Anders Fogh Rasmussen has been at the centre of European and global politics for over three decades as Secretary General of NATO, Prime Minister of Denmark, Danish Minister of Economic Affairs, and, last but not least, as a leading Danish parliamentarian.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen began his political career in 1978, becoming the youngest member of Parliament in Denmark at the age of 25. He was promoted to Minister of Economic Affairs in 1990 and became Prime Minister of Denmark in 2001. He held this position until 2009 when he was appointed Secretary General of NATO. During his tenure, he developed a Strategic Concept which sets the Alliance’s core priorities for the future. In response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, he initiated a “Readiness Action Plan”.

On October 1st 2014 he established Rasmussen Global and in June 2016 he was appointed advisor to the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen holds a M.Sc. in Economics from the University of Aarhus.

Fabrice Pothier has over 15 years of experience in leading international public policy campaigns and strategic communications efforts.

Before joining Rasmussen Global, he served as Head of Policy Planning for two successive NATO Secretary Generals – Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Jens Stoltenberg. During this time, he developed some of the Alliance’s most consequential initiatives and wrote some landmark speeches and articles. Prior to this, Pothier founded Carnegie Europe as part of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which quickly became one of Europe’s leading think-tanks. He was the co-founder of the International Council on Security and Development where he led global advocacy campaigns on public health and security issues. He started his career in London as a senior risk analyst for Japanese energy group Osaka Gas.

Fabrice Pothier holds two Masters degrees in communications and politics from the UK and France, and speaks French, English and Spanish.

Maria Duelund is an experienced professional within the fields of general management and leadership, combining 15 years of experience both in the private sector as well as the military.

Before joining Rasmussen Global, Duelund worked on a range of strategic, operational and organizational projects in the pharmaceutical industry. Previously, she worked in management consulting, providing international companies with advice regarding process optimization, supply chain management, organizational development and market penetration. Maria Duelund is a trained military interpreter in the Russian and Serbian languages. In 2003/2004, she was deployed to Kosovo as part of NATO’s peace-support operation.

Maria Duelund holds a Bachelor degree in International business from Copenhagen Business School and is 1st Lieutenant in the Danish army.

Alexander Vershbow is an American diplomat and former Deputy Secretary General of NATO.

Mr. Vershbow has had a long career in the State Department. From 2005 to 2008 he was United States Ambassador to South Korea. Prior to this, he was ambassador to Russia from 2001 to 2005 and the ambassador to NATO from 1998 to 2001. In March 2009, Mr. Vershbow was nominated by President Obama as Assistant Secretary of Defence for International Security Affairs, a position that holds responsibility for US policy towards NATO. He held this position until 2012 when he took the position of Deputy Secretary General of NATO, becoming the first American in this position.

Alexander Vershbow holds a Bachelor’s degree in Russian and East European Studies from Yale and an MA in International Relations from Columbia University. For his work with NATO, he was awarded NATO’s Distinguished Service Medal and the State Department’s Distinguished Service Award.

Sir Nigel Sheinwald is a British diplomat who has served a long diplomatic career in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Before he retired from the British diplomatic service in 2012, Sir Nigel Sheinwald has held several ambassadorial positions. From 2000 to 2003, Sir Nigel Sheinwald was UK Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the European Union. He held this position until he was appointed Foreign Policy and Defence Advisor to Prime Minister Tony Blair. In 2007, he was appointed UK Ambassador to the United States. He held this position until 2012. He has since been a non-executive director of Royal Dutch Shell Invesco Ltd and Raytheon UK. Furthermore, he is a Visiting Professor at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London.

Sir Nigel Sheinwald holds a degree from Oxford University. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1998, in 2000 was advanced to a knighthood as a Knight Commander (KCMG), and in 2011 was promoted to Knight Grand Cross of the same Order (GCMG).

Toomas Ilves has had a long career in European politics serving as the fourth President of Estonia, between 2006 and 2016.

Mr. Ilves worked as a journalist at Radio Free Europe before being appointed Estonian ambassador to the United States, Canada and Mexico in 1993. In 1996, Mr. Ilves was appointed Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs. He held this position until he resigned in 1998. He was then appointed Foreign Minister again in 1999 serving until 2002. Mr. Ilves supported Estonian membership in the European Union and succeeded in starting the negotiations which led to Estonia joining the European Union in 2004. In 2004, Toomas Ilves became member of the European Parliament and was elected President of Estonia in 2006. He was re-elected in 2011.

Toomas Ilves holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Columbia University and a master’s degree in the same subject from University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Ilves speaks fluently English, German, Latvian and Spanish besides his native Estonian.

Poul Skytte Christoffersen has an extensive experience within the diplomatic field as well as a broad experience on EU matters covering both external and internal policies.

Mr. Christoffersen has had a long career in the Danish diplomatic service. This includes his tenure as Danish Permanent Representative to the EU for nine years. He has been a chief negotiator at the level of officials for the Council in the final phase of the enlargement negotiations with central European countries in 2002 and served in various capacities in European Institutions (Head of Cabinet in Council and in the Commission, Special Advisor to EU High Representative on setting up the European External Action Service). He has furthermore been the ambassador to Italy and to Belgium. Mr. Christoffersen is presently President of the Board of Think Tanks on European Affairs in Copenhagen and Brussels.

Poul Skytte Christoffersen holds a Master of Economics from University of Copenhagen and a Diploma of Higher European Studies, College of Europe, Bruges.

Birger Riis-Jørgensen held senior positions in the Danish Foreign Service for many years, i.a. as Middle East department head and then undersecretary for Asia, Africa and Latin America.

