Speaker Bios:  (back to Event Summary)

Andrea is an experienced HR leader with a diverse and extensive business background. At Shell, Andrea and her team manage the HR aspects of Acquisitions and Divestments for RDS, all business divisions, globally. The focus is on creating value and managing risks & liabilities over the deal lifecycle, from exploratory phase to deal implementation. The HR aspects of deals include Remuneration & Benefits, liabilities, Payroll transfers, Change management, Negotiation, Cost of Employment, Organisation Design for delivery of business plan. Essentially the full breadth of HR in the microcosm of an acquisition, divestment or Joint Venture.

Luigi joined GSK Vaccines 23 years ago after having spent 8 years in the chemical industry holding primarily Business Development roles. Luigi joined GSK as senior manager Business Development before being appointed to increasingly senior positions in Business Development, Supply Chain and Global Marketing. From 2007 to 2010 Luigi was in Verona, Italy, as Marketing Director for GSK Italy. Returning to GSK Vaccines Headquarters in Belgium in 2010, he held until 2014 various strategy roles within Global Marketing and Global Operations. In 2014 Luigi jointed the Integration Team in charge of preparing the acquisition of Novartis Vaccines business as part of the global deal between Novartis AG and GSK Plc. As of January 2015, he was in charge of ensuring the divestments of several vaccines as a mandatory condition for regulatory approval of GSK-Novartis deal.

Since January 2017, Luigi has been heading the DBU (Divestment Business Unit) which encompasses all GSK Vaccines divestments, discontinuations & some key partnerships.

Luigi now heads the Global Strategic Partnerships department with an enlarged scope to all transversal key partnerships on top of pre-existing responsibilities.

Philip joined IBM UK in 1997 as Head of HR for the Personal Computing Manufacturing facility, a site of 3 thousand employees based in Scotland. Since then he has performed a number senior HR Business Partner roles at the UK & European level and completed a two year international assignment at IBM's then European Headquarters in Paris, France.

In 2005, while based in Paris, Philip took over the leadership of the European Mergers, Acquisitions & Divestitures team and is responsible for a team of 5 dedicated MA&D professionals all based in Europe.  He has personally led several global acquisitions and divestitures from Europe as well as completing over 100 acquisitions and over 50 divestitures based in Europe.

He lives in Stirlingshire Scotland, is a Level 2 Rugby Union coach, enjoys all sports and an outdoors life.

Gabe leads M&A consulting for Western Europe at Willis Towers Watson. He partners with multinational companies on all aspects of their HR aspects in M&A situations, including compensation and benefit arrangements, HR project management, cross border benefit and compensation reviews, SPA and TSA reviews, benefit audits and actuarial / pensions reviews and purchase price adjustments.

Emma is a Business Development professional with over fifteen years of industry experience and a track record of successful transactions and post-deal management. Broad business development experience spanning search and evaluation, transactions and strategic alliance management. Current specific focus on deal value delivery from M&A and divestment activities to ensure efficient asset & business transfer across US, EU and International markets.

Matthias Homann has 8 years of professional experience in Post-Merger-Integration at SAP focusing on sales strategy and sales operations for acquisitions varying from small-tuck-ins to integration of major software companies. Prior to his work at SAP, Mr. Homann worked at a strategy consulting company that was part of the BMW Group where he focused on strategy and process projects in the sales and services area.

Carlos Keener is Founder and Managing Partner of Beyond the Deal (BTD), a specialist advisory, consulting and resources firm helping client deliver and accelerate inorganic growth. Carlos has over 20 years of experience in M&A, post-deal operating model design, integration strategy & planning for organisations across multiple sectors and sizes. Carlos has worked with clients including GSK, Coca-Cola, E.On, Xstrata, Novartis, Tata Steel, Colgate-Palmolive and dozens of mid-sized and smaller firms throughout the US, UK, Western Europe, Russia, South America, Africa, India, South-East Asia and the Middle-East. A regular faculty member with the IMAA and occasional speaker at Warwick and Imperial College’s Business Schools, Carlos is also co-author of Leading the Deal, in which he and former Xstrata Head of Strategy Thras Moraitis provide experience, insights and guidance for executive management for their role in delivering high-performing M&A and integration.

Julius is a Multi-skilled professional with almost 20 years of successful experience in international health care, medical and pharmaceutical industries; He has extensive experiences in Business Development, Mergers & Acquisitions and Project Management, as well as in entrepreneurial thinking and acting (developing new businesses / start-ups, acquiring and successfully integrating existing businesses); He is leading cross-functional teams to success in an international environment

Christiane is a dedicated Finance professional with over 15 years of relevant expertise in Performance Management, Business Strategy Modeling, Problem Solving, People Management and Transformation. She is experienced in leading local and global improvement projects as well as in business disentanglements and business integrations. She has worked in operational and strategic roles and lived in Germany, Singapore and The Netherlands .

Christiane is working as Head of Finance for Group Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestments in Philips. Before this she was Program Director for the global Finance Transformation in Philips, which included the re-design of the Finance Operating Model, deployment of benchmark objectives as well as transformation engagement with the Finance Leadership team. Christiane started her career with Philips as Finance Management Trainee in Germany in 2001.

Lori is currently the Chief Operating Officer at Rest Less where she is leading the strategy and operations for new businesses.  Lori is experienced at scaling up technology companies and refocusing them for growth which she has done repeatedly in her career at Cisco, Wireless Innovation and Group Telecom. 

