Prof. dr hab. Jacek Maria Majchrowski is the Mayor of the Royal Capital City of Kraków. he was elected Mayor in in 2002 and has subsequently been reelected 3 times (in 2006, 2010 and 2014). He is a lawyer and an historian, and a professor at the Jagiellonian University. He has written 14 history books, mostly specialising in the history of Polish political thought and doctrines.

Witold Orłowski is Chief Economic Advisor of PwC in Poland. He is a former Chief Economist to the President of Poland, founder of NOBE (Independent Centre for Economic Studies), one of Poland’s leading economic think-tanks, and Dean of the Business School of the Warsaw University of Technology.

In addition to serving as Chief Economic Advisor to PwC in Poland, he is a Member of the Economic Council of the Prime Minister, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Museum in Warsaw and Special Advisor to the European Commission.

Witold studied at the University of Łódź and Harvard University.

Andrew Hallam is General Secretary and a founding member of ASPIRE. He has lived and worked in Poland for 20 years.

Before ASPIRE, Andrew was Director of Regional Development and South Poland Director for the British Polish Chamber of Commerce and later established South Poland Business Link, a company supporting links between the international business community and local stakeholders, and the South Poland Presidents Club, an informal network of the leading foreign investors in the region.

Before coming to Poland, Andrew worked in broadcasting and public affairs, for organisations such as the BBC, Channel 4, BSkyB, London Weekend Television, the British Labour Party and the Inner London Education Authority.

He is a graduate of the University of Oxford and alumnus of the Cambridge University Business and Environment Programme. He also attended the Central and East European University in Prague.

M.Sc. in engineering graduated from AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow. Devoted entirely to his passion, which is computer science technology and telecommunications. He has worked in various leadership positions at multiple software/IT companies. He served for multiple years as Managing Director for Motorola Solutions R&D Center in Krakow. Currently representing Motorola Solutions Poland business activity as Country Manager and Chairman of the Board. As American investment plays a vital role in the development of Polish economy he plays the role as Director of AmCham Krakow & Katowice branch actively supporting American investors community in the southern part of the country. Member of AmCham Board of Directors. Member of University Council at Politechnika Krakowska, AGH University Of Science & Technology Convent, Information Society Council of Małopolska and Industry Council of Małopolska.

Dr. Philippe De Brouwer leads expert teams in the service centre of HSBC in Kraków, is honorary consul for Belgium in Kraków and is also professor at the University of Warsaw, the Jagiellonian University and AGH University of Science and Technology.

He studied theoretical physics and later acquired his second Masters degree while working full time. Finishing this Masters he solved the ``fallacy of large numbers puzzle`` that was formulated by P.A. Samuelson 38 years before and had remained unsolved until then. In his Ph.D. he successfully challenged the assumptions of the noble price winning theory of Mean Variance of Markovitz, by creating ``Maslowian Portfolio Theory.”

His career brought him into insurance, banking, investment management and back to banking, while his specialisation shifted from IT and data science to people management.

For Fortis (now BNP) he created one of the first capital guaranteed funds and got promoted to director in 2000. In 2002, he joined KBC, where he merged 4 companies into one and subsequently became CEO of the merged entity in 2005. Under his direction the company climbed from number 11 to number 5 on the market, while the number of competitors increased by 50%. In the aftermath of the crisis he helped creating a new asset manager for KBC in Ireland that soon accommodated the management of ca. 1,000 investment funds and had about 32 Billion Euro under management. In 2012 he widened his scope by joining Risk Management and specialised in statistics and numerical methods.

Later Philippe worked for the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and specialised in Big Data, analytics and people management.

In 2016 he joined HSBC, created a Centre of Excellence in Risk management in their service centre in Kraków. That team controls all most important models used in the bank worldwide.

