Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy, Abu Dhabi

With expertise on Gulf-Asia relations, Dr Janardhan is also a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute, Washington, and the Great Game Lab, Arizona State University, and a co-facilitator of Track II and Track 1.5 diplomatic initiatives. A PhD from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, he is the author of six books. Two of these, published in 2026, are: Workarounding and Global Gulf.

He has 40 years of experience in the safety analysis of nuclear facilities. His main area of expertise is probabilistic safety assessment. He has mostly been dealing with safety analysis of pressurized water reactors and new reactor types. His activities also include the development of methods and tools to support risk-informed decision-making. His latest areas of interest are safety analysis of external events, multi-unit reactor sites, small modular reactors, and the application of probabilistic safety assessment over the entire life cycle of a nuclear facility. He has received several awards in recognition of his professional work.
 

Robert Benson, D.Phil., serves as Associate Director for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress, where he focuses on transatlantic security, European defense, Ukraine, democratic resilience, and the future of U.S.-Europe relations. Before joining American Progress, he worked at the OECD in Paris and the Social Science Center in Berlin.

Mark seeks to capitalize on a series of networks he developed while based in London for 20 years and more recently in Washington, D.C.  He convenes and connects constituencies and positions himself as a thought leader on political and geopolitical developments and trends, focusing on identifying solutions to safeguard civil society and strengthen the resilience of democracy and the rule of law; countering disinformation and other forms of information manipulation; promoting sub-national diplomacy and governance solutions; and supporting initiatives at the intersection of technology, democracy, and civil engagement.

Krzysztof Bledowski is the Visiting Adjunct Professor of economics and finance at the Rzeszów University of Information Technology and Management (WSiZ). He is also the Treasurer and Executive Committee member of the Board of Trustees of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America. His 30+ years of experience span transition economics, finance, and industrial policy. Dr. Bledowski’s prior appointments included work at the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation, the International Monetary Fund, the Pioneer Funds, and others.

Previously, he worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the European Parliament, and the European Commission, and later co-founded the Policy Solutions political research institute. He is the co-author of the books Hungary 2030 – A Vision for Hungarians and The Hungary Handbook – 33 Solutions to 33 Problems. He is a frequent guest on policy analysis TV-programs and has given hundreds of interviews to Hungarian and international media outlets, including the BBC, The Economist, and the Financial Times. He has been serving as the executive director of the Equilibrium Institute since its foundation, where, in addition to the operational management of the think tank’s work, he has participated in drafting dozens of policy proposals and frequently writes op-eds for leading Hungarian media outlets.

Matt Boyse is a Senior Fellow with Hudson Institute in Washington, DC.  He is also a Lecturer at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and George Washington University.  A former U.S. Senior Foreign Service Officer, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs during the first Trump Administration, where he oversaw U.S. policy toward Central Europe and the Office of the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues and served as Sherpa for the Three Seas Initiative.  He also was Chargé d’Affaires in Switzerland, Finland, Romania, and at the U.S. Mission to NATO. 

Dóra Csernus is the director of climate, energy, and environment policies at the Equilibrium Institute. As an expert in environmental issues, she has worked for the Ministry of Environment and Water, the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations, and the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice, representing the Hungarian position in different EU, UN, and OECD fora. She later worked as Director for International Policy Development at Klímapolitika Research and Consultancy Ltd, and as an independent expert in climate and environmental issues. Her main focus is on climate policy, air-quality control, and water policy.

Tamás Csiki Varga (PhD) is a senior research fellow at the John Lukacs Institute for Strategy and Politics of Ludovika University of Public Service (Budapest, Hungary), and academic relations manager at Defense Innovation Research Institute (Budapest, Hungary). He is a graduate of Zrínyi Miklós National Defense University and Central European University, and earned his PhD in military sciences in 2018. He has been conducting security and defense policy analysis for the past 17 years. His research focuses on European security and defense, encompassing NATO and U.S. grand strategy, the defense policy of individual European countries (e.g., Germany), Central European defense cooperation, as well as Hungarian security and defense policy. At the strategic level, he was a participant in formulating national security and defense strategies, as well as contributing to various strategic foresight analysis processes for Hungary and NATO. In 2026, his research focus is on European defense industrial cooperation.  

