Torben Pedersen

Novo Nordisk

Senior Project Manager, Digital Transformation, Global HR

Torben Pedersen, is currently in charge of the Digital Transformation of Global HR for Novo Nordisk. Previous to this role he was in charge of the Oral Launch Plant in Novo Nordisk and an SVP HR Partner where his main field of work was the optimization of the core HR processes leading up to talent recruitment and developing and implementing a new talent management process.

Ramakrishna Movva, Phd.

Chrysalis Consulting Solutions

Founder & CEO

Ramki performed various HR leadership roles in a career spanning over three decades. He last held the Executive VP & Head of Strategic HR and Organizational Capabilities position at Emirates NBD. INSEAD Business School published a case study on the HR transformation he facilitated at Emirates NBD. Previously, he worked with PwC and Unilever. He recently founded Chrysalis Consulting Solutions that provides consulting, coaching, learning, and advisory services in organizational and leadership development.

Ramki had the opportunity to conceive and execute organizational culture change initiatives and design new-age practices relating to leadership development, performance management, high potential talent, and succession programs. Besides, he trained and coached senior leaders and high-performing teams from diverse cultures to help them be at their best. 

He has a doctoral degree from California Institute of Integral Studies, USA, a postgraduate diploma in Occupational Psychology from the University of Surrey, UK, and a Master’s degree in HR from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India. In addition, he is an International Coach Federation certified leadership and team coach. 
Ramki lives with his family in Dubai. He replenishes his inner self through long walks, mindfulness practices, music, and gardening.

Bjarte Bogsnes

Bogsnes Advisory

Managing Director

Bjarte Bogsnes has a long international career, both in Finance and HR. He is a pioneer in the business agility movement Beyond Budgeting and has been heading up the implementation of the concept at Equinor. He led a similar initiative in Borealis in the mid-nineties, one of the companies that inspired the Beyond Budgeting model. 

Bjarte is Chairman of the Beyond Budgeting Roundtable (BBRT).  He is a popular international business speaker and the winner of a Harvard Business Review/McKinsey Management Innovation award. Bjarte is also author of "Implementing Beyond Budgeting - Unlocking the Performance Potential", where he writes about his almost twenty-five years long Beyond Budgeting journey. He has throughout these years inspired and helped numerous companies all over the world getting started.

Bjarte has taken early retirement from Equinor but will continue his Beyond Budgeting work through Bogsnes Advisory.

Yolaine von Barczy

Shiseido EMEA

Vice President Human Resources and Sustainability EMEA

Yolaine von Barczy is Vice President Human Resources & Sustainability EMEA at Shiseido. She has a track record of HR roles in various countries and has occupied many pan European functions in the pharmaceutical, insurance, and most recently beauty business for global companies. She started her career in Germany where she spent 8 years in different HR specialists and generalist roles. During this time she supported several mergers & acquisitions activities from an HR perspective. She then moved to France where she joined Tektronix and then Biogen before moving to Bristol-Myers Squibb where she spent 11 years in HR leadership and talent development roles. She also worked at Chubb and joined Shiseido EMEA in 2018. Throughout her career she has worked on many transformation projects and has a passion for talent, engagement, and culture development. 

Federico Balzola

Former CHRO and Sustainability Officer at Procter and Gamble, Danone, Reckitt Benckiser, Aer Lingus and DIM

Chief HR Officer

Federico Balzola is an international CHRO and Sustainability Officer and a certified coach. He has worked for some of the best known brands in Europe like Procter and Gamble, Danone, Reckitt Benckiser, Aer Lingus and DIM inspired by three principles: 
a best in class HR appoach is a key pillar of a successful business strategy and a key enabler of business transformation.
focusing on employees wellbeing and developement is the best way to boost productivity and ultimately profitability.
The move towards a more sustainable business model will shape the winners of tomorrow

Sergio Snyder

Marriott International

Area Director Human Resources, UAE, Oman and Lebanon Premium and Select Brands

Sergio Snyder started his career with Marriott in 1991 and has worked in three continents, and 25 different countries over his 32-year tenure with the company.  He has held several HR Leadership roles throughout his career with Marriott both on Property and above Property. In 2007, he became the Regional Director of Training for Continental Europe and in April 2011 moved as Area Director of Human Resources for Easter Europe where he worked for 7 years. He joined Western Europe in November 2018 and Western Europe and Maghreb in 2020 as Dir of HR Operations before moving to his current role in the UAE. He is fluent in English and Spanish and is a graduate of Westminster College in London, the London Institute, and a member of the Institute of Personnel in the UK (CIPD)

