Minna Arve, Chair of Centrum Balticum Foundation Board, Chief Executive Officer, Business Turku

Jyri Arponen, Member of Centrum Balticum Foundation Board, Region Mayor of Southwest Finland

Taneli Lahti, Deputy Managing Director, European External Action Service, European Union

Taneli Lahti took office as Director for Global Issues and Deputy Managing Director for Global Issues and Communication at the European External Action Service on 1 June 2025. With over 30 years of experience in Foreign and European affairs, he has played a key role in advancing major EU initiatives, contributing to the design and implementation of flagship programmes such as Global Gateway, and driving forward joint efforts under Team Europe. Lahti was recently Head of Cabinet to the former Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen, following which he transitioned to the Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA). During the Juncker Commission, he led the Cabinet of Vice-President Dombrovskis for the Euro and Social Dialogue, and briefly that of Vice-President Katainen for Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Euro. Earlier in his career, he served as Member of Cabinet to Commissioner Olli Rehn in both the Enlargement and Economic portfolios, and as Head of the Political Section at the Commission Office in Russia. Before joining the Commission in 2004, he held various positions in Finland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Janne Jaakkola, General, Chief of Defence, Finnish Defence Forces, Finland

General Janne Jaakkola is the Commander of the Finnish Defence Forces. His military background is in the Special Forces. As a general officer, he has served in Logistics and Planning as well as Strategy. General Jaakkola was appointed the Commander of the Defence Forces on 1 April 2024.

Hiski Haukkala, Director, Finnish Institute of International Affairs

Dr. Hiski Haukkala is the Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. He is also an Adjunct Professor of International Relations at the Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University, Finland, and a Senior Research Associate at RAND Europe. Before joining FIIA in November 2024 he was a Professor of International Relations at Tampere University. Until spring 2024 he was the Secretary General and Chief of the Cabinet at the Office of the President of the Republic of Finland. Previously he has held positions at the Universities of Turku and Tampere, the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Finnish Institute of International Affairs as well as visiting positions at the University of Oxford, the Wilson Center (Washington D.C.), the College of Europe in Natolin (Warsaw), the EU Institute of Security Studies (Paris), the IISS (London) and the University of Stirling (Scotland). He is the author of numerous books and articles on EU foreign policy, Russia and International Relations.

Klaus Dodds, Senior Research Fellow, Rand Europe

Klaus Dodds received his PhD from the University of Bristol in 1994 and has held academic positions at the University of Edinburgh and Royal Holloway University of London, where he was Professor of Geopolitics and Executive Dean until July 2025. Currently, he is a senior research fellow at RAND Europe and academic consultant. He is the author of many books including a co-written volume with Mia Bennett called Unfrozen (Yale University Press in 2025). A former Philip Leverhulme Prize winner in Geography (2005) and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, he was a visiting scholar at the Department of Geography at University of Cambridge in Lent term of 2026. His next book will be on land and sea grabbing by great and regional powers.  

Alexander Gabuev, Director, Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, Germany

Alexander Gabuev is the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. Prior to joining Carnegie in 2015, he worked at Russia’s leading newspaper Kommersant, including as the Kremlin reporter and a member of the editorial board. Gabuev was also a nonresident fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, and a visiting fellow at Fudan University in Shanghai. He has studied Chinese history at Moscow State University and Zhejiang University, as well as finance at High School of Economics.

Mika Hentunen, Russia Correspondent, Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE, Finland

Mika Hentunen is the Russia Correspondent for the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE. Russia is the seventh country where he has lived and worked as a journalist. Prior to Moscow, he was based in Beijing and Washington D.C. His 30 years of on-site reporting for television, radio and online span from the fall of the iron curtain to 9/11, and from the war-torn Sarajevo to contested US elections, China and Russia. Besides journalism, he is a published author of four non-fiction books and two novels.

Valur Ingimundarson, Professor, University of Iceland, Iceland

Antti Kaikkonen, Member, Parliament of Finland, Finland

Juha Kukkola, Associate Professor, National Defence University, Finland

Major (General staff), D.Mil.Sci, M.A.Pol.Sci, Juha Kukkola works as an associate professor at the Russia Study and Research Group of the Finnish National Defence University (FNDU). Before his current post major Kukkola has worked in the Finnish Defence Forces as a platoon leader, staff officer, lecturer, and research officer since 2008. He received his doctorate from the FNDU in 2020 and graduated from General Staff Officer course in 2022. Major Kukkola has published articles and working papers on Russian military theory of indirect strategy, Russian asymmetric actions in Ukraine, Russian offensive and defensive cyber warfare, and on the history and future of the Leningrad Military District. Currently, major Kukkola is researching Russian Armed Forces adaptation and future development.

Marc Lanteigne, Professor, The Arctic University of Norway, Norway

Photo and biography to be added.

