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Dan Kaufman is currently the Director of Google’s Advanced Technology and Products division, Google’s research and development lab dedicated to creating next-generation consumer electronics. Prior to Google, Dan spent 10 years at DARPA, most notably as the first Director of DARPA’s Information Innovation Office (I2O). Dan led the merger of Information Processing Techniques Office and Transformational Convergence Technology Office to create Information Innovation Office. With the creation of I2O, Dan was instrumental in formulating and implementing I2O’s current R&D thrusts in cybersecurity and big data analytics. Previously, Dan worked for Auratio Consulting, Kalisto Entertainment, Dreamworks Interactive (a joint venture between Microsoft and Dreamworks SKG), and Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison. Dan has co-authored an 800-page textbook entitled: Corporate Partnering: Structuring and Negotiating Domestic and International Strategic Alliances, and has lectured at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and U.C. Berkeley.
Inspirational international keynote speaker Tom Raftery is a Global Vice President for SAP, a guest lecturer at the Instituto Internacional San Telmo, podcast host, and a board advisor for a number of start-ups. Before joining SAP Tom worked as an independent industry analyst focusing on the Internet of Things, Energy and Sustainability, and also as a Futurist for Gerd Leonhardt’s Futures Agency. Tom has a very strong background in technology, sustainability, and social media having worked in the industry since 1991. He is the co-founder of an Irish software development company, a social media consultancy, and is co-founder of hyper energy-efficient data center Cork Internet eXchange. Tom also worked as an Analyst for industry analyst firm RedMonk, leading their GreenMonk practice for over 7 years. Tom hosts the twice weekly Digital Supply Chain podcast, the weekly Climate 21 podcast, and a weekly Tech for Good LinkedIn Live Livestream.
Jurjen is a digital innovation and transformation professional, recognised as an influencer on digital twins. With cross-industry experience and operating at the intersection of design / innovation / technology / development and arts - he applies a multi-disciplinary and a holistic approach to the process of innovation to enable the most advanced and meaningful digital experiences. The concept of Human Digital Twins is his healthy obsession and the amalgamation of his work evangelising 'Industry 4.0 technologies' across the many hackathons he orchestrated to alleviate societal challenges.
Ivan is a Partner with McKinsey and Company in Zurich with passion and leadership roles in technology and innovation-led growth. Ivan is a leader of McKinsey’s Global Technology Council where he leads research initiatives in quantum computing and technology trends. Ivan is also the leader of McKinsey's EMEA Innovation practice. Ivan advises clients across a variety of industry sectors, with specific focus on tech driven industries such as Pharmaceutical, biotech, life sciences, healthcare, high tech, chemical, energy, advanced industries. He helps large and small organizations in business model and technology driven innovation (e.g. analytics, digital solutions, new technologies) throughout the value chain from research to early commercialization.
Octavian Palade is the Content Strategy Manager for Internet Corp, one of the most important publishers in the Romanian online media market. He's also a seasoned tech & business journalist, with over 11 years of experience, writing about startups and innovation for start-up.ro, the leading local startup news website. Pasionate about video, Octavian is also the Project Manager for VideoCorp, Internet Corp's multimedia department.
Scott Lyons leads the Tech & Commercial Partnerships for Ford of Europe. Based in Berlin, Lyons is responsible managing and growing various aspect of Ford's European Tech Partnerships Ecosystem and is the co-founder of the Ford start-up innovation program MakeItDriveable. His focus is on content and services that will help deliver meaningful, unique and viable solutions to Ford customers via the connected car. Lyons joined Ford in 2013 from Motorola Mobility where he was Director of International Market Development and led a global team responsible for external developer engagement and business development within the MOTODEV organization. Prior to that he held positions at WPP interactive agency Digit London as commercial director – leading the award-winning Vodafone and Motorola accounts respectively – and co-founding London-based interactive agency Sugar Ltd. – a pioneer in the webcasting and digital creative industries. Lyons began his career with time spent in both the press relations and on-air promo departments at MTV Networks in New York, working on a variety of high-profile programming including the “MTV Movie Awards”, “Unplugged” and the “Video Music Awards”.
