The ACG and KPMG will host a breakfast briefing in Munich with Simone Menne, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany; Dr. Constanze Stelzenmüller, Director Center on the US and Europe (CUSE) and Fritz Stern Chair at The Brookings Institution; and Ambassador Kurt Volker, Senior International Advisor and Advisory Board Member at BGR Group; in conversation with Ambassador John B. Emerson, former U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Vice Chairman at Capital Group International, and Chairman of the American Council on Germany.
Simone Menne serves as the President of the American Chamber of Commerce Germany. She started her career for ITT, later joining Deutsche Lufthansa. In 2012, Ms. Menne was appointed CFO and stayed in this position till 2015. She worked as CFO at Boehringer Ingelheim from 2016 to 2017. In both companies, she was responsible for the foundation of the digital lab. Ms. Menne serves as a non-executive board member for BMW, Henkel, Deutsche Post DHL, JCI, and Russell Reynolds. She also owns an art gallery in Kiel, Germany.
Dr. Constanze Stelzenmüller is an expert on German, European, and trans-Atlantic foreign and security policy and strategy. She is the director of the Center on the United States and Europe and the inaugural holder of the Fritz Stern Chair on Germany and trans-Atlantic Relations at Brookings. She held the Kissinger Chair on Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress from October 2019 to March 2020 and served as the inaugural Robert Bosch Senior Fellow at Brookings from 2014 to 2019.
Prior to working at Brookings, she was a senior transatlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), where she directed the influential Transatlantic Trends survey program. She also managed the “New Power, New Responsibility” project. Her expertise includes trans-Atlantic relations, German foreign policy, NATO, the European Union’s foreign, security, and defense policy, international law, and human rights.
Ambassador Kurt Volker provides strategic advice to BGR on a full range of international issues and is co-chair of BGR’s advisory board. He helps BGR clients develop and execute strategies to achieve success in key foreign markets and to navigate the complex business, government, think tank, media, and public policy environment in Washington.
Ambassador Volker is a leading expert in U.S. foreign and national security policy with 30 years of experience in various government, academic, and private sector capacities. A former career member of the U.S. Senior Foreign Service, he worked in official capacities for over 25 years under six presidential administrations. He was the U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations from 2017-2019 and US Ambassador to NATO from 2008-2009. He currently serves on the advisory board of Augustus, an artificial intelligence company, and has previously served as a Director of CG Funds Trust and the Wall Street Fund. Other Foreign Service assignments include working with Senator John McCain and the Secretary General of NATO.
Ambassador John B. Emerson (moderator) was named Chairman of the American Council on Germany at the Council’s Annual Members Meeting on January 17, 2018. He is Vice Chairman at Capital Group International. Previously, he was the 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.