Speaker Bios (back to Event Summary)

Ludwig De Winter is responsible for the VAT e-Commerce package, derogation requests, optional reverse charge mechanisms and VAT obligations. As deputy HoU he follows all other files within the competence of the unit, including relationswith the customs colleagues. Before joining the Commission he had worked as a tax inspector with the Belgian Ministry of Finance and when he joined the Commission 25 years ago, he was active in the anti-dumping policy (1996-1997).

Fergal co-founded Taxually in 2018. Taxually are leaders in the world of technology to support VAT reporting and compliance. Their technology supports thousands of businesses and Enterprises around the world. Prior to founding Taxually Fergal headed up a team of 300 tax specialists as a partner at KPMG Global Tax services in Budapest and was responsible for the delivery of Global Indirect Tax compliance services to multi-national clients.

Rishi started his career with the Big 4 as Indirect Tax consultant. In 2005, he joined Unilever in the Netherlands as Indirect Tax Manager for Europe. From 2008 until 2011, Rishi was relocated to Singapore to build the Indirect Tax and Customs function for Unilever in Asia. As from 2011, he heads the Global Indirect Tax and Customs team based out of the Netherlands. Currently, Rishi is also driving Unilever's Global Tax Technology agenda across all Tax areas and is part of Unilever's Tax Leadership Team.

Stefanie graduated from the University of Antwerp with a Master in Laws and an additional Master in Tax Laws. She started her career as VAT advisor in PwC and spent another two years at Deloitte before moving to the transport and logistics industry in March 2004. Stefanie is the head of VAT for the UPS group in Europe, Middle-East and Africa and as such responsible for all UPS, UPS Supply Chain Solutions entities and acquisitions in the EMEA region

With more than 20 years’ experience in the Finance and Tax Technology space, Ana is currently leading the Global Tax Technology at Nestlé ensuring the current applications are in line with the current compliance and legal requirements and, at the same time, driving the digitisation agenda to enable the vision and strategy of the Tax Function.

She previously led at Bacardi the Global Program for Digital Government -that included Tax Technology and Transformation initiatives- and implemented the Global Tax Digitalisation for the company.

Nicoletta has 15 year's experience in taxation. During the last years she has been handling strategic projects aimed to VAT optimization including customs procedures or managing e-commerce business set up. She used to be the key person for the IT department in order to improve and keep in control the ERP system with regard to VAT and Customs rules implementation.

With more than 20 years of experience in VAT, Suzanne leads the European VAT Consulting and Recovery practice, which includes an integrated team of tax professionals serving multinational corporations across Europe. Specialising in VAT recovery, she provides consulting expertise and best practices in European Union tax laws, regulations, and jurisdictional requirements. She has successfully worked with large multinational clients to reduce tax liability, recover capital, and remain compliant in the countries in which they operate.

Gorka Echevarria, the Global VAT Lead at Lexmark, is based in Geneva, Switzerland. He was previously the EMEA VAT Manager at DXC Technology and prior to that the Global Supply Tax manager at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. He has been TEI´s EMEA Indirect Tax Committee chair for the period 2017- 2018. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the International VAT Monitor for which he also regularly publishes articles.

Werner Engelen is a director at the LEGO Group, responsible for Tax Policy & Tax Controversy. He studied Tax Law with a specialization in Indirect Tax and more recently obtained a post-master’s degree in Indirect Tax and EU Customs Law at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

Jean-Francois has been working at Caterpillar since 2007. He is Senior indirect tax manager leading VAT advisory in EAME and APAC.

He previously worked as an Indirect tax advisor at Deloitte and PWC in France and Switzerland during more than 10 years.

He is an attorney at law.

As a tax solutions architect with more than 20 years of experience, Jun specialises in deploying the latest technologies for effective global tax determination and reporting. He has led multiple full cycle deployments in Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America, across different enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Jun has extensive experience with global VAT and withholding tax requirements, tax consulting, advisory, and compliance.

After earning a degree in Economics, Riccardo got a Master in Business Administration. Since 2002 he has worked in the Revenue Agency, dealing with analysis, prevention and fighting of tax evasion and fraud at operational units and from 2011 in many Central Directorates.
He is involved in working groups aimed at tackling domestic and international cases of tax evasion and fraud, with a specific focus on the VAT issues (e-invoicing, VAT reporting obligations, digitalization of tax free shopping and so on).

He is currently at Risk management Unit as team leader of several projects dealing with analysis and pro-active detection of high-risk taxpayers and supporting voluntary compliance. He acts as speaker and lecturer in different organizations, regularly publishing comments and articles on VAT topics.

