The Executive Board
Benjamin Bilski – Executive Director
Benjamin Bilski is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Pericles Foundation. He is an experienced researcher, author, editor and lecturer in political and legal philosophy, international law and strategic studies. Benjamin grew up in the Netherlands and attended a classical grammar school, where he co-founded an international student conference. He studied in the United States, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. He holds a B.Sc. in Philosophy and Biochemistry from Brandeis University and an M.Sc. in the Philosophy and History of Science from the London School of Economics. At the University of Leiden Law Faculty he taught seminars on Plato, Machiavelli, Tocqueville, Leo Strauss, Hugo Grotius, and Thucydides.
Benjamin has co-authored five books, including Breakthrough: from Innovation to Impact (2014, 2016) with The Owls Foundation in the Netherlands, which brought together case studies of innovation and breakthrough processes in areas of diplomacy, technology, business, health care and philanthropy. With five former Chiefs of Defence, he co-authored Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World (2008) that influenced the new NATO Strategic Concept (2010) and the EU Global Strategy (2016). Benjamin has also published on Machiavelli and Plato.
Besides overseeing the Pericles programmes, he is currently working on a book on the history of the laws of armed conflict in the context of modern strategic change. Benjamin is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the Young Atlanticist Working Group of the Atlantic Council, and the Royal Dutch Marksman Association.
Reema Kumari Jadeja – Deputy Director
Reema Kumari Jadeja is the Deputy Director and co-founder of the Pericles Foundation. Reema was born in the UK and partly raised in India. After completing a first degree in commerce, specialising in international trade and marketing, she began her Track II diplomatic work with rural development projects in the subcontinent. Her work now incorporates a multi-disciplinary approach to Track II, encompassing academia, philanthropy and journalism.
Reema holds a Master’s degree in strategic and defence studies. She is a Fellow at UCL’s Institute for Security and Resilience Studies (ISRS) and is an active member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). Reema has worked extensively with philanthropic organisations, notably the UK Asian Foundation for Philanthropy and CSR programmes. Past partners have included Ernst & Young, Lloyd’s Bank, KPMG and Reed Smith. Reema serves as an adviser to a number of charities. She has focused on the use of sports as a development tool and has been the convenor of an international working group looking at UN peacekeeping in a legal context.
As a journalist, Reema began her career contributing to Rolling Stone Magazine and went on to become the main features writer and co-editor of the MOBO Awards website and a member of its core awards production team. Since 2010, Reema has been involved with the global music movement Songs From a Room (Sofar) serving as a core adviser and co-ordinator.
Reema has played cricket at inter-State level and has been a practitioner of martial arts for two decades. She is a life member of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH).