence. He received a PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1996 and a BA in European studies from Brigham Young University.

Harold James is a senior fellow at the Transatlantic Academy and the Claude and Lore Kelly Professor in European Studies, professor of history and international affairs, and director of the Program in Contemporary European Politics and Society at Princeton University. He studies economic and financial history and modern German history, and is writing a history of the International Monetary Fund. James was educated at Cambridge University (PhD in 1982) and was a fellow of Peterhouse for eight years before joining Princeton University in 1986. His books include A German Identity, 1770-1990 (1989), International Monetary Cooperation Since Bretton Woods (1996), The End of Globalization: Lessons from the Great Depression (2001), Making the European Monetary Union (2012), and The Euro and the Battle of Ideas (2016, with Jean-Pierre Landau, and Markus K. Brunnermeier). He is also Marie Curie Visiting Professor at the European University Institute.

Mikheil Janelidze was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs on 30 December 2015. Mr. Janelidze served as first deputy minister of foreign affairs of Georgia from September 2015 until his appointment as minister. In this capacity, he had a portfolio of Georgia's relations with the United States and Canada as well as economic diplomacy. Prior to moving to the Georgian Foreign Service, Mr. Janelidze has enjoyed an extensive career at the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia in the period of 2009-2015 initially as director of Foreign Trade and International Economic Affairs Department, and since 2011, as deputy minister of Economy and Sustainable Development. Throughout these years he also served as Georgia's chief trade negotiator with the EU and chairman of Intergovernmental Economic Commissions with various countries. Before joining the public service and taking up the government job, Mr. Janelidze worked for the private sector as a manager and an entrepreneur in the area of business development and management consulting mostly focused on international trade and investment. Mr. Janelidze earned his bachelor's degree with honors in international relations from Tbilisi State University in 2002.

Ron Johnson is the senior United States Senator for Wisconsin and a member of the Republican Party. Johnson was elected to the senate in 2010 and subsequently re-elected in 2016. Prior to his election to the Senate, he was chief executive officer of PACUR, LLC, and a polyester and plastics manufacturer. From operating the equipment, to keeping the company books and selling its products, Senator Johnson has been involved in every function of the business. It is this body of experience and private sector perspective that he now brings to the Senate. Senator Johnson serves as the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Additionally, Johnson serves on the Senate Budget, Foreign Relations, and Commerce, Science and Transportation committees. He is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation. He resides in Oshkosh, Wisconsin with his wife Jane. He attended the University of Minnesota and graduated in 1977 with a degree in business and accounting. 

Dr. Bahadir Kaleagasi is the CEO of TUSIAD (Turkish Industry & Business Association) in Istanbul and president of the Paris Bosphorus Institute. He is also honorary chairman of the Brussels Energy Club, member of BusinessEurope's Executive Bureau (The Confederation of European Business) in Brussels, board member in several institutions, and scientific member of the Brussels University's Institute of European Studies. Graduate of Brussels and Istanbul Universities, he was a researcher and lecturer in the Center for International & Strategic Studies and the Institute for European Studies of the University of Brussels, rapporteur for projects of the European Commission’s Forward Studies Unit and the intergovernmental conferences which prepared the Maastricht Treaty and was visiting researcher to Harvard, Georgetown and Jerusalem Universities. His academic work covered the areas of the EU’s decision-making system, EU–U.S. relations and the international economic relations. Bahadir is the author of several articles and books on the international relations and European affairs. 

President Kersti Kaljulaid graduated from the University of Tartu in 1992 in the field of genetics in the Faculty of Natural Sciences and completed master's studies in the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration in 2001. From 1999 to 2002, Kaljulaid was Prime Minister Mart Laar's economic advisor. Her duties included organisation of cooperation of the Office of the Prime Minister with Estonian central bank, the Ministry of Finance and ministries that had larger budgets, as well as coordination of relations with the International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions. From 2002-04, Kaljulaid was the CFO and CEO of the Iru Power Plant of state-owned energy company Eesti Energia. From 2004-16 she was a Member of the European Court of Auditors. From 2010-14, she was responsible for the methodology and preparation of the Annual Report of the Court of Auditors. In 2016, she worked in the field of the agriculture audit.

Kristina Kausch joined the German Marshall Fund of the United States' (GMF) Brussels office in September 2016. She comes to GMF as part of a two-year fellowship supported by the European Commission under the Marie Curie program. Her research focuses on Europe’s relations with the Middle East and North Africa, political transformations in the Arab world, and broader geopolitical trends in the Middle East. Prior to joining GMF, she was a non-resident associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, head of the Middle East program at FRIDE, and a junior expert at the German development cooperation agency GIZ. She has edited three books: Democracy and Geopolitics in the Middle East (FRIDE, 2015); Islamist Radicalization: The Challenge for Euro-Mediterranean Relations (with M. Emerson and R. Youngs, CEPS, 2009); and Europe in the Reshaped Middle East (with R. Youngs, FRIDE, 2012). She has also published articles in academic journals such as International Affairs, Mediterranean Politics, the International Spectator, and Política Exterior, and op-eds in major outlets including The Guardian, El País, POLITICO, Middle East Eye, and Süddeutsche Zeitung.

From 2007-09, Ambassador Khalilzad served as U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations. Prior to that, he served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq (2005-07) and U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan (2003-05). He also served as U.S. special presidential envoy to Afghanistan (2001-03). Ambassador Khalilzad sits on the boards of the National Endowment for Democracy, America Abroad Media, the RAND Corporation’s Middle East Studies Center, the American University of Iraq in Suleymania, and the American University of Afghanistan. He is also a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He maintains close ties with high-level leadership throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, and is regularly called upon to provide strategic advice to numerous heads of state. Ambassador Khalilzad earned his BA and MA degrees from the American University of Beirut, as well as a PhD from the University of Chicago.

Sir Julian King was appointed commissioner for security union on September 19, 2016. He joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1985.  He has held various positions, including: U.K. ambassador to France (2016); director general Economic and Consular (2014); DG of the Northern Ireland Office London and Belfast (2011); U.K. ambassador to Ireland (2009); EU Commission Chef de Cabinet to Commissioner for Trade (2008); U.K. representative on EU Political and Security Committee, (2004). Sir King is a graduate of Oxford University. He was awarded the KCVO in 2014; CVO in 2011 and CMG in 2006.

Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff is a policy expert, think tank manager, and communications professional. Currently, he serves as an advisor to Joachim Gauck, the president of Germany. He oversees policy planning and speechwriting for the president. Prior to joining the president’s staff in Berlin, Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff spent 12 years in Washington, DC. Most recently, he led The German Marshall Fund of the United States’ (GMF) EuroFuture Project. He worked about the implications of the European crisis. A member of GMF’s senior management team since 2007, Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff was responsible for strategic projects and, until 2011, oversaw GMF policy programs and globalization projects. Before arriving at GMF, Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff served as the Washington bureau chief of DIE ZEIT, Germany’s intellectual weekly. Educated at Freiburg University with additional schooling at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, Kleine-Brockhoff was a fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. His work is widely published in Europe and the United States. 

Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze was appointed vice prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration on April 14, 2016. She was previously a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, serving as the first deputy chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee and leading Ukraine’s Parliamentary Delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Prior to her election as a member of parliament and since mid-2011, Mrs. Klympush-Tsintsadze was heading Yalta European Strategy (YES) and  worked as a deputy director of programs, and later as a director of the International Charitable Organization “Open Ukraine Foundation.” She was the Radio BBC Ukrainian Service correspondent in Washington, DC and in the Caucasus (Tbilisi). From 1998 till 2002, she worked for the East-West Institute’s Kyiv Center as a project manager and carried out the responsibilities of EWI KC’s acting director for one year. 

Zdzisław Krasnodębski  is a sociologist, social philosopher, and publicist. He is a professor at the University of Bremen and an associate professor at the Akademia Ignatianum in Cracow. He taught, among others, at the University of Warsaw, University of Kassel, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, Catholic University of America, Columbia University. He also gave visiting lectures at numerous universities e.g. Princeton University, University of Oxford and University of Cambridge. He is an author of several books on sociology, philosophy and politics. In 2014 he run the elections and received a mandate of the Member of the European Parliament of the eighth term. He is a member of Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) committee and a substitute member of Culture and Education (CULT) and Security and Defence (SEDE) committees. He serves as an ECR coordinator in ITRE and is also as a co-chair of Working Group on Demography, Intergenerational and Family Policies.  

Ivan Krastev is the chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia and permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna. He is a founding board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Board of Trustees of The International Crisis Group and is a contributing opinion writer of The New York Times. His latest books in English are Democracy Disrupted. The Global Politics on Protest (UPenn Press, May 2014) and In Mistrust We Trust: Can Democracy Survive When We Don't Trust Our Leaders? (TED Books, 2013). He is a co-author with Stephen Holmes of a forthcoming book on Russian politics. His book After Europe is forthcoming in English (Penn Press, 2017) and in German (Suhrkamp, 2017).

Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir is the chair of the executive board of the Women Political Leaders Global Forum (WPL). She has been active in Icelandic politics for many years, both in the national Parliament and local government. She is the former chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Parliament and former Minister of the Interior in Iceland.  Before getting elected to Parliament, she was the mayor of Reykjavík, the president of the City Council, and chaired several committees and organisations for the city of Reykjavík. She is also the former Vice Chair of the Independence Party in Iceland; the former deputy Secretary General of the party and the former Secretary General of its Parliamentary Group. She obtained a bachelor of arts in political science from the University of Iceland in 1991. After that, she received a master of science in international and European politics from the University of Edinburgh (1993).

Videesha Kunkulagunta is passionate about the intersection of government, municipalities and technology. She runs State of Beta a firm focussed on shortening the sales cycles for early stage companies. She invests as an angel in frontier technologies: machine learning, artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and IoT. Before moving to Germany, she advised the board of FTSE 250 Telco TalkTalk Plc on the launch of a new product segment and internal data platform. Videesha then focused on consumer technology at London based fund PROfounders Capital. She is a 2016/17 Digital Policy Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, investigating policy and regulatory issues for the transatlantic digital economy. In a previous life, she led an international finance career, with a brief assignment at the U.K. civil service. 

Bryan Lanza is a managing director in Mercury’s Washington, DC office, specializing in public affairs and media strategy. A leading Republican strategist with extensive experience in political campaigns, policy and media relations, Lanza provides key leadership for clients across Mercury’s U.S. and international offices. Prior to his new leading role with Mercury, Lanza served as deputy communications director for the Trump–Pence campaign. Lanza has worked closely with President Trump and White House leadership throughout the 2016 election cycle, inauguration and transition periods. In his role with the transition team, Lanza worked with Cabinet nominees and Ambassador Appointees, helping to prepare them for confirmation hearings. Prior to his time with the Trump–Pence campaign, Lanza was the communications director for Citizens United, where he worked closely with the group's President David Bossie on strategy and messaging, as well as managing the organization's media relations. His policy experience includes chief of staff tenures at the California State Senate and Assembly. 

Congresswoman Brenda L. Lawrence has lived in Michigan’s 14th Congressional District, which includes a portion of Detroit as well the City of Southfield and 16 other cities located in Oakland and Wayne counties, her entire life. She was re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November of 2016, where she serves as a Senior Whip, Vice Chair of the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues and Secretary of the Congressional Black Caucus. She serves on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, where she also serves on the Subcommittee on Aviation, Subcommittee on Highway and Transit, Subcommittee on Water, Resources and Environment.  She is also a member on the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee where she serves on the subcommittee on Government Operation. She was elected Mayor of the City of Southfield in November of 2001 and became the first African American and the first woman to serve in that post. 

Ian Lesser is vice president for foreign policy at The German Marshall Fund of the United States  (GMF) and a member of GMF’s executive team, managing programs across the organization. He also serves as executive director of the Transatlantic Center, the Brussels office of GMF, and leads GMF’s work on the Mediterranean, Turkey, and the wider Atlantic. Prior to joining GMF, Dr. Lesser was a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and vice president and director of studies at the Pacific Council on International Policy. He came to the Pacific Council from RAND, where he spent over a decade as a senior analyst and research manager specializing in strategic studies. From 1994-1995, he was a member of the secretary’s Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, responsible for Turkey, Southern Europe, North Africa, and the multilateral track of the Middle East peace process.

Pamela Lesser is a researcher at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland  in Finland, where she focuses on sustainable mining practices in the north. Her current research looks at implementing the social license to operate concept in the Nordic region. Prior to her work at the Arctic Centre, Ms. Lesser was a fellow of Ecologic Institute – United States, a Berlin-based think tank, with projects related to smart cities and spatial planning. Ms. Lesser has extensive experience in the public sector, working for consultancies, as well as with nongovernmental organizations. As the national policy analyst at ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability USA, she served as a policy advisor to the executive director. Pamela Lesser was educated at Georgetown University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and conducted post-graduate studies in environmental policy at the RAND Corporation and in environmental science and policy at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.

Bruno Lété currently serves as a transatlantic fellow, security and defense at The German Marshall Fund of the United States in Brussels. He provides analysis and advice on trends in geopolitics and on international security and defense policy. He focuses primarily on the EU Common Security & Defense Policy, NATO, and developments in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2010, Lété joined the European Union Delegation to the United States in Washington, DC, where he supported the political, security, and development section and focused on U.S. foreign policy and EU-U.S. relations. He holds a bachelor's degree in communication management and a master's degree in international relations. He appears regularly in the media and is the author of frequent opinion pieces and policy briefs. In 2008, he was made a John C. Whitehead Fellow by the Foreign Policy Association in New York City.

