Frans Timmermans is the First Vice-President of the European Commission, in charge of Better Regulation, Inter-Institutional Relations, the Rule of Law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Before being appointed to his present role in 2014, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, having also been Minister of European Affairs from 2007 to 2010. From 1998 he was a member of the House of Representatives for the Labour Party (PvdA), having held a wide range of diplomatic posts prior to that. He is married and has four children.

Lars Rohde took office as Chairman of the Board of Governors of Danmarks Nationalbank in 2013. In his capacity of Governor he monitors that the central bank meets its three main objectives: stable prices, safe payments and a stable financial system. Before joining Danmarks Nationalbank he served as CEO of ATP, from 1998 to 2013. Lars Rohde holds a MSc (econ) from University of Aarhus.

Thomas Schulz became CEO of FLS in 2013. He left Sandvik where he had held a number of management positions since 2001. He was employed at Svedala Industri from 1998–2001. He has also been self-employed (1994–1998) as an international consultant, an expert in methodological development and financial and technical analyses. Thomas Schulz has an MSc in engineering and a PhD in mining engineering. He was born in Germany in 1965, where he grew up in a home with three cats named Hermann, Josef and Eva.

Jens Bjørn Andersen was appointed Group CEO of DSV in 2008. He also chairs the Supervisory Boards of DSV Air & Sea Holding A/S and DSV Solutions Holding A/S and is member of the Supervisory Board of DSV Road Holding A/S. From 2001, Mr. Bjørn Andersen was the CEO of Tollpost Globe AS in Oslo until he was recruited for the position as CEO of DFDS Transport Ltd./DSV Road Ltd. in England in 2003. He also held various supervisory board positions in the DSV Group. Jens Bjørn Andersen began his career as a trainee in Samson Transport Co. A/S in 1988. After he had completed his traineeship in 1990, he worked with various freight forwarding assignments until 1992, when he took up a position as Department Manager of the road transport activities of Samson Transport Co. A/S.

Camilla Sylvest joined Novo Nordisk in 1996 as trainee. From 1997 to 2008 Ms Sylvest had roles in headquarters and regions within pricing, health economics, marketing and sales effectiveness. In 2003, she was appointed vice president of sales and marketing effectiveness in Region Europe. From 2008 to 2015, Ms Sylvest headed up affiliates and business areas of growing size and complexity in Europe and Asia and in 2013 she was also appointed corporate vice president. In August 2015, Ms Sylvest was appointed senior vice president and general manager of Novo Nordisk’s Region China. In this role she was responsible for the company’s activities in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.  In October 2017, Ms Sylvest was promoted to executive vice president and member of Executive Management in Novo Nordisk.

Natasha Friis Saxberg har arbejdet med digital vækst & innovation gennem to årtier, hun har stiftet flere globale startups og boet i New York i en årrække, hvor hun har hjulpet danske startups ind på det amerikanske marked. Hun har været associeret partner hos Instituttet for Fremtidsforsking, er forfatter til “Homo Digitalis”, der kobler menneskets behov med digital adfærd og har desuden været vært på web tv-programmet ”Tech and The City” fra Nasdaq i New York. Natasha Friis Saxberg har flere gange været på top 100-listen over de mest indflydelsesrige kvinder i Europa inden for teknologi.

Jais Valeur joined Danish Crown in 2015, coming from Arla Foods where he was Group CEO. Prior to that he had held executive positions at Royal Unibrew and Fonterra, New Zealand. Jais Valeur is also a member of the Danish Government’s Disruption Council.

Ulrik Vestergaard Knudsen has served as Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 2013. In 2010, he was Permanent Undersecretary and Ambassador at the Prime Minister’s Office and he has previously served as an ambassador at OECD and UNESCO and as head of secretariat for the then Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller. In addition, Ulrik Vestergaard Knudsen’s positions include serving as embassy secretary at the Danish embassy in Washington and Moscow.

Casper Klynge is based in Silicon Valley and was named Denmark’s tech ambassador in 2017. Casper Klynge has vast international experience from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and he previously served as ambassador to Indonesia and Cyprus. Casper Klynge has been involved in foreign policy, security policy, development policy, trade promotion and a number of sector-policy topics in his work involving a wide range of appropriate ministries and the private sector – and he has similarly been actively involved in shaping the tech and digitisation agenda, among other ways by writing about the topic.

