Thierry Breton has been the European Commissioner for the Internal Market since 2019. He is responsible for industry, digital, defence and space, as well as tourism, services and audio-visual. From 2009 to 2019 Mr Breton was CEO of a major European digital technology company, chairing in parallel the French National Research and Technology Association. In 2008-2009, he taught governance in Boston, USA, at Harvard Business School. In 2005, he was appointed Minister for Economic Affairs, Finance and Industry of France, a post which he held until 2007. Prior to this, he ran a number of large companies in the IT and telco sector. An engineer in computer science, Thierry Breton began his career as a tech entrepreneur.

Since October 2020, Mathieu Michel has been State Secretary for Digitalization, in charge of Administrative Simplification, Privacy and the Buildings Administration. Previously, he held the position of President of the Provincial College of Walloon Brabant for 8 years, from 2012 to 2020. He was in charge of heritage management and digitalization. Together with the Walloon Brabant Property Development Agency, he was responsible for the development of new large-scale 'New Place of Working' (NPOW) projects. And, in terms of digital technology, Mathieu Michel has worked on the digitalization of the entire territory, turning the 27 communes of Walloon Brabant into true "smart cities". It is also with the objective to further digitize the provincial schools that they have been fully equipped with the latest computer equipment. Artificial intelligence is one of his priorities in this area. His objective is to mark Belgium's position as a European leader in the field of AI, particularly in the field of health and energy. He is keen to demystify the use of new technologies and advocates for transparency as an essential component of technological innovation and the algorithms on which it is based. Responsible for Privacy, Mathieu Michel has taken the initiative to evaluate the Belgian Privacy Act. His ambition is to strengthen the protection of our data and the fight against harmful content.

Kerstin Jorna is the European Commission’s Director-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship, and SMEs (DG GROW) since 2020. She is a German lawyer, fluent in four languages who has been a civil servant for the European Union since 1990. She was the Director General when Thierry Breton was the commissioner and Hubert Gambs was her deputy. The DG looks after the single market and its growth, but it is also responsible for decarbonisation and digitisation. She encourages new technologies like hydrogen as a carbon free fuel, which has become additionally important as the war in Ukraine in 2022 changed the European Commission's priorities to find alternatives to imported raw materials like Russian gas.

The European Commission nominated Veronica Gaffey Director-General for Digital Services (DIGIT) from 1st March 2022. This is the Commission department, which delivers high performing digital services to support the Commission’s internal administration. It also provides services to other EU institutions and agencies, and to public authorities in the Member States to enhance their interoperability. From 2019 to 2022 Veronica was Chair of the independent Regulatory Scrutiny Board. This Board, which is independent of the Commission services and has no policy-making responsibilities, examines the evidence base of all impact assessments for new policy proposals and most evaluations. Veronica was Director of the Paymaster’s Office of the Commission from 2016 to 2019 and before that was Director of Resources in the Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy in July 2015. Veronica Gaffey worked in the area of evaluation for 23 years of her career. She was Head of Evaluation in the Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy of the European Commission from 2007 to 2015. She joined the Evaluation Unit in 2000 from the ESF Evaluation Unit based in the Ministry for Enterprise and Employment in Dublin, Ireland. There she managed the unit from its inception in 1992. Before that, she worked in the Ministry for Labour from 1986. Her academic background is the study of English literature.

As Deputy Director-General in the European Union’s industry department, Maive Rute focusses on green transition of industries, resilience of supply chains, availability of critical raw materials and promotion of investments. In June 2022, European Commission nominated her the first ever Chief Standardisation Officer. She is also member in the Horizon Europe research framework programme steering committee and supervises the Enterprise Europe Network as well as the European Clusters work.
Between 2005 – 2019, Maive Rute served as Director for Entrepreneurship and SMEs, and as Director and Deputy Director-General in the research and innovation field of the European Commission. She has previously worked as Deputy Governor of the central bank of Estonia and CEO of KredEx, the Estonian business and export financing body.

