Programme

Bruno Berthon is the Managing Director Europe, Africa and Latin America for Accenture Strategy and Global Managing Director Digital Strategy. His experience spans across all domains of Strategy from Corporate Strategy and M&A, operating models and shared services, IT strategy, data platforms and policies, digital customer to IoT and new business models. Previously he ran the Accenture Strategy practice in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Netherlands. He also created and led the Sustainability practice of Accenture from 2007 to 2014. Bruno’s expertise lies in his capacity to support enterprises and multinational organisations in the face of major disruptions – external growth, M&A, globalisation, technological and digital revolutions, new operating models, sustainability – across industrial sectors and to transform them into opportunities by accompanying his clients in their transformation journey. Bruno has been working for more than 22 years with the top management of multinational organisations and administrations in sectors ranging from Utilities, CG&S, Retail, hi-tech and media, the industrial sector to address the specific challenges of globalisation, operating model changes, internet and digital, and the transformations resulting from Sustainability and ESR trends. In particular Bruno works or has worked for clients like Engie, Michelin, Lafarge, ALU, Disney, Danone on topics ranging from Digital Transformation, Performance and Valuation, Innovation, PMI, Value Chain transformation, Culture and Employee Value proposition. He also led or supported Smart Cities programs for Cities or Utilities. He represents Accenture at the World Economic Forum in Davos on the topics of climate change and digital transformation, supported also the United Nations SE4All program and WBCSD initiatives. He published multiple articles and blogs and participated to multiple events from the UNGC to the COP21. Bruno is member of the SAP Sustainability Advisory Board. Bruno lives in Paris. He is married, father of three boys. He graduated from the Ecole Centrale Paris, has an MBA from INSEAD, a Master of Macroeconomics from La Sorbonne and a degree in Law. Bruno is also an active Business Angel and investor, a blogger @BFB61 with a focus on Digital and Sustainability and a Football coach.

Gianpietro Benedetti is the Chairman & C.E.O. of Danieli & C. Officine Meccaniche S.p.A. In 1961 he took his diploma as electrical engineer. He began working in Danieli's design technical offices in 1961, advanced to mechanical project engineer in 1963 and plant start-up engineer in 1966. Manager of rolling mill process and roll pass design offices in 1968, Sales Director in 1976, Research & Development and Sales Director in 1982. He was named Danieli Group Managing Director in 1986 and President & CEO in 1990. In 1994 he was elected in the Board of Directors of ABS S.p.A. (Italy), a 1,200,000 tpy specialty steel mini-mill. In 2000, he was given a “Honoris Causa” degree in mechanical engineering by the University of Trieste. He was Member of the Board of Directors of Friuladria Bank (Intesa BCI Group) from 1999 to 2004. In October 2003 he was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of Danieli. In 2006 he was given a “Honoris Causa” degree in management engineering by the University of Udine. In June 2006 he was appointed to the Order of Merit for Labour (national order of chivalry) of the Republic of Italy. President of the Foundation “ITS – Technical Secondary School – New made-in-Italy Technologies, Mechanical and Aeronautics Section”, Udine (since September 2010). Member of the Board of Directors of Friuladria Bank (Crédit Agricole Group) from April 2013. Holder of numerous patents for steelmaking machines and processes.

Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Technical University of Munich; Master of Business Administration (Sloan Fellow), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Senior Vice-President Nokia, Market Europe – April 2015 – today. President Greater China Region, Nokia Networks (formerly NSN) - March 2012 – March 2015. Head of Customer Operations Greater China, NSN - January 2010 – February 2012. Global Head of Sales and Marketing, Radio Access Business Unit, NSN - April 2007 – December 2009. Senior Vice President Strategy and Marketing, Siemens Mobile Networks - July 2005 – March 2007 Senior Vice President Global Customer Unit Vodafone, Siemens Mobile Networks - January 2001 – June 2005 Multiple leadership and management roles, Siemens Nixdorf Information Systems and Siemens Business Services - 1991-2001. In 2014, Markus received the China Friendship Award, the highest honor awarded by the Chinese government to foreign nationals working in China. Markus is married and has three children.

