Speakers
 | The ACHIEVE MORE Partnership Manager, Finance Tree, United Kingdom |
| Natalia is a Project Manager in the ACHIEVE MORE Partnership Project. This is a €1.8m CIP-funded project with an ambition to accelerate the growth of knowledge-intensive services SMEs in the ICT sector. The Partnership has built an impressive network of 67 organisations from 24 European Countries consisting of early stage investors, business and technology incubators and ICT clusters. Apart from managing member relationships, Natalia is also responsible for leading the project's work in the area of access to finance for KIS SMEs and, in particular, the issue of setting up seed funds connected to incubators and clusters. Natalia has eight years of experience in running business support programmes aimed at promoting entrepreneurship and innovation and in the coordination of multi-partner collaboration projects with organisations from all over Europe. She also holds a Bachelor's Degree in International Business Studies from Northumbria University and a Master's Degree in European Politics from Newcastle University. | |
 | Head of Unit for Support for Innovation, European Commission, Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry |
| Dr. Reinhard Buscher is a Head of Unit at the Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry. He holds a Bachelor's Degree and a PhD, in Economics. Before joining the European Commission in 1989, he worked for nine years at the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Germany. In the European Commission, he has worked in a number of different areas - as a Member of Commissioner Bangemann's Cabinet, as special Adviser for Industrial Aspects of the Information Society, as Head of Unit for Standardisation, Head of Unit for Industrial Aspects of Electronic Commerce and Head of Unit for E-Business, ICT industries and services. Since January 2008, he has been Head of Unit 'Support for Innovation. | |
 | Co-Founder and Member of the Board of INNOVA Europe, Luxembourg Chairman and Founder of Inova+, Portugal |
| Eurico Neves was born, in Portugal, in 1966. He is the CEO and Founder of INNOVA Europe S.A.R.L., Brussels and also the CEO and Founder of INOVA+ S.A., Portugal - two leading firms in innovation studies, research management and technology transfer. Since July 2007, he has served as the representative from Portugal on the Business Chamber of the European Commission's Enterprise Policy Group (EPG), which is an advisory board to Vice-President Verheugen. Other positions, which he currently holds include Member of the Board of ANETIE - the Portuguese National Association of Information Technologies and Electronic Companies, Representative of Portugal in the Technology Transfer Network of the European Space Agency, and President of CEDES - the Association for a Centre of Engineering on Sustainable Development, a non-profit association based in Gaia, Portugal, which promotes technology transfer of research results into industry. He is also a Consultant on innovation issues for the National Council for the Lisbon Strategy of the Portuguese Government and Lead Expert for the URBACT II - the European Programme for Urban Sustainable Development. He is also a renowned writer on the subject of innovation in his own country and two of his books have been produced by leading national publishers. | |
 | Director of International SME's Development, OSEO, France |
| Nathalie DELORME is the Head of the Unit of International SMEs' Development in the International Directorate at OSEO. She spent four years as an International Science and Technology Advisor to NRC-IRAP, in Canada. Before joining ANVAR in 1999, she worked at French Atomic Energy (CEA) in different areas including research engineer, creator of data bases and head of the external communication team of the technological research department. She also worked in market studies and in the evaluation and strategy department. In ANVAR, she worked as Manager in charge of the fields of electronics, microelectronics, measures and control and from 2001 to 2004 she was as the Deputy Director of Technology Department and led a team of 35 people. | |
 | Vice President, META Group, Italy |
| Andrea Di Anselmo is the Vice-President of Meta, an international group based in Italy, which is active in the fields of start-ups and knowledge valorisation. He has a background as a civil engineer and also research experience in Materials Science at the Storrs University in Connecticut, USA. He sits on the Boards of Directors of ZMV - the fund management company operating Ingenium, Sviluppumbria - the RDA of Umbria, IBAN - the Italian Business Angels Network) and several knowledge intensive start-ups. Andrea has a deep, experienced-based, knowledge of innovation and services gained as a result of many international assignments and of influencing strategic decisions as member of the Boards of Directors of several organisations such as ISRIM - a Research Institute dealing with advanced materials and TII- the European Association for Innovation and Technology Transfer. | |
 | Consultant, A.T. Kearney GmbH, Germany |
| Eva Diedrichs is a Senior Consultant at A.T. Kearney and that organisation's core team member of the European Innovation and R&D Management Practice. She is the project manager responsible for the IMP³rove project. As a consultant, she has led innovation management related projects for multinationals and for mid-sized companies in various industries including aerospace and defence, automotive, chemicals, financial services, pharmaceuticals, health care and engineering. She has also published several articles on management topics in prestigious magazines and journals, and co-authored a book on core competencies. Prior to joining A.T. Kearney, she lived and worked in Europe and also in the USA where in the academic field she was a researcher as well as Head of Department for the marketing and sales of knowledge intensive services. | |
