Speakers

Catherine is a partner in McKinsey's London office and a leader in McKinsey's Pharmaceutical and Medical Products practice. 

She focuses on delivering large scale digital and analytics enabled transformations. Her recent work includes global, cross business unit, customer experience and go-to-market model transformations. She works closely with clients to build the capabilities and change programmes to enable lasting change and performance improvements. 

Catherine holds an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and a BA in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge.

Hani Abouhalka is the Company Group Chairman for Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Medical Devices Companies, the world's largest and most comprehensive medical technology business. He is responsible for the company's Medical Device businesses in Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA), which includes surgical technology, orthopaedics, cardiovascular and specialty solutions directed at delivering clinical and economic value to healthcare systems.

A purpose-driven and global leader, Hani brings with him an outstanding 20-year record of driving transformational growth across EMEA's developed and emerging markets, building high-performing teams and championing Johnson & Johnson values.

Throughout his career, Hani has held several leadership roles of increasing responsibility across multiple disciplines (business and strategy development, health economics, operations, and management roles), businesses (Medical Devices, Ethicon, Biosurgery, and Cordis) and geographies, from the US to Lebanon and the UAE to the Benelux region and the UK. Before being appointed to his current role in December 2018, Hani served as Vice President, Medical Devices Strategy Development & Global Operations, focused on advancing the process and execution of the global business strategy, improving portfolio value and implementing critical capabilities.

Known for putting the needs of patients first, Hani is passionate about strengthening Johnson & Johnson's footprint in key markets and advancing diverse talent across the enterprise. He is also committed to shaping sustainable solutions that positively impact the health of millions of people.

Hani is the executive sponsor of the Women's Leadership & Inclusion employee resource group in EMEA, which supports the advancement of gender equality at J&J. He also serves as Board Member of the Johnson & Johnson Foundation, a registered charity responsible for managing J&J's Global Community Impact programs and activities across EMEA.

Hani holds a Bachelor's degree in Biology from Arizona State University and a Master's degree in International Business from Thunderbird, The Garvin School of International Management.

Greg Ahlberg is Senior Vice President, Core Laboratory Diagnostics, Commercial Operations. He was appoiinted to his role in October 2020.

Prior to assuming his current position, Greg served as Vice President, General Manager Commercial Operations EMEA.

Greg joined Abbott in 1988 in the Financial Professional Development Program. Greg has served this business across varying roles in finance. manufaturing, and commercial operations throughout his Abbott career, contributing to our company's success in the U.S., Latin Amercian and Asia.

Greg earned a B. Sc. in Finance from Indiana University and an M.B.A. from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

Dr. Bassil Akra is the CEO and co-owner of QUNIQUE GmbH, a medical device and in-vitro diagnostic consultancy company, located in Germany and Switzerland. He spent the last decade as a subject matter expert at the biggest notified body in Europe and represented locally and the globally the notified body association in the various European discussion. Dr. Akra was the Vice President for strategic business development at the Global Medical Health Services of TÜV SÜD Product Service GmbH in Germany. He has long experience in leadership, business management, research, development, quality management and regulatory approval of medical devices, combination devices and ATMP products. Dr. Akra played an essential role during the implementation of the medical device regulation (MDR 2017/745) in Europe and was involved in the drafting of the several European guidance documents (e.g. MEDDEV, MDCG, etc.). He spent the last years of his career at TÜV SÜD training and educating the various stakeholders on the EU Legislations (e.g. MDD/AIMDD, MDR and IVDR) and their impact on the EU healthcare system.

Executive Vice President for Medical Devices Sector ,Saudi FDA August 2018 till present
Chair Asian Harmonization working party (GHWP).
A seasoned management executive and astute medical professional, offering 20+ years of excellence in hospital management, comprehensive regulatory compliance, and medical technology. Proffering expert advice and detailed clinical engineering strategies for high-end projects, including protocol development, study design, regulatory strategy, and submission and study execution strategies.
Recognized for driving medical device sectoral change and innovation  
 
Ali held a Bs degree in Biomedical Engineering and  MBA degree in information technology management. University of Leicester, UK

Björn is a partner in our London office. He works with pharmaceutical and biotech companies, health systems, payors and providers on cancer-related topics. He leads the McKinsey Cancer Center globally and is also a leader in our Pharmaceuticals & Medical Products Practice in Europe. With a PhD and post-doctoral training in molecular oncology, he is a respected peer of both senior executives and research scientists.

Björn's work covers the whole value chain from early discovery strategies through clinical development to commercialization and reimbursement for cancer medicines. In addition, he supports health systems leaders and manufacturers in defining "adequate outcome" approaches to cancer treatment and developing innovative collaborations to serve patients' needs.

Dr Charles Alessi is a globally recognized and trusted leader in health care. He brings to HIMSS a wealth of experience, particularly around health systems and the interface between healthcare, social care and the personalization of wellness. He is a physician in London, with more than 35 years of experience in all aspects of clinical practice in the UK National Health Service. Most recently, he served as the Chairman of the National Association of Primary Care, part of the NHS confederation, where he was at the heart of the recent health and social care reforms.
He is also the Senior Advisor to Public Health England, a position leading thought leadership around productive healthy ageing including dementia, targeting risk reduction. Furthermore, he fulfils key roles in PHE around digital interventions, particularly those that involve behavioral change. Other responsibilites include air quality and antibiotic prescribing. He forms part of the World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Panel that is formulating new guidelines around risk reduction in dementia globally and also leads thought leadership around productive healthy aging. He has extensive experience in military medicine, being a past Medical Director and Director of Clinical Governance for the British forces in Germany and was recently appointed to serve on the Reference Committee tasked with renewing military medicine in the United Kingdom.
He holds a variety of international academic positions both in Europe and the Americas and has published widely in the media and journals. He is an Adjunct Research professor in Clinical Neurosciences at the Schulich School of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario, Canada and Visiting Scholar at the Odette School of business in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. He continues to advise major corporations and national governments around health and care reform, particularly where systemic reform and digital interventions are being considered.
 

Anna-Eva Ampelas is Head of Unit for Medical Devices and Health Technology Assessment in Unit B6 in DG SANTE, European Commission. In this capacity, she is managing files on medical devices, including in vitro diagnostic medical devices, and Health Technology Assessments (HTA). She has almost fifteen years of experience working on health policy and legislation in the European Commission and five years in managerial positions in the Commission. Before taking over the Unit on Medical Devices, Anna-Eva was heading units dealing with pharmaceuticals, substances of human origin, tobacco control and global health.  She was Health Counsellor at the Permanent Representation of Sweden 2002-2006 before joining the European Commission. Anna-Eva has a Master of Laws from Uppsala University

Lieven Annemans is Senior Full Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and at Ghent University, Belgium, and is specialized in the economics of health and wellbeing. He conducts research related to the economics of health promotion, health technology assessment for medicines and medtech solutions, epidemiological models, financial incentives to stimulate integrated care, and the factors that can improve overall well-being. He provides lectures, trainings and advice regarding health economics, Health Technology Assessment and the economics of Wellbeing. He is Past-President of ISPOR (International Society of PharmacoEconomics and Outcomes Research) was advisor to the Belgian Minister of Health, as well as chairman of the Flemish health council. He received twice the Francqui Chair, a Belgian award for academic excellence. He is author or co-author of > 300 papers in peer-reviewed journals and published four books on health economics, among which "health economics for non-economists" (Pelckmans Pro, 2018).

Ingrid Baele, a Belgian national, joined Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven, The Netherlands in 1987. She has a background in physics from the University of Antwerp, Belgium.
In March 1990, she joined Philips Intellectual Property & Standards (IP&S), a worldwide organization that handles all IP matters for Royal Philips. She served in several roles such as patent attorney, IP Strategy & Portfolio Management, Process & Project Management and Head of IP Operations. She has a broad interest in all types of IP, including IP policy related items.
In September 2020, she joined Deloitte Belgium as Director IP Advisory for expanding IP Services provided by Deloitte.
She is member of the ICC IP Commission since 2002, in which she acts as chair since 2018. She also chaired the ICC IP Roadmap task force for the 2014 and 2017 editions.
 

Paulinka Bandel is a graduate in economics with over 20  years experience in B2B marketing, most recently working in the healthcare industry as Head of Marketing at the medical equipment company Draeger. In this role she is responsible for the Go to Market strategy and the market implementation of new medical device interoperability solutions that Draeger is developing together with partners. Previously, Paulinka was based in Asia where she was responsible for the Marketing department of the Draeger Greater China organisation. Before Paulinka joined Draeger, she was based in the UK heading up the global marketing of the cable assembly company Volex Group plc. A Dutch national, she started her professional career in Marketing Communications at a distributor of IT systems called Landis NV, now Westcon-Comstor, based in the Netherlands.

Birgit Bauer, Social Media & Digital Health Expert, Journalist, Speaker and Analyst and Patient Expert

Birgit is German and works with a Business Partner in the company, the Manufaktur für Antworten UG (www.manufaktur-fuer-antworten.de) . Birgit works as Social Media and Digital Health Expert, Journalist and Speaker with a more than 16 years' experience and a specialisation in Healthcare, developing Workshops and Talks about the use of Social Media for Target Groups e.g. Patients, Patient Organisation, NPO, Industry and BioTech Companies, Start-Ups and governmental institutions. In her role as Consultant, she designs and realize Social Media - and Communication Strategies for different Businesses or Patient Projects and brings the Ideas and Strategies into the reality. With a team Birgit also designs and performs Feasibility Studies. 

Birgit aka @Birgitpower on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Birgitpower) is one of the most influential Blogger about Multiple Sclerosis and Healthcare in Germany and Europe. She started her Blog "Fast normal! Mein Leben mit MS" - " Almost normal - My Life with MS" http://leben-arbeiten-mit-multiple-sklerose.blogspot.de/    in 2007. 

Birgit is a so-called Patient Expert and Eupati Fellow. She supports the European Multiple Sclerosis Platform voluntary, is chair of the Patient Advisory Group of the European Society of Radiology, had a mandate from 2017 to 2019 as Co-lead (PCWP = Patient and Consumer Working Party) of the Digital Media & Health Topic Group at the European Medicines Agency, is a member of the Editorial Board of the "Data Saves Lives" Initiative and is involved in different Advisory Boards, Committees and Focus Groups. She is a Co-Author of different scientific Whitepapers and Publications around the theme "Patient - Doctor Communication".