Stephen Brobst is the Chief Technology Officer for Teradata Corporation. His expertise is in the identification and development of opportunities for the strategic use of technology in competitive business environments. Over the past thirty years Stephen has been involved in numerous engagements and has worked with such leaders as eBay, Staples, General Motors, Wells Fargo Bank, Wal-Mart, AT&T Communications, VISA, Vodafone, Nationwide Insurance, American Airlines, and many more. In 2009 he was also appointed to the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) of USA in the working group on Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD). In the last ExecRank ranking he was named the #4 CTO in the United States (behind the CTOs from Amazon.com, Tesla Motors, and Intel) out of a pool of 10,000+ CTOs. Stephen performed his graduate work in Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where his Masters and PhD research focused on high-performance parallel processing. He also completed an MBA with joint course and thesis work at the Harvard Business School and the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Valentin Gapanovich was born on May 23, 1955. He graduated from Novosibirsk Institute of Railway Engineers in 1992 and from the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration in 1998 with qualifications in management of railway transport and railway engineering in railway transport management. He finished Gomel Railway Technical School and worked as assistant operator of a diesel locomotive, and as chief rolling stock repair man at the Topkino Cement Plant. After his military service, he worked as a rolling stock repair man for the Novokuznetsk Depot of Kemerovo Railway and assistant safety inspector of the Novokuznetsk Section locomotive depot. From 1989 to 1998, he served as Head of the Kemerovo Railway Novokuznetsk Locomotive Depot; Chief Engineer of the Kemerovo Railway Novokuznetsk Section; Deputy Chief Engineer on the Kuzbas Section of the West Siberian Railway. From 1998 to 1999, he was Deputy Head of Locomotive and Wagon Management of the West Siberian Railway and Deputy Railway Head. From 2000 to 2003, he served as Chief Engineer on the Oktyabrskaya Railway. In 2003, he was appointed Vice President of Russian Railways JSCo. In June 2008, he was appointed Senior Vice President of Russian Railways JSCo.

Enterprise Ireland (EI) is the Irish government agency responsible for the development and growth of Irish enterprises in world markets, through supporting exports and innovation. As the largest seed capital investor in Europe, EI manages a portfolio of over 1300 investments in client companies. EI also works with High Potential Start-Up companies (HPSUs) to confirm the viability of their business ideas and also co-invest with the companies and other private investors to finance and implement their start-up and development plans. EI is also limited partners in many of the Irish-based seed and venture capital funds. Terence O'Rourke was appointed Chairman of the Board of Enterprise Ireland on August 1, 2013 by the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation of Ireland. Terence started his career with KPMG in 1975, became a partner in 1988 and was Managing Partner of KPMG Ireland from 2006 to April 2013. During his time in KPMG Terence worked in Peat Marwick Boston (1979-1981), President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland (2004-2005) and a member of the Global Board, EMA Board and Global Executive Team of KPMG International (2006-2013). His current directorships include The Irish Times Ltd (Ireland’s leading daily newspaper) and the Chartered Accountants Regulatory Board. Terence is also a Council member of the Irish Management Institute and the Dublin Theatre Festival, the Hugh Lane Art Gallery, and an advisor to Women’s Executive Network. Further to this: General Joseph Cornelius O'Rourke’s portrait hangs in the 1812 Generals room in the Hermitage.

Born in 1970 in Tashkent, in a family of scientists. Holds a B.Sc. degree and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), where he studied from the age of 15. In 1996 Protassov joined Standard & Western Software IT company as a technical specialist and relocated to Singapore. In 2000 Protassov, together with his friends from MIPT, founded a new company, SWsoft. Under his leadership, SWsoft opened a new R&D center in MIPT to begin developing new products. SWsoft grew into two separate companies, Parallels and Acronis, with Protassov being a co-founder of both. Today, these companies are respected market leaders in the field of data protection and server virtualization, with millions of customers worldwide. Up until 2013, Protassov held a position of Senior Vice President of SWsoft (and later, Parallels, when the company was renamed from SWsoft in 2007), supervising R&D, product development, and technological processes within the business.In 2013, Protassov re-focused on Acronis and became a Senior Vice President, responsible for the technical side of business development, product line, and software updates.Protassov holds 71 patents in the area of computer science and server virtualization, and co-authored the container virtualization technology, which has become an integral part of the global cloud today, currently powering over 10 million servers around the world.

