Otto is Group Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Digital of ABB.  Among others, he leads the ABB AbilityTM platform development teams.Prior to this position, Otto was Managing Director of the Global Business Unit Motors & Generators, a multi-billion dollar business of the world number one motor manufacturer with several tens of factories and more than 14000 employees. Before this, Otto was Managing Director of the Global Business Unit Power Conversion that covered many of ABB’s power electronics based businesses such as solar inverters, wind converters, electric vehicle charging, traction propulsion systems, or large frequency converters for grid solutions such as battery based storage systems. Otto is with ABB since 30 years and was holding a series of management positions, including leading ABB Group Power Technologies Research and the Swiss Corporate Research Center. Otto holds a Bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering from Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz, Switzerland, a Master’s degree in Computer Science from University of Colorado in Boulder, and a PhD from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland.  

Dr. Alireza Tavakoli is Head of Program Management & Innovation – Digital Transformation at thyssenkrupp Materials Services, with 14bn. € the largest Business Area of the thyssenkrupp group. Providing consulting, quality management to tailored supply chain solutions, technical and infrastructure services for the manufacturing and processing industry. Alireza has a long and successful track record in digitalization and innovation at thyssenkrupp: He has established a totally new 3d printing startup, realized as the first German company the digitalization lighthouse project “Industrial Data Space”, which is officially under the patronage of the German federal government and initiated the digital transformation program at thyssenkrupp MX, which covers all areas of digital innovations (from E-Commerce, IoT, Data Analytics to Business Model Innovation). 

Luis is a digital, mobile, transformation and innovation leader, with more than 20 years of cross-functional business experience in the FMCG industry in several multinational Fortune 500 companies and leading consulting firms. He joined Honeywell International in January 2018 as a Digital Transformation Officer, with a special transformational focus on eCommerce, product information and digital asset management supporting the business functions: Commercial Excellence, Sales, Customer Services and Marketing/Communications. 

Ajit Sivadasan manages the global web strategy for Lenovo across 90+ countries. In his role he is responsible for Lenovo's substantial online sales and marketing across their B2C and B2B channels globally. Over the last 12 years he has architected and built Lenovo's web capabilities working with an internal team spread across 15+ countries, growing the business over 6x and profits by over 10x. Lenovo.com has won several awards for usability and design globally. 

Axel Schmidt is responsible for the “Digital Frontend”. His focus is to facilitate the development of digital customer experience and Digital Business Models. Prior to his role as CDO, he had numerous management roles to facilitate development of new applications for existing products, open new market segments for business growth, and continue to improve WACKER’s overall brand and competitive market position.

I come to work every day with the mindset of how digital transformation can help organisations and individuals to achieve more and work with many customers across commercial, public sector, education and the third sector. As CMO within Microsoft UK I am responsible for leading marketing for two go to market areas - Consumer and Commercial. These teams work with the CMO "Marketing Services Centre of Excellence" to ensure an integrated customer-focused approach covering content, social (engagement, listening and selling), web, inbound, operations, partnerships, insights & analytics, 1st party & 3rd party events, hospitality and webinars.

Devashish is currently leading digital and ecommerce at Rexel. He joined Rexel in 2013 and is responsible for defining how digital fits into Rexel’s evolution to a multichannel business. Since joining Rexel, Devashish has built a global hybrid digital team with Centers of Excellence at the group level that work together with digital teams at the country level to bring digital capabilities that connect and serve customers across their lifecycle.

Prior to joining Rexel, Devashish has worked at the crossroads of digital and international for most of his career. He has built and lead digital and ecommerce organizations in several companies including Texas Instruments and Premier Farnell. He has lived and worked in North America, Europe and Asia and currently spends most of his time in Dallas and Paris.

With extensive B2C and B2B experience, Ales has worked for leading international retailers & distributors including METRO Group, Rossmann and C&A. As Chief Disruption Officer at Conrad, he is responsible for developing a new digital business models and disrupting traditional processes and ways of working. 