 | President, Heraklion Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Greece |
| Nikitas Dolapsakis is the President of the Heraklion Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He holds a BSc in Business Administration and is the President of ELECTROSYNETERIKI S.A., the leading supplier of electrical materials and equipment in Crete. In addition, he is active in the construction business, as the owner of a private construction company specialising in electrical and mechanical installations. He has also been a member of the Board of Directors of HCCI since 1987 and has served as the President of the Chambers Group for the Development of Greek Isles, from 2006 to 2009. | |
 | ECEI Coordinator, IESE Business School, Spain |
| Emiliano Duch is the President and Founder of the firm COMPETITIVENESS, an international consulting group, specialising in 'Building Competitive Business Clusters,' which he founded with the support of leading business leaders such as Michael Porter and Alessandro Benetton. As CEO of COMPETITIVENESS, he has acted as an advisor to hundreds of clusters, providing them with strategic advice and specialised e-services through projects sponsored by local organisations and governments, as well as multilateral institutions such as the European Commission, IADB and the UN. The group has carried out more than 100 consultancy projects in competitiveness reinforcement, at cluster level in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Emiliano is one of the founders and a former President of The Competitive Institute (TCI) and is still active in the Board of Advisors and in the on-going events of TCI. He is also the Director of the Barcelona Clusters Summer School, organised by the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, in early July, every year. This is a programme that offers courses covering everything from the conceptual framework for clusters to best practice examples of cluster development policies and cluster strategy and management. Emiliano has a Master of Arts in Public Administration from Harvard University, an also an MBA from the Harvard Business School. Originally, he was an architect from UPC in Barcelona. | |
 | Policy Officer, European Commission, Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, Support for Innovation Unit |
| Christophe Guichard was born in 1970, in Dijon, in France. He holds a Master's Degrees in Management from Tours, in Business Administration from Texas, and in International Politics from Belgium. Before joining the European Commission, in 2001, he worked for two years at Ernst & Young International in Paris, as business analyst. Prior to that, he spent five years, as an economic advisor, at Samsung Electronics' Strategic European Affairs Department, in Brussels. At the European Commission, he has been working in the Innovation Policy Directorate of DG Enterprise and Industry, initially in Luxembourg and since 2004, in Brussels, as a Policy Officer. He has been responsible, in particular, for running the European TrendChart initiative, the European Commission's benchmarking exercise in the field of innovation policy and also the INNO-Learning Platform to promote transnational cooperation between national and regional innovation support programmes. | |
 | Policy Officer, Associate Professor of Management and Innovation Sant'Anna, School of Advanced University and Post Lauream Studies, Pisa, Italy |
| Prof. Fabio Iraldo graduated from Bocconi University in Economics and Social Disciplines. He also holds a PhD in Territorial and Environmental Public Policies from the IUAV University, in Venice. He is currently Associate Professor of Management at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, in Pisa, and Research Director at IEFE - the Institute for Environment and Energy Economics at Bocconi University, in Milan. He is also Professor of Sustainability Marketing at the 3rd University of Rome - Economics Faculty 'F. Caffe' and is responsible for courses in Environmental Management and Competitiveness in several post-graduate MSC courses and schools of management. In 2006, with other colleagues from the Genoa University and the Turin Polytechnic, he founded CESISP - the Inter-University Centre for Product Sustainability. As an independent expert, he is member of environmental committees within some third-party certification bodies. Amongst his main research activities, are pilot projects and studies carried out on behalf of national and EU institutions such as the European Commission's DG Environment, DG Enterprise and DG Research, Eurostat and the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. The issues covered by these studies have included environmental management, sustainability marketing, effects of environmental policies on markets and competitiveness, environment-oriented innovation, environmental policies-related dynamics in SMEs and industrial clusters. He is also the author of many publications on these and other issues. | |
 | Policy Officer, European Commission, Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, Support for Innovation Unit |