He was appointed State Secretary for foreign trade in 2000. Under his leadership, several public sector organizations were merged into the Danish Trade Council which became a key partner for Danish businesses abroad and for foreign investors in Denmark. In 2006 he was appointed ambassador to the UK. In 2011 he moved from London to Rome and served as the ambassador of Denmark to Italy until 2016. After he retired from diplomatic service Riis-Jørgensen continues to work as an advisor i.a. to the Danish Foreign Service, through his own consultancy firm.

Birger Riis-Jørgensen holds an MA in History from the University of Copenhagen, where he also lectured in international politics before becoming a diplomat.

Olaf Böhnke has more than 15 years of experience as a foreign and European policy expert with a research focus on European foreign policy and Germany’s role in Europe.

Before joining Rasmussen Global, he was director of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). During this time, he established ECFR as one of the leading think tanks in Berlin. Prior to this, he worked as Director of the Middle East program of the Aspen Institute Germany and served in total for almost ten years as chief of staff and senior foreign policy advisor to several members of the German Bundestag. Recently, Mr. Böhnke was the founding Managing Director of the European Policy Unit at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) initiating a high-level dialogue with European decision makers on the need for a more coherent China policy of the EU. Mr. Böhnke is an associate fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and a visiting professor for political sciences at the Free University of Berlin.

Olaf Böhnke holds an MA in Political Science, International Relations and Economics from Freie Unversität Berlin, and speaks German and English.

Jana Kobzova is an experienced professional within the field of international affairs and policy advocacy.

Before joining Rasmussen Global, Jana Kobzova worked for the Brussels-based European Endowment for Democracy, where she developed and oversaw the EED grant-making in Eastern Partnership with a focus on Ukraine and Georgia. Prior to that, Kobzova was a policy fellow and coordinator of the Wider Europe programme at the London office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, writing analyses and managing ECFR advocacy efforts on Eastern Europe. Between 2006 and 2009 she led the Belarus democratisation programme at the Pontis Foundation in Slovakia. She has co-authored several books and reports on Eastern Europe, democratisation and the post-Soviet space and continues to write about the subject as an associate fellow at ECFR.

Jana Kobzova has an MA in Politics, Security and Integration from the School of East European and Slavonic Studies at University College London. She also holds an MA in Political Science from the Comenius University in Slovakia.

James Holtum has over a decade of experience in European and international communications.

Before joining Rasmussen Global he served as Spokesman and Head of Communications for the European Conservatives and Reformists Group in the European Parliament. During this time he managed a group of international press officers, and devised and executed the group’s media and digital communication strategy. He has also worked as head of media for the UK delegation of the EPP Group in the European Parliament, the largest political grouping.

Prior to this, he worked with UK Conservative politicians on media and strategy, speech-writing, outreach and campaign advice. He has significant experience with media strategy, crisis communications, European policy, event organisation and managing complex international relationships.

He holds a Bachelor degree in Politics from the University of Exeter.

Niels Martin Andersen has 7 years of experience within the field of political consultancy and strategic communication, including speech writing and managing business development projects.

Prior to joining Rasmussen Global, Niels Martin Andersen worked as a political officer at the British Embassy in Copenhagen where he worked on the EU Reform campaign and reported on Danish politics. Before his time in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, he worked in the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs where he was the desk officer for the United Kingdom and worked with the Danish EU decision-making process. Andersen began his career as an assistant in the Danish Parliament and as a freelance writer for a variety of Danish political outlets.

Niels Martin Andersen holds two master degrees. One in politics from University of Aarhus and another in international and European politics from University of Edinburgh.

Harry Nedelcu has 8 years of experience in policy, research and analysis positions at international organisations in Canada and in Europe.

Before joining Rasmussen Global, Nedelcu worked for the Policy Planning Unit at NATO, where he provided policy analysis and research support to the Private Office of the Secretary General. Prior to this, he was a lecturer at Carleton University and Concordia University, Montreal, Canada where for four years he taught on subjects related to comparative politics, security and defence. In 2009, he was a visiting researcher at the Swedish National Defence College. His work has been published in the Review of European and Russian Affairs and East European Politics and Societies and has been presented at over a dozen international conferences. In 2010, he published a book on extremist and populist politics.

Harry Nedelcu holds a PhD from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada in international relations and comparative politics. He also holds a Prince2 certification in project management. He speaks English, French, German, Romanian and has a basic-knowledge of Russian.

Axel Cousin is a professional within the field of international law and international politics.

After experiencing work in a law firm at Winston and Strawn in Paris, Axel Cousin specialized in trade through internships at the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation in Tokyo and in the DG Trade of the European Commission in Brussels. He focused on Free Trade agreements and regulatory cooperation, especially in relation with Japan.

Axel Cousin studied Law in Paris II – Panthéon Assas, including a year in Tokyo at Waseda Law School, and an LLM in “International Dispute Resolution” at Fordham University, in New York. Axel Cousin passed the bar exams of Paris and New York. He also holds a master degree in European Politics and Administration from the College of Europe in Bruges. Axel Cousin speaks French, English, German and has a basic understanding of Japanese.

Mads Hoppe has nearly 10 years of experience as a personal assistant and is currently the Personal Assistant to Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Before joining Rasmussen Global, Hoppe worked as a personal assistant to one of the partners in a prestigious law firm in Copenhagen. Here he used his service skills to provide day-to-day management of the front desk, calendar management, travel and meeting planning as well as event planning. Mads Hoppe has previously worked at some of the most luxurious hotels in Copenhagen.