See our speakers of 2024:

Robert Benjamin

Senior Associate and Regional Director for Central and Eastern Europe, National Democratic Institute, Washington DC

Robert Benjamin serves as Regional Director for Central and Eastern Europe at the National Democratic Institute (NDI). He oversees regional and country programs in Central Europe and the Balkans covering good governance, political pluralism, parliamentary strengthening, election integrity, and inclusive civic participation in public affairs. He has worked at NDI since 1993. He holds a B.A. in political science from Princeton University and a M.A. in international relations from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Tamás Boros

Executive Director, Equilibrium Institute, Budapest

Tamás Boros is the executive director and co-founder of the Equilibrium Institute. He was the co-founder and co-owner of Policy Solutions, a consultancy and research institute. He is a recurring guest on a variety of political talk shows and often comments about public affairs for leading international media. He previously worked for the European Commission and the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an expert on communication and EU affairs. His research focuses on Hungarian and EU political communication and populism.

Matthew G. Boyse

Senior Fellow, Center on Europe and Eurasia, Hudson Institute; Former Deputy Assistant Secretary, State Department, Washington DC

Matthew Boyse is a Senior Fellow with Hudson Institute in Washington, DC and an Adjunct at Johns Hopkins SAIS and George Washington University. A former Senior Foreign Service Officer, in his last role as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the European Bureau, he oversaw U.S. policy toward Central Europe and the Office of the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues and was Sherpa for the Three Seas Initiative. He also served as Chargé d’Affaires in Switzerland, Finland, Romania, and the U.S. Mission to NATO, among others.

James Jay Carafano

Senior Counselor to the President and E.W. Richardson Fellow, Heritage Foundation, Washington D.C.

Dr. James Jay Carafano is a leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges. He currently serves as Senior Counselor to the President for International Engagement and E.W. Richardson Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Dr. Carafano is a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point and served 25 years in the US Army, retiring as a Lt. Colonel. His recent research has focused on developing the national security required to secure the long-term interests of the United States.

Beata Daszyńska-Muzyczka

Presidential Ambassador and Special Envoy for Three Seas Initiative; Chancellery of the President Duda, Warsaw

Beata Daszyńska-Muzyczka is a Presidential Ambassador - Special Envoy for the Three Seas Initiative. In her career, between 2016-2024 she has been a President of the Polish State Development Bank (BGK), which initiates and implements programs aimed at sustainable economic development. She has prepared and executed a new bank strategy mostly focused on increasing the competitiveness of the Polish economy. She is the creator of the financial project - 3 Seas Investment Fund, which financing transport, energy, and digital projects.

Paul Domjan

Founder and Chief Policy and Global Affairs Officer, Enoda, London

Domjanl brings more than two decades of experience in energy, energy security and climate policy and research to his role as Chief Policy and Global Affairs Officer at ENODA. Prior to founding ENODA, he was Chief Strategy Officer at Tellimer, CEO of 4Cast-RGE, and Managing Director and Co-founder of Country Insights. Paul served as the First Energy Security Adviser to the U.S. European Command of the U.S. Department of Defence and represented the US both at NATO, and with senior government and corporate stakeholders in the Europe and the US.

Konstantin Eggert

MBE, Columnist and Programme Host, Deutsche Welle, Vilnius

Konstantin Eggert MBE is a Russian affairs analyst for Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcaster. Mr Eggert’s previous positions include programme host and commentator for TV Rain, Russia’s groundbreaking independent TV channel (2016-2018) as well as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Kommersant FM radio (2011-2015). In 1998-2009 Konstantin was with the BBC World Service, including 7 years as the BBC Russian Service Moscow Bureau Chief in 2002-2009. In 2008 HM the Queen created MR Eggert Honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire.

Botond Feledy

CEO and Geopolitical analyst, Red Snow Consulting, Budapest

Botond Feledy is a Brussels-based geopolitical expert, the director of Red Snow Consulting and the European Leadership Programme. He has over 15 years of experience in international relations, politics, and political science, with his research focusing on Euro-Atlantic security issues. He was named one of the #NewEurope100 in 2017. He is a co-founder of the EU Negotiation Moot simulation game, alumnus of the IVLP of the US State Department, a former Marshall Memorial Fellow of the GMF, DAAD Research Fellow, and a Discerning Leadership Program graduate.

Jörn Fleck

Senior Director, Europe Center, Atlantic Council, Washington D.C.

