Biographies 2007

Valdas Adamkus, Former President, Republic of Lithuania

Born into a family of civil servants in Kaunas in November 1926, President Adamkus’ father served as a volunteer during the Independence War in Lithuania and was among the first heads of the Lithuanian Air Force School in the then newly re-established Republic of Lithuania. His mother worked at the Ministry of Communications for many years.

President Adamkus studied at the Ausra (Dawn) Gymnasium in Kaunas. In the years of World War II, he joined the resistance movement for Lithuania’s independence, published and circulated the underground newspaper Jaunime, budek! (Youth, Be on Guard!).

Working for the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) in the early 70s, he led the environment research center and later was appointed Deputy Administrator at the U.S. EPA Region 5 (Great Lakes Region).  President Adamkus was later promoted to Administrator at the same institution and held that office until June 1997. He has been an active member of the U.S. Republican Party.

Since 1972, he has visited Lithuania several times, bringing the literature published by SANTARA-SVIESA – Metmenys (Outlines), Akiraciai (Horizons) and others. Encouraging and supporting the construction of water treatment facilities and development of environmental monitoring, President Adamkus assisted the environmental institutions of the Baltic States in acquiring academic literature, equipment and software needed for their projects. In the capacity of the coordinator of the U.S. aid to the Baltic States in the field of environmental protection, he organized study visits for the representatives of Lithuania’s academic institutions and developed many-sided cooperation with Vilnius University, helping it acquire the latest academic literature on environmental issues. Additionally, he raised and implemented the idea of publishing Lithuanian History by Adolfas Sapoka in 300,000 copies and the two-volume edition of Modern History by Pranas Cepenas in Lithuania.

President Adamkus was granted the title of Vilnius University Honorary Doctor in 1989. The American universities of Indiana and Illinois also named him their Honorary Doctor for his contribution to the cleaning of the Great Lakes and other environmental projects. In 1988, he was granted an international environmental award for outstanding achievements on the international arena and he himself also established an annual award granted to Lithuania’s noted environmental specialists and scholars.

Additionally, President Adamkus has been granted the EPA’s gold medal for the achievements in service and the award of the U.S. President for outstanding service. In 1993, he headed the presidential campaign of candidate Stasys Lozoraitis in Lithuania. He also actively participated in the campaign of the 1996 Lithuanian general elections, uniting a bloc of moderate right-wing forces and in 1997 was nominated by the Lithuanian Center Union for the Siauliai City Council.

 

Ronald D. Asmus, Ph.D., Executive Director, Transatlantic Center of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Brussels, Belgium

Dr. Ronald D. Asmus is Executive Director of the Transatlantic Center of The German Marshall Fund of the United States in Brussels, Belgium.

An accomplished author, Dr. Asmus has written widely on U.S.-European relations and is the author of Opening NATO’s Door: How the Alliance Remade Itself for a New Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). Previously, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs from 1997 to 2000, and was a Senior Fellow for The German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Council on Foreign Relations, RAND, and Radio Free Europe.

Dr. Asmus has been awarded the U.S. Department of State’s Distinguished Honor Award, the Republic of Poland’s Commander’s Cross, the Kingdom of Sweden’s Royal Order of the Polar Star, the Republic of Lithuania’s Order of the Grand Duke Gediminas, the Republic of Estonia’s Order of the Cross of St. Mary’s Land, and the Republic of Latvia’s Order of the Three Stars.

 

Bob Bennett, Member, U.S. Senate

Re-elected to a third term in the U.S. Senate in 2004, U.S. Senator Bob Bennett, a Republican, continues to serve the citizens of Utah with distinction. In his position as Chief Deputy Majority Whip, and as a member of the Senate Republican leadership team, Senator Bennett joins Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Majority Whip Mitch McConnell in managing strategy and schedule in the Republican-led Senate. As Vice Chairman of the distinguished Joint Economic Committee and a senior member of the Senate Banking Committee, the Utah senator is at the center of national economic policy discussions.  Senator Bennett chairs the Subcommittee on Agriculture on the Senate Appropriations Committee. The Utah Republican also serves on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and the Senate Rules Committee. Named an “Emerging Leader in a Post–September 11 Senate” by Congressional Quarterly magazine, Mr. Bennett has received numerous awards for his contributions in the U.S. Senate.

A past chairman and current member of the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force, Mr. Bennett is now working to ensure that the nation’s critical infrastructure, 90 percent of which is privately owned, can be protected and U.S. national security bolstered. Prior to his election to the Senate in 1992, Mr. Bennett earned recognition for his entrepreneurial and government activities. For his success as Chief Executive Officer of the Franklin International Institute, Mr. Bennett was named Inc. magazine’s “Entrepreneur of the Year” for the Rocky Mountain region.

 

Carl Bildt, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Republic of Sweden

Former Prime Minister of Sweden, Minister Bildt was appointed as the European Union Special Representative to the former Republic of Yugoslavia and served as Co-Chairman of the 1995 Dayton Peace Talks.  Additionally, he has served as the first High Representative of the international community in Bosnia during 1996 and 1997. In 1999, he was asked to re-engage on the Balkan issues as Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and served in that capacity until 2001.

Minister Bildt has served on the Board of Trustees for the RAND Corporation, is non-executive Director of the global asset management company Legg Mason as well as member of the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Additionally, he has served on the Boards of: the Centre for European Reform, the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the European Policy Institute in Brussels, and of the Aspen Institute Italia in Rome. In Moscow, he has been on the Editorial Board of the magazine Russia in Global Affairs as well as the Board of the New Eurasia Foundation.

 

Elmar Brok, Member, European Parliament, and Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs

Elmar Brok has been a German member of the European Parliament since 1980. He currently serves as Chairman of the

Committee on Foreign Affairs and as a member of the delegation for relations with the United States. He is also member of the Bureau, or Board of Directors, of the Group of the European People’s Party and European Democrats in the European Parliament.