Sari-Ek Petroff

VTT

HR Business Partner, Leadership and Talent Development & Culture

Sari Ek-Petroff is responsible for the People and Leadership Development, as well as Wellbeing and Culture, at VTT, Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd. Prior to VTT, Sari was working in the pharma industry, in Sanofi for more than 12 years. She was the HR Director for Finland as well as HRBP for one business area in the Nordics and Baltics. During 2012-2015 she had an additional role for the Talent Management for the Nordics and Baltics as well as for the young potential program in Europe, called EVOLVE.

Sari has a Master’s Degree in Business Administration,  she is also a qualified business teacher and holds a HRBP Certificate.

Martin Lexa

FAMAR

CHRO

Martin is a result-oriented HR executive with over 25 years of extensive and broad-based experience in
both mature and emerging markets within the healthcare sector. Currently serving as a global HR leader, he
excels in supporting companies as an interim and project manager. Martin is also a sought-after speaker at
prestigious HR conferences, where he addresses relevant HR topics such as age diversity, and is an author
focusing on integrating people with disabilities into society and the workplace.
Before his current role as CHRO FAMAR, a pharmaceutical CDMO, Martin's corporate career included
notable positions at Mundipharma and Mölnlycke Healthcare, where he served as Chief People Officer. His
tenure in these roles was marked by significant contributions to HR leadership in growth companies within
the pharmaceutical and medical devices industries. Before these roles, Martin worked for the Novartis
Group and at Medtronic in international roles. Earlier in his career, he worked for Bristol-Myers Squibb,
holding various national and international HR roles.
Throughout his career, Martin has consistently demonstrated a solid ability to support the business strategy
and lead and develop HR functions and leaders, driving organizational success in dynamic and diverse
environments. His proven track record in this area instils confidence in his leadership and change
management skills.
He is married with three daughters and lives in Vienna

Sean Penistone

with BT, GSK and Xerox

Former Director Leadership, Learning & Talent

Sean is a strategic and innovative Talent, L&D, and OD specialist with a 25-year record of success in the complex, matrix, international settings. He focusses on transforming business capability through pragmatic Talent and Capability strategies and approaches. He is experienced in many industries, such as Life Sciences, Professional Services, Retail Banking, Technology and Telecoms having held senior HR roles in the likes of Glaxo SmithKline, Astellas Pharma, Xerox, and HBOS.

In his previous roles Sean was the director for leadership, learning, and talent at British Telecom BT. Before BT, he was leading GSK’s Talent and Capability work in the area of Digital Transformation and is introducing new approaches, practices and procedures to ensure that GSK has the skills to thrive in the digital world. 

Oana Iordachescu

WAYFAIR

Head of Tech TA EU

Oana Iordachescu  is a Senior Talent Acquisition Leader with over 10 years experience Talent Acquisition, Diversity & Inclusion and Talent Management. She has built her portfolio partnering with leaders across companies such as Booking.com (Amsterdam), Criteo (Paris)  and currently Wayfair (Berlin) with the explicit goal to build and nurture inclusive workforces. 
She has developed programs and processes that aim at creating access to equal opportunity and advocates for diversity and inclusion policies as a business and societal benefit. 
Her mission is to show that changing the ratio is not the problem, changing the ratio is the solution.

Stefaan Stroo

ING Group

HR Way of Working & Risk Lead

Stefaan Stroo joined ING in 2016 and is part of the Global Strategy & Analytics Team. In that team, he is responsible for the strategy and design of the global HR function and for the global HR Risk team, where the goal is to ensure that ING is a safe and compliant place to work. Previously he worked for ING Belgium, where Stefaan developed and build a new approach to support potentially redundant employees from job to job. Before joining ING, Stefaan was a project manager and a banker at BNP Paribas Fortis, after which he joined a consultant firm in project, portfolio & program management, where he led the HR department. His professional experience has allowed him to build up expertise in both HR as well as the business side, and to combine the two to create business value.

