Bas van Abel is an entrepreneur, designer and technician with more than 20 years of experience with social innovation. He has a passion for changing the economic system through a design approach. He believes that companies play an essential role in the transition that is needed to achieve a more sustainable economic system. As a designer, Bas delves into the invisible world behind our production systems, brings the problems to the surface and uses his companies as a means to show that things can be done differently. Bas is the founder of the most sustainable and ethical smartphone in the world, Fairphone (fairphone.com) and co-founder of circular startup De Clique (declique.com). He advises companies in their sustainability transition, co-authored the book “Open Design Now” and is an Ashoka fellow, a network of the world's most prominent social entrepreneurs. His work has been featured in various media, including VPRO Tegenlicht (the honest company), CNN, The New York Times and Der Spiegel.

Jan Leyssens is a recognized expert in impact entrepreneurship and sustainable innovation, with over 15 years of experience guiding more than 100 companies and startups in developing future-proof, sustainable business models. As a founding member of the We Are Impact Collective, Jan plays a pivotal role in driving positive change through strategic advice and innovative solutions. Jan is a passionate advocate for proactive, hands-on approaches to tackling global challenges, believing that real change comes from doing, exploring, and testing rather than relying solely on theory. He has delivered inspiring talks at TEDx, the Disruptive Innovation Festival, and other international stages, and frequently mentors and facilitates in incubators and accelerator programs worldwide. Through his workshops, coaching and lectures, Jan empowers teams to think differently and create innovative, impactful business plans. His ultimate ambition is to establish an accelerator that bridges the gap between science and society, generating meaningful, positive change on a global scale.

Dr. Theresa Spandel is an expert in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosures. Motivated by a commitment to leveraging sustainability disclosures to drive the sustainability transformation, she dedicated her educational training and professional career to sustainability accounting. In her role at Climate and Company, Germany’s leading Sustainable Finance think tank, Dr. Spandel shapes policy-oriented insights and provides critical feedback on draft standards from EFRAG, the ISSB, and the SEC. Her work emphasizes the importance of mandatory and ambitious, interoperable sustainability reporting standards and double materiality approaches, reflecting her commitment to advancing transparency and accountability in corporate reporting. Dr. Spandel's professional background also includes hands-on experience as an audit consultant at PwC, where she guided large corporations in implementing the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD). This role provided her with a comprehensive understanding of the preparatory and audit sides of sustainability reporting, shaping her thinking on the importance of the feasibility of sustainability disclosures. As an emerging thought leader in the ESG disclosure field with extensive experience across academia, policy, and practice, Dr. Spandel continues to identify challenges and propose innovative solutions in the field of sustainability accounting and its regulation.

Pauline, a driven entrepreneur, started her first business at 25. In 2017, her passion for social and environmental causes led her to establish UNISOAP—a non-profit organization dedicated to recycling hotel soaps for hygiene access to the underprivileged. She pioneered this concept in France, aligning it with her personal values. Expanding her impact, Pauline launched a UAE branch of UNISOAP, aiming to collect and recycle soaps locally. Her ultimate ambition is to bring the UNISOAP concept to countries worldwide, creating positive change globally for both People and the Planet.

CEO at Earthly, a 4 x founder on a mission to protect and regenerate over 1% of our planet by 2030. Member of the International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits and a Business Advisor to Stop Ecocide International. He founded Europe’s first B-Corp certified health drinks company, Waterbomb, and co-founded Vitl, the UK’s leading subscription nutrition brand. Awards include the COP27 ClimaTech Prize, the World Economic Forum's 2023 NatureTech Prize, and the Virgin VOOM award from Sir Richard Branson.

MSc Ladeja Godina Košir, Founder and Executive Director of CircularChange, Co-Chair of the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform (ECESP) in Brussels, stands out as a unique figure in the world of circular economy. As a systems thinker, inspirational speaker, great networker, and creative mind, Ladeja is at the forefront of pioneering concepts in this field. Ladeja is a member of several international CE councils, expert groups, and juries. She has also co-authored the first Roadmap towards the Circular Economy in Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Chile. Her collaborative efforts span from Nordic countries to Latin America, and she is active in several think-tanks, including Chatham House. In addition, Ladeja contributes to various scientific publications and has served as a visiting professor in Japan (Kyoto). What sets Ladeja apart is her ability to think beyond traditional boundaries, allowing her to see new opportunities for regenerative economy and society. Her work in co-creating international circular economy events and contributing to various scientific publications is testament to her creativity and innovative mindset. As an inspirational speaker, Ladeja brings her wealth of knowledge and experience to the table, motivating and inspiring others to adopt a circular economy approach. Her ability to connect and network with people from diverse backgrounds is invaluable, allowing her to build bridges and collaborate across borders. Ladeja's achievements have been recognized on an international level, as a finalist of The Circular Leadership Award 2018 (Davos WEF) and as a featured #EUwomen4future by the EU Commission in 2020.

