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Vicky Masson is the Paris-based senior manager for operations. She leads high-impact transformation initiatives and brings operational coherence to GMF's transatlantic presence.

Masson was previously chief of staff to GMF President Dr. Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer. She began her GMF career as an intern in the organization's Paris office before becoming a program operations manager. Before joining GMF, she was an intern at the Agence Française de Développement and contributed to a research project on the intervention of international stakeholders in countries in crisis, particularly in the Middle East and Africa.

Masson holds a master’s degree in international security from Sciences Po Paris, where she specialized in diplomacy and African studies.

Sophie Arts leads GMF’s research and programming on Arctic security and geopolitics, and on North American and Nordic defense against conventional and hybrid threats. As a Washington, DC-based fellow within the Transatlantic Security program, she also works on North American continental and US homeland defense, allied cooperation in NATO and other formats, and Russian and Chinese strategic objectives and activities in the Arctic and adjacent theaters.  

Arts joined GMF’s security and defense policy team in 2017. Previously, she worked at the Atlantic Council, GMF Brussels, Spiegel Online International, and Kantar Media. Her prior research covered NATO’s partnerships and flexible formats, the impact of emerging technologies on allied defense and deterrence, the dynamics of escalation within the cyber domain, and strategic stability in a multipolar world.  

Her writings and commentaries are featured regularly in defense publications and international media. She is a member of The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats’ pool of experts. In 2025, she served as co-chair of the task force for global peace and security for the Think7, the official G7 group that brings together the world’s leading think tanks and research centers.  

Arts holds a master’s degree from Humboldt University in Berlin and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Freiburg.  

Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı is the managing director of GMF South and Wider Europe and the regional director for Türkiye. Prior to joining GMF, he was the manager of the Resource Development Department of the Educational Volunteers Foundation of Turkey. Previously, Ünlühisarcıklı served as director of the ARI Movement, a Turkish NGO promoting participatory democracy, and as a consultant at AB Consulting and Investment Services.

Ünlühisarcıklı is an expert on transatlantic relations and Turkish foreign policy, domestic politics, democratization, and civil society. He is quoted frequently in international media including The New York Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Deutsche Welle, and the BBC.

After graduating from the Robert College (Istanbul), Ünlühisarcıklı received his bachelor's degree in business administration from Marmara University and his master's degree from Koç University. He speaks fluent English in addition to his native Turkish.

Alina Inayeh is currently a non-resident fellow. She 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 in 2000-2003, with a focus on civic education and political processes. She has trained NGOs throughout Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union on issues related to NGO development and democratization. She was a leading civic activist in the 1990s in Romania and an active promoter of the NGO sector in the country.

Dr. Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer is GMF’s president. In her previous capacity as senior vice president for geostrategy, she led GMF’s geostrategy policy and risk advisory initiatives across Europe, the United States, and the Indo-Pacific. Her areas of expertise encompass European affairs, transatlantic and international relations, and corporate diplomacy.

With more than 15 years’ experience in senior advisory and executive roles, Dr. de Hoop Scheffer advises governments, multinational corporations, and financial institutions on the political, geopolitical, and macroeconomic trends that shape their operations and strategies. She helps them develop early-warning systems and forward-looking decision-making processes.

Dr. de Hoop Scheffer serves as an independent board director on the supervisory board of Meridiam and the French Treasury Strategic Committee, among other bodies. She is also chair of the advisory board of the French Chief of Defense Staff and a member of the board of the France-Nederland Cultuurfonds, the advisory board of the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, and the editorial board of The Washington Quarterly. She is a member of the Trilateral Commission.

Prior to joining GMF in 2012 as its Paris office director and as a senior fellow, Dr. de Hoop Scheffer held key advisory positions in the French government, academia, and international organizations, including with the French foreign ministry’s policy planning staff (2009-2011), NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (2010-2013), the French Ministry of Defense (2006-2009), and UN peacekeeping operations (2006). She also served as an associate professor at Sciences Po Paris and as a research fellow at the Institut Français des Relations Internationales.

A dual French-Dutch citizen, Dr. de Hoop Scheffer holds a PhD in political science from Sciences Po Paris and is the author of “Hamlet en Irak”. She is a frequent public speaker and writer. 

Emiliano Alessandri is a visiting senior fellow at GMF. He is also a senior adviser with the Agency for Peace Building and an associate fellow with the Middle East Institute. His expertise is in the field of international security and multilateral cooperation with a particular focus on transatlantic relations, European affairs, and the Mediterranean/Middle East North Africa.

Alessandri was a resident senior transatlantic fellow with GMF between 2010 and 2013, working primarily on Mediterranean affairs and Türkiye. He subsequently served three successive secretary generals of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe as a senior officer between 2013 and 2023. He also held positions with the International Center for Migration Policy Development, the Brookings Institution, and the Institute of International Affairs of Rome, and taught at the College of Europe and Central European University.

Alessandri holds a PhD in international history from the University of Cambridge and a master’s degree in international economics and US foreign policy from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). 

Dr. Martin Quencez is a senior fellow and special adviser to the president. Over the past ten years, he has held several positions at GMF, including as managing director for GMF Strategic Foresight and director of the Paris office. He co-leads the Transatlantic Security Task Force and was an author of GMF’s annual flagship Transatlantic Trends report.

Dr. Quencez's work includes research on transatlantic security and defense cooperation, and US and French foreign policy, on which he regularly writes for international media. He is regularly invited by European ministries of defense to provide briefings and advisory support,  and frequently delivers presentations on geopolitics and transatlantic security to senior private-sector representatives.

Dr. Quencez was previously an associate researcher for the European Council on Foreign Relations, working in France for its European Powers program. He has taught transatlantic relations at the Euro-American campus of Sciences Po and worked for the Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, focusing on French and Indian strategic thinking. 

Dr. Quencez studied international relations at Uppsala University and is a graduate of Sciences Po. He has a PhD in history from Sorbonne Nouvelle University.