Category: Invited guests

Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Korea to the OECD since 2013. Previously, he was Deputy Minister for Trade at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2011-2013). He also served as Ambassador to Poland (2006-2009). He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1980. He has worked, among other assignments, at the Korean Embassy in Washington, D.C. and the Permanent Mission in Geneva. In 2010, he was appointed Chief of Protocol of the Presidential Committee for the G20 Summit in Seoul. He graduated from Seoul National University.

Thomas Bagger has been Ambassador and Director-General for Foreign Affairs at the Office of the President of the Federal Republic of Germany since March 2017. He holds an M.A. in Government & Politics from the University of Maryland at College Park and a doctorate from Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich. He studied at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris in 1988/89. Before Dr. Bagger joined the German Diplomatic Service in 1992, he worked as a research associate at the Institute of International Affairs (SWP) in Ebenhausen / Germany. His postings abroad were Prague (1996-1998), Ankara (2002-2006), and Washington (2006-2009). Prior to his current assignment, Dr. Bagger served as Director of the Foreign minister’s private office (2009-2011) and as Head of Policy Planning (2011-2017) at the German Federal Foreign Office.

Ambassador of Qatar to France since 2003. He is also non-resident Ambassador of Qatar to the Principality of Monaco, to Portugal, to Switzerland and to the Holy See. He served as Head of the Qatari delegation during the France-Qatar strategic dialogue, Director of Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, member of the Qatari delegation at the Annual General Assembly of the United Nations. He graduated in politics from the University of Portland and in international relations from the Institute of International Studies, University of Madrid.

Country Managing Partner of PwC Romania and Managing Partner of PwC for South-Eastern Europe (SEE). He joined PwC upon its incorporation in Romania (1991). Vasile Iuga is a member in a wide range of professional bodies and he was Vice-President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Romania. He is the co-author of the first Romanian book on strategy – Success Formulas for the Next Decade – released in 2011. He graduated from the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, and also attended trainings within Harvard Business School, London Business School, INSEAD and IMD Business School.

State Secretary with the Ministry of Public Finance since May 2012 and Non-Executive Board Member of Banca de Import Export a Romaniei – EximBank SA. He is also lecturing at the National School of Political and Administrative Studies, Bucharest. He received the prestigious “”Virgil Madgearu”” Romanian Academy Award for economics in 2007, for his book “Transnational corporations and global capitalism”. He holds an MBA degree from Stockholm University and a PhD from the Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest. He had a post-doctoral fellowship at the European Commission’s Joint Research Institute in Seville, Spain (2004).

Former President of Notre Europe – Institut Jacques Delors. He was also President of the general assembly of the Santander Totta bank and an associate at the law firm Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira & Associados. He was Minister for Parliamentary Affairs (1983-1985), judge on Portugal’s constitutional court (1989-1994) before being elected MEP (1994). He also served as Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister of Portugal (1995-1997) and European Commissioner for Justice and Internal Affairs (1999-2004). He holds a degree in law from the University of Lisbon and a master’s degree in political science.

Chairwoman of the Rexel Group, one of the global leaders in electrical distribution, and Vice-Chairwoman of SNCF. She previously served as Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Vivendi Universal Publishing, an international group active in video games and publishing, generating nearly €4 billion in revenue. Prior to that, she spent ten years within the Hachette/Lagardère Group and five years at McKinsey & Company. A highly regarded board member, she has served on the boards of numerous major companies, including Groupe Bruxelles Lambert, Proximus, and Darty, and has chaired the Institut Français des Administrateurs. She is also actively involved in several non-profit organizations, notably IDATE and the French-American Foundation. She is a graduate of Sciences Po Paris and holds an MBA from Columbia University.

Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA). She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Åbo Akademi University. Before, she was the Director of the Network of European Studies at the University of Helsinki (2003-2009). She has also served as Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland from 2007 to 2008. Dr Tiilikainen was the Special Representative of the Prime Minister of Finland in the Convention on the Future of Europe in 2002-2003. Currently, she is also Editor-in-Chief of Ulkopolitiikka – the Finnish Journal of Foreign Affairs.

