American Council On Germany

Navigating Crises, Conflict, and Competition: A European Perspective on the Future of Transatlantic Relations, Multilateralism, and the World Order
2023-11-02 08:00 - 21:30 (America/New_York)
The ACG and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung will host a Breakfast Briefing with Klaus Welle, Chairman of the Academic Council at the Martens Centre for European Studies (Brussels) and Former Secretary-General of the European Parliament.
Klaus Welle served as the Secretary-General of the European Parliament from 2009 to 2022. He is currently the Chairman of the Academic Council at the Martens Centre for European Studies (Brussels) and the inaugural ‘Leader in Residence’ at the Moynihan Center at the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at The City College of New York.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Welle served in various roles at the European Parliament including Head of the Cabinet of the President (2007-2009), Director-General for Internal Policies (2004-2007), and Secretary-General for the European People’s Party (EPP) in Parliament (1999-2003). He also served as the Secretary-General for the EPP and the European Union of Christian Democrats (EUCD) and the Head of the European and Foreign Policy Department at the CDU Central Office.
Mr. Welle holds a degree in Economics from the University of Witten/Herdecke and is the recipient of grants from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes (German Academic Scholarship) and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.

Can AI Be Creative?
2023-11-14 18:00 - 19:30
On November 14, the ACG, DWIH, and HPI will host a discussion and reception with Professor Gerard de Melo, Full Professor at the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering and Chair for Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems at the University of Potsdam.
While creativity is often considered a uniquely human trait, there have recently been notable advances in Generative AI systems that readily produce increasingly convincing pictures, literature, as well as music. This raises important debates about the role of humans and machines in the creative process. This presentation will delve into fundamental concepts of creativity and how they relate to AI, highlighting how machines are trained to generate new content based on massive amounts of human data. In addition, this talk will address the ongoing debate surrounding authorship, and intellectual property.
Gerard de Melo is a full professor at the Hasso Plattner Institute and the University of Potsdam in Germany, where he leads the AI and Intelligent Systems research group. Previously, he was an assistant professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey as well as at Tsinghua University in Beijing and a post-doctoral research scholar at ICSI/UC Berkeley.
Professor de Melo has published over 200 academic papers on various aspects of AI, covering technical issues as well as societal and philosophical issues such as bias, transparency, and knowledge.

Democracy vs. Autocracy: Threats to Western Democracies through Autocratic Regimes
2023-11-16 18:00 - 19:30
The ACG will host a discussion and reception with Thomas Haldenwang, President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV)).
Thomas Haldenwang currently serves as the President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV)), a key domestic intelligence agency in Germany with the mission of fighting extremist adversaries of the federal constitution.
Mr. Haldenwang started working at the BfV in 2009, became Vice President in 2013, and then President in 2018. Prior to working for the BfV, he worked as a legal officer for the Federal Ministry of Interior and the Federal Office of Administration. He studied Law at the University of Marburg. He is a prominent German civil servant and intelligence officer who has dedicated his career to national security and counterintelligence.

The Shifting Geo-Economic Landscape: A German Perspective
2023-12-11 12:00 - 14:00
The ACG will host a discussion and luncheon with Dr. Christian Forwick, Deputy Director-General for External Economic Relations, Trade Policy, and America in the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.
For more information, please email events@acgusa.org.
Christian Forwick has served as the Deputy Director-General for External Economic Relations, Trade Policy, and America in the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action since July 2018. Prior to this, he was head of the Ministry’s budget division. After starting his career in the public administration in 1994, he worked for many years in the area of foreign economic relations, starting with bilateral relations with South Africa, followed by export financing and export promotion, and finally specializing in trade policy. He spent several years at the German Mission to the WTO in Geneva and in the department of Foreign Economic Relations in the Federal Chancellery.
Mr. Forwick grew up in Spain and began his academic career in Ecuador (Quito). He studied law in Germany (Saarbruecken, Muenster, and Hamburg) and Switzerland (Geneva). He holds a PhD from the University of Muenster and spent a year as a visiting scholar at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX.

German Politics Against the Backdrop of Open Conflict in the Middle East
2023-12-14 18:00 - 21:00
The ACG will host a discussion and reception with Stephan Detjen, Chief Correspondent for Deutschlandradio and Director of the Berlin Studio.
For more information, please email events@acgusa.org.
Stephan Detjen is Chief Correspondent for Deutschlandradio and heads the station’s capital city studio in Berlin. Previously, he worked as Deutschlandfunk’s Editor-in-Chief in Cologne and as a legal policy correspondent in Karlsruhe, among other positions. Mr. Detjen is a member of the board of the Bundespressekonferenz and was a member of the foundation board for the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade from 2013 to 2018. He studied Law and History in Munich, Aix-en-Provence, and Speyer.

