Speakers

Baiba Braže was born in Riga, Latvia. She holds two Masters degrees from the University of Latvia: one in Law (1990) and another in Communication Science (2002).

Ambassador Braže served most recently as Latvia’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom (August 2016-early May 2020), prior to which she was Director General Security Policy and International Organizations (June 2011-January 2016) and Director General of the Communications Directorate (February 2016-July 2016) at the Latvian Foreign Ministry in Riga.

Ambassador Braže previously served as Latvia’s Ambassador to the Netherlands and Permanent Representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (July 2003-August 2008), prior to which she was Director of the Europe Department, served as Foreign Policy and National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister in Riga. She has held numerous other posts since joining the Foreign Ministry in August 1993, both at home (Legal Department, International Organizations Department) and abroad (United Nations, New York).

In addition to Latvian, Ambassador Braže is fluent in English and Russian, and speaks Dutch proficiently.

Kaja Kallas was born on 18 June 1977 in Tallinn. She is married and a mother of two sons and a daughter. Kallas joined the Estonian Reform Party in 2011 and has led the party since 14 April 2018.

Employment history and career:

• From 2019–2021, she was a member of the 14th Riigikogu and the Chairman of the Faction.
• From 2014–2018, she was a member of the European Parliament.
• From 2011–2014, she was a member of the 12th Riigikogu; in 2011, she served as the Chairman of the Economic Affairs Committee and in 2014, the Chairman of the Faction.
• From 2010–2011, she was a Training Provider at the EBS Management Training Centre.
• From 2006–2011, she was a Sworn Advocate and Partner at the law firm Luiga Mody Hääl Borenius.
• From 1998–2006, she was a Sworn Advocate and Partner at the law firm Tark & Co.
• From 1996–1997, she was an Adviser to the Director of the Vanemuine Theatre.

Education

• Kaja Kallas graduated from the University of Tartu in 1999 with a degree in law and undertook her postgraduate studies at the Estonian Business School in 2007.

Serving as Minister of Defence Dr Artis Pabriks introduced comprehensive national defence, which is designed to ensure security and crisis preparedness across all sectors, including preparedness for military conflicts. In 2004, he was elected as a Member of the Latvian Parliament and later as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

He served as a minister until 2007. From 2007 until 2010 he was a Member of the Parliament. In 2010 he became Minister of Defence and worked in that position until 2014, when he was elected as the Member of European Parliament. As an academician, the main fields of his research activity are political theory, ethnic policy, multiculturalism, and foreign and security policy. He is also the author and co-author of numerous publications on these topics. In 1996, Dr Pabriks became the first Rector of Vidzeme University College, later becoming a Professor there. He has been a Professor at Riga International School of Economics and Business Administration since 2010. He has also worked as a policy analyst and researcher in several NGOs.

As Head of EU Affairs, Aura oversees Facebook’s engagement on EU policies with the European Institutions and Member States.

Before joining Facebook, Aura worked in the EC as a Foreign Policy and Communications Adviser in the European Political Strategy Centre (EPSC), in-house think tank to President Jean-Claude Juncker. Previously she served as a Member of Cabinet of Jyrki Katainen, European Commission Vice President responsible for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness.

Valdis Dombrovskis is Executive Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for an Economy that Works for People, also in charge of Trade (since October 2020). Before this, he was Vice-President responsible for the euro, social dialogue, financial services and the Capital Markets Union.

In Latvia, he was his country’s longest-serving head of government with three terms as prime minister. He served as Finance Minister, was a Member of the Latvian Parliament and elected twice to the European Parliament.

In his pre-political life, he worked as chief economist at the Bank of Latvia and before that, as a research assistant at Mainz University, at the Institute of Solid-State Physics in Latvia and the University of Maryland.

Valdis Dombrovskis was born on 5 August 1971 in Riga, and holds degrees in both physics and economics.

Ramu Damodaran served the United Nations Department of Global Communications from 1996 to 2021; his responsibilities in the Department included oversight of relationships with civil society, the creative community and celebrity advocates, publications (including as Chief Editor of the UN Chronicle), the Dag Hammarskjold Library and the United Nations Academic Impact. He also served as secretary of the United Nations General Assembly’s Committee on Information from 2011.
His earlier Secretariat assignments included the Departments of Special Political Questions and Peacekeeping as well as speechwriting in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General. As a member of the Indian Foreign Service, where he was promoted to the rank of ambassador, he served as executive assistant to the Prime Minister of India between 1991 and 1994.
Holder of a Master’s degree in history from the University of Delhi, he has been a newspaper reporter, television news anchor and radio disc jockey in India, as well as a stage actor. His feature “Echoes of a Generation” won the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union award for the best radio documentary.

Bertrand Le Meur was appointed as Head of the Directorate for Defence Strategy, Counter- Proliferation and Strategic Foresight at the Ministry for the Armed Forces by decree of 1 July 2021.

He was simultaneously raised to the rank of “ingenieur general hors classe de l’armement” (4 star). As such, he is in charge of strategic analysis, global defence doctrine, analysis of global trends affecting the environment. He also proposes the associated political and capability orientations. He is responsible for steering strategic foresight studies. In addition, his responsibilities cover the conduct of work to combat proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the associated control tools. Finally, he contributes to the conduct of the policy of control of exports of defence materials and similar items. As part of his various functions, he is called upon to consult the various authorities of the Ministry as well as France’s major partners in the military field.

Career
Bertrand Le Meur began his career in 1990 at the Directorate General for Armament (DGA), in the field of military telecommunications, where he first contributed to the design studies, then to the management of military satellite telecommunications programmes (Syracuse Il and Ill). He managed a division in charge of all telecommunications systems.
In 1998, he joined the DGA’s Programmes and Methods Directorate (DPM), where he oversaw the progress of air programmes. He participated in the internal audit and set up financial indicators between the DGA and the Air Force.
In 2001, to diversify his experience, he joined the mobile telecommunications company SFR, where he was successively in charge of mobile engineering projects, operations management of an internet subsidiary of the company, Director of the regional establishment for the South-West and finally, of the Support Functions and Methods Department in support of the deployment and maintenance of the SFR network.
In 2009, Bertrand Le Meur returned to the DGA, within the Directorate of Plans, Programmes and Budget (DP). He was responsible for analysing the conditions for launching programmes and advising the Director on control and launch procedures. In February 2012, Bertrand Le Meur joined the Industrial Affairs and Economic Intelligence Department of the DGA. After a position as Sub-Director for the “electronics, land and naval” sectors, he was appointed as general engineer and took over the management of the department in February 2014. Within this framework, he was responsible for monitoring companies in the sector and steering discussions on the strategy of the State as shareholder with the “Agence des Participations de l’Etat” (State Shareholding Agency). He steered the entire industrial policy of the DGA and the State shareholder in the field of defence, to guarantee the sustainability and efficiency of the sector and its ability to deliver equipment with the expected level of excellence. In February 2018, Bertrand Le Meur joined the General Secretariat for Defence and National Security (SGDSN), a department of the Prime Minister, as deputy to the Director of International, Strategic and Technological affairs. He led the strategic analyses in his field of competence, steered the interministerial export control and counter-proliferation mechanism. He also provided interministerial expertise on all industrial and technological issues of interest to defence and security. He is a Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honour and an Officer of the National Order of Merit. Born on 2 May 1965, married and father of 3 children, he is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique (1988) and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Techniques Avancées (1990).

Professor Dr Julian Lindley-French MA (Oxon.), MA (Dist.), PhD.

Educated at the University of Oxford, UEA and at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, Professor Dr Julian Lindley-French has four advanced degrees and has held three professorial chairs. He is a Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow at the National Defense University in Washington; Senior Fellow at the Institute for Statecraft in London; Director of Europa Analytica in the Netherlands; and a Fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and Chair of The Alphen Group, a high-level strategic ‘do-tank’ Thealphengroup.home.blog

In November 2017 he co-published the The Future Tasks of the Adapted Alliance with General John R. Allen, Admiral Giampaolo di Paola and Ambassador Sandy Vershbow. In March 2021 he will publish a major new book for Oxford University entitled Future War and the Defence of Europe with US General (Ret.) John Allen and US LTG (Ret.) Frederick (Ben) Hodges.

David Moran was appointed as COP26 Regional Ambassador of the United Kingdom for Europe, Central Asia, Turkey and Iran in May 2021.
David joined the FCO (now FCDO) in 1985 and has previously served as Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and as Ambassador (non-resident) to Liechtenstein and the Kyrgyz Republic.
He was also posted to Nairobi, Moscow, Paris (at the OECD), Tbilisi and Yerevan (in both cases as Chargé d’Affaires with the personal rank of Ambassador). He has worked in a wide range of policy and other roles in London, including as Head of the FCO’s Global Economic Issues Department and Cabinet Office Deputy Director for Early Warning and Transnational Issues, covering climate change, energy and economics. Before joining the UK Civil Service he worked for the State of Oregon and as a professional blues pianist.

Professor Alex ‘Sandy’ Pentland directs MIT Connection Science, an MIT-wide AI and Data For Good initiative , and previously helped create and direct the MIT Media Lab and the Media Lab Asia in India. He is on the Board of the UN Foundations’ Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, co-led the World Economic Forum discussion in Davos that led to the EU privacy regulation GDPR, and was central in forging the transparency and accountability mechanisms in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. He has received numerous awards and prizes such as the McKinsey Award from Harvard Business Review, the 40th Anniversary of the Internet from DARPA, and the Brandeis Award for work in privacy.

