Category: Invited guests

President of Oesterreichische Nationalbank since 2008. He was Chairman and CEO of Böhler-Uddeholm AG (1991-2010), Deputy Chairman and Senior Executive Vice President of Voest-Alpine Stahl AG (1998-1992), Deputy Chairman and Senior Executive Vice President of Voest-Alpine AG (1986-1988). He started his career as Senior assistant at the Institute for Applied Social and Economic Research (1970-1971). He writes various articles on current economic affairs and financial issues in economic journals He holds a master’s degree in commerce and a doctoral degree in economics from Vienna University of Economics.

President of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice.  She served as President of Ireland (1990-1997) and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997-2002). She is a member of the Elders and the Club of Madrid. In March 2013, she was appointed the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for the Great Lakes region of Africa. She held the position of chair of the Council of Women World Leaders. She was also President and founder of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative (2002-2010) and served as Honorary President of Oxfam International (2002-2012).

First full-time President of the European Council. He was Prime Minister of Belgium in 2009. Prior to this he served as President (Speaker) of the Chamber of Representatives. He has held a number of portfolios in the Belgian Government including Secretary of State for Finance (1988), Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Budget (1993-1999). He also worked as an economist in Belgium’s central bank and served in both the Senate (1988-1995) and the Chamber of Representatives (1995-2009).

Co-Chairman of the Polish-Russian Working Group on Difficult Matters, member of the NATO Group of Experts on new Strategic Concept of Alliance (2009 -2010) and Commissioner of the Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative Commission. He is former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland and Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (1990-2002). He is also a member of many other boards and scientific councils in Poland and abroad, and a professor at Warsaw University. He is the co-author (with A. Torkunov) of White Spots – Black Spots. Difficult Matters in Polish-Russian Relations 1918-2008, published in 2010.

Director of the Institute for Policy and Strategy (IPS) and Chairman of the Herzliya Conference Series. Partner in the global security consultancy firm NETACS and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Afeka School of Engineering. He is a former member of the Advisory Board of the Bank of Israel. He served for more than 30 years in the Israel Defence Forces in a variety of command and staff positions, including Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Chief of the Intelligence Research and Analysis Department of Military Intelligence, Commander of the Liaison Unit in Lebanon and Assistant to the Chief of Staff.

Research Director with independent Munich-based rating agency oekom research since 2003. From 2009 to 2011, she has been participating in the Global Reporting Initiative Oil and Gas Sector Supplement Working Group. Before joining oekom research, she worked in research projects at the Institute of Environmental Technology of the Technical University Berlin, the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin and at a state-run water and wastewater company in Recife, Brazil. She holds a university degree (Diplom-Ingenieur) in environmental engineering. She also studied at the Technical Universities of Hamburg-Harburg and Berlin and the University of Aveiro, Portugal.

Rothschild Group Chairman. He has been in the business for 40 years and has worked in different branches of the family firm. In 1981, Banque Rothschild, the company originally founded by James de Rothschild in 1812 under the name De Rothschild Frères, was nationalised by the French government. A regrouping was led by David de Rothschild and his cousin, and they finally secured the right to operate a new banking business under the family name in 1986. He also sits on the boards of Casino and Compagnie Financière Martin Maurel. He is also President of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah.

Chairman and CEO of Poongsan Group, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of copper products and munitions. He is actively involved in numerous business organizations, most notably as Chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), Chairman of the Korea-U.S. Business Council, Chairman of the Seoul Forum for International Affairs (SFIA) and Chairman of the Korea-France Club. Additionally, he supports a number of philanthropic organizations worldwide. He serves on the Board of Governors of the PGA Tour’s First Tee Program, and is Board Chairman of the Pearl S. Buck Foundation Korea as well as Vice Chairman of the Korea Mecenat Association. He also serves his alma mater Seoul National University as a member of the Advisory Committee at the Institute for Future Strategy.

Executive Chairman for the new Asia-Pacific entity of the Capgemini Group. Former Chairman & CEO of Sogeti and member of Capgemini Group Executive Committee. He joined Cap Sogeti Group in 1978. He served among others as Vice Chief Executive of Capgemini France, Vice Chief Executive Officer of Capgemini America and Deputy Director of Cap Gemini Ernst & Young Group. Since 2009, he has been the Executive Committee’s sponsor for Defense activities in France, acting on behalf of the Capgemini Group. The French Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff appointed him as National Coordinator of the French Cyber Defense Military Reserve in 2012. He graduated from the University Witwatersrand, South Africa and from the Institut des Hautes Etudes de Défense Nationale.

