OUR PREVIOUS SPEAKERS

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  MARIYA GABRIEL

  European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth

  Mariya Gabriel is the European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth since 2019 and former European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society (2017 - 2019). The overall objective of her overarching portfolio aims at the full realization of the Digital Single Market. Her strategic vision has consistently placed European citizens at the center of the policies, helping them acquire digital skills to succeed in the digital transformation process. She has focused her efforts on putting forward an ambitious digital programme in the context of the next MFF, investing in HPC, AI, cyber security, but also the creative, audio-visual industries and media, bringing benefits to all European citizens. She has extensively engaged with external EU partners to enhance digital cooperation, in particular with the Western Balkans and the Mediterranean region.
  Mariya Gabriel served as Member of the European Parliament from 2009 to July 2017. Being the EPP Group Vice-President, she tackled issues related to EU enlargement, Mediterranean region, Middle East and Africa and focused on priorities, e.g. security, migration, women issues. Mariya Gabriel also has considerable achievements in the area of the EU visa policy - she is the EP rapporteur on 1/3 of all EU visa liberalisation agreements.
  She was awarded twice the prestigious prize "MEP of the year" - in 2016 for the Development category, and in 2013 for the Gender equality category. She is the 2018 winner of the prize "Tecnovisionarie" awarding excellence in research, technology, innovation, and business. In 2017 she was honored with the Royal Spanish Order of Civil Merit for her contribution to the foreign relations of the country and 2016 - with the Columbian Order of San Carlos for merits to the country in international relations and diplomacy.

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  Rumen Radev

  President of the Republic of Bulgaria

  Rumen Georgiev Radev was born on June 18, 1963, in Dimitrovgrad, Bulgaria. He is a Bulgarian politician and former major general who is the current president of Bulgaria since January 22, 2017. He graduated from the Georgi Benkovski Bulgarian Air Force University in 1987 as the top graduate. In 1992, he graduated from the US Air Force Squadron Officer School at Maxwell AFB. From 1994 to 1996, he studied at the Rakovski Defence and Staff College, where he was also the top graduate. He holds a Doctor of Military Sciences degree in the field of improvement of tactical training of flight crews and simulation of air combat. In 2003 he graduated from Air War College at Maxwell AFB in the United States with a Master of Strategic Studies with honors. He speaks Bulgarian, English, Russian and German.

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  Nicolae Ciuca

  Prime-Minister of Romania

  Prime-Minister of Romania

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  Apostolos Tzitzikostas

  President of the European Committee of the Regions

  Apostolos Tzitzikostas, Governor of the Region of Central Macedonia, and President of the Association of Greek Regions, studied Government and International Relations at Georgetown University, in Washington DC, and has a Master's Degree on European Public Policy and Economics from the University College of London.
  Since 2015 he is a Member of the European Committee of the Regions. In July 2017, he was elected Head of the Greek Delegation and Vice-President of the European Committee of the Regions. In February 2020 he was elected President of the European Committee of the Regions.
  He speaks fluently English and French and his articles are regularly being published in Greek and foreign newspapers and magazines.
  

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  Harald Gruber

  Head of Digital Infrastructure at the Projects Directorate of the European Investment Bank

  Harald Gruber is head of Digital Infrastructure at the Projects Directorate of the European Investment Bank based in Luxembourg. His team oversees project appraisal and advises on the Bank’s business strategy with respect to financing of broadband infrastructure, digitalisation, nanoelectronics, photonics space policy, cybersecurity and high performance computing. The large size of the EIB activities in these domains provides a good overview of the conditions of access to finance of the different companies in the sector.
  Harald is currently representing the EIB on the Steering Committee for the IPCEI on High Performance Computing/Big Data. He was also EIB Sherpa on the first KET Steering Committee.
  Harald has a research track record in the field of innovation and competition policy. He has published a monograph on the semiconductor industry and a book on the Economics of Mobile Telecommunications.
  Harald holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the London School of Economics, specialising on innovation in the semiconductor industry.
  

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  Fahim R. Kibria

  CMO at Kotler Impact Inc. and Executive Director of the World Marketing Summit Group

  Dr. Fahim R. Kibria is also working as exclusive Business Director worldwide for Professor Philip Kotler, the one & only re-known Guru of marketing whose books are taught in all the business colleges & universities around the globe. Lately, they together launched Kotler Business Program in collaboration with Pearson Education UK, in 35 + countries (to-date) around the world. Prior to joining Kotler Impact Inc., he worked as marketing management consultant with Prof. Philip Kotler. As Director on the Pan-American desk, his primary role in providing consultancy to both private and public sectors. Prior to that, he worked as Director Strategy & Business Development at Philip Morris, spearheaded the firm`s Global Products Development strategy firstly out of Albany-NY, and then in Toronto, where he moved to redefine the Canadian business. Fahim is also involved in marketing consultations to companies worldwide, while assisting for corporate governance assessments and improvement plans in NAFTA, SAARC, SAFTA & ASEAN.

