Digital and open government policy adviser
Ms Routzouni is working with the Hellenic Ministry of Administrative Reform since 2009, providing strategic consultancy in public policy design and implementation in the fields of digital government, open government and innovation in the public sector. She is also the coordinator of horizontal e-government programs and the national Person of Contact to Open Government Partnership (OGP) in Greece.
She is cooperating with the EC as an independent expert in the ICT Research and Innovation domain in connection with Horizon 2020 and Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) She has worked for ten years in the private sector, IT and Banking, with experience in business development, project management, presales, account management and quality control. She holds an MSc in Information Systems Engineering and a Master's in Business Administration (MBA), she is a Postgraduate Researcher on Open Government Policies at the University of the Aegean and a Lecturer at the Hellenic National Center of Public Administration in the fields e-Government, Project Management, Open Government and Business Process Reengineering.
HYVE Innovation
Dr. Giordano Koch is CEO at HYVE Innovation Community. In the course of his career at HYVE he initiated and developed the business sectors “Open Government” and “Open Innovation Consulting”. He studied in Passau, Cleveland, at the Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen and graduated at the WHU Vienna and University of Hamburg.
He is lecturer at the University of Linz and often booked as speaker, referring to various best practices and combining them with scientific findings. Innovation is everywhere: in Open Innovation, Crowdsourcing and Co-Creation. Please expect incredible stories, broad expertise and different perspectives from industry, politics and science.
General Manger at iuvo
Ivaylo is a finance, fintech, business development and strategy consulting professional with a passion for entrepreneurship.
He has experience in consulting more than 20 businesses in the fintech, energy, telecommunications and digital fields. I have managed the expansion of international companies in new markets and the design of the business model, launch and further development of innovative fintech online businesses from scratch.
Ivaylo one of the few experts in crowdequity, crowdfunding and crowdsourcing methodologies for financing and realizing of projects both as an enterprise and within the structure of bigger organizations.
Director of the African Crowdfunding Association
Kevin is an energetic and creative individual. He believes that we live in
an abundant world and looks for ways to impact those around himself
with positivity, especially through exponential technologies. Kevin holds
an undergraduate Pharmacy degree and an MBA (Cum Laude).
Although through reading, the internet, and experience he has shaped his thinking
in terms of exponential business models and what the future holds. He
is one of the founding Directors of the African Crowdfunding Association
where he holds the position of Chairman and runs QDDTI, a capital
raising and Digital consulting company.
Manager at ZAAR Crowdfunding Malta
Matthew Caruana is the manager of Malta's first crowdfunding platform (Zaar.com.mt). This dynamic, award-winning initiative has, since its launch in 2016 become a catalyst for a revolution in the way entrepreneurs fund their business on the Island. Matthew is a project manager and product manager with a successful track record in e-business and product development. He has experience in business analysis and management at top companies in Malta and the UK.
As a result of his unmatched local experience in the world of crowdfunding, Matthew was appointed to represent Malta as the country patron and resident expert at Crowd Dialog Europe. Today, Matthew and his team at Zaar have become the island’s foremost promoters for the timely introduction of equity crowdfunding in Malta.
CEO, National bank of Greece
Leonidas Fragkiadakis was appointed General Manager of Treasury and Global Markets at National Bank of Greece in January 2009.
He is a member of the Board of National Securities and Chairman of the Hellenic Chapter of Forex Club/ACI. During the years 2003-2009 he worked for NBG Group as Group Treasurer, while from 1996 till 2003 he was responsible for the Derivatives Division of the bank.
He worked at Credit Suisse First Boston in New York as a Trader with extensive experience in foreign derivative products, interest rates and emerging market bonds.
L. Fragkiadakis holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Trinity College, Cambridge University (UK) and an MBA from the Wharton School of Finance of the University of Pennsylvania (USA).
