Programme

Andrei Sharonov joined Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO in September 2013 as Dean, having left the position of Deputy Mayor of Moscow for Economic Policy in Moscow City Government.Born in 1964 in Ufa, Andrei Sharonov graduated as an engineer from Ufa State Aviation Technical University and as a lawyer from Russian Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation; in 1994 obtained his PhD in Social Studies.From 1989 to 1991 a Member of the Soviet Parliament, Congress of People’s deputies of the USSR; till 1996 chaired the Russian Federal Committee (Ministry) on Youth Affairs.In 1996-2007 occupied the positions of Deputy Minister, State Secretary and First Deputy Minister at Economics Development Ministry of Russian Federation.In the period from 2007 till 2010, Managing Director and the Board of Directors’ Chairman for Troika Dialog (Private Investment Company).Board Member for OJSC NOVATEK, ALROSA Group, Bank of Moscow OJSC, OJSC Sovcomflot, MC NefteTransService LLC and JSC Eco-System Management Company.As of December 22, 2010, by appointment of Moscow City Mayor Decree, Andrei Sharonov served at Moscow City Government as Deputy Mayor of Moscow for Economic Policy in charge of budgeting, industrial and city business development, regional rate regulations as well as competition and public retail and procurement policy, trade and services.Since 2012, Andrei Sharonov is heading Executive Committees of Moscow Urban Forum and Open Innovations Forum.Andrei Sharonov received 2009 “Aristos” Awards as “Independent Director” and “Director of the Year”; the Person of the Year in Business Reputation for 2012.Andrei Sharonov was awarded with the Order of Honour and granted the title of “Honoured Economist of Russian Federation”.

Mr. Pekka A. Viljakainen was born in Finland 1972. He studied engineering at the University of Technology in Lappeenranta. Thanks to his technical background, Mr. Viljakainen has for 25 years worked as an ambassador between business executives and technology teams. He started as an entrepreneur in 1986, by establishing Oy Visual Systems Ltd. (1986-2004). His company was merged with TietoEnator in 2000. Mr. Viljakainen is widely known by his nickname, Bulldozer. The nickname was earned by his reputation and track record for handling very complex governance and political topics inside large international organizations. During his corporate carrier he acted as trusted advisor for CEO’s and chairman’s specializing for the transformation related to enterprise digitalization and HR. After 26 years of his active Visual Systems-Tieto carrier, he left from operative roles on 2011 and focused to his non-profit leadership education project called www.nofear-community.com . Because of this he has been visiting speaker and advisor for several international corporations and faculties (like IMD Business School). In 2012 Mr Viljakainen was invited to act as senior advisor for the president of Skolkovo Foundation. Since that he has been acted as a founder and advisor for several nationwide entrepreneurship programs in Russian Federation. Russian StartupTour 2013-2014 (16 + 28 Russian cities) and StartupVillage concepts has key elements of those actions. During those programs he has build a strong network of entrepreneurs, local governmental institutions as well as universities across Russia and abroad. Mr Viljakainen is the member of Strategic Board of the Russian Postal Service and Board of Directors of Soprano Communications. Mr Viljakainen is also known as investor, business angel and advisor for several high-tech companies. Those activities are handled thru his family investment office called www.Aii.fi He is also well known supporter and philanthropic for several areas related to education, classical music as well as several social projects. His hobbies are helicopter flying PPL(H), cross country skiing, weight lifting and triathlon.

Eric Cornut has been appointed Special Envoy of the CEO, effective 1 June 2016. From August 2014 to May 2016, Mr. Cornut served as Chief Ethics, Compliance and Policy Officer of Novartis, in addition to his role as Chairman of Novartis Group Japan. Previously, Mr. Cornut assumed the role of Chief Commercial Officer of Novartis Pharmaceuticals and earlier, he led Pharma Europe. Prior to that, he served as the Chief Executive Officer for Novartis Netherlands and Novartis France. Earlier in his career, Mr. Cornut played a key role in the merger of Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz. Mr. Cornut has a Doctoral degree in Law from the University of Basel, Switzerland, and a Master of Law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States.

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.