Hartmut Kliemt, born in 1949, after studying philosophy, mathematics and business administration working since 1974, first in operations research and then in philosophy of law, he has been a full professor of practical philosophy at a public university since 1988 and then, since 2006, of philosophy & economics at a private university. After retirement since 2016 visiting professor at JUL, Giessen and lecturer in Göttingen. Main topics are health ethics and health economics, the methodology of practical sciences (i.e. medicine, business administration, law) and constitutional political economics.

Romina Boccia is Director of Budget and Entitlement Policy at the libertarian Cato Institute in the US. She writes the newsletter, Debt Dispatch, on Substack. She has more than 10 years of experience in US fiscal policy. She has worked extensively on US budget plans, advised US policymakers on legislative initiatives, and is a leading voice in the establishment of a budget commission to avoid a US debt crisis.

Maurice Höfgen is an economist, author and YouTuber. His latest book TEUER focuses on inflation. He runs the YouTube channel and newsletter “Geld für die Welt” and moderates the economic briefing on “Jung & Naiv”. He also works as a research assistant at the German Bundestag.

Philipp Peyman Engel was born in 1983 in Herdecke and grew up in the Ruhr area as the son of a Persian Jewish mother and a German father. He studied philosophy, education, literature and journalism in Bochum and Essen. The journalist is editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper ‘Jüdische Allgemeine’. In 2023 he was honoured with the prestigious ‘Editor-in-Chief of the Year’ media award by ‘Medium Magazin’. In 2024, he received the Ricarda Huch Prize, endowed with 10,000 euros. Engel’s articles on Jewish life, anti-Semitism and Israel regularly appear in ‘Spiegel’, ‘FAZ’ and ‘Deutschlandfunk’.

Jakobine Freytag-Loringhoven is an advisor in the Transatlantic Coordinator’s team at the Federal Foreign Office, where she is responsible for economic, trade and tech issues. She previously worked in the Department for Economic Diplomacy, focussing on the MENA countries. In between, she lived briefly in Israel and focussed on health policy. Prior to that, she leaded a parliamentary office in the German Bundestag. Jakobine lived in Russia for several years and worked as a management consultant for a private consulting firm and as a country analyst for a large energy company. She has also lived and worked in France, Switzerland and the USA. Jakobine holds an MBA in Public Affairs and Leadership from Quadriga University Berlin and a double master’s degree in International Economic Policy from Sciences Po Paris and the Moscow Institute of International Relations (MGIMO).

Imke Rabiega is a cross-media journalist at WELT in the audio department. She holds a degree in fashion journalism and has worked for the online and in newsletter format for ZEITmagazin and i-D Germany. Her motivation is to recognise the opportunities of the digital world for journalism and to meet people exactly where they are. She works as a podcast host and editor at WELT. Her main topics are: web-culture and social policy.

Magno Karl is a political scientist and the executive director of Livres. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and is a master’s graduate and PhD candidate at the University of Erfurt in Germany. Magno regularly appears on TV to debate political issues, and his articles have been published in Brazilian and international publications, such as The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Telegraph, Forbes, Newsweek, Estado de S. Paulo, and O Globo. He has worked as a researcher at the Cato Institute in the USA, co-founded the Instituto Ordem Livre, and served as the political coordinator for a parliamentary group in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies.

Andreea is a Senior Researcher at the University of Buckingham, UK, where she leads the online teacher training programme for low-cost private schools in Ghana, Uganda, and Nigeria. A former teacher herself, she enjoys working with educators and helping them achieve their vision for inclusive and quality education. She’s an advocate of school choice.

Daniel T. Richards is an entrepreneur, rhetorician, and leading expert on how to market ideas. In 2021, he co-founded Return on Ideas, a creative studio and marketing agency serving champions of liberty, responsibility, and individual rights. Daniel holds a Master of Arts degree in Professional Communication from Clemson University. He lives in Dallas with his wife, son, and daughter. He enjoys a good bourbon—neat.

Maximilian Nachtwey did voluntary military service in the German Armed Forces after graduating from high school and later joined the reserve officers of the paratroopers. He then studied rhetoric, history, psychology and philosophy at the universities of Tübingen, Oxford and Stanford on a scholarship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation and the DAAD. He has been advising managers on leadership and strategic communication for over eight years. He also gained professional experience as a Defence & Innovation Researcher at a think tank in Stanford and as a consultant at McKinsey & Company.

Frank Peter Wilde was born in Göttingen in 1963. He studied law and fashion in West Berlin and Vienna. He works as a freelance designer, stylist and costume designer in Berlin. Since the beginning of Russia’s war against Ukraine in February 2022, he has been travelling as an activist to raise awareness, sympathy and funds for the invaded country. His commitment to human rights and freedom earned him the ‘Soul of Stoneward Award’ from CSD Berlin in 2022 and the ‘Best International Ally’ award from Kyiv Pride in 2023.

Alexander Schwitteck is a project coordinator at the think tank Zentrum Liberale Moderne in Berlin. He is currently completing his PhD at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Bonn at the Chair of Practical Philosophy and Philosophy of Antiquity. His research focuses on the history and theory of liberalism and republicanism as well as Immanuel Kant’s political theory. As part of his dissertation, analyses the liberal and republican elements of Kant’s political philosophy.

Ben Southwood is co-founder and managing editor of Works in Progress. He has been head of research at Create Streets, and head of housing at Policy Exchange, been part of three successful Emergent Ventures grants, and worked as a public sector consultant for KPMG.

Louise Liu was born in Taichung, Taiwan in 1983 and grew up in Taipei, Taiwan, Johannesburg, South Africa, and Vienna, Austria. She studied International Relations at the University of Washington-Seattle (USA), the University of Maryland-College Park (USA) and the Free University of Berlin. For the past 6 years she has been organising monthly collage workshops with the Berlin Collage Club project, where people can be creative together. Louise works in financial technology (Fintech) in Berlin and enjoys the both art and technology.

DJ Eugen Trichter stands for liberal celebratory music since 1838, to honour the memory of the author of “Freiheit des Schankgewerbes” (Eugen Richter: The freedom of pub enterprise, 1862) by indulging in non-constraining and nonsensical music.