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.

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.

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.

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.

Peter Schardt has been Chief Technology Officer of Siemens Healthineers since October 01, 2018.
The doctor of physics joined Siemens in 1995 as a project manager for X-ray tubes. There he developed high-performance tubes for computed tomography before taking over the management of the entire predevelopment for X-ray tubes in 2002. In 2009, Peter assumed business responsibility for the Mechatronics Competence Center in Kemnath. This is one of the largest integrated development and manufacturing sites of Siemens Healthineers worldwide.
In 2011, he moved to the Laboratory Diagnostics business unit as program manager for the Atellica Solution product family. In this role, he played a key role in the final development and market launch of the new system, which is a trend-setter in laboratory diagnostics. On January 1,2018, Peter took over worldwide management of the X-ray Technology product division.

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 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.

Christian (“Chris”) Lindener is the Head of Airbus Scale, Airbus’ startup accelerator and corporate venturing arm. In this capacity, Chris leads the company’s business-building and venturing activities and drives innovation partnering across technology hotspots worldwide.

Prior to joining Airbus in November 2019, Chris worked as Managing Director for Wayra Germany, a technology innovation corporate venture capital (CVC) based in Munich focused on startup scaling and pre-scale investing. In this role, he oversaw the strategic direction of the organisation and managed the selection of startups and young technology corporations to be integrated into the Telefonicà investment portfolio.
Spending a significant part of his career as an independent consultant in the tech space, Chris has created and advised more than 20 incubator and accelerator programs in Switzerland, Austria and Germany. From 2015-2017 he served as co-Founder and Director of TechFounders, a high-tech hardware accelerator based in Munich where he was responsible for the development of more than 50 high-tech startups.
As a serial entrepreneur, Chris has co-founded several companies, one of which (a virtual reality startup) was sold to booking.com in 2014. Most recently, he co-founded D3 Technologies AG, an open digital operations platform for the urban air mobility market.
Born in Brazil and raised in Mexico, Chris studied international business administration and economics at the Leopold-Franzens-University in Innsbruck, the University of New Orleans in the USA, and the University of Barcelona. Chris lives in Munich with his wife and two children and in his free time enjoys surfing the European swells.

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Judit has more than 20 years’ experience in innovating, re-thinking and implementing finance of the future. She worked in multiple roles, countries and industries cross Siemens (like Digital Industry and Healthcare). Her often unconventional approaches created new ways of enabling tangible profit improvements and sustainable growth. Trying to do the same at less cost was never enough for her – as certified agile leader empowerment and agility are her enablers for successful innovations and digitalization.
She is an energetic and self-motivated team player and lifts traditional line management models to the next level of inspiring leadership. Therefore she loves to build, motivate and deeply engage in cross-functional and international teams fostering collaboration and thriving to improve things end-to-end. Being a powerful digital guardian, she combines the use of data to drive value based on unconventional ideas and new business models. As Customer Service CFO, Healthineers biggest horizontal, and as sponsor of the T-Club, she is a role model in level less thinking, enabling a culture of trust and an environment that nurtures our endeavor to the next big things in Healthcare.

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.

Since January 1, 2016 Volker Hammes is Managing Director of BASF New Business GmbH, Ludwigshafen/Germany. He is particularly responsible for Business Build-up of innovative material solutions e.g. for E-Power Management, Functional Feed Additives, and 3D-Printing (Additive Manufacturing). Additionally, he is Chairman of BASF 3D Printing Solutions GmbH, Heidelberg/Germany.
Currently, Volker Hammes serves on the Boards of Essentium Inc, Pflugerville/TX, USA, Evolve Additive Solutions, Minnetonka/MN, USA, and the NASDAQ listed company Materialise NV, Leuven/Belgium.
Born on July 21, 1963 in Essen, he is married with two children. Volker Hammes holds a Master of Science degree with first-class honors in Mechanical Engineering/Plastics Technology from RWTH Aachen University.