Kasperi Summanen, Editor-in-Chief, Verkkouutiset and Nykypäivä, Finland

Kasperi Summanen is the editor-in-chief of Verkkouutiset.fi and Nykypäivä magazine and the CEO of the publishing company Kansalliskustannus Oy all owned by the National Coalition Party of Finland. Summanen has written extensively about foreign and security policy issues as well as intelligence and military affairs with a special focus on Russia and the Baltic Sea area.

Michael Goodman, Professor, King's College London, United Kingdom

Michael S. Goodman is ‘Professor of Intelligence and International Affairs’ and a former Head of the Department of War Studies, King's College London.  He is Visiting Professor at the Norwegian Defence Intelligence School and at Sciences Po in Paris.  He is the author of The Official History of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Volume I: From the Approach of the Second World War to the Suez Crisis (Routledge, 2015).  He has published widely in the field of intelligence studies and is the author or editor of 13 books.  He is series editor for ‘Intelligence, Surveillance and Secret Warfare’ for Edinburgh University Press; and is a member of the editorial boards for five journals. He has recently finished a secondment to the Cabinet Office, where he has been the Official Historian of the Joint Intelligence Committee: Volume II will be published in 2027.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a current British army reservist.

Bjørn Grønning, Deputy Research Director, NORIS: Norwegian Intelligence School, Norway

Dr Bjørn Elias Mikalsen Grønning is Deputy Research Director and Deputy Head of the Centre for Intelligence Studies at the Norwegian Intelligence School in Oslo. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the Norwegian University of Science of Technology (NTNU). Bjørn has spent his postgraduate career serving in various Norwegian defence sector positions, including as senior advisor at the Norwegian Defence Staff, senior advisor at the Norwegian National Security Authority, senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defence University College, and senior Resistance instructor and Debrief SME at the Royal Norwegian Air Force Training Inspectorate. His most recent publication is the edited volume Contemporary Intelligence Warning Cases: Learning from Successes and Failures, published with Edinburgh University Press (2024).

Norbert Loba, President, Frontline Foundation, Poland

An expert in national and international security with over 25 years of experience in the special services. From 2015 to 2022, he was Deputy Head of the Internal Security Agency (ABW) - responsible for counterintelligence, state economic security, and the national classified information protection system. Following his public service career, he transitioned to the energy sector, serving as an advisor to the Management Board of PGE Polska Grupa Energetyczna S.A., where he was responsible for the strategic security of energy projects including offshore wind energy and the construction of a nuclear power plant. Since 2025, he has been leading Frontline Foundation - an organization dedicated to strengthening Poland's modern security system, built on transatlantic and European cooperation.

Kira Vrist Rønn, Associate Professor, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark

Kira Vrist Rønn is an Associate Professor and Head of Section at Department of Political Science and Public Management at University of Southern Denmark. Her research interests cover intelligence, policing, ethics, and national security. She is PI of the research project IntelHub seeking to voice Scandinavian scholars in intelligence studies.

Ilkka Salmi, Deputy Director General, Security, European Commission

Arnold Sinisalu, Director General, Internal Security Service (2013–2023), Estonia

Arnold Sinisalu is a lawyer and former public official who served as Director General of the Estonian Internal Security Service (2013–2023). He has worked in Estonia’s security institutions since 1991 and earned a doctorate in law from the University of Tartu in 2012, with a dissertation on the limits of influence operations in international law. He has held senior roles in both the public and private sectors, including at Fermi Energia AS, and currently contributes to the NGO International Practitioners’ Partnership Network (PractNet), which implements European Commission projects in Moldova, Ukraine, and Armenia. Since 2025, he has been a Visiting Professor at the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu. His expertise spans national and international security, strategic communication, and countering disinformation. He has published scholarly work on hybrid threats and regularly lectures at the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences. 

Olli Teirilä, Dr., Major, Researcher, Defence Command, Finland

Major Olli Teirilä is a staff officer of the Finnish Defence Forces. He defended his doctoral thesis on the British intelligence-media relationship in June 2024. Having also served as a lecturer on strategic and defence studies at the Finnish Defence University his academic publications include articles on intelligence-media relationship as well as on strategy, intelligence, and strategic intelligence.

Jussi Orell, Editor-in-Chief, Turun Sanomat, Finland

Jussi Orell has been working as Editor-In-Chief of Turun Sanomat since January 2022. Turun Sanomat is the largest newspaper in Southern Finland and it is published seven days a week both paper and digital formats. Turun Sanomat is local but also provides accurate news on security policy. Due to Turku´s location the Baltic Sea Region is very important to its readers. Turun Sanomat not only reports security policy news but also comments on it in background columns and editorials.