Elias Dahrouge is a researcher, consultant, and lecturer in international relations and public policy. He specializes in refugees, displaced, and stateless populations in the MENA region, with a particular focus on Lebanon. He serves as the Lead Researcher of the Mobility Rights Unit at the Arab Master in Democracy and Human Rights (ArMA) program at Saint Joseph University of Beirut’s (USJ) Institute of Political Science (ISP). He is also a Research Lead at Khayrion, a consulting firm operating in Central Europe that focuses on the MENA region. He holds a PhD from Corvinus University of Budapest, where his dissertation explored the impact of Syrian refugees on the construction of Lebanese state identity.

Jill Dougherty is an expert on Russia and the region.

She served as CNN's Moscow Bureau Chief for almost a decade. Other postings include: White House correspondent; Foreign Affairs Correspondent covering the U.S. State Department; U.S. Affairs Editor; and Managing Editor, CNN International, Asia-Pacific, based in Hong Kong.

She is currently a CNN on-air Contributor, commenting on Russia-related issues; an Affiliated Scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies; a Distinguished Fellow at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; and a Fellow at the Kennan Institute. She has pursued research on Russia and the media as a fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government; at the Woodrow Wilson Center; and at the International Centre for Defence and Security in Tallinn, Estonia.

She is the author of My Russia: What I Saw from the Kremlin, a book about her decades-long experiences in Russia and the region. Her articles, book reviews, and commentary have appeared in theatlantic.com; politico.com; wilsonquarterly.com; washingtonpost.com; cnn.com, and other publications.

She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the World Affairs Council.

Taras Dumych is Managing Partner of Wolf Theiss office in Ukraine and a Board Member and Chairman of the Legal Committee of the Ukrainian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association. He has nearly 25 years of experience in advising investors on M&A, corporate governance, energy, private equity, and venture capital in Ukraine and internationally. Taras holds an LL.M. with Merit from London Guildhall University and a joint Master's degree in Global Management (American University Kyiv/Arizona State University), and before entering legal practice, worked in academia and parliament.

Carrie Filipetti currently serves as the Executive Director of the Vandenberg Coalition and a Wilson Center Distinguished Fellow. Before this role, Carrie served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Cuba and Venezuela in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs and the Deputy Special Representative for Venezuela at the U.S. Department of State, for which she received a Superior Honor Award. From 2019-2020, Carrie also served as the Senior Advisor to the Havana Incidents Task Force, where she was responsible for coordinating an interagency effort to address the causes of unexplained health incidents affecting U.S. personnel and identifying proper long-term care mechanisms. Before these roles, Carrie served as a Senior Policy Advisor for the United States Mission to the United Nations (USUN), where she advised U.S. Ambassador Nikki R. Haley on issues related to counterterrorism, the Middle East, and the Western Hemisphere.

Carrie began her career spending five years at a private family foundation, where she served as Director of Portfolio Management. In this capacity, Carrie helped oversee the foundation’s transition from a relationship-driven organization to a national leader in strategic philanthropy. Also in her capacity as Director of the Foundation, Carrie served as a Senior Advisor and co-founder of Start-Up Nation Central. This Tel-Aviv-based nonprofit seeks to connect the world with Israeli innovation.
Carrie graduated with a degree in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia as both a Jefferson and Echols scholar.

In her spare time, Carrie volunteers as an EMT at a local Fire Department and serves on the board of Fired Up to Help, a local non-profit that provides hot meals to first responders in the aftermath of natural and man-made disasters. She also serves on the Board of the National Endowment for Democracy.

Jörn Fleck serves as senior director with the Europe Center at the Atlantic Council with primary responsibility for the center’s European Union (EU) efforts, programming related to Western Europe, Brexit, and US-EU trade relations. Jörn also leads outreach to US and European legislators as well as the Council’s Transatlantic Digital Project, which seeks to promote closer US-EU cooperation on digital policy matters.

Jörn previously was director at the Transatlantic Policy Network (TPN) and helped to launch TPN’s annual signature event, Transatlantic Week, which has become a major event in the transatlantic calendar. He continues to support TPN programming and promotes cooperation between both organizations.

Before joining TPN, Jörn was chief of staff for a British member of the European Parliament (MEP). In this role, he worked extensively on US-EU relations, trade policy, and EU foreign and security policy. Jörn further served as the staff lead for the MEP’s rapporteurship for the 2007 EU general budget.

Jörn holds an MA in international commerce and policy from the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University and a BA in politics and international relations with first-class honors from the University of Kent at Canterbury in the United Kingdom. Jörn is a German national.