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  Andrew Weld-Moore

  Manager Global Marketing Solutions at Facebook

  Andrew Weld-Moore is Head of Digital Business for the CEE region at Facebook’s Europe, Middle East and Africa headquarters in Dublin and oversees general management responsibilities while serving as a cross functional liaison, working with product, engineering, sales, business development, marketing and finance to drive Facebook’s most important strategic priorities within the region. He joined Facebook after a number of years at UTV Radio, where he was responsible for strategic sales & marketing policies, driving revenue across the company’s portfolio of radio stations. In that role he helped build UTV’s radio network into one of the largest in the UK/IRE marketplace. He also sits on the board of UNICEF Ireland.

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  JOHN TSCHOHL

  Customer Service strategist and best-selling author

  Called the “Guru of customer service” by USA today, Times and Entrepreneur magazine, John Tschohl is a internationally recognized service strategist and President of service quality institute, the global leader in Customer service.
  For the last 34 years he has solely focused on helping organizations drive a service culture and create a customer experience through his technology built on practicality, simplicity and common sense.
  With his credibility and focus on empowerment and the power of the social media he has the ability to emotionally communicate the power of the service strategy from Top executives to the total workforce.
  Tschohl is dynamic, hard hitting, and inspirational. He will create an emotional Buy-in using measurable data that CEO’s respond to.
  His books are recognized and highly esteemed by Senior executives as the most powerful must-reads in Customer Service.
  John’s message is based on common sense built around his 44 years in speaking, designing training programs and developing a high performance workforce.
  He is featured on major television shows from Good Morning America, CNBC and PBS to USA Today’s cover story, newspapers, radio stations, and magazines from almost every corner of the world. John’s technology and books are translated in 11 languages, represented in over 45 countries, and 90 percent of Service Quality Institute’s business is international.

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  DRAYTON BIRD

  Top Marketing expert, known as the

  In 2003, The Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton Bird one of the 50 people in the world who have shaped today`s marketing. David Ogilvy said he “knows more about direct marketing than anyone in the world”. Former Worldwide Vice Chairman and Creative Director of the agency now Ogilvy One he has had 60 years’ experience in 55 countries. He has worked for some of the world’s biggest brands including Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, P & G, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen. As a writer, Drayton has helped sell a variety of products – from Airbus aircraft to the Peppa Pig animation. He has written 6 books, out in 17 languages, one “Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing” has been a bestseller since 1982. David Ogilvy also said his speeches are “Instructive and hilariously funny.”

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  Gina London

  CEO of Language of Leadership Ltd. and former CNN anchor.

  She has worked and lived in dozens of countries across six continents and she is proud that her speaking, training and coaching transform and positively influence lives. An Emmy-winning former CNN correspondent and anchor, Gina brings her passion for people and helping leaders tell their stories better to whatever event she is privileged to be a part of. She is an internationally recognized high energy speaker, facilitator and premier strategic communications expert based in Ireland.

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  Cüneyt Erpolat

  Country Manager of Alibaba.com Turkey

  Аppointed as Country Manager of Alibaba.com, one of the largest e-commerce portals in the world, Cüneyt is responsible for all business processes and stakeholder relationship management of Alibaba.com in Turkey since May 2013. Cüneyt Erpolat graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences at Ankara University and started his career as Product Manager at Xerox. He then worked as Channel Manager at Microsoft between 2000 and 2002, as Head of SME Department at Avea between 2002 and 2007, and as one of Anadolu Yatırım`s founding partners in 2007 serving as investment consultant. Erpolat, who served as Sales Director in Datamarket for one year in 2010, became Sales Director of Grenke Turkey between 2011-2013.

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  Michael Roberts

  Lead Solution Engineer @ Salesforce

  Michael started his career as a digital marketer and quickly became a thought leader on B2B Marketing trends in Australia. He is passionate thinking about how data and artificial intelligence is helping brands to deliver more personalised messages across every channel. He is an energetic communicator, speaking at Salesforce World Tour, Dreamforce and the B2B Marketing Leadership Forum in Australia. Michael is also passionate about #EqualityForAll, founding Salesforce`s interfaith group, Faithforce globally.

