Since 2019, Eric Tachibana has been the global Chief People Officer for the Professional Services organization at Amazon Web Services. In this role, Eric helps large enterprise customers across Asia with the organizational transformations necessary to deliver maximum benefits from the Cloud Operating Model and supports AWS teams with hiring, training, and culture at scale. From 2014 – 2018, Eric was the Professional Services lead for APAC, Japan, and China.

Previous to his role at Amazon, Eric was the Asia Pacific COO for UBS, across the Investment Banking, Wealth Management, and Asset Management Chief Technology Office where he was responsible for Innovation Management, Enterprise Architecture & Strategy, and Enterprise Social Networks. Before UBS, Eric was with Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he served as APAC Technology and Operations COO and was responsible for Innovation Management, Business Management, Risk & Compliance, and Employee Engagement.

Prior to his years in banking, Eric was an entrepreneur, focusing on the financial services space for over 14 years - creating, building, and eventually exiting, successful small and mid-sized companies in Silicon Valley, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and the U.K. Today Tachibana continues his entrepreneurial endeavors as a regional angel investor, strategic adviser, and mentor for young, developing entrepreneurs, serving as founding non-executive advisor for 7 companies ranging from IT, to F&B, to retail/fashion and as Program Advisor for the DBS Bank HotSpot Accelerator.

Eric is also an author of 8 books on technology development and innovation management and continues to earn regional industry recognition as an adjunct Professor at the National University of Singapore and Thammasat University business schools.

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Hendrik Esser works as manager special projects at Ericsson. He is continuously exploring and driving new ways to create better results and greater organizations. He has more than 20 years of leadership experience in product development ranging from project- and project office management and technology management to being the COO of a large product development organization. On that journey he has led small (20 people) to very large (>7000 people), globally distributed organizations. Starting with the agile transformation of one of Ericsson’s Software development units in 2008, Hendrik has become one of the drivers of Ericsson’s enterprise transition. Today he works as in-house consultant driving the business agility transformation of one of Ericsson’s business areas with over 15000 people. With his passion to drive transformations, creating organizations that enable companies coping with the complexity of todays business world, Hendrik is also an internationally active change driver and ambassador. He participates in several cross-industry exchange groups, collaborates with research projects, voluntarily works as program director for the Agile Alliance’s Supporting Agile Adoption initiative and is a frequent speaker at international Agile-, Project management- and HR conferences as well as company events.

Hector enjoys the ups and downs of life in sunny California. He has lived in six countries and eleven cities always refining his routine. A designer by heart Hector is driven by finding potential in everything and everyone and translating that potential into making our lives a bit better. Hector currently leads Design for Google Search and Assistant products. He is fascinated by a better future in which technology and people understand and interact with each other easily. Previously he worked on multiple other products at Google, MIT Mobile Experience Lab, HP, among others.

Pernilla Johansson, Chief Design Officer at Electrolux, functionally directs a global network of about 200 multi-talented designers with the aim to achieve distinctly unique human-centric branded experiences. With over 20 years of leadership experience, Pernilla has worked and lived in three continents over the years, with 16 of them being in Asia-Pacific.

Since 2018, Swedish-born designer Pernilla Johansson has been leading the function of Design at Electrolux.

Under her leadership a multi-disciplinary team of 200 designers are working across 7 locations worldwide designing meaningful consumer experiences with focus on creating human-centric solutions – products, services and interactions according our shared design philosophy, Human Touch.

Pernilla joined Electrolux in 2008 as Head of Design for Major Appliances in Asia Pacific. In this position, she was part of a team that successfully launched 60 new products in China in 2013. In 2014 she moved to Sweden to lead the global Home Care & Small Domestic Appliances design organization.

Prior to joining Electrolux, she was Head of Philips Design Singapore.

She has worked in The Netherlands, France as well as in United States prior to her move to Asia in 1999. Her other design stints include working in the Netherlands for consultancies like N|P|K and Lou Beeren Industrial Design.