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. Fleck also leads the Council’s Transatlantic Digital Project which seeks to promote closer US-EU cooperation on digital policy matters. Fleck previously was director at the Transatlantic Policy Network (TPN), and prior to that, he worked extensively on US-EU relations, trade policy, and EU foreign and security policy as chief of staff for a British member of the European Parliament (MEP).

Diana Furchtgott-Roth

Director, Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment and The Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow in Energy and Environmental Policy, Heritage Foundation

Diana Furchtgott-Roth is Director of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment and the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow in Energy and Environmental Policy at The Heritage Foundation. She worked in senior roles in the White House under Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. She has served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology at the U.S. Department of Transportation; Acting Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the U.S. Department of Treasury; Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, among other roles.

Pekka Haavisto

Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Finland; Member of Parliament and Presidential Candidate, Parliament of Finland, Helsinki

Pekka Haavisto is a Member of Parliament and the former Foreign Minister of Finland. He is a peace negotiator and a defender of both democracy and human rights. Haavisto is especially experienced in foreign policy and international operations. He has led research into the environmental impact of wars and represented the EU and the UN in various crises all over the world. Haavisto has also authored numerous books. His beloved hobbies are literature, Beetle cars, and wooden boats.

Tomi Huhtanen

Executive Director, Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, Brussels

Tomi Huhtanen started his career by working for the Finnish delegation of the European People’s Party in the European Parliament. From 1999 to 2007, he was a Political Adviser and subsequently a Senior Adviser for the EPP. During this period, he launched the European View policy journal, of which he became Editor-in-Chief. In 2007, Tomi was put in charge of launching the Centre for European Studies (renamed the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies in 2014); in the same year, Tomi was nominated as the Centre’s Director and is since October 2015 its Executive Director.

Susan Hutchison

Former Chairman, Washington State Republican Party, Washington DC

At Seattle’s KIRO-TV (CBS) Susan spent more than two decades as primary news anchor, executive editor, and executive producer. In 2009, Susan ran for King County Executive, placing first in the primary. She was elected chair of the Washington State Republican Party in 2013. Her efforts earned her the honor of being named the first and only “Chairman Emeritus” of the state party. She has extensive international experience, including work in China, Russia, the Middle East, Central Europe and Southeast Asia. In 2017, she was with President Trump’s first delegation to Taiwan. She got appointed to the board of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars by George W. Bush.

Dominik P. Jankowski

Deputy Permanent Representative, Permanent Delegation of the Republic of Poland to NATO, Brussels

Dominik P. Jankowski is a Polish security policy expert, diplomat. He currently serves as Deputy Permanent Representative at the Permanent Delegation of Poland to NATO. From 2023 to 2024 he worked as Policy Adviser in the Office of the NATO Secretary General. From 2018 to 2022 he was Political Adviser and Head of the Political Section at the Permanent Delegation of Poland to NATO. Prior to this, he has held numerous international security related roles within public administration (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Security Bureau) and military.

Olga Khakova

Deputy Director for European energy security, Atlantic Council, Washington DC

Olga Khakova is the deputy director for European energy security at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center (GEC). She leads GEC’s portfolio on synchronizing climate and energy security efforts through transatlantic cooperation. Before joining the Atlantic Council, Khakova was a senior program coordinator for the US Energy Association’s Energy Technology and Governance Program. Khakova’s experience also includes serving as program director for The Climate + Energy Project (CEP), a clean energy nonprofit in the Midwest.

Anthony B. Kim

Senior Policy Analyst, The Heritage Foundation, Washington DC

Anthony B. Kim is a Research Fellow in Economic Freedom, Editor of the Index of Economic Freedom, and Manager of Global Engagement for the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. Previously, Kim had served as Deputy Chief of Staff to Dr. Edwin J. Feulner, founder of the Heritage Foundation. As an editor, Kim also manages the production of The Heritage Foundation’s annual Index of Economic Freedom. Kim’s commentary and opinion pieces have been published by The Wall Street Journal’s Asia edition, The New York Post, and The Washington Times, among others.

Aaron Korewa

Director, Warsaw Office, Atlantic Council, Warsaw

Aaron Korewa is the director of the Atlantic Council’s Warsaw Office. Korewa previously worked at the McCain Institute for International Leadership where he spent the last five years serving as program manager. At the McCain Institute, he ran the Kissinger Fellowship, which focused on developing the strategic skills of future foreign-policy and national-security leaders. He also directed a project to counter disinformation from authoritarian states and participated in the Institute’s Working Groups on Russia and Reaffirming America’s Alliances.

