Patrick Dixon is often described in the media as Europe's leading futurist. He is a dynamic, provocative and entertaining speaker who advises many of the world's largest corporations on key trends, managing uncertainty, identifying risk and developing opportunities.

Dr Patrick Dixon has been ranked as one of the 20 most influential business thinkers alive today. He is the Chairman of Global Change Ltd, a growth strategy and forecasting company; he is the author of 15 books (in 27 languages); and he is a physician. Key books include Futurewise, SustainAgility, The Genetic Revolution and Building a Better Business.

Dr Dixon has spoken to audiences in over 50 nations and is one of the world's most sought after keynote speakers at corporate events. His customised multimedia presentations are both content-rich and highly engaging for audiences. Customers describe his style as challenging, visionary, hard-hitting, strategic, provocative, dynamic, passionate and practical as well as entertaining. He has he remarkable ability to motivate people to seize growth opportunities and to change.

He advises multinational boards and senior teams on strategic impact of global trends, innovation and risk, in assignments ranging from one-day strategic reviews to in-depth consulting over more than a year. Examples of issues: macro-economic trends, future of marketing, mobile payments and banking, multi-channel customers, social media, consumer shifts, lifestyle changes, customer loyalty, relationship management, call-centres, brand management, demographic shifts, health care, pharmaceutical research, antiageing, genetics and biotechnology, nanotechnology, emerging markets, geopolitical threats, risk management, agile leadership, change management, motivation, green tech, sustainable innovation and corporate responsibility.

He has also worked as Group Strategy Director for Acromas Ltd, which owns the AA and Saga (group turnover >$3bn from financial services, roadside rescue, holidays, publishing and health care). He is a non-executive director of Acromas Health Care (Allied Health Care Ltd, Nestor Health Care Ltd and Saga Health Care Ltd), which delivers as a group over 40 million home care visits a year across the UK, 24 hour live-in care, out-of-hours medical cover, hospital-at-home, end-of-life, dental, forensic medicine, nursing and prison health. He is also Chairman of the Biotech company Virttu Biologics Ltd, which is conducting clinical trials on new cancer treatments.

Patrick Crampton-Thomas is VP Supply Chain Solution Management with SAP, with responsibility for SAP’s Response and Supply Orchestration Portfolio.

Patrick joined SAP in 2005 since he has held a number of regional and global roles responsible for Supply Chain Line of Business Sales and Business Development before moving to Solution Management.

Prior to SAP Patrick worked in various companies including i2 Technologies, Oracle and SSA always with a focus on Supply Chain Management, helping companies achieve advanced supply chain initiatives.

In Industry, Patrick started his career working for 3PL companies in warehousing and transportation operations gaining experience with companies like M&S and Hamleys Toys before moving into retail where he stayed in Logistics operations including working for ASDA. Patrick lives in the UK near London, enjoys travel, his family, sports including off road cycling and supports Arsenal.

Dr. Kurt Hofstädter is Head of Digital Factory Central Eastern Europe with the special focus on Industry 4.0. at Siemens Austria.

Previously he was a member of the Management Board of Siemens AG Österreich and Sector Cluster Lead for the Siemens Sector Industry in Central Eastern Europe. In 2008 he was responsible senior manager concerned with the integration of VA Tech Elin EBG into Siemens AG Österreich. An important part was the implementation of the cartel law topic in Brussels. Dr. Hofstädter held the position of Managing Director of the Industrial Systems and Services, which he then continued in for the next six years. Dr. Hofstädter gained a lot of experience in the project management of national and international projects.

He began his career at Siemens AG Österreich in 1984 in the development of processors and microprocessor control technology. Dr. Hofstädter also holds several positions besides his Siemens role.

He is an Advisory Board member of Fraunhofer Austria Research GmbH and the University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien and on the Board of the Technical University Vienna/Alumni Club. He is also a guest lecturer at the University of Economics Vienna, the Technical University Vienna and Technikum Wien.

Dr. Marko Jakšič is Assistant Professor, University of Ljubljana, School of Economics and Business.

Marko Jakšič is an Assistant Professor at the University of Ljubljana, School of Economics and Business. His area of expertise is Operations Management and especially Supply Chain Management, which are the topics he is lecturing on at the bachelor and the master level studies at the School of Economics and Business. Started as a student of Faculty of Physics and later attended MScBA master program at University of Ljubljana, School of Economics and Business, he has continued with his doctoral studies at School of Economics and Business in cooperation with Technische Universiteit Eindhoven. He holds a position of a visiting researcher at TU/e, where he is a member of the Operations Planning Accounting and Control group at the School of Industrial Engineering. In his research work he focuses on the quantitative analysis of inventory management strategies in supply chains and as a result he has published papers in domestic and foreign journals and conferences. He is also active as a reviewer in several renowned journals. Apart from his academic work he has actively collaborated with industry where he has worked on several consulting projects on optimization of business processes in the field of managing inventories, production and procurement processes.

Michael Braunschmidt is Director of Industrial Engineering for the Product Division of Dish Care at Bosch and Siemens Home Appliance Group. Currently one of his key topics is Lean Production for the entire global Product Division and its entire Production Architecture. In 2007 Michael Braunschmidt joined the BSH in the Headquarter in Munich to build up Lean Production in the Product Division of Small Domestic Appliances. In the period of 2011 to 2014 he worked in Nazarje (Slovenia) as a Supply Chain Director and later as Director of Production. He began his career at the Institut für Produktionstechnik of Prof. Dr. Joachim Milberg where he was responsible for several national and international projects in the field of Lean Production, Simulation, Logistics and Factory Planning. During the time at the Institut he gave several lectures in Material Flow Simulation and Production Planning at the Technical University of Munich.

Ivan Berloznik is Supply Chain Director at the factory for Small Domestic Home Appliances in Nazarje.

He joined BSH in Nazarje 1994 and worked in different leading functions in Production and Supply Chain. Mr. Berloznik overtook the entire Supply Chain responsibility after he has had several national and international six sigma projects. As a Supply Chain Trainer at the local BSH Academy in Nazarje he shares his long operational experience in the field of Supply Chain for new employees.

Present Position in Kolektor Etra, Ljubljana: Director R&D / Projects / Production
Year of Birth: 1976
Best student award, 1998 and 1999 Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana.
University award (Univerzitetna Prešernova nagrada) 2001, for extended theme of the diploma thesis.
Education: B.Sc. Mechanical Engineer
Foreign Languages: English, German
International Ski Instructor license (ISIA) since 2003
Experience:
From 2001 – 2003 Process Engineer, Kolektor Pro, Idrija
From 2003 – 2004 Project Manager, Kolektor Pro, Idrija
From 2004 – 2007 Engineering Manager, Kolektor Pro, Idrija
From 2007 – 2010 General Manager, Kolektor Orodjarna, Idrija
From 2010 - 2014 Executive Director / Production, Kolektor Etra, Ljubljana
From 2014 Director R&D / Projects / Production, Kolektor Etra, Ljubljana

Since April 1st 2011 Jakob Laiminger became head of Regional SCM for CEE. The last 14 years he more or less spent with SC projects aiming on integration, harmonization etc. of Demand & Supply Planning processes and system integrations. It is important to mention, that since approximately 20 years he has been operational responsible for processes and results in SC.