Former Group Managing Director and Chief Executive of Kenya Airways. He joined the Magadi Soda Company in 1979 and became Managing Director in 1995. He served as permanent secretary to the Ministry of Information, Transport and Communications of Kenya and was a member of the Board of Kenya Airways (1999-2001). He is a board member of, among others, Kenya Airways Group of Companies, Maersk Kenya Ltd, and Access Kenya Ltd. He is also Chancellor of South Eastern Kenya University. He graduated from the University of Nairobi and the Harvard Business School.

The Honourable Donald Johnston joined the law firm of Stikeman Elliott in 1961. In 1973, he was a founding partner of Johnston Heenan Blaikie. Elected to the House of Commons, he joined the Cabinet of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1978. From 1980 to 1984, Johnston successively held senior Cabinet positions and served as Minister of Justice and Attorney General. He then served as President of the Liberal Party of Canada from 1990 to 1994. In 1994, Johnston was elected Secretary-General of the OECD. He began his mandate in 1996 and was elected to a second term in 2001. In 2006, Johnston rejoined Heenan Blaikie as a member of the International Business Law Group. He  was Chair and is currently Chair Emeritus to the McCall MacBain Foundation. From 2006 until 2010, he was Chairman of the International Risk Governance Council. He was given the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal and the Canadian Version of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for service to Canada. He was also awarded prestigious decorations from Japan, Belgium, Hungary, Slovakia, France and Canada. He attended McGill University receiving his BA and graduating as the Gold Medallist from the University’s Faculty of Law in 1958.

Executive President of Exim Banca Romaneasca – a new commercial bank, ranking top 8 on the Romanian market, established after the merger of EximBank SA and Banca Romaneasca SA, at the end of 2022. Mr. Halalai acted as Executive President of EximBank SA since November 2012 and he successfully managed the first Romanian merger of a state-owned bank and a commercial-private one, establishing a significant benchmark for the local financial market. He also has extensive experience in top management positions in the Romanian banking sector, being part of the team that founded ING Securities in Romania in 1998. Over the years, Mr. Halalai proved vision and determination in establishing successful formats that supported the effective role of the banks in fostering the dialogue with the local business community, promoting the national economy both in the country and abroad. Mr. Halalai holds a MBA degree from the Doctoral School of Finance and Banking (DOFIN) in Bucharest and completed a specialized fellow training at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Mr. Halalai also developed a teaching career as Associated Professor of Promotion tools and export programs under the Foreign Trade Master Program of the Faculty of International Economic Relations within the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest.

CEO Enel Russia (OGK-5), member of the Sophia Antipolis Fundation Board. He participated in the creation and development as Deputy Director of the Sophia Antipolis science park in Nice. He joined the Schlumberger Group in Russia (1993) as Country Manager for Russia and the countries of the CIS; he stayed in Russia and worked as a consultant and independent member on the boards of leading Russian energy companies. He graduated from La Sorbonne University, Paris, in engineering.

Member of Parliament and Former Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey. He was also a member of the National Security Council. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs (2007-2009). In 2002, he was elected to Parliament and appointed as the Minister of Treasury. In addition to his tenure as Minister of Treasury, he was appointed in 2005 as the first Chief Negotiator for Turkey’s accession negotiations with the European Union. He holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara. He received a MBA in Marketing, Organizational Behavior and International Business from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Former vice-president of the Republic of Iraq. He represented the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) in different countries. He served as Finance Minister in the government of Dr. Iyad Allawi (2004-2005). He was elected as a Representative of the UIA (United Iraqi Alliance) (2005) and he held the position of Vice-President of Iraq (2005-2011). He graduated in Economics from Baghdad University.

Director of the Coordination and Analysis Center for Foreign Policy Researches (KATSVI) in Uzbekistan. Expert in the field of International Relations, specialist in Central Asia. Previously, he worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Institute for Strategic and Regional Studies under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan. He graduated from the Uzbek State University of World Languages in Tashkent (1999), and also from the Toulouse Institute of Political Studies and the Strasbourg Institute of Political Studies.

