American Council On Germany

Exit Interview: Reflecting on Seven Years in New York
2024-06-25 12:30 - 14:00 (America/New_York)
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.

Superwahljahr 2024: Gridlock After Elections in France? A View from Berlin
2024-07-11 11:00 - 12:00
After a poor showing in the European parliamentary election last month, French President Emmanuel Macron called for snap elections. Although a left-wing coalition was able to stave off the far-right National Rally, no party was able to gain an absolute majority in Sunday’s second round of elections and Macron appears to be weakened. France now faces a hung parliament.
Join the ACG for a virtual discussion with Jacob Ross, Research Fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations, on the path forward after the second round of elections in France and the future of Franco-German relations. Jacob Ross is a Research Fellow at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik e.V. (German Council on Foreign Relations, DGAP), where he focuses on France and Franco-German relations. He initially joined the DGAP in June 2021. Previously, he worked as a research assistant at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Brussels. He had already gained experience within the Franco-German context while working at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and during his work as a parliamentary assistant to Sabine Thillaye, Chair of the European Affairs Committee of the French National Assembly.
Mr. Ross also received the majority of his academic training in France: first, within a Franco-German double-degree program at the Institute of Political Science (IEP) in Lille and, later, at the IEP in Paris and at the Ecole nationale d’administration (Ena) in Strasbourg. He also studied at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Bologna while earning a master’s degree in international relations and economics.

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.

Kaffeepause: What's Abuzz in Berlin?
2024-07-15 09:00 - 10:00
The ACG regularly hosts a discussion with a journalist based in Germany on the topics making the headlines and shaping political discourse. Join us on Monday, July 15 at 9:00 am ET for a Kaffeepause with Marc Felix Serrao, Editor-in-Chief for the Neue Züricher Zeitung in Germany. Marc Felix Serrao has served as the Head of the Berlin office since July 2017 and Editor-in-Chief of the Neue Züricher Zeitung in Germany since 2021. After military service, he studied political science in Berlin. In 2004 and 2005, he was a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University in New York. He graduated in 2006 and became a freelance journalist for various media outlets. He worked for the Süddeutsche Zeitung from 2007 to 2016 – first as a trainee, then as Deputy Head of the Society and Style Department. In 2015 and 2016 he was a part-time student at the Wissenschaftliche Hochschule für Unternehmensführung (WHU) and the Kellogg School of Management. In 2016 and 2017, he was the Business Editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

Superwahljahr 2024: A Landslide for Labour in the United Kingdom – But Many Open Questions Remain
2024-07-16 11:00 - 12:00
The Labour Party’s landslide victory in the UK’s general election on July 4 brought an end to 14 tumultuous years under the leadership of the Conservative Party – and five different Prime Ministers. Sir Kier Starmer and his Labour Party won 412 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons and enjoy a stable majority, which should allow the new government to implement its agenda, while the Tories lost 250 seats.
Voters hope that the new Prime Minister and his party will rejuvenate the country during the five-year term it has won – and some pundits are already talking about a second term. But, a recent report released by the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank found that just 52 percent of UK adults took to the polls on 4 July. This is the lowest turnout by share of the population since universal suffrage was introduced in 1928.
Join the ACG for a virtual discussion with award-winning German journalist Annette Dittert as part of our Superwahljahr 2024 series. She has been based in London since 2008 and serves as the London Bureau Chief and Senior Correspondent of the German public broadcaster ARD. She will help us understand the election results and the path forward for the United Kingdom Annette Dittert is the London Bureau Chief and Senior Correspondent of the German public broadcaster ARD. From July 2001 to July 2005, she was the ARD’s Correspondent in Warsaw. From 2005 to 2006, she traveled through China, India, and Africa for a four-part documentary Abenteuer Glück, which received an Adolf-Grimme Prize and a nomination for an International Emmy Award by the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 2006. From 2006 to 2008, Ms. Dittert was the Bureau Chief and Senior Correspondent for ARD German TV in New York. She has been based in London since 2008 and serves as Senior Correspondent and Bureau Chief for ARD German TV. In 2019, she was named “political journalist of the year” for her report on Brexit.
She studied Political Science, Philosophy, and German at the University of Freiburg and the Free University of Berlin.

Summer Book Recommendations - The Fragility of Democracy: Reflecting on Hitler’s Rise to Power
2024-07-18 11:00 - 12:00
We are delighted to continue our series of virtual events with authors who have recently published books. On Thursday, July 18, we will be joined by historian and ACG Young Leader alumnus Timothy W. Ryback. His new book “Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power” explores the six months leading up to Adolf Hitler’s seizure of power in January 1933 and the valiant efforts that nearly succeeded in stopping his appointment as chancellor of Germany. We look forward to talking with him about this story and disturbing parallels to the U.S. political scene today. Timothy W. Ryback (1990 ACG Young Leader) has written for The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times, among others. His books have appeared in more than forty editions around the world. As a former lecturer at Harvard University, he explores the intersection of history, politics, and culture, focusing on the legacies of National Socialism and authoritarianism more widely.
His most recent book is “Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power.” He is also the author of The Last Survivor (2000), a New York Times and Washington Post notable book; Hitler’s Private Library (2006), which served as the basis for a feature-length documentary, “The Books He Didn’t Burn;” and Hitler’s First Victims (2010), which is currently being adapted for cinematic release. Tim Ryback has appeared on CNN, BBC, PBS, History Channel, France 24, ZDF, Netflix, A&E, among many others. He divides his time between Europe and the United States.