When LEGO Group Senior art director Morten Bonde was declared legally blind in 2016, His whole world collapsed. How should life continue? Morten made a decision: he wanted to teach himself to focus on the good in life rather than the bad. Morten became a public speaker and wrote the book Sentenced to Blindness – Now What? A Journey from Hopelessness Street to Possibility Road to share how he decided to see possibilities in blindness rather than limitations. Today Morten has an active career in the LEGO Group, and is a published author and motivational speaker on self-management and self-motivation.
Ahsan is a multi-faceted sustainability professional with knowledge and interest in clean technologies, energy decarbonisation, climate policy, circular economy and sustainability integration in corporate strategy. His broad experience in the environmental industry was developed through his work as a Consultant with Cap-Op Energy, SYSTEMIQ and ERM. In these roles, Ahsan has advised clients across the public and private sectors on upstream oil and gas energy efficiency projects, GHG emissions quantification & reporting, carbon market regulatory design, carbon offsets project development, net zero GHG emissions planning and climate risk management and disclosure (TCFD and scenario planning). Ahsan currently works as a contractor for various clean technology companies between Canada and the UK, helping companies reduce emissions in hard to decarbonize sectors using green hydrogen. Ahsan has a BA in Business Administration from the Richard Ivey School of Business, a BSc in Environmental Science from Western University, and a MSc in Environmental Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences which he attended on a full scholarship as a Chevening Scholar.
William Collis is a successful esports entrepreneur, author, college professor and podcast host. He is the co-founder of Gamer Sensei, which exited to Corsair, and Genji Data, which exited to Esports Entertainment Group. His popular book, The Book of Esports, is used at many colleges and universities around the world as the default text for esports education. William is also co-owner of the top esports team OXG and co-host of The Business of Esports podcast. His popular TED talk on Skill in Esports has been viewed over one million times.
Octavian Palade is the Content Strategy Manager for Internet Corp, one of the most important publishers in the Romanian online media market. He's also a seasoned tech & business journalist, with over 11 years of experience, writing about startups and innovation for start-up.ro, the leading local startup news website. Pasionate about video, Octavian is also the Project Manager for VideoCorp, Internet Corp's multimedia department.
Shaloo Garg is MD, Growth Stage Startups & Unicorns based out of Silicon Valley and Global Lead for Microsoft Global Social Entrepreneurship Program. She brings a combination of strong startup, enterprise, strategic partnership and corporate development experience. Previously, Shaloo was Partner , Global Oracle Innovation at Oracle where she lead the Global Corporate Innovation practice of commercializing revenue opportunities for startups into the enterprise client base and partner ecosystem. She has also lead go-to-market for Oracle’s cloud business and was part of the M&A team that acquired Peoplesoft, Siebel, Retek etc. Prior to joining Oracle, she was in a couple of early stage startups. Shaloo is passionate about Tech for Good and is President , BOD at UN Women, Silicon Valley , a “Champion of Innovation” at UN Women where she is spinning up virtual Innovation Labs with Universities leveraging emerging technologies to encourage digital literacy in developing countries for young girls who do not have access to education. Shaloo is a Forbes Contributor, Guest speaker at Penn Law School and is an MBA from Delhi University and has done specialization in Innovation and Design Thinking from Stanford d.School. Words to live by: “In life, there are no mistakes... only lessons” - Vic Johnson.
With 12 years of successful experience in the Social Analytics, Experiential and Emerging media, Data Science, and Digital Strategic Developments, Dan took a deeper dive into the digital transformation of physical retail by founding Footprints for Retail. A visionary and a strong believer in the power of data as an asset, Dan is regularly seeking new ways to use advanced technologies to enable commercial real estate to reset its current operations and capitalize on the rise of the AI.
With more than 15 years of experience in various IT areas, such as IT Project Management and R&D, Mihail Musat is now Director of Technical Operations at Bigstep, a bare metal dedicated server and Infrastructure-as-a-Service provider. An experienced trainer and a tech professional, his expertise focuses on servers, ISO certifications, GDPR, and security.
