Following the key motto of his childhood saying that “only the best is good enough for our customers” (by Laurin and Klement, the founders of Skoda Auto company within VW Group), Jiri Vizdal has focussed on achieving excellent results in the past 30 years. That’s exactly why he moved from the R&D area to project/program/portfolio/service/account management across many industries, such as IT, automotive, aerospace, finance, pharma, energetics and retail, to help bridge the great gap. He has already managed 150-plus projects worth more than EUR 20 million. An important part of his practice is the continuous key knowledge sharing via The PPPM Observer, which serves as a practical online digital handbook for project/program/portfolio managers (and not only for them).

An experienced portfolio, project, process and transformation professional, Gabriel Adrian Radut has worked across several industries, such as telekom, banking and pharma distribution, leading large programs and/or transformational portfolios mainly on digital transformation and processes optimisation. He’s focussed on delivery and pragmatic approach by combining different methodologies to maximise the outputs in the corporate ecosystem. Gabriel joined A&D Pharma/Dr. Max Group in 2018 to lead the integration between the A&D Pharma and Dr. Max Group and create the PMO framework aimed to support the delivery of the ambitious projects portfolio, creating the project and process management culture and align the local processes with Dr. Max Group processes. Before joining A&D Pharma, Gabriel worked for Raiffeisen Bank International in Vienna as a senior agile coach, implementing the adaptive organisation concept with the objective to adapt bank strategy to a more challenging environment. Prior to this, Gabriel was leading the project management in Raiffeisen Bank Romania, central program management office and transformation program in Commercial Bank of Romania/ERSTE Bank. Before changing industries, Gabriel worked for 12 years in telecom (Telecom Romania and Vodafone Romania) in various positions that created the professional foundation, working as technician, sales, presales, engineering and project management areas.

Maria Cristina is leading the project management centre of excellence for Engineering, the largest Italian group of IT services (www.eng.it). Before that she was working for Olivetti, Unicredit Group and for The Italian Cooperation in Zimbabwe. Main projects she supported are in the banking/insurance industry, in public administration and in telecom. She graduated in mathematics and holds an MBA in global management. She has consolidated experience with IT and SW projects in all industries. She is a trainer and a professor of project management at the University of Padova. Certifications: PMP, CSM, PMI-ACP, PMO-CP.

Emily Luijbregts is a project manager working at Siemens Digital Industries Software with over 10 years’ experience in managing projects in a variety of international, complex situations. She specialises in working with remote teams and different cultures. Her passion is sharing knowledge and helping other project managers develop and overcome their difficulties.

With more than 14 years of experience in Project Management, Walter Romano is currently Project Director in the Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE) LNG Projects division, managing several of the company’s large projects.

Prior to joining BHGE in 2012, Walter set up and managed a PMO and worked in the field of large telecommunication infrastructure (e.g. subways, railways, and airports) for the public and private sector as a Project Manager in Thales Italy.

Walter holds both the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) PMP Certification, IPMA’s level B Senior PM Certification and is a Project Management trainer. He is also a member of the Board of the PMI Central Italy Chapter acting as Marketing Director, and he was the Project Manager of the 1^st National Forum of PMI Italy in 2017 which garnered over 500 attendees.

A regular speaker in national and international conferences and events, Walter is also the author of the Italian book “Project Manager Oggi” (second edition, March 2019).

Walter holds a degree in Telecommunication Engineering, and an MBA from Stogea Business School.  He is currently based in Florence, Italy where Baker Hughes’ Turbomachinery & Process Solutions business is headquartered.

Eduardo Quintero joined Nestlé in 2016 as a Senior Analyst, before being promoted to his current role as Project Team Manager, where he drives several projects related to eAuctions, specification simplification, process complexity reduction, and risk mitigation from diverse categories as Ingredients, Marketing Activation, Content, Energy, and Industrial Cleaning. 

He has 10 years of experience within Procurement and has held various positions with growing responsibilities at regional and global levels. Starting his career as LATAM Procurement Operations Analyst and Procurement Deployment Manager in Microsoft, he coordinated the Global Procurement tool's implementation globally in more than 15+ countries. 

Right before joining Nestlé, Eduardo held the position of Procurement Manager and LATAM Sourcing Contract Management Lead roles. Being the latest in Ericsson, he was instrumental in developing the Procurement Excellence department in terms of Contract Management and Supplier Relationship Management by implementing standard digital processes.

He graduated in International Business Administration and holds Masters in IT Project Management.

Petra Kopecká works as a project manager in the Nestlé Research PMO team since 2014 and has 15+ years of the project, program, and portfolio management experience from various companies (Nestlé, Chemical services, Academia).