Birgit about Digital Health Solutions: 

"Digital Health Solutions can help people living with chronic conditions in different ways. There are a lot of benefits for patients in the digital world to make lives easier. And we have to find the best ways how to use those tools in a meaningful way."

Thierry was appointed Chief Executive Officer of QIAGEN in 2019, having joined the organization in 2015 where he has been leading QIAGEN's growing presence in Molecular Diagnostics, the application of Sample to Insight solutions for molecular testing in human healthcare.

He previously worked at bioMérieux for 15 years in roles of increasing responsibility, most recently as Corporate Vice President, Global Commercial Operations, Investor Relations and the Greater China Region.

A graduate of Sciences Po (Paris), the College of Europe, London School of Economics, and Harvard Business School, Thierry is also a member of French Foreign Trade Advisors.

Mr Bernasconi has 40 years’ experience in the world of pharmaceuticals, medical technology and trade association leadership. He has worked in senior leadership position in companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Schering Plough (now Merck), and Medtronic. He has exercised his leadership in various geographical areas around the world, including, the US, Europe (France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland), Turkey, the Middle East and Africa.

Throughout his career he has been involved in trade association activities and responsibilities both for the pharmaceutical industry and the MedTech Industry. Prior to become the CEO of Eucomed and EDMA and then MedTech Europe, he had been elected President of APIDIM (The French Association for the Promotion of Innovation in Medical Devices), and Vice President and Treasurer of SNITEM (French Medical Technology Industry Association).

Odile was appointed VP of Sleep & Respiratory Care EMEA Marketing at ResMed in July 2020. Before that, she was VP of Respiratory Care EMEA Marketing for 4 years, where she was responsible for the successful launch of AirView for Ventilation, a breakthrough telemonitoring solution for patients on long term ventilation at home.  Odile is passionate about biomedical technologies, healthcare transformation and digitalisation, and their impact on the management of chronic respiratory diseases. She has more than 20 year’s experience in the medtech industry and holds a Master of Science in Biomedical Technologies from Compiegne University of Technology (UTC).

Peter advises organizations on compliance with federal, state, and international privacy laws. He works with clients to identify privacy risks and develop data management strategies. Peter is considered a leading authority on the application of privacy and data protection laws to pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Peter helps manage the International Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Privacy Consortium (IPMPC) and has authored dozens of IPMPC responses to public consultations on new legislative and regulatory privacy proposals at the US federal and state levels, as well as in Europe and around the globe. Peter’s clients include some of the world’s largest life sciences companies, as well as startup biotech and medical technology companies. He holds CIPP-E and CIPP-US certifications from the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).

Mark Bloemendaal (CEO) Mark holds a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering (TU Delft) where he specialised in digital signal processing. His business administration skills were developed via an MBA from the British Open University. Eight years ago, he made a professional career switch towards the healthcare industry supported by a (partly) MBA in Healthcare Management at Erasmus University Rotterdam and a (Cum Laude) Minor 'Medicine for Engineers' from Erasmus MC/Leiden MC. In 2019 he received a certificate from Oxford/Said University in the area of Artificial Intelligence and completed several other AI courses. Mark has more than 25 years of experience in translating high-tech concepts into start-up companies or ventures. He is strong in the development of new technical concepts into concrete product-market combinations, forging and managing technical teams and partnerships, attracting financing and opening targeted markets. Connects technology, specialists, commerce, capital and the market. Mark has 3 areas of expertise: technology, strategic & commercial management and change management (healthcare implementation). The market areas in which he has worked are healthcare, security and the chip industry. Mark has co-founded LivAssured and developed NightWatch (an epilepsy detection device) from TRL3 up to CE certification and European market introduction.

Gerhard Bothma is, currently, the Global Director for Health Economics and Governmental Affairs for Mölnlycke Healthcare in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Gerhard Bothma joined Mölnycke in May 2019.  He started his career in Health Economics, Reimbursement and Market Access in South Africa with Johnson & Johnson.  Over the course of 15 years, he held similar positions for Johnson & Johnson and Baxter in The Middle East, Egypt & Turkey and EMEA.
Gerhard Bothma holds an International Masters in Health Economics and Pharmacoeconomics, Post Graduate Diploma in Project Management, B.Sc (Hon) in Enzymology and B.Sc in Biochemistry.

Juliet has been Chief Executive of the Stroke Association since June 2016. The Stroke Association is the UK's leading stroke charity promoting life after stroke. With a turnover of £35m per year and a staff team of 800, the organisation's activities [object Window] from funding stroke research, to providing services to stroke survivors and their families, influencing and campaigning for change, and educating and working to prevent strokes. There are 1.2 million stroke survivors in the UK, yet stroke still remains the fourth single largest cause of death in the UK and second in the world.

Juliet co-chairs the Stroke Delivery Programme Board with NHS England and is a member of the NHS Assembly.  She is a World Stroke Organisation Board member and Fellow.  She was recently awarded the Order of the British Empire Medal (OBE) in the Queen's 2020 New Year's Honours list.

Prior to joining the Stroke Association, Juliet was at Macmillan Cancer Support for 16 years in a range of roles covering strategy, policy, research and HR. From 2011 - 2015 she was Executive Director of Services and Influencing with a staff team of 800 and a budget of £150m.  She oversaw a programme of award-winning innovations and service design across the UK, and secured important government commitments to improve patient experience and post-treatment support through the 2015 Cancer Strategy for England.
 
Prior to Macmillan, Juliet worked at the British Red Cross in strategy and service evaluation, the Community Development Foundation in fundraising, and a political consultancy. She was a trustee of the Long-Term Conditions Alliance and chaired the Cancer Patient Experience Board for University College London Hospital (UCLH) from 2011 - 2014.

Juliet has a degree in Modern Languages in Oxford and a postgraduate diploma in management. She ran the London Marathon for the Stroke Association in April 2019.
 

Natale Bova is Quality Assurance & Regulatory Affairs Director at Werfen, a worldwide leader in in vitro diagnostics (IVD) in the specialties of Hemostasis, Acute Care Diagnostics and Autoimmunity.  He has 25 years of experience in the IVD sector, both in the regulatory area and in the business management with responsibility over EMEA, LATAM and SEA territories.
Natale is the current chairman of IVD Regulatory Forum at Confindustria Dispositivi Medici, the Italian Association of Medical Device Industry. He has also been representing Werfen at Medtech Europe IVD Regulatory Affairs Committee in the past 15 years.

Ralph leads McKinsey Implementation for marketing and sales in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), and our customer-experience (CX) solutions work in EMEA. His deep expertise in commercial transformation and customer experience includes end-to-end change programs from concept to full implementation, CX measurement systems, and CX software. His experience in designing superior customer-loyalty programs spans airlines, car-rental companies, and retail banks. Ralph currently focuses on serving contract-based industries, such as insurance and banking, in conjunction with his work in other industries.

Examples of Ralph's recent client projects include the following:

• conducting a full customer-experience transformation for a bank, incorporating zero-based customer journey and process redesign, including digitization
• building the e-commerce business and digital business unit for a fashion company, applying design thinking and agile ways of working (including full implementation)
• supporting an insurance company to become more customer focused by introducing a customer-experience measurement system, customer journeys for cross-functional collaboration, and implementing improvement actions
• creating the group digital strategy for an insurance company, including customer-journey digitization, advanced analytics in pricing, and claims management
• developing new customer loyalty programs for a European retail bank, global car rental company, major global airline, South American retailer, and other clients

Alexandre Ceccaldi, PhD, is the General Secretary of the European Technology Platform on Nanomedicine (ETPN), the think tank of medical applications of nanotechnologies in Europe, and coordinator of the H2020 NOBEL Project, which acts for the convergence of all emerging medical technologies from nanotechnologies to digital health. In this framework, he will present the Prize ceremony of the HealthTech Award, which will be hosted on April 20^th, during the MedTech Forum 2021.

Alexandre Ceccaldi holds a PhD in biology from the University Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris, and an engineering degree from Agro ParisTech, with experience in anticancer strategies, industrial management and innovative design. Previously, he has managed INGESTEM, the first French national public consortium entirely dedicated to R&D on induced pluripotent stem cells and their medical applications. Since 2015, he manages the secretariat of the ETPN in Paris, and provides strategic and operational support to a community of more than 150 member organizations of the European nanomedicine ecosystem, in coordination with the Board of Directors of the platform. More recently, he’s been involved in the design and establishment of the HealthTech4EU Alliance, a long lasting platform born from the NOBEL Project, which will unite for the first time seven European Technology Organizations with applications in healthcare.

He has a passion for innovation in healthcare, not for the sake of it, but because it can really change the life of millions of patients every year.

From the beginning, Karin's career and academic interests have focused on enabling patient access to innovative medicines and technologies. This has been shaped by the desire to learn more about how funding and access for patients is created, and how value to the healthcare system is provided, through healthcare innovation. Karin has over 20 years' pharmaceutical and medical device industry experience. 

Karin holds a Bachelor of Arts in Human Sciences from the University of Oxford, and a Master of Science in International Health Policy, Health Economics and Health Promotion from London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).  Karin has a strong background in health economic analyses and evidence generation strategies and has led and published a wide range of Health Economic and Outcomes Research studies including economic models, mixed treatment comparisons, observational studies and HTA methodologies. She is a visiting researcher at the LSE.

Karin has lived in Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and is currently living in Belgium with her family.

Richard is currently the Head of Market Access & Pricing at Becton Dickinson (BD) EMEA, for the Diabetes Care franchise. He is also vice-chair of the MedTech Europe ‘Evidence & Payers’ Working Group, and a core contributor to the MedTech Europe EU Value based Procurement Working group. Richard is also the co-­Chair of the ISPOR Medical Device Special Interest Group, and the vice-chair of the HTAi Regulatory Interactions and Conditional Coverage group.(patient access agreements). Within these roles,Richard is focused on creating pragmatic, win-win solutions in value based healthcare that align payers, patients and innovators around outcomes based frameworks. Richard currently lives in Switzerland, and graduated from Bocconi University in Italy, with a Masters in Healthcare Managemen tEconomics and Policy (MIHMEP program), and an undergraduate degree in Management Economics and Public Policy from the University of Guelph, Canada in 2002. You can follow Richard on Twitter: @RichardCharter

Salah-Dine has more than 27 years of experience in drug development. He obtained a PhD in Molecular Immunology from the Biozentrum in Basel, Switzerland. Salah-Dine joined the Toxicology Department in 1990 and had increasing responsibilities at Sandoz and then at Novartis. He created the Discovery and Investigative Safety group, which is globally responsible to investigate all drugs side effects from Discovery to Market. From 2008 to 2010 he was Deputy Head of Translational Science in Europe.