Pernilla holds a Master’s Degree in Industrial Design from the Department of Arts and Crafts at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

Astrid Simonsen Joos has held the position of Chief Digital Officer at Signify, since March 2019.
Before that, she worked as Market Leader Nordics (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) from 2014. Astrid is currently member of the board in Nordea Invest as well as Telenor Group. In May 2017 she was selected as one of the members of the Disruption Council in Denmark, led by the Danish Prime Minister.
Before Signify, Astrid held numerous management positions at Microsoft and also held the position of CEO for the digital agency Creuna.
Astrid, a Norwegian national, holds a master’s degree in Business and Economics from the Norwegian School of Management and has additional education within Internet Marketing and M&A Corporate Strategy at INSEAD.
Astrid has crossed Greenland on skis, climbed and reached the summit of Mt Elbrus in Russia and, in 2014, completed the Arctic Circle Race in Greenland.

Dr Steve Cook completed a D.Phil. in Bio-organic chemistry at Jesus College, Oxford before joining BP in 1998. He managed various R&D projects in support of BP’s Acetyls and Olefins businesses (mainly in the areas of hetero- and homogeneous catalysis) before moving into a strategy role in BP’s Downstream business. This strategy work led to the creation of BP’s strategic accounts organisation, initially focused on deepening strategic relationships with global automotive companies.

Steve then moved into BP’s Renewables business in 2002, managing collaborative demonstration projects in the area of hydrogen refuelling for fuel cell vehicles which included the construction and operation of the UK’s first hydrogen refuelling station in London. During 2005 Steve was part of the launch team for BP’s Alternative Energy Business and following launch led various commercial business development activity in the gas to power business, originating major projects in the UK and Russia.

In 2009 Steve moved to the Group Technology organisation in BP, leading long term strategy development and change management.

From 2012 Steve led the Technology commercialisation team which was established to maximise the value of BP’s technology through the application of appropriate commercial models to technology programmes. Steve was VP Technology Commercialisation and part of BP’s Upstream Technology leadership team.

Steve is currently Chief Commercial Officer for Group Technology with a remit that includes long term technology strategy, emerging and disruptive technology, technology intelligence and technology commercialisation and business building through BP’s new scale up capability: Launchpad. All in service of creating the energy system of the future.

Ernesto Ciorra became the Enel Group’s Chief Innovability (Innovation and Sustainability) Officer in September 2014. He began his career as an Associate with the consultancy firm Busacca & Associati, supporting leading Italian and foreign telecoms companies in a number of innovative projects. In 2003, he founded Ars et Inventio, a consultancy specialising in innovation and creativity, which he headed until taking up his current position. Ars et Inventio has worked with leading companies in Italy and abroad on the conception and launch of innovations that have gone on to achieve worldwide success.

Ernesto Ciorra has lectured in Innovation Management in Italian and Spanish Universities and Business Schools. He was Scientific Coordinator for the Master’s in Innovation Management at the Il Sole24Ore Business School and is a member of the advisory board for the Master’s in Strategic Innovation at Venice’s Ca' Foscari University. He is director of the Advanced Innovation Management Programme at the Istituto de Empresa in Madrid. He is also the author of three collections of poetry and a play that has been staged in several Italian theatres.

Nicolas Cudré-Mauroux is the Chief Technology Officer at Solvay and is in charge of Research & Innovation across the Group.

Nicolas spent the first part of his career with DuPont, starting in 1988 as a researcher at the Experimental Station, DuPont's central research facility in Wilmington, Delaware (USA). Until 2006, he has held a range of R&D, technical, marketing and new business development leadership roles in the United States, Canada and Europe.

In 2006, Nicolas was named Regional Business Director for the Advanced Fibers Systems and Nonwovens businesses in EMEA. In 2011, he joined the DuPont-Danisco integration team and, in 2012, moved to Denmark to become the Technology & Innovation Director for the food ingredient business that DuPont formed following this acquisition.

