Speakers 2018

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Katya Adler, Europe Editor, BBC

BBC Europe editor Katya Adler is one of the most popular and well-known of British journalists. Currently she provides analysis and context on TV, radio, online via her Europe Editor blog on the BBC news website and, in social media via Twitter. She joined the BBC in 1998, covering European affairs from the studio in London and across the continent for BBC World Service whilst also commuting to Berlin to appear regularly as a news anchor on Deutsche Welle Television. She appeared regularly as a news presenter on BBC World News, as an investigative reporter for the BBC's award-winning daily analysis program, Newsnight, and has written/presented a number of acclaimed one hour current affairs documentaries. In 2014 Adler was appointed BBC's Europe editor, making her the broadcaster's leading voice on Brexit and the EU, populism across Europe, the future of the EU, and much more.

Dr. Madeleine Albright, Chair, Albright Stonebridge Group

Madeleine K. Albright is Chair of Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm, and Chair of Albright Capital Management LLC, an investment advisory firm focused on emerging markets. She was the 64th Secretary of State of the United States. Dr. Albright received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, from President Obama on May 29, 2012. In 1997, Dr. Albright was named the first female Secretary of State and became, at that time, the highest ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. As Secretary of State, Dr. Albright reinforced America’s alliances, advocated for democracy and human rights, and promoted American trade, business, labor, and environmental standards abroad. From 1993 to 1997, Dr. Albright served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and was a member of the President’s Cabinet. From 1989 to 1992, she served as President of the Center for National Policy. Previously, she was a member of President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Council and White House staff and served as Chief Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Edmund S. Muskie.

Marc Allen, President, Boeing International

Marc Allen is president of Boeing International and a member of the Boeing Executive Council. As president of Boeing International since 2015, Allen is responsible for the company’s international strategy and corporate operations outside the U.S., overseeing 18 regional offices in key global markets. His responsibilities include developing the company’s growth and productivity initiatives outside the U.S., forming new business and industrial partnerships, overseeing international affairs, enhancing Boeing’s local presence and providing global functional support. Allen reports to Boeing Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg. Previously, Allen served as president of Boeing Capital Corporation, a wholly owned Boeing subsidiary that arranges, structures and provides financing for Boeing’s commercial airplane, space and defense products. Prior to Boeing Capital, Allen served as vice president of Boeing International and president of Boeing China, responsible for leading the company’s business in China from its Beijing headquarters.

Youssef Amrani, Head of Mission, Royal Cabinet, Kingdom of Morocco

Prior to his designation in the Cabinet of His Majesty King Mohammed VI of Morocco in October 2013, Youssef Amrani was minister delegate for foreign affairs and cooperation, a post he had held since January 2012. In November 2008, he was appointed secretary general at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, a position he held until his election as secretary general of the Mediterranean Union in July 2011. Amrani has also served as an ambassador of Morocco to Colombia, Chile, and Mexico. From 2003 to 2008, he served as ambassador and director general of bilateral relations in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. He was the head of office of the secretary of state for the Arab Maghreb Union from 1989 to 1992. Afterwards, he was appointed as consul general in Barcelona. He holds a degree in economics from the University Mohammed V in Rabat and graduated from the Institute of Management in Boston.

Niels Annen, Member, German Bundestag

Niels Annen serves as the spokesperson on foreign affairs of the SPD Parliamentary Group in the German Bundestag and as a permanent member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and as a substitute member of the Committee on Economics and Energy. He is also a member of the SPD’s executive committee and acts as the chairperson of the SPD’s Commission for International Politics. Annen also chairs the Bundestag’s Parliamentarian Friendship Group for Relations with the States of South Asia. He was previously a senior resident fellow with The German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington, DC. and a researcher at the International Policy Analysis unit of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Berlin. He holds several honorary offices, such as member of the Executive Board of the German Council on Foreign Relations (GCFR), council member of German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP),and member of the Advisory Council of the Atlantic Initiative.

Ali Aslan, Presenter and Journalist

Ali Aslan is a Berlin-based TV presenter and journalist who has worked worldwide for global networks such as CNN, ABC News, Channel News Asia, and Deutsche Welle TV. An internationally sought-after conference moderator, Aslan has shared the stage among others with Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, and Bill Clinton. He holds master’s degrees in Journalism, Political Science, and International Affairs from Columbia University and Georgetown University.

Bogdan Aurescu, Presidential Advisor for Foreign Policy, Romania

Bogdan Aurescu is presidential advisor for foreign policy to the President of Romania. He previously served as minister of foreign affairs of Romania as member of the UN International Law Commission.He is also professor of public international saw within the Faculty of Law at the University of Bucharest. He is substitute member of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) of the Council of Europe, in this capacity being rapporteur or co-rapporteur for 24 reports, opinions or studies of this body. He is also member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (The Hague) and arbitrator designated by Romania according to Article 2 of Annex VII to the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea.

Kay Bailey Hutchison, Ambassador, U.S. Mission to NATO

Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison was sworn in as the permanent representative of the United States to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on August 15, 2017. From 1993 to 2013, she served as a senator from Texas and was also elected to a Senate leadership position. Ambassador Hutchison gained extensive international experience and developed a deep understanding of NATO as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.She also served as chairman of the Military Construction Subcommittee and as a member of the Defense Subcommittee on the Senate Appropriations Committee. She served two terms as chairman of the Board of Visitors of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.Ambassador Hutchison earned a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Texas and a degree of Juris Doctor from the University of Texas School of Law.

Rosa Balfour, Senior Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Dr. Rosa Balfour is a senior transatlantic fellow at The Germany Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) and a member of the Steering Committee of Women in International Security–Brussels. Her fields of expertise include European politics, institutions, foreign and security policy, and international relations. She has researched and published widely on issues relating to European politics and international relations, especially on relations with the Mediterranean region, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, EU enlargement, and on the role of human rights and democracy in international relations. Prior to joining GMF, Rosa was a director at the European Policy Centre (EPC), an independent think tank based in Brussels, where she headed the Europe in the World programme. She holds an MA in history from Cambridge University, an MSc in European Studies and PhD in international relations both from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Julian E. Barnes, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Julian E. Barnes covers terrorism, NATO, and security issues from The Wall Street Journal's Brussels bureau, which he joined in 2015. Previously he spent five years covering the Pentagon and national security issues from The Wall Street Journal's Washington bureau. In Brussels, Barnes has covered NATO's troop build-up in the Baltic states and Poland. He has written about the Alliance's response to increased Russian submarine activity. He has also reported on NATO and the European Union's response to rising cyber-attacks. Before joining the Journal in 2010, Barnes spent nearly a decade reporting on U.S. foreign policy and the military, including frequent reporting trips to Iraq and Afghanistan, for the Los Angeles Times and U.S. News and World Report. At U.S. News, Barnes' coverage of the Iraq war was recognized with an Overseas Press Club Award. A graduate of Harvard University, he has also worked for The New York Times and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Kevin Baron, Executive Editor, Defense One

Kevin Baron is executive editor of Defense One. He is also national security and military analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. Baron has covered the military, the Pentagon, Congress, and politics for Foreign Policy, National Journal, and Stars and Stripes. He previously ran investigative projects for five years at theBoston Globe’s Washington bureau, and cut his muckraking teeth at the Center for Public Integrity. Baron is twice a Polk Award winner and former vice president of the Pentagon Press Association. He earned his master’s degree from George Washington University and bachelor’s degree from the University of Richmond

Abdelhak Bassou, Senior Fellow, OCP Policy Center

Abdelhak Bassou is a senior fellow with OCP Policy Center. He occupied several offices within the Directorate General of the Moroccan National Security where he was Borders’ Division Chief from 1978 to 1993. He was the former director of the Royal Institute of Police in 1998. He also served as the chief of regional security and was also head of the Central General Intelligence from 2006 to 2009.He also contributed to the output of several international organizations endeavors including the Council of Arab Interior Ministers from 1986 to 1992, where he represented the Directorate General of National Security in several meetings.Abdelhak Bassou holds a master’s degree in political science and international studies from the Faculty of Law, Economics and Social Sciences of Agdal in Rabat.

Ignacio Garcia Bercero, Director, Directorate General for Trade, European Commission

Ignacio Garcia Bercero is a director at the Directorate General for Trade of the European Commission (DG TRADE). He currently oversees activities related to the United States, Canada, and the EU neighboring countries. Bercero coordinated the work of the EU–U.S. High Level Working Group on Growth and Jobs, which recommended the launch of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations. He now actsas the EU Chief Negotiator for this agreement. He has authored several papers and publications on the subjects of trade laws, GATT and WTO System, Safeguard Measures, Trade and Competition, WTO Dispute Settlement Reform,and bilateral dispute settlement rules in European Free Trade Agreements. Bercero holds a law degree from the Faculty of Law of the Universidad Complutense, Madrid and a master’s of laws degree (with distinction) from University College, London.

Lauren Bernstein, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, The Culinary Diplomacy Project

Lauren Bernstein is the founder and chief executive officer of The Culinary Diplomacy Project. Previously, Lauren was the director of the Diplomatic Culinary Partnership in the Office of the Chief of Protocol at the U.S. Department of State. Working with prominent chefs from across the country, Lauren programmed chefs in various public diplomacy efforts both at home and abroad to 47 countries on 65 trips. Additionally, Lauren developed high-level events for Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John F. Kerry, ranging from panel discussions to large-scale events such as 4th of July for the Diplomatic Corps and culinary diplomacy events for over 300 chefs and guests at the U.S. Department of State. Lauren is a sought-after speaker as an expert in culinary diplomacy and serves on the Advisory Council of the Livelihoods Innovation through Food Entrepreneurship (LIFE) Project for the Center for International Private Enterprise.

Kristine Berzina, Senior Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Kristine Berzina is a senior fellow with The German Marshall Fund of the United States in Brussels. She focuses on U.S.-EU relations, NATO, energy, and emerging security challenges. Berzina, who lived in Moscow part-time from 2014 until 2016, also analyzes Russia's foreign policy and writes about Baltic foreign policy and security issues. Berzina appears frequently in international media, including NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Euronews, and Agence France-Presse. Her current work tracks how the digitalization of the energy sector can create new opportunities and security vulnerabilities for communities.

Carl Bildt, Co-Chair, European Council on Foreign Relations

Carl Bildt is currently co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations and contributing columnist to The Washington Post as well as monthly columnist for Project Syndicate. He recently chaired the Global Commission on Internet Governance. He previously served as both prime minister and foreign minister of Sweden. During the first period his government initiated major liberal economic reforms, as well as negotiated and signed membership agreement with the European Union. Subsequently he served in international functions with the EU and UN, primarily related to the conflicts in the Balkans. He was co-chairman of the Dayton peace talks on Bosnia and become the first High Representative in the country. Later, he was the special envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to the region. He serves as one of the senior advisors to the Wallenberg Foundations in Sweden and is on the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation in the United States.

Jessica Bither Senior Program Officer, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Jessica Bither is a senior program officer based in GMF's Berlin office where she works on migration-related programing and analysis concerning foreign policy and migration, labor market migration, refugee policies, and integration issues. She leads the Integration Strategy Group, an expert exchange with migration policymakers and key stakeholders from Morocco, Turkey, and Germany. Jessica holds a master’s degree in international relations from the Free University and Humboldt University of Berlin, and a bachelor’s in international studies from Vassar College.

Djuro Blanuša, Secretary General, Regional Youth Cooperation Office

Djuro Blanuša, before his appointment as secretary general of the Regional Youth Cooperation Office (RYCO), served as a senior advisor with the Ministry of Youth and Sports of the Republic of Serbia in the Sector for International Cooperation and European Integration. He has a long track record of activism in civil society and the nongovernmental sector with Save the Children and youth organizations. Blanuša was representing Serbia in the European Steering Committee for Youth, the governmental partner in the co-management structures of the youth sector of the Council of Europe. He is a member of various regional and European expert groups in this field, and he was from the very beginning engaged as the governmental representative of the Republic of Serbia in the process for the establishment of RYCO. He holds MA in economics.

Romina Boarini, Senior Advisor to the Secretary General, OECD

Romina Boarini is senior advisor and coordinator of the Inclusive Growth Initiative. In this capacity she assists the chief of staff in coordinating the Inclusive Growth (IG) Initiative and advancing the IG framework. Boarini has worked as deputy head of the Well-Being Division of the Statistics Directorate and the Head of the Well-Being and Progress Section, where she was responsible for OECD Better Life Initiative, the statistical pillar of the OECD Inclusive Growth Initiative and the OECD Pilot Study on Sustainable Development Goals. She also led the Statistics Directorate’s contributions to SDGs-related National Development Strategies and the project on Business and Well-Being. Before joining the OECD in 2005, Boarini was a post-doctoral fellow in Sustainable Development (Chaire EDF-Ecole Polytechnique) and worked as a consultant to the French Ministry of Social Affairs. She isan Italian national and holds a PhD in economics from the Ecole Polytechnique.