Theo Granis is one of the tenacious changemakers of SoftOne Technologies, whose mission is to build proofs to the world that progress is always possible through innovation and sustainable changes. In 2006 he was introduced to the business software and the premise of digital transformation for SME's captivated his interest. Throughout Europe, Theo Granis has been working for SoftOne for more than 6 years, facilitating the integration of new technologies in business environments. In 2021 he took over the position of Channel Development Manager for SoftOne Romania assisting IT companies all over the country improve the digital services they provide to their end customers.
With 4 years of experience in Salesforce, Laura was one of the pioneers in Loyalty management implementation since it was released by Salesforce in February 2021. From her role as a consultant, she guides customers to define their digital transformation approach and she is the link between the customer and the technical teams. Using Loyalty expertise and previous experience with Sales and Service Cloud, she is able to help companies enable a 360 view of the customer.
Tobias Margarit is Managing Director of diconium data and partner for the areas Smart Content & Campaign, Personalization & Analytics as well as Data Sciences & AI. With 15 years of experience in the field of data strategies and the implementation of BI and AI projects, he successfully realizes data driven business management projects for clients. In addition, Tobias has more than 10 years of experience in the conception and scaling of digital and data analytic platforms for a car manufacturer in southern Germany, China and the United States.
With the right attitude and a great amount of curiosity, Flavian is a pattern disruptor, fascinated by digital, and there are few subjects he couldn't tackle. A certified Professional Scrum Product Owner and Digital Strategist at Grapefruit for 7+ years, Flavian has proven experience in business strategy, digital marketing, social media, digital transformation, project management, UI/UX, business development, and product development.
Graduated of CSIE Faculty, even from the beginning of my career I was fascinated by the processes diversity and complexity within manufacturing and logistics, but especially of the different methods that can be used to improve them using different technologies. In the 20+ years of my career, I’ve implemented and managed implementations of various software systems (ERP, MES, WMS etc) within prestigious companies, following all the steps of a digitalization project. Currently, I am Technical Director at Plin Tech, where, together with a young and motivated team, I have the opportunity to implement innovative technical solution for business processes optimization.”
Sales & Account Manager, with 5+ years experience in selling complex software solutions.
Adrian enjoys building teams and businesses that accelerate their results by creating omnichannel ecosystems and promoting an accelerated digital transformation. He reached senior management positions in both private and corporate environments, leading teams in companies such as Angels Den Funding, Phillip Morris or METRO. By the age of 30, he built two successful companies - the most recent being OmniPERFORM in the e-commerce & advertising industry, aiming to disrupt the digital and media agencies industry. OmniPERFORM, the digital-first communication agency, creates personalized marketing campaigns based on consumer preferences while using AI-driven prediction algorithms.
Narcis Horhoianu joined Carrefour Romania in 2019 as Chief Marketing Officer, being responsible for all Marketing related activities of Carrefour, such as customer operations and experience, brand and marketing communication, loyalty, store concept and store deco and pricing. He has over 25 years experience in Brand, Marketing and Category Management acquired while managing vast portfolios of companies from highly competitive business sectors. Over the years, he held various key positions in companies such as Vodafone Romania where he was Director Consumers Postpaid Unit or Heineken Romania, where he was Marketing Director and Member of the Board of Directors. Previously, Narcis was the Marketing Director in P&G Balkans and Member of the Board, where he played the roles of Brand Operations Leader or Business Unit Leader for multiple categories.
Narcis Horhoianu joined Carrefour Romania in 2019 as Chief Marketing Officer, being responsible for all Marketing related activities of Carrefour, such as customer operations and experience, brand and marketing communication, loyalty, store concept and store deco and pricing. He has over 25 years experience in Brand, Marketing and Category Management acquired while managing vast portfolios of companies from highly competitive business sectors. Over the years, he held various key positions in companies such as Vodafone Romania where he was Director Consumers Postpaid Unit or Heineken Romania, where he was Marketing Director and Member of the Board of Directors. Previously, Narcis was the Marketing Director in P&G Balkans and Member of the Board, where he played the roles of Brand Operations Leader or Business Unit Leader for multiple categories.