Mr. Brok was the European Parliament’s representative in the EU Council’s Reflection Group, which was preparing the reform of the Maastricht Treaty, and he was its representative at the intergovernmental conference for the EU Constitutional Treaty in 2003–2004. He was voted “MEP of the Year” in 2003 in a Europe-wide vote organized by the weekly newspaper European Voice. Mr. Brok holds leadership positions in the Christian Democratic Party in Germany, including Member of the CDU Federal Board and Chairman of the CDU district Ostwestfalen-Lippe.

 

Roger Cohen, Editor-at-Large, The International Herald Tribune

In February 2006, Roger Cohen was named the first Editor-at-Large for The International Herald Tribune, for which he has

also written “The Globalist” since 2004. In addition, he has been the international writer-at-large for The New York Times.

He had been Foreign Editor for the Times since March 2002. He became Deputy Foreign Editor in August 2001 and

Acting Foreign Editor in September 2001.

Previously, Mr. Cohen had been chief of the newspaper’s Berlin bureau, its Paris correspondent, its Balkans bureau chief, and its European economic correspondent. Mr. Cohen joined the Times in January 1990 as a media reporter.

Prior to working at the Times, Mr. Cohen was a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. In 1983, he opened the Journal’s office in Rome as Chief Correspondent, covering Italy and the eastern Mediterranean, reporting from Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, and Lebanon. From 1979 to 1983, Mr. Cohen was a foreign correspondent for Reuters. During that time he was based in London, Brussels, and Rome, reporting on the European Community, NATO, Belgium, Italy, and the Vatican.

 

Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger, Foreign Editor, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger is Foreign Editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Germany. Prior to his journalistic activities, he worked as a Research Associate at the Center for North-American Studies at Frankfurt University, as a Congressional Fellow at the U.S. House of Representatives and as a Marshall Fellow at Harvard University.  Since joining the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in 1986, he has acted as European, international, and op-ed page editor.  Mr. Frankenberger, who is a member of the Trilateral Commission and serves on the advisory board of the German Institute for European Politics, has lectured extensively at American colleges and universities.

He earned his masters degree in political science, economics and American studies from Frankfurt University.

 

Daniel Fried, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs

Daniel Fried became Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of European and Eurasion Affairs on May 5, 2005. Previously, Ambassador Fried served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European and Eurasian Affairs from January 2001 until April 2005. He had been Principal Deputy Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for the New Independent States. He was the U.S. Ambassador to Poland from November 1997 to May 2000.

Ambassador Fried began his career with the Foreign Service in 1977. He served in the Economic Bureau of the State Department from 1977 to 1979, at the U.S. Consulate General in then-Leningrad from 1980 to 1981, as Political Officer in the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade from 1982 to 1985, and in the Office of Soviet Affairs at the State Department from 1985 to 1987.  He was Polish Desk Officer at the State Department from 1987 to 1989 and served as Political Counselor in the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw from 1990 to 1993.  Additionally, he served on the staff of the National Security Council from 1993 until 1997, first as a Director and then as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Central and Eastern Europe. At the White House, Ambassador Fried was active in designing U.S. policy on Euroatlantic security, including NATO enlargement and the Russia-NATO relationship.

 

Mark Fuller, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO, Monitor Group

Mark Fuller is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Monitor Group, which he co-founded in 1982. The group currently competes in three different business areas: general management consulting, principal investing, and intelligent products, such as software.

As Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Fuller is responsible for oversight of overall group strategy, human resource development, and knowledge and product innovation. He plays an active role in the development and management of a select number of client relationships and has participated in many of Monitor’s projects dealing with the enhancement of national or regional competitiveness.

Formerly, Mr. Fuller served as an assistant professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School, where he taught courses in strategy formulation and implementation, as well as industry and competitive analysis. While a professor, Mr. Fuller was co-director of Harvard’s Project on the Auto Industry and the American Economy. He has written or co-authored more than 50 articles and teaching cases, and, with John C. Beck, wrote the book Japan’s Business Renaissance: How the World’s Greatest Economy Revived, Renewed, and Reinvented Itself.

 

François Godement, Ph.D., President, Asia Center

Dr. François Godement is Founder and President of the Asia Centre in Paris, after directing the Asia programs of the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI) until April 2005. Additionally, he is a professor at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO) in Paris and a consultant to the policy planning staff at the French Foreign Ministry.   Dr. Godement has also worked as a consultant with several international organizations, including the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the European Union, and the World Bank.

He is Co-chair of the European Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, currently based at

Asia Centre, and is a founding member of the Council for Asia-Europe Cooperation. He has written extensively on Chinese reforms and transitions, as well as on East Asian regional and international relations.

 

Nik Gowing, Presenter, BBC World

In February 1996, Nik Gowing became a main program anchor for the BBC’s international television news channel, BBC

World. From 1996 to March 2000, he was the principal anchor for the 90-minute weekday news program “The World Today” and its predecessor, “NewsDesk.” He has been a founding presenter of BBC’s “Europe Direct” and has been a guest anchor on both the BBC’s “HARDtalk” and its “Simpson’s World.” Mr. Gowing is now a main presenter on the news programs, which were re-launched in April 2000, and he is a regular presenter for the BBC’s “Dateline London.”

Mr. Gowing’s appointment draws both on his extensive reporting experience over two decades in diplomacy, defense, and international security, and on his presentation and chairing skills. His invaluable experience was called on throughout the Kosovo crisis in 1999. He also regularly anchors BBC World’s live coverage from major international events, including the UN World Sustainability Summit in Johannesburg; the German, Dutch, and Russian elections; and the India-Pakistan summit in Agra, India.

Before joining the BBC, Mr. Gowing was a foreign affairs specialist and presenter at ITN for 18 years. During the 1980s, first as foreign affairs correspondent, then as diplomatic correspondent, Mr. Gowing reported extensively from Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. In 1989, he reported the revolutions marking the end of communist rule, as well as unrest in China.