Lee Litzenberger assumed his duties as the deputy permanent representative and deputy chief of mission of the U.S. Mission to NATO in September 2014. He was the NATO deputy senior civilian representative in Afghanistan in August 2013, and was assigned to Kabul until August 2014. Prior to his arrival in Kabul, Mr. Litzenberger served as the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, Serbia and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. He has served multiple tours in Washington, DC in the U.S. State Department bureaus for Near Eastern Affairs and Political Military Affairs, as well as in the Office of the Deputy Secretary of State. He is a graduate of Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont and received a master’s degree in National Security Studies from the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. 

Stefanos Loukopoulos is the co-founder and director of the nonprofit parliamentary monitoring organization Vouliwatch. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and master’s degree in international relations and an master’s degree in international conflict analysis. He completed his studies in the U.K. and Belgium. He has worked for important nongovernmental organizations both in London and Brussels as well as in the European Parliament. Loukopoulos is a founding member of the international association, Parliamentwatch Network, and a standing member of the Council of Citizens Control of the Greek public broadcasting service. In recent years he is involved actively both at national and international level in the fields of open government, civic technology, and the freedom of access to information.

Mohamed Loulichki has an extensive experience of 40 years in diplomacy and legal affairs. He assumed inter alia the functions of Head of the Department of Legal Affairs and Treaties in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was also Ambassador of Morocco in Hungary, Bosnia – Herzegovina and Croatia (1995-99), Ambassador Coordinator of the Government of Morocco with MINURSO (1999 – 2001), Ambassador of Morocco to the United Nations in Geneva (2006-08) and New York (2001-03 and 2008-14), as well as President of the Security Council (December 2014). Loulichki has been appointed President of the Counter-Terrorism Committee of the Security Council (2013), President of the working Group on Peace Keeping Operations (2012), Vice-President of the Human Rights Council (2006), Facilitator of the Universal Periodic Review of the said Council (2006 and 2010) and President of the National Committee in charge of the follow up on nuclear matters (2003-06).

Richard Lui has more than 30 years in television, technology, and business — often addressing Fortune 500 and Silicon Valley firms as a thought leader in media, marketing, and storytelling. Currently, Lui is news anchor for MSNBC and NBC News, reporting on the ground for stories from terror attacks in France to slavery in Africa. Previously, he was at CNN Worldwide, where he became the first Asian male in U.S. history to anchor a daily national cable news program. With over 20 years in the tech industry, Lui co-patented and founded a global bank-centric payments carve-out with Citibank. He currently helps a Silicon Valley artificial intelligence firm, and sits on four boards of directors and advisors. Business Insider named him one of 21 careers to watch and Twitter Counter ranks him top 1 percent. Lui has received civil rights awards from the National Education Association, Advancing Justice, and Asian American Journalists Association.  

James Manyika is a senior partner at McKinsey, and director of the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI). Manyika is on McKinsey’s Shareholder Council (Board of Directors). Based in Silicon Valley for 20 years he works with several of the world’s leading technology companies and their chief executives on a variety of issues, including strategy and innovation. At MGI he leads research on technology and the global economy. He was appointed by President Obama as vice chair of the Global Development Council at the White House, and by U.S. Secretaries of Commerce to the Digital Economy Board and National Innovation Advisory Board. He serves on the boards of Council on Foreign Relations, Aspen Institute, MacArthur Foundation, and Markle Foundation. He is on the advisory boards of the Oxford Internet Institute, MIT’s IDE, Harvard’s Hutchins Center. A Rhodes Scholar, Manyika has DPhil., MSc., and MA from Oxford in AI and robotics, computation, a BSc from University of Zimbabwe.

Alexandra Martin joined The German Marshall Fund one year ago, working with the Major Conferences team and focusing on policy areas related to defense and security, European Union, the Eastern Neighborhood, and the Atlantic basin. Prior to this, she worked as operations officer for the European Union mission in Georgia, in charge of strategic planning and coordination in Western Georgia. She has a master's degree from Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies in Conflict Management and Economics.

Senator John McCain entered the Naval Academy in June of 1954. He served in the United States Navy until 1981. McCain had a 22-year military career as a pilot and officer in the Navy. Five of those years (1967-73) were spent in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp after he was shot down over Hanoi during the Vietnam War. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona in 1982 and elected to the United States Senate in 1986. In 2000 he ran for the Republican presidential nomination, but was defeated by George W. Bush. After Bush was reelected in 2004, McCain ran again for the Republican nomination in 2008, this time winning the nomination at the GOP convention. He named Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, but they were defeated by Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Joe Biden. He currently serves as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, a member of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and the Select Committee on Intelligence. 

Walter Russell Mead is a distinguished fellow at Hudson Institute, the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College, and editor-at-large of The American Interest. From 1997 to 2010, Mead was a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, serving as the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy from 2003 until his departure. Mead writes regular essays at the website of the American Interest on a wide variety of subjects ranging from international affairs to religion, politics, culture, education and the media. He serves as a regular reviewer of books for Foreign Affairs and frequently appears on national and international radio and television programs. His next book, The Arc of A Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People will be published by Knopf later this year.

Thomas Melia is former United States Agency for International Development (USAID) assistant administrator for Europe and Eurasia and former Democracy International (DI) executive director. As executive director, Melia expanded DI’s partnerships by leading the establishment of the Advancing Democratic Elections and Political Transitions (ADEPT) consortium, provided technical leadership to DI’s Research and Analytical Services Team, and strengthened programs in the field. He previously served as deputy assistant secretary of state, where he oversaw the work of the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Previous to his work in the U.S. Department of State, Mr. Melia was deputy executive director of Freedom House and vice president for programs at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.

Yascha Mounk is a fellow at the Transatlantic Academy, a lecturer on Government at Harvard University, and a fellow in the Political Reform Program at New America. Mounk received his bachelor’s degree in history and his MPhil in political thought from Trinity College, Cambridge, and completed his PhD dissertation at Harvard University’s Government Department. Mounk’s first book, Stranger in My Own Country: A Jewish Family in Modern Germany, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2014, and his first academic book, The Age of Responsibility: Luck, Choice and the Welfare State, will be published by Harvard University Press in spring 2017. Of late, he has been publishing about the crisis of liberal democracy and is now working on his next book, provisionally entitled The People vs. Democracy: How The Clash Between Individual Rights and the Popular Will is Destroying Liberal Democracy. Mounk regularly writes for newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, The Nation, and Die Zeit.

Svante L. Myrick was sworn into office and became the city of Ithaca's youngest mayor and first mayor of color on January 1, 2012. After serving the 4th Ward of the city for four years on Common Council, Mayor Myrick brings several different perspectives to the office. As a passionate advocate for the youth in Ithaca’s community, Mayor Myrick chaired the committee that created the Ithaca Youth Council. He also chaired the Collegetown Vision Implementation Committee, which led to the creation and endorsement of a master plan for promoting development while still preserving neighborhoods in Collegetown. Mayor Myrick also served as the assistant director of Student and Young Alumni Programs for Cornell University before resigning his position to run for mayor. In his spare time, the Mayor enjoys speaking to youth groups around the state about achievement, civic engagement, and community building. Mayor Myrick faced homelessness in his childhood and understands first-hand the challenges of underserved youth.  On August 8, 2016 Politico.com asked 71 mayors to vote on the mayors most likely to succeed. Svante Myrick received votes for most innovative, biggest turnaround and a mayor to “keep our eye on.”

