FT-ETNO Summit 2019

Petra De Sutter is an MEP representing the Flemish Greens in the European Parliament and is the first green chairwoman of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Affairs.

As a gynaecologist and fertility expert, she has been confronted with the harmful effects of chemicals on our health. Her indignation about this brought her into national politics in 2014, as a way to further her commitment to a healthy and socially just society. 

For the last 30 years, Ms De Sutter has been pointing out the health risks of endocrine disruptors. She defends the sexual and reproductive health and rights of girls and women, and engages in bio-ethical discussions such as surrogacy and commercial egg donation. In addition, she is committed to a more social Europe and the protection of refugees and LGBTI people.

In 2019 she moved from the Belgian Senate and the Council of Europe to the European Parliament. Thanks to her authentic style and extensive knowledge, she is respected and trusted across different political parties.

Timotheus Höttges has been CEO of Deutsche Telekom AG since January 2014.

From 2009 until his appointment as CEO, he was a member of the Board of Management responsible for Finance and Controlling. For the three years preceding that, he was a member of the Board of Management responsible for the T-Home unit. In this position, Mr Höttges oversaw the fixed-line network and broadband business, as well as integrated sales and service in Germany. Under his leadership, T-Home became the market leader in terms of new DSL customers and developed its Internet TV service, Entertain, into a mass-market product while stabilising its profitability. After implementing various cost-cutting programmes at T-Home and in the European mobile communications subsidiaries, Mr Höttges became responsible for the Group-wide Save for Service efficiency enhancement program. In 2005, he headed European operations as member of the Board of Management, T-Mobile International.

From 2000 until 2004, he was Managing Director, Finance and Controlling, before becoming Chairman of the Managing Board of T-Mobile Deutschland.
In 1992, he joined the VIAG Group, where he became divisional manager in 1997 and, later, a member of the extended management board responsible for controlling, corporate planning, and M&A. As project manager, he played a central role in the merger between VIAG AG and VEBA AG, which together formed E.on AG, in 2000.

Mr Höttges studied business administration at Cologne University, going on to spend three years with a business consulting company.

Ken (Houkun) Hu is the Deputy and Rotating Chairman of Huawei’s Board of Directors and member of the Executive Management Team. He also chairs the Global Cyber Security and User Privacy Protection Committee, where he guides company strategy and oversees cyber security assurance systems. 

Mr Hu joined Huawei in 1990. Since then, he has served in leadership positions, including President of Huawei's China market, Regional President of Huawei Latin America, President of Global Sales, Chairman of the Board of Huawei USA, Chief Sales and Service Officer, and Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer. In these roles, he helped build out Huawei's global sales and service network, and played an integral role in its management transformation initiatives. 

From October 2011 to March 2018, he served as Rotating CEO, responsible for company-wide business development and management optimisation. He also chaired the Human Resources Committee, which oversees leadership and organisational development.

Mr Hu is passionate about connectivity, inclusive growth and driving social progress through innovation. He is a member of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Digital Communications Industry Steering Committee and the Technology Pioneers Selection Committee.

He holds a BA from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China.

Cristiano Amon serves as president of Qualcomm Inc. In this role, he is responsible for the oversight of all activities related to Qualcomm’s semiconductor business. Mr Amon also serves as a member of Qualcomm’s executive committee.

Mr Amon served as co-president of QCT for three years and prior to this was senior vice president of Product Management with QCT, managing the company’s wireless chipset portfolio. He joined Qualcomm in 1995 as an engineer and since then has held several other business and technical leadership roles there.

Prior to joining Qualcomm, Mr Amon served as the chief technical officer of Vésper, a wireless operator in Brazil, and held positions in NEC, Ericsson and Velocom Inc.

He holds a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from UNICAMP – Universidade Estadual de Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil.

Thomas Arnoldner has been the CEO of A1 Telekom Austria Group since September 2018. 

Prior to that, he spent two years as a member of the executive board of T-Systems Austria GesmbH.

From 2016-2017, he led Nokia's European growth strategy for several business areas and markets. 

Mr Arnoldner began his professional career in 2003 at Alcatel Austria. After several management positions in the company he was named CEO of Alcatel-Lucent Austria in 2013. From 2015-2016, after Nokia acquired Alcatel-Lucent, he was a member of the integration team and developed the post-integration strategy for the combined company. 

He studied business management at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and the Stockholm School of Economics.