Alan Bowman, Deputy Chief of Mission, Canadian Mission to EU

Alan Bowman is deputy head of mission of the Mission of Canada to the European Union. He also concurrently serves as the permanent observer of Canada to the Council of Europe. He joined the Government of Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (now the Department of Global Affairs) in 1996. His headquarters assignments included: director of the foreign policy research division; director of the regional strategy division; director of the Asia-Pacific policy division; and deputy director of the international economic relations and summits division. In Ottawa, he also had an assignment in the Privy Council Office’s foreign policy and defense secretariat. In addition, he served a two-year term as chairman of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Committee on Trade and Investment in 2004 and 2005.Postings abroad also included the Embassy of Canada to Thailand and the Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations in New York City. (Sciences Po).

Anne Marie E. Brady, Program Officer, Urban and Regional Policy, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Anne Marie Brady is a program officer in the Urban and Regional Policy Unit. Prior to joining GMF, Brady was a research analyst at the City University of New York (CUNY) where she led a research project that explored the effect targeted support interventions have on increasing access to and success in higher education for foster care youth. Brady has investigated people’s everyday experiences of poverty and social exclusion through research she has done with the Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) and LSE Housing and Communities at the London School of Economics (LSE). In addition, she has worked in Washington, DC for Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future (SAHF) analyzing U.S. social housing policies (Section 8, Section 202, LIHTC).

Alexis Brouhns, Director General, Solvay Europe

Alexis Brouhns is the director general of Solvay Europe and a member of the Leadership Council. He was recruited by Solvay in 2005 to become head of government and public affairs. He entered the Belgian Foreign Service in 1980 where he held various diplomatic functions including deputy permanent representative of Belgium to the United Nations, deputy director of the private office of the NATO Secretary General, ambassador of Belgium in Ankara and ambassador of Belgium to the Political and Security Committee of the EU. He previously served as an EU special envoy in the Balkans. Brouhns graduated in law (UCL) and obtained a post-graduate in international and European law (VUB).

Reinhard Bütikofer, Member, European Parliament

Reinhard Bütikofer is the European Green Party co-chair, and member of European Parliament for the German Green party Bündnis90/Die Grünen. He also serves as first vice chair of the European Parliament Delegation for Relations with China. He sits on the Committee of Industry, Research and Energy and is a substitute member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs as well as the Sub-Committees on Security and Defence and Human Rights. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the European Endowment for Democracy and delegated Chair of the AFET Working Group on External Financing Instruments (WG EFI). He is vice-chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with the People’s Republic of China and a member of the Delegation to the United States. Bütikofer is a member of the advisory board of the American Jewish Committee’s Ramer Center in Berlin, the Europe/Transatlantic advisory board of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, and the German-Chinese Dialogue Forum.

Jonathan Capehart, Journalist and Editorial Board Member, The Washington Post

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jonathan Capehart is a member of The Washington Post editorial board and writes about politics and social issues for the PostPartisan blog and is the host of the "Cape Up" podcast. He is an MSNBC contributor and has served as a substitute anchor on "AM Joy" and other programs. He has also served as a guest host of the New York Public Radio program "Midday on WNYC." Capehart was the deputy editorial page editor of New York Daily News from 2002 to 2004, and served on that newspaper’s editorial board from 1993 to 2000. In 1999, his 16-month editorial campaign to save the famed Apollo Theater in Harlem earned him and the board the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing.

Peter Chase, Senior Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Peter Chase joined GMF’s Brussels office in September 2010 as a non-resident fellow and became a resident senior fellow in May 2016. His work focuses on the transatlantic economy with particular attention to trade and investment, digital and energy policies, and the EU’s economic relations with third countries. Chase served as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce vice president for Europe from 2010-16; prior to this he was a U.S. diplomat with postings as minister-counselor for economic affairs in the U.S. Mission to the European Union, director of the State Department's office of EU affairs, chief of staff to the under secretary of economic affairs, and counselor and minister-counselor for economic affairs in the U.S. Embassy in London.

Derek Chollet, Executive Vice President and Senior Advisor for Security and Defense Policy, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Derek Chollet is executive vice president and senior advisor for security and defense policy at The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). He is a contributing editor to Foreign Policy, where he coedits “Shadow Government,” and is a regular contributor to Defense One. He is also an advisor to Beacon Global Strategies, an adjunct senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, and a visiting fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House. From 2012-2015, Chollet was the U.S. assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, where he managed U.S. defense policy toward Europe (including NATO), the Middle East, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere. In that role, he was a senior advisor to two secretaries of defense, Leon Panetta and Chuck Hagel. Prior to joining the Pentagon, Chollet served at the White House as special assistant to the president and senior director for strategic planning on the National Security Council Staff. From 2009 to 2011, he was the principal deputy director of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Policy Planning Staff. From November 2008 to January 2009, he was a member of the Obama-Biden presidential transition team. During the Clinton Administration, Chollet served as chief speechwriter for UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and as special adviser to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott.

Steve Clemons, Washington Editor at Large, The Atlantic

Steve Clemons is editor at large of The Atlantic. Clemons is also foreign policy and politics contributor to MSNBC. He founded and serves as senior fellow of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, a centrist policy think tank in Washington, DC where he previously served as executive vice president. Prior to this, Clemons served as executive vice president of the Economic Strategy Institute, was senior economic and international affairs advisor to Senator Jeff Bingaman, and was the founding executive director of the Nixon Center, now renamed the Center for National Interest. Clemons writes and speaks frequently on consequential national security, politics, and economic policy issues.

Iain Conn, CEO, Centrica

Iain Conn was appointed group chief executive of Centrica in January 2015 where he is chairman of the Executive Committee and Disclosure Committee. Conn was previously BP's chief executive of Downstream — BP’s refining and marketing division — for seven years. Conn was a board member of BP from 2004-14 and previously held a number of senior roles throughout BP,including in trading, exploration, and production, and the management of corporate functions such as safety, marketing, technology, and human resources. He also served as a non-executive director and senior independent director of Rolls-Royce Holdings from January 2005 until May 2014. He is a non-executive director of BT Group, chairman of the advisory board of Imperial College Business School, and a member of the Council of Imperial College, the advisory board of the Centre for European Reform, the European Round Table of Industrialists, and the CBI’s President’s Committee.

Sudha David-Wilp, Deputy Director, Berlin Office, Senior Transatlantic Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Sudha David-Wilp is a senior transatlantic fellow and deputy director of the Berlin office. She joined GMF’s Berlin office in September 2011. She oversees GMF’s Congress-Bundestag Forum, a joint program with the Robert Bosch Foundation, and engages with the media as an expert on German–U.S. relations, and covers transatlantic digital topics. Before moving to Berlin, she was the director of international programs at the U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress in Washington, DC for nearly eight years. At the Association, David-Wilp was responsible for congressional study groups and international programs for current members of Congress and senior congressional staff. She established a trilateral roundtable format for legislators and launched a speakers’ program involving current and former lawmakers. She received her bachelor’s from Johns Hopkins University, with a major in international relations and a minor in writing seminars. She received her master’s in international relations from Columbia University.

Francois de Kerchove d'Exaerde, Belgium Permanent Representative, NATO

François de Kerchove d’Exaerde has been the Belgian permanent representative to NATO since 2014. Previously, he was director of the Cabinet of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade, and European Affairs. He started his diplomatic career in 1989 when he joined the Foreign Ministry, Department of Diplomatic Traineeship, and held consecutive posts in Kuwait City, Tokyo, Osaka, and Berlin. In 2002, he became the director of the Royal Institute for International Relations (Egmont), and has held several positions in Brussels, including ambassador to the political and security committee of the EU, security policy director, and deputy security policy director for the Foreign Affairs. De Kerchove has a bachelor’s in political science from ULB and a master’s from the London School of Economics (LSE).

Congresswoman Suzan DelBene, U.S. House of Representatives

Congresswoman Suzan DelBene represents Washington’s First Congressional District, which spans from northeast King County to the Canadian border. It is one of the most trade dependent districts in the country and home to a booming technology hub. Suzan brings a unique voice to the nation’s capital, with more than two decades of experience as a successful technology entrepreneur and business leader. Her experience and focus on achieving concrete results allowed her to break through Congressional gridlock and get things done. Suzan currently serves on the House Ways and Means Committee, which is at the forefront of debate on trade, taxes, healthcare,and retirement security. In addition, Suzan serves on the House Budget Committee where she is working toward a bipartisan, long-term budget solution that reduces our deficit and grows our economy. She also serves as vice-chair of the New Democrat Coalition, and co-chair of the Women's High Tech Caucus, Internet of Things Caucus, Dairy Caucus,and Aluminum Caucus.

Gordana Delić, Director, Balkan Trust for Democracy, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Gordana Delić is the director of the Balkan Trust for Democracy, a GMF project. She has over 17 years of experience in the nonprofit sector in the area of civil society development, with extensive experience in program management and development, grant solicitation, corporate philanthropy, research and planning, election processes, get-out-to vote campaigns, human rights, and reconciliation. Delić has knowledge of both the nongovernmental and governmental sectors in the Balkans, as well as of international donor strategies, programs, procedures, and operations in Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe. Prior to joining the Balkan Trust for Democracy, Delić worked at Freedom House Serbia. Her international experience includes six years of work on different democracy development programs in Slovakia. Delić is fluent in Serbian, English, and Slovak. She also communicates in Czech, German, and Spanish.

Karen Donfried, President, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Dr. Karen Donfried is president of The German Marshall Fund of the United States. Before assuming her current role in April 2014, Donfried was the special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs on the National Security Council at the White House. Prior to that, Donfried served as the national intelligence officer (NIO) for Europe on the National Intelligence Council. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of Wesleyan University and serves as a senior fellow at the Center for European States at Harvard University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Council on Germany. Donfried has a PhD and MALD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a Magister from the University of Munich, Germany. She received the Cross of the Order of Merit from the German Government of 2011, become an officer of the Order of the Crown of Belgium in 2010, and received a Superior Honor Award from the U.S. Department of State in 2005 for her contribution to revitalizing the transatlantic partnership.

John Donvan, Moderator, Intelligence Squared

John Donvan is the moderator of Intelligence Squared U.S. debates since 2008. He is an author and correspondent for ABC News and has served as ABC’s White House Correspondent, along with postings in Moscow, London, Jerusalem, and Amman. John is the coauthor of In a Different Key: The Story of Autism (Crown, 2016). In addition to premiering his first one-man show, “Lose the Kid,” in 2013 in Washington, DC, John is a four-time Emmy Award winner and was a National Magazine Award finalist in 2010.

Nina dos Santos, Presenter of The Business View with Nina dos Santos, CNN

Nina dos Santos is a business anchor and reporter based in CNN's London bureau. Nina 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. An experienced moderator, Nina has chaired panels at the meetings of the World Economic Forum and The German Marshall Fund of the United States. She has also hosted events at the European Parliament in Brussels, at London's Chatham House, and at the Ambrosetti Forum's annual gathering in Cernobbio, Italy. Nina holds a BSc in biological sciences from Imperial College London and a master’s degree in economics.

Kimberly Dozier, Executive Editor, The Cipher Brief

Kim Dozier is the executive editor of The Cipher Brief and a global affairs analyst at CNN. She has covered intelligence and national security for The Associated Press and The Daily Beast, after 17 years as an award-winning CBS News foreign and national security correspondent. She held the 2014–2015 General Omar Bradley Chair at the United States Army War College. A graduate of Wellesley College and the University of Virginia, she is a recipient of the Peabody Award, Edward R. Murrow Awards, and she was the first woman journalist recognized by the National Medal of Honor Society for her coverage of Iraq. She authored Breathing the Fire, about a devastating car bomb that hit a U.S. Army patrol and her CBS News team in Baghdad, Iraq in 2006.