Khan Ozol

AstraZeneca

Head of Talent Acquisition - North America, Global Oncology R&D, and TA Data Science & AI Innovation

Florine van der Ven

ING Tech NL

Global Senior HR Business Partner

With Masters in Civil and Corporate Law, and experience in Talent Acquisition, Performance Management, Brand Activation, Agile Way of Working, Florine changed after working in Italy for a few months and the role of a Global Transformation & Change Consultant at ING, to the role of Global HR Business Partner Tech. ING has recently embarked on a massive transformation journey becoming an IT company with a banking license, IT and analytics being at the core of this change. Florine supports more specifically the Tech Infra business, which especially in these times play a crucial role for the bank. Aim is to have a better client and customer experience.

Adam McKinnon

Merck Group

People Analytics Consultancy & Organization Development

Adam leads people analytics consulting engagements with business leaders at Merck KGaA—a leader in science & technology, headquartered in Germany, with more than 53.000 employees in 66 countries. Adam began his career in the Australian Army, and has since lived in the US, Austria, UK and Germany, working with various multinational organizations. The focus of his work has been employing data and analytics in organizations to facilitate evidence-based decision making on various HR & strategy topics. He is motivated by using machine learning in innovative ways to address challenging questions. Adam has earned degrees in Psychology, IT, Finance, and Epidemiology.

Azad Navaz

BMW AG

Head of Qualification, Training & Retail HR

Azad Navaz is the Head of Qualification, Training & Retail HR at BMW AGMW for Africa and the Eastern European Region. His overall responsibilities include employee Attraction, Selection, Development, Retention in the BMW Group Retail Network in 36 countries across the region with a strong focus on Recruitment and People Management Culture. 
In his previous role in BMW Azad was the Training Manager for the Asia Pacific Region responsible for identifying training needs, developing training content and training delivery for the whole region. Azad is also the recipient of The Prince Philip Medal awarded to an engineer of any nationality who has made an exceptional contribution to engineering as a whole through practice, management or education. 
 

Mark Hayton

WOLT

Head of Leadership Development

Mark is the Head of Leadership Development at Wolt, he is an experienced HR professional with deep expertise in organizational change and transformation, workforce management. His perspective has come from experiencing people and leadership practices from 120 countries and cultures. Mark is a firm believer in robust data, meaningful facilitation and that people don't think as much as they think, they think.

Gaia Artico

DBI - Dim Brands International

HR Senior Manager Direct to Consumer and Talent Development

Gaia Artico has 15 years of experience developed in Italy, UK, Benelux and France. After 10 years as Training, Recruiting and Development Manager in Italy, she moved to the UK as HR Manager UK and Benelux. Since July 2019 she is based in the European headquarters in Paris. She is a certified facilitator and her main responsibilities are Talent and Performance Management, Training and Development, Employee Engagement and Internal Communication. In addition she is HR Business partner for the direct to consumer department: Ecommerce, Retail, IT. . 

Jenni Kivikoski

Wolt

Talent Acquisition Partner - Product+

Jenni Kivikoski is currently the Talent Acquisition Partner - Product+ at. Wolt. In her previous roles she was a Talent Acquisition Lead at Silo.AI - the largest private AI lab in the Nordics, heading recruitment and employer branding in Finland and in all new markets. She has previous experience in talent acquisition, designing and executing recruitment and employer strategies in fast-paced high-growth environments, especially in the field of IT. In her previous role, Jenni was responsible for leading the talent acquisition and kicking off international talent acquisition from scratch. Together with the team, they managed to grow from 500 to 1000 professionals, from one country to six in less than three years. She is passionate about modern talent acquisition, data, company culture, internationalization and diversity & inclusion topics. Not getting enough of recruiting during working hours, Jenni helps people during her free time in job search and volunteers around tech and startup scenes and speaks in different events.

Christian Debes

Merck Group

Head of People Data Science

Christian is the head of people data science at Merck KGaA – a leader of science & technology, headquartered in Germany. His background is in data science where he spent more than 10 years in industry, designing machine learning algorithms and managing data science teams for a variety of applications. Christian’s work is focusing on enabling data-driven insights to Merck’s HR group in various fields. His technical interest lie in the field of supervised and unsupervised learning for heterogeneous data sources. Christian has a PhD in Machine Learning, degrees in information and communication engineering and is a lecturer for data science at the Technical University of Darmstadt.