Shada Islam is a respected and well-known Brussels-based commentator on European Union affairs who now works independently as an advisor/analyst/strategist and commentator on Europe Africa Asia Geopolitics Trade and Inclusion.

Shada worked for nine years as Director of Europe and Geopolitics at Friends of Europe, an influential independent think tank based in Brussels.

She now runs her own Brussels-based global media, strategy and advisory company, New Horizons Project.

Shada is Senior Advisor at the European Policy Centre, an influential Brussels-based think tank and also Senior Advisor at BCW, a renowned international communication firm. She is Non-Resident Fellow at the Centre for Global Development, a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe (Natolin) and a Solvay Fellow at the Vrije University Brussel (VUB).

Shada is also on the Brussels advisory committee of Women in International Security (WIIS) as well as the advisory committee of Migrant Women Connectors. She is a member of the informal Brussels-based “People of Colour” network.

In 2017, Shada was selected as one of the 20 most influential women in Brussels by the magazine Politico.

Shada has spent most of her professional life researching, writing and speaking about the European Union’s relations with Asia and AFrica as well as EU Development Policy, Trade Policy and Migration, building up a global reputation  as a leading commentator, analyst and writer as well as a fresh and original thought-leader on the EU’s domestic and foreign policy agendas.

She is a regular speaker at international conferences and policy panels and is a frequent lecturer at academic symposia on geopolitics Asia. She is often interviewed by international media and writes regularly on Europe, Africa, Asia and Migration. Her articles appear, among other outlets, in the Guardian, Politico and the South China Morning Post as well as in academic journals. Her Frankly Speaking columns for Friends of Europe were widely read.  

Shada is also a much sought-after moderator for international and European events, including online conferences and webinars. She has moderated online events organised by the UNDP, European External Action Service, the European Parliament as well as the Ombudsman. More details can be found on her website: https://www.shadaislam.com.

Věra Jourová is currently Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency and deals with democracy, rule of law, disinformation and media pluralism. From 2014 to 2019, she served as EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality. In 2014, before arriving to the European Commission, Ms Jourová held the position of Minister for Regional Development in the Czech Republic. Previous to this, from 2006 to 2013, she worked in her own company as an international consultant on European Union funding, and was also involved in consultancy activities in the Western Balkans relating to the European Union Accession. She holds a Degree in Law (Mgr.) and a Master's degree (Mgr.) in the Theory of Culture from the Charles University, Prague.

Timea Junghaus is an art historian, a leader of the Roma cultural and political movement, and a contemporary art curator. She is the executive director of the Berlin-based European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture founded in September, 2017 by the Council of Europe, the Open Society Foundations and the Alliance for the European Roma Institute. She has researched and published extensively on the conjunctions of modern and contemporary art with critical theory, with particular reference to issues of cultural difference, colonialism, and minority representation. Junghaus was a scientific fellow of the Working Group for Critical Theories at the Institute for Art History, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2010-2017).   In recognition of her curatorial activities Junghaus received the Kairos - European Cultural Price from the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung F.V.S., in 2008. Her curatorial works include the Roma component of the Hidden Holocaust- exhibition in the Budapest Kunsthalle (2004), Paradise Lost - the First Roma Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Contemporary Art Biennale (2007), the Archive and Scholarly Conference on Roma Hiphop (2010), The Romani Elders and the Public Intervention for the Unfinished Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Murdered Under the National Socialist Regime in the frame of the 7th Berlin Biennale (2012), the (Re-)Conceptualizing Roma Resistance – exhibition and education program in Hellerau, Dresden (2015) and the Goethe Institute, Prague (2016). She is the curator of the Visual Art Section for the RomArchive Initiative of the Kulturstiftung Des Bundes, (2016-2017). Junghaus was founding director of Gallery8 - Roma Contemporary Art Space (www.gallery8.org) in the middle of the "Roma district" of Budapest (2013-2017). Gallery8 was the winner of the 2014 Catalyst Contemporary Art Award (of Tranzit Hungary) and the 2014 Otto Pankok Prize awarded by the For Roma Foundation of German writer and Literary Nobel Laureate, Günter Grass.