Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is the President of the Portuguese Republic. With a Degree in Law from the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon and a PhD in Legal and Political Sciences in 1985, he is Full Professor at the Instituto de Ciências Jurídico-Políticas, School of Law of the University of Lisbon. He was President of the Social-Democratic Party (1996-99) and Vice-President of the European People’s Party. He has been Secretary of State, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, and a member of the Council of State (2000-2001 and 2006-2016). He has been a Professor at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences and the Faculty of Law of the Portuguese Catholic University, and he has lectured at Agostinho Neto and Eduardo Mondlane Universities and the University of Eastern Asia. He was a founder of  Expresso and Semanário newspapers. He was a member of the committee that drew up the first Press Law, and member of the Constituent Assembly.

Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins is a Trustee of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation since November 2015. He has presided over the Arts Board of the National Centre of Culture; is a Corresponding Member of the Lisbon Academy of Science; a full time member of the Naval Academy; an Academic of Merit of the Portuguese Academy of History; Guest Tenured Professor at the Lusíada University of Lisbon and ISCSP – the Higher Institute of Social and Political Sciences of the Technical University of Lisbon. He held the positions of the National Centre of Culture (2002-2016), President of the Portuguese Court of Audit (2005-2015), and Council of Corruption Prevention (2008-2015), EUROSAI – European Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (2011-2014) and the Contact Committee of the Presidents of Supreme European Union Audit Institutions (2011-2012); and General Auditor of the Assembly of the Western European Union (2008-2011). He was Minister to the Presidency, of Finance and of Education, and he was Member of the Portuguese Parliament several times. He was Vice-President of the National UNESCO Commission (1988-1994) and President of SEDES – the Association for Economic and Social Development (1985-1995).

Francisco Seixas da Costa is the chairman of the Lisbon Conferences.  He is a non-executive Member of the Board of Jerónimo Martins SGPS and of Mota Engil Africa NV and consultant of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. He was Ambassador at UN, OSCE, UNESCO, Brazil and France. He was Secretary of State for European Affairs (1995-2001) and Executive Director of the North-South Centre (2013-2014). Since 2013 he is member of the Consultative Council of the School of Economic (University of Coimbra) and of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities (Lisbon Nova University). He lectures at University Autónoma of Lisbon and belongs to the Scientific Council of Política Internacional and of Janus - Journal of International Relations. He authored several books and articles on international relations and security and he is columnist in two daily newspapers. He got a BA on Political and Social Sciences from the Technical University of Lisbon.

George Friedman is an internationally recognized geopolitical forecaster and strategist on international affairs and the founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures. Dr. Friedman is a New York Times bestselling author and his most popular book, The Next 100 Years, is kept alive by the prescience of its predictions. Other best-selling books include Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe, The Next Decade, America’s Secret War, The Future of War and The Intelligence Edge. Dr. Friedman has briefed numerous military and government organizations in the United States and overseas and appears regularly as an expert on international affairs, foreign policy and intelligence in major media. For almost 20 years before resigning in May 2015, Dr. Friedman was CEO and then chairman of Stratfor, a company he founded in 1996. Friedman received his bachelor’s degree from the City College of the City University of New York and holds a doctorate in government from Cornell University.

José Félix Ribeiro is Consultant of the Administration Board of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and a member of IPRI-UNL, the Portuguese Institute of International Relations. He got a BA in Economics at ISCEF in 1971 and a PhD in International Relations at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Lisbon Nova University in 2012. He worked in several government units of studies, prospective and planning from 1973 to 2012, including the Group of Basic Studies of Industrial Economics, the Service of Studies and Planning of the National Unit of Scientific and Technological Research and the Department of Prospective and Planning where he was Deputy-General Director from 1995 to 2006, being responsible for International Information and Prospective issues.  He has conducted several studies and published a number of articles on international economics, prospective studies and development strategies.

