Speaker Bios:  (back to Event Summary)

George Kellerman is the Head of Investments & Acquisitions at Woven by Toyota and the Managing Director of Woven Capital. In his role as the Managing Director of Woven Capital, an $800M global investment fund that supports the future of Woven by Toyota, George is responsible for leading a team of professional investors to identify, invest in, and partner with global technology companies that can support and accelerate Woven by Toyota’s mission to build the safest mobility in the world.

Woven Capital invests in growth-stage companies in areas such as autonomous mobility, automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, data, analytics, and smart cities. George believes that the smart deployment of investment capital is the best and most efficient way to solve many of the world’s most pressing challenges.

Prior to joining TRI-AD, which became Woven Planet, now Woven by Toyota, in 2020, George was one of the founding members of Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley, Inc., where he served as the COO & General Partner for three and half years and as the CEO & Managing Director for one and half years. He also launched the Yamaha Motor Exploratory Fund, a $100M early-stage fund, and he initiated and led Yamaha Motor’s investment and partnership activity in agricultural automation and robotics.

Bjoern Leschny is the newly appointed Global Head for Mergers and Acquisitions Integration at Novo Nordisk. In this role, he plays a pivotal part in supporting the company’s ambitious expansion journey, driven by strategic external acquisitions and comprehensive internal scaling efforts that require seamless global integration. Novo Nordisk has emerged as a rising star among Europe’s leading corporations and became in 2023 the most valuable company in Europe, rapidly advancing along one of the most remarkable growth trajectories in the pharmaceutical industry.  

Prior to this, Bjoern served as Deputy Head of Region APAC and LATAM and Lead for Post Merger Integration activities at Bayer AG Headquarters, drawing from 23 years of practical and academic experience across business, IT, audit, risk-management, and organizational psychology. Bjoern played a pivotal role in the post-merger integration of Monsanto into Bayer, a process he led over five years, reflecting his expertise in M&A Integrations and Transformations on a global scale.  With professional engagements in over 60 countries and extended assignments in the US, China, and Spain, Bjoern's career highlights include high-profile transformation projects, as well as integrations and divestments such as Aventis Crop Science, Schering Pharma, Merck, Covestro, and Lanxess.. 

After graduating as a Chemical Engineer from the University of Groningen in 1999, Thomas joined Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and held various Manufacturing roles before joining Shell in 2007. He moved to the Shell’s M&A team in 2017 after several different Project Management roles in Netherlands and abroad. He has supported over 30 divestment and acquisition projects as a Deal Implementation Lead preparing the carve-out or integration plans pre signing and subsequently to executing them post signing and completion. His particular area of interests within Implementation are Value Delivery Planning for acquisitions and spin-off divestments.

Sven Steinbach is Head of M&A Compliance at Volkswagen. In this role he is responsible for Compliance related matters regarding global M&A activities of Volkswagen Group, as well as strategic cooperations and industrialization projects.

Before joining Volkswagen, he worked in corporate banking in an international bank in Frankfurt. He started his career working in debt capital markets at a Magic Circle law firm also in Frankurt.

James is currently at Colt Technology Services as the VP of Digital Infrastructure, Network Acquisition and Business Development where he oversees a multi-functional organisation across infrastructure strategy, product, network build and commercial relationships.

James has more than 20 years of experience in the telecoms industry and started his career at Vodafone as an apprentice. He most recently served as Vice President of Global Pre-Sales at GTT and formerly was Vice President of Business Operations for EMEA. Prior to this, he also served as Vice President of EMEA Service Delivery at Level 3 Communications and held leadership positions at Vodafone, spanning business planning and operations.s.

Staci has been in M&A and Post-Merger Integration and Disentanglement for over 15-years, heading the Philips Post-Merger Integration & Disentanglement global team and executing on multiple deals and business transformation activities across Philips. In addition, Staci is a seasoned IT executive holding senior roles including Chief Information Officer, Business Transformation and Product Development in the publishing industry at Elsevier and WPG. Her multi-industry experience has given Staci a broad and unique view of PMI, its application and ensuring a clear focus on value creation and execution excellence.

Ilse is currentlyl Head of HR M&A at ABB. She was previously VP Global HR Business Partner and HR Business Partner Northern Europe.

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.

Claire-Marie NASR was appointed in 2023 VP, M&A Integration - M&A at Forterro. From 2017 - 2023 she served at Dentsu International as Head of M&A Integration.

Previously, she was Head of Project Management and Integration at NetNames, and various previous project roles.

Amanda Scott is a Managing Director and Global Mergers & Acquisitions Consulting Leader at WTW (Willis Towers Watson). Amanda is also the CEO/Founder of Mike’s Mates, a mental health charity in the UK. Additionally, she is a Board Member for Global Women 4 Wellbeing (GW4W), on the Remuneration Committee for Pensions Management Institute (PMI).

Awards include Top 25 M&A Consultants & Leaders of 2023, Elite Women in Insurance 2023, Excellence in Leadership; and Amanda was awarded as one of the UK 50 Leading Lights for Leadership & Kindness. She regularly publishes industry thought leadership, provides commentary to the press and social media, and is an active public speaker.

As Product Manager Mergers & Acquisitions Fabrice is focusing on enabling the Global Partnering and M&A team through the whole merger, acquisition & partnering lifecycle. The product contains different components such as pre-due diligence and due diligence activities, risk & security assessments, integration design/planning/execution. Furthermore the product Mergers & Acquisitions is also supporting and actively contributing to divestments.

Paul is an accomplished M&A Executive with a proven track record in establishing and managing strategic IT and business programs across various sectors. He possesses extensive experience in leading transformation initiatives that prepare organizations for IT readiness during and after mergers, acquisitions, and divestments. Paul has successfully directed teams to deliver complex, business-critical transformation programs in global environments. His focus is on understanding the unique challenges of each organization and driving effective solutions to enhance operational efficiency and strategic alignment.

Paul is dedicated to aligning IT strategies with overall business objectives, ensuring the achievement of organizational goals within budgetary constraints. Currently, Paul leverages his expertise by mentoring MBA students at Warwick Business School, his alma mater.

Fabian and his team provides compliance support for new business areas and all non-controlled affiliated companies of the Group.

In her previous role, 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. 

Sibylle Kampschulte is part of WTW European M&A Consulting Practice with as focus on the DACH region. With more than 20 years of experience in global employee benefits consulting and 10 years of coordinating and supporting all kinds of HR M&A related transactions (acquisitions, spin offs, divestitures), Sibylle passion is advising WTW’s M&A clients on critical people issues to ensure deal success.

Dr. Houben is an experienced Senior Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the Automotive, Chemical and Manufacturing industry. Strong professional skills in Growth, He has worked for Accenture, Deloitte and currently BASF. He has skills in: Organizational Design, Business Transformation, Valuation, Corporate Finance, and Mergers & Acquisitions, Post Merger Integration (PMI) and Carve-out. He holds a PhD in Financial Economics from Kiel University.

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