Speaker Biographies

Keynote Speakers

Speakers

Moderators

Neelie Kroes

Vice President and EU Commmisioner for Digital Agenda, European Commission (video presentation)

Neelie Kroes is currently Vice President of the European Commission and European Digital Agenda Commissioner. She was born 1941 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, where she also attended school and helped to build her family’s transport business. She studied economics at Erasmus University, before working there for six years as an Assistant Professor. Her political career started on the Rotterdam Municipal Council, and in 1971 she was elected as a Member of the Dutch Parliament for the liberal VVD party. From 1982-1989 she served as Minister for Transport, Public Works and Telecommunication in the Netherlands. After politics she was appointed President of Nyenrode University from 1991-2000, and served on various company boards, including Lucent Technologies, Volvo, P&O Nedlloyd. Prior to serving as European Commissioner for Competition from 2004-2009, her charity work included advising the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and World Cancer Research Fund, and she has an ongoing interest in mental health issues.

Ivailo Kalfin MEP

European Parliament

Ivailo Kalfin is a Member of the European Parliament from the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D). He is the head of the Bulgarian delegation in the S&D Group, and works in the Committee on Budgets (of which he is the S&D Coordinator), the Committees on Budgetary Control and the one on Industry, Research and Energy. He is currently the co-rapporteur on the MFF 2014-2020.

Within the Industry committee, Mr. Kalfin was the Parliament rapporteur on Critical Information Infrastructure Protection – achievements and next steps: towards global cyber-security (2011/2284(INI)) and on the proposal for a directive amending Directive 2003/98/EC on re-use of public sector information (2011/0430(COD)). He was also the S&D shadow rapporteur for Digital Agenda and Broadband.

Mr. Kalfin holds Bachelor and Master degrees in International Economic Relations from the University of National and World Economy, Sofia (1988) and Master in International Banking from the Loughborough University, UK (1999). He holds a honorary doctorate of the Loughborough University, UK. Since 2001 he has been Principal Lecturer on the BA course in International Finance and Trade at Portsmouth University, UK

Mr. Kalfin was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria (2005 - 2009). He was elected MP in the 37th, 38th and 40th National Assemblies and was a member of the Budget and Finance Committee and the Foreign Policy Committee (1995-1997, 2000-2001 and in 2005). Ivailo Kalfin was Economic Affairs Secretary to the President of the Republic of Bulgaria (2002-2005). He run as candidate for President of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) at the Presidential Elections in October 2011.

Mr. Kalfin is also member of the European Internet Foundation and sits in the Steering Committee of the European Parliamentary Financial Services Forum.

Thibaut Kleiner

Advisor to Vice-President Kroes, European Commission

Thibaut Kleiner is Advisor to Vice-President Neelie Kroes, where he is in charge of Internet policies at large (Net futures, Internet of Things, Cloud Computing, Startup Europe, Media & Data, Better Internet for Children, Internet Governance, Cybersecurity, e-ID, Data protection and e-privacy). He has worked for the European Commission since 2001, occupying a number of positions, notably in the field of competition policy, where he was head of unit in charge of coordination, and member of Cabinet of Neelie Kroes in her previous mandate, where he notably supervised state aid (including during the banking crisis). An economist by training, he holds a Master from HEC Paris and a PhD from the London School of Economics.

Richard Szostak

Member of Cabinet of Vice-President Reding, European Commission

Richard Szostak is a member of the private office of Viviane Reding, the Vice-President of the European Commission. He is responsible for Data Protection, External Relations in the field of Justice notably EU-US Relations and Anti-Drugs Policy. Previously he worked on Justice and Home Affairs issues and the External Relations of the Union as an administrator in the Secretariat of the Council of the EU. During the Polish Presidency of the EU he acted as the legal advisor to the Permanent Representative.

Marta Nagy-Rothengass

Head of Unit, , DG CONNECT, European Commission

Márta has broad working experience Europe wide in business and public environment. She dealt with initiation and transaction of trade agreements, taught Business Studies, managed social association and did consultancy work. She gathered her interest on ICT while establishing "New Media" by a traditional German manufacturing company.

