Gary Hamel is one of the world’s most influential and iconoclastic business thinkers. He has worked with leading companies across the globe and is a dynamic and sought-after management speaker. Hamel has been on the faculty of the London Business School for more than 30 years and is the director of the Management Innovation eXchange.

Hamel has written 17 articles for the Harvard Business Review and is the most reprinted author in the Review’s history. His landmark books have been translated into more than 25 languages. His most recent bestsellers are The Future of Management and What Matters Now. In these volumes, Hamel presents an impassioned plea for reinventing management and lays out a practical blueprint for building organizations that are “fit for the future.”

Fortune magazine describes Hamel as “the world’s leading expert on business strategy,” and the Financial Times calls him a “management innovator without peer.” Hamel has been ranked by The Wall Street Journal as the world’s most influential business thinker and is a fellow of the Strategic Management Society and of the World Economic Forum.

Hamel’s groundbreaking concepts such as “strategic intent,” “core competence,” “industry revolution,” and “management innovation,” have changed the language and practice of management in organizations around the globe.

Hamel’s work inside of organizations has been equally pioneering.  Highlights include:

• Building one of the world’s first “idea markets” inside a global energy leader.
• Using crowdsourcing to help a European high tech company build a game-changing strategy.
• Orchestrating a comprehensive effort to turn a venerable durable goods manufacturer into one of the world’s most innovative companies.
• Helping a leading Korean company re-engineer its management practices around the principles of openness, community and meritocracy.
• Designing and deploying an online platform that allowed the employees of a top fashion house to share and develop ideas for strengthening their company’s core values.
• Developing innovation tools and platforms that have helped companies around the world de-commoditize mature industries and accelerate growth.
• Running an online “hackathon” in which more than 1,700 senior executives collaborated to reinvent the HR function.

In his work, Hamel has led transformational efforts in some of the world’s most notable companies and has helped to create billions of dollars in shareholder value.

Hamel is one of the world’s most sought-after management speakers on the topics of strategy, leadership, innovation and change.

He heads the External Relations / Environment / Social Services department at Volkswagen Slovakia, a.s. In the past, he was responsible for the management of the entire logistics at Volkswagen Slovakia and also held several management positions within the Volkswagen Group in Portugal and the USA. Since 2018, he is the President of the Automotive Industry Association of the Slovak Republic (second term). In 2018, he was elected Vice President of the Federation of Slovak Industrial and Transport Associations.

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).

Dr. Martin Koers studied Economics and Business Administration in Germany and UK (Edinburgh). After working at the Department of Marketing at Muenster University (Germany) he taught as Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois (USA) before moving forward to Ford Motor Company in Europe located in Cologne. At Ford he held different management positions before starting his profession at the German Association of the Automotive Industry (Verband der Automobilindustrie – VDA) in Frankfurt and Berlin as Head of Economic Policy and Climate Protection. At the same time he holds a university teaching position at Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen, Germany.

Maroš Šefčovič (born in 1966) is a Slovak career diplomat and since 1 November 2014 Vice President of the European Commission in charge of the Energy Union. In this capacity, he leads the “Energy Union” Project Team within the Commission which comprises of 14 commissioners.
In 2014 he was elected as the Member of the European Parliament. From 2010 – 2014 he was Vice President of the European Commission in charge of Inter-Institutional Relations and Administration. In 2009-2010, he was European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth. From 2004 -2009, he was the Permanent Representative of the Slovak Republic to the European Union. As diplomat by profession he served between 1992 and 2004 in Zimbabwe and Canada and as Ambassador to Israel.
He graduated from the University of Economy in Bratislava and the Moscow State Institute for Foreign Relations. He holds a degree as Doctor of Law and a PhD of European Law from the Comenius University, Faculty of Law, Bratislava. He also studied at Stanford University, USA.
He has recently published a book on his first mandate as Vice-President entitled “Driving the EU forward – straight talks with Maroš Šefčovič” (John Harper Publishing, London 2014).

1st of March 2017 General Director
PSA Groupe Slovakia Production centre in Trnava

2015 Plant Director light commercial vehicules
Plant PSA Groupe in Hordain, France

2014 Assembly Shop General Manager
Plant PSA Groupe in Rennes, France

2011 Industrial General Manager
Plant PSA Groupe in Rennes, France

2007 Industrialization project manager of the 508 car
Plant PSA Groupe in Rennes, France

2004 Production, Quality and Assembly line manager
Plant PSA Groupe in Rennes, France

1994 Head of production unit and group, then Head of technical group and Quality Assurance ; Assembly Shop, Paint Shop, Quality Shop
Plant PSA Groupe in Aulnay-sous-bois, France

EDUCATION

2004 Engineer diploma of Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
2004 MAS in « Organization and management of production systems »

Mr. Horecny devotes to the Six Sigma methodology and Lean for 12 years. He gained a big part of his knowledge and experience in this area working for the manufacturing sector of automotive industry abroad. In Slovakia, he worked in engineering and electrical industry as a project manager and Continuous Improvement Manager. He is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt and his current mission is to implemetn the methodology of Robust engineering (Design for Six Sigma) in the development of car interiors in technical centers Yanfeng Automotive Interior Systems Slovakia in Trencin.

