SPEAKERS
Keynote Speaker
Stavros Lambrinidis
Stavros Lambrinidis is the Ambassador of the European Union to the United States, as of March 1, 2019. From 2012 to 2019, he served as the European Union Special Representative for Human Rights. In 2011, he was Foreign Affairs Minister of Greece. Between 2004 and 2011, he was twice elected Member of the European Parliament (MEP) with the Greek Social Democratic Party (PASOK). He served as Vice-President of the European Parliament (2009-11), Vice-President of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee (2004-09), and Head of the PASOK Delegation (2005-11).
Between 2000 and 2004, he was Director-General of the International Olympic Truce Centre, an International Olympic Committee organization.
He served as Ambassador ad personam of the Hellenic Republic (1999-2004) and as Secretary-General of the Greek Foreign Ministry responsible for Diaspora Greeks (1996- 99).
Between 1988 and 1993, he was an Attorney at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington, D.C., specializing in international trade, transactions, and arbitration.
He has received numerous recognitions for his work on human rights and privacy, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s “Champion of Freedom Award” in 2020 and the Boston Global Forum’s “World Leader in Artificial Intelligence Award” in 2021. He is a member of the President’s Council on International Activities at Yale University and a former president of the DC Bar Association’s Human Rights Committee.
Mr. Lambrinidis was born in Athens, Greece in 1962. He received his B.A. degree in Economics and Political Science from Amherst College (1984) and his J.D. degree from Yale Law School (1988), where he was also Managing Editor of The Yale Journal of International Law. He is a 1980 graduate of the Athens College High School in Greece. He is married and has a daughter.
Moderator
David Brancaccio
David’s work has earned some of the highest honors in broadcast journalism, including the Peabody, the Columbia-duPont, the Emmy, and the Walter Cronkite awards. His feature-length documentary film about economic alternatives entitled Fixing the Future was released in theaters nationwide in 2012 and is now available from Netflix, iTunes, and on-demand cable television.
He is author of a book about Americans applying their personal values to their money, entitled Squandering Aimlessly. David has a BA from Wesleyan
University and an MA in journalism from Stanford University. He is married to Mary Brancaccio, a poet and educator. He grew up in Waterville, Maine and also attended schools in Madagascar, Ghana, and Italy. His enjoys public speaking, moderating, bicycling and photography.
Speaker
Othon Anastasakis
Othon Anastasakis is the Director of South East European Studies at Oxford University and Senior Research Fellow at St. Antony’s College. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, a Visiting Professor at the Prague School of Economics, and a Region Head of Europe at Oxford Analytica.
Dr. Anastasakis is the Principal Investigator of research projects exploring the relationship between Greece and its diaspora in the context of economic crisis and migration diplomacy and Turkey-EU relations. His other research interests include European populism and the extreme right, transition and democratization in Southern and South Eastern Europe, Balkan comparative politics, Turkish foreign policy in the Balkans, Greek-Turkish relations, Russia in South East Europe, and the European Union’s enlargement.
Dr. Anastasakis received his BA in economics from the University of Athens, his MA in comparative politics and international relations from Columbia University, and his PhD in comparative government from the London School of Economics. He holds additional degrees in French literature and politics from Paris IV and in Spanish literature, history, and the history of art from the Universidad Internacional Menendez Pelayo.
Among his recent publications are Diaspora Engagement in Times of Severe Economic Crisis: Greece and Beyond (Palgrave 2022) The Legacy of Yugoslavia: Politics, Economy and Society, (Bloomsbury, 2020) and Balkan Legacies of the Great War: The Past is Never Dead (Plagrave 2016). His latest policy brief is The Russo-Ukranian Crisis and the Western Balkans (ACM Brief, 2022). Personal website https://othonanastasakis.com/
Speaker
Mark Blyth
Dr. Blyth’s research spans two main areas: the political power of economic ideas and the political economy of the rich democracies. His books have included Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century (2002), Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea (2015), The Future of the Euro (with Matthias Matthijs, 2015), and Angrynomics (with Eric Lonergan, 2020). His forthcoming book is The New Politics of Growth and Stagnation (with Lucio Bacarro and Jonas Pontusson, 2022). He has over 40 published peer-reviewed articles in leading European and American journals.
A native of Scotland, Dr. Blyth received a BA in political science from the University of Strathclyde and a PhD in political science in 1999 from Columbia University.