Chief Strategy Officer at CoFunder
Samson is CSO of CoFunder, an Ireland based FinTech firm who specialize in building the platforms to provide loans and investment capital to small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs. Ask me about CDFIs, crowdfunding, blockchain, bitcoins and awesomeness.
In addition to the technical stuff, its my privilege to be the Chief Human Ambassador for CoFunder by building partnerships, strategic banking, finance collaborations and equity & debt crowdfunding ventures on this side of The Pond, around the Pacific Rim and wherever business is done globally.
Founder European Crowdfunding Network
European Crowdfunding Network, Brussels, Executive Director and Founder | Lendery, London, Co-founder | Slingshot Return, Hamburg, Co-Founder | European Crowdfunding Stakeholder Forum at the European Commission, Brussels, Member | Förderkreis Gründungs-Forschung e.V. (FGF), Advisory Board Member | FutureMediaLab, Brussels, Advisor | InnoHub, Hamburg, Mentor
CEO Anirot Development Organisation
Irene is the CEO of Anirot Development Organisation, active in the fields of business development and research, funding, PR and marketing. She has gained extensive experience in European strategy and policy, national policy and initiative promotion, entrepreneurship and innovation. She is a trainer and mentor for start-ups and new businesses, aiding businesses to prepare for funding rounds and an experienced EU project manager, both in previous FP7 and Leonardo da Vinci projects and currently for Horizon and Erasmus+. She is also the Founder of Crowdfunding Cyprus, an organisation advocating crowd-related activities, aiming to establish Cyprus as a crowdfunding hub for the wider region. Irene advocates female entrepreneurship and regularly speaks on topics of policy change, crowdsourcing, stakeholder engagement in social projects and the gender gap.
Crowd Mentor Network
Driven by innovation, Michael´s focus is to understand the risks and chances of crowd-based phenomenas like CrowdSourcing, CrowdInnovation and Crowdfunding. Michael is head of the board at the CrowdSourcing Association and the German CrowdFounding Network. He serves as adviser for the EU Commission in the CrowdFunding Stakeholder Group in Brussels and a nominated member of the TAB Begleitkreis „Digitale Arbeit“ for the Deutschen Bundestag.
CEO of ISN – Innovation Service Network
Since 2001 he is founder and CEO of isn-innovation service network, Austrian's leading innovation company. As entrepreneur and founder of five further startups he supervises the innovation management processes of several leading Austrian companies.
2007 he started Austrian's 1. Crowdsourcing platform www.neurovation.net. In 2012 he established Austria’s first crowdinvesting platform 1000x1000.at. Reinhard Willfort is co-founder of the European Crowdfunding Network and Secretary of the Board of Directors.
CEO & Founding Partner of Better Ventures
Shelley’s arch-enemy is the status quo and she will do anything to defeat it. A highly successful entrepreneur with her eye perpetually to the horizons of innovation, marketing, crowdsourcing and venture capital, Shelley is driven to create net-new enterprise business models focused around participation with her global clients and global team. She co-founded Better Ventures in 2015 after previously founding Chaordix, Stormworks and Adventure Capital. Shelley might just spend more time up in the air than George Clooney and breaks from flying and entrepreneurship only long enough for the odd glass of cider and weekend away at her place on Salt Spring Island. Shelley lives in London, UK and right at this minute is probably thinking of ways to realize the possibilities she can see in her mind’s eye.
Founder of CrowdfundingHub
Ronald is a former IT entrepreneur and has an extensive track record in crowdfunding. Four years ago he co-founded the European Crowdfunding Network. As a crowdfunding strategist he is frequently asked to advise the European Commission. He very recently was ranked no. 3 on the Alternative Finance Power List, a list with the most influential people in P2P lending and crowdfunding on social media.
Partner at Fingertip Ltd.
