France

Gesine Weber is a fellow on GMF’s Geostrategy team. She works on European security and defense issues, and leads the annual Transatlantic Trends study. Based in Paris, she focuses on Europe’s role as a geopolitical actor, EU defense initiatives, and security and defense policy of the E3 (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom).

Prior to joining GMF, Weber worked as a defense policy adviser in the German parliament and as a consultant for the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation in Shanghai. Weber is pursuing PhD research on European defense cooperation at the Defence Studies Department of King’s College London, where she is part of the European Foreign Policy Research Group. She contributes to the work of the Centre for Grand Strategy and is an associate researcher for the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Weber holds a master’s degree in European affairs from Sciences Po in Paris and another master’s degree in political science from the Freie Universität Berlin. She studied Mandarin at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. She is regularly published in English, French, and German on European security and defense issues, and is a frequent commentator on European and international media, including BBC, France24, and Deutsche Welle

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.

Martin Quencez is managing director of geopolitical risk and strategy. Over the past ten years, he has held several positions at GMF, including as deputy director of the Paris office and research fellow in the Security and Defense program. His work includes research on transatlantic security and defense cooperation, and US and French foreign policy, on which he regularly writes for international media. He is a co-author of GMF’s annual flagship Transatlantic Trends report. 

Quencez is also an associate researcher for the European Council on Foreign Relations, working in France for its European Powers program. He has taught transatlantic relations at the Euro-American campus of Sciences Po and, prior to joining GMF, worked for the Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, focusing on French and Indian strategic thinking. 

Quencez studied international relations at the Uppsala University and is a graduate of Sciences Po. He is completing a PhD in contemporary history at Sorbonne Nouvelle University.