Roundtable Speakers

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Moderator

Dr. Bernd Althusmann

Head, Konrad Adenaur Stiftung (KAS) Canada

Dr. Bernd Althusmann has been heading the KAS office in Canada since November 2024. From 2013 to 2016, he served as the head of the KAS office in Namibia and Angola, based in Windhoek, where he supervised three EU projects as part of the country program and relaunched the Windhoek Dialogue for young African politicians from various Sub-Saharan countries in 2015. Before joining the foundation, he served as Minister of Education and State Secretary in Lower Saxony from 2009 to 2013.

Following his return to Lower Saxony state politics in 2016 as state chairman of the CDU in Lower Saxony, Bernd Althusmann served as Minister for Economic Affairs, Labor, Transport, and Digitalization, as well as Deputy Minister President of Lower Saxony. Until mid-2024, he was a member of the CDU Germany’s presidium for six years and a long-standing member of the state parliament.

Dr. Bernd Althusmann earned his doctoral degree at the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Potsdam while working part-time. He also successfully studied business administration and pedagogy. His professional career began in 1986 as an officer in the German Armed Forces.

Panelist

Hon. Michael Gahler

Michael Gahler is the EPP Coordinator (lead member) of the EPP Group in the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET). He is a German MEP from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and has served in the European Parliament since 1999. Next to AFET he is a substitute member of the Committee on Security and Defence (SEDE). His parliamentary work focuses on EU foreign, security and defence policy, with particular attention to Ukraine, European security, Africa, and international partnerships. He served as rapporteur for the European Parliament’s reports on Ukraine in both 2025 and 2026.

German MEP, Christian Democratic Union (CDU)

Panelist

Dr. Stéfanie von Hlatky

Stéfanie von Hlatky is the Canada Research Chair in Gender, Security, and the Armed Forces and Full Professor in the Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University. Her research focuses on NATO, gender and the armed forces, military interventions, and defence policy.

She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Université de Montréal in 2010, where she was also Executive Director for the Centre for International Peace and Security Studies. She’s held positions at Georgetown University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Dartmouth College, ETH Zurich and was a Fulbright Visiting Research Chair at the University of Southern California’s Centre for Public Diplomacy in 2016. In 2024, she was awarded a Trudeau Fellowship. In 2025, she was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada in 2025. 

Professor, Political Studies, Queen’s University

Panelist

Christian Leuprecht

Christian Leuprecht is a Professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Military Journal, Associate Director of the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations in the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University, a senior fellow at the Macdonald Laurier Institute, and Senior Research Associate at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, in Brussels.  The Konrad Adenauer Foundation recently hosted him as a fellow at their headquarters in Berlin.  He has held visiting appointments and fellowships in the United States, Europe and Australia, is an elected member of the College of New Scholars of the Royal Society of Canada and recipient of the Cowan Prize for Excellence in Research at the Royal Military College of Canada.  His latest book is Military Operations for Domestic Emergencies and Global Pandemics.

Professor, Royal Military College of Canada