There is a growing concern that the citizens, businesses and Member States of the European Union (EU) are gradually losing control over their data, their capacity for innovation and their ability to shape and enforce legislation in the digital environment. There is an opportunity for public organizations to make change happen by design. What are the solutions?
CEO
Gaia-X
Francesco Bonfiglio joined GAIA-X in March 2021 as the new CEO. With more than 30 years’ experience in the business of consulting and information technology, Francesco brings his knowledge of the cloud and data market needs, and his vision on how Gaia-X should revolutionize it. Independent Advisor since 2020, he has spent his previous professional life as an executive in many Italian and Multinational contexts. Formerly Chief Executive Officer for ENGINEERING D.HUB (Hybrid Cloud and Digital Transformation company within the largest Italian System Integrator Group), Vice President for Technology Services at AVANADE and Managing Director within the ACCENTURE Group, Chief Technology Officer for HEWLETT-PACKARD EMEA, SW Factory Director at UNISYS, Technical Director and Methodology Evangelist at RATIONAL SOFTWARE amongst his positions. With a background in Electronics Engineering, he started his career in the late 80s as a HW/SW Engineer working on some of the most advanced Military R&D projects, from the Sonar System for the Italian Navy (ANSQQ14IT) prized during the Gulf war for the mine-hunting performances, to the Eurofighter Fighter Aircraft (EFA), still one of the most advanced examples of technology in the Military field. Francesco had a bottom-up career, covering all roles within the IT, from developer to top-executive, from R&D to business units’ leader. An early supporter of the need for continuous innovation, he is a big fan of the startup ecosystem, active member of evaluation commissions, and being board member and co-founder of FOOLFARM.com, the first example of Startup Studio in Italy. Amongst other roles Francesco has represented the IT world and then became Vice President of Confindustria (Italian Trade Association) for Valle D’Aosta. Living in Italy, in the countryside out of Milan, married and father of three sons, he loves music and played in several independent live and record productions since the 80s. Francesco believes in the power of collective intelligence, lateral thinking, and teamwork, as a propeller for transformation, in the business as well as in the whole life!
Chief Technologist FSI
Red Hat
Vincent Caldeira is Chief Financial Services Technologist at Red Hat in APAC. In this role, he is primarily responsible for supporting financial services customers in defining their digital transformation roadmap while using Red Hat® thought leadership and engineering capabilities in the implementation of open standards, open source, and open architecture on their journey. Vincent has spent more than 20 years of his career in the financial technology sector, both as a Chief Technology Officer shaping technology strategy, enterprise architecture and driving technology transformation roadmaps, as well as driving talented engineering teams to design, build and deliver software solutions in the financial software vendor industry. Vincent also contributes to OS-Climate, a Linux Foundation-backed open source project that intends to build the breakthrough technology and data platforms needed to more fully integrate the impacts of climate change in global financial decision-making and risk management, where he acts as the lead architect and Technical Advisory Council member.
Managing Director Germany, Senior Vice President Germany, Austria and Switzerland
HPE
Johannes is in charge of HPE’s business and strategy in the DACH region. Previous to his current role, Johannes had several international leadership roles at HPE, including Vice President and Managing Director for Central Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa; Vice President and Managing Director for Central Eastern Europe and Israel; and Managing Director for the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Head of Financial Technology (EMEA)
NVIDIA
Jochen has been involved with AI and technology in financial services in various capacities over the last 20 years, as a thought leader, implementer, researcher and ecosystem designer. He is a financial data scientist and received his degree and PhD from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). As a consultant, entrepreneur and researcher, he has worked with renowned asset managers, banks, insurance companies and central banks. Jochen is currently Head of Financial Technology (EMEA) at NVIDIA and works with partners, communities and developers in financial services in Europe and in some global teams. Jochen is initiator and co-leader of the Gaia-X project FAIC, specialty chief co-editor at Frontiers 'AI in Finance' and former board member of the EU Horizon 2020 project 'FIN-TECH'. He has also published on AI and quantitative finance in Journal of Financial Data Science, Journal of Investment Strategies, Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Quantitative Finance, Applied Financial Economics, Frontiers Journal of AI in Finance and Journal of Network Theory in Finance.
Business Architect, Data Lifecycle Practice
HPE
Hartmut Schultze works on decentralized and democratic use of technology to generate knowledge and value from inherently private data (i.e. medical data). He focuses on adding value by leveraging technology, optimizing environments, and introducing necessary automations, while acting as a change agent to enable this. He has worked on memory-driven computing to optimize and massively increase the efficiency of Big Data analytics for various use cases. Previously, in his role as an Account Executive, he managed several international customers in Outsourcing Services driving innovation to create value.