Lori built and led the Sales M&A integration team at Cisco drive innovation and growth for >60 acquisitions and $15Bn of investment.  During Lori’s 18 year career at Cisco she held positions in both Sales and Strategy and Planning.  Lori was the Director for the British Telecom account leading the global partnering business delivering over $650M in revenue.  To expand her background into the consumer space, Lori also held the role of Operations Director for Linksys Service Provider where she was responsible for establishing the foundation to build and scale this business from $99M to over $400M in 3 years by selling consumer and small business solutions through targeted SPs worldwide.  Lori spent many years as the Director of Strategy and Planning for Cisco EMEA where she led the development, implementation, and measurement of EMEA’s long range plan and strategic projects. 

Dr. Christoph Kollatz is an experienced CXO, Board member, Senior Advisor and Manager with excellent track record in strategy, transformation, digitization, business excellence and program management. After 20 years at Siemens, he worked in executive leadership positions at SAP, Lufthansa, Alcoa/Arconic and B&C Industrieholding. He is now advising innovative companies exploiting their growth and performance potential.

At Evolutionizer, Dr. Christoph Kollatz offers his deep expertise in strategy and transformation for our corporate development and product.

Francesco Gaini is the Group Head of Strategic Planning and Reporting at Nexi, where he is also leading the day1 integration of the portfolio of acquired companies (most recent acquisitions: Bassilichi, ISP Merchant book, SIA, NETS).
In 2019 he has led the IPO process (biggest non US IPO in 2019).

Before joining Nexi, Francesco has been a Principal in The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where he has worked for 10 years focusing on the financial services sector. Previously he has been CEO of Ideos s.r.l. and has worked as senior manager for Banca Intesa and Fundsworld Financial Services ltd. 

Angel considers herself one of those very fortunate people who have found work that integrates a lifelong passion into a means to earn a living. She has invested an entire career delivering transformational change and creating extraordinary employee experiences that engage and retain the best talent. As Managing Director at Willis Towers Watson, she leads a team of talented global advisors that help clients around the world turn risk into a path for growth. She has had the privilege of working with some of the best leaders around the world, partnering with them to solve their most complex people and business challenges – and learning lessons of her own along the way!

As Director of Global Aftersales PMO, Marc has integrated various organizational functions and brands while optimizing the performance of AGCO technical service department. He has also managed the AGCO customer-centric, digital-savvy, proactive and predictive approaches to field service. He is now part of the global aftersales growth program.

After consulting and private equity investments, Marc joined Electrolux where his business and finance acumen helped in managing Electrolux M&A, integration and business development. Having a vast business development background, Marc has a unique vantage point when dealing with the complexities of service growth and profitability and tech integration.

Fabrice Romelard works for SGS Group, a leader in certification business as Head of IT Merger & Acquisition Services since 2018, after 10 years in several IT technical positions related to corporate infrastructure.

Fabrice has over than 20 year of experience in the IT industry, working as developer, Database Administrator or SharePoint Solution Expert. He’s working in SGS since 14 years and endorses different roles from IT department always customer centric to deliver the best possible solution. He holds an MBA of Enterprise Risk Management in Geneva University to comfort his Engineer diploma. Since 2018 He took the IT Mergers & Acquisition responsibilities implementing SGS rules during the deals process increasing overall M&A process for the group. He’s also working with all IT department to deliver his expertise on several IT topics used in Agile process, like Azure DevOps, PowerBi or Office 365.

André Hoedemaker is VP M&A at CRH, where he manages acquisitions and divestments from start to finish. He also worked for Nutricia, PWC and Sara Lee in various roles. André completed more than 50 deals on every continent of the world.

Since 2018 Michel is one the M&A gatekeepers at BASF and is responsible for the topic "Supply Chain and Logistics", leading a global team of experts that support all BASF's acquisitions and divestments. At this role he and his team were part of dozens of deals, including multi-billion-euro transactions, such as the acquisitions of parts of BAYER in crop protection & seeds and the polyamide business of Solvay, as well as the carve-outs of BASF's Pigment and Construction Chemicals businesses.  

Michel joined BASF over 14 years ago in Sao Paulo, Brazil and since 2011 works at the headquarters in Germany.  He has been in different roles, including in-house consulting, supply chain management, strategic procurement, marketing, and digital solutions to Farmers. 

In his current role he is working on:

• Post-Merger integration for all acquisition at Philips Lighting

• Supporting the M&A Transaction team to establish the PMI plan and create the business case

• Supporting the acquiring entity for PMI preparation and execution

• After acquisition: Active support to Integration managers

He was previously working at AudioNova (hearing aids retailer)

And with a long career at Procter and Gamble in Engineering and R&D

Emilia has successfully closed multiple deals (acquisitions, mergers, divestments) that included transfer of thousands employees in multiple of countries. Emilia’s current role covers: Support of successful closure of mergers, acquisitions, divestments and in/ outsourcings. She is involved in the full process, starting with strategic evaluation on the buyer/s seller/ vendor, through due diligence support, contract negotiation and implementation across affected businesses and countries.

Emilia’s achievements include acquisitions including up to 8,000 employees, divestments and outsourcing ranging between 500 and 2,000 employees in more than 50 countries.

Mark has spent his entire career with Shell, but has worked across a wide range of Shell’s global businesses, managing both major operating units as well as leading major global projects. This includes spells in Manufacturing, Trading and Supply, Commercial and projects to build an integrated global business

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