As lead of the Philips Circular Economy program, Harald aims to drive innovation and business value creation via the transition to a circular economy. As such, he focuses on closing loops, product and business model design, further embedding sustainability and circular thinking into the core processes and culture of the company – with active engagement of employees. Prior to Philips, Harald worked as Director of the DNA Investigation Department at the Dutch Forensic Institute, and as transformation management consultant at McKinsey & Company.

Mr. Lavery is responsible for management of the design and development of the next generation of Mars exploration spacecraft, and advanced technologies to enable them. He is currently the Program Executive for Mars Science Laboratory mission and the joint European-U.S. Mars Express mission. In addition he is the Program Executive for the NASA Mars Helicopter project, the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer instrument, and the Europa Clipper mission, all currently in development. These projects have a combined budget of over $7.5 billion.

Previously, Mr. Lavery directed the NASA Telerobotics Technology Program for 12 years. There, he was responsible for the content and direction of the NASA robotics and planetary exploration research efforts, establishing national space robotics technology policy and procedures, developing agency efforts in space robotics and planetary exploration technology, and integrating and directing national efforts for the development of the space robotics industry.

While at NASA, Mr. Lavery participated in the field parties for the Dante I and Dante II projects, which deployed robotic rovers inside active volcanoes in the Antarctic and Alaska in 1992-94. He was the program manager for AERcam/Sprint, a self-contained, free-flying robotic camera platform for the Space Shuttle. He was program manager for the Sojourner planetary rover, which landed Mars in 1997, and the Mars Exploration Rover project, which landed the Spirit and Opportunity rovers in January 2004.

He also founded and directs the NASA Robotics Alliance Project, including NASA participation in the FIRST robotics competition program. This project focuses on exposing high school students to real engineering challenges by having them work side-by-side with professional engineering mentors. Under his leadership for the last 24 years, the project now directly supports and impacts over 28,000 high school students participating in a variety of robotics and technology competition programs.

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With a broad background in design leadership, product innovation, user centred design thinking and launch of innovative global products and services, Michael now focuses on building human centered innovation cultures in large size organisations.His hands-on leadership approach has brought him to companies like Amazon, PayPal, eBay, Nokia and Lego as well as several startups. He currently leads the UX and design thinking practice at Ørsted, a leading renewable energy company. At Ørsted, Michael oversees the creation of the Design Thinking strategy while maturing the UX design function for the company. This includes operational, strategic and cultural ways to embed design and design thinking in a program at global scale in conjunction with the agile transformation into SAFe (Scaled Agile Frameworks). Michael lectures and teaches at several design schools and MBA programmes in design thinking and design strategy. He has recently been appointed adjunct professor of Design at the Royal Academy of Architecture and Design in Copenhagen (KADK). Furthermore he actively pursues communities and partnerships that rethink design in concert with the fields of Psychology, Business development and Marketing in an effort to create new frameworks for change.

Head of Value Creation, based in London. Prior to joining LEGO Ventures Rob worked at the LEGO Group as Senior Director in Digital Consumer Engagement, and was responsible for developing and growing LEGO Group’s connected digital ecosystem, in particular launching LEGO® Life – a safe social network for kids where they can share their creativity with each other, which reached 8m users in 2018. Before the LEGO Group, Rob worked in marketing at Nintendo of Europe where he launched the Wii, Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS in the European market, and also at BBC Studios where he led physical and digital product development and marketing around their consumer products business. He is passionate around the kids’ technology and gaming space, and finding new and innovative ways for kids and families to learn through play. He lives in Caversham in the UK with his partner and three young daughters, loves classic Alfa Romeos and retro video games, watching Queens Park Rangers and going for runs with his dog Bowser.

