Speakers

Below are speakers who will be participating in the conference. Please note that we will be adding to the listing as speakers are identified and confirmed.

 

Keynote Speakers

Thomas Bagge

CEO and Statutory Director
Digital Container Shipping Association

In April 2019 Thomas was appointed Managing Director and CEO of Digital Container Shipping Association, a neutral and non-profit association founded by A.P. Moller – Maersk, CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, MSC and ONE. 

Prior to joining DCSA, Thomas has been involved in various transformation activities covering people, process and technology over the past twelve years in Maersk. In addition to his transformational work, Thomas has worked with the Executive Board of by A.P. Moller – Maersk on strategy and strategic change. Most recently, Thomas held the position as adviser to the CIO on Strategy and Digital Transformation.

Thomas brings with him about two decades of working in the transportation and logistics industry, where he has an in-depth understanding of both industry drivers, as well as the challenges experienced by the customers.
Thomas holds a degree in Applied Finance from Copenhagen Business School as well as an Executive MBA. Aside from the role as CEO of DCSA, Thomas holds a number of board positions in other organizations.
 

Prof. Phil Blythe CEng FIET

DfT Chief Scientific Adviser
Professor of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) at Newcastle University
Department for Transport / Newcastle University

Professor Phil Blythe is Professor of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) at Newcastle University. Prior to joining the Department for Transport he was Director of the Transport Operations Research Group for 13 years.

Phil’s academic focus has been the development of ITS – the use of information, communications and computing technology applied to transport. His research portfolio covers a wide range of areas where ITS has been applied to transport including: road to vehicle communications; road user charging systems; ITS for assistive mobility, smartcards and radio frequency identification (RFID), wireless / smartdust technologies, electromobility and future intelligent infrastructure.

His research is also forward-looking and attempts to bridge the technology-policy gap in terms of what technologies may evolve to meet future policy objectives or influence future policy thinking to meet the challenges.

Phil chairs the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET)’s Transport Policy Panel, is a member of their Lectures Committee and supports the IET in the UK and abroad in areas such intelligent transport, connected and autonomous vehicles, electro-mobility and smart cities and on the Big Data / Internet of Things agendas. In March 2012 Phil was awarded the Reece-Hills Medal for a lifetime personal contribution to ITS.

In his role at the Department for Transport Phil provides a challenge function to the department on the use of science and engineering evidence in policy-making and also ensures the department is well-informed on new innovations and technologies that may impact on the delivery of transport schemes. He builds, supports and champions the science and engineering community within the department and associated agencies. Through the Chief Scientific Adviser network he ensures that there is significant cross-government cooperation on science, engineering and technology issues.

Michael Ellis MP

UK Minister of State for Transport
British Government

Michael Ellis was appointed as a Minister of State at the Department for Transport on 23 May 2019. He was previously Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport from January 2018 to May 2019.

He was Deputy Leader of the House of Commons from 17 July 2016 to 8 January 2018.

He was elected Conservative MP for Northampton North in May 2010.

The minister is responsible for:

  • cycling and walking policy
  • electric and autonomous vehicles
  • Future of Mobility
  • Highways England and strategic roads
  • international vehicle standards
  • light rail
  • local roads policy and funding
  • Major Roads Network
  • motoring agencies
  • road freight
  • road safety
  • traffic
  • transport and the environment
  • transport technology (including digital)
  • More about this role
  • Department for Transport

Birgit Hendricks

CEO
Eco2city

Birgit Hendriks is cofounder and CEO of Eco2city. Eco2city aims at reducing negative impact of urban freight traffic by inventing ánd implementing new concepts on city logistics. While working for Eco2city, Birgit developed the Dutch Binnenstadservice, the concept of the Freight Circle (neighbourhood distribution combined with urban mining) and the Triple X – Triple P vision on optimising city logistics.

The newest project Eco2city is working on is establishing GoodHubs 500. The goal is to create a cooperation of 500 member-Urban Consolidation Centers (UCC) in Europe. GoodHubs 500 will contract shippers that want to enjoy the service of the UCC’s.
 

Matt Whelan

Head of New Technology Development
Ocado Technology

Matt Whelan is Head of New Technology Development at Ocado Technology. He joined Ocado Group in 2010 working on simulations of future systems, where he designed and simulated the groundbreaking grid solution used in Ocado’s highly automated warehouses, the most evolved of their kind in the world.

Matt's next role was as a software architect for the bots running on the grid, encompassing the firmware, the simulation framework to test it, and the complex analytical data pipeline that feeds it. In 2016, Matt moved to Stockholm to set up a research lab, where his team work on implementations
of the Ocado Smart Platform beyond retail.

 

Alex Williams

Director of City Planning
Transport for London (TfL)

Alex is the Director of City Planning at Transport for London

His responsibilities are:

  • Working with the Mayor to develop/deliver his Transport Strategy for London
  • Develop and gain powers for major infrastructure projects such as tube extensions/new river crossings
  • Provide transport advice on Land Use Planning applications referable to the Mayor; Manage relationship with London Boroughs
  • Ensure our work is underpinned by a robust evidence base through modelling and analysis

Alex was formally appointed to the post in April 2017 having held it on an interim basis since April 2016.  Before that he was Director of Borough Planning (from 2007). Prior to TfL he worked in LB Camden an LB Ealing.
 

Helen Wylde

Chief Engagement Officer
Connected Places Catapult

Helen joined Connected Places Catapult from her position as Managing Director UK & Ireland for Benelux company BringMe. During her career, Helen has specialised in shaping and delivering high-yield transformation, start-up, turnaround and growth strategies in both smaller companies and FTSE 100 players across the Telecommunications, Technology, Financial Services, Retail and Logistics arenas.

Prior to BringMe Helen was Sales & Marketing Director for Parcelforce Worldwide.  Helen has also worked as a Non-Executive Director and independent consultant, both in the UK and internationally.

In addition, Helen has worked in a number of senior commercial positions at Lloyds TSB, ADT Tyco, O2 and Vodafone.

 

 

Plenary Chairs and Moderators

Sergio Barbarino

Research Fellow of Procter & Gamble Research & Development organization
Chairman of ALICE

Sergio Barbarino is a Research Fellow of Procter & Gamble Research & Development organization and Chairman of ALICE, the EU Innovation Platform for Logistic aimed at realizing the Physical Internet. Born in Naples, Italy, Sergio has a master degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Napoli Federico II and an MBA from the Solvay Business School in Brussels and is a Fellow Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

In 2007, Sergio created the first group of Logistic R&D within Procter & Gamble, called Supply Network Innovation Center, of which he is the Scientific coordinator. He has been leading the logistic chapter in the informal Industrial Advisory Board of the European Green Car Initiative and EIRAC, the Intermodal Advisory Council, now folded into ALICE (see above) of which Sergio is today the Chairman and for which he has been leading the Collaboration and Coordination Workgroup since the inception.

Sergio has been the scientific leader of 2 EU FP7 projects: the C03 consortium aiming at increasing shipper collaboration on Logistics in Europe and Modulushca, aimed at the development of new shareable and reusable logistic standard modules for the last mile delivery. Sergio has developed the manufacturing Processes of many well known P&G Brands (e.g. Mr. Clean, Antikal,) and has been the chief designer for P&G of Innovative Liquid Manufacturing systems for developing markets. He is responsible for the P&G Academic network in Supply Chain and Logistics and has been Visiting professor - among others at the Ecole des Mines de Paris, the City University of London, Laval University Quebec, Solvay Brussels School, ZLC Zaragoza. Sergio is an active rower and has been Social Director at the Royal Sport Nautique de Bruxelles in 2011-2015. Sergio has also a long history of LBGT rights activism: he has been a founding member of DIGAYPROJECT in Rome in 2000, of the BBA in Belgium in 2003 and the GABLE Group at Procter & Gamble in Brussels in 2014.  