Dr. Blyth serves on a council advising the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, on economic matters.
Speaker
Judy Dempsey
Judy Dempsey is a Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe and editor-in-chief of its Strategic Europe blog since 2012. Prior to that, she was a columnist for the International New York Times and between 2004-2011, the International Herald Tribune’s Germany Correspondent in Berlin.
From 2001 to 2004, Ms. Dempsey was the Financial Times’ Diplomatic Correspondent in Brussels covering the NATO and European Union enlargements. Between 1996 and 2001, she was the FT’s Jerusalem bureau chief, its Berlin correspondent from 1992–1996 and the FT’s Eastern European correspondent from 1990-1992. During the 1980s, Dempsey reported from Vienna on Central and Eastern Europe for the Financial Times, the Irish Times, and the Economist and was on the ground during the tumultuous months of 1989 and 1990.
Judy Dempsey studied History and Political Science at Trinity College, Dublin. She has been awarded several journalism prizes, of which the most recent was the 2021 Ernest Udina Prize to the European Trajectory, awarded by the European Journalists Association in Catalonia.
She is the author of several publications including Das Phänomen Merkel.
Speaker
John E. Herbst
Ambassador John E. Herbst is senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and served for thirty-one years as a foreign service officer in the US Department of State, retiring at the rank of career minister. He was US ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006, when he worked to enhance US-Ukrainian relations, help ensure the conduct of a fair Ukrainian presidential election, and prevent violence during the Orange Revolution. Prior to that, he was ambassador to Uzbekistan (2000-03), where he played a critical role in the establishment of an American base to help conduct Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. He also promoted improved US-Uzbek relations, in part by encouraging the government in Tashkent to improve its human rights record.
In his last four years at the State Department, he served as the coordinator for reconstruction and stabilization, leading the US government’s civilian capacity in societies in transition from conflict or civil strife, and to provide support to countries at risk of instability. He oversaw the establishment of the Civilian Response Corps of the United States, the US civilian rapid response force for reconstruction and stabilization operations overseas.
Ambassador Herbst previously served as US consul general in Jerusalem; principal deputy to the Ambassador-at-Large for the Newly Independent States; the director of the office of independent states and commonwealth affairs; director of regional affairs in the Near East Bureau; and at the embassies in Tel Aviv, Moscow, and Saudi Arabia.
He most recently served as director of the center for complex operations at National Defense University. He has received the Presidential Distinguished Service Award, the Secretary of State’s Career Achievement Award, and the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award.
Ambassador Herbst earned a Bachelor of Science in foreign service from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and a Master of law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He also attended the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies Bologna Center.
Speaker
Mark Leonard
Mark Leonard is the director and co-founder of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a council of 300 European leaders including serving and former presidents, prime ministers, economics and foreign ministers. His expertise and interests include geopolitics and geoeconomics, China, EU politics and institutions.
Writing and commenting frequently in the media on global affairs, Mr. Leonard has also authored three major books on geopolitics. The most recent, The Age of Unpeace: How Connectivity Causes Conflict (2021), discusses how geopolitics is reshaping the global economy as all the things that bind us together – supply chains, infrastructure, migration, the internet – are turned into weapons and currencies of power.
His first book, Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century (2005), was translated into 19 languages. What does China Think? (2008) was translated into 15 languages.
Mr. Leonard hosts the weekly podcast “Mark Leonard’s World in 30 Minutes” and writes a syndicated column on global affairs for Project Syndicate.
Previously he worked as director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform and as director of the Foreign Policy Centre, a think tank he founded at the age of 24 under the patronage of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He has been a visiting scholar at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Chinese Academy for Social Sciences.
He has also chaired the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Geoeconomics until 2016. Honored as a “Young Global Leader” of the World Economic Forum, he consults with governments, companies, and international organizations to help them make sense of the big geopolitical trends of the twenty-first century.
Speaker
Douglas Lute
Douglas E. Lute is Chair, International and Defense, BGR Group, and CEO, Cambridge Global Advisors, LLC. He is McDermott Distinguished Chair of Social Sciences, United States Military Academy, West Point, and Senior Fellow, Belfer Center, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He is also Senior Advisor, Jones Group International.