In 2015, Nicolas joined Solvay where he focuses on maximizing the impact of Research & Innovation investments. He is based at the corporate headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

Nicolas has a broad range of expertise, like but not limited to materials science, polymers, composites, food technology and biotechnology. He is passionate about innovation management, focusing especially on value creation at the interface between R&D and markets.

He is a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium, of the Board of Directors of CNRS (France) and of the Board of Governors of the Argonne National Lab (US). In 2019, he received the “European CTO of the Year Award” from EIRMA.

Nicolas is Swiss and was born in Luxembourg. He has an MS and a Ph.D. in Materials Science from the Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Didier Boulet is the THALES Design Center Director, an organization he co-founded in 2013. Its mission is to leverage Design-driven Innovation or Design Thinking throughout THALES. The Design Center Network is currently present in 9 locations across the world. Didier is also leading the digital transformation plan related to User Experience Design (UX). Since joining Thales Didier has held a number of high-level positions in Business, Innovation and Design. He is also serving on a number of Innovation & Governance Boards including THALES Learning Hub, Design Center Network, Digital Marketing & THALES Belgium Board. Didier is an innovation activist and “serial intrapreneur”, having founded and co-created multiple innovation platforms and initiatives. He is a Belgian national and a graduate of the Haute Ecole de Bruxelles.

Mexico City-born Javier Verdura graduated from the renowned Art Center College of Design in California with a degree in Product Design in 1991. After 20 years as a Design Consultant, Javier joined Tesla in 2012, where he is currently Director of Product Design. While at Tesla Javier has been involved in all aspects of design, from vehicle components, to the companies’ iconic Superchargers, and most recently responsible for leading the design of Tesla’s groundbreaking Solar Roof and the home energy storage system Powerwall. Over his 25+-year career, Javier has designed everything from surgical equipment to consumer products and packaging, amassing more than 130 patents in the process. Javier has also been recognized by his peers by winning some of the industry's most prestigious awards with multiple Red Dot, Good Design, and Industrial Design Excellence Awards.

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Anton Thomas is responsible for the Connected Mobility Business Venture within the Global Services and Solutions Business Line for the Michelin Group. He is based in Lyon, France.

Prior to taking his current responsibilities, Thomas was the Vice President for Product Performance at Michelin North America, Inc., where he was responsible for internal product homologations, industry standards, government regulations and customer engineering support teams. He also had several R&D leadership roles in product, simulation tool and test method development. He holds a Doctorate in Applied Mechanics and Master’s in Mechanical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from Florida A&M University.

Andreas Leinfelder studied Business Administration at the University of Augsburg and the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. After graduating from university he joined Accenture Strategy Consulting for 5 years and thereafter he moved to T-Systems International as Senior Manager Strategy & Business Development. In 2007 Andreas joined the Power Tools division of Robert Bosch GmbH, where he took over the role of Vice President Business Development in 2009 and two years later as Vice President Marketing for Cordless Professional Power Tools. Since 2013 he is responsible for Strategy Development, Strategic Innovation Management and Market Intelligence within Bosch Power Tools. Beside his passion and responsibility for the roll-out of Design Thinking within Bosch Power Tools he is a certified business coach.

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Dr. Chris Brauer (Dr. Chris) is Director of Innovation and founder of the Centre for Creative & Social Technologies (CAST) at Goldsmiths, University of London where he teaches innovation, project management, and behavioural economics. His research specialises in the intersections of emerging technologies and human behaviour, socio-economic and socio-cultural life. His projects focus on public engagement and impact and have been covered extensively in over 400 media outlets worldwide. Current research focuses include industrial internet, artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT, blockchain, driverless cars, emotion tracking, and the psychology of openness and common ground.