Dr. Benoit Montreuil

Coca-Cola Material Handling & Distribution Chair
Professor
Georgia Tech

Dr. Montreuil is leading the International Physical Internet Initiative, engaging academic, government leaders worldwide into research and innovation projects on smart, hyperconnected and sustainable logistics, supply chains, transportation, businesses and regions. His main research interests generically lie in developing concepts, methodologies and technologies for creating, optimizing, transforming and enabling businesses, supply chains and value creation networks to thrive in a fast evolving hyperconnected world. From 2000 to 2014, Dr. Montreuil has held the Canada Research Chair in Business Engineering.

He is a founding member of the CIRRELT Interuniversity Research Centre on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation. He is also past president of the College-Industry Council on Material Handling Education and its Liaison to the Board of Governors of MHI, the North American industry association of material handling, logistics and supply chain solutions and technology providers. Dr. Montreuil graduated in 1978 from the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR). He earned a master’s and a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Tech in 1980 and 1982 respectively. After serving on the industrial engineering faculty of UQTR and Purdue University, from 1988 to 2014, he was a Professor of operations and decisions systems in the faculty of Business Administration at Université Laval in Quebec City, Canada.

Plenary Panellists

Jean-François Aguinaga

Head of Unit
European Commission, DG RTD

Jean-François AGUINAGA is Head of Unit at the European Commission.

He was trained in leading business schools (INSEAD; Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris). His PhD in roman languages and civilisations was received from the University of Paris, as well as his grade in public administration.
He joined the European Commission in September 1994, within a team in charge of economic co-operation with Latin America.

In 2002, he joined the Directorate General Enterprise and Industry (now DG GROW) as sherpa to elaborate and develop the financial instruments for SMEs (2007-2013), in liaison with the European Investment Fund (EIB Group). Between 2006 and 2010, he was first responsible for the EIC network, then for the phasing-in of the Enterprise Europe Network, the biggest network of business and innovation services ever set-up with the support of the European Commission. Between 2011 and 2015, he managed the Unit dealing with “textiles, fashion, design and creative industries” dealing with internal market and industrial policy topics. In 2015 and 2016, he led the Unit in charge of European standardisation for growth.

Since January 2017, he has managed in DG RTD the Unit in charge of surface transports policy, which merged in 2019 with urban systems.
 

Carlo M Borghini

Executive Director
SHIFT2RAIL Joint Undertaking

Mr Carlo Borghini is responsible for the overall management of the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking activities since he took up the position of Executive Director in February 2016. Prior to this posting, Mr Borghini held different senior management positions in different domains in private and international organization, at corporate level. 

Mr Borghini holds a Master Degree equivalent in Business Economics and speaks Italian, French and English. He is married with three children.

 

 

 

Robert Hardy

Operations Director
Oakland Invicta Limited

Robert Hardy is a former Freight Director of P&O Ferries, former Commercial Director of EurotunnelPlus and until 2017 ran the ITSF Customs freight terminal at the Port of Dover.

With over 35 years of experience in Customs freight processes and qualifications from BIFA and the World Customs Organisation, Robert has been in high demand since the referendum result in 2016.

A registered international trade expert with the EU Commission, Robert is now advising some of the largest brands to prepare them for NO DEAL Brexit.    He also works with a number of industry bodies, advisory panels and ports.

Robert is the Operations Director of Oakland Invicta Limited, a company specialising in maintaining supply chain integrity which, other than Brexit planning, includes reducing food waste and cargo contamination caused by stowaway incursion.   The services offered by Oakland are approved by Environmental Health and are considered industry leading.  Details of these additional services can be found at : www.contaminatedload.com. Oakland Invicta is working closely with the Food Standards Agency and Border Force to reduce the threat caused by migrant activity concerning inbound loads.

Oakland Invicta Limited is registered with Border Force under the Civil Penalty Accreditation Scheme. 

Marcel Huschebeck

Chief Logistics Research
PTV Group

Marcel Huschebeck is a Chief Logistics Research at the PTV Group Karlsruhe where he is an expert and leads the PTV logistics research projects. Marcel is visiting lecturer at the University of applied science in Kehl teaching master students on cluster management and city logistics. Born in Offenburg, Germany, Marcel has a master degree in Economics from the University of Freiburg. Marcel became head of department of logistics research since 2008 and formed the department called Concepts&Solutions being responsible for the R&D and prototypical implementation of software solutions in the logistics domain in PTV customer projects leading a group of up to 10 researchers. He has been core group member of the logistic chapter in the informal Industrial Advisory Board of the European Green Car Initiative, Digital Transport Logistics Forum and in the Advisory Council of ALICE. Marcel has been the co-ordinator and scientific leader of 9 EU projects on developing topics on intermodal optimisation and synchromodality, optimising city logistics and last mile deliveries as well as on Physical Internet. Marcel is presently co-ordinator of the CLUSTER2.0 project.

Torsten Klimke

Deputy Head of Unit Innovation & Research
European Commission, DG MOVE

Torsten Klimke is deputy Head of the Unit dealing with innovation and research in the European Commission's Directorate General on Transport and Mobility (DG MOVE). Previously he worked in the maritime and aviation sectors in DG MOVE and DG Enterprise. Having studied electrical engineering, Torsten worked in several managerial and technical positions in a private air traffic management company.

 

Ben Kraaijenhagen

Vice-president MAN Truck & Bus AG, Munich Germany
Head of Foresight, Central Engineering
MAN Truck & Bus AG / Central Engineering

Grown up with trucks and transport of freight and in business since mid-1982.
More than 35 years of expertise in many countries worldwide.

He is leading the Foresight team, having an in-depth expertise in trend analysis, the creation of scenarios, product stewardship, mobility and logistics and public funding programs. Derived from this expertise he and his team identify the research and innovation roadmaps including project ideas to develop new concepts and new technologies meeting the challenges of the coming decades.

He held many workshops and interviews with focus groups to discuss and mirror future challenges, needs, and requirements.

He is engaged in many platforms and associations, e.g. ALICE, ERTRAC, IFRTT, Metropolregion Munich, EUCAR, and ACEA, to shape the future of a sustainable and competitive Europe. 

Since October 2017, he is leading the project AEROFLEX, AEROdynamic and FLEXible trucks for the next generation of long-haul freight trucks in Europe. 23 partners out of 7 European countries and Turkey. A project funded by Horizon 2020 and supported by a Sounding Board counting 45 members from industry, logistics, research institutes, associations, and policymakers.

Since December 2018, he is appointed as the Director Innovation of the EIT Urban Mobility, a consortium of 48 partners from 15 countries. EIT UM is dedicated to accelerating solutions that improve our collective use of urban spaces, while ensuring accessible, convenient, safe, efficient, sustainable and affordable multimodal mobility. The objective is to rethink urban spaces, over-coming fragmentation by integrating all urban mobility players – including cities and citizens – and increasing social inclusion and equality.  His vision is sustainable mobility for freight and people, being efficient and affordable with a minimal negative impact on the environment, health, safety, and society.  To achieve this, he is convinced that we need a paradigm shift in our thinking and ways of doing business.  He is more than happy to support the industry and communities to face these challenges and turn them into real projects.

 

Christian Lafrance

CEO
Clear Destination Inc

I am the founder of a logistics software company, ClearDestination, which develops a delivery logistics platform for big and bulky items. Clear Destination is currently being used by major manufacturers and retailers across North America.

I firmly believe that smart logistics networks are currently the missing link in today’s hyper competitive market. Thanks to tight interoperability, fully integrated operational management and seamless communications among all stakeholders in delivery logistics value chain, I envision solutions for manufacturers, retailers and carriers to improve their delivery networks, maximize efficiency, reduce costs and improve customer experience.
 

François-Régis Le Tourneau

Corporate Supply Chain Standards and Prospective Director
L'oréal

François-Régis Le Tourneau is of French and German nationality and speaks multiple languages. He has a strong track record in executive positions in Controlling & Finance as well as Supply Chain Management.
During the last 25 years at L’Oréal, François-Régis has managed organizational and transformational projects on selective and consumer channels with impacts on large teams.
He is a team leader with a strong focus on identification and development of individuals skilled to collaborate. His role is always to anticipate, innovate and obtain results in complex organizations.