In 2005 Márta joined the EC as the Head of Unit of "ICT for the Environment" in DG INFSO and developed her Unit further to "ICT for Sustainable Growth" linked to the integrated climate and energy policy. After her move to Luxembourg in 2008 she served as Head of Unit "Technologies for Information Management" with focus on research and development funding of innovative ICT technologies supporting the creation of intelligent digital objects and knowledge management, later on the efficient management of extremely large scale data including Open Data. Since July 2012 she is in charge of the Data Value Chain Unit and builds up on a strategy to extract the maximum value from data by building on the intelligent use of data sources across the European Union and beyond.

Christian Morales

Vice President and General Manager for EMEA, Intel

Christian Morales is corporate vice president and general manager of Intel Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). He is responsible for Intel product sales and marketing in the EMEA region.

Morales has held senior international management roles in sales, channel operations and general management. He brings extensive experience in marketing and building brand awareness for new product segments, as well as a strong background in expanding and driving Intel's business into new and emerging markets.

Prior to this role, Morales was Intel's vice president of the Sales and Marketing Group and co-general manager of Asia Pacific responsible for implementing Intel's strategies in Asia. He was also responsible for championing Intel's worldwide emerging markets strategy.

Before that, he was general manager of Latin America and was instrumental in helping to establish a new regional headquarters and expand the company's regional presence throughout the continent. He joined the company in 1980 in Paris as an Intel field sales engineer and in 1983 became director for Spain and Portugal, and then moved back to Paris in senior positions to manage Western Europe channels and OEMs.

He has been based in Paris, Madrid, Sao Paulo and Hong Kong.

Morales graduated with an electrical engineering degree from the Electricity, Mechanics and Electronics Engineering School in Paris. In 1990, he completed the Young Managers Program in the MBA program at INSEAD.

John Boswell

Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, SAS

John Boswell is responsible for legal services, public policy, compliance and contract administration worldwide for SAS. In that role he leads a group of over 90 attorneys and 220 staff members globally. As a member of the SAS Executive Committee, John helps set policy for the company generally and takes the lead role in setting SAS’ positions on privacy and intellectual property.

Before joining SAS, John was President of Vista Development Corp., a software consulting company. He has also served as General Counsel and Secretary for Raima Corp., another software company. Prior to that John was in private practice.

John holds a law degree and a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of South Carolina at Columbia. He is consistently chosen as one of the best corporate attorneys in North Carolina by his peers in the North Carolina Bar Association. He is a frequent speaker in the areas of privacy and patent reform. John’s philanthropic work includes helping AIDS orphans in Africa, establishing clinics to fight cervical cancer in Haiti and building homes with Habitat for Humanity. John is married with three sons and enjoys flying airplanes and playing Ultimate Frisbee.

Wieland Holfelder

Engineering Director, Google

Dr. Wieland Holfelder joined Google in 2008 and oversees Google's engineering activities in Germany. Prior to Google, Wieland Holfelder was Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Mercedes-Benz Research and Technology North America, Inc. in Silicon Valley. Previously, he worked for ICAST Corporation and FVC.com, two Internet startup companies in the area of streaming video. As part of his Ph.D. research, Wieland worked at IBM's European Networking Center in Heidelberg, Germany and the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, CA. He holds a master’s in computer science and economics and a doctorate in computer science from the University of Mannheim, Germany.

Simon Williams

CEO, QuantumBlack

Simon is the Chief Executive and Co-Founder of QuantumBlack, a Data Science agency help our clients derive new intelligence from data (in whatever form it takes), craft strategic responses to that intelligence and help shape the capabilities required to deliver that response. We achieve this though multi-disciplined approach blending strategy, analytics and design. Simon work with some of the most interesting organisations in the world to use data to gain an edge, projects include helping a global aerospace firm improve yield in strategic R&D investment, creating bespoke analytics to underpin one of the largest civil engineering projects in Europe, a leading software firm create a new visual language for biological research, using data to inform how to design hospitals of the future and several Formula One racing teams building race strategy engines.

Prior to QuantumBlack Simon led several data-driven start-ups including SmithBayes, a spin-out from the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Formula One racing team. Simon started his career in real-time trading systems at Reuters, in London, Paris and Stockholm, and then global product management at ABN AMRO Bank in Amsterdam.

Simon lives in London with his wife, young daughter and a rather eclectic iPod. He has a keen interest in architecture, cartography and (as an Arsenal fan) a love of beautiful yet frustrating sport. He can be found on Twitter at @sg_williams or @quantumblack.

