Brussels Forum Session: Transatlantic Defense: Who Pays? Who Acts?
Maria Malmer Stenergard has been the foreign affairs minister of Sweden since September 2024 and a board member of the Moderate Party since 2021. She previously served as minister for migration and chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Social Insurance. She was a member of the Swedish parliament, the Riksdag, for eight years.
Stenergard holds a law degree and a bachelor’s degree in information systems from Lund University.
Brussels Forum Session: What Does the Future Hold for American Democracy?
Kristen Soltis Anderson is a pollster, speaker, commentator, and author of “The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (And How Republicans Can Keep Up)”. She is a founding partner of Echelon Insights, an opinion research and analytics firm that serves brands, trade associations, nonprofits, and political clients. Through her work at Echelon, she advises corporate and government leaders on polling and messaging strategy, and has become one of the foremost experts on the Millennial generation. She also leads focus groups for The New York Times opinion section’s “America in Focus” series, is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, and is an on-air contributor for CNN. She has appeared on programs such as The Daily Show, Meet The Press, and HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher. She writes the Codebook newsletter on Substack.
In 2016, Soltis Anderson was named one of ELLE’s “Most Compelling Women in Washington”. Three years earlier she was named one of TIME’s “30 Under 30 Changing the World”. She has served as a fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics and Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service. She holds a master’s degree in government from Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Florida.
Brussels Forum Session: A New Global Order—Part I
Kaja Kallas is the current High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission. She was prime minister of Estonia from January 2021 until July 2024. She became the leader of Estonia’s Reform Party in 2018, and was twice a member of the Estonian parliament (2011– 2014 and 2019–2021). From 2014 to 2018, Kallas served as a member of the European Parliament (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe), where her primary focus was on the Digital Single Market strategy, energy, and consumer policies. Before entering politics, Kallas was a partner in two law firms and specialized in European and Estonian competition law. She is a graduate of Tartu University law school. Kallas is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise of Ukraine, the Grand Cross of the Order of the Star of Romania, and the CEPA Transatlantic Leadership Award.
Brussels Forum Session: Oxford Style Debate: Power and Polarity—Global Order in Times of Disruption
Jo Inge Bekkevold is a senior fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies/Norwegian Defence University College, where he teaches geopolitics. He was the head of the institute’s Asia program from 2011 to 2018.
Bekkevold’s research focuses on China’s foreign and security policy, China-Russia relations, China in the Arctic, Asian security issues, the wider geopolitical ramifications of China’s rise, and the international order. His publications include “India’s Great Power Politics: Managing China’s Rise”, co-edited with S. Kalyanaraman; “Sino-Russian Relations in the 21st Century”, co-edited with Bobo Lo; and “China in the Era of Xi Jinping: Domestic and Foreign Policy Challenges”, co-edited with Robert S. Ross.
Bekkevold provides background briefings on security policy and geopolitical risk to government agencies and businesses. He is a frequent contributor to Foreign Policy, writing on topics related to China, geopolitics, and the international order. He was a career diplomat in the Norwegian Foreign Service for more than a decade, with several postings to China and East Asia.
Brussels Forum Session: The End of Dollar Dominance?
Jacob Funk Kirkegaard is a senior fellow at Bruegel and a nonresident senior fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE). He was a Brussels-based senior fellow at GMF from 2020 to 2024. For seven years prior to that, he was a Washington, DC-based senior fellow at PIIE. He has also worked with the Danish defense ministry and the United Nations in Iraq, and in the financial sector.
Kirkegaard is a graduate of the Danish Army's Special School of Intelligence and Linguistics with the rank of first lieutenant, the University of Aarhus, and Columbia University. He received his PhD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He is co-editor of “Transatlantic Economic Challenges in an Era of Growing Multipolarity”, author of “The Accelerating Decline in America's High-Skilled Workforce: Implications for Immigration Policy”, and co-author of “US Pension Reform: Lessons from Other Countries” and “Transforming the European Economy”. He assisted with “Accelerating the Globalization of America: The Role for Information Technology”. His current research focuses on European economies and reform, transatlantic economic transition, immigration, labor markets, foreign direct investment trends and estimations, the global demographic transformation, and the impact of information technology.
