Succint biography of the panelists (in alphabetic order) :
Ambassador 
REGINE DE CLERCQ is a former high level Belgian diplomat. Her diplomatic postings include London, New York (UN), Washington DC, Rome (FAO, IFAD, WFD), Paris (bilateral Embassy and OECD) and Bern. In addition, she served in the Permanent Representation of Belgium to the EU. In 2004 she was nominated Ambassador for Migration and Asylum Policy by Royal decree. This gave her the opportunity to actively participate in the preparation of the UN High Level Dialogue on international Migration in 2006. She worked in close cooperation with Mr. Peter Sutherland, the Special Representative for International Migration of UN SG Kofi Annan whose aim it was to assure a follow up to the High level dialogue under the stewardship of a member state. He approached Mrs De Clercq to see if Belgium would be willing to initiate this process. Ambassador De Clercq became – with the blessing of the Belgian government- thus the Founding and first executive director of the Global Forum on Migration and Development(GFMD-2007), that thanks to a unique ‘particpative approach ‘ succeeded in creating genuine and informal dialogue and discussions among governments (160 of them) and all stakeholders incl.35 relevant international organisations and over 200 civil society representatives, while also assuring its perenity through the creation of a modus operandi. Thanks to its ongoing dialogue it laid the basis for the later UN Compact on Migration. In the years following the creation of the GFMD, Mrs De Clercq contributed to broaden its scope for another two years under Philippine(2008)and Greek(2009)Chairmanship.The GFMD continues to operate on the basis of the modalities which were put in place under the chairmanship of Mrs. Regine De Clercq. Her critical role in shaping the international dialogue on migration was recognized during during the Global Forum on Migration and Development in Marrakech in 2018, were she was a keynote speaker. She remains to be one of the most influential Belgian diplomats dealing with complex multilateral issues on UN and international levels respectively. She lives now in Italy.
Neli ESIPOVA is CEO and founder of Multicultural Insights (MI home page); she leads a team dedicated to the highest
quality quantitative and qualitative research on clients’ mission-driven topics around the world. Multicultural Insights’ proudest achievement to date is conducting 18 rounds of data collection in wartime Ukraine for the International Organization for Migration. Neli was instrumental in the creation and execution of the largest sociological study in the world, from idea to reality. She developed qualitative research globally and delivered over 350 complex quantitative studies.Neli spent the last 30 years bringing her expertise in sociology to drive industry-defining research in migration, forced displacement, financial inclusion, wellbeing, women empowerment, entrepreneurship and more. Her research has been cited by The Economist, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, BBC, The Guardian, and others. Insights from this work have enabled policy makers (including the World Bank, IOM, ILO, WHO, WFP, and OECD) to hear the voices and opinions of billions of people, from the most privileged to the poorest and out-of-reach. She has personally travelled and conducted research in over 60 countries across all major continents.Neli coauthored more than 170 published articles
Elisabeth KAMM
is a Senior Immigration Consultant on Fragomen’s Consulting Europe Team, where she advises multinational corporations and SMEs on European workforce planning and migration strategies. She plays a key role in Fragomen’s government relationsstrategies, actively engaging with national and EU decision-makers to integrate practitioners’ insights into policymaking.Prior to her role at Fragomen, Elisabeth spent over five years as a Migration Policy Analyst at the OECD, advising governments on migration policy and analysing labour migration trends, including international student migration and talent attraction systems
BASILHS KERASIOTIS Human Rights/migration Lawyer, Legal Representative of the Applicants ‘Chowdury and 42 
Others vs Greece’. It concerned a number of irregular migrants from Bangladesh who cultivated strawberries on farms in manonada, peloponese – a case of deemed to be ‘trafficking for the purpose of labour exploitation’/ foced labour. In his recent work he has worked for 7 years on refugee field as country director in Greece for HIAS, a refugee support NGO in Lesvos. Now he is an indepedent legal expert on migration issues, as well as external collaborator of think tanks.
Margit KREUZHUBER studied law and economics in Linz and Seville and completed a master’s degree in digitalization, politics and communication. She has been Head of WORK in AUSTRIA at the Austrian Business Agency since December 2021. She has more than 15 years of expertise in labor migration, securing skilled workers and labor market policy. She was previously Deputy Head of the Social Policy and Health Department at the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber. She is a national and international speaker and has published numerous articles on labor migration, labor market policy and securing skilled workers.
GILES MERRITT is a journalist, author and broadcaster who has for over four decades specialized in 
European public policy questions. In 2010, the Financial Times(FT)named him one of 30 most influential “Eurostar”, along with the European Commission’s President and NATO’s Secretary General.From 1968 to 1983, he served as a foreign correspondent to the Financial Times, whereof the last five years as a Brussels Correspondent. He was successively FT correspondent in Paris, Dublin/Belfast, and Brussels.Twenty –five years, he worked as a contributor of op –ed columns to the International HeraldTribune on European economic and political issues. As a successful writer, he published “World Out of Work”in 1982, an award –winning study of unemployment in industrialized countries. In 1991, he released his second book: “The Challenges of Freedom”, which is about the difficulties facing post –communist Eastern Europe. This book was published in four languages. In 2016 he published“Slippery Slope: Europe’s Troubled Future”, a nominee for the European Book Prize. His newest book entitled
“People Power: Why We Need More Migrants”examines the complex economic and political issues surrounding European policies on immigration. It is scheduled to release on June 3 by Bloomsbury’s non-fiction imprint I. B. Tauris. Giles Merritt is the founder and the chairman of “Friends of Europe”: the leading Brussels’think tank.In 2005, he also created “Europe’s World”, the organization’s policy journal of which he remains the Editor –in –Chief. “Europe’s World”is the only pan-European publication that offers policy makers and opinion-formers a platform for presenting ideas and forging consensus. It has a readership of 120,000 senior decision-makers and opinion-formers. As such Giles Merritt remains to be one of the most influential personalities in Brussels shaping and influencing EU policy making.