Speakers – Masters of Digital 2023 – 8-9 March, Brussels & Online

MoD2023 Speakers

Find out more about our speaker line up below. Keep an eye on this page for further exciting speaker announcements…

Hilary Mine, President, DIGITALEUROPE and Vice President Strategy & Technology, CX at Nokia

Based in the Netherlands, Ms. Mine leads Customer Operations for Nokia in eleven countries across Nordics, Baltics, and Benelux. She and her teams lead sales, business management, delivery and operations across the region.

Prior to her current role, Ms Mine was based in Silicon Valley, and ran Nokia’s Global Network Transformation practice. She has also run Alcatel-Lucent’s global Consulting Services business, and the full regional business of Alcatel-Lucent in North Asia and Australasia/Oceania which included sales and delivery of large transformation and managed services projects, and well as being Managing Director of both Australia and New Zealand.

Before joining Alcatel, Ms Mine was a much-cited and published analyst and consultant working across the IT and telecom industries. She has worked in the communications and IT field for more than 25 years, during which time she has held senior executive roles with Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent, Technicolor and Probe Research, and has lived and worked extensively in Asia Pacific and Europe, as well as North America.

Ms Mine holds an MBA from San Francisco State University and a BA in Economics from Reed College. She has one daughter, and enjoys cooking, yoga, running, hiking, and travel.

Hilary
Mine

President, DIGITALEUROPE and Vice President Strategy & Technology, CX, Nokia

Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, Director General, DIGITALEUROPE

Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl is Director-General of DIGITALEUROPE, the leading digital technology industry association representing over 35,000 digital companies in Europe.

She is a member of the Board of Directors of Gaia-X, of the European Commission’s Industrial Forum, and of the B20 Digital Transformation Taskforce. She is also a member of the Stakeholder Cybersecurity Certification Group of ENISA (the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity) and of NATO’s high-level Advisory Group for Emerging and Disruptive Technologies, as well as a board member of the European Commission’s Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition and the European Parliament-led European Internet Forum, and a member of the supervisory board of EIT Digital.

Formerly, Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl was a member of the European Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, and of the High-level Strategy Group on Industrial Technologies in charge of identifying Key Enabling Technologies.

She was an Executive Board Member of the Royal Danish Export Council and Chair of the Export Grant Committee under the Danish Foreign Ministry. She also served as Executive Board member in DIGITALEUROPE, and as a member of the association’s high level Digital Advisory Council.

Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl has served as Board Member of the Danish Chamber of Commerce and was President of the Board of the Danish ICT association (ITB), where she led the development of policy positions on issues such as business digitalisation, ICT security, disruptive business models, telecoms and education.

Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl has more than 25 years of experience in the ICT industry. She previously held international positions at IBM and Oracle as well as with SMEs, building businesses across Europe and China and founding the cloud provider GlobeIT. She has deep insights into the digitalisation of business and society and the data-driven economy, and is regularly invited to deliver keynote speeches on these issues at high-level events across the world.

Cecilia
Bonefeld-Dahl

Director General,
DIGITALEUROPE

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Věra Jourová, Vice-President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency

Věra Jourová is currently Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency and deals with democracy, rule of law, media pluralism and fight against disinformation. From 2014 to 2019, she served as EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality. In 2014, before arriving to the European Commission, Ms Jourová held the position of Minister for Regional Development in the Czech Republic. Previous to this, from 2006 to 2013, she worked in her own company as an international consultant on European Union funding, and was also involved in consultancy activities in the Western Balkans relating to the European Union Accession. She holds a Degree in Law (Mgr.) and a Master’s degree (Mgr.) in the Theory of Culture from the Charles University, Prague.

Věra
Jourová

Vice-President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency

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Margaritis Schinas, Vice-President for Promoting our European Way of Life, European Commission

Margaritis Schinas took office as Vice-President for Promoting our European Way of Life in the Von der Leyen Commission in December 2019. In this capacity, he oversees the EU’s policies for migration, security union, social rights, skills, education, culture, youth, health and dialogue with churches, religious associations and non-confessional organisations.

Mr Schinas started his career in the European Commission in 1990. He also served as a Member of the European Parliament, from 2007 until 2009. Upon the completion of his parliamentary term of office, he returned to the European Commission and held various senior positions. In 2010, President Barroso appointed Mr Schinas as Deputy Head of the Bureau of European Policy Advisers. Later he served as Resident Director and Head of the Athens Office of the European Commission’s Directorate‑General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN). In 2014, President Juncker appointed Mr Schinas as the European Commission’s Chief Spokesperson.