From 2010 to 2019, Salah-Dine was leading the Therapeutic Areas in Preclinical Safety. In this role he was responsible to define all regulatory required toxicity studies, to generate all relevant regulatory documents and to ensure efficient health authorities interactions.

Since 2019 Salah-Dine is the Preclinical Safety Therapeutic Area Head for Oncology, being responsible for the entire portfolio safety strategy from target identification to market access.

Salah-Dine is leading a cross-functional global organization operating from Cambridge, East Hanover (USA) and Basle (Switzerland).

In addition, Salah-Dine is responsible for the IMI public-private partnerships at Novartis. He represents Novartis at the EFPIA Science and Innovation Board and is the Chair of the Research & Innovation Strategy Group (RIS). He has been involved in IMI for the last 12 years.

Bernard Colombo joined Roche in 2008 during the integration of Ventana Medical Systems. At Ventana, he had held various positions in Marketing, Sales and Support and, since 2006, assumed central responsibility for developing the company's business in EMEA as Vice President and General Manager of Ventana Medical Systems. From 2008 to 2010, he spearheaded the acceleration and integration of the RTD (Roche Tissue Diagnostics) business for EMEA-LATAM. He was appointed Head of the EMEA Subregion North-West in the Diagnostics Division in 2010, based in Rotkreuz, Switzerland. In addition, since 2008 he has headed the regional Tissue Diagnostics Working Group. In 2017, he was appointed General Manager for Roche Diagnostics France Management Centre, where he was responsible for the French Domestic, Maghreb and French Speaking Sub-Saharan African markets, before assuming his current position as Regional Head Roche Diagnostics EMEA/LATAM in November 2018.
Bernard has extensive experience in the healthcare industry, particularly in Diagnostics, where he has worked for 34 years, having started at Boehringer Mannheim in 1984 and including 10 years at Bayer Diagnostics. He has lived and worked in France and Switzerland, and holds a Master's degree in Biomedical Engineering from Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University in France.

Erica has over 20 years experience in the In Vitro Diagnostic (IVD) medical device and pharmaceutical industries, within Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance.  Following a BSc (Hons), PhD (Neurophysiology) and Post-doctoral research, Erica's industrial experience started at GlaxoSmithKline in the regulation of pharmaceuticals. Further she worked in the arena of clinical trials for medicinal products for Quintiles. Erica then moved into the field of IVD medical devices when she became the Regulatory Affairs Manager for Axis-Shield Diagnostics (Alere Toxicology; now Abbott). She then went into performing independent consultancy work and continued working within the IVD and medical device field, as a continued member of British IVD Association, prior to joining BSI.
Erica joined BSI at the beginning of 2014 as a Technical Specialist/Scheme Manager in the IVD medical devices team. She took the position of Global Head of the IVD Medical Device Team aJune 2016, to lead the IVD Technical team. Erica is currently using her experience to transition the Notified Body (NB) to the new EU IVD Regulation, and led the successful designations of BSI UK and BSI NL NBs to the IVDR. She is leading the expansion of the IVD Technical team for the increased demands under the IVDR. She represents the NB group on Team NB/NB-Med.

First working in the area of food industry within the DG Internal Market and Industrial Affairs, he joined Commissioner Liikanen Cabinet in charge of enterprise and industrial policy and occupied several management position.
From December 2008 until May 2015, he has been Director in DG GROWTH (DG Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs), in charge of competitiveness issues and EU internal market legislation for several industrial sectors, including REACH, engineering industries, medical devices, raw materials.
Since March 2021, his main responsibilities in DG GROW cover: construction, standardisation and engineering industries.

Ingmar de Gooijer has worked with and in the healthcare industry around the globe since 2000. He is currently Director Public Policy at the health technology company myTomorrows, a role he combines with moderating a few healthcare events each year.

Michel is a partner in Deloitte Risk Advisory leading the regulatory compliance services for the Life Sciences & Healthcare industry.
He is specialised in Digital Compliance, technology quality, regulatory compliance and governance of business and IT.
Throughout his career, he successfully led regulatory transformation programs helping organisations to become compliant with the new regulations and optimise their regulatory functions through innovation, regulatory technologies, strategic risk management and better governance and interaction between regulatory, IT and business functions.

Brigitte is the head of Materialise Medical, a company focused on personalised solutions leveraging 3D printing technologies. She joined Materialise after more than 20 years of experience in Medical Devices with organisations such as Johnson & Johnson (where she had various management roles including VP EMEA of Neurovascular solutions), Acertys (as CEO) and Mediq (as Transformation Officer). She holds an MBA from INSEAD. She is passionate about driving change in Healthcare to make a difference to patients and healthcare systems. 

Pierre Delsaux is Deputy Director General at the European Commission, Directorate General for Health (DG SANTE) since 01/12/2020.  After studying Law at the University of Liège, he obtained his Master of Law at the Northwestern University, Chicago. He was Legal Secretary at the European Court of Justice.  He worked in the private sector before joining the European Commission in 1991.  ?He was appointed Deputy Director General with responsibilities for the Single Market in the EU. On 01/01/2020 he was appointed Deputy Director General at the European Commission Directorate General for Defence Industry and Space.

Celine Deswarte joined Boston Scientific in May 2017 as European Data Protection Officer. She previously worked at the European Commission as a Policy Officer, part of the team in charge of the ePrivacy Directive review. In that role she was also closely following the negotiations on the GDPR.
Celine Deswarte holds a Master II Degree in European Union Law and a Master II Degree in Public Enterprise Law from the University of Paris II Pantheon Assas (France), She is a French qualified lawyer and passed the bar exam in Dec 2005

Emmett Devereux is Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs for Cook Medical in Europe, Middle East and Africa.  Emmett is focused on developing and implementing strategies and policies that raise awareness of patient access to medical technology. Fostering a business environment that is supportive of innovation in healthcare and the advancement of patient care is a core focus for Emmett.

The development and harmonisation of Global, Middle Eastern, European and National legislation in relation to the medical device industry is a priority for Emmett and the wider Government and Regulatory Affairs team.

Emmett joined Cook Medical in 2001 and was an integral part of the leadership team in Limerick. During his time with Cook the company grew to 900 employees and established an extensive range of shared services, including regulatory and quality teams that support the business across EMEA.  Prior to joining Cook, Emmett held positions at Bausch and Lomb, Summit Technologies and Johnson and Johnson.

Emmett represents Cook Medical on the Medtech Europe Regulatory Affairs Committee and the Public Affairs Committee. He is an active member of the Irish Medical Device Association and is past chair of their Regulatory Affairs Committee. Emmett is also an active member of the UK Trade Association and is an active member on both its Regulatory and Public policy committee. He is a past Board member of MECOMED which is the Medtech Association for the Middle East and North Africa. He currently acts as an industry observer on the International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF) working group and is an advocate for the for global regulatory harmonisation in the field of Medical Device Regulation.

Emmett also has responsibility for the oversight and approach taken by Cook on a number of key EU Trade associations across many of the member states in the EU

He is a past member of GHTF Study group 3; National Standards Association of Ireland (NSAI); and, of TC210 on the revision to ISO13485.

Pat Fogarty is the Vice President, Assistant General Counsel & Director, Civil Justice Policy at the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed). AdvaMed advocates globally for the highest ethical standards and patient access to safe, effective and innovative medical technologies that save and improve lives. Prior to joining AdvaMed in 2019, Mr. Fogarty served as Assistant General Counsel and Compliance Officer at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), the worlds largest biotech trade association. Mr. Fogarty holds a B.A. from Virginia Tech and a J.D. from the Syracuse University College of Law.  He is admitted to the District of Columbia Bar.

Position - Head of Life Sciences - Chubb International Division
 
With a general passion for science, Alex studied Biochemistry at Nottingham University. He then joined Chubb as an assistant underwriter into the Technology Specialty in 2003, starting first on Technology risks and then moving over to Life Sciences shortly after. Through his 17 years at Chubb, Alex moved through a variety of underwriting roles managing both Life Science and General Insurance portfolios and has also been active in many wider side projects such as underwriting systems delivery, Strategic Advisory Committee and SME Platform development.
 
Alex now has responsibility for all Life Science business for Chubb across 1st and 3rd Party insurance across all reg5 continents outside of North America with responsibilities for technical referral, operational management, systems development, training and delivery of the strategic goals for the Life Science Practice.

Cristiano Franzi joined Baxter in 2017 from Medtronic plc, where he served as vice president and president, Minimally Invasive Therapies Group EMEA from 2015 to 2017. He served as President EMEA at Covidien plc prior to Medtronic's acquisition of Covidien. He served as member of the board of Eucomed Medical Technology from 2013 to 2015.
Cristiano Franzi received a bachelor's degree in marketing from the American University, an MBA from George Washington University and an executive education degree from Harvard Business School.

Morten Frost is Senior Vice President & General Manager at Veracyte.
 
Veracyte is a pioneering genomic diagnostics company with diagnostic tests in 7 out of 10 most prevalent cancers - leverage innovations in genomic technology and machine learning to enable more confident diagnostic, prognostic and treatment decisions.
 
Prior to joining Veracyte Mr. Frost worked at Agilent Technologies in a variety of leadership positions, most recently he served as Head of Global Marketing in the Pathology and Companion Diagnostics business. Mr. Frost held multiple other positions at Agilent Technologies including executive positions in the global sales organization and working with Strategy and Business Development focusing on growth strategies and M&A to expand Agilent’s Diagnostic business. 
 
Prior to Agilent Technologies Mr. Frost worked as a management Consultant at IMS Consulting Group (Now IQVIA) where he advised leading pharmaceutical companies on top-line growth and commercial strategy.
 
Mr. Frost received a MSc in Economics and Business Administration from Copenhagen Business School with complementary executive MBA courses from Stanford University.

Miquel-Àngel García is Managing Director and the Head of the Medical Business of Olympus Europa SE & Co. KG. He is responsible for the company's Medical Device businesses in Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA). With more than 7.35 million colonoscopies performed annually with Olympus endoscopes in Europe and more than 6,700 patents held in the medical business, Olympus strives permanently for improving the quality of life of patients, as well as reducing the likelihood of readmission and potential healthcare expenses.