Fernando Jorge Cardoso is head of strategic and development studies of the Instituto Marquês de Valle Flôr. He is also Invited Professsor at ISCTE-IUL and Executive Director of the Lisbon Club. He received his PhD and Habilitations from ISEG, Technical University of Lisbon. In Mozambique, he was Dean of the School of Economics of the Eduardo Mondlane University (1978-1983), Assistant to the Minister of Planning (1977-1983) and CEO of Maragra, a sugar company (1983-1985). In Portugal, he has conducted since 1991 research, education and management activities in several university institutions. He was head of the Africa Programme of the Institute for Strategic and International Studies (1991-2012). He was consultant on the elaboration/evaluation of aid programmes in Angola, Mozambique and Cape Verde. He was copresidente of the Organising Committee of the 2009 and 2011 Estoril Conferences. He has an extensive list of publications on African, Development and International Relations.

Mary Kaldor is a Professor and Director of the Conflict and Civil Society Research Unit in the LSE Department of International Development. She was a founding member of European Nuclear Disarmament (END), Co-Chair of the Helsinki Citizen's Assembly and member of the International Independent Commission to investigate the Kosovo Crisis. Professor Kaldor pioneered the concept of new wars and global civil society and her work on human security has directly influenced European and national politics. Her most recent book International Law and New Wars, co-authored with Prof. Christine Chinkin, was published in May 2017. She is also the editor of the annual Global Civil Society Yearbook. At the request of Javier Solana, she was Convener for the Study Group on European Security Capabilities. She has been awarded Honorary Professorships at the University of Sussex and Corvinus University, and holds the 2015 Ludvig Quidde Award for academic achievement in the field of peace. In 2003, she was distinguished as Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for 'services to democracy and global governance'.

Ivan Timofeev is Director of Programmes at the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) and Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club. His personal background at RIAC includes working with Russian and foreign diplomats, governmental officials, experts, businessmen and NGO-leaders regarding Russia’s foreign policy and public diplomacy. Since 2015 he also heads Euro-Atlantic Security programme at the Valdai Discussion Club. Before joining RIAC, he was the Head of Analytical Monitoring Centre and Associate Professor at MGIMO University (2009–2011). He was awarded a doctoral degree in Political Science at MGIMO (2006). Ivan Timofeev is an author and co-author of more than 70 publications, issued in Russian and foreign academic press. He is a member of editorial board at the Comparative Politics. He was elected as a Professor of the Academy for Military Science (2013).

Ana Santos Pinto is Assistant Professor of the Department of Political Studies – NOVA University of Lisbon, Research Fellow at the Portuguese Institute of International Relations (IPRI-NOVA) and Research Fellow in the National Defense Institute (Portugal). Previously, she worked as Research Consultant to the UN Alliance of Civilizations (2008-2010), Advisor of the Ministry of National Defense of Portugal (2006-2009) and Research Assistant at the Portuguese Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Lisbon (2001-2003). She holds a PhD on International Relations and develops her research on identity in International Politics and Security issues, mainly regarding European Union, Middle East and North Africa. She authored various academic publications on EU Security and Defense Policy and MENA Geopolitics and collaborates extensively with Portuguese media.

Daniel Hamilton is the Founding Director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University. For fifteen years he also served as Executive Director of the American Consortium for EU Studies, designated by the European Commission as the EU Center of Excellence Washington, DC. He is the Director of the Atlantic Basin Initiative. He has held a variety of senior positions in the U.S. Department of State, taught graduate courses in several universities and has been a Member of the Advisory Boards for renowned institutions, in Germany and abroad. He has authored over 100 books and articles on contemporary European, transatlantic and international affairs. Most recent publications include Domestic Determinants of Foreign Policy in the European Union and the United States (2018); The Transatlantic Digital Economy (2017); The Russia File: Russia and the West in an Unordered World (2017); Eastern Voices: Europe’s East Face an Unsettled West (2017). He has a Ph.D. and M.A. with distinction from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Please see his full bio here.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia is an Indian economist and civil servant who was the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission of the Republic of India between 2004 and 2014.  He studied for his Master’s and M. Phil degrees at the Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He began his career as an Economist with the World Bank, Washington DC in 1968. Since 1979, in India, he has held numerous prestigious positions, namely: Finance Secretary, Ministry of Finance; Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs; Commerce Secretary; Special Secretary to the Prime Minister; Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance; and Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister.  He has also served as the first Director of the Independent Evaluation Office, International Monetary Fund (2001-03). He has published a number of articles on various aspects of economics, in prominent international journals and books.

Raquel Vaz-Pinto is Researcher of the Portuguese Institute of International Relations of Nova University of Lisbon. She was President of the Portuguese Political Science Association from 2012 to 2016. Her articles have been published, amongst others, in the Brazilian Journal of International Politics and The American Interest online. She is the author of «A Grande Muralha e o Legado de Tiananmen, a China e os Direitos Humanos» [The Great Wall and the Legacy of Tiananmen, China and Human Rights] (Tinta-da-china, 2010), «Os Portugueses e o Mundo» [The Portuguese and the World] (Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos, 2014) and published in 2016 by Tinta-da-china «Administração Hillary» (together with Bernardo Pires de Lima) and «Para Lá do Relvado, o que podemos aprender com o futebol» [Beyond the Pitch, what we can learn with football]. Her research interests are Chinese foreign policy and strategy; US Grand Strategy and the Asia-Pacific; Religion in International Relations; the Portuguese and the World; and Football and International Relations. Currently, she teaches the course on Asian Studies at the Social and Human Sciences Faculty of the Nova University of Lisbon.

Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

Kitty van der Heijden is the Director of World Resources Institute’s Europe and Africa Offices, in The Hague. An economist by training (Erasmus University Rotterdam), she was the Ambassador for Sustainable Development and Director of the Department for Climate, Energy, Environment and Water in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. She led the Netherlands delegation to the Rio+20 summit and was appointed the Netherlands representative on the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals. She was appointed to the UN in Hanoi, Vietnam, where she managed the ‘One UN’ pilot. In 2013, she was elected the 3rd best civil servant of the Netherlands, and was awarded a national Ribbon of Honor for her efforts to raise public awareness on a sustainable development pathway. In 2014, she was elected as “Influencer of the Year” among civil servants, and listed as 20th in the top 100 most influential people in the Netherlands dealing with sustainability.

Victor Alcobia is a Project Director & Senior Petroleum Engineer; he joined Beicip-Franlab as Senior Consultant in 2002. He gained a broad expertise in petroleum engineering since graduation in 1976 and benefits from a strong experience of assessing a wide variety of oil, gas and condensate fields, from those of the North Sea to those of Angola, Mexico, Russia, Venezuela, Far East and Middle East. He started his career as a professor of Mining Engineer at the University of Luanda. He also worked for Elf Aquitane in Angola and France (1983-90), for Scientific Software Intercomp in the UK (1990-95), Parexpro and CGG (Companhia de Geologia e Geofísica Portuguesa) in Lisbon (1995-2002). Victor Alcobia holds two MSc degrees, one in Mining (Angola, 1976) and another in Petroleum Engineering (France, 1984), and one MBA (France, 1989). He is a member of the SPE, the SPEE and the Portuguese Order of Engineers.

António Costa Silva is the CEO of Partex Oil & Gas and Professor at IST, University of Lisbon. He got a BA in Mining Engineering from IST-UL, a MA in Oil Engineering from the Imperial College and a PhD from the Imperial College and from the IST-UL. He initiated his professional carrier at Sonangol in Angola in 1980. He worked at the Companhia Portuguesa de Serviços (1984-1997) and was executive director of the French multinational Compagnie Générale de Geophysique (1998-2001). In 2002 he was appointed by the International Court of the Chamber of Commerce of Stockholm as international expert to solve the dispute between two major oil companies at a Sea of China field. From 2001 to 2003 he worked at the French Oil Institute in Paris, on its corporation branch, as Director of Reservoir Engineering and Director of Operations.

Alfredo  Valladão is a Professor at the Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA) of Sciences Po Paris. Senior Research Fellow of OCP Policy Center (Rabat) and President of the Advisory Board of EU-Brasil association (Brussels). He is member of the International Advisory Board CEBRI (Brazilian Center for International Relations – Rio de Janeiro), member of the Committee of Rencontres Internationales de Genève, and Director Latin America Research Chair at the Centre d’Etudes Sociales, Economiques et Managériales (CESEM - HEM Rabat). Former member of the Board of Trustees of UNITAR (2009-2015) and Former Director (1999-2010) of the Mercosur Chair of Sciences Po and Coordinator of the Working Group on EU-Mercosur Negotiations. Professor Valladão has published extensively on geopolitics, global economics, regional integration and trade negotiations, Brazil and Latin America. He holds a PhD summa cum laude in Political Sciences from Sciences Po Paris.

