Heartfelt Narratives: strengthening support for Ukraine

The former president of Lithuania and European commissioner, Dalia Grybauskaitė currently serves as the Co-Chair of the United Nations High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (FACTI). Previously, she has chaired the Council of Women World Leaders and held several positions as a Lithuanian diplomat and politician, including as the country’s finance minister, as well as minister plenipotentiary at the Lithuanian embassy to the United States and at the Lithuanian Mission to the EU. Notably, Grybauskaitė played a key role in improving the relations between Lithuania and the EU as the deputy chief negotiator of Lithuania’s Association Agreement with the EU.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is a Dutch politician who notably served as the 11th Secretary-General of NATO. He also previously worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Dutch delegation of the NATO headquarters in Brussels. He now works as President of the Advisory Council on International Affairs (AIV) of the Netherlands, an independent body which advises government and parliament on foreign policy. Furthermore, he was appointed to the Pieter Kooijmans Chair for Peace, Law and Security at Leiden University.

Rose Gottemoeller is the Steven C. Házy Lecturer at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and its Center for International Security and Cooperation. Before joining Stanford, Gottemoeller was the deputy secretary-general of NATO. Prior to NATO, she served for nearly five years as the under secretary for arms control and international security at the United States Department of State, advising the Secretary of State on arms control, nonproliferation and political-military affairs. While assistant secretary of state for arms control, verification and compliance, she was the chief US negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation.

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, the first female President of Croatia, has extensive experience in politics, diplomacy, and security. She served as Croatia’s first female Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador to the United States, and Assistant Secretary General of NATO. Grabar-Kitarović is a member of the International Olympic Committee, GLOBSEC International Advisory Council, and various non-profit boards, including Friends of Europe and the US Atlantic Council. She is involved with the UN Alliance of Civilizations, serves as Global Ambassador for Immunization for Women Political Leaders, and is chair emerita of the Council of Women World Leaders. She also co-chairs the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board and is a member of the Committee of Independent Eminent Persons of the European Parliament.

A constitutional lawyer, researcher and activist Gennadiy Druzenko co-founded the PFVMH as a response to the Maidan protest to tend to the wounded protesters. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the PFVMH has been operating in areas of active combat, providing medical care for thousands of people. Druzenko is also the Founder and Chairman of the Ukrainian NGO Center for Constitutional Design. Previously, he was a visiting researcher at the Center for Constitutional Democracy and a Government Commissioner in the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

Tim Lardner currently serves as Acting Director of the Europe and Central Asia Region and UNOPS Country Director for Ukraine, Moldova and Poland. Previously, he was the UNOPS Country Director for Somalia. Before joining UNOPS, Lardner served as Chief of the UN Mine Action Service in South Sudan as well as the UN Development Programme’s Chief Technical Advisor to the government of Lao PDR. In addition to significant experience with NGOs and the UN, he has also worked in private, academic and commercial sectors.

A human rights lawyer and defender, Oleksandra Matviichuk is the first-ever Ukrainian Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. She was awarded the esteemed prize for her work with the Center for Civil Liberties on democratic reform campaigns in Ukraine and the OSCE region. The organisation has been documenting war crimes committed by Russian troops since the initial invasion of Crimea, but also develops legislative changes, exercises public oversight over law enforcement agencies and the judiciary, and implements international solidarity programmes. Matviichuk coordinated the Euromaidan SOS civic initiative to provide legal assistance following the government’s crackdown on Euromaiden protesters, which has since monitored political persecution in the illegally occupied regions of Crimea and Donbas. Matviichuk has led similar campaigns, including #LetMyPeopleGo and #SaveOlegSentsov, to fight for the release of political prisoners detained by Russian authorities. Having authored reports for several United Nations bodies, the Council of Europe, the EU, the OSCE and the International Criminal Court, she received the Democracy Defender Award and is the country’s first female candidate to be nominated to the UN Committee against Torture.

Prior to his current position at Teneo, Philippe Maze-Sencier served as Chair of Global Public Affairs of Hill & Knowlton Strategies (H+K) and Managing Director at McLarty Associates’ Brussels and Washington DC offices. He has been working at the nexus of policy, government relations and communications on transatlantic issues and oversaw operations in India, the Middle East and Africa in various sectors ranging from aerospace to energy to defence. Previously, Maze-Sencier held roles at the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, and at the delegation of the European Commission in Washington DC.

Olha Stefanishyna currently serves as the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, and Minister of Justice of Ukraine. Previously, she worked as Director and Director-General of the Government Office for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

Vasylisa Stepanenko is a Ukrainian freelance journalist and video producer whose work has focused on human rights and social justice issues. She shared the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service with two colleagues for her work with the AP covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Born in Kharkiv, Stepanenko began working with the AP one month before Russia invaded the country and travelled to Mariupol with the AP to cover the brutal siege of the city.