Pilar del Castillo is a Spanish politician. She is former Minister of Education and Culture (2000/2004) and Executive President of the Centre for Sociological Research (CIS) (1996/2000). Del Castillo is Full Professor in Political Science and Administration. She is currently Member of the European Parliament at the Committee on Industry, Digital, and Energy (ITRE), Chair of the European Internet Forum (EIF) and Vice President of the European Energy Forum. Del Castillo is Member of the Transatlantic Policy Network and Member of the European Parliament Special Committee on Artificial Intelligence in a Digital Age. She is the President of the Delegation for relations with the countries of the Andean Community.

After obtaining his master in Organizational Psychology (ULB) and an additional degree in management, Jack Hamande acquired sound experience in international business management first at Buena Vista International (Disney Corporation), AT&T and then at Verizon Business (WorldCom). His managerial responsibilities have grown and increased over the years, especially as regards strategy, regulation, engineering and business development. In 2007, Jack Hamande joined Cisco as Manager Sales & Marketing particularly focusing on the new technologies. Two years later he took his career in a new direction by joining the public sector as Director General for personnel and organization development at the FPS Personnel & Organization. He initiated there several programs applying to the whole Belgian federal public service in areas such as efficiency, customer orientation, leadership development, performance management, NWOW and culture change. Before joining the Institute he was appointed as Director Group Public Affairs at Belgacom.

Dr. Amaryllis Verhoeven is Head of Unit for Digital Transformation of Industry in the Directorate General (DG) for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) at the European Commission. Before her current position, Dr. Verhoeven held different functions in the European Commission related to Intellectual Property, Single Market and Energy files. She has also worked as an attorney with Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. Dr. Verhoeven holds a Ph.D. in Law and Political Philosophy from the University of Leuven, where she is also lecturing on a regular basis.

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.

As Director General of BEUC, Monique represents 45 national consumer associations in 31 European countries, acting as a strong consumer voice in Brussels, ensuring that consumer interests are given weight in the development of policies.
Monique is a member of the Euro Retail Payments Board, as well as of the European Commission’s Consumer Policy Advisory Group. Monique is Co-Chair of the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) a network of EU and US consumer organisations.

Sandra Särav is the Deputy Secretary General for Economy and Innovation the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. She is a seasoned digital policy expert with a robust background in government and private sector roles. Leveraging experience from the Estonian Government and EU-level decision-making, she has served in public policy at Meta (Facebook) and led regulatory and sustainability efforts at Bolt, an Estonian tech unicorn. What brought her back to government was the sense of mission of building solutions for your own country. She’s also a lecturer at TalTech, teaching legal framework of digital government and EU law. As an accomplished public speaker, she eloquently articulates complex digital policy, law, and sustainability topics, making her a sought-after voice in the field.

Tomislav Sokol was a Member of the Croatian Parliament until July 2019, when he became an MEP. He is EPP Coordinator in Committee on Public Health (SANT), EPP Vice-Coordinator in the Special Committee on the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons learned and recommendations for the future (COVI), Member of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), Member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) and Committee on Regional Development (REGI) in the European Parliament. Currently, Mr. Sokol is main Rapporteur for the European Health Data Space and EPP Shadow Rapporteur for Pharmaceutical legislation (Regulation).

From 2022-2023 he was Chief of Staff to State Secretary Florian Tursky, responsible for Digital and Telecommunication; From 2012 -2018 he was Deputy Director of the Directorate „ICT and E-Government“ of the Ministry of Finance, then from 2018-2022, Deputy Director within the respective Directorate with the Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs.  Before 2012 Wolfgang Ebner had different functions within the Austrian Ministry of the lso Interior. He was Adviser to the Minster of Interior for technical matters as well as international issues, security research, Cyber Security Coordinator and Chief of staff to the Director for public security. Wolfgang Ebner studied the law and additional studies and qualifications on information security.

Friederike Dahns covers the dossiers for the SDG and the modernisation of registers, a landmark project interconnecting Germany‘s registers digitally and allowing the once-only principle to be fully implemented. Mrs Dahns has a long career in the German government administration with a background in international relations and resilience. She is an expert in security and defense policy and, since 2016, Chair of the NATO-Civil Protection Group (CPG). Mrs. Dahns is ADA-fellow on Digitization and Artificial Intelligence, alumna of the ZEIT-foundation and the American Council on Germany. Twice she has partnered with Work4Germany fellows to bring about digital change inside the government administration. She is an alumna of the College of Europe, Bruges, and holds an M.A. in European Political and Administrative Studies.