Lene is an energetic and accomplished business leader with 15+ years of cross-cultural professional experience spanning industries from technology development to business application in geographies from Europe, US, Asia and Brazil. She has a proven track record of managing large diverse global teams, developing/implementing technology and innovating across cross-functional and multi-jurisdictional roles. She is passionate about the purpose research and believes that collaborations and partnerships are key to innovate. Lene is currently the Global Manager for Shell Research Connect & GameChanger at Shell Global Solutions. In addition, board member of Norske Shell. She is based in Amsterdam with teams globally distributed around Shell Technology Centers (US, Brazil, NL, India and China) reporting to the vice president of Innovation Excellence within the Technology organization. She is also Visiting Professor at the University of Science & Technology Beijing, China. Lene joined Shell in 2013 as an external hire from Tata Steel where she managed the global R&D team on surface technology with a focus on steel grades for the automotive industry. Prior to this, she built bridges between industry and academia working as the Program Manager at the Technological Top Institute for Materials to Innovate Industry (M2i) in The Netherlands. A Danish national, Lene is married and blessed with two children (Rebekka 20 and Elias 15 years old) and speaks several languages. She recharges her batteries by running, cross country skiing and yoga.

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.

Marc Schlichtner has 21 years’ experience in innovations, portfolio management, project- & regional management and sales. As Portfolio Manager in he is driving the global digital health service portfolio and platform and ecosystem related ativities for Siemens Healthineers.
He is founder of the Transformation Club (T-Club). The T-Club is a Siemens Healthineers grass-root initiative, focusing on the cross-company transformation. In recent years, he has implemented many trendsetting future topics. All had a strong transformational character and ran in various businesses across Siemens. During his career he gathered multiyear experience in digital services, servitization, design thinking, digital business model design, customer centric innovation, digital transformation, loT and platform-based ecosystems, cross industries. He was part of incubation of internal lean startups. This 360-degree view provides him with all levers for a successful digital transformation.
As recognized thought leader in his domain he is member of Research Advisory Board of FIR at RWTH Aachen University, Advisory Board (DiHECO) Kaunas University of Technology & University of California Berkeley and the Advisory Board “MBA Leadership Digital Business Transformation” at the Quadriga University of Applied Sciences.

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Amit Joshi is a Professor of AI, Analytics and Marketing Strategy at IMD. He is the Program Director of the Digital Analytics open program, and the co-director of the program on Artificial Intelligence. In 2020, he was named a ‘Digital Shaper’ in Switzerland, as one of a handful of individuals who would shape the digital economy in the future.
Amit is an award-winning professor and researcher and has interacted with a variety of corporate clients in several industries, including telecom, banking and financial services, media, manufacturing, retailing, pharma, education and automobiles. Previously, he worked for Cadbury India Ltd., a company that is now a part of the Mondelez International group.
Amit’s research, which focuses on long-run marketing strategy, analytics and AI applications, has been published in top journals, including Journal of Marketing, Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Culture, Journal of Cultural Economics and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. His research has twice won the MSI / H. Paul Root Award, for the best paper in the Journal of Marketing (2010 and 2015) the Robert D. Buzzell Best Paper Award (2006) for the MSI publication with the most long-term impact and bee nominated for the Sheth Foundation Award for long-term contributions. His dissertation won an honorable mention in the 2004 Alden G. Clayton Dissertation Proposal Competition. He is also an award-winning case writer.
His research and opinions have been extensively covered in the popular press and media, appearing in outlets including NPR, CNN, NBC, Nikkei, Fast Company, Business Standard, Fox News, Bloomberg, Forbes, Investor Relations Magazine, The Conversation, and Science Daily.
Amit earned his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pune, a Post Graduate Diploma in Management (P.G.D.M.) from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, India, and a Ph.D. is from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Ken Webster is a leading figure in the development of the theory and practice of a circular economy in its 21st century guise. He was, until recently Head of Innovation for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation* and helped establish the intellectual basis of their approach from its inception in 2010 through to 2018. He is currently a senior lecturer at the University of Exeter Business School’s Centre for Circular Economy where he is leading on the establishment of an International Society for Circular Economy in tandem with a number of leading academics across the globe. He is guest researcher at Linköping University in Sweden.

His book The Circular Economy: A Wealth of Flows (2nd Edition 2017) relates the connections between systems thinking, economic and business opportunity and the transition to a circular economy. He makes regular contributions to conferences, workshops and seminars around the world. His current interests include total product liability, open vs closed circular economy loops and the relationship between large and small scales in the creation of effective economic systems. He is a supervisory Board member of the Dutch Madaster Foundation, a materials passport initiative in the built environment.