 

Marc Grossman, Vice Chairman, The Cohen Group, and Board Member, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Ambassador Marc Grossman is Vice Chairman of The Cohen Group, the strategic business consulting firm founded and headed by former Secretary of Defense and U.S. Senator William Cohen. Prior to joining, he had been a career Foreign Service Officer since 1976.

Ambassador Cohen was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs at the U.S. State Department from March 26, 2001 until February 25, 2005.  Additionally, he served as Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs and as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey. From 1984 to 1986 Ambassador Grossman was the Deputy Director of the Private Office of Lord Carrington, then Secretary General of NATO.

He received a bachelors degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a masters degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

 

Karel de Gucht, Foreign Minister, Belgium

Karel de Gucht has been the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2004 and is the sitting Chairman-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.  Minister de Gucht was elected to the Belgian Federal Parliament in 2003 following an eight-year term as a member of the Flemish Parliament.  He was a Belgian Senator from 1994 to 1995, and was National President of the VLD, the Flemish Liberals and Democrats between 1999 and 2004. Additionally, he served as a member of the European Parliament for 14 years until 1994.

Minister de Gucht began his political career as National President of both the Liberal Student Union and Liberal Youth organizations.  He has served as both a local alderman and local councilor.

 

Richard C. Holbrooke, Vice Chairman, Perseus LLC

Richard C. Holbrooke is Vice Chairman of Perseus LLC, a leading private equity firm. His most recent government role was as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, a capacity in which he was also a member of President Clinton’s Cabinet, from 1999 to 2001. As Assistant Secretary of State for Europe from 1994 to 1996, he was the chief architect of the Dayton peace agreement, which ended the war in Bosnia. Later, as a private citizen, he served as President Clinton’s Special Envoy to Bosnia and Kosovo and Special Envoy to Cyprus on a pro-bono basis. From 1993 to 1994, he was U.S. Ambassador to Germany.

During the Carter administration, Ambassador Holbrooke served as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and was in charge of U.S. relations with China when Sino-American relations were normalized in December 1978. He worked on Vietnam at the Johnson White House and was a member of the American delegation to the Vietnam Peace Talks in Paris.  Ambassador Holbrooke has also served as Vice Chairman of Credit Suisse First Boston, Managing Director of Lehman Brothers, Managing Editor of Foreign Policy, and Director of the Peace Corps in Morocco.

He has written numerous articles and two best-selling books: To End a War, a memoir of the Dayton negotiations; and, as co-author, Counsel to the President, Clark Clifford’s memoir. He is Chairman of the American Academy in Berlin, Chairman of the Asia Society, and President and CEO of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS.

 

David Ignatius, Columnist, The Washington Post

David Ignatius is a columnist for The Washington Post. His twice-weekly column on global politics, economics, and international affairs began appearing on the op-ed page of the Post in January 1999. He continued to write weekly after becoming Executive Editor of the ParisbasedInternational Herald Tribune in September 2000.

When the Post sold its interest in the IHT in January 2003, Mr. Ignatius resumed writing twice a week for the op-ed page and was syndicated worldwide by The Washington Post Writers Group.  Prior to becoming a columnist, Mr. Ignatius was the Post’s Assistant Managing Editor in charge of business news, a position he assumed in 1993. He served as the Post’s Foreign Editor from 1990 to 1992, supervising the paper’s Pulitzer Prize–winning coverage of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. From 1986 to 1990, he was editor of Sunday “Outlook” section.

Before joining the Post in 1986, Mr. Ignatius spent 10 years as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. He covered the steel industry in Pittsburgh, the Justice Department, the CIA, and the U.S. Senate in Washington, and was the Middle East correspondent and chief diplomatic correspondent. He has published five novels and is finishing a sixth.

 

Toomas Hendrik Ilves, President, Republic of Estonia

Toomas Hendrik Ilves is President of the Republic of Estonia.

Previously, he served as Ambassador of the Republic of Estonia to the U.S., Canada, and Mexico from 1993 to 1996. From 1996 to 1998, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs. After a brief period as Chairman of the North Atlantic Institute (1998), he was again appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. From 2002 to 2004, he was a member of the Parliament of the Republic of Estonia, and from 2004 to 2006, he was Member of the European Parliament. He was elected President of the Republic of Estonia on September 23, 2006, and sworn into office on October 9.

Additionally, President Ilves served as a teacher and researcher at Columbia University in New York City and at the Open Education Center in Englewood, New Jersey. He also worked as a researcher and head of the Estonian desk at Radio Free Europe in Munich, Germany.

He earned a bachelors degree from Columbia University and a masters degree in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

 

Darrell Issa, Member, U.S. House of Representatives

First elected to Congress in 2000, Darrell Issa, Republican of California, currently serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where he is Ranking Member of the Intelligence Community Management Subcommittee. Representative Issa is also a member of the House Government Reform Committee,  the House Judiciary Committee, and is on a temporary leave of absence from the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Representative Issa founded Directed Electronics, the Vista, California-based and industry-leading manufacturer of automobile security and convenience products.  He has served as Chairman of the Consumer Electronics Association, as a member of the Board of Governors of the Electronics Industry Association, and as Director of the San Diego Economic Development Association and the Greater San Diego County Chamber of Commerce.

A former U.S. Army Captain, Representative Issa is perhaps best known as the leader of the successful effort to recall former California Governor Gray Davis in 2003.  In 1996, he also co-chaired the campaign to pass the California Civil Rights Initiative that ended racial and gender preferences and quotas in state contracting and college admissions.

 

Robert Kagan, Ph.D., Transatlantic Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States,  and Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Dr. Robert Kagan is a Transatlantic Fellow of The German Marshall Fund of the United States and a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His most recent book, Of Paradise and Power, was on the New York Times bestseller list for ten weeks and the Washington Post bestseller list for 14 weeks. Additionally, it was a bestseller in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Canada, and has been translated into more than 25 languages.

Dr. Kagan writes a monthly column on world affairs for The Washington Post and is a contributing editor at both The Weekly Standard and The New Republic. He served in the U.S. Department of State from 1984 to 1988, as a member of the Policy Planning staff and was the principal speechwriter for U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz.  He was also Deputy for Policy in the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs.

 

Craig Kennedy, President, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Craig Kennedy has been President of The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) since 1995. Under Mr. Kennedy’s leadership, GMF has focused its activities on bridging U.S.–European differences on foreign policy, economics, immigration and integration, and domestic policy. Toward this effort, he has provided GMF with a strong infrastructure throughout Europe, opening new offices in Paris, Bratislava, Brussels, Belgrade, and Ankara to complement the work being done in Washington and Berlin. Additionally, he has supported several substantial new projects that strengthen the organization’s public policy efforts, including Transatlantic Trends, an annual survey of American and European public opinion.

Mr. Kennedy began his career in 1980 as a Program Officer at the Joyce Foundation in Chicago. He became Vice President of Programs in 1983 and was President from 1986 to 1992.  In this role, he built the foundation’s environmental activities and launched a program on U.S. immigration policy. Mr. Kennedy left the Joyce Foundation to work for Richard J. Dennis, a Chicago investor and philanthropist. During this same period, he created a consulting firm working with nonprofit and public sector clients.

 

Fawzi Koofi, Deputy President (Speaker), Lower House of Parliament, National Assembly of Afghanistan

Elected as the second Deputy Speaker by the members of the Lower House, Fawzi Koofi is a Member of Parliament representing Badakshan province. Since 2002, she has been working with UNICEF Afghanistan as a Project Officer for Child Protection. Additionally, she was an English language lecturer at Faizabad Medical University in Badakhshan, Afghanistan.

Ms. Koofi earned her masters degree in Business Management from Preston University in Pakistan and is currently enrolled at the Law Faculty of Kabul University.  She is fluent in Dari, Pashto, English and Urdu. She is one of the youngest members of the Afghan parliament.

 

Stefan Kornelius, Foreign and Editorial Page Editor, Süddeutsche Zeitung

Stefan Kornelius is Foreign and Editorial Page Editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany’s leading daily. He is coordinating foreign coverage for the paper and contributing editorials and columns, mainly on US, transatlantic and security issues.

From 1999 to 2000 he worked as deputy bureau chief of Süddeutsche Zeitung in Berlin. In his reporting career, Mr. Kornelius served as Washington Bureau Chief (1996-1999) and political correspondent from Bonn, where he covered chancellor Kohl and the then governing CDU. Previously, he worked with the BBC in London and Stern Magazine.  He was also co-founder and editor of Medium Magazine, a special interest magazine for journalists.

Mr. Kornelius holds a masters degree from the London School of Economics.

 

Konstantin Kosachev, Chairman of the International Affairs Committee, State Duma of the Russian Federation

Konstantin Kosachev was elected to the state Duma for the first time in 1999 and currently serves as Chairman of the Duma Committee on International Affairs. A respected diplomat prior to his service in the Duma, Mr. Kosachev worked in various Russian diplomatic missions as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He has represented Russia in negotiations with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe as well as the Parliament of Sweden, and is the recipient of the Russian Order of Friendship and the Swedish Royal Order of the North Star.

Mr. Kosachev received a Ph.D. from the Moscow State Institute in International Relations (MGIMO).

 

Ivan Krastev, Political Scientist, and Chair, Centre for Liberal Strategies

Ivan Krastev is a Political Scientist and Chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria. Since 2004, Mr. Krastev has been the Executive Director of the International Commission on the Balkans, which is chaired by Italian Interior Minister Giuliano Amato. Additionally, he is the Director of the Open Century Project of the Central European University in Budapest.

In 2006, Mr. Krastev was awarded membership in the Forum of Young Global Leaders, a partner organization of the World Economic Forum. His latest book in English is Shifting Obsessions. Three Essays on Politics of Anti-Corruption (2004). The book The Anti-American Century edited by Alan McPpherson and Ivan Krastev is forthcoming in 2006.

Additionally, Mr. Krastev is the Editor in Chief of the Bulgarian edition of Foreign Policy.

 

Robert G. Liberatore, Group Senior Vice President of Global External Affairs and Public Policy, DaimlerChrysler

Robert G. Liberatore serves as Group Senior Vice President – Global External Affairs and Public Policy (EAPP) for DaimlerChrysler.  In this role he is responsible for relations with governments and societies around the world and developing the company’s position on public policy issues.  He reports to Chairman of the Board of Management Dieter Zetsche and is one of a small number of executives at DaimlerChrysler to be responsible for a worldwide staff.

Mr. Liberatore joined Chrysler Corporation in 1985 after working on Capitol Hill for 10 years, including four years as Staff Director for Senate Leader Robert C. Byrd (1979-1984).  He was elected an Officer of the Chrysler Corporation in 1993. Other work and academic background include having been Legislative Director for Senator Floyd Haskell (1975-1979), Assistant Treasurer and International Corporate Loan Officer for Chase Manhattan Bank in New York and Kingston, Jamaica (1972-1975).  Mr. Liberatore earned a  Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

 

Peter MacKay, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Canada, and Minister, Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency

Peter MacKay is Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency for Canada. He was first elected as Member of Parliament in 1997 and was re-elected in 2000, 2004, and 2006.

Most recently, Minister MacKay served as Critic for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. Prior to this, he was Critic for the Prime Minister, for the Solicitor General, for Public Security, for the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and for Justice.  He has served as Progressive Conservative Party Leader and House Leader and has been a member of the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and its related subcommittees, including the subcommittees on: Public Safety and National Security, Agenda and Procedure, and Corrections and the Conditional Release Act.

