Speaker Biographies 2014

Nigar Göksel has been editor-in-chief of the Istanbul-based policy journal, Turkish Policy Quarterly since 2003. She covered Turkey and the Caucasus as senior analyst at the European Stability Initiative, where she currently works part time. She has also been a regular contributor to the German Marshall Fund’s “On Turkey” policy brief series since 2009. Previously, Göksel worked at various think tanks and NGOs, including the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TUSIAD), International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV), and the ARI Movement. In the late 1990s, she worked at the Azerbaijan Embassy in Washington, DC.

 

Nik Gowing, Main Presenter, BBC WorldTV

Nik Gowing has been a main presenter for the BBC’s international 24-hour news channel BBC World News since 1996. He has presented “The Hub with Nik Gowing,” “BBC World Debates,” “Dateline London,” plus location coverage of major global stories. For 18 years, he worked at ITN where he was bureau chief in Rome and Warsaw, and diplomatic editor for Channel Four News. He has been a member of the councils of Chatham House, the Royal United Services Institute, the Overseas Development Institute, the board of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, and the advisory council at Wilton Park.

 

Charles Grant, Director, Centre for European Reform

Charles Grant is director of the Centre for European Reform (CER), which he helped to set up in 1996. He previously worked for Euromoney and The Economist in London and Brussels. He is the author of many CER publications including the recent report “How to Build a Modern European Union,” and is a regular contributor to the Financial Times and The New York Times, amongst others. He was a director and trustee of the British Council from 2002 to 2008. He is a member of the international advisory boards of the Moscow School of Political Studies, the Turkish think-tank EDAM and the French think-tank Terra Nova. In 2004, he became a chevalier of France’s Ordre Nationale du Mérite, and this year a Companion of St. Michael and St. George.

 

Daniel Gros, Director, Centre for European Policy Studies 

Daniel Gros has been the director of the Centre forEuropean Policy Studies (CEPS) since 2000. In the past, he worked at the IMF and collaborated with the European Commission as an economic adviser to the Delors Committee that developed plans for the European Monetary Union. He has been a member of high-level advisory bodies to the French and Belgian governments and provided advice to numerous central banks and governments, including Greece, the U.K. and the United States, at the highest political level. Gros is currently an adviser to the European Parliament and a member of the Advisory Scientific Council to the European Systemic Risk Board. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.

 

Marc Grossman, Vice Chairman, Cohen Group

Ambassador Marc Grossman is the vice chairman of the Cohen Group. He served as the under secretary of state for political affairs until his retirement in 2005 after serving for nearly 30 years in the U.S. Foreign Service. As under secretary, he helped marshal diplomatic support for the international response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. He also managed U.S. policies in the Balkans and Colombia and promoted a key expansion of the NATO alliance. From 2011-12, Grossman served as the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. In January 2013, Grossman was appointed a Kissinger senior fellow at the Jackson Institute at Yale University. He is the chairman of the Board of the Senior Living Foundation of the Foreign Service and a board member of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

 

Anton La Guardia, European Union Correspondent, The Economist

Anton La Guardia is the Brussels bureau chief and Charlemagne columnist for The Economist. Previously, he was the defense and security correspondent for the magazine. He joined The Economist in October 2006, after spending two decades at The Daily Telegraph where he worked as diplomatic editor, Africa correspondent, Middle East correspondent, and Ireland correspondent. He started working as an international correspondent in 1986, when he covered the “People Power” revolution in the Philippines as a freelance journalist. He is co-author of Unhappy Union: How the Euro Crisis Can Be Fixed and Europe Saved, to be published on May 1 by Profile Books.

 

Karel De Gucht, Commissioner for Trade, European Commission

Karel De Gucht currently serves as the European commissioner for trade. Previously, he had served as the development and humanitarian aid commissioner, Belgian deputy prime minister, and Belgian minister of foreign affairs. He has a law degree from the Free University of Brussels, and at the age of 26, became a member of the European Parliament. After 14 years in parliament, De Gucht became a Belgian senator, and a year later was elected to the Flemish Parliament as a member of the Vlaams Liberaal Democraten, and served as party chairman from 1999 to 2003. In 2002, he received the title of minister of state. De Gucht is a lawyer and teaches at the Free University of Brussels.

 

Heinz Haller, Executive Vice President, Chief Commercial Officer, President of Dow Europe, Middle East, and Africa

Heinz Haller is the chief commercial officer, president of Dow Europe, Middle East, and Africa, and executive vice president of The Dow Chemical Company. Haller joined Dow in 1980 as a sales representative in Horgen, Switzerland, and developed his career through several marketing and commercial roles across many Dow businesses. In 1994, Haller left Dow and joined Plüss-Staufer AG, Red Bull Sauber AG, and Sauber Petronas Engineering AG. In 2002, he moved to Allianz Capital Partners GmbH as one of that company’s managing directors and remained there for four years until he rejoined Dow. Haller holds a master's degree in business administration from IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland.

 

Dr. Chaibong Hahm, President, Asan Institute for Policy Studies

Chaibong Hahm is the president of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, Korea. Previously, he was a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California (2007-10), professor in the School of International Relations and the Department of Political Science as well as the Director of the Korean Studies Institute at the University of Southern California (2005-07), director (D-1) of the Division of Social Sciences Research & Policy at UNESCO in Paris (2003-05), and professor in the Department of Political Science at Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea (1992-2005). He is the author of numerous books and articles (in both English and Korean) on Korean and East Asian politics, governance, and culture, including “South Korea’s Miraculous Democracy” (Journal of Democracy), “The Two South Koreas: A House Divided” (The Washington Quarterly), and Confucianism for the Modern World (co-edited with Daniel A. Bell, Cambridge University Press).

 

Audun Halvorsen, Political Adviser, Ministry of Defence, Norway

Audun Halvorsen is a political adviser in the Norwegian Ministry of Defense. From 2008-13, he was a political adviser on defense policy and foreign affairs for the Conservative Party Parliamentary Group. Between 2007 and 2008, Halvorsen was the political adviser on defense policy, scrutiny, and constitutional affairs for the Conservative Party Parliamentary Group. He holds a Cand Mag. Degree in political science, public law, and private law from the University of Oslo. Halvorsen represents the Norwegian Conservative Party (Høyre) and has held various party and elected positions for party in Oslo. He also served in the anti-aircraft warfare Battalion, Østfold Regiment, 1997–98.

 

Hari N. Hariharan, Chairman and CEO, NWI Management LP, United States

Hari N. Hariharan is the chairman andCEO of NWI Management LP, a New York-based hedge fund group specializing in global macro-investing with an emphasis on emerging markets. The group, which started in mid-1993, was originally known as Santander New World Investments Group and was spun off in April 1999. From 1976-93, Hariharan was at Citibank N.A. where his last role was as the division executive of the International Corporate Finance Division, which specialized in emerging economies. During his Citibank career, he built several different and highly successful businesses for the bank globall. 