Steven Erlanger, Chief Diplomatic Correspondent, New York Times

Steven Erlanger is the chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe for The New York Times, a position he assumed in 2017. He is based in Brussels. Mr. Erlanger was previously the bureau chief in London, from 2013 to 2017; in Paris, from 2008 to 2013; in Jerusalem, from 2004 to 2008; in Berlin, from 2001 to 2002; in Prague, from 1999 to 2001; in Moscow, from 1994 to 1996; and in Bangkok, Thailand, from 1988 to 1991. Mr. Erlanger has also served as the newspaper’s editor of cultural news, from 2002 to 2004; as the chief diplomatic correspondent in Washington, from 1996 to 1999; and as a Moscow correspondent, from 1992 to 1994. He joined The Times in 1987, as a metro reporter. Before coming to The Times, Mr. Erlanger worked for The Boston Globe for 11 years. At The Globe, he was a European correspondent, based in London, from 1983 to 1987, and the deputy national and foreign editor for three years before that. He also served as assistant national editor and assistant foreign editor, and reported from Eastern Europe, Canada and revolutionary Iran. From 1975 to 1983, Mr. Erlanger was a teaching fellow at Harvard University, first in the College and then at the Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He also was the assistant editor of the Nieman Reports, the journal of Harvard's Nieman Foundation for Journalism, in 1975. Mr. Erlanger shared the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for a series about Russia, and was part of a team awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting, for his work on Al Qaeda. In 2016, Mr. Erlanger was made a chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur by the French government for his long career in journalism. He shared and received the American Society of News Editors’ Jesse Laventhol prize for deadline reporting on 2001 for his work in the former Yugoslavia. He received the German Marshall Fund’s Peter Weitz Prize in 2000 for excellence and originality in reporting and analyzing European and transatlantic affairs and the Robert Livingston Award for international reporting in 1981 for a series of articles about Eastern Europe.

Mikuláš Dzurinda, President, Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies

Mikuláš Dzurinda is the president of the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies. He is the former prime minister of Slovakia (1998-2006) and has held various positions in government since first entering politics in 1990. Once he became prime minister and formed a coalition government in 1998, Dzurinda introduced far-reaching reforms that have enabled Slovakia to begin the process of joining the EU and NATO. After being re-elected in 2002, Dzurinda led Slovakia to become a member of the EU and NATO in 2004, a process that he actively took part in from the beginning. Since Slovakia gained independence in 1993, Dzurinda has also held the position of minister of transportation and minister for foreign affairs. He is a founding member of the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union —Democratic Party (SDKÚ-DS) and was chairman of the party from 2000 to 2012. From 2012 to 2016 he was a member of the Slovak Parliament.

Kishwer Falkner, Chairman of EU Financial Affairs Sub-Committee, House of Lords

Kishwer Falkner entered the House of Lords in 2004, where she is currently chairman of the EU Sub-Committee on Financial Services, and a member of the EU Select Committee. Her committee has published reports on “Brexit: Financial Services, Brexit and the EU Budget”and “Brexit: The Future of Financial Regulation and Supervision.”She led on foreign affairs for the Liberal Democrats during the Coalition Government from 2010 to 2015 and has served on several parliamentary committees including the Constitution Committee, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the European Union Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense,and International Development,and the Committee on International Organizations. Kishwer’s academic background is in international relations, obtaining degrees from the London School of Economics and the University of Kent. She has held fellowships at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, and at the Institute of Politics at Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Kishwer is currently a visiting professor at King’s College, a member of the Anglo-German Conference, Koenigswinter, and is on the advisory board of YouGov-Cambridge.

Michèle Flournoy, Co-Founder and Managing Director, WestExec Advisors

Michèle Flournoy is co-founder and managing director of WestExec Advisors, and former co-founder and chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where she currently serves on the board. Michèle served as the undersecretary of defense for policy from February 2009 to February 2012. She led the development of the Department of Defense’s 2012 Strategic Guidance and represented the Department in dozens of foreign engagements, in the media and before Congress. Prior to confirmation, Michèle co-led President Obama’s transition team at the Defense Department. She is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the American Red Cross Exceptional Service Award, the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Award, the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service in 1996. She has edited several books and authored dozens of reports and articles on a broad range of defense and national security issues.

Jamie Fly, Director of the Future of Geopolitics and Asia Program, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Jamie Fly is a senior fellow and director of the Future of Geopolitics and Asia programs at The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). He also works with the Alliance for Securing Democracy at GMF. He served as counselor for Foreign and National Security Affairs to Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) from 2013–2017, serving as his foreign policy advisor during his presidential campaign. Prior to joining Senator Rubio’s staff in February 2013, he served as the executive director of the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) from its founding in early 2009. Prior to joining FPI, Mr. Fly served in the Bush administration at the National Security Council (2008–2009) and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005–2008). He was director for Counterproliferation Strategy at the National Security Council, where his portfolio included the Iranian nuclear program, Syria, missile defense, chemical weapons, proliferation finance, and other counterproliferation issues. In the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he was an assistant for Transnational Threats Policy, where he helped to develop U.S. strategy related to the proliferation of missiles as well as nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. For his work in the Department of Defense, he was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service.

Joerg Forbrig, Director, Fund for Belarus Democracy, and Senior Transatlantic Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Dr. Joerg Forbrig is a senior transatlantic fellow for Central and Eastern Europe, and director of the Fund for Belarus Democracy. Based in GMF's office in Berlin, he leads the organization's efforts to assist civil society in Belarus, while his analytical and policy work focuses on Europe's East broadly, including the new member countries of the European Union and the EU's Eastern neighborhood. Prior to joining GMF in 2002, Forbrig worked as a Robert Bosch Foundation fellow at the Center for International Relations in Warsaw, Poland. He has been published widely on democracy, civil society, and Central and Eastern European affairs, including the books Reclaiming Democracy (2007), Prospects for Democracy in Belarus (2006), and Revisiting Youth Political Participation (2005). He is also a regular contributor to major international media, including op-eds in The New York Times, Financial Times, CNN, Politico, EU Observer, Neue Züricher Zeitung, and Süddeutsche Zeitung. Forbrig has studied political science, sociology, and Eastern European affairs at universities in Germany, Poland, and Hungary. He holds a PhD in social and political sciences from the European University Institute in Florence and a master’s in political science from Central European University in Budapest. He speaks English, Russian, Polish, and Slovak in addition to his native German.

John Frank, Vice President of EU Government Affairs, Microsoft

John Frank is Microsoft's vice president for EU government affairs. In this role, John leads Microsoft’s government affairs teams in Brussels and European national capitals on EU issues. John was previously vice president, deputy general counsel, and chief of staff for Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith based at Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Redmond Washington. In this role, he managed several teams including the Law Enforcement and National Security team, the Industry Affairs group, Corporate, Competition Law and Privacy Compliance teams, and the department’s technology and business operations team. Prior to joining Microsoft, John Frank practiced law in San Francisco with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Frank received his BA degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs atPrinceton University and his JD from Columbia Law School.

Roland Freudenstein, Policy Director, Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies

Roland Freudenstein is the policy director of the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies. He was previously director of the Warsaw office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and its head for Foreign and European Affairs in Berlin. Prior to that, he represented the German city state of Hamburg to the EU. He has contributed to debates and published extensively on international security, European integration, and the EU's eastern and southern neighborhoods

Frank Friedman, Global Chief Operating Officer, Deloitte

Frank Friedman is COO of Deloitte, leading the $37 billion network’s operational leaders in helping to drive Deloitte’s global strategy. He is a member of the Global Executive Committee and chairs the Global Operating Committee, linking strategy, execution, and accountability, as well as aligning Deloitte’s global network. Friedman previously held several senior leadership roles at Deloitte in the U.S.; until June 2016, he served as COO and from June 2011 through May 2016 as CFO. He also had the distinct honor of being asked to serve as the interim CEO in 2014-15. He is a frequent commentator on issues impacting businesses and the economy, speaking to outlets such as Bloomberg, CNBC, and Fox Business. Friedman joined Deloitte’s Kansas City office in 1979 after graduating from the University of Kansas with a BA in accounting and business administration. Friedman became a recent member of GMF’s board of trustees in October 2017.

Ralf Fuecks, Director, Centre for Liberal Modernity

Ralf Fuecks is director of the Center for Liberal Modernity, a think tank and policy network based in Berlin. He is a regular contributor to national and international media and co-author to numerous books. His latest book, “Freiheit verteidigen–wie wir den Kampf um die offene Gesellschaft gewinnen” (In Defense of Freedom—How to Win the Battle on the Open Society) is dealing with the challenge liberal democracy is facing at home and globally. Fuecks joined the Green Party in 1982. In 1985,he was elected to the Bremen state parliament. He served as co-president for the national Green Party in 1989–90. From 1991 to 1995, he served as deputy mayor and as city-state-minister for Urban Development and Environmental Protection.In 1996, Fuecks was elected as president of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, a position he held for 21 years.

Jānis Garisons, State Secretary, Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Latvia

Jānis Garisons is state secretary of the Ministry of Defense of Latvia since 2015.In this capacity Garisons is overseeing rapid defense budget and capabilities increase, to prepare Latvia for the challenges it faces. In his previous position, as undersecretary of state—policy director in Latvia’s Ministry of Defense, he was an architect and organizer of Latvia’s defense policy, defense planning, and international operations’ policy.This position required him to represent Latvia within NATO, the EU, and other international fora. He joined Latvia’s Ministry of Defense after an established career within Latvia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he served as a director of the Security Policy Department. In his nine years in foreign service, he oversaw arms control issues, Russia and CIS, and was posted as the first secretary within the Embassy of Latvia in Oslo, Norway.

Kristalina Georgieva, Chief Executive Officer, World Bank

Kristalina Georgieva is the chief executive officer at the World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association). Georgieva’s role is to build support across the international community to help mobilize resources for poor and middle-income countries and develop more effective solutions for the poor at the scale required.Previously, Georgieva, a Bulgarian national, helped shape the agenda of the European Union as commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid,and Crisis Response, where she managed one of the world's largest humanitarian aid budgets. She later served as vice president for Budget and Human Resources, in charge of the European Union's €161 billion ($175 billion) budget and 33,000 staff around the world. Before joining the European Commission, Georgieva held multiple positions at the World Bank, including vice president and corporate secretary (2008-10)and director for Sustainable Development, in charge of 60 percent of the World Bank’s policy and lending operations(2007-08).

Gabriel Glöckler, Principal Advisor, European Central Bank

Gabriel Glöckler has been with the European Central Bank since the creation of the euro in 1999 and joined the ECB’s senior management in 2016 as principal advisor in the Directorate General Communications. Prior to that, he headed the ECB’s General Secretariat and, as assistant secretary to the ECB Executive Board and Governing Council, was deeply involved in top-level decision-making. Before that, he was deputy head of the Bank’s European Union department and in charge of the ECB’s interaction with “Brussels,” including as member of the EU’s Economic Policy Committee. Previously, he served five years as counsellor/chief of staff to the Bank’s Vice President Lucas Papademos and before that as senior economist. Glöckler studied philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford University and holds a master’s degree from the College of Europe in Bruges. He is a regular public speaker in Germany, Europe, and beyond. Since 2013, he has been a visiting professor at the College of Europe.

Ana Gomes, Member, European Parliament

Ana Gomes is a member of the European Parliament, since 2004. Her main interests are the build up of a united Europe and the promotion of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in the EU and in the world. In the European Parliament, she tries to mainstream these concerns by being active in the fields of public liberties, security and defense, international relations, and development. Ana Gomes suspended her career as a diplomat to enter party politics in 2003. She had joined the Portuguese Foreign Service diplomat in 1980 and served in the Portuguese Missions at the UN in New York and Geneva and in the Embassies in Tokyo and London. Between 1999 and 2003, she was head of the Portuguese Interests Section and then ambassador in Jakarta.

Rose Gottemoeller, Deputy Secretary General, NATO

Rose Gottemoeller is deputy secretary general of NATO. She was previously undersecretary for arms control and international security at the U.S. Department of State. During her time as undersecretary of state, Gottemoeller focused on defense and security cooperation in Europe and Asia, peacekeeping policy and training, and weapons and mine abatement in post-conflict locales around the world. Prior to the State Department, she was a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and served as the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center in 2006–2008. Gottemoeller served for three years as deputy director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, and from 1993 to 1994, she served on the National Security Council staff as Director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia Affairs. She has also worked as a social scientist at RAND and as a fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs.

Nik Gowing, International Broadcaster

Nik Gowing was a main presenter for the BBC’s international 24-hour news channel BBC World News from 1996 to 2014. He has presented The Hub with Nik Gowing, BBC World Debates, Dateline London, plus provided 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.