44th American-German Young Leaders Conference
2024-07-20 08:00 - 2024-07-25 17:00
The 44th American-German Young Leaders Conference will take place from Saturday, July 20, through Thursday night, July 25, in Berlin, Germany.

Kaffeepause: What's Abuzz in Berlin?
2024-07-29 09:00 - 10:00
The ACG regularly hosts a discussion with a journalist based in Germany on the topics making the headlines and shaping political discourse. Join us on Monday, July 29 at 9:00 am ET for a Kaffeepause with Paul-Anton Krüger, Parliamentary Correspondent in the Berlin Bureau of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Paul-Anton Krüger has been the Parliamentary Correspondent in the Berlin Bureau of the Süddeutsche Zeitung since the 2021 federal election. Previously he reported on political affairs and served as Deputy Head of the Foreign Policy Department, focusing on the Middle East and international security for three years. Before that, he spent four years in Cairo and was a correspondent covering large parts of the Arab world and Iran.
After graduating from the Alte Landesschule in Korbach, he studied journalism in Berlin and Munich. In August 2005, he joined the Süddeutsche Zeitung as a volunteer, worked as an editor from 2008, and as head of the foreign policy department from 2011. In the fall of 2007, Mr. Krüger was a guest editor at the Chicago Tribune as part of the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship, the German-American journalism scholarship of the International Journalism Programs e.V.

The War Report: Israel / Palestine in German and American Media Coverage
2024-07-31 12:30 - 13:00
Since the October 7th Hamas terrorist attack on southern Israel, the Israel-Hamas War and humanitarian crisis in Gaza have dominated headlines around the world. But how has news coverage itself shaped global attitudes towards the conflict, and how can journalism provide the basis for holding shared conversations about a polarizing issue?
As part of the Foreign Correspondent Series, held in partnership with Goethe-Institut, the ACG will host a this online discussion July 31st at 12:00 pm ET with journalists Hanno Hauenstein, Ben Mauk, and Alena Jabarine. They will examine similarities and differences in American and German reporting on Israel/Palestine, including the dominance of corporate media, ideological bias within the newsroom, and the roles of social media and misinformation. Hanno Hauenstein is a Berlin-based journalist and author. He worked as a senior editor in Berliner Zeitung’s culture department, specializing in contemporary art and politics, and has written for the Guardian, the Intercept, Haaretz, the Nation, and other publications. He is also founder and editor of the Hebrew-German arts journal aviv Magazine.
Alena Jabarine is a German Palestinian freelance journalist based in Hamburg. She has worked as a political journalist for ten years, mostly for the German Public Broadcast ARD. From 2020 to 2023, she lived in the occupied West Bank, where she worked for a German political foundation and reported on her private Instagram account about political realities and everyday life on the ground. Particularly since October 7th, Jabarine has been one of the few Palestinian voices in German public discourse.
Ben Mauk is a writer, filmmaker, and journalist. His work appears in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Harper’s, Granta, and the London Review of Books, among other publications. He is a current National Fellow at New America and a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar, and is a winner of the Emmy Award and Peabody Award, among other honors. He teaches at Case Western Reserve University, where he is the Shirley Wormser Professor of Journalism and Media Writing. He lives in Berlin, Germany and Cleveland, Ohio.

Looking at the U.S. Election: The Race is On!
2024-08-01 11:00 - 12:00
In a very short period, the dynamics of the U.S. election have changed dramatically: Beginning with President Joe Biden’s poor debate performance, followed by an assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, and then the announcement that President Biden was dropping out of the race and endorsing his Vice President Kamala Harris, the past few weeks have been consequential for U.S. politics.
Join the American Council on Germany and Atlantik-Brücke for a virtual discussion with Ambassador John B. Emerson, former U.S. Ambassador to Germany and Chairman of the American Council on Germany, and Juliane Schäuble, U.S. Correspondent of Der Tagesspiegel, for a discussion about the recent developments in U.S. politics and what to expect in the weeks ahead. Ambassador John B. Emerson was named Chairman of the American Council on Germany on January 17, 2018. He is Vice Chairman at Capital Group International. Previously, he was U.S. Ambassador to Germany from 2013 to 2017. In 2015, Ambassador Emerson received the State Department’s Sue M. Cobb Award for Exemplary Diplomatic Service, an award given annually to one non-career Ambassador. In 2017, the Secretary of the Navy and the Director of the CIA awarded him their highest civilian honors for his service.
Prior to accepting the ambassadorial posting, John Emerson was President of Private Client Services for the Capital Group Companies. Before joining Capital, he was Deputy Assistant to President Clinton where he coordinated his economic conferences, served as the president’s liaison to the nation’s governors, and led the administration’s efforts to obtain congressional approval of the GATT Uruguay Round Agreement and the extension of China s MFN trading status. Additionally, he was appointed by President Obama to serve on his Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations. Before working in the Clinton White House, Ambassador Emerson served as Los Angeles Chief Deputy City Attorney, and was a partner in the law firm of Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg, and Phillips.
Juliane Schäuble is the U.S. Correspondent of Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin’s biggest newspaper. Before she moved to Washington, DC, in June 2018 she was the head of the political department of the paper where she was responsible for the front page and the political section. She has more than twelve years of experience in the business and the political department of Der Tagesspiegel.
Ms. Schäuble earned her Master’s in Political Science at the University in Potsdam, Germany. Her studies included one semester at American University in Washington, DC, where she took classes in American foreign policy and worked part-time for the “American Council of Young Political Leaders” (“Washington Semester Program”).