As being passionate about the combination of human intelligence and computing, I am thrilled to find myself in implementing crowdsourcing to social decision-making. A learner of a phenomenon Wisdom of the Crowds combined with Artificial Intelligence- current focus: start-ups with crowdsourcing and -funding business model
National Bank of Greece
Spyros Arsenis coordinates act4Greece crowdfunding program (www.act4Greece.gr), NBG Business Seeds program (www.nbg.gr/nbgseeds) and the NBG Innovation & Technology Competition. He studied electrical engineering and holds a PhD in Information Technology and Networks. He started his career in international IT projects as Project Manager and Senior Consultant for important organizations. He is the author of eight books on ICT, sales and marketing.
Head of Crowdfunding at Downing LLP
A pioneer of digital businesses since founding ba.com in 1994, I have spent the last 20 years working on disruptive customer-led propositions across online retail, renewable energy and financial services market spaces.
Most recently I developed the crowdfunding platform Trillion Fund, co-founded the UK Crowdfunding Association and am now a Partner with the Downing Crowd.
Crowd Product Manager at Downing LLP
Dan has spent the last decade in pioneering crowd businesses. He is currently helping to build a crowdfunding platform within an established fund manager (Downing Crowd) and prove that the crowd can be consistently harnessed to support companies that have large funding requirements (€1m+).
Prior to this Dan was Chief Product Officer at Crowdsurfer (now Tab), a data technology business focused on the crowd finance market and also led business development activity at OpenGamma, an opensource technology provider that was harnessing the crowd to disrupt a multi-billion dollar industry. Dan holds an MBA from Cass Business School.
Sr. Director EU Business Development at Applause
Applause empowers companies of all sizes to deliver great digital experiences (DX) – across web, mobile and IoT as well as brick-and-mortar – spanning every customer touchpoint. Applause delivers unmatched in-the-wild testing, user feedback and research solutions by utilizing its DX platform to manage communities around the world. This provides brands with the real-world insights they need to achieve omni-channel success across demographics, locations, devices and operating systems that match their user base. Thousands of companies – including Google, FOX, Best Buy, BMW, PayPal and Runkeeper – rely on Applause to ensure great digital experiences for their customers. Learn more at www.applause.com.
Managing Director Accenture
Piero had 15 years of experience in Communication, Media & High Tech Industry, with leadership role in Italy and abroad (Australia, Denmark, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Turkey).
He is global responsible for Market Development and Innovation (MD&I) in Digital Delivery (i.e: sponsor and guidance for Crowdsourcing adoption and Connected Hackathon in 8 cities)
Coordinatrice générale FPF
Florence de Maupeou graduated in Social Economy. Truly convinced that microcredit is an empowering tool, she starts working in 2010 for Babyloan, a microcredit crowdfunding platform and one of the founders of Financement Participatif France (FPF). She was in charge of Institutional Relations and then, director of the association Babyloan networks, created in order to take over a pedagogical project.
In parallel, she remains invested in FPF’s association, being general secretary and treasurer. In December 2014, she become a permanent employee of FPF as General Coordinator. FPF is the French professional crowdfunding association. It gathered 150 members, including 70 crowdfunding platforms (donation, reward-based, crowdlending or crowdequity).
Commercial director Icon
George is a software analyst and project manager in a wide variety of software business applications.
He is focused on designing and implementing IT products and solutions to various business sectors and managing high performance teams.
He participates in ICON Platforms as commercial manager.
George studied econometrics, computer science and management of technology and entrepreneurship strategy.
Managing director Crofun BVBA
Luc Colebunders worked in the past in the private banking services in the past by KBC Bank. Because of his belief in the independent financial services, he switched to asset manager NLM Investment Services and in 2005 he integrated the asset manager NLM Investment Services into the activity of the Antwerp asset manager Merit Capital. In 2007 he asked the status of bank broker, which he also received at the end of 2007. Active Capital became the first Flemish licensed bank broker.
As a licensed bank broker in Belgium, Active Capital offers to entrepreneurs, independent financial investment solutions worldwide
His passion for new financial services, new financial technologies and innovations brings him in 2007 for the first time in contact with crowdfunding and in 2013, he created together with a number of business partners CroFun, a crowdfunding platform that offers all types of crowdfunding forms.