Dr. Christina Catherine Krause

Head of Department International Politics and Security Affairs, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Berlin

Dr. Christina Catherine Krause is Head of the Department for International and Security Affairs at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS) in Berlin. Having joined KAS in 2005, she served in multiple positions at KAS headquarters and abroad as representative in the KAS Sarajevo Office from 2005-2009. Prior to joining KAS, she worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Berlin mainly dealing with protection and resettlement of refugees from former Yugoslavia. Christina Krause holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Kiel.

Péter Krekó

Director, Political Capital, Budapest

Péter Krekó is a social psychologist and a disinformation expert with a focus on the psychological drivers of belief in disinformation and the impact of political-institutional contexts. He is a Research Affiliate at the CEU Democracy Institute, a senior fellow at the Washington-based CEPA think tank, and a PopBack Fellow at the University of Cambridge. In addition, he is the owner and director of the Political Capital Institute. Krekó is also the head of the EC-funded hub against disinformation (HDMO-Lakmusz).

Michał Kurtyka

Distinguished Fellow, Atlantic Council, Washington DC; Former Minister of Climate, Poland

Michał Kurtyka served as the first minister of Poland’s Ministry of Climate, responsible with energy and climate. In 2018 Kurtyka was appointed as Government Plenipotentiary for the Presidency of COP24—the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties in Poland. From July 2018, he also held the position of Secretary of State in the Ministry of Environment. In December 2018, he became the COP24 President. In 2019 he assumed the role of Ministerial Chair of the International Energy Agency and in 2021 he was designed as Ministerial Chairman of the United Nations of Food and Agriculture.

Miroslav Lajčák

EU Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue and other Western Balkan regional issue, Brussels

Miroslav Lajčák is the EU Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue and other Western Balkan regional issues. Mr. Lajčák served as Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic for four mandates. He was twice Slovak Ambassador, first to Japan, and then to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, FYROM and to Albania. Representing the international community, he served as President of the 72nd Session of the UN General Assembly in 2017-2018. He also served as OSCE Chairperson-in-Office during Slovakia’s 2019 OSCE Chairmanship.

Jukka Leskelä

CEO, Finnish Energy Industries Federation, Helsinki

Jukka Leskelä is the Managing Director at Finnish Energy, a branch association of power, district heating and gas companies in Finland. His specialities are energy, climate change and environmental policy issues in EU and in Finland. Jukka Leskelä has held various positions in national and European organisations. Presently he is a board member of Eurelectric (the association of electricity industry in Europe) and a board member of Nordenergi (joint collaboration of Nordic energy associations).

Petr Luňák

Deputy Section Head, Engagements, NATO Public Diplomacy Division, Brussels

Petr Luňák is a Deputy Head of the Engagement Section at NATO Public Diplomacy Division. He is responsible for overseeing public diplomacy endeavours of the Alliance. He is a member of the Czech Foreign Service and he was a Deputy Head of the Planning Staff of the Foreign Ministry before joining the NATO International Secretariat in 2000. Mr. Luňák holds a Ph.D. from Charles University in Prague where he taught international relations and modern history.

Anett Mádi-Nátor

President, Women4Cyber Foundation, Brussels

Ms. Anett Mádi-Nátor is the President of Women4Cyber, a European non-profit promoting women's participation in cybersecurity. As a member of Board of Directors of the European Cyber Security Organisation Ms. Mádi-Nátor takes part in The European Cybersecurity Community Support project. She is Co-Lead to EHR4CYBER Task Force in ECSO, and Chair to ECSO SWG responsible for dual use issues (Defence and Space). As per daily job, Ms. Mádi-Nátor is VP of Cyber Services, a CEE CTI service provider responsible for Strategic Business Development.

Tamás Matura

Professor, Corvinus University; Founder, Central and Eastern European Center for Asian Studies, Budapest

Dr. Tamás Matura, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at Corvinus University of Budapest, a Senior Fellow at CEPA Washington, and the Hungarian representative in the European Think Tank Network on China.

Paul McCarthy

Europe Regional Director, International Republican Institute, Washington DC

Paul McCarthy is Europe Regional Director at the International Republican Institute (IRI). Before joining IRI’s Europe division, McCarthy worked in the Middle East where he developed innovative governance strengthening programs that have become models for the Institute. Previous to IRI, he oversaw the National Endowment for Democracy’s Central and East European programming which helped independent media, civic organizations, think tanks, business associations, and political parties in countries transitioning from Soviet domination.