 

Erika Mann, Member, European Parliament

Erika Mann has been a German member of the European Parliament since 1994. She currently chairs the Delegation to the

EU–Mexico Joint Parliamentary Committee and is a member of the Committee on International Trade, where she coordinates the position of the European Socialists group.

Ms. Mann concentrates on trade and World Trade Organization (WTO) policy, transatlantic economic relations, digital economy, telecommunications policy, and research policy. She is a leading member of the International Steering Committee for the common initiative of the European Parliament and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) to create a parliamentary dimension of the WTO.  She also chairs the EU steering committee of the Transatlantic Policy Network. Ms. Mann is the author of articles and publications on the WTO, transatlantic relations, electronic commerce, and copyright in the information society.

 

Liz Mohn, Vice Chairwoman of the Executive Board, Bertelsmann Stiftung

Liz Mohn is Vice Chairwoman of the Executive Board for the Bertelsmann Stiftung. Together with her husband Reinhard Mohn, Ms. Mohn represents the fifth generation of the Bertelsmann media company. She sees it as her particular mandate to safeguard the long-term continuance and evolution of Bertelsmann’s corporate culture. As early as 1999, she was appointed a member of the Bertelsmann Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH (BVG). BVG’s mandate is to ensure continuity in Bertelsmann AG’s development and to manage the shareholder interest of the non-profit Bertelsmann Stiftung and of the Mohn family. She has been Chairwoman of the Board of BVG since 2002, and as a family spokeswoman she represents the interests of the Mohn family amongst the Bertelsmann AG’s Shareholders. She is also a member of the Bertelsmann AG Supervisory Board.

Ms. Mohn played an active role in developing the Bertelsmann Stiftung founded by her husband in 1977. In that role, she heads the Center of Execellence for Corporate Culture and Management, and the cultural projects carried out by the Stiftung.  The International Cultural Dialogs initiated by her and the Bertelsmann Stiftung aim to promote open dialog about cultural topics, tolerance, and understanding.

Additionally, Ms. Mohn has been President of the international “Neue Stimmen” (“New Voices”) singing competition since 1987. In 1993, she set up the German Stroke Foundation, which is dedicated to educating people about the early warning symptoms and risk factors associated with strokes. The Bertelsmann Stiftung strives to encourage social change and contribute to society’s long-term viability. The projects focus on education, international relations, health, economics and social affairs, corporate culture, and promoting philanthropy.  As Vice Chairwoman of the Bertelsmann Stiftung, Ms. Mohn shapes the international reputation of the Bertelsmann Stiftung as a leading institution for reform.

 

Jennifer Morgan, Director, Climate and Energy Security, E3G

Jennifer Morgan is Climate and Energy Security Director for E3G. She joined E3G in October 2006, on a two-year secondment from WWF International.  Currently she serves as Senior Advisor to the German Chancellor´s Chief Advisor, Dr. Schellnhuber and leads E3G´s political and analytical work on EU relations with China and the U.S., with a particular focus on energy and climate security issues.

Prior to joining E3G, Ms. Morgan led the Global Climate Change Programme of Worldwide Fund for Nature, present in over 30 countries around the world. She joined WWF in July 1998, and headed the WWF delegation to the Kyoto Protocol climate negotiations. She has formulated and advocated climate change policies on the international and national level and directed WWF’s science, business and communications efforts, acting as chief spokesperson for the organization on climate change. Additionally, she has served on a number of Boards including the Climate Action Network, the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership, and REN21.

Prior to joining WWF, Ms. Morgan worked for the U.S. Climate Action Network, a network of over 200 environmental groups worldwide with eight regional offices working on global climate change.  She took a leave of absence from CAN in 1996 to accept a fellowship with the Robert Bosch Foundation in Germany.  During her year in Germany she worked for the European Business Council for a Sustainable Energy Future and for the Federal Ministry of Environment, supporting the head of the German delegation to the UN climate change negotiations.

In addition to WWF, Ms. Morgan worked for the International Council for Local Environmental Issues in Freiburg, Germany on the Cities for Climate Protection campaign.  She has also worked on international trade issues at the Natural Resources Defense Council and on World Bank policy at the National Audubon Society.

She has a Bachelor of Arts from Indiana University in Political Science and Germanic Studies and a Masters of Art from the School of International Service, The American University in International Affairs.

 

Vassi Naidoo, Managing Partner, Deloitte & Touche LLP

Vassi Naidoo is Managing Partner for Deloitte & Touche.  Joining the company in 1977, he was made a partner in 1983 and in 1996 was made Partner-in-Charge of the Kwa Zulu Natal office, the largest office outside of Johannesburg.  At the firm, he was given the responsibility of National Client Service Director and in 1998 was made CEO of the Southern African Practice.  Having completed two terms as CEO of the South African firm, Mr. Vassi relocated to London and assumed the position of Managing Partner – Quality.   In addition to driving the quality agenda of the firm, he is also responsible for South Africa-based clients in London and acts as advisory partner on a number of significant client projects.

Mr. Vassi has been a member of the Deloitte Global Management Committee and is the Deputy Regional Managing Partner of the EMEA Region.

The Industries that Mr. Vassi has been exposed to include: Energy & Resources, Public Sector, Consumer Business and Financial Services.  He was recently awarded an Associate Professor in Accounting and Auditing at the University of Johannesburg. Additionally, Mr. Vassi is Chairman of the African Children’s Feeding Scheme Scheme, feeding some 18,000 children in Johannesburg and cares for families headed up by children whose parents have died due to HIV/AIDS.

 

Vartan Oskanian, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Armenia

Vartan Oskanian was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs by President Robert Kocharian in 1998. He continually represents Armenia in the Nagorno Karabakh peace negotiations, as he has done from the first days of the negotiations process.