Head of Regulatory Osborne Clarke
Johannes de Jong is head of Osborne Clarke Amsterdam’s Financial Regulatory practice. He has over 8 years’ experience in financial regulation as a lawyer in private practice and immediately before joining OC as a Senior Supervisor and Legal Counsel with the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM).
His expertise ranges from the regulatory regime for funds and their managers, the payments industry including infrastructure, market abuse, the markets in financial instruments, virtual currencies and loan and equity-based crowdfunding.
Co-founder of Danish Crowdsourcing
After seven interesting years as a real estate broker my "on-the-side" masters studies made me develop a strong passion towards business development and how to optimize firm innovation through open innovation processes and in particular crowdsourcing. My passion made me co-found the association Danish Crowdsourcing with the goal to enhance the use and knowledge of crowdsourcing methods in Denmark through partnerships, events and research.
CEO at Crowdinvest ApS
Founder 10xCrowds.com
Marko Hrelja is the Founder of 10xCrowds.com. 10xCrowds looks at crowd movement using video — focusing on applications in retail, entertainment, queuing, and automotive. Working out of California, Toronto and London. Prior to 10xCrowds, Marko worked on building the angel capital community in the US and Canada. He helped start one of the largest startup incubators in Canada. His work in academia published articles on entrepreneurship with research being presented internationally. He has worked in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia. He is a graduate of Draper University in Silicon Valley.
Italian Financial Market Supervisory Authority
Davide´s main experience in the field has been to participate in the drafting process of the first regulation in Europe (and the first regulation in the world) on equity crowdfunding (2013). The outcome of the regulation has been monitored for two years and this has led to the revision of the text (2016). The evaluation process we carried out has become a case and, with my colleagues, I have published a discussion paper which I attach to this e-mail. Unfortunately it is in Italian, but I hope to publish soon something in English to spread the content. Download his latest discussion paper here
Danske Bank
Mr. Aki Kallio currently works as a Managing Compliance Officer in Corporates & Institutions unit of Danske Bank A/S Helsinki Branch. He is in charge of managing and supervising a compliance team responsible for conducting control and monitoring activities with regard to wide range of business units operating under the umbrella of Corporates & Institutions as well as providing legal advice in various issues falling into the scope of Financial Markets.
Previously Mr. Kallio worked as a Ministerial Adviser in the Financial Markets Department of the Ministry of Finance of Finland, where his main responsibility area consisted of various assignments relating to divergent legislative and other actions of Financial Markets Department especially in the field of capital and bond markets. In particular, Mr. Kallio worked with issues falling under the scope of European Commission’s Capital Markets Union and was in charge of assessing and developing both Finnish bond market (acting as a head secretary of the Finnish Bond Market expert group) as well as alternative finance market (responsible for drafting the Finnish Crowdfunding Act and acting as a co-head of the Financial Market Department’s Fintech -expert group). In addition, Mr. Kallio has acted, among others, as a Finnish representative of the Commission’s informal expert group European Crowdfunding Stakeholder Forum (ECSF) which assisted the Commission in developing EU-wide policies for crowdfunding and alternative finance.
Professor for Marketing and Innovation at the University of Salzburg
Katja is Professor for Marketing and Innovation at the University of Salzburg and a research fellow of the Crowd Innovation Lab and NASA Tournament Lab at the Harvard University. Her research topics are anchored in the fields of marketing and innovation. She is interested in incentive schemes and consumer interaction behavior in online communities to generate insights for innovation activities that resolves around customers and their needs. Further she investigated user-generated content in the context of novel marketing strategies. Her research has been published in leading academic journals such as Journal of Interactive Marketing, Long Range Planning, Journal of Management Information Systems or Creativity and Innovation Management and honored with rewards. Together with her co-authors she received the Tudor Rickards and Susan Moger Best Paper Award 2011 in the Journal Creativity and Innovation Management, the Best Paper Award 2015 in the Journal of Interactive Marketing and the Harvard Business School Case with the topic “Open Innovation at Siemens” was honored with the Case Centre Awards and Competitions in 2015. .