Zoltan Istvan is widely considered one of the World’s leading transhumanists and Libertarian futurists. Zoltan began his futurist career by publishing The Transhumanist Wager, an award-winning, #1 bestseller in Science Fiction and Philosophy. Zoltan is also a well known technology journalist, a successful entrepreneur, and former filmmaker for the National Geographic Channel. His futurist work and promotion of merging humans with machines has reached hundreds of millions of people, much of it through his political activism as a “science candidate.” He is a graduate of Columbia University, and lives in San Francisco with his physician wife and two young daughters.

Claus Holm has more than 25 years of experience from the IT and Telecom sector. The last 6 years Claus has worked in SAMSUNG in various leading roles both Nordic and local in Denmark. Claus has a high technical insight, which he likes to use to bridge technical messages to non technical recipients. With more than 22 years as Manager. Claus has a long and broad experience in leading teams and individuals in companies with high pace and in an ever-changing environment. Claus Holm has a strong interest for future technologies - especially Ai and IoT - and how they will change the way we work today and in the future.

Eric is a Managing Partner in byFounders, a new Nordic early-stage joint venture fund, set up by a group of successful Danish tech entrepreneurs. For the past 15 years, Eric has left his mark on the Danish start-up scene via his involvement in Skype, Tradeshift and, most recently, Memolane, which he sold to HP. Eric lives in San Francisco where for the past many years he has been helping a number of Denmark’s leading tech enterprises set up operations in Silicon Valley. He is a consultant for DenmarkBridge.

Nicolaj Højer Nielsen is a startup funding expert. He has secured finance for his own startups from friends and family, business angels, VCs and public funders. As a business angel, he enjoys bouncing ideas with fellow entrepreneurs, and increasing new ventures' prospects of success. His speciality is discovering IT startups with high potential. He has reviewed thousands of opportunities and invested in many promising new enterprises. Nicolaj earned his MBA from INSEAD in France and Singapore and an MSc in Marketing from Copenhagen Business School. He teaches entrepreneurship at Copenhagen Business School and coaches new entrepreneurs.

Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl is currently the Director General of DIGITALEUROPE, the leading association for the digital technology industry in Europe. Prior to becoming DIGITALEUROPE’s Director General, Cecilia was an Executive Board Member and a member of the high-level Digital Advisory Council of DIGITALEUROPE. 

Previously, Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl has served as a board member for the Danish Chamber of Commerce and Chairman of the Board of the Danish ICT association (ITB), where she developed policy positions on digitalisation of businesses, ICT security, disruptive business models, telecoms and education. Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl has held international positions at IBM and Oracle, as well as building SME businesses across Europe and China. Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl has more than 20 years of experience in the ICT industry.   For a successful digital Europe, Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl emphasises on four areas of digitalisation: digitalisation of industries and public sector & the data economy, digital skills and job creation, data privacy & Cybersecurity, and digital infrastructure and IoT. Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl has deep insights into the digitalisation of business and society.

Christian Fischer leads Egon Zehnder’s Office in Copenhagen. He is a trusted advisor in C-suite executive search at both the local and international levels. He serves global consumer companies as well as clients in industry and energy across Europe. Christian conducts executive search for consumer business leaders, operations leaders, and CFOs as well as CEOs and other senior leaders for private equity portfolio companies. He also provides leadership assessment, team effectiveness consulting, and accelerated integration support to leaders transitioning into new roles. Specialties: Executive Search, Board consulting, Management Appraisals, CEO Succession, Accelerated Integration

Ambassador Claus Grube served as the Danish ambassador to the United Kingdom from 2013 to 2017 and is one of Denmark’s most experienced and respected career diplomats. Claus Grube has had a lifelong career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where he began as secretary in 1977. Claus Grube has been seconded to Brussels on several occasions, and he ran Denmark’s EU diplomacy from 2003 to 2009, as Denmark’s permanent representative at the European Union. Here, he has accompanied Denmark’s prime ministers to more than 50 summit conferences under the auspices of the EU and knows the EU machinery inside out, if anyone does. Claus Grube was Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2009 to 2013 where he led a comprehensive modernisation and efficiency engineering process at Asiastisk Plads, Copenhagen. Today, he is Senior Advisor for the British consulting firm Flint Global Ltd. in London, specialising in enterprises’ framework conditions in the EU and the UK.

