Members

Lamar Alexander, (R) Senator from Tennessee

Senator Alexander is the former Governor of Tennessee. He chairs the Senate Education and Early Childhood Development Subcommittee, the Senate Energy Subcommittee as well as the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Caucus. He is a member of the Foreign Relations and Budget Committees. Sen. Alexander has been US Education Secretary, President of the University of Tennessee, and the Goodman Professor at Harvard's School of Government. He was Chairman of President Reagan's Commission on Americans Outdoors and the National Governor's Association. In private life, he helped found a company that is now the nation’s largest provider of worksite day care.

Xavier Becerra, (D) Member, House of Representatives

Congressman Becerra represents California’s 31st District in the City of Los Angeles. First elected to the House of Representatives in 1992, Rep. Becerra serves in the House Committee on Ways and Means and is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) where he served as Chairman during the 105th Congress (1997-98). The Congressman is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. At the international level, he serves as Vice Chairman of the US-Korea Interparliamentary Exchange. Rep. Becerra is a board member of several respected institutions, including the Hispanic Outreach Advisory Board for the National Parent Teacher Association (PTA); Pitzer College, a nationally ranked liberal arts and sciences college; the Close Up Foundation, the nation’s largest youth civic education organization that brings more than 25,000 students and teachers to Washington, DC, annually; and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, which provides scholarships and internship opportunities for the next generation of Latino leaders.

Rep. Becerra is the son of working-class immigrant parents and was the first in his family to graduate from college. In 1980, Rep. Becerra earned his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Stanford University. He was awarded his Juris Doctorate from Stanford Law School in 1984.

Mel Cappe, President of the Institute for Research on Public Policy

Mr. Cappe began his term as President of the IRPP on June 1, 2006. Prior to joining the IRPP, Mr. Cappe spent more than 30 years in the Canadian public service, most recently as the High Commissioner for Canada to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Prior to that, he was Canada’s top public servant as Clerk of the Privy Council, Secretary to the Cabinet and Head of the Public Service in January 1999, relinquishing the position in May 2002 to become Special Advisor to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. He has also held senior economic and policy positions in federal government departments in Ottawa, including the Treasury Board, Department of Finance, and Consumer and Corporate Affairs. He has served as Deputy Secretary to the Treasury Board, Deputy Minister of the Environment, Deputy Minister of Human Resources Development, Deputy Minister of Labour and Chairman of the Employment Insurance Commission.

Born in 1948, Mr. Cappe has a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Western Ontario and did doctoral studies at the University of Toronto.

Bill Emmott, Former Editor-in-Chief of The Economist

Mr. Emmott is an independent writer, speaker, and consultant on international affairs. During his tenure as Editor-in-Chief at The Economist from 1993-2006, the circulation of The Economist doubled from 500,000 to nearly 1,000,000 weekly subscribers. He began his work with The Economist after studying politics, philosophy, and economics at Magdalen College, Oxford. He is a member of the Trilateral Commission, the BBC World Service Governors' Consultative Committee, and a Director of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group. He is also a Director of The Economist Group, and a trustee of the Nico Colchester Foundation and the Marjorie Deane Financial Journalism Foundation. He has published six books, contributed articles to many publications, and given countless talks and lectures. He has written three books on Japan including, The Sun Also Sets: The Limits to Japan's Economic Power, Japan's Global Reach: The Influence, Strategies and Weaknesses of Japan's Multinational Corporations, and Kanryo no Taizai (The Bureaucrats' Deadly Sins). The Sun Also Sets was a bestseller in Japanese, with more than 300,000 copies sold. Another book by Mr. Emmott, 20:21 Vision – 20th-Century Lessons for the 21st Century, builds on the foundation of previous essays he wrote for The Economist on the 20th century and America’s role in the world following September 11th.

Sandra Frauenberg, Head of Integration Unit of the City of Vienna, Austria

Ms. Frauenberg has been appointed Head of Integration of the City of Vienna in January 2007. She is the member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) She has served as a Trade Union official of the GPA (Gewerkschaft der Privatangestellten) since 1984. She was appointed member of the board of the Austrian Federal Trade Union (ÖBG) in 2004.