Margaritis Schinas holds an MSc on Public Administration and Public Policy from the London School of Economics, a Diploma of Advanced European Studies on European Administrative Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges and a Degree in Law from the Aristotelean University of Thessaloniki.

You can follow him on Twitter: Margaritis Schinas (@MargSchinas)

Margaritis Schinas

Vice-President of the European Commission for Promoting our European Way of Life

Alexandra van Huffelen, Minister for Digitalisation, Netherlands

Minister van Huffelen’s CV can be viewed here.

Alexandra
van Huffelen

Minister for Digitalisation,
Netherlands

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Valeriya Ionan, Deputy Minister for Eurointegration at Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine

Valeriya Ionan — Deputy Minister for Eurointegration at Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine. In charge of digital literacy national program, development and growth of SME, new digital professions, online children protection, eurointegration and digital transformation of regions.

Valeria and her team have launched Diia.Digital Education as a national project. It consists of two components.
The first one is an online component. It’s the national platform for digital education https://osvita.diia.gov.ua. The educational process is presented in the form of educational series. More than 1 million Ukrainians have already started to get digital skills on the platform.

The second one is an offline component represented by digital education hubs all over Ukraine. There are places where every citizen could come to and get free access to the online platform. Valeria’s team has already built a network of more than 6000 such digital education hubs.

Also, Valeriya’s team has launched Diia.Business as a national project, aimed at helping entrepreneurs. It consists of two components too.

An online component is represented by a national platform for entrepreneurs https://business.diia.gov.ua There are free online consultations for entrepreneurs on different aspects (taxes, sales, marketing, HR), free online courses for entrepreneurs, columns from the market leaders, and a lot of other useful services.

An offline component is represented by entrepreneurship support centers all over Ukraine.

Before working in the Ukrainian government, Valeriya had been an entrepreneur. She launched Quadrate 28 specializing on teams on outsource for SME, that has 250+ clients worldwide. Also, she launched MC Today, a first online-magazine for entrepreneurs.

She’s got certificates from the MBA program at Edinburgh Business School Eastern Europe in Marketing, Organizational Behavior, Negotiations.

Valeria speaks Ukrainian, Russian, English and Spanish. Learning Chinese.

Valeriya in social media

https://www.facebook.com/valeriya.ionan https://www.instagram.com/valeriya_ionan https://www.linkedin.com/in/valeriyaionan https://twitter.com/valeriya_ionan

Valeriya Ionan

Deputy Minister for Eurointegration at Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine

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Taro Kono, Digital Minister, Japan

Taro Kono was previously the Foreign Minister in the Abe Government in 2017. He is an eight-term Member of the House of Representatives. Among positions he has held are Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission, or Minister in charge of the National Police Organization; Minister for Administrative Reform; Minister for Civil Service Reform; Minister for Regulatory Reform; Minister in Charge of Consumer Affairs and Food Safety; and Minister in Charge of Disaster Management in the Abe Government, Parliamentary Secretary for Public Management and Senior Vice-Minister of Justice in the Koizumi Government, and Chairman of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives. Taro is a graduate of the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.

Taro
Kono

Digital Minister,
Japan

Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth

She is responsible for European Union (EU) policies related to Horizon Europe (the EU R&I programme), research and innovation, the Erasmus+ programme, education, culture and sport. Between 2017 and 2019, she was European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society. Under her leadership, the Digital Single Market of the European Commission became a reality. She created the first pan-European programme Digital Europe with a budget of €9 billion.

She has been elected as Member of the European Parliament in 2009, 2014 and 2019.

Mariya Gabriel is First Vice-President of the European People’s Party, and since 2012 Vice-President of EPP Women.

Mariya
Gabriel

European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth

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Pedro Tavares, State Secretary for Justice, Portugal

Since April 2022, Pedro Tavares is the Portuguese State Secretary for Justice. Previously, he worked as General Coordinator at eBUPi – Simplified Land Digital Registry Mission Unit, the Portuguese public agency responsible for the expansion of a new cadaster and registry initiative using a digital approach (Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Environment).

From 2015 to 2020 he was a Senior Advisor at the cabinets of the Minister of Justice and of the State Secretary for Justice, where he managed different innovation and transformative projects and policies, including a Justice Innovation Lab, transparency and participation projects, or new digital Citizen-centric services. He acted as the Ministry’s contact point for the OECD report on Justice Innovation in Portugal and for several international projects with the European Commission.

