SPEAKERS in 2022

Fumio Kishida
Prime Minister of Japan

Dr. Clemens von Goetze
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Federal Republic of Germany to Japan

After finishing his military service, von Goetze studied at the University of Erlangen where he obtained his master degree in history and a doctorate degree in law. He began his professional career at the Foreign Office in 1990. He worked i.a. as Political Officer at the Embassy in Manila, Principal Private Secretary to Federal Foreign Ministers Dr. Klaus Kinkel and Joschka Fischer, Deputy Ambassador to Turkey, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Foreign Minister, PSC-Ambassador for coordination of EU Foreign Policy in Brussels, Director General of the Foreign Department at the Office of the Federal President and Director General for Africa, Asia, Latin America, Near- and Middle East at the Federal Foreign Office. Before assuming his current position in September 2021, he served as Ambassador to Israel and to China.

Ambassador von Goetze is married and has two children.

Sunjoy Joshi
Chairman, Observer Research Foundation (ORF) (India)

Sunjoy Joshi heads the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), New Delhi as its Chairman and Chief Executive. He has over the last 10 years spearheaded the rise of the ORF as India’s premier think tank and window into the world of Global Affairs.

He took premature retirement in 2009 in order to pursue his academic interests. Since then he has developed expertise in the field of Energy, Climate Change, Technology and Development. He has been Visiting Associate at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, London and Distinguished Visitor to the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development, University of Stanford, USA. He speaks, publishes and comments on the world of technology, energy, and development, framing them in the context of global shifts and the challenges to growth and employment faced by emerging economies. To generate serious interest on these subjects among a wider audience he has initiated a regular Youtube commentary on Global and Current Affairs called India’s World which attracts a diverse audience and remains the only one of its kind in Hindi on such diverse subjects.

James M. Lindsay
Senior Vice President, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) (The United States of America)

James M. Lindsay is senior vice president, director of studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg chair at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where he oversees the work of the more than six dozen fellows in CFR’s David Rockefeller Studies Program. He has written widely on the American foreign-policymaking process and the domestic politics of American foreign policy. His latest book is The Empty Throne: America’s Abdication of Global Leadership, co-authored with Ivo H. Daalder and published by Public Affairs in October 2018. His previous book with Ambassador Daalder, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy, was awarded the 2003 Lionel Gelber Prize. Dr. Lindsay writes The Water’s Edge blog and hosts The World Next Week and The President’s Inbox podcasts.?

Ettore Greco
Executive Vice President, Institute of International Affairs (IAI) (Italy)

Ettore Greco is Executive Vice President of the IAI and also head of the Italy's foreign policy and the Multilateralism and global governance programmes of the institute. He was also Director of the IAI from 2008 to 2017. He worked as visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution from January 2006 to July 2007. He taught at the universities of Parma and Bologna. From 2000 to 2006 he worked as correspondent for the Economist Intelligence Unit. From 1993 to 2000 he directed the IAI's program on Central and Eastern Europe. He was also Deputy Director of the IAI from 1997 to 2008. From 2000 to 2006 he was Editor of The International Spectator. He is the author of a number of publications on the EU's institutions and foreign policy, transatlantic relations and the Balkans. He has been a free-lance journalist since 1988.

Carlos Ivan Simonsen Leal
President, Getulio Vergas Foundation (FGV) (Brazil)

Professor Carlos Ivan Simonsen Leal is President of the Getulio Vargas Foundation since August 2000. In 1980, he graduated in Civil Engineering from the Engineering School of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), but opted for an academic life and graduated in Mathematical Economics from the “Instituto de Matematica Pura e Aplicada”, in 1982. Doctor degree at the “Escola de Pos Graduacao em Economia” - EPGE of Getulio Vargas Foundation (1980-1982) and obtained the title of Doctor in Economics from Princeton University (USA) in 1986. At FGV, he held the following positions: director of FGV Business, 1992-4; general director of EPGE, 1994-7; and vice-president of FGV, 1997-2000.

Rohinton P. Medhora
President, Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) (Canada)

Rohinton P. Medhora is president of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), joining in 2012. He served on CIGI's former International Board of Governors from 2009 to 2014. Previously, he was vice president of programs at Canada’s International Development Research Centre. His fields of expertise are monetary and trade policy, international economic relations and development economics.

Rohinton was recently named to The Lancet and the Financial Times Commission on Governing Health Futures 2030, as well as the Commission on Global Economic Transformation, co-chaired by Nobel economics laureates Michael Spence and Joseph Stiglitz. He serves on the boards of the Institute for New Economic Thinking and the McLuhan Foundation, and is on the advisory board of the WTO Chairs Program and UNU-MERIT. Rohinton received his doctorate in economics in 1988 from the University of Toronto, where he also subsequently taught for a number of years.

Thomas Gomart
Director, French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) (France)

Dr. Thomas Gomart (PhD in History at Paris I Panthe?on-Sorbonne, and EMBA at HEC) is Director of IFRI. He previously was its Vice President for Strategic Development (2010-2015) and the Director of its Russia/NIS Centre (2004-2013).

Before joining the think tank industry, Gomart was a scholar (Assistant Professor at La Sorbonne, 1996- 1999), a cadet officer in the Army (2000), and a policy entrepreneur (2001-2004). Joining IFRI in 2004, he set up the Russia/NIS centre. His academic and professional background has been closely related to post-Soviet space, but also to wider international issues (security, energy, and digital governance). As Lavoisier Fellow at the State Institute for International Relations (University-MGIMO ? Moscow), Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Security Studies (European Union ? Paris) and Marie Curie Fellow at the Department of War Studies (King’s College ? London), Gomart has acquired a diversified international experience.

As Researcher, he is currently working on Russia, digital governance, 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, 2017; L’affolement du monde - 10 enjeux ge?opolitiques, Editions Tallandier, 2019 (Prix Louis Marin and Prix du Livre de Ge?opolitique); “What Is A Think Tank? A French Perspective”, Etudes de l'Ifri, November 2019; ≪ Le COVID-19 et la fin de l'innocence technologique ≫, Politique étrangère, vol. 85, n° 2, Summer 2020 as well as Guerres Invisibles. Nos prochains défis géopolitiques, Editions Tallandier, 2021.

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 a member of the scientific committee of the Institute of Advanced Studies in National Defence (IHEDN). He is also a member of the editorial board of the French journals Politique ́trangère, Etudes, and Revue des deux mondes.

Stefan Mair
Director, German Institute for International and Security Affairs（Germany）

Since October 1, 2020 Director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and Executive Chairman of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP).

2010-2020 Member of the Executive Board of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), 2007-2009 Research Director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), 1992-2007 and 2009-2010 research associate at SWP, until March 2001 head of the Middle East and Africa Research Division, 2001-2007 and 2009-2010 member of SWP's executive board.
1992 Doctorate, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich.
1989-1992 PhD scholarship at the ifo Institute for Economic Research, Munich, Developing Countries Department.

Hans Kundnani
Director of the Europe Programme at Chatham House（United Kingdom）

Hans Kundnani is Director of the Europe Programme at Chatham House, having previously been Senior Research Fellow.

Before joining Chatham House in 2018, he was Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and Research Director at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Lawrence Anderson
Senior Fellow, S.Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) (Singapore)

In a 37-year career in the Foreign Service since 1984, Lawrence Anderson served at the Singapore Permanent Mission to the UN in New York and Singapore Embassies in the US and Thailand. He was appointed Ambassador to Cambodia (2004-07), as well as Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and concurrently Ambassador to Bahrain (2013-19).

Back at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Anderson at various times held appointments covering Singapore’s bilateral relations with its Southeast Asian neighbors; Regional policy and strategic security issues involving ASEAN and its relations with the Dialogue Partners; overseeing Singapore’s Technical Assistance Cooperation Programs; as well as managed Singapore’s relations with the European Union (EU) and other European countries. He retired from the Foreign Service in late 2021 and is currently a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). He is also Singapore’s Representative to the Advisory Board of the ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation (ASEAN-IPR)

Katsutoshi Kawano
Former Chief of Staff, the Japan Self-Defense Forces (Japan)

Admiral Katsutoshi Kawano(Retired) is former Chief of Staff at the Japan Self-Defense Forces. A graduate of National Defense Academy with a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Admiral Kawano was commissioned as a surface warfare officer in 1979.  He earned a master’s degree in International Relations from Tsukuba University in 1990. He is also a graduate of Command and Staff Course at the U.S. Naval War College.

Admiral Kawano’s career as a surface warfare officer includes assignments aboard JS Haruna, JS Shirane, and JS Oyodo as Commanding Officer from August 1992 to August 1993. His fleet command assignments include Commander, Escort Division 3; Commander, Escort Flotilla 3; Commander, Marine Warfare Force; Commander Fleet Escort Force; and, Commander in Chief, Self-Defense Fleet prior to assuming his previous post as Chief of Staff, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force on 26 July 2012. Some of the most notable responsibilities he has held ashore are Director General, Administration Department MSO; Director General, Operations and Plans Department MSO; and Vice Chief of Staff. Admiral Kawano had served as the 5th Chief of Staff from October 14, 2014 until his retirement on April 1, 2019.

Yuji Miyamoto
Chairman of Miyamoto Institute of Asian Research; Former Ambassador to the People's Republic of China (Japan)

Amb. Yuji Miyamoto is the Chairman of Miyamoto Institute of Asian Research as well as Acting President of Japan-China Friendship Center. He was the Ambassador of Japan to People’s Republic of China from 2006 to 2010. Prior to that, Amb. Miyamoto served as Ambassador to the Union of Myanmar from 2002 to 2004, and Director-General for Arms Control and Scientific Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) from 2001 to 2002. Amb. Miyamoto started his career in MOFA in 1969 and worked in various divisions, including China and Mongolia Division, Development Cooperation Division, Soviet Union Division, Arms Control and Disarmament Division and Policy Planning Division, etc. Amb. Miyamoto also had extensive working experience in China and the United States.

Zhou Bo
Senior fellow of Center for International Security and Strategy Tsinghua University
(Chaina)

Senior Colonel Zhou Bo (retired) started his military service in 1979. He served in different posts in Guangzhou Air Force Regional Command. From 1993 he worked successively as staff officer, Deputy Director General of West Asia and Africa Bureau and then Deputy Director General of General Planning Bureau of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Ministry of National Defense of China, Chinese Defense Attaché to the Republic of Namibia and Director of the Centre for Security Cooperation in the Office for International Military Cooperation, Ministry of National Defense. He is now a senior fellow of Center for International Security and Strategy Tsinghua University and China Forum expert.

Senior Colonel Zhou Bo has published more than 100 essays and opinions in English including in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Financial Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Australian, South China Morning Post, The Diplomat, Strait Times, China~US Focus and China Daily, etc. He had exclusive interviews with BBC，NBC, Time, Euronews, Channel NewsAsia (Singapore), NHK, Russia Today, CNBC and CGTN. He speaks as a PLA delegate at Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore and at Munich Security conference. He is supervisor to foreign post-graduate officers at PLA National Defense University.

Senior Colonel Zhou Bo is an under-graduate of Air Force Engineering College and a postgraduate of St Edmund College of Cambridge University (Mphill in International Relations). He was a visiting fellow to the Land Warfare Studies Centre of the Australian Army in 1999. He has attended various courses in Harvard University, Westminster University, PLA National Defense University, PLA University of Science and Technology for the National Defense and PLA Army Command College (Shijiazhuang).

Yasushi Kudo
President, The Genron NPO (Japan)

Yasushi Kudo is the founder and president of the Genron NPO since its establishment in 2001. In 2005, he launched annual civil dialogue (“Tokyo-Beijing Forum”) and joint opinion poll between Japan and China, which have been conducted over the 12 years since then. In 2013, he newly launched a dialogue, the Japan-Korea Future Dialogue, between Japan and Korea and has conducted a comparative opinion poll on impression of each other’s country.

From 2012, Mr. Kudo has served as Japanese delegation of the Council of Councils, an international think tank network initiated by the Council on Foreign Relations. “The Asia Forum of Opinion Leaders” has also been established as a venue for open and free debate for intellectuals in Japan and Southeast Asian countries to jointly identify common challenges, and advocate solutions to them, while collaborating to bolster democracy and address challenges to democracy.