Steering Committee
The Steering Committee was set up to act as the Governance of the Aurora Forum. As we move forward and into the future, it is the aim of the Steering Committee to see the Aurora Forum grow into one of the key symposiums between the United Kingdom, the Nordic and Baltic countries.
RT HON SIR DAVID LIDINGTON
Co-Chairman
David Lidington is the UK Chairman of the Aurora Forum. David represented Aylesbury in the House of Commons from 1992 to 2019. He served as Minister for Europe throughout the coalition government and David Cameron’s Conservative government (2010-2016), the UK’s longest-serving holder of that post, holding responsibility for the UK’s relations with more than 50 countries in Europe and Central Asia. David has represented the UK at the EU, NATO, OSCE, Council of Europe and the UN Security Council.
As Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster he served as deputy to Prime Minister Theresa May from January 2018 to July 2019, having previously served in the May governments as Leader of the House of Commons and as Justice Secretary.
David is chair of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a trustee of the Institute for Government and a member of the Advisory Council of the Centre for European Reform.
CARL BILDT
Co-Chairman
Carl Bildt is the Nordic & Baltic Chairman of the Aurora Forum. Carl is Co-Chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, contributing columnist to Washington Post as well as columnist for Project Syndicate.
He serves as Senior Advisor to the Wallenberg Foundations in Sweden and is on the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation in the US.
He has served as both Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Sweden. Subsequently he served in international functions with the EU and UN, primarily related to the conflicts in the Balkans. He was Co-Chairman of the Dayton peace talks on Bosnia and become the first
MATTHEW KIRK
Matthew Kirk was the inaugural Chairman of the Aurora Forum on the UK side.
Matthew has been International Affairs Advisor at the law firm Squire Patton Boggs since 2018, providing advice on geo-political risk, and data, artificial intelligence and cyber developments.
Prior to that, he spent more than a decade at Vodafone Group, and as a member of the Group Executive Committee led Vodafone’s external affairs globally. Before Vodafone, he was a British diplomat, and served as HM Ambassador to Finland from 2002-2006.
Matthew Kirk has also supported various academic institutions, including the Advisory Boards of Bath University School of Management and Royal Holloway College CyberSecurity Institute, and as Chairman of the Governors of Downe House School. He is a member of the Königswinter Council.
Amber Rudd
Rt Hon Amber Rudd
After a career in business Amber Rudd became the Member of Parliament for Hastings and Rye from 2010 to 2019.
She held three cabinet roles over 4 years and under 3 Prime Ministers, first in Energy & Climate Change, then the Home Office as Home Secretary and until September 2019 in Work and Pensions.
Amber was appointed Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in 2015 and led the UK team to the successful completion of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. This UN sponsored Conference of the Parties (COP 21) achieved the first ever legally binding global commitment to reduce national carbon emissions.
From July 2016 to April 2018, Amber served as Home Secretary. During 2017, Amber responded to the succession of terrorist attacks, calling for an international response to take radicalising material off the internet. That was achieved and endures as the Global Internet Forum for Counter Terrorism https://gifct.org/
From November 2018 to September 2019, Amber served as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. She has also served as Minister for Women and Equalities.
Since leaving Government at the end of 2019 Amber has taken up roles in cyber security, in the energy transition sector and around women’s empowerment.
She has become a Trustee for The Climate Group (www.theclimategroup.com) working with businesses and Government to promote tangible climate action.
She chairs the International Advisory Group for Equinor (www.equinor.com), the Norwegian energy transition company.
She is a Senior Advisor to www.darktrace.com
She is a trustee of RUSI https://rusi.org/ The Royal United Services Institute.
She holds other roles focused around energy, women and security and is a regular contributor to
media and on international discussion panels on these topics.
On Jan 10th 2022 she became a Non-Executive Director of Centrica Plc, an energy and services company in the UK.
ANDERS ENGSTRAND
Elisabeth braw
Magnus Schöldtz
Magnus is Senior Advisor at the Wallenberg Foundations AB, and a former Ambassador at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. He has served in various diplomatic functions in relation to EU and NATO and the Middle East.
Ambassador Schöldtz also held positions within United Nations in Lebanon and Somalia, and the Swedish Armed Forces Headquarters.