Anna Cavazzini is from Germany and has been a Member of the European Parliament for The Greens/EFA since 2019. She fights for a sustainable EU internal market and fair globalization - in short, for fair and sustainable economic structures inside and outside the EU. Since November 2020, she has been Chair of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection. She is also a substitute member of the Committee on International Trade and vice chair of the Brazil delegation. Her constituencies are Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. Before becoming an MEP, she herself worked in the European Parliament, for the Federal Foreign Office and the UNO and was an advisor to various NGOs.

As the director of Digital Government, Mr Mark Vermeer is responsible for a digital government that works on a value-driven and open basis for all citizens and businesses. This work includes the promotion of the implementation of the Single Digital Gateway regulation, a transparent and open government, digital identity, the control of citizens and businesses over their digital lives, and the accessibility and innovation of digital public services.
Mark Vermeer previously worked in diverse positions at the Municipality of Rotterdam, including as the Director of innovation, information and research and as the Chief Information Officer. Mark Vermeer holds a Master of Science in Econometrics from Erasmus University Rotterdam, and a PhD from the Faculty of Computer Science of the University of Twente.

Christel Delberghe has been Director General of EuroCommerce since November 2021. She acts in this role as the chief advocate for the retail and wholesale sector with the EU institutions, stakeholders and the media. Before being appointed Director General, she was EuroCommerce’s Executive Director for Competitiveness and Communications, leading action on commercial relations and competition issues, as well as the interests of wholesalers and SMEs. Christel joined EuroCommerce in 2001, prior to which she worked on EU affairs for a British retailer and in a public affairs agency. Christel is a French national, and has degrees in Economics and European affairs from the University of Lyon II and the Université Libre de Bruxelles.

Véronique Willems serves as Secretary General of SMEunited, the association of Crafts and SMEs in Europe, as of 2017. SMEunited stands for 65 SME organisations – national crosssectoral and European sector federations - from over 30 European countries. With 25 years of experience in advocacy at local, regional, national and European level, Ms Willems builds on several years of counselling and mentoring SMEs and uses their everyday life as a basis to shape an SME-friendly business environment. Veronique holds a law degree and a master’s degree in commercial sciences/business management.

Jacques Pelkmans (Ph.D. in economics, Tilburg Un.y) is an Associate Senior Fellow [a Senior Fellow until 2019] at CEPS. He is also a visiting professor at the College of Europe (Bruges) since 2012 – before he was the holder of the Jan Tinbergen Chair and director of the Econ.s dept. of the College. Until the summer of 2023 he also was a visiting professor at the Economics dept. at Goethe University, Frankfurt. A little longer ago, he held professorial positions at the EUI In Florence, the European Institute of Public Administration and Maastricht University. Expert in European and ASEAN economic integration, EU-Asia trade and economic relations (esp. with ASEAN and China) and international trade and investment. He has been advisor to the European Commission, OECD, World Bank, UNIDO and ASEAN. His current research interests include all those topics and technical barriers to trade.

Philippe Duponteil is Director for customs duties and the digital agenda of EU customs and taxation policies at the European Commission’ Directorate General for EU customs and taxation (DG TAXUD). Prior to his current function, he worked as Director at the EC’s Joint Research Centre supporting EU policy making (DG JRC) and before that held various management positions at the EC’s Directorate General for trade policy (DG TRADE) including as Head of Unit, responsible for leading EU international trade negotiations with China, Japan and Korea. He has served as Minister-Counsellor at the EU Delegation in Japan. A specialist in international relations and global economic issues, prior to joining the European Commission in 1995, he served in the Office of the French Prime Minister and at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Philippe Duponteil holds a MA of the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris in Political Sciences, a MAS in International Foresight from the University of Paris Descartes and a Master Degree in Global Human Resources Management from Kingston University.

Joachim De Vos is a Belgian executive, professor, and author with over 25 years of experience in innovation and future strategy. He is the founder of TomorrowLab, an innovation consulting company that has worked with over 600 companies worldwide. Joachim is also a professor of scenario planning at the University of Ghent and the author of the book "Why Innovation Fails".