Speakers 2019

Josef Renggli, Deputy Head of the Directorate for European Affairs, Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs
Ambassador Josef Renggli is the Deputy Head of the Directorate for European Affairs in the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. Before taking this new position in August 2017, he was the Deputy Head of the Swiss Mission to the EU in Brussels. From 2010 to 2014, Mr. Renggli was the Head of the Economic and Financial Affairs Division of the Embassy of Switzerland in Washington, D.C..

Peter Grünenfelder, Director, Avenir Suisse
Dr. Peter Grünenfelder is the Director of Avenir Suisse. Previous positions were, inter alia, state chancellor of the Canton of Aargau and president of the Swiss State Chancellors’ Association. Furthermore, he is a lecturer for public governance at the University of St. Gallen as well as frequent visiting lecturer at universities in Switzerland and abroad.

Raymond Cron, CEO, Switzerland Innovation
Raymond Cron is the CEO of Switzerland Innovation since 2015. Prior to this assignment, Raymond held top management positions in the Swiss Construction and Real Estate Industry. From 2004 until 2008 he served as Director General of the Swiss Civil Aviation Authority (FOCA).
Aside he serves as a chairman of boards of directors respectively as board member of some Swiss companies.

Shira Kaplan, CEO, Cyverse AG
Shira’s technological training dates back to her military service in the Israeli 8200 Elite Technology Unit of the Intelligence, where she served as Cyber and Intelligence Analyst. Prior to founding Cyverse, she held business management positions at publicly-traded companies including Teva Pharmaceuticals Ltd. In Israel (NASDAQ: TEVA) and Bank Julius Baer & Co. in Zurich (SIX: BAER). Shira has won several other awards, including the “Seeds of Peace” scholarship, the Goldman fellowship and the Milken Fellowship.

Jana Koehler, CEO, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)
Jana Koehler is CEO and scientific director of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH) with currently 5 locations in Germany and more than 1000 employees. Founded in 1988, the DFKI combines scientific excellence and economic development with social added value in a public-private partnership. Her specialty is AI methods for flexible and optimized manufacturing and business processes.

Marc Bros de Puechredon, Executive Board, Chairman, BAK Econonomics AG

Marc Bros de Puechredon joined the BAK Economics in 2002 as Head of International Business Development and became Chairman of the Executive Board in 2014. He is responsible for the overall acquisition, marketing and communication of BAK in Switzerland and abroad. Marc presides the Gender and Pay Gap Association Switzerland (VCLG) founded in 2018 in Zurich and is a Member of the BAK S3 Association.

Nicolas Bideau, Director, Presence Switzerland
Studies in political science at the Universities of Lausanne and Paris. Postgraduate studies in history and civilization at the Academy of Social Science Paris and Beijing. Since 2011 Head of Presence Switzerland in the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), responsible for Switzerland’s communication abroad.

Mauro Moruzzi, Ambassador, State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation SERI
Ambassador Mauro Moruzzi is Head of the International Relations Division at the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation and member of the Senior Management board. He is responsible for the negotiation and implementation of bilateral agreements in the field of education, research and innovation as well as for Switzerland’s network of science counselors and swissnexes, the Swiss consulates for scientific and technological exchanges abroad.

Lijin Aryananda Blatter, Head of Robotics Platform, ETH Zurich

Lijin Aryananda Blatter joined Wyss Zurich in January 2017. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees as well as a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She has 17 years of experience in Robotics in the context of research, startups, and industry. Her research work has spanned a range of topics. She wrote her doctoral dissertation at the Humanoid Robotics Laboratory, under the supervision of Prof. Rodney Brooks, and subsequently conducted a number of research projects related to bio-inspired robotics and legged locomotion at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in Zurich.

Hanspeter Kipfer, County Manager, Oracle Switzerland
In this role, Hanspeter Kipfer is responsible for managing Technology Sales in Switzerland and Austria and is leading Oracle’s entire business in Switzerland. He joined Oracle in April 2006 through the acquisition of Siebel Systems where he held General Management responsibility for the Sales and Service Operations in Switzerland, Austria, Eastern Europe and CIS.

Eric Jakob, Head of the Promotion Activities Directorate, State Secretariat for Economic Affairs
Ambassador Eric Jakob, Dr. phil., Head of the Promotion Activities Directorate at the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs since 01.12.2012. He previously was General Manager of Regio Basiliensis and the Intercantonal Co-ordination Office at Regio Basiliensis in Basel, from 1995 to 2003 Assistant General Manager of this organization. From 1993 to 1995 he was Swiss Adviser to Infobest Palmrain, an information and advisory body for cross-border matters in Village-Neuf (France).

