Speaker

Asheesh Advani
President and CEO of JA (Junior Achievement) Worldwide

Asheesh is the President and CEO of JA (Junior Achievement) Worldwide, one of the largest youth-serving NGOs in the world focused on entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and work readiness. During his tenure leading JA Worldwide since 2015, the organization has been recognized as one of the ten most impactful NGOs in the world in annual rankings and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Prior to joining JA, Asheesh was a technology entrepreneur and led two businesses successfully from start-up to acquisition. His entrepreneurial endeavors have been profiled in case studies at Harvard Business School and Babson College. Asheesh is actively involved in the World Economic Forum (WEF) and has been an annual speaker in Davos for the last seven years, co-chaired the Civil Society Advisory Council, and served on the Global Agenda Council for the Future of Education, Gender, and Work. He started his career as a consultant at Monitor Company (now Monitor Deloitte) and at the World Bank.

In 2021, Asheesh received The Tony Hsieh Award as recognition for his leadership of JA Worldwide. In 2022, Asheesh was selected as an honoree from the United States for the YPO Global Social Impact Award. Asheesh is the author of Modern Achievement (forthcoming in 2024) with celebrated leadership expert Marshall Goldsmith, a book that reconsiders the definition of achievement for aspiring leaders. He is a sought-after keynote speaker with experience speaking at Fortune 500 corporate gatherings, the Great Hall of the People in China, the United Nations, technology conferences such as Collision and Web Summit, and at major universities including Harvard, MIT, Oxford, Penn, Tufts, and Yale.

Asheesh holds degrees from the Wharton School and Oxford University, where he was a Commonwealth Scholar. He lives in the Boston-area with his wife, Helen Rosenfeld, and twin sons.

Speaker

Stefan Asenkerschbaumer
Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Robert Bosch GmbH

Stefan Asenkerschbaumer has been chairman of the supervisory board of Robert Bosch GmbH and managing partner of Robert Bosch Industrietreuhand KG since January 1, 2022.

Born in Burghausen in 1956, Stefan Asenkerschbaumer is married and has two children. After a commercial apprenticeship, he was awarded a degree in business education at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in 1982, and a further degree in business administration in 1984. These degrees were followed by a PhD on the subject of innovation management. In 2017, the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg appointed him honorary professor. Since 2019, he has been president of the Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft für Betriebswirtschaft (Schmalenbach society for business administration). Asenkerschbaumer has been a member of the BASF supervisory board since April 2022, a non-executive director of the Swiss company Stadler Rail AG since May 2022, and a member of the board of Stifterverband, a German industry association to promote the scienceshumanities, and higher education, since June 2022. He was recently appointed to the German federal chancellor’s “Zukunftsrat” policy think tank.

Speaker

Mathis Bitton
Student of philosophy and political theory, Yale University

Mathis Bitton is a student of philosophy and political theory at Yale, currently working at the magazine Palladium. Hailing from Rabat, Morocco, he edits the Yale Historical Review and the Yale Herald, writes columns for the Yale Daily News, and serves as the Vice President of the Yale Political Union. A former intern at the American Enterprise Institute, the French National Assembly, and the Tikvah Fund, his work has appeared in National Review.

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Speaker

Gonzalo Brujó
Global President Interbrand Group of Companies

Gonzalo is Global President at Interbrand Group. He leads the day-to-day operations of the global corporate group, spearheading the growth agenda and supporting marketing and consulting efforts in all the regions.

He has been Global Chief Growth Officer of the Interbrand Group for three years. Prior to that, he spent more than fifteen years scaling the Interbrand business in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.

Gonzalo is a trusted partner of a diverse array of leading companies, multinationals and public institutions, managing strategic projects across every aspect of branding, marketing and communication. He has worked with well-known prestigious companies across all sectors: banking & financial services, telecommunications, automotive, airlines, transport, fashion, luxury, FMCG, food & beverages and technology, amongst others.

He is passionate about helping companies in all sectors drive growth. He has advised many of the world’s best-known brands, including Santander, The Coca- Cola Company, Iberia, Volkswagen Group, Zara, Renault, Huawei, Uber, LatAm and Axa.

