IES External Advisory Board

Jean-Claude Beaujour is a French lawyer and is the Vice Chair of the think tank France-Amériques. He holds a Ph.D. in French law (Sorbonne University - 1998), LL.M. (UCL - 1995), B.A. in Chinese (INALCO - 1990), and LLM (Panthéon /Assas – 1987).

Johannes M. Biermann graduated from the University of Cologne, Germany, with a master’s degree in business administration. He is currently the General Manager for aicas GmbH and leads marketing, sales, customer and sales operations globally.

Florian Brody studied computational linguistics in Vienna and Oxford. He works as Executive Coach and Startup mentor globally. He is a digital media pioneer, worked at the Austrian National Library, Apple, Amazon, Novartis, co-founded several startups, and held the first chair for multimedia in Austria. He teaches at the Johannes Kepler University, Linz, the Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences, and in 2023 at UC Berkeley Extension. 

Terri E. Givens is CEO and Founder of Brighter Higher Ed. A political scientist, she has held leadership positions as Vice Provost at University of Texas at Austin and Provost of Menlo College (first African American and woman); professorships at University of Texas at Austin, and University of Washington. She was the founding director at the Center for European Studies at the University of Texas.

Adam Green is an attorney specialized in immigration law and the representation of international clients and companies. He is the former co-chair of the American Immigration Lawyers Association committees for the United States Department of State; of the United States Information Agency; and of the committee for foreign students and scholars.

Robert Heller holds a Ph.D. in Economics from UC Berkeley. He has served as Chief of the Financial Studies Division of the International Monetary Fund and Director of International Economic Research at Bank of America. From 1986 to 1989, he served as Governor of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, and later served as President and CEO of Visa U.S.A.

Charles M. Huber was one of two MPs of African heritage elected for the first time to the German Bundestag in 2013. During his tenure, he was made speaker for African affairs representing his CDU party in the Committee on Foreign Affairs. He currently lives in Senegal, where he works as a Special Advisor to President Macky Sall.

Hermann-Victor Johnen is President of JCI International, focusing on European-American business development, and represents Protocol Professionals, Inc.™ in Germany and the Benelux countries.

Diane Kounalakis is a public relations/fundraising professional and a current board member of the Pancretan Association of America, the Alzheimer’s Association and Peninsula Family Service.

David Clay Large holds a Ph.D. in History from UC Berkeley. A specialist on modern Central Europe, he has taught at Berkeley, Smith College, Montana State University, and Yale University, where he was also a college dean. Currently he offers courses through the Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning (University of San Francisco) and serves as a Senior Fellow at Berkeley's Institute of European Studies.

Jaime Perez is the former EU Ambassador to Chile. He joined the European Commission in 1989, appointed to various policy areas including IT, Telecoms, Fisheries and External Relations. Until his retirement in March 2014, he was head of the Training and Career Development Division of the European External Action Service in Brussels.

Evan G. Reade joined the staff of California Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis in 2019 following a 27-year career as a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State. He served on President Obama’s National Security Council staff as Director for Western Europe from 2014 to 2016. Prior to that, he was the U.S. Consul General in Strasbourg and, concurrently, the U.S. Observer to the Council of Europe.

Andrew Standley was the former EU Ambassador to Mexico, Bolivia and Israel. Prior to that he served in the British administration in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) and with the United Nations Population Fund in Bangladesh. His work has focused principally on political relations, international development, human rights and trade.

Johann Strobl is a graduate from Vienna University of Economics and Business. He is chairman of Raiffeisen Bank International AG, a leading bank in Central and Eastern Europe with a broad network in fifteen countries.

Gigi Wang holds an MS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and a MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.  She is an Industry Fellow & Faculty at UC Berkeley Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship where she teaches a start-up boot-camp and executive innovation programs.

Michel Wendell is co-founder and General Partner of Nexit Ventures, a venture fund focusing on wireless and mobile opportunities. He also serves as a director on the boards of several venture-backed high tech companies.