Paul NEMITZ is the Principal Advisor in the Directorate General for Justice and Consumers of the European Commission.
He was appointed in April 2017, following a 6-year appointment as Director for Fundamental Rights and Citizen’s Rights in the same Directorate General.
As Director, Nemitz led the reform of Data Protection legislation in the EU, the negotiations of the EU – US Privacy Shield and the negotiations with major US Internet Companies of the EU Code of Conduct against incitement to violence and hate speech on the Internet.
He is a Member of Commission for Media and Internet Policy of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Berlin and a visiting Professor of Law at the College of Europe in Bruges. Nemitz is also a Member of the Board of the Verein Gegen Vergessen – Für Demokratie e.V., Berlin and a Trustee of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York. He chairs the Board of Trustees of the Arthur Langerman Foundation, Berlin.
Nemitz studied Law at Hamburg University. He passed the state examinations for the judiciary and for a short time was a teaching assistant for Constitutional Law and the Law of the Sea at Hamburg University. He obtained a Master of Comparative Law from George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C., where he was a Fulbright grantee. He also passed the first and second cycle of the Strasbourg Faculty for Comparative Law.
Recent publications: “The Human Imperative – Democracy, Law and Ethics in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”, forthcoming 2021, enhanced translation of “Prinzip Mensch – Demokratie, Recht und Ethik im Zeitalter der Künstlichen Intelligenz, with Matthias Pfeffer, Dietz Verlag, 2020; Critical reflections on Constitutional Democracy in the European Union, S. Garben, I. Govaere and P. Nemitz (Eds.), Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2019.

Thomas E. Patterson is Research Director of The Michael Dukakis Institute for Leadership and Innovation. He is a Professor of Government and the Press of Harvard Kennedy School and has served as the Acting Director of Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy since July 1, 2015. His book, The Vanishing Voter, looks at the causes and consequences of electoral participation. His earlier book on the media’s political role, Out of Order, received the American Political Science Association’s Graber Award as the best book of the decade in political communication. His first book, The Unseeing Eye, was named by the American Association for Public Opinion Research as one of the 50 most influential books on public opinion in the past half century.
He also is author of Mass Media Election and two general American government texts: The American Democracy and We the People. His articles have appeared in Political Communication, Journal of Communication, and other academic journals, as well as in the popular press. His research has been funded by the Ford, Markle, Smith-Richardson, Pew, Knight, Carnegie, and National Science foundation.
Patterson received his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1971.

Janis Sarts is a Director of the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (Riga), – a multinational, cross – sector organisation providing comprehensive analysis, advice and practical support in strategic communications to the Alliance and the allied nations. Prior to that, he has been the State Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, Latvia for seven years, – leading defence sector reforms during an economic crisis period, developing a new state defence concept, and encouraging regional defence cooperation within NATO and the EU. He has also led the Latvian Government’s efforts to increase its security and defence in cyberspace. As Chair of the National Cyber Security Board, he was responsible for formulating and overseeing the implementation of Latvia’s cyber security policy, as well as for overseeing the work of the National Information Technology Security Incident Response Institution – CERT.LV.

30 November 1969 Valga, Estonia
Married, one daughter

Education: Valga Gymnasium (former Secondary School No. 1) 1988; University of Tartu, history 1993; MA in history 1999
Career: newspaper “Postimees”: world news editor 1993–1994, Moscow correspondent 1994–1997, Editor-in-Chief 1997–2000; Baltic Centre for Russian Studies, Director 2000–2003
Party affiliation: Res Publica / Pro Patria and Res Publica Union 2001–2017; Estonian Reform Party 2018–
Membership in representative bodies: 10th Riigikogu (Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee 2003–2005, Deputy Chairman 2005–2007), 11th Riigikogu (Chairman of the European Union Affairs Committee), 12th Riigikogu (Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee), 13th Riigikogu (Chairman of the National Defence Committee 2015–2016, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee 2016–2019); 14th Riigikogu (Deputy Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee 2019–2021, Chairman 2021–); Valga City Council 2002–2003; elected to Viimsi Rural Municipality Council 2005–2013
Awards: Order of the White Star, 4th Class 2006. Commander of the Order of Infante Dom Henrique of the Republic of Portugal 2003; Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Italy 2004; Grand Cross of Commander of the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas 2004; Knight of the National Order of Merit of France 2005; Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland 2009; Commander 1st Class of the Order of the Polar Star of the Kingdom of Sweden 2011; Order of Merit of the Republic of Malta 2012; Order of the Three Stars of Latvia, 3rd Class 2012; Commander, First Class, of the Order of the Lion of Finland 2014; Grand Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau of the Kingdom of the Netherlands 2018; Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary 2018.
Golden Award of the Estonian Ministry of Defence 2004 and Cross of Merit of the Estonian Ministry of Defence, 2nd Class 2016
Other activities: Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Head of Estonian Delegation (2003–2007); NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Head and member of Estonian Delegation (2011–2019); International Centre for Defence Studies, Supervisory Board; Tallinn Rotary Club; reserve officer (Second Lieutenant); Estonian Reserve Officers’ Association; Estonian Defence League, Harju District, supporting member; Books “Venemaa: valguses ja varjus” (“Russia: In Light and Shadows”) 2010, “Murdeajastu” (“Era of Dramatic Changes”) 2018; articles mainly on foreign policy in the Estonian and international press
Hobbies: golf, tennis

Rihards Kols is a Member of the Parliament of the Saeima (the Parliament) of the Republic of Latvia since his re-election in 2018. R.Kols serves as the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Saeima and as the Representative of the Saeima to the OECD.

He is also the Deputy Chairman of the political party ”National Alliance”, guardsman at the National Guard of Republic of Latvia, member of the European Leadership Network and is a Millennium Fellow at Atlantic Council.

Prior to current duties, Mr Kols was the the Deputy Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Saeima, a Member of the European Affairs Committee of the Saeima and a Member of the Parliament. R.Kols also served as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, an international affairs analyst at the Latvian British Chamber of Commerce and an intern at the Royal Institute of International Affairs “Chatham House” at the Russia and Eurasia Programme.

James Heappey was elected as the Member of Parliament for the Wells Constituency in May 2015.  James joined the Ministry of Defence on 16th December 2019, as Minister for Defence Procurement, before being appointed as Minister for the Armed Forces on 13th February 2020.  He had previously served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister.  

Before entering politics, James served in the Army reaching the rank of Major.  In a ten-year career in the Rifles, James served on operations in Kabul in 2005, Northern Ireland in 2006, Basra in 2007 and Sangin in Helmand Province in 2009.  

James lives in Somerset with his wife and their two children.  His focus in Parliament before being appointed a Minister was on all things tech, green and/or disruptive.  He loves sport (mostly from the armchair) but finds time for the occasional game of golf or rugby.

Date of birth   22 July 1971
Place of birth   Vilnius, Lithuania

Education
2013 Doctor of Social Science, Vilnius University
1992–1994 Diploma in International Relations, Institute of International Relations and Political Science, Vilnius University
1989–1995 Master’s in Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, Vilnius University
1989 Sausio 13-osios Secondary School in Vilnius (currently Sausio 13-osios progimnazija (lower secondary school))

Work experience
2015–2016 Lecturer, The General Jonas Žemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania
2015–2016 Ambassador-at-Large for Eastern Neighbourhood, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA)
2011–2015 Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United Mexican States
2010–2015 Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United States of America
2009–2010 Ambassador-at-Large, Coordinator for Lithuanian Presidency of the Community of Democracies, Transatlantic Cooperation and Security Policy Department, MFA
2006–2009 Undersecretary, MFA
2002–2006 Director, European Integration Department; Deputy Chief Negotiator for Lithuania’s Membership of the European Union; MFA
2001–2002 Minister Counsellor, Permanent Mission of Lithuania to the European Communities
1999–2001 Counsellor, Minister Counsellor, Permanent Representation of Lithuania to the European Union in Brussels, Belgium
1993–1999 Third Secretary, West European Division; Director’s Assistant, Political Department; First Secretary, Political Cooperation Division, European Integration Department; Head, Political Cooperation Division, European Integration Department, MFA

Political career
Since 2020
Member, Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats
Member of the 13th Seimas
Member, Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrat Political Group
Chair, Committee on Foreign Affairs
Member, Committee on European Affairs
Deputy Head, Seimas Delegation to the Assembly of Members of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, the Sejm and Senate of the Republic of Poland, and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine

2016–2020
Member of the 12th Seimas
Member, Committee on Foreign Affairs
Member, Deputy Chair, Committee on European Affairs (2019–2020)
Chair, Subcommittee on Transatlantic Relations and Democratic Development, Committee on Foreign Affairs (2016–2019)
Member, Migration Commission
Member, Commission of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and the Lithuanian World Community

Since 1992
Member, Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats

Miscellaneous
Awards: Commemorative Badge for personal service to the course of Lithuania’s Trans-Atlantic integration on the occasion of Lithuania’s invitation to join NATO (2002); Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania (2003); Commemorative Badge of the State Border Guard Service for active cooperation and assistance in strengthening the protection of the state border (2006); Cross of the Knight of the Order of Oranje-Nassau of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (2008); Cross of the Commander of the Order of Leopold II of the Kingdom of Belgium (2009); Cross of the Commander of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (2009); The Mark Palmer Prize for contribution to the development of democracy (2011); Order of Honour of Georgia (2013); award by the Ukrainian National Information Service (UNIS) for support to Ukraine (2014); Žalgiris Medal by the Lithuanian–American Community for sincere and meaningful cooperation (2015); award by the American–Lithuanian Business Council for contribution to the development of business relations with the USA (2015)
Membership: Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union; Knights of Columbus in Lithuania; Editorial Board, Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review by General Jonas Žemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania; Lithuanian Foundation; Lithuanian Ambassadors’ Club
Foreign languages: English, Italian, Russian, French, German
Hobbies: sports (Taekwondo: second degree Black Belt)

Family
Divorced with four sons, Augustas, Dominykas, Simonas, and Vincentas

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Deputy Head of Office of the President of Ukraine, Diplomatic Advisor to the President of Ukraine. Born on the 22nd of October 1979 in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Ihor Zhovkva graduated from the Institute of International Relations of Kyiv Taras Shevchenko National University in 2001 with the degree in International Relations. He held a PhD in Political Science in 2005 and became an Associate Professor in 2014.