Additionally, Brujó is a professor at several business schools including IE Business School, the University of Navarra and the LVMH Academy, and is the author of a number of top-selling brand books, including: The Secrets of Luxury, Managing Brands in Fashion, The New Generation of Value, and Lanmarq.

Before joining Interbrand, Gonzalo was the Managing Director for Futurebrand and Executive Vice-President and Director of Green Team Advertising in New York.

Gonzalo holds a BA in Communications, Political Science and Sociology from Wheaton College, Norton, MA. He also attended Harvard, MA, the American University of Paris and the College for International Studies in Madrid, in affiliation with Bentley College, Waltham, MA.

Speaker

Monica Culen
Founder and Chair, Board of Trustees RED NOSES International, Non-Profit Foundation

Monica Culen started her career as Public Relations & Protocol Officer at the OPEC FUND for International Development, organizing a.o. the Ministerial Meetings and Governing Sessions in Vienna, Africa, and South America.

In 1991 Monica Culen initiated in Austria the first Hospital-Clown project in Europe and subsequently established RED NOSES Clowndoctors Austria in 1994. By 1996, she established an additional organization in Hungary. Over time, the clown program broadened its focus from sick children to include geriatric patients and rehabilitation centers, developing specialized formats for various beneficiaries. The initiative extended its reach to CEE countries and the Middle East, with organizations now operating in 12 countries. Collaborating with major humanitarian organizations, RED NOSES International conducts special missions worldwide. t currently stands as the largest international ClownCare organization.

Monica Culen stepped down as CEO from the Managing Board in April 2023 and serves now as Chair of the Board of Trustees.

From 2004 to 2021, Monica Culen served as the President of the Austrian Fundraising Association. Additionally, she held the position of Founding President of EFHCO, the European Federation of Hospital Clown Organizations, from 2011 to 2021. Among other awards, Monica Culen was honored by the Austrian President with the Golden Medal of Merits for the Republic of Austria.
 

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Speaker

Robin Dunbar
Professor of Evolutionary Psychology, University of Oxford

biography upcoming soon.

Speaker

Amy Edmondson
Professor of Leadership & Management, Harvard Business School

Amy C. Edmondson, PhD is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, a chair established to support the study of human interactions that lead to the creation of successful enterprises that contribute to the betterment of society.

Edmondson has been ranked by the biannual Thinkers50 global list of top management thinkers since 2011 (most recently #1). She teaches and writes on leadership, teams and organizational learning.  Her most recent book, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety for Learning, Innovation, and Growth offers practical guidance for leaders who are serious about building a thriving organization in the today’s uncertain environment. Her prior books, Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate and Compete in the Knowledge Economy and Teaming to Innovate (Jossey-Bass, 2012, 2103) and Building the Future: Big Teaming for Audacious Innovation (Berrett-Koehler, 2016) explore teamwork in dynamic, unpredictable work environments.

Before her academic career, she was Director of Research at Pecos River Learning Centers, where she worked on the design and implementation of transformational change in large companies. In the early 1980s, she worked as Chief Engineer for architect/inventor Buckminster Fuller, and her book A Fuller Explanation: The Synergetic Geometry of R. Buckminster Fuller (Birkauser Boston, 1987) clarifies Fuller's mathematical contributions for a non-technical audience. Edmondson received her PhD in organizational behavior, AM in psychology, and AB in engineering and design, all from Harvard University.

She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband, George Daley, a physician-scientist and Dean of Harvard Medical School, with their two college-age sons.

Speaker

Tamara J. Erickson
Leadership Advisor; top ranked management thinker, T50

Tamara J. Erickson is a McKinsey Award-winning author and a widely-respected authority on new approaches to leadership, the changing workforce, collaboration and innovation, and the nature of work in intelligent organizations.  At London Business School, Erickson has designed and directs the school’s leadership programme for senior-most executives, Leading Businesses into the Future, works with executives in a number of custom programmes, and teaches in the School’s Masters programmes.

She has five times been named one of the 50 most influential living management thinkers in the world by Thinkers50, the respected ranking of global business thinkers. Her leading-edge work is consistently showcased in the prestigious Global Drucker Forum, an international conference of prominent business leaders. She has authored five books and numerous widely-cited articles.

