Since January 2019 Dr. Oliver Grünberg is CEO of Volkswagen Slovakia, a.s. During his 25-years at Volkswagen AG, Dr. Grünberg oversaw many strategic positions, such as Managing Director and Director Technical Affairs at Škoda Auto India or head of Brandplanning at Škoda Auto. Before his assignment in Slovakia, he was technical director and deputy general director of Volkswagen Group Russia. Dr. Grünberg holds a doctor’s degree in engineering from University in Braunschweig. In his spare time he enjoys time with his wife and two kids.

Ivan Hodač is a Founder and President of the Aspen Institute Prague. He was Secretary-General of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) from 2001 until October 2013. He is the Chairman of the Board at cabinet DN. The Financial Times listed him among the most influential personalities in Brussels politics. Before joining ACEA, he was Senior Vice-President and Head of the Time Warner Corporate office for Europe. Previously he was Secretary-General of the trade organization IFMA/IMACE, Senior Economist at Didier & Associates, and Assistant Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges. He was born in Prague, where he studied mechanical engineering. He completed his education in economics and political science at the University of Copenhagen and the College of Europe in Bruges (European studies).

Štefan Rosina is currently the President of MATADOR Group and the Chairman of the Board of Directors at Matador Holding, a. s. In 1984 he started his career in Matador working at various positions in production. Since 1985 he held number of positions as a research employee, technical engineer at Investment Department and Director at Technical Development Department. Since 1997 he served as a Vice-President for Development of Science and Technology, Vice-President for Strategy and Chairman of Supervisory Board. In these days, he presents a major leader in the whole MATADOR Group. He tries to prepare all key aspects in the company for the significant technology decade.

Milan Šlachta has been working for Bosch in various functions since 1994, mainly in the automotive field. For eight years he worked as Sales Director and Managing Director at the Bosch branch in České Budějovice, which deals with the production and development of automotive technology. Since 2017 he has become a Bosch Group Representative in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Stefan Deix graduated as physicist at the University of Vienna. Since 2015 he has been Director of EUCAR, the European Council for Automotive R&D, the research association of the major European passenger car and commercial vehicle manufacturers. Stefan Deix was Director for Research & Innovation at CLEPA (European Association of Automotive Suppliers) facilitating the Research and Innovation Working Group activities. Before that he was working at AIT Austrian Institute of Technology in the Department Mobility. He was appointed research coordinator for Austria, research area leader for road safety and elected Chairman of the research coordinators at FEHRL (Forum of European Highway Research Laboratories). He was member of the European Road Transport Research Advisory Council (ERTRAC) WG on Road Safety, iMobility WG on Automated Driving and Member of the EARPA task force safety.

Jan Burdinski is Head of Government Relations for the Hyundai Motor Group in Europe. Having joined the company in 2017, he is a seasoned government relations professional, who has had senior roles in the automotive sector.

Joost Vantomme is Smart Mobility Director at the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), which represents the Europe-based car, van, truck and bus makers.

Joost has over 25 years’ experience in legal, regulatory and public affairs. He served as legal and regulatory affairs director in the telecommunications, postal, logistics and automotive sector. He had leading policy making roles in European associations such as PostEurop and FEDMA, as well as at the UN level (UPU). Joost has also been member of the cabinet of the Belgian Minister of Economy and director at Hill+Knowlton Strategies, an EU consultancy firm.

Since 1 September 2016, Joost holds the position of Smart Mobility Director at ACEA, bringing his vast experience together to address the challenges of the new ecosystem ‘cooperative, connected and automated mobility’.

As a frequent speaker at conferences and author of papers, he engages with stakeholders on European and international policy issues in a digital agenda context. Joost holds a Master in Economic Business Law, a Master in Law and a Diploma in Teaching Law (Universities of Leuven, Poitiers and Louvain). He is fluent in Dutch, French, English and German.

Roland Sommer serves as Managing Director of the Austrian Platform Industry 4.0 since October 2015. The platform is a public private partnership that aims at improving framework conditions for the introduction of digitalization (‘Industry 4.0’) bringing together relevant stakeholders in Austria. The focus of the work is based on innovation in production technologies and business models on the one hand and high-quality working conditions on the other hand. Moreover Mr. Sommer is lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences in Wieselburg. Prior to this function he worked as Director of Public-Private Affairs for AVL List GmbH. AVL List is the
world's largest independent company for the development of powertrain systems with internal combustion engines as well as instrumentation and test systems.

Petr Knap is the Head of the Consulting Division for the Czech Republic. After having worked at Procter & Gamble, he worked in consulting since 1996, and joined EY in 2002. His professional experience is based mainly on work in the automotive and manufacturing sectors, in the past he also worked for clients in the telecommunications and public sectors. Over the years, he has led management consulting projects focused on strategy development, organizational change, process improvement and cost optimization. Petr is actively involved in initiatives addressing innovative trends of the manufacturing future such as digitization, Industry 4.0, autonomous cars, e-mobility, etc.

Ivan Kebísek is Director Engineering of Yanfeng Automotive Interiors (YFAI), located in Trenčín, Slovakia. He is responsible for the YFAI Technical Center as Site Leader and for FCA (Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Maserati), Hyundai-KIA and Suzuki Engineering of Customer Business Units in Europe. His responsibility covers research and development activities for YFAI products – Instrument Panels, Cockpits, Floor Consoles and Door Panels.