Peter is the Senior Digital Advisor to the board of TAKKT, a €1bn B2B direct marketing company and winner of the Digital Champions Award 2017, orchestrating 6 Chief Digital Officers (CDO). He is an experienced leader in the field of digital transformation, technology strategy, and innovation management with comprehensive background in dynamic ICT industries and management consulting, working for Deutsche Telekom and McKinsey & Company previously. Peter is driving innovation, defining and implementing digital strategies, and building high performance teams.

In his role as Business Insights Success Manager at the newly formed DSM Data Analytics Center of Excellence (CoE), Freek is responsible for accelerating and integrating data analytics globally within DSM. Deriving meaningful insights from data, converting knowledge into action, creating ultimately substantial and additional impact and value to the businesses and all functions (Marketing & Sales, operations, Supply Chain, etc). He is focused on transforming 3 key business-critical elements; customer experience / convenience, operational excellence and new business models. As a data-driven decision maker, he is responsible for driving commercial digital transformation projects across all global businesses within DSM, positioning digital as a growth enabler.

Farrukh brings rich experience through over 20 years in various global roles including customer sales, marketing and distribution management to his current role as the SVP overseeing retail strategy and global eCommerce at Schneider Electric.

 

As SVP of Business Development, Mikko is currently focusing on digital services, processes and marketing in an industrial context. Metsä Wood is a digital pioneer in a traditional industry; enabling customers to complete all business processes online, providing an open innovation platform for wood construction, and developing  an eLearning platform for wood professionals.

Kelly has spent the last 15 years bringing marketing strategy and digital transformation to the B2B sector, specifically the managed services, manufacturing and construction sectors. She specialises in large global digital estate transformation programmes. Kelly has delivered cross-continent consolidation, platform reengineering and cost efficiencies whilst giving local control and customisations. With a strong strategic marketing and brand background and as a CIM Member, Kelly ensures all digital developments support the ultimate growth of the company and enrichment of the brand.

Dorothee is Head of Digital Marketing at Bossard, a market leader in fastening technology. With proven content creation experience geared to winning customers and changing market perceptions, Dorothee successfully launched Bossard on a digital marketing path that matches the company’s innovative Industry 4.0 solutions. 

Richard Waight manages Bio-Rad's digital channels for EMEA and is part of the wider global eCommerce team. Bio-Rad's 2017 total revenue hit $2bn, with over $500m of this coming through their digital channels. Richard is leading a digitisation project for EMEA with a goal of unifying and aligning online and offline sales channels to give a consistent customer journey along all the customer touchpoints.

Robert is an award winning (Digital Transformers Award 2015, Digital Innovation of the year Award 2016, eHealthcare Leadership Awards 2017) senior executive with a proven track record in delivering digital marketing, sales & service transformation within complex organizations. He’s currently responsible for driving the global B2B digital strategy & activation practices for Philips Health Systems.

Sushma is a leader in eCommerce transformation, responsible for designing and implementing integrated eCommerce solutions that are leveraged across the enterprise, delivering incremental revenue channels while driving operational efficiency and best in class customer experiences.  Sushma manages all aspects of the eCommerce business, including content strategy, website design, business planning, web analytics and digital marketing.

Carlos Silva Lopes is the Global Director of Marketing Excellence for Packaging & Specialty Plastics. An experienced and accomplished global business leader, Carlos is a results driven and hands-on sales and marketing professional, who focuses on stretching the business above and beyond. His passion is to use his creativity and diverse experience to translate market trends into tangible and valuable business results.Carlos joined Dow Portugal in 1990. In 1995, he transferred to Johannesburg, South Africa, as market development manager. He was appointed as EMEA marketing manager and held several roles of increasing responsibility, focusing on new business development and product management. Most recently he has served as the global marketing director for Dow Consumer & Industrial Solutions and Director of Marketing for Packaging and Specialty Plastics EMEA, based in Horgen, Switzerland. Carlos holds a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from ISEL in Lisbon, Portugal. He completed the Advanced Industrial Marketing Strategies course at INSEAD, France and received his MBA from IMD in Switzerland.