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).

Transatlantic Relations in a Super Election Year: Two Perspectives from Berlin
2024-08-20 09:00 - 10:30 | The Chicago Club, 81 East Van Buren Street, Chicago, IL, 60605, United States
The ACG will hold a Breakfast Briefing in Chicago with two members of the German Bundestag, Metin Hakverdi (SPD) and Thomas Silberhorn (CDU/CSU). The event will take place from 8:00am-9:30am (CDT) at The Chicago Club. Metin Hakverdi joined the SPD in 2002 and has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2013. His reelection in Hamburg-Harburg in 2021 was resounding — with nearly 40 percent of the vote. He serves on the Bundestag’s Committee on European Union Affairs and on the Finance 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. He 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 became licensed to practice law in 2000.

Thomas Silberhorn has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2002. Since 2021 he has served as the Spokesman of the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group for Transatlantic Relations. Mr. Silberhorn was the Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development from 2014 to 2018. From 2009 to 2013, he was the Chairman of the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group on the Legal Affairs Committee. He chaired the CSU regional group’s working group on foreign affairs, defense, Europe, economic cooperation and development, human rights and humanitarian aid from 2005 to 2013. He joined the CSU in 1987 and was on the Board of the CSU’s Junge Union from 1998 to 2002. Mr. Silberhorn is a lawyer. After his second state examination in 1994, he worked as a research assistant at the University of Bayreuth. Then, in 2001, he took up work as a lawyer in Munich and Berlin.

Thuringia and Eastern Germany before the State Elections
2024-08-21 11:00 - 12:00
A Conversation with the Minister-President of the Free State of Thuringia Bodo Ramelow

Next month, state elections will be held in the three eastern German states of Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia. Coming off of the European parliamentary elections in early June, when the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) won most of the votes in all five eastern German states, poor polling numbers for the parties making up the governing coalition at the federal level, and the development of a new party, the Bündnis Sahra Wagenkecht (BSW), there are lots of questions about how people will vote.
Support for the AfD in the former communist eastern German states was much higher than the national average of 15.9 percent and gave the party enough of a boost to make it the second strongest party in Germany after the Christian Democrats. Exit polls showed that the majority of AfD voters were concerned about their economic well-being and irregular migration.
Join the American Council on Germany and the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung New York Office for a virtual discussion with the Minister-President of the Free State of Thuringia, Bodo Ramelow, about the trends in eastern Germany before voters take to the polls in three states. The discussion will take place in German with simultaneous translation into English.

Bodo Ramelow is a German politician who has served as the Minister-President of the Free State of Thuringia since March 4, 2020. He previously held this office from 2014 until February 5, 2020. In this capacity, he has also been a member of the Bundesrat, and served as its President for one year from November 1, 2021 until October 31, 2022. Mr. Ramelow is a member of the Left Party and previously chaired his party’s group in the Thuringian state assembly (Landtag).
Mr. Ramelow was born and raised in West Germany. He trained as a retail salesman and became an official in the Gewerkschaft Handel, Banken und Versicherungen (HBV), the union for trade, bank, and insurance employees, during the 1980s. He moved to the eastern German state of Thuringia after German unification and joined the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS). He was elected to the Landtag in 1999 and became Deputy Chairman and then, in 2001, Chairman of the party’s parliamentary group in the state parliament.
In February 2004, Mr. Ramelow was elected top candidate of the PDS in the Thuringian state elections, and was re-elected as the Chairman of the PDS in Thuringia. Starting in June 2005, Mr. Ramelow was chief negotiator during unification talks which ultimately led to the creation of a new party, Die Linke (The Left). From 2005 to 2009, he was a Member of the German Bundestag and Deputy Chairman of the Die Linke parliamentary group, and from 2009 to 2014, he served as the Chairman of the Die Linke state parliamentary group in Thuringia. Following elections in September 2014, Mr. Ramelow was elected by the Landtag as the Minister-President of the Free State of Thuringia – with the support of the Social Democratic Party and the Greens, which had joined Die Linke in a coalition. This vote marked the first time Die Linke had won the leadership of any of Germany’s states since German unification in 1990.