| Kincso Izsak works as a Policy Officer in the Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry in Unit D2 'Support for Innovation.' She is responsible for project contracts, for the European Cluster Policy Group, the European Cluster Excellence Initiative and the regional aspects of the Europe INNOVA/PRO INNO initiative. Previously, Kincso worked for a regional development agency in Hungary where she managed interregional, innovation and research-related projects and then she moved to Brussels to represent the Eszak-Alfold Region on regional development and regional innovation issues in the European Union. She gained a diploma as a certified economist and she also has a Master's Degree in International Business. | |
 | Project Manager, UK Centre for Economic & Environmental Development, United Kingdom |
| Coordinator for Eco-innovative cluster partnership for growth and internationalisation (EcoCluP) Gareth Jones is a Project Manager for the UK Centre for Economic & Environmental Development - UK CEED); He holds a Master's Degree in Geology from Southampton University and an MSc in Environmental Impact Assessment and Management Systems from the University of East Anglia. Gareth is responsible for UK CEED's business support activities, including the management of the EnviroCluster initiative. This is a business cluster supporting the low carbon and environmental goods and services sector, in Peterborough, UK. To support the businesses in the cluster, Gareth also operates the Peterborough Eco Innovation Centre, the UK's first incubation centre for eco-innovative enterprises. | |
 | Advisor responsible for New Initiatives in the context of the European Research Area European Commission, Directorate General for Research, Directorate B: European Research Area - Research Programmes and Capacity |
| Leonidas Karapiperis was born in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1952. He holds a BSc in Mathematical Physics from Sussex University, UK and a PhD in Physics from Cornell University, U.S.A. After seven years as researcher at Thomson-CSF, in France, he joined the European Commission's information technology ESPRIT programme, in 1988 and, in 1993, moved to the Directorate-General for Research to work on international S&T relations. From 1995-1999, he served at the Delegation of the European Commission in Japan, where he was Head of the Press and Information Service. Since 1999, he has been an Adviser at the Directorate-General for Research and has been working on the development of successive Framework Programmes for Research, coordination with national and European research programmes and organisations, international cooperation, notably between clusters, and the development of new initiatives in the context of the European Research Area. He represents the European Commission on the CERN Council and the OECD Global Science Forum. | |
 | Editor-in-Chief, EUobserver |
| A journalist by education and by trade, Lisbeth Kirk is the Founder and Managing Editor of EUobserver, guiding this company in both the editorial realm and its business-orientation. One positive outcome of these merged responsibilities was the creation of the EUbookshop.com which has become an especially popular niche site for a wide variety of publications that cover issues related to Europe and the EU. Lisbeth has reported on the European Union for many years and her primary aim is to continue to offer a widely-read and trusted platform for news that can promote mature discussion on EU affairs. | |
 | Communication and Information Officer, European Commission, Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, Communication and Information Unit |
| Evangelia Koundouraki is a Communication and Information Officer in Unit R4: Communication and Information in the Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry. She deals with internal communication issues. She joined the Commission in 2007 and she holds a Masters Degree in Information Management. Evangelia is also finalising her PhD on Information Processing in the European Commission, at the Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. | |
 | CTO, Zentralverband Oberflachentechnik, Germany |
| Dr. Konig studied Chemistry at the Heinrich-Heine-University Dusseldorf where he completed his PhD in Chemistry and Electrochemistry. He has been responsible for the field of surface engineering in various research facilities for different aspects of applications. His main interest is the linking of basic research with application. The scientific topics in which he is involved cover amongst others the development of efficient plating processes, preparation of guidelines for sustainable plating processes, as well as the analysis and the comparison of coating technologies. Since 2007, he has been CTO of the Zentralverband Oberflachentechnik ZVO e.V., Germany. | |
 | CTO, Managing Director, Greenovate! Europe, Belgium |
| Katharina Krell is the Managing Director of Greenovate! Europe, which is a Brussels-based, EU-wide expert network supporting environmental innovation. Katharina has been instrumental in developing the business concept for, and initiating the creation of, this young expert group. From 2004 to March 2008, she was the Secretary-General of the EUREC Agency, a European Group of 47 renewable energy research centres. She developed the support to innovation and knowledge transfer from renewable energy research to the market, as a new strategic business area for EUREC and led successful projects in the field. From 2000-2002, she worked for the German Development Service (GTZ/CIM) in China, as seconded expert for renewable energy electrification strategies. Katharina is German and holds a BA in International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, as well as an MBA from United Business Institutes in Brussels. | |
