Wolfgang Friedrich Ischinger is a German diplomat who served as chairman of the Munich Security Conference from 2008 to 2022.
Anna Cecilia Malmström is a Swedish politician who served as European Commissioner for Trade from 2014 to 2019. She previously served as European Commissioner for Home Affairs from 2010 to 2014 and Minister for European Union Affairs from 2006 to 2010. She was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Sweden from 1999 to 2006.
Transatlantic relations refer to the historic, cultural, political, economic and social relations between countries on both side of the Atlantic Ocean. Sometimes it specifically means relationships between the Anglophone North American countries, and particular European countries or organizations, although other meanings are possible.
The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) is a non-partisan American public policy think tank that seeks to promote cooperation and understanding between North America and the European Union.
Relations between the European Union and the United States began in 1953, when US diplomats visited the European Coal and Steel Community in addition to the national governments of its six founding countries. The two parties share a good relationship which is strengthened by NATO, cooperation on trade, and shared values.
Karen Kornbluh served as U.S. Ambassador to the OECD under President Barack Obama and as a senior official at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Federal Communications Commission under President Bill Clinton. She is an expert on communications policy, international trade and issues affecting working families. Her profile in The New York Times focused on her efforts “Fighting for Economic Equality.” She is now Director of the Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a think tank dedicated to promoting transatlantic cooperation, where she is also a Senior Fellow. She also currently serves as the Chairperson of the board of the Open Technology Fund. She was previously Executive Vice President of External Affairs at Nielsen, Senior Fellow for Digital Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a presidentially-appointed member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. She was a senior adviser to Barack Obama from the beginning of his Senate tenure throughout his 2008 presidential campaign.
Miroslav Lajčák is a Slovak politician and diplomat, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic. In addition, Lajčák also served as President of the United Nations General Assembly for the 72nd session from 2017 until 2018.
Michael Braverman Goodman Froman is an American lawyer who is the current president of the Council on Foreign Relations. Froman served as the U.S. Trade Representative from 2013 to 2017. He was Assistant to the President of the United States and Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs, a position held jointly at the National Security Council and the National Economic Council. In that position he served as the United States sherpa to the G7, G8, and G20 summits of economic powers. On May 2, 2013, President Barack Obama nominated him to succeed Ambassador Ron Kirk as the U.S. Trade Representative. He was confirmed on June 19, 2013.
John Rutherford Allen is a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general, and former commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces – Afghanistan (USFOR-A). On September 13, 2014, President Barack Obama appointed Allen as special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL. He was succeeded in that role by Brett McGurk on October 23, 2015. He is the co-author of Turning Point: Policymaking in the Era of Artificial Intelligence with Darrell M. West and Future War and the Defence of Europe alongside Lieutenant General (Ret.) Ben Hodges and Professor Julian Lindley French. Allen was president of the Brookings Institution from October 2017 until his resignation on June 12, 2022.
Andrew Alexander Michta is an American political scientist. He is Director and Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Strategy Initiative. From 2016-2023 he was Dean of the College of International and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany. Previously he was Professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College. He was also an affiliate of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies – Europe Program, and an adjunct political scientist at the RAND Corporation.
Kori N. Schake is an American international relations scholar currently serving as the Director of Foreign and Defense Policy at the American Enterprise Institute. She has held several high positions in the U.S. Defense and State Departments and on the National Security Council. She was a foreign-policy adviser to the McCain-Palin 2008 presidential campaign. Schake is a contributing writer at The Atlantic. She serves on the board of advisors of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the Alexander Hamilton Society.
Franziska Katharina Brantner is a German politician of the Green Party who has been serving as a member of the German Parliament since 2013.
Dávid Korányi is a chief advisor of city diplomacy for Gergely Karácsony, the mayor of Budapest. Prior to that he was a director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasian Energy Futures Initiative and deputy director of the Atlantic Council's Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. In 2009 he was undersecretary of state, chief foreign policy, and national security advisor to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Hungary, Gordon Bajnai. He was a member of the Hungarian NATO Strategic Concept Special Advisory Group.
Reta Jo Lewis is an American attorney, former diplomat, and politician, currently serving as president and chair of the Export–Import Bank of the United States.
The Foreign Affairs Policy Board is an advisory board that provides independent advice and opinion to the Secretary of State, the Deputy Secretary of State, and the Director of Policy Planning on matters concerning U.S. foreign policy. The Board reviews and assesses global threats and opportunities, trends that implicate core national security interests, tools and capacities of the civilian foreign affairs agencies, and priorities and strategic frameworks for U.S. foreign policy. The Board meets in a plenary session several times a year at the U.S. Department of State in the Harry S. Truman Building.
Karl Paul Donfried was an American theologian and New Testament scholar. He is Elizabeth A. Woodson Professor Emeritus of Religion and Biblical Literature at Smith College.
Sławomir Jan Dębski is a Polish historian who has served as director of Polish Institute of International Affairs from 2007 until 2010 and again from 2016 until 2024. He previously headed The Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding (2011–2016), and was a member of the Polish-Russian Group for Difficult Matters. He was assistant professor of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw (2007–2010) and Warsaw University (2010–2014).
The Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt Foundation is the most recent of the seven non-partisan foundations commemorating politicians in Germany. It was established on 1 January 2017 by the German Bundestag to "preserve the memory of Helmut Schmidt's political work for the freedom and unity of the German people, for European freedom and unification and for understanding and reconciliation among nations". Within the framework of its political education work, it is also tasked with conveying to young people in particular those topics that exercised Schmidt as a politician and journalist.
Heather A. Conley is president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) in Washington, D.C.