In 2002, he started his service as an assistant to the Member of Parliament of Ukraine, Chairman of the Committee on European Integration.

During 2002-2008, Ihor Zhovkva held various positions in the Foreign Policy Department of the Administration of two Presidents of Ukraine.

In 2008, he became Chief of Staff of Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for European Integration.

During 2010-2014, he headed the Department of International Cooperation and Investment Marketing at the State Agency for Foreign Investment of Ukraine.

In 2014, Dr. Zhovkva moved to the Administration of the President of Ukraine to become Director of the Foreign Policy and European Integration Directorate General.

Since September 2019, Dr. Zhovkva serves as Deputy Head of Office of the President of Ukraine.

Fluent in English, Polish and German.

Orysia Lutsevych is Head of the Ukraine Forum and Research Fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House. Orysia’s research focuses on social change and the role of civil society in democratic transition in the post-Soviet region. Her most recent research is about building resilience in Ukraine and safeguarding society from Russian aggression. In 2017 she coordinated and co-authored a major Chatham House report The Struggle for Ukraine, which assessed changes since Euromaidan and provided policy recommendations. She is the author of the Chatham House publications Agents of the Russian World: Proxy Groups in the Contested Neighbourhood (2016); and How to Finish a Revolution: Civil Society and Democracy in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine (2013). Orysia served as a senior regional expert for USAID CSO Sustainability Index (2014-2018).

She also provides consultancy services on programme development and evaluation, citizen engagement and high-impact strategies. She has provided consultation services to the USAID Office for Transition Initiatives in Ukraine, Council of Europe, the European Endowment for Democracy, the UK FCO, USAID, the PACT Foundation and the Open Society Foundations. Her media work includes contributions to the BBC, CNN, the Financial Times, the New York Times and Open Democracy. Before joining Chatham House, she led the start-up of Europe House Georgia and was executive director of the Open Ukraine Foundation. She has a master’s degree in international relations from Lviv State University and a master’s in public administration from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Mark Leonard is co-founder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the first pan-European think tank. His topics of focus include geopolitics and geoeconomics, China, EU politics and institutions. As well as writing and commenting frequently in the media on global affairs, Leonard is the author of best-selling books. His first book, Why Europe will run the 21st Century, was published in 2005 and translated into 19 languages. Leonard’s second book, What does China think? was published in 2008 and translated into 15 languages. He has published an edited volume on Connectivity Wars and in September 2021, his latest book on this topic “The Age of Unpeace. How Connectivity Causes Conflict“ has been released.

Vladimir Kara-Murza is a Russian politician, author, and historian. A longtime colleague of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, he was a candidate for the Russian Parliament and served as deputy leader of the People’s Freedom Party. Leading diplomatic efforts on behalf of the opposition, Kara-Murza played a key role in the adoption of targeted Magnitsky sanctions on Russian human rights violators in the United States, European Union, Canada, and Great Britain. U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called him “one of the most passionate and effective advocates for passage of the Magnitsky Act”; U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) described him as “a courageous advocate for the democratic process and fundamental universal human rights.” Twice, in 2015 and 2017, Kara-Murza was poisoned and left in a coma; a subsequent media investigation by Bellingcat and The Insider has identified officers of Russia’s Federal Security Service who were behind the poisonings.

He is a contributing writer at the Washington Post and hosts a weekly show on Echo of Moscow radio, and has previously worked for the BBC, RTVi, Kommersant, and other media outlets. He has directed three documentary films, They Chose Freedom, Nemtsov, and My Duty to Not Stay Silent; and is the author of Reform or Revolution: The Quest for Responsible Government in the First Russian State Duma and a contributor to several volumes, including Russian Liberalism: Ideas and People, Europe Whole and Free: Vision and Reality, and Boris Nemtsov and Russian Politics: Power and Resistance. Kara-Murza led successful international efforts to commemorate Nemtsov, including with street designations in Washington and Vilnius. He was the founding chairman of the Nemtsov Foundation and served as vice president at Open Russia and the Free Russia Foundation; both organizations were designated as “undesirable” by Vladimir Putin’s government. Kara-Murza is a senior advisor at Human Rights First and a senior fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights; and has been a visiting fellow at the University of Chicago, leading a seminar course on contemporary Russia. He has been profiled on CBS 60 Minutes and NBC Nightly News, and has appeared on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and BBC Newsnight. Kara-Murza is a recipient of several awards, including the Sakharov Prize for Journalism as an Act of Conscience, the Magnitsky Human Rights Award, and the Geneva Summit Courage Award. He holds an M.A. (Cantab.) in History from Cambridge. He is married, with three children.

Joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1979 and retired in 2017.
Served as:

• Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs (2014-2016) with charge of Australasia and the Pacific, South East Asia, the Koreas, GCC, West Asia and North Africa.

Ambassador of India to:

• Italy and San Marino (2016-2017)
• Thailand (2011-2014)
• Sultanate of Oman (2007-2011)
• Poland and Lithuania (2004-2007)

Other assignments abroad:

• Commission of India, Hongkong (1981-1983)
• Embassy of India, Beijing, PRC (1983-1987)
• Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations, Geneva (1989-1993)
• Organization for the prohibition of Chemical Weapons, The Hague (1993-2000). Was in the original group of 20 experts who designed, drafted, set up rules, and recruited for the international organization specializing in chemical industry and destruction of chemical weapons.

In the course of a career of 38 years, in addition to political and strategic affairs, specialized in disarmament and economic relations. Represented India at international conferences, including as leader of senior officials level meetings of ASEAN, ASEM, BIMSTEC, East Asia Summit and Arab League; coordinated evacuation of Indian nationals from conflict zones of Iraq, Libya and Yemen; actively promoted Indian economic interests in areas of trade, investments into and out of India, and technology transfer. Served as Chairman of the Board of the World Food Programme (WFP), and Permanent Representative to the Food And Agriculture Organisation ( FAO) and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), dealing with agricultural finance, development, planning and assistance.

Currently, is partner in an LLP- India Pathfinders Strategic Advisers – which works on investments and acquisitions by foreign companies in India; Distinguished Fellow at the Vivekananda International Foundation; Independent Director on the Corporate Boards of Cosmo Films, Hindustan Sanitaryware & Industries ltd, and Galfar Engineering and Consulting (India) ; serves on two Independent Company Advisory Boards – Heavy Engineering & Buildings and Factories – of Larsen & Toubro; is on the Advisory Boards of India Australia Business & Community Awards, the Newland Global Group (both based in Sydney, Australia), and has led the preparation of India’s Australia Economic Strategy Report, which was released by the Minister for Commerce & Industry and Textiles in November 2020. Also speaks, writes and publishes on foreign policy, strategic issues and international trade and investment trends.

• Married to Ambassador Deepa Gopalan Wadhwa, also a retired diplomat; has two sons.

Contact details: N-35, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110017
Telephone: +91-9910684236 Email: [email protected]

Jānis Garisons is the State Secretary of the Ministry of Defense of Latvia since August 2015. In this capacity, Mr Garisons is overseeing rapid defence budget and capabilities increase to prepare the country for the challenges it faces. In his previous position as the Undersecretary of State – Policy Director in Latvia’s Ministry of Defence, he was the architect and organizer of Latvia’s defence policy, defence planning and international operations’ policy, both nationally, and representing Latvia within the NATO, the European Union, and other international cooperation formats. He joined the Ministry of Defence after an
established career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia, where he served as the Director of the Security Policy Department. In his nine years of foreign service, he was dealing with arms control issues, Russia and CIS, and was posted as the First Secretary at the Embassy of Latvia in Oslo, Norway.

In 1996 he received a Master degree in History from the University of Latvia, and in 2014 he earned his Master degree in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College. In 2007 he received the State Award of Latvia.

Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, Dr., President of Latvia from 1999 to 2007. She served as the President of the World Leadership Alliance/Club de Madrid from 2014 to 2020. She is a Co-chair of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center and a member of the International Programme Board of the Prague European Summit. She was deeply engaged in achieving membership in the European Union and NATO for her country. She was named Special envoy on the reform of the United Nations in 2005 and was an official candidate for the position of Secretary General in 2006. She was vice-chair of the Reflection group on the long-term future of Europe, and chair of the High-level group on freedom and pluralism of media in the EU in 2011-12, as well as a member of two High-level groups on European security and defence in 2015 and of the High-level Team of Advisors to UN ECOSOC on UN development in 2016. Currently a member of the UNESCO high-level group on the Future of Education and the Lancet-Covid 19 international group.

After a distinguished career as Professor of psychology and interdisciplinary scholar at the University of Montreal, she returned to her native country in 1998. Dr. Vīķe-Freiberga is a member, board member or patron of 26 international organisations and five Academies; Honorary Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford University. She has published 16 books and numerous articles in addition to her extensive speaking engagements.
Recipient of many Awards, Orders of Merit and Honorary Doctorates.

Edward Lucas is a writer and consultant specialising in European and transatlantic security. His expertise also includes energy, cyber-security, espionage, information warfare and Russian foreign and security policy.

Formerly a senior editor at The Economist, the world’s foremost newsweekly, he is now a senior fellow (non-resident) at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). He writes a fortnightly column in the London Times.

In 2008 he wrote The New Cold War, a prescient account of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, followed in 2011 by Deception, an investigative account of east-west espionage. His latest print book is Cyberphobia. He has also written two e-books on espionage: The Snowden Operation and Spycraft Rebooted. He has contributed to books on religion, on media ethics and on the significance of Andrei Sakharov’s legacy.