In the course of his forty-year Foreign Service career, Ambassador Fried played a key role in designing and implementing American policy in Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union.  As Special Assistant and NSC Senior Director for Presidents Clinton and Bush, Ambassador to Poland, and Assistant Secretary of State for Europe (2005-09), Ambassador Fried helped craft the policy of NATO enlargement to Central European nations and, in parallel, NATO-Russia relations, thus advancing the goal of Europe whole, free, and at peace.  During those years, the West’s community of democracy and security grew in Europe.  Ambassador Fried helped lead the West’s response to Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine starting in 2014:  as State Department Coordinator for Sanctions Policy, he crafted U.S. sanctions against Russia, the largest U.S. sanctions program to date, and negotiated the imposition of similar sanctions by Europe, Canada, Japan, and Australia.  

Ambassador Fried became one of the U.S. government’s foremost experts on Central and Eastern Europe and Russia.  While a student, he lived in Moscow, majored in Soviet Studies and History at Cornell University (BA magna cum laude 1975), and received an MA from Columbia’s Russian Institute and School of International Affairs in 1977.  He joined the U.S. Foreign Service later that year, serving overseas in Leningrad (Human Rights, Baltic affairs, and Consular Officer), Belgrade (Political Officer), and in the Office of Soviet Affairs in the State Department. 

As Polish Desk Officer in the late 1980s, Fried was one of the first in Washington to recognize the impending collapse of Communism in Poland, and helped develop the immediate response of the George H.W. Bush Administration to these developments.  As Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw (1990-93), Fried witnessed Poland’s difficult but ultimately successful free market, democratic transformation, working with successive Polish governments.

Ambassador Fried also served as the State Department’s first Special Envoy for the Closure of the Guantanamo (GTMO) Detainee Facility.  He established procedures for the transfer of individual detainees and negotiated the transfers of 70 detainees to 20 countries, with improved security outcomes.   

Ambassador Fried is currently a Weiser Family Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council. He is also on the Board of Directors of the National Endowment for Democracy and a Visiting Professor at Warsaw University.

Dan Fried has been married to Olga Karpiw since 1979; they have two children (Hannah and Sophie), and are the besotted grandparents of Ava Helen and Zora Fried Hanley. 

Hessam Habibi Doroh is the author of Sunni Communities in the Islamic Republic of Iran (Brill 2023) and has extensive teaching and research experience in the field of international relations and ethno-religious minorities, with a focus on Iran. He read South Asian Studies at Vienna University and International Relations at Krems Danube University.

He finished his doctoral project at the University of Public Service in Budapest, examining the politics of borders and border areas in Iran. Since September 2025, he has served as a researcher at the Institute for Peace Support and Conflict Management at the National Defence Academy.

Sebastian Hartmann has served as the Parliamentary State Secretary at the Ministry of Defence of Germany since 2025.He has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2013 and has held several roles in the Social Democratic Party (SPD): Member of the Parliamentary Control Panel and the Committee for Electoral Reform (Chairman of the SPD Parliamentary Group, 2022-25), Chairman of the SPD Parliamentary Group on Internal Affairs (2021-25), Member of the Committee on Internal Affairs (2016-25) and Member of the Committee on Transport and Digital Infrastructure (2013-18).Since 2019 he is a Member of the Franco-German Parliamentary Assembly and in 2024, he started his career as a Reserve Officer Candidate in the Bundeswehr.Sebastian Hartmann is from North Rhine-Westphalia, where he also lives with his family.

Dr. Lucas F. Hellemeier is an external lecturer at the John F. Kennedy Institute of the Freie Universität Berlin, where he earned his PhD in Political Science in 2025. His dissertation examined the choice between acquiring U.S. defense systems and developing European alternatives in defense procurement and was awarded the John McCain Dissertation Award by the Munich Security Conference. He was a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at Boston University and a Morgenthau Fellow at the University of Notre Dame. Since March 2026, he has worked as a Strategy Specialist at MBDA.

Karine Herviou was appointed IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Nuclear Safety and Security on 16 June 2025. Ms Herviou brings over three decades of leadership and expertise in nuclear safety, emergency preparedness and response, and international regulatory collaboration.

Before her current appointment, Ms. Herviou was the Deputy Director General of the French Authority for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection (ASNR), where she oversaw safety review and R&D for France’s civil nuclear activities. Her career is marked by strategic leadership in nuclear safety, crisis management, and innovation in safety oversight.

