Major General (rtd) Professor Timothy John Hodgetts is a former Surgeon General of the UK Armed Forces and specialised in emergency medicine. He has held senior clinical and command roles across Defence, NATO, and the Army Medical Services. He served on operations in Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Oman, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait. He led defence trauma governance for over a decade, and held key roles such as Defence Consultant Adviser in Emergency Medicine, Head of the Army Medical Services, and Chair of NATO’s COMEDS. An honorary professor of emergency medicine, he has published extensively, co-authored defence medical doctrine, and co-founded the citizenAID® charity.

Raed Arafat has served at Romania’s Ministry of Internal Affairs since 2014, a role in which he oversees national coordination of emergency situations across emergency departments. He also chairs the NATO Joint Health Group. In this role, he coordinates civil defence, medical resilience, and emergency planning across the alliance to adapt to the modern strategic context, threats, and crises.

Megan Challis has an extensive background in government relations, strategic partnerships, advocacy, and health policy. With experience in organisations such as the Wellcome Trust, the Meningitis Research Foundation, and the Department of Health and Social Care, Megan has held various leadership roles. Megan is also a board member at Meningitis Research Foundation and a Science Policy Fellow at Stiftung Mercator GmbH.

Former ambassador Vsevolod Chentsov has served as Head of the Mission of Ukraine to the EU and the European Atomic Energy Community since August 2021. A career diplomat with nearly 30 years of experience, he previously served as representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and has acted since 2017 as Co-Agent of Ukraine before the International Court of Justice in the case of Ukraine v. Russian Federation.

Francesca Colombo is the Head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Health Division. She leads OECD work on health, providing internationally comparable health data, conducting economic and data-driven analysis of health policies, and advising policymakers on how to make health systems more resilient and people-centred. Her portfolio covers health system resilience, health workforce, health spending and financial sustainability, healthcare quality, ageing and long-term care, public health economics, pharmaceutical policy, AI, and digital health. She is a member of the NUS-Lancet Pandemic Readiness, Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Commission on COVID-19, the World Health Summit Council, and the UK Health Foundation’s NHS Productivity Commission. She has also served as co-chair of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Health and Healthcare and as a member of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission. She has more than 25 years of experience leading international work on health and health systems.

Nikos Dedes is a health policy advocate with over 25 years of engagement in patient organisations. He is General Secretary of the Greek Patients’ Association, Chair of Positive Voice, the Greek association of people living with human immunodeficiency virus, Vice-Chair of the European AIDS Treatment Group, and Board Member of the European Patients’ Forum. He has served on the Management Board of the European Medicines Agency

Annika Eberstein is responsible in Philips’ office for policies supporting the sustainability, resilience and security of the health sector. Her portfolio covers EU legislation and funding on defence, cybersecurity and crisis response. Before joining Philips, she held European affairs roles across diverse sectors and industries. She is a member of the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority’s Industrial Cooperation Forum.

Cdr Dr Haggenmiller is Medical Adviser at the EU Military Staff, supporting strategic planning, civil-military cooperation, and addressing health security challenges, including medical support in emergencies, healthcare infrastructure vulnerabilities, bio-cybersecurity, and CBRN threats. Together with DG SANTE, he is co-chairing the Civil-Military Technical Working Group on Health Security Preparedness. Previously, he worked at NATO’s Joint Analysis and Lessons Learned Centre, at the Bundeswehr Command and Staff College and at the German Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies as a Research Coordinator for Health and Security, engaging with the World Health Summit and the Munich Security Conference on the intersection of health and security. He is part of WHO’s expert roster on public health emergencies and biological weapons.

Before joining CEPI, Andrew Hebbeler served at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where he helped drive the American Pandemic Preparedness Plan, the United States National Biodefense Strategy and United States support for the 100 Days Mission. He has also held senior roles at the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the United States Department of State, including leading a biosecurity engagement programme to secure dangerous biological materials and dual-use infrastructure worldwide.

Heidi Hunter is a global biotechnology leader with extensive experience across innovation, biosimilars and speciality pharmaceuticals, spanning the clinical and commercial value chain. She most recently served as President of Cardinal Health Specialty Solutions, overseeing six businesses with more than 6 billion dollars in revenue. Previously, she led an immunology business in Brussels and built an integrated biologics clinical development programme.

