Moderator: Triantafyllia Lina Papadopoulou Professor – Faculty of Law, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Wim Geerts Ambassador of Human Rights of Netherlands

Biography:

2023 – present Human Rights Ambassador 

2019 – 2023 Ambassador to China and Mongolia  

2016 – 2019 Secretary General of Defence 

2013 – 2016 Director General Political Affairs

2008 – 2013 Ambassador to Canada

2006 – 2008 Deputy Director General Political Affairs

2002 – 2006 Deputy Chief of Mission in Washington DC, USA 

1991 – 2002 Several positions in the Prime Minister’s Office, incl. Foreign Policy and Defence Advisor to the Prime Minister

1989 – 1991 Third Secretary Embassy in Singapore

1988 Joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

1986 – 1988 English teacher

1981 – 1986 Nijmegen University, the Netherlands and Boston College, USA

Jean-Marc Berthon French Ambassador for the Rights of the LGBT+ people

Biography:

Jean-Marc Berthon was appointed ambassador for the rights of LGBT+ persons on October 26, 2022.
The creation of this position was a commitment made by President Macron during the last presidential
election campaign. The ambassador carries the voice of France in favor of the universal
decriminalization of homosexuality and the respect for all fundamental rights of LGBT+ persons. He
leads advocacy campaigns with foreign governments and international institutions. He is particularly
involved with civil society organizations working on this issue, for which he has set up a fund.

Born in 1966 in the East of France, Jean-Marc Berthon studied philosophy and political science. He is a
graduate of Sciences Po Paris, Marc Bloch University in Strasbourg and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en
Sciences Sociales (EHESS). His career in French diplomacy spans more than 25 years, and has taken him
to Central and Eastern Europe, in particular Croatia and the Czech Republic. He has worked with
Bernard Kouchner when this historic figure of humanitarian action and human rights was Minister of
Foreign Affairs, under whose mandate the first international mobilization in favor of LGBT+ people
took place (conference in Paris, creation of a fund, declaration to the United Nations…).

He was an advisor to President Macron during his first term in office. As part of the Élysée’s diplomatic
team, he was notably in charge of human rights. He worked on the implementation of a feminist
diplomacy, the protection of human rights defenders, the inclusion of LGBT+ people in asylum policies,
and the fight against information manipulation. He was also Chief of Staff to the Minister Delegate for
Citizenship, with whom he contributed to the development of accommodation for LGBT+ refugees,
and to the campaign to ban conversion therapies. In this capacity, he also the welcoming in France of
displaced persons from Ukraine following the Russian aggression of February 2022.
Jean-Marc Berthon speaks French and English. He understands Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Spanish.

Fergus Ryan Associate Professor – School of Law and Criminology at the National University of Ireland

Biography:

Dr Fergus Ryan is Head of the School of Law and Criminology at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. He has been active for many years in relation to LGBTQ+ rights in Ireland, and has written extensively on the topic. Alongside many others, he was involved in campaigns for the introduction of civil partnership and marriage, as well as the movement for legal gender recognition in Ireland. He is the author of a number of publications, and is a former President of the Irish Association of Law Teachers.

Lana Gobec Advocate of LGBTQ+ rights

Biography:

Lana Gobec is active in the field of progressing LGBTI rights for more than 10 years. She stepped on this path in 2012 through active participation of youth wing of liberal political party in Slovenia during referendum on Family code that would bring civil partnerships to same-sex couples in Slovenia. Afterwards until 2016 she was active in organizing Ljubljana Pride and employed at biggest Slovenian LGBTI NGO Legebitra. Form November 2017 until January 2023 she was president of Legebitra. Besides ensuring strategic growth and management of organization and its programs, she was actively pursuing LGBTI equality through many activities on Legebitra‘s agenda. Among those were: supporting Marriage equality through strategic litigations, setting foundation for governmental LGBTI strategy, better recognition of hate crimes by Slovenian authorities and more in -depth cooperation with police, creating better environment for Rainbow families, advocating for LGR based on self-determination and creating better conditions for people living with hiv.

Since leaving Legebitra in January 2023 to pursue new challenges she remains involved in advocating for LGBTI equality and working with NGO sector through consulting on different topics ranging from LGBT I& Human rights advocacy, strategic planning and NGO management.

Alexis Patelis Chief Economic Adviser to Greece’s Prime Minister, Member of the Committee responsible for the National Strategy for LGBTIQ+ equality

Biography:

Alex Patelis is chief economic adviser to Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. He is also a member of the committee responsible for the National Strategy for LGBTIQ+ equality.

He has over three decades of experience as an economist, analyst and strategist, working in a variety of positions in New York, London and Athens. 

Alex started his career with the US economics research team at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in New York, where he worked under Bill Dudley, Chief US economist as well as a proprietary FICC trader in the same firm. In London, he joined Citigroup Asset Management as a quantitative economist. At Merrill Lynch, he held a variety of positions, including Global head of FX & Debt strategy, as well as Managing Director of Global Research, Head of International Economics. In this capacity, Alex managed the research teams responsible for the firm’s outlook on all economies outside North America, including developed and emerging countries in EMEA, the Pacific Rim region and Latin America, as well as foreign exchange, local currency and external debt bonds. For their research, Alex and his team won a variety of awards, including from Extel and Institutional Investor. He was also Chief Economist at PSQR, a global discretionary macro hedge fund.

More recently, Alex was President of Patelis Macro, an independent research boutique he launched in 2010, which focused on global macroeconomic analysis to select clients around the world.

Alex earned a Ph.D. in Economics in 1997 from Princeton University, USA, where his thesis advisor was Professor Ben Bernanke. Titled “Asset returns and monetary policy”, part of his thesis was published in the Journal of Finance. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Mathematics from Sussex University, UK.