Chairman of Investisseurs et Partenaires (I&P), member of the Académie des technologies and French General Inspector of Finance. Since 2010, he has been committed to social investments in Africa. He served as Director in charge of international development at the Ministry of Cooperation and Development, Vice President of the World Bank for Eastern Asia, and CEO of France’s International Development Agency (AFD) from 2001 to 2010. He has been Director of the board of EIB and Orange, lead director of the Board of Danone, and chaired the Board of Ecobank International. He is a Board member and chairman of the governance committee of Michelin. He is a senior fellow of FERDI, the Fondation pour les études et la recherche sur le développement international, for which he published in 2024 several papers related to global governance, Africa’s economic issues and impact investment. His last book, co-written with Jérémy Hadjenberg, Entreprenante Afrique, dedicated to African entrepreneurship was published in 2017 by Odile Jacob.

Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya. Former executive director of the Atlantic Forum of Israel. As part of his work at the Institute, he heads research programs that focus on Israeli foreign policy and the European Union’s and NATO’s relations with Israel and the Middle East. He teaches International Relations, Government and Security Studies at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at the IDC. His areas of specialization include regional cooperation in the Middle East Basin and in the Asia-Pacific region. He holds an MA (cum laude) in International Relations from the Hebrew University.

Vice-Chairman of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, of the Delegation to the EU-Kazakhstan, EU-Kyrgyzstan and EU-Uzbekistan Parliamentary Cooperation Committees, and for relations with Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Mongolia, of the Delegation for relations with the United States and of the Delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly. He is a Member of the European Parliament since 1996, Vice-Chairman, PSE Group, European Parliament and PSE Group parliamentary manager. He was Vice-President, Interparliamentary delegation for relations with South-East Europe (1997-2004). He studied law and economics.

Member of the board of Carrefour, Club Méditerranée and Planet Finance & Financité and President of Le Riffray. After four years devoted to urban planning and public housing development programmes in several cities in France on behalf of the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (a major French State financial operator), she joined, in 1979, the business world, participating in the management, development and executive direction of her family’s business group. Until January, 2006, she was CEO of Groupe Taittinger and Groupe du Louvre. She also served as CEO and then Chairman of Baccarat. She graduated from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Paris, from HEC (MBA) and Paris 5 University, post graduate degree in sociology, city planning and urban development.

Ambassador of the Republic of Singapore to the French Republic and Portugal. He was the Permanent Representative of Singapore to the United Nations in Geneva (2007-2010) and the Permanent Representative of Singapore to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. He joined the Singapore Civil Service in 1985 and worked in the Ministry of Defence and in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He served as First Secretary in the Singapore Embassy in Paris, as Minister-Counsellor and Deputy Permanent Representative in the Singapore Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. He graduated with a Diplôme d’Ingénieur from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie of Strasbourg, France.

Senior Partner, Co-Head of Global Equity Advisory, Rothschild Paris since 2008. As such he advises listed companies in their strategy as part of mergers and acquisitions, financial solutions and restructuring. Before joining Rothschild, he was a Managing Director at Deutsche Bank, Chairman of Equity Capital Market, Asia Pacific, based in Hong Kong. He joined Deutsche in 1995 as the Head of French Equities in Paris. He became Head of European Equity Sales in 1998, and Head of European Equity in 2000. Prior to joining Deutsche Bank, he was a Managing Director and Head of French Equities for S.G. Warburg Securities in Paris. He also served as a Director at Lazard Frères & Cie in Paris. He received a Master’s degree in Law from the University of Paris and is also a graduate of the Institut d’études politiques de Paris.

Minister of Health, Mexico. He was President of the General Council of the Electoral Institute of the State of Guanajuato, Director of the Academy of Professors and Students of the Medicine Faculty of the University of Guanajuato in which he was also full-time professor. He obtained a medical degree from the Medicine Faculty of the University of Guanajuato, speciality in internal medicine at INNSZ of Mexico, General Surgery at University Paul Sabatier of Toulouse, France.

Professor of Government at Harvard University. He specializes in the politics of international economic relations. He is the author of Currency Politics: The Political Economy of Exchange Rate Policy (2015) and the co-author (with Menzie Chinn) of Lost Decades: The Making of America’s Debt Crisis and the Long Recovery (2012). Jeffry Frieden is also the author of Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century (2007; second edition 2020), of Debt, Development, and Democracy: Modern Political Economy and Latin America, 1965-1985 (1992), of Banking on the World: The Politics of American International Finance (1987), and the co-author or co-editor of over a dozen other books on related topics. His articles on the politics of international economic issues have appeared in a wide variety of scholarly and general-interest publications.

Former Prime Minister, South Korea Republic. He served as Minister of Trade and Industry, Korean Ambassador to the US, Chief of Staff to the President, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was the President of the 56th Session of the UN General Assembly, Chair of the 2009 OECD Ministerial Council Meeting and Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General on Climate Change. He received the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the United Nations in 2001 and was awarded an Honorary Knighthood from HM Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom in 2004.