Ms. Herviou has led major safety reviews across a wide spectrum of nuclear technologies, including small modular reactors, fuel cycle facilities, and life extension of nuclear facilities. She has also played a pivotal role in shaping national emergency preparedness and response strategies.

From 2020 to 2024, she served as Deputy Director General of the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN). During this tenure, she enhanced synergies between safety research and expertise, which also addressed the integration of artificial intelligence into these two areas.

Her earlier roles include Director of New Reactors and Safety Approaches at IRSN (2017–2020), where she chaired key OECD/NEA and European Technical Safety Organizations Network (ETSON) working groups on advanced reactors and championed systemic safety methodologies that integrated human and organizational factors.

Ms Herviou also served as Head of IRSN’s New Reactors Department (2012–2016) and led the safety review of the Flamanville EPR project (2009–2016). Notably, she contributed to France’s first post-accident policy and played a central role in emergency response development during her leadership of IRSN’s Emergency Preparedness Division (2003–2009).

She holds an Advanced Graduate Degree in Nuclear Engineering and an MSc in Nuclear Reactor Physics from INSTN Saclay, France, as well as a Master’s in Physics from the University of Paris XI – Orsay.

Katarína holds an MA in Political Science specializing in the Middle East and North Africa and a PhD in Religious Studies focusing on Muslim and Middle Eastern minority communities both in their homelands and the diaspora. She has undertaken numerous studies and research trips to the MENA region and has extensive experience in providing cultural and political consulting for European business clients specializing in the Middle East markets.
 

Tomi Huhtanen studied International Politics and Economics at the University of Helsinki, International Law and Political History in Madrid, and earned an MBA in Brussels. He began his career in the European Parliament and served as an adviser to the European People’s Party (EPP) from 1999 to 2007. He founded the European View journal and, since 2007, has led the EPP’s think tank, the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, serving as its Executive Director since 2015. He is also a frequent commentator on European and international political affairs.

Zsolt Jamniczky has been a leading executive in the Hungarian energy industry for more than a decade and a half and is a committed advocate of carbon-neutral and sustainable operations.

He graduated in international relations from the Budapest University of Economics in 1991, and between 1992 and 1994 studied postgraduate law at Eötvös Loránd University. From 1996 to 2007, he held senior positions in corporate affairs at Reetsma and later Philip Morris, working in Budapest, Brussels, and Zagreb.

In 2007, he joined E.ON Hungária Group as Director of Corporate Affairs, and in 2010, he became Deputy Group CEO. Since 2016, he has served as Deputy CEO for Customer Solutions at E.ON Hungaria Group, overseeing Customer Service, Energy Markets, Energy Sales, Energy Solutions Sales, Constructions and Operations, as well as Brand and Marketing. 

He is President of the Eurelectric Hungarian Association, a board member of Eurelectric in Brussels, a board member of the Business Council for Sustainable Development, director of the Hungarian Business Leaders’ Forum, board member of the Joint Venture Association, and serves as a board member of the Future Mobility Association and the Smart Future Innovation Cluster as well. 

In recognition of his work, he was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of Hungary in 2016 and the Special Award for the Manager of the Year for Green Economy in 2023 by the Joint Venture Association. 

Pavlína Janebová is the Research Director at the Prague-based Association for International Affairs (AMO). She is the author and editor of expert publications on Czech foreign and European policy and Central European cooperation. She is also involved in AMO’s initiatives aimed at strengthening the voice of women in foreign and security policy. She holds a degree in International Relations and European Studies from the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University in Brno.

Géza Jeszenszky (b. 1941) is a retired professor of history at Corvinus University of Budapest, also a politician and diplomat. He served as Minister for Foreign Affairs in the first freely elected government after the fall of communism (1990-94). From 1998 to 2002, he was Hungary’s ambassador to the United States, and to Norway and Iceland from 2011 to 2014.

He was a visiting professor at several American and European universities. He is the author of a large number of scholarly publications, including Post-Communist Europe and Its National/Ethnic Problems (Budapest, 2009); July 1944. Deportation of the Jews of Budapest Foiled (Reno, NV, 2018); Az elveszett presztízs. Magyarország megítélésének megváltozása Nagy-Britanniában (1894-1918), 3. kiad., Budapest: Fekete Sas Kiadó, 2020); Lost Prestige, The Changing Image of Hungary in Britain, 1894-1918. (Reno, NV, 2020)Kísérlet a trianoni trauma orvoslására. Magyarország szomszédsági politikája a rendszerváltozás éveiben. 2. kiad., (Budapest: Osiris, 2023); and Hungary and Its Neighbors, 1988–1994. Attempts to Heal the Wound of 1920. (Reno, NV: Helena History Press, 2025).

