GIS - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Expert
• Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C.

Alper Coşkun is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. He leads the Türkiye and the World Initiative in the Europe Program, where he focuses on Turkey, particularly its foreign, defense and security policies, as well as its relations with the United States, Europe and its region at large. He is a retired career diplomat of 32 years with extensive experience in bilateral and multilateral settings. He was the director general for international security affairs at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2016-2019), covering NATO, transatlantic relations, Euroatlantic security/defense, and arms control/disarmament matters. Before that, he was ambassador to Azerbaijan (2012-2016), overseeing one of Turkey's most active and extensive diplomatic missions, with a comprehensive multi-agency composition. He has held positions within the Turkish Foreign Ministry at various levels on issues related to maritime jurisdiction affairs, counterterrorism/intelligence, and NATO/Euroatlantic security matters. He has served in the cabinets of both the minister of foreign affairs and the undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His foreign assignments include Turkish missions in Moscow, Athens and the United Nations, as well as NATO, where he was the deputy permanent representative. Previously, he was a faculty member of the NATO Defense College in Rome.

Job Titles:

• Journalist
• Public Policy Analyst

Job Titles:

• Editor
• Expert
• Research Manager and Editor of the Index of Economic

Anthony B. Kim is research manager and editor of the Index of Economic Freedom in the Center for International Trade and Economics, of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation.

Job Titles:

• Expert
• Member of the International Police Association

General Beat Eberle joined the Swiss Air Force in 1979 as a student pilot, where he served as a reserve officer until 1990 while studying law. After graduating with a master's degree in law from the University of Bern, he became the public prosecutor for the Swiss Canton of St. Gallen and later chief of criminal investigation and acting chief of police for the Swiss Canton of Schwyz. At the same time, he graduated from the Swiss Police Institute and the Armed Forces General Staff College. He completed his civilian police service as head of the Graubunden cantonal police. As his last assignment as a reserve officer, he commanded the 112th Mountain Fusilier Battalion and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel before becoming a regular officer. In 2002 he served as the Swiss National Contingent Commander in the Kosovo Force (KFOR) and from 2003 as a colonel as the defense attache in Stockholm, Sweden, also covering Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In 2006 Gen. Eberle took over the command of the Territorial Military Police and in 2007 he was appointed commander of the Swiss Armed Forces International Command. With promotion to Brigadier General, he took over command of the Swiss Armed Forces Military Police in 2012. Gen. Eberle is also a member of the International Police Association and member of the board of governors of St. Gallen University. Since 2017, he has been running his own company, with which he is mainly active in the field of risk management and security consulting for operators of critical infrastructure.

Job Titles:

• Chief Strategy Officer
• Head
• Expert

Dante Disparte is chief strategy officer and head of global policy at Circle, responsible for overseeing company strategy, communications, policy and public affairs. Prior to joining Circle, Mr. Disparte served as a founding executive of the Diem Association, leading policy, communications, membership and social impact. He also has two decades of experience as an entrepreneur, business leader and global risk expert, most recently as founder and CEO of Risk Cooperative. He also served as an appointee on the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) National Advisory Council. He is a member of the World Economic Forum's Digital Currency Governance Consortium and a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Additionally, he is co-author of "Global Risk Agility and Decision Making" (Macmillan 2016). Mr. Disparte earned a bachelor's degree from Goucher College, is a PLD graduate of Harvard Business School, and has an master's degree in risk management from the NYU Stern School of Business. Outside of work, Mr. Disparte enjoys speaking and commentating, such as in media outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fortune, BBC, Forbes and Diplomatic Courier.

Job Titles:

• Expert
• Senior Fellow With the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies

Dean Cheng is a senior fellow with the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. He recently retired from the Heritage Foundation as the Senior Research Fellow for Chinese political and security affairs. Mr. Cheng specializes in Chinese military and foreign policy, and has written extensively on Chinese military doctrine, technological implications of its space program, and "dual use" issues associated with China's industrial and scientific infrastructure. He is the author of "Cyber Dragon: Inside China's Information Warfare and Cyber Operations."