Teodor Gurgui took on the role of Mobile, Loyalty & UX Development Lead at Carrefour Romania in April 2021. He is in charge of the Carrefour App - leading the development of technical functions, ensuring a seamless user experience, as well as creating an integrated Carrefour ecosystem for all customers. Teodor had a major role in developing and launching the Act for Good program in Carrefour App and in all stores. Launched at the beginning of 2021, the app allows customers to have a personalized shopping experience: with every shopping session in the App, users receive points, which they can collect to access special offers and discounts, as well as donate to social causes and complete brand challenges. As such, now integrated with Bringo, the unique App is a hub on the retail market which adds a deeper purpose to shopping. Before joining Carrefour in September 2018 as a Digital Marketing Project Manager, Teodor was Digital Project Manager at Centrade Cheil (January 2016 - August 2018) and occupied different digital positions in the industry.
Gabriela Stănică joined Carrefour Romania in October 2020 as Chief Information Officer, heading the company’s IT & Digital department. The IT & Digital objectives managed by Gabriela and the team include the continued digitization and automation of internal processes, the implementation of new platforms and technologies to optimize operational processes, website development, Carrefour apps and technologies necessary for the omnichannel experience, as well as information security. Gabriela has over 10 years of experience in creating and managing teams in different companies. Prior to joining Carrefour, she held the position of Head of Marketing IT at British American Tobacco, where she coordinated teams from Europe and North Africa, having previously held the position of Chief Information Officer at Vodafone Romania. Gabriela began her professional journey at Avon, where she held several positions over time, culminating as IT Executive Director Central and Eastern Europe.
Cătălin Sava joined Carrefour Romania in March 2021 as Enterprise Architect, working closely with the Chief Information Officer in the IT & Digital department. At Carrefour, he is responsible for creating coherence and alignment between the various programs and projects, supporting various business units and domains with respect to Information Systems, guiding Solution IT Architects in defining the project architecture, and reviewing the IT architecture of projects, among other things. Prior to Carrefour, Cătălin was at British American Tobacco (February 2020 - March 2021), Vodafone (June 2018 - February 2020) and Avon (April 2011 - June 2018). Throughout his career, his main focus has been on achieving the best architectural design model and delivery method, enriching business experience and simplifying the IT operating model.
With over 15 years of experience in ING Bank Romania, Crina Nicolae was named Tribe Lead Cards in October 2019. Crina joined the ING team in 2005 as a Management Trainee, eventually holding various roles in the Retail, IT and Customer Service areas. In 2006 held the role of Retail Banking Product Specialist, followed by Project Manager, Change Management Manager, Head of Value Chain Lending, IT Change and Process Manager, IT Service Management and IT Governance and Customer Service Lead. Crina has a master's degree in management and business strategies from BI Norwegian Business School and is a graduate of the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest, where she got a bachelor's degree in Economics and International Affairs.
Ileana Glodeanu is a Partner at Wolf Theiss and the coordinator of the Corporate/M&A team in Bucharest. As a talented and professional lawyer, who enjoys high positive name recognition on the M&A market, Ileana is extremely active and has advised on some of the largest transactions concluded in the past few years in Romania. She has a solid profile as a leading expert with a particular focus on retail, TMT, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and healthcare and energy, also excelling in the field of employment and insolvency restructuring. Ileana has received several awards as woman in business law in Romania and in Europe and has been generally very active in M&A large transactions, including closing the largest transactions in Romania in recent years. Ileana is a member of the Bucharest Bar Association and holds two LL.M. degrees in Private and Commercial Law.
The R&D unit in RBC, led by Raluca Dobrota, explores and analyses market trends in order to identify opportunities for developing new IT solutions and products. We're most interested in using emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing in meaningful ways, in order to generate novel solutions for real challenges in the retail industry and beyond
Aldo Lele is Sustainability manager at IKEA South East Europe (SEE). South East Europe region includes 5 countries - Croatia, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Ukraine. He is responsible for leading, developing and implementing sustainability related projects and topics in the whole SEE market. Aldo has been with IKEA for almost 15 years. He started his IKEA jurney as Colaborador in 2006 in IKEA Portugal.
He has changed various positions in IKEA Portugal through years and some of them are: Communication and Interior design manager, Project manager, Country Sustainability leader and he is Sustainability manager in SEE region at the moment. Aldo is passioned about People and Planet positive actions and inspiring others to live more sustainable life. He believes that together with co-workers and customers around the world, a new vision of how people can live a better life within the limits of the planet can be co-created. That means that everybody should always think long-term - The more people we reach, the bigger the impact we can have together.
