Daniela Schwarzer is Executive Director of the Open Society Foundations in Europe and Central Asia. She is an honorary professor of political science at Freie Universität Berlin and became a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center in 2020.
Schwarzer is a renowned expert in European affairs and transatlantic and international relations. Her research interests include European, German and French foreign policy, geoeconomics, democratic resilience and question of legitimate governance in an interconnected and polarized world and economic governance of the euro area. She was a special advisor to European leaders such as EU High Representative Josep Borrell and to countries including Poland and France during the preparation of their EU Council presidencies.
Prior to joining Open Society, Schwarzer was director and CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations. Before this, she served on the executive team of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Prior to working at the fund, Schwarzer lead the research department on Europe at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). She has also worked as an opinion page editor and France correspondent for the Financial Times Deutschland.
Schwarzer has held positions as a lecturer, researcher and academic fellow at institutions including at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the Freie Universität Berlin, and the Hertie School of Governance.
She serves as non-executive board member of BNP Paribas and Covivio, the Jacques Delors Institute and the German Council on Foreign Relations and is a member of the advisory council of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