An experienced executive and global advisor, Erickson has also served on the Board of Directors of two Fortune 500 corporations, where she served on Governance, Audit, and Compensation Committees and as the Lead Independent Director.

Erickson holds a BA degree from the University of Chicago and an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, where she was the recipient of the James Thomas Chirurg Fellowship.

Speaker

Claudio Fernández-Aráoz
Executive Fellow for Executive Education, Harvard Business School

Claudio Fernández-Aráoz is a top global expert on leadership and talent, family businesses, and personal growth. He was ranked by Bloomberg as one of the most influential executive search consultants in the world and selected by Thinkers50 as one of the world’s leading thinkers on talent.

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Speaker

Sarah Green Carmichael
Editor, Bloomberg Opinion

Sarah Green Carmichael is an editor with Bloomberg Opinion, where she also writes columns focused on office culture and the human side of the workplace. Previously, she was the managing editor of ideas and commentary at Barron's and an executive editor  at Harvard Business Review. She lives near Boston.

Speaker

Sabine Herlitschka
CEO, Infineon Technologies Austria AG

Sabine Herlitschka has been CEO of Infineon Technologies Austria AG since April 2014.

Her professional background includes industrial biotech research, international research and technology cooperation and financing, internships at renowned U.S. institutions, Fulbright scholar and founding Vice Rector at the Medical University of Graz.

Among numerous functions, Sabine Herlitschka is currently Vice President of the Federation of Austrian Industries and Chair of the Supervisory Board of FH Kärnten. Since 2024 she has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of Jülich Research Center, Germany, and since 2023 she has been Chairwoman of the Advisory Board of the Austrian Supply Chain Institute (ASCII). From 2020 until the end of June 2023, she was Deputy Chair of the Council for Research and Technology Development of the Austrian Federal Government. At the European level, she was Chair of the European Governing Board of the public-private partnership program "ECSEL-Electric Components and Systems for European Leadership" from 2018-2021.

She was elected Manager of the Year of 2021 by the business magazine Trend.

Sabine Herlitschka holds a PhD in Food & Biotechnology, Postdoc in Industrial Research and a Master of Business Administration.

Speaker

Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries
Management Scholar and Psychoanalyst

biography upcoming soon.

Speaker

Peter G. Kirchschläger
Professor of theological ethics, University of Lucerne, director, Institute of Social Ethics ISE

Peter G. Kirchschlaeger is Ethics-Professor and Director of the Institute of Social Ethics ISE at the University of Lucerne, Visiting Professor at the Chair for Neuroinformatics and Neural Systems at ETH Zurich as well as at the ETH AI Center, and Research Fellow at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein (South Africa). Prior, he was Visiting Fellow at Yale University.

2011-2015, he was member of the Board of the Swiss Centre of Expertise in Human Rights, 2013 Visiting Scholar at the University of Technology Sydney, 2013-2014 Guest-Professor at the Universiteit Leuven, 2013-2017 Fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, 2015-2019 Guest-Lecturer at the Leuphana University Lueneburg.
He is a consultative expert in Ethics of international organizations, President a.i. of the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology, and Director of the new Master Degree Program “Ethics”: www.unilu.ch/master-ethik.

Latest books: “Ethical Decision-Making” (2023) and “Digital Transformation and Ethics” (2021).

Speaker

Karen Linkletter
Director of the Management as a Liberal Art Research Institute

biography upcoming soon.

Speaker

Mickael Locoh
VP Southern Europe & Africa, Steelcase

Passionate about people, leadership and change management, Mickael Locoh, Vice President Southern Europe & Africa,  is with his team, helping companies all around the globe to have a workplace supporting their company’s strategic ambitions.

With a finance mathematics engineer background, he began his career in the financial sector at BNP Paribas as business continuity & crisis manager all around the world. Coordinating and dealing with the major crisis with the executive committee of the bank, he was in front line during key events like the subprime, Lehman Brother and all main ones impacting the business and image of the bank.

In 2011, to use his scientific background combined with more “soft skills”, he joined Steelcase. Part of the the EMEA leadership team, he is now in charge of the Southern Europe including countries like France, Luxembourg, Italy and also the African coutinent. He is also leading the team called “Clients without borders” working with fast growing companies expanding in Europe.

