Region: Germany
Laura-Kristine Krause
Laura-Kristine Krause is Founding Director of More in Common Germany, an organization devoted to understanding the forces that are driving our democracies apart and to countering “us vs. them”-narratives. She also serves on the organization’s international executive team, alongside her colleagues from France, Poland, the UK, and the US. Laura is a leading expert on polarization and social cohesion and an advisor to key civil society organizations, initiatives, and political institutions. She also applies this lens to her role on the oversight board of Germany’s largest public broadcaster ZDF and her board roles in German philanthropy and public administration. She was a negotiator for the coalition treaty of the German…
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Sascha MĂĽller-Kraenner
Sascha MĂĽller-Kraenner is CEO of Deutsche Umwelthilfe (Environmental Action Germany), a leading environmental, nature conservation, and consumer advocacy organization. He is also a founding partner and board member of the Ecologic Institute, a non-profit applied environmental policy research institute with offices in several European and North American cities. From 2007-2014, Sascha built and led The Nature Conservancy's regional program in Europe. From 2003-2006, he served as the Heinrich Böll Foundation's Director for Europe and North America as well as head of the Foundation's program on foreign and security policy. From 1998-2002 he served as Director of the Foundation's office in Washington DC. Sascha serves on several boards of scientific and…
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Kirsten Rulf
Kirsten Rulf has been working as a senior advisor for digital, technology, and innovation policy to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and current Chancellor Olaf Scholz since 2019. She is Head of Division for General Digital Policy Issues and “Nerd-in-Chief” at the Federal Chancellery of Germany in Berlin. In her strategic leadership position, Kirsten is shaping Germany’s and Europe’s role in the geopolitics of tech. What does European digital sovereignty mean in a global context? How should Germany navigate the Great Power competition between USA and China? Kirsten first started to think about these issues during her decade-long career as an award-winning journalist: as current affairs correspondent for Germany’s flagship…
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Mehmet GĂĽrcan DaimagĂĽler
Dr. Mehmet GĂĽrcan DaimagĂĽler is a German-Turkish human rights and policy adviser lawyer based in Berlin and Bonn. Mehmet is also one of the leading political and cultural activists on German-Turkish issues and was the first German of Turkish descent to be elected to the national board of a German political party, the Free Democratic Party. An outspoken advocate for human rights in Germany, he founded the first political advocacy group for Turkish immigrants in Germany in 1994. He also spearheads inter-religious dialogue in Germany, bridging, in particular, the Muslim-Jewish divide. As a co-plaintiff, he represented several relatives of victims of a neo-Nazi terrorist cell (the National Socialist Underground) at…
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Sandra Breka
Sandra Breka is Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation Group at Open Society Foundations. Previously she was a member of the Board of Management of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, one of the major charitable foundations in Europe. There, she spearheaded the foundation’s strategic realignment. Her portfolio included the foundation’s work on Global Issues with a focus on Climate Change, Democracy, Immigration Society, Inequality, Migration, and Peace as well as Strategic Partnerships and the Robert Bosch Academy. Before joining the foundation in 2001, Sandra served as Program Director at the Aspen Institute Berlin after an assignment with the American Council on Germany in New York. After studies in…
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Katrin Hett
Katrin Hett is a Senior Political Affairs Officer in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General at the United Nations. She joined the UN in January 2010 in the Department of Political Affairs as Political Affairs Officer, first in the Europe Division and then in the Office of the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs. She has also served in the Secretary-General’s transition team from October to December 2016. Previously, Katrin worked as Regional Coordinator for the Western Balkans in Public Diplomacy at NATO HQ, Senior Democratisation and Public Administration Reform Advisor at OSCE in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and was Deputy Project Manager for Conflict Management at GTZ in South Africa. Born in…
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Martina Larkin
Martina Larkin is CEO of Project Liberty, a ground breaking new initiative to transform how the internet works. Martina is a recognised international executive well versed in innovation and the world of international economics and politics. Before joining Project Liberty she was Vice President for Global Issues at System, an AI and data science company. Prior to that she spent 16 years at the World Economic Forum where she was a member of the Executive Committee. Martina is a member of `several non-profit boards, including the European Institute of Innovation and Technology of the European Commission; the international advisory panel for the Future of Science and Technology of the European…
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Cornelia Quennet-Thielen
Cornelia Quennet-Thielen is State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, responsible for more than 1,000 members of staff and an annual budget exceeding €10 billion. Before becoming State Secretary, she served as Deputy Chief of Staff at the Office of the Federal President of Germany (2004–2008). During this period, Cornelia acted as the president’s senior advisor on domestic policy as well as on constitutional law and mercy petitions. Prior to joining the president’s staff, Cornelia was deeply invested in environmental and sustainability policy at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety. From 1999 to 2004, she served as Deputy Director-General, with primary…
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Belabbes Benkredda
Belabbes Benkredda is an award-winning social innovator and the founder of the Munathara Initiative, the Arab world’s largest online and television debate forum highlighting voices of youth, women, and marginalized communities. Today, Munathara operates in 11 Arab countries and counts a community of some 170,000 members on its online debate platform. Its monthly prime time TV debates are the only civil society-run, independent political talk programs on Arabic television, syndicated across several channels. Previously, Belabbes held roles in the German Foreign Office, the League of Arab States, and the Council for Arab-British Understanding. After moving to Dubai in 2005, Belabbes became a government consultant specializing in public diplomacy in the…
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Wolfgang Proissl
Wolfgang Proissl is a journalist and Head of Communications and Chief Spokesperson for the European Stability Mechanism, an international organization founded by the 17 Euro-area member states whose purpose is to provide financial assistance to member countries in difficulty. Previously, he reported and wrote on monetary policy, international finance, and the financial crisis for the Financial Times Deutschland (FTD). As a journalist, he worked to promote European integration and was responsible for defining the editorial line on European affairs and global governance for the FTD and its affiliated news magazines. Through the FTD, he advocated for a stronger European Union, less energy dependence on Russia, EU membership for Turkey, and…
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