30th John J. McCloy Awards Dinner
2024-01-31 18:00 - 21:00
On January 31, the ACG will hold the 30th John J. McCloy Awards Dinner honoring Dr. Belén Garijo, Chair of the Executive Board and CEO of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, and Alexander C. Karp, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Palantir Technologies Inc.

Germany in the World: A Global Outlook
2024-02-07 18:00 - 20:00
On February 7, the ACG and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s New York Office will host a discussion and reception with Metin Hakverdi, Member of the Bundestag (SPD).
Metin Hakverdi joined the Social Democratic Party in 2002 and has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2013. He serves on the Bundestag’s Committee on European Union Affairs and on the Budget Committee. He is the Chairman of the USA/North America Working Group within the SPD Parliamentary Group and a member of the German-American Parliamentary Friendship Group in the German Bundestag. Before being elected to the Bundestag, Mr. Hakverdi was a member of the Parliament of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg from 2008 to 2013, where he was on the Budget Committee and the Committee of Public Companies and Assets.
Mr. Hakverdi attended high school in Simi Valley, California, in 1985/86 and studied law at the Christian-Albrecht University in Kiel and at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law. He was a distinguished visitor at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in 2019 and a 2020 John F. Kennedy Memorial Policy Fellow at Harvard’s Center for European Studies (CES). He is a member of the Atlantik-Brücke e.V.

The Digital Revolution in Health Care: Challenges, Opportunities, and the Need for Policy Innovation
2024-02-08 18:00 - 20:00
On February 8, the American Council on Germany, Friends of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the German Center for Research and Innovation New York, and the Hasso Plattner Institut will host a discussion and reception with Professor Ariel D. Stern, Alexander von Humboldt Professor for Digital Health, Economics, and Policy at the Hasso Plattner Institute, Full Professor at the University of Potsdam, and Poronui Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School; and moderated by Dr. Thomas J. Fuchs, Co-Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai, Dean of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human Health, and Professor of Computational Pathology and Computer Science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
New medical technologies have saved and improved millions of lives in recent decades. Yet the digital technologies that are transforming contemporary health care, such as digital medical devices, applications of medical software, and artificial intelligence tools to diagnose and treat patients, would be unrecognizable to the 20th-century architects of our regulatory and healthcare delivery institutions. For example, many digital health applications (apps) meet the formal definition of a medical device, yet their fully software-based nature means that established practices for evaluating their safety and efficacy are incompatible with the dynamic nature of the apps themselves. The quickly transforming scientific and technological foundations of medical invention—combined with the rapid pace of innovation—no longer fit our existing institutional structures. This mismatch underlies many of today’s challenges in commercializing new products and creates significant bottlenecks for incorporating new innovations into care delivery. Professor Stern’s presentation will focus on how the development and adoption of healthcare technology are shaped by the interaction between healthcare innovators, regulators, and healthcare delivery institutions. She will also present policy and business model innovations that address key challenges to technology adoption in this setting.

Dr. Ariel Dora Stern is the Poronui Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Technology and Operations Management Unit at Harvard Business School and a Faculty Member of the Harvard-MIT Center for Regulatory Science. Her research focuses on technology management and innovation in health care, using methods from econometrics and data science to curate and analyze novel datasets. Her projects consider the regulation, strategy, and economics of healthcare, focusing on emerging healthcare technologies and delivery modalities. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard, where she was a National Bureau of Economic Research Predoctoral Fellow in the Economics of Health and Aging. She holds an undergraduate degree in economics from Dartmouth College, where she was a Presidential Scholar. From 2020 to 2021, Dr. Stern served as the Director for International Health Care Economics at the Health Innovation Hub, an independent think tank of the German Federal Ministry of Health focused on digital transformation projects. In April 2024, she is slated to assume a chair at the Hasso Plattner Institute, where she has been named an Alexander von Humboldt Professor.
Dr. Stern’s research focuses on technology management and innovation in health care. Her projects consider the regulation, strategy, and economics of health care, focusing on understanding the drivers of new product development among firms and the determinants of how new medical technologies are adopted and used in practice. Stern is particularly interested in the intersection of the regulation, firm strategy, and economics of healthcare. She also researches the digital transformation of medical technology and healthcare delivery, investigating the policy, business, and managerial questions raised by the growth of digital health and the digital transformation of medicine. Her research has been cited by Bloomberg, the New York Times, and National Public Radio.