In his free time Philippe teaches at AGH Univeristy of Science and Technology, the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and Warsaw University. He teaches many subject like finance, behavioural economics, decision making, Big Data, bank management, structured finance, corporate banking, financial markets, financial instruments, team-building and leadership. But what stands out is his data and analytics course.

Hervé Hachet set up (in 2012) and is the Director of Amer Sports Financial Shared Service Center (AFSS) in Kraków.

The Kraków centre delivers financial and IT services to Europe and North America business entities of Amer Sports, which include leading sports equipment and clothing brands such as Salomon, Atomic, Wilson, Precor, Suunto, Arcteryx and Mavic.

Hervé has 30 years of experience managing financial teams, as a Chief Accountant for French supermarket companies, setting up several accounting teams from scratch to maturity, then Head of the accounting department in Salomon HQ and finally setting up and leading the Amer Sports service Centre in Kraków.

Hervé is aiming to lead the Kraków team to the Centre of Excellence level, focusing on increasing internal capabilities, change management, and process efficiency, including robotics.

Hervé is a Member of the Management Board of ASPIRE and leads the ASPIRE Finance & Accountancy Leaders Group.

Since 2018 Chris has been leading a software development team in Kraków responsible for the development and maintenance of Cisco Smart Licensing Satellite product. Agile, Scrum, DevOps led development and testing, helping Cisco to enable its future transition towards software and subscription based services.

Prior to setting up the software team, he was 4 years managing Advanced Services, also from the Kraków centre, implementing advanced solutions for Cisco clients.

Prior to joining Cisco, Chris worked for Rockwell.

Łukasz runs his own business www.lcmedia.pl/en) Within LCMedia.pl, he especially enjoys creative and challenging assignments as event host or debate moderator. He’s a public-speaking coach, copywriter and adviser in the fields of CSR, PR and media relations. Between 2011-2015 he worked as a project manager and university lecturer, specialising in management, communications and language studies. He has organised and coordinated multiple conferences and events, run a newly-established university faculty as well as designed and set up an energy think-tank.
He’s an experienced interpreter and translator of business books. Between 2004-2010, he worked for a global multi-national (last of the 4 successive corporate functions:director corporate responsibility & communications). In his private life, he might just have too many passions to list them all in a short conference note.

Josette Bushell-Mingo OBE breaks through barriers and smashes glass ceilings and she helps others to do the same.

She is an award winning actress and theatre director, and campaigner on issues of gender, race and disability rights.

Josette's achievements are many. Born in the UK, and now living in Sweden, she has worked with leading theatres such as the Royal Opera House, Riksteatern and Norbottens Teatern in Sweden and the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre in England.

In 2000, Josette was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role as Rafiki in the London production of The Lion King. In 2001, she founded a black-led arts festival called PUSH at the Young Vic Theatre in London. In 2006 she was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire and in 2007 she directed the first ever theatrical production of Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Josette is currently Head of Acting at Stockholm University, the first woman of African descent to hold the post. She is also the Artistic Director of the National Black Theatre of Sweden. She was previously Artistic Director of Riksteaterns Tyst Teater, the Swedish Sign Lanaguage Theatre, and is the recipient of several awards for her pioneering work with the theatre, including a production of the Odyssey in Swedish Sign Language. She is one of the nine board members of the Swedish Film Institute.

In 2016, Josette wrote and performed he own show ``Nina – A Story About Me and Nina Simone,`` a ``deeply personal and often searing show`` inspired by the singer and activist Nina Simone.

At ASPIRE 4 ALL, Josette will talk with us about her experiences, the strength she draws from those that have gone before such as Nina Simone, the power of song and expression, and talking from one's heart, and the very important human quality of resistance in the struggle for better.

Wojciech Czakon is full professor and chair in strategic management at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. His research revolves around interorganizational relationships, phenomena and structures in view of a firm's advantage or strategic objectives attainment. Recent works focus on coopetition strategies, trust-building mechanisms and network myopia seen as the micro-foundation of organisational capabilities.