In the public sector, Pedro worked on innovation projects such as the new concept for the citizens’ one-stop shops (Lojas de Cidadão), or the Citizens’ Portal.

Pedro also worked in the private sector as marketing & innovation director at different IT companies, including Vision-Box, PHC Software and Inetum.

Moreover, he was a digital marketing & communications lecturer and trainer at INA, Lisbon Digital School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa and Instituto Politécnico de Santarém.

Pedro holds a master’s degree in Digital by Universidade Nova de Lisboa, a post- graduation in Business Administration by ISEG – Lisbon School of Economics & Management, a BA in Communication Studies by Universidade Nova de Lisboa and an advanced course in Digital Innovation by The University of Chicago.

Pedro
Tavares

State Secretary for Justice, Portugal

Tomislav Sokol, Member, European Parliament

Tomislav Sokol was born in Zagreb in 1982. He obtained his first degree in law at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, in 2006, magna cum laude. He then obtained a Masters of Law (LL.M.) specialising in European Union Law at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL), Belgium, in 2009, magna cum laude. He defended his PhD at KUL, dealing with free movement of cross-border health care services in the EU and its impact on national health insurance systems in 2014.

He was an Assistant Minister in the Ministry of Science and Education in 2017, after which he became a Member of the Croatian Parliament. He was a Member of the Croatian Parliament until July 2019, when he became a Member of the European Parliament. He is a Member of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), Special Committee on the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons learned and recommendations for the future (COVI) and also EPP Vice Coordinator in COVI Committee, and a Substitute Member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) and Committee on Regional Development (REGI) in the European Parliament.

So far, he has published around 20 papers and 1 book on issues concerning EU law, including several articles in European journals, such as the European Law Review and the European Law Journal. He has presented papers at many international conferences and worked on different research projects. Previously, he worked in a legal practice and is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Zagreb School of Economics and Management where he has taught Introduction to European Union and Principles of Law courses since the academic year 2010/2011. He is also an assistant professor at the Catholic University of Croatia where he has taught since the academic year 2016/2017. His areas of professional interest include the law of the European common market, EU health law, competition law, International and European social law and International and European trade law.

Tomislav
Sokol

Member,
European Parliament

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Helle Thorning Schmidt, Co-Chair of the Oversight Board

Helle Thorning-Schmidt became the first female Prime Minister of Denmark from 2011 to 2015.

Helle Thorning-Schmidt was born in 1966 and studied political science at the University of Copenhagen, and then earned a master’s degree in European studies in 1993 from the College of Europe in Brugge, Belgium. Having earned another master’s degree, in political science, from the University of Copenhagen (1994), Thorning-Schmidt became an administrator for the Danish Social Democratic Party’s delegation to the European Parliament (1994–97) and then worked as a consultant for the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions (1997–99). In 1999 she was elected as a member of the European Parliament (1999–2004). In 2005 she was elected to the Danish Folketing (parliament) and that same year was chosen as the leader of the Social Democratic Party.

After her time as Prime Minister she became the first female CEO of Save the Children International since 2016. In January 2019 she announced that she would be stepping down as CEO. Since 2020, Thorning-Schmidt has served as a Co-Chair of the Oversight Board.

Helle Thorning Schmidt

Co-Chair of the Oversight Board

Florian Tursky, State Secretary for Digitalisation and Telecommunications, Austria

Florian Tursky studied press relations and integrated communication in Krems, Austria. He gained his first political steps in the youth organization of the Austrian Peoples Party in Tyrol, and experience in the private sector as regional manager of P8 Marketing as well as CEO of 3D-Elements. He returned into politics as press officer of Tyrols governor Günther Platter and later being his office manager. Florian Tursky is currently coordinating the Austrian digitalization as State Secretary for Digitalization in the Ministry of Finance.

Florian
Tursky

State Secretary for Digitalisation and Telecommunications, Austria

Pernille Weiss, Member, European Parliament

MEP Pernille Weiss, is a politician from the Conservative People’s Party of Denmark and a member of the European People’s Party, EPP.

Ms. Weiss holds a seat in the Industry, Research & Energy Committee (ITRE) and is a substitute in The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI). Ms. Weiss also holds a substitute seat in The Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee (FEMM).