 

John Harris, Co-Founder, Politico

In 2006, after over two decades at The Washington Post, John Harris founded Politico, a newspaper that covers national politics and has become almost instantly recognized as an authoritative voice on the goings-on in Washington. Harris spent 21 years at The Post, covering local politics, Virginia state politics, and national issues. During the Clinton years, Harris covered the White House and eventually used that experience to write a history of the Bill Clinton presidency called The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House. Harris is on the Board of Trustees of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

 

Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy, Distinguished Professor, Forman Christian College-University

Dr. Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy is the Zohra and Z.Z. Ahmad distinguished professor of physics and mathematics at the Forman Christian College-University in Lahore, Pakistan. He has been visiting professor at MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Maryland. He is a recipient of the Baker Award for Electronics and the Abdus Salam Prize for Mathematics. In 2003, he was awarded UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for the popularization of science. Last year, he was appointed to the UN Advisory Board on Disarmament Affairs. He received his Ph.D in nuclear physics, as well as undergraduate degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics, from MIT.

 

Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, Paris Office Director, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Prior to joining the German Marshall Fund of the United States as the director of the Paris Office, Dr. Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer served as the advisor for U.S. foreign policy and transatlantic relations at the Policy Planning Department of the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs. Since 2010, she has also been an advisor to USEUCOM Commander and SACEUR as part of the Next Generation Advisory Panel. In addition, Dr. De Hoop Scheffer is a scholar at several French and Canadian universities and institutions. She is also the co-editor-in-chief of Politique Américaine (with Dr. François Vergniolle de Chantal).

 

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Former Secretary General, NATO

Jaap De Hoop Scheffer was secretary general of NATO and chairman of the North Atlantic Council from 2004-09. From 1976-86, he was employed in the Foreign Service of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, serving in Ghana, at the Netherlands Delegation to NATO, and as private secretary to the Dutch Foreign Minister. He was elected to the House of Representatives of the States General for the Christian Democratic Alliance (CDA) in 1986. In 2002, he was appointed minister of foreign affairs. He presently lectures at the Campus The Hague of Leiden University as a professor of international relations and the practice of diplomacy.

 

Rosalind L. Hudnell, Vice President of Human Resources, Intel Corporation

Rosalind L. Hudnell is a vice president of human resources at Intel Corporation and serves as director of global employee communications and external relations. Since joining Intel in 1996, she has held various management positions in community relations, government relations, charitable contributions, media outreach, employee volunteerism, and workforce development. During her tenure as Intel’s chief diversity officer, the company achieved significant progress and received numerous awards for leadership in workforce diversity. Ms. Hudnell’s contributions include co-founding the Intel Black Leadership Council and driving the development of Intel’s Global Women’s Initiative, the Hispanic Leadership Council, and the growth of employee affinity networks. Most recently, she led the STAY WITH IT™ Initiative for President Obama’s Council on Jobs & Competitiveness, which focused on getting more students to complete degrees in engineering and computer science. Ms. Hudnell completed her undergraduate studies at St. Mary’s College and did advanced study at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

 

David Ignatius, Columnist, The Washington Post

David Ignatius’ twice-weekly column on global politics, economics, and international affairs began appearing on The Washington Post’s op-ed page in 1999. Prior to becoming a columnist for the newspaper, Ignatius was the assistant managing editor of business news. He also served as The Post’s foreign editor, supervising the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. From 1986-90, he was editor of the newspaper’s Sunday “Outlook” section. Before joining The Post in 1986, Ignatius spent ten years as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, where he covered the steel industry, the U.S. Justice Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Senate, and was the Middle East chief diplomatic correspondent.

 

Toomas Hendrik Ilves, President, Republic of Estonia

President of the Republic of Estonia Toomas Hendrik Ilves is currently serving his second term in office. Throughout his presidency, Ilves has been appointed to several high-level international positions, including chairman of the EU task force on an electronic health form and the chairman of the European Cloud partnership steering board. Before being elected president, Ilves was a member of the Estonian Parliament and an elected member of the European Parliament (MEP), where he served as vice president of the foreign affairs committee. As an MEP, Ilves initiated the Baltic Sea Strategy, which was later implemented as the official regional policy of the EU.

 

Vladislav L. Inozemtsev, Chairman of the High Council, The Civilian Force

Dr. Vladislav L. Inozemtsev has been the chairman of the High Council of The Civilian Force, a Russian pro-European liberal party, since October 2012. Inozemtsev was a senior advisor to Russian presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov and authored his presidential program. Currently, he serves as the member of the Colleguims of both the ministry for economy and trade and ministry for regional development of the Russian Federation and is a member of the Economic Council under Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. He is the founder of the Centre for Post-Industrial Studies, a non-profit that specializes in global economic issues. He holds a Ph.D. from Moscow State Lomonossov University.  

 

Masafumi Ishii, Director General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan

Masafumi Ishii is the director-general of the International Legal Affairs Bureau for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Japan. Before assuming his current role, Ishii was the ambassador and director-general for global issues and the deputy director-general at the Foreign Policy Bureau. He also served as the minister for the Embassy of Japan in the United States and in the U.K. Prior to that, Ishii served as the private secretary to the minister for foreign affairs. He was also the director of the second Southeast Asian division in the Asian Affairs Bureau, and before that he was the director of the planning division at the Foreign Policy Bureau.

 

Motoshige Itoh is the president of the National Institute for Research Advancement. He is also a professor at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Economics. In addition to The University of Tokyo, he taught at Tokyo Metropolitan University and the University of Houston. From 1997-99, he was an advisor in the Statistical Division of the Bank of Japan and a member of Economic Strategy Council. He has been a visiting scholar at various institutions including Harvard University, Australian National University, and the Research Institute of the Bank of Japan.

 

Mark R. Jacobson, Senior Transatlantic Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States

Mark R. Jacobson is a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, where he focuses on defense and security policy. He also teaches about the politics of national security at The George Washington University, is a senior advisor to the Truman Project, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. From 2009-11, Jacobson served in Afghanistan as the deputy NATO senior civilian representative, a strategic advisor to General Stan McChrystal, and the principal foreign policy advisor to General David Petraeus. He has worked at the U.S. Department of Defense and on the staff of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee as part of Chairman Carl Levin’s oversight team. Jacobson has 20 years of reserve military experience including deployments to Bosnia (1996) and Afghanistan (2006). He holds a bachelor’s from the University of Michigan, a master’s from King’s College, London and a Ph.D. in military history from The Ohio State University.

 

Dhruva Jaishankar, Transatlantic Fellow for Asia, German Marshall Fund of the United States

Dhruva Jaishankar is a transatlantic fellow with the Asia Program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He writes an occasional column on international affairs for the Indian Express and is a contributor to several other publications including the Economic Times and Foreign Policy. Jaishankar was previously senior research assistant with the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution, research assistant in Foreign Policy Studies at Brookings, news writer and reporter for CNN-IBN television in New Delhi, and Brent Scowcroft Award Fellow with the Aspen Strategy Group. A native of New Delhi, Jaishankar has also lived and studied in the United States, Japan, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Sri Lanka. He has a bachelor’s degree from Macalester College where he majored in history and classics, and a master’s degree in security studies from Georgetown University.

 

Nebojša Kaluđerović, Foreign Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister, Montenegro

As foreign policy advisor to the prime minster of Montenegro, Nebojša Kaluđerović counsels on political, economic, sustainable development, environmental, and energy related issues. In 2013, he represented Montenegro abroad in his service as the minister of foreign affairs and European integration of Montenegro. Additionally, Kaluđerović served as state secretary for political affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration from 2010-12. He was the first permanent representative of Montenegro to the United Nations. He also represented Montenegro in Central America and the Caribbean as the ambassador to Cuba and Costa Rica. 