With a broad professional experience of more than 20 years, Miquel-Àngel has earned a reputation as an energetic developer and leader for the close partnership with healthcare professionals, specialists and customers. His passion is to drive the digital transformation of Olympus’s medical business in EMEA to optimize customer solutions and make people’s lives healthier, safer and more fulfilling.

Throughout his career, Miquel-Àngel has held several leadership roles of increasing responsibility across multiple disciplines, businesses (Consumer Camera Business, Medical Devices) and geographies. Before being appointed to his current role in April 2019, Miquel-Àngel served as Regional Managing Director South Europe.

Miquel-Àngel holds a Master degree in Business Administration from EAE Business School and a Master degree in Telecommunications Engineering from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.

Götz Gerecke is a Managing Director & Senior Partner in Boston Consulting Group's Zurich office. He is BCG's Global MedTech Commercial Sector Leader. 

Götz coordinates BCG's relationship with MedTechEurope and has partnered with us on value-based procurement.

Götz has led numerous commercial model transformation programs. He co-authored BCG's "Milkman Reports" on how to fix the medtech commercial model based a series of global benchmarking studies. The results of the latest study - „Milkman 3.0“ - will be launched at this year‘s MedTech Forum.

Götz holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BSc Honors from the European Business School.

Jamie Gramz is head of Digital Applications for Lab Diagnostics at Siemens Healthineers. He has more than 20 years of experience with laboratory automation and healthcare IT solutions and a deep passion for helping laboratories maximize the potential impact and benefit of their workflow solutions.  Jamie holds a BSE in chemical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, an executive MBA from Washington State University and a certificate in Artificial Intelligence from the MIT Sloan School of Management.  He is married with a family of four kids ages 2-14 and enjoys coaching soccer for his little ones in his spare time.

Associate Director – BCG Platinion (Boston Consulting Group)
 
Axel Griewel is an Associate Director in BCG Platinion’s Cologne office and leads Digital in MedTech in Europe. He delivered several digital transformations in the MedTech industry including digital sales, digital operations and healthcare IT.
 
Axel holds a PhD from the University of Hamburg in Bioinformatics

BSc and MSc in Sciences from the University of the Basque Country UPV-EHU, Doctor in Sciences (NeuroScience) from the same university, Masters in Epidemiology from the University of Granada and the Andalusian School of Public Health and Masters in Bioethics from the University Ramon Llul and the Institute Borja of Bioethics. He is the current Director of Innovation of the Basque Foundation for Health Innovation and Research (BIOEF) https://www.bioef.org and the coordinator of Osteba, Basque Office for Health Technology Assessment. Member of the Technical Advisory Group that assesses WHO around HTA and UHC

Erik joined the Medical Devices unit of the European Commission in 2012 to kead the implementation of the PIP action plan, followed by negotiations on the new Regulations. Erik is responsible for the operation of several EU working groups (such as MDCG), heads the EU delegation to the multilateral regulatory cooperation in IMDRF, deals with bilateral trade relations and is coordination the cooperation with national competent authorities in the CAMD framework. 
Erik holds a Master defree in law from the University of Uppsala, Sweden, and held various positions in law courts, ministries and agencies in Sweden before joining COM 1997.

Meike Hausmann is heading the Olympus HCP/O consulting management department for EMEA within Medical Affairs and taking care of HCP/O interactions as well as transparency reporting.
Meike studied economics and started her career in controlling and joined the EMEA headquarter of Olympus in 2001 where she lead the Controlling for the Medical Business.  5 years ago Meike supported in her new key role the establishment of the new function that is handling topics around compliant healthcare interactions incl. FMV, tiering, contracting, interaction reconciliation and reporting.

Kenny Henderson is a Partner in the Dispute Resolution Team in CMS' London office. He is an experienced litigator who represents sophisticated and blue-chip clients in high stakes disputes, frequently with a multi-jurisdictional element. He is solutions-oriented and deploys litigation strategies tailored to deliver commercial objectives. He has particular expertise in regulated sectors, including pharmaceutical and technology claims.

Kenny is particularly active in the developing area of class and group actions, counselling clients both in defending claims and also on strategies for reducing overall exposure in opt-out and opt-in collective proceedings. He has also acted on many of the highest profile follow-on claims issued in Europe to date. Unusually, he has led matters both on the claimant and the defendant side.

Claudia leads digital solutions and has 29-year experience in digital health and partnership with hospitals, healthcare professionals and their ecosystems to drive digital transformation, through deep understanding of needs, capabilities, and skills. She envisions technology and healthcare working as a seamless system to prevent, treat, manage, and even cure disease. A key success factor for the digital health revolution to unlock its potential, is to ensure that it's fully aligned with societal needs and expectations. Working together is paramount to build frameworks that protects people, ensures trust and foster digital innovation.

Sabina is Regulatory Strategy Principal at Notified Body TÜV SÜD and acts as representative of TÜV SÜD and Notified Bodies at European level.  She is Chair of NBCG-Med, the EU Commission's working group of Notified Bodies, and Vice-President of Team-NB, the EU Notified Bodies' association.  
Sabina has 20 years of experience as pharmaceutical and medical device regulator and legislator in the Dutch government, serving subsequently in the Medicines Evaluation Board, Ministry of Health and the governmental organization for clinical investigations CCMO.
She has worked as Lead for European Regulation in Philips, where she acted as leader and expert in European Medical Device and Pharmaceutical Regulations on corporate level and was involved in EU MDR/IVDR implementation.
Sabina has a long track record as volunteer in global professional organizations (DIA and RAPS). She is a regular speaker and faculty member in educational conferences on regulatory topics.
She was co-founder and Chair of the RAPS Netherlands Chapter. She is Fellow of RAPS since 2015 and serves in the RAPS Global Board of Directors since 2020.
Sabina holds a PharmD from Leiden University.

Timothy Jinks PhD is the Head of Wellcome Trust's Drug Resistant Infections Priority Program, leading Wellcome's efforts directed at reducing the threat of antimicrobial resistance. In his preceding role he led development of Wellcome's strategic plan to address drug resistant infections. Previously in Wellcome's Innovations Division, he was responsible for a portfolio of over a dozen early stage product development projects covering therapeutics, diagnostics and devices spanning across therapeutic areas such as infectious diseases and oncology. He is a member of the CARB-X Joint Oversight Committee, the Longitude Prize Committee and is Non-Executive Director of Reviral Ltd. Prior to joining the Trust in 2012 he has over a decade of industry experience, most recently as a consultant providing business development, licensing and commercial research services. His scientific background is as a chemist turned molecular biologist having studied at University of Georgia and Princeton University, with academic research experience at Harvard Medical School, Dana Farber Cancer Institute and the MRC National Institute for Medical Research.

Phil is an experienced regulatory and quality based professional who has worked in the Medical Device, In-Vitro Diagnostic and Pharmaceutical Industries for over twenty-five years. His core expertise is in the quality and manufacturing requirements for Medical Devices, Diagnostics and Pharmaceuticals.  This has included the writing, implementation and maintenance of Quality systems, auditing of external suppliers and manufacturing/distribution sites and due diligence auditing.
Phil has worked on FDA remediation programs in response to warning letters, consent decrees and import bans; providing strategic consulting to companies. He supported several long-term consulting placements within Medical Device, IVD manufacturing and distribution sites and corporate offices. He supports companies by providing complete business and quality solutions for global market entry requirements, including the setting up of logistics and distribution networks and the license requirements for these operations.

He also has extensive experience in the creation and application of global post market surveillance systems for Complaints Management and Vigilance Reporting. Recent experience has included the development of corporate level post-market surveillance and recall systems and project management of these systems across functional divisions and multiple manufacturing sites. 

Scott Kennedy is senior adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. His areas of expertise include industrial policy, technology innovation, business lobbying, U.S.-China commercial relations, and global governance. From 2000 to 2014, Kennedy was a professor at Indiana University, where he established the Research Center for Chinese Politics & Business and was the founding academic director of IU's China Office. Kennedy received his Ph.D. in political science from George Washington University, his M.A. in China Studies from the Johns Hopkins University SAIS, and his B.A. from the University of Virginia.

Regina Kloss-Wolf has over 25 years of experience in the In Vitro Diagnostics business environment and currently holds the position of Director Market Access & Strategic Alliances Europe, Africa, Middle East, Turkey & Russia for Abbott Core Diagnostics.

She joined Abbott in 1985 and has held several positions, including Sales, Marketing, Econometrics and Licensing.

During this time Regina served Abbott Core Diagnostics and Abbott Diabetes Care.

She expanded her European market knowledge by accepting a Global Marketing Manager assignment at Abbott HQ, Chicago.  

Before assuming her current role, she functioned as Director, Scientific Leadership Area Europe.

Prior to joining Abbott, Regina Kloss-Wolf was working in the public pharmacy sector in Germany.

Xenofon Kontargyris joined Olympus in May 2018. He has been specializing on privacy and IT law since 2009. Besides the medtech industry, he has offered privacy counseling in the finance and e-commerce sectors. Xenofon holds a PhD in Law, which he earned from the University of Hamburg by doing research on data protection on the cloud. At Olympus he is a member of the company's Data Protection Office responsible for the EMEA region. He mainly focuses on product privacy and privacy by design topics.

Ewald Kreid is Vice President EMEA for Strategy and Commercial Excellence at Zimmer Biomet, a global leader in musculoskeletal healthcare.

Based in Zug, Switzerland, Ewald oversees organic and inorganic growth strategies and their execution across all of Zimmer Biomet's product segments and countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Before joining Zimmer Biomet in 2016, Ewald was a partner at the Boston Consulting Group's healthcare practice.

Ewald is a graduate of the Vienna School of Economics, HEC School of Management and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Jean-Luc Lemercier has been corporate vice president, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), Canada and Latin America since July 2017. Prior to assuming his current role, Lemercier served as vice president of transcatheter heart valves EMEA since 2008. Under his leadership at Edwards, the company successfully launched the SAPIEN transcatheter heart valve technology and built its leadership position in Europe. Before joining Edwards, Lemercier served various leadership roles with Johnson & Johnson Cordis from 1996-2008, including leader of the structural heart disease group in the United States; vice president of new business development in Europe; vice president of the European Cordis cardiology division and general manager of Cordis France. Lemercier has more than 30 years of medical device experience, beginning with Baxter in France, and held several sales and marketing management positions within Baxter Europe and the United States. Lemercier holds a degree as a doctor in pharmacy from the Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University in Lyon, France.