Wendy has 10+ years of strategic digital marketing experience in international B2B organisations. She is passionate about balancing customer and business requirements and translating those into results-driven programs that make a difference to both people and organizations. In her current role at Signify (formerly Philips Lighting), the world’s #1 lighting supplier, she is responsible for growing eCommerce sales through strong cooperation with the distribution channel in a digital program touching content syndication, buy online, lead management, digital marketing, online portals and analytics. 

Joey Moore is the Director of Product Marketing at Episerver. Prior to Episerver, Joey has spent the last decade working with enterprise level digital commerce clients, helping drive results for some of the largest brands and retailers and guiding them to become leaders in the digital space.

Herbert Pesch is co-founder of Evident digital. He is chairman of the B2B digital commerce group and consults B2B clients on a strategic level in the digital arena. He often hosts and moderates B2B industry events. With 100+ experts in business design and technology in both Utrecht and Lisbon, Evident helps B2B companies grow in an ever-changing digital world. www.evident.nl

Chris Matenaers began his marketing career working for PayPal's eBay team. Over the last 15 years, he has worked at a number of SMEs and blue chip companies with a particular focus on tools for marketing automation, designing internal systems and working alongside specialist third-party vendors to bring automated marketing solutions to market. Having worked for Grainger Global Online the last three years, he is focusing on how to use large datasets and machine learning algorithms to build stronger relationships with B2B customers

Mark has been eCommerce Director EMEA at Ricoh for the past two years, leading a proposition covering both Ricoh products and 3rd party IT hardware in our 24 operating companies. Mark has ten years experience in B2B ecommerce including working for ATOS leading Digital change for NS&I, at SIG PLC as Head of Digital & UX, and for Insight as EMEA eBusiness Manager.

Lars is Director of eCommerce & Digital Customer Channels at Vestas Wind System, the only global energy company dedicated exclusively to wind energy. Lars has since 2016 run a successful global eCommerce program focused on selling spare parts & services to the Service aftermarket. A great focus has been put into creating a differentiated and market-leading channel with excellent customer experience as well as making sure the eCommerce channel is efficiently supporting the Vestas sales organization in their everyday work.

Sam Talya has over 10 years of diverse experience in product marketing, strategy consulting, digital, online retail and B2B eCommerce. 

Bettina Hoppmann is the Corporate Key Account Manager for DACH eCommerce at 3M, a global multi technology company with over 50,000 products. Within 4 years she has developed the online B2B channel for different markets with major ePlayers including Amazon. Strategic portfolio management combined with rich content, optimized search keywords and digital marketing promotions have accelerated the business year on year. 

As the Leader for Marketing Automation Campaign Architecture at 3M, Sonja is empowering cross-functional Marketing Organizations and Business Groups to meet the challenges of today’s increasingly complex Marketing world. With more than 10 years of digital Marketing expertise she enables the 3M regions and subsidiaries to deliver result-focused demand generation and customer-centric campaigns across 20+ countries in Western Europe.With over 50,000 products the global multi technology company 3M discovers and innovates in industries such as Automotive, Health Care, Manufacturing, Safety, Energy, Electronic and many more.To meet 3M customer needs in different Markets Sonja successfully focusses on leveraging the latest MARKETING AUTOMATION Technologies, Content strategies and behavioral techniques to build integrated customer B2B experiences."

Pascal currently leads global Board reporting programs which develops and deploys end-to-end digital capabilities to the Philips Lighting markets, business group and central staff organisations. Part of this was setting up a company wide global Digital Transformation program with award winning lean startup/accelerator and measurement/analytics centers of expertise. Recently Pascal has been transforming and driving sales growth through all direct & indirect online channels for Philips Lighting for B2C and B2B, including managing a global team of Digital & eCommerce managers driving digital marketing & online sales in more than 60 countries.

With an extensive background in management consulting, David is an entrepreneur and digital enthusiast, currently working as CEO to grow ZAGENO, a digital life sciences marketplace for the ambitious and networked researcher striving for more “eureka” moments.

Kilian is co-founder of the world’s biggest life science marketplace ZAGENO, and was responsible for establishing and leading several business units including marketing, service, biotech content & product portfolio, technical integration, and sales. Since 2018, he has focused primarily on medium and long-term strategic planning and business development. Prior to founding ZAGENO Kilian built and lead QIAGEN's digital activities as Head of Digital Strategy.

