Pulitzer Prize winning historian, journalist and commentator on geo-politics, Anne Applebaum examines the challenges and opportunities of global political and economic change through the lenses of world history and the contemporary political landscape. Informed by her expertise in Europe and her years of international reporting, Applebaum shares perspectives on, and the far-reaching implications of, today's volatile world events. And as technology allows a new scale of media manipulation to authoritarian governments and changes the tenor of political discourse, she scrutinizes the misinformation, propaganda, and criminal exploitation that influence global affairs, as well.

Anne's Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag: A History is about the Soviet concentration camps. Her new book, Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine, is the winner of her second Duff Cooper Prize and the 28th Lionel Gelber Prize 2018. Anne is the only author to win the Duff Cooper Prize twice. A Senior Fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins university, she co-leads a program on disinformation and 21s century propaganda. An adjunct fellow of the Center for European Policy Analysis, she is former Phillipe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at the London School of Economics. Applebaum writes a biweekly foreign affairs column for The Washington Post, and is a regular contributor to publications such as Slate magazine, The New Republic, The Spectator, and The New York Review of Books. She was formerly a member of The Washington Post's editorial board; foreign and deputy editor of the Spectator magazine; and political editor of the Evening Standard. She divides her time between London and Warsaw, Poland.

Ann Linde (born in 1961) is the current Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden. She has held that office since September 2019. Prior to that, Ms Linde served as Minister for European Union Affairs and Trade, and from 2014 to 2016 she was State Secretary at Ministry for Home Affairs. From 2013 to 2014, she served as Head of the International Unit for the Party of European Socialists (PES), based in Brussels. She was the International Secretary of the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 2000 to 2013.

In the 1980s, she worked for several non-governmental organisations and during the 1990s she was working at the Swedish Government Offices, holding both political and non-political positions.

In the year 2021 Ms Linde held the position as the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office.

Among her numerous assignments she has served as a board member of the Olof Palme International Centre and the Anna Lindh Memorial Fund. Ms Linde has a bachelor's degree in political science, sociology and economics from Stockholm University.

Ann Linde is married, has two children and lives in Stockholm.

General David H. Petraeus is one of the most prominent U.S. military figures of the post-9/11 era. He has been described as a leading warrior-intellectual and "one of the great battle captains" in American military history. Following his military service, he served as Director of the CIA. He is now a Partner with the global investment firm KKR and Chairman of the KKR Global Institute.

During his 37-year career in the United States Army, General Petraeus served in Cold War Europe, Central America, the United States, Haiti, Bosnia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the greater Middle East and central Asia. He was most widely recognized for: his oversight of the organization that produced the U.S. Army's counterinsurgency manual and overhauled all aspects of preparing leaders and units for deployment to combat; for his leadership of the Surge in Iraq; and for his command of coalition forces in Afghanistan. He culminated his military career with six consecutive commands as a general officer, five of which were in combat, a record believed unmatched in the post-World War II era.

A graduate with distinction from the United States Military Academy, General Petraeus is the only person in U.S. Army history to be the top graduate in both the U.S. Army's challenging Ranger School and the year-long U.S. Army Command and General Staff College course. He also earned a Ph.D. in an interdisciplinary program of international relations and economics from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and later completed a fellowship at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. He taught both economics and international relations at the United States Military Academy in the mid-1980s and, after leaving government in late 2012, he was Co- Chairman of a Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on North America and a visiting professor of public policy at the City University of New York's Macaulay Honors College for 3-1/2 years.

After General Petraeus' retirement from the military, following confirmation by the Senate by a vote of 94-0, he served as Director of the CIA as the Agency played the central role in a number of achievements in the global war on terror, established a strategic campaign plan for the Agency, and pursued initiatives to invest additional resources in the Agency's most important element, its human capital.

General Petraeus has been Chairman of the KKR Global Institute for over five years and a Partner with the firm for more than three-and-a-half years. He is also a member of the board of Optiv (a global provider of cyber security services), a Judge Widney Professor at the University of Southern California, a Senior Fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center, the Senior Vice President of the Royal United Services Institute, the Co-Chairman of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Global Advisory Council, and a member of the boards of several other think tanks and over a dozen veterans service organizations.

Over the past dozen years, General Petraeus has been named one of America's 25 Best Leaders by the U.S. News and World Report, a runner-up for Time magazine's Person of the Year, the Daily Telegraph man of the year, Prospect magazine's Public Intellectual of the Year, a Time 100 selectee, one of Foreign Policy magazine's top 100 public intellectuals, and the recipient of the Madison Medal at Princeton University. He is a frequent commentator on global security and economic issues. In recent years, his pieces have been published in the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy, and he has also appeared frequently on various TV news programs and documentaries.