Wolfgang ULAGA is a Senior Affiliate Professor of Marketing at INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France. He is a global B2B thought leader on service and solution strategy design and execution. Wolfgang regularly consults with companies, serves as a frequent keynote speaker, and leads executive education workshops worldwide across many industries.
Wolfgang’s research focuses on how B2B firms strategically move from products to services and solutions, develop data-driven service business models, excel in service pricing, turn free services into profit engines (Free-to-Fee), and transform product-centric into service-savvy sales organizations. Recent projects focus on monetizing digital innovations that combine products and services, hardware and software, analytics and data.
Wolfgang has published numerous articles in leading journals, including Harvard Business Review and Sloan Management Review, He is the author of several books, including Monetizing Data: A Practical Roadmap for Framing, Pricing, and Selling your B2B Digital Offers and Service Strategy in Action.

Armin is a professor for human resource management at the top-ranked business school of Furtwangen University. Beyond being an engaged teacher, Armin is well known as a thought-leading author, inspiring keynote-speaker and trusted advisor. He is committed to a new and modern way of human resource management. In times of digitization, talent shortage, and knowledge economy, he is deeply convinced about the urgent need for new solutions to long lasting people-related challenges. Through his work, Armin makes make a valued contribution to this important field.

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Ed is a principal product manager for Microsoft Research where he leads teams developing new products. He started out as a scientist, trained as a researcher, and ultimately fell in love with applying those skills to creating new products and businesses. Ed joined MSR from the Cortana team where he co-founded the product, lead product planning, and lead some targeted AI innovation and ecosystem projects. Prior to Microsoft, Ed lead insight strategy teams for Yahoo!, helping build new products and better businesses across search, browse, rich media, and ecommerce. And even before that, Ed lead market research, user research, business intelligence, and management consulting teams focused on applying research to make the organization smarter and better. Ed holds a Ph.D. and a deep love of coffee.

Hector enjoys the ups and downs of life in sunny California. He has lived in six countries and eleven cities always refining his routine. A designer by heart Hector is driven by finding potential in everything and everyone and translating that potential into making our lives a bit better. Hector currently leads Design for Google Search and Assistant products. He is fascinated by a better future in which technology and people understand and interact with each other easily. Previously he worked on multiple other products at Google, MIT Mobile Experience Lab, HP, among others.

Pernilla Johansson, Chief Design Officer at Electrolux, functionally directs a global network of about 200 multi-talented designers with the aim to achieve distinctly unique human-centric branded experiences. With over 20 years of leadership experience, Pernilla has worked and lived in three continents over the years, with 16 of them being in Asia-Pacific.

Since 2018, Swedish-born designer Pernilla Johansson has been leading the function of Design at Electrolux.

Under her leadership a multi-disciplinary team of 200 designers are working across 7 locations worldwide designing meaningful consumer experiences with focus on creating human-centric solutions – products, services and interactions according our shared design philosophy, Human Touch.

Pernilla joined Electrolux in 2008 as Head of Design for Major Appliances in Asia Pacific. In this position, she was part of a team that successfully launched 60 new products in China in 2013. In 2014 she moved to Sweden to lead the global Home Care & Small Domestic Appliances design organization.

Prior to joining Electrolux, she was Head of Philips Design Singapore.

She has worked in The Netherlands, France as well as in United States prior to her move to Asia in 1999. Her other design stints include working in the Netherlands for consultancies like N|P|K and Lou Beeren Industrial Design.

Pernilla holds a Master’s Degree in Industrial Design from the Department of Arts and Crafts at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

Astrid Simonsen Joos has held the position of Chief Digital Officer at Signify, since March 2019.
Before that, she worked as Market Leader Nordics (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) from 2014. Astrid is currently member of the board in Nordea Invest as well as Telenor Group. In May 2017 she was selected as one of the members of the Disruption Council in Denmark, led by the Danish Prime Minister.
Before Signify, Astrid held numerous management positions at Microsoft and also held the position of CEO for the digital agency Creuna.
Astrid, a Norwegian national, holds a master’s degree in Business and Economics from the Norwegian School of Management and has additional education within Internet Marketing and M&A Corporate Strategy at INSEAD.
Astrid has crossed Greenland on skis, climbed and reached the summit of Mt Elbrus in Russia and, in 2014, completed the Arctic Circle Race in Greenland.

