Speaker Profiles

Managing Director, Perseus Strategies
Counsel, Neurorights Foundation

Jared Genser has been an international lawyer for more than two decades. He is Managing Director of Perseus Strategies and Counsel to the Neurorights Foundation.

He was previously a partner at the global law firm DLA Piper LLP and a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. He was also previously a Senior Tech Fellow at the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights. Genser has taught courses on the UN Security Council as adjunct faculty at Stanford Law School, Georgetown University Law Center and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Referred to by the New York Times as ‘The Extractor’ for his work freeing political prisoners, he has represented five Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, including three who won the Prize while imprisoned. Genser holds a B.S. from Cornell University, an M.P.P. from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a J.D. cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School. His forthcoming book is a co-edited volume with former UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein entitled The Oxford Handbook on the UN Human Rights System (Oxford University Press, 2026).

X: https://x.com/jaredgenser
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredgenser/ 
 

Senior Fellow
European Initiative for Energy Security

Peter Handley is a Senior Fellow with the European Initiative for Energy Security. He advises on sustainability and resilience and is founder of consultancy PHASE32. He is an External Senior Advisor with McKinsey & Company, Strategic Advisor with the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and a Senior Associate with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. He also acts as Special Advisor to the Global Council for Responsible Transition Minerals.

Handley was a former European Commission official, where he acted as Deputy Director and Head of Unit responsible for energy-intensive industries and raw materials in DG GROW. 
 

Chairman
Global Rare Earth Industry Association

Vasileios Tsianos is Vice President of Corporate Development at Neo Performance Materials (TSX: NEO), the global producer of rare-earth magnetics and critical materials central to fast-forwarding energy and digital transformation technologies. He is Chairman of the Global Rare Earth Industry Association, Executive Committee and Board Director of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in Canada, a member of the Bretton Woods Committee, and a member of the critical minerals advisors committee of the International Energy Agency. He has extensive previous experience in management consulting, investment banking, a private railway venture, and politics.
 

Senior Executive Managing Officer and Global Head of Energy and Natural Resources Finance Group
Japan Bank for International Cooperation

Amano Tatsushi oversees financing operations at JBIC in the oil and gas, mining, and hydrogen/ammonia sectors, supporting both global energy development and sustainability. Prior to this role, he served as Director-General of JBICʼs Strategic Research Department, where he provided strategic insights and policy analysis to the Board of Directors on international finance and geopolitical trends.

Since joining JBIC in 1995, Amano has held key roles in the legal department, corporate finance, policy planning, and energy finance. From 1999 to 2001, he was seconded to Japanʼs Ministry of Finance, contributing to international financial policy. He was admitted to the New York State Bar in 2002 and practiced law in London from 2012 to 2014.

Amano holds a BA in Law from the University of Tokyo and an LLM from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
 

Strategic Advisor, Research Innovations Incorporated
Chief Executive Officer, Charthouse Strategic Advisory

Doug Greenlaw is an entrepreneur, investor, advisor and executive with extensive expertise in the global defence and aerospace market. With over four decades of experience from start-up companies to market leaders, his focus is on delivering advanced technologies to meet critical national security needs. He has broad international experience, having done business in over 40 countries, as well as considerable commercial experience in emerging technology sectors. He has been an owner and principal in several businesses and currently runs a specialised investment and advisory firm, Charthouse Strategic Advisory, focusing on early phase investment in exciting technology companies, particularly with national and global security applications. He also participates on a number of boards. He has extensive strategic development expertise, having led Lockheed Martin’s International Strategy development organisation and serving as its corporate Chief Executive for Asia.
 

Chief Executive Officer
BWI

Lieutenant General Frank Leidenberger is CEO and Chairman of the Management Board of BWI GmbH. He is responsible for the strategic and technological positioning of the company.
 
Lt-Gen Leidenberger, who studied economics and organisational science, draws on over 40 years’ experience from various command and staff assignments in the Bundeswehr. Examples include commander of various units, Head of the Planning Office, Chief of Staff for the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, and Head of the Special Operations Division. As head of unit, he has also supported the Armed Forces Command Staff in the Ministry of Defence.
 