Andrei is a highly skilled and experienced consultant in Digital Customer Experience, IT Security, Digital Identity, and Digital Business Transformation. Over the last 15 years, he helped large international customers from the Telecom and Banking industries steer their IT strategies to ride the latest technological trends. Lately, he focused on R&D around Open Banking, particularly the security challenges, in close cooperation with leading software vendors and initiative groups. Following this direction, he co-founded Smart Fintech, together with Mihaela Georgescu, Alexandru Cociu and Ana Maria Georgescu, in February 2019. Smart Fintech is a Romanian start-up created as an innovation lab, set to deliver innovative open banking solutions that emerge from the two words: Finance and Technology. Their ambition is to create in Romania value-added services based on the PSD2 directive and help develop the Romanian market so that not only EU TPPs or Fintechs in partnership with banks are the main players.
Ana is a highly experienced technical and sales consultant, specialised in integrated informatic systems solutions and business processes for service-oriented architectures. Over the last 17 years, Ana helped large international enterprise customers from the financial-banking, telecom, or utilities industries to set up their technological processes and implement the latest digital business transformation strategies. In the last 2 years, she focused her attention also on the fintech innovative domain, launching in 2019, together with Mihaela Georgescu, Andrei Dumitru and Alexandru Cociu the Romanian start-up Smart Fintech. This was set up as an innovation lab, set to deliver innovative open banking solutions that emerge from the two words: Finance and Technology. Their ambition is to create in Romania value-added services based on the PSD2 directive and help develop the Romanian market so that not only EU TPPs or Fintechs in partnership with banks are the main players.
Daniel Biran is leading eBay’s Business Development activity in dozens of markets worldwide, ranging from the Middle East to Southern and Eastern Europe. Daniel and the Commercial team are in charge of supporting small and medium sized businesses’ transition to online export, creating tailor made onboarding solutions, professional trainings and strategic partnerships to help eBay sellers grow their business globally. Daniel’s education is in the fields of business administration and psychology, graduated with merit a B.A. and MBA from Tel Aviv University.
Gabriel Caramis is the Founder & CEO of Woobble the Human Beings Digital Agency in CEE with an experience of over 10 years in Online Marketing. He launched Woobble in 2017 with the focus to make digital matter to customer problems with specific to all the web, mobile and marketing solutions. Gabriel always makes sure, the solutions are 100% unique and meet the client’s requirements. He is self-determined and urges to provide the best solution to suit your business nature and goal. His team of professionals will closely work with you and spot the right window for your business to attract customers. They have a wide area of knowledge in providing vital solutions and services in the areas of information technology, consulting and outsourcing in various segments of industry like advertising, education, finance, healthcare, life sciences, hotel/hospitality, media and entertainment, mobile and wireless, retail, real estate, sports and fitness, technology, non-profit and more. We Make Digital Matter to You!
Zvi Mitlanski has a career that spans over 20 years in payment, banking, retail, telecommunication and governments markets. He has held senior executive level positions in global companies responsible for growth, sale & business development, M&As, marketing, product management and organizational development. Before joining Comax, Zvi was the CEO of Modularity, GM Asia at Powa and President of the Asia Pacific region for VeriFone. As a member of the VeriFone executive team, he was involved in corporate process, decision making and strategy, while successfully managing a $230m business unit containing over 700 team members. Prior to this, Zvi held senior positions with Lipman and StarHome, driving regional business through multiple subsidiaries and sales organizations, including development of local products and services.
