PANELISTS & ROUNDTABLE MODERATORS*
Arranged in alphabetical order
Ragnheiður Elín Árnadóttir
Director
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
Dale A. MARTIN
Chair of the Panel
President of EELISA
fmr. President & CEO of Siemens Hungary
Rafael Schvartzman
Regional Vice President Europe
International Air Transport Association (IATA)
Laszlo ANDOR
Secretary General
FEPS
László Andor is Secretary General of FEPS (Foundation for European Progressive Studies, Brussels).
He was EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (2010-14), and subsequently Head of Department of Economic Policy at Corvinus University (Budapest).
From 2005 until 2010, he was a Member of the Board of Directors of the EBRD (London), representing the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary and Slovakia.
He has also been lecturing at Hertie School (Berlin), ULB (Brussels) and Sciences Po (Paris) and is member in various think tanks (EPC, RAND Europe, Friends of Europe).
Laszlo holds a Master degree of the Corvinus University (Budapest) and a PhD in Economic Policy of the Academy of Science of Hungary.
He is Doctor Honoris Causa at Sofia University of National and World Economy and was awarded the Legion of Honour by the French President in 2014
Ragnheiður Elín ÁRNADÓTTIR
Director
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
Ragnheiður Elín Árnadóttir has been the Director of OECD Development Centre since 16 August 2021.
Ms. Árnadóttir served as Minister of Industry and Commerce in Iceland from 2013-2017 and was an elected Member of Parliament for the Independence Party from 2007-2016.
Before being elected to Parliament, she was successively a political advisor to the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister. She also worked for the Trade Council of Iceland both in New York and in Reykjavík.
A nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council's Global Energy Centre, she is also a Board member of RÚV (Icelandic National Broadcasting Company) and of the American-Icelandic Chamber of Commerce. She was the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Duty Free Iceland, and a member of the Board of Directors of Landsvirkjun (national power company).
Ms. Árnadóttir has a Master’s Degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Sciences from the University of Iceland. She attended the Georgetown Leadership Seminar in 2007, by invitation.
Jaime Artola
Global Head of Structured Finance
Managing Director
BBVA Investment Banking and Finance
20 years of investment banking experience.
Since 2019 Jaime heads the Structured Finance team of BBVA, responsible for the Project Finance, Asset based lending and Structured Trade Finance activities of the bank Globally.
Jaime joined BBVA in 2011 working in the M&A team in Madrid. He headed the Energy and TMT sectors, before taking responsibility of the M&A team for EMEA where he was responsible for origination and execution of transactions in all sectors.
Prior to joining BBVA, Jaime worked 8 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in Madrid were he was Senior manager of the Corporate Finance team advising clients in M&A and Debt Advisory processes.
Jaime holds a Degree in Business Administration with major in finance, by CUNEF (Colegio Universitario de Estudios Fianancieros, Complutense University) in Madrid and is a certificated European Investment Practicioner (EIP) by EFPA
Fitzgerald Cantero Piali
Director
Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining Uruguay
National Director of Energy at the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining.
Bachelor of Political Science
Postgraduate Diploma in Political Science
Master in Administration and Advanced Project Management
Expert in Political and Institutional Communication
Postgraduate in Marketing Management.
In the public sphere, he has been departmental mayor, deputy and director of the State Insurance Bank.
Martina KOEDERITZ
Member of the Supervisory Board
Robert Bosch Group
From April 2019 to December 2020 Martina Koederitz led the Industrial US market of IBM Group. Before this position she was IBM Global Industry Managing Director, Industrial and Automotive. From April 2013 to January 2018 she was General Manager of IBM Germany, Austria and Switzerland and thus responsible for the DACH region. Previously, she was member of the board and Vice President Sales IBM Germany and since 2011 General Manager of IBM.
From 2009 to 2010, Martina worked as Vice President General Business & Channel, IMT Germany, which comprises hardware, software and services solutions and the collaboration with business partners. Before, she filled the position of Vice President IBM Systems and Technology Group (STG) in IMT Germany.
Martina Koederitz started her career at IBM in 1987 as system consultant and was appointed to Sales Manager in Financial Services Sector after holding several positions in systems consultancy and sales management within IBM. Since 1999, she held the position of Business Unit Executive and was responsible for the sales organization of the cooperative financial services network. In 2003, Martina Koederitz was appointed to Vice President of IBM zSeries Sales EMEA and since 2006 she worked as Vice President of System z Sales in Germany. After that, she worked as a Client Advocacy Executive in the office of then IBM CEO Sam Palmisano in Armonk, New York.