Born in Serbia on February 7, 1955, Minister Oskanian moved to Armenia in 1992, shortly after Armenia’s independence, and began work at the Foreign Ministry, first as Deputy, then as Head of the Middle East Department. He moved on to the same position at the North American Department. In 1994, he became Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and in 1996, First Deputy. During those years, Minister Oskanian was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the American University of Armenia, where he taught International Economic Relations, American Foreign Policy, Introduction to International Relations and International Economic Relations. In addition to his political career, he is Founding Editor of Armenian International Magazine, which he began in California in 1990.

Minister Oskanian received a bachelor s degree in Structural Engineering from the Yerevan Polytechnic Institute in Armenia and two masters degree from Tufts University in Boston in Engineering and Law and Diplomacy.  He speaks fluent Armenian, English, French, Arabic, and Russian.

 

John Pomfret, Journalist, The Washington Post

Raised in New York City and educated at Stanford and Nanjing universities, John Pomfret is an award-winning journalist with The Washington Post and, starting April, the Editor of the paper’s Outlook section. He has been a foreign correspondent for 15 years, covering big wars and small in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Congo, Sri Lanka, Iraq, southwestern Turkey and northeastern Iran. Mr. Pomfret has spent seven years covering China – one in the late 1980s during the Tiananmen Square protests and then from 1998 until the end of 2003 as the bureau chief for The Washington Post in Beijing.

In 2003, Mr. Pomfret was awarded the Osborne Elliot Award for the best coverage of Asia by the Asia Society. And in 2007, he won the Shorenstein Award from Harvard and Stanford universities, again for his coverage of Asia.

Henry Holt published his first book – “Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China” – in August 2006.  Additionally, he peaks, reads and writes Mandarin, having spent two years at Nanjing University in the early 1980s as part of one of the first groups of American students to study in China.

 

Ruprecht Polenz, Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs, German Bundestag

Ruprecht Polenz is Chairman of the German Bundestag’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, of which he has been a member since 1994. He is also a member of the German delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and a substitute member of the Bundestag’s Committee on Cultural and Media Affairs. Additionally, he chairs the Bundestag’s Parliamentary Control Panel under Section 41 (5) of the Foreign Trade and Payments Act and is a substitute member of the Joint Committee of the Bundestag and Bundesrat under Article 53 a of the Basic Law.

The focal points of his work are foreign and security policy, with regional emphasis on the Middle East, in particular Iran and Turkey. Mr. Polenz is following the political effects of Islam both in this region and beyond with particular interest. Good transatlantic relations with the U.S. are especially important to him. He is a rapporteur on this issue in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

Previously, he was the Secretary-General of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in 2000. Today he sits on the executive committee of the North-Rhine/Westphalia CDU und is a member of the CDU’s Federal Committee on Foreign and Security Policy and its Federal Committee on Media Policy.  A lawyer, Mr. Polenz worked with the Northern Westphalia Chamber of Industry and Commerce, becoming its Director for Media and Public Relations in 1984. He is currently taking a leave of absence from that position while he is a member of the German Bundestag.

He is Chairman of the Television Council of the ZDF (a national television broadcaster), President of the German Atlantic Association (1997- 2006), member of the board of trustees of Grünhelme e.V. (“Green Helmets”, a humanitarian agency), member of the supervisory board of the Centre for International Peace Missions, member of the board of trustees of Münster University of Applied Sciences, member of the board of trustees of the Westphalian Heart Foundation, member of the organisation “Action Münsterland”, member of the advisory council of the USC Münster sports club, and member of the advisory council of the Münster branch of the European Law Students’ Association (ELSA).

 

Olli Rehn, Ph.D., Commissioner, European Commission for Enlargement

Dr. Olli Rehn has been the European Commissioner for Enlargement since November 2004. He is responsible for the relations between the EU and the countries that have a clear European perspective, including acceding countries Bulgaria and Romania; candidate countries Croatia, Turkey, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; and potential candidate countries of the Western Balkans. Commissioner Rehn briefly served as a member of the European Commission responsible for Enterprise and the Information Society prior to his current post.

In 2003, Commissioner Rehn became an Economic Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister of Finland, a position he held until his appointment to the European Commission the following year. He served as Head of Cabinet of the European Commission and was a member of the European Parliament and the Parliament of Finland earlier in his career.

He is the author of several books and articles, including The Comeback of History: Rebounds of Liberalism in Europe since 1989, in Liberalism in the European Union. The Way Forward, edited by Lex Corijn and Thomas Krings.

 

Carl J. Schramm, President, Kauffman Foundation

Dubbed the “evangelist of entrepreneurship” by The Economist, Carl Schramm leads America’s largest foundation dedicated to advancing entrepreneurial success. Mr. Schramm is one of the world’s foremost thinkers on the role and importance of entrepreneurship to a nation’s economic stability and growth.

Trained as an economist and lawyer, he has been a professor at The Johns Hopkins University, an executive in the health insurance industry, and the co-founder of a number of companies in the health-care, finance and information technology areas. He is a Batten Fellow at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2006. In 2007, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez appointed him Chair of the Department of Commerce’s Measuring Innovation in the 21^stCentury Economy Advisory Committee.

Mr. Schramm is the author of The Entrepreneurial Imperative, and his work has appeared in publications including Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, the New England Journal of Medicine, Newsweek, and INC magazine. His next book, Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, with Bob Litan and Will Baumol, will be published in May 2007.

 

Wolfgang Schäuble, Ph.D., Minister of the Interior, Republic of Germany

Dr. Wolfgang Schäuble has been a member of the German Bundestag since 1972 and served as the Parliamentary Secretary of the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group from 1981 to 1984. Previously, he held the offices of Federal Minister for Special Tasks and Head of the Federal Chancellery before serving as Federal Minister of the Interior from 1989 to 1991.

Minister Schäuble has been a member of the CDU National Executive Committee since 1989. He has held the positions of Head of the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group in the German Bundestag (1991- 2000) and National Chairman of the CDU (1998-2000).  Since then, he has been a member of the CDU Presidium.