Megan E. Greene, Managing Director and Chief Economist, Manulife Asset Management

Megan E. Greene is a managing director and chief economist at Manulife Asset Management, responsible for forecasting global macro-economic and financial trends and analyzing the potential opportunities and impacts to support the firm’s investment teams around the world. Previously, Megan ran her own London-based economics consulting practice, Maverick Intelligence, serving clients who leveraged her analysis of economic, political, policy and social developments and the impact these were likely to have on the global economy. Prior to Maverick, she was director of European Economics at RoubiniGlobal Economics and the euro crisis expert at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Hari N. Hariharan, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, NWI Management LP

Hari Hariharan is the chairman and chief executive officer of NWI Management LP (NWI), a global macro hedge fund group specializing in fixed income, currencies,and rates with an emphasis on emerging markets. Hariharan is also the chief investment officer of Blackstone NWI Asset Management L.L.C., an investment advisor in the long-biased emerging markets fixed income space jointly owned by NWI and Blackstone Alternative Asset Management.He was previously at Citibank N.A., and in 1993, he founded the hedge fund group Santander New World Investments Group which was spun off in 1999 as NWI Management LP. He studied at Harvard Business School, the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad,and at the University of Madras. Hariharan is a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Foreign Exchange Committee as well as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

John Harris, Editor-in-Chief, POLITICO; Board of Trustees Member, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

In 2006, after over two decades at The Washington Post, John Harris founded The Politico, a newspaper which covers national politics and has become almost instantly recognized as an authoritative voice on the goings-on in Washington. Together with co-founder Jim VandeHei, Harris’ vision for The Politico and Politico.com was of an organization that maintained the journalistic integrity and traditions of a respected newspaper while taking advantage of new media, reaching huge audiences outside Washington. Harris spent 21years at The Washington 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.In 2006, he also co-authored a book on presidential politics titled, The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008.

Markus Heyn, Member of the Board, Robert Bosch GmbH

Dr. Markus Heyn has been a member of the Robert Bosch GmbH board of management since April 2015. He bears corporate responsibility for worldwide mobility solutions sales as well as marketing and sales in general. Heyn is also responsible for the automotive aftermarket division—the cross-divisional commercial vehicle and off-road organization—as well as the subsidiaries ETAS GmbH, Bosch Engineering GmbH, and Robert Bosch Mobility Services. Additionally, he is responsible for North and South America. He studied at RWTH Aachen University, and also completed a doctorate there in mechanical engineering. Heyn is married and has four children.

Max Hofmann, European Correspondent and Brussels Bureau Chief, Deutsche Welle

Max Hofmann has been Deutsche Welle’s (DW) Brussels bureau chief since 2014. In his role, he has covered the EU CouncilSummits, the Paris attacks, COP 21, and the migration crisis, among other news stories affecting Europe. Since joining Deutsche Welle in 2004, Hofmann has worked as the station’s senior North America correspondent, a host for DW-TV, an editor, and as the news anchor for the “Journal”program. In 2010, he was awarded the RIAS-Prize for New Media in 2010 along with the journalist Christoph Lanz for the animation “!Eingemauert” (Walled In!)’ Hofmann has a bachelor’s and master’sin journalism and communications

Corinna Horst, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director, Brussels Office, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Corinna Hörst is senior fellow and deputy director of GMF’s Brussels office. She supports the executive director in all aspects of strategic planning, operations, personnel, management, and communication. In this capacity, she plays a central role in program planning, networking, and relationship building with the EU institutions, NATO and stakeholders from governments, media, business, as well as nongovernmental and think tank communities. She monitors and frequently comments on transatlantic relations and European affairs and is engaged in various women leadership development and diversity activities. She is president of the Brussels chapter of Women in International Security (WIIS) and and co-founder of The Brussels Binder, an online database of female policy experts. Her recent book “Women Leading The Way in Brussels,” co-authored with Claudia de Castro Caldeirinha (John Harper Publishing, 2017) looks at women leadership in Europe and Brussels, including vignettes of women who exercise leadership across different sectors in Brussels. Before coming to GMF in 1999, she was a teaching associate at Miami University, teaching American and world history and worked as assistant project manager at a publishing company in Germany. Hörst has a PhD and master’s degree in history and studied at Miami University in Ohio, United States, the University of Heidelberg in Germany, and St. Andrews University in Scotland.

Tomi Huhtanen, Executive Director, Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies

Tomi Huhtanen is the executive director of the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies. He was a political adviser and subsequently a senior adviser for the EPP, focusing on economic and social policies. In 2007, he was put in charge of launching the political foundation of the European People’s Party, the Centre for European Studies (renamed the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies in 2014); in the same year, he was nominated as the Centre's director.

David Ignatius, Columnist, The Washington Post

David Ignatius is a journalist and novelist. He is currently an associate editor and columnist for The Washington Post. He is a graduate of Harvard and King's College, Cambridge. After school, he worked for Washington Monthly and then The Wall Street Journal, where he covered the CIA and was a correspondent from the Middle East. He later went to The Washington Post in 1986, where he has since remained except for a stint from 2000 to 2002 when he was executive editor of The International Herald Tribune in Paris. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, and The New Republic. Ignatius has also written five novels, which tend to draw on his experience and substantial additional research on international politics and finance. They combine suspense and international spy intrigue.

Alina Inayeh, Director, Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Alina Inayeh joined GMF in 2007 as the director of the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation, a project dedicated to strengthening cooperation and fostering development in the Black Sea region. She is an active practitioner in the field of international development and democratization, having run the Freedom House office in Ukraine in 2004 and the NDI office in Russia between 2000-03, with a focus on civic education and political processes. She has trained NGOs throughout Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union on issues related to NGO development and democratization. Inayeh was a leading civic activist in the 1990s in her own country, Romania, and an active promoter of the NGO sector in the country. Inayeh received her bachelor's degree in geology from the University of Bucharest and a master's in public policy from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. She is fluent in English and Russian in addition to her native Romanian.

Igor Janke, President of Freedom Institute/Instytut Wolnosci

Igor Janke is president of the Freedom Institute (Instytut Wolnosci), an independent Polish think tank. He is also a partner at Bridge, communication consultancy company. Janke is a former journalist and used to work as a political reporter and cultural editor at "Życie Warszawy.” He also was deputy chief editor of daily “Express Wieczorny”, chief editor of Polish News Agency, political editor of “Rzeczpospolita,” and the anchor of a few political TV and radio shows. Janke also launched a political blogging platform Salon24.pl. He is the author of three books, hundreds of articles, analysis, interviews, including with U.S. President Barack Obama.

Diana Janse, Foreign Policy Advisor, Moderate Party, Sweden

Ambassador Diana Janse is the senior foreign policy advisor to Moderaterna, the main opposition party in Sweden, as well as its party leader and international director.She joined the Swedish foreign service in 1999. Since then, she has served in Belgrade, Moscow, New York, Kabul, at the EU Council Secretariat in Brussels and in the office of the Swedish Foreign Minister, serving as Minister Carl Bildt’s special assistant, travel coordinator and advisor. In September 2010 she took up the position as the Swedish Ambassador to Georgia in Tbilisi and from March 2011 she was also the accredited to Armenia. In August 2014 she left the Caucasus to take up her new position:head of the Swedish embassy in Damascus, Syria, temporary relocated to and accredited in Beirut, Lebanon. Before joining the MFA, Janse worked in the Swedish Ministry of Defence and in the Swedish military intelligence. She also spent one year as an interpreter for the UN forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1994.

Jake Jones, Executive Director, External Affairs for North America, Daimler

Jake Jones is executive director of the Daimler external affairs operations for North America. He leads a team of government affairs professionals representing the interests of Mercedes-Benz, Daimler Trucks, Financial Services, car2go,and moovel in Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Jones currently serves on the executive committees for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, Organization for International Investment, Federal City Council, and Washington Performing Arts. He is also on the board of the German-American Business Council. Prior to becoming head of the Daimler office, Jones was the director of congressional affairs for DaimlerChrysler and responsible for coordinating overall legislative strategy, directly leading coverage on tax and benefit-related issues as well as managing the Federal Political Action Committee. Immediately prior to joining DaimlerChrysler, Jones was the lead trade and immigration legislative representative for the AFL-CIO.

Robert Kagan, Senior Fellow, Project on International Order and Strategy, Brookings Institution

Robert Kagan is a senior fellow with the Project on International Order and Strategy in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. He is a contributing columnist at The Washington Post. His most recent book is The New York Times bestseller, The World America Made. His previous books include: The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Dangerous Nation: America’s Place in the World from its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the 20th Century, Of Paradise and Power, and A Twilight Struggle: American Power and Nicaragua, 1977–1990. For his writings, Politico Magazine named Kagan one of the “Politico 50” in 2016, the “thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics in 2016.” He served in the State Department from 1984 to 1988 as a member of the policy planning staff, as principal speechwriter for Secretary of State George P. Shultz, and as deputy for policy in the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs. He is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and holds a doctorate in American history from American University.

Marina Kaljurand, Chair, Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace

Marina Kaljurand served as Estonian Foreign Minister from July 2015 to October 2016. She began her career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1991 and has since held several leadership positions, including undersecretary for Legal and Consular Affairs, undersecretary for trade and development cooperation, and undersecretary for political affairs. Kaljurand has been appointed twice to serve as the Estonian National Expert at the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security.Since 2017, she is the chair of the Global Commission on Stability of Cyberspace. Kaljurand graduated with cum laude from Tartu University (M.A. in Law), she also has a professional diploma from Estonian School of Diplomacy and an M.A. degree in International Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. She is a founding member of the Estonian branch of the International Law Association and of Estonian branch of Women in International Security (WIIS-EST). She has been awarded the Order of White Star, III class, and the Order of the National Coat of Arms, III class, by the President of Estonia.

Jonathan Katz, Senior Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Jonathan Katz is a resident fellow with The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) based in the Washington, DC, office. Prior to joining GMF from 2014-17, Katz was the deputy assistant administrator in the Europe and Eurasia bureau at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where he managed U.S. development policy, energy security, economic growth, and democracy, and governance programs in Europe and Eurasia. He led USAID programs in Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Eastern and Central Europe, the Black Sea and Caucasus Regions, the Western Balkans, and regional programs that included Russia. Katz served as the U.S. government co-chair of political, economic, trade and development working groups with the European Union, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Poland, Romania, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).  Prior to joining USAID, from 2010-14, Katz served as a senior advisor to the assistant secretary in the International Organization Affairs Bureau at the U.S. Department of State. In that role Katz served as a speech writer and advised the assistant secretary and other senior U.S. government officials on key national security, multilateral, and development priorities at the UN and at international organizations.

Kristina Kausch, Senior Resident Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Kristina Kausch joined The German Marshall Fund of the United States' (GMF) Brussels office in September 2016. Her research focuses on Europe’s relations with the Middle East and North Africa, political transformations in the Arab world, and broader geopolitical trends in the Middle East. Prior to joining GMF, she was a non-resident associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, head of the Middle East program at FRIDE, and a junior expert at the German development cooperation agency GIZ.

Steven Keil, Fellow and Senior Program Officer, Security and Defense Policy, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Steven Keil is a fellow and senior program officer in GMF’s Washington office. His work focuses on transatlantic security issues, with an emphasis on the U.S., Germany, Russia, and the post-Soviet space. Prior to joining GMF, Keil was a Robert Bosch Fellow at the CDU/CSU Foreign Policy Working Group in the German Bundestag, as well as in the Eastern European and Eurasian research division at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. Keil also previously worked in the United States Senate for U.S. Senator John Thune (R-SD). Keil received his bachelor’s from the University of South Dakota in political science, German, and history and holds a master’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service BMW Center of German and European Studies. He speaks German and basic Russian.

Julian King, Commissioner for the Security Union, European Commission

Sir Julian King was appointed commissioner for Security Union on the September 19, 2016. He joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1985. He has held various positions, including U.K. ambassador to France, director general economic and consular, director general of the Northern Ireland Office London and Belfast, U.K. ambassador to Ireland, EU Commission Chef de Cabinet to Commissioner for Trade, Representative on EU Political and Security Committee. Sir Julian is a graduate of Oxford University. He was awarded the Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 2014.

Riina Kionka, Chief Foreign Policy Advisor to the European Council President, European Council

Riina Kionka is chief foreign policy advisor to European Council President Donald Tusk. She earned her BA in international relations and German from Michigan State University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Her MA and PhD in international relations are from Columbia University (Harriman Institute) in New York City. During the end of the Cold War she wrote on Baltic affairs as an analyst at the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute in Munich. She has published widely on Baltic and broader European security issues and is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations. Kionka has been decorated with the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle (1995), the German Great Service Cross with Star and Band (2000) and the Estonian White Cross, III class (2004), the last named for her contribution to Estonia's accession to NATO and the EU. .

Victor Kipiani, Partner and Co-Founder, Mgaloblishvili Kipiani Dzidziguri

Victor Kipiani is a partner and a co-founder of Mgaloblishvili Kipiani Dzidziguri (MKD) law firm operating in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia. Hislegal practices are concentrated on business and contract law, project finance, capital markets, banking, energy, mineral resources, telecommunications, and corporate law. He also pursues his activities in comparative legal studies and public law. Victor Kipiani has been recommended as a leading private legal practitioner for Georgia by all major international directories or publications, including IFLR, Chambers Global, Chambers Europe, Who’s Who Legal and The Legal 500.He is the author of various articles and surveys on Georgian legal system for IFIs articles on legal and related matters in domestic and foreign periodicals, also, delivers speeches and holds presentations at local and international events. Kipiani is a member of Georgian Bar Association, a board member of Georgian Institute for Civil and Economic Reforms and Independent Directors Association.