Dora Meredith

Director, Overseas Development Institute Europe, Brussels

Dora is Director of ODI Europe the new global affairs think tank in Brussels, bringing research, ideas and dialogue with the wider world into the European policy debate. Dora’s work focuses on the European foreign policy agenda and global governance.
Before joining ODI, Dora was the Head of Programmes at the Institute for the Future of Work. Prior to this, she worked in a variety of public policy roles in the UK and internationally. She was based in Brussels for the UK’s national innovation agency, and she undertook a secondment to the British Embassy in Washington D.C.

Krisztián Mészáros

Director for Partnerships, Political Affairs and Security Policy Division, NATO, Brussels

Krisztián Mészáros is the Director of Partnerships and Global Affairs at NATO Headquarters. In his capacity, he leads five outstanding teams within the Political Affairs and Security Policy Division of the International Staff responsible for overseeing NATO’s political relationship with partner and non-partner countries across the globe. He has worked six years in the NATO Secretary General’s Private Office. Prior to joining the International Staff, Krisztián worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Hungary, dealing with NATO and security policy.

Balázs Nagy

CEO, NewPush, Google Digital Transformation Leader, Washington

Balázs has worked with billion-dollar corporations as well as start-ups, 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 leveraging the HITRUST CSF. Balázs now focuses on the Connective Platform™.

Zsolt Németh

Chairman, Foreign Affairs Committee, Hungarian National Assembly, Budapest

Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Hungarian National Assembly since 2014. Founding member of Fidesz in 1988, Member of Parliament since 1990. 1998-2002 State Secretary for Political Affairs, 2010-2014 State Secretary for Parliamentary Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since 2014 he has been the head of the Hungarian delegation in the Council of Europe and between 2014-2022 the deputy leader of the group of the European People’s Party, and since 2022 the European Conservatives Group / Democratic Alliance.

Jozsef Pandur

Political Advisor and Representative of EU Special Representative Lajčák Belgrade

Since August 2014, Jozsef Pandur is working as an advisor, prior to that he was an Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Hungary to Bosnia-Herzegovina for three years. From 2009 to 2011 Mr. Pandur was working as a Director of Political Capital South-East Europe. He was Senior Policy Advisor/ Ambassador at the Office of the High Representative and European Union Special Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 2007 to 2009. Mr Pandur was Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Hungary to Serbia and Montenegro from 2001 to 2005.

Konrad Popławski

Coordinator for Connectivity and Regional Integration, Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich, Warsaw

Konrad Popławski is a coordinator of Connectivity and Regional Integration programme at the Center for Eastern Studies in Warsaw. He deals with the topics of international economic relations, supply chains and transport policy. He’s an author of numerous analyses and several longer studies on the development of the economies of Central Europe and Germany and Eurasian transport corridors. In 2020-2022, head of the Central European Team at the OSW, and previously for a decade an analyst on the German economy.

Ashley L. Rhoades

Defense Policy Researcher, RAND, Washington DC

Ashley Rhoades is a defense policy researcher at RAND, where she has led and worked onseveral studies for various Department of Defense sponsors, including the Army, Air Force, and Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. Her main areas of expertise are strategic competition, security cooperation, deterrence, force posture, and terrorism and counter terrorism. Geographically, she primarily focuses on security issues within the European (Eastern Flank countries, Baltics, Balkans) and Middle Eastern (Iraq, Syria) theaters.

Rachel Rizzo

Nonresident Senior Fellow, Europe Center, Atlantic Council, Washington DC

Rachel Rizzo is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. Her research focuses on European security, NATO, and the transatlantic relationship.
Prior to joining the Atlantic Council, Rizzo served as the director of programs at the Truman Center for National Policy and the Truman National Security Project. She spent a year as a Robert Bosch fellow in Germany, where she worked at the Berlin office of Human Rights Watch. Rizzo also spent over five years at the Center for a New American Security and has co-authored several of the center’s reports.

Vladimir Socor

Senior Analyst of East European Affairs, Jamestown Foundation, Washington DC

Vladimir Socor is a Senior Fellow of the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation and its flagship publication, Eurasia Daily Monitor (1995 to date). An internationally recognized expert on the former Soviet-ruled countries in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia, he covers Russian and Western policies, focusing on energy, regional security issues, Russian foreign affairs, secessionist conflicts, and NATO policies and programs. Mr. Socor is a regular guest lecturer at the NATO Defense College and at Harvard University’s National Security Program’s Black Sea Program.

