• Prof. Dr. István Stumpf

    Chair of the Board of Trustees

    István Stumpf is a constitutional lawyer, political scientist, sociologist, and university professor, candidate of political sciences, holder of the Median Cross, the Hungarian Order of Merit and the Deák Ferenc Award. He currently serves as a member of the Prime Minister's Strategic Advisory Council. Previously, he served as a Justice at the Constitutional Court of Hungary from 2010 to 2019. Additionally, he held the role of Deputy Prime Minister leading the Prime Minister’s Office from 1998 to 2002. Between 2021 and 2022, he worked as a government commissioner responsible for coordinating the model change of universities. His academic journey began in 1982 when he founded and directed the István Bibó College of Social Sciences until 1988. In 1991, he established the Századvég School of Politics, which he led for nearly two decades. Currently, he teaches at the Department of Constitutional Law and Political Science at Széchenyi István University, the Deák Ferenc Faculty of Law and Political Science, and at the Doctoral School of the Faculty of Law and Political Science at Eötvös Loránd University. Additionally, he is an Emeritus Research Professor at the John Lukács Institute at the National University of Public Service. As an accomplished author and editor, he has published numerous papers and edited volumes on topics such as political socialization, political parties, electoral systems, constitutionalism and governmental policies, power sharing, the rule of law, and constitutional identity.

  • E. Sylvester Vizi

    Member of the Board of Trustees

    E. Sylvester Vizi is chairman of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. He is a medical doctor, neuroscientist, pharmacologist, university lecturer, professor emeritus, and a full member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA). He was awarded the Széchenyi Grand Prize by the State of Hungary. He is an internationally recognised researcher in pharmacology and neuroscience and has been a lecturer at Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York, USA. From 1996 to 2002, Professor Vizi was the vice-president of the MTA and president from 2002 to 2008. He is currently Chairman of the Society for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge (TIT), Chairman of the Board of the Hungarian Corvin Chain, as well as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Blue Planet Climate Protection Foundation (Kék Bolygó Klímavédelmi Alapítvány) and Honorary President of the Hungarian Atlantic Council since 2020. He has authored and/or co-authored over 450 scientific articles and several books. Professor Vizi is well known for his significant scientific educational activities.

  • Dr. Árpád Kovács

    Member of the Board of Trustees

    Árpád Kovács is an engineer-economist, academic. He began his career as a designer engineer in 1971 and later his work related to the ministerial supervision of the companies of the Ministry of Transport. Subsequently he worked in the construction, transport and postal department of the government audit. In 1989, he studied at the US Government Accountability Office. From 1990, he was one of the technical directors of the newly formed Hungarian State Audit Office. In 1996, he became the President of the Board of Directors of the State Privatization and Holding organization. In 1997 he was elected Chairman of the State Audit Office of Hungary, a role he occupied until the end of 2009. For three years since 2004, he was the Chairman of the World Organization Audit Office and the INTOSAI Governing Board. Between 2010 to 2012, he worked with state community property management, and he is currently a board member of the National Organization of Asset Management, Hungarian Electricity Ltd., a Chairman of the Budapest Transport, as well as the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Urban Management holding companies. Since 2012 he has been the chairman of the Fiscal Council of Hungary and from 2024, he serves as a member of the Prime Minister's Strategic Advisory Council. From 2009 he has been a professor at the University of Szeged and holds honorary doctorates from several universities. In 2018 he was elected Professor Emeritus. Since 2008 Professor Kovács has been the president of the Hungarian Economic Association, from 2017 its perpetual honorary president. He is president of several organizations and foundations, chairman of supervisory boards. His work was recognized with the Commander's Cross with a Star of the Hungarian Order of Merit.

  • Enikő Győri

    Member of the Board of Trustees

    Enikő Győri graduated from the Department of International Relations at the Budapest University of Economics (today Corvinus University) and has a doctorate in international relations. She was Hungary’s Ambassador in Rome between 1999 and 2003, and in Madrid between 2014 and 2019. In 2009, she was elected member of the European Parliament. Between 2010 and 2014, chosen as State Secretary responsible for EU affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she was instrumental in making a success of the first Hungarian EU Presidency in 2011. Enikő Győri has been a member of the European Parliament since 2019, she was re-elected as an MEP in 2024. In the European Parliament she is the coordinator of Fidesz’s expert work, she mostly deals with economic and trade issues. Ms. Győri is also a lecturer and researcher at the National University of Public Service (NKE), while also serves as the President of the Hungarian Civic Cooperation Association (MPEE). She is a member of the supervisory board of the Hungarian Institute of Foreign Affairs and the board of trustees of the Friends of Hungary Foundation. She is married, a mother of two children.

  • Károly Kocsis

    Member of the Board of Trustees

    Geographer, research professor, university professor, full member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA). Focus of his activities in scientific (ethnic geographic, cartographic) research and policy are the Hungarians in the Carpathian basin and the Hungarian diaspora. Since 2010, director of the CSFK Geographical Institute (earlier of the HAS Geographical Institute), since 2012 professor of the MFK Institute of Geophysics and Geoinformatics of the University of Miskolc, director of same since 2007. Chair of the MTA national policy apparatus, the Hungarian Science Abroad Presidential Committee since 2011. Chief editor of the Hungarian National Atlas, head of the editorial committee. Owner of the Officer's Cross of the Hungarian order of Merit (2014) and Széchenyi Prize (2023) . Honorary member of several domestic and foreign scientific associations.

  • István Fodor

    Member of the Board of Trustees

    He is an Széchenyi, Puskás Tivadar and Gábor Dénes Prize-winning electrical engineer. He established the Ericsson Company’s Hungarian subsidiary in 1991, and was CEO of the subsidiary until 2002, and then Chairman of the Board until 2008. Between 1998 and 2000, he was the Chairman of the Hungarian Section of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE). Besides being one of the founders and former president of the Hungarian EU Enlargement Business Council (HEBC), between 2004-2007, he was a member of the European Research Advisory Board. He was a member of the four-member Council of Sages, constituted by the former President of Hungary, László Sólyom. He is a member of the Semmelweis University Economic Council and a member of the Eötvös Lóránd University Economic Council. From 2010 to October 2012 he served as a Chairman of the Board of Directors of Urban Management Centre of Budapest. Minister Counsellor from 2018-2022. Co-founder of the Széll Kálmán Foundation, Chairman of the Board of Trustees 2005-2011. He was awarded the Manager of the Year Prize in 1998, and the Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic Median Cross. He is an “honorary citizen” of Óbuda. István Fodor is a member of the Friends of Hungary Foundation’s Board of Trustees.

  • János Martonyi

    Member of the Board of Trustees

    University professor, politician, attorney, international arbitrator, author of numerous books, essays and articles primarily in the field of international trade law, competition policy and law, European integration and law, cooperation in Central-Europe, global regulations, and international relations. Doctor of Law and Political Sciences (1967). He has been a teaching at the ELTE Faculty of Law since 1987, at the Central European University in 1996. From 1990 to 1991 he was Administrative State Secretary at the Ministry for International Economic Relations, while from December 1991 to June 1994 Administrative State Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Brugge and Natolin between 1994 and 1998. Between 2000 and 2009 he was Head of Department at Szeged University of Sciences, Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, Department of Private International Law. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary between 1998-2002 and 2010-2014. He is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of Szeged.