Loek is is an Global Omnichannel Strategist, also known as Mr. Omnichannel, with 10+ years’ entrepreneurial FMCG experience building and nurturing C level relationships, driving partnerships and evaluate performance of retail & eCommerce & Customer Experience programs globally including but not limited to Logistics, Change Management, Business Operations and Brand Development. Always striving for excellence together with the teams. Omnichannel, Unified Commerce and Customer Experience are his passions; frequently sharing insights as a Keynote speaker or Panel member at international events on Omnichannel, Customer Experience and Retail. He has an untenable love to be challenged in solving problems that improve user experiences. Passionate and motivated for leading talent teams that work on impactful complex projects while focusing on delivering the daily revenue’s. Seasoned in transforming retail technology to meet needs of quickly growing or highly customer centric brands. o Transformed and built cross country teams with improved processes and passion to work as coherent teams o Improved customer journeys in million dollar companies with new processes, software and customer journeys o Simplified, Transformed and Implemented Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX) programs in 40+ Retail, eCommerce and User Experience initiatives, investments and programs o Breaking boundaries by transforming silo oriented teams into unified teams putting customers first
With the right attitude and a great amount of curiosity, Flavian is a pattern disruptor, fascinated by digital, and there are few subjects he couldn't tackle. A certified Professional Scrum Product Owner and Digital Strategist at Grapefruit for 7+ years, Flavian has proven experience in business strategy, digital marketing, social media, digital transformation, project management, UI/UX, business development, and product development.
Started with electrical engineering research and then moved to software. Background in industrial/automation software and B2B backend integrations. Currently contributing to Thales’ TACTICOS Combat Management System.
With over a decade of experience in the Thales Naval domain Patrick is currently working as software architect in the development of Thales’ TACTICOS Combat Management System.
Vlad Oprisa is a Software Developer who learned his craft during the past 15 years while working for a wide range of business domains like Telecommunications, Electronic Payment Systems, Banking, Business Intelligence, Insurance, Accounting, Cash Management, Electronic Data Interchange, IoT and more. He holds both a Bachelor and a master’s degree in computer science. During his career he covered roles like Senior Development Consultant, Software Architect, Technical Excellence Discipline Lead, Development Lead, Senior Software Engineer etc. "I am grateful for the opportunity to tackle major software quality attributes challenges for such a wide range of business use-cases and continuously find better and easier ways to improve the design and architecture.
Alexandru is a software developer from Bucharest, working at ING on payment processors. He loves Open Source, is the author of Monix, and a contributor to Cats Effect and to other libraries from the Typelevel Scala ecosystem. He’s also writing at: alexn.org
Mihai is a backend developer who has been working with Scala and functional programming for the better part of the last 6 years, both in the startup community and within ING. He is interested in correctness-by-design, building fast, reliable and scalable backend systems.
Mark Little leads the technical direction, research, and development for Red Hat JBoss Middleware.
Prior to taking over this role in 2009, Mark served as the SOA technical development manager and director of standards. Additionally, Mark was a chief architect, and co-founder at Arjuna Technologies, a spin-off from HP, where he was Distinguished Engineer. He has worked in the area of reliable distributed systems since the mid-80s with a PhD in fault-tolerant distributed systems, replication, and transactions. Mark is also a professor at Newcastle University and Lyon University.
Simon Ritter is the Deputy CTO of Azul Systems. Simon has been in the IT business since 1984 and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Brunel University in the U.K.
Simon joined Sun Microsystems in 1996 and started working with Java technology from JDK 1.0; he has spent time working in both Java development and consultancy. Having moved to Oracle as part of the Sun acquisition, he managed the Java Evangelism team for the core Java platform. Now at Azul, he continues to help people understand Java as well as AzulÕs JVM technologies and products. Simon has twice been awarded Java Rockstar status at JavaOne and is a Java Champion. He represents Azul on the Java SE Expert Group, OpenJDK Vulnerability Group and Adoptium Steering Committee.
Follow him on Twitter, @speakjava.
Cătălin Tudose graduated with a degree in Computer Science in 1997 in Bucharest. He also holds a PhD in this field. He has more than 20 years in the IT field and more than 15 years in the Java area and is currently acting as a Java and Web technologies expert at Luxoft Romania. Cătălin has developed 3 courses for Pluralsight on topics related to JUnit 5: “TDD with JUnit 5”, “Java BDD Fundamentals” and “Implementing a Test Pyramid Strategy in Java”. Besides the IT field and mathematics, Cătălin is interested in world culture and in soccer. He is a lifelong supporter of FC Argeş Piteşti.
I've been in IT for about 10 years, working with Java for over 7. I've been an advocate for serverless and it's benefits, wherever and whenever I could, but also when it made sense. I like using new technologies and frameworks to keep my team interested and engaged.