Orlando Agrippa

Director of Business Informatics, Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust

With almost a decade of experience in the delivery of Health Informatics as the Associate Director of Business Informatics - Analytics at Colchester Hospital University Foundation NHS Trust, Orlando Agrippa has worked with a wide range of healthcare, clinical, operational and corporate professionals across the National Health Service (NHS), specifically within Acute and Mental Health Trusts. He has also spent a number of years in the private sector in retail, media and product development.

Over the years Orlando has been working closely with a team of Consultant Psychiatrists, Clinical Psychologists, Therapists and other Mental Health workers as an informatics advisor on Key Performance Indicators, and most recently, transforming the delivery of intelligence to Clinical, Operational, Executive teams in Acute Trusts and Scottish Health Boards across the United Kingdom through the deployment of QlikView Business Intelligence. Working with diverse groups of professionals within the wider health economy has supported him in providing each organisation with a wealth of learning around the seamless planning, design, development and delivery of analysis and “true visibility” through QlikView.

Orlando and his team have support some of the National Health Service’s largest mergers through the provision of the workforce intelligence needed to drive forward transformation. More recently the team have been working with a number of the Big Four consultancies to deliver Intelligence, rapid deployments and transform NHS organisations though the use of QlikView BI.

Paul Suijkerbuijk

Chief Data Officer, ‘data.overheid.nl’, Dutch Ministry of the Interior

Paul Suijkerbuijk is the driving force behind data.overheid.nl., the Dutch open data portal.

In this role, over the last few years he has managed to create an unprecedented momentum in the Dutch open data community, convincing governments to open up and share their data, and optimizing the preconditions for linked open data to take off, including establishing a steady meta data set.

Paul has a technical background in physics.

Former projects of Paul are in the area of developing business architectures for customer contact. In this role Paul has been working for large companies in the Netherlands and a large group of public bodies in the Netherlands.

People working with Paul have experienced that he is able to let it work, driving on creative and innovative solutions and passion for the subject.

Jean-Claude Burgelman

Head of Unit, Relations with stakeholders (ERIAB), European Commission

Jean-Claude Burgelman joined the European Commission in 1999 as a Visiting Scientist in the Joint Research Centre (the Institute of Prospective Technological Studies - IPTS), where he became Head of the Information Society Unit in 2005. In January 2008, he joined the Bureau of European Policy Advisers (attached to the president of the EC) as adviser for innovation policy. Since 1-10-2008, he joined DG RTD, as advisor and then Head of Unit in charge of top level advisory boards like the European Research and Innovation Area Board, the Innovation for Growth Group and the European Forum for Forward Looking Activities.

Till 2000 he was full professor of communication technology policy at the Free University of Brussels, as well as director of the Centre for Studies on Media, Information and Telecommunication and involved in science and technology assessment. He has been visiting professor at the University of Antwerp, the European College of Brughes and the University of South Africa and sits on several academic journals. He chaired and the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Innovation and was a member of its Science Advisory Committee.

Jacques Bughin

Director, McKinsey & Company, Brussels Office

Dr. Jacques Bughin, Ph.D, is Director of McKinsey & Company. Since joining by end 1992, he has worked on more than 600 projects, mostly in Telecom, Media and Technology. Dr Bughin has worked for various companies in the domain of the internet. This includes a strategic analysis of the search market; deployment of e-commerce including social media features optimisation or OTT video strategy for a major audio-visual group.
He is a frequent speaker at worldwide conferences ( such as NAB, Midem, INMA, ITU, the Internet Society etc.) and has both master degree and PH..D. in economics with summa cum laude He has published many business articles , being quoted among others in the Financial Times, Forbes, or NewsWeek. His McKinsey Quarterly articles, include a.o.: “Black-Scholes meets Seinfeld ”, “Home is where the network is”, “Reversing the digital slide”; “Home is where the network is”, “A new way to measure world of mouth”, “How companies can make the most of user generated content”, “The next step in open innovation”, “How companies are marketing on-line”, “Building the web 2.0 entreprise”, “Clouds, big data, and smart assets: 10 tech-enabled trends to watch”, “How poor metrics undermine digital marketing”. He has published about 50 articles in leading international academic journals such as Management Science, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Industrial Economics, or the Journal of the European Economic Association. He has co-authored a book entitled “Managing Media Companies: Harnessing creativity” (with A. Aris), Wiley, 2010 (second edition). He is a fellow of the Aspen Institute as well as of the ECAREQ, a think-thank on economic policy in Belgium; and a fellow of the Applied Economics of the KUL University, he co-leads the McKinsey Advisory Board on media management at INSEAD.