Kristina Klein, Member of the Board, Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland

Kristina is member of the board at Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland (OKF) since 2017. She joined OKF in August 2014 as chief executive officer of the organization. OKF is consortium partner of Odine, an Open Data Incubator for Entrepreneurs around Europe and runs the Prototype Fund. Before moving to Germany, Kristina was the peace building Fund coordinator at UNHCR and finance associate at the Danish Refugee Council in Myanmar. Prior to that, she worked as a senior program manager at Carnegie Europe in Brussels and as a program manager at Körber Foundation’s Bergedorf Round Table. Kristina is currently developing a training needs assessment in order to identify the current level of technical skills of women working in international organization. She is a certified Usability and User Experience Professional (Artop-Humboldt Universität Berlin) and holds a master’s degree in American studies and sociology from the Freie Universität Berlin.

Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, Vice President, Berlin Office, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff is vice president at the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) where he oversees the organization’s activities in Germany. Prior to joining GMF, he served as an advisor to Joachim Gauck, the president of Germany. From 2013-17, he oversaw policy planning and speechwriting for the president. Before joining the President’s staff in Berlin, Kleine-Brockhoff spent 12 years in Washington, DC, including a prior six-year stint at GMF where he led work about the implications of the European financial crisis. A member of GMF’s senior management team since 2007, Kleine-Brockhoff was responsible for strategic projects and, until 2011, oversaw GMF policy programs and globalization projects.

Kilian Kleinschmidt, Founder, Switxboard

Kilian Kleinschmidt is an international networker, humanitarian, and refugee expert with over 25 years of experience in a range of countries, working in emergencyand refugee camps as United Nations official, aid worker, and diplomat. He is the founder and CEO of the startup Innovation and Planning Agency (IPA), which aims to connect marginalized parts of the globe with the technological resources and know-how needed to catalyze change.Kleinschmidtbecame known as the “mayor of Za'atari”when he managed the refugee camp of Za'atari in Northern Jordan from 2013 to 2014 on behalf of UNHCR. Now he is challenging the Humanitarian Aid Sector through a range of new and unorthodox partnerships, technologies,and ways of financing. He is advisor to governments, international organizations,andsocial businesses, and is a renowned public speaker at conferences, TEDx, and other events.

Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Vice Prime Minister, Ukraine

Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze was appointed vice prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration on April 14, 2016. She was previously a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, serving as the first deputy chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee and leading Ukraine’s Parliamentary Delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Prior to her election as a member of parliament and since mid-2011, Klympush-Tsintsadze was heading Yalta European Strategy (YES) and worked as a deputy director of programs, and later as a director of the International Charitable Organization “Open Ukraine Foundation.” She was the Radio BBC Ukrainian Service correspondent in Washington, DC and in the Caucasus (Tbilisi). From 1998 till 2002, she worked for the East-West Institute’s Kyiv Center as a project manager and carried out the responsibilities of EWI KC’s acting director for one year.

Masaharu Kohno, Special Representative to the Middle East and Europe, Government of Japan

Masaharu Kohno is special representative of the Government of Japan for the Middle East and Europe. Kohno graduated from the Tokyo University Faculty of Law in 1973, and entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that year. He has held various important posts with MOFA since then, including consul general of Japan in Los Angeles (2001); director general for Sub-Saharan African Affairs (2003); deputy vice minister for Foreign Policy (2005); deputy minister (G8 Sherpa) (2007); ambassador to Russia (2009); and ambassador to Italy (2011). He assumed his current post in 2014. He is also an executive board member of the Organizing Committee of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and serves as outside director of the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group.

Kornel Koronowski, COO, Boryszew Energy

Kornel Koronowski is a lawyer and entrepreneur based in Warsaw, Poland. He is a director at Boryszew SA which is one of the largest Polish industrial groups with focus on automotive industry, processing of non-ferrous metals and chemical sector and a co-founder of few startups. In parallel to activities in business he is also a founding team member of Impact CEE congress, New Europe 100 list published in the Financial Times and Index of Economic Patriotism which is a result of cooperation with Rzeczpospolita daily. Kornel formerly served as a senior policy officer at the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland and worked as a lawyer with Clifford Chance and Baker McKenzie. He is a triple major graduate of the University of Warsaw, studied also at Institut d'études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) and Warsaw School of Economics. Kornel is a YTILI Fellow with The German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Bernard Kouchner, Co-Founder, Médecins Sans Frontières

Bernard Kouchner, a medical doctor by training, is the co-founder and former president of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). The first person to challenge the Red Cross's stance of neutrality and silence in wars and massacres, Kouchner has played an important role in international humanitarian efforts for more than 20 years. As France's minister of health and humanitarian affairs, he convinced the UN to accept "the right to interfere" resolution, and after devastating civil wars in the Balkans, served as special representative to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in Kosovo. He is the author of several books and the co-founder of the news magazines L'Evénement and Actuel. He is the recipient of several human rights awards, including the Dag Hammarskjold Prize and the Prix Europa.

Stephen D. Krasner, Professor, Stanford

Stephen D. Krasner is the Graham H. Stuart professor of international relations at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and the Hoover Institution. From February 2005 to April 2007 he was director of the Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State. He is a member of the board of directors at the United States Institute of Peace and was a member of the Foreign Policy Advisory Board of the Department of State from 2012 to 2014. He also edited International Organization from 1986 to 1992. Krasner is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a Mercator fellow at the Free University and was a fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg) from 2000 to 2001. He has written or edited eight books and more than eighty articles.

Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir, Chair of Executive Board, Women Political Leaders Global Forum

Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir is the chair of the executive board of the Women Political Leaders Global Forum (WPL). She has been active in Icelandic politics for many years, both in the national Parliament and local government. She is the former chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Parliament and former Minister of the Interior in Iceland. Before getting elected to Parliament, she was the mayor of Reykjavík, the president of the City Council, and chaired several committees and organizations for the city of Reykjavík. She is also the former Vice Chair of the Independence Party in Iceland; the former deputy Secretary General of the party and the former Secretary General of its Parliamentary Group. She obtained a bachelor of arts in political science from the University of Iceland in 1991. After that, she received a master of science in international and European politics from the University of Edinburgh (1993).

Indira Lakshmanan, Columnist, Boston Globe

Indira Lakshmanan, the Newmark chair in journalism ethics at Poynter and a Boston Globe columnist, has covered coups, campaigns,and revolutions,reporting from the United States and 80 countries for the Globe, Bloomberg, the International New York Times, NPR, PBS,and Politico Magazine. She traveled for seven years with Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. At Poynter, Indira is spurring thought leadership on restoring trust in media across the political spectrum through transparency and accountability. She commissioned the first Poynter Media Trust Survey, and has convened leading national political editors, journalists, and media critics in Washington to discuss the importance of free, fair, nonpartisan media in truth-telling to hold officials accountable and sustain democracy. Indira graduated from Harvard University and did graduate studies at Oxford University. Her awards include a Nieman journalism fellowship.

Brenda Lawrence, Congresswoman, U.S. House of Representatives, Michigan

Congresswoman Brenda L. Lawrence has lived in Michigan’s 14th Congressional District, which includes a portion of Detroit as well the City of Southfield and 16 other cities located in Oakland and Wayne counties, her entire life. She was re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November of 2016, where she serves as a Senior Whip, Vice Chair of the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues and Secretary of the Congressional Black Caucus. She serves on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, where she also serves on the Subcommittee on Aviation, Subcommittee on Highway and Transit, Subcommittee on Water, Resources and Environment. She is also a member on the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee where she serves on the subcommittee on Government Operation. She was elected Mayor of the City of Southfield in November of 2001 and became the first African American and the first woman to serve in that post.

Frank Ledwidge, Senior Fellow, Royal Air Force College

Frank Ledwidge practiced as a barrister in the U.K.before specializing in international human rights and humanitarian law.He has worked in conflict zones all over the world, including extended periods as aBritish government advisor inHelmand, Afghanistan from 2007–2008 and Libya during its Civil War in 2011–2012.Frank has also served as a reserve military intelligence officer for 15 years. His operational experience included several front-line tours in the Balkans, where he focused on capturing war-criminals and in Iraq where he led one of the multinational teams searching for WMD. He is the author of two bestselling books on Britain's recent experience in conflict, Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afghanistan and Investment Blood: The True Cost of Britain’s Afghan War. Ledwidge researched insurgent courts for his PhD at Kings College London. He is a senior lecturer in law and strategy at the Royal Air Force College.

Marc Leland, Co-Chairman, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Marc Leland is co-chairman of The German Marshall Fund of the United States. He has served as president of Marc E. Leland & Associates, an investment advisory firm, and as assistant secretary of the treasury for international affairs, senior advisor to the Mutual Balanced Force Reduction Negotiations in Vienna, Austria, and general counsel of the Peace Corps. Leland has practiced law as a partner in Proskauer, Rose, Goetz & Mendelsohn in London, England and Cerf, Robinson & Leland in San Francisco, and has been managing director of the J. Paul Getty and Gordon P. Getty Trusts in Washington, DC. He has served as the president of the Washington Opera, and as a member of the Board of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Shakespeare Theatre. He has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the Visiting Committee to the Kennedy School at Harvard University. Mr. Leland received his BA from Harvard College, MA from Oxford University, and JD from the University of California Berkeley School of Law.

Ian Lesser, Vice President, Foreign Policy, The German Marshall Fund of the United States; Executive Director, Transatlantic Center

Ian Lesser is vice president for Foreign Policy at The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) and a member of GMF’s executive team, managing programs across the organization. He also serves as executive director of the Transatlantic Center, the Brussels office of GMF, and leads GMF’s work on the Mediterranean, Turkey, and the wider Atlantic. Prior to joining GMF, Dr. 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. He came to the Pacific Council from RAND, where he spent over a decade as a senior analyst and research manager specializing in strategic studies. 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.

Bruno Lété, Senior Fellow, Security and Defense, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Bruno Lété currently serves as a senior fellow of security and defense at The German Marshall Fund of the United States in Brussels. He provides analysis and advice on trends in geopolitics and on international security and defense policy. He focuses primarily on the EU Common Security & Defense Policy, NATO, and developments in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2010, Lété joined the European Union Delegation to the United States in Washington, DC, where he supported the political, security, and development section and focused on U.S. foreign policy and EU–U.S. relations. He started his career in 2007 as a program associate for the German Marshall Fund, where he helped developed GMF’s signature policy conferences such as Brussels Forum. Lété studied at the University of Ghent in Belgium and at Collegium Civitas in Warsaw, Poland. He holds a bachelor's in communication management and a master's in international relations. He appears regularly in the media and is the author of frequent opinion pieces and policy briefs. In 2008 he was made a John C. Whitehead Fellow by the Foreign Policy Association in New York City.

Richard Lui, News Anchor, NBC

Richard Lui has more than 30 years of experience in television, technology, and business — often addressing Fortune 500 and Silicon Valley firms as a thought leader in media, marketing, and storytelling. Currently, Lui is a visiting senior fellow with The German Marshall Fund of the United States and a news anchor for MSNBC and NBC News, reporting on the ground for stories from terror attacks in France to slavery in Africa. Previously, he was at CNN Worldwide, where he became the first Asian male in U.S. history to anchor a daily national cable news program. He is a team Emmy and Peabody recipient. With over 20 years in the tech industry, Lui co-patented and founded a global bank-centric payments carve-out with Citibank.He currently serves as advisory board chair for a Silicon Valley artificial intelligence firm, and sits on four boards of directors and advisors. Business Insider named him one of 21 careers to watch and Twitter Counter ranks him top one percent. Lui has received civil rights awards from the National Education Association, Advancing Justice, and Asian American Journalists Association.

Cecilia Malmström, European Commissioner for Trade, European Commission

Cecilia Malmström has served as European commissioner for trade since 2014, having previously served as European Commissioner for Home Affairs from 2010 to 2014. In her current position, she represents the EU in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other international trade fora. Malmström is responsible for negotiating bilateral trade agreements with key countries, including recently concluded agreements with Japan, Canada, and Vietnam, and for ongoing negotiations with Mexico, Chile, and the Mercosur countries.Prior to her appointment as a commissioner, she served as a member of the European Parliament from 1999to 2006, and as Swedish Minister for European Union Affairs from 2006 to 2010. She is a member of the Liberal People’s Party, which is represented by the ALDE Party in the European Parliament. She holds a PhD in political science from theDepartment of Political Science at Göteborg University.