Hannah Phang is the Co-founder and CMO of The Now Work, the flexible talent platform for sustainability that connects world-changing people to world-changing work. With a growing network of over 1000 independent sustainability experts, The Now Work connects organisations of all shapes and sizes to the right sustainability expertise, builds bespoke teams and designs new ways of working to deliver leaps in creativity and innovation needed to build the next world. The Now Work believes that we need to design new ways of working that better work for life, prevent burnout, and unlock more efficient impact. Previously, Hannah has served as the CMO of Endless Wardrobe, a rental and resale start-up in the UK, as Head of Marketing and Advocacy of Futerra, the sustainability strategy and communications agency, and on the Steering Committee of the UN Fashion Charter for Climate Action. Hannah has worked with both start-ups and global corporations including Tommy Hilfiger and Google on launching and promoting their sustainable products and initiatives as well as developing the human-centric design processes for Capital One and Pfizer.

Chiara Cadeddu is a Medical Doctor with a specialty diploma in Public Health. She is working as an Associate Professor and Theme Chair of Planetary Health at the Erasmus School of Health Policy and Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Since 2020 she has been involved in planetary health and is currently a member of the steering committees and working groups of several leading organizations, such as the Planetary Health Alliance, the European Public Health Association, and the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region.

Aleksandra Palinska is the Executive Director of Eurosif, the European Sustainable Investment Forum, the leading pan European Sustainable and Responsible Investment association advocating for a more sustainable financial system. It works as a partnership of European national Sustainable Investment Forums (SIFs). She is a seasoned professional with fifteen years of experience in EU public policy and regulation. Her expertise covers sustainable finance, financial markets regulation, company law and corporate governance. Since 2019 her focus has been on driving sustainability through financial markets. Prior to joining Eurosif, she worked for various Brussels-based organisations including Finance Watch – a Brussels-based NGO and expertise centre with a mission to make finance serve society – EFAMA, EuropeanIssuers and BetterFinance, which represent the interests of asset managers, publicly-listed companies and individual investors, respectively. With an in-depth understanding of how capital markets work, Aleksandra masters the challenges and expectations of the buy and sell side. Having led sustainable finance regulatory workstreams at Finance Watch and EFAMA, she became an expert in that field. Until December 2023, Aleksandra served a member of the EFRAG’s Sustainability Reporting Board (SRB), helping shape the European Sustainability Reporting Standards. She first joined the EFRAG SRB in March 2022 on behalf of Finance Watch. As of mid-November 2022, Aleksandra, on behalf of Eurosif, is representing the users of sustainability-related information. Between January 2021 and September 2022, Aleksandra acted as a sherpa on the European Commission’s Platform on Sustainable Finance, where she contributed to the development of the recommendations for a social taxonomy, minimum social and governance safeguards that taxonomy-aligned investments must meet, and the taxonomy-related disclosures. Forbes Women Polska recognised Aleksandra for her work and achievements by featuring her among “23 women to follow in 2023”. She was also listed among 21 women Champions for Change by Reuters Events ESG Investment.

Born in 1982, Andrei Gurin studied European law in the universities of Strasbourg (Robert Schuman), Paris (Panthéon Sorbonne) and London (King’s College). After a short stay in the competition departments of two leading law firms in Paris (Shearman & Sterling and Gide Loyrette Nouel), in October 2007 he joined the Directorate General for Competition of the European Commission. Andrei Gurin is involved in the development and advocacy of antitrust policy and one of his main tasks is the ongoing review of the Block Exemption Regulation and Guidelines on vertical agreements.

Dr. Håkan Tropp is a natural resources and water policy expert with more than 20 years’ international experience in governance and institutional development. He has led several international programmes, targeting water and natural resources reforms linked to, for example cross-sector coordination, climate resilience, and catchment-based management. He has worked with several countries in central and south Asia, MENA, East and south Africa and Europe to providing policy advice, applied research and capacity development to governments and other stakeholders. Dr. Tropp is currently the Acting Chief Operating Officer at SIWI. He also leads the UNESCO/SIWI joint International Centre for Water Cooperation (ICWC). He has previously worked at OECD, UNDP and UNDESA. Dr. Tropp has a background in Political Science and Economics and holds a PhD in Water and Environmental studies at Linköping University. His PhD focused on urban environmental governance in South Asia.

Tom is co-founder of Arctic Reflection, an impact-first startup with the moonshot mission to restore Arctic sea ice to counter global warming. As an independent contractor, he has 20 years of experience with tech innovations and product development. Tom has co-founded multiple start-ups and holds an MSc in Business Administration from the Rotterdam School of Management and a CEMS Master’s in International Management. When not working to restore the Arctic, Tom can be found sailing.

Christoph, born in 1965, achieved a degree in forestry at the University of Munich, however was always drawn to protect natural landscapes instead of logging them down. In 1993, Christoph initiated a research project about wolves in the Romanian Carpathians, where he intended to spend 3 years. However, meeting his Austrian wife Barbara, a fellow biologists and conservationist, in Romania, he never left the country anymore and spent the next 10 years developing this initial research project into a complex multi-layer conservation project upon wolves, bears, and lynx. In 2003, after finishing the large carnivore project, Christoph and Barbara set up a horse-riding business and spent the next years exploring Transylvania on horse-back. With the forest restitution in Romania and the following clear-cuts starting in 2005 all over the mountains, they went back into conservation and founded Foundation Conservation Carpathia with the goal to stop illegal cutting and to create a world-class wilderness reserve. Since 2009, they have raised over 100m € for this project, which has developed into the largest private land conservation project in Europe and have made huge steps to realise this plan.