Wojciech is also a member of the Faculty at the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management (EIASM) and a former vice-president of the European Academy of Management.

Romek Lubaczewski is a Partner at PwC where he has worked for over 10 years, in Assurance, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Advisory departments. Previous roles include Managing Partner of PwC Consulting practice in Poland and leader of the Financial Function Effectiveness team in Poland and the Shared Services Centres (SSC) Advisory Group for the CEE region. He is a member of PwC’s SSC and BPO Global Experts Group.

He is a subject matter expert on a wide range of Shared Services Centre and BPO activities from initial analysis, financial modelling and due diligence through design, set-up, hiring, process transition and go-live. His SSC/BPO experience also covers operational management and process re-design at subsequent stages of centre operations.

Romek is a member of the ASPIRE management board.

Alexandra (Alex) Schmidt is Centre Director of HSBC Service Delivery (Polska) Sp. z o.o. in Krakow; a global service centre providing high-end services to HSBC’s entities located across the globe.

Alex has worked for HSBC for more than 18 years in a variety of roles, mainly within Operations, and throughout this time she was based in Germany, Luxembourg, Mexico and Poland.

She joined HSBC in Kraków in 2014/15 to support the set-up of Global Banking & Markets Securities Operations and ever since she has closely cooperated with the centre contributing to its further development. In 2017 she became Centre Director and since then she has been driving the ongoing growth of HSBC business in Poland.

Since its beginnings in 2010, HSBC Service Delivery (Polska) Sp. z o.o. has expanded ten times, currently employing 3,000 people and continues to grow.

The Kraków centre is one of the most diversified HSBC’s service centres in terms of scope of activities performed – people range from technologists transforming the banking experience to operations professionals managing 1.7 trillion payments a year.

HSBC Service Delivery (Polska) Sp. z o.o. is the engine that drives HSBC, making the bank simpler, better and faster for the customers and colleagues; providing services in 11 languages to HSBC entities located in 27 countries.

Przemek is a member of the Management Committee and Director of Operations of IAG Global Business Services. IAG GBS, with its headquarters in Kraków, drives finance and procurement operations for the International Airlines Group companies (which include British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Vueling, Iberia Express and Level).

Prior to joining IAG GBS in 2017, Przemek was President of the Management Board of Rolls Royce Poland and Senior Finance Business Partner for the global Propulsion and Engines Value Stream at Rolls-Royce.

Previously, Przemek worked for UK food industry group UNIQ, where he was in charge of restructuring the company to prepare the business for acquisition and prior to that he was based in France with the Michelin Group.

Przemek is a member of the ASPIRE Board and also leads the ASPIRE Procurement Services Leaders Group.

Over 20 years of experience in Finance area, including 10 years in Shared Services, now with a global role in a new area of responsibility - Inter-company, including virtual leadership of Asia, Middle East and Africa in GBS Finance.

Martina says: ``ABB is my first and last employer (for now) where I grew and developed in different finance areas of the company and have provided leadership to teams in Finance and Accounting. My leadership responsibility started with a team of 3 direct reports and grew up to 300+ (indirect) in past years within the GBS ``Build up” in Kraków Hub, including transition and stabilisation.``

Change Manager at Amer Sports Financial Shared Services. Specialized in change management and continuous improvement principles, methodologies and tools, with over 7 year of accounting and audit experience .

Managing currently different projects related to process efficiency with strong focus on quality, standardization and RPA leading to several Robot implementations enabling significant new opportunities for further efficiency and quality gains in finance processes.

Ewelina supports the AFSS employees in developing and adopting new processes, preparing reviews , analysing end to end processes and also organizing special training programs for identifying process opportunities.

