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.
Dr. Alexander Görlach is an adjunct professor at NYU Gallatin School, where he teaches democratic theory. Before that, he held various positions as a visiting scholar and fellow at Harvard University, as well as Cambridge and Oxford Universities in the United Kingdom. He is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York and a senior advisor to the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles. He holds a doctorate in Comparative Religion and a doctorate in Linguistics. His academic interests include democratic theory, politics and religion, and theories of secularism, pluralism, and cosmopolitanism. In the academic year 2017-18, he was a visiting scholar at National Taiwan University and City University Hong Kong. Since then, he has focused on the rise of China and what it means for the democracies in East Asia.
Dr. Görlach is an honorary Professor of Ethics and Theology at Leuphana University in Lüneburg, Germany. He is the Founder of the debate magazine The European, which he also ran as its editor-in-chief from 2009 to 2015. Today, he is an op-ed contributor to the New York Times, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and the South China Morning Post. He is a columnist for the business magazines Wirtschaftswoche, Deutsche Welle, and Focus Online. He is a frequent commentator on German News Channel WELT TV.
