Nils researches competitive digital innovation and how organizations are redesigning themselves to realize greater impact from a diverse portfolio of innovation efforts. In 2010, he co-founded with CIONET the annual European CIO of the Year Awards to raise awareness of especially-accomplished digital leaders.

Based in Madrid, Nils is responsible for both fostering relations with organizations from Europe and Latin America and conducting research on how firms maximize business value and minimize risks from digital.

Antonio led the growth of Google Cloud’s engineering team in Warsaw by more than doubling the team during his leadership, and was an integral part of establishing Warsaw as a key technology development site for Google’s cloud business. Antonio and his team helped deliver Google Cloud Function (GCF), an event-driven serverless compute platform, to global enterprises and he has led work on multiple layers of the Google Cloud infrastructure including virtual machines, kubernetes, serverless and console.

Antonio has been granted ten patents to-date and has published several books on Deep Learning, Tensorflow, and Keras that have also been translated to Chinese and Japanese. Currently, Antonio is with the Google Cloud CTO Office in London helping companies in EMEA with their digital journey to the Cloud.

Charlotte Light has worked with technology for over 20 year in both supplier and client-side roles developing a broad base of operational and delivery experience. Having worked at IBM for a decade in sales, consulting and business development roles, she is proficient in engaging with clients and suppliers to identify opportunities for partnership and development of revenue streams associated with new business and emerging technologies.

Having recently held director level roles in global healthcare, insurance and retail businesses, she has worked with a broad spectrum of management teams and technologies delivering complex and strategic technology transformation programmes with a pragmatic focus on delivering successful outcomes and material business value.

Most recently at Channel 4 – a UK public service broadcaster – Charlotte replaced the outgoing CIO with a mandate to transform the technology delivery function and focus on digital development to respond to a rapidly changing competitive landscape.

An Industry Advisory Board Member for the Institute of Coding which supports the development of digital skills in the UK and a champion for diversity in technology driving initiatives within Channel 4 and more widely in the industry, she is a strong and active advocate for progress and change.

Günther Ghijsels is Chief Digital and Information Officer at Randstad Group Belgium. He is a member of the Executive Committee since January 2018. In his function, he oversees all ICT, marketing and product management activities for the Randstad Group in Belgium. He also is a member of the Global IT leadership team of the Randstad Group worldwide. Günther joined the Randstad Group Belgium in 2016 as CIO. Günther holds a Master’s degree in Applied Informatics from the Free University of Brussels (VUB).

Nino Messaoud now holds the position of CDO at BW Papersystems’ parent company Barry-Wehmiller. He has 27 years of experience in IT: as Unit Lead, Head of IT, CIO / CDO at national- and international companies in industries from furniture to diamonds and manufacturing.

A leader with extensive management skills and proven track record in mid-sized businesses and international corporations at divisional, GF and C levels. He has earned recognition of board members and technology leaders through sustainable and long-term success in IT leadership, software development, digital transformation, ERP / WaWi development and implementation, IT infrastructure management, identification of growth potential, cost cutting, streamlining and sustained quality improvement in all IT processes, outsourcing (nearshore) and leveraging the innovative power for products and services.

In his career, Nino has introduced new customer communications processes that have a lasting positive impact on product and service requirements. Experienced in the development and expansion of existing IT with the transformation of existing IT from a service center to a profit center.

Rui Pedro Silva has completed his undergraduate degree in Business Studies, and his Master in Business Administration in Madrid. As part of his career, he has gone through all the different levels inside of a technology organization. This experience has provided him with enough background to make informed decisions while faced with complicated challenges in his management positions.

Over the past 15 years, he has worked in multiple countries, including Germany, UK and Spain, and since 2016 he is working at A.P. Moller-Maersk, leading the IT function fully focused on Maersk’s customers. His team covers the end-to-end process of technology activities related to customer solutions, playing a key role in Maersk’s growth and customer onboarding.

Mr. Pedro Silva sees himself an outlier in the technology world, as it has not been his area of studies. He sees it though, as a significant competitive advantage, as it allowed him to be a better bridge between technical teams and business oriented people. All his technical expertise comes out of self-learning activities, but it has provided him a very clear picture of what is possible and what is not. One of his most common statements is that “The gap between what people want and what others understand of it, will dictate how successfully that project can be delivered”. Closing that gap, has always been his driver.

Miguel is a senior professional focused on industrial environments. He started on pure IT roles and evolved his career to global international dimensions, directing and leading project managers, technical specialists, business analysts, consultants and offshore teams in several industry sectors such as textile, Food, Metals and Automotive in Portugal and France.

Miguel graduated in Electrical Engineering, post graduated in Information Management, has advanced training in Business Intelligence and Management.

Armando Laurenti graduated in Economics from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and won a grant by the European Community to attend a Master in “International Marketing Expert”. He started his carrier in the Information Technology domain as an SAP Consultant, implementing several Supply Chain projects in multinational companies in the automotive and consumer goods markets. In 1999 he joined the ICT Group at Bulgari as a Supply Chain application manager. Four years later, he was promoted to an Application Director and led all the SAP implementation projects for the entire Bulgari Group.

In 2005 Armando Laurenti was appointed CIO of Bulgari Group. In this capacity, he is responsible for the Bulgari ICT Group, managing all the Corporate and Local IT services. The ICT Group is composed of 93 people, about half in Corporate headquarters, located in Rome, and about half in regional offices. As a member of the Executive Committee he reports directly to Bulgari CEO.

Since Bulgari became part of LVMH Group, in 2013, he also manages projects and provides IT services for LVMH Watch & Jewelry Brands. In the last 18 months he is leading several strategic projects mainly in Bulgari digital transformation and omni-channel program.

Mr. Geert Standaert is Chief Technology Officer at Proximus. He has been a member of the Executive Committee since March 2012.

In this function, he oversees all IT development, service engineering, the fixed and mobile network, technical infrastructure and operations for the Group. Mr. Standaert joined the Proximus Group in 1994 and held director positions in various disciplines, including IT, Infrastructure Operations and Data Operations before becoming Vice President Customer Operations in 2007.

Mr. Standaert is also a Board member of Synductis. Mr. Standaert holds a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Ghent (RUG).