He is now in charge of setting and digitalizing the referential and standards for the company. He runs subsidiary compliance assessment along the supply chain and benchmarks organizations’ performance. 
François-Régis develops prospective watch of trends and innovation in Supply Chain on a global scale. He also defines training programs and vision for the Supply Chain community.
The management of Supply Chain transformation and its exposure to the outside world is one of his passions along with the external representation at leading professional organizations. As such he is member of the board of ASLOG (the French Supply Chain Association), BVL (the German Logistic Association) and ALICE (Alliance for Logistic Innovation & Cooperation in Europe).
Last but not least, he defines, deploys and animates the Corporate Social Responsibility Program for Supply Chain, embedded in the Sharing Beauty With All Coporate Program of L’Oréal.

Dr. Stephan Neugebauer

Chairman of European Road Transport Research Advisory Council (ERTRAC)
BMW

Stephan Neugebauer is Director Global Research Cooperation at BMW Group and Chairman of European Road Transport Research Advisory Council (ERTRAC) since 2015.

He completed his univesity studies in mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Munich.  He was a scholarship holder of Hanns-Seidel-Foundation.  After this, while being a research assistant at the "Institute of Internal Combusion Engines and Vehicles", he completed his doctorate by obtaining the title of Dr.-Ing.

Stephan started with BMW in the diesel engine development department in Steyr (Austria).  In 1998, he returned to Munich in different functions in the development of BMW Gasoline Engines.

In 2005, he was transferred to the total vehicle development, taking over a new function as Head of the Energy Management Department and later as Head of the Thermal Management Department.

From 2012 to 2015, Stephan Neugebauer was Head of Vehicle Project, current BMW 3 series and 4 series.

Bill Pawluk

CEO
Convertible Concepts Corporation

For more than 20 years now, Bill has been focused on the transportation sector and specifically the auto carrier industry. Bill first founded CTM WW in North America, developed the equipment and championed the methods necessary to capture a major opportunity and solve a significant global problem for this industry. Today, the company is in a place where we have been educating the transportation industry now for over a decade, not only on the monumental waste that exists in this industry, but on the solutions that we have developed to help overcome them. It is important to understand that the Convertible project is challenging the legacy style of doing business in automotive logistics around the world. When such systems and habits are challenged, there is resistance and hesitation unless a full and comprehensive solution can be proposed and proven. With various hardware solutions coupled with new software and processes, we can change the status quo to something far more efficient. We are working hand in hand with the automotive industry to understand their concerns and come up with ways to mitigate and minimize the inefficiencies and maximize the benefits. Trucks, trains and ocean vessels no longer need to run empty on their returns. Our vision is to create viable and responsible alternatives to the present inefficient process of moving finished and unfinished vehicles. Furthermore, we believe that general freight logistics can be blended with automotive logistics to gain new levels of productivity never before experienced. Wasted fuel will become a thing of the past, and we will then move on to the next step of efficiency improvements, whatever it may be.

 

Herald Ruijters

Director of Investment, Innovate & Sustainable Transport
European Commission, DG MOVE

On 1 February 2017, Mr Ruijters was appointed Director of Directorate B - Investment, Innovative & Sustainable Transport in DG Mobility and Transport, while at the same time continuing as Head of Unit responsible for the Trans European Network (TEN-T) until 1 April. He assumed the role of Head of Unit in 2009 and was directly involved in developing the TEN-T Guidelines.

He previously worked in the same DG from 2005 to 2009, in order to promote the implementation of TEN-T projects in cooperation with the European Coordinators, and for the development of road safety policy, from 1997 to 2005. Before coming to the Commission he held various positions in The Netherlands related to transport.
 
Mr Ruijters holds degrees from Nijmegen and Amsterdam Universities in both French literature and European Studies, and was post-graduated at the Centre Européen Universitaire in Nancy, in European Law, and in Business Studies at the University in Leuven.

 

Richard Wilding OBE

Professor of Supply Chain Strategy Logistics, Procurement and Supply Chain Management
Chartered Institute of Logistics / Cranfield School of Management

 

Professor Richard Wilding OBE, BSc, PhD, CEng, Eur Ing, FIET, FCILT, FCIPS, PFHEA is recognised globally for his thought leadership in Logistics & Supply Chain Management.

Richard is a highly acclaimed presenter and regularly speaks at Industrial Conferences and has undertaken lecture tours of Europe and Asia at the invitation of local Universities; Confederations of Industry. He is passionate about taking and creating academic knowledge that creates ACTION in business. 

He has published widely in the area of supply chain management and is Editorial Advisor to a number of top journals in the area. Richard was appointed in 2005 as the first ever Full Professor and Chair of "Supply Chain Risk Management" in the World in recognition of his significant contribution to this subject area. 

Session Chairs

Dr. Angelos Amditis

Research Director
Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS)

Dr. Angelos Amditis is Research Director in the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems, and member of ITS Board of Directors.  He is the founder of the I-SENSE Research Group of ICCS being active in the scientific and research fields of Intelligent Transportation Systems, Telecommunications, Al and Automation, Crisis and Disaster Management, Smart Integrated Systems such as Sensors, Communications and Vehicle Platforms, Smart Cities, Environmental and Industrial applications.

He is the Chairman of the ERTICO Board of Directors, the Vice President and one of the founding member of the Hellenic Association for the deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS Hellas), and the Vice-Chairman and one of the founding members of the EuroVR Association. He is also the National Representative of Greece at EU on Co-operative Connected and Automated Transport and Mobility (C-ITS and CCAM) and the Deputy Chairman of the Athens Urban Transport Organisation (OASA). He has been the Scientific Responsible in more than 120 European and National research projects. Currently he is the coordinator of the following EU projects: HYPERION(newly accepted), Scent, COREALIS, ICT4CART , RESIST, ELVITEN, IN-PREP, SAFERtec, PLUGGY, NeMo and SENSKIN. He is the author of many articles in scientific journals, book chapters and over 180 conference articles.

Eric Ballot

Professor of Supply Chain and Logistics and Scientific Director of the Physical Internet Chair
Director Centre de Gestion Scientifique
Mines Paris Tech

Graduated from Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan, 1988-1993, Agrégation 1991, Master from Panthéon-Sorbonne university 1993, Phd from Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan (Mechanical Engineering) 1995 and Habilitation à Diriger des Recherche Institut Polytechnique Grenoble 2009.

Research areas: Simulation and optimization of industrial and logistic operations, Models for sustainable supply chain and logistic, Physical Internet, Theory and models for utility, choice and inventory management in supply networks.

"My research, done in collaboration with the industry and supply chains, is based on the analysis and development of mathematical optimization and simulation models to design and improve actual and future supply chains. Thanks to the new possibility in optimization and data availability, operations research techniques are now applied to large-scale systems such as a food supply chains at country level. However as a member of the center for management my research also pays a great attention to organization, management aspects and consumer behavior. Recent work is focused on the development of the Physical Internet as a leading member in France of the international Physical Internet Initiative."

Paola Chiarini

Policy Officer
European Commission, DG MOVE

Paola Chiarini joined the Innovation and Research Unit at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport in 2015. As a policy officer, she is currently in charge of several files spanning from research and innovation in logistics and in aviation to issues related to the preparation of the next framework programme for research. She has a long experience in managing EU-funded research projects, having worked for five years on space research in the Commission’s Research Executive Agency. 

Before joining the European Commission, Paola worked in the AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe as the coordinator of a project supporting the involvement of small and medium sized companies in aeronautics research projects.
She holds a degree in international studies and a post-graduate degree in management.

 

Paola Cossu

CEO
FIT Consulting

Chief Executive Officer and shareholder of Fit Consulting srl. Degree in Statistics with more than 20 years’ experience on European and national R&I projects on mobility of goods and people. Project coordinator / director of many European research within several Programmes of the European Commission (e.g. IEE-STEER, LIFE +, CIVITAS Programme, JTI-FCH, HORIZON 2020 and former EU Framework programmes – from 4th to 7th). She was technical specialist for the Taranto Port Authority and FINEST spa for MED and IPA EU projects.