Lars Gjesvik, Senior Researcher, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Norway

Lars Gjesvik is a senior researcher in the Research Group for Security and Defence at NUPI, where he also serves as the co-leader of NUPI's Research Centere on New Technology. His research focuses on the intersection of private enterprise and state interests, security challenges, and power politics related to digitalization and emerging technologies. Gjesvik's expertise also includes issues related to the global surveillance industry, digital infrastructure such as submarine internet cables and cloud services, cyber security, and digital sovereignty. In his previous work, Gjesvik has addressed national approaches to cyber security and public-private cooperation, as well as disinformation and influence campaigns.

Carina Keskitalo, Professor, University of Umeå, Sweden

E. Carina H. Keskitalo is Professor of Political Science at the Department of Geography, Umeå University, and guest professor at the Unit for Landscape Studies at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå, Sweden. Keskitalo is an Academia Europaea member, alumni member of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors to the European Commission as well as the Global Young Academy, and recipient of the Nils Klim Award. She was previously vice chair of the Swedish expert committee on adaptation to climate change. Keskitalo is the (co) editor or author of almost twenty books and several special issues, as well as the (co) author of some 150 peer-reviewed scientific articles and book chapters. Her work has focused on the politics of the development of the Arctic as an international region, and on environmental policy and climate change adaptation in comparative context.

Sanna Kopra, Research Professor, University of Lapland, Finland

Sanna Kopra is a Research Professor in Arctic Geopolitics and Security and the head of the Arctic International Relations research team at the Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland, Finland. Her areas of expertise include Arctic international affairs, China’s Arctic strategy, and global environmental politics. She is the author of China and Great Power Responsibility for Climate Change (Routledge 2019) and a co-editor of Chinese Policy and Presence in the Arctic (Brill Publishing 2020). Currently, Kopra leads two research projects: Rethinking International Relations in an Era of the Planetocene: Case Arctic Ocean Up to 2050 (Research Council of Finland, 2023-2027), and Climate Responsibility as a Cornerstone of Multilateral Cooperation? (Kone Foundation, 2022-2025). In addition, she leads the Arctic Centre's team in an international consortium Transboundary governance models of biodiversity protection: case studies for an enhanced protection of natural resources in Europe (European Biodiversity Partnership; Research Council of Finland, 2024-2026).

Olli-Matti Mikkola, Dr., Senior Scientist, Natural Resources Institute of Finland (LUKE), Finland

Olli-Matti Mikkola holds a PhD in Russian Studies from the University of Turku. His current research focuses on the geopolitics of the energy transition. At the Natural Resources Institute Finland, he is developing a strategic roadmap for transitioning away from fossil energy and developing renewable energy systems within the Finnish energy system.

Ville Niinistö, Member, European Parliament, European Union

Ville Niinistö is a member of the European Parliament. In the European parliament he works in the committees on Industry, Research and Energy, Security and Defence and Foreign Affairs and is the chair of Delegation to the EU-Russia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee. He served as Finland's Minister of the Environment from 2011 to 2014, and is a former member of the Finnish parliament and a former party leader of the Green Party of Finland. He has a master's degree in political science from the University of Turku. Before being elected to the parliament in 2007 he worked as a doctoral student in political history (Finnish foreign policy) at the University of Turku in Finland.

Benjamin L. Schmitt, Senior Fellow, University of Pennsylvania, USA

Dr. Benjamin L. Schmitt is a Senior Fellow with a joint academic appointment between the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, and Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). At Penn, he supports experimental cosmology project development as a member of the Simons Observatory. Dr. Schmitt also serves at the Director of the Perry World House Graduate Program, and teaches and conducts research on European energy security, sanctions, technology export controls, and the protection of European energy and critical infrastructure. He is the lead of a research project focused on probing incidents of subsea energy and critical infrastructure sabotage in the Baltic Sea region, Taiwan strait, Barents Sea, and beyond entitled UNDERWATER MAYHEM. Previously, Schmitt served as European Energy Security Advisor at the U.S. Department of State, and holds a Ph.D. in Experimental Physics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Juha Martelius, Director, The Finnish Security and Intelligence Service, Finland

Juha Martelius was appointed as the Director of SUPO in April 2024. Prior to this, Mr. Martelius served as the State Secretary for the Minister of the Interior. He has previously worked at the Ministry of Defence as the Deputy Director General of Defence Policy and as the Director of Research and Analysis. He has also served as a Counsel at the Parliament of Finland and as an Intelligence Analyst at the International Criminal Tribunal for The Former Yugoslavia in the Hague. Mr. Martelius began his career at SUPO in 1992 as a Senior Analyst and later became the Head of Analysis Unit. Mr. Martelius holds a PhD in International Affairs, specialising in Russian military politics. He is also an Honorary Doctor of Military Sciences from the National Defence University.