Year: 2022

Hanna Hopko is an expert in advocacy on Russian expansionism and hybrid warfare. From 2014-2019, she chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament. Hopko was one of the civic leaders of the EuroMaidan during Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity. Ms. Hopko was elected to Parliament from the pro-European Self-Reliance Party in 2014 and later served as an independent MP. In 2014, Foreign Policy magazine named Ms. Hopko a “Leading Global Thinker”. That same year, she received the “Certificate of Merit” from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service Leadership Seminar and was honored with the National Democratic Institute Democracy Award for her efforts to further the cause of democracy in Ukraine. She has spoken on security issues at forums hosted by Canada, such as the 95th Rose-Roth Seminar of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association held in Kyiv, and was the keynote speaker alongside Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland at the 2019 Ukraine Reform Conference in Toronto sponsored by Global Affairs Canada. Hanna belongs to the Young Global Leaders Networks of WEF ( World Economic Forum) and the Munich Security Conference.

Gergely Szilveszter Karácsony is the Mayor of Budapest, Hungary.

Karácsony worked for the Medián market and public opinion research company as a research manager. He became Director of Research in 2007. Between 2002 and 2008 he was a political advisor at the Prime Minister’s Office. In addition to that, he worked as a teaching assistant at the Corvinus University of Budapest from 2004, an assistant lecturer from 2007 and an assistant professor from 2008.

Karácsony became a member of the newly formed Politics Can Be Different (LMP) party in 2009. During the 2010 parliamentary election he served as campaign manager of the party. He became a Member of Parliament from the Budapest regional list (3rd place). In May 2010 he was elected deputy leader of the LMP parliamentary fraction. As a result, he left the Medián firm. He is a political scientist, he previously served as member of the National Assembly (MP) from 2010 to 2014 and Mayor of Zugló from 2014 to 2019.

Filip Milacic studied political sciences and history of Eastern Europe at the University of Heidelberg and obtained the PhD at the Humboldt University. Currently, he is senior researcher for democracy and society at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation’s (FES) Office ‘Democracy of the Future,’ and Research Affiliate at the CEU Democracy Institute. Before joining the FES, Milacic worked for the Organization for the Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and at the University of Montenegro. He was also a visiting fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and at the Center for Advanced Studies of the University of Rijeka. He is author of the book Nationalstaatsbildung, Krieg und Konsolidierung der Demokratie. Kroatien, Serbien, und Montenegro (Springer, 2017). His new book, Stateness and Democratic Consolidation: Lessons from Former Yugoslavia was published by Springer. His work was published in many academic journals such as Ethnopolitics, Nationalities Papers, Democratization, and Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.

Eero Ailio is Policy Adviser on Energy Transition and Local Governance at the European Commission DG Energy, Directorate on Just Transition, Consumers, Energy Efficiency and Innovation.

He represents European Commission DG Energy in the Global Covenant, 100 Climate Neutral and Smart Cities Mission and advises management on energy transition. Prior to this, he headed and deputized the Consumer and Retail Market Units, where he contributed i.a. to Clean Energy for All Europeans legislation and co-created Global Covenant, Covenant of Companies, EU Energy Poverty Observatory and the Clean Energy for EU Islands initiative.

In his earlier Commission career, he has co-negotiated the EU Offshore Safety Directive and international agreements on satellite navigation. He served also Finland as career diplomat mainly on security and humanitarian aid policies supporting also President Ahtisaari’s peace mediation in Kosovo. He has experience also from international finance, media and city administration gathered in Finland, Sweden and Germany. He has an MSc (Econ) from Hanken Business School Finland, has studied at Stockholm University on Nordplus scholarship and belongs to the alumni of the US International Visitor Leadership Programme.