Our Experts

Felix Schulyok Case Handler, European Commission

Felix Schulyok has been Case Handler State Aid at DG Competition of the European Commission since 2013. Since 2016, he is working at the State aid Policy and Case support Unit. Previously, Felix Schulyok was dealing with State aid for infrastructure projects as well as with State aid for industrial restructuring. Before entering DG Competition, he worked as Assistant at the University of Copenhagen on European Constitutional Law.

László Szabó Former Head of Unit, Publications Office of the European Union

From 2006 until 2018, László Szabó has been Head of Internal Control and Evaluation Unit at the Publications Office of the European Union. His most important tasks were to coordinate risk management, fraud prevention and detection and personal data protection as well as managing financial control and evaluation. He was also responsible for internal audit of the Office. Prior to this, László Szabó was managing controlling, finance and IT in different (mainly financial) companies as well as acting as lecturer in corporate finance, risk management, data management and controlling as well as International Financial Reporting Standards at the International Business School and other training establishments in Budapest.

Andreas Schmidt Head of IT, Office of the Federal President, Germany

Andreas Schmidt is Head of IT at the Office of the German Federal President. Prior to his current position, Andreas Schmidt worked as Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at the German Federal Ministry of Economics and En-ergy (BMWi) from 2011 to 2017. During this occupation he was responsible for the security of the digital radio of the BOS (Behörden und Organisationen mit Sicherheitsaufgaben: Pu-blic Institutions of High Security Significance) authorities, and was active as an IT Security Officer at the Federal Ministry of the Interior. As an ISO 27001 Auditor and IS Auditor, Andreas Schmidt also carries out audits and revisions, among others, according to the methodology of the IT baseline protection of the BSI (Grundschutz, Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Infor-mationstechnik), the German Federal Office for Information Security.

Francesca Siniscalchi Deputy head of Unit Legal Affairs, Joint Research Centre, European Commission

Francesca Siniscalchi, Deputy Head of Unit-Joint Research Centre (JRC) A4-Legal Affairs of the European Commission, has experienced three institutions, two geographical seats (LUX and BRX) and five Commission departments in more than 20 years. A lawyer by vocation, curriculum and training, she joined the JRC ten years ago. In her role, she gives and coordinates legal advice to JRC scientific services and management on R&D contracts, scientific arrangements and international agreements and nuclear industrial contracts.

Gisela Sommer Waste Management Technician, Waste Agency of Catalonia

Gisela Sommer has been working at the Waste Agency of Catalonia as an Environmental Technician since November 1994. Currently she forms part of the work team dedicated to the EU Horizon 2020 Project DECISIVE (A Decentralised Management Scheme for Innovative Valorisation of Urban Biowaste). She has been involved in different aspects of waste management and in particularly in data collection and elaboration of waste statistics. In addition, she has collaborated in EU waste management projects like the European Topic Centre on Waste and the INTERREG IVC Project Regions for Recycling (R4R). From 1993 to 1994 she worked with TÜV Rheinland Sicherheit und Umweltschutz GmbH (Cologne, Germany) on a Hazardous Waste Management Project for the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City. From 1992 to 1993 she worked with ICICT/TÜV Rheinland Iberia (Barcelona/Spain) in the field of emission and water pollution control of industrial activities.

Helmut Schmitz Head of Communication / Public Affairs, DSD – Duales System Holding GmbH & Co. KG

Helmut Schmitz works since 2013 as Director Communication & Public Affairs for “Der Grüne Punkt - Duales System Deutschland GmbH“ in Berlin, Brussels and Cologne. As Head of International Communication and Director Public Affairs he was responsible in 2000 – 2013 for projects with different international stakeholder groups, especially in Europe and Asia.

Martín Soriano R&D Project Coordinator, Technology Centre for Energy and the Environment (CETENMA)

Martín Soriano (B.Sc. Env.Sci., Ph.D. Soil Sci.) works as a project manager at CETENMA (Spain) where he coordinates the VALUEWASTE project. Martin has over 13 years of experience in public (CSIRO, Australia; CNRS and INRA, France; ISR, New Zealand) and private (Ziltek) R&D organisations, and universities (UMH and UPCT Spain, and UofAdelaide, Australia). His areas of expertise are circular economy, waste management, sensors and soil science. He is co-author of more than 60 publications and contributions to 50 conferences.

Bernd Schuh Evaluation Expert and Member of the Board of Directors, Austrian Institute for Regional Studies and Spatial Planning, Austria

Bernd Schuh is Senior Expert and Member of the Board of Directors of the Austrian Institute for Regional Studies and Spatial Planning (ÖIR). He has vast experience in the fields such as economic, agricultural and environmental policy on EU level. In addition, he is a Member of the European Working Group on Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis Methods. Bernd Schuh has notably worked on structural funds evaluations, spatial monitoring of structural funds effects in terms of urban development as well as social issues and sustainability of structural funds implementation. He has profound experiences in evaluation practice and theory – being an advisor for international, national and regional authorities and a university lecturer at two universities in Vienna as well as a guest lecturer at different universities in Rome, Seville and Sheffield.