Maria has 20+ years of experience in tax audit, VAT policy, VAT advisory and compliance. Her first twelve years were in the public sector, working with the tax authority in Romania - initially in the National Agency of Fiscal Administration, in various departments, including tax inspection; then as expert in the VAT Legislation Department within the Ministry of Finance.

Since July 2017, she joined Goodyear as EMEA VAT Manager. The current role mainly involves leading a team of VAT professionals ensuring international VAT compliance; overall responsibility for VAT issues in the EMEA region; assisting with VAT audit; advising internal stakeholders on VAT strategy; leading VAT related cross-functional projects (e.g. quick fixes; various country specific VAT requirements); and monitoring and communicating internally the impact of the changes in VAT law and regulations.

David is professor at the University of Leipzig. His academic career starts with the Study of Law at the University of Leipzig and a Graduation (Phd) with a VAT-Thesis in 2009. In 2013, he completed his habilitation on the subject: "Neutrality of legal forms in public law” (venia legendi: public law, especially tax law and public economic law).

David is a contributing author to many publications, including “Rau/Dürrwächter“ (a commentary on the German VAT law). He is also engaged as a tutor in the fields of European tax law and State Aid law. Since October 2016 David has worked as a legal secretary at the European Court of Justice at the cabinet of advocate general Kokott. There he is responsible for the tax law and state aid cases.

Geoff has been immersed in enterprise tax solutions at global majors for more than twenty years. With a solid academic background and experience of working across Europe, North America, Middle East and Africa, Geoff excels as thought leader and practitioner in the planning, architecture and governance of end-to-end corporate tax systems. Prior to third-party global tax engines, Geoff built three tax engines and later founded a boutique consultancy that briefly became the largest in the world dedicated to new-age tax technologies. Geoff is the principal author behind the unique Tax Technology Insight Series and a regular blogger, speaker and adviser to tax & tax technology leadership at major corporations.

Franz Pauer was recently Manager VAT EMEA at John Deere. He was responsible for supervising VAT compliance, VAT implementation in ERP systems, and VAT consulting of all European John Deere units with 19 years of experience.

Nora joined Trane Technologies (formerly, Ingersoll-Rand) as the EMEA Indirect Tax Leader of the group on April 2017, after more than 11 years within the Indirect Tax department of the Big 4 (i.e. Deloitte Belgium, Deloitte Hong Kong and EY Belgium). In July 2019, she was promoted to EMEA Assistant Director. Within the company, she manages the EMEA VAT team based in Brussels and Dublin. She is responsible for VAT planning & VAT Compliance in EMEA as well as Indirect Tax technology in EMEA, APAC & LATAM. In her role, she manages the indirect tax implications of any restructuring project (e.g. spin off, transformation and integration) and puts in place a number of operational improvements.

Nora is involved in cross-functional projects with Direct Tax, Transfer pricing, Trade compliance, the businesses and other corporate functions such as Record to Report, Order to Cash, Internal Audit, etc.

Irmante is Global Director of Tax at Duracell. As Duracell transitioned from Procter& Gamble to becoming a Berkshire Hathaway Company, she took care of setting up new tax processes and systems across various jurisdictions and different direct and indirect tax areas and is responsible for all tax areas globally including tax technology.

Prior to joining Duracell, Irmante worked with Global Tax for another large multinational as well as at Big 4 in Europe and US.

Scott is the principal and client services leader at Ryan with more than 20 years of experience in global direct and indirect tax client services. Based in London, he has worked with many leading organisations, including the Global 5000, across a range of industries. His deep expertise and knowledge help clients improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their tax functions, better equipping them to build a tax centre of excellence.

Aleksandra Bal is an Indirect Tax Technology & Operations Lead at Stripe. She has over 10 years' experience designing and developing tax technology solutions. She holds a PhD, MBA, LLM and several other academic titles.

Peter Boerhof is the VAT Director for Vertex. In his role he provides insight and thought leadership regarding the impact of tax regulations, policy, enforcement and emerging technology trends in global tax. Peter has extensive experience in international transactions, business restructuring, tax process optimization and tax automation. Prior to joining Vertex, Peter was responsible for leading the indirect tax function at AkzoNobel.

Gunjan is an experienced Chartered Tax Advisor, specialising in European VAT. Gunjan started her career with EY’s tax advisory team. Since then, she has led VAT compliance and advisory team for an FMCG’s European Shared Service Centre. Gunjan has also managed global Indirect Taxes for a major media & sports company.

As the Senior Proposition Manager for Indirect Tax at Thomson Reuters, Gunjan helps shape the value proposition for ONESOURCE Indirect Tax solutions in the European markets.

Ahu is an experienced Business Development Director with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. She is skilled in Marketing Management, Business Planning, Pricing Strategy, Market Research, and SAP ERP.

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