Prior to being an MEP, Ms. Weiss served eight years as a County Council member. Ms. Weiss holds several degrees; she is a nurse (RN), Master of science (health) and additionally holds a Master degree in Innovation and Leadership (LAICS). She is an acknowledged Nordic expert in architecture and health as well as the impact of the build environment on complex institutions. In addition, Ms. Weiss has been a board member of SME Europe since 2019. Ms. Weiss has been a head manager in the public health care sector and the building consultancy industry before establishing her own consultancy firm in 2008.

Pernille
Weiss

Member,
European Parliament

Dragoş Tudorache, Member, European Parliament

Dragos Tudorache is a Member of the European Parliament and Vice- President of the Renew Europe Group. He is the LIBE rapporteur on the AI Act, former Chair of the Special Committee on Artificial Intelligence in the Digital Age (AIDA), and he sits on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET), Subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE), and the European Parliament’s Delegation for relations with the United States (D-US).

Dragos began his career in 1997 as a judge in Romania. Between 2000 and 2005, he built and led the legal departments at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the UN missions in Kosovo. After working on justice and anticorruption at the European Commission Representation in Romania, supporting the country’s EU accession, he joined the Commission as an official and, subsequently, qualified for leadership roles in EU institutions, managing a number of units and strategic projects such as the Schengen Information System, Visa Information System, and the establishment of eu-LISA1.

During the European migration crisis, Dragos was entrusted with leading the coordination and strategy Unit in DG-Home, the European Commission Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs, until he joined the Romanian Government led by Dacian Ciolos. Between 2015 and 2017, he served as Head of the Prime Minister’s Chancellery, Minister of Communications and for the Digital Society, and Minister of Interior. He was elected to the European Parliament in 2019. His current interests in the European Parliament include security and defence, artificial intelligence and new technologies, transatlantic issues, the Republic of Moldova, and internal affairs.

Dragoş
Tudorache

Member,
European Parliament

Christiane Kirketerp de Viron, Head of Unit, European Commission

Biography to follow shortly.

Christiane Kirketerp de Viron

Head of Unit, European Commission

Victor Negrescu, Member, European Parliament

Victor Negrescu is a Member of the European Parliament, Vice-President of the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT), being part of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament.

Victor Negrescu has been the rapporteur of the European Parliament for the report on Shaping Digital Education Policy and an active promoter of the allocation of 10% for quality and inclusive education of the National Recovery and Resilience Facilities, as well as 2% to the cultural and creative sector. He managed to obtain in this regard the support of the Budgets Committee members and integrated that in the official position of the European Parliament. Moreover, MEP Victor Negrescu has been the rapporteur for the CULT Committee opinion regarding the new strategy for SMEs and requested the European Commission to develop efficient and personalised measures, adapted to different regions and sectors, containing a firm request to create 1 million new start-ups at European level.

In his activity as MEP, Victor Negrescu strongly advocates for consistent investments in education, culture, digitalization and youth, by Member States and the European Commission. He is the winner of the MEP Award 2015 for Digital Agenda and the MEP with the most significant pilot projects, generating in both mandates initiatives that go up to more than 90 million euros in the fields of entrepreneurship, education, innovation, digitalization, health, culture and media. One such pilot project regarded the establishing of an e-learning platform for entrepreneurship, destined to support SMEs and aimed at the development of entrepreneurial skills, financial education, the sustainability component in entrepreneurship, as well as the improvement of digital skills.

Victor
Negrescu

Member,
European Parliament

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Annemarie Große Frie, Senior Vice President, Head of Research & Predevelopment, Technology, Siemens

Professional history

Since 10/2022

Siemens AG, Munich, Germany, Technology
– Senior Vice President, Head of Research & Predevelopment

2020

Siemens AG, Munich, Germany, Corporate Technology
– Senior Vice President, Head of Research in Energy and Electronics

2016

Siemens AG, Munich, Germany, Corporate Strategy
– Vice President, Head of Transformation & Projects

2014

Siemens AG, Munich, Germany, Corporate Strategy
– Director, Strategic Projects

2013

Siemens AG, Munich, Germany, Corporate Sustainability Office
– Strategy & Environmental Portfolio

2006

Boston Consulting Group, Munich, Germany
– Associate, Consultant, Project Leader

Memberships

Atlantik Brücke e.V. Young Leader 2018

Annemarie Große Frie

Senior Vice President, Head of Research & Predevelopment, Technology, Siemens

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Ray Eitel-Porter, Global Responsible AI Lead, Accenture

Ray Eitel-Porter is a managing director with Accenture Digital, leading the UK & Ireland Analytics Practice. Since joining Accenture in 2013, he has led work to define the global information and analytics strategy and operating model for a major CPG company. He has also been driving quality and supply chain analytics for a manufacturer, leading a project to design and test a data monetization proposition for a cross-industry service provider, and overseeing an analytics maturity/capability assessment for a pharmaceutical major. He chairs the government’s Data Skills Taskforce and sits on techUK’s Big Data & Analytics Council.