Alexander Sack Program Manager/Co-Lead FINANCE 4 DB Program, Deutsche Bahn

Alexander Sack joined Deutsche Bahn in 2002. Since 2017 he is Co-Lead and Program Manager of the FINANCE 4 DB Program, Deutsche Bahn’s digital finance transformation program. Prior to his current role, Alexander was part of the managing team at DB Management Consulting, Deutsche Bahn’s internal top management consultancy. Alexander was a Principal in DB MC’s Global Services and Supply Chain Management Practice with over 15 years of consulting experience and has worked in a wide range of topic areas in the field of Transportation and Logistics including strategy development, network optimization, operational excellence and procurement. During his time at DB MC he led various complex transformational and group-wide digitalization projects. The objective of the FINANCE 4 DB Program is to leverage new digital technologies to improve the steering of Deutsche Bahn group and to improve finance process efficiency. His mission is to shape and drive the content of the FINANCE 4 DB Program.

Sara Spedicato Head of Finance Department Germany and Austria, Zambon

Sara Spedicato is Head of the Finance Department Germany and Austria at Zambon GmbH. She has joined Zambon in 2013. She was the driving force behind the set-up of the Finance Department in Berlin. Currently, Sara is responsible for the implementation of several Finance & IT projects in the Berlin Office.

Patrik Spreitzer Global Operations Coordinator Quality and Business, Bosch Service Solutions GmbH

Patrik Spreitzer has joined Bosch Service Solutions in 2014. He has been Global Operations Coordinator Quality & Business Solutions since 2017. He is an expert in the implementation of innovative solutions and concepts to optimize resources, processes and IT tools (e.g. Cognitive Automation) and has an in-depth knowledge of process analytics and process consulting focusing on Robotic Process Automation (RPA). He is a member of the Bosch Chatbot COE.

Miikka Saarteinen Deputy Director, State Treasury, Finland

Miikka Harri Samuli Saarteinen is a digital transformation and data-driven development leader with over 20 years of experience in the private and public sector information and technology-intensive organizations. Since January 2013, he has been acting as Deputy Director of the Information Resources and Development Department at the State Treasury in Finland. Previously, he was Head of Corporate Project Portfolio Office in the State Treasury, responsible for PPO and providing management consulting for strategic digital development projects. From 2007 to 2009, he was Program Manager for E-service Development in the same organization. In this role, Mikka Saarteinen carried out an e-services development program to automate main processes for operational productivity and efficiency.

Dr. Ulli Spankowski Chief Digital Officer, Boerse Stuttgart Group

Dr. Ulli Spankowski is Chief Digital Officer at Boerse Stuttgart Group. He is fintech founder and a financial markets expert with particular experience in the areas of exchange trading, regulation, derivatives, blockchain and crypto currencies. From his working experience at Boerse Stuttgart (certified floor broker), Sowa Labs, and the European Commission, he accumulated a broad knowledge on predictive data analytics tools, blockchain applications as well as crypto currency trading and regulation around these topics. He studied Economics and Finance at the Universities of Hohenheim, Ulm, and Valencia and followed a PhD program in Finance at the University of Hohenheim with a focus on market microstructure.

Carsten Schmidt Project Manager, TalTech - Technical University of Tallinn, Estonia

Carsten Schmidt is currently working for the TalTech in the Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, Digital Governance Lab. He is also Sustainability Manager and Deputy Leader of the Work-Package for Technical Architecture, Legal and Governance Aspects of the Once-Only Principle project (TOOP). Previously, he worked at the Ministry of Justice of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany in the Division for strategic IT planning and development, European and national e-Justice projects. Carsten is Member of the expert groups for e-Justice, company law and insolvency registers of the European Commission. From 2010 until 2016 he acted as Project Director of the e-CODEX project, the large-scale project to establish a secure and reliable interoperability platform for e-Justice in Europe. From 2013 until 2017 he was active as Project Director the e-SENS project which was aiming at providing generic interoperable solutions for cross-border public services in Europe.

Maria Söderlind Project Manager for RUGGEDISED smart solution "Smart open-data city decision platform", Umeå, Sweden

Maria Söderlind is a driven project manager with extensive leadership experience and an enthusiast of agile working methods. Throughout her career, she has worked for both the public and private organisations where she was responsible for executing numerous IT and digitization-related projects. Currently, she is Project Manager for RUGGEDISED smart solution "Smart open-data city decision platform" in Umeå in Sweden. Smart city thinking is at the core of the City of Umeå’s overall vision of continued social, economic and sustainable growth. RUGGEDISED will facilitate a unified ‘smart district’, which is underpinned by planned regeneration and committed public and private sector investments. Before taking this role, she was active as an IT consultant at an IT company whose focus is to contribute to the digitization of Swedish SMEs and organizations. Previously, Maria was Project Manager at the Swedish Tax Agency, where she was responsible for t the planning of a new IT system.

Kaur Siruli Head, Ministry of Finance, Estonia

Kaur Siruli has been Head of the Financial Control Department of the Ministry of Finance since 2006. Previously, he was the responsible expert for the co-operation with the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) in the same unit. He has also been involved in the coordination of the internal audit network in the government sector. Kaur Siruli is Certified Government Auditing Professional (CGAP) issued by Institute of Internal Auditors in 2008.