H.E. Giorgi Margvelashvili, President, Georgia

H.E. Giorgi Margvelashvili was elected the president of Georgia on October 27, 2013. The former vice premier and the minister of education and science, Margvelashvili is a strong democrat and a reformer. He is the initiator of the process of essential transformation of the politicized education system. In May 2013, he was named as the presidency candidate by the coalition “Georgian Dream” and he confidently won the elections with 62.18 percent of votes. Margvelashvili graduated from Tbilisi State University in 1992 and obtained his degree in philosophical sciences. From 1993 to 1994, he continued studying in Central European University in Prague and from 1993 to 1996 at the Georgian National Academy of Sciences. In 1998,he obtained the academic degree of Doctor of Philosophic Sciences in Tbilisi State University.

Peter Mather, Group Regional President for Europe and Head of Country U.K., BP

Peter has been the BP group regional president for Europe since April 2010.Before this he was head of country for the U.K. and vice president for the Europe region. Peter is responsible for the governance, reputation, coordination, and integration of all BP’s activities across Europe. He is chairman of BP Oil U.K., BP Lubricants U.K., BP Exploration Operating Company, and of the BP Europe Supervisory Board. He also sits on the board of BP France, BP Italy and various other internal boards. He was appointed a director of BP Pension Trustees Limited in January 2008. Peter is a board member of Fuels Europe, a council member of ICC U.K., and sits on the President’s Committee of the CBI. He is also an honorary director of the Royal Opera House. He sits on the Business in the Community Leadership Teams for Education and Arts and Business and is a member of the British Museum Chairman’s Advisory Group. He is also a member of the Foreign Office Diplomatic Excellence Panel and of The Programme Committee of the Ditchley Foundation. Peter has an MA from Oxford and an MBA from INSEAD and is an honorary Fellow of King’s College, London.

David McAllister, Member, European Parliament

David McAllister has been a member of the European Parliament since 2014 and is a vice president of the European People's Party (EPP). He is chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the European Parliament and is a German Marshall Fund fellow. He served in the German military for two years and later studied law with a scholarship awarded by the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation. McAllister has been a lawyer since 1998 and in 2012 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh. His political career began in 1998, when he was elected to the state parliament of Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony). From 2003 until 2010 he served as chairman of the Christian Democrat Union (CDU) group and from 2010 to 2013 as prime minister of Niedersachsen. McAllister was born in Berlin in 1971 and is married with two daughters.

Gregory Meeks, Congressman, U.S. House of Representatives

Congressman Gregory Meeks was sworn into the House of Representatives on February 3, 1998 and represents New York’s 5th Congressional District. He serves as the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, and as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Committee on Financial Services. Representative Meeks is a firm believer in coalition building and multilateral foreign policy and is the co-chairof the European Union Caucus.Congressman Meeks graduated from Adelphi University with a degree in history and received his JDfrom Howard University School of Law.

Rajan Menon, Author, The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention

Rajan Menon is a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. He is the author of several books, including The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention, which offers a wide-ranging critique of U.S. foreign policy and the ideology underlying military intervention. He has held teaching positions at a number of universities, including Columbia and Vanderbilt. He is currently the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of Political Science at the City College of New York and a Global Ethics Fellow at the Carnegie Council on Ethics in International Affairs. He frequently contributes op-eds and essays for the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Newsday, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, and Washingtonpost.com. He has appeared as a commentator on NPR, ABC, CNN, BBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and World Focus.

Cynthia Miller-Idriss, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Associate Professor of Education and Sociology, American University

Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss is the associate dean of academic affairs in the School of Education as well as associate professor of education and sociology at American University in Washington, DC, where she also directs the International Training and Education Program and runs the bi-annual Global Education Forum. She holds a PhD and MA in sociology and an MPP in public policy from the University of Michigan, and a BA in sociology and German area studies from Cornell University. Her research follows two trajectories, focused on far-right youth radicalization and culture, and on the organization and production of knowledge about the world within U.S. universities. Her two most recent books are The Extreme Gone Mainstream: Commercialization and Far Right Youth Culture in Germany and Seeing the World: How Universities Make Knowledge in a Global Era (with co-authors Mitchell Stevens and Seteney Shami), both published by Princeton University Press. Miller-Idriss also engages frequently as an expert source and op-ed author on issues of youth radicalization, nationalism and education for mainstream media outlets, most recently for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone Magazine, The New Republic, Vice Magazine, the Huffington Post/World Post, Fortune, Voice of America, and Wisconsin Public Radio.

John Minas, Chef

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Armenian and Assyrian immigrants, John Minas grew up spending Sundays in his grandfather’s kitchen. As he watched his grandfather lovingly prepare traditional Armenian and Middle Eastern dishes for the family, Minas grew to love cooking and food with a passion that would drive him to pursue a career in the culinary arts. In 2006, Minas began training at the Culinary Institute of America and worked at several high-end restaurants throughout New England. In 2011,ChefMinas was selected as the executive chef to Florida’s First Family where he served the Governor and First Lady for over four years, and authored Viva la Florida, a cookbook commemorating Florida’s 500-year anniversary. True to his passion, he proudly prepared healthy, flavorful dishes featuring Florida’s bountiful seafood and agriculture. While serving the First Family, Chef was selected to represent Florida in the 2011 Great American Seafood Cook-off, competing against top chefs from around the nation and in 2017 was selected to participate in the prestigious Naples Winter Wine Festival.

Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign and Security Policy and Vice President of the European Commission

Federica Mogherini is the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the European Commission since November 1, 2014.She was Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs from February to October 2014 and a member of the Italian Parliament (Chamber of Deputies),where she was elected for the first time in 2008.She is member of IAI –Istituto Affari Internazionali, of the Council for the United States and Italy and a Marshall Memorial Fellow of The German Marshall Fund of the United States.She is also member of the European Leadership Network for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (ELN) and of the Group of Eminent Persons (GEM) of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).She graduated in political science at the University of Rome “LaSapienza."

Mateusz Morawiecki, Prime Minister, Poland

Mateusz Morawiecki is the prime minister of Poland. He previously served as deputy prime minister and minister of development and finance, and most recently as deputy prime minister and minister of development. Morawiecki is an alumnus of the University of Wrocław, Central Connecticut State University, and Wrocław University of Technology. In 2013, Morawiecki was awarded the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity for his merits for the benefit of independence and sovereignty of Poland and respect of human rights. On June 23, 2015 Morawiecki was awarded Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta for extraordinary merits in the area of supporting and promoting Polish culture and national heritage.

Frank Morawietz, Special Representative, Franco-German Youth Office for South East Europe

Frank Morawietz lives in Berlin and works as an intercultural trainer and project manager. As special representative of the French-GermanYouth Office (FGYO) for Southeastern Europe since 2000 he has developed and coordinated the implementation of the Southeast Europe Initiative of the FGYO. From 2015 to 2018, he was one of three moderators in the development process of the Regional Youth Cooperation Office and was a member of the RYCO Joint Coordination Team. He regularly conducts intercultural trainings for international enterprises, organizations, and municipalities. As a partner and managing director of a social enterprise he is especially interested in questions of the European integration process, international political relations, and social entrepreneurship. Before moving to Berlin he worked for ten years as a project manager for German-French programs at the Gustav Stresemann Institute in Bonn. The institute is known as a European Academy for political training in the field of civil society.

Anatoly Motkin, Founder and President, StrategEast

Anatoly Motkin is founder and president of StrategEast, a strategic center for political and diplomatic solutions whose mission is to guide and assist elites of the post-Soviet region into closer working relationships with the USA and Western Europe. Motkin has devoted much of his career to assisting the processes of Westernization in post-Soviet states through the launching of a variety of media, political and business initiatives aimed to drive social awareness and connect communities. He began his career as a political consultant advising the Israeli Government on the country’s Russian-speaking sector. Anatoly studied Mathematics and Computer Science in Tel Aviv University.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian, Professor, Princeton University

Seyed Hossein Mousavian is a Middle East security and nuclear policy specialist at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School. He was a former diplomat who served as Iran’s ambassador to Germany (1990-97), head of the Foreign Relations Committee of Iran’s National Security Council (1997-2005), spokesman for Iran’s nuclear negotiators (2003-05) and vice president of Iran’s Center for Strategic Research (2005-08). He has taught at Tehran University, the Islamic Azad University of Iran, and Princeton University. Mousavian has a PhD (2002) in international relations from the University of Kent. He is currently doing research on the security structure in Persian Gulf, Iran’s nuclear deal, the crisis in the Middle East, Iran–U.S. relations, and the elimination of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. He has written two books: The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir (2012) and Iran and the United States: An Insider’s view on the Failed Past and the Road to Peace (2014).

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

Dan Mullaney has served as assistant United States trade representative for Europe and the Middle East at the Office of the United States Trade Representative since 2010.Mullaney served from 2006 to 2010 as USTR’s senior trade representative in the United States Mission to the European Union in Brussels, Belgium, representing the United States in all aspects of U.S. trade policy at the various institutions of the European Union and the broader Brussels trade policy community. Before becoming senior trade representative in Brussels, Mullaney served for seven years in USTR’s Office of General Counsel. He earned a BA degree from Amherst College in 1979, and a joint law/foreign service master’s degree from Georgetown University in 1984. He is married and has two children.

Nora Müller, Executive Director of International Affairs, Körber Foundation

Nora Müller is head of the International Affairs Department at the Körber Foundation. From 2004 to 2006, Nora served as an advisor in the Middle East division of the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin. In 2007, she joined the International Affairs Department of Körber Foundation to establish and build upthe Körber Dialogue Middle East. Nora holds a joint master’s degree in European studies from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin and Technische Universität Berlinas well as a bachelor’s degree from Tel Aviv University. Nora is a regular commentator on foreign policyissues in the German and international media including DIE ZEIT, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (faz.net), Handelsblatt, Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), Judy Dempsey’s Strategic Europe and Süddeutsche Zeitung as well as Deutsche Welle TV, Deutschlandradio Kultur, MDR, SR2 Kultur Radio and WDR Radio. She is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Chris Murphy, Senator, United States Senate

Senator Chris Murphy was sworn into the U.S. Senate on January 3, 2013 and represents the state of Connecticut. Senator Murphy serves as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP), and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he is the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation. Senator Murphy has been an outspoken proponent of diplomacy, international human rights, and the need for clear-eyed American leadership abroad. Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Murphy served Connecticut's Fifth Congressional District for three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Senator Murphy grew up in Wethersfield, Connecticut, and attended Williams College in Massachusetts. He graduated from the University of Connecticut School of Law and practiced real estate and banking law with firm of Ruben, Johnson & Morgan in Hartford, Connecticut.

Susan Ness, Senior Fellow, Center for Transatlantic Relations, Johns Hopkins University

Susan Ness is a former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission and the founder of Susan Ness Strategies, a communications policy consulting firm. A senior fellow at the SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations (Johns Hopkins University), she focuses on transatlantic digital issues, including regulation of hate speech, violent extremism, and malicious disinformation online; privacy and national security; the digital single market; innovation; data flows; and trade. She also convenes the SAIS Global Conference on Women in the Boardroom. Commissioner Ness served on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission from 1994 to 2001, where she played a leading role on spectrum policy, championed competition, implemented spectrum auctions, and fostered new technologies and often represented the FCC at international meetings.She serves on the board of TEGNA Inc, a NYSE-listed media company, and on the board of Vital Voices Global Partnership, a nongovernmental organization that invests in women’s leadership worldwide.

Sophie Nicholson, Social Media Editor, Agence France-Presse

Sophie is responsible for improving online newsgathering and overseeing the main English social media accounts for international news agency Agence France-Presse. She works with outside partners to bring new ideas and technology to AFP’s journalists.Sophie previously worked a foreign correspondent in Europe and Latin America.She started her career in radio and television at the BBC in London. Sophie has also workedon the award-winning CrossCheck verification project, which brought together 37 newsroom partners in France and the U.K.to help report false, misleading,and confusingclaims around the 2017 French presidential election.

Natalie Nougayrède, Editorial Board Member and Columnist, The Guardian

Natalie Nougayrèdeis an editorial board member and columnist at The Guardian, which she joined in 2014. She was previously the editor-in-chief of LeMonde, after being its diplomatic correspondent and Moscow bureau chief. She writes about international and European affairs, with a special focus on security issues and human rights. She was awarded two French journalism prizes, the Prix de la Presse Diplomatique (2004) and the Albert Londres award (2005), for her coverage of Russia and the Chechnya war. She is on the board of the Primo Levi Centre in Paris, which helps refugees who have been victims of torture. She has contributed to books (in French) on Putin's Russia and on Anna Politkovskaya. In December 2016-February 2017 she was a Richard von Weizsacker Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy, Berlin.