Jill Lockett is Managing Director of King’s Health Partners.  Jill leads the King’s Health Partners strategic and operational agenda delivering our 5 year plan, determining and delivering our local and international programmes, maintaining our culture of partnership.  Jill joined King’s Health Partners in 2012, as Director of Performance and Delivery and is a member of the King’s Health Partners Joint Boards, CEOs’ Action Group and AHSC Executive.

Previously, Jill was  Director of the Behavioural and Developmental Psychiatry Clinical Academic Group at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, National Director of Cancer Waits and Heart Team Capital Programme at the Department of Health, Director of Commissioning in a London Primary Care Trust and Chief Executive of a primary care organisation.

Jill is the Chair of Trustees for the Bethlem Museum of the Mind.

Appointed within DG RTD as Director for Open Innovation and Open Science in February 2017, he designed, launched and expanded initiatives such as the European Innovation Council (EIC), the VentureEU Initiative, the RDI dimension unde the European Fund for Strategic infrastructures etc.
Since June 2019 he was appointed Director of the EIC Task Force. In charge of the EIC, the EU innovation ecosystems programme as well as R&I related financial instruments (InnovFin, EFSI, InvestEU),  he is also a member of the EFSI Steering Committee, alternate member of the EIF BoDirectors & High Level Representative of the Commission in EUREKA.

Hans Martens was born in Denmark, and he studied Political Science at Aarhus University, specialising in EU affairs and in public administration, and went on to become Associate Professor in international political and economic relations. He joined the European Policy Centre, a leading Brussels think tank, as Chief Executive in 2002, and retired from that post in September 2013. He is now Senior Advisor to EPC and to the Danish think tank Europa. He chairs CHES (Coalition for Health, Ethics and Society), the health policy programme of the EPC. Besides he works as an independent consultant on a number of projects relating to health and energy policies at European level, including on the wider economics of health and care, outcomes measurements, health systems comparisons and evaluation, and public and private healthcare. He is also leading on a project on digitalisation in Europe, including one Health, with the thinktank Europa, building on previous experience on work on the digital Single Market during his years at EPC. Alongside his business career, Hans Martens has been visiting Professor at the Universities of Aarhusand Copenhagen and he is a regular lecturer at Business Schools and Universities in Europe and in the USA, including VCU–Virginia Commonwealth University. He has extensive experience of curriculum design and planning and lectures regularly on the international circuit. He speaks five languages: Danish, English, French, German and Spanish. He is the author of a number of books and articles on Public Administration, European integration, monetary affairs, energy and climate policies and the demographic developments in Europe. Hans Martens is married to Tove Martens, and he lives inSpain, Belgium and Denmark.

David Matusiewicz is Professor of Medical Management at the FOM University - the largest private university in Germany. Since 2015, he has been responsible for the university sector Health & Social Affairs as Dean and as Director of the Research Institute for Health & Social Affairs (ifgs). In addition, he supports technology-driven start-ups in the healthcare sector as a founder or business angel. Matusiewicz is on various advisory boards and an investor in companies that deal with the digital transformation of the healthcare sector. Before taking up his professorship, he worked for several years as a research assistant at Prof. Dr. Jörgen Wasem at Alfried Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach Endowed Chair for Medical Management at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

Amanda Maxwell is European Medtech Regulatory Affairs Editor at Medtech Insight.

She has some 30 years’ experience in reporting and providing analysis on developments in the field of medical technology regulatory affairs, with particular focus on the current and future EU regulations for medical devices, IVDs and device/drug combination products. Amanda also has experience in providing medtech regulatory strategy consultancy services, and

is a frequently invited speaker and chair at EU meetings on medtech regulations

Ashley McEvoy is Executive Vice President, Worldwide Chair, Medical Devices, Johnson & Johnson. Touching the lives of 278 million patients every year, Ashley oversees the second largest MedTech company in the world. J&J Medical Devices comprises Orthopaedics, Surgery, Cardiovascular, Stroke and Specialty Solutions, and Eye Health businesses.
 
Ashley has been with J&J for more than 20 years and is a passionate people and performance-based leader who has delivered above-market results and champions and advances diversity, equity and inclusion to enable forward-thinking teams who can drive industry change that achieves racial, social and health equity.

With over a decade of experience in venture capital investment, Tamir is responsible for identifying and leading medical device, consumer and health technology investments in line with Johnson & Johnson sector strategies. This includes deal sourcing, due diligence, negotiation, structuring, decision making, execution, and post-investment portfolio management.

Covering Israel and the EU, Tamir is an engaged, hands-on investor who likes to be detail-oriented and involved in his companies. He aims to help young entrepreneurs maximize their potential by providing meaningful advice and empowerment through close relationships and personal commitment to the people and companies in JJDC's portfolio.

Prior to joining JJDC, Tamir worked at GKH Law Offices - one of the largest law firms in Israel, supporting the firm's managing partners for over six years in many aspects of the various deal processes, including marketing and business development.

Tamir has a B.Sc in Chemistry from Tel-Aviv University and an extensive background in biomedical engineering and entrepreneurship, as well as an MBA with a focus on Finance, from the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.

Dr Pierre Meulien is Executive Director of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), a €5 billion PPP. From 2010-2015, Dr Meulien was President and CEO of Genome Canada, where he oversaw the launch of novel projects and networks. From 2007-2010, he was Chief Scientific Officer for Genome British Columbia. From 2002-2007, he served as founding CEO of the Dublin Molecular Medicine Centre. He also worked with the French biotechnology company Transgene, and with Aventis Pasteur (now Sanofi Pasteur). He has a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Edinburgh and carried out a post-doctoral fellowship at the Institut Pasteur Paris.

I founded NLC with a mission to bring healttech inventions to market. Due to market complexities and fragmentation, 95% of life-changing, science-based healthtech inventions never reach the patients. At NLC we don't accept this status quo; we scout medical inventions all over Europe and build these out into commercially viable ventures, so that these life-changing inventions can reach the patient.
Throughout the years, we have built a dedicated network, driven by data and learnings. We support our ventures in a variety of different ways, including fund-raising, team-building and legal support. 

Ms Fadzai Munyaradzi is an accomplished sustainability practitioner who leads Medline's corporate social responsibility department in Europe.  In this role, she sets and implements Medline's strategy on ethical sourcing, charitable giving, environmental initiatives and CSR-related communications. Drawing on her first-hand experience with Medline's supply chain due diligence activities and her training as a social compliance auditor*, Ms Munyaradzi has led Medline's engagement with the EU's agenda on mandatory supply chain due diligence and sustainable corporate governance.  

Prior to joining Medline in 2016, Ms Munyaradzi worked at DSM (Netherlands), Germanwatch (Germany), Trialogue (South Africa) and Kaiser Associates EDP (South Africa) in roles spanning greenhouse gas measurement and reporting, climate finance research, corporate social responsibility consulting and economic development consulting.

Ms Munyaradzi holds an MSc Environmental Governance degree from the University of Freiburg in Germany, and a Bachelor of Business Science degree from Rhodes University in South Africa.

*Internal auditor training completed for the WRAP and SA8000 social compliance standards.

Michael A. Mussallem was appointed chairman and chief executive officer of Edwards Lifesciences in 2000, when it became an independent, publicly traded company. Under his leadership, Edwards has established its position as a global leader in patient-focused medical innovations with the introduction of lifesaving and life-sustaining therapies such as transcatheter aortic valve replacement, new resilient surgical valves designed for active patients and non-invasive hemodynamic monitoring. Driven by a passion to help patients, the company collaborates with the world's leading clinicians and researchers to address unmet healthcare needs, working to improve patient outcomes and enhance lives while delivering value to the healthcare system. Mussallem has not only led the development and successful implementation of the company�s patient-focused innovation strategy, but also established Edwards� commitment to philanthropy and corporate social responsibility. Since 2004, the company and Edwards Lifesciences Foundation have gifted almost $90 million to non-profit organizations around the world supporting underserved patients and strengthening communities where its employees live and work. In 2014, Edwards Lifesciences Foundation launched Every Heartbeat Matters, which has impacted more than 1.7 million underserved people and aims to improve the lives of 2.5 million additional underserved structural heart and critical care patients by the end of 2025. During Mussallem�s tenure, Edwards has been recognized among the World�s Most Ethical Companies by the Ethisphere Institute, an organization that defines and advances standards of ethical business practices. In 2019, Edwards was named as one of the Management Top 250 by The Wall Street Journal in partnership with the Drucker Institute, and was also cited as one of the 8 �all stars� achieving high marks in five dimensions of corporate performance. Mussallem has been honored by the Harvard Business Review in its annual Best-Performing CEOs in the World list, including, most recently, in 2019. He has been included in the Forum for Corporate Directors Hall of Fame and received a number of honors including the UC Irvine Medal, a lifetime achievement award from The Phoenix Conference and the Wenger Award for Excellence in Corporate Leadership by WomenHeart. Prior to his current position, Mussallem held a variety of positions at Baxter International from 1979 until 2000, when Edwards was spun off from Baxter. Currently, Mussallem serves on the board of the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) and is an advisory board member for the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics at the University of Southern California. He is a trustee of the University of California, Irvine Foundation and the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana. Mussallem has served as board chairman of both AdvaMed and the California Healthcare Institute (CHI). He received a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering and an honorary doctorate degree from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.

Basir Mustaghni is a Partner & Managing Director in the Frankfurt Office of BCG. He is BCG's Global Leader for Digital Go-To-Market (GTM) in MedTech.
 
Basir's work includes developing and operationalizing Digital GTM strategies for clients across industries, with a strong focus on MedTech. His projects focus mainly on digital & analytics, digital marketing, inside sales, eCommerce, customer success management, eEnabled Sales Force and other digital GTM topics.
 