 

Steffen Kampeter, Parliamentary State Secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance, Germany

Steffen Kampeter holds several roles in addition to serving as the parliamentary state secretary of the Federal Ministry of Finance. Since 2012, Kampeter has been a member of the advisory council of the Tarabya Cultural Academy and a member of the board of trustees on the German Committee of AIESEC. He is also the district chair of the Christian Democratic Union in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe region and the deputy state chair of the Christian Democratic Union in North Rhine-Westphalia. Kampeter studied economics at Münster University where he worked in the Institute of Transport Economics.

 

James Kanter, EU Correspondent, International New York Times

James Kanter covers European and global business issues for the International New York Times, including the European Commission, mergers and acquisitions, the European Court of Justice, and the World Trade Organization. He won the IHT’s Publisher’s Award in 2007 for his coverage of the Business of Green, an M&A International Media Award in 2006, and was twice the winner of the Dow Jones awards for best market-moving story in Europe. His previous experience as an editor and as a reporter includes The Cambodia Dail, Dow Jones Newswires, and the Financial Times and Marketwatch. Kanter received an undergraduate degree in history from Columbia University, a master’s degree in international journalism from City University in London, and a master’s degree from Yale Law School.

 

Peter Kellner, President, YouGov

Peter Kellner is president of pioneering online survey research company YouGov, and was chairman of the company from 2001-07. He has written for the Times, Sunday Times, Independent, Observer, Evening Standard, and New Statesman. Kellner has also been a visiting fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford and the Policy Studies Institute, London. Before joining YouGov, he acted as a consultant on public opinion research to the Bank of England, Corporation of London, Foreign Office, National Westminster Bank, and Trades Union Congress.

 

Craig Kennedy, President, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Craig Kennedy has been president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) since 1995. He has provided GMF with a strong infrastructure throughout Europe, opening new offices in Paris, Brussels, Belgrade, Ankara, Bucharest, Warsaw, and Tunis to complement the work being done in Washington and Berlin. Kennedy began his career in 1980 as a program officer at the Joyce Foundation in Chicago, becoming vice president of programs in 1983 and president from 1986-92. He left the Joyce Foundation to work for Richard J. Dennis, a Chicago investor and philanthropist. During this same period, he started a consulting firm working with nonprofit and public sector clients.

 

François de Kerchove, Chief of the Cabinet, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Belgium

François de Kerchove has been the director of the Belgian Cabinet of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade, and European Affairs since December 2011. He has served as the Belgian ambassador in the European Union’s Political and Security Committee from June 2011. He started his diplomatic career in 1989 at the Foreign Ministry’s Department of Diplomacy. Since then he has held several high-level positions representing Belgium throughout the world. A selection of his appointments includes the second secretary, Belgian Embassy in Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain; the head of commercial section, Belgian Embassy in Tokyo; and the minister-counsellor, Embassy of Belgium in Berlin. De Kerchove has a master’s from the London School of Economics.

 

Seiji Kihara, Parliamentary Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, Japan

Seiji Kihara is parliamentary vice minister for foreign affairs. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 2005 and again in 2012 for a second term as a member of the Liberal Democratic Party. In between his terms as representative, Kihara was a researcher at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies and a consultant at Jomon Associates Inc. From 2003-05, he served as deputy director of the International Bureau for the Ministry of Finance. After working in the Legal Division of the Budget Bureau of the Ministry of Finance, he was the first official assigned to Her Majesty’s (HM) Treasury in the U.K. 

 

Vitalii Klychko, Chairman, Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform Party

Dr. Vitalii Klychko is the leader of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform, a member of the Ukrainian parliament (Rada), and retired heavyweight boxing world champion. Before becoming a member of parliament, he was an adviser to then Ukrainian President Yushchenko and a mayoral candidate for the city of Kyiv. Klychko also holds a Ph.D. in sports science from the Kyiv University of Physical Science and Sports and a master’s in managing social development from the National Academy of Public Administration of the President of Ukraine. He has a track record of social activism and is currently one of the main faces of the Ukrainian pro-European movement. Klychko is the current WBC heavyweight boxing champion.

 

Arba Kokalari, Member, Stockholm City Local Government

Ms. Arba Kokalari has been active in international politics for many years and in many areas, from the diplomatic world when she worked at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs to now working with democracy promotion together with several international institutes and foundations. She is also involved in the European political world by being active with the youth organization of the European People’s Party (EPP). She is international secretary of the Moderate Party Youth League, a member of the Stockholm City Local Government, and a candidate for the European Parliament in the May 2014 elections. She speaks Swedish, English, and Albanian fluently.

 

Ivan Krastev, Chairman, Centre for Liberal Strategies, Sofia

Ivan Krastev is chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia and permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He is a founding board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the advisory board of the ERSTE Foundation, and member of the advisory council of the Center for European Policy Analysis and the European Cultural Foundation. He was editor-in-chief of the Bulgarian Edition of Foreign Policy and was a member of the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London (2005-11), associate editor of Europe’s World, and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Democracy and Transit – Europäische Revue. His latest book in English is In Mistrust We Trust: Can Democracy Survive When We Don’t Trust Our Leaders? (TED Books, 2013).

 

Christian Leffler, Managing Director, Americas, European External Action Service

Christian Leffler has been the managing director of the Americas for the European External Action Service since 2011. Previous to this position, Leffler was deputy director general of the DG for Development and relations with African, Caribbean, and Pacific States, as well as a senior adviser to the EU high representative for CESP and European Commission vice-president. From 2002-07, he was director in charge of the Middle East and South Mediterranean in the European Commission’s Directorate General for External Relations. In 1999, he became the deputy head of the Private Office of European Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten.

 

Ian O. Lesser, Executive Director, Brussels Office and Senior Director for Foreign and Security Policy, German Marshall Fund of the United States

Dr. Ian O. Lesser leads the German Marshall Fund’s (GMF) work on the Mediterranean, Turkish, and wider Atlantic security issues. Prior to joining GMF, Lesser was a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and vice president and director of studies at the Pacific Council on International Policy. Previously, he spent over a decade as a senior analyst and research manager specializing in strategic studies at RAND. From 1994-95, he was a member of the secretary’s policy planning staff at the U.S. Department of State, responsible for Turkey, Southern Europe, North Africa, and the multilateral track of the Middle East peace process.

 

Tod Lindberg, Research Fellow, Stanford University

Tod Lindberg is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He served in the senior staff position for human rights in the U.S. Institute of Peace’s 2005 Gingrich-Mitchell Task Force on UN Reform and as lead expert on international norms and institutions for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s 2009 Genocide Prevention Task Force. He is a contributing editor to the Weekly Standard, writes frequently for the New Republic, and is a member of the adjunct faculty at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, where he teaches ethics in international politics.

 

Linas Linkevičius, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Lithuania

Linas Linkevičius has been the minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Lithuania since December 2012. Earlier in 2012, he had been appointed ambassador to Belarus. Previously, Linkevičius served as the ambassador-at-large for the transatlantic cooperation and security policy department in the ministry of foreign affairs. From 2005-11, Linkevičius was the permanent representative of Lithuania at the North Atlantic Council. He also served as the minister of the national defence from 1993-96. He was first elected to the parliament of Lithuania in 1992.