Member Growth at Nova
Entrepreneurial architect and engineer with a passion for designing fully scalable communities that empower people globally. Currently based in Stockholm, Director of Product and Member Growth at the global top talent network Nova and in charge of building their Product, Community and Growth organization from scratch.
A key individual in creating the Swedish startup community through bringing what today is the world's largest community for entrepreneurs - Startup Grind - to Sweden and co-founding Gothenburg Startup Hack. Big fan of values-based leadership and a Co-Founder of the student platform World Values Day. Champion of tech startups Welcome! and JustArrived, built to connect refugees with locals and give them a chance to enter the Swedish labor market.
Deputy Head of Innovation Financing Unit Fraunhofer
Jens Rockel holds a Diplom-Volkswirt economics degree and has worked at the Leipzig Fraunhofer Center since 2009. He has assisted the Knowledge and Technology Transfer Division as a research associate since January 2012; he is also the acting deputy head of the Innovation Financing Unit. He studied economics with a focus on public finance and banking at Leipzig University, graduating in 2011. Alongside his research and the practical application oriented work in his field of expertise, he was also a member of the team working on the Fraunhofer IMW's international innovation transfer project PRESOURCE, which was aimed at improving the financial and institutional framework conditions for the cross-border transfer of environment and sustainability related innovations.
He currently manages and coordinates the DLR matching concept project, which is aimed at developing a new instrument for the early involvement of venture capital providers into extra-university research institution innovation processes. Due to his banking background and his work for the Technologiegründerfonds Sachsen (TGFS) investment team, Jens Rockel can also look back over several years of professional experience in the area of innovation financing and innovation strategy evaluation.
Partner Osborne Clarke Italy
Umberto has almost 20 year experience in working with international law firms. He gained a significant expertise in assisting clients in corporate transactions, including cross border M&A, private Equity, capital market transactions, financial services, banking and debts restructuring.
Founder & CEO All Street
Emma combines a powerful mix of entrepreneurial, investment and corporate banking experience and is recognized as a leading independent thinker on the future of financial services.
Her initiative All Street reinvents investment information for the cognitive age. To that end, she created All Street dedicated to helping people and institutions to invest in private market and small cap companies.
Partner Osborne Clarke
Michael Lewis specialises in financial services regulation with a particular focus on banks and investment firms. He advises on new business and product launches, the application of UK and EU financial services legislation and the regulatory aspects of acquisitions and disposals in the financial sector.
Michael has worked at HM Treasury as a policy adviser to Ministers on the statutory instruments under the Financial Services and Markets Act. He has also been involved in a number of sector committees commenting on draft pan-European Directives in the financial services area.
Counsel at BBH Prague
Zdenek. Hustak is the chairman of the Ethical Committee of the Czech Capital Market Association and a member of the Board of the Institute for Financial Markets at Masaryk University, Brno. He was a member of EBA stakeholders group and currently is a member of the EIOPA stakeholders group and member of the Appellate committee of the Czech National Bank.
Zdenek Hustak reads the financial market law at the Prague University of Economics and is a counsel at BBH law firm in Prague. His focus is financial markets, banking, insurance, regulation and corporate governance agenda. He has an extensive experience in the area of financial markets regulation and supervision.
During the period of 2003 to 2006, Mr. Husták was a member of the Presidium of the Czech Securities Commission responsible for the supervision of investment services, markets and clearing and settlement systems. Subsequently, he was an adviser to the Czech Ministry of Finance responsible for the MiFID transposition and on retail financial product distribution. During the Czech presidency to the EU Council (2009) he chaired EU Council working groups on the Regulation of rating agencies and on the AIFMD. He also advised the Ministry on drafting legislation for pension savings and supplementary retirement savings funds (2011). Currently is a member of the working group on financial innovation.