Martina holds a degree in Business Administration (BA). She was member of the Innogy supervisory board from 2016-2019, additionally she is member of the Robert Bosch GmbH supervisory board since April 2019. During her time as General Manager of IBM Germany, Austria and Switzerland she was member in numerous organisation, including the Steering Committee of the German Industry association (BDI) and the IT association BITKOM. In September 2015 she was honored with the Mestemacher Award Manager of the Year.
Irmela KOFLER
Area Manager Low carbon energy systems
K1-MET
Irmela Kofler leads projects in Research Area 3 on Low Carbon Energy Systems (Hydrogen based steelmaking, CO2 utilization, energy efficiency) at the metallurgical competence center K1-MET.
After her technical chemistry degree at the Graz University of Technology with focus on process engineering she did her PhD in synthetic biofuels.
Her experience in metallurgical and energy recovery topics she got during her work as process engineer at Primetals Technologies Austria (former Siemens VAI).
Alexander KUCHAR
Director Technology and Business Evolution
A1 Group
Alexander Kuchar has 20 years’ experience in the Telecommunication Industry, including more than 15 years of various director’s level positions within A1 Austria and A1 Group. His passion is the technical area and he has devoted his career primarily in this field.
After 7 years being on the procurement side of IT and Telco business, in 2018 he returned to his main focus and is now spearheading the technical advances and synergies of Telekom Austria Groups Network and IT in all 7 countries of A1 Group – Austria, Bulgaria, Belarus, Croatia, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia.
One of Mr. Kuchar’s key strengths is understanding the fundamental needs of the local markets and their customers and the capability to generate out of strategic needs executable actions. All of these - paired with the deep empathy for individuals and their needs in a complex and transforming multi-country corporate. He is well familiar with the development of the Bulgarian technology market as well, as he has been member of the Management board of the company as a CTO in Bulgaria a few years ago.
Alexander Kuchar is lately driving the introduction of 5G and A1’s new Xplore TV platform across the A1 markets as well as advancing the Cloud strategy in A1 Group. He serves as a board member of Exoscale, A1’s own Cloud IaaS player. In the last year Alexander Kuchar is investing a lot of his efforts into pushing the transformation of A1 Group’s operating model through the means of digitalization.
Frederique LIAIGRE
President
Verizon France
As part of Verizon Global Enterprises, Frédérique Liaigre is Managing Director for South EMEA, with responsibility for sales in France, Italy and Spain. She helps the largest enterprises in those 3 countries to solve their technology challenges. She also acts as President of the French subsidiary of Verizon.
She’s been involved in telecoms & IT since 1992, working with some of the world's biggest brands: Orange, AirTouch, Vodafone, SFR and ADP. She also has a strong experience of integration, convergence and Internet of Things.
As a French, English & German speaker, she loves being able to offer the best of both worlds to the organizations she works with: worldwide technological solutions delivered by one of the largest global players with local facing interfaces.
Frédérique is reporting to Sanjiv Gossain, Vice President EMEA Sales.
She is based in Paris.
Dale A. MARTIN
Chair of the Panel
President of EELISA
fmr. President & CEO of Siemens Hungary
Dale A. Martin is a business leader of Austro-Hungarian background. His career has been defined by Central Europe and East Asia, Vienna-Bratislava-Budapest and Taipei-Hong Kong-Tokyo respectively.
Mr. Martin headed Siemens Hungary, with a workforce of 3,500 in the country, as President and CEO until 2021. Between 2013-2019 he was elected President of the German-Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. From 2021 he has been the elected President of the ’European Engineering Learning Innovation and Science Alliance’ (EELISA), an alliance of nine European universities, which is part of the European Universities Initiative. He has received several state honours for the promotion of innovation, education and bilateral cooperation.
He speaks German, English, Hungarian and is proficient in French and Mandarin.
Alvaro MARTINEZ
Regional CEO Western Europe, Middle East & Africa and Latin America
GEA
Alvaro Martínez is a global leader with more than 25 years of experience in highly complex corporate environments and has extensive experience in the field of process technologies for the food production industries.
Alvaro is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GEA Group for the Western Europe, Middle East, Africa and Latin America regions; he is a member of the group's Global Executive Committee and President of the company in Spain and Portugal.