Kaffeepause: What's Abuzz in Berlin?
2024-09-03 09:00 - 10:00
The ACG regularly hosts a discussion with a journalist based in Germany on the topics making the headlines and shaping political discourse. Join us on Tuesday, September 3 at 9:00 am ET for a Kaffeepause with Steven Erlanger, Chief Diplomatic Correspondent in Europe for The New York Times Steven Erlanger is the Chief Diplomatic Correspondent in Europe for The New York Times, a position he assumed in 2017. He is based in Berlin. As of earlier this year, he is based in Berlin.
In over 40 years of career as a journalist, he has covered news in over 120 countries, from the war in Kosovo to Brexit. In 2002, Mr. Erlanger shared the Pulitzer Prize for reporting on his work on Al Qaeda and again received the prize in 2017 for a series on Russia.
Between 1975 and 1983, he was a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University. Beginning in 1976, he also worked as an Editor and Correspondent at the Boston Globe. From 1983 through 1987, he was the Globe’s European Correspondent in London. Beginning in 1988, he served as Bureau Chief for the New York Times in London, Paris, Jerusalem, Berlin, Prague, Moscow, and Bangkok.
In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Mr. Erlanger has received numerous awards and recognitions, including the Robert Livingston Award for international reporting for a series of articles about Eastern Europe in 1981, the German Marshall Fund’s Peter Weitz Prize for excellence and originality in reporting and analyzing European and transatlantic affairs in 2000, and the Karl Klasen Journalists Prize for coverage of Germany and Europe and promoting trans-Atlantic understanding in 2017.
Mr. Erlanger’s writing has been featured in many publications such as The Economist, The Spectator, The New Statesman, The New Republic, The Financial Times, Foreign Policy, The National Interest, and the Columbia Journalism Review.

Parsing the Results of Sunday’s Elections in Saxony and Thuringia
2024-09-04 11:00 - 12:00
On Sunday, voters will take to the polls in the eastern German states of Saxony and Thuringia. Later in the month, elections will be held in Brandenburg. These three state elections in eastern Germany are being watched closely at home and abroad. They will serve as a bellwether for the current government in Berlin one year before federal elections – but, perhaps more importantly, they will give an indication of the strength of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the newly formed Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht party.
Join the ACG for a virtual discussion with German journalist Nadine Lindner as part of our Superwahljahr 2024 series. Ms. Lindner has been a correspondent with Deutschlandradio since 2016 and covers the AfD, among other things. Before that, she was a state correspondent in Saxony and covered political developments there. Nadine Lindner has been a correspondent in the Berlin studio of “Deutschlandradio” since early 2016 and is responsible, among other things, for the AfD and transport policy. Before that, she was a state correspondent in Saxony for two and a half years and observed the rise of Pegida there. She studied political science, journalism and African studies in Leipzig and discovered her enthusiasm for radio there at the training station “mephisto 97.6”. After graduating, she worked as a freelance journalist for “MDR sputnik” and the “FAZ”, and since 2009 for Deutschlandradio.

From Convention Season to the Final Campaign Stretch
2024-09-05 11:00 - 12:00
Two months before Election Day, both parties offer competing visions to U.S. voters, and the American public receives and perceives these messages differently. At this critical time, it is essential to explore the core values and issues that define what it means to be a Democrat or Republican in today’s political climate. On September 5, the ACG and more than two dozen transatlantic organizations will host a virtual discussion with Ambassador John B. Emerson, Chairman of the ACG and former U.S. Ambassador to Germany, and Dr. Daniel S. Hamilton, Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University SAIS. We will consider what these competing visions mean for Europe and global affairs and assess the state of down-ballot races, examining how elections for Congress, state governments, and local offices might impact the transatlantic partnership. The discussion will be moderated by Tina Höfinghoff, Founder of Transatlantic Hub. Ambassador John B. Emerson was named Chairman of the American Council on Germany on January 17, 2018. He is Vice Chairman at Capital Group International. Previously, he was U.S. Ambassador to Germany from 2013 to 2017. In 2015, Ambassador Emerson received the State Department’s Sue M. Cobb Award for Exemplary Diplomatic Service, an award given annually to one non-career Ambassador. In 2017, the Secretary of the Navy and the Director of the CIA awarded him their highest civilian honors for his service.
Prior to accepting the ambassadorial posting, John Emerson was President of Private Client Services for the Capital Group Companies. Before joining Capital, he was Deputy Assistant to President Clinton where he coordinated his economic conferences, served as the president’s liaison to the nation’s governors, and led the administration’s efforts to obtain congressional approval of the GATT Uruguay Round Agreement and the extension of China s MFN trading status. Additionally, he was appointed by President Obama to serve on his Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations. Before working in the Clinton White House, Ambassador Emerson served as Los Angeles Chief Deputy City Attorney and was a partner in Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg, and Phillips law firm.
Dr. Daniel S. Hamilton is a Senior Fellow at the SAIS Foreign Policy Institute and a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. At SAIS, he leads a project exploring the new dynamics of the Atlantic Basin. He served previously as the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation Professor (2012-2019); Richard von Weizsäcker Professor (2002-2011); Founding Director of the School’s Center for Transatlantic Relations (2001-2019), and Executive Director of the American Consortium for EU Studies (2002-2017), designated by the European Commission as the EU Center of Excellence Washington, D.C.
​He has held a variety of senior positions in the U.S. Department of State, including Deputy Assistant Secretary for European Affairs, responsible for NATO, OSCE and transatlantic security issues, Nordic-Baltic and Balkan Affairs; U.S. Special Coordinator for Southeast European Stabilization; Associate Director of the Policy Planning Staff for two U.S. Secretaries of State; Director for Policy in the Bureau of European Affairs; and Senior Policy Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador and U.S. Embassy in Germany. He also led international policy work for the Johns Hopkins-led National Center for the Study of Preparedness and Catastrophic Event Response (PACER), named as one of five U.S. National Centers of Excellence by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In 2008, Hamilton served as the first Robert Bosch Foundation Senior Diplomatic Fellow in the German Foreign Office, where he worked in the Planning Staff for Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. In 2012 he was a member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ‘Futures Advisory Group’.