Nina Kaczmarczyk is currently a Project Manager in Cisco. Aside of her core job responsibilities, she has been involved in a number of site-wide events, employee-engagement initiatives, and site communications. Since April 2016, she co-leads the Inclusion & Collaboration pillar in Cisco Krakow. One of her latest I&C involvements are: the Cisco’s “LifeChanger” program, aiming to enhance employment opportunities for people with disabilities, and the ASPIRE Diversity Expert Group, where Cisco is a Group Champion. Prior to Cisco, Nina was working in London for a multinational consultancy company, where she supported private and public sector clients in projects based in Europe, Central Asia, North Africa and the Middle East.

Sam Conniff Allende is a multi-award winning serial social entrepreneur, and co-founder and former CEO of the youth-led creative network, Livity, the marketing agency, Don't Panic, the genre-defining interactive television series Dubplate Drama, and Live Magazine, all of which aimed to draw on and speak to the creative talents of young people.
Since starting his entrepreneurial career aged 19, Sam has mentored thousands of talented young entrepreneurs and hustlers around the world. He is an acclaimed public speaker, an advocate of 'business as unusual' or corporate responsibility and accountability, and a purpose-driven strategy consultant to brands such as Red Bull, Unilever and PlayStation.

His new book Be More Pirate, or How To Take On The World and Win, is a manifesto for each of us to create the sort of Good Trouble the world needs. It's based on the true and untold strategy and success of the Golden Age of Pirates as agents of change, leadership and social innovation.

Sam has received numerous accolades for his work including EY's Social Entrepreneur of the Year, Global CSR Leader at the Global CSR Awards.

At ASPIRE 4 ALL Sam will share with us what he discovered about the pirates and the manifesto for change they have inspired, and leave us with 5 rules he says we need to create, manage and survive change, to take on the world and win.

Sam says:

``There's a lot you can learn from the Pirates of the Golden Age. They were the millennials of the 1700s – twenty-somethings who succeeded at rewriting the rules of fairness and social innovation. They were real agents of change.``

Daniel Tilley is Chief Operating Officer for HSBC Operations covering UK, Europe and Middle East & North Africa.
Daniel started his career with HSBC in October 2004. In his 14 years with the bank, Daniel has had roles in Business Services managing processing teams, Project Management, Risk, Performance analytics and COO. Progressing through the company, Daniel has held roles with Country, Regional and Global remits.
In his current role, Daniel leads a team of Business Managers across UK, France, Krakow and Dubai to manage the relationships with Global Businesses across the Regions; driving improvements in customer service standards and financial performance. Working across Business Services and markets, Daniel covers the complete range of Operational Services across 42 countries and c.42% of HSBC Global Operations cost base

Grzegorz Cempla is General Manager of Ocado Technology Poland which has it’s R&D centres in Kraków and Wrocław, and employs over 180+ employees mainly within the software engineering function.

Greg joined Ocado Technology in 2013 and since the beginning of 2014 he heads Ocado’s Polish offices, the first overseas locations of Ocado Technology.

He has over 20 years of experience in software engineering, working previously both in the public and the private sector, delivering solutions and services to healthcare, banks, telecommunication companies, and web advertising.

Greg is an ASPIRE Board member.

Over 24 years of experience in Shared Services:
PwC BPO in Rotterdam – Delta Air Lines (6 years)
DSM (3 years)
Applied Biosystems (2 years)

Working for ABB for 13 years, extensive process knowledge in Finance as Group process owner for Record to Report with a flare for people management.
Started working in ABB GBS Krakow in 2018 with excitement about working with so many amazing people – The excitement can be so far confirmed 200 %

Jakub leads a team of 1.000+ professionals across 5 delivery locations providing business process management and consulting services for various customers, across a wide range of industries.

Steven Swientozielskyj is an expert on world class improvements relating to complex service and change issues from process re-engineering and developing best-in-class delivery teams, to talent management and culture creation.

Steven currently serves as Deputy President of CIMA, Board Member of the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants and CEO of Business Partnering Global. He was previously Head of Finance Shared Services at Network Rail.