 

Dr. Eltie Links, Chair, Doing Business in Africa, USB

Dr. Eltie Links is the chair of Doing Business in Africa, USB, a position he has held since 2006. Prior to his appointment, he was the head of corporate citizenship from 2001 to 2006. Dr. Links has been the South African ambassador to the European Union, South African ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg, and principal resident representative of South Africa to the IMF and the World Bank. During his academic career, he has been an associate professor and later head of the department of economics, University of Western Cape; teaching and research assistant at the State University of New York at Binghamton; and a lecturer in economics, University of Western Cape. His research interests are business in Africa, negotiations, economics, and international trade issues.

 

Maleeha Lodhi, Special Adviser, Jang/Geo Group, Pakistan

Dr. Maleeha Lodhi is special adviser for international affairs to Pakistan’s largest media conglomerate, the Jang/Geo Group. She served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States (twice), as high commissioner to Britain, and on the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Affairs. Lodhi was the founding editor of Pakistan’s leading English daily, The News, the first woman in Asia to become the editor of a national daily newspaper. In 1994, TIME magazine nominated her as one of 100 people in the world who will help shape the 21st century, the only one from Pakistan. Her latest book, an edited volume titled Pakistan: Beyond the “Crisis State,” was published in 2011.

 

Christian Lohbauer, Member, International Relations Institute, University of Sao Paulo

Dr. Christian Lohbauer is a former international relations manager of the Federation of Industries of Sao Paulo State (FIESP) and deputy secretary of international relations of the Municipality of Sao Paulo. He has also been the executive director of the Brazilian Chicken Producers and Exporters Association (ABEF) and the executive president of the Brazilian Association of Citrus Exporters (CitrusBR). Lohbauer holds a master’s and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Sao Paulo, and he was a fellow at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation at the University of Bonn, Germany.

 

Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, Director, European Centre for International Political Economy

Hosuk Lee-Makiyama is the director of the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE). Prior to joining ECIPE, he was the senior advisor on WTO issues to the EU Presidency of Sweden, serving in Geneva as EU chairperson on trade in services, intellectual property, customs-technical issues, and their related UN/WTO-bodies. He represented the EU in the World Intellectual Property Organization and served also on the executive committee of the UN Economic Commission for Europe. He also worked in the private sector advising Fortune 500 companies and served on the European board of governors of a top U.S. public relations/advertising group.

 

Alia Mansour, Member, Syrian National Coalition

Alia Mansour is a member of the Syrian National Coalition. Previously, Miss Mansour served as a member of the General Secretariat of the Syrian National Council from 2011-12. Mansour has worked as a TV producer of several political shows in the Levant, prior to which she worked at the Lebanese daily newspaper, An-Nahar. She is a graduate of the American University of Beirut and Georgetown University in Greece.

 

Robert Menendez, Senator, U.S. State Senator

Robert Menendez is a U.S. Senator representing the state of New Jersey. He is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He began his career as mayor of Union City, New Jersey, in 1986 before going on to serve as a New Jersey State Senator and then represent his state in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 2006. Menendez was sworn in to the U.S. Senate in 2006, where he is now the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He received his bachelor’s from St. Peter’s College in Jersey City and his law degree from Rutgers University.

 

Dan Meridor, Chairman, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design

Dan Meridor is chairman of the Board of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. He was a captain (res.) in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and fought as a tank commander in the Six Day and Yom Kippur wars. First elected to the Knesset in 1984, he has been deputy prime minister, minister of intelligence, minister of strategic affairs, minister of finance, and minister of justice. He was secretary of the Cabinet under Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir. Meridor also has been chairman of the committee on Israel’s Defense Doctrine and senior fellow at The Israel Democracy Institute.

 

Hassan Mneimneh, Senior Transatlantic Fellow for MENA and the Islamic World, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Hassan Mneimneh joined The German Marshall Fund (GMF) as senior transatlantic fellow for MENA and the Islamic World in October 2011. He was most recently a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Prior to joining Hudson, Mneimneh was a visiting fellow at AEI, where he conducted a year-long exploration of the evolution of radical Islamist formations and their prospects worldwide. Between 2003 and 2008, he was director of the Iraq Memory Foundation, an organization dedicated to documenting Iraq’s recent past and to inviting Iraqi society to a reflection on issues of political responsibility, social order, and transitional justice. Mneimneh regularly contributes analysis and opinion pieces to the London-based Arabic newspaper al-Hayat, and has written extensively, in English, Arabic, and French, on political, cultural, historical, and intellectual developments in the Muslim world.

 

Carlos Moedas, Secretary of State to the Prime Minister, Portugal

Carlos Moedas is the secretary of state to the prime minister of Portugal. He is in charge of the Special Unit (ESAME) that monitors the implementation of Portugal’s Economic and Financial Adjustment Program. Moedas was a senior economic adviser to the leader of the opposition, now prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho. He was elected as a member of parliament in the last election. In 2004, he served as managing director of Aguirre Newman, and a member of the Executive Board of the Holding Company in Spain. In 2008, he created his first business venture, Crimson Investment Management.

 

Pedro da Motta Veiga, President, Centro de Estudos de Integração e Desenvolvimento

Pedro da Motta Veiga is the president of Centro de Estudos de Integração e Desenvolvimento (CINDES), an independent think tank in Rio de Janeiro, and partner at Ecostrat Consultores. He is a permanent consultant to the Swiss Agency for Development and coordinates the activities of the Latin American Trade Network in Brazil. He has consulted for many international organizations on issues relating to trade and industrial policies and international negotiations including Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, The World Bank, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and the Inter-American Development Bank.

 

L. Daniel Mullaney, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Europe and the Middle East

Dan Mullaney is the assistant U.S. trade representative for Europe and the Middle East. From 2006 to 2010, he was the senior trade representative in the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels. Before that, Mullaney was an attorney in USTR’s Office of General Counsel, where he led negotiations and provided legal advice for free trade agreements and represented the United States in dispute settlement proceedings at the World Trade Organization. Prior to joining USTR in 1999, he was a partner in a major international law firm, specializing in international trade law.

 

Robin Niblett, Director, Chatham House

Dr. Robin Niblett is the director of Chatham House. Before joining Chatham House, Niblett was the executive vice president and chief operating officer of Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He also served as director of the CSIS Europe Program and its Initiative for a Renewed Transatlantic Partnership. Niblett is a non-executive director of Fidelity European Values Investment Trust. He is a council member of the Overseas Development Institute, a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Global Institutional Governance, and the chairman of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Europe.

 

Carlos Pascual, Special Envoy and Coordinator, International Energy Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Ambassador Carlos Pascual is the U.S. Department of State’s special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appointed Pascual to this position in 2011. Prior to his appointment, Pascual served as the U.S. ambassador to Mexico and was the vice president and director of the foreign policy studies program at the Brookings Institution. During his extensive career in public service, Pascual has held positions in the Department of State, the National Security Council, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. He served as coordinator for reconstruction and stabilization at the U.S. Department of State.

 

Wilifried Porth, Board of Management, Daimler AG

Wilifried Porth has been a member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG since April 8, 2009. He is also responsible for Daimler AG Human Resources as well as the director of labor for relations. In addition, he is responsible for IT and procurement of non-production materials and services. He graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Stuttgart. He joined the Central Production Engineering department as a planning engineer of the then Daimler-Benz AG in 1985.