Jean-Louis is a thought leader, responsible for driving digital engagement with customers in a B2B omnichannel direct sales & marketing environment, in the construction industry. During the last 4 years, he has been instrumental to define & implement Hilti’s digital strategy and big data projects, drive the digital transformation in a global organization. With the ambition to offer the best combination of physical/digital user experience, he is managing a large & international team to engage end-users with personalized digital marketing and efficient e-business web & mobile solutions, driving revenue of more than 1 Billion CHF across 60 countries and continuously growing their 300k customer contacts per day across channels.

Russell Scherwin is IBM's Chief Marketing Office for Watson Commerce. Leading commerce strategy, consulting, sales, and marketing teams for over 20 years, Russell has worked with hundreds of organizations in shaping go-to-market strategies and execution plans. With a passion for technology’s socio-economic impact, Russell is known for expertly fusing economics, strategy, humor, and thought leadership into a meaningful and entertaining message. Russell holds an MBA from New York University and a BS in Computer Science from SUNY Binghamton. His AI expertise is continually reshaped as he “trains”his 7 and 3 year old sons.

Nikolas is an international marketer with broad experience and a strong passion for digital marketing. He has held senior roles in industries spanning medical devices, global consumer goods brand-management, advertising, and marketing consulting. Currently working at Edwards Lifesciences as Strategic Marketing Manager, his previous appointments include roles at Procter & Gamble and Nielsen.

A distinguished leader of IT, digital commerce, software engineering, operations and user experience with expertise in diverse range of technologies within multiple industries settings, Beniamino is a well-organised, result oriented individual with proven ability to implement standard, procedures and processes that improve business functionality. He has demonstrated success leading and motivating individuals to their best potential, while forming a cohesive team environment. 

Marieke is an ambitious marketing professional with extensive experience in digital marketing and building a business. Within ERIKS Digital driving the digital roadmap of ERIKS by developing innovative digital propositions. Earlier, she was in the founding team of Zamro - an award winning B2B e-Commerce platform.  

Frank is fascinated by the changes induced by Digital Transformation and firmly believes we just have seen the beginning of this transformational process.  His fascination has been the driver for his professional career, bringing 17 years of experience in B2B industries, development of eCommerce strategies, development of eCommerce organizations, program management, project management, leading large cross-functional teams as well a leading a team of international direct. His expertise covers areas like web shop, order automation, SEA/SEO, Digital Marketing, Product Information Management, order automation, Content Management Systems.

 

Digitally disruptive marketing expert who’s passionate about turning change into an opportunity by combining emotional intelligence with tech. Over 10 years of experience across the whole digital landscape, from mobile apps to demand generation programs, in digital agencies, SMEs and blue chip companies including Microsoft and SAP. She helps people to find new, unconventional ways to solve old problems and change the game, thanks to a fresh, international perspective. 

Christian Filipcic is on a mission to maximize both customer satisfaction and efficiency. Having attained master degrees in both computer science and business administration, he holds a 20+ years of experience in IT, business consulting and customer service centric positions. As a Six Sigma and Lean Management Master Black Belt, he lives and breathes process optimization. In his current role as global customer service center lead, he saved more than 10 M€ in personnel costs while building a 94% customer satisfaction. 

Skilled in sales, sales excellence, sales operations, marketing, digital transformation and business transformation programmes, Fabian brings an extensive international history of working in the technology, software and services industries (both B2B and B2C) to his current role as Senior Director Sales & Marketing.