He is the author of the Business Partnering: a practical handbook, published in 2016. The book introduces a framework and practical set of tools and techniques via a simple six stage model that take the practitioner from start to finish through strategic change; from the formation and agreement of the strategy to its delivery and sustainability.

Pablo Cremades is Head of Premium Account Executives (UK & EMEA), where he is responsible for the creation and implementation of the commercial strategy for IG's high value client base, for setting up and implementing KPIs for the Premium Account Executives in the EMEA region, and leading the Premium Account Executives team for EMEA.

Pablo has been with IG for 9 years. Before IG, he worked as an intern with Bankinter. He holds a Masters in Banking Management and Administration from Kuhnel.

Jim Lawless is an internationally renowned speaker and adviser who has inspired people within some of the world's leading companies to take astute risks and adapt for change and high performance. Over half a million people on five continents have been entertained and inspired by Jim's presentations and many more by his bestselling book Taming Tigers.

Taming Tigers lays out the framework for how to achieve what we may have thought was impossible and Jim's own remarkable story shows how this framework can and does deliver outstanding and unique results. It has enabled him to become a jockey in just 12 months, and step into the record books as the first Briton to dive lower than 100m on a single breath.

Ben founded and is CEO of First Property Group plc, an award winning commercial property fund manager with operations in the United Kingdom and Central Europe.

Prior to establishing First Property, Ben was Managing Director of a private property development company, JKL Property Ltd, from 1994 – 2000. He started his career in corporate finance in 1987 at Shearson Lehman Brothers. He moved in 1989 to PWS Holdings plc, a FTSE 350 Lloyds reinsurance broker, to be its Finance Director.

In May 2019 Ben was elected to be a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Brexit Party, representing London.

He was educated at Rugby School and Cambridge University.

Scott Newman is Senior Vice President, Managing Director and Board member of State Street Bank GmbH Poland branch. He is responsible for leading the local management team, business development and governance of the organisation.

The State Street GmbH Poland branch was established in November 2007 and has since grown to more than 3,000 employees providing Fund Accounting, Derivatives, Securities Pricing, Hedge Fund Administration and Performance & Analytics on behalf of 10 State Street offices to more than 180 clients.

Prior to transferring to Poland, Scott was based in Munich where he led the research and set-up of the new office in Kraków as well Relationship and project management roles.

Scott joined State Street in 2003 through the acquisition of Deutsche Bank’s Global Custody business at which time he was based in Frankfurt, Germany and worked extensively on the DB acquisition and integration.

At Deutsche Bank, Scott held roles in custody client service, Product Development and PMO. He holds a BA in Business Administration and is a German speaker.

Scott is an ASPIRE Founding Member and Board Member.

Przemek Zakrzewski is Head of the ABB Software Development Centre (SDC) in Kraków. He has been with ABB for 15 years and previously served as CIO in Poland. He has a Master in Artificial Intelligence from Łódż Polytechnic and an Executive MBA for the University of Warsaw and University of illiinois.

The ABB SDC develops software for ABB clients all over the world, offering systems that support power plants, provide electricity transmission and distribution, ensure control of energy production, transmission and distribution, and also systems dedicated to predict prices, profitability, and location suitable for power plants.

Sławek Kumka is Managing Director of the IBM Software Laboratory in Kraków, responsible for managing the growth of the centre and delivery of solutions based on technologies such as Cloud, Analytics and Big Data. He also manages projects related to European Union Funds focused on new technologies and innovation.

Sławek has more than 20 years of experience in running software development projects, both in managerial and technical roles. Prior to joining IBM, he served as Head of Production of Software and Technical Director in the Kraków branch of the Polish-French company IGE + XAO. He was responsible for directing and technical development of the CAD software for the electrical and the aerospace industry (designing wiring harnesses) in cooperation with Airbus and Eurocopter. Later, he held the position of Technical Director at Apriso Poland, now part of Dassault Systems.

Sławek is a graduate of AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków and has an MBA from the University of Warwick.