Speaker

Roger L. Martin
Strategy advisor; Professor emeritus, Rotman School of Management

In 2017, Roger was named the world’s #1 management thinker by Thinkers50, a biannual ranking of the most influential global business thinkers.

Roger is a trusted strategy advisor to the CEOs of companies worldwide including Procter & Gamble, Lego, Ford, BHP and Verizon.

Roger Martin is a Professor Emeritus at the Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto where he served as Dean from 1998-2013, Academic Director of the Michael Lee-Chin Family Institute for Corporate Citizenship from 2004-2019 and Institute Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute from 2013-2019. In 2013, he was named global Dean of the Year by the leading business school website, Poets & Quants.

His newest book is A New Way to Think: Your Guide to Superior Managerial Effectiveness (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022). His previous twelve books include When More is Not Better (HBRP, 2020), Creating Great Choices written with Jennifer Riel (HBRP, 2017) Getting Beyond Better written with Sally Osberg (HBRP, 2015) and Playing to Win written with A.G. Lafley (HBRP, 2013), which won the award for Best Book of 2012-13 by the Thinkers50. He has written 33 Harvard Business Review articles.

Roger received his BA from Harvard College, with a concentration in Economics, in 1979 and his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1981. He lives in South Florida with his wife, Marie-Louise Skafte.

Speaker

Dan Pontefract
Leadership and Culture strategist

Dan Pontefract is a renowned leadership strategist, author, and keynote speaker with over two decades of experience in senior executive roles at companies such as SAP, TELUS, and Business Objects. Since then, he has worked with organizations worldwide, including Salesforce, Amgen, the State of Tennessee, Nestlé, Canada Post, Autodesk, BMO, the Government of Canada, Manulife, Nutrien, and the City of Toronto, among others.

As an award-winning and best-selling author, Dan has written five books: WORK-LIFE BLOOM, LEAD. CARE. WIN., OPEN TO THINK, THE PURPOSE EFFECT, and FLAT ARMY. Dan also writes for Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and other outlets.

Dan is a renowned keynote speaker who has presented at four TED events and has delivered over 600 keynotes . He is an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria’s Gustavson School of Business and has received over 25 industry, individual, and book awards.

Dan’s career is interwoven with corporate and academic experience, coupled with an MBA, B.Ed, and multiple industry certifications and awards. Notably, Dan is listed on the Thinkers50 Radar, HR Weekly’s 100 Most Influential People in HR, PeopleHum’s Top 200 Thought Leaders to Follow, and Inc. Magazine’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers.

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Speaker

Margarete Schramböck
Former CEO of Central Europe’s biggest Telekom Operator A1, Founder of MSCH-Advisory.

For many years, Dr. Margarete Schramboeck has held prominent roles in the IT and telecommunications industry. With over 15 years of experience as a top executive at NTT Data and Alcatel, she achieved significant technological advancements and drove substantial business growth. Transitioning to the CEO of A1 Telekom Austria, the largest telecom operator in Central Europe, she continued to leave her mark. In 2018, Dr. Schramboeck was appointed as Minister of Digital and Economic Affairs, where she dedicated herself to the transformation of eGovernment services and the fortification of Austria’s business landscape. Presently, she serves as a board member of ARAMCO DIGITAL and is the founder of MSCH Advisory Consulting. Additionally, to her role as member of various advisory boards, she is an investor in several startups which focuses on data management and generative AI.

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Speaker

Brian Solis
Digital Anthropologist and Futurist, ServiceNow

Futurist: Forbes heralded Brian Solis as “one of the more creative and brilliant business minds of our time." He was recently named a "top futurist speaker," by ReadWrite. ZDNet called him “one of the 21st century business world’s leading thinkers.”

Brian helps audiences understand the evolving, complex landscape of digital trends and how they impact our work, markets, and business over time. Whether it’s generative AI, AR/VR or and spatial computing, web3, the metaverse, IoT, digital twins, or robotics and autonomous vehicles and systems, Brian humanizes each wave of emergent disruption to help audiences understand trends and see themselves productively shaping the future. He helps shift people’s mindsets from being overwhelmed, confused, or intimidated to moving forward with curiosity, excitement, and imagination.