Søren Bøwadt is the Deputy Head of Unit for the Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology Programme of the European Commission's Research and Innovation Directorate in Brussels. His main educational background in organic synthetic and analytical chemistry has been obtained from Odense University, Denmark. After Ph.D. studies at the European Joint Research Centre in Ispra in Italy, he spend a total of 3 years in the United States, working first at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, and secondly as Product Specialist at LECO Corporation in St. Joseph, Michigan. He moved on to a position as Principal Chemist at the Water Quality Institute in Hørsholm (Denmark) before joining the Measurement and Testing unit of the European Commissions Research Directorate as a Scientific Officer at the end of 1999. Since July 2003, he has been working for the Directorate for Industrial Technology in DG Research and Innovation. Søren Bøwadt has been responsible for over 150 scientific projects within DG Research in various areas of natural science and has over the years published more than 50 papers in various areas of chemistry related research as well as setting up the SPIRE public private partnership.

Thomas Ritter’s main research interest is in firms’ commercial competence, i.e. the way firms earn profits. This overall interest can be divided into studies on customer insight and market segmentation, customer value creation and value modelling, customer relationship management, and market strategy development. Projects are either on the operational, execution level (how are things done) or on the executive level (how to lead the market-oriented and customer-centric firm). Thomas’ work has been widely published in journals including International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management and Journal of Business Venturing.

Flemming Dalgaard is a senior executive with extensive leadership and management experience in Maritime, Ports, Shipping, Logistics and road/rail Transport. His experience includes manging medium sized as well as large group of companies including capital intensive infrastructure projects and project management. In 2017 Flemming was voted Middle East CEO of the year ‘Industry’. After leaving the position as CEO of Gulftainer in early 2018 Flemming has decided to take a year out of the corporate world.

Gitte Hesselholt came to Mölnlycke in 2014, from a position at Coloplast, where she was Vice President Central Europe, and before that, VP Corporate Development and Strategy. She was previously at Carlsberg, serving as Vice President, Business Development. In addition, Gitte Hesselholt has previously worked for four years as a strategy consultant for McKinsey & Company. She is also a member of the board of Mannaz. Gitte Hesselholt graduated from Aarhus University with an MSc in economics, supplemented by MBA studies at the Cranfield School of Management, UK.

Henrik Jeberg has 25 years experience from the international IT sector, and has lived in Europe, Asia, Australia and USA. He was part of the top-management of Navision Software that was sold to Microsoft, and later Deputy Director General with the Danish Ministry of Finance leading the Governments horizontal IT complex. He currently works as an M&A advisor and serves as President of the Danish American Chamber of Commerce in California and Chairman of VL114 in Silicon Valley. In 2012 he founded Advant Partners in San Francisco, a consultancy helping European Tech Companies expand into the US market. He lives in Sonoma with his wife and two young kids and spends his free time in their family vineyard/winery ODIN WINE. He is the co-author of the book “Return of the Vikings” – Nordic Leadership in Times of Extreme Change.” https://www.linkedin.com/in/henrikjeberg/

Christian Bason is the chief executive of the Danish Design Centre. His role is to set the strategic direction for the organisation, and to govern the most demanding initiatives and activities. Christian is also CEO of Design Society, a foundation which is the parent company of the Danish Design Center, INDEX: Design to improve life, Danish Fashion Institute and Copenhagen Fashion Week. Christian is a member of the board for the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Design and Conservation and holds an M.Sc. in Political Science from Aarhus University and a Ph.D. from Copenhagen Business School, CBS.

Chris Shern is a cultural adventurer. Since leaving the US over 20 years ago he has lived and worked internationally ever since. For many years, he worked in travel and tourism including Scandinavian Airlines where he held a variety of leadership positions across three continents. Currently, he is Managing Director of IME, a business foundation specializing in leadership development and executive education including Henley MBA, and Managing Partner at Advant Partners a consultancy helping European Tech Companies expand into the US market. He is co-author of the book “Return of the Vikings – Nordic Leadership in Times of Extreme Change.”