Kate Nightingale is a consumer, fashion and brand psychologist with experience in retail, hospitality, marketing and construction industries. She has studied psychology, economics, marketing andfashion and continues her education daily. Kate is also the founder of Style Psychology Ltd, a consumer behaviour consultancy specialising in retail and hospitality. They focus on strategic solutions improving their clients’ customer experience consistently across channels. They worked with Harvey Nichols, Next, intu Trafford Centre and recently consulted on a leisure centre concept design. Their motto is ‘Building a bridge between science, creativity and business’. Through application of the knowledge in consumer behaviour and psychology, they help leaders, designers and marketersto enhance the emotional, behavioural and commercial effectiveness of their decisions. She is a lecturer in consumer behaviour and psychology at London College of Fashion and oftenspeaks at industry events, recently Retail Design Expo 2016, POPAI Retail Experience Conference July 2016, User-Centred Design Conference 2016 and Shopper Brain Conference in Amsterdam 2016.

Stefan studied computer science at the University of Applied Sciences in Rosenheim, Germany. During this time, he started his entrepreneurship, leading to the founding of TechDivision GmbH. The Magento Enterprise Partner, TechDivision, has become one of the leading companies in Europe for consulting, developing, and supporting Magento Enterprise solutions.

Bastian Latt always has his eye on the consumer. He has a passion for analyzing and improving the entire e-commerce value chain from the customer’s point of view, from sourcing and merchandising, to website usability, delivery experience, and customer service. Bastian loves to get to the bottom of things rather than just finding solutions to treat symptoms. Instead, he is constantly on the lookout for solutions that reveal the underlying causes and create a sustainably improved customer experience, along with a more successful business. He is aided by his extensive experience in marketing, strategy consulting, and working with the world’s most customer-friendly online retailer.

Christian, a marketer at heart entered the FMCG industry 13 years ago with a focus on HR Marketing. Soon realizing that product and brand development are his real passion he completed various tasks within Henkel & Schwarzkopf’s consumer division. Returning home from a 4 year assignment in Australia he moved into the B2B sector at L’Oréal’s Professional Products Division now heading the eCom department in Germany supporting the hairdressing industry in the digital transformation. Key focus areas for him are omni-channel as well as on-line to off-line solutions in a service oriented environment.

Alan founded Freestyle in 1996 from a background in film and TV production, and the company quickly grew to become a permanent fixture as a UK top 100 digital agency. Alan is passionate about making technology deliver real benefit for humans without jargon or industry labels. Freestyle is a specialist B2B digital agency, with a broad international client base, focused on Manufacturers struggling to reach complex audiences.

Steve oversees Marketing, Sales and Customer Success for Gelato Globe.Before joining Gelato Steve worked as Regional Vice President at Salesforce where he and his team sold digital transformation and marketing technologies to enterprise customers.Prior to Salesforce, Steve was Vice President Sales and Business Development EMEA and APAC at Antenna Software, which was later acquired by Pegasystems. Steve continued to work at Pega post acquisition selling technology to Fortune 1000 brands. Steve has extensive experience of building globally scalable direct and indirect go-to-market strategies for telecoms and technology companies.Before selling Software, Steve spent 8 years in Telecoms and 8 years in the Leasing industry and is also a qualified Chartered Accountant.

Elliott joined LiveArea as the Director of Commerce Consulting in May 2018. He is an experienced Global eCommerce and multi-channel retail professional who specialises in helping B2C and B2B companies achieve measurable success by identifying and capitalising on emerging digital opportunities. He has had multiple client side roles across a variety of sectors, including Head of eCommerce for Signet Jewellers brands Ernest Jones and H Samuel, who are the UK’s number #1 and #2 Watch, Jewellery and Diamond retailer. Prior to that, Elliott led Global eCommerce at Vertu, the Luxury mobile phone manufacturer. He developed and led the digital strategy including delivering Vertu’s first eCommerce platform and global Omni-Channel capabilities, across 37 markets including China. 

Indranil Roy Choudhury, Chief Operating Officer at Codifyd, leads overall strategy and operation’s portfolio, overseeing global sales, marketing, delivery and product development functions. Prior to his current role, Indranil has served as the leader of the manufacturing & media business unit for a top 10 Global System Integrator. In his close to two decades career, he has held leadership roles in consulting and solutions delivery with top market players in the industry.