Halleh Ghorashi, Chair in the Management of Diversity and Integration at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Since September 2005 Halleh Ghorashi has held the prestigious position of PaVEM-chair in Management of Diversity and Integration in the Department of Culture, Organization, and Management at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She was born in Iran and came to the Netherlands in 1988. In 1994, she completed her MA degree in Anthropology at the Vrije Universiteit. She received her PhD in 2001 from the University of Nijmegen. She is the author of Ways to Survive, Battles to Win: Iranian Women Exiles in the Netherlands and the US (2003, Nova Science Publishers, New York) and several articles on questions of identity, Diaspora, and Iranian women’s movement. She is conducting research around the question, "Why is it important to be culturally sensitive in this culturalist world and how can this cultural sensitivity be created while at the same time avoiding culturalism?’"

Aleksander Kwasniewski, Former President of Poland

President Kwasniewski was a founding member of the New Social Democratic Party of Poland and served as its Chairman before winning the 1995 presidential election. He was re-elected in 2000 and left office in 2005. In office, President Kwasniewski supported economic liberalization and close relations with the West. His priorities included constitutional reform, securing Polish membership in NATO and the European Union, and advocating eastern expansion of European institutions. President Kwasniewski has also played a leadership role in the politics of Eastern Europe, negotiating a resolution to the disputed 2004 Ukrainian election and helping the pro-democratic "Orange Revolution" prevail. In 2006, President Kwasniewski was appointed as a Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership at Georgetown University where we currently teaches students in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service about contemporary European politics, the Trans-Atlantic relationship, and democratization in Central and Eastern Europe.

Ana Palacio, Senior Vice-President and Group General Counsel at the World Bank

Ms. Palacio was a member of the Spanish Parliament, former Foreign Minister of Spain, and a member of Carnegie Corporation’s Board of Trustees since December 2005. Ms. Palacio was a member of the European Parliament during the 4th and 5th parliamentary terms (1994-2002), where she chaired the Legal Affairs and Internal Market Committee and the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, and was elected by her peers to chair Parliament’s Conference of Committee Chairmen, the senior body for coordinating legislative work. She represented Spain at the European Convention and the Convention’s Presidium where she was at the forefront of the debate on the future of Europe.

A lawyer by profession, Ms. Palacio is a member and past Executive President of the Academy of European Law. She has held senior positions in the governing body of European lawyers and is an honorary member of the Bar of England and Wales. She is also a member of the faculty of the European College in Parma, Italy. She is a member of the international advisory boards of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Instituto de Empresa Business School in Madrid, and is a member of the governing boards for both the Fundación Española del Instituto Weizmann de Israel and the Fundación para el Análisis y los Estudios Sociales in Madrid. She is a also member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where she serves on the steering committee for the Center’s Initiative for a Renewed Transatlantic Partnership.

George Papandreou, President of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK)

George Papandreou, the former Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs (1999-2004), graduated from Amherst College and the London School of Economics and served as a fellow at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. He became a cabinet member in Greece for the first time in 1985, taking up the post of Deputy Minister of Culture. In two separate tenures as Minister of Education, he laid the foundations for a number of new institutions and took measures to reform and improve the educational system. He showed particular sensitivity to education for minority groups, creating a system of Intercultural Education to address the needs of students with special cultural needs, such as the students of minority schools in Thrace, the Roma community, and immigrants. As Foreign Minister he worked at improving relations between Greece and its neighbors, particularly with Turkey. Since taking over as President of PASOK, the Greek Socialist Party, in 2004, Mr. Papandreou has taken a series of measures to open up the party to migrants for the first time. In January 2006, he was unanimously elected President of the Socialist International, the largest political organization in the world with over 160 member parties.

