Christian has a PhD in International Relations from the University of Sydney, MBA from Bond University, Master of Arts (International Relations) and Bachelor of International Studies from Flinders University, Australia

 

Christian Fjäder has two decades of experience in leadership, research and consulting in corporate, national and international aspects of risk and resilience. Through working in the corporate sector, government, with international organisations and academia, Christian has a diverse set of knowledge and skills to work at all levels of resilience. He has worked for Nokia, first heading the regional security organisation for APAC (and training and supporting Crisis Management Teams there) and later headed the global Business Continuity Management program for Nokia Siemens Networks as the Head of Risk and Resilience. Christian has completed Crisis Management trainings in the Nordic-level, in Switzerland and NATO. Christian has also lectured about resilience in national and international forums and the National Defence Courses in Finland. He is a former steering board member, and a current expert, in OECD High Level Risk Forum.

Christian has a MSc (Econ.) in Finance from Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki and a MSc (Law) from Helsinki University. 

​

Lars Aikala worked with finance, technology and entrepreneurship for more than 20 years, with special emphasis on environmental technologies. Lars has held senior executive and managing director positions and he has also served as a board member in some 15 companies.  

Harri Mikkola received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Tampere, Finland (2013).

​

He now serves as a Programme Director at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA), where he leads the Finnish Foreign Policy, Northern European Security and NATO research programme. His fields of expertise include geostrategy in the Northern Europe with a special focus on the Arctic, Finnish foreign, defence and security policy, hybrid influencing, societal resilience, security of supply as well as defence market issues. Mikkola has previously worked at the Finnish Defence Command, at the University of Tampere, Finland, and as a Visiting Researcher at the University of Minnesota, USA. Mikkola has also been a Board member of the Arctic Society of Finland.

Mikael Wigell earned his PhD at the London School of Economics and he has been a Visiting Fellow at the Changing Character of War Centre, Oxford University.

 

He is now the Research Director at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs and Adjunct Professor in International Political Economy at the University of Tampere. He is also a World Economic Forum Expert, currently curating the WEF’s Geoeconomics section.  He has previously been Member of the Development Policy Committee of the Finnish Government and President of the Finnish International Studies Association. He is a pioneer in geoeconomic and hybrid threats analytics and he has written a number of policy reports for the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Government of Finland, as well as a number of briefings for organizations such as the World Economic Forum, the Japan Development Bank and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. He currently leads the International Business Risk and Resilience Monitor-project funded by the European Commission, as well as the Nordic Security of
Supply in an Age of Disruption-project funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers. His latest book is as editor of the volume Geo-economics and Power Politics in the 21 st Century: The Revival of Economic Statecraft (Routledge, 2018; 2020).