Sergej Koperdak

Adviser - New Technologies and Social Media, DG Education and Culture, European Commission

After five years as Head of Youth Policy, Sergej Koperdak was appointed Advisor on New Technologies & Social Media to the Director-General for Education & Culture (EAC) at the beginning of 2013. This new post reflects the growing importance of technology in education, youth and culture. His responsibilities include "horizon-scanning", producing forecasts on emerging trends as they impact policy, in particular the rise of big data analytics and data-mining. Both Slovak and Canadian, Koperdak served as Legal Advisor at the EU Delegation in Bratislava prior to Slovakia's accession to the EU. A former New York-licensed attorney and LA-trained audiovisual producer, he has significant private sector experience, having represented both the software and motion picture industries throughout Central & Eastern Europe on copyright and patent issues. He graduated with distinction in political science, economics & history from Trinity College, University of Toronto, and has two law degrees from McGill University.

Max Nathan

Senior Research Fellow, NIESR, Research Fellow, London School of Economics

Max is a Senior Research Fellow at NIESR and a Research Fellow at the London School of Economics, where he is based at the Spatial Economics Research Centre (SERC). His main research interests lie in the economics of innovation, especially the micro-foundations of innovative activity, and comparative analysis of high-tech clusters and regions. He is also interested in the economics of cultural diversity, focusing on long term effects on urban economic performance, and links between migrant communities, diversity, innovation and business performance. His work has been funded by the ESRC, DCLG, NESTA, LLAKES, the UK Migration Advisory Committee, the BVCA, BT, Microsoft, Google and PWC among others.

Max has over 12 years’ experience working in think tanks, consultancy and public policy, most recently at DCLG as an ESRC-DCLG Senior Policy Adviser, covering migration, localism, regeneration and economic development issues. In 2004 Max helped set up the Centre for Cities think tank, where he ran the research programme for three years. He is now a member of the Centre’s Research Advisory Board. He is also an Associate at LSE Cities, Demos, the Centre for London and the Institute for Public Policy Research, and a Research Fellow at IZA.

Max holds a PHD in Economic Geography and Spatial Economics from LSE, an MSc in Social Policy and Planning from LSE and a BA (Hons) in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University.

Cornelis-Mario Vis

Policy Analyst, Bureau of European Policy Advisers, European Commission

Cornelis Vis (1960) holds degrees in economics and law (University of Tilburg, The Netherlands) and is specialised in the European policy domains of research, science and technology, innovation, higher education and the digital agenda, industry and internal market.
Before joining BEPA he worked at the European Commission's Directorate General for Research, initially as policy adviser on EU funding programmes in the strategy and policy unit, later on as policy coordinator in the Directorate "European Research Area; Knowledge-based economy", involved in the development of initiatives with other Directorates General, such as the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and the "European partnership for researchers".
Other previously held positions include those of deputy director
for international relations (Europe and the Russian Federation) at the Netherlands Research Council NWO, The Hague; executive director of the Netherlands house for Science and Technology (NEST), Brussels; and personal adviser to the President of the European Science Foundation (ESF), Strasbourg.

Angela Brand

Professor of Social Medicine & Public Health Genomics, Institute for Public Health Genomics (IPHG), Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University

Prof. Angela Brand, MD PhD MPH (USA) is Founding Director and Full Professor of the Institute for Public Health Genomics (IPHG) at the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences at Maastricht University, the Netherlands, as well as Dr. T.M.Pai Endowed Chair on Public Health Genomics and Adjunct Professor at the Manipal Life Sciences Centre of Manipal University, India. Before she worked in the clinics, at various academic institutions and in governmental bodies in the USA and Germany. She is Paediatrician and Specialist in Public Health Medicine, holds a PhD in pathology (Münster University, Germany) and a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University, USA. She has been the pioneer of Public Health Genomics in Europe and established successfully this field in more than 15 European Member States within the last years (www.phgen.eu). Public Health Genomics is the field within Public Health demonstrating the need for a holistic “systems thinking” and translating research from “cell to society” towards the implementation of personalised healthcare.