An experienced broadcaster, public speaker, moderator and panelist, Edward Lucas has given public lectures at Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge and other leading universities. He is a regular contributor to the BBC’s Today and Newsnight programmes, and to NPR, CNN and Sky News.

For many years a foreign correspondent, he was based in Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Moscow and the Baltic states. He now lives in London. He concluded his time at The Economist as the editor responsible for the daily news app Espresso. He also wrote obituaries. A weekly syndicated column has appeared in English and other languages since 2005. In 1992 he co-founded an English-language weekly in Tallinn, Estonia: the Baltic Independent.

Toms Rostoks, PhD, is a senior researcher at the Centre for Security and Strategic Research at the Latvian National Defence Academy. He also holds the position of associate professor in international relations at the Department of Political Science, University of Latvia. He earned his PhD in 2008 when defended the doctoral thesis ‘Integration and regionalization in the Baltic Sea region’. In 2001-2002 Toms Rostoks was a visiting researcher at the Northern European Institute at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. In 2006-2007 he was a visiting scholar at the Center for European Studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA. Toms Rostoks has written extensively on Latvia’s foreign and security policy, Latvian-Russian relations, human security, and small states. His current research interests include deterrence, state intentions, Latvia’s decisions regarding conscription vs all-volunteer force, and the relationship between public opinion and foreign policy.

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where she focuses on defence against greyzone threats. She is also a columnist with Foreign Policy, where she writes on national security and the globalised economy.

Before joining AEI, Elisabeth was a senior research fellow at RUSI, whose Modern Deterrence project she led. Prior to that, she worked at Control Risks, a global risk consultancy. Elisabeth is also a member of the steering committee of the Aurora Forum (the UK-Nordic-Baltic leader conference) and a member of the UK National Preparedness Commission.

Elisabeth started her career as a journalist, reporting for Newsweek, the Christian Science Monitor and the international Metro group of newspapers, among others. She regularly writes op-eds, including for the Financial Times, Politico, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (writing in German) and the Wall Street Journal. She is also the author of God’s Spies, about the Stasi (2019) and The Defender’s Dilemma (October 2021).

Elisabeth attended university in Germany, graduating with a Magister Artium in political science and German literature.

Ms. Jessica Cox serves as Director, Nuclear Policy Directorate at NATO HQ in Brussels, Belgium. She provides policy support to the Secretary General and others at NATO HQ on matters related to NATO nuclear deterrence, including in the Secretary General’s role of Chair of the Nuclear Planning Group. The Nuclear Policy Directorate (NPD) organizes the work of the Nuclear Planning Group, develops and implements NATO nuclear policy, and organizes and leads HQ exercises, policy symposiums, and education and training programs. Ms. Cox chairs the Nuclear Planning Group Staff Group.

Prior to her NATO assignment, Ms. Cox was a policy analyst in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). She recently completed two years detailed to the National Security Council (NSC) as the Director for Arms Control, where she led the development of U.S. policy on nuclear and conventional arms control treaties as well as issues associated with US-Russia and US-China strategic stability. As such, she was instrumental in developing a new approach to Russia’s violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, managing implementation of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and restarting bilateral U.S.-Russia Strategic Stability Talks in September 2017.

Prior to joining the NSC, Ms. Cox was Director of Russia Policy and Conventional Arms Control Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy (OSD Policy). She served previously as DoD’s Lead Negotiator for the Treaty on Open Skies, where she was instrumental in negotiating a new framework for certifying and using digital sensors on Open Skies aircraft. Since joining OSD Policy, Ms. Cox has served as the Country Director, Pakistan Policy, with a focus on strategic stability, counter-terrorism and Pakistan-India relations; Country Director, Iran, with a focus on Iran’s nuclear and missile developments; and Policy Analyst, Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, with a focus on countering WMD terrorism. Ms. Cox came to OSD Policy from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), where she was the Deputy Country Manager,
Republic of Georgia for the Biological Threat Reduction Program.

Ms. Cox has been active in both foreign policy and politics, holding such positions as: Client Manager for Grassroots Enterprise, a bi-partisan political consulting firm; Young Professionals Outreach Coordinator, 2004 General Clark for President Campaign; Program Coordinator, International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS); and Research Assistant, Center for International Strategy, Technology, and Policy (CISTP).
Ms. Cox holds a Juris Doctorate degree from Georgetown University Law Center and a Bachelor’s of Science in International Relations from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Ms. Cox entered government as a Presidential Management Fellow.

Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan is cofounder and Director of The Michael Dukakis Institute for Leadership and Innovation (MDI), CEO of The Boston Global Forum (BGF), co-founder of the AIWS City (AIWS.city).

For his AI World Society Initiative and the concepts of AI-Government he developed, Vietnam National Television (VTV) named him Person of The Year 2018.

He is the Founder, CEO, and Editor-in-Chief of VietNamNet, Vietnam’s preeminent online newspaper (1997 -2011). Tuan was the Founder and CEO of VASC Software and Media Company and VietNet, the first Internet service provider based on TCP/IP in Vietnam.

As a Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School in 2007, Tuan researched major trends in the development of electronic media in Vietnam.

Tuan served on the Harvard Business School Global Advisory Board from 2008 to 2016, and Chair of the International Advisory Committee of UNESCO-UCLA Chair on Global Learning and Global Citizenship Education at the University of California Los Angeles.

Tuan created Global Cybersecurity Day, produced the BGF-G7 Summit Initiative, and coauthored the Ethics Code of Conduct for Cyber Peace and Security (ECCC).

In November of 2017, Tuan and Governor Michael Dukakis founded AI World Society (AIWS), and on June 25, 2018, Tuan and Governor Dukakis, Professors Thomas Patterson, Nazli Choucri announced the Concepts of AI-Government. Tuan is co-author of the Social Contract for the AI Age, the editor of the book “Remaking the World – Toward an Age of Global Enlightenment”, co-founder of the AIWS City (AIWS.city).

Martin Kragh is Deputy Director of the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies (SCEEUS) and Senior Research Fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. Kragh’s research interests include Russia’s economy and history, but also the political development in Russia and the former USSR. For more info on publications, please visit www.martinkragh.com or see CV.
Martin Kragh holds a PhD from the Stockholm School of Economics (2009) and is associate professor (docent) at the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University. Kragh is also a member of the board of the Sverker Åström Foundation, and a former member of the board of directors of Transparency International Sweden (2012-2016).

Aleksandra Kuczyńska-Zonik is a Research Fellow at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin and the Head of Baltic Department of the Institute of Central Europe in Lublin, Poland. She is a doctor in political science and doctor in humanities in the field of archeology. She is a laureate of the Mobility Plus program. Research interests: politics and security in East-Central Europe and post-Soviet space, the Baltic states, Russian minority, Soviet heritage.

Kate Hansen Bundt has been Secretary General of the Norwegian Atlantic Committee since 2010. She is a foreign policy analyst with focus on German, European and transatlantic security. She is chair of the board at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, board member of the Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution, member of the CSIS Stuart Center Advisory Council and a council member at Fridtjof Nansen Institute. Bundt has been member of several Government appointed expert committees on security, defence and EU-issues, and is frequently invited by the media to comment on developments in Germany, NATO, and the EU.

Elena Korosteleva is Professor of International Politics and Jean Monnet Chair of European Politics, Director of the Global Europe Centre, University of Kent. Elena is an LSE IDEAS Visiting Professor; an honorary fellow of the European Institute for International Law and International Relations (Paris), and formerly member of the Munich Security Core Group Meeting.

Presently, she is the Principal Investigator of the GCRF UKRI COMPASS project (2017-21, £4 mln) focusing on capacity-building with Azerbaijan, Belarus, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Elena’s research focuses on the concepts of adaptive governance; resilience; democracy promotion and sustainability. Most recent monographs include Resilience in EU and International Institutions (November 2020); The Politics and The Political of the Eastern Partnership Initiative: re-shaping the agenda (2018); The European Union and its Eastern Neighbours: towards a more ambitious partnership? (2014; 2012); and EU Policies in the Eastern Neighbourhood: the practices perspective (2014), all published with Routledge.

Natasha Kassam is Director of the Lowy Institute’s Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program, directing the annual Lowy Institute Poll and researching China’s politics, Taiwan, and Australia-China relations. She is also a Fellow of the ANU National Security College’s Futures Council for 2020-21 and a member of the Advisory Board for the University of Melbourne’s Asian Law Centre. Natasha is a regular contributor to Australian and international media outlets including CNN, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC and the New York Times. Prior to joining the Lowy Institute, Natasha was an Australian diplomat in China and Solomon Islands. She was a part of the drafting team for the Australian government’s 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper. She holds a Bachelor of Laws (Hons I) and a Bachelor of International Studies from the University of Sydney and speaks Mandarin.

Phil Breedlove is a proven strategic planner, a motivational leader and talented communicator. He is a highly decorated retired General of the United States Air Force reaching the pinnacle of the United States Military as one of six geographic Combatant Commanders and Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.

During 39 years of service, he held a variety of demanding command and staff positions. He has led large-scale, diverse, global operations across two theaters of combat. He earned a reputation as an inspirational leader who was focused on his people, their families and mission accomplishment. Leading a diverse political-military alliance he was able to build consensus and form teams to accomplish complex tasks spanning multiple continents

As the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and the Commander of US European Command— in his NATO capacity he answered directly to the North Atlantic Council, and in his US capacity he answered directly to the President of the United States and Secretary of Defense. He led the most comprehensive and strategic structural and policy security changes in the alliance’s 70 year history. His diplomatic skills assured allies, deterred potential aggressors and maintained alliance unity during the most dynamic and challenging period since its inception. He led the forces of 28 nations and multiple partners insuring the security of an alliance accounting for over half the world’s GDP.

As Commander, US Air Forces Europe and Air Forces Africa, he was responsible for organizing, training, equipping and maintaining combat ready forces while ensuring theater air defense forces were ready to meet the challenges of peacetime air sovereignty and wartime defense. This diverse portfolio included both theater and operational air and ballistic missile defense where his operational designs stand guard today.

As Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, he presided over the Air Staff and served as a member of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Requirements Oversight Council and Deputy Advisory Working Group during a period of intense challenge as the Budget Control Act required a $480 billion reduction of the DOD budget. Accordingly, he led the organization, training and equipping of over 690,000 people serving in the United States Air Force and provided oversight of its $120 billion annual budget.

As Assistant Chief of Staff for Air Operations, Plans and Requirements, he directed all Air Force operations across the globe, oversaw strategic and operational planning and set the requirements for all Air Force procurement. Additionally, he was one of two original authors who developed the DOD’s Air-Sea Battle Concept.

He held a variety of additional assignments including command of a squadron, a group, three fighter wings and a Numbered Air Force in service across three different continents. His extensive command and control experience in wartime, contingency and humanitarian relief actions include operations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

He earned his Bachelor of Civil Engineering degree from The Georgia Institute of Technology and a Master of Science in Aerospace Technology from Arizona State University. Additionally, he completed a Masters of International Security Affairs from the National War College, A Fellowship in International Security Affairs, Seminar XXI from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and completed Leadership at the Peak at the Center for Creative Leadership Colorado Springs.

He is currently serving on the Georgia Tech Advisory Board, as a Distinguished Professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech, as the CEO Emerald Coast Strategic Solutions, and on the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council.

Contact Information: 850-660-6599 – [email protected]

András Rácz has been working as Senior Research Fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) in Berlin since 2019. Previously, he was senior research fellow of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs and also a Non-Resident Fellow of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute at the International Centre for Defense and Security. A specialist of Russian and post Soviet security policy, he defended his PhD in Modern History at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest in 2008. He was a member of the European Foreign and Security Policy Studies Programme (EFSPS) of the Volkswagen Foundation, and was Visiting Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy of the German Marshall Fund in Washington D.C. in 2011-2012.

Eoin Micheál McNamara is a PhD researcher at the University of Tartu in Estonia. Between 2013 and 2020 he lectured extensively at Tartu’s Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies. He will join the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) as a visiting research fellow in late-2021. McNamara’s publications have appeared in the NATO Review, the Revue Militaire Suisse, the Defence Forces Review and Irish Studies in International Affairs. In 2020 he was a visiting researcher at the Centre for War Studies (CWS) at the University of Southern Denmark; and in 2019 he was awarded the Think Visegrád Fellowship at the Institute of International Relations (IIR) in Prague, Czech Republic. His commentary on security and defence policy has been quoted in the New York Times, the Irish Times and with the Estonian Public Broadcasting Service (ERR). He holds an MSc in security studies from University College London.

Dr. Florian Hartleb (born 1979 in Passau/Germany) is a political scientist and Managing Director at Hanse Advice in Tallinn, Estonia. He conducts research with a global focus on right-wing and left-wing extremism and terrorism, as well as on digitalisation. In the past, he worked for the German Parliament, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and the Estonian Office for equality. He is currently lecturing at Catholic University Eichstätt and University for Police Saxony-Anhalt and author of various books. In addition, he is a research associate at the Brussels-based Wilfried-Martens-Centre for European Studies.

Recent Publications: Lone Wolves. The New Terrorism of Right-Wing Actors, Springer Nature, Cham/Schweiz u.a., 2020; e Estonia. Europe´s Silicon Valley or a new 1984?, in: Denise Feldner (ed.): Redesigning Institutions: Consequences of and Concepts for the Digital Transformation, Springer Nature: Heidelberg et al. 2020, pp. 215-228; Materalizations of Populism in Today´s politics: Global Perspectives, in: Barbara Christophe/Heike Liebau/Christoph Kohl/Achim Saupe (eds.): The Politics of Authenticity and Populist Discourses, Media and Education in Brazil, India and Ukraine, Reihe: Palgrave Studies in Educational Media, London, Palgrave Macmillan 2021, pp. 31-52; with Hidenori Tsutsumi and Boyu Chen: Digital parties as personalistic-authoritarian business firm models. Is Japan following European trends?, in: Oscar Barberà et al (eds.): Digital Parties. The Challenges of Online Organisation and Participation, Springer Nature: Heidelberg et al. 2021, in print; with Mario Schäfer: Searching for the philosopher´s stone. Counter-Strategies against Populism, in: Michael Oswald (ed.): The Palgrave Handbook of Populism, Palgrave Macmillan: London 2022, in print.

Louis Wierenga is a Junior Research Fellow in Comparative Politics at the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu; Visiting Lecturer in Political Science, University of Latvia; and LATO Project Director for the Riga Conference Future Leaders Forum. He holds an MA from the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs. Prior to entering academia, Louis served for one enlistment in the United States Marine Corps infantry.

Between 2017 and 2021, he has lectured extensively at the University of Tartu, University of Latvia, Baltic Defence College, and Tallinn University of Technology. His research focuses on populism and populist radical right parties in the Baltic states, as well as social media and communication strategies, party structure and ideology, and foreign policy of the far-right.

He has held visiting research positions at The Université libre de Bruxelles; Uppsala University’s Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies; European University Viadrina; and the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Södertörn University. From 2018-2020, he was a Research Fellow for POPREBEL (Populist Rebellion Against Modernity) as part of a Horizon 2020 project, resulting in research published for the European Commission. Louis Wierenga’s publications have appeared in Problems of Post-Communism, Humanities and Social Sciences Latvia, and Polish Political Science Review. Additionally, he has written commentary for Postimees and ERR news in Estonia.

Dr Maria Mälksoo is Senior Researcher at the Centre for Military Studies, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. She received her PhD in International Studies from the University of Cambridge (2008) and has previously worked at the University of Kent, Brussels School of International Studies (2016-2021), University of Tartu (2010-2016), and the ICDS, Tallinn (2007-2010), with stints at the Office of the President of Estonia (2013-2014) and the Estonian Ministry of Defence (2003-2004). She is the author of The Politics of Becoming European: A Study of Polish and Baltic Post-Cold War Security Imaginaries (Routledge, 2010) and a co-author of Remembering Katyn (Polity, 2012). Her articles on European security politics, NATO, deterrence, East European memory wars and memory laws have appeared in various academic journals and edited volumes, most recently in the European Journal of International Relations, Review of International Studies and the Journal of International Relations and Development. She is currently editing the Handbook on the Politics of Memory (Edward Elgar) and leading the Danish team in the Volkswagen Foundation-supported project ‘The Challenge of Populist Memory Politics fo Europe: Towards Effective Responses to Militant Legislation on the Past’ (MEMOCRACY) (2021-2024). Dr Mälksoo is presently serving as the President of the Central and East European International Studies Association (CEEISA) (2019-2022).

Sten Rynning is Professor and Vice Dean for Research at the faculty of business and social sciences, the University of Southern Denmark. He is a non-resident fellow of the NATO Defence College and a senior fellow of the Danish Institute for Advanced Studies.

Sten Rynning’s research focuses on NATO and modern war. He founded the University of Southern Denmark’s Center for War Studies in 2011 and headed it until 2019. He has advised the commission of inquiry into the Danish decisions to enter the wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq (2017-2019) and ambassador Peter Taksøe-Jensen’s official review of Danish Foreign Policy (2015-2016), and her served on the official Norwegian Afghanistan Commission (2015-2016). He is the former president of the Nordic International Studies Association (2011-2015) and currently serves on several boards of academic institutions and journals, including the Danish Institute for International Studies and the editorial board of the European Journal of International Security, International Affairs, the Journal of Strategic Studies, the Journal of Transatlantic Studies, and the Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies. He was a visiting fellow at NATO’s Defence College (NDC), Rome, spring 2012, and has since regularly lectured at the NDC Senior Course as well as at the NDC Generals, Flag Officers and Ambassadors course. In the spring of 2017, he was a scholar in residence at American University’s School of International Service, Washington, D.C.

Sten Rynning is the author of numerous books and articles, including NATO in Afghanistan: The Liberal Disconnect (Stanford University Press 2012), co-author (with Theo Farrell and Terry Terriff) of Transforming Military Power since the Cold War: Britain, France, and the United States, 1991-2012 (Cambridge University Press 2013), editor of South Asia and the Great Powers: International Relations and Regional Security (IB Tauris 2017), and co-editor (with Olivier Schmitt and Amelie Theussen) of War Time: Temporality and the Decline of Western Military Power (Brookings 2021). His article (with Jens Ringsmose), “NATO’s Next Strategic Concept: Prioritise or Perish,” will appear in the fall 2021 issue of Survival.

Dr. Florian Hartleb (born 1979 in Passau/Germany) is a political scientist and Managing Director at Hanse Advice in Tallinn, Estonia. He conducts research with a global focus on right-wing and left-wing extremism and terrorism, as well as on digitalisation. In the past, he worked for the German Parliament, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and the Estonian Office for equality. He is currently lecturing at Catholic University Eichstätt and University for Police Saxony-Anhalt and author of various books. In addition, he is a research associate at the Brussels-based Wilfried-Martens-Centre for European Studies.

Tyyne Karjalainen is a researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA). Her research focuses on European Union foreign and security policy and differentiated integration in the EU. Her publications also cover peace building and crisis management. Before joining FIIA, Karjalainen has worked at the European Union Advisory Mission (EUAM) in Ukraine, the Crisis Management Centre (CMC) Finland, and the Finnish Permanent Representation to the United Nations in New York. Karjalainen is a doctoral student in political science at the University of Turku. She holds a degree from the Master’s Programme in Peace, Mediation and Conflict Research at the University of Tampere.

