Can verifying legal entities be as easy as 1, 2, Web3?

Natalia Aristimuño Pérez is the Director for Digital Enablers & Innovation at DIGIT, European Commission. Before she has been the head of the unit delivering solutions on human resources, decision making, document management and knowledge management domains. Since she joined the European Commission in the year 2000, she has always been involved in providing solutions allowing making users’ life easier and the institution more efficient. She has an IT background, graduated in Deusto University (Bilbao, Spain) and has a deep knowledge of the business domains she works with.

Antonio Lai is a policy officer working for the European Commission at DG JUST.A3, the unit of company law.

Antti is an experienced Digital Identity and trust ecosystem expert, pioneering decentralized identity in Finland with Tietoevry Create.

He currently works with the Finnish government in the EWC LSP and Real Time Economy program in Finland, focusing on the topics of Organization Digital Identities and Verifiable eReceipts. In addition, Antti works in EU-funded Healthcare trust ecosystem program PHEMS, designing research trust ecosystem infrastructure, and is a technical advisor to FindyNet cooperative, a public-private organisation developing trust infrastructure in Finland.

He views decentralized trust & data ecosystems as a key component of EU digitalization. Working closely with public and private organizations in multiple sectors has given Antti deep understanding in the multi-dimensionality and complexity of decentralized ecosystem design.

Christian Klugow belongs to the management board of the European Cooperative IDunion SCE. He graduated as business economist at the LMU Munich and worked several years as management consultant for the telecommunications and payments industry. In his day-to-day business Christian takes care of efficiently working cooperation among the 11 IDunion members that are collectively operating a decentralized network for digital identities. He has been collaborating with EBSI since 2023 where he leads a working group within EBSI-VECTOR about cross-border business registries. Christian and his team of 12 identity experts from 12 different EU member states explore challenges and opportunities for legal entities. Their work will result in new capabilities for the EBSI-technology.

Coen Janssen, a Policy Advisor at the European Commission, has over 20 years of experience in standardisation. He is dedicated to enhancing standardisation and interoperability, central to the European Strategy for Data. His strengths in facilitation, communication, and analysis help achieve consensus and results. Coen believes in the power of collaboration and diverse perspectives. He holds a degree in Economics and a postgraduate in Big Data & Analytics.

David Magård is a senior advisor at the Swedish Companies Registration Office and coordinator of the large scale pilot EWC which covers travel, payment and legal person use cases for the EU digital identity wallet.

Eugenio Reggianini is advising financial institutions, technology providers and enterprises along their digital transformation journey in adopting Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies.
He represents European Blockchain Association as Head of Growth and global ambassador, serves as an expert member of the European Blockchain Observatory & Forum as well as part of Swiss Crypto and Digital Euro Association(s).

Fabrizia Benini is the Head of Unit of the Next-Generation Internet Initiative. She joined the European Commission in 1995.

Digital Innovation Officer at DG TAXUD.B.4 Taxation systems & Digital governance.

Giulia Ferraris is senior policy officer in the Data Intelligence and Technology Department, which is the department at ESMA that is responsible for the entire data lifecycle of each of the datasets under the Authority’s responsibility. This cycle includes the definition of the reporting requirement across various sectoral legislation, the design and implementation of the relevant systems as well as the use of data to serve all ESMA’s stakeholders. In its role, Giulia is coordinating the data policy work in the area of digital finance, notably with the development of the data record keeping requirements for CASPs under MiCA. This is the dataset envisaged by MiCA that will need to be collected and used by EU supervisors for monitoring crypto markets.

Joachim Schwerin is Principal Economist in the unit responsible for the Digital Transformation of Industry within the Directorate-General Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) of the European Commission. He is responsible for developing the policy approach of DG GROW towards the Token Economy and Distributed-Ledger Technologies as well as their applications for industry and SMEs. His current focus lies on developing positive framework conditions for DAOs and Web3. In 2020, he contributed to the Digital Finance Strategy, including the MiCA Regulation. Previous responsibilities included the coordination of industrial and competition policy, the design of policy measures to improve SME access to digital finance and conceptual work on strategic aspects of the EU’s competitiveness in the global economy. Joachim holds a PhD from Dresden University of Technology and was Post-Doc Research fellow at the London School of Economics' Economic History Department before he joined the European Commission in 2001.

João leads the Building Blocks and Innovative Services Sector of the Directorate General for Digital Services of the European Commission (DIGIT) specialising in Digital Transformation and the management of large EU-wide projects including the establishment of the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI). The EBSI ecosystem leverages Web3 tech such as Blockchain, Verifiable Credentials and Digital Wallets to make public services more efficient and trustworthy.