*The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s aim is to accelerate the transition from a linear ‘take-make-dispose’ economy to a circular economy

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.

Top 100 Digital Influencer, Author Radical Business Model Transformation, Global Head Center for Digital Leadership. Carsten Linz is an entrepreneurial leader with more than twenty years of business experience and a proven track record for driving innovation, growth, and transformation.

He serves as digital advisory board member, advises CEOs of fast-growing companies, is an active business angel and member of the investment committee of Europe’s largest seed stage fund. He successfully built-up several €100 mio. businesses and led company-wide transformation programs affecting more than 60.000 employees. He is a sought-after keynote speaker (listed at London Speaker Bureau) and panelist at conferences around the world.

As adjunct faculty member, he teaches in Executive Programs at Mannheim Business School, University of St. Gallen and Stanford Graduate School. He published several books including his recent best-seller “Radical Business Model Transformation: Gaining the Competitive Edge in a Disruptive World” (Top-Business Book 2017, Translations: Chinese, Russian, Vietnamese, Hungarian). His articles appeared in renowned journals such as Forbes, Harvard Business Review/Manager, ZDNet, CIO Magazine, Computerwoche, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, D!gitalist Magazine.

As Business Development Officer at SAP SE he repeatedly leads the build-up and scale-out of new businesses. In his role as Global Head of the Center for Digital Leadership, he drives SAP’s own digital transformation and acts as advisor to other CEOs, Chief Digital Officers, and CIOs by showcasing next-generation digital innovation and transformation approaches.

Dr. Linz holds a PhD in Innovation Management from University of Bern/Switzerland (“summa cum laude”) and a Diploma degree in Economic Engineering from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (“with honors”). He studied System Dynamics and Entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan School of Management, Leading Change and Organizational Renewal at Harvard Business School, and Corporate Strategy at INSEAD Fontainebleau.

He was named “Top-100 Digital Influencer”, awarded as “Innovation Landmark” by the German President, honored with the coveted “Award of Excellence” from the Global Institute of Logistics and ranked as “Leader” in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. He is an advisory member of the World Economic Forum’s “Digital Enterprise” and “Digital Platforms and Digital Ecosystems” projects.

He supports Social Entrepreneurs as Advisory Board Member of Social Impact, Berlin.

He is married, has one daughter, and lives in Frankfurt/Main.

Ian Machan’s expertise, developed throughout his 40 years working with manufacturing businesses, are in supply chain, strategy and continuous improvement. Executive roles, both permanent and interim in the healthcare sector, followed an engineering and production career in traditional manufacturing and fast moving food consumer goods.

An experienced university industrial fellow, for the Advanced Services Group, Ian now leads their advisory services, including organisational development workshops, executive education and commissioned projects. He has worked extensively with several multi-billion dollar businesses in their transformation journey towards a servitized value offering.

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.

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Christophe Melle is the CMO of the 5bn Home and Distribution Division at Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management and automation. This Division is focused in bringing solutions to Residential and Small Business customers, as well as consumers’ homes, through its network of Channel Partners: Distributors, Electricians, Interior Designers, and through product lines such as Smart Home, Connected offers, Final Low Voltage, and Digital Power Back up.
Christophe Melle has been with Schneider Electric for 3 years and has worked before 17 years in various marketing and business leadership roles at Philips and HP. He has been working 3 years in Singapore for Philips as marketing and sales leader for APAC, prior to that he was based in France and then in Amsterdam Netherland, where he had various marketing leadership roles for Philips. Christophe Melle has Master in Mechanical Engineering followed by a Philips internal MBA done in collaboration with Wharton. He is based out of France.

Blake Cahill is the SVP & Global Head of Digital Marketing & E-Commerce at Royal Philips. Leading a high-performance global team of 300+ digital marketing & e-Commerce experts, that are responsible for Philips’s digital marketing & e-Commerce transformation across Philips’s 4 Professional & Consumer Groups & 17 market clusters covering 100 countries.
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