Invited Professor for “Urban Logistics Manager” (Master in Sustainable Mobility) and “City Logistics Management”, both for the Link Campus University, and for Master in Eco-mobility Management (Luiss Business School). She is in the chairing team of the ALICE thematic group on urban logistics.

 

Dirk 't Hooft

Member Executive Group ALICE
ETP-ALICE

Dirk ‘t Hooft is currently working as an independent Senior Advisor.  At European level he is active involved in research and innovation projects and member of the Secretariat and Member of the Executive Group of “ALICE”, (Alliance for Logistics Innovation through Collaboration in Europe), the European Technology Platform on Logistics. He was project leader of the European FP7 research project CO3 on Horizontal Collaboration in the Supply Chain.

Dirk ‘t Hooft works in the Netherlands also as Senior Advisor Logistics Collaboration for Argusi b.v. and is involved with Argusi in the H2020 project CLUSTERS 2.0.  After his graduation in economics at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, he worked in several senior executive positions in Publishing and Agricultural Machinery and was thereafter 6 years CEO of EBS/ HES Beheer, a Bulk Stevedoring Company in the Port of Rotterdam, 6 years CEO of the Flower Auction of Aalsmeer and the last 11 years as CEO of HIDC (Holland International Distribution Council).  Dirk ‘t Hooft is experienced in the management of innovation projects, is able to match people and organizations, and has a broad international experience.

 

Charlotte Migne

Group Sustainable Development Director
FM Logistic

Charlotte started her career in Sustainable Development within the Accor Group between 2004 and 2006. She then joined the consulting firm Capgemini Consulting where she carried out several organizational and strategic missions for major transport and energy companies.
 
In 2010, she joined the Edenred Group (formerly Accor Services), a global leader in prepaid service vouchers, as Corporate Social Responsibility Director and then, as from 2014, Corporate Social Responsibility and HR Development Director. Since 2017, she was appointed Group Sustainable Development Director at FM Logistic, where her mission is to define and implement sustainable development programme and support development of sustainable offers in all business lines of the company. Charlotte Migne is Vice-Chair of the working group on urban logistics at Alice since the end of 2018.

 

 

Kris Neyens

Manager Internationalisation
Flanders Spearhead Cluster for Logistics

Accomplished and versatile supply chain expert with a proven track record leading change and innovation projects in challenging and highly competitive environments.  30 years of experience in the fields of supply chain innovation and security, rail, air and maritime transport, and the design and implementation of innovative logistic concepts such as autonomous vehicles and Hyperloop concept.  Proven track record of leading and managing public-private collaboration projects and process innovation in the logistics sector.

Vice-Chair Working Group Hubs, Corridors and Synchromodality; ambition of this Roadmap is the achievement of EU wide co-modal transport services within a well synchronized, smart and seamless network, supported by corridors and hubs, providing optimal support to supply chains. It involves a step change from the current system, towards the ultimate vision of the Physical Internet, by synchronizing intermodal services between modes and with shippers, (referred to as Synchromodality), aligning equipment and services on corridors and hubs and integrating these into networks.

 

Bill Pawluk

CEO
Convertible Concepts Corporation

For more than 20 years now, Bill has been focused on the transportation sector and specifically the auto carrier industry. Bill first founded CTM WW in North America, developed the equipment and championed the methods necessary to capture a major opportunity and solve a significant global problem for this industry. Today, the company is in a place where we have been educating the transportation industry now for over a decade, not only on the monumental waste that exists in this industry, but on the solutions that we have developed to help overcome them. It is important to understand that the Convertible project is challenging the legacy style of doing business in automotive logistics around the world. When such systems and habits are challenged, there is resistance and hesitation unless a full and comprehensive solution can be proposed and proven. With various hardware solutions coupled with new software and processes, we can change the status quo to something far more efficient. We are working hand in hand with the automotive industry to understand their concerns and come up with ways to mitigate and minimize the inefficiencies and maximize the benefits. Trucks, trains and ocean vessels no longer need to run empty on their returns. Our vision is to create viable and responsible alternatives to the present inefficient process of moving finished and unfinished vehicles. Furthermore, we believe that general freight logistics can be blended with automotive logistics to gain new levels of productivity never before experienced. Wasted fuel will become a thing of the past, and we will then move on to the next step of efficiency improvements, whatever it may be.

 

Katrin Reschwamm

Secretary General / Managing Director
Verein Netzwerk Logistik Schweiz / EUrelations AG

Katrin Reschwamm became the Managing Director of EUrelations AG in early 2011. She is a board member of the VNL and responsible for the office in Zurich since 2013. She has a track record in managing international teams and broad expertise in research fields such as internationalisation of SMEs, innovation management and entrepreneurship, logistics and manufacturing.

In addition to her work engagements, Katrin is active in a number of associations: EARMA, spm, GPM, ISPIM. In short, Katrin takes difficult situations in her stride. A creative, passionate, surprising individual who strives to encourage others to excel, because essentially that’s the best reward one can expect.
 

 

 

Mats Rosenquist

Collaboration Advocacy
Volvo Group Trucks Technology

Mats Rosenquist at the Volvo Group CTO office for research collaboration in Gothenburg Sweden, with focus on developing research and innovation collaboration opportunities for sustainable transport solutions for commercial vehicles. Mats have experiences from various areas in; ITS, telematics, active safety, connectivity, electromobility and automation areas in different positions at Volvo. He has been working in the US and in China for the Volvo Group initiating research and innovation activities. Mats is co-working group leader of the Connectivity and Automated Driving working group at the European Road Transport Research Advisory Council (ERTRAC). Mats is member of the Coordination Committee at the European Council of Automotive R&D (EUCAR).

 

Dr. Mike Short CBE

Dr Mike Short CBE , after 30 years in telecommunications with Telefonica, joined the Department for International Trade as the department’s first chief scientific adviser in December 2017.  Mike leads the science and engineering profession in the department and ensures its policy is informed by the best science, engineering and technical advice. He advises on the technical aspects of future trade deals as DIT looks to create new arrangements following Brexit, and works with the UK’s research, development and academic communities to boost scientific and engineering exports.

Mike has over 40 years’ experience in electronics and telecommunications and served as vice president of Telefonica, the parent company of the O2 mobile phone network, for 17 years to December 2016. In this post, he managed the launch of 2G (GSM) and 3G mobile technologies in the UK, and led research and development for Telefonica Europe. His career also includes the promotion of international technical standards in mobile technology, and he is also a former Chairman of the Global GSM Association, the UK Mobile Data Association, and president of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.

He is currently a visiting professor at the universities of Surrey, Coventry, Leeds, Lancaster and Salford, where in recent years he has led the development on collaborations in areas such as smart cities, digital healthcare, cybersecurity and driverless vehicles.  He was honoured with a CBE in 2012 for his services to the mobile industry.

 

Invited Speakers

Nikolina Apostolova-Riehl

CEO & Founder
Stockbooking

Nikolina Apostolova-Riehl is logistics intrepreneur and founder of STOCKBOOKING, the first collaborative marketplace dedicated to logistics services in Europe. 

Before launching she worked as legal and tax advisor operating services such as international structuring for investment funds, sale and lease-back agreements for warehousing platforms and logistics commercial agreements for major companies operating mainly for Eastern Europe.

Since 2016 she is leading the first digital LaaS offer, allowing companies of all sectors to optimise the use of the existing logistics means and infrastructure, exploring a plug-and-play services and interoperability between the operators in order to change the logistics codes I.e., make the market more interactive and operations easier to set-up.

Jeremy Bassinder

Executive Partner - Consumer Products & UKI iX Leader for Consumer Products, Retail, Travel & Transport
IBM

Jez leads IBM iX (IBM’s digital strategy and experience team) for the retail, consumer goods and travel industries at IBM in the UK. He’s married with with two children and lives in North West London.