Dr. Thomas J. Fuchs is a scientist in the groundbreaking field of Computational Pathology, focused on using artificial intelligence to analyze images of tissue samples to identify disease, recommend treatment, and predict outcomes. In October 2020, he was appointed Co-Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai, Dean of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human Health, and Professor of Computational Pathology and Computer Science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. In this role, he leads the next generation of scientists and clinicians using artificial intelligence and machine learning to develop novel diagnostic tools and treatments for acute and chronic diseases.
Dr. Fuchs’s work includes developing novel methods for the analysis of digital microscopy slides to better understand genetic mutations and their influence on changes in tissues. He has been recognized for developing large-scale systems for mapping the pathology, origins, and progress of cancer. This breakthrough was achieved by building a high-performance computer cluster to train deep neural networks at petabyte scale.
Before joining Mount Sinai, Dr. Fuchs was Director of the Warren Alpert Center for Digital and Computational Pathology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and Associate Professor at Weill Cornell Graduate School for Medical Sciences. At MSK, he led a laboratory focused on computational pathology and medical machine learning. Dr. Fuchs co-founded Paige, in 2017, which, under his tenure, became a leader in the field of digital pathology. He is a former research technologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a visiting scientist at the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Fuchs holds a Doctor of Sciences in Machine Learning from ETH Zurich and an MS in Technical Mathematics from the Graz Technical University in Austria.

Supervisory Priorities for the European Central Bank in 2024
2024-02-26 12:00 - 13:30
On February 26, the ACG will host a discussion and luncheon with Dr. Thomas Gstaedtner, Head of Division in the Banking Supervisory Arm of the European Central Bank.
Dr. Thomas Gstaedtner works as a Head of Division in the banking supervisory arm of the European Central Bank. He is responsible for supervising the French banks and Commerzbank. In this function, he also leads the Country Coordination Team France and is a member of a Task Force of the Basel Committee on Counterparty Credit Risk.
Before joining the ECB, Dr. Gstaedtner worked for ten years at Deutsche Bank in London, where he held several managerial positions. In his last function at Deutsche Bank, he was the Head of Legal/Regulatory Change Management and was in charge of implementing regulatory changes in Deutsche Bank’s operations. Dr. Gstaedtner started his career at an Asset Management company in Munich as the Head of Legal, Tax, and HR. He is the founder and President of the European Banking Institute (EBI), which is based in Frankfurt. The EBI is a pan-European joint venture for research and policy advice in the area of banking, banking regulation, and banking supervision. Dr. Gstaedtner studied Law in Munich, Saarbrucken, and London and is a qualified lawyer in Germany (Rechtsanwalt) and in England/Wales (solicitor).

Europe's New AI Act: What does it mean for Europe and the U.S.?
2024-02-29 08:00 - 09:30
On February 29, the American Council on Germany and the American Business Forum on Europe will host a breakfast briefing with Oliver Süme, Partner at Fieldfisher and Chair of the Board of the Internet Industry Association, eco.

The European Parliament just passed the AI Act, which forms the world’s first legal framework for artificial intelligence and also applies to U.S. providers if they offer AI systems in the European Union. What exactly does the AI Act regulate? What impact is it expected to have on providers and users in the United States and Europe, and what consequences does the new European legal framework have for investments and transactions in the tech sector?

Oliver Süme is a Partner at the European law firm Fieldfisher and Chair of the Board of the Internet Industry Association. He advises his clients on all legal issues in the areas of IT and digitalization, in particular, IT contract law, data protection law, and legal issues relating to IT security and e-commerce. In addition, he advises companies from a wide range of industries in connection with digitalization processes and the use of new technologies such as blockchain, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and the establishment of data spaces. Mr. Süme is also Chair of the Board of eco – Association of the Internet Industry and heads the data protection working group of EuroISPA, the European umbrella organization of internet service providers.

Germany’s Energy Policy: A Mid-Term Report Card and an Outlook for the Remaining 18 Months
2024-03-28 12:30 - 14:00
On March 28, the ACG will host a discussion and luncheon with Sascha Müller-Kraenner, Executive Director/CEO of the Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V. (Environmental Action Germany).
Please email events@acgusa.org for more information.
Sascha Müller-Kraenner has served as Executive Director/CEO of Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V., DUH (Environmental Action Germany) since January 2015. Environmental Action Germany is an independent non-profit organization founded in 1975 that focuses on environmental and consumer protection. It is a leading environmental and consumer advocacy organization that works mostly at the German state, national, and European levels.
Mr. Müller-Kraenner is also a founding partner and board member of Ecologic Institute, a non-profit applied environmental policy research institute with offices in Berlin, Brussels, and Washington, DC. Between 2007 and 2014, he held various positions with The Nature Conservancy, and earlier in his career, he worked for the Heinrich-Böll Foundation.
Mr. Müller-Kraenner studied Philosophy in Munich and graduated with honors in Biology and Public Law from the University of Bayreuth.

