Speakers

Giuseppe is a Knowledge Management Assistant at the Publications Office of the European Union. He works in the EU open data sector and is part of the team of data.europa.eu – the official portal for European data. His work focuses on advancing and supporting open data practices across EU institutions, agencies and bodies by producing editorial content, webinars, and technical support to stakeholders.
He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Management as well as two Masters in Policy Analysis and Politics from Bocconi University and the London School of Economics. He has lived and worked or studied in Italy, France, UK, Belgium, Luxembourg, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Astrid is working to reinforce outreach activities related to the services offered by the Publications Office for the European Institutions. Her previous experiences in the European Commission include responsibilities related to Communication, outreach and training, Youth programme evaluation and dissemination activities in the Directorate-General for Education and Culture. Before, Astrid worked in the Directorates-General for Budget as well as in External Relations.

Sandra Cavallo works in the European Commission’s communications department, as deputy head of the unit in charge in charge of Europe Direct centres and other networks in the EU countries at local level. She is also the Equality Coordinator for the communication department of the European Commission. She has been previously head of sector for communication governance and strategic coordination, when her responsibilities included coordinating the European Commission’s external communication and awareness raising efforts about disinformation, and a member of the EC’s Brexit task force headed by M. Barnier. She has worked for UNDP in Ukraine and Moldova, for the EU’s communicable diseases agency ECDC and for Italian public television Rai.

Stephen Clark has been an official of the European Parliament for over 30 years.

He has worked with parliamentary committees, in the office of the Secretary-General, and, for the last fifteen years, in the field of communication. Initially his communication work was as the head of Parliament’s digital communication team, which pioneered the use of social media by EU institutions, while latterly he has been the director responsible for public communication more widely, in charge of communication campaigns, events and Parliament’s visitor facilities. He is a veteran of Parliament’s institutional campaigns on the European elections, and was responsible for the overall coordination of the campaigns for both the 2014 and 2019 elections.

He is currently the director responsible for the European Parliament’s Liaison Offices located in all EU countries, coordinating their communication and outreach activities at the national and local levels. His current focus is on enhancing the capacity of the European Parliament to implement an institutional communications strategy in a decentralised manner.

He is co-author, with Sir Julian Priestley, of “Europe’s Parliament: People Places, Politics” a reference publication on the European Parliament.

Susanne Fraczek manages the European Documentation Centre (EDC) Krems at the UWK’s Department for Legal Studies and International Relations since 2021. In this function she was/is responsible for coordinating the EDC’s relaunch as well as its new outreach activities, including citizens’ dialogues in the context of the Conference on the Future of Europe. She is also Associated Expert for polis – The Austrian Centre for Citizenship Education in Schools and regularly contributes to the Centre’s magazine for teachers, e.g. on European youth political participation in 2022.
Holding Master’s Degrees in Law and Political Science (both from the University of Vienna), Susanne Fraczek previously i.a. worked for the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights, where she headed the Department for European Integration and Neighbourhood Policy from 2008-2021, specialising on the promotion of human rights in EU enlargement and related public sector reform.

Valentina Fratto works in EUR-Lex and Legal information department at the Publications Office of the European Union. She is head of the EUR-Lex editorial content sector which ensures that the editorial information on the EUR-Lex website is up to date, presented in a clear way and it identifies new functionalities with a user-centric approach. The sector is also responsible of N-Lex, the common gateway to national law of the EU Member States.
Her previous experiences include responsibilities in relation to the production of EU publications and to the dissemination of EU open data. She holds a Master’s degree in Foreign Languages and Literature and a Master’s degree in International politics.

Policy officer in the unit for higher education at DG EAC of the European Commission. He is dealing with the overall management of Erasmus+ in the field of higher education.

Alessandro Giordani is currently serving as Head of Unit for Networks in the Member States at the Directorate-General for Communication of the European Commission. This Unit deals with the Europe Direct concept, a service for citizens composed of several hundreds of EUROPE DIRECT centres and European Documentation Centres in all Member States, as well as the speakers’ pool Team Europe.
Prior to this, Mr. Giordani was Deputy Head of Unit of the Citizens’ Dialogues Unit and Head of Communication at the European Commission Representation in Rome. Previously he also worked as diplomatic advisor on EU-issues at the Italian Prime Minister’s private office and in different services and Directorates-General of the European Commission, including as a Member of Cabinet of Commissioner Kyprianou.
He teaches at the LUISS School of Government in Rome.

Jeroen Jochems is working for the Europe Service of the province of Antwerp (Belgium) since 2008. As the manager of Europe Direct Provincie Antwerpen his main responsibilities are organizing events/campaigns for the general public, developping a local media/social media-strategy, following up on European policy and making it accessible to the people and liaison between the local level and the EU institutions. Above all he is a specialist on the EU in schools as he is presenting the EU in interactive formats to all kinds of educational target groups and training teachers to do so. He has master’s degrees in Social & Political Science (University of Antwerp), Conflict and Development (University of Ghent).

Richard Kuehnel is Director for Representation and Communication in Member States within the Directorate-General for Communication of the European Commission. He is responsible for the Commission’s Representations and networks in all EU Member States, and also for the outreach and engagement with citizens across the Union. This included the Conference of the Future of Europe and its follow-up.
In 2004, Richard Kühnel joined the European Commission as Member of Cabinet of the EU Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, Benita Ferrero-Waldner. Between 2008 and May 2014, he was Head of Representation of the European Commission in Vienna, Austria and later on he held the same function in Berlin, Germany until August 2019.
Before joining the European Commission, Richard Kühnel served in the national diplomatic service of Austria. He served at the Austrian Embassy in Tokyo and at the Permanent Mission of Austria to the United Nations in New York. In 2003, he returned to Vienna, first as Advisor to the Director-General for Development Cooperation and then as Member of Cabinet of the Foreign Minister.
Richard Kühnel is a lawyer by training, with an emphasis on international and European law.

Former Deputy and Acting Head of the European Commission Representation in France, Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoul has held various positions as a European official. She has been part of the Common Secretariat for the Conference on the Future of Europe, more particularly in charge of the European Citizens’ Panels. She is now working on the follow-up to the Conference on the Future of Europe as Deputy Head of Unit in DG Communication. She also worked for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as Deputy Secretary General for the Citizens Consultations on Europe and then Head of Department at the Mission Grand Débat. Earlier, she worked as Secretary General of the Jacques Delors Institute in Paris and for the Belgian Government, as advisor on European affairs.

Rolandas Pyragis works as administrator in the Unit for Reception and Referral of Official Documents in the Directorate for the Plenary, Directorate-General for the Presidency (DG PRES), at the European Parliament. He is responsible, among other things, for managing the Legislative Observatory, the European Parliament’s tool for monitoring the EU decision-making process, with a particular focus on Parliament’s activities. Prior to joining DG PRES, he worked as a press officer and web editor at the Directorate-General for Communication. He studied international relations and political science at the University of Vilnius.

Lies Robben is the communications officer for Team Europe at the province of Antwerp since 2019.She’s responsible for all the external communication of Europe Direct province of Antwerp, such as social media, newsletters, flyers, etc. In addition, she’s also responsible for communication about European funding programmes – and projects for the province of Antwerp.