He works predominantly with clients within FMCG, retail and travel in areas as diverse as digital transformation, analytics, cognitive computing, sustainability, innovation, technology and people transformation.

He’s a frequent keynote speaker and lecturer; in the last year has spoken at Retail Tech week, Surrey Business School, London College of Fashion and the Future Fashion Factory. He secured his first patent for IBM in 2016 coming up with an idea for how the dynamics of a city influence the buying behaviours of a customer.

He has always loved new ideas and is passionate about how technology can help people and organisations enable better business performance through closer engagement with their consumers, customers and employees. 

He loves imagining the future with clients and helping them get there. 

 

Nuno Bento

CTO
MIXMOVE

Nuno has been involved in and responsible for several projects related to IT solutions the transport and logistics field, including systems for managing parcel distribution, multimodal management of full container loads, and access control to and management of port operations. 

Nuno has also been heavily involved in developing an e-Delivery infrastructure for logistics information exchange and related standards and interoperability developments in several EC RTD projects such as the EU funded e-Freight project.

Nuno's recent focus is on the development and roll-out of mixmove.io, which is an innovative SaaS Cross-Docking Management Solution that as proved to achieve transport cost reductions of up to 35%. mixmove.io brings a new approach to Cross-Docking Management, based on the fact that significant performance gains can be achieved by driving cross-docking from a load unit optimization perspective, ensuring a better use of available capacity.

Carlo M Borghini

Executive Director
SHIFT2RAIL Joint Undertaking

Mr Carlo Borghini is responsible for the overall management of the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking activities since he took up the position of Executive Director in February 2016. Prior to this posting, Mr Borghini held different senior management positions in different domains in private and international organization, at corporate level. 

Mr Borghini holds a Master Degree equivalent in Business Economics and speaks Italian, French and English. He is married with three children.

 

 

 

David Cipres

R & D Engineer
Instituto Tecnologico de Aragon (ITAINNOVA)

Dr David Cipres holds a Phd in Industrial Engineer (University of Zaragoza). He works in Instituto Tecnologico de Aragon (ITAINNOVA) where He is now the responsible for the research line of IoT (Internet of things) and Data Analytics for logistics and production processes. His main research areas are simulation, modeling and optimization of logistics processes, supply chain management, warehouse operation management and demand forecasting. David has participated in many R&D national and European logistics projects along his career since year 2000 in automotive, transport, distribution and retail companies like: Opel, TRW, Group Carrefour, BSH or Saica. Additionally He has participated in different national projects (ITchain, Rafuware) and European projects (Loginn, WiderMoS, TransformingTransport and ICONET) related with innovation in logistics and supply chain.

 

 

Kelvin Davies

Innovation Lead - Rail
Innovate UK

Kelvin is Innovation Lead for Rail at Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency. Kelvin joined Innovate UK in 2015 after periods working in aviation, and maritime, with contributions to elite sport and Formula 1. By training, Kelvin is a Human Factors specialist, focusing on the ergonomics and usability of complex engineering systems, with a strong focus on the customer experience. Kelvin is responsible for leading rail innovation activities in InnovateUK, including delivering competitions on behalf of the Department for Transport and Network Rail. The current portfolio of projects covers a broad range of technical areas, focusing on a number of key priorities for the UK railway industry with a number of current freight themes.

 

Phill Davies

Co-Founder/Commercial Director
Magway

Phill is the Co-Founder and Commercial Director of Magway.  He is responsible for bringing Magway to market, developing the commercial strategy and engaging with various parties including online retailers, airports, partners, investors, local, and central government.  He is committed to establishing Magway as a new delivery utility.

Prior to Magway he has spent his career in the retail and technology sectors focusing on business development and reverse logistics.  He has worked with numerous leading retailers to improve efficiency and value on their returns and clearance goods and processes.  Phill spent a number of years with Deloitte Consulting and Lehman equity Research providing thought leadership and some of the first written research reports on Software as a Service business models.  He is active in the start-up space and has worked on commercial operations and strategy with a number of these including dynamic storage company LOVESPACE (crowd funded company of the year 2016), and scheduling company RotaGeek (Small Company of the Year 2016).  

 

Pieter de Waard

Corporate Strategist
Port of Rotterdam

The Strategy team focusses on the long term strategy for the port of Rotterdam. This department oversees and monitors the meaning of trends and developments that are relevant for the port together with our partners in and around the Port. We develop scenarios and strategies for the way we should anticipate on these developments. The department’s key activities are strategic intelligence and strategic planning (Portvision 2030 and business plans).

Pieter is mostly involved in industry wide logistical & digital topics which could affect the a port’s business. “Especially the digital part is challenging. In our (port-) industry large optimization gains common in other industries are yet to be made”.

With a solid quantitative & (transport-)economics background (Erasmus University Rotterdam), he tries to ‘unhype’ some of the worlds most misinterpreted digital buzzwords.

Before Joining the Port of Rotterdam in 2018, Pieter worked in the Middle-East for a large dredging company (Van Oord) and led a software development team at a Dutch technical consultant (Royal HaskoningDHV).

 

Florence Delalande

Rail Business Unit Director
Traxens

As a graduate of the National School of Civil Aviation and Mc Gill University - Canada, Florence started as a design engineer at Dassault Electronics. She then joined CSC Peat Marwick, followed by SNCF where she took over direction of Combifroid. She joined TRAXENS in 2017 to lead the Digital Freight Train project.

 

Keith Dierkx

Global Industry Leader for Rail and Freight Logistics
IBM

Keith Dierkx is a member of IBM’s Industry Academy, recognized as one of IBM’s top leaders and an expert in transportation, now leading the global rail practice within IBM as the Global Industry Leader for Rail. 

His current efforts are focused on the digital re-invention of the rail industry and the impact of transformational technologies such as AI, Cloud and IoT. 

Mr. Dierkx has previously been a CIO in the Maritime Industry and was an executive in an IOT start-up in Silicon Valley.    

Keith has participated in over 100 media interviews and appeared numerous times on major broadcast and cable news programs discussing a wide array of rail topics and his articles have appeared in Forbes, CNN, CBNC TV and numerous other print and on-line publications.  
 
 

Luo Hao

Associate Professor
Associate Head
Department of Transportation Economics and Logistics Management / College of Economics / Shenzhen University

LUO Hao is Associate Professor and Associate Head of Department of Transportation Economics and Logistics Management, College of Economics at Shenzhen University, PR China. He obtained his PhD in Industrial Engineering from The University of Hong Kong in 2012. He is recognized as “Overseas high-caliber personal” by Human Recourses administration of Shenzhen Municipality. His current research interests are in operation research in production, synchronized production and logistics, IoT technology application in production, logistics and ecommerce. He has published more than 30 papers in academic journals, including International Journal of Production Economics, Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, International Journal of Production Research, Computers & Industrial Engineering, Computers & Education and Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing His paper was the “Winning paper in the prestigious Emerald Citations of Excellence for 2016” He has rich experience in industry and he is senior consultant of several enterprises in manufacturing and logistics industry. He has several patents and software copyrights about IoT technology and industrial wearable technology. These technologies has been successfully implemented in many enterprises.

 

Robert Hardy

Operations Director
Oakland Invicta Limited

Robert Hardy is a former Freight Director of P&O Ferries, former Commercial Director of EurotunnelPlus and until 2017 ran the ITSF Customs freight terminal at the Port of Dover.

With over 35 years of experience in Customs freight processes and qualifications from BIFA and the World Customs Organisation, Robert has been in high demand since the referendum result in 2016.

A registered international trade expert with the EU Commission, Robert is now advising some of the largest brands to prepare them for NO DEAL Brexit.    He also works with a number of industry bodies, advisory panels and ports.

