Bogdan Aurescu 
A career diplomat, Dr. Aurescu was appointed Secretary of State for Strategic Affairs in the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2009. He is a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (The Hague), substitute member of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) of the Council of Europe and alternate representative of Romania to the Danube Commission. He is also president of the International Law Section of the Association of International Law and International Relations of the Romanian Branch of the International Law Association (London), editor-in-chief of the Romanian Journal of International Law and member of the Editorial Board of the journal Judicial Courier. Previously, he was the Romanian Agent for the International Court of Justice and coordinated the activity of the team which represented Romania in the case against Ukraine before the Court on the Maritime Delimitation in the Black Sea.

Araz Azimov
Mr Azimov was appointed Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan in 1994. Before that he served as a Director in the Department of International Organizations in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1992-1994), and in various positions, including as Deputy Director, in the Department of Information in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has also worked in the Foreign Service of the Azerbaijan State Radio (1984-1989). He was educated at the Azerbaijan State University. He speaks English, Persian, Turkish and Russian as foreign languages. He was born in Baku in 1962.

Tomas Herbert Ries
Dr Ries is Director at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs in Stockholm, Sweden since 2005. Before that, he was Senior Reseacher at the National Defence College in Helsinki, Finland (1997-2004), Senior Researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (1988-1992), Research Associate at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (1986-1988) and Research Associate at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland (1981-1985). His Ph. D. thesis on “Soviet Strategic Nuclear Interests in the Nordic Area 1955-1985” was defended at the University of Geneva in 1992. Dr Ries was born in 1953.

Enrique Baron
Mr Baron was President of the European Parliament from 1989 to 1992.  He was PES Group chairman from 1999 to 2004. He was also Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the European Parliament from 1992 to 1995.  In Spanish politics, Mr Baron was a PSOE Deputy in the Cortes (1977–1987) representing the Madrid region. He served as Minister of Transport, Tourism and Communications between 1982 and 1985. He graduated in law from the University in Madrid and in business at ESSEC in Paris. As a practising lawyer, he specialised in labour law, and acted for defendants in political cases (1970–1977). mr Baron was born in Madrid in 1944.

Abdullah Baabood
Dr Baabood is Director at the Gulf Research Centre (GRC) in Cambrigde, UK. He graduated with a Master’s in Business Administration, a Master’s in International Relations as well as a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Cambridge. He has a general interest in International Politics and Economics, particularly in the areas of globalization and regionalism. His research interest also focuses on the GCC states’ economic, social and political development and GCC’s external relations. He has published, presented and attended several International seminars and workshops on these topics. He is a member of a number of academic and professional bodies and holds board memberships for several business organizations and committees.

Shlomo Ben-Ami
Dr Ben-Ami was appointed as Foreign Minister of Israel in 2000. From 1999, he already held the office of Minister of Internal Security. He remained Foreign Minister and Security Minister until 2001. In 1996 he was elected to the Knesset on Labour’s list. He resigned from the Knesset in 2002. From 1987 until 1991, before he entered politics, he was the first Israeli ambassador to Spain. He was educated at Tel Aviv University and Oxford University from which he received a D.Phil. in History. He was a historian at Tel Aviv University from the mid-1970s, serving as head of the School of History from 1982 to 1986. His initial field of study was Spanish history. He later turned his attention to the history of Israel and the Middle East. He was born in Tetuan, Morocco, in 1943.

Abdennour Benantar
Dr Benantar is Research Fellow at the Centre for Research on applied Economics for Development (CREAD) in Algiers and Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Batna, Algeria. He is a Founding Member of the Algerian Association of Defence and Security Studies. He has published extensively in French and Arabic, i.a. on the Mediterranean dimension of Algerian security and on NATO, Maghreb and Europe. His PhD on “The Arab world in the “new world order”” was defended at the University of Paris in 2000. Dr Benantar was born in Gosbat, Algeria, in 1967.

Werner Hoyer
Dr Hoyer is since October 2009 Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office of Germany. From 2002 and up to 2009, he was Deputy Chairman and spokesman on foreign affairs of the FDP parlamentary group in the Bundestag. He has also served as Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office in an earlier period (1994-1998). Since 2006 he is Member of the presidium of the FDP and since 1987, he is Member of the Bundestag. In the period 2000-2005, he was President of the European Liberal Democratic and Reform Party (ELDR). He has a PhD in economics from Cologne University, and worked as a Senior research assistant and associate lecturer for foreign trade at the same university (1974-1984). He was also Director of the “Economics and Information” Department of the Carl Duisberg Society, Cologne (1985-1987). Dr Hoyer was born in Wuppertal in 1951.

Igor Yurgens
Dr Yurgens is Chairman of the Board of the Moscow Institute of Contemporary Development, which aims at facilitating close and systemic relations between the state and Russia’s expert community. He is also Chairman of the Board of the investment bank Renaissance Capital and Professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. In 1998, he became President of the All-Russian Insurance Association. Four years later, he was elected Vice President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP).  He graduated from Moscow State University in economics in 1974 and holds a Doctorate in economics. Dr Yurgens was born in 1952.

Fiona Hill
Dr Hill is Director of the Center on the United States and Europe and Senior Fellow for Foreign Policy at Brookings Institution. She is an expert and frequent commentator on Russia and the states of the former Soviet Union. She has also served as National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council. Furthermore, she is on the Advisory Board of the Central Eurasia Project of the Open Society Institute in New York and of the Democracy Coalition Project of the Open Society Institute in Washington, D.C. She is a board member of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in London and of the Russian language international news service, Washington ProFile. Dr Hill was born in 1965.

Oksana Antonenko
Dr Antonenko is a Senior Fellow and the Programme Director for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Dr Antonenko holds degrees from Moscow State University in Political Economy and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government (USA) MPP in International Affairs and Security. She joined the IISS in 1996 as Research Associate. In 2005-2006 Dr Antonenko facilitated track two meetings between Georgian and South Ossetian senior officials and experts with the aim of promoting conflict resolution in the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict.  In 2006-2007 Dr Antonenko directed research project on Shanghai Co-operation Organisation and Security Challenges in Central Asia. She oversees all IISS work on Russia, Central Asia, South Caucasus and Western NIS states.

Volker Perthes
Dr Perthes, born in 1958, received his doctorate from the University of Duisburg, Germany, in 1990, and his habilitation in 1999. He was assistant professor at the American University of Beirut (1991-1993), and he taught at the Universities of Duisburg, Muenster and Munich. He currently teaches as professor (Political Science/International Relations) at Humboldt University Berlin and Free University of Berlin. He has been with Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin (previously Ebenhausen) since 1992. A main function of SWP is to give advice to the German parliament and government on international affairs. He served as head of SWP Research Group Middle East and Africa for several years. Since October 2005, he is chairman of SWP and director of the institute.