Dr. Mark Speich is the Secretary General of the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation (KAS). From September 2017 to May 2025, he served as the State Secretary for Federal, European and International Affairs of the State of North-Rhine Westphalia (since 2022 also for Media Politics) as well as the State’s Plenipotentiary to the Federal Government. Prior to this role, he was CEO of Vodafone Foundation and the Vodafone Institute for Society and Communications, Vodafone’s corporate think tank, respectively from 2008 to 2017. Before joining Vodafone, he served as Director of Policy Planning to the CDU/CSU-Parliamentary Party in the German Bundestag and as Director of Programs for the Herbert-Quandt Foundation. In the years 1997 and 1998, he was Personal Advisor to the President of Bonn University. He started his career in the political advisory staff of CDU’s Secretary General in 1995. He was educated at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge (MPhil), and the University of Bonn (Ph.D.) where he read Modern History, Political Science, and Constitutional Law.

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Vice Admiral Alexander S. Lopez PN (Ret) rendered over 42 years of dedicated service to the nation, including more than 38 years in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). His extensive military career spanned operations, intelligence, logistics, education, humanitarian assistance, diplomacy, and management. He held numerous command and administrative posts, notably serving as the Philippine Defense and Armed Forces Attaché (PhilDAFA) to Singapore and commanding five Philippine Navy vessels. He culminated his distinguished military service as Commander of the Western Command, AFP, with the rank of Vice Admiral.

He earned a Master’s degree in Business Economics from the University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P) and completed specialized international programs such as the U.S. Naval Staff College at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island; the Asia-Pacific Programme for Senior National Security Officers (APPSNO) in Singapore; and the Common Defense and Security Program (CSDP) at the European Union’s Common Defense and Security College in Brussels, Belgium.

Following his retirement from the military, Vice Admiral Lopez continued his public service as Undersecretary of the Department of Energy (DOE) for four years. He oversaw energy security, safety, and crisis response, including ensuring the stability of energy supply during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also supervised DOE’s regional field offices, the Consumer Welfare and Protection Office, and the Internal Audit Division, and represented the DOE in various national security-related councils and task forces.

Vice Admiral Lopez is married to Ms. Millette Sula Lopez, and they are blessed with two children

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Ristian Atriandi SUPRIYANTO (Andi/Ristian) is a lecturer with the Department of International Relations and researcher at the ASEAN Study Center, FISIP, Universitas Indonesia (UI). He is also a research fellow with the Indonesia Sinology Forum (FSI), Jakarta, and PhD scholar at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University. Ristian obtained a Master of Science in Strategic Studies from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University (RSIS-NTU) in Singapore and a Bachelor of Social Science in International Relations from UI. Before joining UI, he worked for the Maritime Security Programme at RSIS-NTU. Andi comments and writes numerous works on sea power, maritime security, strategic studies, and international relations. His works include “Naval Modernisation in Southeast Asia: Problems and Prospects for Small and Medium Navies” (Palgrave, 2018) with Geoffrey Till. Submitted in March 2025, Ristian’s doctoral thesis is titled “Competing over America in the Cold War: Australia-Indonesia Relations, 1945-1978.”

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Through her research, presentations and publications, Dr Natalie Sambhi is committed to helping people gain a more nuanced understanding of Indonesian civil-military relations, Indonesian defence policy and Southeast Asian security.

Natalie is Founder and Executive Director of Verve Research, an independent think tank focussed on the relationship between militaries and societies in Southeast Asia. She is also a Senior Policy Fellow at Asia Society Australia and a Non-resident Fellow with the Brookings Institution’s Foreign Policy Program.

Natalie works as a lecturer at the Australian War College for Deakin University, convening modules for the Australian Command and Staff College and other programs. She has a PhD from the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, the Australian National University on the Indonesian military’s history. Follow her on Twitter @securityscholar.

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Dr. Oktaheroe Ramsi is a Dean in Indonesia Defense University on Defense Strategic Faculty. He is mastering in Defense Strategy as his expertise inline with his under graduate school in Political Science in Indonesia Open University 1997, than he got master degree in International Relations from RSIS – Nanyang Technological University 2010 and he concluded his Doctoral in Indonesia Defense University in 2023 consecutively. Along with his career as an active military members, he oftenly followed some international seminar which focus on International Relation issues in Bratislava, Jakarta, Singapore, Bangkok and some other countries as speakers and participants. It is also developed his insight in civil-military cooperation and rising his opinion about the importance of knowledge that influences state policy, especially tendencies that can trigger tension between countries and how we can choose to cooperate in many things rather than choosing confrontation in international relations conflicts. With this he believes that choosing peace over rivalry is very important in all the reasons that must be chosen. He is awarded the rank of major general in his current position.