Chairman and founder at APPEES
DG Enterprise and Industry European Commission
Partner Osborne Clarke Law Experts
Tanja advises national and international companies and banks on capital measures, acquisitions and real estate financing. A focus is providing legal advice on matters relating to banking supervisory law - particularly in relation to payment transactions - and other supervisory law for payment service providers and industrial companies. Tanja also specialises on structuring of capital/alternative investments, in particular (closed-end) investment funds and participation rights.
Founder PolakPotrafi.pl
CEO and Founder of Bolsa Social
Jose like companies and investors that want to do good when doing business because they share social and environmental values. I believe in the great economic and social potential of the social enterprises and impact investment.
After 12 years working on EU financial services policy, I found out that I am a social entrepreneur trapped in the body of an EU official, so I left the EU to set up Bolsa Social in Madrid, together with a group of talented and committed professionals. In Bolsa Social I can apply the experience I gained at the Spanish Treasury (Madrid), the European Commission (Brussels) and the European Securities and Markets Authority (París).
Professor University of Vienna
As a specialist for commercial, constitutional and European Law and a tech enthusiast, I have been interested the blockchain concept since its early days. The biggest challenge here is to create a legal framework which gives this innovative technology the opportunity to develop its potential. To enhance that process I created an interdiciplinary cooperation platform (http://smartblockchain.at) which aims at creating solutions that will work not only in Austria, but on a European Level.
VP Sales Mangopay
Responsible of the strategy & partnerships with the mid-market & TOP100 European e-merchants for the affiliation program of leetchi.com (www.leetchi-partners.com) with installment of Leetchi viral payment solutions to allow our 1,5M users spending their pools on the partners' websites.
Managing Director of Crowdpolicy and SocialBank
Michael (@psalidas) has a strong presence in the business world, serving for more than 15 years in high and C-Level positions both in the private and public sector. He is currently the co-founder and Managing Director of Crowdpolicy (www.crowdpolicy.com), which specializes in the design, development and implementation of CrowdSourcing and CrowdFunding initiatives and platforms, bridging the gap between organizations and the crowd and the co-founder and Managing Director of SocialBank, which specializes in the Financial Technologies Industry for Social and Development Banking.
Founder of Brodoto
The goal of Marko´s initiatives is to implement and promote all types of crowdfunding in Croatia as a mean of funding of start-up or socially responsible and non-profit projects and help their entrepreneurs, developers or even non-profit organizations to kickstart and promote their ideas.
CEO & Co-founder Invesdor
With more than 15 years of experience working in finance, banking and building businesses, Lasse brings solid financial and capital raising experience to Invesdor.
Beginning his career as an investment banker in London (Merrill Lynch), Lasse was involved in various capital raising initiatives, stock exchange listings and company mergers and acquisitions. From Merrill Lynch, Lasse moved on to became a partner in Icecapital Securities (Helsinki) specialising in capital raising and acquisition projects. After eight years in investment banking, Lasse moved to KONE Corporation, where he was responsible for company acquisitions and alliances. Recently Lasse was part of Consti Groups' management group, with responsibility for acquisitions, finance and business development.
Lasse has a BSc from the Cass Business School (City University, London) and an Executive MBA from Helsinki School of Economics.
Managing director of PPL
Co-founder and managing director of PPL (www.ppl.com.pt), the reward-based crowdfunding platform of reference in Portugal. Responsible for further promoting the crowdfunding concept in the country with traditional and social media, extending PPL's reach and community engagement and business development. Additionally, he teaches the GMAT quantitative preparation course at Católica-Lisbon University.