Basir has studied computer science and business administration at the University of Technology Darmstadt and the Harvard Business School and holds a PhD in finance

Paul NEMITZ is the Principal Advisor in the Directorate General for Justice and Consumers of the European Commission.
He was appointed in April 2017, following a 6-year appointment as Director for Fundamental Rights and Citizen’s Rights in the same Directorate General.
As Director, Nemitz led the reform of Data Protection legislation in the EU, the negotiations of the EU – US Privacy Shield and the negotiations with major US Internet Companies of the EU Code of Conduct against incitement to violence and hate speech on the Internet.
He is a Member of Commission for Media and Internet Policy of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Berlin and a visiting Professor of Law at the College of Europe in Bruges. Nemitz is also a Member of the Board of the Verein Gegen Vergessen – Fu?r Demokratie e.V., Berlin and a Trustee of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York. He chairs the Board of Trustees of the Arthur Langerman Foundation, Berlin.
Nemitz studied Law at Hamburg University. He passed the state examinations for the judiciary and for a short time was a teaching assistant for Constitutional Law and the Law of the Sea at Hamburg University.
He obtained a Master of Comparative Law from George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C., where he was a Fulbright grantee. He also passed the first and second cycle of the Strasbourg Faculty for Comparative Law.
Recent publications: “The Human Imperative – Democracy, Law and Ethics in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”, forthcoming 2021, enhanced translation of “Prinzip Mensch – Demokratie, Recht und Ethik im Zeitalter der Ku?nstlichen Intelligenz, with Matthias Pfeffer, Dietz Verlag, 2020; Critical reflections on Constitutional Democracy in the European Union, S. Garben, I. Govaere and P. Nemitz (Eds.), Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2019.
Follow Paul Nemitz on Twitter: @PaulNemitz . He is the #1 Technology influencer and overall #13 influencer on EU issues in the annual #EUInfluencer Ranking.

Cynthia specialises in Digital Health, including tech transactions, collaborations, data protection, cybersecurity, digital transformation, and smart technologies such as mobile apps, AI, and blockchain.  Her particular focus is direct to patient digital health solutions relating to cardiac, diabetes and diagnostics, including Covid-19.  Cynthia’s data protection practice involves advising on GDPR and worldwide data protection laws, particularly global strategy and compliance, cross border data transfers, big data, analytics, research and commercialisation. Cynthia is a trustee for the Society of Computers & Law, a member of the City of Law Society Data Committee and serves on the MedTech Europe data protection committee.

Megan Olson is the Group Chief Compliance Officer at Coloplast, leading the compliance and data privacy functions across all regions.  Prior to joining Coloplast, Megan held various compliance positions at Mayo Clinic, a non-profit American academic medical center focused on integrated healthcare, education, and research with more than 63,000 employees.  Her most recent role at Mayo Clinic prior to joining Coloplast was as their International Compliance & Privacy Officer | Data Protection Officer and she also oversaw and was responsible for the compliance program in the digital/telehealth center at Mayo Clinic.  In this role, Megan was responsible for developing and implementing a compliance program and associated controls in Europe, China, and among other geographies, the Middle East.  Megan also serves as an Adjunct Law Professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law and has her Juris Doctorate and Masters in Public Administration from the University of South Dakota. 

Prof. Dr Tomris Ozben, Ph.D., D.Sc. Med. Lab Specialist is the President-Elect of European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (EFLM). She is BCLF Past-President and Past-IFCC Treasurer. Over her tenure at Akdeniz University, Prof. Ozben has been the Director of Central Laboratory, Vice Rector and Chair of the Dept. of Clinical Biochemistry. She works in the identification of early markers for diseases, validation of new tests, quality control, and laboratory management. She is Editorial Board member of Scientific Journals. She has published over 150 papers, edited several books, and invited to speak at more than 200 international conferences.

Andreas has been working for TÜV SÜD since 16 years now. He started as an auditor and expert for functional safety. Today he leads the unit of active medical devices in Germany and is also responsible for the auditing business.

I graduated from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland) and undertook my surgical training in the London area. I started work as a consultant colorectal surgeon at Homerton University Hospital in 2003, before moving to my current organisation in 2017.  Currently I work as a consultant colorectal surgeon, and alongside my clinical commitments, I work as the Chief Clinical Information Officer at The Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, England.
Any spare time that I do get I enjoy running, going to gigs and festivals and then recovering by gardening.

Terry joined Cambridge Enterprise as Commercialisation Director in 2018. He was previously the Head of IP at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital, having founded and grown a technology transfer department and investment fund that commercialised NHS inventions from "bedside to business".
Terry has commercialised technologies and created spin-out companies in the fields of: medical devices; software; imaging; laboratory products; therapeutics; in vitro diagnostics, cell therapies and vaccines amongst others. He has also supported the creation of novel partnerships and medtech collaborations for co-developing products and services, including Viapath (a £500M pathology JV). Terry has a PhD from King's College London.

Jean Louis PEPIN is an international expert in clinical and translational research on cardio metabolic consequences of chronic and intermittent hypoxia, sleep apnea, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and chronic respiratory failure. He runs the French national registry of sleep apnea (> 120,000 subjects) and is involved in the European Sleep Apnea Database (ESADA). He participates on a regular basis in European and US thoracic society task forces (five in last five years). He has demonstrated capabilities both in academic positions and as a leader of large national randomized controlled trials, transdisciplinary programs (see below) and EIT-Health European projects.

Jennifer has served in large-scale public health systems in Canada implementing Electronic Medical Records as well as developing and implementing operational and legislative health policy. She has been with Roche for the last 5 years working on innovative funding pathways for companion diagnostics and next generation and since 2019 serves as the Global Data Policy Strategy Lead for Personalised Healthcare in Switzerland. She has a Masters of Business Administration, a Masters of Public Health with a specialisation in Policy and her certificate in Data; Policy, Law & Regulation from the London School of Economics.

Mario leads IQVIA's global commercial compliance consulting practice outside of the US. He has extensive experience in compliance program design, risk management as well as commercial strategy and operations. He works closely with a broad portfolio of companies spanning the pharma, medical device and biotech communities globally.

Annemien Pullen is director of the strategy for MedTech business at Veeva Systems in Europe. With more than 10 years of experience in the industry, she has a deep understanding of the E2E device development process and regulatory transformation. After her PhD in Interorganisational Collaboration in Medical Device Product Development, she led a number of MDR business transformation programs.

Thom Rasche joined Earlybird in 2003. Since 2014 he has been Partner at Earlybird Health Management GmbH & Co. KG. Thom is an experienced executive in Healthcare with operational and financial expertise. He is helping entrepreneurs to establish a business and develop a business model. Since he joined Earlybird, Thom has been responsible for the medical device portfolio and new investments in this area. Board member: Atlantic Therapeutics Ltd., Alesi Surgical Ltd., Polares Medical SA and Miracor Medical SA.

Nils Reimers Global Director R&D has more than 20 years of experience in the Medtech industry, his passion for innovation leads to various board-memberships. 

He has established a track record of developing strategies that have enabled raising significant funding and helped supporting critical initiatives. He successfully utilized his broad network with universities, medical societies and patient advocacy groups to facilitate cross-divisional projects.

Nils joined Stryker 2004 and held several management positions within the R&D organizations around the globe. He has a Master’s degree in Business and Engineering and earned his doctoral degree from the medical school of the University Lübeck.

Simon Richards is VP, Divisional Regulatory Affairs for Abbott Rapid Diagnostics Originally a Ph.D Biochemist, he has worked in the Vaccines and Diagnostics industry for over 27 years. He is the former Chairman of the UK IVD Industry body, BIVDA and part of the key stakeholder team interacting with MHRA on the implementation of the IVD Regulations in the UK. Simon is the IVDR project lead for the Abbott Rapid Diagnostics Division which includes the largest range of Near Patient tests in the world and covers devices in all the new risk categories and in multiple worldwide sites. He is also part of the EU industry body Medtech Europe chairing the MTE IVD Standards committee. He also sit on ISO TC 212 related to Clinical lab testing and iVD systems standards.

Nina leads NLC's Corporate Partnerships. NLC is the largest Healthtech Venture Builder of Europe: it transforms early stage inventions into innovations by building ventures. Following a unique approach - 'entrepreneurship at scale' - NLC is able to find inventions, and create and support dozens of ventures that impact, prolong or save people's lives. Once the technologies are matured, NLC transfers its ventures to Corporates who can accelerate growth and bring medical innovations to patients around the world.

Christian-Claus Roth has been employed at Novartis Pharma since 2001, in different roles of increasing responsibility. After his studies in Business Administration he started his career with the International Pharmaceutical wholesaler GEHE Pharma Handel GmbH and later Celesio AG, in Germany.

From there he moved to the Novartis Pharma affiliate in Bern, Switzerland, where he set up the congress and event department for the Swiss market, shortly later being promoted to the Global Headquarter in Basel with responsibility for the Pain and Urology Areas as International Congress Manager, with additional responsibility later for the Bone area.

Christian now oversees the Scientific Engagement Governance focusing on the impact of external regulatory requirements on global medical event management – one of several key areas for which the team is responsible. Additionally, he regularly participates as a panel member and speaker at conferences. In July 2017 Christian was honored by 'Successful Meetings' as one of the most influential strategists in the meetings industry worldwide.

Jesús heads the International Affairs team. He is involved in the work at the international level acting as representative to WHO, ISO and as liaison to other associations on all regulatory matters. Directly involved in the discussions on the revision and recast of the IVD Directive, he previously lead the regulatory debates that affect IVDs at EU level until 2016. A Spanish national with a biochemistry background, he is also fluent in English and French.

Lori Russell is the head of the Ethics & Compliance Department at bioMerieux, a multinational life science company based in Europe. In this role, she serves as an advisor to the company's top leadership, playing an instrumental role in ensuring a strong ethical culture throughout the organization. Ms. Russell oversees and drives program assessments, driving associated action plans to completion, and leads strategic projects to ensure Ethics & Compliance standards are integrated and complied with companywide. She oversees the Trade Compliance Department within this scope. Fluent in French, she has 15 years of experience working in four countries in both nonprofit and for profit organizations. She holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from Emory University and a Juris Doctor from Duke University Law School.

Prof. Dr. med. Christoph Schöbel completed his residency in internal medicine, cardiology and sleep medicine at Charité - University Medicine Berlin. Since 2019, he has been medical of director of the Center for Sleep- and Telemedicine at University Medicine Essen. With this, he has taken over the first university professorship for sleep and telemedicine in Germany. In addition to scientific work on the cardiovascular effects of sleep disorders, Prof. Schöbel is involved in the further development of telemedical approaches in interdisciplinary collaborative projects. For example, he participated in the TIM-HF II study, one of the largest telemedical studies in the field of chronic heart failure. In addition, he is developing new care approaches in the field of sleep medicine in collaboration with payers, incorporating smart sensor technology and new digital methods including self-tracking. He is currently spokesman of the scientific committee and board member of the German Society for Sleep Research and Sleep Medicine (DGSM) as well as spokesman of the telemedicine working group in the commission "Digital Transformation of Internal Medicine" of the German Society for Internal Medicine (DGIM).