 

Jeff Potts, Managing Director, Global Regulatory and Public Policy, Deloitte 

Jeff Potts leads the development ofpublic policy for the Deloitte network of member firms worldwide and the Deloitte network’s engagement with the Global Public Policy Committee of the large six global networks including Deloitte’s engagement with the International Federation of Independent Audit Regulators (IFIAR). He is also responsible for maintaining and building the relationships between Deloitte and audit regulators around the world. He leads the Deloitte/Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) engagement for member firms outside the U.S. In addition, Potts sits on the Deloitte Executive Committee. Prior to taking on this role, he was a client service professional for more than 30 years.

 

Marc Otte, Director Policy Planning, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Belgium

Marc Otte is the director general of the Royal Institute for International Relations (Egmont) and director of policy planning with Belgium’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). He is also the Belgian special envoy for Syria. He was special representative for the Middle East Peace Process from 2003 to 2011 and adviser on defense and security policy to the high representative for common foreign and security from 1999 to 2003. Otte joined the Belgian MFA in 1976 and since then has held various assignments, including consul general in Los Angeles, ambassador to Israel, and director for security policy and disarmament. He holds a master’s in political and social sciences and is a post-graduate of the Institute for Developing Countries, University of Louvain, Belgium.

 

Soli Özel, Professor, Kadir Has University

Soli Özel is currently a full time professor at Kadir Has University, a columnist at Habertürk Daily newspaper, and an advisor to the Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association. He has guest lectured at Georgetown, Harvard, Tufts, and other U.S. universities, taught at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, University of Washington, and Hebrew University, and held fellowships at Oxford and the EU Institute of Strategic Studies. He is currently a Miller Family Fellow at the Belfer Center of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and in the spring of 2013, he was a Keyman fellow at Northwestern University. Mr. Özel is a regular contributor to GMF’s On Turkey series and his work has been published in Internationale Politik, Journal of Democracy, Foreign Policy, International Security, Wall Street Journal  

 

Michael Punke, Deputy United States Trade Representative and Ambassador to WTO, United States  

MichaelPunke serves as the deputy U.S. trade representative and U.S. ambassador and permanent representative to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, Switzerland. He has worked in the field of international trade law and policy for two decades. From 1995-96, Punke served as senior policy advisor at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. From 1993-95, he served at the White House as director for International Economic Affairs with a joint appointment to the National Security Council and the National Economic Council. From 1991-92, Punke was international trade counsel to Senator Max Baucus. Punke is a graduate of George Washington University and Cornell Law School.

 

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Secretary General, North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Anders Fogh Rasmussen took office as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 12th secretary general in 2009. As minister for economic affairs and member of the EU’s ECOFIN-council 1990-92, Rasmussen was the Danish negotiator of and signatory to the Maastricht Treaty. He was chairman of the Liberal Party’s national organisation and vice chairman of the Parliament’s Foreign Policy Board. After the parliamentary elections in 2001, he formed a coalition consisting of the Liberal Party and the Conservative People’s Party. He held the position of prime minister of Denmark until 2009.

 

Didier Reynders, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade, and European Affairs, Belgium

The Honorable Didier Reynders is a former lawyer who was appointed Belgian deputy prime minister and minister for institutional reforms in 2004. Reynders has served as the minister of finance since 1999 and was chairman of the Eurogroup in 2001. He has also worked as the minister of foreign affairs, foreign trade, and European affairs since December 2011. From July 2001 to December 2011, he was the president of Ecofin, the economic and foreign affairs council for the EU. Reynders was the minister for justice and institutional reforms from 1987-88.

 

Dave Ricks, Senior Vice President, President, Lilly Bio-Medicines

Dave Ricks became senior vice president and president of Lilly Bio-Medicines in January 2012. He is also a senior vice president for Eli Lilly and Company and is a member of the company’s executive committee. Ricks holds a number of leadership positions in the transatlantic realm including serving as the U.S. chair of the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue, and on the Board of Directors of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations. In October 2013, he testified before the Finance Committee of the U.S. Senate on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Ricks earned a bachelor’s degree in business from Purdue University in 1990, and an MBA from Indiana University in 1996.

 

Edgars Rinkēvičs, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Latvia

Edgars Rinkēvičs was appointed Latvian minister of foreign affairs in 2011. Prior to his current post, he held several political posts including chancery of the president of Latvia (2008-11), secretary of state to the Ministry of Defence (1997-2008), and deputy head of the Latvian delegation for accession negotiations with NATO (2002-03). From 1995-97, he worked in the Ministry of Defence in several roles, and was a journalist for “Latvijas Radio.” He earned a master’s degree in political science from the University of Latvia in 1997 and a master’s degree in national resource strategy from the U.S. National Defence University, Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

 

George Robertson, Special Advisor, BP

The Rt. Hon. Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Kt, GCMG, hon. FRSE, PC, is special adviser to BP and senior international adviser to Cable and Wireless Communications plc, where he served as deputy chairman. He was a member of Parliament for Hamilton and Hamilton South. In 1993, he was elected to the Shadow Cabinet. He was appointed the U.K. secretary of state for defence in 1997. He was appointed 10th secretary general of NATO, elevated to the House of Lords and then to Her Majesty’s Privy Council in 1997. 

 

Herman Van Rompuy, President, European Council

President Herman Van Rompuy was appointed the first permanent president of the European Council on November 19, 2009. He also served as the 49th prime minister of Belgium from 2008-09. He was first elected to the Belgian Senate in 1988 and was appointed secretary of state for finance and small business that same year. Van Rompuy also served as the national chairman of the Belgian Christian Democrats (CVP) for five years. He became vice prime minister and the minister of the budget in 1993. In 2004, he became minister of state, and in 2007 he was elected president of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives, a position he held until he took over his prime ministerial duties in 2008.

 

Norbert Röttgen, Member, German Bundestag

Dr. Norbert Röttgen is a member of the German Bundestag, where he is chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Previously, Röttgen was the German federal minister for the environment, nature conservation, and nuclear safety. He also served the Christian-Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU) as chief whip and spokesperson for legal policy. Additionally, he was the vice chairman of the CDU from 2010-12. He is a senior fellow at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. He received his doctorate at the University of Bonn.

 

Andrés Rozental, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

Andrés Rozental has been a diplomat for 35 years and holds the lifetime rank of eminent ambassador of Mexico. He served as Mexico’s ambassador to the United Kingdom (1995-97), deputy foreign minister (1988-94), ambassador to Sweden (1983-88), and permanent representative of Mexico to the United Nations in Geneva (1982-83). Rozental is the president of his own consulting firm, Rozental & Asociados, which specializes in advising multinational companies on their corporate strategies in Latin America. He has been a senior non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution since 2011. Rozental obtained his professional degree in international relations from the Universidad de las Américas in Mexico, and his master’s degree in international economics from the University of Pennsylvania. He has been a foreign policy advisor to Presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón.

 

Madeline Sackler, Director and Producer, Great Curve Films

Madeleine Sackler is a director and producer based in New York City, where she founded Great Curve Films. She recently premiered her Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus, her third feature documentary, at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it was acquired by HBO. Her first documentary, The Lottery, sparked a renewed debate on the future of public education and was shortlisted for the 2011 Academy Awards. Sackler is also the co-founder of Osmosis Films, a new media company dedicated to producing interactive, long form content.