Robert is the Operations Director of Oakland Invicta Limited, a company specialising in maintaining supply chain integrity which, other than Brexit planning, includes reducing food waste and cargo contamination caused by stowaway incursion.   The services offered by Oakland are approved by Environmental Health and are considered industry leading.  Details of these additional services can be found at : www.contaminatedload.com. Oakland Invicta is working closely with the Food Standards Agency and Border Force to reduce the threat caused by migrant activity concerning inbound loads.

Oakland Invicta Limited is registered with Border Force under the Civil Penalty Accreditation Scheme. 

Agata Horzela

T&L Manager
GS1 Poland

Agata Horzela -  T&L Manager at GS1 Poland. Expert on automatic identification based on barcodes and electronic data interchange (EDI) in T&L sector. She has started to integrate effectively T&L companies round GS1 standards and solutions in Poland. She is an invited speaker at numerous T&L conferences in Poland and a regular member of debates organized by Harvard Business Review in Poland on transport and logistics. She has got an award for the best polish solution in e-commerce logistics – SSCC in CEP market. She is running several projects on standardization in the last mile logistics. She has several publications in these areas in international journals and refereed conferences. She led a successful educational project with high schools in Poland. She is an lecturer at the Faculty of e-commerce and logistics at the Poznań University Economics and Business.

 

 

Marcel Huschebeck

Chief Logistics Research
PTV Group

Marcel Huschebeck is a Chief Logistics Research at the PTV Group Karlsruhe where he is an expert and leads the PTV logistics research projects. Marcel is visiting lecturer at the University of applied science in Kehl teaching master students on cluster management and city logistics. Born in Offenburg, Germany, Marcel has a master degree in Economics from the University of Freiburg. Marcel became head of department of logistics research since 2008 and formed the department called Concepts&Solutions being responsible for the R&D and prototypical implementation of software solutions in the logistics domain in PTV customer projects leading a group of up to 10 researchers. He has been core group member of the logistic chapter in the informal Industrial Advisory Board of the European Green Car Initiative, Digital Transport Logistics Forum and in the Advisory Council of ALICE. Marcel has been the co-ordinator and scientific leader of 9 EU projects on developing topics on intermodal optimisation and synchromodality, optimising city logistics and last mile deliveries as well as on Physical Internet. Marcel is presently co-ordinator of the CLUSTER2.0 project.

Dennis Joswig

Business Development
INFORM GmbH

Dennis joined INFORM in 2015 after his studies of mathematics at the RWTH Aachen University. During the first years at INFORM he was leading different implementation projects of INFORM solutions in production plants and warehouses. In the last two years he worked in Business Development and is Key-Account Manager for medium to large size companies. 

INFORM develops software for the optimization of business processes using Digital Decision Making based on Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research. It complements classic IT systems and increases the profitability and resilience of many companies. From container terminals, commercial airports, financial service providers, industrial companies, distribution centers and transport companies - today more than 750 employees serve over 1,000 customers worldwide.

 

John Kanellopoulos

Senior Researcher / Project Manager
Institute of Communications & Computer Systems (ICCS)

Giannis Kanellopoulos holds a BSc in Computer Information Systems from the American College of Greece, an MSc in Software Engineering from the University of Nottingham, UK and an MBA from Durham University, UK. He has more than 20 years of experience in systems analysis, software engineering and data networking. He was the data network architect and project manager for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games and has participated in systems design for several banks and telecommunication organizations. John was also a member of the IT team of the Piraeus Container Terminal for 10 years, participating in all major projects of the company. In the past, he has also been a part-time member of the Faculty of the American College of Greece (Deree College) for six years.

 

Devrin Kara

Sales Director
PTV UK

Devrim Kara is an experienced transport professional who has led the planning and design of major transport projects around the world. He delivered projects focusing on urban areas as well as regional and national transport networks. As the PTV Group Director for UK & Ireland, Devrim works closely with clients and professionals that use PTV Group software in developing effective, safe and balanced transport solutions globally. The PTV Group software is state-of-the-art and is used by professionals in more than 100 countries on innovative, intelligent and sustainable solutions that shape the future of transportation. 

 

Steffen Kaup

Head of Transport and Logistics Future Research
Daimler AG

Steffen Kaup, born April 10, 1975, is the Head of Transport and Logistics Future Research in Daimler's Corporate Research unit. After studying electrical engineering at the Cooperative State University in Stuttgart and computer science at Brunel University in London, Steffen Kaup began his engineering career in competitive analysis at what was then Daimler-Benz AG.

After five years he was promoted to Head of Technical Data in Daimler's Truck Development department where he was responsible for weight management and hill-climbing calculations, and the linking of all technical data on the Mercedes-Benz bodybuilder portal. During this time he was also head of a project working on standardizing type testing processes for commercial vehicles in Europe.

In 2011 Steffen Kaup transferred to the Car Electromobility Corporate Strategy department, where he was responsible for the overall design of the electromobility environment. This involved establishing the infrastructure and the charging capabilities for this technology, as well as designing the Mercedes-Benz Electric Vehicle Architecture. 

Since June 1, 2015 Mr. Kaup has been the head of an international research team exploring new approaches to sustainable transport and efficient logistics for the future.

Malgorzata Kirchner

Acting Deputy Director for Sales and Commercialization
Lukasiewicz - Institute of Logistics and Warehousing

Acting Deputy Director for Sales and Commercialization at Lukasiewicz Research Network - Institute of Logistics and Warehousing. In charge of affiliate sales, commercialization, coordination of consultancy for logistics market and management of international projects for public and private sector (in the field of logistics and IoT).

Responsible for implementation of research developments enabling the effective and efficient roll-out of research solutions throughout logistics sector. Specialized in project development, from proposal preparation, to its full implementation, coordination and exploitation, within several programmes of the European Commission.

Co-chair of Corridors, Hubs and Synchromodality Working Group of European Technology Platform ALICE.
Experienced project manager involved in a number of EU projects.
Graduated from A.Mickiewicz University, management and marketing (Master's degree).

 

Dr. Filip Kitanoski

Founder
PRODUCTBLOKS GmbH

An experienced executive living at the crossroad of business and technology with a broad background covering strategic innovation and entrepreneurship, product management, product design and manufacturing. Desire for entrepreneurial thinking, start-up mindset and passion for creating the right solutions for tackling real-world problems. Focus on new business development, strategy and collaborative networks. 

 

Dr. Xiang T.R. Kong

CEO
Comma Technology Ltd.

Dr Kong is recognized as “Overseas high-caliber personal” by Human Recourses administration of Shenzhen Municipality. He gained a lot of insights in applying the research approaches for solving real-life industrial problems. His research interests are in the field of Physical Internet (Internet of Things) for Perishable Products Auction with operation research modelling and CPS-enabled Cellular Warehousing for Ecommerce Logistics. He has published over 40 research publications which have reported critical achievements from research results, including Transportation Research Part B, International Journal of Production Research, Computers & Industrial Engineering, Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, IEEE Transaction on Automation Science and Engineering and Computers & Education. He is also a senior consultant of several enterprises in manufacturing and logistics industry. He has several patents and software copyrights about IoT technology and industrial wearable technology. These technologies have been successfully implemented in many enterprises.

 

Ben Kraaijenhagen

Vice-president MAN Truck & Bus AG, Munich Germany
Head of Foresight, Central Engineering
MAN Truck & Bus AG / Central Engineering

Grown up with trucks and transport of freight and in business since mid-1982.
More than 35 years of expertise in many countries worldwide.

He is leading the Foresight team, having an in-depth expertise in trend analysis, the creation of scenarios, product stewardship, mobility and logistics and public funding programs. Derived from this expertise he and his team identify the research and innovation roadmaps including project ideas to develop new concepts and new technologies meeting the challenges of the coming decades.

He held many workshops and interviews with focus groups to discuss and mirror future challenges, needs, and requirements.

He is engaged in many platforms and associations, e.g. ALICE, ERTRAC, IFRTT, Metropolregion Munich, EUCAR, and ACEA, to shape the future of a sustainable and competitive Europe. 