US Senator Heidi Heitkamp served as the first female senator elected from North Dakota between 2013 and 2019. While in the Senate, she prioritized improving the lives of Indigenous people and working families, stopping human trafficking, guaranteeing affordable health care, addressing childhood trauma, eliminating unnecessary regulation, and securing an energy policy that kept costs low but achieved climate goals. She was previously North Dakota’s attorney general and tax commissioner.
Heitkamp serves on numerous boards including those of The McCain Institute, The Howard Buffett Foundation, the Restore Democracy Initiative, and GMF. She is the founder and chair of the One Country Project, an organization focused on addressing the needs and concerns of rural America, and director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago. She is also a contributor to CNBC and ABC News.
Brussels Forum Session: Defense as a Driver of Innovation: Ideas from GMF Transatlantic Taskforce Members and Friends
Gabrielius Landsbergis was foreign minister of Lithuania from 2020 to 2024, during which time he also held the position of president of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. He ensured while in office that Lithuania became known globally as a standard-bearer in the fight for freedom and rule of law by providing significant support to Ukraine and by supporting initiatives to secure freedom in Georgia, Moldova, Taiwan, and elsewhere.
Prior to and concurrent with his service as foreign minister, Landsbergis served two terms in the Lithuanian parliament, the Seimas. He is also a former member of the European Parliament and the former chairman of his center-right party, the Homeland Union.
Since leaving politics and diplomacy in 2024, Landsbergis has been working on publishing his diaries. They are due to be released in 2025.
Brussels Forum Session: Grading Made in China 2025: Did Beijing’s Industrial Tech Strategy Deliver?
Fernando Dominguez is an innovative engineer, strategist, and vice president of global outreach at SandboxAQ, where he applies artificial intelligence and quantum technologies to impactful global challenges.
Dominguez was previously with Google/Alphabet, scaling projects across Latin America and building ventures at Google X. He has experience in the energy, aerospace, and robotics sectors. He serves on the board of a technology company and contributes to journals including Nature.
Brussels Forum Session: Oxford Style Debate: Power and Polarity- Global Order in Times of Disruption
Daniel F. Runde is a senior vice president and director of the Project on Prosperity and Development. He also holds the William A. Schreyer chair in global analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He previously held leadership roles at the US Agency for International Development and the World Bank Group, where he was a leading voice on the role and future of the group, and US leadership in the multilateral system.
Runde serves on the boards of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, the Western NIS Enterprise Fund, Spirit of America, and the Ashesi University Foundation. He is the author of “The American Imperative: Reclaiming Global Leadership through Soft Power”. He previously chaired two US government advisory committees.
Runde was granted the Officer’s Cross in the Order of Isabel la Católica, a Spanish civil order. He graduated cum laude from Dartmouth College and holds a master's degree in public policy from Harvard University.
Brussels Forum Session: What Does the Future Hold for American Democracy?
Dan Conston is a political strategist with more than 20 years of experience in management, strategy, and problem solving at the highest levels of US politics. He is CEO of Watchtower Strategy, a public affairs firm specializing in strategy consulting for CEOs and executives, advocacy campaigns, and crisis communications.
Conston was previously president of the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), the super PAC aligned with House Republican leaders, and became a trusted adviser to two speakers of the US House of Representatives. CLF was widely considered during Conston’s six-year tenure to be the driving force in the Republicans’ picking up 15 House seats in 2020, winning the majority in 2022, and holding the majority in 2024. In that same time, CLF and the affiliated American Action Network raised a record-shattering $871 million, making both groups political behemoths and spawning the careers of members of Congress.
Conston was named the national “Most Valuable Player” of the 2020 election cycle by the American Association of Political Consultants. He serves on the boards of WinRed, the Republican Party’s small-dollar fundraising platform, and America Rising, the party’s outside research apparatus.