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  BOJIDAR KRAPCHEV

  Amazon Lead CEE at Amazon Web services

  He Leads Amazon’s partner team in 50 countries in Central Europe to grow and develop the most customer centric Partner Ecosystem in order to help customers in their Cloud journey. The Central region spans from Switzerland to Turkey, South East Europe, Russia and CIS. He was also a Senior Business Development Manager Dynamics Ax at Microsoft from 2015 to 2016, Member of the board of LLP Group from 2000 to 2013 and Managing Partner at LLP Dynamics SEE from 2011 to 2014. Leading Microsoft Dynamics (NAV, AX) partner in Central and Eastern Europe. LLP Dynamics is part of LLP Group.

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  Norman Winarsky

  Co-founder and board member of Siri (Apple) Entrepreneurial Mentor & Technology Pioneer

  Norman is past President of SRI Ventures at SRI International, a world-leading research institute founded by Stanford University in 1946. He has been a founder and leader of SRI’s venture strategy and process, which has resulted in more than sixty ventures worth over $20 billion. Norman helped create and build companies ranging from artificial intelligence, natural language, and computer vision, to medical devices, robotics, and nanotechnology. He was a co-founder and board member of Siri, which was spun out from SRI in January 2008 and acquired by Apple in April 2010. Siri has become a worldwide phenomenon, establishing the breakthrough market category of virtual personal assistant.

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  Vasil S. Denchev

  Chief Quantum Software Architect at Quantum AI Lab, Google [USA]

  Dr. Vasil S. Denchev is the Chief Quantum Software Architect of the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab at Google. He received his PhD in Computer Science from Purdue University. Vasil`s PhD research gave impetus to the founding in 2013 of the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab by pioneering important techniques allowing for the successful application of quantum annealing to statistical machine learning and computer vision problems. Currently Vasil is studying the computational effects of quantum tunneling and many-body delocalization via experimentation with existing quantum processors as well as distributed large-scale numerical simulations of various quantum and classical computational models. Most recently, in recognition of his overall contributions to the computing sciences, Vasil received the prestigious John Atanasoff Award from the President of Bulgaria.

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  Monica Miteva

  Marketing & Sales Director

  Monica runs the Marketing and Sales Department at DHL Express Bulgaria. She has been working hard to position the company as a strategic partner for corporate, small and medium-sized businesses, particularly start-ups and online retailers.

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  Larry Biehl

  Founder of Interculture and founder of Bulgarian Entrepreneurship Center (BEC)

  Larry Biehl graduated Stanford University. After developing his own business in Silicon Valley, he starts helping young entrepreneurs to do the same. For over 50 years, he is a financial advisor and investment manager for different startups all over the world. He is the founder of Interculture foundation which finances the project Bulgarian Entrepreneurship Center.

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  MARIA METZ

  CEO at NTT DATA Romania

  Maria Metz has been working in the IT&C industry for over 20 years, ever since the company was established. Throughout her career at NTT DATA Romania, she has actively contributed to building relevant structures and shaping the specific business processes by developing and integrating markets and portfolios to meet the constantly changing requirements. Maria has a collaborative leadership style, is a proponent of the constant transformation defining an agile organization, and upholds the importance of people in a digital world.
  

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  Jamie Williams

  NFL & Super Bowl Veteran, Holllywood Actor, Entrepreneur

  After becoming an All-American Football and Basketball player at Nebraska University, Dr. Williams played professional football and earned a NFL XXIV Super Bowl ring with the San Francisco 49ers. Following football, Dr. Williams embarked on a career that included work in the film industry as a writer, director, screenwriter and actor. Jamie is most known for his role as a writer, technical director and actor in Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday. Along the way, he achieved both a Master Degree in Mass Communication and a Doctorate Degree in Education and Leadership. Jamie’s startup, Ymotion, creates everything from commercials, graphic design, music videos, web development, illustration/animation and social media presence. All of its “creatives” have degrees in Fine Art, and its clients mostly represent Fortune 500 hundred companies.

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  FLORIN FILOTE

  Marketplace Director at eMAG

  Mr. Florin Filote is the head of eMAG Marketplace for more than two years. His former experience in companies such as Selgros (major cash&carry retailer) and Ecopack undoubtedly helps him to overachieve the eMAG Marketplace growth agenda. During his supervision the platform is about to develop to an impressive 10000+ participating sellers in the region till the end of the year. Now Florin Filote is ready to share what does it take to attract so many partners and how to scale a platform to such level. eMAG was founded in 2001 by Romanian entrepreneurs and is the local e-commerce market leader. The company has a strong presence in Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland which makes it one of the top e-tailers in the CEE region. For all these 16 years eMAG focuses and invests in constantly improving customer shopping experience. Clients benefit from added value services, such as 30-days return policy, opening the parcel at delivery, 24/7 call center, Pick Up and Return Service, loan financing through eCredit, or mobile app access. At eMAG customers can find a wide range of products, from IT, mobile phones, domestic appliances, electronics, books to children articles, auto parts and accessories, home and garden or sport equipment.