General Petraeus has been awarded numerous U.S. military, State Department, NATO, and United Nations medals, including four awards of the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the Bronze Star Medal for Valor, two awards of the NATO Meritorious Service Medal, the Combat Action Badge, the Ranger Tab, and Master Parachutist Wings. He has also been decorated by 13 foreign countries. And he is believed to be the only individual who, while in uniform, threw out the first pitch of a World Series game and did the coin toss at a Super Bowl.

A dedicated patriot, intellectual, and strategist, former Secretary of Defense and retired Marine General James N. Mattis exemplifies principled leadership in times of turbulence.

One of the preeminent leaders of his generation, Gen James Mattis has spent nearly 50 years in the service of his country. Renowned for his diligent study of war, and his dogged efforts on the battlefield, Gen Mattis is described as a principled commander who isn't afraid to tell it like it is.

A rare combination of thinker and doer, and scholar and strategist, Gen Mattis knows the monumental powers and responsibility of our military forces, and the challenges of our dangerous and complex world. His matchless dedication to his job and country earned him universal respect and reverence – from allies and adversaries alike.

Gen Mattis served as the 26th Secretary of Defense of the United States for nearly two years before resigning with distinction. With his reputation as a sharp analyst and venerable wartime leader, Gen Mattis received nearly unanimous, bipartisan support for his nomination. A living Marine Corps legend, he made history by securing special permission from Congress to lead the Pentagon, sooner than he was eligible.

As Secretary of Defense, Mattis preferred not to play politics – a quality that boosted admiration for the retired general. Instead, he focused on making combat readiness one of his main priorities, and served as the primary author of a new American defense strategy whose central goal was to take on "revisionist" powers that "seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian models."

Viewed as the steady hand in tumultuous times, he championed building a network of alliances and strategic partnerships around the world.

"Our strength as a nation is inextricably linked to the strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnerships," then Secretary Mattis wrote in a letter to President Trump. Without maintaining those alliances, he says, we cannot protect our interests or serve the role of an indispensable nation in the free world.

His resolve to amass and maintain positive relations with key countries served as a premier example of professionalism and stability in a political landscape wrought with unpredictability.

During his 44 years in the Marines, Gen Mattis rose from an 18-year-old reservist to the highest rank of four-star general. He capped off his military career as head of the U.S. Central Command, where he was in charge of all American forces serving in the Middle East and oversaw operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as parts of Syria, Iran, and Yemen. He retired from the post in 2013. It would be just four years later, in 2017, that he would answer the call to serve again, as the first member of President Donald Trump's cabinet cleared to take office.

A veteran of three wars, Gen Mattis spent much of his career involved in overseas conflict. Described by colleagues and his staff as brave, honest, and humble, Gen Mattis proved to be an exceptional motivator of Marines and developed a leading style that endeared him to his troops.

"Believe so completely in subordinates they have no choice but to believe in themselves; act from integrity and authenticity, let your very goodness put ambition out of context," he counsels.

As part of his "hearts and minds" approach to counterinsurgency operations, Gen Mattis established the Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning, which remains active today. The academy for Marine officers and senior enlisted personnel provides cultural awareness and language skills training to ensure units can operate effectively in complex expeditionary environments.

A patriot who always put country above self, Gen Mattis steeped himself in the history and tradition of the military and dedicated himself to the Marine Corps.

Gen Mattis speaks with candor and thoughtful analysis about the threats that face our nation and military. Humorous, compassionate, and strategic, he also offers insightful lessons in leadership, with a deep focus on the art of empowering individuals.

Zanny Minton Beddoes is the Editor-in-Chief of The Economist. Previously she was the business affairs editor, responsible for the newspaper's coverage of business, finance and science. Prior to this role, she was The Economist's economics editor, overseeing the newspaper's global economics coverage from her base in Washington DC. Before moving to Washington in April 1996, Ms. Minton Beddoes was The Economist's emerging-markets correspondent based in London. She travelled extensively in Latin America and Eastern Europe, writing editorials and country analyses. She has written surveys of the World Economy, Latin American finance, global finance and Central Asia. Ms. Minton Beddoes joined The Economist in 1994 after spending two years as an economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where she worked on macroeconomic adjustment programmes in Africa and the transition economies of Eastern Europe. Before joining the IMF, she worked as an adviser to the Minister of Finance in Poland, as part of a small group headed by Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Harvard University.

