Prof. Daniela Schwarzer is the Open Society Foundations’ executive director for Europe and Eurasia.

Schwarzer is a renowned expert in European affairs and international relations. From 2016-2021, she served as director and CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations, where she steered the organization’s strategic repositioning and modernization and advised the EU Commission and national governments on European affairs. She is an honorary professor of political science at Freie Universität Berlin and a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center.

Prior to leading the German Council on Foreign Relations, Schwarzer was a member of the executive team of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, where she served as its senior director of research, as well as heading its Berlin office and Europe program from 2013 to 2016. Schwarzer also spent eight years at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, where she led the European integration department from 2008 to 2013.