Programme

Klaus Mangold was born on June 6, 1943. After graduating from high school he studied law and economics at the universities of Munich, Geneva, London, Heidelberg and Mainz. He held various positions in German industry prior to being a Management Board member and Chairman of the Management Board of Rhodia AG, a subsidiary of the French group Rhône Poulenc, from 1983 to 1990. He was Chairman of the Board of Management of Quelle AG from 1991 to 1994 and joined DaimlerChrysler AG as a Member of the Board of Management in 1995. As a member of the DaimlerChrysler AG Board of Management from 1995 to 2003, Klaus Mangold was responsible for DaimlerChrysler AG's Services division and its Central and Eastern European markets. At the same time, he was CEO of DaimlerChrysler Services AG. Klaus Mangold is Chairman of the Supervisory Board of TUI AG, Germany, and member of a number of Supervisory and Advisory Boards, including those of Alstom S.A., France, Ernst & Young, United States, and Continental AG, Germany. He also is Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Rothschild GmbH, Frankfurt and Chairman of the “Mangold Consulting GmbH”, which was founded in 2003. From 2000 until 2010 he was Chairman of the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations of German Industry. He is Commander of the Legion of Honour (France) and Professor of the European Business School, Schloss Reichartshausen.

Wolfgang Buechele - Chief Executive Officer Linde AG starting from May 2014. From January 2016 - Chairman of the Eastern Committee of German economy. Wolfgang Buchele was born in 1959 in Geislingen, Germany. He received his doctoral degree in inorganic chemistry in 1987 at the University of Ulm, Germany. From 2012 to 2014 - President and CEO of Kemira Oyj, Finland. From 2008 to 2011 worked in company BorsodChem Zrt, first as CEO and then as CEO and Chairman of Board. Since 2008 he was senior Advisor of Permira Beteiligungsberatung GmbH. In the period from 1987 to 2007 he worked at BASF AG, where he finished his career as President of division Products of fine chemical technology. Wolfgang Buchele is a member of the Board and Executive Committee of the European chemical industry Council and member of the Board of audit and Finance.

Aleksandr Grankin - is a co-founder of Internet of Things platform «GO +». He is specialized in business strategy, management and has a vast experience in introducing the concept of lean production. «GO +» is a project of an Internet of Things platform, which allows small and medium manufacturing and telecom companies to quickly deploy IoT-services to end customers. This enables them companies or end-customers)to make a smooth switch to the Industry 4.0. The project became semifinalist in "Intel Global Challenge".

Born in 1965, Alexey Mordashov has been working for Severstal since 1988. He started his career as a senior economist, becoming Chief Financial Officer in 1992. In December 1996, he was appointed as Severstal’s Chief Executive Officer. Between 2002 and 2006 he served as CEO of Severstal Group and was Chairman of Severstal’s Board of Directors. Since the introduction of the new structure of corporate governance in December 2006 Mr. Mordashov has been CEO of Severstal. From December 2014 till June 2015 Alexey served as CEO of AO "Severstal Management" - managing organization of PAO Severstal. In May he was elected as Chairman of Severstal’s Board of Directors. Vice-Chairman of World Steel Association. Head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs’ Committee on Integration, Trade and Customs Policy and WTO. Serves on the Entrepreneurial Council of the Government of Russian Federation. Co-chairman of the “Trade as a Global Driver” Taskforce of the “Business 20” of “Group of Twenty”. Co-chairman of the Northern Dimension Business Council. Vice-President of Russian-German chamber of commerce, member of the Russian-German workgroup responsible for strategic economic and finance issues. Member of the EU-Russia Business Cooperation Council. Alexey earned his undergraduate degree from the Leningrad Institute of Engineering and Economics. He also holds an MBA degree from Newcastle Business School of Northumbria University (UK).

Almost 30-years of experience on post-Soviet economies working in the financial and public sectors, with a solid track record of successful non-consensus macroeconomic and market calls on Russia and other post-Soviet countries. Alexander has been working as a Head of Research and Forecasting Department of the Bank of Russia since September 2015. Before that he worked for HSBC Holding as a Chief Economist for Russia, CIS and the Baltics for 10 years. Between 1994 and 2005 Alexander worked in the World Bank as a senior economist specializing on macroeconomic and fiscal policy issues. Prior to that, he had held research positions in the Russian Academy of Sciences and a private consultancy firm. Alexander holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a Diploma in Economics from LSE. He has numerous publications in Russian and international economic journals, World Bank and HSBC research series on macroeconomic and fiscal issues.