Graduate of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering STU in Bratislava. He has dedicated his entire professional life to digitization and automation in the industry. He started his career at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering SVŠT, he dealt with the automation of pre-production phases for the ZTS Group. In 1991, he co-founded SOVA, now known as SOVA Digital. For six years he headed the commission for science and research at the Association of the Automotive Industry of the Slovak Republic. He was a member of the Government Council for Science, Technology and Innovation. He is one of the initiators and leaders of the Association of Intelligent Industry – Industry4UM.

Dr. František Simančík is a member of the Presidium of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. He is the head of the academic innovation center for light metals and composites (INOVAL) and coordinator of Centre of excellence for R&D on structural composites for engineering and medical applications. His research is focused on the development of novel lightweight structural materials including metal matrix composites or metallic foams. Main research results include the development of metal foaming technology with several successful applications in car body structures and applications of MMCs parts where efficient heat management is required. He coordinated more than 30 research projects including 13 international projects and successfully supervised 9 PhD students.

Mr. Jaroslav Kouril is working nearly 30 years in the human resources sector. His actual position is HR Director for Slovakia in multinational company Faurecia. Faurecia as an important world player in the field of subcontractors in automotive industry and currently employs approximately 2,500 employees in Slovakia. He has large professional experience in multinational corporations in the automotive, industrial and energy sectors, but also in the public sector. He completed his postgraduate degree in financial law at Comenius University and international management studies in Netherlands and Czech Republic.

Biagio Ciuffo received the Ph.D. degree in transportation engineering from the University of Napoli Federico II in 2008. Then he held a three-year Post-Doctoral position at the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), working at the sustainability assessment of traffic and transport related measures and policies. He is now a Scientific Officer of the JRC, where he leads different projects concerning the reduction of CO2 emissions from road transport and the effect of introducing autonomous vehicles.

Biagio Ciuffo has published more than 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. He is associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems and acts as reviewer for several international journals.

For his research activities on the calibration of traffic simulation models he was awarded with the 2012 Greenshields Prize and with the 2013 SimSub Committee Prize from the Transportation Research Board of the US National Academy of Science.

Professionaly, she manages projets in the field of lifelong learning, development and implementation of avisory tools and information systems, withinin active labor market measures. The main topic of the current professional focus is mainly monitoring and forecasting of labor market needs, where she considers strategic partherships of social partners, the Slovak Government, employers, local governments and other importatnt actors in the labor market as a crucial element. She managed the creation of the National System of Vocations in Slovakia, where together with interested professionals creates a system of sector councils, which in all sectors of the national economy define the standard requirements for technical knowledge and skills of a skilled workforce.

Professor of technical equipment safety and risk theory. Rector of Technical University in Košice from 2000 to 2007, President of the Association of the Automotive Industry of the Slovak Republic from 2015 to 2017. Currently, he is the Coordinator of Hydrogen Technologies in the Slovak Republic and a member of author teams for the development of the National Hydrogen Strategy of Slovak Republic as well as the National Hydrogen Strategy Action Plan.

Date of birth: August 20, 1970

EDUCATION:
2007 – 2010 University of Economics in Bratislava, Faculty of Business Economy, Košice, dissertation defense /PhD title/
1991 – 1995 University of Economics in Bratislava, Faculty of Business Economy, Košice, Department of Management, Marketing and Accounting /Ing title/
1989 – 1991 University of Economics in Prague, Department of International Trade
1985 – 1989 Secondary Grammar School Kráľovský Chlmec

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

06/2012 – 03/2016 State Secretary, Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic
04/2012 – 06/2012 Advisor to Minister, Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic
09/2010 – 04/2012 Deputy Director for Economy, Slovak Water Management Enterprise, s.p.- plant in Košice
07/2010 – 09/2010 CEO, Advanz, s.r.o. Košice
04/2007 – 06/2010 Director General of Strategy Section, Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic
11/2005 – 03/2007 Accountant and Financial Manager in private companies in Košice
08/1995 – 11/2005 Assistent GR, Plant Manager, Financial Director, Východoslovenské strojárne a.s.,

Foreign Languages
Hungarian – advanced (spoken and written)
English – advanced (spoken and written)
German – intermediate (spoken and written)
Russian – intermediate (spoken and written)
Spanish – beginner

Ing. John Lábaj, PhD. studied at the Department of Design and Machine Components of University of Zilina. He has been working for CEIT since 2011 where he significantly contributed to the research, development and deployment of mobile robotic systems into industrial practice. Since December 2015, he is the director of CEIT Technical Innovation, which is part of CEIT.