Since October 2017, he is leading the project AEROFLEX, AEROdynamic and FLEXible trucks for the next generation of long-haul freight trucks in Europe. 23 partners out of 7 European countries and Turkey. A project funded by Horizon 2020 and supported by a Sounding Board counting 45 members from industry, logistics, research institutes, associations, and policymakers.

Since December 2018, he is appointed as the Director Innovation of the EIT Urban Mobility, a consortium of 48 partners from 15 countries. EIT UM is dedicated to accelerating solutions that improve our collective use of urban spaces, while ensuring accessible, convenient, safe, efficient, sustainable and affordable multimodal mobility. The objective is to rethink urban spaces, over-coming fragmentation by integrating all urban mobility players – including cities and citizens – and increasing social inclusion and equality.  His vision is sustainable mobility for freight and people, being efficient and affordable with a minimal negative impact on the environment, health, safety, and society.  To achieve this, he is convinced that we need a paradigm shift in our thinking and ways of doing business.  He is more than happy to support the industry and communities to face these challenges and turn them into real projects.

 

Dr Roger Miles

Managing Director
Mole Solutions Ltd

Roger is the Managing Director of Mole Solutions, a company he founded in 2002 with the single objective of developing the concept of underground freight pipelines for unitised goods.

After completing a PhD thesis on the effects of NO2 on hydrocarbon fuels, his early career was spent in optimising oil distribution supply chains using sea, rail, road and pipelines in the UK, Europe and Algeria. At this early stage in his career he discovered the major cost and socio-environmental advantages that pipelines offer compared with all other freight transport modes. The dream of developing pipelines to transport unitised goods was formed.

A career change to senior executive positions in shipping and supply chains for a major UK food company provided valuable experience in operating time-critical supply chains and also provided the ‘light bulb moment’ of where to install freight pipelines.

Roger’s main career was 20 years as an international supply chain consultant working on projects in all sectors across Europe and the rest of the world. During this period the dream began to materialise and he took early retirement in 2002 to set up Mole Solutions.

With the global challenges of road congestion, climate change and sustainability, the cost and socio-environmental benefits of transferring freight from road to pipelines laid beside or under new or existing transport infrastructure is gaining interest around the world. China has incorporated the development of the concept within its current 5 Year Plan and chosen Mole Solutions to work with them on two major applications: urban delivery, and transporting shipping containers. Other current and prospective projects are in the UK, Europe, India, Singapore and Vietnam.

 

Dr Andrew Palmer

Director
Preston Solutions Ltd

Andrew is a specialist in sustainable logistics network design and quantitative modelling techniques, and is the original author of the CAST network design software, now owned by Llamasoft. For over 30 years he has undertaken projects for many companies from different sectors and countries, plus governmental departments, the European Commission and the OECD. His work focuses on the sustainability of freight transport and the methods required to improve vehicle capacity utilisation and reduce empty running. He is currently working on various collaboration and sustainability related projects for the Centre for Sustainable Road Freight, a joint venture between Heriot Watt and Cambridge Universities; a European Commission sponsored project called LOGISTAR which is developing a real time freight transport collaboration system; and a DfT/Innovate UK project looking at the feasibility of a new type of short fast frequent freight train. He has published many articles and is a regular speaker at logistics planning and sustainability conferences. His work in home deliveries and sustainable logistics received media coverage with television interviews and articles in national newspapers.

Marianne Richeux

Zero Waste World Program Lead, Europe
CHEP

During her 24 years at CHEP, Marianne has been working in both in Business Unit & Central teams, in different functions such as Commerce, Strategy & Marketing, Information Systems. She is an experienced Multi-Cultural Strategic & Operational Marketeer, Transformation Programme Leader (process & technology driven) with the design & roll-out of CHEP’s new customer portal, for 30 countries & 36,000 users. She has also been a founder member of the European Sustainability team for 4 years and took part in the Life Cycle Analysis and ISO certification. 

She is now in charge of the Zero Waste World Program for Europe. Launched by Brambles & operated by CHEP, this is a new working collaboration for leading companies in Europe and North America that are committed to creating smarter and more sustainable supply chains. It focuses on us working with leading customers to eliminate physical waste, transport waste and process waste from our world.

Brambles & CHEP are the operators of the largest B2B share & reuse system in the world on behalf of customers in FMCG and Automotive and are the largest shipper of freight from UK to Continental Europe. 
 

 
 

Carles Rúa

Head of Strategic Projects and Innovation
Port de Barcelona

Carles Rúa Costa is an industrial engineer (with speciality in industrial organization). His professional activity has been developed in the fields of logistics and the management information systems, where he has acted as a free lance engineer and for a consultancy companies. Nowadays, he works for the Port Authority of Barcelona as Head of Strategic Projects and Innovation. In the university field he has carried out his teaching activities in the Department of Business Organization of Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (BarcelonaTech) for more than 25 years. He is also director of the Master Executive in Lean Supply Chain Management (BarcelonaTech) and teacher of the Escola Europea de Short Sea Shipping.

 

 

 

 

Guido Sacchetto

Policy Officer
European Commission, DG RTD

Guido Sacchetto is working as a Policy Officer in the Surface Transport Unit of the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation.  He joined the "Innovative Automotive Systems" Area of the Unit in 2015, and contributes to the orientation and to the development of the Directorate General’s priorities concerning automotive, with a specific focus on the European Green Vehicles initiative (EGVI), Commercial vehicles, Logistics and emission, with a focus on the 'Innovation Principle'.

He graduated in Political Sciences, with post-degree studies in international Affairs, Innovation and Technology Transfer, and business incubation.

 

 

Davide Scatorchia

Project Coordinator Digitisation
Air Cargo Belgium

Davide Scatorchia is project coordinator at Air Cargo Belgium. In this role he is responsible for all projects related to digitisation. Davide holds a master degree in Applied Economic Sciences from the University of Hasselt, Belgium. 

Before joining Air Cargo Belgium Davide worked for 5 years at the Estee Lauder Companies as a Global Supply Chain Planner. 

Joining Air Cargo Belgium in 2018, Davide is working on EU projects on the development, validation and deployment of the digital information systems along the EU transport Core Network. Besides The EU projects he is also involved in several projects involving digital platforms and physical internet.

 

Dr. Oliver Schauer

Professor
University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria - LOGISTIKUM

Prof. Dr. Oliver Schauer, born 1974, studied law at the Johannes Kepler University Linz (diploma 1997, PhD 2001). In addition he completed an executive postgraduate program at LIMAK Austrian Business School (MBA, 2005). Since 2012 Oliver works as a professor in transport logistics & mobility at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, school of management, with emphasis on the fields of sustainable transport, Physical Internet and logistics 4.0. He is also head of studies of the master program “Digital Transport- and Logistics-Management”. Prior to his actual profession Oliver gained strong experience in the executive management of leading Austrian logistics providers.

 

Hans Schurmans

Director Logisitics Operations
Proximus

Hans Schurmans is the logistics operations Director at Proximus Group, the major telecom and digital service provider in Belgium. He has extensive experience in operational execution in a multisite retail environment and led major innovation and transformation programs within the group. Transforming classic logistic operations into a logistic customer experience added value service provider. Previously, Hans held management positions in multiple domains such as IT, purchase, commercial and project management. His focus besides operations is digital transformation, change management and people development.

 

Jon Sleeman

Head of EMEA Industrial & Logistics Research
JLL

Jon Sleeman is a Director at JLL and heads its pan EMEA and UK Industrial & Logistics Research teams.
 
In this role he oversees JLL’s European and UK industrial & logistics research and supports major clients including developers, investors and corporate occupiers with dedicated research.  He is also a frequent presenter at UK and European logistics events. 
 
Having originally graduated from the LSE and Oxford University, Jon subsequently gained a MSc in Logistics & Supply Chain Management from Cranfield University. He is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, the main organisation in the UK for logistics professionals.
 

Miguel Van Asch

Supply Network Analyst
Ahlers

Miguel is a Supply Network Analyst at the Ahlers Supply Network Innovation and Analytics division, Belgium.  