Gunther Grathwohl

Counsellor for telecommunications and information society, audiovisual media and postal affairs, Permanent Representation of Germany to the EU

Dr. Gunther Grathwohl, since Aug. 2012 counsellor for telecommunications and information society, audiovisual media and postal affairs at the Permanent Representation of Germany to the EU. Between 2006 and 2012 he was working for the German ministry of economics and technology, in the Division of European ICT-Policy, dealing in particular with the roaming Regulation, the review of the legal framework for electronic communication or the Digital Agenda for Europe. Gunther Grathwohl holds a PhD in International Economics and studied economics in Trier, Seville and Bamberg.

Michael May

Head of the Technology Field Business Analytics & Monitoring, Siemens Research and Technology Center

Dr. Michael May is Head of the Technology Field Business Analytics & Monitoring at Siemens Research and Technology Center, and responsible for ten research groups in Munich, Vienna, Brasov, St. Petersburg, and Princeton. Before joining Siemens in 2013, he was Head of the Knowledge Discovery Department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems in Bonn, Germany. In the last 15 years, Michael developed in cooperation with industry Data Analytics and Big Data applications in sectors ranging from telecommunication, automotive, retail, logistics to finance and advertising. Michael was responsible for a number of National and European funded research projects in the area of Data Mining, Machine Learning, and Big Data. Between 2002 and 2009 he coordinated two Data Mining Research Networks at the European level (FET-Open), and in 2012 he was responsible for a project funded by the German Ministry of Economics on the potential of Big Data for German industry. In 2005 he was local chair of the International Conference on Machine Learning ICML’05. He did his PhD on machine discovery of causal relationships at the Graduate Programme for Cognitive Science at the University of Hamburg. Michael regularly publishes on scientific conferences on topics related to Data Analytics and Big Data

John Burn-Murdoch

Data Journalist, Financial Times

John Burn-Murdoch is a data journalist at the Financial Times. His role involves analysis, visualisation and interrogation of data as well as reporting on innovative uses of data analytics by companies and governments. Before joining the Financial Times John was editor of the Guardian's big data and analytics site, where he wrote extensively on European data protection law, and was awarded the Opinion Panel Prize in 2012 for journalistic creativity.

Frances Robinson

EU Correspondent, Wall Street Journal / Dow Jones

Frances Robinson covers EU affairs for the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, a role which involves everything from interviewing Prime Ministers to taking part in a beer-pouring competition at Belgium’s biggest brewery. She studied languages at Cambridge University, worked in Paris as a freelance journalist and translator, then moved to AFX in Brussels where she covered a range of issues as deputy bureau chief. She covers technology and telecoms, the Eurozone crisis and the fascinatingly complex world of Belgian politics. Frances has appeared on Sky News, BBC News Channel, RTL, RTBF and Europe 1

Paul Adamson

Senior European Policy Advisor, Covington & Burling LLP


Paul Adamson is the editor-in-chief and founding publisher of E!Sharp, an on-line magazine on Europe and Europe’s place in the world. He is also Senior European Policy Advisor at Covington and Burling. He is a member of Rand Europe’s Council of Advisors and on the advisory board of the polling/think tank YouGov-Cambridge and the Washington European Society. He is also on the advisory group of British Influence, a new organization promoting the UK's role in the European Union, and of the American Security Project. He is a trustee of the Citizenship Foundation, a patron of the University Association of Contemporary European Studies (UACES) and a member of the UK Academy of Social Sciences. Earlier in his career he founded the consulting firm Adamson Associates, which was sold to WeberShandwick and the "think-do tank" The Centre, which was sold to Edelman. In 2012 he was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) ”for services to promoting understanding of the European Union”.

Magnus Franklin

Journalist, MLex

Chief Correspondent, MLex ITM, was previously an analyst and reporter on Mobile Communications Europe and Telecom Markets. He provides comprehensive coverage of regulatory and legal developments in the telecoms, media and IT sectors both in Brussels and across Europe. Magnus studied journalism and economics in London, and works in English, Spanish, Swedish and Norwegian.