Anirban leads Sustainability at the USD 20.7 billion Mahindra Group. Under his leadership Mahindra has developed an award-winning Sustainability framework, become the first to have a certified carbon neutral factory in India, doubled energy productivity in a company, and enabled 21 locations to become zero waste to landfill. He has, in partnership with the World Bank, facilitated the creation of the Sustainable Housing Leadership Consortium to accelerate the spread of green buildings in India. Anirban has led a shared value project that doubled per capita income for 50,000 people in rural India.

Anirban takes great pleasure in implementing projects that drive positive change in society and has been acknowledged as a “Thought Leader” and a “Distinguished Sustainability Officer”.

Dr Steve Cook completed a D.Phil. in Bio-organic chemistry at Jesus College, Oxford before joining BP in 1998. He managed various R&D projects in support of BP’s Acetyls and Olefins businesses (mainly in the areas of hetero- and homogeneous catalysis) before moving into a strategy role in BP’s Downstream business. This strategy work led to the creation of BP’s strategic accounts organisation, initially focused on deepening strategic relationships with global automotive companies.

Steve then moved into BP’s Renewables business in 2002, managing collaborative demonstration projects in the area of hydrogen refuelling for fuel cell vehicles which included the construction and operation of the UK’s first hydrogen refuelling station in London. During 2005 Steve was part of the launch team for BP’s Alternative Energy Business and following launch led various commercial business development activity in the gas to power business, originating major projects in the UK and Russia.

In 2009 Steve moved to the Group Technology organisation in BP, leading long term strategy development and change management.

From 2012 Steve led the Technology commercialisation team which was established to maximise the value of BP’s technology through the application of appropriate commercial models to technology programmes. Steve was VP Technology Commercialisation and part of BP’s Upstream Technology leadership team.

Steve is currently Chief Commercial Officer for Group Technology with a remit that includes long term technology strategy, emerging and disruptive technology, technology intelligence and technology commercialisation and business building through BP’s new scale up capability: Launchpad. All in service of creating the energy system of the future.

Ernesto Ciorra became the Enel Group’s Chief Innovability (Innovation and Sustainability) Officer in September 2014. He began his career as an Associate with the consultancy firm Busacca & Associati, supporting leading Italian and foreign telecoms companies in a number of innovative projects. In 2003, he founded Ars et Inventio, a consultancy specialising in innovation and creativity, which he headed until taking up his current position. Ars et Inventio has worked with leading companies in Italy and abroad on the conception and launch of innovations that have gone on to achieve worldwide success.

Ernesto Ciorra has lectured in Innovation Management in Italian and Spanish Universities and Business Schools. He was Scientific Coordinator for the Master’s in Innovation Management at the Il Sole24Ore Business School and is a member of the advisory board for the Master’s in Strategic Innovation at Venice’s Ca' Foscari University. He is director of the Advanced Innovation Management Programme at the Istituto de Empresa in Madrid. He is also the author of three collections of poetry and a play that has been staged in several Italian theatres.