Asieh Namdar is an anchor for CGTN America in Washington, DC. She comes to CGTN with more than 20 years of experience at CNN, where she served as an anchor for CNNI, a senior writer for HLN, and a contributor to CNN.com. Namdar has written and reported on many international stories, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the tsunami disaster in Asia, the disputed 2009 election and protests in Iran, and typhoon Haiyan as it hit the Philippines in 2013. Namdar has conducted one-on-one interviews with Nobel Peace-Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Jordan’s Queen Rania, Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and best-selling author Azar Nafisi. Recently, she spoke one-on-one with Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Namdar She graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in communications. 

Selin Nasi is a columnist for Hürriyet Daily News and Şalom, which is a Jewish weekly newspaper published in Turkey. Ms. Nasi’s analysis on foreign policy is covered by international media. She is a voluntary member of the Women in Foreign Policy – a civic initiative aiming at promoting women’s participation in foreign policy. Currently a PhD candidate at the Boğaziçi University, Ms. Nasi’s research focuses on Turkey’s Israel policy after the Cold War. She holds an master’s degree in international relations from the Istanbul Bilgi University with a dissertation titled “Turkish-American Relations under the Shadow of the March 1 Resolution” and a bachelor’s degree  in political science and international relations from the Marmara University.

PETER NEUMANN, PROFESSOR, KINGS COLLEGE LONDON

Peter Neumann is professor of security studies at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and has directed the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization since its foundation in early 2008. He also currently serves as the OSCE chairman’s special representative on Countering Violent Radicalization. Neumann’s latest book in English is Radicalized: New Jihadists and the Threat against the West (IB Tauris, 2016), a fully revised version of his German bestseller Die neuen Dschihadisten: ISIS, Europa und die nächste Welle des Terrorismus, was published by Econ in October 2015. His most recent book in German is Der Terror ist unter uns: Dschihadismus und Radikalisierung in Europa (Ullstein, 2016), a comprehensive introduction to extremist radicalization and recruitment, which discusses new trends and developments including the internet, ‘lone wolves’, the rise of women, and the merging of terrorist and criminal milieus. 

Dr. Annika E. Nilsson is an expert on Arctic environmental politics and currently a Mistra Arctic fellow with The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) alongside her position as senior research fellow at Stockholm Environment Institute and Affiliated Faculty in Environmental Politics at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. Her work focuses on the politics of Arctic change, with research on environmental governance and communication at the science-policy interface. Nilsson has a PhD in environmental science and has followed Arctic science and politics since the mid-1990s. She has participated in several scientific assessments under the auspices of the Arctic Council, including current engagement in the Arctic Resilience Assessment and the Barents region study for Adaptation Actions for a Changing Arctic (AACA). Her published writing includes several articles about Arctic politics related to Arctic Council activities and climate change, as well as the edited volume Media and the Politics of Arctic Climate Change.

Natalie Nougayrède is an editorial board member and columnist at The Guardian, which she joined in 2014. She was previously the editor-in-chief of Le Monde, after being its diplomatic correspondent and Moscow bureau chief. She writes about international and European affairs, with a special focus on security issues and human rights. She was awarded two French journalism prizes, the Prix de la Presse Diplomatique (2004) and the Albert Londres award (2005), for her coverage of Russia and the Chechnya war. She is on the board of the Primo Levi Centre in Paris, which helps refugees who have been victims of torture. She has contributed to books (in French) on Putin's Russia and on Anna Politkovskaya. In December 2016-February 2017 she was a Richard von Weizsacker Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy, Berlin. 

Tom Nuttall covers European politics and economics in the Charlemagne column of The Economist. Before joining The Economist in Brussels, he worked as U.S. west coast correspondent in Los Angeles for two years, and as an editor on the Europe desk. Before joining The Economist he worked as an editor at the European Council on Foreign Relations, and spent several years as a senior editor at Prospect Magazine.

Lieutenant General Joseph Osterman is the deputy commander of the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. Lieutenant General Osterman was commissioned in 1982 as a second lieutenant through the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps program at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He served as an infantry officer at all levels to include commanding general, 1st Marine Division (Forward) in support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM and Commander, 25th Marine Regiment, in which he deployed in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. As commander, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, he participated in Operation ENDURING FREEDOM having served as a company grade officer at 1st Battalion, 7th Marines and 1st Battalion, 2d Marines participating in Operations RESTORE HOPE, CONTINUE HOPE, and SEA SIGNAL. Lieutenant General Osterman is a graduate of the Marine Corps Amphibious Warfare School, U.S. Naval War College, and U.S. Army War College. 

Ambassador Marc Otte is director general of the Egmont Institute since August 2014. He has been director for policy planning for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belgium, from March 2011 to February 2016. He was the EU special representative for the Middle East Peace Process from 2003 to 2011 and advisor on defence and security policy to the High Representative for Common Foreign and Security, Javier Solana (1999 to 2003). He joined the Belgian MFA in 1976 and held various assignments among which, consul general in Los Angeles, ambassador to Israel, and director for Security Policy and Disarmament. He holds a master's degree in political and social sciences and a post-graduate degree from the Institute for Developing Countries, University of Louvain, Belgium. He wrote several articles and publications on transatlantic issues, European security and defense policy and the Middle East Peace Process. Marc Otte is also vice president of the European Institute for Peace and Belgian special envoy for Syria.

Soli Özel is currently a full time professor at Kadir Has University, a columnist at Habertürk Daily newspaper, and an advisor to the Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association. He has guest lectured at Georgetown, Harvard, Tufts, and other U.S. universities, taught at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, University of Washington, and Hebrew University, and held fellowships at Oxford and the EU Institute of Strategic Studies. He is currently a Miller Family Fellow at the Belfer Center of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and in the spring of 2013, he was a Keyman fellow at Northwestern University. Mr. Özel is a regular contributor to GMF’s On Turkey series and his work has been published in Internationale Politik, Journal of Democracy, Foreign Policy, International Security, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, The Guardian, and Bitterlemons-International. 

Alexis Papahelas is an investigative journalist and the current executive editor of Kathimerininewspaper. Papahelas studied history and economics at Bard College and received a master's degree in international affairs and journalism at Columbia University. Until 1998 he worked as a U.S. correspondent for various newspapers, television, and radio networks. He returned to Greece in 1998 and co-anchored the respected news magazine Mavro Kouti broadcasted by MEGA Channel and worked as a senior editor for the newspaper To Vima.

Wilfried Porth has been a member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG since April 8, 2009, and is responsible for Human Resources. He is also director of Labor Relations of the company. In addition, he is responsible for IT, for Procurement of Non-Production Materials and Services, as well as the business unit Mercedes-Benz Vans. Porth studied mechanical engineering at the University of Stuttgart from 198-85 and graduated as an engineer. He joined the department Central Production Engineering as a planning engineer of the then Daimler-Benz AG in 1985.