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  Martin Popov

  General Manager of Digital Agency Interactive Share

  Martin Popov is the Managing Partner and Client Service Director of the Digital agency "Interactive Share". He has 15 years of experience in Digital Marketing and Advertising and is one of the Leading Digital Marketing Experts in Bulgaria. For over 9 years his company has been one of the Leading Digital agencies in Bulgaria.
  The agency's focus and strength lies in delivering large-scale, integrated digital campaigns to increase the revenue of its partners. Over the years, Martin has participated and organized dozens of conferences and seminars on Digital Marketing and Advertising, has been a jury of numerous competitions and a guest of honor in television business broadcasts.
  Martin is One of the Top Internet Marketing Consultants. Many big companies and small&medium business seeking his strategic advice - how to plan and execute effective Digital Advertising campaigns. For many years Martin was a member of the board of IAB Bulgaria, where he actively helps the development of the Digital industry in Bulgaria.
  

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  Stiliyan Zaporozhanov

  Co-Founder @ Zapomedia & DigitalPRO

  Stiliyan Zaporozhanov is a co-founder of Zapomedia - Digital Marketing Company which specializes in building and successfully promoting their own Ecommerce brands. For the last 7 years in the digital marketing industry, he has been developing skills and gaining experience in Facebook marketing, conversion rate optimization, funnel building, branding, and eCommerce. Also, he is Partner & Chief Marketing Officer at CloudCart - All-in-One Marketing Enhanced Ecommerce plafrom.

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  Georgi Malchev

  Managing Partner @ Xplora.bg

  Georgi Malchev is a Managing Partner at the Digital Marketing agency Xplora.bg. He has significant business and marketing experience - as a Board Member, Chief Operating Officer, Business Development Director for large holdings and companies. Has experience as a Management Consultant and is certified in Operations Management.
  Georgi is a Partner and Mentor at Startup companies. Until recently, he was Head of Mtel's Digital Marketing, and before that was a key factor in the growth of a large digital agency. He teaches marketing, communications and advertising at New Bulgarian University. George is often a member of the Digital Marketing Awards jury, as well as a Moderator and Panelist on Management, Marketing and Advertising forums. Georgi was elected a member of the Board of Directors of IAB Bulgaria for 2016, and was re-elected in 2017.

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  Boyan Moskov

  CEO @ InteractiveOrb

  Boyan Moskov is the Owner of "InteractiveOrb" Digital agency, ConvertBuilder software for creating sales funnels, the Academy of Online Marketing - Masterclass.bg and 2 own online stores. With its Digital Marketing agency, with a team of 10 people, they work with dozens of online businesses in Bulgaria and abroad, some of which are one of the largest brands - Zora, Sport Depot, Fitness Pulse, Address and Imoteka - real estate and others. The advertising budget they manage is over $ 1,000,000.
  Boyan is a lecturer at some of the most popular conferences for Online Marketing in Bulgaria, including: F5 Facebook Conference, Innowave Summit, Noise of Money, DigitalPro, Digital 4 Plovdiv and leads a master's program in Digital Marketing at "University of Finance, Business and Entrepreneurship".
  Boyan and his team also created one of the most viral Messenger bots in the world, garnering around 138,000 subscribers in 48 hours with about $ 20 in advertising budget.

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  Lukasz Zelezny

  Top 10 UK social media influencer. UK search awards judge and SEO Expert. Head of organic acquisition at uSwitch.com

  Lukasz Zelezny, top 10 UK social media influencer, UK search awards judge and former director of organic performance at ZPG. Previously leading his team he is responsible for the uSwitch.com, Zoopla.co.uk and PrimeLocation organic visibility, conversion rate, traffic and engagement. Lukasz is a hands-on person; he spends lots of his time keeping up to date with the changes in the technology of online marketing. Lukasz started his career in 2005 and has since been responsible for the organic performance of a number of companies including HomeAway, Thomson Reuters, The Digital Property Group and Fleetway Travel.
  
  He is a graduate from the Silesian University of Technology with a BA in Marketing.
  
  He travels up to 75,000 km a year speaking at many SEO and social media conferences including ClickZ Shanghai China, ClickZ Jakarta Indonesia, SiMGA Malta, SES London in the United Kingdom as well as conferences held in Europe; Marketing Festival in Brno, Brighton SEO in Brighton, UnGagged in London. Every year he is actively participating in 10 to 20 events as an SEO/Social Media keynote speaker. Additionally, he organizes workshops and meetups where he is sharing tips around SEO, Social Media and Analytics.