Miguel helps customers gain knowledge out of their supply chain data and provide answers to solve strategic problems regarding their supply chain and logistic networks.

 

Alex Van Breedam

CEO
TRI-VIZOR

As a professional, but also as an academic, Alex’s key experience is in Supply Chain Management and Logistics. He was former partner and practice leader SCM of KPMG, a worldwide leading consultancy company. Within SCM, he has gained exceptional experience in the setup of supply chain strategies and the conception and implementation of decision support systems. Subsequently in his job as independent advisor, he was hired by major companies to supervise and to provide expert guidance for their Supply Chain strategy and logistic optimization projects, most often at the board room level. He has been responsible for the startup of the Vlaams Instituut voor de Logistiek (Flanders Institute for Logistics). Between 2003 and 2008 he was the managing director of that institute. Alex is also the inventor of the Extended Gateway® concept. It’s a innovative and powerful concept for regions with natural advantages for European distribution. The idea and the challenge behind the concept is the creation of additional logistics prime locations (i.e. minimal total cost locations) for added value logistics along the vertices of the integrated multimodal hinterland network. All provinces in Flanders are currently applying this concept for the identification of their logistics hotspots. 

As entrepreneur, Alex has founded and is currently leading the disruptive innovation TRI-VIZOR, the World’s First Cross Supply Chain Orchestrator. In 2014, he was awarded the price of Logistics and Supply Chain Professional of the year by the European Logistics Association (www.elalog.eu). 
 

Dr Bart Vannieuwenhuyse

Chairman Mobility Working group BIG - FPTI
TRI-VIZOR

Bart Vannieuwenhuyse is a widely recognized supply chain expert and professional.

  • MSc in civil engineering and operations research;
  • PhD in transport and logistics;
  • Co-founder and Research Director of TRI-VIZOR;
  • Inventor and implementer of the orchestration concept in logistics;
  • Believer of horizontal collaboration and cross-sectoral collaboration in logistics;
  • Expert (multimodal) transport and logistics;
  • Experienced project manager;
  • Development and implementation of the Extended Gateway® concept for efficient, effective and sustainable Logistics;
  • Former Manager at the Flanders Institute for Logistics – VIL;
  • Former Senior Consultant at Transport & Mobility Leuven;
  • Author of several publications on logistics, multimodal transport and decision support systems;
  • Frequent speaker at various conferences, colloquia and a lecturer at several Belgian universities, high schools and knowledge institutes.

Jaco Voorspuij

Senior Manager Transport and Logistics
GS1

Jaco Voorspuij is a well-seasoned Supply Chain professional with nearly 30 years experience covering both Manufacturing and Logistics.

Starting 1990 he helped implement ERP software as well as design and develop add-ons in leading enterprises across Europe. From 1997 until May 2015 Jaco Voorspuij worked with DHL (and predecessors) on warehousing systems, transportation management, Business & Systems integration, Solutions Design & Architecture and IT Business Development for a number of the largest Clients of DHL and on some of the most challenging projects and Programmes that DHL has run and is running for those Clients.

Supply Chain innovation is a key theme in Jaco’s career so he joined GS1 in 2015. The most powerful innovations only really thrive when they interoperate well with the existing environment using open global standards. Jaco helped develop several of those innovations and standards over his career.

 

 

Matthias Wurst

Director Business Development
INFORM GmbH

Matthias joined INFORM in 2014. Before that, he worked for 25 years as a management consultant in a medium-sized consulting company. He has extensive project management experience in a variety of SCM projects in various manufacturing industries. He was appointed Director Business Development in 2017 and is responsible for the planning and execution of supply chain solutions for production companies.

INFORM develops software for the optimization of business processes using Digital Decision Making based on Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research. It complements classic IT systems and increases the profitability and resilience of many companies. From container terminals, commercial airports, financial service providers, industrial companies, distribution centers and transport companies - today more than 750 employees serve over 1,000 customers worldwide.

 

IPIC Start-up Awards Finalist Pitches

Angel Batalla

Founder & CEO
Last Mile Team

Angel Batalla is a serial intra/entrepreneur with over thirty years of successful professional practice as a senior executive in various B2C & B2B multinational firms, in all areas of the Value Chain, in the sectors of Retail, Branded Goods & Services, Consumer, Pharmaceutical & OTC, Medical & Professional.
He has designed, lead and executed over a dozen major Value Chain initiatives across the globe, most of which still persist, for Consumer, Pharma and Professional Products.

He is very concerned with the negative consequences brought by the increase in Urban Goods Distribution. He has spent the last three years working in Last Mile Team®, in the design, development and implementation of the Last Mile Digital Platform©, the convergence point of the Physical, Sci&Tech & Blockchain universes applied to the Last Mile.

Angel holds Marine Engineer (Hons.) & Executive MBA degrees. He regularly teaches, delivers workshops and talks on Global Value Chain, Change Management & Innovation at different Business Schools and other institutions, on-site or on-line.

Javi Esquillor

Flows & Scales
Capillar.it

capillar.it  is a Physical Internet business fostered by Coursier Wallon (capillary logistics in Belgium) and Holochain (the Linux of the Distributed Ledger Technologies market). It provides business intelligence, data strategies and architecture solutions for clean, Smart City logistics. They include different combinations of urban IT, spaces and mobilities, focused in goods and data commerce & trade within the EU Single Digital Market, allowing to capitalize data flows and to optimize self governance levels in collaborative environments, such as the City Line (Plan Marshall) and ENTRUST (H2020 ICT 13a) consortiums.

Javi is Aerospace Engineer and MAS in Environmental Management and Engineering, with focus on urban metabolism and non-linear systems' dynamics applied to smart city. He has a background in applied R&D and business development in international firms in aerospace (EADS-AIRBUS), water (AGBAR) and renewables (GESTAMP group).

He has developed a unique expertise in capillary logistics, IT and urban transformation with focus on entrepreneurship and business scale up, that he has applied and developed while leading the design and implementation of (1) the first public mobility hub in Madrid, (2) the first plan for developing capillary logistics in that city, or (3) the temporary lab for the collaborative transformation of MIT's Ciudad Creativa Digital master plan for synchronizing urban and economic development downtown in Guadalajara, Mexico.

 

 

Henri Mehto

COO
OGOship

OGOship started as a traditional 3PL turned into a network of existing 3PLs linked to small and growing e-commerce shops. We started as a centralized warehouse from Tallinn and are now operating warehouses in Finland, Estonia, Sweden and the Netherlands to fulfill our customers orders from closest possible location with best possible logistics. Benefits are many and the network enables services to smaller e-shops which were not available earlier, whether it’s a local DHL with half of the price or automated mega-warehouse with 1/4th of the collecting costs normally sold only to Blue Chips. OGOship is a true frontrunner and trailblazer in the 3PL industry with potential to build a global reach to optimize and truly enable the Physical Internet. Henri Mehto is an shareholder and COO in OGOship with a 10 year track-record in startups as well as a 5 year career in logistics from the very core of it, driving a truck in his father’s company.

 

Matthew Reali

Co-founder and Business Development
Ponera Group

Matthew Reali is the Co-founder and Head of Business Development of Ponera Group, a start-up whose mission is to create strong environmental and economic impact in global logistic transport using their intelligent pallet solutions. It combines efficiency and flexibility, making the ideal solution to meet the market challenges. Matthew holds a MSc degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Swiss Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), he has led multiple strategic optimization projects in Global Operations, and has worked 3 years in Financial Services (Investment Banking). As an officer in the Swiss Army he occupies the roll of platoon commander where he manages teams of over 50 men. His international background brought him to not only to be fluent in 4 languages, but to love exploring new places, new cultures with all their diversities and different ways of life. When he is not passionately watching football matches, he enjoys spending time with family and friends. Matthew can be reached at matthew.reali@poneragroup.com.

Conference Sponsors and supporting projects

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Activities performed with the support of SENSE “Accelerating the Path Towards the Physical Internet”. The SENSE project has received funding from the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation Programme under grant agreement No. 769967.

 

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