 

Salome Samadashvili, Visiting Fellow, Centre for European Studies

Ambassador Salome Samadashvili joined the Centre for European Studies (CES) as a visiting fellow in November 2013. Prior to joining the CES team, Ambassador Samadashvili enjoyed a decade-long career in public service in her native country, Georgia. Following the democratic Rose Revolution of 2003, she was elected to be a member of the Parliament of Georgia and the Deputy-Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee. In October 2005, she was appointed the head of Georgia’s Mission to the EU, Belgium, and Luxembourg. She left the Georgian diplomatic service in April 2013. From 2002 to 2004, Samadashvili worked for the National Democratic Institute (NDI) as the parliamentary program officer in Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political sciences from Allegheny College in Pennsylvania, an LL.M degree in comparative constitutional law from the Central European University in Budapest, and a master’s in public policy from American University.

 

Andrei Sannikov, Coordinator, “European Belarus” civil campaign, Belarus

Andrei Sannikov is the coordinator of “European Belarus” Civil Campaign. He was his country’s deputy foreign minister in 1995-96 until he resigned in protest. In 1997, he co-founded the civil initiative Charter 97. Sannikov was a candidate in the 2010 presidential election, and had the second highest percentage of the popular votes. He was incarcerated in a Minsk KGB facility for peacefully protesting at a demonstration after the elections, and was recognized by Amnesty International as prisoner of conscience. On May 14, 2011, he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, but was released less than one year later. Sannikov was granted political assylum in U.K. in October 2012, where he continues to campaign for the interests of a democratic Belarus.

 

Nina Dos Santos, Host, World Business Today, CNN

Nina dos Santos is a London-based news anchor of CNN’s World Business Today and a correspondent. She also frequently anchors CNN Marketplace Europe. Dos Santos began her career in print news with internships at the Financial Times Group and Dow Jones & Co before moving into broadcast news as a presenter with Bloomberg Television, later with Sky News and NBC News. Her past print work has been published in The Wall Street Journal and The International Herald Tribune as well as in Vedomosti in Russia and Handelsblatt in Germany.

 

Daniela Schwarzer, Director, Europe Program, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Dr. Daniela Schwarzer recently joined GMF to direct its Europe Program. Before this, she headed the Division EU Integration at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) from 2008 to early 2014, after having been a senior fellow with SWP since 2005. In 2012-13 she was a Fritz-Thyssen-Scholar at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. She is also a senior research professor for European studies at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University, DC/Bologna. Schwarzer has held advisory positions for the French and Polish governments and was a member of the Whitebook Commission on Foreign and European Policy in the French Foreign Ministry in 2007-08. From 1999 to 2004, she served as editorialist and France correspondent for the Financial Times Deutschland.

 

Andrés Serbin, Executive President, Regional Coordination of Economic and Social ResearchAndrés Serbin is the executive president of the Regional Coordination of Economic and Social Research (CRIES). He also chairs the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect. He is a former executive committee member and current international board member of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict. He was director of Caribbean Affairs at the Latin American Economic System, advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela, and currently is advisor to the Argentine Council of International Relations.

 

Brenda Shaffer, Visiting Researcher and Professor, Georgetown University

Professor Brenda Shaffer is a specialist on energy and foreign policy, energy security polices, Azerbaijan, the Caucasus, Caspian energy and Eastern Mediterranean energy issues. She currently is a visiting researcher at Georgetown University’s Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies (CERES). She previously served as the research director of the Caspian Studies Program at Harvard University. Shaffer served as an advisor to the government of Israel’s Zemach Committee for natural gas policy and Israel’s Ministry of Energy and Water. She is also a member of the Steering Committee that oversees the master plan of Israel’s energy sector.

 

Jamie Shea, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges, NATO

Jamie Shea is the deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security challenges at NATO. During his more than 30-year career at NATO, Shea has served as the director of policy planning in the private office of the secretary general, the deputy assistant secretary general for external relations and the public diplomacy division, and as NATO’s spokesman and deputy director of information and press. Amongst his many associations and memberships, Shea is member of the advisory board for security and defence programmes at Chatham House, a member of the policy council at the World Economic Forum in Geneva, and founder and member of the board for the security and defence Agenda in Brussels.

 

Wendy Sherman, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Ambassador Wendy Sherman was sworn in as the under secretary for political affairs on September 21, 2011. Prior to this position, she served as the vice chair of Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm, and as a member of the Investment Committee of Albright Capital Management, an affiliated investment advisory firm focused on emerging markets. Sherman served as the counsellor for the U.S. Department of State from 1997 to 2001, as well as the special advisor to President Bill Clinton and policy coordinator on North Korea. From 1993-96, she served under Secretary of State Warren Christopher as assistant secretary for legislative affairs.

 

Anne-Marie Slaughter, President and CEO, New America Foundation

Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter is the president and CEO of the New America Foundation and the Bert G. Kerstetter ’66 University Professor Emerita of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. From 2009-11, she served as the first female director of Policy Planning for the U.S. Department of State. Prior to her government service, Slaughter was the dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law at Harvard Law School. She has written or edited six books and is a frequent contributor to a number of publications, including The Atlantic and Project Syndicate. 

 

Amanda Sloat, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, U.S. Department of States

Dr. Amanda Sloat assumed her duties as U.S. deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs in 2013. She is responsible for issues related to Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus, as well as for coordinating with Europeans on engagement with the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. Most recently, she served as senior advisor to the White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and Gulf Region and senior advisor to the assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs at the Department of State. She also served as a special advisor to the Scottish Parliament, Northern Ireland Assembly, and European Commission. Sloat holds a Ph.D. in politics from the University of Edinburgh and a bachelor’s in political theory from Michigan State University.

 

Andrew Small, Transatlantic Fellow, Asia Program, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Andrew Small is a transatlantic fellow with the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. His research focuses on U.S.-China relations, EU-China relations, Chinese policy in South and South-West Asia, and China’s role with “problem” and fragile states. Over the last two years, he has been completing his book, The China-Pakistan Axis, which will be published in July, 2014. He established GMF’s Asia program, the Stockholm China Forum, and GMF’s biannual China policy conference. He previously worked as the director of the Foreign Policy Center’s Beijing office, as a visiting fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and was an ESU scholar in the office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. He has testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission and both the Foreign Affairs and Development Committees of the European Parliament.

 

Julianne Smith, Director of the Strategy and Statecraft Program, Center for a New American Security

Julianne Smith is a senior fellow and director of the Strategy and Statecraft Program at the Center for a New American Security. She is also a senior vice president at Beacon Global Strategies LLC. Prior to joining Beacon, Smith served as the deputy national security advisor to the U.S. vice president from 2012-13. Before her posting at the White House, she served as the principal director for European and NATO policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon. Prior to joining the Obama administration, Smith served as the director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Europe Program and Initiative for a Renewed Transatlantic Partnership. She also worked at the German Marshall Fund of the United States as a program officer for the Foreign Policy Program and director of communications for the Project on the Role of American Military Power.

 

Peter Sparding, Transatlantic Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States

Peter Sparding is a transatlantic fellow in GMF’s Economic Policy Program in Washington, DC, where he works on issues related to the transatlantic and global economy. In particular, Mr. Sparding’s work focuses on the consequences of the eurozone crisis on the transatlantic economic relationship and the global economy. He also works on issues related to transatlantic trade and global economic governance. A native of Germany, Mr. Sparding previously worked in GMF’s Berlin office. He holds a master’s degree from Free University in Berlin and has also studied at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

 

Peter Spiegel, Brussels Bureau Chief, Financial Times

Peter Spiegel is the Brussels bureau chief for the Financial Times. He and his team have received Society of American Business Writers and Editors awards for their coverage on the eurozone debt crisis. Spiegel spent nearly five years in Washington, DC, covering foreign affairs and national security policy for the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal where he focused on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, traveling frequently to both war zones. While at the Los Angeles Times, he was co-winner of the newspaper’s top internal journalism award, the 2008 Editor’s Prize, for his coverage of the Bush administration’s surge in Iraq.