Deputy Chief Executive (Information)
Defence Science and Technology Agency, Singapore

Gayle Chan has many years of experience in the Public Service, across domains such as engineering and strategic planning. In 2021, she took up the role of Deputy Chief Executive (Information) in Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA), where she drives DSTA's digital transformation efforts and guides the development of technological capabilities in information, electronic warfare and cyber domains against emerging threats.
 
She was appointed Deputy Director (Strategic Planning Office) in Singapore’s Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) in 2015, where she developed strategies and technology roadmaps at the Defence Technology Community level.
 
Chan is also Director of the DSTA’s Digital Hub and combines diverse expertise across DSTA with promising digital technologies to ideate, experiment, and rapidly prototype new capabilities for MINDEF and the Singapore Armed Forces.
 

Director General for Cyber/Information Technology and Chief Information Officer
Federal Ministry of Defence, Germany

Lieutenant General Michael Vetter has been Director-General for Cyber/Information Technology and Chief Information Officer at the Federal Ministry of Defence in Berlin since April 2019. After joining the Bundeswehr in 1982 and completing his officer’s training, he studied Economics and Management.
 
After several troop and staff assignments, he was commander of 2 Air Force Maintenance Regiment in Diepholz from 2005 to 2007 and headed the Bundeswehr Logistics Centre in Wilhelmshaven from 2012 to 2017. In this position, he was responsible for worldwide logistic support of the Bundeswehr. During this time, he was also ISAF Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics at Regional Command North in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan in 2013.
 
In 2017, he became the first Chief of Staff of the newly established Bundeswehr Cyber and Information Domain Service Headquarters. From 2017 to 2018, he also performed the duties of Vice Chief of the Cyber and Information Domain Service.
 

Founder and Chairman
Ivanhoe Capital

Robert Friedland is a renowned financier and entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience in the global financial and mineral resources industries. Under his leadership, executives within the Ivanhoe Group and associated companies have raised more than US$35 billion, through a diverse range of financing vehicles on world capital markets, since 1993. This capital has been invested in more than 30 countries across six continents. Today, Friedland is Executive Co-Chairman of Ivanhoe Mines, which is expanding the high-grade Kamoa-Kakula Copper Complex in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), restarting the ultra-high-grade Kipushi zinc-copper-germanium-silver mine, also in the DRC, and building the tier-one Platreef palladium-platinum-nickel- copper- gold discovery in South Africa. He is Chairman and co-founder of I-Pulse, a private company that is commercialising proprietary, pulsed-power technologies aiming to achieve disruptive outcomes across numerous industries. He is also Executive Chairman of United States-based Ivanhoe Electric, which is using proprietary technology to explore for mineral deposits, principally across the US to support American supply-chain independence.
 

President and Chief Executive Officer
Special Competitive Studies Project

Ylli Bajraktari is CEO of the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP). Prior to launching SCSP, Bajraktari served as the Executive Director of the US National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI). Prior to joining NSCAI, he served as Chief of Staff to the US National Security Advisor Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, held a variety of leadership roles for former US Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work and served as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin E. Dempsey. Originally joining the US Department of Defense in 2010, he served in the Office of the Undersecretary for Policy as a country director for Afghanistan, and later India. Bajraktari is the recipient of the US Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Medal – the highest award given to civilian employees.
 

Member of the European Parliament
European Union

Dr Sergey Lagodinsky is a German lawyer, author and a Member of the European Parliament, serving as Vice-Chair of the Greens/European Free Alliance Groupe (Greens/EFA). He is Chair of the European Parliament's Delegation to the EuroNest Parliamentary Assembly, Member of the Committees on Legal Affairs and on Foreign Affairs, as well as Substitute Member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy. He is also the Greens/EFA Spokesperson for Russia and the United States.

Lagodinsky studied Law in Goettingen and Public Administration at Harvard. From 2003–2008, he served as Program Director, and later as consultant to the Berlin office of the American Jewish Committee. He then worked as a lawyer at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. From 2012 until joining the European Parliament in 2019, he was Director of the Department EU/North America/Turkiye of the Heinrich Boell Foundation. In the 10th legislative period he served as Chair of the EU–Turkey Delegation and as Deputy Chair of the Legal Affairs Committee.