Barbara Promberger originates from Austria and is together with her husband Christoph co-founder and executive director of Foundation Conservation Carpathia, one of the largest private land conservation initiatives in Europe which works to create a world-class wilderness reserve in Romania’s Southern Carpathian Mountains. Barbara studied biology at the University of Vienna and moved to Romania in the 1990ies to study wolves, bears and lynx and their interactions with their natural prey. With the forest restitution in Romania and the following clear-cuts starting in 2005 all over the mountains, the focus shifted to stopping illegal cutting and protecting large natural landscapes and processes. Passionate about horses and exploring wild places, she and her husband have also created an equestrian eco-tourism facility right at the foot of Romania's Fagaras Mountains where they live with their two daughters.

Elena Cargnello currently serves as a Member of the Board of Directors (Non-Executive Director) at Cogenio, an energy-efficiency service platform majority-owned by the investment company Infracapital, a M&G Plc company, and supported by industry giants Enel X and Endesa X. As Chair of the ESG Committee, she focuses on advancing sustainability and ESG agendas, advising on strategic marketing communications and corporate reporting standards. Elena also teaches Business and Management in a Global Context, Core Management Concepts, and Marketing Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science/University of London. She brings over 20 years of experience leading and managing international projects, with a strong focus on sustainability, ESG, and corporate governance, driving global business and marketing initiatives in large-scale and SME organisations across multiple geographies. At Sodali & Co., a global leading provider of strategic board governance and shareholder services to listed companies, she led post-merger integration and oversaw corporate marcomms, sponsorships and media relations. Elena joined EY (Ernst & Young) in 2009 to advise ministries and the European Commission on the management and governance of programs co-financed by the European Union Structural and Investment Funds, later holding senior management roles in digital transformation and social enterprise, marketing, communications, business development, and knowledge management. Previously, she worked at the European Parliament as Head of Office and Senior Policy Advisor to a MEP and former Italian Foreign Affairs Minister. She provided consulting services in government and regulatory affairs, focusing on financial services, industrial affairs, and foreign policy. Elena has also been an Adjunct Professor of EU Law and Structural Funds at the University of Florence and a Visiting Professor for international training projects (Myanmar, Armenia), appointed by the MENA-OECD Governance Programme Centre and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Alexander is the CEO of Greenomy, a Brussels-based regtech providing sustainability reporting software, focusing on the CSRD and EU Taxonomy. Alexander graduated in law and finance from the University of Brussels, Oxford University and Harvard Law School. A New York Bar attorney, he previously worked at Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP, and within the Digital Finance and Sustainable Finance unit of DG FISMA, European Commission.

Gaëtan Capgras, Danone’s Climate Director, is leading the company’s climate strategy. With a strong track record of transforming organizations, rooted in his consulting background, Gaëtan excels at catalyzing ideas and driving systemic change through both short- and long-term vision. He focuses not only on decarbonization but also on integrating adaptation plans and rethinking conventional business models. A passionate supporter of collective action and inclusion and diversity activist since ever, Gaëtan is deeply committed to ensuring that climate solutions are equitable, promoting a “just transition” that prioritizes both environmental and social justice.

Mrs Maria Rousseva has a long-standing career in the banking field, held several executive and non-executive management positions, for most of the time within Société Générale, in banks owned by the Group in Eastern Europe. In 2021, she joined the Board of Directors of BRD Groupe Société Générale. Subsequently, she held the position of Deputy CEO in charge of the Corporate business. Currently, she is the CEO of the bank.

Cosmin Vladimirescu started his career in the financial-banking sector in 2000, one year after graduating from the Faculty of Management-Marketing at the Romanian-American University of Bucharest. His first role was as a Card Fraud Officer at Bancpost, and in 2005 was appointed Manager of the first Fraud and Payment Denial Department at Bancpost, a position that involved analyzing risk situations and managing card fraud prevention solutions. He joined Mastercard Europe in April 2007 as Account Manager for Romania and in 2010, he took on the role of Country Manager Mastercard Republic of Moldova, and after the end of his mandate in 2013, he was appointed Country Manager Mastercard Romania. Since February 2020, he has also been coordinating Mastercard Croatia. From his current position, he coordinates the entire activity of the company, focused on strategic pillars covering the promotion of electronic payments, innovation and development of new payment methods, financial education and inclusion, and social good, managing Mastercard’s operations and major projects, as well as the relationship with all stakeholders.

Chris Desai, is a world renown Entrepreneur - Philanthropist from humble beginnings, Leicester, UK who has made considerable contributions to the United Kingdom & beyond with his organic luxury fashion brand Vayyu®, his registered charity The Vayyu Foundation® and his two global projects UOCEAN 2050 & UEARTH 2050. Recently being voted Forty un 40 for Climate & Sustainability, BBC Winner of the Make A Difference Awards and many more.