Kaffeepause: What's Abuzz in Berlin?
2024-09-09 09:00 - 10:00
The ACG regularly hosts a discussion with a journalist based in Germany on the topics making the headlines and shaping political discourse. Join us on Monday, September 9 at 9:00 am ET for a Kaffeepause with Anja Wehler-Schöck, Head of International Politics for Der Tagesspiegel. Anja Wehler-Schöck has been Head of International Politics at Der Tagesspiegel since August 2022. Prior to that, she worked as editor-in-chief of the IPG Journal, a debate platform for issues of international and European politics. She previously worked as a social affairs officer at the German Embassy in Washington and headed the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s office for Jordan and Iraq in Amman from 2012 to 2017.

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).

Building Resilience and Protecting Critical Infrastructure
2024-09-12 11:00 - 12:00
While global challenges are addressed by national governments, increasingly subnational actors such as states, communities, and cities have needed to step up to take action when traditional nation-states have not been able to make progress due to political polarization and partisan gridlock. The German-American State Legislator Dialogue will take on the challenge of infrastructure with state legislators from the United States, Canada, and Germany. They will focus on the role state governments can play in addressing common concerns when it comes to building resilience and managing threats to critical infrastructure.
Critical infrastructure forms the backbone of modern, well-functioning societies. Unfortunately, these infrastructures face increasing threats from natural disasters, health crises, as well as physical and cyberattacks on both sides of the Atlantic. While defining critical infrastructure is complex, in general, it refers to the systems, organizations, facilities, assets, services, and networks that are essential to the well-functioning of societies. Subnational governments play a fundamental role in proactively safeguarding the security and functionality of critical infrastructure, as well as in developing guidelines for responding to potential disruptions. As a result, they are often at the forefront of such disasters because they are closer to affected communities and play a key role in emergency response operations. They also play a key role in coordinating with other levels of government and non-governmental organizations to ensure a coordinated and effective response. What are the primary challenges faced by policymakers at the state level in managing threats to critical infrastructure? What mechanisms are in place to quickly react to crises on both sides of the Atlantic, and how can we learn from one another? Join us on September 12 for an engaging discussion with a panel of state legislators from the United States, Canada, and Germany, where we will explore these questions to gain valuable insights into the shared challenges faced on both sides of the Atlantic. Representative Karianne Lisonbee (R) is the Majority Whip in the Utah House of Representatives. Her legislative efforts have spanned a range of issues, from healthcare and tax reform to educational opportunity and economic development. Representative Lisonbee passed significant legislation protecting victims and making Utah’s communities and schools safer through increasing accountability and transparency in the criminal justice system. Her efforts have been instrumental in advancing Utah’s prosperity. She is serving her 4th term representing District 14. Before her election to the legislature, she served on the Syracuse City Council. Rep. Lisonbee earned a degree in Family Studies from Brigham Young University, where she met Seth, her husband of 31 years. They have six children and six grandchildren. She enjoys singing, reading, and hiking.
Michael Lee (BC United) was elected as the MLA for Vancouver-Langara in 2017 and re-elected in 2020 in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Canada. He currently serves as the Shadow Minister for Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation. Mr. Lee has served as the Official Opposition Critic for Transportation, Infrastructure, and TransLink, the Official Opposition Critic for Justice, and as the Parliamentary Secretary for Affordable Housing. He is a member of the Select Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, the Select Standing Committee on Legislative Initiatives, and the Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders, and Private Bills.
Before his election, Mr. Lee was a business lawyer for 20 years and a partner with Lawson Lundell LLP, focusing on mergers & acquisitions, corporate finance, and corporate governance. He acted for energy, mining, forestry, technology companies, and as external counsel to BC Hydro. Before obtaining his law degree at the University of Victoria, he worked as a Special Assistant to the Right Honourable Kim Campbell in Vancouver and Ottawa, Canada. He also holds a BSc in Biology, a BA (Hons) in Political Science, and an MA degree in Political Science with a focus on environmental regulations. Mr. Lee has served as the past Chair of the Board of Directors of Arts Umbrella and Alumni UBC. He has also served as a past Vice-Chair and Board member of Science World British Columbia, SUCCESS, and Leadership Vancouver. Mr. Lee is a past Board member of the YMCA of Greater Vancouver Foundation, the Justice Education Society of BC, Sustainable Cities International, and the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association.
Dr. med. Heide Richter-Airijoki (SPD) is a medical doctor and has a master’s degree in public health from Harvard School of Public Health. In the past, she worked as head of department at the German Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA) and has done many international assignments for the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ, formerly GTZ). She was head of bilateral technical cooperation programs in the health sector in Bangladesh, India, Burkina Faso, Kenya, and Tanzania. In this capacity, she coordinated support in the areas of health systems strengthening, reproductive health, and health emergency preparedness. Dr. Richter-Airijoki was Principal Advisor on Child Survival and Development for the West and Central African Region for the United Nations children’s organization, UNICEF. She coordinated the National Capacity Building for the Tobacco Free Initiative for the World Health Organization (WHO) and consulted the German federal government on the global strategy for pandemic preparedness. As a technical delegate from Germany, she also consulted the European Commission and the World Bank in areas of program planning and evaluation. Since 2021, Dr. Richter-Airijoki has been a member of the Regional Parliament of Saxony-Anhalt for the constituency of Lutherstadt Wittenberg. She is a member of the Social Democratic (SPD) parliamentary group and the faction’s speaker on Health, Labor, and Integration. She is a deputy member of the committee on Labor, Social Issues, Health, and Gender Equality, as well as a deputy member of the committee on Federal- and European Affairs, Media, and Culture.

