CFG's Velislava Petrova appointed Bulgarian foreign minister

BRUSSELS – Dr Velislava Petrova, Chief Programme Officer at the Centre for Future Generations, has been appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in the new Bulgarian government.

The new government’s priorities include deep institutional reforms to improve the investment climate and a structural shift of the economy from low-cost labour towards knowledge, high technology, and exportable innovation.

Thomas Lingard, CEO of the Centre for Future Generations, said:

“Foreign policy is technology policy now. Whether it’s AI governance at the G7, semiconductor export controls, or the EU negotiating digital partnerships with third countries, the questions landing on a foreign minister’s desk increasingly require the kind of deep technical understanding that Veli spent years developing. The Centre for Future Generations was established to help policymakers anticipate and govern rapid technological change. The appointment of CFG colleagues to political office is perhaps the greatest possible endorsement of our work.”

At CFG, Dr Petrova led programme strategy across advanced AI, biotech, climate interventions, and neurotechnology — building the kind of research operation that connects deep technical analysis to actionable governance. Her work helped establish CFG’s approach to anticipatory governance: the principle that effective technology policy means getting ahead of emerging risks before they become entrenched.

Dr Petrova onstage for CFG at the 2025 Copenhagen Democracy Summit. Photo by Alliance of Democracies

Petrova is the second CFG alumnus to move into government in the space of a year. Jorge Miguel Teixeira, a former CFG staffer who worked on AI governance, was elected to the Portuguese Assembly in 2025 as a member of Iniciativa Liberal. He now serves on the Committees on European Affairs and on Environment and Energy.

For an organisation that has been operational for less than three years, two moves from Brussels policy research into European governments is something CFG is very proud of.

It also says something about where the demand is. Technology governance no longer sits neatly inside a digital ministry or a single committee. As CFG has recently argued, the questions Europe faces around AI, digital sovereignty, and frontier technologies now cut across trade, diplomacy, defence, and foreign affairs in ways that require technically literate people throughout government — not only in the departments with “digital” in the name. The pipeline between policy research and government is not a one-way compliment to the organisations people leave. It is evidence that the skills being developed in places like CFG are the skills that governments now recognise they need.

—ENDS—