Events

Guntram Wolff

Director, Bruegel , Belgium

Guntram Wolff is Director of Bruegel. His research focuses on the European economy and governance, on fiscal and monetary policy and global finance. He regularly testifies to the European Finance Ministers' ECOFIN meeting, the European Parliament, the German Parliament (Bundestag) and the French Parliament (Assemblée Nationale). From 2012-16, he was a member of the French primeminister's Conseil d'Analyse Economique. 

Guntram Wolff is also a member of the Solvay Brussels School's international advisory board of the Brussels Free University. He joined Bruegel from the European Commission, where he worked on the macroeconomics of the euro area and the reform of euro area governance. Prior to joining the Commission, he was coordinating the research team on fiscal policy at Deutsche Bundesbank. He also worked as an adviser to the International Monetary Fund.

He holds a PhD. from the University of Bonn; he studied economics at the Universities of Bonn, Toulouse, Pittsburgh and Passau, and he taught economics at the University of Pittsburgh. He published a number of articles in various acclaimed economic journals.

Michael Baltensperger

Research Assistant, Bruegel , Belgium

Michael is a research assistant at Bruegel focusing on international trade and energy economics. Prior to joining Bruegel, he worked for the Economic Research and Statistics Division of the World Trade Organization and as an external collaborator for the International Labour Organization. As a student, Michael was a research assistant for Political Economy at the Faculty of Business and Economics in Basel. 

Michael holds a Master’s degree in International Economics from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and Bachelor’s degrees in History as well as Business and Economics from the University of Basel. He is a Swiss citizen, speaks German and English and has a good knowledge of French.

Kidane Kiros

Director, IPSS , Ethiopia 

Kidane Kiros (PhD) is the Director of IPSS. He holds a PhD in Development Studies. Prior to joining IPSS, his career path was mostly related to teaching, research, and educational administration. From 2003 to 2014, he taught in various Addis Ababa University (AAU) faculties and served as acting director of the Institute of Federal Studies as well as Senior Administrator and Finance Head for Continuing and Distance Education at the AAU. He also has experience working with humanitarian organisations including the Ethiopian Red Cross Society (as the Head of the Wollo zone branch office); International Federation of Red Cross/Crescent (as member of the Eastern Africa regional working group on food security (WGFS)); and the Ethiopian Red Cross Society (as a member of the national working group on Food Security (WGFS)).

Yonas Adeye Adeto

Associate Academic Director & Assistant Professor, IPSS , Ethiopia 

Yonas Adaye Adeto (PhD) is Associate Academic Director and Assistant Professor in the Institute for Peace and Security Studies, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. He obtained his PhD from the University of Bradford, UK (2016). He published peer reviewed book chapters (OSSREA, 2012; IPSS 2014) and policy papers on Security-Development Nexus (2006 and 2016) in the Horn of Africa. He made academic paper presentation in African Studies Association (Chicago, 2017). Currently he is working on State Fragility and Bad Neighbourhood in the Horn of Africa to be published in September 2018.

Thomas Gomart

Director, Ifri , France

Thomas Gomart is the Director of Ifri. He previously was its Vice President for Strategic Development and the Director of its Russia/ NIS Center. 

His academic and professional background has been closely related to post-Soviet space, but also to wider international issues (security, energy, and digital governance). He is currently working on Russia, country risk, and Think Tanks. He recently published Notre intérêt national. Quelle politique étrangère pour la France ?, (ed., with Thierry de Montbrial), Editions Odile Jacob, Jan. 2017, “Europe: Subject or Object in the Geopolitics of Data?”, (ed., with Julien Nocetti and Clément Tonon), Études de l'Ifri, July 2018, as well as L’affolement du monde - 10 enjeux géopolitiques, Paris, Éditions Tallandier, 2019. 

Thomas Gomart has been a member of the Strategic Review Committee on the Strategic Review of Defence and National Security 2017 (French Ministry of Armed Forces). He is also a member of the editorial boards of the French journals Politique étrangère, Etudes, and Revue des deux mondes.

Marc-Antoine Eyl-Mazzega

Director, Centre for Energy, Ifri , France

Marc-Antoine Eyl-Mazzega joined Ifri's Centre for Energy as a Director in September 2017. Prior to joining Ifri, he spent six years at the International Energy Agency (IEA), notably as Russia & Sub-Saharan Africa Programme Manager where he conducted oil and gas market analyses and was responsible for institutional relations with these countries and regions. He also held various other positions, such as at the Robert Schuman Foundation, where he was in charge of a Ukraine observatory. 

A French and German national, he holds a Ph.D. from Sciences Po Paris in international relations.

Paolo Magri

Executive Vice President and Director, ISPI, Italy

Paolo Magri is Executive Vice President and Director of the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) and Professor of International Relations at Bocconi University. He is also Member of the Strategic Committee of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs; Member of the Europe Policy Group del World Economic Forum (Davos) and Director of the European Group of the Trilateral Commission. 

He is a regular speaker, writer and commentator to diverse media outlet on global issues, US foreign policy, Iran and Middle East. Previously, he served as Program Director to the UN Secretariat in New York and, up to 2005, as Director of International Affairs at Bocconi University in Milan.

Matteo Villa

Research Fellow, Europe and Global Governance and Business Scenarios Centre, ISPI, Italy

Matteo Villa is ISPI Research Fellow, contributing specifically to the ISPI Migration Programme. He undertook his Ph.D. in Comparative Politics at the Graduate School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Milan. At ISPI, he oversaw the Energy Watch, edited ISPI/Treccani’s Atlante Geopolitico, and managed RAstaNEWS, an FP7 EMU-wide macroeconomic project (2013-2016). 

Dr. Villa specialises in European politics, with a specific focus on migration, macroeconomics, and energy issues.

Karim El Aynaoui

Managing Director, Policy Center for the New South, Morocco

Karim El Aynaoui is Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences of the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University. He is also Managing Director of the Policy Center for the New South, previously known as OCP Policy Center, a think tank based in Rabat and serves as advisor to the CEO and Chairman of OCP Group, a global leader in the phosphate sector. From 2005 to 2012, he worked at Bank Al-Maghrib, the Central Bank of Morocco. He was the Director of Economics and International Relations, where he provided strategic leadership in defining and supporting monetary policy analysis and strategy. He was also in charge of the Statistical and International Relations Divisions of the Central Bank, led the research division and was a member of the Governor’s Cabinet. Before joining Bank Al-Maghrib, Karim El Aynaoui worked for eight years at the World Bank, both in its Middle Eastern and North Africa, and Africa regions as an economist. He has published papers, books and articles in scientific journals on macroeconomic issues in developing countries. Recently, he co-authored a book outlining a growth strategy for Morocco and was the guest editor of a special issue on food price volatility in Oxford Economic Papers. 

Karim El Aynaoui is a board member of the OCP Foundation, a member of the Strategic Advisory Board of Ifri and a member of the COP22 Scientific Committee. He also participates in the Malabo-Montpellier Panel. Karim El Aynaoui holds a PhD in economics from the University of Bordeaux, where he taught for three years courses in statistics and economics.

Mohammed Loulichki

Senior Fellow, Policy Center for the New South; Former Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva and New York , Morocco

Mr. Loulichki is a Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, previously known as OCP Policy Center, who focuses on Diplomacy, conflicts resolution and Human rights. He has an extensive experience of 40 years in diplomacy and legal affairs. He assumed inter alia the functions of Head of the Department of Legal Affairs and Treaties in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was also Ambassador of Morocco in Hungary, Bosnia – Herzegovina and Croatia (1995-1999), Ambassador Coordinator of the Government of Morocco with MINURSO (1999 – 2001), Ambassador of Morocco to the United Nations in Geneva (2006-2008) and New York (2001-2003 and 2008-2014), as well as President of the Security Council (December 2014). 