Job Titles:

• Expert
• Journalist
• Public Policy Analyst
• Research Fellow

Diane Katz is a public policy analyst and veteran journalist. She now serves as senior research fellow in regulatory policy at the Heritage Foundation. Ms. Katz joined Heritage's Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies in August 2010. She previously was director of risk, environment and energy policy for the Fraser Institute, an independent policy research and educational organization in Canada. From 2002 to 2008, she was director of science, environment and technology for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free market think tank in Michigan. Ms. Katz has testified before the United States Congress and state legislatures. The State Policy Network, a coalition of more than 50 think tanks across the United States, appointed her to represent it on the American Legislative Exchange Council. Ms. Katz was awarded fellowships by the Jack R. Howard Science Institute for Journalists at the California Institute of Technology, the Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship of the National Press Foundation and programs at the Kinship Conservation Institute and the Political Economy Research Center. She holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Thomas Jefferson College and a master's degree in journalism from the University of Michigan.

Job Titles:

• Fellow
• Resident
• Expert
• Is Director of the Centre for Iraq Studies
• Middle East Forum Writing Fellow
• Professor

Dr. Amatzia Baram is a Middle East Forum Writing Fellow, as well as a professor emeritus at the Department of the History of the Middle East and Director of the Centre for Iraq Studies at the University of Haifa, Israel. Professor Baram was born in Kibbutz Kfar Menachem in southern Israel and raised and educated there. He served as an officer and commanded tank units in the Armored Corps during his regular military service from 1956 to 1960 and while in the reserves. After release from regular military service, he worked on the kibbutz farm before graduating in biology and teaching sciences at the kibbutz high school. He decided on a career change following the Six Day War in 1967 and started his education as an historian of the modern Middle East and Islam in 1971. He was "on loan" to the Iraqi desk at Military Intelligence as an analyst when the Iraq-Iran War began in 1980. Professor Baram completed all three of his degrees at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was awarded a PhD in 1986 for a dissertation on Baathi Iraq. He has taught at the University of Haifa since then. Since 1989, Professor Baram has served as a resident fellow at a number of international research institutions. He was a Senior Associate Member at St Antony's College, Oxford, UK, in 1989 and again in 1990. He was a Senior Fellow in Washington, D.C., at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars three times (in 1990, 1994-1995 and 2005) and twice at the U.S. Institute of Peace (in 1997-1998 and 2003-2004). He was also at the Brookings Institution in 2002-2003. Professor Baram was a Senior Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center in Italy. In 1998-1999 and 2010-2011 he taught as a Goldman Chair Professor at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. He wrote studies and lectured on Iraqi society (with an emphasis on the tribes of Iraq) for the American military between 2005 and 2009. He served as chairman of the Department of Middle East History and as Director of the Jewish-Arab Center in Haifa University and in the Institute for Middle East Studies. He is the founder and director of the Center for Iraq Studies at the University of Haifa. His main fields of study have been: Iraq 1920-2013: politics, religion, culture and society, with an emphasis on 1968-2011; Tribe and state in the Middle East; The Arab Shia; Political Islam; Baathi Syria. Since 1980, Professor Baram has advised the Israeli government and since 1986 also the U.S. government (during the Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush administrations) on Iraq and the Persian Gulf. Professor Baram has been interviewed by most of the world's leading TV and radio stations (including CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, PBS, NPR, the BBC, as well as Canadian, German, Italian, Dutch and Japanese broadcasters). He has also been interviewed by and published articles in leading newspapers (such as The New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Times, Financial Times, The Guardian, Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs). He has published four books and some 70 articles in professional magazines. In December 2010 Professor Baram and two colleagues published a book titled Iraq between Occupations: Perspectives from 1920 to the Present (edited by Palgrave MacMillan). In 2014 Professor Baram completed his latest book: The Conversion of Saddam Husayn: Ba'thi Iraq from Militant Secularism to Islam 1968-2003.

Job Titles:

• Expert

Dr. Evgeny Gontmakher graduated from Moscow State University in 1975. He then worked as a researcher in the Central Economic Institute under the Russian Ministry of Economy.

Job Titles:

• Expert
• Security Analyst
• Security Policymaker and Analyst

Dr. Peter Brookes is a veteran national security policymaker and analyst. He has served as a deputy assistant secretary of defense, Capitol Hill staffer, CIA officer, State Department officer and naval officer. Dr. Brookes also served as commissioner with the congressional United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission and worked as a think tank analyst and foreign policy columnist for the New York Post and Boston Herald. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy (BS), Johns Hopkins (MA), Georgetown (Doctorate), Defense Language Institute (Russian) and the Naval War College (Diploma).

