Having grown up in the Czech-Austrian border region, Jana Hrdá now works at the Bavarian representation in Prague, combining her inter- ests in cross-border cooperation and German speaking countries. She is mainly responsible for event organization and drafting background papers. Previously, she has worked at the International Relations De- partment of the Czech Export Bank and at the Czech senate. She studied International Relations in Prague and Colorado and has gained further professional experience as an intern at the Czech Embassy in Vienna and the Czech Center Munich. In her spare time she loves trav- elling as well as skiing and hiking in the mountains.

Pavlína Louženská is a business and marketing consultant. She is also a Lead Mentor in Google Developers Launchpad in the Czech Republic. In the past she worked as a CMO at fashion retailer ZOOT or at marketing agency H1.cz. Later on in 2FRESH, she was responsible for innovation. 5 years ago she founded #HolkyzMarketingu, a female empowerment community for marketing professionals which currently unites 15.000+ women. Find out more: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavlinalouzenska/ or follow her on Twitter / Instagram @pavlina_speaks.

Andreas Müllerleile is a political analyst and communications special- ist. He has a background in communicating European politics and de- veloping advocacy and public diplomacy strategies. He is currently a Senior Project Manager for the Atlantische Initiative, a foreign policy think tank in Berlin. Over the past decade, Andreas has worked for a range of European organisations on strategic communications and political innovation such as the London-based European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), one of Europe’s leading think tanks or the European Institute of Peace (EIP), a new peacemaking organisation in Brussels. Andreas is also a freelance political consultant and the founder of policylab.eu. He studied politics, European studies and communications and holds a degree from the University of Münster.

Jan Nechanický is a graduate of German philology, literature and phi- losophy from the Charles University in Prague who has spent several semesters as an exchange student at the universities in Konstanz and Saarbrücken. During his studies he started teaching German and Czech as a foreign language and also worked as a freelance translator. As a translator, he cooperated with various German and Austrian Pra- gue based institutions such as the Goethe Institut, the Heinrich Böll Stiftung and also with the Film Academy in Prague. Later on, he ac- quired a position of a reporter in a Prague based German newspaper “Prager Zeitung” where he wrote on the Czech-German relations in politics, culture and history. He currently lives in Dresden and works in human resources in the healthcare sector where he as a unique oppor- tunity to gather insights on how well foreign professionals integrate on the German labour market. Apart from that he enjoys climbing up the Czech and Saxon sandstone towers and translating the works of Ger- man philosophers into Czech.

Šárka Strahalová studied Political Sciences at Charles University in Prague and at University of Bonn. After her studies, she worked as an MP ́s assistant in the German Federal Parliament Bundestag. She has been working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic (MFA) since 2008. She was seconded to the German Federal Foreign Office for two years. In 2015- 2016 as a member of the MFA team she contributed to the Czech Presidency in Visegrad Group, co-organising high level summits with the Western Balkans or the countries of the Eastern Partnership. She works currently at the Czech Embassy in Berlin, where she is responsible for political and security issues. Her favourite quote is „I do not seek. I find.“ by Pablo Picasso.

Dr. Marc Venhaus is working as a senior analyst & advisor at the de- partment for “Macro- and Competitive Analysis” within the HQ of the Volkswagen Group, where he is responsible for the identification and assessment of worldwide macroeconomic and geopolitical develop- ments. Furthermore, he is a committed member of the steering core team of the currently 400 people strong Group-wide Future Heads Network and in addition bears responsibility for the so-called “Futures of the Global Economy” initiative. Dr. Venhaus studied global eco- nomics, international relations and modern history at the WWU Mün- ster / NTNU Trondheim (M.A.) plus University of York / London School of Economics (M.A.) and received his doctorate (Dr. rer. pol.) at the Freie Universität Berlin / Fudan University Shanghai with a thesis about Chinese-American financial/economic relations. Whenever possible, he seized the chance to deepen his knowledge in the rele- vant fields by means of multiple prestigious programs (e.g. LSE-PKU Summer School, Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations, Georgetown Transatlantic Policy Symposium, GMF Brussels Forum) as well as first-hand diplomatic experiences (e.g. working as an Assistant Attaché at the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United Nations). Previously, he has been employed as a project manager and researcher both in Germany and abroad, and regards himself as an interdisciplinary wanderer between the inter-twined worlds of business, economics and politics.