He completed studies at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, in 1982. In the same year he started working at the same faculty as a research worker. His focus was on Management Information System, with a specialization on preproduction processes. Since 1989 he was a leader of the division of Automatization of Engineering Work in the company called Inorga Praha, Bratislava branch. In 1991 he was a co-founder of SOVA Ltd. enterprise. Since then he has been the director of the company named SOVA Digital a.s. today.

Jana Michelová has joined Continental Zvolen in 2017, taking position of Innovations manager after 10 years of professional experience in the automotive industry. In 2018 production plant in Zvolen has been named as one of two Industry 4.0 Model plants for the Automotive divisions in Continental. Model plant projects are covered under the lead of the Innovations department and include activities such as automated material flow, big data, digitalization and automation, HMI and many others. Jana Michelova has international academic background with major in Quality management and Master´s degree in Project management from University L´ENSAM in France.

2004 – present, Institute of Materials and Machine Mechanics, Director
1994 – 2004, Institute of Materials and Machine Mechanics, Deputy Director

The most important results:
• The development of continuous carbon fibers copper plating technology
• The developmnet of an original aluminium foaming technology

Membership in scientific organizations:
• Society for New Materials and Technologies Slovakia, Committee Member
• Materials Research Society
• Society for the Doctrine of metals

Specialization:

Composites metal matrix:
• Materials: Aluminum – Al2O3 and carbon fiber, aluminum-graphite, copper-carbon fiber
• Technology: rheocasting, compocasting, coating the fibers, diffuse hot pressing in vacuum, powder metallurgy

Cellular metallic materials:
• development of a foam aluminum and zinc powder metallurgy
• evaluation of properties of metallic foams
• Development of aluminum foam prototype components and their testing.

Magnesium alloys
• recycling of magnesium alloys,
• development of new thixotropic magnesium alloys,

Nanostructures materials:
• materials based on ultrafine aluminum powders,
• quasicrystalline aluminum alloy,
• dispersion strengthened aluminum alloys

An economist by training, he has been an official in the European Commission since 1985 in the fields of Enterprise and Industrial Policy and of External Relations.

First working in the area of food industry within the Internal Market and Industrial Affairs Directorate-General (DG), he joined the service in charge of relations with Central and Eastern Europe and the USSR in 1989, and became Assistant to the responsible Deputy Director-General in 1990 until 1996 when he came back to Enterprise and Industry DG.

A former Deputy-Head of Office of Commissioner Liikanen in charge of enterprise and industrial policy, he has occupied several management positions:
– Food Industry and Biotechnology;
– Coordination of the internal market legislation for goods;
– Enterprise and Industrial policy;
– Defence, Aerospace and Maritime Industries.

Since December 2008, he has been Director in DG GROWTH (DG Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs), in charge of competitiveness issues and EU internal market legislation for several industrial sectors, including REACH, engineering industries, medical devices, raw materials, etc..

His main responsibilities today cover: circular economy, energy union and energy-intensive industries, construction, automotive industries, raw materials, engineering industries.

After studies at the Czech Technical University in Prague (1972) he worked for 20 years in industrial research of highly turbocharged diesel and gas engines and obtained his Ph.D. in the National Institute for Machine Research in 1980. He entered the Czech Technical University as a lecturer in 1982, obtained his DrSc. in 1990 and full professorship in 1993. Since 1994 till 2016 he headed the Department of Automotive Technology, having been the dean of Mechanical Engineering Faculty (1997-2000) and vice-dean for R&D (2006-2017). He is focused on powertrain and engine design and thermodynamic optimizations based on combination experiments and simulation methods. He is an author of more than 20 patents and more than 100 papers (recently published especially in SAE Papers and Journals).

In 1971 he finished his studies at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Brno University of Technology. Then worked at the state-owned company Autopal. From 1989 to 1993 as CEO of AUTOPAL. After the acquisition of Autopal by Ford Motor Company in 1993, he became the Managing Director of Autopal-Ford. From 1995 to 1996, he worked at Ford Motor Company in the United States as Head of Business Planning in Lighting Technology and later as Production Manager at Ford Sheldon Road Plant. From 1997 to 2007, he was the CEO of Visteon-Autopal. He was also the Executive Director of Visteon Slovakia and Executive Director of Japan-USA JV, Visteon Nichirin Czech.
Since 2007 he has has been working as Executive Director of the Moravian-Silesian Automobile Cluster, and as a university teacher at the Ostrava Private Business School.
He graduated from Strategic Management and Leadership courses at Michigan State University and Duke University in the US.
He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Czech automotive industry for many years and in 2003 he won the prestigious Dale Carnegie Leadership Award for Central Europe.

She graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Prešov, specializing in adult education, specializing in personnel management. She passed the state examination in psychology, pedagogy, sociology, economics, marketing, management and human resources. For more than 20 years, as a consultant, but also as a consultancy team leader, she has been involved in comprehensive personnel and organizational consulting for small and medium-sized companies. She also works as a lecturer in human resources and project management, designer of educational programs, designer and project manager of innovative international projects. In 2009, the company she owns became a co-founder of the Slovak Plastic Cluster. Since that year she has been a member of the SPK presidium where he is responsible for education, strategy and projects. From 2014 to 2020, she also served as the Executive Director of the SPK, where she prepared the SPK Strategy and other conceptual materials.