Solomon Passy, Member of the Bulgarian Parliament

Mr. Passy is the Chairperson of the Foreign Policy Committee and from 2001 to 2005, he served as Foreign Minister of Bulgaria. He was also the Chairman-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2004. Mr. Passy was the founding President and CEO of the Atlantic Club of Bulgaria, a non-governmental organization formed in 1990 to lobby for NATO membership, and the founder and spokesman of the Green Party of Bulgaria. He is the son of famous Bulgarian philosopher Isaac Passy, and a renowned mathematician who holds a PhD in Mathematical Logic and Computer Science from Sofia University. He has more than a dozen publications in leading international journals on logic and computer science and more than a hundred interviews and political analyses for national and international media.

Trevor Phillips, Chair of the UK Commission for Equality and Human Rights

In addition to chairing the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, Mr. Phillips directs Pepper Productions, founded in 1995. He was the executive producer of "Windrush" (which won the Royal Television Society Documentary Series of the Year award in 1998), "Britain's Slave Trade," "Second Chance," and "When Black Became Beautiful." He is also a Vice President of the Royal Television Society. Between 1993 and 1998, Mr. Phillips was Chair of the Runnymede Trust. At present, he is Chair of the Young Adults Working Group of the Financial Services Authority, and a board member of the Almeida Theatre in Islington, Aldeburgh Productions, and The Bernie Grant Centre in Tottenham. He is a patron of The Sickle Cell Society.

In addition to many newspaper articles and comment pieces, Mr. Phillips co-wrote with Mike Phillips Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multiracial Britain, published in 1998, and in 1999 he and S. I. Martin published the book Britain's Slave Trade.

Louis Schweitzer, Chairman of Renault

Mr. Schweitzer holds a degree in law and is a graduate of France's Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) and Ecole Nationale d'Administration. He was appointed Inspector of Finance at the French Treasury in 1970. In 1981 he became Chief of Staff to Laurent Fabius. Mr. Schweitzer joined Renault in 1986 and became the Chief Financial Officer and Head of Strategic Planning in 1988. He was appointed Executive Vice President and COO in 1989, and President and COO in 1990. He was Renault's Chairman and CEO from May 1992 to April 2005 and President of the Renault-Nissan Alliance Board from 2001 to 2005. In 2005, he became Chairman of the Renault Board of Directors. Mr. Schweitzer is a Commander of the French Légion d'honneur and National Order of Merit and the director of several French and foreign companies. He is also a member of governing boards of various general organizations, particularly in the cultural field. Since 6 March 2005, Mr. Schweitzer was appointed by Jacques Chirac to serve as President of the Haute Autorité de Lutte Contre les Discriminations et Pour l'Egalité.

Rita Süssmuth, former President of the Bundestag and former Chair of Germany’s Independent Council of Experts on Migration and Integration

Prof. Dr. Süssmuth is a distinguished politician and academician. In 2006, Prof. Dr. Süssmuth became the Chair of the EU High Level Group on ‘Social Integration of Ethnic Minorities and Their Full Participation in the Labor Market.’ She also joined the OECD Development Center Project ‘Gaining from Migration’ Advisory Board in January 2006. She was member of the Global Commission on International Migration, which presented a report to Kofi Annan in October 2005 called ‘Migration in an Interconnected World: New Directions for Action.’ She is the President of the OTA-University in Berlin. Prof. Dr. Süssmuth was Chair of the Independent Council of Experts on Migration and Integration, appointed by the German Government from May 2003 until December 2004. She is also a member of the Steering Committee, ‘Intercultural Conflict and Societal Integration’ at the Social Science Research Center Berlin and holds a series of other assignments and memberships with national and international bodies. From 2000 to 2001, she presided over the ‘Independent Commission on Migration to Germany’ which resulted in the July 2001 report on ‘Steering Migration and Fostering Integration.’ She has also been Director of the Research Institute ‘Woman and Society’ and Professor of International Comparative Educational Science at the Universities of Bochum and Dortmund.