Alfred Hawawini is Director of B2B Business Development for Mirakl. Alfred has 10+ years of experience in B2C and B2B retail. Prior to joining Mirakl, Alfred worked for the leading B2B foodservice retailer METRO, where he held several positions including Strategy & Business Development Director and Procurement Director. Alfred brings a strong expertise of the B2B market as well as the experience of digital strategy design and implementation. Alfred graduated from ESCP Europe and holds an MBA from INSEAD.

Principal consultant, content strategist and Europe lead at Codifyd. Alan has been working with clients to deliver customer first, digitally focused and commercially led transformation for the last 3 years. Prior to that Alan held number of senior roles in the world of B2B distribution leading commercial teams, driving global strategic change and latterly creating and heading up a digital content function.

Gavin is an experienced executive with more than twenty-five years of success in building growth-oriented marketing and technology companies. He is currently the President & CEO of Kaon Interactive, the leader in interactive digital marketing applications. Under his leadership, the company has experienced substantial growth and has introduced numerous award-winning products.Gavin was President & COO of Bluestreak, a provider of online marketing software. He led the company through three successful acquisitions, and a European market expansion. Previously, Gavin was the President & CEO of Prescient Technologies, a provider of data quality and automation software. He teaches Entrepreneurial Marketing at Tufts University and holds both a Ph.D. and an MS from MIT.

Maaike de Rover started her career in the maritime industry and never left. Since 2010 she has been working for globally active shipbuilder Royal IHC. She has always been involved with product management, business development and marketing. This positioned her perfectly to head the new spare parts and services platform, independently branded ShipSupport.com that is opening up the maritime aftermarket. She is passionate about business opportunities and driven by the promises that lie ahead in the dredging and offshore industry.

Floris Nijdam is a Senior Creative Consultant at Mirabeau, a Cognizant Digital Business. Floris advises companies on strategic and conceptual level about how to improve their business from a digital perspective. In most cases, this revolves around the customer-centric design of service processes.

Sartorius offers high-end laboratory balances and water systems as well as sophisticated solutions for liquid handling, filtration and fermentation. Trust in a strong brand that stands for quality and innovation in the lab for decades. Lars Hanf is a seasoned Marketing and Sales expert with a proven track record in Top Management Consulting, Financial Services and E-Commerce. Sartorius he is in charge of all global MarCom initiatives, on- and offline, of the two core businesses Bioprocess Solutions and Lab Products & Services. Before joining Sartorius, Lars Hanf worked in various senior management positions. As Chief Marketing Officer at Ricardo Group in Switzerland he was responsible for marketing strategy and day-to-day marketing operations of the three online businesses ricardo.ch (online market place), autoricardo.ch (automotive super vertical) and ricardoshops.ch (online shopping platform).

Gerrit Enthoven engaged in e-commerce since 1999 and has been involved in over 100 challenging international B2B and B2C e-commerce projects. His specialties are B2B e-commerce consultancy and omni-channel commerce. He would love to meet you to discuss your challenges and ambitions and to leverage his experiences with best practices of renowned industry leaders.

John is senior HR leader with strong business acumen and long experience of global HR for large international businesses across multiple industries. He is driven by a strong interest in implementing a smarter workforce that delivers sustainable competitive advantage by increasing the value for the customer with a focus on culture, diversity, growing talents, accelerate performance and business development in fast moving international business environment. John has executed several international business transformations, i.e. 20+ M&A and divestitures throughout his career. Before the current position John held the position as Global HRBP Dir for the EMEA based head quartered Global Accounts at HPE. John holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Sociology from The Stockholm University and a Technical College graduate diploma. He lives in Stockholm with his wife and two young daughters. Interests and focused experience areas: Talent Management, Performance acceleration, Business Development, People and Organizations.

Kijo Oudshoorn was one of the first employees to join vidaXL. He initiated the company’s expansion to France and in a dozen other countries. He is driven by a no border philosophy, with a problem solving mindset. As CCO, Kijo determines the commercial strategy of vidaXL, which accumulates sales in 29 countries and has an annual growth of 45%. As the vidaXL web shop has been transformed into a marketplace, sellers can now reach customers in all of our European countries.