Murat Sönmez was a member of the founding team in 1997 at TIBCO Software, a real-time integration and business intelligence software provider based in Palo Alto, California. He was responsible for TIBCO’s customer and partner facing global field operations across 32 countries with a team of 1,700 employees looking after 4,000 customers. He was also a director and board member of TIBCO Software Federal Inc., servicing the US Federal Government. He left in August 2014 after leading the company cross the billion dollar revenue mark and joined the World Economic Forum as a Member of the Managing Board. TIBCO has been a pioneer in several industries and Murat has personally been involved in many of industry firsts: digitizing the Wall Street trading floors; helping companies such as eBay, Amazon and Yahoo! build their e-commerce platforms; helping Intel to create the world’s first fully automated fab; laying the foundation for FedEx’s real-time track & trace operations; working with national intelligence agencies to help identify and respond to cyber-attacks; working with manufacturing companies to identify supply chain issues before they happen to take proactive action; working with leading retailers such as Macy’s to match customers’ references to available inventory in real-time; working with leading banks such as DBS and Citibank Asia for predictive customer management; creating the smart grid and cyber security infrastructure for utilities in the US and Australia, and in one case doubling the electricity capacity without adding a single watt of extra generation leading to $2 billion savings annually. In his executive sponsor role in several of these engagements, Murat worked directly with the CEO’s and boards to help transform their organizations and gave keynote speeches globally at customers’ and partners’ gatherings. Murat’s educational background includes a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from Bosphorus University, Istanbul, Turkey, and M.S., Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Virginia Tech.

Date of birth 06.02.1979. Tertiary education history. 1996 -2001 Kazan State University named after V. I. Ulyanov-Lenin, qualification - Manager, major – Management. Degree - Candidate of Economic Sciences. Employment history. 31.12.2014 – present. Director General of The alliance “The Agency for Development of Professional Communities and Skilled Workers WorldSkills Russia”. 20.11.2013 – 22.04.2014. Assistant to the Minister for Development of the Russian Far East. 02.03.2011 – 19.11.2013. Vice Minister of Labour, Employment and Social Security of the Republic of Tatarstan. 01.11.2007 – 01.03.2011. Head of the office of financial service of Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security of the Republic of Tatarstan. 22.05.2006 – 31.10.2007. Head of the Budget Department Tatarstan Branch of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation. 07.06.2004 – 22.05.2006. Head of the Maintenance Department Tatarstan Branch of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation. Publications and research papers. 29.04.2006. Management and efficiency marking of investment activity in social sphere.

O.Uskova graduated from the MISiS University. Founder and president of Cognitive Technologies company. President of The National Association of Innovations and IT development. Head of the perspective computer technologies department in the MISiS university. The member of the State Duma committee on the strategic information systems development. Chairwoman of the sub-committee on the IT and technologies transfer of the Chamber of Commerce of Russia. Participant of the group AutoNet in the National Technology Initiative of Russia. She takes part in the expert board under the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia. A member of the public expert council of the Analytical Centre under the Government of Russia. Uskova is a well-known Russian businesswoman with more than 20 years of experience in IT industry, she’s one of the main visionaries of Russian IT sector. In 2006 year she was the speaker at the meeting of the Presidium of the State Council of Russia. In 2010 she was the key speaker at the meeting of the Commission on Modernization of Economy. Uskova pays great attention to the issues of robotic systems. She is the primary initiator of the unmanned vehicle project jointly with the Ministry of Education of Russia and KAMAZ, as well as unmanned transport systems in agriculture. O.Uskova also took part in the creation of International Robotic Technology Centre in Russia, with the participation of experts from Cambridge and MIT.

Stefan Hoechbauer is President of the Middle and Eastern Europe (MEE) region. He is responsible for the development and operation of all market cultivation activities for the entire SAP product portfolio in this region. He reports to Franck Cohen, President of the EMEA region.Hoechbauer has held various leadership roles at SAP. He was appointed Chief Operating Officer of the MEE region in 2013, and additionally Chairman of SAP CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) in 2014. Before that, Hoechbauer was Senior Vice President of Sales Emerging Markets at SAP. He also served as Managing Director of SAP Switzerland. Hoechbauer started his SAP career in 2005 as Senior Vice President of Sales and Managing Director of Germany.Hoechbauer has many years’ experience in the technology sector. Before joining SAP, he was Senior Vice President and General Manager for Central Europe at PeopleSoft. He held various sales and managerial positions at Oracle and IBM, where he served as Senior Vice President / General Manager of the SoftwareGroup from 2008 to 2010.Stefan Hoechbauer has an MBA from INSEAD and a degree in commercial management from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.