Janka Oertel, Transatlantic Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Dr. Janka Oertel is a transatlantic fellow in the Asia Program. Based in GMF’s office in Berlin, she focuses on Chinese foreign policy and security in East Asia. Prior to joining GMF, she served as a program director at Körber Foundation’s Berlin office. She was responsible for the Berlin Foreign Policy Forum as well as the Asia activities of Körber Foundation’s International Affairs Department. She holds a PhD from the University of Jena focusing on Chinese policies within the United Nations. She was a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP Berlin) and worked at United Nations Headquarters, New York as a Carlo-Schmid-Fellow. She has published on topics related to security in Asia-Pacific, Chinese foreign policy, and United Nations peacekeeping, including “China and the United Nations. Chinese UN Policy in the Areas of Peace and Development under Hu Jintao,” Nomos, 2014.

Cem Özdemir, Member, German Bundestag

Cem Özdemir is member of the German Bundestag where he chairs the Committee on Transport and Digital Infrastructure. Özdemir was elected to the German Parliament in 1994, becoming its first-ever member of Turkish descent. Özdemir served two consecutive legislative terms (1994-2002). He is an educator by profession and completed his studies in social pedagogy at the Evangelical Technical College (Evangelische Fachhochschule für Sozialwesen) in Reutlingen, Germany. He was previously a transatlantic fellow with The German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington, DC and Brussels. He is a founding member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and sits on the advisory board of the American Jewish Committee's Berlin office. Özdemir is the author of two books on multicultural Germany. In 2008, he published a book for young people titled Turkey: Politics, Religion, Culture. He regularly writes commentaries and articles for the German, Turkish, and international media.

Sokeel Park, South Korea Country Director, Liberty in North Korea

Sokeel Park is South Korea Country Director for Liberty in North Korea (LiNK). As well as overseeing LiNK’s Seoul-based operations, he works with North Korean defectors and experts to develop up-to-date insights and analysis on North Korea, and fosters people-focused strategies to accelerate change and opening in North Korea. Park regularly engages with policymakers and the international media to reframe North Korea by introducing more focus on social change in North Korea. Citations include The Economist, Financial Times, Reuters, BBC, CNN, PBS, KBS, Joongang Ilbo, and Donga Ilbo. Park grew up and studied in the U.K., and has previously worked at the United Nations, diplomatic consultancy Independent Diplomat, and the South Korean government.

Frank Morawietz, Special Representative, Franco-German Youth Office for South East Europe

Dr. Frauke Petry, Member, German Bundestag

Frauke Petry is both a member of the German Bundestag and a member of regional state parliament in Saxony. She has a background in entrepreneurship and chemistry. Petry found her way into politics through her early support of the 2013 Electoral Alternative. She was among those setting up the new party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and got elected as one of the three heads of the party in 2013. In the 2017 German national elections she successfully ran for a direct seat in the Bundestag. She announced her resignation from all party functions a day later, following several months of internal controversy on Petry’s plea to follow a moderate and distinguished approach to politics rather than purely provocative. She set up a new conservative movement Blaue Wende shortly afterwards aiming to fill the gap between moderate right and center left ideas and allowing cross-party participation. The Blue party will stand for European and regional elections in 2019.

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

The Honorable Didier Reynders is the Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Affairs, in charge of Beliris and Federal Cultural Institutions of the Kingdom of Belgium. He is a former lawyer who previously served as the Minister of Finance from 1999 to 2011 and was chairman of the Eurogroup in 2001. He has also been the president of ECOFIN, the Economic Affairs Council of the EU. Didier Reynders has been Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and European Affairs from 2011 to 2014.

Megan Richards Director, Energy Policy in Directorate General for Energy, European Commission

Megan Richards is director of energy policy in DG Energy (ENER) of the European Commission. She has a bachelor of science, bachelor of laws, and master of public administration degrees. She has worked for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Africa, the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, the government of Canada, and private law firms. In 1991, she joined the European Commission and has worked programs to support SMEs, research and innovation, including regulatory, legal, financial and contractual issues. From September 2006 to April 2009 she was director of resource management in the Commission's Joint Research Centre. From May 2009 was in the Commission's DG CONNECT, holding positions of director of General Affairs, director of Converged Networks and Services, director Coordination, and acting deputy director general and principal advisor. From 2013 to 2014, she was EU Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University.

Henry Ristuccia, Policy and Government Relations Leader, Deloitte

Henry J. Ristucciais the managing partner of Deloitte’s policy and government relations function based in Washington,DC. He has been with the firm for close to 30 years. During his time with Deloitte, Henry has had various roles including the global leader ofGovernance, Risk,and Complianceservices, managing partner of therisk advisory practice in the Northeast region of the United Statesas well as a member of the firm’s political action committee boardof directors. Throughout his career,Henry has served many of the firm’s largest and most complex clients specializing in the financial services industry. Henry has been a frequent speaker and author on the topic of corporate governance, risk management,and regulatory compliance. He is also active in the community serving on several non-profit boards and engaged with various charities. .

Mike Rogers, National Security Commentator, CNN

Mike Rogers is a former member of Congress, U.S. Army officer, and FBI special agent. In the U.S. House he chaired the Intelligence Committee, becoming a leader on cybersecurity and national security policy, and overseeing the 17 intelligence agencies’ $70 billion budget.Today Mike is a CNN national security commentator, and hosts and produces CNN’s “Declassified.” He sits on the board of IronNet Cybersecurity and MITRE Corporation, and advises Next Century Corporation and Trident Capital. He is distinguished fellow and trustee at Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, and a senior fellow at Harvard University.

Josh Rogin, Columnist, The Washington Post

Josh Rogin is a columnist for the Global Opinions section of The Washington Post, and a political analyst with CNN. Previously, he has covered foreign policy and national security for Bloomberg View, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, and Foreign Policy magazine, Congressional Quarterly, Federal Computer Week magazine, and Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. He was a 2011 finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists and the 2011 recipient of the Interaction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. Rogin holds a bachelor’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University and studied at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan.

Laura Rosenberger, Director, Alliance for Securing Democracy, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Laura Rosenberger is director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy and a senior fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). Before she joined GMF, she was foreign policy advisor for Hillary for America, where she coordinated development of the campaign’s national security policies, messaging, and strategy. Prior to that, she served in a range of positions at the State Department and the White House’s National Security Council (NSC). As chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken and as later, then-Deputy National Security Advisor Blinken’s senior advisor, she counseled on the full range of national security policy. In her role at the NSC, she also managed the interagency Deputies Committee, the U.S. government’s senior-level interagency decision-making forum on our country’s most pressing national security issues. Laura also has extensive background in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly Northeast Asia. She served as NSC director for China and Korea, managing and coordinating U.S. policy on China and the Korean Peninsula, and in a variety of positions focused on the Asia-Pacific region at the Department of State, including managing U.S.–China relations and addressing North Korea’s nuclear programs. She also served as special assistant to Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns, advising him on Asia-Pacific affairs and on nonproliferation and arms control issues. Laura first joined the State Department as a Presidential Management Fellow.

Robert Rosenkranz, Chairman, Intelligence Squared U.S.

Robert Rosenkranz is the founder and chairman of Intelligence Squared U.S., a public policy debate program providing a forum for reasoned public discourse.He is chief executive officer of Delphi Financial Group, an insurance company with some $10 billion in assets, and the founder of a group of investment and private equity partnerships. Previously, Rosenkranz was a tax lawyer with the New York law firm of Cahill, Gordon & Reindel and an economist with the RAND Corporation, where he was engaged in research on foreign policy issues and municipal finance. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he is also a member of the Yale School of Architecture Dean's Council, and of the visiting Committee for the Department of Photography at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School.

Norbert Röttgen, Chairman, Foreign Affairs Committee, German Bundestag

Dr. Norbert Röttgen is the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the German Bundestag since 2014. From 2009 to 2012, he was federal minister for the environment, nature conservation, and nuclear safety. He has been a member of the German Parliament since 1994. During his mandate Dr. Röttgen has fulfilled key functions within the Christian Democratic Party (CDU). His book Deutschlands beste Jahre kommen noch was released in 2009. It calls for a strategic and well thought-through German political agenda that exercises a formative influence on globalization rather than being at its mercy. Dr. Röttgen holds a PhD in law from Bonn University. He is a senior fellow at the Hertie School of Governance Berlin and board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and of the Atlantik-Brücke.

Dev Sanyal, Chief Executive, Alternative Energy and Executive Vice President for Europe and Asia Regions

Dev Sanyal is chief executive, alternative energy, and executive vice president, regions as well as member of the Group Executive Committee of BP plc. He joined the BP Group in 1989, and has held a variety of positions with the company globally, in London, Athens, Dubai, Istanbul, and Vienna. He has been general manager, FSU and Eastern Europe; chief executive officer, BP Eastern Mediterranean Fuels; chief executive officer, Air BP International; head of the Group Chief Executive’s Office; group treasurer and chairman of BP Investment Management Ltd. During this latter period, he was also accountable for BP’s aluminium business. He was appointed to the Group Executive Committee as executive vice president, strategy and integration, in 2012. His responsibilities were expanded to include Europe and Asia regions in 2014. He has a master’s degree in economics and politics from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Kori Schake, Deputy Director General, International Institute for Security Studies

Dr. Kori Schake is the deputy director general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.She is the author of Safe Passage: The Transition from British to American Hegemony(Harvard, 2017) and editor with Jim Mattis of Warriors and Citizens: American Views of Our Military (Hoover Institution, 2016).She has worked for the National Security Council staff, the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, and both the military and civilian staffs in the Pentagon.In 2008,she was senior policy advisor on the McCain presidential campaign.She taught Thinking About War at Stanford University, and also in the faculties of the United States Military Academy, the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and the University of Maryland.

Taiye Selasi, Author

Taiye Selasi is an author, public speaker,and photographer. Born in the U.K. and raised in the United States, she holds a BA from Yale and an MPhil from Oxford. In 2013,Selasi's debut novel, the New York Times bestseller Ghana Must Go, was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2013 by The Wall Street Journal and The Economist. The same year Selasi was named to Granta's once-in-a-decade list of Best Young British Novelists. Her 2015 TED talk, "Don't Ask Where I'm From,Ask Where I'ma Local," has reached over two million viewers. She is writing her second novel in Lisbon.

Wendy R. Sherman, Senior Counselor, Albright Stonebridge

Wendy R. Sherman is senior counselor at Albright Stonebridge Group and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. She is a senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations as well as the Aspen Strategy Group. Ambassador Sherman led the U.S. negotiating team that reached agreement on a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between the P5+1, the European Union, and Iran for which, among other diplomatic accomplishments, she was awarded the National Security Medal by President Barack Obama. Prior to her service at the Department of State, she was Vice Chair and founding partner of the Albright Stonebridge Group, Counselor of the Department of State under Secretary Madeleine Albright and Special Advisor to President Clinton and Policy Coordinator on North Korea, and Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs under Secretary Warren Christopher. Early in her career, she managed Senator Barbara Mikulski’s successful campaign for the U.S Senate and served as Director of EMILY’S list.

Manisha Singh, Assistant Secretaryof State for Economic and Business Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Manisha Singh was unanimously confirmedby the U.S. Senate and sworn in as assistant secretary of state on November 22, 2017. She leads a team of over200 employees in the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs which also serves as the home bureau for economicofficers posted in embassies around the world. She is the first woman appointed to the role and is responsible for advancing American prosperity, entrepreneurship,and innovation worldwide. Singh previously served as the deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs responsible for developing and promoting international trade policy. Her private sector experience includes practicing law at multinational law firms and working in-house at an investment bank. She was also the Senior Fellow for International Economic Affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council as well as a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations. Singh completed a master of laws in international legal studies, with concentration in international trade, at the American University Washington College of Law.

Art Smith, Executive Chef

Art Smith is the executive chef and co-owner of Blue Door Kitchen and Garden, Southern Art and Bourbon Bar, Homecomin': Florida Kitchen, and Southern Shine at Disney Springs at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando. His latest restaurant, Art Bird & Whiskey Bar will open this spring at Grand Central Terminal in New York City. Smith has appeared on ABC’s Lady Gaga Thanksgiving Special, Top Chef, and two appearances on Top Chef Masters. In 2003, Smith founded Common Threads, a non-profit organization teaching low-income children to cook wholesome and affordable meals. In 2015, Smith launched a second non-profit organization, Reunion, where students receive free classes on southern cooking traditions, horticulture, and weather forecasting. Smith was honored by Chicago magazine as Chicago an of the Year in 2007. That same year, the prestigious James Beard Foundation named him Humanitarian of the Year, and September 30, 2010 was proclaimed “Chef Art Smith Day” in Chicago by Richard M. Daley, Mayor of The City of Chicago.