Special Envoy of the Government of Japan for the Middle East and Europe. Among various positions within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Yutaka Iimura was appointed as the Minister for Political Affairs at the Embassy of Japan to the United States, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Indonesia and to France. He was a Fellow at Harvard University, the Center for International Affairs and a member of thejury of the Ambassadors Award (prix des Ambassadeurs) in France.

American Ambassador to Morocco. He is founding member and President of the Kaplan, Strangis and Kaplan law firm and member of the board of directors of several listed corporations. He served as one of the managers of John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004 and member of Barack Obama’s National Finance Committee. Ambassador Kaplan received business administration and law degree from the University of Minnesota, where he was elected President of the Law Review.

Journalist and a media specialist, he is Editor-in-chief of Revue Economia and Managing Director of the CESEM, HEM’s Research Center (HEM is a leading Moroccan Business School). He leads the Moroccan think tank Collectif Stratégie. He is also a literary critic and a member of many international magazines editorial boards. His novel Ma boîte noire was published by Le Grand Souffle, Paris, and Tarik Editions, Casablanca.

Professor of Philosophy of law at University of São Paulo and President of FAPESP (São Paulo Foundation for the Advancement of Research). He was Minister of Foreign Relations, Minister of Development, Industry and Trade, Ambassador-Permanent Representative of Brazil to the WTO, the UN and the specialized agencies in Geneva. In 2006, he was the Countries and Cultures Chair at the John W. Kluge Center in the Library of Congress, Washington, DC. He holds a PhD at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

Executive Vice President, Sustainable Development and Environment, at Total. She served as Vice President-Exploration in Norway before becoming Total’s Vice President-Geosciences in the United States in 2000. In 2004, she was appointed Vice President-R&D at Total Exploration & Production, responsible for all programmes designed to secure the technologies and capabilities required for future oil and gas exploration, production and development, while addressing the full range of technical, business and environmental issues. Ms. Lepoutre is a graduate of the École nationale supérieure de géologie de Nancy (ENSG) and the École nationale supérieure des pétroles et des moteurs (ENSPM) engineering school.

French Ambassador to the Czech Republic and former Director of the Policy Planning Staff of the Foreign and European Affairs Ministry of France. Former Secretary General of the Commission of the White Paper on France’s Foreign and European Policy, Head of the Service for Common Foreign and Security Policy and Deputy Director of the Cabinet of Pierre Moscovici, Minister for European Affairs. He holds degrees from the Ecole européenne des affaires (ESCP-EAP) and the Institut d’études politiques de Paris. He also graduated from ENA.

Appointed Managing Director of Studies and Documentation (DGED) by HM Mohammed VI, he has been in turn Wali and Managing Director of Foreign Affairs for the Ministry of Internal Affairs. His negotiation skills allowed him to play an active role in the normalization of Spanish-Moroccan relations, mainly through his work on joint measures against illegal emigration and drug traffic.

President of Mercer & Associates, a government and public affairs consulting firm. Previously, he served as the Deputy National Finance Director for the Democratic National Committee and as Finance Director for Operations for the DNC’s 1996 Democratic Convention. He has also held senior roles ranging from strategic communications to convention delegate operations in five presidential campaigns. In the private sector, he worked with Procter & Gamble, Citizens Energy, the Bank of Boston and the Monitor Channel.

Advisor to King Mohammed VI. He previously served as Minister of State to the Prime Minister for Parliamentary Relations in the government of King Mohammed Karim Lamrani III and Policy Officer in the Royal Cabinet. He graduated from the Rabat Faculty of Law and later earned a PhD in Political Science. His books include L’Expérience parlementaire au Maroc (The Parliamentary Experience in Morocco) and Le Régime politique marocain (The Moroccan Parliamentary Regime).

Principal of First Charnock Pty Ltd, Australia. He joined North Broken Hill in 1965, becoming a Director, Marketing and Finance (1971-1976). Hugh is currently Chairman of The Order of Australia Association Foundation Limited, Chairman Emeritus of the Asia Society AustralAsia Centre, President of the National Gallery of Victoria Foundation, Member of the RAND Australia Advisory Council and Chairman of True Gold Consortium Pty Ltd. Previously he was a Member of the Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia (1981-1984 and 1996-2007), Director of the Australian Stock Exchange (1982-1989), Chief Executive Officer of Western Mining Corporation (1990-2003), Member of Foreign Affairs Council, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2002-2008), President of the Business Council of Australia (2003-2005) and Member of the LafargeHolcim International Advisory Board (2001-2017).

Associate Editor and European Economic Columnist of the Financial Times. Together with his wife, the economist Susanne Mundschenk, he runs Euro- intelligence.com, an internet service that provides daily comment and analysis of the euro area, targeted at investors, academic and policy makers. He was one of the founding members of the Financial Times Deutschland where he served as Deputy Editor and then Editor-in-chief. He holds a MA in International Journalism at the City University, London. His book Vorberen, on the financial crisis, has received the prestigious GetAbstract business book award and is now published by McGraw Hill in the US.