Mr. Loulichki was appointed President of the Counter-Terrorism Committee of the Security Council (2013), President of the working Group on Peace Keeping Operations (2012), Vice-President of the Human Rights Council (2006), Facilitator of the Universal Periodic Review of the said Council (2006 and 2010) and President of the National Committee in charge of the follow up on nuclear matters (2003-2006).

Obiageli Ezekwesili

Director, African Economic Development Policy Initiative
Dr (Mrs.) Obiageli (Oby) Katryn Ezekwesili is a chartered accountant, former Nigerian Minister of Education, and former Vice President for the World Bank. Dr. Ezekwesili served as Vice-President for the World Bank's program in Africa and was responsible for a portfolio of about $40 Billion and the delivery of projects, economic and sectoral work in 47 Sub-Saharan countries.  She was until recently the Senior Economic Advisor to Open Society, aimed at building vibrant and tolerant societies with democratically accountable governments. She currently runs the Africa Economic Development Policy Initiative (AEDPI), which provides policy expertise and advisory support to African Heads of Government and their cabinets. She is Co-Founder of #BringBackOurGirls Movement, a group of diverse citizens advocating for the speedy and effective search and rescue of school girls abducted from the secondary school in Chibok on the 14, April 2014, Nigeria. She is the Founder and Convener of the #RedCardMovement (RCM), a citizens' centered advocacy movement which started organically on Twitter in January 2018. The movement was borne out of what citizens determination to end the recurrent plague of bad governance of our country regardless of which political party has held sway at national, state and local government levels.

Idayat Hassan

Director, Center for Democracy and Development, Nigeria

Idayat is the Director, Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), an Abuja based policy advocacy and research organization with focus on Deepening Democracy and Development in West Africa. Her core interest spans democracy, peace and security and transitional justice in West Africa. She is a lawyer by profession and has held fellowship in several universities across Europe and America.

Karin von Hippel

Director-General, RUSI, United Kingdom

Dr Karin von Hippel became Director-General of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) on 30 November 2015. Karin von Hippel joined RUSI after serving for nearly six years in the US Department of State as a Senior Adviser in the Bureau of Counterterrorism, then as a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, and finally, as Chief of Staff to General John Allen, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter-ISIL. 

Prior to that, she co-directed the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC and was a senior research fellow at the Centre for Defence Studies, King’s College London. She has also worked for the United Nations and the European Union in Somalia and Kosovo, and has direct experience in over two dozen conflict zones. Dr von Hippel has numerous publications to her name, including Democracy by Force: US Military Intervention in the Post-Cold War World (2000), which was short-listed for the RUSI Westminster Medal in Military History. She holds a PhD from the London School of Economics, an MSt from Oxford University, and a BA from Yale University.

Jonathan Eyal

Associate Director, Strategic Research Partnerships, RUSI, United Kingdom

Dr Eyal is the Associate Director, Strategic Research Partnerships, and International Director, at the Royal United Services Institute. He was born in Romania, but has lived most of his life in Britain. Educated at Oxford and London Universities, his initial training was in International Law and Relations, in which he obtained both his first degree and his Master's with a Distinction. His Doctorate, completed at Oxford in 1987, analysed relations between ethnic minorities in Eastern Europe since the end of the First World War. After teaching at Oxford for three years, Dr Eyal was appointed a researcher at RUSI. Since 1990, Dr Eyal has been Director of Studies at the Institute, and also serves as a Senior Research Fellow and Editor of the RUSI Newsbrief.

Dr Eyal has completed books on military expenditure in the former Warsaw Pact and a published a study on military relations in the Balkans during the time of Communism. He is a regular commentator on East European affairs for The Guardian, The Independent, The Times dailies and the Observer newspaper on Sundays. He has also given evidence to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on the conduct of British foreign policy in Eastern Europe, and the teams of experts which contributed to the peace plans for the former Yugoslavia. He has acted as an adviser to the European Union's studies on the process of dividing the assets of the former Yugoslav state, and has published two studies on the errors committed by the West in handling the Balkan conflict since 1991. He is fluent in English, French, Romanian, Italian, Hungarian and German.