The Tale of Two Economies: America’s Boom and Germany’s Bust
2024-04-03 12:30 - 14:00
On April 3, the ACG will host a discussion and luncheon with Simon Book, U.S. Correspondent for DER SPIEGEL.
For more information, please email events@acgusa.org.
Simon Book studied at the University of Passau and was trained at the German School of Journalism in Munich. From 2011 he served as an editor at the Financial Times Deutschland and from 2013 on as a reporter at Germany’s business daily Handelsblatt. In 2016, he joined the business weekly WirtschaftsWoche. Since 2020, Mr. Book is with Germany’s leading weekly magazine and news outlet DER SPIEGEL. Initially, he wrote for the economics desk in Berlin, and in October 2023 he took over as DER SPIEGEL‘s business correspondent in the United States.
In 2016, he received a Kellen Fellowship from the American Council on Germany, during which time he researched transatlantic trade policy. He lives with his wife and his three children in Berkeley, California.

Making the Case for Supporting Ukraine at Home and Abroad
2024-04-04 08:00 - 09:30
The ACG will host a breakfast briefing with Omid Nouripour, Co-Chair of Alliance 90/The Green Party and Member of the Bundestag.
For more information, please email events@acgusa.org
Omid Nouripour joined the Green Party in 1996 and has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2006, representing the Frankfurt/Main II district. He serves on the Bundestag’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Finance Committee, and the Defense Committee. In addition to these committees, he acted as the chairman of the German-Ukrainian Parliamentary Friendship Group from 2018-2021. Since February 2022, Mr. Nouripour has been Co-chair of Alliance 90/The Greens. Prior to that he served as the foreign policy spokesperson for the party from 2013 to 2021. Before being elected to the Bundestag, Mr. Nouripour was a member of the national executive committee of Alliance 90/The Greens from 2002 to 2006.
Mr. Nouripour came to Frankfurt/Main from Tehran, Iran with his family at the age of thirteen. From 1996 to 2004, he attended the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, where he studied an array of fields, including German, political science, law, sociology, philosophy, and economics. He is a board member of Atlantik-Brücke e.V., a member of the Advisory Council of the Berghof Foundation, and a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

Annual Meeting of Members
2024-04-18 18:00 - 20:00
On April 18, 2024, the ACG will hold the Annual Meeting of the Members.
More information to follow.

Exiles and Democracy: 80 Years of the Council for a Democratic Germany
2024-05-02 16:00 - 18:00
On May 2, the American Council on Germany, the German Law Journal, the Robert Bosch Foundation Alumni Association, and Orte der Demokratiegeschichte will host a discussion and reception with Prof. Eckart Goebel, Chair of Comparative Literature and German Philology at the University of Tübingen, and Dr. Natalia Savelyeva, Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin and Future Russia Fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
To register, please email mcdonaldj@wlu.edu by April 30.
In the spring of 1944, sensing that the tide of the war was turning, exiled German dissidents in the United States began discussions envisioning a new, democratic, post-war Germany. Meeting as the “Council for a Democratic Germany,” the group consisted of an impressive – and impressively diverse – collection of German intellectuals, artists, politicians, scholars, and civil servants. The respected theologian Paul Tillich chaired the Council, which was originally formed with support from Thomas Mann. Bertolt Brecht was a member of the founding committee. The Council issued its declaration on May 3, 1944, insisting that the “German problem” would require a European solution. The Council recognized that the defeat of Nazism and the eventual disarmament of Germany remained the immediate priority. Looking ahead to the hoped-for peace, the Council strongly opposed the dismemberment of a defeated and occupied Germany. It also opposed talk of deindustrializing Germany, which risked creating “economic conditions that would become hopelessly depressed in all countries of Europe.” The Council urged the establishment of a democratic government in Germany supported by rejuvenated civil society institutions and robust democratic education. After the Council issued its May Declaration, subcommittees produced policy reports on reconstruction and economic renewal, as well as reform of the press and media, cultural policy, health policy, education policy, administration, and legal culture.
Join us on May 2 to mark the 80th anniversary of the Council’s Declaration and reflect on its work.
Prof. Eckart Goebel, a University of Tübingen Philosopher and Cultural Critic, will discuss the Council, building off his study “Escape to Life”: German Intellectuals in New York: A Compendium on Exile after 1933 (2012). This includes an acknowledgment of two stark developments. On the one hand, the Council stirred political resentment and petty jealousy within the broader German exile community in the U.S. On the other hand, the Allies seemed to largely disregard the Council’s efforts. The event will also use the historical reflection on the Council to consider contemporary exiles’ work to promote democracy in their homelands. Dr. Natalia Savelyeva, a Russian Sociologist at the University of Wisconsin who writes extensively on the Russian war against Ukraine, will discuss her experiences of dissidence and the chances for impacting Russian politics, scholarship, and life in the United States.