Job History: President and CEO CSM – Atlanta/US Global Chief Commercial Officer CSM – Atlanta/US SVP Global Products & Marketing CSM – Atlanta/US SVP Markets - Unilever Central Europe – Budapest/Hungary GM - Unilever Ice Cream, Central & Eastern Europe – Location Prague/Czech republic Managing Director - Ice Cream, Unilever Denmark Sales Director - Coca Cola & Carlsberg Denmark Senior Marketing Director - Savoury, Unilever Nordic, Sweden Sales Director, Unilever Foods Denmark Key Account Manager - Modern Trade, Unilever Denmark Education: eMBA, SIMI/IMD, Copenhagen, Denmark IAA, Advertising Diploma – Reklameskolen Copenhagen, Denmark MBA – Aarhus Handelshoejskole Denmark Board positions: AAK, Aarhus Olie & Karlsham, Malmoe Sweden Dansk Supermarked, Denmark

Jens Klarskov graduated from the University of Copenhagen in 1987 with an MSc in business law, after which he was employed by SMEdenmark as a legal advisor. He embarked on his management career in 1991 when he was engaged as Director of Landsforening Danske Anlægsgartnermestre (National Association of Danish Master Landscape Gardeners) where we worked until 1994. After this, Jens Klarskov became head of section and subsequently CEO for Byggeriets Arbejdsgivere, one of the parties that subsequently merged into the Danish Construction Association. After the merger, Jens Klarskov led the new organisation up until 2008, where he switched to the newly founded Danish Chamber of Commerce, representing the Danish business community. Jens Klarskov is also a member of the Danish Government’s Disruption Council.

Anne Lise Kjær is a leading global futurist, author, entrepreneur, and Copenhagen Goodwill Ambassador since 2003. A prominent and respected figure in the global forecasting community, she has over the years developed a unique Trend Management system to create clarity out of complexity. Kjær specialises in detecting and analysing socio-economic drivers and cultural changes, using her design background, and deep insight into the Nordic Model and key influential global trends to map their impact on tomorrow’s people, businesses and society.

Niels Lundorff is co-founder and previous Deputy CEO of Alior Bank, Poland. This is the largest private greenfield banking start-up in the world, and it now has 4 million customers, 10,000 employees and a market value of around EUR 2.5 billion. From 1993 to 2007, he was bank manager of the Bank Austria Group’s subsidiaries in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria and Poland, and also Senior Executive Vice President in the UniCredit Group in Italy. He was an accountant for KPMG in Denmark, Norway and the Czech Republic from 1989 to 1993, and systems designer at Datacentralen from 1987 to 1989. Niels Lundorff graduated from Copenhagen Business School with an MSc in Business Administration and Auditing (1994) and a BSc in Business Administration from the Aarhus School of Business (1987).

Jesper Bove-Nielsen is an expert in the sharing economy, and he manages Vigo, which is part of Rema1000. He has been involved with business development, innovation and digital transformation for the past 15 years. He has also written a number of books, most recently “Den nye deleøkonomi – digitale strategier i adgangssamfundet” (the new sharing economy: digital strategies in the access society).

Regional Design Director, Head of Masterplanning, Urban Design & Landscape Architect RIBA, M.Arch. MAA Janus Rostock works as Regional Design Director for Atkins with more than 20 years’ experience. Specialising in complex multidisciplinary projects and masterplans, he has proven expertise in a wide variety of projects including the Dubai Opera project and its district, masterplanning, low rise office buildings, high rise residential towers, hotels, education, and transport. Having received his M. Arch from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture, Copenhagen, after having spent a year at l’Ecole d’Architecture de Paris Belleville, Paris, Rostock worked for multi award winning firms Henning Larsen Architects and KHR. He moved to Dubai and joining Atkins in 2006, where he was part of the team delivering the Dubai Promenade and Cape Town Waterfront masterplan. In 2008 he moved back to Denmark as Associate Design Director to start up Atkins’ Architecture and Design department in Copenhagen. Following this spell he once again returned to the UAE in 2011 and is now responsible for leading Atkins’ Middle East Architecture and Urban Design team. His achievements so far include: - • Middle East Architect Power List 2016 – First Place • Architectural Digest Middle East Top 50 – ‘Arabia’s top talent in Architecture and Interior Design’ 2016 & 2017 • Commercial Interior Design Middle East Power 50 – ‘Most influential individualist the ME design Sector 2016 • Arabian Property Award Winner 2017 – Best Public Service Architecture, Dubai Opera • ID Design Award – Project of the Year 2016 - Dubai Opera Rostock has accumulated extensive international experience as the lead concept designer on projects and master plans in the U.A.E, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, India, Azerbaijan, Angola, Kenya, South Africa, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

Kaare Riis Nielsen is the newly appointed Director for the Disruption Taskforce at the Danish Ministry of Industry, Business and Financial Affairs supporting the Ministry and businesses to navigate between the new technology, digitalisation and smart regulation. Kaare within the fields of innovation, technology and politics.