As Group CTO, Erik Ekudden is responsible for setting the direction of technology leadership for the Ericsson Group. In 2017 he was relocated to Kista, Sweden, after nearly seven years working for the company in Santa Clara, California.
His experience from working with technology leadership globally influences strategic decisions and investments in mobility, distributed cloud, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. This builds on his decades-long career in technology strategies and industry activities.
Mr Ekudden first joined Ericsson in 1993 to work on mobile systems research. He has served as research area director and vice president of standardisation. During his career, his team created technology and multimedia functionality that are now used in today’s smartphones worldwide. This team also conducted some of the first work on virtual and augmented reality for mobile systems. He has worked to create global mobile systems for 3G, 4G and 5G in close collaboration with customers.
He holds an MSc in Electrical Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

Alexandre Fonseca has been CEO of Altice Portugal since November 2017. He is also Executive Manager at ALTICE LABS Portugal, an Altice Group research and development unit where he leads innovation and future thinking on technology, focusing on hardware development, OSS/BSS and TV and interactive platforms. He joined Altice in 2012, when it entered Portugal.

Previously he was CEO of B2B operators ONI Portugal and ONI Mozambique, and CTO of cable company Cabovisão. Between 1995 and 2007, he worked as a management consultant specialising in IT and telecoms in Portugal and abroad with Coopers & Lybrand, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and IBM. 

He has worked on complex and multinational projects, as well as technology strategy, operations, innovation and IT, with a special emphasis on transformation, restructuring, reorganisation and M&A.

A member of several telecom and IT industry associations, he contributes project management, strategy and communication expertise. He appears regularly in the Portuguese media, and participates in academic initiatives across telecom, technology and management.

He holds a degree in Computer Science Engineering from Lisbon University and an MA in Sales & Marketing Management from TeamView Institute.

Eva Gouwens has been CEO of Fairphone, a social enterprise that aims to reinvent the electronics industry by manufacturing mobile phones in a fair and ethical way, since 2017.After 13 years in commercial positions at global companies in the FMCG industry (Sara Lee, Mars, FreislandCampina), when she decided to use her experience to help grow purpose-driven companies.With the motto "Let's build commercially successful companies, as a sustainable source for good in the world”, she became the Managing Director of Tony Chocolonely, a sustainable chocolate business. 

Ditte Juul Jørgensen became Director-General of DG Energy on 1 August 2019. This followed nearly five years as Head of Cabinet for Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.

Mrs Juul Jørgensen has 27 years of experience in the European Commission. Before being Head of Cabinet she was Director for WTO, Legal Affairs and Trade in Goods in the Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade, where she managed the EU policy and negotiations in the World Trade Organization, legal issues and the EU’s involvement in WTO dispute settlement as well as the EU policy on trade in goods. Prior to her appointment to Director, she was Head of Unit for dispute settlement and legal issues and Acting Director. She has also been Head of Unit for Trade and Sustainable Development and Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary Issues, and responsible for EU bilateral trade relations. 

Her previous experience includes a posting as Head of the Economic Section of the EU Delegation to the United Nations in New York, as well as work at the European Court of Justice and at the European Commission Directorate-General for Competition.

Mrs Juul Jørgensen is a graduate in law of the College of Europe in Bruges, and the University of Copenhagen. 

Maria Mähl is a Partner at Arabesque, the leading sustainability data provider and sustainability quant asset manager using artificial intelligence and big data. She has worked with global leaders in the private, public and civil society sectors on policy development, investments strategies, operational excellence, program development and business development across industries in European, Asian, African, and American markets.

Prior to joining Arabesque, Ms Mähl held senior positions at Volvo, Capgemini, the UN, and the Clinton Global Initiative. She is on the board of the International Institute for Environment & Development, advising ventures in the food and agtech as well as fintech space and is the founder of a medtech company.

She has been recognised as one of Sweden's most powerful women in the business world by Veckan's Affärer, and is considered one of the leading sustainability leaders. Ms Mähl attended Humboldt University Berlin, Berlin Institute of Technology, and Uppsala University in Sweden and holds a BSc in Political Science and an MSc in Business and Economics. She resides in New York with her family. 

Mikael Nyberg serves as a Director-General and High-Level Representative for transport and communications policy in the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Finland. 