What Does a Presidency Cost? Election Campaign Financing in the U.S. and Germany
2024-09-12 12:00 - 13:00
The amount of money spent on election campaigns in the United States has increased dramatically over time, sparking debate on the influence of money in politics and its impact on the democratic process. While less in focus during this year’s turbulent election season, the topic remains critical as campaign financing has substantial potential to influence voter behavior and shape the political landscape. How are presidential and congressional races generally funded and how are the current contenders for the White House financing their campaigns? Which consequences does the current legal framework around campaign financing in the U.S. have for transparency and fairness and how does it differ from the German model? To what extent does money determine election outcomes?
Join us for a virtual conversation as part of the Transatlantic Tandem Talk Series with Sandra Navidi, CEO, BeyondGlobal, LLC, and Dr. Maureen Edobor, Assistant Professor of Law, Washington and Lee School of Law; with welcoming remarks by Dr. Eva Bosbach, Executive Director, University of Cologne New York Office, and Viktoria Harbecke, Director, AmerikaHaus NRW e.V. Sandra Navidi is CEO of the New York-based advisory firm BeyondGlobal. She is admitted to practice law in the State of New York and in the Federal Republic of Germany. Previously, she worked closely with noted economist Professor Nouriel Roubini at Roubini Global Economics. Prior to that, she held positions as an investment banker, general counsel, and management consultant. Ms. Navidi is known for her prescient expert media commentary on geopolitical and economic issues, featured on CNN, CNBC, Fox Business, and C-SPAN, among other notable platforms, as well as in numerous international documentaries. For the last 15 years, Sandra Navidi has been an economic and political analyst at Germany’s premier news outlet, n-tv (RTL). She also co-hosts n-tv’s business podcast Biz & Beyond. She is a WEF Davos veteran of almost two decades, one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices, and a TEDx Speaker. Ms. Navidi is the bestselling author of award-winning $uperHubs: How the Financial Elite and their Networks Rule Our World, one of Bloomberg’s Best Books of the Year. Thereafter, she published Future IQ: Your Success Strategies in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, which Handelsblatt recommended as a must-read. Her third book Die DNA der USA: Wie tickt Amerika, where she analyses America’s political and economic future, was shortlisted for the Frankfurt Book Fair’s German Business Book Award 2023. Sandra Navidi is an alumna of the University of Cologne.
Maureen Edobor is an Assistant Professor of Law, a DeLaney Center Fellow – W&L’s interdisciplinary academic hub that promotes scholarship on race, electoral politics, and Southern identity – and an Inaugural Steven M. Polan Fellow in Constitutional Law and History at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. Professor Edobor teaches and writes in constitutional law, focusing on voting and elections. Her work appears or is forthcoming in the UCLA Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania’s Journal of Constitutional Law, the George Washington Law Review, and the Washington and Lee Law Review. Her opinion writing has been featured in The Hill, Bloomberg Law, and The Daily Record. In Professor Edobor’s first year of teaching, she received the Ethan Allen Faculty Fellowship for excellence in scholarship.
The event is part of the NRW-USA Year 2023-2024 and of the Transatlantic Tandem Talks series:
The Transatlantic Tandem Talks are hosted by the University of Cologne New York Office in cooperation with its partners the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in New York, the German Embassy in Washington D.C., Deutsches Haus at NYU, DAAD New York, the German Research Foundation (DFG) North America, the German Center for Research and Innovation (DWIH) New York, 1014 Space for Ideas, the Goethe Institute New York, AmerikaHaus NRW, the American Friends of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and as of 2024, the American Council on Germany (ACG).

Kaffeepause: What's Abuzz in Berlin?
2024-09-16 09:00 - 10:00
The ACG regularly hosts a discussion with a journalist based in Germany on the topics making the headlines and shaping political discourse. Join us on Monday, September 16 at 9:00 am ET for a Kaffeepause with award-winning journalist and ACG fellow Vladimir Balzer. Vladimir Balzer is an award-winning journalist and moderator at Deutschlandfunk Kultur. He grew up in Leipzig and studied German, art history, and journalism in Dublin, Venice, and Leipzig. He studied abroad in Italy and the United States. He began his career as a presenter, reporter, and editor at Deutschlandradio and MDR. Mr. Balzer hosts, among other programs, the daily programs “Fazit – Kultur vom Tage” and “Studio 9” on Deutschlandfunk Kultur. In 2022, he was selected to be a Kellen Fellow by the American Council on Germany.

Silver Society: Health, Work, and New Ways of Thinking About Longevity and Aging
2024-09-17 11:00 - 12:00
The American Council on Germany and the Global Coalition on Aging are hosting “The Road to Silver Economy Forum,” a series of webinars taking place in the run-up to the Forum itself on October 15 and 16 in Berlin. This series focuses on issues building on this year’s Forum theme “Leading the Future in an Aging World.”
In this fourth and final webinar, entitled “Silver Society: Health, Work, and New Ways of Thinking About Longevity and Aging,” Michael Devoy, Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs and Pharmacovigilance for the Pharmaceuticals Division of Bayer AG; Cynthia Hutchins, Director of Financial Gerontology for Bank of America; and moderator Melissa Mitchell, Executive Director of Global Coalition on Aging will explore the multifaceted societal changes necessary to embrace the full potential of the Silver Economy – from healthcare innovation to workforce change and financial longevity, and beyond. This session will provide a sneak preview of some of the exciting discussions to come at the Silver Economy Forum in Berlin on October 15 and 16. Michael Devoy is the Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs and Pharmacovigilance for the Pharmaceuticals Division at Bayer AG. He is also the Chief Medical Officer of Bayer AG. Dr. Devoy joined the former Schering AG in 2005 as Senior Vice President of Global Medical Development and was appointed to his current position in 2014.
Dr. Devoy studied Medicine and Pharmacology at University College London and graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery (MB, BS, graduated with honors) and BSc in Pharmacology. He is a member of the Royal College of Physicians in London. He is also an elected member of the Board of Directors of the Drug Information Association (DIA).
Dr. Devoy has extensive experience across Clinical Development and International Medical Affairs. His career in the pharmaceutical industry began when he joined Glaxo Group Research in Clinical Pharmacology.
Cynthia Hutchins is the Director of Financial Gerontology for Bank of America and has more than 40 years of experience in the wealth management and retirement industry. In her role, she develops thought leadership, resources, training, and client education, engaging clients and employees on topics of aging, longevity, retirement, life stages, and later life planning. She has authored several whitepapers on the topics of aging, longevity, caregiving, housing in retirement, and caring for children with special needs. She has also partnered with academic institutions and aging industry experts to develop collaborative research and thought leadership on these topics. These organizations include the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, the Gerontological Society of America, Georgetown University McDonough School of Business Aging Well Hub, the Wharton School Pension Research Council, and the Global Coalition on Aging. She has been widely quoted in national publications, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Institutional Investor, Baltimore Sun, and Next Avenue.
Ms. Hutchins has served on the board of directors of the American Society on Aging (ASA) and has participated in the White House Conference on Aging Elder Justice Forum. She was named to the inaugural PBS Next Avenue 50 Influencers in Aging list. She is a frequent speaker on topics of aging and longevity. She has spoken at various conferences, including the Investments and Wealth Institute, Florida Conference on Aging, San Antonio Society for Human Resource Management, Southern Women’s Show, Virginia Governor’s Conference on Aging and the American Society on Aging’s Aging In America Conference, Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Forum (DCIIA), and the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
She holds a BS in Business and Finance from Towson University and an MA in Gerontology from the University of Southern California. She has earned the Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor (CRPC) designation and the Chartered Special Needs Consultant (ChSNC) designation from the American College of Financial Services and holds the Series 7, 24, 63, and 65 securities registrations.
Melissa Mitchell (moderator) is the Executive Director of the Global Coalition on Aging, where she is responsible for internal and external communication strategies, policy initiatives, member and stakeholder outreach, and partnership development for the Coalition. She has over a decade of public affairs experience, specializing in policy-related and CEO-level strategic communications, advocacy campaigns, and special events. Currently, she serves as a Senior Managing Director at High Lantern Group, a strategic consulting firm that advises dozens of major global companies and industry trade groups. Previously, she was Director of Industry Relations and Strategic Outreach at the U.S. Travel Association. She was responsible for grassroots development and industry initiatives, having driven multiple campaigns leading to positive legislative outcomes. Prior to U.S. Travel, she served as Executive Director of the Travel Business Roundtable, a CEO-based advocacy organization devoted to reframing the policy environment and reputation of the industry, and an associate at Prime Policy Group (formerly BKSH & Associates), a Washington-based government affairs firm. Ms. Mitchell holds an MBA from Georgetown University in Washington, DC and a BA in Journalism and Psychology from the University of Mississippi.