Krisztián Jójárt is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of War Studies of the Swedish Defence University and a co-chair of the Russia research group. His research focuses on the Russian armed forces and Russian military thinking. He is also an associate fellow with the Budapest-based John Lukács Institute for Strategy and Politics. Krisztián holds a PhD in Military Sciences from the National University of Public Service and an MA in International Relations from the Corvinus University of Budapest. 

Ms. Andrea Beatrix Kádár, head of the Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority since 2021, has been working in the field of energy, and specifically nuclear energy, since 2014. Having studied at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics to become a chemical engineer, Ms Kádár began her career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 2014, she has found her calling in dealing with issues of energy policy matters, serving as deputy state secretary. In 2021, she was appointed head of the nuclear regulatory body of Hungary. She spends her free time with her family. She enjoys reading, jogging, and volleyball.
She is fluent in English and French. 

Professional career: 
2021 – President, Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority  
2014–2021 Ministry of National Development/Ministry for Innovation and Technology, Deputy State Secretary for Energy Affairs 
2012–2014 Prime Minister’s Office, Deputy State Secretary, Heading the Bureau of National Security 
2011–2012 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Deputy State Secretariat for European Affairs, Advisor (EU strategic affairs) 
2010–2012 Permanent Representation for Hungary to the European Union (Brussels) 
2003–2010 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Head of Unit 

Language skills: English, French
 

Aaron Korewa is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Warsaw Office, which is part of the Europe Center. Korewa previously worked at the McCain Institute for International Leadership, where he spent the last five years serving as program manager, following many years of working in both Sweden and Poland. Born in Sweden but with both Polish and American family roots, Korewa holds an MA in international politics and a BA in economics from Uppsala University. At the McCain Institute, he ran the Kissinger Fellowship, an initiative focused on developing the strategic skills of future foreign-policy and national-security leaders with the kind of principles that are the hallmark of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s career. Korewa also directed a project to counter disinformation from authoritarian states and participated in the McCain Institute’s Working Groups on Russia and Reaffirming America’s Alliances. Korewa frequently features as a commentator on Polish television on transatlantic security issues and previously wrote for Svenska Dagbladet, a major Swedish newspaper. He is based in Warsaw. 

Dr Emilio Miguelañez Martin is responsible for shaping the ENODA platform’s pioneering use of AI and data as a market differentiator. 

Emilio has over 15 years of industry experience in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, delivering smart systems across several industry domains, from subsea equipment and underwater robotics to offshore wind turbines. 

He has always been fascinated with how data can be transformed into information and knowledge to support decisions or make some actionable motion (in robotic terms). 

Emilio has been an active member of the Institute of Physics CEng Panel since 2016.

Marek Matraszek is Chairman of CEC Group (www.cecgr.com), the leading public affairs brand in Central Europe providing strategic political intelligence, analysis, and advocacy services for major US, UK, and European multinationals in the region. As Chairman, he oversees the Group’s regional activities, its growth in new product areas and client sectors, as well as international brand positioning. Although his experience stretches across most industrial sectors, he has special expertise in defence, and he currently advises several defence prime contractors in Central Europe.

Mr. Krisztián Mészáros has served as State Secretary for Multilateral Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Hungary since June 2026. He brings more than two decades of experience in diplomacy, international security, and multilateral affairs, having held a number of senior positions within both the Hungarian foreign service and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Before he was appointed State Secretary, Mr. Mészáros served as Director for Partnerships and Global Affairs in NATO’s Political Affairs and Security Policy Division from 2024 to 2026. Between 2018 and 2023, he was Deputy Director of the Private Office of the NATO Secretary General, where he supported the Secretary General’s engagement on key political and security issues. Earlier, from 2015 to 2017, he served as NATO Civilian Liaison Officer to the United Nations in New York, strengthening cooperation between NATO and the UN.