Within the Norwegian Armed Forces, Brig. Gen. Petter Iversen has held several clinical and leadership roles, including Deputy Surgeon General and Chief of Staff, and has deployed on military and civilian missions. Prior to this, he served as a trauma team leader and senior consultant in orthopaedic trauma and reconstructive surgery following specialisation in orthopaedic and general surgery. He earned his medical degree from the University of Oslo, following his early career as an instructor at the Norwegian Winter Warfare School.

Akis Triantafyllos Karatrantos PhD, is an adviser to two Greek ministers of state. Mr. Karatrantos is also a Senior Advisor on organised crime and terrorism at the Centre for Security Studies, as well as a research Associate at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy. Mr. Karatrantos is a postdoctoral researcher at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and lecturer at the National Security School of Greece.

Birgit Lao has led the Estonian Health Board since 2022. She is responsible for managing healthcare emergencies and ensuring that healthcare institutions provide essential assistance during pandemics, mass poisonings, and national defence crises. Before joining the Health Board, she headed Foundation Innove and held several senior roles at the Ministry of Education and Research.

Mike Morrissey has held senior leadership roles across public policy, healthcare, professional associations and international organisations. Before taking up his current responsibilities in Europe and Canada, he served as Chief Executive of the European Cancer Organisation and Chief Operating Officer of the European Society of Cardiology. He is also Honorary President of the European Society of Association Executives.

Alexander Natz is the Secretary General of the European Confederation of Pharmaceutical Entrepreneurs (EUCOPE). From 2008 to 2013, he was also Head of the Brussels Office of the Bundesverband der Pharmazeutischen Industrie e.V. Before that, he worked as a lawyer at Sträter Law Firm in Germany, focusing on managed entry agreements and pharmaceutical licensing. He also has experience in competition law and in the pharmaceutical industry.

Veli-Mikko Niemi has previously served as Director General of several departments, including Communities and Functional Capacities from 2020 to 2022 and Promotion of Welfare and Health from 2014 to 2017, overseeing services for children, youth, families, people with disabilities, and the elderly, as well as rehabilitation and health promotion. From 2007 to 2014, he was Director of Food Safety at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

Prior to her current role Suzy Powell, led the Darzi independent investigation into the performance of the NHS, and spent three years at the Department for Education, leading on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) policies and strategies, at Deputy Director and Director level. She also spent a number of years working on EU Exit for the Department of Health and Social Care and for the Cabinet Office.

Tímea Rezi-Kató brings over a decade of experience in EU health policy and stakeholder engagements. She leads strategic engagement with EU institutions, national authorities and key stakeholders across the healthcare ecosystem, with a focus on regulatory and policy frameworks affecting medical technologies. She has held leadership and advisory roles in industry and trade associations, including MedTech Europe, Johnson and Johnson and Medtronic.

Jobe Solomon has held senior roles at the Pentagon, where he oversaw global security cooperation programmes and led major crisis response efforts, and later focused on NATO’s Eastern Flank, support for Ukraine, defence cooperation and Article 3 resilience. Earlier in his career, he worked across stabilisation, disaster preparedness and humanitarian response in Afghanistan, Southeast Asia and beyond.

Ask Eirik Storsve has built extensive experience in government affairs, parliamentary policy and international preparedness. Since joining Emergent in 2011, he has led engagement with governments and international organisations outside North America and previously served as the company’s European market lead, supporting access to medical countermeasures across the Nordics, Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltics, the Balkans and the Netherlands.

Jo Taylor is Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Shionogi Europe, where she established the function upon joining the company. She is responsible for infectious disease policy, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), health security, corporate and brand communications, patient advocacy, internal communications, and sustainability across Europe and Shionogi’s national affiliates. She has more than 30 years of experience in corporate affairs and has held senior roles at GSK, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Daiichi Sankyo, Astellas, CSL Seqirus, and Shionogi. She also led Public Affairs at Cello Health Communications and was seconded to the UK Government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy as part of the COVID-19 Vaccines Taskforce in 2020. She has been an active member of the Healthcare Communications Association and previously chaired its Foresight Committee.