Our Experts

Silvia Manessi Team Leader, Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (EU Agency ACER)

Silvia Manessi is Team Leader – Human Resources Management at the European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) since July 2016. In this capacity, she is responsible for the management of all HR-related matters for the Agency. She has been working for the European Institutions since 2001, for the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) and the European Commission. Her professional experience includes strategic HR planning, budget and analytics, EU HRM policies (legal framework, rights and obligations), talent acquisition, career management, leadership and counselling. She is a PhD candidate in Sociolinguistics at the University of Salamanca.

Fabrice Mercade Head of communications and spokesperson, European Court of Auditors

Fabrice Mercade is the head of communications and spokesperson of the European Court of Auditors (ECA). He began his professional career as parliamentary assistant at the European Parliament (Budget and Budgetary Control committees) in 1994. He joined the ECA in 2000 in the External Relations Department and became attaché and later head of cabinet of the ECA President. Between 2002 and 2014 he was head of cabinet for various ECA Members in charge of financial and performance audits on EU Cohesion Policy as well as EU spending for External Actions. Between 2007 and 2010 he was head of cabinet of the ECA Member responsible for communication. He holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Business Administration and is a Certified Fraud Examiner.

Cyril Messein Senior Auditor, European Court of Auditors

Cyril Messein is a Senior Auditor at the European Court of Auditors in the department in charge of external actions, security and justice. He has a 15 years’ professional experience in auditing (financial, compliance and performance) in both private sector and at the ECA. In particular, he led an ECA review product related to European Defence.

Matthias Maertens Advisor to the Director General Corporate Services, European Investment Bank, Luxembourg

Matthias Maertens joined the European Investment Bank in 2009 and became responsible for the Procurement Division in 2010. Prior to this, he worked in various positions in the financial service sector in the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg as Legal Counsel, Compliance Officer and Managing Director. Within his previous control function responsibilities at the European Investment Bank, he represented the Bank at the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in relation to anti-money laundering topics and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in relation to international tax issues.

Pete Moores Commercial Director, Oxentia Oxford's Global Innovation Consultancy

Pete Moores has 14 years of experience working within the ‘Triple Helix’ of industry innovation, academic output and government funding. Having gained in-depth knowledge across multiple industry sectors including environment, automotive, aerospace and food processing, he identified and integrated new technology to improve productivity, efficiency, profitability and competitive advantage. Prior to joining IE, he worked for the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) to grow their training and knowledge networks businesses. Pete Moores has personally been responsible for building consortiums of academics and business to bid for and win over £3.5M of collaborative and translational research funding from UK and EU governments.

Dr. Alaa Moussawi Chief Data Scientist, New York City Council

Holding a PhD in physics, Alaa Moussawi is currently the Chief Data Scientist for the New York City Council. He works with the council to promote data-driven legislation that optimally serves the needs of a growing NYC population. His research has ranged from analysis of network flows in power grids, opinion dynamics and spreading process on networks, to modeling and analysis of income distributions in social systems. Al will be discussing some of the challenges that the NYC council and the US as a whole face when it comes to creating legislation to ensure that AI is used responsibly and ethically in the public and private sectors.

Neil Marr State Aid Advisor, Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), United Kingdom

Neil Marr has been involved in interpreting and enforcing regulations since 1987. He joined the agricultural State aids team of the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in 2005. This team also became responsible for fisheries State aid in 2008. In this role he has facilitated the notification of a large number of schemes. During this period he trained many colleagues in this area and gave numerous presentations on different aspects of State aid. Neil Marr was seconded to the European Commission Energy State aid team between August 2013 and March 2016 when he returned to the UK to work in the Environment’s State aid unit. He re-joined the DEFRA State Aid unit July 2019. Neil Marr has now had experience of working for a national regulatory body, the Commission and a major funder of schemes in a State aid role. Before, he has worked in the Police Complaints Authority, the Directors Disqualification Unit and the Enforcement Unit at the Radiocommunications Agency.

Dr Juha Martelius Director of Research, Ministry of Defence, Finland

Dr. Juha Martelius is the Director of Research in the Finnish Ministry of Defence. In this role he is responsible for the MoD's research, evaluation and foresight as well as defence community RDI policy. Previously, he has worked as the Special Advisor to the Minister of Defence; as Counsel of the Defence Committee of the Parliament of Finland; as Head of Analysis Unit in the Finnish Security Intelligence Service and as Intelligence Analyst in the ICTY and held various posts in the academia.

Pascal Mousset Head of Procurement and Contracting Advice Department, Rijkswaterstaat, Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment, the Netherlands

As Head of the Department for Procurement and Contracting Advice, Pascal Mousset is responsible for the consultancy activities in projects of Rijkswaterstaat (RWS), the executive body of the Ministry for Infrastructure and the Environment of the Netherlands. The department holds the legal, financial and general procurement consultants, who advise the larger projects of RWS, such as the Design-Build-Finance-Maintain (DBFM) deal flow in roads and waterways as well as projects in the field of realisation and renovation of tunnels and bridges. Previously, he was responsible for the legal cluster of the DBFM-road program ‘Schiphol- Amsterdam-Almere (SAA)’ and the development of the policy framework for toll-collection in the Netherlands. From 2008 to 2011 he was seconded at the French Ministry of Energy and Environment, at the Direction of Transport Infrastructure.

Dr Reto Malacrida Head of the Government Procurement, World Trade Organization, Switzerland

Dr. Reto Malacrida, LLM, MA (EC Competition Law), LLM is Counsellor and Head of the Government Procurement and Competition Policy Group with the Intellectual Property, Government Procurement and Competition Division of the WTO Secretariat in Geneva. As such, he also acts as Secretary to the WTO Committee on Government Procurement. From 1999 to 2019, Reto was a member of the WTO Legal Affairs Division, where he served as a senior dispute settlement lawyer. Reto is also a visiting lecturer at the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Model WTO.