Sławek is a member of the Management Board and also a member of the ASPIRE Software Leaders Group.

An Air force officer turned Human Resource professional with international experience in diverse industries - Engineering, Research & Development, Shared Services , Software Development and Manufacturing Industry.

Strengths include leading HR processes, OD & Change management initiatives. Have experience in Capability Planning,Competency and Career development, Assessments, Employee Engagement & Retention, Succession planning & development, Leadership Program assessor, facilitator & coach for managers, Change Management, Employee relations & Statutory compliance, Diversity & Inclusion.

Established HR Operations service standards & operational policies, planning & implementing effective control measures to manage effectively operating costs of the business.

Large programme management across multiple countries. Six Sigma Green Belt Certified & Lean Practitioner.

Adam has 14 years experience in IT, including 8 years in managerial roles.

He is currently Head of QA at IG in Kraków where he manages a 120-member IT team. Prior to joining IG, Adam worked for Sabre as Director of Marketing & Product Development and Director Software Quality and Development.

Adam has a Master’s Degree in Computer Science form the Częstochowa University of Technology.

Norbert has over 20 years of finance experience working for Philip Morris, Novartis, Alstom/GE and currently ABB.

A graduate of Kraków University of Economics, he is currently finalising Master of Business Administration (IMBA) at the St. Gallen Business School, Switzerland and Kraków University of Economics. He completed Professional Accounting qualification (ACCA) and various executive qualifications at Said Business School – University of Oxford and IMD in Switzerland.

Norbert has been living in Switzerland for 15 years.

Ruchir Verma is a living example of the coming together of contradictions; left and right brain morphing.

Whereas he speaks at corporate seminars on data and automation, he is also found at book fairs and on radio shows speaking about his books and philosophy of life.

An Engineer, MBA and Masters of Law by education, his corporate career comprises setting up and running shared service centres in various countries, and large scale complex transformations.

His creative side has written fiction books and literary articles in leading publications. His debut book 'The Boy from Allahabad' tells the story of a mystical city and intertwining tale of an ordinary boy turning into a mafia don while trying to stay true to his calling. His next book 'Dare Delhi' will be published this summer

Ruchir is based in Zurich, Switzerland.

Details at www.ruchirverma.com

Jola Gantkowska has extensive experience in Human Resources and Recruitment Operations Management. Her main area of focus is managing multiple headcount teams delivering recruitment and administration services to AMS clients globally, with particular focus and expertise in the EMEA region. She is currently managing AMS’s largest centre in Kraków and a second site in Gdańsk. She is also responsible for Global Recruitment Administration processes within AMS.

Jola graduated from the Kraków University of Economics, majoring in International Management, completed postgraduate studies in European Studies and Human Resources Management and also graduated from Erickson International College of Coaching. She is a member of the management board of ASPIRE.

Stephane Bernard is Chief Operating Officer of Euroclear Bank and CEO of the Euroclear Poland Branch in Kraków.

He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the ESES central securities depositories Euroclear Belgium, France and Netherlands.

Euroclear's Poland Branch is a key operational hub for the Euroclear Group and the banks' fastest growing branch.

Stephane is a Member of the ASPIRE Board.

An accountant by training, John joined PwC to manage one of the first F&A BPO centres in Poland in 1998.
When PwC sold their consulting and BPO business to IBM in 2002, John and his team joined IBM and as Centre Director he helped to grow the IBM F&A BPO business, growing to more than 1500 employees by 2010.
He moved to HEINEKEN in 2011 to set up and operate a European F&A Shared Service Centre supporting twenty five European markets.
John has developed extensive experience in shared services and outsourcing over his career in areas such as service delivery, operations, process improvement, process migration as well as building and developing leadership teams.

The Aon Krakow SSC employs approximately 1200 colleagues supporting customer facing and shared services business units.