Vincent has over 22 years of experience in the IT industry. In the past 19 years he implemented and helped developing multiple content management and ecommerce solutions. Since October 2016 Vincent is a Solution Architect at Episerver and in this role he offers technical support to the sales team and all Episerver partners.

Kirby Montgomery: a post-it note connoisseur, leader and practitioner of “data & design” user-centric problem solving and product strategy. As the current Director of Product for MSTS, he leads teams to build software platforms that remove the drama of B2B invoicing and collections. He’s experienced in solution design for diverse environments, such as startup launches, national payments systems and private aviation, all while remembering the important things in life: whiteboarding, asking “why,” fancy notebooks and measuring what matters.

Georges Houtappel is Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Solvay Specialty Polymers, leading the global marketing and business development teams across all end-markets incl. automotive, consumer, construction, electronics, batteries, healthcare and processing industries. Georges joined the Solvay Group in January 2013 as Global Head of Commercial Excellence leading the commercial transformation of the group and joined the largest business unit, Specialty Polymers, in January 2016. He combines his role in marketing & business development with the responsibility for the digital transformation in commercial. Georges started his career working 7 years as project manager with Siemens leading large scale infrastructure projects in France, Netherlands, Belgium and Algeria. After his MBA at INSEAD he joined McKinsey & Company as a management consultant, where he worked for 6.5 years as a senior manager focusing on commercial transformation projects. Georges holds a Master of Science in Electrical Power Engineering from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) and an MBA from INSEAD (Singapore & Fontainebleau)

Right after founding the Lufthansa Social Media Team, Dr. Torsten Wingenter led the brand to one of the globally leading airlines in the social space with more than 1.7m fans on Facebook today. In 2010 Lufthansa was one of the first airlines making usage of the full range of social media during issues like the ash cloud. The airline became best practice for its crisis handling which was picked up broadly by media like CNN. In the same year Lufthansa was awarded as “Best Airline in Social Media” by AirlineBusiness. For the tech savvy travelers Lufthansa is also well-known for its apps creating unique user benefits (like Blue Legends, Take-off, MemberScout etc.). In regard of location-based services Lufthansa is the leading airline with more than 170.000 followers on Foursquare. In the quest for leading digital projects Lufthansa’s latest story-telling campaign is #inspiredby #travel where more than 300m impressions on Facebook reached people between 18-30 with glimpse into the unforgettable moments that travel creates. Previously Torsten managed strategy & business development of Lufthansa Miles & More – Europe’s leading frequent flyer program. He has a background in business and economics in combination with sociology as part of his Ph.D. Before working for Lufthansa Torsten was executive assistant to Dr. August Oetker, proprietor of Germany’s most well-known family-run company. He started his career at an international think-tank in Malta creating mobile ventures and with his own IT-business while studying.

Robert has worked in the area of Pricing for over 16 years and has spent the last 10 years at Vendavo helping customers to implement and automate their pricing processes, strategies and margin optimisation. Before joining Vendavo, Robert was the Global Director of Pricing at a High-Tech manufacturer where he developed, built and led the Pricing Organisation. He is experienced in leading sales and operations teams in the international business environment and has a proven track record of successfully leading organisations through structural and process change. Robert has an MBA from Wake Forest University and a BA (Hons) in International Business from Sheffield City Polytechnic.   

Georges Houtappel is Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Solvay Specialty Polymers, leading the global marketing and business development teams across all end-markets incl. automotive, consumer, construction, electronics, batteries, healthcare and processing industries. Georges joined the Solvay Group in January 2013 as Global Head of Commercial Excellence leading the commercial transformation of the group and joined the largest business unit, Specialty Polymers, in January 2016. He combines his role in marketing & business development with operational responsibilities as Senior Key Account Manager and head of the digital transformation in commercial. Georges started his career working 7 years as project manager with Siemens leading large scale infrastructure projects in France, Netherlands, Belgium and Algeria. After his MBA at INSEAD he joined McKinsey & Company as a management consultant, where he worked for almost 7 years as a senior manager focusing on commercial transformation projects. Georges holds a Master of Science in Electrical Power Engineering from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) and an MBA from INSEAD (Singapore & Fontainebleau)