Category: Invited guests

Former Prime minister of Ukraine and President of the Ukranian Parliament.

Former President of the Republic of Serbia. Psychologist by profession, he is a leader of the Democratic Party (Serbia). He was elected to a four-year term on June 27, 2004 and re-elected for a de facto second four-year term on February 3, 2008. Prior to Presidency, he served as the last Minister of Telecommunications of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and as the first Minister of Defence of Serbia and Montenegro. He graduated from the University of Belgrade University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy with a degree in psychology, specifically Social psychology (psychology) in the department of Clinical psychology.

Former President of the Republic of Senegal

Israeli political scientist. Professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Recurring Visiting Professor at the European University in Budapest. He served as Director-General of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and was Visiting Professor in various universities. Prize: Tense Award for the Study of Zionism and the Israel Prize, the country’s highest civilian decoration.

Indian civil servant and diplomat. Chairman of India’s National Security Board and Chairman of the Delhi Policy Group, an independent think tank. He is the former Indian Ambassador to Pakistan, China and the United States and the former Secretary to the Government of India. From 1995 to 2000 he was a Senior International Advisor at Merrill Lynch in New York.

Danish politician. Deputy Permanent Secretary in the department of International Policy and Climate Change in the Danish Ministry of Climate and Energy. He is leading official appointed by the Danish Government for the preparations of the COP 15 in Copenhagen 2009. He is EU’s Lead Negotiator for the post 2012 negotiations. He has previously worked as OECD energy consultant in Paris.

Algerian diplomat, jurist and politician. Senior Minister for Foreign Affairs of Algeria; President of the Constitutional Council of Algeria; Judge and President of the International Court of Justice; Ambassador of Algeria to United Nations New York; Ambassador to France and to UNESCO; Minister of Justice, Keeper of the Seals; Secretary General of the Government.

Indian specialist on international security and arm control issues. Professor of Strategic Studies at the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research, a private think-tank. He was a Member of the Policy Advisory Group headed by the Foreign Minister of India, and an adviser to National Security Council, as convener of the External Security Group and member of the Nuclear Doctrine Group.

French relief worker. Former Executive Director of ACF (Action contre la Faim, “Action against Hunger”), an international NGO. In ACF, he has been Financial Director, then member of the organization’s Board of Trustees, then Vice President, and lastly, Deputy Executive Director at the Executive Board. He held from the position of Financial Director of UCPA and of General Secretary of IFAS.

Specialist of criminal finance. Independent Consultant and Director of C3COM, a consultancy firm addressing non-military threats. She has worked as an investment banker before joining the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime. She also teaches criminal finance at the Research Department on Contemporary Criminal Threats (Institute of Criminology – Paris-II).

Member of the Center for Higher European Studies (National Institute for Public Service, former ENA) and senior counsel on studies at MEDEF (Network of French entrepreneurs). He was French Ambassador to Latvia (2002-2006), after having served as an Advisor on politico-strategic affairs to the French Foreign Minister (1997-2002), Special Envoy to the Balkans and the Caucasus (1999) and Ambassador at large on European affairs (2006-2007). He also served as Director of the Policy planning staff of the French Foreign Ministry (1999-2002). From 2010 to 2013, he was Director of Studies and Research of the Institute of Higher National Defence Studies (IHEDN). He is a regular contributor to Ramses Report and the quarterly Politique Etrangère (IFRI).

Head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR). Former Secretary General of CARE International, one of the world’s largest humanitarian NGOs, with over 15,000 employees operating in over 60 countries. He was previously Chief Executive of CARE Australia, Assistant Director General of the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), and a Research Fellow at the University of California.

Expert on the economy of the former Soviet Union. Professor of Russian Economics, Emeritus at Wellesley College. Senior Scholar at the Davis Centre for Russian Studies at Harvard University where he was the Associate Director. He has been a consultant to the State Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Council on Environmental Quality and numerous corporations.

French diplomat. Member of the United Nation’s Secretary-Generals Advisory Board on disarmament matters and high-ranking adviser at the French Audit Office. Former Under Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations at the UN. High functions at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at the French Embassy in the US. Ambassador to the Western European Union.

Greek economist. Professor at the Department of Banking and Financial Management, University of Piraeus, Greece. Chief economist at the Eurobank EFG and Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research, London. He was Director of the Economic Office of the Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis and Research Adviser and Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, USA.

American political scientist. Distinguished Scholar at the CSIS after beeing Director of the “Islam” Programme. Visiting professor of Islamic Studies at the Georgetown University. She was Head of the Mediterranean program at the Centre For European Policy Studies, Brussels (1994-1998).

German diplomat. Chairman of the Munich Security Conference (Wehrkunde). Also Global Head of Government Relations, Allianz SE. He was German Ambassador to the Court of St. James’ (United Kingdom) and to the USA. He was the EU’s Representative in the Troika negotiations on the future of Kosovo and State Secretary at the German Foreign Office.

President of the Russian International Affairs Council since 2011. Professor at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) since 2007. Previously he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs, from 1998 to 2004, and as Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, from 2004 to 2007. Minister Ivanov holds the diplomatic rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. He represented the USSR and then Russia as Ambassador to Spain. He has also worked as a researcher at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Academy of Sciences of USSR. He graduated from the Maurice Thorez Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages, has a Ph.D. in history, and is a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Honorary Chairman of the Presidium of the non-governmental Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. Russian foreign and economic affairs specialist. He is a Member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. Founder and former Deputy Director of the Institute of Europe of the Academy of Sciences of USSR/Russia (1989-2010). He has been Dean of the School of International Economics and Foreign Affairs of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (NRU HSE) since 2006. He was a Member of High Level Panel of Eminent Persons on European Security as a Common Project (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) (2014-2015). He graduated from the Department of Economics of the Moscow State University.

