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Ambassador Nicholas Burns is the Roy and Barbara Goodman Family professor of the practice of diplomacy and international relations at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He is the founder and faculty chair of the Future of Diplomacy Project. He is also a faculty affiliate at Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.

Burns served as the US ambassador to the People's Republic of China from 2021 to 2025.

He worked in the US government for over three decades, serving six presidents and nine secretaries of state. As a career foreign service officer, he was under secretary of state for political affairs from 2005 to 2008, the State Department’s third-ranking official when he led negotiations on the US–India Civil Nuclear Agreement and a long-term military assistance agreement with Israel, and the lead US negotiator on Iran’s nuclear program. He was US ambassador to NATO when the alliance invoked Article 5 of the NATO Treaty on 9/11 in defense of the United States. He served as US ambassador to Greece and State Department spokesman. He worked for five years on the National Security Council at the White House at the end of the Cold War as senior director for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia Affairs and special assistant to President Bill Clinton; and as director for Soviet affairs in the George H.W. Bush administration. He also served in the American consulate general in Jerusalem, where he coordinated US economic assistance to the Palestinian people in the West Bank and, before that, at the American embassies in Egypt and Mauritania. He was a member of Secretary of State John Kerry’s foreign affairs policy board.

Burns is vice chairman of the Cohen Group and co-chair of the Aspen Strategy Group and Aspen Security Forum. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society.  

He has received 15 honorary degrees, the Presidential Distinguished Service Award, and the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award, among other distinctions.

Brussels Forum Session: What Does the Future Hold for American Democracy?

Neera Tanden is the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, and the CEO of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. She helped found the center, first working as senior vice president for domestic policy and later as chief operating officer. She ran the organization from 2011 to 2020, adding 10 policy teams and growing the budget by two-thirds.

Tanden was previously the domestic policy adviser to President Joe Biden and director of the Domestic Policy Council, overseeing some of the administration’s signature achievements, including its efforts to lower the cost of prescription drugs and expand health insurance coverage. Prior to that, she was senior adviser and staff secretary in the White House. She has also served as senior adviser for health reform at the US Department of Health and Human Services, policy director for Hillary Clinton’s first presidential campaign, legislative director in then-Sen. Clinton’s office, and a senior policy adviser to the first lady.

Tanden holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a law degree from Yale Law School.

Brussels Forum Session: Grading Made in China 2025: Did Beijing’s Industrial Tech Strategy Deliver?

Michelle Rozo is vice chair of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, a US legislative branch advisory entity charged with conducting a thorough review of how advancements in emerging biotechnology and related technologies shape the Department of Defense’s current and future activities. She is also vice president of technical capabilities at In-Q-Tel, a nonprofit strategic investor that accelerates the development and delivery of cutting-edge technologies to enhance US national security.

Rozo was previously director of technology and national security on the US National Security Council, where she advised the president and national security adviser on biotechnology and national security policy. She was also the principal director for biotechnology within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.

Rozo is a molecular biologist by training and studied severe infectious diseases as a staff scientist with the Naval Medical Research Center in Fort Detrick, Maryland. She holds a PhD in biology from the Cell, Molecular, Developmental Biology and Biophysics Program at Johns Hopkins University, and a bachelor’s degree in biology from Northwestern University.

Brussels Forum Session: Trade Wars and a New American Economic Order: Implications for Europe and the World & Rebalancing Power, Restoring Trust: The GMF Transatlantic Taskforce Report

Michał Baranowski has served as undersecretary of state in Poland’s Ministry of Economic Development and Technology since December 2024. He is a political scientist and author of numerous publications on transatlantic relations, European policies, and the European security order.  

Baranowski began his career as an analyst in GMF’s Brussels office and served the organization in various capacities, focusing on transatlantic cooperation, particularly with Central Europe and the Eastern Partnership countries. Between 2008 and 2011, he worked at GMF’s headquarters in Washington, DC, where he led a project on transatlantic trade. In 2011, he established GMF’s Warsaw office, the city’s first permanent office of a Western think tank. Ten years later, he became managing director of GMF East, overseeing the organization’s work in Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic States, the Visegrád Group, and Romania. His team produced a report on a “Marshall Plan” for Ukraine.

Baranowski is a frequent contributor to Polish and international media, offering analysis of economic and international affairs. He studied economics and political science at Mercer University in the United States, the University of Oxford, and Maastricht University. He holds a master’s degree in European public affairs from Maastricht University.

Brussels Forum Session: Preview: A Window Into the NATO Summit

Matthew G. Whitaker has been permanent representative of the United States to NATO since April 2025. He previously served as acting attorney general of the United States from 2018 to 2019, following his tenure as chief of staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He was US attorney for the Southern District of Iowa from 2004 to 2009.

In private practice, Whitaker was the managing partner of Whitaker Hagenow & Gustoff, LLP, a Des Moines-based law firm, from 2009 until he rejoined the US Department of Justice in 2017. He has served as a senior fellow at the American Cornerstone Institute, co-chair of the Center for Law and Justice at the America First Policy Institute, and a senior fellow at the American Conservative Union Foundation, and was of counsel with Graves Garrett Greim, a law firm.

Whitaker holds an MBA, law degree, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Iowa. During his time there, he was a three-year letterman on the football team and played in the 1991 Rose Bowl.

Maroš Šefčovič is a Slovak diplomat who since December 2024 has served as European commissioner for trade and economic security; interinstitutional relations and transparency. He leads the Commission’s work on designing and implementing a free and fair trade policy, and is tasked with establishing an effective and modern customs system.

Šefčovič was appointed vice-president of the European Commission in charge of interinstitutional relations and foresight in 2019, before assuming responsibility for overseeing the European Green Deal as executive vice-president in 2023. He was elected to the European Parliament in 2014, while serving from 2010 to 2019 as vice-president of the European Commission in charge first of interinstitutional relations and administration, and then the energy union.

Šefčovič first served as a European Commissioner from 2009 to 2010, when he was responsible for education, training, culture, and youth. Before that, from 2004 to 2009, he was the permanent representative of the Slovak Republic to the EU, contributing to the country's major integration projects, such as its entry into the eurozone and the Schengen area. A diplomat by profession, he served between 1992 and 2004 in Zimbabwe and Canada, and as ambassador to Israel.

Šefčovič holds a law degree and a PhD in European Law from Comenius University in Bratislava. He is also a graduate of the University of Economy in Bratislava and the Moscow State Institute for Foreign Relations. He undertook training in diplomacy at Stanford University in the United States. He is the author of “Driving the EU Forward – Straight Talks with Maroš Šefčovič”, which focuses on his first mandate as the Commission vice-president.

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.