E-mobility and the Future of Urban Transportation Forum

Peter Kouroumbashev

Member of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats

Yordanka Fandakova

Mayor of Sofia

Espen Hauge

President, AVERE

Espen Hauge is the president of AVERE, and also president of the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association. He has been engaged on the Norwegian EV scene for more than ten years. His career also includes project management, system engineering, and research and development, working in the oil and energy industry, and in construction, for global companies such as ABB and GE, as well as for the City of Oslo.

Alain Van-Gaever

Policy Officer, DG MOVE, Unit B.4 - Intelligent & Sustainable Transport, European Commission

Alain Van Gaever works in the European Commission on policy issues related to electric mobility. He is currently chair of the European Commission's expert groups on e-Mobility services and the Clean Bus Deployment Initiative. Prior to that he chaired several expert groups related to connected and automated driving; working on diverse issues such as privacy and data protection, liability and frequencies. His past work experience is firmly footed in the Internet & telecoms sector where he worked both in public & private sector – including companies such as Cisco and Google. His focus has mainly been on introducing new technologies into the market and handling the associated business, organisational and legal challenges. Alain started his career as a Captain in the Armed Forces. He has an M.Sc degree in Telecom Engineering (Royal Military Academy) and holds an MBA from the Solvay Business School (VUB). In his free time he has been active in Junior Chamber International serving as president of Junior Chamber Antwerp and he is also an avid (private) pilot.

Angel López Rodríguez

Director of Barcelona’s Electric Vehicle Program

Angel López Rodríguez currently serves as Director of Barcelona’s Electric Vehicle Program and Executive Director of the LIVE Platform, a public-private partnership that aims at promoting sustainable urban mobility in Barcelona. Prior to this, Mr. López served as Director for Mobility and Infrastructure at Barcelona City Council. In the past, he worked in major projects for the city councils of Madrid and Barcelona, the Catalonian regional government, the Spanish Directorate of Traffic (DGT) and the Spanish Ministry of Public Works, and had management responsibilities in private high- tech companies. His areas of expertise include traffic management, road safety and public transport systems. He holds a MSc and a PhD in civil engineering from Polytechnic University of Catalonia.

Caroline Aichholzer

Project Manager, Upstream Mobility, Vienna

Caroline Aichholzer was born in February 1988 and grew up in Carinthia, the southern part of Austria. After finishing her Master’s degree in Business Administration in 2013 she moved to Vienna and started a carrier in Marketing and Product Management. In June 2016 she changed her position to work as a Project Manager for Upstream – next level mobility GmbH. Upstream is running a platform for multimodal services to realize real-time information, multimodal routing, booking, ticketing, access to and billing of mobility services of any kind. Upstream is offering a B2B-service open for all mobility service providers on the market to be linked and integrated on the platform. Today`s customers are all big urban transport operators in Austria as well as cities from Germany, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and others.

Anders Wall

International Sales Director, GreenMobility A/S

Anders Wall is highly skilled within franchise and has 18 years of experience with developing and growing international partner-based businesses within consumer products & service. Anders has among others been CCO of Baresso Coffee where he had the responsibility of all franchise-partners as well as the development of the franchise concept. Latest, Anders was CEO of Paradis Group, where he had the responsibility of the company’s expansion through partners in Denmark and USA. Anders Wall holds an MBA from ATV Institute of Executive Education and started as International Sales Director in GreenMobility in October 2017 responsible for the company’s international expansion.

Evgeni Krusev

Deputy Mayor of Sofia on Transport and Transport Communications

Ljubo Georgiev

Team Leader, Vision for Sofia

Ljubo Georgiev (born 1981 in Sofia, Bulgaria) is an architect who combines design, academic and activist experience. He began studying architecture at IUAV in Venice (Italy). He received his master's degree in Architecture, Urbanism and Building sciences from TU Delft (the Netherlands) in 2007. Ljubo Georgiev has built-up an international experience by studying and working in diverse countries and contexts: Scotland, Italy, the Netherlands and China. He has authored a number of articles and has lectured at different conferences around Europe. Between 2014 and 2016 he was director of One Architecture Week, an international festival for contemporary architecture and the built environment. Since the end of 2016 he is leading the team, entitled to coordinate the process of creating a long term development plan for Sofia, Vision Sofia 2050. Currently he is also the director of Sofproect, which is Sofia’s municipal urban planning institute.