Born in Germany and grown up in Singapore, Dr. Thomas Schinecker studied genetics in Salzburg, Austria, and received his PhD in molecular biology from New York University in 2003. Afterwards he joined Roche as part of a management development program. This was followed by various roles across six different countries and three continents, all at Roche’s Diagnostics Division, which is the world leader in vitro diagnostics, focusing on advancing science to improve people’s lives. Since 2019, Dr. Thomas Schinecker has been leading the division’s global business as CEO. Throughout his 18 years at Roche, Dr. Thomas Schinecker served as Head of Marketing and Sales in Austria, as Lifecycle Leader for Diagnostics’ Sequencing Solutions at Roche in Branford and Madison, USA, and as General Manager of Roche Diagnostics in Sweden as well as in Germany. Before taking on his current role as CEO Roche Diagnostics, he was the Head of Diagnostics’ business area Centralized and Point of Care.

After a master's degree in biochemistry, she worked for Medical Device Manufacturers, a Notified Body and set up Quasys Consult consultancy.

Since 2001, she is director of TEAM-NB, an association that brings together 26 notified bodies in the medical devices sector. These members issue more than 80% of the certificates worldwide. In this context, she attends meetings under the aegis of the European Commission.

She conducts conferences on the trends of the new European regulations.

Dr. Stefan Schlichting graduated in computer science and medical informatics. After working as an IT consultant, he received his PhD in the area of computer-assisted surgery. In the following, Stefan worked as a research engineer and later system architect for Drägerwerk AG & Co. KGaA in Lübeck, Germany and Boston, Massachusetts,USA and was responsible for implementing  a medical device interoperability ecosystem from technical design to regulatory strategy. For many years, Stefan is active in multiple national and international standards development organizations and a member of the  OR.NET e.V.. Currently, he works as a manager for UNITY AG and advises companies regarding systems engineering, regulatory strategies and design of innovative products and services.

PETER SCHROEER has served since 2018 as the EMEAC Regional Vice President for Regulatory Affairs at Johnson & Johnson and is responsible for building an integrated team to ensure the Regulatory Affairs needs of the EMEAC region are fully met.

Prior to joining Johnson & Johnson, Peter began his career in the chemical industry, where he supported various start-ups of new innovations and manufacturing sides. In the Medical Devices industry, he set up manufacturing and servicing structures for active and passive medical devices, and lead Quality System as well as Product certification programs according to international standards, national and EU Medical Device regulations. He is a certified EOQ (European Organization for Quality) Quality Manager and auditor.

Since joining Johnson & Johnson in 1996, Peter served as the authorized representative for various Business Units, lead the Ethicon EMEA Quality and Regulatory group and established the MD&D regional regulatory affairs council. He established and led the EMEA ONE Ethicon and Global Surgery RA Teams and more recently lead the global regulatory policy and innovation team for the medical devices sector. As the Senior Director Policy Innovation, he was responsible for ensuring global regulatory policies were appropriately interpreted, effectively communicated and efficiently implemented in the Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices companies.

Peter holds an Engineering Diploma from the University of Münster - Steinfurt (Fachhochschule Münster) and serves as an active member of MedTech Europe where he is the Vice Chair of the Regulatory Affairs Council, chair of the Reuse Task Force and an active member of a number of other working groups.  

Peter is a published author for regulatory affairs topics and as such is often requested to speak as an expert around the world, including presentations in the European Union's Parliament.

Simon Shelley is Global Director of Programme Partnerships at BBC Global News and has been creating meaningful and memorable content campaigns for well over a decade. By telling inspiring and engaging stories, and connecting and elevating them to global audiences Simon’s team at the BBC have won multiple awards. Simon found himself adjacent to the Channel 4 and ITV Newsrooms scaling ITN’s global content business prior to being asked to lead on strategic partnerships at the BBC.

Dr. Alexey Shiryaev is the President of Team-NB, European Association of Notified Bodies for medical devices. For the last seven years, he has been with DNV Product Assurance AS- notified body for medical devices and is presently serving as Global Clinical Affairs Manager. Prior to joining the notified body, he had completed medical studies, doctoral and post-doctoral training and had specialized in paediatric surgery.

Stacey H. Shulman is a vice president in the Internet of Things Group (IOTG) and serves as the GM of Health, Life Sciences and Emerging Technologies at Intel Corporation. She is charged with growing the Health and Life Sciences business in addition to incubation of emerging technologies into those verticals.

Shulman serves on the technology and innovation committee for the Retail Industry Leaders Association and on the Global Pandemic Team with XPRIZE.

Stuart Silk began his career with Stryker, a leading global medical technology company, in 2008 as Managing Director of France. After assuming roles with increasing responsibility, he was named President of Europe in July 2015 with a focus on accelerating global growth through Stryker's new Transatlantic Operating Model. From October 2015 to May 2018, his responsibilities were expanded to include EEMEA, Latin America and Canada.
Prior to Stryker, Stuart held a variety of leadership and managerial roles in Europe and Latin America at Premier Farnell and CHEP.
Stuart is a board member of MedTech Europe, a board member of the American Chamber of Commerce in the Netherlands, and a member of the GLG Institute, an invite-only global CEO network.

Stuart is a graduate in Management Studies at the University of Leeds.

Stuart Silk is a senior-level leader with more than 25 years of experience in the medical technology, logistics and electronics industries. He joined Stryker, one of the leading global medical technologies, in 2008, and after assuming roles with increasing responsibility, he became President of Stryker Europe in 2015. Over time, his role expanded to include EEMEA, Latin America and Canada. Stuart's focus is driving increased collaboration across global teams and strengthening the company's presence in emerging and mature markets. Having lived in six different countries and worked in multiple markets, Stuart has a diverse and multicultural view of the world: he believes when you bring together people with different strengths and backgrounds, you build the best teams.
 

Degree of Biology (University of Barcelona). Master in Alimentary Technology for ETSIB (Superior Technical School of Engineers from Barcelona), Executive MBA for INESE and Superior Course of Organization and Commercial Direction for the Chamber of Trade of Madrid.

During lasts years Carlos has occupied positions at Hospital San Juan de Dios laboratory and as responsible in marketing and sales as well as commercial management in several divisions in different companies of the sector of IVD health technology; Product Manager in Roche Diagnostics S.L., Business Unit Manager in Bayer Diagnostics S.L., Division Check Up Manager in Menarini Diagnostics S.L and Sales and Marketing Manager in Dade Behring S.A.

Carlos joined FENIN 21 years ago as Director of the Barcelona branch office along with Secretary of IVD Sector and Secretary of Technology and Clinical Information Systems Sector.

Carlos was elected Chairman for IVD of the National Association Committee (NAC) and member of the Board of MedTech Europe starting 2018. He aims to improve the collaboration with the National Associations from MedTech Europe focusing on the most relevant European matters for NA and specially in demonstrate the added value of Medical technology.

He is married with three children.

Luc Soler is the President of Visible Patient since September 2017, a start-up company created in 2013 of which he is one of the co-founders together with IRCAD. He has been Scientific Director of the Research Institute against Digestive Cancer (IRCAD) from 1999 to 2019. He is also invited professor in the digestive and endocrine surgery team of the Strasbourg University Hospital since 2000. Finally, he entered the French National Academy of Surgery as a free member in December 2019. His fields of expertise are medical image processing, 3D modelling, virtual and augmented reality, surgical robotics and artificial intelligence applied to the medical world. He has won many national and international awards, among which the 2018 Innovation Prize from the French Surgery Association, the Entrepreneur of the Year 2018 Award from EY in the Disruptive Strategy category, the Smart Health Award of the francophone village at CES 2019 and the Marius Lavet Award 2019

Ilker joined EchoGuide in September 2020. He started his career working for Siemens (management consultant, service marketing & X-ray Business). Ilker gained further experience in Healthcare Solutions (large infrastructural hospital solutions and clinical departments) at GE Healthcare. Ilker then worked for Medtronic as the Head of MES for EMEA for 4 years. In 2019, he moved on with his career with startups. He was the CEO of a robotic microsurgery company. 
Ilker holds a PhD in Management & Economics and is currently the CEO of EchoGuide aiming to develop Ultrasound needles.  

Julia Steckeler joined MedicalMountains in December 2014 as a cluster manager. In 2018 she was appointed as CEO. She is committed to the political representation of the cluster's interests with a particular focus on making the voices of the many SME's heard. She further focuses on developing and leading joint projects, trainings and alliances that aim on a more pragmatic but secure implementation of regulatory requirements. Julia holds a Masters degree in Marketing from the University of Sheffield and a bachelor's degree in International Business Administration which she obtained in a dual study programme at Karl Storz. 

Jeff Stonadge is the Health Economics and Reimbursement director for Zimmer Biomet in the EMEA region. He is an experienced professional in the Orthopaedic industry, with a career that has involved working in many international markets. Resident in the UK, Jeff is an ABHI representative on the National Joint Registry Editorial Board and is a regular speaker at NICE events.

Michael Strübin helps develop the medtech industry’s voice in the digital health field and represents MedTech Europe’s members vis-à-vis digital health policymakers and stakeholders, focusing on technological, commercial, legal and social aspects that advance the digital transformation of European healthcare systems.

Michael came to Medtech Europe in 2018 from the Personal Connected Health Alliance (PCHAlliance), a global alliance of health and technology companies, governments and research organisations, where he led European policy and advocacy activities and managed the involvement in EU-funded projects. Before PCHAlliance, he ran the European operations of the Continua Health Alliance, and contributed to other associations in the eHealth field.

Alan Sumner, Head of Public Affairs and Market Access, Roche Diagnostics UK & Ireland

Alan was educated at the University of Edinburgh and graduated with a BSc in Biology. After two years playing professional rugby union in France, he returned to the U.K and forged a long career in the pharmaceutical industry. He fulfilled various commercial roles with Wellcome, now part of GSK, Eli Lilly and Astellas before moving into Corporate Affairs and Communications at Boehringer Ingelheim.

Alan joined Roche Diagnostics in 2017 and has worked as part of the team who engage with the Accelerated Access Collaborative, NICE Implementation Collaborative as well as being an elected member of TechUK's Health and Social Care Council.

Alan is passionate about the patient voice being heard in healthcare, and has authored a white paper on patient centricity, what it is, and why it is important for companies to adopt this philosophy. 

President Boston Scientific EMEA, Eric Thépaut has over 20 years of experience in medical devices, having held senior executive positions across different sectors.
Prior to his current role, he was Vice President Interventional Cardiology & Structural Heart Europe and before that he held different senior management and finance roles.
Prior to joining Boston Scientific in 1996, Eric led business development and financial planning & analysis at Apple Computer.
Eric has driven innovation in high technology businesses throughout his career. He is passionate about leading organizational transformation and development programs and creating collaboration models for patients and the medical technology industry.