Former Ambassador of the Republic of Iraq to France (2010-2016) and later to the United States (2016-2022). He was until recently Iraq’s Climate Envoy (2023-2025). He is currently Secretary General of the Iraq Pugwash Association, an international movement of scientists dedicated to nuclear disarmament and international security. He has worked and consulted for various UN agencies and think tanks, including the UN Climate Change Secretariat (UNFCCC). He served as Head of Policy Planning, Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Diplomatic Advisor to Deputy President Adil Abd al-Mahdi. He is a Member of the American Physical Society and of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He was made Commandeur of the Légion d’Honneur (France) in 2016. He was educated in Iraq, Switzerland and the United States. He is a graduate of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Foreign Policy Adviser to the Board of the Federation of Austrian Industries. He worked as a representative of Austria for the UN in New York (1968-1973) and at the Embassy in Cairo. He was an Ambassador in Nairobi and Permanent Representative to the UN-Organizations for Environment and Town Planning. He was Director of Secretariat General in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.  He was Permanent Representative of Austria to the European Union (1999-2007). He graduated from the Universities of Vienna, Grenoble and Cambridge in law, and also from the Collège de Bruges in European law and Economics.

Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Poland to the OECD. He was Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responsible for economic cooperation and development (2009-2010). In 2006, he was entrusted with the position of Minister of Finance. He was also Chief Economist of the Polish Institute of Directors. He advised the Polish government on privatization and capital market development (1992-1995). He graduated from John Carroll University, from Case Western Reserve University. He received a Ph.D. degree from the Systems Research Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

President and co-founder of the Zermatt Summit Foundation, which organizes an annual meeting bringing together CEOs, political leaders and members of the civil society on the subject “humanizing globalization”. He is also President of the Ecophilos Foundation (Switzerland) and the founder and President of the TeroLab Surface Group, based in Lausanne (Switzerland), and one of the leading European companies in the field of surface engineering by thermal spraying. He holds a MBA from New York University.

Founding President of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at Peking University and Professor in the School of International Studies. He has been Peking University Boya Chair Professor since 2017. He is Honorary President of the Chinese Association for American Studies, and was a member of the Foreign Policy Advisory Committee of China’s Foreign Ministry (2008-2016). He taught in Peking University’s Department of International Politics (1983-1991), and then served as Director of the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences until 2005. From 2005 to 2013, he served as dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University. He was concurrently Director of the Institute of International Strategic Studies of the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China (2001- 2009). He was a Global Scholar at Princeton University (2011-2015). He obtained an MA degree from Peking University.

Executive Director of The Better Hong Kong Foundation since 2006. She served as Deputy General Manager of the Chinese Television Network, General Manager of the Hongkong Telecom IMS, Director of Multimedia Services and Director of E-commerce under the Hutchison Whampoa Group. Prior to joining the Foundation, she was the Director of Communications of the University of Hong Kong. She worked for the Tung Chee-Hwa Election Office in 2001 as the Director of Administration Division; and was Deputy Director of the Leung Chun-ying Election Campaign Office in 2012. She holds a B.A. degree in Social Science and a M.A. degree in Public Administration.

President of Grampet Group, the most important Central and East-European actor in the field of railway transport and logistics services. He established Grampet Group in 2000. In September 2012, he was appointed President of the Romania-Kazakhstan Business Council. He started business in 1990, when he opened his first company. Since 1990 until now he held only top management positions, being responsible for the strategic development of his company. He graduated from the Polytechnic University of Bucharest and the National Defense College, Carol I National Defense University also in Bucharest and the Europe of Tomorrow Academic Society.

President of Club România. He started his career in journalism in 1990 as editor of the Tineretul Liber newspaper. He then worked as a press correspondent for a Romanian newspaper and TV channel, in Hungary and Republic of Moldova. He then became Personal Advisor for the Secretary of State for the Romanians Abroad (2000) and for the Minister of Tourism (2001-2003). He was Under Secretary of State for Foreign Trade (2009). He is a member of Chatham House, London, and also a member of the Aspen Institute Romania. He graduated in Journalism and Communication Sciences.

Ambassador of India to France. He joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1976. He served as India’s Ambassador to Nepal and Afghanistan and Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. He also served as Deputy Chief of Mission in the Embassy of India in Washington. Among his other assignments abroad, he has been First Secretary and Counsellor in India’s High Commission in Islamabad and First Secretary in the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations Offices in Geneva. He was also Joint Secretary heading the Disarmament and International Security Affairs Division in the Ministry of External Affairs.