Attila Steiner

State Secretary for Energy and Climate Policy, Ministry of Energy, Budapest

Between 2015 to 2018, he was a member of the Supervisory Board of Paks II Nuclear Power Plant Ltd. From July 2019, he served as State Secretary for European Union Affairs at the Ministry of Justice. From 2021, he was the State Secretary responsible for the development of the circular economy, energy, and climate policy at the Ministry of Innovation and Technology. From 2022, he served as the State Secretary for energy and climate policy at the Ministry of Technology and Industry, and later at the Ministry of Energy.

Tibor Stelbaczky

Ambassador at large, Principal Adviser on Energy Diplomacy, MD Global, European External Action Service, Brussels

Since 2022 September Tibor Stelbaczky is working at the European External Action Service (EEAS) as Principal Adviser on Energy Diplomacy. Before joining the EEAS, Ambassador Stelbaczky was the Permanent Representative of Hungary to the EU in Brussels between 2019 and 2022 and Deputy Permanent Representative of Hungary to the EU between 2015 and 2019. He was a member of the accession negotiation team at the State Secretariat for EU integration. Between 2011 and 2014 he was Head of Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Giedrius Surplys

MP, Vice Chairman, Foreign Affairs Committee, Parliament of Lithuania, Vilnius

He worked as adviser to Prime Minister of Lithuania and as the Head of Governmental COVID-19 Communication Group. He served as Minister of Agriculture and the Deputy-minister of the Interior of Lithuania. Currently, Giedrius Surplys is a Member of Parliament of Lithuania, acting as Deputy-chair of Foreign Affairs Committee. He is a vice-chair of the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union (ECR political group).
Giedrius is also a publicist and lecturer, author of the book on Christian leadership „Win is no Sin“.

Sztáray Péter

State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Budapest

From 1993 he worked as a NATO and Western Europe Officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and from 1996 to 2000 he served as a diplomat in Brussels as a seconded diplomat of the Permanent Mission of Hungary to NATO. From 2002 to 2003, he served as Head of the NATO Department. From 2007 to 2009, he was appointed Deputy Director of Security Policy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Deputy Head of Department. Since 23 June 2018, he has been State Secretary for Security Policy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Dr. George Tilesch

Global Expert in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Founder and President of PHI Institute for Augmented Intelligence, San Francisco

Dr. George Tilesch is a senior global innovation and AI expert, executive, consultant, and author, primarily in the transatlantic space. His global senior executive and strategy consulting leadership track record span decades with government leaders on all continents (USA, EU, Dubai); Fortune 50 Tech corporations and large enterprises across all industries; international organizations and global think tanks; and global social innovation leaders. He is specialized in the strategy, ethical, policy, and governance aspects and impact of AI.

Frank Umbach

Head of research of Research of the European Cluster for Climate, Energy and Resource Security at the Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies, University of Bonn

Frank Umbach is Head of Research of the European Cluster for Climate, Energy and Resource Security at the Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies (CASSIS), University of Bonn/Germany; international consultant on international energy and climate security, raw material supply security, geopolitical risks, cyber security and critical infrastructure protection (CEIP), and (maritime) security policies in Europe/Eurasia and Asia-Pacific. Moreover, he is NATO-consultant on energy and climate security since 2012 and regular presenter at official high-ranking NATO-conferences.

Michelle Watson

Visiting Senior Fellow, Danube Institute, Washington DC

Michelle Combs Watson is an experienced business executive who started her career in Silicon Valley in the Telecom industry and co-founded two Cyber Intelligence start-ups in Washington D.C. She earned an undergraduate degree in Political Science and a master’s degree in National Security and Statecraft. She regularly writes and speaks on Corporate Statecraft topics at the intersection of Technology and Geopolitical Risks. She currently lives in Budapest, Hungary and works for the Danube Institute as a Visiting Senior Fellow.

Georg Zachmann

Senior Fellow, Energy and Climate Policy, Bruegel Institute, Brussels

Georg Zachmann is a senior fellow at Bruegel - an independent economic think tank based in Brussels, where he has worked on energy and climate policy since 2009. His work currently focuses on electricity and carbon markets, energy security and green industrial policy. Georg also acts as the Scientific Lead of the GreenDealUkraїna project to establish an energy and climate think tank in Kyiv. Prior to Bruegel Georg worked at the German Ministry of Finance, the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin and the energy think tank LARSEN in Paris.