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PROFESSOR YOICHIRO SATO holds a BA (Law) from Keio University, MA (International Studies) from University of South Carolina, and Ph.D (Political Science) from University of Hawaii. He currently teaches at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University. He also held other positions including a lecturership at Auckland University, professorship at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS) of the U.S. Department of Defense, and a visiting senior research fellow at Yusof Ishak Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS). His most recent works include Handbook of Indo-Pacific Studies (co-edited with Barbara Kratiuk, Jeroen Van den Bosch, and Aleksandra Jaskólska, Routledge, 2023), Alliances in Asia and Europe: The Evolving Indo-Pacific Strategic Context and Inter-Regional Alignments (co-edited with Elena Atanassova-Cornelis and Tom Sauer, Routledge, 2023), and Security Order and Strategic Alignment in Europe and the Asia-Pacific: Times of Global Power Shifts (co-edited with Elena Atanassova-Cornelis and Tom Sauer, Routledge, 2025). He is active in media and foreign policy circles, appearing and having written for and been quoted, in more than 30 media and think tank outlets globally, including BBC, Al Jazeera, and Bloomberg.

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Sasha B. Chhabra is a visiting research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taipei. An expert in US-Taiwan relations, cross-strait affairs, and Chinese influence operations, his research encompasses Taiwan’s strategic diplomacy and foreign communications. He has advised national political campaigns in the United States and has worked in non-profit, media, and government sectors. He is a frequent media commentator and columnist, whose work has been published in newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, and regularly contributes to Taiwanese media, including the Taipei Times and CommonWealth Magazine. In addition to Mandarin Chinese, he speaks Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, and is conversational in Uyghur.

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Edcel Ibarra is an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, University of the Philippines Diliman, and the managing editor of the Philippine Political Science Journal. He is also Young Leader and US-Philippines Alliance Next Generation Leader at the Pacific Forum. In 2025, he was an exchange scholar at the Study of the US Institutes for Scholars on US Foreign Policy at the University of Delaware sponsored by the US Department of State. Edcel was previously the officer-in-charge of the Strategic, Territorial, and Maritime Issues Section of the Foreign Service Institute, the in-house think tank of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs. In 2024, he was awarded the Aileen San Pablo Baviera Prize by the Graduate Research and Development Network on Asian Security at the Australian National University. Edcel obtained his master’s in international studies and bachelor’s in political science, magna cum laude, from the University of the Philippines Diliman.

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Dr Hugh Tuckfield is Founder and Executive Director of the Indo-Pacific Studies Center (IPSC), an Australia-based think tank focused on strategy, security, and governance across the Indo-Pacific. A political theorist by training, he leads IPSC programs on AUKUS and the QUAD, regional risk, and executive education, including the State of the Indo-Pacific initiative and the Emerging Leaders Forum. His research and commentary span cross-Strait dynamics, maritime security, critical technologies, and democratic governance. He has held fellowships at Oxford University and the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, and serves on the Advisory Board of the Amity Centre for BRICS Studies (India). He has published widely on Indo-Pacific affairs.

Hugh holds a PhD in Government and International Relations, a Master’s in Human Rights and Democratization, an LLB (Law), and a Bachelor of Economics. At the Manila Dialogue, he contributes a region-first perspective on strategic competition, economic statecraft, and practical pathways to a secure, free, and prosperous Indo-Pacific.

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Dr. Asyura SALLEH works with the Global Maritime Crime Programme at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime as an Associate Programme Officer where she oversees regional forums on maritime crime. She is also formerly a Special Advisor on Maritime Security at Yokosuka Council on Asia Pacific Affairs (YCAPS), Adjunct non-Resident Vasey Research Fellow at the Pacific Forum, and Co-Founder and Advisor of the Global Awareness & Impact Alliance (GAIA). Her previous policy experience lies in her work for the Stable Seas and Brunei Prime Minister’s Office. Dr. Asyura gained a Masters in War Studies from King’s College London and earned a doctorate in International Relations from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. She has also been nominated as one of top 40 Women in Power in Malaysia by the Prestige Magazine in 2024. Dr. Salleh has a research interest in maritime security in the Asia Pacific, with a focus on transnational maritime crime and maritime governance.

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