Jan Havel - Associate Director - Actum (Czech Republic)

Jan Havel studied finance and banking at the Univeristy of Economics, where he earned his Ph.D. in general economic theory. He teaches monetary economics at the University of Economics and CEVRO Institute. In 2005-2006 he held the position of advisor to the bank board of the Czech National Bank. In 1996 he co-founded Actum, a company focused primarily on development of internet applications and online marketing, where he held various positions, among others as marketing consultant and managing director. At the moment, he is member of the board and Client Service Director of Actum. Jan is married and has two children. Among others he likes frisbee ultimate, badminton, mountains, and the Austrian school of economic thought.

Birgit Weber-Wesely - Talent Director - MARS Central Europe (Austria)

Birgit Weber-Wesely is Talent Director at MARS Central Europe. Mars Central Europe belongs to Mars Inc., a family owned company producing some of the world's leading confectionery, food and pet care products. Mars, Incorporated operates in over 79 countries and employs more than 70.000 associates worldwide. Global sales are over $30 billion annually. Birgit joined Mars Austria as a graduate trainee and started her career in Marketing. After holding local and European Marketing positions Birgit moved to Human Ressources. Before joining Mars Central Europe in 2006 Birgit was HR Director for Austria and Switzerland, including two factories. In her current function Birgit has operational responsibility for the markets of South Central Europe (Balkan) and regional responsibility for talent management in Central Europe. She is a member of the global talent team of Mars Inc and drives the talent agenda in her region with special focus on succession planning.

Craig Perrin - Director of Solution Development - AchieveGlobal (USA)

Craig Perrin is a creative leader who works cross-functionally and with clients to guide development of a range of responses to market needs.
Since 1986 Craig has played a central role in developing AchieveGlobal's flagship programs in leadership, sales, and customer service. He has co-authored two best-selling books (Self-Directed Work Teams: The New American Challenge and Leading Teams: Mastering the New Role), written many articles and position papers, and produced video and elearning that have earned dozens of national and international awards. In 1998, Craig was named Times Mirror Editor of the Year.
Craig's varied positions before joining AchieveGlobal include curriculum designer, facilitator, college professor, and art curator.
Craig holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts, both in Humanities, from San Francisco State University.
Craig's recent AchieveGlobal Blog entries may be accessed here.

Jana Ryslinkova - Dean - US Business School (Czech Republic)

Jana Ryslinkova is currently the Dean of the US Business School Praha, a leading postgraduate school for business education in the Czech Republic which provides postgraduate business education in co-operation with the University of Pittsburgh. She is also an elected member of the Prague Town hall Council. Previously, she served as the Executive director of Euro-Czech Forum, an organization established by the European Chambers of Commerce with the goal of improving the business climate in the Czech Republic and supporting the process of EU accession. She was involved in the "velvet revolution" of 1989, serving as the spokesperson for Vaclav Havel's political group Civic Forum. In 1990, she was elected to the Czech Parliament and served on its budget committee. Prior to this, she worked as a research fellow and associated professor in the Czech Republic, France and Great Britain. After 1992, she created and managed several NGOs (Nova skola, Informatuion Center for NGOs to name a fiew). She received her secondary education in France and completed her graduate and postgraduate degree at the Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, the Steklov Institute (St Petersburg) and the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, having received a PhD in Mathematical Logic.

Birger Husted - General Manager and Partner - UniqueConsult (Czech Republic)

Birger Husted is a Danish national and started his career in marketing and sales in. In 1992 he moved to Prague, where he since has worked in consultancy and management positions in leading consultancy firms in the Czech Republic. He has played an instrumental role in guiding many Scandinavian companies in connection with their set up in the Czech and Slovak Republics. Since 1997 he has primarily focused on finding top management to international companies on the Central and Eastern European markets as well as guided them on organizational layouts and provided their management teams with training in Cross Cultural Management. Birger has since 2000 served as a member of the board of the Nordic Chamber of Commerce.

Hans Christen Hansen - Senior Consultant - UniqueConsult (Czech Republic)

Hans C. Hansen specialises in managerial consulting, training, executive forums, cross-border cooperation, individual coaching, internal organisational activities, and executive outplacement. Hans further functions as consultant and trainer with the Danish Trade Union confederation FTF.
Hans C. Hansen holds a Master in Psychology in Organizations, MPO, from Roskilde University 2004.

Jan Bubenik - Founder & Managing Partner - Bubenik & Partners (Czech Republic)

A recognized authority and frequent contributor in print, electronic and television media on the topic of leadership, Jan is founder and Managing Partner of Bubenik Partners, a Prague based CEE executive search and consulting firm. Previously he managed Korn/Ferry International in Prague and before entering the search industry he was a management consultant for McKinsey & Company. Jan is Chairman of the Leadership Forum and Chairman of the Corporate Council of Forum 2000, former Czech President Vaclav Havel's foundation. As one of the principal student leaders of the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, Jan's leadership and contribution to his country have been profiled in numerous accounts of that time in Czech history. Later he served as the youngest member of the first federal parliament of Czechoslovakia and donated his time and advice to other nascent democratic movements in Cuba (for which he was imprisoned by the Castro regime), Zimbabwe and most notably apartheid South Africa. He studied pediatrics at Prague's Charles University Medical School and Economics at University of Colorado at Boulder

Rostya Gordon-Smith - CEO/ Founder - Peopleimpact (Czech Republic)

Rostya has 20 years of HR experience gathered in Hong Kong, Japan, Canada, UK, Brazil, Czech Republic, Estonia, Russia, India, Middle East and other CEE countries in People Development and Management in global and local companies - in some as an employee, others as a consultant and coach.
She was named as one of the 50 World's Top Human Resources Leaders - nominations came from HR World's Global Leadership Agenda Survey, World Federation of Personnel Managers (WFPMA) and Cendant International Assignment Partners. She was also placed in the first ten of "The Most Successful Women in Czech Republic".
Rostya is the International VP for the "Czech Society for Human Resources Development" and the founder and president of yearly "HR Excellence Award" in Czech Republic.
Rostya received he Masters in Strategic Human Resources Management from Macquarie Univ. Hong Kong/Australia and her BA Hons. from London University.
Rostya is married and has four sons.