She has published a number of works including About the German Parliament (1995) and AIDS, Wege aus der Angst (1987). She and Werner Weidenfeld recently co-edited Managing Integration: The European Union's Responsibility Towards Immigrants (2005). Her latest book is entitled Migration und Integration: Testfall für unsere Gesellschaft (2006).

Antonio Vitorino, European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs (1999-2004)

Mr. Vitorino was the first European Commissioner to be responsible for Justice and Home Affairs. Since 1980, he has been a member of the Portuguese Parliament. Within the Portuguese government he has held the positions of Secretary of State for Parliamentary Affairs, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Affairs and Civil Rights, Secretary of State for Administration and Justice of the Macao Government, Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Defense. Within the European Parliament, he has worked as a member of the Joint European Parliament/Portuguese Parliament Committee on European Integration and as Chairman of the Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs Committee. He holds a Master’s degree in Law and Political Science from Lisbon Law School. Mr. Vitorino has worked as a lawyer and as a professor at Lisbon Law School, the Lisbon Autonomous University, and the International University. He also served as a judge on the Portuguese Constitutional Court between 1989 and 1994.

CO-CONVENERS

Demetrios G. Papademetriou, President of the Migration Policy Institute

Dr. Papademtriou co-founded the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), a Washington-based think tank dedicated exclusively to the study of international migration, in July 2001. He is also the Co-Convener, with the Bertelsmann Foundation’s President, Professor Dr. Werner Weidenfeld, of the Transatlantic Task Force on Immigration and Integration. The Task Force is composed of senior public figures, business leaders, and public intellectuals from Europe, the United States, and Canada. Dr. Papademetriou convenes the Athens Migration Policy Initiative (AMPI), a group of mostly European senior immigration experts that advises EU member states on immigration and asylum issues. He is also the co-founder and International Chair Emeritus of Metropolis: An International Forum for Research and Policy on Migration and Cities. Metropolis seeks to stimulate interdisciplinary and cross-national policy research and analysis among teams of researchers, senior policy makers, and leaders of the non-governmental sector in nearly 50 states. The Metropolis network uses that knowledge to motivate governments at all levels to design and implement better policies.

Dr. Papademetriou has held a wide range of senior policy and research positions that include: Chair of the Migration Committee of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); Director for Immigration Policy and Research at the US Department of Labor and Chair of the Secretary of Labor’s Immigration Policy Task Force; and Executive Editor of the International Migration Review. He has also taught at the universities of Maryland, Duke, American, and New School for Social Research and has published more than 200 books, articles, monographs, and research reports on migration topics and advises senior government and political party officials in more than 20 countries. His most recent books include Immigration and America’s Future: A New Chapter (2006, co-author), Europe and its Immigrants in the 21st Century: A New Deal or a Continuing Dialogue of the Deaf? (2006, editor, author, and co-author); and Secure Borders, Open Doors: Visa Procedures in the Post-September 11 Era (2005, co-author).

Werner Weidenfeld, Member of the Executive Board of the Bertelsmann Stiftung

Prof. Dr. Werner Weidenfeld is currently a member of the executive board, Bertelsmann Foundation, Guetersloh; Director of the Center for Applied Policy Research (CAP) and has been Chair of Political Systems and European Integration at the Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, since 1995; and Professor of Political Science at Geschwister-School-Institut, University of Munich. From 1975 to 1995, he was Professor of Political Science at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Associate Professor at the Sorbonne in Paris from 1986 to 1988, as well as the coordinator of German-American Cooperation for the German government from 1987 to 1999. He edits the journal, Internationale Politik, and heads the Center for Applied Policy Research in Munich. In addition, he is a member of the board of the German Society for Foreign Affairs (DGAP) in Berlin and the board and scientific directorate of the Institute for European Policy in Bonn.

Dr. Weidenfeld studied political science, history, and philosophy at the University of Bonn. He wrote his doctoral thesis in 1971 on Gustav Stresemann's policy on England, and his post-doctoral thesis in 1975 on German European policy in the Adenauer era. He received an honorary doctorate from Middlebury College (USA) in 1994.