Martin Zaimov

Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board, BAEPS

Martin is an EV user and has been advocate for electric mobility since 2010. He believes that the present model of the world developement is unsustainable and potentially fatal for the people. We need radical changes in the big world industries, consumers behaviour, urban planning and the addiction to the constant growth and indebtness. Electric mobility is a rational and viable cause. Its success would demonstrate a possibility for radical change in one of the biggest industries and would contribute for cleaner air in the cities, lower levels of noise, agression and greenhouse gases

Nicola Melchiotti

Head of European Public Affairs and Regulation, ENEL

Head of European Public Affairs and Regulation, Enel Nicola is in charge of European Public Affairs and Regulation at Enel, working closely with European institutions and stakeholders on the transformation of European energy markets. Before moving to Brussels in 2016, he spent 10 years in Latin America, where he acted as Area Manager for Mexico and Central America in Enel Green Power, leading significant investments in renewable projects across the region. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and Masters in Engineering from the Ecole Supérieure d’Electricité (France) and Politecnico di Milano (Italy).

Rainer Bachmann

Domain E-Mobility, Head of Platforms & Operations, E.ON

Ever since 2012, E.ON has been actively building and operating e-mobility infrastructure. Today, E.ON owns a European stock of approx. 3,500 to 4,000 charging stations – its majority being publicly accessible via OCPP 1.5 protocol as well as RFID cards. The regional focus of the E.ON charging network is currently in Germany and Denmark, however charging stations already constructed and / or operated by E.ON are also located in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Sweden. A clear pioneer is Denmark, where E.ON has established itself as one of the two most important e-mobility providers. Here alone, there are about 3,000 E.ON charging stations - of which, above all, the proportion of fast-charging vehicles is in further expansion. With the Danish stations, E.ON today delivers a cargo volume of about 580MWh per month to e-mobilists. The multitude of stations can be used by roaming networks and direct on-site payment, but already around 6,000 customers in Denmark are already using E.ON's attractive charging tariffs. At E.ON Solutions GmbH, E.ON's international know-how about e-mobility is bundled. Experts from all E.ON regions work together to further develop the e-mobility offer and contribute their know-how to international projects. Among other things, E.ON Solutions GmbH is currently working on the construction of one of the first Ultra-Fast Charging stations in Germany. Here it is being relied on the collected experience and competences of the regions. The project is financially supported by the Federal Republic of Germany. In its product offering, E.ON is not limited to public charging stations. Depending on the region, E.ON's customers will find an all-round offer. For private use, wallboxes are offered in different packages in combination with charging rates. With attractive tariffs - regardless of the wallbox - customers are always and everywhere invited - at home, at work or simply on the move (flexible or flat-rate). For business customers, E.ON also offers the construction and operation of B2B solutions, along with attractive tariffs and charging offers for small, medium and large companies.

Angie Boakes

General Manager, Electric Mobility, New Energies, Royal Dutch Shell

Angie Boakes, General Manager, Electric Mobility within Shell’s New Energies business is responsible for the development and delivery of initiatives which arise from the increasing shift to electrification in transport. Angie has been involved in the world of Electric Mobility since 2013 – perhaps a surprise to some for an oil and gas company – where she led 3 cutting edge R&D trials across California and Europe exploring how electric vehicles can be used as an asset to the grid. More recently, Angie led the acquisition of NewMotion, the leading EV charging services provider in Europe, with the result that Shell now has an additional 30k ‘re-energising’ points to its 43k retail stations! The addition of fast chargers on selected Shell forecourts and joining up with IONITY means that Shell can offer the EV driver a proposition no matter where they want to charge their vehicle. Angie’s prior 10 years with Shell have been focused on Shell’s global Retail business in addition to roles within the Group’s M&;A centre of excellence.