Mircea Geoană became NATO Deputy Secretary General in October 2019, after a distinguished domestic and international career. He is a strong advocate of transatlantic integration and has held a number of international positions, including OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in 2001 and personal representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for Georgia in 2005. Mr Geoană also served in various capacities as a diplomat and politician, including Ambassador to Washington, Minister of Foreign Affairs, President of Romanian Senate, and, in 2009, his party’s candidate to be President of Romania. He is also the founder of the Aspen Institute Romania and has published extensively on domestic and international affairs. Mr Geoană is the first Deputy Secretary General from Romania, and the first from any of the countries that joined the Alliance after the end of the Cold War.
Sergiu joined the cyber security domain in 1999, having various roles like IT security engineer, CISO, trainer and advisor for organizations from multiple sectors, like Department of Defence, telco, manufacturing, banking, insurance or retail. Member of various groups of experts during his career, like Business Continuity Management and Crisis Management groups of excellence in Deutsche Telekom, or Cyber Security Task Force of ANIS (Employers’ Association of the Software and Services Industry), Sergiu benefited from the best environments for innovation and creativity on cyber security topics. Sergiu has a master’s degree and a merit diploma in IT Security from the Military Technical Academy of Bucharest and started his PhD with the aim of improving application security review through machine learning algorithms and natural language processing. Last year, Sergiu received the Best Cyber Security Ecosystem Award for Huawei, from the Digital Transformation Council of Romania.
Mr. Adrian Floarea, PhD, graduated Mathematics and holding a PhD in cryptographic algorithms is a strong supporter of the R&D activity in the IT Identity and Security Field, with applied and innovative approaches of the projects he involves in. He is the CEO of certSIGN and he will back up the project team, providing advices based on his extensive experience. With more than 18 years of technical experience in this industry field and over 10 years of management experience, Mr. Floarea has an innovative vision and a comprehensive approach regarding the means of strengthening the company's activities, but also regarding the new development directions imposed by the evolution of the market and the new technological challenges. Over the years, Mr. Floarea was involved in: research and development projects, certSIGN’s products development strategy, over 15 projects implemented for major industry players. He also was involved in numerous actions, meant to popularize and promote science, it by participating in specialized events and publishing articles and books about its field of expertise. Also, along the years, he has paid a particular attention on analyzing the impact of IT Identity and Security Field on non-IT domains, including on the activity of administrative institutions - European and / or national. Academic vise, Mr. Florea has a large number of certifications issued by renowned international institution that, together with all its sustained activity, only prove once more that he is a true path finder in its field of activity.
Alexandru Luca is an experienced Mobile Division Manager with over 15 years experience in IT & C field. Over the years, Mr. Luca has gained valuable experience in this field both by taking key roles in the companies in which he has worked and by acquiring important certifications in this field such as Certified Enterprise Mobility Management, Certified Solution Design & Deployment and Certified System Architecture.
Dragos Drajneanu has extensive experience in the mobile software domain, being active for more than 10 years in this field. The experience gained has been enhanced by the the various certifications he has acquired in the Enterprise Mobility Management and Mobile Device Management sphere, like Android Enterprise Professional, Samsung Knox Professional and Support & Architect Specialist.
Zwienenberg started dealing with computer viruses in 1988 after encountering the first virus problems. His interest thus kindled he has studied virus behaviour and presented solutions and detection schemes ever since. Starting as an independent consultant, later as R&D Manager at CSE Ltd, as a researcher for ThunderBYTE, as Chief Research Officer at Norman, and currently as Senior Research Fellow at ESET. Over the years he has served in many extra roles in different industry organizations. Currently he is still serving on the board of AVAR, on the Technical Overview Board of the WildList and as the Vice Chair of the Executive Committee of IEEE ICSG. In 2018, Zwienenberg joined the Europol European Cyber Crime Center (EC3) Advisory Group as an ESET representative. Zwienenberg has been a member of CARO since late 1991. He is a frequent speaker at conferences and general security seminars.