 | Director, Innovation Actors Division, VINNOVA - Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems, Sweden |
| Dr Anne Lidgard has a background in corporate R&D at AT&T Bell Labs and at Ericsson. She has also spent many years working with SMEs in various positions, both in operations and as a Board Member. More specifically, between 1997 and 1999, she held a position as Director of European Sales for a US-based wireless software company - Geoworks. In 1999, she became CEO of Celltribe - a private incubator within the area of Wireless Services, which she founded together with three other partners. This led to a number of new ventures in the field. During the period 2002 - 2005, Anne was a Partner at Deseven AB - a venture catalyst company and worked primarily as a Business Advisor for high tech growth companies. She joined VINNOVA in January 2006, where her specific focus has been on the commercialisation of research and she was appointed to her present position in May 2009. | |
 | Programme Officer, European Commission, Directorate General for Regional Policy |
| Anders holds a Master's Degree in Science in Public Administration and Economics from the Umea University, Sweden. He spent an internship at the Committee of the Regions in 1999. Then he was appointed as an International Officer at the County Administrative Board of Vasternorrland, where he was in charge of international cooperation and transnational projects. Anders also worked as a Head of Section in the Swedish Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communication during 2003-2008, dealing with programmes for the funding of international projects. From 2008 onwards, Anders has worked within the European Commission's DG Regio, as part of the team the drafts and implements the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region. | |
 | President & Managing Director, Atlantis Consulting S.A., Greece |
| Angelos Manglis is the President and Managing Director of Atlantis Consulting S.A and represents Atlantis in several organisations, such as TII -Technology, Innovation, and Information and ETEPS - European Techno-Economic Policy Support Network. He is also the General Secretary of HELETAS - the Hellenic Society for Technology Assessment and Evaluation. His main interests are innovation management, science and technology policy evaluation and impact assessment, RTDI project management, industrial policy, and strategic management. He is the Coordinator of the 'Mobile Services Innovation Platform' -MOBIP. The aim of MOBIP is to promote innovation within European SMEs in the mobile services sector through creating a consortium of strong players in a public-private partnership and by developing and testing integrated and tailored support packages building upon existing initiatives and good practice. Angelos was the Project Manager and Coordinator of the 'Gate2Start' project, which aimed to develop a ground-breaking model for the successful exploitation of research-based innovation. He was also the Project Manager of the 'Tech-SME Partnering' project that enabled the participating Regions to cluster technology transfer projects around SMEs leading to value and job creation. | |
 | Policy Officer, European Commission, Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, Support for Innovation Unit |
| Orsola Mautone works as a Policy Officer in the Directorate-General of Enterprise and Industry in Unit D2 'Support for Innovation'. Her area of expertise is eco-innovation, especially in the context of the Europe INNOVA initiative. Previously, she spent over three years at the European Environment Agency as a national expert on secondment from the Italian Ministry of Environment, where she dealt with economic instruments for environmental protection. She graduated in Business and Economy and has two Master's Degrees, one in Sustainable Development and the other in Environmental Engineering and Economics. | |
 | Senior Consultant, TECHNOFI, France |
| Vincent Morfouace is a Senior Consultant with Technofi s.a., a private company specialising in innovation management and financing. Within Technofi, he coordinated a support action for SME technology innovation in the renewable energy sector that involved access to FP6-7 funds and the success of this action exceeded expectations. Now, he coordinates the KIS-PIMS project co-funded by DG Enterprise and Industry, which supports SME innovation in services in the renewable energy sector. He has also been leader of work packages in several other FP6 and FP7 contracts in the manufacturing sector such as CleanProd and Innotex FP6. Before joining Technofi, in 2004, he worked for eight years in the automotive industry as a Project Manager and Team Leader of an industrial intelligence unit dealing with IP management, benchmarking and product cost kill. Vincent holds an Engineering Degree in Transport Systems with an emphasis on aerospace from ESTACA, in Levallois-Perret, France, together with a pre-PhD Academic Degree 'D.E.A.' in energy conversion from the Pierre et Marie Curie University, Paris. | |
 | Programme Director Innovation Actors Division, VINNOVA, Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems, Sweden |