Ms. Minton Beddoes has written extensively about international financial issues including enlargement of the European Union, the future of the International Monetary Fund and economic reform in emerging economies. She has published in Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy, contributed chapters to several conference volumes and, in 1997, edited "Emerging Asia", a book on the future of emerging-markets in Asia, published by the Asian Development Bank. In May 1998 she testified before Congress on the introduction of the Euro.

Ms. Minton Beddoes is a regular television and radio commentator on BBC, MSNBC, PBS, NPR, CNN and CNBC.

She holds degrees from Oxford University and Harvard University.

The Honourable Mélanie Joly was first elected to represent Ahuntsic-Cartierville in the House of Commons in 2015. She has previously served as Minister of Economic Development, Minister of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie, and Minister of Canadian Heritage.

In her ministerial roles, Minister Joly has worked to promote Canadian culture, and to grow and increase the visibility of Canada's tourism sector. She has also worked to safeguard Canada's two official languages while promoting the use of French in Canada and around the world, including in the digital sphere.
Prior to entering federal politics, Minister Joly founded the Vrai changement pour Montréal party and ran for mayor of Montréal in 2013 under its banner.

Minister Joly holds an Honours Bachelor of Law from the Université de Montréal and a Magister Juris in European and Comparative Law from the University of Oxford. She is the author of Changing the Rules of the Game, in which she shares her vision for public policy and civic engagement. She was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

Member period
Member of the Danish Parliament (Folketinget) for the Social Democratic Party in Bornholms greater constituency (2007-2014)
Member of the Danish Parliament (Folketinget) for the Social Democratic Party in Bornholms county constituency (March 11, 1998-2006)
Parliamentary career
Minister for Foreign Affairs from June 27, 2019
Member of the European Parliament, 2014-2019, vice-president for the S&D Group, 2016-2019
Spokesman on foreign affairs, 2000-2013
Chairman of the Foreign Policy Committee, 2011-2013, Vice Chairman 2001-2008
Vice-chairman of the parliamentary group of the Social Democratic Party 2003-2005

Education
Master of Public Administration, Harvard University, 2006-2007
Fulbright Fellow, 2006-2007
BA.scient.soc. from Roskilde University, 1996-2004
Student, Bornholms Amtsgymnasium, 1991-1994
Marshall Memorial Fellow 2004
Employment
Project Coordinator, International Department, the Social Democratic Party, 1996-1998
Teacher, Svaneke School, 1995-1996
Teacher, Nexø Youth School, 1993-1994
Course instructor, Krogerup Folk High School, 2007

Affiliations

National:
Chairman of the board for Campus Bornholm from 2010-2018.
Vice-Chairman for Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy (DIPD), 2010-2014.
Previously board member, Sct. Ols (treatment center for drug addicts) from 2004.
Previously board member, Bornholms Musikhus from 2009.
Previously board member, the Danish United Nations Association.
Previously board member, UNICEF Denmark.

International:
Vice-President for AWEPA, European Parliamentarians with Africa from 2002-2011.
Treasurer for Parliamentarians for Global Action 2004-2006.
Rapporteur for NATO-PA Sub-Committee on Transatlantic Economic Relations from 2009.
Member of the board for the Parliamentary Network for the World Bank Group 2009-2013.
General spokesperson for NATO's Parliamentary Assembly 2012-2013.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is the leader of the Belarusian democratic forces who independent observers agree won the presidential election on August 9, 2020, against the autocratic President Aliaksandr Lukashenka. As the leader of the Belarusian democratic movement, she has visited 26 countries, gathering support and advocating for the release of 1000+ political prisoners and a peaceful transition of power through free and fair elections. In meetings with President Biden, Chancellor Merkel, President Macron, President von der Leyen, and other world leaders, Tsikhanouskaya emphasized the need for a braver response to the actions of the Belarusian dictatorship.

In 2020–2022, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya became a symbol of the peaceful struggle for democracy and strong female leadership. Among dozens of distinctions, she is a recipient of the Sakharov Prize awarded by the European Parliament, 2022 International Four Freedoms Award, and Charlemagne Prize. In 2021 and 2022, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda and Members of the Norwegian Parliament respectively.

Alina Mykhailova is a veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war, a volunteer and a deputy of the Kyiv City Council.

Participant of Euromaidan. She became a volunteer at the front in 2014 and was a medical volunteer there from 2016 to 2019. Alina Mykhailova also organized medical service ULF in a volunteer unit.

Awarded state awards: Medal "Defender of the Motherland",

Order of Princess Olga, Medal "In Assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine".