Italian

Adam Hsakou is a program coordinator in GMF’s Paris office.

Previously, Hsakou covered Poland as a journalist for Le Figaro and other French-language outlets.  

Prior to that, Hsakou was head of community for Central Europe at the Spanish venture capital firm Demium, where he helped foster the startup ecosystem in the region, and program manager at Polish Tech Day, an initiative that brings together French, British, and Polish entrepreneurs.

In 2019, Hsakou served as a parliamentary attaché in charge of communication for a member of the French parliament. 

Hsakou has interned at the French embassy in Warsaw, the European Commission, and the communications agency Havas Paris.

Hsakou holds a master's degree in economics and management of government and international organizations from Bocconi University and a master’s degree in international public management from Sciences Po Paris. He is fluent in French, Polish, English, Spanish and Italian, and has a basic knowledge of Russian.

Gunnar Wiegand is a visiting distinguished fellow in the Indo-Pacific program since November 2023. From 2016 to 2023, Wiegand served as the managing director for Asia and the Pacific at the European External Action Service (EEAS). In this function, Wiegand was a key contributor to the EU’s policy orientations on EU relations with China and India, the Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, Europe Asia Connectivity Policy (the precursor for the Global Gateway initiative), and enhanced security engagement with Indo-Pacific partners. He was also the EU's senior official for the Asia Europe meetings (ASEM) and EU-ASEAN relations. Among other tasks, he served as the EU's chief negotiator for the new EU-Japan Strategic Partnership Agreement. Prior to that, Wiegand served as EEAS director for Russia, Eastern Partnership, Central Asia, OSCE and Northern Dimension (2011–2015).

Wiegand held various senior positions at the European Commission, including director for Eastern Europe, Southern Caucasus, and Central Asia at DG RELEX (2008–2011), head of unit for Relations with Russia and the Northern Dimension at DG RELEX (2006–2008), head of unit for Relations with the United States and Canada (2003–2006), and spokesman for Lord Chris Patten, EU Commissioner for External Relations (1999–2002).

Wiegand holds a law degree from the University of Hamburg and a master’s degree in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. He is a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, and the Paris School of International Affairs in Paris, France.

Alix Frangeul-Alves is a program assistant in GMF’s Paris office. Her areas of interest and research include US domestic politics and foreign policy, and EU developments in energy, defense, and cybersecurity. Her responsibilities include event planning, program coordination, and office management.

Prior to joining GMF, Frangeul-Alves was an intern at the Paris office. She holds a master’s degree from the French Institute of Geopolitics, where she specialized in security and defense, international relations, and diplomacy. Her second-year master’s thesis focused on the (geo)political and geoeconomic impacts of the American liquefied natural gas industry in the US and Europe. She holds a bachelor’s degree in foreign languages applied to economics and law from the Sorbonne-Nouvelle University, and speaks English, French, Italian, and Portuguese.

Ambassador Brent Hardt is a resident senior fellow at GMF who brings 35 years of experience leading at all levels of government. He has guided five embassies as ambassador, chargé d’affaires, and deputy chief of mission, and served as foreign policy advisor to US Central Command and US Special Operations Command, working closely with allies to meet vital security challenges. As professor and senior advisor at the US Naval War College, he taught national security strategy and policy and developed a seminar on the evolution of modern Europe.

Hardt joined the US Foreign Service in 1988, serving in Berlin, the Hague, Rome, Paris, Canada, and the Caribbean. He was an exchange diplomat with the Netherlands Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense in 1993. In Washington, he served as Team Leader for NATO Policy in the State Department’s Office of European Political and Security Affairs, where he was responsible for NATO enlargement, NATO-Ukraine, and European Security and Defense policy issues.

Over the course of his career, Hardt has received multiple Senior Performance Awards, the Director General's Award for Reporting, five Superior Honor Awards, and three Meritorious Honor Awards. He also received the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Meritorious Civilian Service Award and the US Special Operations Command Distinguished Civilian Service Award. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University and a master’s in law and diplomacy and a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Laurențiu Pleșca is a scientific researcher and PhD candidate of the Doctoral School of Political Sciences at the University of Bucharest. His main areas of expertise are Russia's geopolitics in the Black Sea, the Eastern Partnership, EU common policies (foreign and security policy, and the Eastern Neighborhood), and the internal and external policies of the ex-Soviet states. Pleșca has a master's degree in international relations and European studies, and a bachelor's degree in political science, from the University of Bucharest.

Nicolò Russo Perez is head of international relations at the Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo in Turin, Italy, where he oversees grant-making and operational activities for transatlantic and European studies, and Mediterranean and emerging-country affairs, including the multi-year strategic partnership agreements with The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) and the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI). Russo Perez is a member of IAI’s executive committee and the European Council on Foreign Relations, and he serves on the board of ITHACA (overseeing geographic and cartographic data) and on the scientific board of the NATO Defense College Foundation in Rome.

Russo Perez was a member of the strategic reflection group on European affairs established by the Italian presidency of the country’s Council of Ministers. He has worked at the European Commission and the International Labour Organization, and he was a senior associate fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies in Paris.

Russo Perez studied modern and contemporary history at the University Ca' Foscari in Venice, graduating summa cum laude with a thesis on Thomas Jefferson and the early phase of American foreign policy. He also studied international relations at the Free University in Berlin’s Kennedy Institute; the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); and the University Institute of European Studies in Turin. He was the recipient of an Alberto Aquarone/Italian Fulbright Commission Award.