WANG Yiwei is professor of the School of International Studies, director of the Institute of International Affairs and director of the Center for EU Studies at Renmin University of China. He is also director of the China-Europe Academic Network (CEAN) and senior research fellow of the Charhar Institute. He was formerly distinguished professor of Tongji University (2011-2012), diplomat at the Chinese Mission to the European Union (2008-2011) and professor of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University (2001-2008), Korea Foundation Distinguished Visiting Professor of Yonsei University (2005) and Fox Fellow of Yale University (2000-2001). He has published more than 170 academic articles in Social Sciences in China, The Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science, amongst others; 15 books including the recent One Belt and One Road: Opportunities and Challenges, and Haishang: Revelations of European Civilization.

Federiga Bindi is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at SAIS Johns Hopkins, in Washington DC, and Jean Monnet Chair and Professor of Political Science at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. She also  leads the Foreign Policy Initiative and the Women Leadership in International Relations program at the Institute for Women Policy Research in Washington DC.

Prior to that, she was Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution,Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) (2008-2010), and a researcher at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs (NUPI), the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Institut d'Etudes Européens (Bruxelles), the Instituto Ciências Sociais of the University of Lisbon, the Universidade Católica and at Sc.Po. (IEP), Paris. She has an extensive experience in government, both at the national and international levels.

Prof. Bindi holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the European University Institute,Florence. She co-authored The Foreign Policy of the European Union: Assessing Europe’s Role in the World, 2nd revised edition, 2012; The Frontiers of Europe: A Transatlantic Problem?, 2011; and Analyzing European Union Politics, 2012.

Philippe Marlière is Professor in French and European Politics in the University College of London. Before coming to UCL, he was a Research Fellow at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS, 1989-93) and at the European University Institute (Florence, 1991-94), where he was awarded a PhD in Social and Political Science (2000). Philippe completed his MA degree in Law and an MPhil in Politics and Political Science at the University of Lille in France. His research interests are French politics and political parties; political ideologies; French sociology and social theory; citizenship and religion; France and the European Union. He was also awarded the Marcel Liebman Chair in political science by the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in 2007.

Marina Costa Lobo is Principal Researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon (ICS-UL), and member of the Board of IPP – Instituto Políticas Públicas. She is also Coordinator of the Observatório da Qualidade da Democracia at ICS-UL and Vice-President of the Board of the Lisbon Club. Her research interests focus on electoral behaviour and political institutions in Portugal in a comparative perspective. In particular, she was one of the co-directors of the Portuguese Election Study, which has carried out post-election surveys in Portugal since 2002. She published  in several academic journals. In 2015, she won the European Research Council Consolidator Grant. She obtained her Doctorate in Politics in 2001 in Oxford University, St. Antony's College.

Luís Amado is the Chairman of the Lisbon Club. He was recently appointed Chairman of EDP, and he was until 2017 the Chairman of Banif.Since the 1990s he held several positions in the Portuguese Government, including Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation (1995-1997 and 1999-2002), Minister of Defence (2005-2006) and Minister of State and Foreign Affairs (2006-2011). As part of his political activity, he was representative at the Regional Assembly of Madeira and member of the Portuguese Parliament. He graduated in Economics at the Technical University of Lisbon. Luis Amado was international consultant, adviser to the National Defence Institute and Visiting Professor at Georgetown University. He is also Visiting Professor at the Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas (ISCSP) and at the Faculty of Economics in the Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

Fernando Medina Correia is the Mayor of Lisbon. He was member of the Portuguese Parliament (2011-13), Councillor and Vice-President of the Lisbon municipality. He was advisor of INOFOR (1998-2000), member of the Education Ministry Working Group during the EU Portuguese Presidency (1999-2002), advisor of the Prime Minister on education, science and technology (2000-2002) and advisor of the Executive President of the Portuguese Investment Agency. He was Secretary of State for Employment and Professional Training, and Deputy-Secretary of State of the Minister of Economic Affairs, in the XVII and XVIII Constitutional Governments. He hols a BA in Economics by University of Porto and MA in Economic Sociology by ISEG, Lisbon.