Job Titles:

• Author
• Expert

Dr. Rudolf G. Adam is an author and a former diplomat, speechwriter and intelligence official, and an expert in security, arms control and nuclear strategy. Dr. Adam served as a diplomat for almost 40 years. His positions included ghostwriter for Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker, as well as Vice President of the Federal Intelligence Service of Germany and President of the Federal College of Security Studies. He served twice in Moscow. Other appointments included Singapore and Beijing. Mr. Adam speaks both Russian and Mandarin. His last position was in London, where he ran the German Embassy for a year. Since his retirement, he has published widely, including three books on Brexit, contributions in various papers and journals (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Welt, Cicero, POLITIKUM and The UK in a Changing Europe). He is a regular speaker on current affairs, particularly questions of security, arms control, nuclear strategy and Europe. He lectures at the University of the German Armed Forces in Munich. A further book on the pros and cons of referenda in representative democracies is scheduled to appear before the end of 2022.

Job Titles:

• Expert
• Specialist

Dr. Stephen Blank is a specialist on Russian foreign and defense policies and international relations across the former Soviet Union. He is also a leading expert on European and Asian security, including energy issues. Since 2013 he has been a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C. Between 1989 and 2013 he was professor of Russian National Security Studies at the Strategic Studies Institute of the United States Army War College in Pennsylvania. Between 1989 and 2001 he was the Douglas MacArthur Professor of Research at the War College. Dr. Blank has consulted for the CIA, major think tanks and foundations, chaired major international conferences and commentated on foreign affairs in media around the world. He has advised major corporations on investing in Russia and is a consultant for the Gerson Lehrmann Group. He has published over 1,200 articles and monographs on Soviet/Russian, U.S., Asian and European military and foreign policies, including publishing or editing 15 books. Prior to his appointment at the Army War College in 1989, Dr. Blank was associate professor for Soviet Studies at the Center for Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education of Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base. He has also taught at the University of California, Riverside and the University of Texas, San Antonio. Dr. Blank's M.A. and Ph.D. are in Russian history from the University of Chicago. His B.A. is in history from the University of Pennsylvania.

Job Titles:

• Expert
• Professional Board Member

Ewa Björling holds positions as a professional board member in several companies, including Essity AB, Nynas AB and Xolaris AB. She also serves as the chairman of the Prevention of Antibiotic Resistance (PAR) Foundation. In addition to her board roles, Ms. Björling possesses extensive experience as a mentor, having mentored individuals in both the political and business communities in Sweden. She is actively engaged in various networks providing advice on international affairs. Ms. Björling's career includes her tenure as the Minister for Trade (2007-2014) and Minister for Nordic Cooperation (2010-2014) in the Swedish government. She is a former member of that country's Moderate Party. Her accomplishments during this period include enhancing export financing, supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, and reforming Sweden's global promotional efforts. She played a pivotal role in the merger of Invest Sweden and The Swedish Trade Council to create Business Sweden, streamlining the promotion of the country's exports, imports, and investments. On the European front, she contributed to initiatives such as the European patent, the service directive, the goods package, the development of e-commerce, and numerous free trade agreements within the EU framework. Ms. Björling served as a Member of Parliament from 2002 to 2014, where she was an active member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. She also founded and chaired the Swedish-American Parliamentarian Friendship Association. Her role on the Board of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency involved coordinating aid for developing nations. Before entering politics, Ms. Björling worked as a PhD and Associate Professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. During this time, she lectured in the field of Medicine and led her own research group specializing in virology.

Job Titles:

• Board Member of the Child Witness Foundation
• Expert
• Founder and Chairman of Baird's CMC Ltd, Baird 's US LLC and Calbridge Investments ( Pty ) Ltd.

François Baird is a founder and chairman of Baird's CMC Ltd, Baird's US LLC and Calbridge Investments (Pty) Ltd. Baird's CMC is an international communications management consultancy with 47 partners across the world. He is co-chairman, Africa of Taylor Advisories, the boutique M&A firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. and is also the founder of the FairPlay anti-dumping trade movement. Mr. Baird consults to boards, top management and leaders internationally on issues, communication and strategy. He has served clients in the United States, Africa, India, Europe and the Middle East. His specialties are crisis management, community creation, communication strategy, public affairs, corporate reputation risk assessment and management, and market entry strategies. He consults to governments, international institutions and companies. He has worked in a range of sectors including health, financial services, ICT, agriculture, mining, consumer, energy, development and education. He has a special interest in developing countries and institutions. Mr. Baird is a board member of the Child Witness Foundation. He also serves on the board of the Presidential Precinct and is an advisor to its Young Africa Leaders Initiative (YALI) program. As a political and election advisor since 1988, he has managed election campaigns for President Chiluba of Zambia, for President Chissano in Mozambique and advised on election campaigns in various other African countries. Mr. Baird is an American citizen who was born in South Africa, grew up on a farm in its Northwest province, started his career on the gold mines, attained a degree in international politics and political science at the University of Pretoria and served as a commissioned officer in the South African Air Force. He founded his own business in 1987, following various corporate management positions at Gold Fields of SA, Small Business Development Corporation and Sappi, the South African multi-national forestry products company. He is emeritus chairman of Africa, of Daniel J Edelman Inc and emeritus board member of The Montpelier Foundation, where he served a term as Treasurer and Finance Committee Chairman.