Daniel Küng, CEO, S-GE
Daniel Küng has been CEO of Switzerland Global Enterprise since 2004, the first point of contact for all questions on internationalization for Swiss and Liechtenstein companies and for foreign investors. After studying economics, finance and accounting at the University of St. Gallen HSG, he moved to Brazil. Daniel Küng founded and led two management consultancies in Brazil and Portugal to assist companies in their international business ventures.

Patrik Wermelinger, Head of Investment Promotion, S-GE
Patrik Wermelinger is responsible to run and evolve Switzerland’s Investment Promotion Mandate. He is a member of the Executive Committee at Switzerland Global Enterprise. Having previously promoted the business location Canton of Lucerne in selected global markets, he brings in thirteen years of experience in Investment Promotion. Patrik has achieved an Executive MBA degree in General Management – Leadership in 2014 at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences.

Liv Minder, Director Investment Promotion, S-GE
She received a master’s degree in Economics and Political Science at the University of Zurich. She has worked at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) as a research assistant and became then head of the department of foreign affairs of the Canton of Schaffhausen. Later she embarked for 5 years to China where she has headed the Swiss Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and has built up the investment promotion department at the Swiss Embassy in Beijing. She was involved bringing large enterprises to Switzerland and has long experience in supporting foreign companies to develop their business strategies in Europe.

Sirpa Tsimal, Director Investment Promotion, S-GE
Sirpa Tsimal is a Director, Investment Promotion at S-GE, where she focuses her work on new technological fields such as AI, blockchain, personalized health, robotics and advanced manufacturing in attracting FDI to Switzerland. Sirpa has 15+ years of experience working with and leading international teams in marketing communications, business development & design, B2B sales consulting, market entry and event management projects. Prior to S-GE, Sirpa was the founder of The Location Lab and TSIMANN LLC, and a consultant for various economic development agencies such as BaselArea.swiss, South Australia, Greater Zurich Area, and she run and scaled the mentorship program at two health tech accelerators in NYC (ELabNYC) and the State of Connecticut (ABCT).

Nicholas Kelley, Data Science & A.I. advisor to the Digital Office, Novartis
Mr. Kelley is Data Science & A.I. advisor to the Digital Office and is leading a number of cross-company initiatives with the single goal of elevating data science at Novartis. These include organic and inorganic capability building, targeted external engagement, community building and new modes of operating to empower our data scientists to impact the business in new innovative ways and better develop and attract talent - in addition to his key role in connecting and bringing in new innovative technologies.

Michael Früh, CFO & Head of Care Robotics, F&P Robotics AG
Michael Früh is CFO and the head of Care Robotics at F&P Robotics AG. He is an electronics technician by training and holds a BSc in Business Administration and a MSc in International Financial Management. He worked for four years as a consultant in health economics and co-founded two health care organizations, both dedicated to the quality of care, where he still acts as a board member."

Mélanie Guittet, Co-Founder, Involi SA
Mélanie currently leads the Business Development at INVOLI, having previous experience as industry liaison, linking industries, academia and authorities through large R&D projects in the fields of IT and energy. She is also a certified project manager. With an extremely wide network in aviation and energy in Switzerland, Europe and the world, she leads the development of the network, partnerships and collaborations.

Markus Waibel, President, Drone Industry Association Switzerland (DIAS)
Markus Waibel is an Austrian/Swiss entrepreneur and researcher. He is a co-founder, director, and COO of Verity Studios AG, a Swiss high-tech company creating dynamic machines and related systems for the live event and other industries. He is also the president of the Drone Industry Association Switzerland (DIAS), and he is the co-founder of two award-winning robotics podcast series, conducting and publishing more than 250 in-depth interviews with leading roboticists since 2006. He co-founded the ROBOTS Association and its flagship publication Robohub, an online platform that brings together leading communicators in robotics research, education, start-ups, and business from around the world.

Sandro Schmid, CEO, AAAccell AG
Sandro is Co-founder and CEO of AAAccell. He has long-lasting experiences in the financial industry from large international institutions to mid-sized wealth management banks and worked in numerous regions and countries. He was in charge in several top executive positions such as CEO, COO, CRO for different financial institutions as well as heading the financial advisory and risk practice as the Partner in Charge for a Big 4 company in Switzerland/UK. He is a founder and co-president of the Swiss Risk Association and a lecturer at the University of Zurich and SFI and a frequent speaker at many other universities (ZHAW, USG, etc.).

Ivano Salogni, Sales Director, Squirro
Ivano started in IT when punch cards were still part of the daily business and the Internet was not yet born. 
He studied economics, started 1983 as Software Engineer with IBM Switzerland and changed to a sales manager role later on. He joined Motive Inc. in 2001, a US software startup as second employee in Europe. From 2009 on he helped Lithium, a leading vendor in the area of commercial social media solutions, to launch and establish their European business. Ivano is with Squirro since June 2017.