| Jenni Nordborg is Programme Director of the Forska&Vax/Research&Grow Programme and is also responsible for the national Strategy for Innovative SMEs, led by VINNOVA. This encompasses the development of new SME support instruments in collaboration with other national agencies. She has a PhD in Solid State Chemistry from Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden and also a research background in the same area. During her research she worked at several international, high-level research facilities such as Tsukuba, Japan and Brookhaven Ntl Labs, USA and she was also a visiting scientist at UWA, Perth, Australia. She prepared part of her thesis for her Master' Degree at Toshiba R&D Center in Kawasaki, Japan. Jenni has experience in the start-up and management of a new high-tech business and more than 10 years of experience in the management of high-level international collaboration projects. She has worked as Marketing and Sales Director in a growing new business that sold innovative lasers for biomedical analysis when she set-up a global network of distribution channels and established a growing customer base. She also has experience of board-level positions in an established medium-sized, family business in the automotive area. At VINNOVA, she has been involved in several EU cooperation projects and was appointed as a National Expert in the FP7 Capacities Research for the Benefit of SMEs Programme Committee. | |
 | Director, eUconnect Ltd, United Kingdom |
| Paul Ormerod is the Co-Founder of eUconnect Ltd, a specialist digital communications company based in London and Cambridge, UK. Paul has had a 20 year career in technology strategy, media production and communications and knowledge management. In the early 90s, he advised many global companies on the convergence between communications and content, and subsequently was appointed as Programme Director at the London Centre for the Exploitation of Science and Technology. Since the turn of the century, he has been involved in working with large organisations on how they structure and use their knowledge and from 2004 he has been the Director and Head of Research at eUconnect Ltd. This company has worked in 10 projects for various parts of the European Commission DGs helping projects, programmes and communities to have a voice that reaches the people they need to influence. Key topics covered have been entrepreneurship, innovation and breakthrough technology impact. eUconnect has also worked closely with many UK government departments and agencies on themes as diverse as innovation support models for the sustainable environment and climate change impact. | |
 | Policy Officer, European Commission, Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, Support for Innovation Unit |
| Mette works in the Support for Innovation Unit of the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, where she has had a number of years experience as a Policy Officer. She is currently responsible for innovation in services including, in particular, strategic policy development. She is the Coordinator of the European Knowledge Intensive Services Innovation Platform, which is supported by the Europe INNOVA initiative, and is also concerned with transnational policy development activities in the field of services innovation under the PRO INNO Europe® initiative. She has worked on broader innovation policy development and with innovation policy benchmarking, as a Project Officer for the INNO-Policy TrendChart and the INNO-Views expert workshop series. She developed the first phase of the PRO INNO Europe® initiative, which was the implementation of the Open Method of Coordination in the field of innovation, and she has also coordinated the FP6 Research and Innovation work programme. Previously, Mette worked for the Danish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and also spent some years at the Danish Permanent Representation to NATO. She has a background in economics and is interested in swimming and travel. Mette is Danish and is married with one daughter. | |
 | Chairman, Living Labs Global Partner, Interlace-Invent, Denmark |
| Dr. Jakob H. Rasmussen is Chairman of Living Labs Global, a non-profit association focusing on creating new markets for mobile, wireless and satellite services in close collaboration with cities, firms and users worldwide. The association is active in implementing living labs in Europe, Asia and the USA, and it provides market intelligence, organises quarterly global matchmaking summits, and develops pilot projects in living lab cities. In addition, he is a partner in Interlace-Invent, a research-based consultancy focusing on urban innovation and third generation science parks. The firm's headquarters are in Copenhagen, with clients in cities such as Shanghai, Hamburg, Barcelona and Taipei. | |
 | Development Director, FOR A, Denmark |
| Jorgen Rosted is a Director of FORA, an independent research unit within the ambit of the Danish Ministry for Economic and Business Affairs. He has been one of the most influential policy advisors in Denmark over the last two decades. He has served as a Permanent Secretary in the Danish Ministry of Business Affairs and has held a number of leadership positions in the Danish Ministry of Finance. Jorgen has most recently spearheaded FORA's research in the areas of user-driven innovation and the mapping of regional and national clusters. | |
 | Head of European Projects, EBN, Belgium |
| Robert Sanders is British and graduated from Leicester University in 1988 with a degree majoring in French, Information Technology and Economics. He worked for Pechiney UK Ltd. before moving to different sales and marketing roles for a variety of international companies in the food retail sector including Glon SA and WT Foods Ltd. In these roles he concentrated particularly on the fields of export and business development. In 2000, Robert set up his own consultancy business in Toulouse to work on international marketing and project management assignments for a number of public and private clients. He joined EBN in March 2006, as Head of European Projects. He currently manages a diverse portfolio of 12 projects including FP6, Europe INNOVA, Interreg, Leonardo and Europe Aid. | |
 | Coordinator EU projects, Clusterland Upper Austria, Austria |
| Lucia Seel joined Clusterland in 2004 and is its EU Projects Coordinator. There she has had experience in the management of European funded projects like Interreg IIIC Innofire, CLOE and FP6 - INNO net CEE ClusterNetwork. She is also responsible for the international delegations that visit Clusterland and for the management of the Upper Austrian Cluster Academy. Before her job with Clusterland, she gained extensive international experience in her position as Export Area Manager for South-East Asia and part of Europe at a multinational company producing high end consumer goods. She has also worked in the communication business with Saatchi & Saatchi, in Romania. She holds a Degree in Economic Cybernetics and Statistical Mathematics from the University of Economic Studies in Bucharest, Romania. In addition, she has attended courses on International Marketing and Management at the University of Linz, Austria. | |
 | Executive Manager, Greenovate! Europe, Belgium |
| Astrid Severin is Co-Founder and Executive Manager of Greenovate! Europe, the first Europe-wide expert group to focus on green innovation processes, services and technologies. Astrid started her career at the Berlin Association of Entrepreneurs and was seconded as a National Expert to the European Commission to work on SME and innovation policy matters at DG Enterprise and DG Regional Policy. She then managed the Public Relations Department of Saatchi & Saatchi Business Communications in Brussels, which ran major institutional communication campaigns for the European Commission, NATO and UNICEF. Astrid re-joined the European Commission's DG Enterprise and Industry as a Policy Officer and was responsible for the European cluster, financing and standard networks in the sectors of energy, eco-innovation and sustainable construction. Astrid is German and holds a Degree from the University of Leipzig, Germany and an MBA from United Business Institutes, in Brussels. | |
 | Special Secretary for Competitiveness, Ministry of Development, Greece |
| Since December 2007, Eleftherios Stavropoulos has been the Special Secretary for Competitiveness at the Greek Ministry of Development. Immediately before this post, he was the Greek Representative at the European Union for Regional Policy and Structural Funds, and became a Member of the Greek Negotiating Team for the European Financial Perspectives 2007-2013. From March 2004 until October 2005, he was the Director of the Private Cabinet of the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Advisor for European Affairs. Previously in his career he has held a variety of posts such as Special Advisor to the Region of Southern Aegean for European Projects in the area of Innovation and Information Society and Special Advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on European Affairs and Greek for Turkish relations. Prior to that, he worked as an Assistant Researcher at the Health Institute of London School of Economics, and an Assistant Researcher at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy - ELIAMEP, the most prominent think-tank on the foreign policy of Greece. Eleftherios holds a BA in International Relations and European Affairs from the Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration of the University of Athens and an MSc in European Studies from the London School of Economics where he wrote his thesis on 'Trans - European Networks and their Impact on European Integration.' In 2002, he became a fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States - Program for New European Leaders. | |
 | Founder and Managing Director, Europe Unlimited, Belgium |
| A Belgian national, William Stevens graduated from EAP-European School of Management with a Diplome de Grande Ecole de Gestion - Diplom Kaufmann in 1989. He had previously attended the Catholic University of Brussels, where he graduated in Economics. He embarked on his professional career at the European Venture Capital Association (EVCA) and he was appointed Secretary-General of EVCA at the age of 25. Managing an annual budget of €2M, he launched several ambitious initiatives, one of which led to the creation of EASDAQ that became Nasdaq Europe, whilst increasing revenues, profits and membership, significantly. William founded Europe Unlimited, in 1998, as a much-needed European hub for fast-growing entrepreneurs who wanted to raise their profiles with venture capital investors. Today, Europe Unlimited has achieved that difficult mission and is a profitable company with revenues of €3M. Every year, it organises 15 international venture and technology partnering forums with over 1,000 presenters and these attract a huge network of venture capital investors, corporate partners, university tech transfer groups, innovation policy makers and deal makers. His interests are his family and friends, reading politics, travelling and hiking. He is married with two daughters. | |
 | Business Development Director, GLE Growth Capital, United Kingdom |
