Pierre Gramegna joined the government as Minister of Finance in December 2013 in the coalition formed by the Democratic Party (DP), the Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party (LSAP) and the Green Party (“déi gréng”).

A career diplomat, Minister Gramegna joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1983. He was subsequently appointed political and economic affairs advisor to the Luxembourg embassy in Paris in 1988, an office he held for four years before being appointed consul general and director of the Board of Economic Development in San Francisco. From 1996 to 2002, he was Luxembourg’s ambassador to Japan and South Korea. He was subsequently responsible for the Directorate of International Economic Relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2003, Minister Gramegna took up the position of director general of the Chamber of Commerce, an office he held until his appointment to the government in December 2013.

Prior to joining the government, Minister Gramegna was a member of the executive board of several companies, including Cargolux Airlines International SA (as chairman from 2004 to 2008), the Luxembourg Stock Exchange (Bourse de Luxembourg), the National Credit and Investment Company (Société nationale de crédit et d’investissement), the Del Credere Office (Office du ducroire) , LuxExpo Luxembourg and BGL BNP Paribas Luxembourg SA. He has also been a member of numerous advisory committees, such as the Tripartite Coordination Committee (Comité de coordination tripartite), the Economic and Social Committee of the Greater Region (Comité économique et social de la Grande Région), the Advisory Committee on Foreign Trade (Comité consultatif du commerce extérieur), the Economic Development Committee (Comité de développement économique), and the National Committee for the Promotion of Entrepreneurship (Comité national pour la promotion de l’esprit d’entreprise).

Minister Gramegna holds a Master’s degree in Civil Law and a degree in Economic Sciences from the Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II). He also holds a DEA (post-graduate diploma of advanced studies) in Community law.

For over 30 years, Ray Hammond has researched, written, spoken, and broadcast about how major trends will affect society and business in the future. He is also a successful and proven business leader and serial entrepreneur with hands-on experience of creating, building, and leading thriving businesses. In 2010, he was honored with a UN gold medal for services to futurology by Mikhail Gorbachev.

Hammond is the author of 17 books about the future. The On-Line Handbook (1984) was the world's first book to identify the importance of the Internet and to identify 'search' as the driving force behind online advertising and e-commerce. His ground-breaking publication The Modern Frankenstein (1986) became the first book to predict the importance of DNA analysis, genetic engineering, cloning, and the emergence of super-intelligent machines that may become rivals to the human species later in the 21st Century.

In 1996, his international best-seller Digital Business provided a blueprint for web commerce and provided a business plan for online retail enterprises. He is also the author of four futuristic novels and his books have been best-sellers in the USA, UK, France, Spain, Poland, Japan and China. In addition, the Intel Corporation commissioned Ray to write a short story based on Intel's research for The Morrow Project.

He delivers many academic lectures around the world, and is a contributor to the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maryland, U.S.A. and he is an elected Fellow of the U.K.'s Royal Society of Arts (F.R.S.A.) and an elected Fellow of the World Innovation Foundation (F.W.I.F.), a Swiss-registered charity which counts 91 Nobel-laureate scientists among its 3,000 strong fellowship.

Currently, Ray Hammond is working on a book called Smart bodies: How digital technology will transform your health. He is now a member of the Science Fiction Advisory Council (SFAC) of the XPRIZE. The XPRIZE is a philanthropic organization established by technology luminaries to encourage and foster innovation in all fields of technology.

Katayoun Khosrowyar was born in the US and moved to Iran at 17. She has her masters in Chemical Engineering from the University of Birmingham in the UK. She has been actively working in the Oil and Gas industry and has founded the first digital procurement startup for oil and gas equipment and petrochemicals called "The Procure". She is also one of directors of Gravity Partners, a boutique consulting company based in Luxembourg that advises and leads companies developments within various industrial and commercial activities in the MENA region with an emphasis on Iran. Gravity Partners has been specifically consulting financial institutions for potential business development between Iran and Luxembourg. Katayoun has been a speaker in various events in Europe and the U.S for women's developments and promotion within the business world.

Anders la Cour is co-founder of Saxo Payments Banking Circle, designed to provide Techs businesses and Banks with the crucial ‘utility’ to deliver core banking services to their clients efficiently and cost-effectively.

Importantly, Anders is not just a figure-head: he is a hands-on leader for the Saxo Payments business. Over the last 22-months the business has grown at a tremendous pace, achieving $50 billion volume growth. Under his leadership, Saxo Payments Banking Circle has received industry-wide recognition winning five awards in 2016 and four awards in 2017.

Pascal is a partner within the consulting department and has 15 years of experience. Pascal is leading Deloitte Digital for Luxembourg as well as the Banking Practice for Consulting. His areas of expertise cover the definition of business and digital strategies, the design of target operating models (Process, organisation and technical), the optimisation of processes, the feasibility studies and implementation of Business Process Outsourcing and the feasibility studies of Core Banking replacement.