Libby Costin leads the Global Marketing organization for Tetra Pak.
Based in Lund, Sweden since October 2020, Libby is responsible for creating and leading the marketing and strategy for Tetra Pak including business intelligence, marketing communications, marketing services, customer innovation centers and building marketing capability globally.
Prior to this assignment, Libby was based in Singapore where she led the Asia Marketing and Product Management organization between 2017 to 2019. Before that for 5 years, Libby led Global Portfolio Marketing for Tetra Pak. Based in Modena, Italy and then Lund Sweden, Tetra Pak’s main headquarters in Europe, she was responsible for leading the global marketing strategy including business intelligence, marketing services, customer relations and portfolio strategy and planning for the Tetra Pak business. She also led development and capability building for the Marketing organization globally.
Prior to joining Tetra Pak in February 2012, Libby held a number of senior sales and marketing positions at such companies as PepsiCo and Avery Dennison. During her 19 years at PepsiCo she was the Account Director for two of PepsiCo’s largest customers leading cross functional teams, Channel Marketing Director responsible for consumer and customer research across channels, Marketing Director on several large brands, and in China led a 10,000 person sales team, developing business growth strategies and "go-to-market" planning. At Avery Dennison she led the global Commercial organization for the packaging and labelling division based in Hong Kong.
Libby holds a BA degree from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts USA. She has lived and worked around the globe in many parts of the US as well as India, China, Hong Kong, Italy, Sweden and Singapore.

Lee Ellen Drechsler’s career at Procter & Gamble has included technical leadership roles across Beauty Care, Baby Care and Corporate R&D, with responsibilities from upstream Disruptive Innovation to downstream Product Supply. Lee Ellen leads Corporate Transformative Platform Technology (TPT), Global Packaging, Process and Open Innovation Disciplines, and Glad JV organizations with a mission to continue building P&G’s long-held reputation as a world leader of growth driven by innovation. She is accelerating the way P&G delivers game-changing and sustainable products, packages, and services, leveraging early in-market learning as well as collaborations with strong academic and business partners.

Nicolas Cudré-Mauroux is the Chief Technology Officer at Solvay and is in charge of Research & Innovation across the Group.

Nicolas spent the first part of his career with DuPont, starting in 1988 as a researcher at the Experimental Station, DuPont's central research facility in Wilmington, Delaware (USA). Until 2006, he has held a range of R&D, technical, marketing and new business development leadership roles in the United States, Canada and Europe.

In 2006, Nicolas was named Regional Business Director for the Advanced Fibers Systems and Nonwovens businesses in EMEA. In 2011, he joined the DuPont-Danisco integration team and, in 2012, moved to Denmark to become the Technology & Innovation Director for the food ingredient business that DuPont formed following this acquisition.

In 2015, Nicolas joined Solvay where he focuses on maximizing the impact of Research & Innovation investments. He is based at the corporate headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

Nicolas has a broad range of expertise, like but not limited to materials science, polymers, composites, food technology and biotechnology. He is passionate about innovation management, focusing especially on value creation at the interface between R&D and markets.

He is a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium, of the Board of Directors of CNRS (France) and of the Board of Governors of the Argonne National Lab (US). In 2019, he received the “European CTO of the Year Award” from EIRMA.

Nicolas is Swiss and was born in Luxembourg. He has an MS and a Ph.D. in Materials Science from the Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Didier Boulet is the THALES Design Center Director, an organization he co-founded in 2013. Its mission is to leverage Design-driven Innovation or Design Thinking throughout THALES. The Design Center Network is currently present in 9 locations across the world. Didier is also leading the digital transformation plan related to User Experience Design (UX). Since joining Thales Didier has held a number of high-level positions in Business, Innovation and Design. He is also serving on a number of Innovation & Governance Boards including THALES Learning Hub, Design Center Network, Digital Marketing & THALES Belgium Board. Didier is an innovation activist and “serial intrapreneur”, having founded and co-created multiple innovation platforms and initiatives. He is a Belgian national and a graduate of the Haute Ecole de Bruxelles.

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Mexico City-born Javier Verdura graduated from the renowned Art Center College of Design in California with a degree in Product Design in 1991. After 20 years as a Design Consultant, Javier joined Tesla in 2012, where he is currently Director of Product Design. While at Tesla Javier has been involved in all aspects of design, from vehicle components, to the companies’ iconic Superchargers, and most recently