Germany's Response to Current Crises
2024-05-08 12:30 - 14:00
The ACG will host a discussion and luncheon with Prof. Dr. Daniela Schwarzer, Member of the Bertelsmann Stiftung Executive Board and Author of Krisenzeit – Sicherheit, Wirtschaft, Zusammenhalt – Was Deutschland jetzt tun muss (September 2023).
Please email events(at)acgusa.org for more information.
Prof. Dr. Daniela Schwarzer joined the Executive Board of the Bertelsmann Stiftung in May 2023. She is a leading expert on European and international affairs and has had a 20-year career at renowned think tanks, foundations, and universities.
Most recently, from 2021 to 2023, she served as Executive Director for Europe and Central Asia at the Open Society Foundations, the world’s largest foundation working to strengthen the rule of law, democracy, and open societies. In 2021, she was appointed honorary professor of political science at Freie Universität Berlin. In autumn 2022, she was a visiting professor at Harvard University, with which she has also been affiliated as a senior fellow.
From 2016 to 2021, she was director and CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations. (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik, DGAP). Prior to that, she served as research director on the executive team of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and led its Berlin office and Europe program. From 2004 to 2013, she worked for the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, where she headed the Europe research group beginning in 2008. From 1999 to 2004, she was an opinion page editor and France correspondent for the Financial Times Deutschland.
Dr. Schwarzer is regularly consulted as an expert and policy advisor. She was co-rapporteur of the working group on EU reform and enlargement, convened by the French and German governments, which submitted its report in September 2023. From 2020 to 2022, served as special advisor to the High Representative and Vice-President of the European Commission Josep Borrell. She also advised France and Poland during their respective EU presidencies and was a consultant to the French prime minister’s Centre dʼAnalyse Stratégique. She is a member of the supervisory boards of BNP Paribas and Covivio, an honorary board member of DGA,P and a non-executive board member of the Jacques Delors Institute/Centre (Paris, Berlin), and a Council member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). In 2017, she was inducted into the French Legion of Honour.

Bridging Borders: Navigating Open Scientific Collaboration with China
2024-05-23 08:00 - 09:30
The American Council on Germany, the German Center for Research and Innovation (DWIH) New York, and the University of Cologne New York Office cordially invite you to a breakfast briefing on “Bridging Borders: Navigating Open Scientific Collaboration with China” with Prof. Dr. Joybrato Mukherjee, President of the DAAD and Rector of the University of Cologne, and Christopher Walker, Vice President for Studies and Analysis at the National Endowment for Democracy, moderated by Dr. Lily McElwee, Deputy Director and Fellow in the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Prof. Dr. Joybrato Mukherjee began his term as President of the DAAD on January 1, 2020. According to the association charter, the President represents the DAAD in all organization-related matters. He serves as the chairperson of the Executive Committee, prepares its deliberations and resolutions, and ensures their implementation. He also chairs the meeting of the Board of Trustees and the General Assembly. His responsibilities include appointing the Secretary-General following confirmation by the Executive Committee and supervising the organization’s management.
On October 1, 2023, Prof. Dr. Mukherjee took office as Rector of the University of Cologne. In cooperation with the other members of the Rectorate, he represents the university externally and is responsible for its management and strategic development. He chairs the Rectorate and the Senate and is the chief supervisor of the university’s scientific staff. He also defines the guidelines for the execution of the Rectorate’s tasks.
Prof. Dr. Mukherjee completed his studies in English, Biology, and Education at RWTH Aachen University in 1997. In 2000, he received his doctorate at the University of Bonn; he also completed his habilitation in 2003 and was awarded the venia legendi for English Philology.
Christopher Walker is Vice President for Studies and Analysis at the National Endowment for Democracy, an independent, nonprofit, grant-making foundation supporting freedom worldwide. Mr. Walker oversees the multidimensional department that is responsible for NED’s analytical and thought leadership efforts. Before joining the NED, he was Vice President for Strategy and Analysis at Freedom House. He has testified before legislative committees in the U.S. and abroad, appears frequently in the media, and frequently conducts briefings on critical issues relating to democratic development. He has been at the forefront of thought leadership on modern authoritarian influence on open political systems, including through the exertion of sharp power, a concept he and his colleagues developed.
Mr. Walker has also served as an Adjunct Professor of International Affairs at New York University. He holds a B.A. from Binghamton University and an M.A. from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
Dr. Lily McElwee is the Deputy Director and Fellow in the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where she researches Chinese foreign policy, U.S.-China relations, and EU-China relations. She is currently writing a book on the history of U.S. investment gatekeeping amid the rise of China as a strategy and policy fellow with the Smith Richardson Foundation. Dr. McElwee recently completed a fellowship with the American Council on Germany, where she researched European political debate on China, and she is a 2022–23 CSIS-USC U.S.-Korea nextgen scholar. She holds a D.Phil. in China studies, and an MS.c. from the University of Oxford, and a B.A. with honors in political science from Stanford University.

A Decisive Decade: Addressing the Transformative Challenges facing Europe
2024-05-29 12:00 - 14:00
On May 29, the ACG will host a discussion and luncheon with Stefan Wintels, CEO of the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau.
Stefan Wintels as been CEO of KfW since November 2021. He joined KfW as Co-CEO in October 2021. Prior to joining KfW, Mr. Wintels worked at Citigroup for 20 Years (2001 – 2021) in various leadership roles. Most recently, he was the Global Co-Head Financial Institutions Group and a member of the Global Executive Committee of the Banking Capital Markets & Advisory Division. He was also Vice Chairman of Citigroup in Germany, Chief Country Officer for Germany as well as CEO of Citigroup Global Markets Europe AG until March 2020. Stefan Wintels began his professional career in 1994 at Deutsche Bank AG (1994-2001) and left as Managing Director at Deutsche Bank’s Corporate Development/ Group Strategy Department.
Mr. Wintels received a master’s degree in business administration from the Technische Universität Berlin and participated in a 2nd year MBA program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Stefan Wintels is also Chairman of the Supervisory Board of KfW Capital GmbH & Co. KG and a member of the Supervisory Boards of Deutsche Telekom AG and DHL Group.

From Anti-War to Climate Justice: What’s Driving the Left in Germany and the United States?
2024-05-29 18:00 - 20:00
The ACG and the Goethe Institut in New York will host a discussion and reception with Dr. Sheri Berman, Political Scientist and Author of Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancient Regime to Present Day; and Lukas Hermsmeier, Journalist and Author of Uprising – Amerikas neue Linke. This event is part of our series Foreign Correspondent Unplugged and will be available as a podcast later this week.

Beyond the Ballot: Parsing the Results of the EU’s Parliamentary Election and Anticipating What Lies Ahead
2024-06-13 08:00 - 09:30
The American Council on Germany will host a breakfast briefing with Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, Executive Vice President and Senior Advisor at the Bertelsmann Foundation.

Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook is Executive Vice President and Senior Advisor at the Bertelsmann Foundation in Berlin. She served previously as CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). Ms. Clüver Ashbrook was executive director of the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts for ten years. The project, which she co-founded, addresses 21st-century foreign policy challenges through research by international leaders in academia and diplomacy as well as teaching conflict research and prevention. Beginning in 2018, Ms. Clüver Ashbrook also directed a research program on Europe and transatlantic relations. Previously, she served on the management board of the European Policy Centre (EPC) in Brussels and worked as both a consultant and senior journalist at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants in France and China, among other countries. She began her career as a television journalist at CNN International in Atlanta and London.
Ms. Clüver Ashbrook contributes to international publications, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, as well as leading German media on transatlantic relations – especially trade and security policy – and German foreign and digital policy. Additionally, she advises foreign ministries in Europe and South America on their digital strategy. She received her undergraduate honors degree in international relations and French civilization from Brown University, a master’s degree in European studies from the London School of Economics, and a master’s degree in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, where she was a Hauser Fellow in Non-Profit Management.