Customer focused and results oriented. With strong business leadership and change management skills, Alvaro is a high-energy executive with credentials in the effective leadership of multiple functional areas, in different cultural environments and in the recruitment, development and management of high-performance teams.
Alvaro holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) with postgraduate programs at IESE Business School in Barcelona and IMD in Geneva, Switzerland.
GEA is one of the world’s largest systems suppliers for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical sectors.
Johanna MIKL-LEITNER
Governor of Lower Austria
Austrian Government
Mrs. Mikl-Leitner was appointed Governor of Lower Austria in April 2017.
She has a long career in the politics as Member of the Austrian People´s Party. Starting work at the Confederation of Austrian Industries followed by a Deputy Managing Director Position in Signum-Verlag, a publishing house specialising in economic and political publications, and after diverse stations in the regional politics she was Member of the National Council between 1998-2003. In 2003 she entered the Government of Lower Austria being responsible for Social Affairs, EU Regional Policy, Labour and Family Affairs.
In 2008 she was appointed Deputy Federal Chairperson of the Austrian People’s Party and Vice-President of the Assembly of European Regions which positions she has hold till 2011.
Between 2001-2016 Mrs. Mikl-Leitner served Austria as Federal Minister of the Interior and as Federal Chairwoman of the Austrian Federation of Employees (ÖAAB)
Mrs. Mikl-Leitner returned to Lower Austria in 2016 as Deputy Governor of Lower Austria and as Chairwoman of the Lower Austrian People’s Party
She holds a Bachelor of Commercial college at Laa an der Thaya and a Master degree in social science and economics from the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration.
Mrs. Mikl-Leitner is married and mother of two children.
Günther OFNER
Member of the Management Board
Vienna Airport
Günther Ofner was appointed as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of ÖBAG in July 2022.
He has held board positions in listed and not listed companies for many years. He has gained extensive leadership skills in the areas of energy, telecommunications, real estate development, infrastructure, logistics and finance. Currently he is member of the Executive Board of Vienna Airport.
In addition, he has many years of experiences as Supervisory Board Member. He is Member of the Board of Directors of HYPO NÖ Landesbank (Chairman) , Vienna Insurance Group (dep. Chairman) and Austro Control (depends. Chairman)
Karoly PATAKI
Founder & CEO
Gravitas
Karoly Pataki is Founder and CEO of Gravitas, the CEO Advisory and Sparring Partner Firm, based in Vienna Austria.
He has a long career in the industry sector starting with Robert Bosch in Hungary as CFO in 1992 then Dunapack Group in Hungary as deputy Managing Director in 1997 followed by various senior positions in the paper and packaging industry. From 1998 to 2000 he hold the position of General Manager of Eurobox in Poland and from 2000 to 2002 he was a Member of the Board of Rodina Bulgaria. He has also held advisory and supervisory board mandates in packing firms in Rumania, the Ukraine and Austria.
From 2004 to 2008, he was CFO of the european leading paper and packaging group, Prinzhorn Holding, and subsequently until 2012, Member of the Board of Dunapack Packaging.
In 2012, Karoly Pataki moved to the human resources services sector and became responsible for the CEE and SEE region as a Member of the Board of the Trenkwalder Group. From 2013, he headed the Trenkwalder Group as CEO and Chairman of the Board.
In February 2017, Karoly Pataki received for his economic and social merits from Federal President Alexander van der Bellen, the Grand Decoration of Honour in Silver for Services to the Republic of Austria.
Karoly grew up in Hungary, Italy and Germany. He concluded his studies in economics in Berlin in 1990 with a Master degree in international economics, followed by postgraduate studies in Mexico City in CIDE. He also holds an MBA from the University of Technology and Business in Budapest.
Karoly Pataki is Member of Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs) in London and Member of the Senate of Economy in Vienna.
Josef RATH
Senior Vice President Fuels, Petrochemicals and Sales
OMV
Dr. Rath has over 20 years of experience, knowledge and network across the entire petrochemical, plastics and fuel industry through heading fuel and petrochemical sales to international oil- and petrochemical companies for entire OMV/Petrom group
OMV Downstream, SVP Fuels, Petrochemicals Ans Sales 2020-
OMV Refining an Marketing: VP Petrochemicals and Special Product Sales 2015-2020
OMV Refining and Marketing: Head of International Supply, Pricing and Fuel Sales 2011-2015
OMV AG: Corporate Head Office 2003-2011
OMV Refinery Schwechat: Junior Expert Controlling Refinery Process Optimization 1999-2003
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