JAMES H. QUIGLEY, CEO EMERITUS, DELOITTE

James H. Quigley, CEO Emeritus, retired as senior partner from Deloitte U.S. in June 2012. From 2007 until 2011, he was CEO of Deloitte Touche & Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL). Previously, from 2003 until 2007, Jim was CEO, Deloitte U.S. Throughout his 38 years with the organization, Jim has held numerous key leadership roles and built a distinguished track record of service to many multinational clients. Jim serves as chairman of the Board for HESS Corporation. In addition, Jim is a member of the Board of Directors of Wells Fargo & Company, and serves as chairman of their Audit and Examination Committee, as well as a member of their Risk, Credit, and Regulatory Compliance Oversight Committees. Jim also serves on the boards of Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and chairs their Audit Committee; The German Marshall Fund of the United States, and is a Trustee of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation. In addition, Jim is a member of the National Advisory Committee – Brigham Young University and the Advisory Board of the Center for Leadership and Ethics – Duke Fuqua Business School. Jim has a history of involvement in various business and community groups in the United States, including The Economic Club of New York, The Council on Competitiveness, The Japan Society, Catalyst, The Center for Audit Quality, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Financial Accounting Foundation, the U.S. Council for International Business, the Business Roundtable, the Shanghai International Financial Advisory Council, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting, and numerous committees of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and Junior Achievement of New York City, including serving as the U.S. co-chairman of the TransAtlantic Business Dialogue (TABD). Jim is the co-author of As One: Individual Action, Collective Power (2011), a best-selling book that addresses the leadership challenge of creating environments that inspire large groups to work together toward a common goal.

Nicholas Rasmussen was sworn in as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) on December 18, 2014, upon his confirmation by the United States Senate. He previously served as NCTC’s deputy director since June of 2012. Prior to returning to NCTC, he had served since October 2007 with the National Security Council (NSC) staff as special assistant to the president and senior director for Counterterrorism, where he was responsible for providing staff support to the President, the National Security Advisor and Homeland Security Advisor on counterterrorism policy and strategy. Rasmussen previously served at NCTC from 2004-07 in senior policy and planning positions responsible for producing net assessments of U.S. counterterrorism policy and strategy for the NSC and the president. From 2001-04 he served on the NSC staff as director for Regional Affairs in the Office of Combating Terrorism where he focused on Middle East, Southeast Asia, and related counterterrorism issues in the period after September 11, 2001. 

The Honorable Didier Reynders is a former lawyer who was appointed Belgian deputy prime minister and minister for institutional reforms in 2004. Reynders has served as the minister of finance since 1999 and was chairman of the Eurogroup in 2001. He has also worked as the minister of foreign affairs, foreign trade, and European affairs since December 2011. From July 2001 to December 2011, he was the president of Ecofin, the economic and foreign affairs council for the EU. Reynders was the minister for justice and institutional reforms from 1987-88. 

Verena Ringler is director for international affairs (Europe and Turkey programs) at Stiftung Mercator, devising and managing projects that foster Europe’s cohesion and capacity to act. Previously, Verena worked for a diplomatic mission by the European Council (ICO/EUSR) in Pristina, Kosovo (2006-09) and as associate editor with Foreign Policy magazine (2002-06) in Washington, DC, among other stints. She has a master’s degree from the JHU/SAIS. Verena Ringler is a TED speaker and the winner of an EU Young Journalist Award.

Josh Rogin is a columnist for the Global Opinions section of The Washington Post, and a political analyst with CNN. Previously, he has covered foreign policy and national security for Bloomberg View, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, and Foreign Policy magazine, Congressional Quarterly, Federal Computer Week magazine, and Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. He was a 2011 finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists and the 2011 recipient of the Interaction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. Rogin holds a bachelor’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University and studied at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. 

Norbert Röttgen served as the German Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety from 2009-12. Röttgen, a qualified lawyer, has been a member of the German Bundestag since 1994 currently serving on the Foreign Affairs Committee. During this time he has fulfilled key functions within the Christian Democratic Party (CDU) and the German federal government. In 2009 his first book, Deutschlands beste Jahre kommen noch, was released. It calls for a strategic and well-thought through German political agenda that exercises a formative influence on globalization rather than being at its mercy. Roettgen holds a PhD in Law from Bonn University. He is a senior fellow at the Hertie School of Governance.

Gideon Sa'ar holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and an LLB from Tel Aviv University. Sa'ar served as aide to the attorney general (1995-97), aide to the state attorney (1997-98), and secretary to the government (1999, 2001-02). Elected to the Knesset in 2003, he has served as Likud Parliamentary Group chairman and is an active lobbyist. He was a member of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, the House Committee, the Committee for Immigration, Absorption, and Diaspora Affairs, and served as chairman of the Committee on the Status of Women. He served as deputy speaker of the 17th Knesset (2006-09). Sa'ar was appointed minister of education in March 2009, a position he held until March 2013 when he was appointed minister of the interior, serving until his resignation in November 2014, when he also resigned from the Knesset. Sa’ar joined the INSS as a distinguished senior fellow in May 2015 and is handled as a possible challenger to Netanyahu. 

Dev Sanyal is chief executive of Alternative Energy and executive vice president of Regions of BP plc. He joined the BP Group in 1989 and has held a variety of positions globally. He was appointed to the Group Executive Committee on January 1, 2012 and was executive vice president of Strategy and Regions prior to his current appointment on March 31, 2016. He is an independent non-executive director on the board of Man Group plc, vice chairman of Centre for China in the World Economy at Tsinghua University, a member of the Accenture Global Energy Board and the board of advisors of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. 

Marietje Schaake has been serving as a Member of the European Parliament for the Dutch Democratic Party (D66) with the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) political group since 2009. She serves on the International Trade committee and is the spokesperson for the ALDE Group on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Schaake also serves on the committee on Foreign Affairs and the subcommittee on Human Rights. She is the founder of the European Parliament Intergroup on the Digital Agenda for Europe. Furthermore, Marietje Schaake is the vice president of the U.S. Delegation and serves on the Iran Delegation and the Delegation for the Arab peninsula. She is a member of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace and is a Young Global Leader and a member of the Global Future Council on Future of Digital Economy and Society with the WEF.

Helga Schmid is deputy secretary general of the European External Action Service. Prior to this, she was the head of the political staff of the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin and head of the minister’s office (2003-2005), and director of the Policy Planning and Early Warning Unit of the High Representative for the CFSP in the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union (2006-2010). Ms. Schmid holds a master’s degree in English and Romance languages, literature, history, and politics from Munich University and Sorbonne.

Rear-admiral Henri Schricke has entered the French Navy in 1984. He is a surface warfare officer and has served in numerous assignments in France and abroad, mostly dealing with operations or international relations. After three command tours at sea, he was appointed in 2010 to the French defense minister’s private office where he was in charge of international relations. More recently, from 2012 to 2015, he was the French defense attaché in the United Kingdom and, since then, has been assigned to the French Chief of Defense’s staff, where he is currently a special advisor on international relations for Europe, North America, NATO, EU, and the UN. He is also an alumni of the British Higher Command and Staff Course (2007) and of the French Centre for Higher Military Studies and National Defence Institute (CHEM and IHEDN – 2009).

Teri Schultz has been covering the European Union, NATO, and the BeNeLux region since 2007, reporting regularly for National Public Radio, CBS Radio News, and Germany's public broadcaster, Deutsche Welle. She has a particular interest in in Afghanistan, having made six reporting trips there, and has held journalism fellowships in Russia and Pakistan. Schultz covered the U.S. State Department for FOX News Channel from 2000-2006. She has a master's of science in international relations from the University of Helsinki and an undergraduate degree in journalism from New Mexico State University.  

Dr. Daniela Schwarzer took up her position as Otto Wolff Director of the German Council on Foreign Relations’ Research Institute on November 1, 2016. Dr. Schwarzer’s career combines scholarly expertise with international think tank experience. She previously held the position of executive team member of The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF); she was GMF’s senior director of research and headed GMF’s Berlin office as well as its Europe Program. Prior to this she spent eight years at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), where she led the research group on European integration for five years. During this time she advised Poland and France during their respective EU Council presidencies, served as a consultant to the Centre d’Analyse Stratégique for the French prime minister, and was a member of the Europe working group of the Whitebook Commission on Foreign and European Policy. 

Elif Shafak is an award-winning novelist and the most widely read female writer in Turkey. She is also a political commentator and an inspirational public speaker. She writes in both Turkish and English, and has published 15 books, ten of which are novels, including the bestselling The Bastard of Istanbul and The Forty Rules of Love. Shafak is a TED Global speaker, a member of Weforum Global Agenda Council on Creative Economy in Davos and a founding member of ECFR (European Council on Foreign Relations). She has been awarded the title of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2010 by the French government. She has been featured in major newspapers and periodicals around the world, including the Financial Times, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Der Spiegel, and La Republic.

Wendy R. Sherman is senior counselor at Albright Stonebridge Group and former undersecretary of state for Political Affairs.  She is a senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations as well as the Aspen Strategy Group.  Ambassador Sherman led the U.S. negotiating team that reached agreement on a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between the P5+1, the European Union, and Iran for which, among other diplomatic accomplishments, she was awarded the National Security Medal by President Barack Obama.  Prior to her service at the Department of State, she was vice chair and founding partner of the Albright Stonebridge Group, counselor of the Department of State under Secretary Madeleine Albright, and special advisor to President Clinton and policy coordinator on North Korea, and assistant secretary for Legislative Affairs under Secretary Warren Christopher. Early in her career, she managed Senator Barbara Mikulski’s successful campaign for the U.S. Senate and served as Director of EMILY’S list.  

Emma Sky is director of the Yale Greenberg World Fellows Program and a senior fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, where she teaches Middle East politics. She is the author of The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq. Sky served as advisor to the Commanding General of U.S. Forces in Iraq from 2007-10; as advisor to the Commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan in 2006; advisor to the U.S. Security Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process in 2005; and as governorate coordinator of Kirkuk for the Coalition Provisional Authority, 2003-04. Prior to that, Sky worked in the Palestinian territories for a decade, managing projects to develop Palestinian institutions; and to promote co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians. In addition, Sky has provided technical assistance on poverty elimination, human rights, justice public administration reform, security sector reform, and conflict resolution in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. 

Alison Smale came to Berlin in August 2013 as chief correspondent at The New York Times for Germany and central and Eastern Europe. She previously served almost ten years as managing editor and then executive editor of the International Herald Tribune (IHT), the global edition of The New York Times. Smale came to the IHT from The Times, where she had been deputy foreign editor since March 2002. She was in New York on Sept. 11, 2001 and organized much of the prize-winning Times coverage of the war in Afghanistan and the later war in Iraq. Prior to that, she covered the Balkans wars of the 1990s and the fall of Communism across Europe for The Associated Press, and crossed Checkpoint Charlie with the first East German to cross when the Wall fell on November 9, 1989. 

Andrew Small is a senior transatlantic fellow with The German Marshall Fund of the United States’ (GMF) Asia program, which he established in 2006. His research focuses on U.S.-China relations, Europe-China relations, Chinese policy in South Asia, and broader developments in China's foreign and economic policy. He was based in GMF’s Brussels office for five years, and worked before that as the director of the Foreign Policy Centre's Beijing office, as a visiting fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and an ESU scholar in the office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. His articles and papers have been published in The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Washington Quarterly, as well as many other journals, magazines, and newspapers. He is the author of the book The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia's New Geopolitics published with Hurst / Oxford University Press in 2015.

In this role, Brad Smith is responsible for the company’s corporate, external, and legal affairs. He leads a team of more than 1,300 business, legal, and corporate affairs professionals working in 55 countries. These teams are responsible for the company’s legal work, its intellectual property portfolio, patent licensing business, corporate philanthropy, government affairs, public policy, corporate governance, and social responsibility work. He is also Microsoft’s chief compliance officer. In addition to his work at Microsoft, Smith is active in several civic and legal organizations and in the broader technology industry. In March 2015, Smith joined the Netflix board of directors. He also works to advance several significant diversity and pro bono initiatives, serving as chair of the board of directors of Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) and as chair of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD).

Peter Sparding is a transatlantic fellow in The German Marshall Fund of the United States’ Europe Program in Washington, DC. His work focuses on the consequences of the Eurozone crisis for Europe and the transatlantic economy. In addition, he also works on issues related to trade, in particular the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), as well as on German-American relationships.

James B. Steinberg is professor of social science, international affairs and law at Syracuse University, where he was dean of the Maxwell School from 2011-16. Prior to becoming dean he served as deputy secretary of state.  From 2005-08, Steinberg was dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.  From 2001-05, Steinberg was vice president and director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution.  Steinberg was deputy national security advisor to President Clinton from 1996 to 2000.  During that period he also served as the president’s personal representative to the 1998 and 1999 G-8 summits.  Prior to becoming deputy national security advisor, Steinberg held positions as director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, and as deputy assistant secretary for Analysis in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.  Steinberg’s most recent book is Strategic Reassurance and Resolve: US-China Relations in the 21st Century with Michael O’Hanlon (Princeton University Press, winter 2014). 

Bruce Stokes is the director of Global Economics Attitudes at the Pew Research Center. He is also a non-resident fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States and an associate fellow at Chatham House. He is a former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he is a member. For 23 years he was the international economics columnist for the National Journal, a Washington-based public policy magazine. He is coauthor, with Andrew Kohut, of the book America Against the World: How We Are Different and Why We Are Disliked (Times Books, 2006), author of the 2009 GMF Transatlantic Trends survey and one of the creators of the Pew Global Attitudes Survey.

