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Brussels Forum Session: Delivering Democracy at the Local Level

Zaynab Mohamed has been a state senator in Minnesota since 2023. She is the vice chair of the Jobs and Economic Development Committee and a member of Capital Investment, Finance, Housing and Homelessness Prevention, and Human Services committees.

Mohamed previously worked at Ayada Leads, a nonprofit dedicated to elevating Black immigrant women into political and civic participation, and as the community advocacy director at the Council of American Islamic Relations. In the latter position, she worked with a coalition of advocates, organizers, legislators, and families who had lost loved ones to police violence to lobby state legislators to pass eight bills to expand public safety and strengthen police accountability.

Mohamed emigrated from Somalia to the United States when she was nine years old.

Brussels Forum Session: Delivering Democracy at the Local Level

Cici Battle builds immersive programs, workshops, and learning spaces that center the forgotten—specifically youth, women, and girls—especially those of color.

Battle most recently served as executive director of Young People For, where she led the country's largest national social justice incubator for marginalized young people and co-hosted the popular “Progressive Happy Hour”.

Battle is the creator of “Passion Framing”, a holistic civic engagement framework that connects the dots between the process and the issues of everyday people.

In her college years at Florida International University (FIU), Battle  served as student body president. She has held high-impact positions as regional director for the Campus Election Engagement Project, professor of leadership development at El Sena in Colombia, and the first statewide youth engagement coordinator for the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.

Battle was awarded Preet Bharara’s inaugural Café 100 award in 2018 as an “extraordinary change-maker taking action to address some of the most pressing problems in America and around the world”. She was also selected as an inaugural Pond’s Vital Voices Fellow as “one of 50 women shaping the world”.

Battle earned her master’s degree in education policy and her bachelor’s degree in psychology with an emphasis on leadership development from FIU. She is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and an alumna of Young People For, the United States Students Association, and the NAACP Youth and College Division.

Brussels Forum Session: Civil Society’s Role in Building Democratic Resilience: Lessons from Central and Eastern Europe

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is the president-elect of Belarus, according to independent observers of the August 9, 2020, election.

After the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, Tsikhanouskaya restructured the democratic movement's leadership by creating and chairing the United Transition Cabinet as a decision-making center. Belarusian anti-war activists led by Tsikhanouskaya conducted underground resistance in Belarus by sabotaging the railway transportation of Russian troops as well as volunteering for Belarusian-staffed units fighting for Ukraine.

As the leader of the Belarusian democratic movement, Tsikhanouskaya has visited 28 countries, gathering support and advocating for the release of more than 1500 political prisoners and a peaceful transition of power. In meetings with foreign leaders, she has emphasized the need for a bolder response to the actions of the Belarusian dictatorship.

Tsikhanouskaya entered the presidential race after her husband, Siarhei Tsikhanousky, was arrested for voicing his presidential aspirations. She united and successfully led the democratic coalition. Following her forced exile, she inspired unprecedented peaceful protests in Belarus. When Russia’s full-scale invasion began, she initiated the movement to prevent the participation of Belarus in the war against Ukraine. Among dozens of distinctions, Tsikhanouskaya is a recipient of the Sakharov Prize, the 2022 International Four Freedoms Award, and the Charlemagne Prize. In 2021 and 2022, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She has been recognized in Bloomberg’s Top 50 Most Influential People, Financial Times’ Top 12 Most Influential Women, and Politico’s Top 28 Most Influential Europeans.

Brussels Forum Session: Tech Wars: Who Will Win the Innovation Race?

Frank H. McCourt, Jr., is a civic entrepreneur and the executive chairman of McCourt Global, a private family company with work across the real estate and infrastructure, sports, technology, and media industries. Frank is proud to extend his family’s 132-year legacy of merging community and social impact with financial results.

He is the founder of Project Liberty, a $500-million initiative building solutions to help people reclaim a voice, a choice, and a stake in a better internet. In 2024, Project Liberty announced The People’s Bid for TikTok, a grassroots effort to purchase and redesign the platform, giving individuals more control over their online experience, alongside notable partners such as Alexis Ohanian, Kevin O’Leary, Tim Berners-Lee, Jonathan Haidt, and countless supporters nationwide.

As an alumnus of Georgetown University, McCourt has served on the Board of Directors for many years and, in 2013, made a $100-million founding investment to create Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. He expanded on this in 2021 with a $100-million investment to catalyze an inclusive pipeline of public policy leaders and put the school on a path to becoming tuition-free.

Frank owns the French football club Olympique de Marseille and formerly owned the Los Angeles Dodgers. Frank has built upon the McCourt family’s construction background with initiatives from Boston’s Seaport to large, mixed-use projects in Dallas, London, Phoenix, New York City, and elsewhere.

Frank is also the author of “Our Biggest Fight”. 

David Inserra is a fellow for free expression and technology at the Cato Institute. His research focuses on the importance of both policies and a culture that promotes free expression in the technology space. Inserra’s work covers topics including online content policies and moderation, government discussions, and the harmful impacts of censorship on individuals, companies, technology, and society. Inserra comes to Cato following four years on Meta’s content policy team, where he was responsible for crafting and enforcing Meta’s Community Standards—focusing on hate speech, violent speech, and restricted goods and services—and supporting Meta’s Oversight Board. Inserra has an MPP from George Mason University and a bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary.

Brussels Forum Session: Rebalancing Power, Restoring Trust: The GMF
Transatlantic Taskforce Report

Thierry Déau is Meridiam’s chairman and chief executive officer. He founded Meridiam, an independent investment Benefit Corporation specializing in the development, financing, and management of long-term and sustainable infrastructure projects, in 2005, with the belief that the alignment of interests between the public and private sectors can provide critical solutions to the collective needs of communities. Managing over $22 billion in assets, the firm has to date more than 125 projects under development, under construction, or in operation.

Meridiam currently maintains offices in Paris, Istanbul, Addis Ababa, Dakar, Luxembourg, Amman, Vienna, Libreville, Johannesburg, and Washington, DC, and is a leading investor in public infrastructure across Europe, North America, and Africa.

Prior to Meridiam, Déau worked for France’s Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (CDC), where he held several positions within its engineering and development subsidiary, Egis Projects.

Déau is currently a board member of Fondation des Ponts, board member of the Friends of the Paris Opera (AROP), chairman of the Établissement public du Palais de la Porte Dorée, founder of the Africa Infrastructure fellowship program (AIFP), founding member of the Sustainable Development Investment Partnership (SDIP) of the World Economic Forum, chairman of the Long-term Infrastructure Investors Association (LTIIA), chairman of the Fast-Infra Group (FIG), chairman of UP for Humanness, and president of the Archery Foundation, which supports young talents from underprivileged areas in France in their personal and professional development.

Déau graduated from École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées engineering School.

Brussels Forum Session: Trade Wars and a New American Economic Order (Virtual)

Pierre Yared is vice chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the executive office of the US president. He is also the MUTB professor of international business at Columbia Business School. He previously served as the school’s senior vice dean for faculty affairs and vice dean for executive education. He teaches global economic environment, a core MBA course in macroeconomics, for which he received the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence.

Yared’s research, which has been published in leading academic journals, examines the political economy of macroeconomic policy. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Economic Club of New York.

Yared holds a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard University.