Co-founder and Executive Director of the Arab Reform Initiative since 2005. She served as senior adviser on international cooperation at the French National Research Council (2007-2009). She was Senior Program Officer for Governance and International Cooperation at the Ford Foundation office for the Middle East and North Africa in Cairo (1998-2005). In 2011, she was Head of Foreign Relations and spokesperson with the Syrian National Council. In 2016, she joined the delegation of the democratic opposition in the Geneva peace talks on Syria. She serves on the advisory Board of the European Council on Foreign Relations. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Sciences-Po, Paris.

Leroy B. Williams Research Professor of History and Political Science, Harvard University. He was Director of the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, and Chair of the Government Department. He was the founding editor of “The China Quarterly”, and has been a fellow at Columbia University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Royal Institute for International Affairs. In previous personae, he has been a journalist, a TV commentator, and a Member of Parliament. His most recent books are Mao’s Last Revolution (jointly-authored; Harvard, 2006) and The Politics of China: Sixty Years of the People’s Republic of China (editor; Cambridge, 2011).

Chairman of the High Level Group on Own Resources, European Commission. Former Prime Minister of Italy and President of Bocconi University, Milan. He was also for ten years a member of the European Commission, in charge of the Internal market, Financial services and Tax policy (1995-1999), then of Competition (1999-2004). In addition to a number of high-profile cases (e.g. GE/Honeywell, Microsoft, the German Landesbanken), he introduced radical modernization reforms of EU antitrust and merger control and led, with the US authorities, the creation of the International Competition Network (ICN). Prior to joining the European Commission, he had been professor of economics and rector at Bocconi. He graduated from Bocconi University and pursued graduate studies at Yale University.

Palestinian academic. Professor of Islamic Philosophy, President, Al-Quds University. Chair in “Freedom of Expression” at the UNESCO. Former Co-Chairman, Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization (IPSO) and PLO representative in Jerusalem. Previously, Fellow at Harvard University, and Assistant Professor, Philosophy Cultural Studies, at Birzeit University.

Senior Distinguished Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). He is a former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations (January 2021 to March 2024), serving as Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) for Sudan and Head of the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS) from 2021 to 2023. Prior to this, from October 2005 to September 2020, Volker Perthes was Executive Chairman and Director of SWP (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik), the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. In 2015-2016, he also served as UN Assistant Secretary-General and Senior Advisor to the UN Special Envoy for Syria; from 2016 to 2018 he chaired the Ceasefire Task Force (CTF) for Syria on behalf of the UN. Volker Perthes earned his doctoral degree in 1990 from the University of Duisburg. He was an assistant professor at the American University of Beirut from 1991 to 1993 and has been teaching International Relations at Humboldt University Berlin and other schools.

Senior Fellow at Bruegel and Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa Chair at the European University Institute. He is also Professor at Hertie School of Governance (Berlin) and at Sciences Po Paris. Previously, he served as French Commissioner General for Policy Planning (2013-2016), Director of Bruegel, the Brussels-based economic think tank (2005-2013), Deputy Chairman of the French Economic Analysis Council (2001-2002), Senior Economic Advisor to the French Minister of Finance (1997-2000), Director of CEPII, the French institute for international economics (1992-1997). He is an engineer from the École supérieure d’électricité, Paris. He also holds a Master’s degree in mathematics and an advanced degree in economics from the Centre d’études des programmes économiques (CEPE, Paris). In the first half of 2017, he contributed to the campaign of Emmanuel Macron as Director of the Program and Ideas Division.

French political scientist. CNRS Senior Fellow at the Centre for Indian and South Asian Studies (CEIAS), at the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS Paris). He works on the internal dynamics of change in India and India-Pakistan relations. Professor at the EHESS and at the French Institute of Geopolitics of Paris-VIII. Founder of the French journal Transcontinentales.

German political scientist, specialist of China and of International Relations in Asia-Pacific. Otto-Wolff-Director of the Research Institute of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). He held a position as Professor for International Relations in Mainz, and at Free University Berlin. He served as Dean of the Faculty for Political and Social Sciences at Free University.

Japanese politician and diplomat. President of the Japan Institute of International Affairs in Tokyo. Member of the National Public Safety Commission. Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations. Ambassador of Japan to the Netherlands and to Australia. He was Private Secretary to Foreign Minister Sunao Sonoda and Research Associate at the IISS.

American nonfiction writer and a journalist specializing in the Middle East policy towards Israel. President of the “U.S./Middle East Project” (USMEP), established by the think tank Council on Foreign Relations. Research Professor at the “Sir Joseph Hotung Middle East” program of the University of London. Former Executive Director of the American Jewish Congress.

Russian scholar and diplomat, expert on Russian foreign policy and Asia-Pacific region. Rector of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-University), Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Professor Torkunov holds positions of the Chairman of the UN Association of Russia, President of the Russian International Studies Association, Member of the Academic Council of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, co-Chairman of the Russian-Polish Group on Difficult Matters (2007-2016). He is Chairman of Moscow Region Civic Chamber, co-President of the Russian Historical Society, co-Chairman of the Committee on difficult issues in the history of Russian-Japanese relations, co-President of the Russian-French Civil Societies Forum “Trianon Dialogue”.