AMY STUDDART, TRANSATLANTIC FELLOW, THE GERMAN MARSHALL FUND OF THE UNITED STATES

Amy Studdart is a fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) where she leads GMF’s work on technology policy. Prior to her position with GMF, she was deputy director and fellow of the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC, where she established a series of programs focused on 21st century economic statecraft. She worked in Brussels from 2008-14, first at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she helped to establish their Europe office, and then at the German Marshall Fund, where she managed GMF’s Asia program. She has written and spoken extensively on European foreign policy and political economy, politics and economics in the digital age, and transatlantic trade issues.

Michael Stumo is the chief executive officer of the Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA). CPA is a bipartisan coalition including agriculture, manufacturing, and organized labor. CPA works for policies to balance U.S. trade, create jobs, and achieve broadly shared prosperity. CPA represents the interests of over 2.7 million people through its association and company members. CPA board members come from both major U.S. parties. During the second week of March 2017, Michael and CPA members will meet with 100 congressional offices and receive a White House trade policy briefing from Director of National Trade Council Dr. Peter Navarro. Michael appears regularly on U.S.  and international radio programming as well as general and trade policy media. Michael was raised on an Iowa farm which grew corn, soybeans, dairy and hogs. He has a BS from Iowa State University in agriculture and a law degree from the University of Iowa, both with high distinction.  

A leading advocate for an open and secure Internet and an expert in global Internet governance and cooperation, Theresa Swinehart is Senior Vice President of the Multistakeholder Strategies and Strategic Initiatives Department at ICANN. She works with stakeholders and policymakers around the globe to advocate the Internet's multistakeholder model, and oversees a team with overarching responsibility for a range of initiatives including development of the organization's five-year strategic plan. She rejoins ICANN after serving three years as the executive director of Global Internet Policy for Verizon Communications, where she specialized in emerging issues and stakeholder and policy leader engagement. Theresa spent nearly ten years at ICANN prior to joining Verizon in 2010Swineheart holds a law degree from American University Washington College of Law (U.S.), a post graduate degree in International Studies from the University of Vienna (Austria), and a BA in International Relations from the University of California, Davis (U.S.). 

Dr. Stephen F. Szabo is the executive director of the Transatlantic Academy (TA), based at the Washington office of The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). As executive director, Dr. Szabo works with the partners of the TA to shape the research content of each term, to assist in the recruitment and selection of fellows and to manage the TA. Prior to the founding of the TA, Dr. Szabo had been with the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, where he served as academic and interim dean as well as professor of European Studies. Prior to that he had served as professor of National Security Affairs at the National Defense University and chairman of West European Studies at the Foreign Service Institute, U.S. Department of State. He has written on German foreign and security policies, generational politics in Europe, and transatlantic security and political relations. 

Tomasz Szatkowski completed post-graduate studies in the field of national security at the University of Warsaw and war studies at King's College London. He also completed a postgraduate course in intelligence policy at King's College London, a training course of development for staff officers at the Graduate School of the United States Navy in Monterey, and a course of programming defense policy and strategic management at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom. Minister Szatkowski was awarded scholarships by the Ministry of National Defence of the United Kingdom (2004), the U.S. Department of State (2007), and was named an Asmus Policy Entrepreneurs Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (2013). Minister Szatkowski is the author of many publications on the aforementioned issues, published both in Poland and abroad. 

Zsuzsanna Szelényi is a Member of Parliament in Hungary representing the Együtt (Together) party. She is member of the party’s Presidential Board. She covers foreing policy, migration, human resource policies, and gender issues. She served at the Council of Europe for fourteen years, advising governments and NGOs on conflict management, human rights,  and human development issues. Between 2010-13 she worked as human development consultant for international organizations in various Central European and North African countries. Szelenyi started her career as founder of Fidesz, a youth party at the régime change in 1988 in Hungary. She became Member of Parliament of the  first freely elected Parliament, where she dealt with international and migration affairs. Szelenyi’s experience encompasses the broadest range of political process, international affairs, conflict management and general management activities at the national and international level. 

Dr. Sylke Tempel is editor-in-chief of Internationale Politik and the Berlin Policy Journal, both published by the German Council on Foreign Affairs. She also teaches international affairs and contemporary German history at the Stanford Study Center Berlin and she was visiting professor at Stanford University, CA. Previously, Tempel has worked as Near East correspondent for several German newspapers and magazines. Tempel has published several books, among them: Israel. Journey through an Old New Land. (2008) and Freya von Moltke,  A Biography(2011).

Harry Theoharis was elected member of the Greek parliament for the first time in January 2015. He is member of the production and trade committee. He previously served as spokesperson and member of parliament of the political center TO POTAMI. He is also member of the Greek-Israel friendship parliamentary committee. Mr. Theoharis represents the Athens B’ Constituency and has submitted a significant number of parliamentary questions on economic and financial policy and public administration issues. He served as a secretary general for information systems (2011-12) and as a secretary general for public revenues (2013-14), where he reorganized the agency and succeeded in meeting budget revenues and producing a fiscal surplus. He launched www.publicrevenue.gr as a platform to set clear objectives, increase transparency, and civic control over public administration. 

Frans Timmermans began his career in 1987 as an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague. After taking part in the induction course for diplomats, he worked as a policy officer in the ministry's European Integration Department from 1988-90, before joining the Dutch Embassy in Moscow as second embassy secretary. After a brief period back in The Hague as deputy head of the Ministry for Development Cooperation's European Affairs Section, Timmermans became a member of the staff of European Commissioner Hans van de Broek. He later became advisor and private secretary to Max van der Stoel, the High Commissioner on National Minorities for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Since November 1, 2014, Timmermans is the European Commission’s first vice president, responsible for better regulation, inter-institutional relations, the rule of law and the Charter of fundamental rights.

Dex Torricke-Barton is a fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). Since 2008 he has served as speechwriter to the office of the UN Secretary General, Google chairman, Eric Schmidt, and Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. In 2016 he joined SpaceX as head of communications, before stepping down immediately following the election to focus on campaigning on immigration and refugee issues. Torricke-Barton is currently developing a project with GMF to explore how online communities and technology can help strengthen support for institutions of the liberal world order, and authoring a book on the same topic. 

Conrad Tribble joined the Foreign Service in 1987, and has served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Europe and the European Union since August 2015. He arrived in Washington after three years as deputy chief of mission in Havana, where he helped manage the historic reestablishment of diplomatic relations and the opening of the U.S. Embassy. Tribble started his career as a consular officer in Santiago, Chile, then spent a two-year tour in the Department’s Politico-Military Bureau. He spent the next eleven years working on U.S.-European relations as Germany desk officer, Cyprus desk officer, OSCE action officer, and Coordinator for Baltic Sea regional cooperation programs. Tribble holds a B.A. in history from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, an M.A. in international relations from the University of Southern California, and an M.A. in national security studies from the U.S. National War College. 

Daniel Twining is counselor and director of the Asia Program at The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), based in Washington, DC.  As counselor, he serves on the executive management team that governs GMF’s $35 million annual operations in research, convening, leadership development, and grantmaking. As director of the Asia Program, he leads a 15-member team working on the rise of Asia and its implications for the West through a program of convening and research spanning East, South, and Southeast Asia. Dr. Twining previously served as a member of the U.S. Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, as the foreign policy advisor to U.S. Senator John McCain, and as a staff member of the U.S. Trade Representative. He holds a BA with Highest Distinction from the University of Virginia and MPhil & DPhil degrees from Oxford University, where he was the Fulbright/Oxford Scholar from 2004-07.