Anthony O. Thompson is Senior Vice President, Senior Managing Director and
Chief Operating Officer for State Street Bank in Poland and a key senior leader within State Street EMEA operations. His responsibilities include driving optimised operating models and service excellence across multiple disciplines and internal bank divisions.

State Street Bank in Poland forms a key role in the global service delivery
strategy as a core operating hub consisting of more than 4,500 employees in
Kraków and Gdańsk.

He joined State Street Poland in August 2018 and is an accomplished financial services manager with 22+ years experience in Consumer Banking, Wealth Management and Institutional Investment. He has successfully managed large operational and client service organisations to include strategic and business development, risk management solutions, leadership and talent management and operational effectiveness both domestically and internationally.

Anthony joined State Street from Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he held numerous senior management positions in Wealth Management and Consumer Banking. He is a graduate of Virginia Military Institue and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering and is married with three children.

Chief of Staff at State Street Poland since 2017. In her role, she oversees Governance and Business Administration functions.

In her previous role, as a Head of Talent & Development at State Street Poland she was responsible for implementing training & development strategy and strengthening leadership capabilities of local management team. She is a certified coach.

Agnieszka is an executive sponsor of the Professional Women Chapter at State Street Poland and a member of the EMEA Diversity Council.

She combines her professional career with being a happy mother of three wonderful boys and a rock climbing hobby.

Szymon Malecki – Chair of the Legal Committee of Aspire. Owner of Malecki Executive Search, a boutique executive search firm speciated in the GBS Sector. Has over 18 years’ of experience in C-level management of international businesses responsible for sales, consulting, IT and HR. Until End of 2014 President of the Board of euroscript Polska (currently Amplexor). Inspired, set up and managed the Shared Service Centre of the Company in Kraków, focused on service management and customer service for the German, French, Swiss, Luxembourgish and Belgian markets. In the last year of his corporate career acted as Director Global Service Management of the euroscript Group.
2012 -2016 Member of the Board of ASPIRE..
Since 2012, Honorary Consul of Luxembourg

Szymon Kwapiszewski is a Senior Engineering Manager leading the Web Performance Engineering organization at the Akamai Krakow Centre of Excellence. He is also a member of the Site Steering Team orchestrating all the innovation-related initiatives at the Krakow office.
Szymon joined Akamai in 2015 with a clear mission to establish a new engineering organization in Krakow. Since then, he has successfully launched several teams working on new Web Performance and IoT products.
Prior to Akamai, he spent 10 years at IBM working as a technical leader, people manager and customer enablement expert. He has strong technical background focused on the enterprise data warehousing, big data and performance.
Szymon is a graduate of AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków. He is a member of the ASPIRE Software Leaders Group.

Mani Sundaram is Executive Vice President of Akamai’s Global Services and Support Organization and Akamai’s Chief Information Officer, based at the company’s global headquarters, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He leads Akamai’s IT Organization as well as Global Services & Support (Professional Services, Account Management, Customer Support), in partnership with Charlie Phillips, Akamai’s Senior Vice President, GSS.

Mr. Sundaram joined Akamai in 2007 as an architect in Professional Services, consulting with large media businesses. He was instrumental in creating a new services and support paradigm leveraged by Akamai customers to manage the largest online events in the world. He also assimilated Akamai’s services teams around the world into a single, global organization. And with the integration of Prolexic security services into Akamai’s global services organization, he helped to establish Akamai as a leading security provider.

Prior to Akamai, he worked in various roles in engineering, marketing and client services at Virtify Inc. and Stratus Technologies. He earned a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Northeastern University, a Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems from BITS Pilani, in India, and completed the Certificate of Special Studies in Administration and Management from Harvard University Extension School.

Filip Walkowicz is the Site Leader of Akamai Krakow Centre of Excellence, the largest Akamai office in the EMEA region, supporting over 20 business functions (from core engineering and platform monitoring to sales, finance and HR).