Zsuzsanna Végh is a research fellow and lecturer at the European University Viadrina in Germany and associate researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations focusing on Hungary. She holds an MA in international relations and European studies from the Central European University and an MA in international studies from the Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary. Her research focuses on the domestic and foreign policy of the Visegrad countries, and radical right parties in Central Europe.​

Dr. Sarai Aharoni is a Sr. Lecturer of the Gender Studies Program at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Her research focuses on Women, Peace and Security (WPS), feminist security studies and histories of women’s policy agencies and feminist movements in Israel. She has published numerous articles on gender, peace and conflict in Israel in various journals, as well as she is a co-editor of the book Where Are All the Women? U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325: Gender Perspectives of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (2004).
In addition to her academic work, Dr. Aharoni is a long-time scholar-activist. She formed the first project on UNSCR 1325 in Israel (2003); was one of the founding members of the IWC (International Women’s Commission) and has been involved in various women’s initiatives to promote peace since then. Dr. Aharoni is also an active member of the Haifa Feminist Institute (HFI), an independent feminist archive, library and research centre that seeks for local feminist voices and histories.

Ionela Maria Ciolan is a Research Fellow in the Europe in the World Programme, European Policy Centre think tank in Brussels. Here, she works mainly on NATO policies, NATO-EU relations, transatlantic relations, climate security, as well as EU Security and Defense Policy.

In addition, Ionela is a 2021 James S. Denton Transatlantic Fellow at Center for European Policy Analysis (Washington D.C.). She previously gained experience as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California-Berkeley, and through her work at CEPA think tank (Washington D.C.), European Parliament (Brussels) and the Centre for EU-Russia Studies, University of Tartu (Estonia).

Apart from her policy and academic work, for 9 years, she was the initiator and coordinator of the human rights activists’ movement of Amnesty International in Romania.

Ionela is a grantee of the OSCE and U.N. Office for Disarmament Affairs Scholarship for Peace and Security (2019), a New Security Leader of the Warsaw Security Forum (2018), and a Professional Fellow of the U.S. Department of State (2015).

James Lamond is the Director of the Democratic Resilience Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). Previously, he was the Managing Director of the Moscow Project and a Resident Fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP), where he covered trans-Atlantic relations, the European Union, U.S.-Russia relations, and countering malign foreign interference. Lamond previously served as the Director of Research and Policy at the National Security Network, where he led a team of analysts examining a wide range of national security and foreign policy issues. He has also worked as a consultant advising major foundations, the United Nations, and Fortune 500 companies.

James is a frequent contributor to both policy journals and popular publications including The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Slate, USA Today, The Daily Beast, Just Security, The National Interest, The Guardian, and Newsweek. James received a bachelor’s degree in history from Rowan University and a Master of Science in global affairs from Rutgers University, where he also received a Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst scholarship for study in Germany.

Kate Clark has worked for AAN since 2010. Her research and publications have focussed on the conflict, including militia formation, investigations into breaches of the Laws of War, detentions and the use of torture. She has also written extensively on Afghanistan’s political economy and its wildlife and the environment. Her background in Afghanistan goes back to the 1990s. She was the only western journalist based in the country when posted there as the BBC correspondent (1999-2002).

After 2002, Kate was based in London, but returned to Afghanistan to make radio and television documentaries about the insurgency, weapons smuggling, the opium economy and war crimes.

Kate has an MA in Middle Eastern Politics from Exeter University in Britain and previously worked in the BBC Arabic Service. She has also lived, studied and worked in the Middle East.

Nick Redman is Oxford Analytica’s Director of Analysis and the Editor in Chief of the Oxford Analytica Daily Brief. He leads the firm’s team of analysts and oversees the global network of 1500 experts, delivering actionable insight and trusted judgements that allow governments and companies to succeed in complex global environments.
Prior to joining Oxford Analytica in 2019, Nick was the Director of Editorial at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, an independent non-partisan think tank focused on questions of international security and geopolitical risk. He was editor of Strategic Survey: The Annual Assessment of Geopolitics, and of the Adelphi monographs, as well as serving in client-facing roles, directing research and delivering briefings and presentations to government and private-sector clients.
From 2002 to 2010 Nick worked at the Economist Intelligence Unit, initially as Senior Editor for Eastern Europe on the ViewsWire service providing political and economic analysis and forecasting, and from 2005 as Editor in Chief of ViewsWire. He redesigned and taught a BA course on security in the former Soviet states at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, in 1998/99, after which he started his career in political and economic analysis at Oxford Analytica. Twenty years on he has returned to lead our team of world-class analysts.
Nick holds a DPhil in International Relations from St Antony’s College, Oxford, an MPhil in International Relations from Queens’ College, Cambridge and a BA (first class) in International Relations and Strategic Studies from Lancaster University.

Erik Brattberg is director of the Europe Program and a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. He is an expert on European politics and security and transatlantic relations. His current research at Carnegie focuses on the U.S. policy toward the EU and NATO, transatlantic cooperation in an age of great power competition, the EU’s approach toward technology, and Europe’s relations with China and Asia.

Pavel Slunkin is a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He works on Belarus-related issues: its domestic and foreign policy, relations with Russia, the European Union, and the United States. His research interests also include the Eastern Partnership region.Prior to joining ECFR he worked at the department of Europe for the foreign ministry of Belarus. Slunkin participated in Minsk talks on Ukraine preparation and worked as political analyst at the embassy of Belarus in Lithuania

Nazli Choucri is a Boston Global Forum board member and Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her work is in the area of international relations, most notably on sources and consequences of international conflict and violence. Professor Choucri is the architect and Director of the Global System for Sustainable Development (GSSD), a multi-lingual web-based knowledge networking system focusing on the multi-dimensionality of sustainability.
As Principal Investigator of an MIT-Harvard multi-year project on Explorations in Cyber International Relations, she directed a multi-disciplinary and multi-method research initiative. She is Editor of the MIT Press Series on Global Environmental Accord and, formerly, General Editor of the International Political Science Review. She also previously served as the Associate Director of MIT’s Technology and Development Program.
The author of eleven books and over 120 articles, Dr. Choucri is a member of the European Academy of Sciences. She has been involved in research or advisory work for national and international agencies, and for a number of countries, notably Algeria, Canada, Colombia, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Japan, Kuwait, Mexico, Pakistan, Qatar, Sudan, Switzerland, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. She served two terms as President of the Scientific Advisory Committee of UNESCO’s Management of Social Transformation (MOST) Program.

Andrew A. Michta holds a Ph.D. in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University. His areas of expertise are international security, NATO, and European politics and security, with a special focus on Central Europe and the Baltic
States. Prior to coming to the Marshall Center he was Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Europe Program) and an affiliate of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University. From 1988-2015 he was the M.W. Buckman Distinguished Professor of International Studies at Rhodes College. From 2013-14, he was a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington, D.C. where he focused on defense programming. From 2011–13, he was a Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS) and the founding director of the GMFUS Warsaw office. From 2009-10, he was a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. He served as Professor of National Security Studies and Director of Studies of the Senior Executive Seminar at the Marshall Center from 2005-09. Previously, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University, a Public Policy Scholar at the Wilson Center, and a Research Associate at the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at the George Washington University.
He is a contributing editor for The American Interest, a non-partisan journal devoted to the broad theme of “America in the world.” He is also a regular contributor Carnegie Europe’s flagship blog “Strategic Europe”, where he writes on transatlantic relations, security and defense issues. His books include The Limits of Alliance: The United States, NATO and the EU in North and Central Europe (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006); America’s New Allies: Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in NATO, editor and contributor, (The University of Washington Press, 1999); The Soldier-Citizen: The Politics of the Polish Army after Communism (St. Martin’s Press, 1997); Polish Foreign Policy Reconsidered: Challenges of Independence (St. Martin’s
Press, 1995), co-author and co-editor w/Ilya Prizel; The Government and Politics of Postcommunist Europe (Praeger Publishers, 1994); Post-Communist Eastern Europe: Crisis and Reform (St. Martin’s Press and Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute, 1992), co-editor and contributor w/Ilya Prizel; East Central Europe After the Warsaw Pact: Security Dilemmas in the 1990s (Greenwood Press, 1992); and Red Eagle: The Army in Polish Politics, 1944-1988 (Hoover Press, 1990).
His most recent book with Paal Hilde, The Future of NATO: Regional Defense and Global Security was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2014.
Dr. Michta is fluent in Polish and Russian and proficient in German and French.

Franak Viačorka is Senior Advisor to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, and a journalist from Belarus. He previously worked as a research media analyst for the US Agency for Global Media as a contractor focusing on Eurasia’s digital markets. His research focused on Russian and Chinese efforts to control the global media space, spread disinformation, and build the sovereign internet infrastructure. He has served as a creative director for the Belarus service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), vice president for the Digital Communication Network, consultant for Freedom House, and the Broadcasting Board of Governors.
Viačorka is a frequent speaker and advocate for democracy and personal freedom. For his activism and journalism work in Belarus, he was jailed multiple times by the Belarusian government. Viačorka’s activism in Belarus has been chronicled by documentary filmmakers and recognized by many international organizations, including the National Endowment for
Democracy, Freedom House, and Open Society Foundations. He was the first Václav Havel Fellow at RFE/RL under Havel’s personal recommendation.
He graduated with an MA from American University in Washington DC and a BA from Warsaw University in Poland. He also studied at Belarus State University, Georgetown University, and European Humanities University.

Jakob Wöllenstein has been the director of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung’s (KAS) office for Belarus based in Vilnius since February, 2019. During his studies of Political Sciences, Theology and European Studies in Marburg, Kraków and Leipzig, he received scholarships from KAS and the German Academic Scholarship foundation (Studienstiftung). In 2015, he started working at KAS’ head office in Berlin as a desk officer for Central and Eastern Europe and later served in a task force at the foundation’s department for strategy. Since August 2020, his expertise on Belarus has been in demand by some of the most prominent German media whereas his unorthodox approach to use music and entertaining video formats as tools for political education have received international attention. He speaks several languages of the region and is a reserve officer of the German Bundeswehr.