Additionally, Minister Schäuble was the Deputy Head of the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group in the German Bundestag for Foreign, Security and European Policy from 2002 until he was again appointed Federal Minister of the Interior in 2005.

He studied law and economics and was awarded the degree of Dr. jur. in 1971.

 

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Secretary General, NATO

On January 5, 2004, Jakob Gijsbert (Jaap) de Hoop Scheffer became the 11th NATO Secretary General.  Prior to that, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Netherlands and Chairman-in-Office of the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE) during the Netherlands’ OSCE presidency.

In June 1996, Secretary General de Hoop Scheffer was elected to the Dutch House of Representatives of the States General for the Christian Democratic Alliance (CDA), and he became the party’s spokesperson on foreign policy in the House. From 1986 to 1994, he was also a member of the Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe and the Western European Union (WEU). In 1990, during the Gulf crisis, he served as WEU rapporteur on the consequences of the invasion of Kuwait and continuing operations in the Gulf region. Additionally, from 1994 to1997, he was a member of the North Atlantic Assembly.

After serving as Deputy Leader of the CDA parliamentary party in the House of Representatives from December 1995 to March 1997, he was elected leader.  In October 2001, Secretary General de Hoop Scheffer resigned as leader of the parliamentary party and as the political leader of the CDA. From November 2001 to May 15, 2002, he chaired the House Permanent Committee on Foreign Affairs. On July 22, 2002, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs.

 

Radek Sikorski, Defense Minister, Poland

Radosław (Radek) Sikorski is Defense Minister for the Republic of Poland.  He has held the position since 2005.

Minister Sikorski, a former Solidarity activist who became a British citizen after seeking asylum, served as Poland’s Deputy Defense Minister in 1992, as Deputy Foreign Minister from 1998 to 2001, and was elected to the Polish Senate in 2005.

A former journalist, Minister Sikorski, most recently was a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and was Executive Director of the New Atlantic Initiative, an international nonpartisan organization dedicated to revitalizing and expanding the Atlantic community of democracies.  He has been published widely and has given testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives.

 

Javier Solana, Ph.D., Secretary-General, Council of the European Union, and High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy

Dr. Javier Solana is Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union and High Representative for the Common

Foreign and Security Policy.  Dr. Solana earned a doctorate in physics and taught solid-state physics at Madrid Complutense University before entering politics.

In 1977, Dr. Solana was elected to the Spanish Parliament, and from 1982 onward, he held a number of Cabinet posts including Minister of Culture, government spokesperson, and Minister of Education and Science.  In July 1992, he became Minister of Foreign Affairs, a post he held until he became NATO Secretary-General in December 1995.

In October 1999, Dr. Solana left NATO to become Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union and its first High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy. His task is to put forth ideas and analyze policy options in an effort to help EU leaders agree on foreign and security policy issues, thereby giving the Union more political weight in international affairs.

 

Philip Stephens, Associate Editor, The Financial Times

Philip Stephens is Associate Editor of The Financial Times (FT) and a senior commentator. He joined the newspaper in 1983 and has been the FT’s economics editor, political editor, and editor of the UK edition. He is a well-known author, commentator, and broadcaster.

Before joining FT, Mr. Stephens was a correspondent for Reuters in London and Brussels. He is the author of Politics and the Pound (MacMillan), a study of the British government’s exchange rate management and its relations with Europe since 1979, and of Tony Blair (Viking/Politico’s), a biography of the British prime minister.

He was educated at Wimbledon College and at Oxford University, where he took an honors degree in Modern History.  Additionally, Mr. Stephens is a Fulbright Fellow and winner of the 2002 David Watt Prize for outstanding political journalism.

 

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Ph.D., Federal Foreign Minister, Germany

Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier has served as the Foreign Minister of Germany in the Grand Coalition of Angela Merkel since November 2005. He also currently holds the position of President of the European Council. 

Minister Steinmeier began his political career as an advisor in 1991 for law of communication media and media in the State Chancellery of Lower Saxony in Hanover.  In 1993, he became Director of the Personal Office for then Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Gerhard Schöder.  In 1996, he became the Undersecretary of State and the State Chancellery of Lower Saxony.  He was appointed in November 1998 as Undersecretary of State in the Office of the Chancellor following Schöder’s election victory.  In 1999, he moved into the position of Head of the Office of the Chancellor where he was dubbed “Die Graue Effizienz (The Grey Efficiency).”

As a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Minister Steinmeier became the first SPD Foreign Minister since Willy Brandt (1966-1969).

 

Bruce Stokes, Columnist, National Journal

Bruce Stokes is the international economics columnist for National Journal. He is also a frequent guest on National Public

Radio’s “All Things Considered” and “the Diane Rehm Show.” He has won several awards, including the John Hancock Award for excellence in business and economics reporting, Washingtonianmagazine’s award for “Best on Business” reporters in Washington, a Japan Society Fellowship, and a German Marshall Fund Fellowship.

Additionally, Mr. Stokes is Director of the Pew Global Attitudes Project, an assessment of public attitudes toward globalization, democratization, and America based on a survey of 90,000 people in 50 countries. He is also a co-author of the new book America Against the World: How We Are Different and Why We Are Disliked, co-author of the book Democratizing U.S. Trade Policy, and author of A New Beginning: Recasting the U.S.–Japan Economic Relationship. Mr. Stokes was recently named by International Economy magazine as one of the “most influential press China watchers.”

 

Guy Verhofstadt, Prime Minister, Belgium

Guy Verhofstadt has been Prime Minister of Belgium since 1999. He began his political career as a Ghent City Councilor in 1976. In 1982, at the age of 29, Prime Minister Verhofstadt became President of the PVV, the Flemish Liberal Party. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies — the lower house of Belgium’s Federal Parliament — in 1985, and he served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Budget and Scientific Research until 1988.