| Jenny has nearly 20 years experience of supporting business growth and access to finance in the UK and Europe both in relation to entrepreneurs and investors. During this period, she spent nine years in Brussels, working on business development and innovation assignments and advising on EU funding programmes on behalf of public authorities, intermediary agencies and businesses in UK and other parts of Europe. She currently acts as Business Development Director for GLE Growth Capital. This organisation is part of the GLE group and manages 350m€ in early stage funds across the UK. In London, GLE Growth Capital manages the 25-year old London Business Angels Network with 120 active angels investing 12M€ of angel finance each year in addition to a 7M€ Co-investment Fund and a 35M€ Early stage Enterprise Capital Fund. Jenny has been involved in a number of EU programmes that support investment readiness and access to finance and most recently, she has been Project Director of the EASY Project supported by the Pro-INNO Actions Programme under the CIP. Working with 17 partners, she led the organisation of eight cross-border investment forums in key capitals of Europe and closed over 10 transnational deals. She is currently Chair of the Knowledge Intensive Services Horizontal Steering Group set up under Europe INNOVA. Jenny has a Degree in French and Italian and a Master's Degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. | |
 | General Secretary of the Region of Crete, Greece |
| Serafeim Tsokas was born in the Aspropyrgos of Attikis in 1961. He studied in the Economic School of the Law Department of Athens University and took a Degree Economics. He continued his postgraduate studies in the New Haven University, Connecticut, and has a Master's Degree in Marketing and Computers. After his return from the USA, he worked in managerial positions within large enterprises in the private sector. At the age of 25, he was elected Municipal Advisor, in Aspropyrgos. In 1997, the Party President offered him the leadership of the Motivation Action, which he accepted, and later he took charge of the Immigration Sector. In the national elections of 2000, he participated as a Candidate Deputy in the region of Attiki and, in 2002, he was a Candidate for the Prefecture of West Attiki. On the 7 April 2004, he was appointed as General Secretary of the Region of Crete. | |
 | Policy Officer, European Commission, Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, Innovation Policy Development Unit |
| Dr. Henriette van Eijl's main responsibilities are to coordinate the activities of the Lead Market Initiative and to contribute to the development of future European innovation policy activities in the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry's Innovation Policy unit. After a completing a BSc at King's College and then an MSc at Imperial College in London, Henriette worked in industry, before going up to Oxford University where she gained a DPhil (PhD) in Molecular Biology. Subsequently, she was recruited by the European desk of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. The Dutch government then seconded her to the European Commission's Research Directorate-General's Health and Biotechnology Directorate, where she was a Fund/Project Manager for four years. This was followed, in May 2007, by a permanent posting to European Commission into her current position. As an Oxford University Blue, Henriette is a keen rower and a Co-Founder of a professional network of Dutch speaking women in Brussels. | |
 | Managing Director, EuroTop SC, Brussels, Belgium |
| Dr Jacques Viseur is currently Project Manager of Europe INNOVA Communications, an initiative of the European Commission's DG Enterprise and Industry (www.europe-innova.eu). He is also the Managing Director at EuroTop Cooperation Partners, a private management and communication company specialising in innovation, research, and international industrial and scientific cooperation projects (www.eurotop.be). In previous years, he has been appointed to senior positions in several research networks, sectoral federations and European business organisations. Jacques has been Secretary-General of the ESNBA - the European Secretariat of the National Bio-Industries Association, which is now merged with EuropaBio, and Secretary-General of the Belgian Bio-Industries Association. He is currently in charge of the communication and coordination of research group activities in international cooperation projects for the European Commission's DG Research and DG Enterprise and Industry, such as KAPPA-Heath, SMEs go Health, Euro-THYMAIDE and BIO-NET. Jacques has more than 20 years of extensive experience in innovation and scientific cooperation and implementation at international, national and regional levels and is the author of several publications in the field of innovation and technology. He holds an MSc in Agronomy and a PhD in Biotechnology from the FSA Gembloux University, Belgium. He is the inventor of a patent in plant biotechnology and a co-developer of the Xtranet-ISA, a professional web-based project management and communication tool. | |
 | Finance and Contract Officer, European Commission, Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, Support for Innovation Unit |
| Agnieszka Zelaskiewicz is a Finance and Contract Officer in Unit D2 'Support for Innovation' in the Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry. She joined in 2006 and since then has managed a variety of financial matters relating to FP6 projects and CIP grant agreements. Previously, she worked for 12 years in multinational enterprises operating in the areas of procurement and corporate services. Agnieszka has a Bachelor's Degree in Management, and a Master's Degree in Political Science. | |