James Appathurai was appointed to this post in September 2021. As DASG, he works on policy development and implementation in the fields of Emerging and Disruptive Technologies, cyber security, counter-terrorism, the security implications of climate change, and hybrid defence. Mr. Appathurai previously served as DASG for Political Affairs and Security Policy, as well as Special Representative to Central Asia and the Caucasus. He was NATO’s Spokesperson from 2004 to 2010. He served as Deputy Head and Senior Planning Officer in the Policy Planning and Speechwriting Section of NATO’s Political Affairs Division from 1998 to 2004. He served in the Canadian Defence Department from 1994 to 1998.

John Manza was appointed as Assistant Secretary General for Operations in October 2018. His responsibilities include: NATO’s operations in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Iraq and at sea, and also Alliance, exercises, plans, and defense capacity building with partner nations.
John is a native of Michigan and is one of eight children. He studied international relations at Michigan State University and, upon graduation in 1986, was commissioned as a Marine infantry officer. During his 20 years in the US Marine Corps his duties sent him throughout the globe with multiple tours of duty in Central America, the Pacific Rim and the Middle East.
Upon retirement from the military, he joined the US Department of State and served as the Reconstruction Program Manager on the Italian Provincial Reconstruction Team in Nasiriya, Iraq. Upon his return to the US, he completed his doctoral studies in international relations at Wayne State University in Detroit. His dissertation, “A Critical Analysis of American Post Conflict Reconstruction Efforts in Southern Iraq,” was completed in May 2008.
Immediately upon completion of his graduate studies, he was hired by the Department of Homeland Security as a foreign affairs specialist, where he served as an advisor on Asia-Pacific issues. In 2009, he moved to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he worked as a Country Director in the Afghanistan policy office and later as the Afghanistan Team Leader in the NATO policy office.
From October 2012 to July 2015, John was seconded to NATO where he served as the Deputy NATO Senior Civilian Representative in Afghanistan. While assigned in Kabul, he served on the team that drafted and successfully negotiated the NATO Status of Forces Agreement with Afghanistan. Following his service in Kabul, he returned to the Pentagon, as the Director of NATO Policy.
He left US government service in July 2016 to work on the NATO International Staff, as the Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Operations. From January to March 2017, he served as the NATO Senior Civilian in Iraq, where he coordinated Alliance Training and Capacity Building activities. In October, 2018 he was promoted to his current post.
Outside of work, John keeps busy maintaining and riding his very old British motorcar and his very, very old Harley Davidson motorcycle. While on vacation, John enjoys sailing his old boat.

L. Kojala is Director of the Eastern Europe studies center in Vilnius, Lithuania and Lecturer at the International Relations and Political Science Institute, Vilnius University. He was also a Fulbright Fellow at Davis Center, Harvard University (2017-2018), where he continues to contribute as an Associate at the Negotiation Task Force. He was also a Baltic Sea Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the U.S., in 2020.
L. Kojala is a columnist and a regular political commentator at Lithuanian TV and radio, as well as international outlets (contributions to CNN, European public broadcasters and others). His research interests include foreign affairs, foreign relations of Russia and U.S., European integration, security and NATO studies, information security. His book on Lithuania’s accession to the European Union and current security challenges of Europe was among top-selling books in Lithuania in 2019. Since 2019, he was voted third most influential Lithuanian public figure in a poll by a national media outlet DELFI.

Marian Majer has been serving within the Slovak Ministry of Defence for more than 15 years. In March 2020, he assumed the position of State Secretary of Ministry of Defence of the Slovak Republic after serving as Chief of the Office of the State Secretary. He was strong proponent of participation of the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic to international operations and missions.
Previously, he served as the Director of the Slovak Security Policy Institute (SSPI) and co-founder of CyberSec.sk, the first Slovak web-portal on cyber security. Previously he worked as a Senior Fellow for Security and Defence in other non-governmental think-tanks Central European Policy Institute (CEPI) and Centre for European and North Atlantic Affairs (CENAA) or as a Political Director and Chief Inspector at the Ministry of Defence of the Slovak Republic. He graduated from the Philosophical Faculty of the Comenius University in Bratislava where he was lecturing on the topics of international security.
He has completed numerous courses abroad, such as U.S. State Department´s International Visitor Leadership Program, NATO Defence College´s NATO in Transformation Course, several courses in NATO School, Oberammergau, He is the author and editor of numerous scientific books and other publications in the field of security and defence policy and international relations, published in Slovakia and abroad.
He speaks English and Russian. He is married and has two children.

Roberta N. Haar is Professor of Foreign Policy Analysis and Transatlantic Relations, Maastricht University, and the Research
Director at University College Maastricht. Her most recent publications include the coedited volume The Making of European Security Policy: Between Institutional Dynamics and Global Challenges, which was published in 2021 as part of the Routledge Studies in European Security and Strategy (https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003032335), “Foreign Policy Change from an Advocacy Coalition Framework Perspective,” in International Studies Review, (https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viab044),and “The Failure of Foreign Policy Entrepreneurs in the Trump Administration,” in Politics and Policy (https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12399). She also writes a column entitled Across the Atlantic for the national Dutch magazine EW Magazine (https://www.ewmagazine.nl/auteur/roberta-n-haar/). A full list of publications can be found on her official University profile pages (https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/roberta.haar/research).

Arkady Moshes is Program Director for the EU Eastern Neighborhood and Russia research program at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (Helsinki) and a member of the Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS Eurasia), currently at George Washington University. He received his Ph.D in history of international relations from the Russian Academy of Sciences (1992). Before moving to Finland in 2002, he had been since 1988 working in the Institute of Europe in Moscow.

From 2008 to 2015 he was an associate fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Program at Chatham House. He has authored a large number of academic and analytical publications and is a frequent media commentator. He co-edited What has remained of the USSR: Exploring the erosion of the post-Soviet space (FIIA report 58, 2019) and Russia as a Network State: What Works in Russia When State Institutions Do Not (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), co-authored The Belarusian revolution: sources, interim outcomes, and lessons to be learned (Demokratizatsiya, 2021) and contributed articles to, among others, International Affairs (2012) and Post-Soviet Affairs (2016).

Dr. Ellinor Zeino was Country Director of the Afghanistan Office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Kabul since the end of 2018 and is now Head of the follow-up Southwest Asia Regional Program based in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Previously, she served as Associate Director of a private consulting company for security analysis and consulting on the Middle East & Africa and as Head of the Crisis and Situation Center. She has worked for many years in international cooperation and field research in Morocco, Mauritania, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. Her work in Afghanistan focused on intra-Afghan and regional Track I,5 dialogues and confidence building between conflict parties. She received her PhD from the University of Hamburg and the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies on the topic of Saudi Arabia’s and Iran’s Iraq policy. She holds a master’s degree in political science, law and economics from the University of Passau as well as a specialized language degree in Arabic for lawyers.

Contact: [email protected]
www.linkedin.com/in/ellinorzeino

Tomas holds a BA in political science from the University of Vilnius, an MA in war studies from King’s College London and an MBA degree from the University of Liverpool.

Prior to joining ICDS in the end of 2008, Tomas worked at the Baltic Defence College (BALTDEFCOL), first as Deputy Director of the College’s Institute of Defence Studies in 2001-2004, and later as Dean of the College in 2005-2008. In the latter capacity, he was also the editor of the journal ‘Baltic Security and Defence Review’. At BALTDEFCOL, he lectured and published articles on strategy, military theory, defence policy and civil-military relations. Tomas continues contributing to the College’s mission as its honorary fellow. During 2005-2008, he was also involved, as a lecturer, in the Prometheus Programme of Transition Studies at the Euro-College of the University of Tartu and post-graduate military diplomacy programme at the Lithuanian Military Academy as well as in various projects of the Estonian Academy of Young Scientists (ENTA).

In 1998-2001 and in 2005, he worked at the Defence Policy and Planning Department of the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defence, including the position of the department’s Deputy Director. At the end of 1998 – beginning of 1999, he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Swedish National Defence Establishment (FOA, now FOI).

At ICDS, Tomas deals with various aspects of defence policy and strategy, regional security and defence cooperation in the Baltic area, impact of emerging disruptive technologies on security and defence, energy security and societal resilience. Articles written or co-authored by him appeared in Defence Studies, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review, Austrian Security Strategic Review, Estonian Foreign Policy Yearbook, RUSI Whitehall Papers and Riga Conference Papers as well as in the publications of John Hopkins University, Joint Special Operations University, American Academy in Berlin, Latvian Institute of International Affairs, ARES-Armament Industry European Research Group and NATO Science and Technology Organisation (STO). Since 2017, he also has been a Visiting Professor at the Natolin Campus of the College of Europe in Warsaw, teaching a course on terrorism and hybrid warfare to post-graduate students.

July 2019 –
Permanent Representative of the Republic of Poland to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

November 2015 – July 2019
Deputy Minister – Undersecretary of State Ministry of National Defence of the Republic of Poland

Responsibility areas: Strategy, Defence Policy and Planning (2015-18), International Security Policy, Military Diplomacy: Key projects: Organisation of the NATO Summit in 2016 in Warsaw, Leading the Strategic Defence Review 2016-17, Leading negotiations of the increased US military presence in Poland (2018-19).

October 2015 – July 2019
Member Council of the National Development under the President of the Republic of Poland

April 2013 – November 2015
President National Centre for Strategic Studies

August 2012 – April 2013
Chairman of National Security Expert Team Centrum Analiz Fundacji Republikańskiej – CAFR

January 2009 – August 2012
Policy Adviser – Security & Defense, ECR Group European Parliament

August 2009 – March 2011
Member of the Supervisory Board, temporarily delegated to act as the President and CEO Telewizja Polska S.A.