The Future of Transatlantic Relations in Light of the 2024 EU and U.S. Elections
2024-06-20 08:00 - 10:00
On June 20, the ACG will host a breakfast briefing with Dr. Franziska Brantner, Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, and Member of the German Bundestag (Greens).
Franziska Brantner has been serving as the Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action since December 2021. Dr. Brantner was an elected member of the Bundestag representing the Green Party (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) from 2013 to 2021 where she represented the 274th district Heidelberg. During this time, she was in various parliamentary groups including the Children and Family Policy group, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union. In this position, she served as the spokesperson for European Policy for her party. From 2009 to 2013 Dr. Brantner was a member of the European Parliament, where she served on the Committee on Foreign Affairs and as spokeswoman for The Greens/European Free Alliance party. Her political career began in 1996 when she joined the regional board of “The Green Youth of Baden-Würtemberg.”
Dr. Brantner received her PhD from the University of Mannheim in 2010 with her doctoral thesis on the United Nations’ capacity for reform. She studied at Sciences Po and Columbia University for her undergraduate and graduate degrees. Dr. Brantner is a member of the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s General Assembly and the Chair of the Supervisory Board of Germany Trade and Invest (GTAI).

Exit Interview: Reflecting on Seven Years in New York
2024-06-25 12:30 - 14:00
By popular demand, the ACG is delighted to make today’s discussion with Consul General David Gill a hybrid event. Mr. Gill will join us in person in our New York office to reflect on his seven years in NYC and his preparation for his next posting in Ireland.
David Gill grew up in a Protestant minister’s family in Herrnhut, Saxony, in former East Germany. He was denied a higher education by the Communist regime for political reasons. Instead, he trained and worked as a plumber before joining a preparatory protestant school and later the theological seminary of the Protestant Church in Berlin-Brandenburg. In 1990, he initially was the chairman of the Normannenstrasse Citizens’ Committee, which oversaw the dissolution of the Ministry of State Security at the Stasi headquarters and served as the secretary of the Special Committee for the dissolution of the Stasi of the East German Parliament. After reunification, Mr. Gill became spokesman and head of the research division of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi-Files before studying Law in Berlin and Philadelphia.
After holding positions in the Federal Ministry of the Interior and at the Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information in Berlin, he served as the Deputy Representative of the Council of the Protestant Church in Germany to the Federal Republic of Germany and the European Union. During Federal President Joachim Gauck’s term from 2012–2017, he was state secretary and chief of staff of the President. Since August 2017, Mr. Gill has been the German Consul General in New York.

The Digital Euro: Why Do We Need It?
2024-06-27 12:00 - 14:00
The ACG and the German American Chamber of Commerce will host a discussion and luncheon with Burkhard Balz, Member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank.
Burkhard Balz has been a member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank since September 2018. Prior to this, he was a member of the European Parliament (CDU) and served as the EPP Group’s Coordinator on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs starting in 2014. Before his time in the European Parliament, Mr. Balz was the Head of the Department for Institutional Clients at Commerzbank AG from 2004 to 2009. He has also held the positions of Corporate Customer Advisor at Commerzbank AG (2002-2004) and Desk Officer at the Commerzbank AG Liaison Office to the European Union in Brussels (2001-2002).

Mr. Balz studied Law and Political Science at the University of Göttingen.

Elections in Germany and Europe: Outlook for Transatlantic Relations in a Super Election Year
2024-07-11 18:00 - 20:00
The ACG and the Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung in New York will host a discussion and reception with Prof. Dr. Norbert Lammert, Chairman of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and Former President of the German Bundestag.

Data Quality in the Age of AI
2024-08-14 08:00 - 09:30
Join The American Council on Germany and The Hasso Plattner Institute in NYC for a discussion with Prof. Dr. Felix Naumann, Professor for Information Systems, Digital Engineering Faculty at the Hasso Plattner Institute at the University of Potsdam.
Prof. Dr. Felix Naumann studied mathematics, economy, and computer sciences at the University of Technology in Berlin and completed his PhD thesis in the field of data quality at Humboldt University of Berlin in 2000. After working as a Postdoctoral Scientist at the IBM Almaden Research Center working on data integration topics, he became assistant professor for information integration at Humboldt-University. Since 2006 he holds the Chair for Information Systems at the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) at the University of Potsdam in Germany. He has been visiting researcher at QCRI, AT&T Research, IBM Research, and SAP. His research interests include data profiling, data quality and cleansing, and data integration, recorded in over 250 scientific publications. Next to numerous program committee memberships for international conferences, he has organized several conferences in various roles and he is the Editor-in-Chief of ACM’s Journal of Data and Information Quality (JDIQ).