He is Senior Advisor to Mr. Jacob Wallenberg, Chairman of Investor AB; Mr. Marcus Wallenberg, Chairman of SEB, Saab AB, and FAM and to Mr. Peter Wallenberg Jr. the Chairman of Wallenberg Foundations AB, as well as to several companies in the Wallenberg sphere.
He is associated with the Brookings Institution International Advisory Council, and a Member of the Trilateral Commission European Executive Board.
Magnus Schöldtz is a Stanford Executive Program Alumni (2015), a graduate of Lund University in Philosophy, History, Political Science, Economics and Oriental Studies, and a Reserve Officer (Captain) in the Swedish Army.
sir john grant
John Grant is a former British diplomat (1976 – 2007). His final postings were as Ambassador to Sweden (1999 – 2003) and as Permanent Representative to the EU (2003 -2007) when, in 2005, he chaired the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER) during what was the last UK Presidency of the EU.
He left the Diplomatic Service in 2007 and worked successively for BHP Billiton (2007 – 2008), the world’s largest mining company;
BG Group (2009 – 2015), a British oil and gas company, where he was a member of the Executive Committee; and Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (2015 – 2019).
claus grube
A Danish Diplomat, Claus has been in the forefront of EU-policy making for the past 30 years. As a Senior Diplomat Claus has been involved in the creation of the Single Market, the enlargement of the EU in 2004, the creation of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), EU’s reconstruction of the Balkans, as well as the negotiations of EU’s Maastricht, Amsterdam and Lisbon Treaties.
During his career Claus has held various senior foreign affairs roles in the Danish Government. He also presided over the Ambassadors Group COREPER during the Danish Presidency of the EU in 2002 and was closely involved in the handling of the Financial crisis in 2008-2009 and the Lisbon Treaty negotiations.
His last diplomatic posting was as Denmark’s Ambassador to the UK.
After 45 years in the public sector, Claus is currently Senior Advisor to Flint Global Ltd and Seafarms Group Holding Ltd. He is also Senior Fellow at Axcel Future, Copenhagen and is an independent advisor to the Danish Parliament’s Committee for European Affairs.
In 2017 Claus was appointed Chamberlain to the Court of Her Majesty the Queen of Denmark and honoured as Freeman of the City of London.
STephanie ashton
Stephanie is the founder and Executive Director of the Aurora Forum.
She is also the Managing Partner of Ashton Munro Consultancy, a company she co-founded with her sister Claudia Munro Kerr in 2005.
Stephanie brings many years expertise in establishing and managing high-level bilateral conferences between the UK and other countries (including Germany, Spain, Turkey, Brazil and Italy). She is also the Executive Director of both the British-German Königswinter and the British-Spanish Tertulias.
Separately, Stephanie is an Associate Director of Brennan & Partners.
andrew walton
Andrew has worked for Saab, a full spectrum defence and security company, since 2013, as the company has expanded its presence and operations in the UK. He is currently leading Saab’s UK Group Strategy, responsible for growing the company’s presence and position in the UK to become a major contributor to British defence capability as well as a significant defence exporter from the UK. He is a Board member of Saab Technologies UK Ltd. Previously, he was Head of Strategic Marketing for Saab in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Separately, he worked for one of the Big 4 professional services firms in London, in corporate finance and consulting, before moving to Saab on a full time basis.
He sits on the Aurora Forum Steering Committee, a forum bringing together leading politicians, officials, industrialists and academics from the UK and the Nordic & Baltic countries to consider current and enduring geopolitical issues.
In an earlier career, he served in the Royal Air Force as a fighter pilot, rising to 2* level with operational, command, management and budgetary responsibilities in the UK and abroad.
IDAR KREUTZER
Idar is CEO of Finans Norge. He was CEO of Storebrand from 2000 to 2012. Kreutzer has held a number of different board positions, and is currently chairman of the board of Aschehoug Forlag and board member at the University of Oslo. He is a member of the Norwegian Business School’s Advisory Board. In October 2018, Kreutzer submitted his report on access to risk capital in the Nordic region, on behalf of the Nordic Council of Ministers. From June 2015 to October 2016, he chaired the Government’s expert committee on green competitiveness, and he is a member of the Climate and Environment Minister’s Climate Council.