John Willmott - CEO - Nelsonhall (UK)

John is one of the founders of NelsonHall and has been CEO since its inception in 1998. John has developed the company to its present position as the leading BPO analyst firm globally.
John remains actively involved in the delivery of client assignments. He has personally covered the BPO market since 1992 and has led well in excess of 200 assessments of BPO. John currently presents NelsonHall's quarterly 'BPO Index' webcast, monitoring developments in the BPO marketplace worldwide. He assists organizations in understanding the true shape of the BPO market and the success factors involved in BPO from both buy-side and supply-side perspectives.
John has over 20 years' experience in the services sector, principally in roles with strategic marketing responsibility. John previously held senior positions with suppliers and research agencies in both Europe and the U.S.
John holds a MA from Cambridge University and an MBA from Manchester Business School.

Dimitris Verikios - Regional Sales Manager CEE+SE - Euronet Worldwide (Greece)

Dimitris Verikios has a Mechanical Engineering degree from National Technical University of Athens, with post graduate studies in business administration at Open University, INSEAD and IBM Business Professional Institute. He had an 18 years long career with IBM, holding various sales and managerial positions with the last 3 years as Country Executive Greece & Cyprus for Global Mid Market Business leading Services and Outsourcing business, for the next 3 years he was leading the expansion of the Mellon Group (Banking solutions and outsourcing) as a Group Sales Director covering 10 countries in CEE, SE and Africa and currently he is Regional Sales Director CEE & SE at Euronet Worldwide specializing in banking outsourcing services.

Jana Martinová - CEO - Accord Services-ECE (Czech Republic)

Jana holds a master degree in Social Sciences from the university of Leipzig, Germany. Her early career took place in Human Resource management of the Danone and Nestlé group. In HR Consulting and Executive Search with Accord Group ECE since 1996, she was in charge of several regional "start-up" missions before she took over the responsibility for the Czech and Slovak offices in 2000.
From 2004, Jana has been in charge of leading Accord Group in Central and Eastern Europe and accomplished - together with her partners in Poland and Romania and Hungary - an MBO in 2005.
In 2001, Jana established a complementary HR service provider specializing in tailor made large projects for direct investors in to CEE countries.
Since early 2009 Jana is developing a business model of Interim Management for Central and Eastern Europe.
Due to her origin, experience and family background (she worked and studied in Germany, Czech Republic and Bosnia), Jana feels "at home" in various cultures and languages - German, Czech (both mother tongues), French, English (fluent), Russian and Serbian/Croatian (working level).

Pepper De Callier - Chairman - Prague Leadership Institute (Czech Republic)

Pepper de Callier is an American living in Prague who coaches CEOs in Central and Eastern Europe and writes a blog and a syndicated column in the financial dailies of the Czech Republic and Slovakia dealing with common sense and leadership excellence. His book, Common Sense Wisdom: Being Your Own Career and Life Coach, was just released by Fortuna Libri.
Pepper de Callier has more than 25 years' experience in retained executive search and executive coaching. Before joining Bubenik Partners as Chairman, he was a U.S. Partner in the International Technology Practice of Heidrick & Struggles. Pepper has advised executives in Asia, Europe and North America at Microsoft, Japan Energy, Emerson Corporation, Boeing, SAIC, Sempra Energy, Hitachi, Oki Semiconductor Company, SAB Miller, Telefonica O2, UniCredit Bank, Vodafone, Imperial Tobacco, RaiffeisenBank, DHL, Nokia, EuroFarms, Office Depot, Warburg Pincus, McKinsey & Co., and members of Young Presidents Organization among others.
Formerly a Board Member of the William Elliott Education Foundation and member of the Arizona Academy and the University of Arizona Foundation, Pepper holds a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration. In addition, he has completed executive courses at Stanford University and the University of Michigan's Graduate School of Business. He is a guest lecturer and former Advisory Board member at California State University, San Marcos, and currently serves as a Senior Advisor to former President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel's foundation, Forum 2000.

Tamás Diener - OC Leader CEE - PepsiAmericas (Hungary)

Tamás Diener works for PepsiCo, the world's second largest food manufacturer. He is now transitioning to his new regional role in PepsiCo, but in the last 15 months he lead the Organisation Capability agenda for the company's Central and Eastern European region. This position involved extensive harmonisation of all capability development efforts in the region (incl. both leadership and functional capabilities) as well as providing in-house consultancy for the country leadership teams, e.g. high-level change management support.
Before this role for almost 2 years Tamas was the HR Director at Pepsi's Hungarian operations being responsible for two factories, fully fledged sales and marketing teams and supporting departments of approx. 650 people.
Before Pepsi he worked 10 years at Unilever in various local and regional HR roles including Compensation & Benefits, Recruitment and extensive HR Business Partnering.
Tamas earned his BA degree at the College of Finance and Accounting in Budapest and his MBA at Oxford Brooks University.

Ratibor Libal - Partner - Actum (Czech Republic)

Ratibor Libal was born 1976 in Prague. He studied at University of Economics (The Faculty of Informatics and Statistics). He has more than 10 year experiences with internet marketing and advertising. He is partner in Actum - internet marketing agency.