Vasil Takev

Sustainable mobility and Fast-charging infrastructure Manager, ABB Bulgaria

Tom Buck

Chief Technology Officer, APT Controls Ltd, SWARCO Group

Tom Buck APT Group CTO and SWARCO solution manager for parking, emobility and autonomous vehicles. Board member of the UK Electric Vehicle Supplier Equipment Trade Association (UKEVSE). As part of a strategic change for the APT Group the business entered the eMobility market in the UK at the end of 2009 with the eVolt brand. Today the business is one of the largest equipment suppliers in the UK with over nearly 6,000 chargers installed and 35% market share. Customers include fleets for last kilometre delivery, taxi fleets, domestic, bus operators, public car parks and workplaces. With the acquisition of APT by SWARCO the eVolt brand is now active in Germany, Nordics, Hungary and Italy. As a board member of the UKEVSE Tom has been involved in helping to shape the UK’s strategy towards investment in infrastructure as well as providing content for the Horizon 2020 vision – Electrification of the transport network across Europe.

Borislav Kostadinov

Member of the Management board, ProCredit General Partner AG

Borislav Kostadinov Member of the Management Board of ProCredit Holding, Frankfurt Borislav Kostadinov is a member of the Management Board of ProCredit Holding, Frankfurt and is responsible among others for group environmental management and impact reporting, investor relations and group communications. He chairs the Supervisory boards of the ProCredit banks in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia and is a member of the Supervisory Boards of the ProCredit Banks in Bulgaria, Germany and Ukraine.

Ivo Tsachev

Managing Director at Renergy

Ivo has a vast experience in electromobility and renewable energy. Back in 2010 he co-initiated the first pilot project for charging infrastructure for EV, supported by RWE (Inogy), Siemens and E-On. He is one of the founders and executive board member of renergy – a global engineering company in renewable energy and was a business development director of juwi international, responsible for its activities in 21 countries in SEE and CIS regions. Ivo is a co-founder and board member of Bulgarian Association for Electric Vehicles (BAEPS) and in the last years works on promoting shared mobility in the region.

Dan Glăvan

Head of Operations, Uber Romania

Current Position: Head of Operations, Uber Balkans History at Uber: Operations Manager, Uber Romania, January 2015; Continued as Head of Supply, Uber Romania, January 2017 Previous Experience: 8 years in banking, Internal Audit and Forensic Fraud Investigation

Vladislav Alexiev

Manager for Product Communications, Kia Motors Europe, Frankfurt

Vladislav Alexiev (born 1971 in Sofia, Bulgaria) is a Manager for Product Communications at Kia Motors Europe’s headquarter in Frankfurt. He has more than 20 years of experience in the automotive industry. Since 2014, in his current position, he is leading and coordinating product related communications including strategies for alternative powertrain technologies. A highlight within his area of responsibilities was the Pan-European launch of Kia Motors first electric car, the Kia Soul in 2014. In his previous positions at Kia Motors Europe, he worked as Product Manager for various car lines and was responsible for Pan-European market launch of the Kia Ceed, Ceed GT, Venga and Carens. From 2003 until 2006 he worked in the Product Marketing Division of Mitsubishi Motors Europe in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He started his automotive career as Product Responsible at Honda Motors Europe-North in Offenbach. Since the 80ies he lives and works with his family in Germany.

Jan Tytgat

Director Government Affairs EU-Benelux, Umicore

Peter Schneidermann

Sales Consultant, INVERS

Peter Schneidermann is Sales Consultant at INVERS, the leading technology provider for shared mobility. Until end of 2017, INVERS equipped more than 60.000 vehicles in over 30 countries worldwide. Before starting at INVERS, Peter was International Sales Executive in metal construction and IT sector. Currently, Peter is responsible for business development, key accounts and new projects at INVERS. INVERS makes mobility shareable since 25 years with its highly modular and flexible Shared Mobility OS. INVERS offers high quality software and hardware designed, engineered and manufactured in Germany and is the global market leader for carsharing technology.

