Geostrategy

Vicky Masson is a program operations manager for geostrategy. She works closely with the senior vice president, GMF Geostrategy to coordinate and manage a team of 60+ experts spread across six GMF offices. She also assists in strategy and coordination with the executive teams.

Prior to joining GMF in 2021, Masson was an intern at the Agence Française de Développement, where she contributed to a research project on the intervention of international stakeholders in countries in crisis, particularly in the Middle East and Africa. She holds a master’s degree in international security at Sciences Po Paris, where she specialized in diplomacy and African studies,

Sophie Arts is a fellow with GMF’s Geostrategy North team, where she leads the workstream’s research on Arctic security and geopolitics. As part of her portfolio, she covers Nordic security, North American homeland defense, and regional cooperation with allies and partners.

In 2017, Arts joined GMF's Washington, DC-based security and defense policy team, focusing on transatlantic security within and outside NATO. Her prior research covered the alliance’s partnerships and flexible formats, the impact of emerging technologies on NATO defense and deterrence, the dynamics of escalation within the cyber domain, and strategic stability in a multipolar world. 

Arts previously worked as a research assistant at the Atlantic Council and as a trainee in GMF’s Brussels office. She has a background in political journalism, writing for Spiegel Online International and Kantar Media. Originally from Germany, she holds a master’s degree from Humboldt University in Berlin and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Freiburg. She spent two years studying in the United States, at Connecticut College and at the University of Virginia, where she also worked as a research assistant in the media studies department and in the university’s Center for Politics, supporting Larry J. Sabato's work on "The Kennedy Half-Century".  

Alberto Tagliapietra is Senior Program Coordinator at the Mediterranean Policy Program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) in Brussels. His research interests focus on EU policies, migration, and the intersection between technology and migration.

Alberto joined GMF in 2019. He holds a BA in international relations and an MSc in European and international studies from the University of Trento.

Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı is the regional director, Türkiye. Prior to joining GMF, he was the manager of the Resource Development Department of the Educational Volunteers Foundation of Turkey. Previously, Ünlühisarcıklı served as director of the ARI Movement, a Turkish NGO promoting participatory democracy, and as a consultant at AB Consulting and Investment Services.

Ünlühisarcıklı is an expert on transatlantic relations and Turkish foreign policy, domestic politics, democratization, and civil society. He is quoted frequently in international media including The New York Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Deutsche Welle, and the BBC.

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.

Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer is GMF’s senior vice president for geostrategy and a member of the organization’s executive team. She leads GMF’s geostrategy policy and risk advisory work across Europe, the United States, and the Indo-Pacific.

With more than 14 years’ experience in advisory and executive roles in the French government, academia, and international organizations, de Hoop Scheffer advises governments, companies, and banks on geopolitical and macroeconomic risks and trends impacting their operations and long-term strategies, and helps them develop early-warning and forward-looking decision-making processes. 

Prior to joining GMF in 2012 as its Paris office director and as a senior fellow, de Hoop Scheffer served as special adviser on transatlantic relations to the French foreign ministry’s policy planning staff and as a member of the NATO supreme allied commander Europe’s Next Generation Advisory Panel. She was also an adviser on post-conflict reconstruction and the future of war to the French defense ministry and the UN’s peacekeeping operations department, an associate professor at Sciences Po Paris, and a research fellow at the Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI).

de Hoop Scheffer serves on the supervisory board of Meridiam and the French Treasury’s strategic committee, the advisory boards of the French chief of defense staff and the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (FRS), and the editorial board of The Washington Quarterly. She is a regular public speaker and writer, and the editorial director of GMF’s two annual flagship publications, Transatlantic Trends and Alliances in a Shifting Global Order. She is the author of the “Hamlet en Irak”.

de Hoop Scheffer holds a PhD in political science and international affairs from Sciences Po Paris.