Speaker Bios:  (back to Event Summary)

As CFO and Member of the Board, Yorck Schmidt has been responsible for AVL’s finances since 2019. Since starting his career at the Fresenius Group in 1995, he has held various CFO and general management positions. After his role as Executive Director at Volkswagen AG, he moved to General Motors in 2003, where over a period of seven years he was appointed to various high-level positions, some of which involved a global area of responsibility. While at GM, he co-founded and became Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the digital solution provider Performance One in 2009. In 2011, he joined the drive technology development company Lenze SE, where he helped shape the destiny of the business for eight years as CFO, COO, and Member of the Board. Yorck Schmidt has had a remarkable university career. After completing his master’s degree in Business Administration at the University of Innsbruck, he went on to do a PhD in Strategy Controlling in Graz in 2000. At the same time as joining AVL, he continued his education in the area of “Artificial Intelligence – Implications for Business” at MIT.

Michael has expertise in the following processes: Auditing, Business Process Reengineering, Post Merger Integration, M&A, Restructuring/Turn-Around, IAS/IFRS, US GAAP, Working Capital Management, Operational and Strategic Controlling, Transfer pricing, Lean Service Organization (LSO), and General Management (Coordination of Business Services). He is President of ANDAF Lombardia (Italian Association of CFOs) from 2010 until 2015.

Maciej Mikucki (born 1971) is Polpharmo's Group Chief Financial Officer since September 2021. Prior to joining Polpharma, a Central & Eastern European pharmaceutical champion, he headed regional finance at Provident, a consumer lender. In his career Maciej spent over 11 years with pharmaceutical industry, working for Polpharma, Adorned (midcap regional player) as Group CFO (2016-2017) and Teva Pharmaceuticals as CFO Poland (2008-2012) and later as Regional CFO responsible for Central & Eastern Europe (2013-2016). Between 2002 and 2007 he worked for The Coca-Cola Company (in Hungary, Poland and Australia), on positions of increasing responsibility leading to the role of Regional Finance Director, Australia & New Zealand.

Mira has almost 20 years experience within Finance and Commercial operations, primarily in the Life Sciences. She has played a key role in various transformational processes and business development activities. Prior to Hempel A/S, she worked in finance leadership roles at LEO Pharma, Coloplast and Novo Nordisk. She has expertise in: Business Finance partner, finance function M&A, Partnerships and strategic alliance management, and Beyond Budgeting.

Thomas Lundell is an established business and finance leader with deep expertise in Business Finance, FP&A and Sales Operations. He built a broad and extensive business and finance foundation early in his career working for multinationals like Unilever and Electrolux and has spent the last 15+ years with NetApp in a fast-paced Silicon Valley growth environment. Thomas has held several (Sr.) Director position in Business Finance, FP&A and Sales Operations through NetApp’s scale-up phase to becoming a well-established Fortune 500 company. He is currently CFO at Priva, high-tech company in climate control, specializing in smart building automation, greenhouse technology & indoor farming and is global market leader in horticulture climate control systems.

Tanja Schlesinger currently holds the position of VP OneSource Business Intelligence at DB Regio AG.
She strives for transformation by implementing a true digital culture. She is currently successfully setting-up Data Management and Business Intelligence tools supporting her organization for faster and better decisions with Standard Reporting, Machine Learning and AI Use cases in a cloud environment. Tanja aims at a high level of transparency to better predict the effects of change in value drivers.

Tanja looks back at more than two decades of professional practice in multiple top senior management, finance and strategic functions. Her drive for growth from scratch to implementation, her entrepreneurial thinking and acting also in political settings as well as her wide knowhow in financial management of private and public companies shows a strong background in the transportation business.

Justin Cini is head of finance - hosting services at Airbnb, having recently served as head of strategic financial analysis and planning EMEA. He was previously FP&A and marketing business partner at Amazon with a rewarding career in both finance and marketing. He studied at the London School of Economics and has additionally studied finance, luxury and fashion management.

Christian Martinez is the Finance Automation Manager for Kraft Heinz and Founder of the Financial Fox, an initiative with the aim of democratizing the access to data analytics and machine learning for finance professionals. He has a Master’s Degree in Finance at Monash University in Melbourne Australia and a Bachelor’s of International Business at Tec de Monterrey in Mexico. At Kraft Heinz, he manages data analytics and solutions and automation tools across Europe, Africa, Latin America, Asia and Australia. His expertise ranges from Python, Tableau, Machine Learning, AI, Alteryx, Power BI, SQL, and more.

He was named 30 under 30 in the Finance and Accounting Industry in Australia in 2021 and Data Democratizer for EMEA in 2022. He is a Marathon Finisher and World traveler (have lived in 6 countries, traveled to over 65 countries and always planning his next adventure!)

Frederic is Group CFO at Webcor Group, an agro-industrial food production and distribution company. He has a variety of finance leadership experiences in multinational companies at both the headquarters and subsidiary level. He previously worked as CFO MEA at Louis Dreyfus Commodities. Before that, he had finace director and leadership roles at Shell in various countries.

Karin Aalbertsen is a finance executive with 20 years of global finance experience build up in multinationals like Philips, Signify and RPM Inc. She is experienced in all Finance areas, however the areas she likes most are manufacturing and supply chain. In her current role she is head of Finance Benelux and Nordics and group manufacturing controller in Construction Products Group Europe, part of RPM Inc. She holds a master degree in Finance at Tilburg University where she graduated cum laude. In addition she holds a degree in TIAS business school as Executive Master in Finance and Control.