John Psaila is currently the Managing Partner-elect of Deloitte Luxembourg. He will officially take over as Managing Partner of the firm’s 2,300 professionals on 1 June 2018.

John started at Deloitte as a junior in 1995 and has been loyal to the Deloitte brand ever since. He has worked as an auditor for three different Deloitte member firms, and been exposed to a broad portfolio of clients that are diverse both from an industry as well as from a cultural perspective. John is specialized in group audits of commercial and industrial companies, and a reference when it comes to the framework governing the operation of public companies in Luxembourg. John joined Deloitte’s Luxembourg firm in 2001 and was appointed to Partner in 2008. In 2015, he was further promoted to the firm’s Executive Committee, and he acted as Deloitte Luxembourg’s Reputation & Risk Leader until he was elected as the firm’s next Managing Partner in October 2017 at the age of 39.

Originally from Malta, John is a fellow of the UK Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, a member of the Luxembourg Institute of Auditors, and an Authorised Statutory Auditor (réviseur d'entreprises agréé) in Luxembourg.

Vusi's speaking achievements include keynote speaker to Top 40 CEOs in Southern Africa, addressing the Australian Houses of parliament and speaking at the British House of Commons.

A serial record-breaker, Vusi is also a Non-Executive Director of a listed property development firm turning over R3bn, making him the youngest director of a listed firm in South Africa today. He is the Executive Chairman of Private Equity group Off-The-Grid Capital with investments in property, retail, agriculture, and energy. Through this, he serves of several boards & board subcommittees. His organizational influence extends to 3600 employees in various sectors.

Whilst media shy, Vusi’s work has attracted the eye of top local & international publications with City Press having dubbed him a “Young Business Genius” and his views on business, motivation, and entrepreneurship being solicited on CNN, BCC, CNBC, SUMMIT TV and Talk Radio 702 amongst others.

Vusi also has a weekly motivational show on GoodHope FM in Cape Town & is a regular on-air motivator with the largest breakfast show in Africa, Ukhozi FM with Linda Sibiya where he motivated his audience in fluent isiZulu reaching over six million listeners in Africa weekly.

At age 22, he ran his own successful consulting business. At 25, he became the youngest director of a multinational (operating in nine countries with R17bn annual turnover) where he managed to turnaround the New Markets division from R16million to R437million employing 221 people. Under his management, the division achieved the highest EBITDA across the entire group.

Today at 33, he's the Dual-Chairman of MOTIV8 Capital & Advisory – an expert consulting business specializing in HR Management, Optimization & Development, Team Building execution, Business Strategy design & Turnaround Solutions, Leadership, Change Management and Innovation modelling with a boutique Corporate Finance business.

Elected as the first full-time President of the European Council in November 2009, Herman Van Rompuy took office when the Lisbon Treaty came into force on 1 December 2009. In 2012, he was re-elected for a second (and last) term starting on 1 June 2012 and running until 30 November 2014.

At the time of his first election, Herman Van Rompuy was Prime Minister of Belgium. Prior to that, he had served in Belgium as Speaker of the House of Representatives (2007-2008) and in several government positions, including as Vice-Prime Minister and Minister of Budget (1993-1999).

Herman Van Rompuy holds a Bachelor in Philosophy and a Master in Economics from the university K.U. Leuven.

He is now professor at the universities of Leuven and Louvain, the College of Europe in Brussels and Sciences Po in Paris and he is the President of the European Policy Centre.

Awards

Nobel Prize of Peace 2012, Reception on behalf of the EU

Kate Russell is an internationally renowned journalist, reporter and author, who has been writing about technology and the Internet since 1995. A regular commentator on the BBC’s technology programme “Click” for over a decade, Kate also has monthly technology focused columns in National Geographic Traveller magazine and BBC Focus magazine.

Her website, KateRussell.co.uk, won the 2015 UK Blog Awards for best individual digital and technology blog, and in June 2015 she was voted the 25th most influential woman in UK IT by Computer Weekly magazine. Her first book “Working the Cloud” (2013) delivered a collection of online tips, tricks and resources for small businesses, start-ups and entrepreneurs. Her second published book, “Elite: Mostly Harmless” (2014), is a crowd funded science fiction novel based on a remake of the computer game that first inspired her love of technology.

Kate is also a prolific speaker, commentator and facilitator on the technology scene, often being invited to lecture in universities and speak in schools and at educational events to inspire the next generation of tech enthusiasts.

${speaker-presentation10}

${speaker-presentation11}

${speaker-presentation12}

${speaker-presentation13}

${speaker-presentation14}

${speaker-presentation15}