Digital Anthropologist: Brian is one of the industry’s first digital anthropologists who helped define the practice and humanized the trends. He observes how technology changes people’s behavior as leaders, employees, or customers and understand their aspirations, their values, how they make decisions, and how they want to work.

Through this research, Brian helps audiences empathize with different generations (Gen-Y, Z, Alpha) and understand how technology creates a cross-generational superset of people with similar behaviors, interests, and aspirations. Brian coined these important groups as Generation-Connected and Generation-Novel.

ServiceNow: Currently, Brian serves as the Head of Global Innovation at ServiceNow. In his role, he sets the strategic direction and programming for ServiceNow's Innovation and Executive Briefing Centers in Silicon Valley, New York, London, Paris, Sydney, and Singapore. Additionally, Brian designs and delivers engagements with customers to advise on digital and business innovation strategies. He writes for leading publications to help executives and customers understand technology and market trends and inspire business model innovation.

United Nations: Brian serves as a special adviser to the UN global innovation team. He develops workshops and keynotes that explore emergent trends and future scenarios, scenario strategies, skills development, and culture and leadership.

Salesforce: As the leader of Global Innovation at Salesforce, Brian gained a reputation as the “CxO Whisperer” because of his ability to translate shifting technology and market trends into actionable strategies. He also has a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing companies and helps leaders think differently about current priorities and investments to future proof their organizations. Brian also partnered with leading

Speaker

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.
SHRM-SCP President and CEO, SHRM

Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. is President and Chief Executive Officer of SHRM. Recently named one of the “Most Influential People Shaping Public Policy” in our nation’s Capital by the Washingtonian Magazine, Mr. Taylor’s career spans more than 20 years as a lawyer and an executive, serving at IAC, Paramount Pictures, Blockbuster Entertainment Group and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, among other organizations. He is a Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees at his alma mater, the University of Miami; a member of the United Way Worldwide Board of Trustees; Independent Director of the Flores & Associates corporate board and a member of the corporate boards of Guild Education, and XPO Logistics (NYSE: XPO). He previously served as chairman of the President's Advisory Board on Historically Black Colleges and Universities and on the White House American Workforce Policy Advisory Board. Mr. Taylor is a weekly contributor to USA Today, a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources and a SHRM Certified Professional.

Speaker

Gillian Tett
Chair Editorial Board, Editor-at-large, US, The Financial Times

Gillian Tett serves as the chair of the editorial board and editor-at-large, US of the Financial Times. She writes weekly columns, covering a range of economic, financial, political and social issues. She is also the co-founder of FT Moral Money,  a twice weekly newsletter that tracks the ESG revolution in business and finance which has since grown to be a staple FT product. In 2020 and 2021, Moral Money won the SABEW best newsletter.

Previously, Tett was the FT’s US managing editor from 2013 to 2019. She has also served as assistant editor for the FT’s markets coverage, capital markets editor, deputy editor of the Lex column, Tokyo bureau  chief, Tokyo correspondent, London-based economics reporter and a reporter in Russia and Brussels.

Tett is the author of “The Silo Effect”, which looks at the global economy and financial system through the lens of cultural anthropology. She also authored “Fool’s Gold: How Unrestrained Greed Corrupted a Dream, Shattered Global Markets and Unleashed a Catastrophe”,  a 2009 New York Times bestseller and Financial Book of the Year at the inaugural Spear’s Book Awards. Additionally, she wrote the 2003 book “Saving the Sun: A  Wall Street Gamble to Rescue Japan from its Trillion Dollar Meltdown”. Her latest book, “Anthro-Vision, A New Way to See Life and Business” came out in June 2021.

Before joining the Financial Times in 1993, Tett was awarded a PhD in social  anthropology from Cambridge University based on field work in the former Soviet  Union. While pursuing the PhD, she freelanced for the FT and the BBC. She is a graduate  of Cambridge University.

Speaker

Lina Žemaitytė-Kirkman
Head of ROCKIT, Home of Fintech and Sustainable Innovation

biography upcoming soon.