Andre Wilkensis the director of the Mercator Centre Berlin. Before he was director of the Centre for International Affairs at Stiftung Mercator. He was previously head of strategic communications with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva. Mr. Wilkens also headed the Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute (OSI) in Brussels and co-ordinated Soros' activities in Europe. He was co-initiator and founding member of the European Council for Foreign Relations and is the chairman of the OSI Roma Advisory Board. His positions prior to this were at the Ogilvy & Mather communications agency in Brussels, the European Training Foundation in Turin and at the European Commission and European Parliament in Brussels.