France

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, 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.

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, 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, 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. 

Martin Quencez is the managing director of Strategic Foresight. Over the past ten years, he has held several positions at GMF, including as deputy director of the Paris office and research fellow in the Security and Defense program. His 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 a co-author of GMF’s annual flagship Transatlantic Trends report. 

Quencez is also 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, prior to joining GMF, worked for the Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, focusing on French and Indian strategic thinking. 

Quencez studied international relations at the Uppsala University and is a graduate of Sciences Po. He is completing a PhD in contemporary history at Sorbonne Nouvelle University.