Project Leader Nordic Crowdfunding Alliance
Dr. Rotem Shneor is an associate professor at the University of Agder (UiA) School of Business and Law in Norway. He is the academic director of the university’s Center of Entrepreneurship, and currently serving as the head of the Nordic Crowdfunding Alliance. The alliance he is leading is comprised of five crowdfunding platforms and two stakeholders in the Nordic crowdfunding scene, which are dedicated to promotion of a crowdfunding-friendly Nordic region through collaborative efforts. His own expertise are in a variety of issues related to Entrepreneurship, Crowdfunding, as well as International Strategy and Marketing. He has a long track record of teaching, researching and supporting entrepreneurship. Thus far, he has published in various academic journals, trade magazines and has contributed a number of chapters to research-focused edited books. Finally, he is a popular speaker and commentator on issues related to crowdfunding in his region.
Executive Manager in SAPIE
Petra Dzurovčinová was born and bred as an entrepreneur, whose passion lies in finding smart solutions to existing problems. Petra is the executive manager at the Slovak Alliance for the Internet Economy (SAPIE). Our goal is to improve the internet economy in Slovakia and create a knowledge-based sustainable economy. The founding members are Google, ESET and Neulogy.
Associate at SORAINEN
Artūras Asakavičius is a member of SORAINEN Financial Services & Insurance team and he is co-heading SORAINEN Vilnius start-up practice group. Artūras specializes in banking, financial services and regulation, capital market and venture capital transactions as well as insurance law matters. Artūras is well known for crowdfunding, peer-to-peer lending, payment and e-money matters in Lithuania. He is constantly shaping regulation on crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending in Lithuania. Artūras is also deeply involved in development of fintech industry and regulation in the country.
Founder of Fundwise and Hooandja
Founder of Hooandja, CEE region's first non-profit crowdfunding platform with over EUR 1100K raised for projects. Over a decade of experience leading software and web development projects, including initiatives such as Arenguidee.ee and Rahvakogu.ee.
Member of the board at the Estonian Fund for Nature. Co-founder of the Let's Do It! World initiative that coordinated 50,000 people to clean up to 10,000 tons of illegal waste in a day. By 2014 more than 10 million people have participated in Let’s Do It! cleanup actions in 100+ countries.
Currently developing Fundwise the equity crowdfunding platform in the region - launched in August 2015.
Founder of lendahand
Peter Heijen worked in the financial industry for about 8 years before he started crowdfunding platform Lendahand. Peter believes that most important world problems can be solved by directing private investment capital into businesses around the world that tackle these problems.
This ranges from alleviating poverty, to food security to clean energy solutions. Via the crowdfunding platform Peter founded in 2014, approx. 18 million euro was invested in projects in Asia, Africa and South America.
Co-Founder and CEO at CoFunder
Expert for predictive CrowdSourcing
Thomas C. Peisl is full Professor for strategy at Munich University of Applied Sciences and Visiting Professor at Edinburgh Napier University and the University of South Wales. In this role, his applied research is focused on International Management and Crowd-sourced Innovation. Dr. Peisl has more than ten years experience as a professional manager in corporate strategy and mergers & acquisitions with Siemens AG and General Electric. He serves on the Board of Directors as non-executive member in software and executive search businesses. He is a frequent speaker at professional conferences, and has consulting and research experience with a number of international organizations, and is active in executive education.
Founder #1millionstartups
Selma Prodanovic is one of the most influential business creators and startup developers in Europe and a celebrated international keynote speaker. A passionate entrepreneur and philanthropist, she is also known as Startup-Grande-Dame and Business Angelina. With her business developer Brainswork she supported over 300 startups, corporates, and investors. She is co-founder and board member of the Austrian Angel Investors Association and board member of EBAN (European Trade Association for Business Angels, Seed Funds and Early Stage Market Players). She invests mostly in the development of entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Digital Business Unit Fintech
Andreas Pages has been educated in Germany and the UK combined with several years of working experience in the field of C-level consulting advisory services, Business development and IT Strategy Consulting across a variety of industries. Currently focusing extensively on FinTech and Peer-to-Peer Finance. Achiever, Adaptability Expertise: Crowdfunding | + P2P Finance | +FinTech | + CxO advisory | + Global account management | + Strategy | + Operations manager | + Project portfolio management | + Project management | + Subject matter expert
Chairman Danish Crowdsourcing
Driving innovation and creating mutual value through stakeholder engagement. VIA University College | Aarhus University | The LEGO Group | Bang & Olufsen | DR - The Danish Broadcasting Corporation | CBS – Copenhagen Business School
Co-Founder+CEO of Raizers
Maxime Pallain is board member of the swiss crowfunding association and Co-Founder of Raizers.