Nigel Smith, Director, AARP Innovation Labs

Nigel Smith is the director of AARP Innovation Labs. AARP’s inaugural innovation lab is the Hatchery,a 10,000+ square foot structure in the heart of Washington,DC where breakthrough innovation is fostered, incubated,and accelerated. In this role, Nigel is responsible for developing a pipeline of startups with transformational solutions that help 50+ consumers live their best lives. He is also responsible for managing the AARP Ventures Accelerator, fostering relationships with academic institutions, incubators, accelerators, and startup communities in targeted geographies throughout the United States, and managing the day-to-day operations of the Hatchery. Nigel is also the president of Zurena LLC, a company that produces, markets and distributes different drinks and drink mixes. Nigel is a 2015 graduate of Leadership Maryland and holds a master’s degree in business administration from Stanford University, a certification in leading innovation change from University of California Berkeley, and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Howard University.

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

Peter Sparding is a transatlantic fellow in GMF’s Europe Program in Washington, DC, where he works on foreign and economic policy developments in the United States and Europe. Sparding's work over the past years has focused on the consequences of political and economic crises in Europe on transatlantic relations, in particular the U.S.–German relationship. Currently, he is focused on the evolution of the U.S.–German relationship following elections in the U.S. and Germany, as well as the future of transatlantic economies in an age of automation, growing inequality, and increased socio-political challenges on both sides of the Atlantic. He has also worked on issues related to transatlantic and global trade, authoring several reports on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Transpacific Partnership (TPP). He is the chair of the Europe breakfast series in GMF’s Washington, DC, office, which brings together high-level stakeholders in the transatlantic relationship to discuss pressing political, economic, and foreign policy issues. He regularly briefs government agencies, congress, the private sector, and other stakeholders on a range of transatlantic policy issues. He has been quoted in or contributed to a variety of print, radio, and television media outlets, including the New York Times, AFP, Bloomberg, CNN, CCTV, Euronews, NPR’s Marketplace, and German public radio. Sparding previously worked in GMF’s Berlin office. He holds a master’s degree from Freie University in Berlin and has also studied at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. He is a 2015 Atlantic Council U.S.–German Next Generation fellow. Besides his native German, he is fluent in English and also speaks French and Danish.

Amy Studdart, Transatlantic Fellow, Europe Program, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Amy Studdart is a fellow with The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) where she leads the organization’s programming on technology. She worked with the executive communications team at Facebook on a project interrogating the social, economic, and political implications of the company’s mission to connect the world. She was deputy director and fellow of the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC, where she ran a series of programs focused on 21st century economic statecraft and the evolution of the global economic order. She worked in Brussels from 2008-14, first at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she helped to establish their Europe office, and then at GMF, where she managed the Stockholm China Forum. She has published and spoken on technology’s impact on politics and economics, political economy, the liberal international order, China, and the European Union.

Jan Techau, Director of Europe Program and Senior Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Jan Techau is a senior fellow and director of the Europe Program at The German Marshall Fund of the United States. Techau is co-author of Führungsmacht Deutschland –Strategie ohne Angst und Anmaßung(2017) and a regular contributor to German and international news media. Before joining GMF, he served asthe director of the Richard C. Holbrooke Forum for the Study of Diplomacy and Governance at the American Academy in Berlin; as director of Carnegie Europein Brussels; and in the NATO Defense College’s Research Division in Rome. He was previously director of the Alfred von Oppenheim Center for European Policy Studies at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin and he served at the German Ministry of Defense’s Press and Information Department. Techau holds an MA in political science from the Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel, Germany.

Bruce Stokes, Director of Global Economic Attitudes, Pew Research Center

Bruce Stokes is the director of Global Economic Attitudes at the Pew Research Centerin Washington, DC. He became a non-resident transatlantic fellow for economics in May 2012 after joining The German Marshall Fund of the United States as the senior transatlantic fellow for economics in September 2010. He is a former international economics columnist for the National Journal, a Washington-based public policy magazine, where he is now a contributing editor. He is co-author of the book America Against the World: How We Are Different and Why We Are Disliked, author of the 2009 GMF Transatlantic Trends survey, and co-author of numerous Pew Global Attitudes Surveys. Stokes is a graduate of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and attended the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. He is also a former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Zsuzsanna Szelényi, Member of Parliament, Hungary

Zsuzsanna Szelényi is a member of Parliament in Hungary representing the Együtt (Together) party. She is member of the party’s Presidential Board. She covers foreing policy, migration, human resource policies, and gender issues. She served at the Council of Europe for fourteen years, advising governments and NGOs on conflict management, human rights, and human development issues. Between 2010-13 she worked as human development consultant for international organizations in various Central European and North African countries. Szelenyi started her career as founder of Fidesz, a youth party at the régime change in 1988 in Hungary. She became Member of Parliament of the first freely elected Parliament, where she dealt with international and migration affairs. Szelenyi’s experience encompasses the broadest range of political process, international affairs, conflict management and general management activities at the national and international level.

Shawna Thomas, Washington DC Bureau Chief, VICE News

Shawna Thomas is the Washington, DC bureau chief for VICE News overseeing all of VICE News' politics and DC-based policy coverage for VICE Media and HBO’s Emmy award-winning nightly newscast: VICE News Tonight.At VICE News, Thomas has spearheaded the channel’s major political coverage including the inauguration of President Donald Trump, the senate special election in Alabama,and was a senior producer on VICE News Tonight’s award-winning “Charlottesville” special episode. She previously served as the senior producer and senior digital editor of NBC News’s “Meet the Press.” With an Emmy win and multiple nominations under her belt, Thomas contributed to the broadcasts of NBC News for a decade. Prior to joining “Meet the Press,” she covered the White House, Capitol Hill, helped plan NBC's Decision 2008 coverage and reported on the detainee trials in Guantanamo Bay. Thomas attended The George Washington University for political communication and earned her master’s degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Southern California.

Nathalie Tocci, Director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali

Nathalie Tocci director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali, honorary professor at the University of Tübingen, and special Advisor to EU HRVP Federica Mogherini, on behalf of whom she wrote the European Global Stratgyandis now working on its implementation, notably in the field of security and defense. Previously she held research positions at the Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, the Transatlantic Academy in Washington, DC, and the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies in Florence. Her research interests include European foreign policy, conflict resolution, the Middle East,and the Mediterranean.

Congressman Mike Turner, U.S. House of Representatives

Congressman Turner has served in Congress since 2002. He is a member of the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee. Congressman Turner serves as Chairman of the House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, which oversees ammunition programs, Army and Air Force acquisition programs, Navy and Marine Corps aviation programs, National Guard, and Army and Air Force National Guard and Reserve. Congressman Turner previously served as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces and had jurisdiction over the nation's nuclear arsenal, Department of Defense's intelligence programs, and missile defense systems. In January 2011, Congressman Turner was appointed Chairman of the U.S. Delegation to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Parliamentary Assembly, the inter-parliamentary organization of legislators from NATO’s 28 member countries. In December 2014, Congressman Turner was elected President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. After completing his term as President, he re-assumed his position as Chairman of the U.S. Delegation.Prior to his service in Congress, Congressman Turner served as Mayor of the City of Dayton for eight years. During his tenure, he was a strong proponent of neighborhood revitalization, crime reduction, increased funding for safety forces, economic development and job creation. Congressman Turner received a bachelor’s degree from Ohio Northern University; an MBA from the University of Dayton; and a Juris Doctorate from Case Western University School of Law. He practiced law in Dayton for over 17 years and opened his own private legal practice specializing in real estate andcorporate law in 1991.

Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, Director, Ankara Office, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı is the director of GMF's office in Ankara, Turkey. Prior to joining GMF, he was the manager of the Resource Development Department of the Educational Volunteers Foundation of Turkey. Previously, Ünlühisarcıklı worked as the director of the ARI Movement, a Turkish NGO promoting participatory democracy, and as a consultant at AB Consulting and Investment Services. After graduating from the Robert College (Istanbul), Ünlühisarcıklı received his bachelor's degree in business administration from Marmara University and his master's degree from Koç University. He speaks fluent English in addition to his native Turkish.

Chagai Tzuriel, Director General, Ministry of Intelligence, Israel

Chagai Tzuriel is the director general of the Ministry of Intelligence. He retired a year ago from the Mossad after 27 years during which he served as head of research and analysis, representative to the United States, and deputy division head for strategic affairs. Tzuriel holds a BA in Middle Eastern history and in philosophy and MA in Middle Eastern history (Brandeis University), political science (Haifa University), and international public policy (Johns Hopkins SAIS). He is also a graduate of the Israeli National Defense College.

Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, Director, Ankara Office, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Kurt Volker, U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, U.S. Department of State

Ambassador Kurt Volker is a leading expert in U.S. foreign and national security policy with some 30 years of experience in a variety of government, academic, and private sector capacities. Ambassador Volker serves as executive director of The McCain Institute for International Leadership, a part of Arizona State University based in Washington, DC. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, a senior advisor at the Atlantic Council, and a trustee of IAU College in Aix-en-Provence, France. He is a consultant to international businesses, a member of the board of directors of CG Funds Trust, and previously served as international managing director for BGR Group.He has also taught transatlantic relations at The George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs.In July, 2017, Secretary of State Tillerson appointed Ambassador Volker as U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations.

Manolis Vournous, Mayor of Chios, Greece

Manolis Vournous was born on the island of Chios, in 1972. In May 2014, he was elected mayor of Chios, leading a group of people not involved in politics before. He studied architecture at the National Technical University of Athens and received his MA in Conservation of Historic Buildings from the University of York. As an architect, he has worked on several conservation projects and on introducing contemporary architecture in historic context. His project “Antouaniko Mansion” in Kampos, Chios, has been awarded in 2015 with the EU Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Awards. Manolis Vournous’ research has focused on the historic architecture of Chios since the 14th century. He has published papers on ecclesiastical architecture, late medieval fortifications, origins and evolution of vernacular settlements, as well as on the architecture of Chian mansions.

Celeste Wallander, President and CEO, U.S.–Russia Foundation

Celeste Wallander is president and CEO of the U.S.–Russia Foundation. She served as special assistant to the president and senior director for Russia/Eurasia on the National Security Council from 2013 to 2017, as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia from 2009 to July 2012, professor at American University, visiting professor at Georgetown University, director for Russia/Eurasia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and professor of Government at Harvard. She is the author of over 80 publications on European and Eurasian security issues, focused on Russian foreign and defense strategy. She received her PhD, MPhil, and MA degrees from Yale University, and her BA from Northwestern University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Atlantic Council of the United States, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Xenia Wickett, Head of U.S. and Americas Program, Chatham House

Khadija Zamouri, Member of Parliament, Brussels

Khadija Zamouri was re-elected and entered the Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region in 2014, where she is the group leader of the Liberal Party and she still is in this function. In 2017, she was candidate for the elections in Molenbeek where she lives now. Beginning of July 2011, she became member of the Flemish Parliament. She remained member of the Flemish Parliament until may 2014.In 2004, she worked in the cabinet of two other ministers with the same competences, Minister Guy Vanhengel (Finance, Education) and Jean Luc Vanraes (Finance and education). She was born in Antwerp and her parents were refugees. She graduated in 1988 as the first teacher with Moroccan roots in history, philosophy, and English.

Astrid Ziebarth, Senior Migration Fellow, Europe Program, The German Marshall Fund

Astrid Ziebarth is a senior migration fellow with the Europe Program, based in the organization’s Berlin office. She coordinates program development in the areas of research, networking, and leadership development in migration and mobility, refugees and asylum, integration, and diversity. Her current work projects include the Integration Strategy Group, fostering exchange and analysis between Moroccan, German, and Turkish policy stakeholders in cooperation with the GIZ (Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit). She also oversees the Migration Strategy Group on International Cooperation and Development, a joint project by GMF, the Bertelsmann Foundation and the Robert Bosch Foundation. Ms. Ziebarth holds a masters in American studies, sociology, and anthropology from the Free University Berlin with study visits at the Universiteit van Amsterdam and Emory University in Atlanta. She is a member of the advisory committee for the International Center on Policy Advocacy about migration narratives and frames and sits in the advisory committee of the German Foreign Office for the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD).

Robert B. Zoellick, Chairman, AllianceBernstein

Robert B. Zoellick is the chairman of AllianceBernstein, a global investment management firm. He is also a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Zoellick serves on the board of Temasek, Singapore’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, and is a principal of Brunswick Geopolitical at Brunswick Group. He is a member of the board of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, chairs the Global Tiger Initiative, and is a member of the Global Leadership Council of Mercy Corps, a global humanitarian agency. Zoellick was the president of the World Bank Group from 2007 to 2012, and was previously U.S. trade representative and deputy secretary of state. Zoellick is a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award, the Department of State’s highest honor, the Alexander Hamilton Award of the Department of the Treasury, and the Medal for Distinguished Public Service of the Department of Defense.The German government awarded him the Knight Commanders Cross for his achievements in the course of German unification. Zoellick holds a J.D. magna cum laude from the Harvard Law School, a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College.