Job Titles:

• Expert
• Member of Senior Foreign Service

Matt Boyse is an adjunct lecturer at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, The George Washington University, and the American University School of International Service. He is also an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., where he specializes in Central European political, security and economic issues. A former career member of Senior Foreign Service, Mr. Boyse served in Washington, Europe, Canada and South Asia during his 30+ years in the State Department. His last roles included: Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs overseeing U.S. policy toward Central Europe and the Office of the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues and serving as Sherpa for the Three Seas Initiative and Charge d'Affaires in Switzerland, Finland, Romania and the U.S. Mission to NATO. Prior to that, Mr. Boyse was Acting Deputy Chief of Mission and Minister Counselor for Political Affairs in Ottawa, Canada. Before joining the Foreign Service, Mr. Boyse was an East Germany and Soviet analyst at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and a DAAD Visiting Fellow at Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, both in Germany. Mr. Boyse has a BA in Classics from Haverford and an MA in Soviet and East European Studies from Columbia. He speaks German, Polish and Russian.

Job Titles:

• Expert
• Research Fellow in the Heritage Foundation 's Asian Studies Center

Michael Cunningham is a research fellow in The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center, where he focuses on China's domestic politics and foreign policy. Prior to relocating to Washington, D.C. in 2021, Mr. Cunningham spent over a decade in the greater China region, where he advised multinational businesses on the political, operational, and security risks associated with their business activities in China and Northeast Asia. He obtained a bachelor's degree in international relations from Brigham Young University and a master's degree in international affairs from American University. Mr. Cunningham has lived extensively in both mainland China and Taiwan and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and Portuguese.

Job Titles:

• Expert
• Secretary of the National Security

Oleksiy Danilov has been serving as the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine since 2019. Mr. Danilov previously served as deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (2019). From 2012 to 2019, he led the Ukrainian Fund for Entrepreneurship Support. He has also been a member of the Verkhovna Rada and its Committee on State Building, Regional Policy and Local Self-Government (2006-2007); head of the Luhansk Regional State Administration and Deputy Director of the Institute for European Integration and Development (2005-2006); and Mayor of Luhansk (1994-1997). Mr. Danilov graduated from the Taras Shevchenko Luhansk State Pedagogical University with a major in history, the East Ukrainian Volodymyr Dahl National University with a master's degree in management, and the Luhansk State University of Internal Affairs, receiving a law degree. is Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

Job Titles:

• Researcher
• Expert
• Professor

Stefan Hedlund is a widely published author, researcher and lecturer focusing on Nordic, Russian, Central Asian and post-Soviet affairs. He is based in Sweden. Currently, he is director of research at the Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University. He trained as an economist and has specialized in Russian affairs since the final days of Leonid Brezhnev in the early 1980s. His research interests have branched far beyond economics over the years but have, above all, included an interest in Russian history. Professor Hedlund has published extensively on matters ranging from the Soviet system to post-Soviet transition, and institutional dimensions of the interaction between state and market in a modern economy. He has published more than 20 books, some 200 journal and magazine articles and well over 300 reviews and op-ed pieces. He has traveled and lectured widely in academic as well as business contexts. He has taken two sabbatical semesters at Harvard University in the United States and been a visiting scholar in academic institutions ranging from Stanford University in California to Hokkaido University in Japan and Washington, D.C. His book "Putin's Energy Agenda: The Contradictions of Russia's Resource Wealth" was published by Lynne Rienner Publishers of Boulder, Colorado, United States in May 2014. He wrote "Invisible Hands, Russian Experience and Social Science: Approaches to Understanding Systemic Failure," which was published by Cambridge University Press, in 2011.

Job Titles:

• Expert

The late Yang Razali Kassim was a senior fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He had previously lived and worked as a journalist in Indonesia.