 

James B. Steinberg, Dean, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University

Prior to serving as the dean of the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, James Steinberg served as deputy to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In addition to authoring and contributing to several books and articles on foreign policy, Steinberg supervised a wide-ranging research program on U.S. foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, while serving as vice president and director of foreign policy studies. Steinberg’s most recent book is Difficult Transitions: Foreign Policy Troubles at the Outset of Presidential Power (2008). He served as the deputy national security advisor to President Bill Clinton from 1996 to 2000. Steinberg received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard and a J.D. from Yale Law School.

 

Constanze Stelzenmüller, Senior Transatlantic Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Dr. Constanze Stelzenmüller has been a senior transatlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) in Berlin since 2009. Before, she served as the director of GMF’s Berlin office from 2005-09. From 1994 until 2005, Stelzenmüller was an editor in the political section of the Hamburg weekly DIE ZEIT. From 1998 to 2005, she was defense and international security editor; previously, she covered human rights issues, humanitarian crises in Africa and the Balkans, as well as international criminal tribunals.

 

Philip Stephens, Chief Political Commentator and Associate Editor, Financial Times

Philip Stephens is chief political commentator and associate editor at the Financial Times, where he is also a member of the editorial board. He is vice chair of the Council of the Ditchley Foundation, a member of steering group of the Anglo-French Colloque, and a member of the advisory board of the Institute for Public Policy Research. He has won the David Watt prize for Outstanding Political Journalism, Political Journalist of the Year by the U.K. Political Studies Association, and Political Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards. Stephens was educated at Wimbledon College and Oxford University, where he took an honors degree in modern history.

 

Bruce Stokes, Director, Pew Global Attitudes Project

Bruce Stokes is the director of Global Economic Attitudes at the Pew Research Center in Washington, DC, and author of the Pew reports European Unity on the Rocks, Pervasive Gloom about the World Economy, and Deepening Economic Doubts in India. Stokes is a former senior transatlantic fellow for economics at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, where he is currently a non-resident fellow. He is the former international economics columnist for the National Journal, a Washington-based public policy magazine, where he is now a contributing editor. He is also a former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he is a member. In 2012, he coauthored A New Era for Transatlantic Trade Leadership (European Centre for International Political Economy, Brussels) and The Case for Renewing Transatlantic Capitalism (demosEuropa, Warsaw).

 

 

Sylke Tempel, Editor-in-Chief, Internationale Politik, German Council of Foreign Affairs

Dr. Sylke Tempel is the editor-in-chief of Internationale Politik, published by the German Council of Foreign Affairs. She also teaches international relations at the Stanford Study Center in Berlin and at Stanford University. She has served as Middle East correspondent for numerous German magazines. Her collaborative work on the book We Just Want to Live Here won the prestigious Quadriga Prize in 2003. Tempel holds a master’s degree from the Universität München and was awarded a Ph.D. from the Universität der Bundeswehr.

 

Mostafa Terrab, Chairman and CEO, Office Cherifien dePhosphate

Dr. Mostafa Terrab serves as the chairman and CEO of Office Cherifien dePhosphate (OCP) Group and as a member of the executive board at La Banque Centrale Populaire SA. He started his career with Bechtel Civil and Minerals Inc. as an analyst in transportation systems. From 1989-93, he served as a consultant with Draper Laboratory. In 1995, he became secretary general of the executive secretariat of the Middle East/North Africa Economic Summit. He served as director general of National Telecommunication Regulatory Agency, before leading the World Bank’s Information for Development program and served as lead regulatory specialist from 2002-06. He has been an assistant professor at MIT and at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. Terrab received a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in operations research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an engineering diploma from the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées.

 

Michael Turner, Member, U.S. House of Representatives

The Honorable Michael Turner is a Republican representative of the state of Ohio and was first elected to the U.S. Congress in 2002. Representative Turner was in private practice and corporate law for 13 years before entering public office. He also served two terms as mayor of Dayton, Ohio. He has pursued trade opportunities with Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Croatia as a result of the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, and developed Sister City partnerships with Holon, Israel; Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Zagreb, Croatia. He now serves on the committees of Oversight and Government Reform and Armed Services, where he is ranking minority member of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

 

Daniel Twining, Senior Fellow for Asia, German Marshall Fund of the United States

Dr. Daniel Twining is senior fellow for Asia at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, where he leads a 15-member team working on the rise of Asia and its implications for the West. He is also a consultant to the U.S. government on global macro trends, teaches a graduate course on South Asia at Georgetown University, and teaches a strategic seminar to senior U.S. military officers preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. He previously served as a member of the secretary of state’s Policy Planning Staff, where he was responsible for South Asia and regional issues in East Asia; as the foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain, for whom he handled foreign and defense policy in the U.S. Senate; and as a staff member of the U.S. Trade Representative. Twining has also served as senior policy advisor and foreign policy spokesman for several presidential campaigns.

 

Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı, Director, Ankara Office, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı is the director of the German Marshall Fund of the United States’ (GMF) office in Ankara, Turkey. Prior to joining GMF, Ünlühisarcıklı was the manager of the Resource Development Department of the Educational Volunteers Foundation of Turkey. Previously, he worked as the director of the ARI Movement, a Turkish non-governmental organization that promotes participatory democracy, and as a consultant at AB Consulting and Investment Services.

 

David Usupashvili, Chairman, Parliament of Georgia

David Usupashvili was elected chairman of the Parliament of Georgia in 2012. He has been chairman of the Republican Party of Georgia since 2005 and deputy chairman of the Political Coalition “Georgian Dream” since 2011. During 2000-01, Usupashvili worked as an executive secretary for the Anti-Corruption Working Group under the president of Georgia. He founded one of the first Georgian NGOs, the Georgian Young Lawyers Association, which contributed to the democratization of Georgia. From 1992-94, he worked for the president of Georgia as senior legal adviser and as special envoy to Parliament and Constitutional Commission of Georgia.

 

Jean-Luc Vanraes, President, Parliament of the Flemish Community Commission, Brussels Regional Parliament

Jean-Luc Vanraes is the president of the Parliament of the Flemish Community Commission and a member of the Brussels parliament. He is also a member of the committee of the regions and of the Assembly of European Regions. In 2000, Vanraes became a member of the council of Brussels. He was then the president of the Open Vlaamse Liberalen en Democraten group in the council of Brussels before becoming the president of the board of the Flemish Community Commission. Since 2009, he has been a member and president of the Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie board. From 2009 to 2011, he was the minister of finance and budget of the government of Brussels.

 

Ivan Vejvoda, Senior Vice President, Programs, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Until September 2010, Ivan Vejvoda was executive director of the Balkan Trust for Democracy, a project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). He came to GMF in 2003 from service in the Serbian government as senior advisor on foreign policy and European integration to Prime Ministers Zoran Djindjic and Zoran Zivkovic. Prior to this, he served as executive director of the Belgrade-based Fund for an Open Society from 1998 to 2002. During the mid 1990s, he held various academic posts in the United States and the United Kingdom. Vejvoda was a key figure in the democratic opposition movement in Yugoslavia through the 1990s and is widely published on the subjects of democratic transition, totalitarianism, and post-war reconstruction in the Balkans.

