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Conference speakers and chairs


Hasan Alkas
Hasan Alkas is Principal Economist at the European Commission’s General-Directorate Enterprise and Industry and manager of the Sectoral e-Business Watch programme. He contributes to EU policies in the areas of telecoms regulation, spectrum management, energy efficiency as well as mergers and state aid cases. He was chef de file for the Communication on Key Enabling Technologies which was adopted in September 2009. Prior to his engagement with the European Commission he carried out research and consultancy projects on price regulation and competition policy in network industries for institutions such as the German Regulatory Authority for Telecommunications, Post and Railway, the Turkish Regulatory Authority and the European Commission. He holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Cologne.

Jian Bani
Jian Bani is Managing Partner of SE CONSULT, a Spanish consulting company specialised in economic, technical and legal assistance services in transport, energy and innovation. He has more than 15 years experience in delivery of strategic consulting services in national and international transport, energy and innovation projects, e.g. for the European Parliament, the European Commission (DG TREN, DG REGIO, DG Research, DG Enterprise), the EBRD, EACI, EMSA). He has recently managed studies on ICT usage in the transport & logistics sector, including studies for the Sectoral e-Business Watch (DG Enterprise and Industry) and for the EACI commissioned Marco Polo II Project “Intelligent Intermodal Transport Systems – ITS IT" (2006-2009).

Leo Baumann
Leo Baumann is Director Public Affairs of Digitaleurope, the European digital technology industry association. Leo joined Digitaleurope in 2002 and in the beginning held different managerial positions with responsibility for various policy areas of the organization. Before joining Digitaleurope, he spent three years in the European Parliament as assistant to Dr. Angelika Niebler, MEP, supporting all political and legislative work under the scope of the Parliamentary Committees on Industry and Legal Affairs with a focus on information society issues. Leo is a qualified lawyer with German law degrees and holds a PhD in European law. He is the chair of the ICT Committee of the British Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and a member of the Chamber’s Executive Committee.

Manfred Bergmann
Since January 2008, Dr. Manfred Bergmann heads the unit for the development of industrial policy at the Directorate-General Enterprise and Industry (DG ENTR) of the European Commission. In this function, he co-headed the internal DG ENTR task force "carbon leakage", and presently he is heading the internal DG ENTR task force "economic cirisis". Before this, he headed the unit in charge of the economic evaluation of Community Policies, namely environment, transport and energy policies, and agricultural and regional policies at the Directorate-General for Economic and Monetary Affairs. In that function he also contributed to the design of the European Emission Trading System and the development of the European Energy and Climate Policy Package of January 2008. Mr Bergmann holds a PhD in economics, with a specialisation in public finances and institutional economics.

Roberta Bigliani
Roberta Bigliani is responsible for research-based advisory and consulting services across EMEA, providing full coverage of the energy industry value chain. Roberta has over 16 years of experience in the Utilities and Oil&Gas industries. Prior to joining IDC she worked for Accenture.
She was invited to join the European Commission DG Information and Society consultation group on smart grids and she is one of leading analyst of the IDC ICT Sustainability IndexTM to be released prior to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
Roberta is the author of several reports and a contributor on energy issues for specialist publications. She is also a regular conference speaker. She graduated magna cum laude in Business Administration and Economics at Bocconi University (Italy).

Jean-Noël Durvy
Jean-Noël Durvy is Director of the Innovation Policy Directorate in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry. The Directorate is composed of four units: "innovation policy development", "support for innovation", "financing innovation and SMEs" and "ICT for competitiveness and innovation". The Directorate is responsible for the elaboration and implementation of the strategy for innovation in the European Union and of a significant part (3.6 billion euros) of the Competitiveness and Innovation (CIP) programme. Jean-Noël Durvy has a double education in sciences (mathematics) and economics (Ph.D.). He joined the European Commission in 1978, starting in the informatics directorate.

Antti Eskola
Antti Eskola is Commercial Counsellor in the Innovation Department of the Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy. He joined the Ministry in 1984. He has worked in several departments of the Ministry promoting trade, scientific and technological cooperation and eBusiness. His postings abroad include a four-year term as a seconded national expert in the Delegation of the European Commission in Japan. His current work focuses on user and demand driven innovation, ICT and information society policies. Antti Eskola has a M.Sc. Degree from Helsinki University of Technology.

Enrico Gibellieri
Enrico Gibellieri is Deputy Vice-President of the Steering Committee of the European Steel Technology Platform (ESTEP) (since 2006). He studied Industrial Chemistry Engineering and has been Senior Engineer responsible for the Institutional Relations with the European Union of the Centro Sviluppo Materiali where he worked since 1966 up to March 2007. Convinced of the paramount importance of the European and international co-operation, he is active at international level participating to the Steel Committee of the UN ECE, the Steel Committee of the OECD and the Steel Committees of the International Metaworkers’ Federation and of the European Metalworkers’ Federation where he is expert and adviser for the steel sector.