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?
2024-09-24 09:00 - 10:00
The Charlotte Eric M. Warburg Chapter of the American Council on Germany and The Jewish Federation of Greater Charlotte 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 on 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.

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.

Radical Universalism
2024-09-25 18:30 - 20:00
The ACG and the Goethe Institut New York will host a discussion with Omri Boehm, Associate Professor of Philosophy at The New School for Social Research. This discussion is part of our Double Exposure series, on what the idea of solidarity means in different contexts.

Will European Leaders do “Whatever it Takes” to Rescue the European Economy?
2024-10-02 11:00 - 12:00
In 2012, Mario Draghi pledged to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro when he led the European Central Bank. Earlier this month, the former Italian Prime Minister released a report on ‘The Future of EU Competitiveness,’ which was intended to jolt the stalling European economy into high gear. The report recommends three priorities: First, Europe must refocus its collective efforts on closing the innovation gap with the U.S. and China so that it can remain a player in emerging technologies. Second, the EU needs to pursue decarbonization objectives while remaining competitive. And third, the EU should increase its security and reduce external dependencies, by pursuing access to critical raw materials, developing its own digital services, and strengthening its defense industry. Draghi’s report contains many proposals addressing these three priorities, calibrated to be implementable over the next few years. But EU member states will need to coalesce around a coherent plan to boost growth and rescue the European economy.
Is this the “whatever it takes 2.0” moment for Europe’s economy? Join the American Council on Germany on October 2 for a virtual discussion with Prof. Dr. Michael Hüther, Director and Member of the Presidium at the Cologne Institute for Economic Research. He has written extensively about German and European industrial policy against the backdrop of the Zeitenwende and about the need for investment in infrastructure and transformation – and the pressures that is putting on Germany’s debt brake. He will be in conversation with ACG Board member Tara Hariharan. She is Managing Director of Global Macro Research at NWI Management LP, a New York-based global macro hedge fund. ACG Board member Tara Hariharan is Managing Director of Global Macro Research at NWI Management LP, a New York-based global macro hedge fund with an emphasis on emerging markets. As head of macro research for the firm since 2012, she focuses on economic activity, macro-political trends, and policy in the U.S. and China, and is a keen student of European political economy. Ms. Hariharan directs top-down analysis of macroeconomic data, monetary and fiscal policy, and political trends for countries and regions worldwide, as well as maintenance and constant evolution of NWI’s “macro dashboard” with a strategic focus on potential investment opportunities in fixed income, equities, foreign exchange, and commodities. Her analysis is notably informed by sustained dialogue with a diverse group of high-level global policymakers in both developed and emerging markets.
Ms. Hariharan earned a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology summa cum laude from Princeton University in 2007. She was awarded a 2014 American Marshall Memorial Fellowship by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Ms. Hariharan has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations since 2017. She is also closely involved with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and has been a member of the Chamber’s Chief Economists’ Committee since the summer of 2020. She was elected a member of the Inter-American Dialogue in July 2021 and is a 2022 Economic Club of New York Fellow. She was an ACG Young Leader in 2016.
Prof. Dr. Michael Hüther studied Economics and History at the Justus-Liebig University in Giessen from 1982 to 1987. Upon completion of his doctorate in Economics, in 1991 he became a member of the scientific staff of the Council of Experts for the Evaluation of Macroeconomic Development. In 1995 he was appointed Secretary General of the German Council of Economic Advisers. In 1999, he joined DekaBank as chief economist and in 2001 additionally as Division Manger economics and communication. Since August 2001 Prof. Hüther is Honorary Professor at the European Business School in Oestrich-Winkel.
In July 2004 he was appointed Director and Member of the Presidium of the German Economic Institute. Since April 2019 Prof. Hüther has served as the Chair of the supervisory board of TÜV Rheinland AG. He serves as Vice Chairman of the Atlantik-Brücke.