Under Construction: A Transatlantic Blueprint for Ukraine’s Recovery
2024-09-12 08:00 - 09:30
Join the American Council on Germany for a breakfast briefing with Heather Conley President of the German Marshall Fund (2007 Young Leader)

Heather Conley is the sixth president of the German Marshall Fund. She arrives at GMF after 12 years at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where she most recently served as senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic and as director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program. She previously served four years as executive director of the Office of the Chairman of the Board at the American National Red Cross, where she supported the first comprehensive reform of the governance structure of the American Red Cross Board since 1947, incorporating modern best-governance practices. She worked closely with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the International Movement’s policies and programs in the Middle East and elsewhere. From 2001 to 2005, Ms. Conley was deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs with responsibilities for U.S. bilateral relations with the countries of Northern and Central Europe. She co-led the U.S. interagency effort to enlarge NATO and secure Senate ratification of an Amended NATO Treaty, and she created a senior level U.S. dialogue with the eight Nordic and Baltic states, the Enhanced Partnership in Europe (e-PINE).
Ms. Conley began her career in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. She was selected to serve as special assistant to the coordinator of U.S. assistance to the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union, and she has received two State Department Meritorious Honor Awards. Ms. Conley frequently appears as a foreign policy analyst and Europe expert on CNN, MSNBC, BBC, NPR, and PBS, among other prominent media outlets. She received her B.A. in international studies from West Virginia Wesleyan College and her M.A. in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Elections in Eastern Germany and the United States: Reactions and Observations from the Next Generation
2024-09-18 12:00 - 13:30
Join the American Council on Germany (ACG) and the German-American Institute Saxony (DAIS) for a roundtable discussion on the recent elections in Eastern Germany and the upcoming elections in the United States with three students from Eastern Germany, who will have just completed a study tour to Washington, DC, Pennsylvania, and upstate New York.

German-American Relations after the U.S. Election: A German Business Perspective
2024-09-23 18:00 - 20:00
The ACG will host a discussion and reception with Eckart von Klaeden, Vice President and Head of External Affairs of Mercedes-Benz Group AG (1997 Young Leader). Eckart von Klaeden joined Daimler AG – now Mercedes-Benz Group AG – in 2013, and has been Head of External Affairs ever since. In his current position, he is responsible for the Group´s external relations and political dialogue worldwide. He reports directly to the Chairman of the Board of Management, Ola Kaellenius.
Mr. von Klaeden served as a member of the German Bundestag from 1994 to 2013. As a Member of Parliament, he held various positions: among others from 2000 – 2005 as parliamentary director, from 2005 – 2009 as foreign policy spokesperson for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the German Bundestag. As of 2004, he was a member of the CDU’s Federal Executive Committee, from 2006 – 2013 he also served as a member of the Presidium and from 2006 – 2010 as treasurer of the CDU. As of 2009, he was Minister of State at the Office of the Federal Chancellor.

How Can International Cooperation Strengthen Democracy and Combat Antisemitism in Germany and the United States?
2024-09-25 08:00 - 10:00
The ACG will host a breakfast briefing with Dr. Sharon Nazarian, President of the Y&S Nazarian Family Foundation and Inaugural Gahl Hodges Burt Scholar at the American Academy in Berlin.
Dr. Sharon S. Nazarian was earlier this year the inaugural Gahl Hodges Burt Scholar at the American Academy in Berlin. She is an expert on antisemitism and its intersection with democratic crisis across Europe, North America, and Australia. Dr. Nazarian is the president of the Y&S Nazarian Family Foundation, with a regional office in Israel called the Ima Foundation. She is the founder of the Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies at University of California, Los Angeles, housed at UCLA’s International Institute, which provides a systematic, academic study of contemporary Israel. In 2017, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) appointed Dr. Nazarian as senior vice president in international affairs. She served in this role for five years, acting as chief diplomat and policymaker of ADL, meeting with heads of state, foreign ministers, and leaders of Jewish communities around the world and advancing ADL’s initiatives for fighting antisemitism and racial hatred globally. She also oversaw ADL’s Israel office.
Dr. Nazarian currently serves as a member of ADL’s national board of directors, a trustee of the board of Freedom House, and is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations. She also chairs the board of the Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies at UCLA and sits on the board of governors of University of Haifa. Dr. Nazarian studied journalism and international relations at the University of Southern California, where also received her master’s and doctoral degrees in political science, specializing in political economy and economic development in newly industrialized countries.

Meeting Common Challenges in a Complex Environment: Sustainability, Supply Chains, and Semiconductors
2024-09-25 18:00 - 20:00
The ACG will host a reception and discussion with Holly Evans, Senior Vice President of Environmental Policy and Legal Affairs at Responsible Business Alliance, and Corinna Wolf, Vice President and Global Head of Sustainability for Infineon Technologies.