Martin Jesný is an industrial analyst and Founder of the Slovak Automotive Institute, an independent think-tank. He spent major part of his previous career as business journalist and analyst at Trend Holding and short period as project manager at Neulogy. Currently he is building up a industry sustainable competitiveness platform using the think-tank industrial expertise and various communication channels at the SON Media publishing house with the B2B magazine Revue priemyslu (Industrial Review).

David Labardin – deputy CEO of VCES a.s. and CEO and chairman of linkcity, both subsidiaries of Bouygues Construction in Czech Republic and Slovakia.

With more than 15-year experience in construction of any kind of projects (from residential to large infrastructure projects), as well as in real estate with the development of turnkey projects (residential and commercial), David has gained wide knowhow in managing large and complex projects.

Thanks to local / regional strengths in construction and property development, and with the inspiration from Bouygues’ international experiences VCES is delivering global offers to investors, supporting the development of Smart Cities and providing one-stop-shop approach for industry / manufacturing & logistics companies.

Bouygues, through VCES and other subsidiaries in Poland and Romania, is able to provide the services of a worldwide leader in the construction and property development with the proximity of local teams.

David was the Vice-Chairman of Czech Green Building Council and is member of the Bouygues Sustainable Development network with the aim to promote and develop sustainable construction.

Tomáš Polaščin (37) is responsible for Production Technologies and a team of technology experts in the company. Last year he became a member of the strategic project of the Volkswagen Group for “Production of the Future“, focused on the preparation of production processes for electromobility, digitalization of products and production technologies.

Martin has more than 15 years of experience in ICT and IT security in various industries such as Telco, banking and finance, gaming, healthcare, energy and toll systems. He currently focuses on critical infrastructure security and SCADA industrial systems in refineries and the automotive industry. Martin has participated in projects in both the private and public sectors. In addition to knowledge gained in the local ICT environment, he worked abroad for three years and delivered large-scale turnkey projects for Belarus, Gibraltar, Israel, and Kyrgyzstan. As a project manager and coordinator, he was responsible for building data centres and telecommunication networks. He has gained extensive technical and project knowledge from designing solutions for data centres and telecommunication infrastructure.

Oľga Nachtmannová, PhD.
Born in 1963, Považská Bystrica, Slovak Republic

Education:
1987 Belarus state university, Minsk
2006 PhD. – Economic University in Bratislava

Occupation: University teacher in area of human resources management, Economic universtiy in Bratislava

Political activity:

2006 – 2010

Member of Parliament of the Slovak Republic for the party Smer – Social Democracy
Member of the Committee on European Affairs
Member of the Committee for Education, Youth, Science and Sports

2012 – 2016

Member of Parliament of the Slovak Republic for the party Smer – Social Democracy
Member of the Committee on European Affairs
Member of the Committee for Education, Youth, Science and Sports

marec 2016 – november 2016

Member of Parliament of the Slovak Republic for the party Smer – Social Democracy
Member of the Committee on European Affairs
Member of the Constitutional Committee

Od 18. novembra 2016
Secretary of State, Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic

Rodinný stav: divorced, two sons

Ing. Tomáš Korchán (32) je súčasťou spoločnosti Schaeffler Kysuce od roku 2012, kde nastúpil ako projektový manažér pre Six Sigma. Je certifikovaný TÜV Six Sigma+Lean Black Belt. Úspešne viedol a riešil projekty optimalizácií v závodoch Schaeffler v Nemecku, Českej republike a na Slovensku.

Na útvare Industrial Engineering v závode v Kysuckom Novom Meste sa snaží spolu so svojim tímom o presadzovanie vízie Industry 4.0 prostredníctvom budovania kompetenčného centra Digitálneho podniku pre Schaeffler región Európa, a to za plnej podpory manažmentu spoločnosti (Ing. Jaroslav Patka COO Schaeffler Europe, Ing. Milan Jurky, PhD. – riaditeľ závodu, Ing. Marián Stárek – vedúci Industrial Engineering).a