Ervin is an experienced Finance Leader (MBA, ACCA, CFA level 3 Candidate) with more than 14 years of experience in building & scaling up teams, designing & implementing process improvements, and driving change management initiatives in Corporate Finance, Treasury, FP&A, Tax, and Accounting.
Continuously seizing the opportunities of the digital age with a focus on blockchain technology, digital strategy, and big data analytics.

Eyal is an experienced Financial Management professional with a proven track record in Strategic Finance, Business planning, Data-driven decision making, and the building of compact, high-performance teams. His broad and diverse expertise comes from serving in a variety of industries, from publicly listed Fortune 500 companies to high growth ventures. He is experienced at utilizing analytics to capture value, create business opportunities, quantify risks and advising C-Level management.

Bjarte Bogsnes has a long international career, both in Finance and HR. He is a pioneer in the Beyond Budgeting movement and has been heading up the implementation of Beyond Budgeting at Equinor (formerly Statoil), Scandinavia’s largest company. He led a similar initiative in Borealis in the mid-nineties, one of the companies that inspired the Beyond Budgeting model. He has helped numerous other companies globally getting started on a Beyond Budgeting journey.

Bjarte is Chairman of Beyond Budgeting Roundtable (BBRT). He is a popular international business speaker and Beyond Budgeting coach, and a winner of a Harvard Business Review/McKinsey Management Innovation award. Bjarte is the author of „Implementing Beyond Budgeting – Unlocking the Performance Potential“, where he writes about his almost thirty years long Beyond Budgeting journey. His new book “This is Beyond Budgeting – A Guide to more Adaptive and Human Organizations” with a foreword by Gary Hamel is just out.

Mr. Koktvedgaard is head of VAT, auditing, accounting and reporting with the Confederation of Danish Industries and is nominated by BusinessEurope. 

Kristian Koktvedgaard is member of the BusinessEurope Accounting Sounding Board, the Danish Accounting Council as well as the organising Committee behind the Danish Annual Financial Statements Awards, an award that aims to showcase and improve best-practices in corporate reporting. Non-financial reporting has been an integrated part of financial statements in Denmark since the inclusion in the Danish Financial Statements Act in 2009. A key focus with the Awards is to ensure and improve the value and relevance of the non-financial reporting alongside the financial reporting.

Kristian Koktvedgaard brings more than 15 years of experience with corporate reporting and international standard setting. He is recent chair of the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) Consultative Advisory Group (CAG) between July 2013 and June 2019 and a current member of the IFRS Advisory Council. In 2020, Kristian Koktvedgaard joined the Board of XBRL Denmark, an organisation focussing on facilitating and improving digital reporting.

Fabrizio Olivares is now an independent consultant after having spent over 30 years in financial management with large US and European companies. His main roles have spanned from Europe CFO for LafargeHolcim to Division Controller for Plastic Omnium Fuel Systems, Head of Investor Relations for Rhodia and EMEA Controller for Ingersoll-Rand Industrial Equipment. Fabrizio is an Italian national (living in Paris) and a graduate in business administration from the Bocconi University in Milan.

Stephane is Director of Finance Supply Chain and Solution Europe & ISMEA at UPS. His career at UPS stretches back to 2008.

Lennart van Bolderick is a seasoned CFO with 25 years of experience in developing and executing business models. His passion lies in business model innovation and exploring the impact of AI, particularly ChatGPT ChatGPT and DALL-E, on revolutionizing various aspects of business and democratizing knowledge. As a crafts enthusiast and finance expert, Lennart has successfully merged his interests by using AI to create unique designs and patterns for upcycling denim through needle felting. He is dedicated to harnessing the power of AI, like ChatGPT and DALL-E, to innovate business models and enable creative pursuits for a brighter, more equitable future. Lennart is excited to share his insights with you today at this finance conference.

Finance leader Chris Seybold has been part of the Silicon Valley tech scene for the past 25 years, with a few interesting detours along the way. While some finance career paths can look like a straight ladder up, Chris thinks of his more as “a series of really cool projects” — and it’s hard to disagree. From hardware, to software, to French wine, Chris’ finance experience spans industries, continents, and perspectives. A career in three acts, you might say.  He started out as a part-time CFO before being recruited to join founder.org as CFO and finance advisor to their student-led startups across the US and Europe.

From there, Chris had the unique opportunity to become CFO of French wine company, Château de Pommard, after a friend & mentor acquired the company. There he learned the delicate balance of modernizing processes while also maintaining the character and integrity of a multi-generational brand.

And now, in his third act as CFO & COO at Gemini Data, Chris is in the startup trenches: hiring, fundraising, and partnering with leaders across the org to optimize growth.

Remko is CFO of PreZero Nederland. As part of the Schwarz Group, PreZero has unique opportunities to develop new recycling loops, thereby reducing the consumption of natural resources. He was previously Director of Finance and Procurement at Suez Nederland. He has experience in making changes to the dynamic business context, improving the financial and operating performance, provide forecasting, develop mid term plans and analyzing business opportunities. Additionally, providing financial information and reports for managing the business, improving the financial focus, and implementing controls.

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