José Manuel Panizo Plaza is working at the European Commission in DG DIGIT, Directorate General for Digital Services. Before joining the EC he was working as a service manager in the reference qualified trust service provider for the Spanish public administration. He is currently acting as the EBSI chief technology officer.

Karlheinz Kadner is a Head of Sector of the European Commission DG TAXUD.B1.003, working on Data integration and Harmonisation.

Marina is the director and co-founder of the European Crypto Initiative (EUCI), a European advocacy group focused on crypto regulation. Since 2017 Marina has been working with crypto projects on governance and legal matters with a focus on decentralization, DeFi, and NFTs. Marina is an expert on key crypto regulatory topics and follows the recent regulatory developments and their influence on the industry. As a speaker at numerous blockchain and regulatory events, Marina is passionate about contributing to the dialogue for innovation-friendly regulation.

Maya Madrid is a member of the eGovernment and Trust unit of DG CNECT in the European Commission. She is dedicated to the definition, implementation and follow up of policy developments in the fields of digital government, electronic identification (eID) and trust services related to the eIDAS regulation (Regulation No. 910/2014) and the Commission proposal for a Regulation amending the IDAS regulation and establishing a framework for a European Digital Identity.

Michele has a degree in Environmental Sciences and a PhD in Life Cycle Assessment. Since 2005 he works for the European Commission, first in DG Research, then in DG ENV and since 2019 in DG GROW. After having lead at European level the EU Ecolabel, in the period 2010-2019 Michele initiated and led the development of the Environmental Footprint life cycle assessment methods. Since 2019, Michele has been leading the Commission work towards integration of sustainability approaches into European industrial policies and strategies, including the recently adopted new legislation on the ecodesign of sustainable products (ESPR). In this context, Michele is the chair of the Commission cross-DG Working Group for the conceptual development and deployment of the Digital Product Passport (DPP).

Nancy Norris is the Senior Director of ESG & Digital Trust in the Ministry for Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation for the Government of British Columbia, Canada’s western-most province. Nancy leads Energy & Mines Digital Trust, leveraging digital trust technology to foster a more sustainable and responsible mining industry. Nancy is the Project Lead of UN/CEFACT Critical Raw Materials project, which identifies ways to scale supply chain traceability and transparency to achieve global sustainability outcomes.

Nicolas Hauw holds two Master degree, one in political sciences and another in European and International Law, as well as a Licence of Law from the University of Aix-Marseille III (Law Faculty of Aix-en-Provence). Nicolas spent 10 years in Brussels supporting European projects and development of EU policies before joining the EUIPO in 2021 as part of the Observatory on Infringement of Intellectual Property. He spent a few years working as project manager and policy advisor in European association and networks, as well as at the EU Parliament as parliamentary assistant. Joining Deloitte in 2017 as senior consultant, he moved to Cap Gemini in 2020 as senior manager to the service of the EUIPO in a variety of project, including the Blockathon Project back in 2018. Nicolas has a high interest in the potential impact of new technologies on the enforcement of IPR.

Pierre Marro is Policy Officer at the Directorate General Communication Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT) of the European Commission.He works for the unit "Digital Innovation and Blockchain", as team leader for Blockchain. He is notably in charge of the European Blockchain Partnership (EBP) and the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure.

Stephan Wolf is the CEO of the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation. In 2023, he was elected as a member of the Board of the International Chamber of Commerce Germany. In 2021, he was appointed to an Industry Advisory Board as part of the global ICC Digital Standards Initiative. In that capacity, he serves as co-chair of the workstream on ‚Trusted Technology Environment‘. Between January 2017 and June 2020, Mr. Wolf was Co-convener of the International Organization for Standardization Technical Committee 68 FinTech Technical Advisory Group. In January 2017, Mr. Wolf was named one of the Top 100 Leaders in Identity by One World Identity. Mr. Wolf co-founded IS Innovative Software GmbH in 1989 and served first as its managing director. He was later named spokesman of the executive board of its successor, IS.Teledata AG. Mr. Wolf holds a university degree in business administration from J. W. Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main.

Steve is Vice chair, UN/CEFACT and project lead for “transparency at scale” UNECE recommendation 49 and associated “UN Transparency Protocol" technical implementation guidance. The UNTP defines a decentralised traceability and transparency architecture that emphasises protocol over platform and includes standards for digital product passport, product conformity certificates, and traceability events. It also includes a digital trust architecture based on W3C verifiable credentials and authoritative “trust anchors".