Maria Sorokina

International Business Development Manager, Vulog

Maria Sorokina is an International Business Development Manager in Vulog, a leading global technology provider of the shared mobility services, including free-floating, corporate, one-way station-based and round-trip car sharing. In 2107 Vulog’s solution powered more that 10 million trips across 4 continents. Before Vulog Maria gained her experience in Automotive and Connected Car sectors working in PSA Group and Orange Business Services (one of the global leaders in M2M connectivity and IoT solutions). In Vulog Maria is responsible for sales and business development in the Eastern Europe and Russia.
Vulog offers independent, comprehensive SaaS solutions that enable mobility operators to launch and operate customizable shared mobility services, including free-floating, corporate, one-way station-based and round-trip carsharing. Our solution connects OEM embedded hardware or Vulog’s robust in-car technology with a powerful mobility platform, expert back-end management for the operation of a service, and advanced data analytics tools. Vulog’s technology currently powers over 10 million trips per year all over the world.
 

Ekaterina Dmitrakova

Business Development Manager at car2go

Business Development Manager at car2go, responsible for coordinating the projects in the Business Development Department and evaluation of Eastern European market. car2go is the inventor and market leader of fully flexible carsharing and offers an innovative mobility solution in rapidly growing urban areas via a carsharing network of affordable, eco-friendly Mercedes-Benz and smart vehicles. Today, car2go’s global operation is the largest free-floating carsharing program in the world with more than three million registered members and a fleet of nearly 14,000 vehicles in 26 locations in North America, Europe and Asia. Purely electrical fleets with a total of 1,400 vehicles are available in three locations (Stuttgart, Amsterdam and Madrid). Thus, car2go is one of the largest providers in the electric vehicle carsharing sector.
 

Stefan Spasov

Chief Executive Officer, SPARK, Eldrive

Stefan Spassov specializes in corporate finance and business development with current focus in the EV mobility and car sharing fields. He has previously been actively involved in the telematics business and negotiated, consulted and led the successful acquisition of EuroGPS (now Viasat Technology) by the European leader in usage-based-insurance Viasat Group. Since August 2017, Stefan is the CEO of eMobility International and leads the expansion of a national charging stations infrastructure and promotion of EV mobility. In parallel, he led the successful launch of the first electric car sharing service in Bulgaria (SPARK).

Pietro Perlo

Founder and President, Interactive Fully Electrical Vehicles (IFEVS)

Pietro Perlo (I-FEVS) graduated General Physics at the University of Torino in 1980 where he continued his activities for over 15 years as contract professor. As senior director at Centro Ricerche Fiat he has originated quite a number of EU projects on advanced systems development and integration for efficient electrical mobility. He his author of over 150 technical and scientific publications and holder of several patents that have led to large-scale productions. In 2011 he founded "Interactive Fully Electrical Vehicles" I-FEVS. He is a member of the European Commission H2020 Advisory Board on "Smart, Green and Integrated Transport" and Contract Professor at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.  Pietro is the vice president of the cluster Torino e-district including SMEs and large companies of the Torino areas committed to the development of enabling technologies for novel forms of electro-mobility and advanced robotics.

Hrabrin Ivanchev

GM, EUROPCAR

Hrabrin Ivanchev has a long experience with automotive business, being Head of importer of Kia Motors Corporation for more than 15 years and Subaru Dealership for 10 years. As part of Kia Motors line-up, brand introduced first Korean made electric vehicle to Bulgarian market and currently developing sales, service and charging stations network in our country. As of 2007 is Head of Europcar franchisee in Bulgaria and currently involved with implementing New Mobility Strategy of the brand.