Peter Johnston
Peter Johnston is currently Senior Policy Advisor in the European Policy Centre in Brussels and an active Member of the Club of Rome: He chairs the European Task Force on Innovation and the Transition to a Green Economy, and is a member of the core group of the Club of Rome advising the GLOBE group of Legislators and the G20 on an integrated approach to energy, climate, development and bio-diversity challenges. Dr Johnston has been active in linking science, buisness and policy development for over 35 years. He has worked with the European Commission, the British Govenment and the OECD in energy, environment, reserch and innovation policy analysis. His was previously a physicist in Oxford and Carnegie Mellon Universities. He is now an independent policy analyst.

Bahadir Kaleağasi
Since 1996 Bahadir Kaleagasi has been the permanent representative of TUSIAD (Turkish Industry & Business Association) to the EU and Businesseurope (Confederation of European Business) in Brussels. Since 2008 Dr Kaleagasi is the International Coordinator of TUSIAD covering projects and offices in Brussels, Berlin, Paris, Washington DC and Beijing. He is also a scientific member at the University of Brussels, founding president of the Turkish environmental protection organisation TEMA (European branch) and a board member of TUSIAD International, the JCl-Europe and Forum Istanbul, Turkey’s high-level economic and political conference network. His work covered the following main areas: theories of international relations, EU’s decision-making system, EU-US relations and the external economic relations of the EU.

Stefan Lilischkis
Stefan Lilischkis, Dr. rer. oec., has been Senior Consultant at empirica since 2001. He is in charge of European research and consulting projects. Since early 2009 he manages the project Sectoral e-Business Watch. The focus of his analyses in recent years has been on ICT-related industrial policy, impacts of ICT and e-business in the steel industry and in hospitals, the role of new companies for ICT innovation and diffusion, and ICT standards in the health sector.
Stefan Lilischkis studied economics and political sciences at the Universities of Cologne, Edinburgh and Bochum. In his dissertation he analysed the promotion of start-ups from universities, comparing the University of Washington (Seattle) and the Ruhr-University Bochum. He had a training at the journalist school in Cologne.

Reinhard Madlener
Prof. Dr. Reinhard Madlener was born in 1964 in Dornbirn (Austria). He is a full professor of Energy Economics and Management and Director of the Institute for Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN), established by him in June 2007 at RWTH Aachen University. FCN is one of five research institutes of the interdisciplinary E.ON Energy Research Center (E.ON. ERC) at RWTH Aachen University. Before taking up his position at RWTH Aachen University, Prof. Madlener was Assistant Professor at the Centre for Energy Policy and Economics (CEPE), ETH Zurich (2001*2007), External Lecturer at the Socioeconomic Institute, University of Zurich (since 2003), and Managing Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies Carinthia (2000*2001).

Colette Maloney
Colette Maloney is Head of Unit H.4, ICT for Sustainable Growth, in the General-Directorate Information Society and Media of the European Commission.

Peter O’Donnell
Peter O’Donnell is a Brussels-based journalist who has been covering European affairs for over twenty years. He is currently assistant editor of the Economist Group's weekly newspaper, European Voice. He has wide experience of ICT and related subjects, as author or editor (from Belgacom's annual report to "e-Business: The Way Forward"), and as the chair of European conferences on subjects including broadband, telecoms regulation, the future of the internet, or the e-economy.

Ferdinand Pavel
Ferdinand Pavel is a Manager at DIW econ - a subsidiary company of the German Institute for Economic Research Berlin. As an experienced economist, he has worked on many different issues such as regulatory economics, financial analysis and modelling, acquisition and regulatory strategies, investment appraisal, asset valuation, the cost of capital, and price and cost reviews. He has advised private and public clients in many different sectors including telecommunications, postal services and energy. Ferdinand Pavel holds a Ph.D. from Humboldt University Berlin.

Miguel A. Sánchez Fornié
Miguel Sánchez Fornié is Director of Control Systems and Telecommunications of Iberdrola (Spain). He is the President of UNESA’s Telecommunications Group, a member of the UTILITY TELECOMMS COUNCIL Board of Directors and President of its European division. Furthermore, he is member of the Advisory Committee of the European technological platform “SMART GRIDS”, as well as member of the ADHOC group for ICT and energy efficiency (Directorate-General for Information Society and Media of the European Commission). He is currently professor of the postgraduate course of energy in the University of Comillas.

Hannes Selhofer
Hannes Selhofer is a project manager and senior consultant at empirica in Bonn (www.empirica.com). His work focuses on the analysis of digital business strategies and ICT-enabled innovation and the assessment of related policy approaches. Results of recent studies in this field, including innovative benchmarks and compound indicators on e-business adoption and policy, have been an influential source for taking informed decisions in policy, notably at the EU level.
Hannes studied communication and media research at the University of Salzburg (M.A., 1992) and holds an MIM (Executive Master in Management) from the University of Salzburg Business School (2006).

Graham Vickery
Graham Vickery, OECD (Paris), Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry; Head of the Information Economy Group in the Information, Computer and Communications Policy Division.
Current and recent responsibilities: Head of the Information Economy Group and programme director for OECD information technology, digital content, e-business and industry, and ICT and environment programmes. These cover: information economy, environment, public sector information, intangibles and intellectual capital, new technologies, work organisation, growth and employment, industrial performance, and industry globalisation. Author of numerous OECD publications and articles, including the Information Technology Outlook.