Ray
Eitel-Porter

Global Responsible AI Lead,
Accenture

Daniel Mes, Cabinet Member, Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans, European Commission

A lawyer by training, Daniel Mes started his career at the European Commission in its competition department. There he worked on transport and digital technology files. During the last Commission term, he managed relations with the European Parliament and the Council, including on digital policy files, and was a speechwriter to Margrethe Vestager. Since 1 December 2019, Mr Mes has worked in the Cabinet of Executive Vice President Frans Timmermans on digital aspects of the European Green Deal.

Daniel
Mes

Cabinet Member, Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans, European Commission

Francesco Buonarroti, Chief Information Officer, Janssen Pharmaceuticals EMEA, Johnson & Johnson

Francesco Buonarroti is the Chief Information Officer, Janssen Pharmaceuticals at Johnson & Johnson, where he has been working for 12 years now. His previous positions include Senior Director IT, Janssen Commercial EMEA and IT Director EMEA Finance Logistic and HR amongst other.
Prior to joining Johnson & Johnson, Francesco has worked for SAP.

Francesco
Buonarroti

Chief Information Officer, Janssen Pharmaceuticals EMEA, Johnson & Johnson

Maria Rosendahl, Deputy Director General and Head of Department for Industry Policy, Teknikföretagen (the Association of Swedish Engineering Industries)

Maria Rosendahl is Deputy Director General and Head of Department for Industry Policy at Teknikföretagen (the Association of Swedish Engineering Industries) since 2021.
She joined Teknikföretagen in 2017 as Head of Skills and Innovation Division.

Maria has multiple years of experience from management in telecommunications, technology and transport industries. Her areas of responsibility have many times had a close link to R&D and innovation and the international dimension has been a constant part of her career. Prior to joining Teknikföretagen she was Business area manager at one of Sweden’s major transport companies. She has also been Head of Product management at Ericsson and there responsible for the establishment of a new office in Shanghai.

Maria holds a MSc of Industrial Management and Economics with specialization in innovation.

Maria Rosendahl

Deputy Director General and Head of Department for Industry Policy, Teknikföretagen

Juhan Lepassaar, Executive Director, ENISA

Mr. Lepassaar took up his functions on 16 October 2019. He has more than 15 years of experience in working with and within the European Union. Prior to joining ENISA, he worked for six years in the European Commission, including as Head of Cabinet of Vice-President Andrus Ansip responsible for the Digital Single Market. In this capacity he also led and coordinated the preparations and negotiations of the Cybersecurity Act.

Mr Lepassaar started his career in the EU affairs with the Estonian Government Office, leading for five years the national EU coordination system as the Director for EU affairs and EU adviser of the Prime Minister.

Juhan
Lepassaar

Executive Director,
ENISA

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Morten Løkkegaard, Member, European Parliament

Biography to follow shortly.

Morten
Løkkegaard

Member, European Parliament

Daniel Mes, Cabinet Member, Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans, European Commission

Daniel
Mes

Cabinet Member, Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans, European Commission

MoD2023 Speakers

HilaryMine

CeciliaBonefeld-Dahl

Věra Jourová

Margaritis Schinas

Alexandra van Huffelen

Valeriya Ionan

Taro Kono

Mariya Gabriel

Pedro Tavares

Tomislav Sokol

Helle Thorning Schmidt

Florian Tursky

Pernille Weiss

Dragoş Tudorache

Christiane Kirketerp de Viron

Victor Negrescu

Annemarie Große Frie

Ray Eitel-Porter

Daniel Mes

Francesco Buonarroti

Maria Rosendahl

Juhan Lepassaar

Morten Løkkegaard

Daniel Mes

Hilary
Mine

Cecilia
Bonefeld-Dahl

Věra
Jourová

Alexandra
van Huffelen

Taro
Kono

Mariya
Gabriel

Pedro
Tavares

Tomislav
Sokol

Florian
Tursky

Pernille
Weiss

Dragoş
Tudorache

Victor
Negrescu

Ray
Eitel-Porter

Daniel
Mes

Francesco
Buonarroti

Juhan
Lepassaar

Morten
Løkkegaard

Daniel
Mes