In his current position, he acts as High-Level Representative during Finland's Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Mr Nyberg has extensive experience in the field of transport and communications, serving in the ministry since 1994. He has also been a Vice-Chairman of the Boards of Road Administration, Rail Administration and Vehicle Administration during 2006 to 2009. His field of expertise and interests are communication and transport networks, cyber security, data and digitalisation.

He holds an MA in Law from the University of Helsinki in Finland.

Dr Helmut Reisinger was appointed CEO of Orange Business Services in May 2018 and serves on the Executive Committee for the Orange Group. He is responsible for the strategy to support the digital transformation of our enterprise customers across France and international markets. He focuses on the business growth areas that enable multinational enterprises to leverage their entire data value chain, resulting in new business models.

Dr Reisinger has over 20 years of experience in enterprise markets and solutions. He was previously executive vice president, International, in charge of Europe, the Americas, APAC, the Middle East, Africa, Russia and Indirect business. He joined Orange in July 2007 as senior vice president, Europe. Before joining Orange Business Services, Dr Reisinger was vice president Western Europe at Avaya. Before that, he was CEO of private equity-owned NextiraOne Germany and a member of its European executive committee. He also held several leadership positions during his nine-year tenure with Alcatel Austria, the final one being managing director of Alcatel’s enterprise activities in Austria.

A native of Austria, Dr Reisinger is a graduate of Vienna University for Economics and Business, CEMS Masters Program at WU Wien with international studies at Hochschule St Gallen (Switzerland) and ESCCA Angers (France).

Dan Sjöblom has been the Director-General of the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS) since his appointment by the Swedish government on 1 February 2017. 

In addition, Mr Sjöblom is a member of the board of BEREC and will serve as BEREC Chair in 2020.

Prior to taking up his position at PTS, he spent eight years (2009-2017) as Director General for the Swedish Competition Authority. 

He is also a board member of the Swedish Broadband Council.

Mr Sjöblom served as a civil servant at the European Commission between 1996-2009. He holds an MA in Law from Stockholm University.

Philippe Vanhille is Executive Vice President of Prysmian Group's Telecom Business, which he has led since May 2013. 

Before that he was head of the company’s global optical fibre business unit, a position he had previously held at Draka before its merger with Prysmian in 2011.

During his 20 years in the cable business, he held management and operational positions across the energy, copper telecom and optical fibre businesses of Alcatel and Draka. 

He joined Alcatel Cable in 1991, having begun his career as a research engineer for Renault Formula 1 development. Mr Vanhille has a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Lyon in France.

Roberto Viola is Director General of DG CONNECT (Directorate General of Communication, Networks, Content and Technology) at the European Commission.

He was the Deputy Director-General of DG CONNECT, European Commission from 2012 to 2015.

Mr Viola served as Chairman of the European Radio Spectrum Policy group (RSPG) from 2012 to 2013, as Deputy Chairman in 2011 and Chairman in 2010. He was member of the BEREC Board (Body of European Telecom Regulators), and Chairman of the European Regulatory Group (ERG).

He held the position of Secretary General in charge of managing Italian communications regulator AGCOM, from 2005 to 2012. Prior to this, he served as Director of Regulation Department and Technical Director in AGCOM from 1999 to 2004.

From 1985-1999 he served in positions including Head of Telecommunication and Broadcasting Satellite Services at the European Space Agency (ESA).

He holds a Doctorate in Electronic Engineering and an MBA.

Javier Espinoza has recently taken on the role as EU Correspondent in Brussels for the FT, focussing his coverage mainly on competition and technology issues. Prior to this Javier Espinoza served as the FT's Private Equity Correspondent. Before joining the FT he was the Daily Telegraph's Education Editor, as well as a multimedia Reporter for the Wall Street Journal in London. Prior to joining the Wall Street Journal, he worked at the Observer newspaper in London. He studied journalism at City University. He is also a Political Economist having completed a second Master's degree at King's College London.

Mehreen Khan has been the FT's Brussels Correspondent since 2017. 
She writes about the environment, eurozone, EU institutions and is the author of the daily Brussels Briefing.

Steven Tas has been Head of Proximus' regulatory department since 2008 and Executive Board Chairman of ETNO – the association representing Europe’s leading telecom operators – since January 2015.

He has been a member of the ETNO board since 2009 and a member of the board of the Centre on Regulation in Europe (CERRE) since 2010.

Mr Tas joined Belgacom-Proximus in 1994 and has occupied various positions within the company’s strategy division.

Mr Tas holds a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering and Industrial Management from the University of Leuven.