He has over 10 years experience in the Information Technology and Customer Service Support area in Poland. He gained his experience as People Manager at IBM responsible for delivering 1st, 2nd and 3rd level server support services to the French market.

Filip is a member of the ASPIRE management board and a member of the ASPIRE Software Leaders Group.

Ramón A. Tancinco II is the Regional IT Leader for CEE, RCIS & MEA for Cisco Systems, and Site Leader of the Cisco Centre in Kraków. He is also a Member of the Management Board of ASPIRE.

A Cisco veteran of more than 10 years, Ramón was previously in the Cisco Services group where he managed an Information Technology Development team, as well as the Optical Networking Group (Cisco’s Cerent acquisition) where he had Engineering Management responsibilities in global business planning, new product introduction and process improvement/implementation.

Ramón has a depth of experience in research and development, strategy formation, business development, programme management, operations and his background includes work at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), an ERP software start-up (purchased by Metamor Technologies), and as a Captain in the United States Army Armour Corps.

Ramón has spent many years living and working in Europe, Asia and the United States in varying roles where he has acquired a deep understanding of the people, cultures and business practices of these respective areas.

Ramón received his Bachelor of Science in Management and Mechanical Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He has also completed Cisco’s prestigious Global Leadership Program in Athens, Greece. He is a dynamic speaker and has conducted presentations in such venues as the Thunderbird School of Business in Glendale, Arizona, the BaaN World User’s Conference for Anderson Consulting in Washington, D.C, and the IT Giants Conference in Kraków.

Juan Boned is Director Global Shared Services at Heineken International, a role he took up in 2017.

He was previously 12 years with SAB Miller in various roles, including Global Business Services Delivery Lead and Global Delivery Centre Lead, Poland. Prior to that he was an Audit Director with PwC.

Juan studied at the University of Buenos Aires, Stetson University and Universidad Francisco de Vitoria.

Wojtek Karpiński has 10 years leadership experience in shared services and outsourcing. Since 2015 he has led Amway’s multifunctional regional centre in Kraków.

Prior to joining Amway, Wojtek was with Infosys BPO in Łódź, where he managed F&A and procurement services for European sites, and later became Global Operations Head, responsible for finance and procurement services across 6 locations for a manufacturing client.

Wojtek’s first role in the business services sector was with Philips Electronics’ Shared Services Center, who he joined in 2007. Prior to this he worked for 7 years in the insurance industry.

Julian Harding is Managing Director and Head of Poland for State Street Global Advisors (SSGA), where since December 2018 he has been Branch Head for the Global Hub in Kraków. He is a member of the Senior Leadership Team at SSGA.
Previously he was Managing Director, Global Head of Core Beta Research and managed Equity Beta Portfolios.

Prior to joining SSGA in February 2016, Julian was Head of Index Fund Management with Legal & General Investment Management Ltd (LGIM), which he joined in 2005; he was an executive director with responsibility for the London-based equity and fixed income index fund management teams.

Julian worked as a research physicist after university and subsequently qualified as a chartered accountant with KPMG. He moved into investment management in 1995 managing index, quantitative and other derivative-based portfolios. In 1998 he joined PwC as a senior manager focusing on investment management and in 2000 he joined the quantitative fund management house First Quadrant as an executive director.

Julian has a first class honours degree in Physics from the University of Southampton and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (FCA), a Chartered Fellow of the Institute for Securities & Investment (Chartered FCISI) and having achieved the ASIP designation is also a member of the CFA Society of the UK.

Ola Stelmach-Gryszka is a Senior Manager in PwC Shared Services and Outsourcing Centre of Excellence in Kraków. She has over 12 years of experience in Business Services area advising global companies on shared services design, set-up and implementation.

Ola leads Perform initiatives in Poland - Operational Excellence programme delivering efficiencies and other benefits through coaching Team Leaders and middle management. She is also a Global PwC SS&O leadership network Chief of Staff, driving business development and knowledge management projects globally.