Martin Vodňanský was born in Prague on May 14, 1988. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in International Studies and a Master’s degree in American Studies at the Charles University Prague. He spent a semes- ter in Denmark studying political sciences at the University of Copen- hagen via the Erasmus scholarship. For four years, he was a part of the videoconference team in McKinsey & Company, where he had a chance to cooperate with teams in India and Costa Rica on a daily basis. He gained experience in communication, teamwork and men- torship. In September 2018, he started at the position of a political analyst at CEC Government Relations, where he is responsible for media monitoring, crafting brief analytical reports for clients and busi- ness intelligence research. He focuses on the following topics: energy policy, digitalization, smart cities and financial services.

Maria Vogt

Maria sees the participation at the CGYPP as the ideal opportunity to engage with people from diverse backgrounds and exchange ideas which can contribute to a positive development in the German-Czech border region. Her employment and scientific backgrounds are strong- ly linked with the German-Czech relations. She was inspired by her origins in the German-Czech-Polish country triangle and so she has focused already during her bachelor program, European studies at the Technical University at Chemnitz, on the German-Czech relations. She deepened and widened that understanding with stays at Liberec and Prague. Her Master’s program, East-West-Studies, was completed at the University of Regensburg. At the same time she worked for the Euregio Egrensis. There she was running a Czech-Bavarian student exchange program. Maria Vogt is currently Project Manager at the Robert Bosch Stiftung in the Department of International Relations.

Alexandra has a Slovak-Austrian background, but grew up in Northern Germany. She came to Czech Republic for the first time to do an Eu- ropean Voluntary Service in Brno and has been interested in Central and Eastern Europe ever since. After graduating in Eastern European Studies from LMU Munich she worked as a Lecturer for German as foreign language for the Robert-Bosch-Foundation in Jalalabat, Kyr- gyzstan. After returning, she took up a position at the Goethe-Institut Prague, where she coordinated a civic education project. In her spare time, Alexandra is active in volunteer work and enjoys recharging with all kinds of outdoor activities.

Václav Kříž comes from the border region Karlovarský kraj and now lives in Prague. He graduated in European Studies at the Charles University Prague and currently works at the Czech Council of Children and Youth, managing the program of Czech UN Youth Delegates. He also works at the Prague 7 City District Authority, managing strategic planning and the project A Good Job in the Neighborhood. He is also a member of the town council in his hometown Krásno. He was a chair of the youth organization Mladí občané (Young Citizens), which is trying to promote active citizenship and political participation.

After finishing her dual Bachelor degree in German-Italian Studies at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität and the Università degli Studi di Firenze, she absolved her dual Spanish-German Master degree in Intercultural and European Studies, concentrating on Cultur- al and Political Science at the University of Regensburg and the Uni- versidad Complutense de Madrid. During that time she did additional courses in “International negotiating skills” and finished the “Bohemi- cum” with courses on Czech language, culture, and politics. During various seminars on and excursions to Russia, the Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary and Romania she concentrated on the one hand on eastern and on the other hand on western politics and regimes. Especially her participation in the Model United Nations in New York convinced her to engage more in the field of politics and human rights. After her studies she worked as a teacher for German as a foreign language as part of the project “German for unaccompanied minor refugees” mainly from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Eritrea. Since 2017 she works for the EUREGIO Bayerischer Wald – Böhmerwald – Unterer Inn e.V. as a projectmanager for the Linguistic Centre Ger- man- Czech, organizing Czech language courses and excursions to Czech Republic.

Břetislav Ševčík works in international sales for the leading German au- tomotive company Continental. Before joining Continental, he worked for the Czech export-oriented machinery company ISMM and for Sie- mens. After his studies at universities in Ostrava, Erlangen (Erasmus), Bamberg (Hertie foundation scholarship) and Berlin he was awarded the International Parliamentary Scholarship by the Federal German Parlia- ment. During his studies he was involved in the foundation and man- agement of the International Student Club at the University of Ostrava. He loves culture and art and is a passionate violinist (CM Portáši) him- self. Apart from hiking in the beautiful Beskydy mountains, he likes books and is a lazy student of the Chinese art of baguaquan.

Tomíček leads Sales and Customer relataions Department for Clean mobility (meaning e-mobility and CNG mobility) at innogy. He has been with innogy (previously RWE) for 9 years holding different positions in Corporate and Business Development and Strategy. Previ- ously he lead Product Development in the Czech subsidiary of TÜV SÜD and also worked in a start-up company in the field of executive education where he was responsible for its activities in Asia.

Pavel holds a degree in Economics from Prague University of Econom- ics. He also studied in Sweden, Germany and the UK as an exchange or visiting student. Pavel is former Czech National University Champion in 800m running.