Ambassador Douglas Lute is the former United States Ambassador to NATO. Appointed by President Obama, he assumed the Brussels-based post in 2013 and served until 2017. During this period, he was instrumental in designing and implementing the 28-nation Alliance responses to the most severe security challenges in Europe since the end of the Cold War.
A career Army officer, in 2010 Lute retired from active duty as a lieutenant general after 35 years of service. In 2007 President Bush named him as Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor to coordinate the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2009 he was the senior White House official retained by President Obama and his focus on the National Security Council staff shifted to South Asia. Across these two Administrations, he served a total of six years in the White House.
Before being assigned to the White House, General Lute served as Director of Operations (J3) on the Joint Staff, overseeing U.S. military operations worldwide. From 2004 to 2006, he was Director of Operations for the United States Central Command, with responsibility for U.S. military operations in 25 countries across the Middle East, eastern Africa and Central Asia, in which over 200,000 U.S. troops operated.
Through his military-diplomatic career, he received numerous honors and awards, including three awards of the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award, the Grand Officer of the Order of Merit for the Italian Republic, and the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit for the Federal Republic of Germany.
General Lute holds degrees from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and United States Military Academy at West Point, which named him a Distinguished Graduate in 2018. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; a charter member of the Senior Military Advisory Group of the United States Institute of Peace; a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy; and a member of the board of the Atlantic Council of the United States.
Speaker
Daniela Schwarzer
Daniela Schwarzer is executive director for Europe and Eurasia of the Open Society Foundations. An expert in European affairs and transatlantic and international relations. Prof. Dr. Schwarzer is an honorary professor of political science at Freie Universität Berlin and a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center.
Prior to joining Open Society, Prof. Dr. Schwarzer was director and CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations. Before this, she had served on the executive team of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and worked at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. She has been a special advisor to European leaders such as EU High Representative Josep Borrell and to countries including Poland and France during their EU Council presidencies. Prof. Dr. Schwarzer has also worked as an opinion page editor and France correspondent for the Financial Times Deutschland.
She has held positions as a lecturer, researcher and academic fellow at institutions that include Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the Freie Universität Berlin, and the Hertie School of Governance. She serves on the advisory boards of the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Jacques Delors Institute and is a non-executive board member of BNP Paribas.
Speaker
Constanze Stelzenmüller
Constanze Stelzenmüller is the inaugural holder of the Fritz Stern Chair on Germany and trans-Atlantic Relations in the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings. She was a speaker at the 2015 Camden Conference on Russia.
An expert on German, European, and trans-Atlantic foreign and security policy and strategy, she has been a Senior Fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe, held the Kissinger Chair on Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress, and served as the inaugural Robert Bosch Senior Fellow at Brookings.
Prior to working at Brookings, Dr. Stelzenmüller was a Senior Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), where she directed the influential Transatlantic Trends survey program. She is a former director of the German Marshall Fund’s Berlin office.
From 1994 to 2005, she was an editor for the political section of the German weekly DIE ZEIT, where she had also served as defense and international security editor and covered human rights issues and humanitarian crises.
Her essays and articles, in both German and English, have appeared in a wide range of publications, and she is also a frequent commentator on American and European radio and television.
Dr. Stelzenmüller holds a doctorate in law from the University of Bonn, a master’s degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a law degree from the University of Bonn.
Speaker
Pierre Vimont
Pierre Vimont is a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe. His research focuses on the European Neighborhood Policy, trans-Atlantic relations, and French foreign policy.
During his thirty-eight-year diplomatic career with the French foreign service, he served as Ambassador to the United States from 2007 to 2010, Ambassador to the European Union from 1999 to 2002, and chief of staff to three French foreign ministers. He holds the title “Ambassador of France,” an honor bestowed for life on only a few French career diplomats.
From March 2016 to January 2017, Ambassador Vimont served as the special envoy for the French initiative for a Middle East Peace Conference. Previously, the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, had nominated him as his personal envoy to lead preparations for the Valletta Conference between EU and African countries to tackle the causes of illegal migration and combat human smuggling and trafficking.
Prior to joining Carnegie Europe, Ambassador Vimont was the first executive secretary-general of the European External Action Service (EEAS), from December 2010 to March 2015.
Ambassador Vimont is a knight of the French National Order of Merit, a membership awarded by the President of France for distinguished achievement in civil or military affairs.
He holds a degree in law from Pantheon-Sorbonne University, and is a graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po) and the National School of Administration (ENA).