Ansgar Baums
Ansgar Baums is Senior Advisor to Sinolytics and consults corporations on geopolitical risk management. He is also a non-residential senior fellow at the Stimson Center. In 2023, Ansgar was German Marshall Fund’s Helmut Schmidt Fellow 2023. He is also Senior Advisor to SUB Erste Lesung, a public affairs agency.
He was formerly in government relations at Zoom Video Communications. Prior to that, Baums held other positions within the corporate world, most recently as Head of the Global Strategy Program at HP and as Head of Government Relations Europe/Middle East/Africa at HP. Ansgar also worked for SAP AG, the German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications, and New Media – Bitkom, and Germany's Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
Ansgar holds a master's degree with distinction in international strategy and economics from the University of St. Andrews and a postgraduate diploma in political science from the Free University Berlin.
Nicholas Butts
Nicholas Butts leads Microsoft’s AI and Cybersecurity Policy. Prior to joining Microsoft, he was Director of Business Development and Head of Partnerships at Faculty AI. He held various policy- and strategy roles at HP Inc, leading government relations and trade teams as well as coordinating HP’s response to the US-China trade war. At HP, Nicholas led engagement with policy-makers around the world, incl. the White House, European Commission and Chinese leaders.
An expert in geopolitics, Nicholas is the co-founder of Geotech Advisory and regularly advise policy-makers, investors, Fortune 500s and startups on tech policy. He is also a senior advisor at Artisse AI, CSIS Young Leader and serves on the Harvard Kennedy School Fund Executive Council
Nicholas studied at Sciences Po Paris, and hold graduate degrees from Peking University, London School of Economics and Harvard University, where he was also a Crown Prince Frederik Fellow and Cheng Fellow.