Roxana Ionescu is one of the most reputable Romanian specialists in the data protection field. She is the only lawyer active in Romania recommended for Data Privacy & Protection in Romania by Who’s Who Legal 2021 and is praised as a “very hands-on privacy professional when it comes to data protection matters” and noted for her “wealth of experience” in the field. With over 16 years of experience in data protection and privacy matters, Roxana has been assisting clients on complex privacy matters related to their core-businesses, marketing or employment activities, cyber-security requirements, classified information regime, cloud computing, database sharing and data protection implications of business transfers, projects and mergers, both national and cross-border. A partner of the firm since 2013, Roxana was part of the team that established NNDKP’s Data protection practice in 2008 and she has coordinated it ever since, leading the team in myriads of projects, across various industries.
Martin Borrett is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and CTO IBM Security EMEA. He advises at the most senior level in clients on policy, business, technical and architectural issues associated with security. Martin is co-author of the IBM Redbooks "Introducing the IBM Security Framework and IBM Security Blueprint to Realize Business-Driven Security" and "Understanding SOA Security". He is Chairman of the European IBM Security Board of Advisors, represents IBM at GFCE and the Industry Advisory Board of LORCA, the London Office for Rapid Cybersecurity Advancement, is a Fellow of the British Computer Society, a Chartered Engineer (CEng) and member of the IET. Martin has a passion for sailing and has represented Great Britain; he is also a keen tennis player.
Siân John MBE is Director of Security Business Development and Strategic Growth at Microsoft. She leads a team focusing on developing opportunities for Microsoft to deliver new security, compliance, and identity offerings to market. Siân has worked in Cybersecurity for nearly 25 years across strategy, business risk, privacy, and technology. She is Chair of both techUK’s CyberSecurity Management committee and the Digital Economy Advisory Board for the UK Research Councils. Siân is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Information Security and was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s 2018 New Year’s Honours List for services to Cybersecurity.
Koen Vanhees has 13 years of experience in Cyber Security, in various fields such as incident response, security monitoring, penetration testing and vulnerability management. Four years ago he started Cegeka’s Security Operations Center, where all these fields come together into practical services delivered to 30+ customers. Although being a SOC manager, he is still an engineer and incident responder at heart.
Bogdan Stefanescu is a CEE Channel Sales Specialist | Unstructured Data Solutionsat Dell Technologies. Bogdan has over 20 years of experience in the field of Data Protection solutions and Technology, out of which 8 were spent at Dell Technologies, Bogdan has a degree from “Universitatea Politehnica din București”, asset that give him substantial knowledge of the field both from a strong academic background, but also from actual experience with real challenges.
Bogdan Costea is Head of Information Security at ING Bank Romania. He previously spent 12 years auditing both business and IT processes, including cybersecurity. Having extensive knowledge on both business and security processes allows Bogdan to identify, assess and drive implementation of security controls while without impeding too much business processes. Bogdan is highly aware of the need that nowadays security must be embedded in people mindset and part of the core business of the companies as it is not an IT issue alone. In his current role he is preaching this on every occasion.
As a partner and senior vice president at Future Point of View, Corey White is tasked with helping leaders look out into the future and anticipate how technology will impact their organizations and themselves. Corey leads FPOV’s cybersecurity arm where he guides leaders on the best ways to protect their organizations in an increasingly critical yet dangerous digital landscape. He teaches leaders how to recognize and avoid common and uncommon cyberattacks while also proactively preparing for the near inevitability they will be forced to endure a digital event at some point. From building digital event response playbooks, assessing organizational cybersecurity risk, and even trolling the dark web for client information, Corey has wide experience in many different facets of digital security. Corey is also an accomplished speaker who offers audiences insights into how complex innovation is dramatically altering the world we live in ways that can be both positive and negative. He most recently presented on the subject of algorithmic bias at TEDx Oklahoma City.
Charl van der Walt is Head of Security Research for Orange Cyberdefense, where he now leads a specialist security research unit that identifies, tracks, analyses & communicates significant developments in the security landscape that may impact customers. Previously Charl was a co-founder of SensePost – a penetration testing company that has made a mark on the industry globally for two decades now, and the lead for a global threat detection operation based in the UK. Charl and his team are globally recognized and frequently showcased at international security events such as Black Hat, RSA & BSides. Orange’s access to authentic security data as an operator, and their deep focus on intelligence and research, place Charl in a unique position to understand and comment on the fundamental dynamics of the security landscape.