August 2006 – April 2008
Chairman of the Supervisory Board / Vice-president and CCO Bumar

November 2006 – July 2007
Director of the Secretariat of the Deputy Prime Minister
Chancellery of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland

Since September, 2019 Vygaudas Usackas serves as Member of the Board of Directors at the global multi-service aviation holding Avia Solutions Group.

His latest diplomatic postings include: Ambassador of the European Union to the Russian Federation from September 2013 until October 2017 and European Union Special Representative and Head of the Delegation in Afghanistan from April 2010 till September, 2013.

After obtaining his Law Degree from Vilnius University and completing his post-graduate education in Political Sciences in Denmark and Norway in 1991, he joined the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In his distinguished career in the Foreign Service, he served as Counselor to the Lithuanian Mission to both the EU and NATO from 1992 to 1996; Political Director of the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1996 to 1999; Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania and Chief
Negotiator for Lithuania’s Accession to the European Union from 1999 to 2001; Lithuanian Ambassador to the United States of America and United Mexican States from 2001 to 2006; Ambassador of Lithuania to the Court of St. James from 2006 – 2008; and was Lithuanian Foreign Minister from 2008 to 2010.

He worked as the Director of Institute of Europe at Kaunas Technological University from October 2017 to November 2018. As of July, 2017 ambassador Usackas is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and continues to participate in various Track-2 diplomacy projects related to the West – Russia relations and developments in and around Afghanistan.

During the course of his career, he has received numerous awards such as Order for Merits to Lithuania, Cross of Commander, State awards of Estonia, France, Georgia, Greece, Norway, Poland, Spain and Ukraine; award for merits to the city of Utena and Member of honor of Lithuanian Students’ Union. He was awarded the Honorary Citizenship of his home town Skuodas in 2010 and Ukmerge in 2013. In 2014, Vygaudas Usackas was bestowed an Honorary Doctor’s Degree in Political Science of Vytautas Magnus University of Kaunas. He is also fluent in English and Russian and has a working knowledge of French. Mr Usackas is married and has two children.

Alan Riley is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, Washington DC. He specializes in antitrust, trade and energy law, anti-corruption law and EU security policy issues.
Alan is also a member of the Advisory Committee of the Energy Community, which acts as its judicial panel which has its seat in Vienna. It applies EU energy law under the ECT Treaty to Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and the non-EU Balkan states. He was founding chair of the Competition Law Scholars Forum (clasf) and is co-editor of the Competition Law Review.
From 2007 to 2015, he held a chair in international commercial law at the City Law School, Grays Inn, part of City, University of London. Prior to that, he held a number of academic appointments in London, Nottingham and Edinburgh
He holds a PhD from the Europa Institute, Edinburgh University and qualified in 1991 as an English solicitor.
He is author of “The Potemkin Dragon: China, A Danger to Itself and the World.”

Josef Schroefl, born 1962, started his career in the Austrian Armed Forces (AAF) in 1982 and worked in various areas of the military. Since 2006 he served as SME in the Austrian MoD heading: “Comprehensive Approach”, “Hybrid threats” and “Cyber Security/Cyber Defence”. He represented the AAF and/or Austria Cyber-Security in several intern. Organizations like EDA, EU and the OSCE.
He holds a B.A. in Computer Sciences, a M.A. in Intern. Relations from University of Delaware/US and a PhD in Intern. Politics from University of Vienna. Many publications/books on Asymmetric/Cyber/Hybrid threats, crisis, conflict and warfare. Peer Board member/reviewer from several magazines, f.e. “The Defence Horizon Journal”.
Current position: Deputy Director for CoI Strategy & Defence at the hybrid CoE in Helsinki/Finland.

Marc Lanteigne is an Associate Professor of Political Science at UiT: The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, specialising in China, East Asia, and Polar Regional politics and international relations. He is the author of Chinese Foreign Policy: An Introduction, co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Arctic Security, and has written several books and articles about Chinese and Asian politics and foreign policy, including in regards to Polar diplomacy. He is chief editor of the Arctic news blog Over the Circle, and his current research includes work on the politics of non-Arctic states, including in the Asia-Pacific, within the Arctic policy sphere.

Sarah Kirchberger is the Head of Asia-Pacific Strategy and Security at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University (ISPK). She is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and serves as the Vice President of the German Maritime Institute (DMI). She has previously been an Assistant Professor of Sinology at Hamburg University (2010-2016), a Senior Research Associate at the Ruhr University Bochum (2016-2018), and between 2007-2010 worked as a naval analyst with shipbuilder TKMS.

She is the author of Assessing China’s Naval Power: Technological Innovation, Economic Constraints, and Strategic Implications (Springer, 2015) and the co-author of “The China Plan: A Transatlantic Blueprint for Strategic Competition (Atlantic Council, 2021). Her recent research has focused on emerging technologies in the maritime sphere; military-technological co-operation between China, Russia and Ukraine; China’s defense-industrial development; and the strategic importance of the South China Sea for China’s naval and space strategy. Earlier work includes a study of informal institutions in the Chinese and Taiwanese political systems, as well as an analysis of the perception of Taiwan’s democratic transformation among Mainland Chinese elites. Kirchberger holds a PhD and an MA in Sinology from the University of Hamburg.

Daunis Auers (PhD, London) is a Professor at the University of Latvia, Director of the Certus think tank and President of the US-based Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (AABS). He has been a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California-Berkeley, a Baltic-American Freedom Foundation Scholar at Wayne State University in Detroit and widely published on Baltic politics, populism and the radical right and regional competitiveness.

Mr. Matti Anttonen is the Permanent State Secretary of Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland since 1 March 2018. Before that he served as Ambassador of Finland to Sweden. Prior to his Ambassador position in Stockholm he served as Under-Secretary of State for External Economic Affairs at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2016.

From 2012 to 2013 Mr. Anttonen was Director General of the Department of External Economic Relations.

Much of Mr. Anttonen’s career has been connected with Russia. From 2008 to 2012 he served as Finland’s Ambassador to Russia. From 1994 to 2002 he worked first as Director for Russia and later as Deputy Director General of the Division for Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Anttonen has worked in Finnish diplomatic missions in Washington DC, as Minister and Deputy Head of Mission and at the Permanent Mission of Finland to the UN in Geneva.

Matti Anttonen joined the Ministry in 1986. He holds Master degrees both in economics and in modern history.

Dmitri Teperik has been appointed as Chief Executive of the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS) in 2016.
Mr. Teperik is leading international research projects and outreach activities on informational and psychological resilience as well as investigates population’s receptiveness towards hostile ideologies, harmful influence and toxic propaganda from the standpoint of comprehensive national defence. Among the key topics, he studies contributing factors to national resilience, situational awareness in informational environment and role of social media as well as interdependencies between communication and behaviour. His main focus areas include the Baltic states, Ukraine and some Eastern European countries.
Mr. Teperik holds a MS degree from the University of Tartu, has completed various internships abroad, including Vilnius University and NATO HQ, and has taken part in various professional training courses on security in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia, Belgium, Ukraine, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, the US and Canada as well as NATO and EU. In 2016, Dmitri Teperik was a co-founder of the international training and co-operation platform Resilience League which focuses on empowering young professionals and experts with practical skills and tools for developing cognitive resilience against hostile disinformation, societal polarisation and harmful radicalisation. From 2007-2015, Dmitri Teperik worked at the Estonian Ministry of Defence, where he was in charge of the field of defence-related research, industry and development, serving as Estonian national coordinator at the NATO Science and Technology Organization and promoting Estonia’s role in security-related cooperation projects at the European Commission and the European Defence Agency (EDA).

Lieutenant General (Retired) Ben Hodges holds the Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies at the Center for European Policy Analysis. He joined CEPA in February 2018.
A native of Quincy, Florida, General Hodges graduated from the United States Military Academy in May 1980 and was commissioned in the Infantry.
After his first assignment as an Infantry Lieutenant in Garlstedt, Germany, he commanded Infantry units at the Company, Battalion, and Brigade levels in the 101st Airborne Division, including Command of the First Brigade Combat Team “Bastogne” of the 101st Airborne Division in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (2003-2004). His other operational assignments include Chief of Operations for Multi-National Corps-Iraq in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (2005-2006) and Director of Operations, Regional Command South in Kandahar, Afghanistan (2009-2010).
General Hodges has also served in a variety of Joint and Army Staff positions to include Tactics Instructor; Chief of Plans, 2nd Infantry Division in Korea; Aide-de-Camp to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe; Chief of Staff, XVIII Airborne Corps; Director of the Pakistan Afghanistan Coordination Cell on the Joint Staff; Chief of Legislative Liaison for the United States Army; and Commander, NATO Allied Land Command (İzmir, Turkey). His last military assignment was as Commanding General, United States Army Europe (Wiesbaden, Germany) from 2014 to 2017. He retired from the U.S. Army in January 2018.

llze Znotiņa is Head of Latvia’s Financial Intelligence Unit since 1st June 2018. In July 2019 Mrs Znotiņa was appointed Head of Latvia’s delegation to Moneyval and FATF; under her leadership the country managed to demonstrate establishment of a strong and robust financial crime prevention system.
Prior to joining FIU Latvia, Mrs Znotiņa had a career as a sworn attorney-at-law specialising in dispute resolution. Her main areas of expertise included regulatory issues, insolvency, IP, anti-bribery and anti-money laundering, fraud and white-collar crime.
Mrs Znotina has submitted her doctoral thesis in the Faculty of Law, University of Latvia. She holds a Master degree in International and European Law from Riga Graduate School of Law and a Bachelor degree in Law from the University of Latvia. She is an author of number of publications related to law, fraud and corruption as well as a frequent speaker on these topics.