Prime Minister Verhofstadt led the transformation of the PVV into the VLD, the Flemish Liberals and Democrats, in 1992, and he was elected to the Belgium Senate three years later. In this role, he served as rapporteur for the Senate’s commission on the Rwandan genocide.

Prime Minister Verhofstadt is the author of several books. His most recent, The United States of Europe, was published in Dutch in 2005 and in six other languages in 2006.

 

George V. Voinovich, Member, U.S. Senate

U.S. Senator George V. Voinovich has been a Republican Senator from Ohio since 1999. Senator Voinovich is a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and has become one of the Senate’s leading experts on Southeastern European affairs.  His work with the Bush administration and the government of Serbia, formerly Serbia and Montenegro, has been instrumental in helping the country meet requirements for international aid, including cooperating with the UN War Crimes Tribunal and upholding the rule of law and respect for human rights.

Also, as a member of NATO’s inter-parliamentary body and the American delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Senator Voinovich was part of President George W. Bush’s official delegation to the historic 2002 Prague conference in which the seven Eastern European nations were invited to join NATO. Further, in 2003, he helped pass the treaty to expand membership in NATO to include Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

Prior to his service in Washington, Senator Voinovich was Governor of Ohio from 1990 to 1998. He was Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, from 1979 to 1988, and was Lieutenant Governor of Ohio in 1979. He began his career in public service as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives in 1967.

 

Alexander Vondra, Deputy Prime Minister, European Affairs

Alexander Vondra was appointed Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs in January 2007. Previously, he served as Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic. From the mid-1980s, he participated in the activities of former Czechoslovakia’s democratic opposition. In 1989, he became spokesperson for Charter 77 and from 1990-92, Deputy Prime Minister Vondra served as Foreign Policy Advisor to President Vaclav Havel.

From August 1992 to March 1997, he served as First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. In 1994, he managed the Czech team responsible for the implementation of the Czech Republic’s Partnership for Peace Program, and in 1996, he built and headed the Czech team for pre-accession talks with NATO. From March 1997 to July 2001, Deputy Prime Minister Vondra served as the Czech Ambassador to the U.S.

During his tenure as the Washington, D.C., he oversaw the process of the Czech Republic’s integration into NATO. From January until July 2003, Ambassador Vondra served as the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. In this capacity, he was responsible for the Czech participation in the solution of the Iraq crisis. In 2003-04, Ambassador Vondra was a Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States., writing a book on recent history of Central and Eastern Europe. He graduated from Charles University in Prague, School of Natural Sciences, department of geography, and earned a doctorate of natural sciences degree from the same school.

 

Margaret Warner, Senior Correspondent, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

Margaret Warner is one of five senior correspondents who join Jim Lehrer on PBS’s nightly news program­ The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer ­ reporting on the serious news of the day, and interviewing the people at the center of it. She is also the lead correspondent for The NewsHour’snew overseas reporting project, which has taken her in the past year to Israel and the West Bank, Sudan, Iran, Turkey, and Venezuela.

Additionally, Ms. Warner is one of four co-anchors of America Abroad, an hour-long radio program devoted to foreign affairs on Public Radio international. She joined The NewsHour in 1993 after an award-winning career in print journalism covering foreign and domestic affairs.  She spent 10 years at Newsweek magazine — as political correspondent, White House correspondent and finally as chief diplomatic correspondent during the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the first Gulf War.  Previously Ms Warner was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, The San Diego Union and The Concord (N.H.) Monitor.  She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a trustee of Yale University.

 

Robert Wexler, Member, U.S. House of Representatives

Robert Wexler is a Democratic member of Congress from the 19th District of Florida.  He is serving his sixth term in the House of Representatives.

Congressman Wexler is a senior Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and is the Chairman of the Europe subcommittee. He also serves on the Middle East and South Asia subcommittee. He has worked to strengthen the transatlantic alliance, build bonds and extend cooperation with Central and Eastern European nations and help guide the economic and political development of the former Soviet States. He is the Co-founder of the Caucus on U.S.-Turkish Relations, the Taiwan Caucus and the Indonesia Caucus.

Additionally, Congressman Wexler serves on the Judiciary Committee and the Financial Services Committee. He is the co-founder and co-chairman of the Caucus on Intellectual Property Promotion and Piracy Prevention. Through his work on the Judiciary Committee, Wexler was an outspoken critic of the impeachment hearings against President Clinton.

He earned a bachelors degree in Political Science from the University of Florida and law degree from George Washington University.

 

Grigory Alexeevich Yavlinsky, Chairman, the Russian Democratic Party YABLOKO, and Head of the YABLOKO faction in the State Duma

Grigory Yavlinsky was born on April 10, 1962 in Lvov, Ukraine and is the son of an officer. His father was an orphan and was raised in Anton Makarenko’s (Ed. Famous Russian educator) children’s colony, served in the army throughout the entire Second World War and devoted his life to working with problem children. His mother taught chemistry at an institute. Both his parents are buried in Lvov. His brother Mikhail also lives in Lvov.

In 1967 and 1968- he was the champion of Ukraine in junior boxing. He decided to become an economist during his school years. In 1967-76 he studied at Moscow Plekhanov’s Institute of Economy and took a post-graduate course there. A candidate of economics (PhD), he worked in the coal sector. From 1984 he held management position at the Labour Ministry and then the Council of Ministers of the USSR. He was head of the Joint Economic Department of the Government of the USSR. In 1989 – member of the Academician Abalkin’s commission for economic reforms.

After the default in1998 proposed a way out of the governmental and economic crisis – the compromise figure of Evgeny Primakov as Prime Minister.

Since the mid-1990s he has been involved in developing tax and budget reforms. Active opponent of a military solution to the problems in Chechnya and of imports of radioactive waste into Russia. Rigorous and uncompromising critic of the government variant of the housing and utilities sector and electricity sector reforms. In April 2003 initiated a collection of signatures for the resignation of the government.