 

Johan Verbeke, Ambassador to the United States, Belgium

Johan Verbeke undertook his current position of ambassador of Belgium to the United States at the beginning of 2014. He has held various positions with the Belgian diplomatic service, including chief spokesperson of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, deputy chief of mission at the Belgian Embassy in Washington, DC, deputy director general for political affairs, and director general for European affairs. He also served as chef de cabinet to the Belgian ministers of European and foreign affairs, and was ambassador of the Permanent Representation to the United Nations, special coordinator of the UN secretary general in Lebanon and Georgia, head of the UN Observer Mission in Georgia, and Belgian ambassador to the United Kingdom. Previously, Verbeke worked at Ghent University and the law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. Ambassador Verbeke obtained degrees in law and philosophy from Ghent University (J.D., MA), the Université de Nancy (D.E.S.) and Yale Law School (LL.M.).

 

Alexander Vershbow, Deputy Secretary General, NATO

Alexander Vershbow is the deputy secretary-general of NATO. Previously, Vershbow served as the U.S. assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs for three years. In that role, he was responsible for coordinating U.S. security and defence policies relating to the nations and international organizations of Europe including NATO, the Middle East, and Africa. From 1977 to 2008, Vershbow was a career member of the U.S. Foreign Service. He served as the U.S. ambassador to NATO, the Russian Federation, and most recently to the Republic of Korea. He has held numerous senior positions in Washington, including special assistant to the president and senior director for European Affairs at the National Security Council, and director for Soviet Union affairs at the U.S. Department of State. 

 

Pierre Vimont, Executive Secretary General, European External Action Service 

Pierre Vimont is the executive secretary general of the European External Action service. He previously served as the French ambassador to the United States from 2007 to 2010. He has also served as the permanent representative of France to the EU. Prior to his appointment to Brussels, he held various positions within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including the director for European cooperation; deputy director general for cultural, scientific, and technical relations; and chief of staff to the deputy minister for European Affairs. Vimont was also the second secretary to the Permanent Representation of France to the European communities and the first secretary to the French Embassy in London.

 

Kurt Volker, Executive Director, McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University

Kurt Volker is the executive director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University. He served as U.S. ambassador to NATO from 2008-2009. Since leaving the government, Volker has been involved with a variety of think-tank and business consulting activities. He remains active as a senior advisor to the Atlantic Council and a senior fellow with the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Volker previously served as the international managing director for the BGR Group and senior advisor at McLarty Associates.

 

Eckart von Klaeden, Vice President External Affairs, Daimler AG

Eckart von Klaeden is a lawyer by training. He started his professional career as a spokesman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Lower Saxony before he became a member of the German Federal Parliament in 1994. There he held a number of posts: from 2000-05 as parliamentary secretary, from 2005-09 as foreign policy spokesman of the CDU and Christian Social Union faction in the German Federal Parliament, and from 2006-10 as treasurer of the CDU. From 2004-13, he was a member of the federal board of the CDU and since 2006 he has also been a member of the executive committee. In 2009, he assumed office as minister of state of the federal chancellor. In November 2013, von Klaeden joined Daimler AG as vice president for external affairs.

 

Tamara Vonta, State Secretary, Office of the Prime Minister, Slovenia

Tamara Vonta is the state secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister for the Republic of Slovenia. In 2011, she was elected deputy of the National Assembly on Zoran Janković's List – Positive Slovenia. As chair of the parliamentary Commission for Petitions, Human Rights, and Equal Opportunities, she focused on issues associated with the fundamental human rights of all citizens — especially the Roma, the erased, and minorities — and equal opportunities for women and men in all areas and on all levels. Previous to her work at the ministry, Vonta edited and anchored broadcast television for 20 years.

 

Robert Wexler, President, S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace

The Honorable Robert Wexler is the president of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for seven terms, representing Florida’s 19th district before retiring in 2010. Wexler was named one of the “50 Most Effective Legislators in Congress” by Congressional Quarterly. Wexler served as an advisor on Middle East and Israel issues to U.S. President Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. He has been an advocate for the relationship between the United States and Israel and a leading proponent of Israel’s right to self-defence and the need for a just and comprehensive resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

 

Jakub Wiśniewski, Head of Department of Foreign Policy Strategy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Poland 

Dr.Jakub Wiśniewski is the head of the Department of Foreign Policy Strategy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Poland. He is responsible for co-operation with think tanks and programming of the Polish foreign policy in the medium and long-term perspective. Up to 2009, he was the head of Economic Unit at the Department of Analyses and Strategies at the Office of the Committee for European Integration. Wiśniewski is the author of publications on welfare state, social policy, and migrations. He is also a member of the Councils of the Polish Institute of International Affairs and the Centre for Eastern Studies, the Scientific Councils of the Western Institute in Poznań as well as the Institute of Central Eastern Europe in Lublin. He has a Ph.D. in political science at the University of Warsaw.

 

Damon Wilson, Executive Vice President, Atlantic Council 

Dr. Damon Wilson is executive vice president of the Atlantic Council. From 2007 to 2009, Wilson served as special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs at the National Security Council. Previously, Wilson served at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad as the executive secretary and chief of staff, and was the director for Central, Eastern, and Northern European affairs at the National Security Council from 2004 to 2006. From 2001 to 2004, Wilson served as deputy director of the Private Office of the NATO Secretary General. Prior to serving in Brussels, Wilson worked in the U.S. Department of State’s Office of European Security and Political Affairs. He also worked on the State Department’s China desk and at the U.S. embassy in Beijing as a presidential management fellow. Wilson completed his master’s degree at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs. 

 

Guntram Wolff, Director, Bruegel

Guntram Wolff is the director of the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel. In addition to working at Bruegel, he is also a member of the French prime minister’s Conseil d’Analyse Economique. Wolff currently teaches at Université libre de Bruxelles and serves on the advisory board of the European Studies Center of Corvinus University Budapest. His research focuses on the European economy and governance, fiscal policy, global finance, Germany, France, and Japan. He joined Bruegel from the European Commission, where he worked on the macroeconomics of the euro area and the reform of euro-area governance. Prior to joining the Commission, he coordinated the research team on fiscal policy at Deutsche Bundesbank.

 

Dirk Wouters, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Belgium to the European Union

Dirk Wouters currently serves as ambassador and permanent representative of Belgium to the EU. Previously, Wouters served as the chief of staff to the minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade. Wouters was also the diplomatic advisor and Sherpa to Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy. He served as the permanent representative of Belgium to the western EU and as the permanent representative of Belgium to the political and security committee of the EU. Wouters served as the head of the department of European integration and coordination at the ministry of foreign affairs. He also served as the minister counselor at the Embassy of Belgium in Rome.

 

Robert Zoellick, Chairman of International Advisors, Goldman Sachs

Robert Zoellick serves as the chairman of Goldman Sachs’ international advisors. Previously, Zoellick was president of the World Bank Group and vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International. He has been a distinguished visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. Zoellick has held several positions under both the Bush and Reagan administrations, including U.S. trade representative, deputy secretary of state, and under secretary of state. The Mexican and Chilean governments awarded him the Aztec Eagle and the Order of Merit, respectively, for recognition of his work on free trade, development, and the environment.