Member of the MedTech Europe Board, Eric is very much involved in the work of the Board task-force “Corporate Social Responsibility”.

Laetitia Thévenon joined ResMed in 2005. In 2007, she took in charge of the implementation of a compliance program in France. In 2014, in addition to France, she took the responsibility for BeNeLux Compliance and in 2016 Iberia and Italy. In 2019, she became Compliance Manager EMEA. She is certified in EU healthcare compliance from Seton Hall Law school. Since 2019, she has been the Chair of the Compliance Committee of the French trade association Snitem and she is a member of the association ETHICS. She has recently become a MedTech Europe Ethics & Compliance Vice chair.

Luella joined ABHI in 2019, with over 25 years' experience in the pharmaceutical and HealthTech industries. Her career has seen her hold numerous specialist manufacturing and commercial roles at Baxter Healthcare, with responsibility for a range of product portfolios across the HealthTech spectrum within the UK, Europe, Middle East and Africa. 

In 2012, Luella was seconded to the Department of Health for nine months as the Industry Liason for the NHS Procurement Review, a role which saw her engage with government and the wider Life Sciences sector to facilitate the sharing of ideas and best practice. 

From 2015, Luella led Baxter Healthcare's Government Affairs and Public Policy agenda, where she was tasked with managing key policies impacting the HealthTech sector and the NHS - supporting change that enabled the adoption and spread of innovations that deliver whole-system value across healthcare settings.

Before joining ABHI, Luella Chaired the Association's Public Affairs Policy Group, and has been a Director of the Board at the British Specialist Nutrition Association.

Janet E. Trunzo is Senior Advisor to the President and Senior Executive Vice President, Technology and Regulatory Affairs, for the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) and leads a team of regulatory experts. During her tenure at AdvaMed, she has focused on the passage of the Medical Device User Fee and Modernization Act of 2002 (MDUFMA), its reauthorization in 2007, 2012, and 2017.  She also concentrates on global regulatory harmonization and represents U.S. device industry on the APEC Regulatory Harmonization Steering Committee.  Trunzo also represents the device industry on the international Board of Trustees for the Global Medical Device Nomenclature Agency (GMDN) and chairs the Regulatory Committee for the Global Medical Technology Alliance (GMTA).  Prior to joining AdvaMed, Trunzo held positions at Hybritech, Inc., a medical device and diagnostics manufacturer, and Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation, a hospital, diagnostic clinic and research institute.

Ms.Trunzo received her M.S. in health physics from Rutgers University and her B.S. in Chemistry from California University of Pennsylvania.

Vlada Tusco is a Partnerships Manager at BBC Global News, working with organisations across multiple industries to produce short form film content and engaging storytelling for a global audience.  In previous roles, Vlada led teams of creative talent from multiple disciplines to create film, photography and art campaigns.

Felix leads Government Affairs & Policy for GE Healthcare in Europe. In his role he represents the company towards the European Union Institutions, national governments and authorities in the EU Member States across healthcare, medical devices and government funding policies. During the past year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Felix supported the company's global response to ensure the availability of medical equipment, the functioning of global supply chains and the participation of the company in EU and Member States' COVID-19 response efforts.

Felix joined GE Healthcare in June 2019 and represents the company at AMCHAM EU, COCIR and Med Tech Europe, where he is member of the Public Affairs Committee. At GE Healthcare he is part of the company's EMEA Leadership team and the Global Government Affairs team.

Prior to joining GE, Felix worked for the German pharmaceutical and agricultural technologies company Bayer, helped launch a non-profit to promote female leadership in politics and was a policy adviser to a Member of the European Parliament on international trade, public health and the environment.

Felix holds a Bachelor in Politics, Philosophy and Economics in Europe and Masters in European Public Policy and Etudes Européennes from the University of Kent and Science Po Lille.

Meredith is a Director in Deloitte’s Global Investment and Innovation Incentives and specializes in IP. With its IP Strategy offering, Deloitte supports clients in aligning IP practice with business ambitions.

Erik van Raaij is Professor of Purchasing & Supply Management in Healthcare at Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) and the Erasmus School of Health Policy and Management (ESHPM), both at Erasmus University Rotterdam. His research interests include Healthcare Contracting, Healthcare Supply Management, Buyer-Supplier Relationships, and Empirical Research Methods. His work has been published in international academic journals such as Health Policy, Organization Science, Journal of Management Studies and the Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, where he is Senior Associate Editor.? He is an engaged speaker on topics such as Value-Based Healthcare, Purchasing Value, and Integrity in Empirical Research.

In 2005 Stephan Vehmeijer became a consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at the Reinier de Graaf Gasthuis in DelE, The Netherlands. In 2020 he became a consultant in the ReinierHaga orthopedic Center in Zoetermeer, The Netherlands, which is a cooperaLon of the Orthopedic departments of three leading hospitals in the DelE and The Hague area. Here, his main fields of interest lie in hip surgery, hip arthroplasty, hip revision surgery and Enhanced Recovery. He performs outpaLent Total Hip Arthroplasty (THA) on a rouLne basis since April 2014. In 2016 he was co-founder of Orthoparc. This innovaLve Orthopedic Clinic offers outpaLent THA en TKA surgery on two different locaLons in The Netherlands. Stephan is an expert in the Anterior hip approach and Enhanced Recovery aEer surgery. His research focus also lies within these fields. Stephan is married, has three daughters and lives in Aerdenhout, The Netherlands.

Prof Pascal Verdonck graduated as MsC Civil Engineering , MBA,  MSc Biomedical Engineering and  obtained a PhD @ Ghent University, BE. For twenty years he was professor biomedical engineering at Ghent University with visiting professorships at Imperial College London and the Universities of Paris XII, Groningen and Bologna.
He took an eight-year sabbatical as CEO of the private hospital Maria Middelares in Ghent.
He is now full professor of medical technology at Ghent University and visiting professor at the KULeuven and Vlerick Business School. He is an active member of the board of Maria Middelares Hospital, MedTech Flanders, the Belgian & European Association of Hospital Managers.
 

Kerstin leads Healthineers global Diagnostics Marketing Strategy, focusing on establishing an ecosystem of cross-industry alliances and partnerships while engaging in the digital transformation of healthcare. She is corporate board member at Medtech Europe since 2015 voicing the industry interests of in-vitro diagnostics vis-a-vis to the EU institutions. Throughout her career she has focused across the full value chain of in-vitro diagnostics starting in product development, product line management and holding leading positions in global marketing, global customer management and general management, and as such gained a broad experience in value-based care and healthcare industry trends. 

Kerstin is also an active mentor in the Cherie Blair foundation, helping women starting their own business in low to mid-income countries.

Pam leads the IQVIA MedTech Regulatory Solutions team for North America. Pam delivers strategic and tactical consulting services to optimize business strategies.
Pam’s primary focus is on commercialization of innovative technologies:
•    Digital Health: software platforms, mobile medical apps, wearables and implantables
•    Innovative electro-mechanical software-controlled devices, e.g., new imaging modalities
•    Active and passive implantables
•    Novel drug delivery devices for combination products
Pam brings a wealth of global MedTech experience in the development and deployment of regulatory strategies throughout the product life cycle and communications with regulatory authorities. Through her industry experience in product development, regulatory, clinical and quality, Pam has a keen understanding of the dynamics and drivers of early stage start-ups, through her experience with MediSpectra and T2 Biosystems, as well as with midsize and large companies such as Hewlett Packard’s Medical Products Group (now Philips Health).  
 

Errol Weiss joined Health Information Sharing & Analysis Center (Health-ISAC) in April 2019 as its first Chief Security Officer.  Errol created and staffed Health-ISAC's Threat Operations Center in Titusville. Florida, providing members with meaningful and actionable threat intelligence relevant for IT and infosec professionals in the healthcare sector.

Errol has over 25 years of experience in Information Security.  He began his career with the National Security Agency (NSA) conducting vulnerability analyses and penetrations of classified government systems and then spent ten years delivering Information Security Services for Fortune-100 companies.  Errol is one of four named inventors on the patent for Trusted and Anonymous Information Sharing and was responsible for the creation, implementation and operation of the world’s first ISAC.

From 2006 to 2016, Errol created and ran Citigroup’s Cyber Intelligence Center and provided actionable intelligence to thousands of internal users globally.  Prior to H-ISAC, Errol was a Senior Vice President Executive with Bank of America’s Global Information Security team.

Errol has a M.S. in Technical Management from Johns Hopkins University and a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Bucknell University.

-       Head of medical device division in the Danish Medicines Agency

-       Chair of the competent authorities (CAMD)

GEHC engages in research collaborations with external partners to: discover new technologies, support regulatory clearance, generate evidence for clinical use, and to expand the indications for use for our products. GEHC is committed to innovation and research and performs scouting of projects of mutual interest to achieve the best possible healthcare solutions in collaboration with worldwide partners. 
Joanna has over 13 years of experience in medical imaging products. ?Joanna holds a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering and Management degree from McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada. 

Petra Wilson is co-founder and managing director of Health Connect Partners, a boutique consultancy which focusses primarily on helping clients understand the European health policy environment. Current projects being undertaken by Health Connect Partners include leading the development of an eHealth Governance Strategy for the Ministry of Health in Algeria, the review of cross-border patient mobility for the European Commission, and the development of a new code of conduct for gene banking for the national gene bank in Spain. In addition, Petra is engaged as EU Programme manager for Personal Connected health Alliance, and also acts a senior advisor on health and life sciences at FTI Consulting.
Petra’s past experience includes eight years in the European Commission, where she focussed particularly on the use of information society technologies in healthcare; seven years as Senior Director of Connected Health at Cisco, where Petra’s team supported clients in making best use of new communications technologies to drive safer and more efficient access to healthcare. Petra also has deep experience of the health services sector, having worked on both the patient and provider side as CEO of the International Diabetes Federation.
Petra holds a Doctorate in Public Health Law from Oxford University, she has British and Belgian nationality, has lived in Brussels for over 20 years and works in English, German and French.

An internationally experienced Senior Executive with well proven strategic, commercial and operational skills. Demonstrated record of managing Business segments and product lines, commercial organizations, alliance relationship and cross-cultural business integration. Operating effectively in fast paced matrix environment, building and leading high-performance teams that focus on market penetration and profit improvement.