Victor Polyakov is the Managing Director in Tibbo Systems, the leading IoT software developer. Having graduated from Tver State Technical University in 2002, Victor has started AggreGate project that changed its description over time from Device Management Platform to M2M Platform and, later, to IoT Platform. While university years provided Victor initial experience in Industrial Automation area, first years of professional career in Tibbo were shared with Network Operating Center engineer duties in a local telco company TeleNET. Nowadays Victor is playing a key role in AggreGate Platform evolution, taking part in system architecture design and establishing long-term partnerships with OEMs and System Integrators playing in IoT, Network Management, Industrial Automation, DCIM, Vehicle Tracking, and other grounds.

Stefan Hoechbauer is President of the Middle and Eastern Europe (MEE) region. He is responsible for the development and operation of all market cultivation activities for the entire SAP product portfolio in this region. He reports to Franck Cohen, President of the EMEA region.Hoechbauer has held various leadership roles at SAP. He was appointed Chief Operating Officer of the MEE region in 2013, and additionally Chairman of SAP CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) in 2014. Before that, Hoechbauer was Senior Vice President of Sales Emerging Markets at SAP. He also served as Managing Director of SAP Switzerland. Hoechbauer started his SAP career in 2005 as Senior Vice President of Sales and Managing Director of Germany.Hoechbauer has many years’ experience in the technology sector. Before joining SAP, he was Senior Vice President and General Manager for Central Europe at PeopleSoft. He held various sales and managerial positions at Oracle and IBM, where he served as Senior Vice President / General Manager of the SoftwareGroup from 2008 to 2010.Stefan Hoechbauer has an MBA from INSEAD and a degree in commercial management from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

Vadim Chekletsov was born April 10, 1980 in Mezhdurechensk in Kemerovo Oblast. In 2003, graduated from State Medical Academy. Held different positions at companies such as Solvay, Bayer, Gedeon Richter, International SOS. In 2012, received a PhD on Philosophy of Sciences at the interdisciplinary sector philosophical problems of progress at the Russian Academy of Sciences. As of2013, teaches Philosophy of New Technology at the NIYU MIFI. Co-founder and Executive Director of the Russian Research Center on the Internet of Things.

Schabert chairs the Executive Board of Vossloh Aktiengesellschaft since April 2014. In addition to his role as CEO he has taken over operational responsibility in Vossloh’s business units Core Components and Transportation with its production site in Kiel, Germany. Since his start Schabert is the main driver of the successful restructuring of Vossloh into a specialised provider of rail infrastructure components and services. After academic engineering studies including two terms abroad Schabert started his professional career with Siemens AG, Mobility Division, in 1984 and during his latest 8 years until 2007 he acted as Chief Executive Officer. In 2008 he joined the Göppingen-based company Leonhard Weiss, one of Germany’s largest construction companies as CEO. In 2012 he founded the independent HMS Board Consulting that accompanies rail industry projects mainly in Germany, Sweden, South Africa and Russia. Schabert is a recognized and profound expert of Russia and has an in-depth understanding of the country and its people. In 2007 Schabert was awarded with the honorary doctorate of the Public Technical University Moscow and since 2008 he carries the honorary doctorate of the Technical University in Graz, Austria. Furthermore he has been appointed honorary senator of the Technical University in Graz, Austria.

Harald Schwager is a Member of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE, a position he assumed in 2008. Schwager is currently responsible for Construction Chemicals, Crop Protection and Bioscience Research, as well as the Region Europe. Prior to this, he was President of Verbund Site Management Europe from 2007 to 2008 and President of Verbund Site Management Ludwigshafen from 2006 to 2007. From 2003 to 2006 he was President of the Inorganics division. In 1988, Schwager started his career with BASF in polypropylene catalyst research. After working in technical service for polypropylene and marketing and sales for polyvinyl chloride (PVC), Schwager became Head of the Vinyl Chloride/Polyvinyl Chloride (VC/PVC) business unit headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. From 1999, he was Managing Director of the European companies of Solvin, a joint venture of Solvay S.A. and BASF, in Brussels. Schwager was born in Speyer, Germany, in 1960. From 1979 onwards he studied Chemistry at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, and graduated there in 1984. He holds a doctorate from the MaxPlanckInstitute in Mülheim/Ruhr, Germany, which he received in 1986. Afterwards, he did a postdoc at the University of California in Berkeley, United States.

Klaus Schäfer has been Chief Executive Officer of Uniper since January 2016 ahead of the planned spin-off from the E.ON Group. Uniper is a major international energy company and operates in Europe, Russia, and a number of other markets around the world in power generation, gas up- and midstream, global commodities and engineering. With 20 years of experience in the energy sector, Klaus has held a number of top management positions in the E.ON Group before the split. He was Member of the Board of E.ON, CEO of E.ON Global Commodities and E.ON Ruhrgas, and he held senior executive positions in E.ON Italia, E.ON Sales & Trading and Thüga. Klaus obtained his master degree in management from the ESCP Europe School of Management in Paris, Oxford and Berlin.