Heidi Tworek is a fellow at the Transatlantic Academy and assistant professor of international history at the University of British Columbia. She received her BA (Hons) in modern and medieval languages from the University of Cambridge and earned her PhD in history from Harvard University. She is currently completing her first book, provisionally entitled News from Germany: The Project to Control World Communications, 1900-1945. Tworek also manages the United Nations History Project. She previously held the position of assistant director of Undergraduate Studies and Lecturer in the History Department at Harvard University. Tworek has held visiting fellowships at Birkbeck, University of London, the Center for History and Economics at Harvard University, and the Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam, Germany. Tworek writes for newspapers and magazines including The Atlantic, Politico, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. She has also spoken on BBC radio and NPR. Her current research focuses on communications, international organizations, and media companies.

Ambassador Vale de Almeida previously served as the first EU ambassador to the United States of America, from 2010 to 2014. In Washington, he actively engaged in strengthening EU-U.S. relations and was critical to the launching of negotiations of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Prior to his appointment in Washington, Ambassador Vale de Almeida served as director general of external relations of the European Commission, the European Union’s executive body. As the most senior official under the authority of the high representative/vice president, he helped formulate and execute the EU’s foreign policy and played a key role in preparing for the new European External Action Service (EEAS) introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon.

Ivan Vejvoda is a permanent fellow and the director of the “Europe at Risk?” project at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, Austria. From 2010 until January 2017, he was consecutively vice president and senior vice president for programs at The German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington, DC. From 2003-2010 he was the executive director of the Balkan Trust for Democracy, a project of the German Marshall Fund dedicated to strengthening democratic institutions and civil society in Southeastern Europe.  Ivan Vejvoda was actively involved in the democratic opposition movement in Yugoslavia through the 1980s and 1990s, and co-founded in Belgrade the Democratic Forum (1989) and the Belgrade Circle of Independent Intellectuals (1992). In 2007 his was a candidate for Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia. He is widely published on the subjects of democracy, democratic transition, European Union, Balkans and political theory.  

Guy Verhofstadt MEP is the leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe in the European Parliament (EP) and Brexit negotiator for the EP. As president of the centrist political faction in the European Parliament, Verhofstadt champions a reform of the EU toward institutions with stronger political legitimacy, faster decision-making, and focus on the essential tasks of the Union. Before running in the European elections of 2009, Verhofstadt served for nearly ten years as prime minister of Belgium, heading three separate governments. During this time, Verhofstadt carried through a substantial reform of the Belgian economy, which reduced drastically the public debt and resulted into economic growth exceeding expectations. He also made Belgium the second country in the world to introduce gay marriage and to legalize euthanasia. 

Ambassador Kurt Volker is a leading expert in U.S. foreign and national security policy with some 30 years of experience in a variety of government, academic, and private sector capacities. Ambassador Volker serves as executive director of The McCain Institute for International Leadership, a part of Arizona State University based in Washington, DC. He is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, a senior advisor at the Atlantic Council, and a trustee of IAU College in Aix-en-Provence, France. He is a consultant to international business, a member of the Board of Directors of CG Funds Trust, and had previously served as managing director, International, for BGR Group. He has taught transatlantic relations at The George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs. 

Eckart von Klaeden is a lawyer by training. He started his political career as a spokesman of the CDU in Lower Saxony before he became a member of the German Federal Parliament in 1994. There he held a number of posts: from 2000 to 2005 as parliamentary secretary, from 2005 to 2009 as foreign policy spokesman of the CDU/CSU faction in the German Federal Parliament, and from 2006 to 2010 as treasurer of the CDU. From 2004 to 2013, he was a member of the federal board of the CDU, and since 2006 he has also been a member of the executive committee. In 2009, he assumed office as minister of state of the federal chancellor. In November 2013, von Klaeden joined Daimler AG as vice president, external affairs where he is responsible for external relations and Daimler’s political dialogue worldwide. 

Dr. Christoph von Marschall is chief diplomatic correspondent of Der Tagesspiegel, the leading daily in Berlin, a frequent guest on TV shows like ARD Presseclub and Phoenix Runde and radio commentator for Deutschlandfunk and WDR. In 2017, he will begin as the inaugural Helmut Schmidt Fellow, awarded by The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) and the Zeit Foundation, where he will study the future of transatlantic relations at GMF headquarters in Washington, DC, for ten months. From 2005 to 2013 he served as U.S. correspondent and Washington Bureau Chief where he was member of the White House Press Corps. Since 1991, he has worked for Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin, first in the newsroom and from 1995 to 2005, as editorial page editor. In 1989 and 1990, he covered as a reporter for Süddeutsche Zeitung the flight of GDR-refugees through Hungary and the revolutions in Romania and Bulgaria. He studied east European history and political science in Freiburg, Mainz and Cracow (Poland), concluding with a PhD on Polish history in 1988 at Freiburg University.  

J. Robinson West is the managing director of The Boston Consulting Group, Center for Energy Impact. He also serves as a senior advisor and non-resident affiliate for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an independent bipartisan research institute specializing in foreign policy and defense issues and international economies. The former chairman and founder of PFC Energy (1984-2013), West has advised chief executives of leading national and international oil and gas companies on corporate strategy, portfolio management, acquisitions, divestitures, and investor relations. The former chairman and founder of PFC Energy (1984-2013), he has advised chief executives of leading national and international oil and gas companies on corporate strategy, portfolio management, acquisitions, divestitures, and investor relations. Mr. West received a bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a JD from Temple University, and was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar. 

Moira Whelan is a partner at BlueDot Strategies. For more than 15 years, Whelan has been at the forefront of shaping opinion on global events, most recently as the deputy assistant secretary for Digital Strategy at the U.S. State Department. She is an expert at utilizing new technologies and trends alongside traditional communications strategies to grow global audiences and influence outcomes. She has spearheaded the full spectrum of broadcast, digital and media communications efforts on events such as the U.S. Global Entrepreneurship Summit, the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit and countless others. Whelan’s experience working with U.S. and international governments, non-government, technology, and academic sectors offers a comprehensive perspective to growing businesses. She has served in senior level positions at the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development, Department of Homeland Security, Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the U.S. House of Representatives and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

Xenia Wickett is the head of the U.S. and the Americas Program at Chatham House and the Dean of the Queen Elizabeth II Academy for Leadership in International Affairs. She also serves as a commissioner of the Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission. Prior to Chatham House, Xenia was the executive director of the PeaceNexus Foundation, based just outside Geneva, which she launched in 2009. Xenia is the author of numerous articles in publications such as The Washington Quarterly, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, and International Herald Tribune. She is a graduate of the Kennedy School of Government where she completed her master's degree in public policy. She earned her bachelor's degree from Oxford University.