Raizers is an online investment platform that allows every person or company to build and follow its own portfolio through a full catalogue of European SMEs, selected by our analysts team. Buying shares or lending in real economy becomes direct, simple and secure.
President Foresight Europe Network FEN
Mr. Blaž Golob, Director of GFS (GoForeSight) Institute & President of Foresight Europe Network FEN, He is a CEO and founding partner of the SmartIScity Ltd. company. According to the Silicon Valley CIO Review magazine (April 2016) SmartIScity Ltd. was selected between 20 most promising Smart City solution providers in 2016. He is an author of Smart City Platform knowledge concept design that has an impact on smart city solutions developments in the region of South East Europe. He is a member of the European Commission EU Strategic Policy Forum on Digital Entrepreneurship and SFRI Strategic Foresight for Research & Innovation of the EU. He is a Chairman of Ljubljana Forum on Future of Cities and Co-Chairman of Zagreb forum on Creative cities.
Mr. Golob is an expert for foresight digital transformation and governance. His expertise also includes smart cities development, EU affairs, digital economy and law. He co-operates with EU Institutions, different governments and city authorities, civil society and private companies. He graduated at University of Ljubljana and specialized on European Law at Cambridge University.
Mr. Golob was a founding director of a unique public-private partnership education & training institution CeGD Center for eGovernance Development for South East Europe inaugurated by Bill Gates and Angela Merkel at Berlin leadership forum during the Slovenian EU Presidency in 2008. Together with his team he invented CeGD unique eGovernance model of 7 ePillars that was shared by 350 top experts/partners worldwide. CeGD influenced information society development in 87 different countries with the inclusion of 2.800 customers/partners. CeGD accomplished its mission in September 2014.
Founder and CEO Adrifund
Matej studied Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana. He completed my studies in November 2015 when I graduated with honors and successfully defended my Master Thesis on crowdfunding and its legal regulation in the USA and Slovenia. My Master thesis became the foundation of the start-up company I founded in January 2016 – Adrifund. Adrifund is the first (and still the only one) Slovenian rewards-based crowdfunding platform. So far 23 projects have successfully raised more than 120.000,00 EUR since March 2016. Overall success rate of Adrifund’s projects is 62 %. Businesswise I partnered up with Icelandic crowdfunding platform Karolina fund.
Matej is amongst one of the few and biggest crowdfunding experts in Slovenia and the first person who introduced crowdfunding to Slovenia in a local aspect. The latter was my intention from the start – make crowdfunding available to as many people as possible with a local oriented platform so various projects can gain funding and become a reality.
Chairman of the Board at Lithuanian Crowdfunding
Vytautas Senavicius is the Chairman of the Board at Lithuanian P2P Lending and Crowdfunding Association and partner of law firm TVINS. Vytautas specialises in financial services regulation, venture capital and real estate.
As the Chairman of the Board at Lithuanian P2P Lending and Crowdfunding Association Vytautas seeks to cooperate with public institutions in order to create competitive regulation in Lithuania. He also constantly advises the clients on collective investment schemes in Lithuania and start-up development issues. During his professional career, Vytautas has been working in Ministry of Finance, co-chairing in negotiations with the European Parliament and in the Council of the EU during Lithuanian Presidency.