From 2010 to 2015, Mr. Mészáros worked in NATO Headquarters in Brussels as a Staff Officer responsible for a range of partnership portfolios, including relations with Georgia, Moldova,
and Japan, as well as broader Euro-Atlantic partnership policy. Before joining NATO’s International Staff, he held several positions within the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Hungary’s Permanent Delegation to NATO, focusing on NATO–EU relations, transatlantic affairs, summit preparations, and multilateral diplomacy.

Mr. Mészáros holds a Master’s degree in Economics with a specialization in International Relations from the Budapest University of Economics and Public Administration, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Economics with a major in Tourism and Hospitality. He also completed NATO’s Executive Development Programme for senior leaders.

A career diplomat with extensive experience in international organizations, strategic partnerships, and security policy, Mr. Mészáros has developed particular expertise in transatlantic relations, NATO partnerships, multilateral diplomacy, and global security cooperation. He is a native Hungarian speaker and is fluent in English, French, German, and Finnish.

Andrew A. Michta is Professor of Strategic Studies at the Hamilton School at the University of Florida. Before joining Hamilton, Michta was a Senior Fellow with the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the former dean of the College of International and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. He holds a PhD in international relations from 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 Nordic and Baltic states.

Previously, 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 to 2015, he was the M.W. Buckman distinguished professor of international studies at Rhodes College. 
Michta is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University.  He is fluent in Polish and Russian and proficient in German and French.

Albéric serves as Executive Director of EIES, the European Initiative for Energy Security, where he develops and builds support for national and supranational policies that drive energy and national security across the European continent. Albéric is an energy policy expert with over a dozen years of experience at the intersection of energy and security, previously as Director for Energy, Mobility, and Climate at the Centre for Regulation in Europe, in advisory capacities, in energy markets analysis, and as an Editor in Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia.

He holds a B.A. in Political Science and a Master's in International Security from Sciences Po's Paris School of International Affairs. A French national, he is a former auditor of France's Institut des hautes études de défense nationale (IHEDN).

Balázs has worked with billion-dollar corporations as well as startups, building a strong professional background in cybersecurity. After co-founding NewPush in 1999, Balázs went on to design and supervise the deployment of complex cybersecurity solutions, fast credit card payment systems, fare collection systems, and analytics systems. More recently, he has designed compliance systems for SOX, PCI, HIPAA, and leveraged the HITRUST CSF. Balázs now focuses on the Connective Platform™.

2026- Vice-Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Hungarian National Assembly.
2014- Deputy Floor Leader of the Fidesz parliamentary group.
1990- Member of Parliament.
1988 Founding member of Fidesz.
1998-2002, 2010-2014 Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
2014-2026 Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Hungarian Parliament.
2024- Chairman of the European Conservatives Group and Democratic Alliance, PACE.
2021-2024 President of the Political Affairs Committee, PACE.
2014- Member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and the president of the Hungarian-American friendship group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

Knight of the Johanniter (St. John) Order.

Founder of the Pro Minoritate Foundation.

He graduated from the Budapest (Corvinus) University of Economics with a degree in economics and sociology in 1987. 

Married, father of three children.

Marek Niedużak is the Polish Director of the European Initiative for Energy Security. His expertise spans energy policy, finance, and law. He previously served as CEO of Pekao Investment Banking, the corporate finance advisory arm of the Pekao Group, where he led the financing of flagship energy projects, including Baltic Power, Poland’s most advanced offshore wind development, and Baltic Towers, the country’s leading manufacturer of offshore wind turbine towers. Before that, Marek served as Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Economic Development, where he was responsible for regulatory affairs.

Marko Primorac is Vice President of the European Investment Bank (EIB), overseeing energy-related policy priorities and EIB Global operations in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as managing institutional relations with Croatia, Hungary, and Poland. Before joining the EIB, he served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Croatia, and is an associate professor at the University of Zagreb. At the EIB, he is also serving on the InvestEU Advisory Board, cooperating with the OECD, the Islamic Development Bank, and overseeing the work of the EIB Institute.

Adam Sikorski is the co-founder and, since 2018, the President of the Management Board of UNIMOT S.A., the largest multi-energy group in Poland, where he previously served as Chairman of the Supervisory Board.

In 2012, he became Chairman of the Supervisory Board and a major shareholder of PZL Sędziszów S.A., a leading domestic manufacturer of automotive filters, and from 2015 to 2018, he served as President of the Management Board of the company.