Thomas Bering has been with Google since 2005 and has worked across most products. The past few years, he has mainly focused on helping companies to optimise their business with the digital opportunities that have arisen - for instance with regards to new screens, measurement and machine learning possibilities - as well as how this can and should affect day to day operations. Thomas Bering is MA in English, Philosophy and Informatics from Aarhus University.

Robert Hooijberg is Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour at IMD. He directs the prestigious Breakthrough Program for Senior Executives in which he works with executives at the top of their game, looking for new aspirations and focus and defining their next breakthrough contributions. He also leads custom top leader and transformation journey programs for such companies as Carlsberg, KPN, Royal FrieslandCampina, Sberbank KZ, Outotec, PWC Japan, Amrop, Orkla, Fortum, Amadeus and Julius Bär. Robert continuously work to push the agenda in the space of leadership and a few of his publications include the articles “Transformational theory of leadership” and “How Boards botch CEO succession” as well as his book “Leading Culture Change in Global Organizations.”

Professor Philipp Schröder is one of Denmark’s strongest experts in globalisation. For this reason, he was selected to serve on the Danish Government’s Disruption Council. The professor has had a long-standing academic career and has been affiliated with the Tuborg Research Centre for Globalisation and Firms, Aarhus University, Denmark, since 2013. Not to mention holding several other positions of trust.

General Director Morten Thorning has been a leading force behind the dynamic institution ever since it was established in 1989. He has also served as the director of the Viborg Animation Festival for the past five years. Morten is dedicated to making Danish animation into an international cultural profession capable of competing within the sector in both the US and Asia. Morten is a cultural entrepreneur who thinks outside the box and works to create ideal structures that facilitate artistic, creative and professional development in the best possible way. His most important philosophy is to combine creativity with intense discipline to pave the way for high quality, professional talent and the best ideas. When he is not working, cooking or sleeping, Morten composes music and plays percussion in the band “The Artems”.

Mads Thimmer started Innovation Lab in 2001, after which the company became the biggest innovation centre in northern Europe with offices in five countries and ten “world’s firsts” to boast of: from the world’s first mobile tourist information to the first screen made of concrete. He has taught innovation at INSEAD and specifically worked in Denmark and abroad on strategy and management based on the new digital conditions. Mads has helped start up more than twenty undertakings within the digital domain, and he is used as a digital expert by the media – from Le Monde, Engadget and the BBC, to Børsen, DR and Berlingske here in Denmark.

Torben Andersen joined GreenMobility as CEO in January 2017. GreenMobility operates 400 electric city cars in Copenhagen and plans to launch in 20 cities across Europe by 2021. The company made a successful IPO on Nasdaq First North in June 2017. Torben has over 20 years’ experience from the IT industry from both corporates and start-ups. During his 13 years at Microsoft, he was responsible for building different business areas across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Torben also has 3 years of experience at Better Place Denmark, where he as CCO had the responsibility for the commercial launch in Denmark. He holds a Master of Science (MSc) in Business Administration and Computer Science from CBS.

John Gapper is chief business columnist and associate editor of the Financial Times, He contributes columns, features and editorials on business, finance, technology and management. His awards include the Harold Wincott prize for financial journalism and the Gerald Loeb award for business commentary. He is author of All That Glitters, about the collapse of Barings bank, and two novels: A Fatal Debt and The Ghost Shift. He is based in London and lives in Hackney, having worked in New York from 2005 to 2012. Before the FT, he worked for papers including the Daily Mirror, Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph. He studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Exeter College, Oxford and was a Harkness fellow at the Wharton School.

Charlotte Beder is a qualified journalist and news presenter for TV 2 News. She has worked for several years as a business reporter, including for Berlingske Business and Jyllands-Posten’s business desk – and as a presenter on TV2 Finans. In addition, she has worked as a political reporter for Jylland-Posten’s Christiansborg desk and been a presenter for both TV Avisen on DR and several political TV magazines on TV 2.

Moderator, 2018 Annual Danish Top Executive Summit