In her current role, Petra focuses on uniting R&D with business to deliver fit-for-purpose innovation into markets. Over the past 6 years, Petra delivered on 7 large and complex projects, most projects of budget 5+ MCHF, and 70+ stakeholders. She has earned her reputation as an efficient project manager who helps identify business opportunities, motivates teams, easily spots and leverages synergies between projects, and delivers quickly.

Petra holds a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry, the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) PMP certification, and has experience in coaching junior project managers.

She is passionate about life sciences, nutrition for health promotion and prevention or treatment of diseases, and environmental sustainability. 

Rajeev is a Project Manager at Heineken UK Ltd, engaged in delivering projects in the Commercial space. With over 7 years of Project Management experience delivering technical and business change across the Oil & Gas, Public Sector, and FMCG domains, Rajeev is comfortable using various methodologies, frameworks, and tools.  

However, he is firmly of the belief that happy people are what truly make successful projects possible. Whether on projects or in the wider teams he has been a part of, Rajeev has always been passionate about developing people and bringing them along on the journey towards delivery and growth. As such, he is also an experienced Mentor, helping guide, influence, and support colleagues in their careers.  

Rajeev balances this strong people-focus with being process and delivery-oriented, not shying away from responsibility, being persistent, and having a can-do, will-do attitude. He further believes that effective and transparent communication with team members and management alike are attributes that all change agents must possess. 

Stephen Shoesmith-Evans comes from the UK with a degree in Chemical Engineering and is currently a Strategic Project Manager with Heineken UK. He is a Chartered professional with over 29 years of the UK and international experience in the Drink and Process industries, focusing on CAPEX Project Management.

A proven engineering and people leader, Stephen is an advocate of using simple processes and procedures to deliver projects successfully. He has a track record of effectively delivering all aspects of projects, including strategical front-end conceptual design studies through to end execution of cross-functional projects. 

A period working in Procurement further enabled Stephen to develop a good understanding of commercial and contract aspects, which he believes is important in a project manager's role. 

With the desire to never stop learning, Stephen continues to enjoy Project Management and all the challenges it brings.

Dr. Mohamed El-Mehalawi is a certified Project Management Professional with more than 25 years of project management and process improvements. Mohamed has completed several process transformation initiatives for project management organizations at multiple global companies. Currently, he is a global improvement leader at Dow Inc, where he works on continuous improvements of project delivery. Mohamed served as the manager of the project controls department at SBM Offshore. He served as the director of Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Consulting at Faithful and Gould North America. Mohamed is a member and speaker at the PMI and AACE and contributes to the CII Research. Mohamed received his Ph.D. degree from The Ohio State University in industrial and systems engineering in 1998.

Stefan is Managing Director for Copperleaf in EMEA. Stefan joined Copperleaf in 2014 as the first employee situated in Europe. Since then, Stefan has been responsible for developing Copperleaf's operations this side of the pond and has seen the team expand across EMEA, delivering exceptional value and providing extraordinary experiences to a growing number of clients. His background is business analytics and consulting, and he is an active member of The Institute of Asset Management (IAM). Connect with him on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sadnicki/

Marc Moal is Director of Product Delivery & PMO at Merck Group, leading a team of project directors developing connected injection devices and supporting web platform/mobile applications to support 43% of Merck drug sales. Previously, he held several leading positions in Nespresso, such as Global Head of Quality & After Sales and Global Head of Contract Manufacturing, managing overseeing the operational aspects of the 10 million coffee machines produced every year for the group. Before Nespresso, he was Engineering Director at Heraeus Medical Components (Stylets, Coils, Stents) and Project Manager of large projects at Medtronic (class 3 medical devices industrialization, new factory in Singapore…). 

He received his Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from the ISEN (Institut d’Electronique du Nord – Lille) in 2001. He started his career in the semiconductor industry in the Swatch group, RFID division. He also holds a PMP as well as a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Medtech&Biotech from EPFL – Lausanne.

Ana is the Data Publication Management Lead, MEU, with extensive international experience in design, control, and coordination roles for business integration, change management, and merger projects in the FMCG industry.

Contributing to successful rollouts of complex, international, and dynamic data integration projects. Solid cross-functional experience and E2E business process understanding.

Focused on adapting the data publication process to the demands of different target markets across Europe as one of the key drivers for growth via e-commerce. While holding a master's degree in economics, project, and communication management, she is focused on constant self-development and growth with a particular interest in Lean Six Sigma.

Finn works for Philips as Director for the Program Management Office and has many years of experience with Project, Program, Portfolio, and PMOs. His certifications include sr levels of IPMA A, P3O, and many more. He focuses on the value created and alignment with the strategy. For him, the PMO is a catalyst for changing the agenda of the settings. He mixes lean, agile, transformation, and more traditional methods in the execution.