He is a graduate of International Economic Relations at the Polonia Academy in Częstochowa. He completed an Executive MBA and an EDBA program at the Institute of Economic Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences. In 2023, he obtained a PhD in social sciences in the field of management and quality sciences at Częstochowa University of Technology.

dr Adam Sikorski
Prezes Zarządu UNIMOT S.A.

Adam Sikorski jest współzałożycielem oraz od 2018 roku prezesem zarządu UNIMOT S.A., największej grupy multienergetycznej w Polsce, gdzie wcześniej pełnił funkcję przewodniczącego rady nadzorczej.

W 2012 r. Został przewodniczącym Rady Nadzorczej oraz głównym udziałowcem PZL Sędziszów S.A. – wiodącego krajowego producenta filtrów dla motoryzacji, a w latach 2015–2018 pełnił funkcję prezesa zarządu spółki.

Jest absolwentem kierunku Międzynarodowe Stosunki Gospodarcze w Akademii Polonijnej w Częstochowie. Ukończył Executive MBA oraz program EDBA w Instytucie Nauk Ekonomicznych PAN. W 2023 r. Uzyskał tytuł doktora nauk społecznych w dyscyplinie nauki o zarządzaniu i jakości na Politechnice Częstochowskiej.

László Szabó has been the head of REKK since 2018at the Corvinus University of Budapest. He is an energy economist specializing in energy sector regulation, renewable technologies and their diffusion, climate change policy, and energy infrastructure development, with a PhD in economics. He previously held several positions in the Hungarian public administration and worked at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (IPTS). He has been coordinating REKK's regional and European research projects for more than fifteen years.
 

Réka Szemerkényi is the former Ambassador of Hungary to Washington and a leading geopolitical expert in transatlantic security with over 20 years of experience in a variety of government, academic, and private sector capacities. She is the former Executive Vice President of the Washington think-tank CEPA, the Center for European Policy Analysis. Her government roles include her mission as Ambassador of Hungary to the United States and being National Security Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister of Hungary. Her business experience includes being Senior Advisor to the Chairman and CEO of MOL Group, the Hungarian Oil and Gas Company, and Consultant of the World Bank.

Velina currently serves on the European Security Forum Network, Finland, the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Forum Alpbach, Austria, and the Advisory Board of Eastern Circles, a Paris-based geoeconomics think tank focused on Eastern Europe and Ukraine. She holds a visiting fellowship at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), India’s premier independent global think tank. 

She is a board member of the Strategic and Security Policy Advisory Board of the Science Commission at the Austrian Federal Ministry of Defense, participates as a board member in the Vienna Economic Forum, and serves on the peer review board of the Defence Horizon Journal. 

Jay is the CEO of TDI, a global leader in strategic advisory and risk intelligence, delivering insight, due diligence, investigations, and enterprise risk management software solutions. He leads the firm in helping clients navigate geopolitical, regulatory, and market risks worldwide.

Before joining TDI, Jay was CEO of Veracity Worldwide, a risk advisory firm, and earlier worked at McKinsey & Company, advising clients on strategy and risk management across five continents and multiple industries. 

As a career Foreign Service Officer, Jay served as Chief of Staff at the US Embassy in Pakistan and as Special Assistant to two Deputy Secretaries of State, with additional diplomatic postings in Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, and at the U.S. Mission to the OSCE. He is also a Navy Reserve Foreign Area Officer, specializing in Europe and Africa.   

Jay is a former Fulbright Scholar, Boren Fellow, and Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, and holds degrees from Stanford, Harvard, and the Fletcher School at Tufts University. 

Konstantin Eggert MBE (Hon) is an international correspondent and Russia analyst for DW (Deutsche Welle) since 2014. He is also a columnust for Euractiv.com. Previously Mr Eggert was Moscow bureau chief for the BBC Russian Service. Born in Moscow, he and his family live in Lithuania since 2014. Russian governmentdesignated Mr Eggert “foreign agent”. Queen Elizabeth created Mr Eggert Honorary member of the Order of the British Empire. He is also a Commander of the LithuanianOrder of Merit. 

Mr. Natko Vlahović is the Founder and President of the New Frontier Foundation, who has over 20 years of professional experience in the U.S., Brussels, and the region, in the field of Public Policies, International Relations, Diplomacy, and Government Relations. He is also the CEO of his company, Vlahović Group, a leading public policy and government relations consultancy in Croatia and the Western Balkans. His entrepreneurial experience prompted him to establish a foundation that will be a bridge between the private and public sectors for the purpose of better networking and development in a globalized world.