Ariane EHRAT, CEO, Engadin St. Moritz (Switzerland)
Ariane Ehrat (47) celebrated the first highlight of her career at the age of 24, winning the silver medal in the Downhill at the World Ski Championships at Bormio in 1985. After receding from professional competition, the native of Schaffhausen trained as a PR consultant, and worked as a sports reporter for Radio Grischa. She then studied communication science, and for 12 years was head of marketing at the tourism organisation for Flims Laax Falera. In 2004 Ariane Ehrat moved to Radio DRS, where she directed the communication and marketing department, with 37 staff. Since April 2008 she has led the Engadin St. Moritz Tourism Organisation, with a team of 60 employees.

 Adrian joined Google over three years ago with 15 years blue chip sales, marketing and supply chain experience gained within industry and management consultancy. Prior to Google, he spent six years at Ford Motor Company, was a Principal Consultant at A.T Kearney, and was the main Board Director for Trafficmaster Plc where he was responsible for group Sales and Marketing.  Adrian holds an Economics degree and an MBA with distinction from Manchester Business School.

Kostas MALLIOS, General Manager, Corp. R&D, Strategy & Business Development at Microsoft HQ (USA)
At Microsoft, Kostas works with emerging technologies and business models to find ways to make new ideas land outside of the lab. In his current role as Citizen Safety Architecture Strategy and Business Development, he drives strategy, business development and M&A across several initiatives as a direct report to Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect. Since joining Microsoft in 1996, Kostas has held a variety of positions. Most recently, Kostas led the Rich Media Group and Labs which focused on building transformative media experiences across the Microsoft ecosystem and reported to the corporate CTO as General Manager. As Director of Venture Integration, Kostas drove acquisition integration for 14 deals totaling over $3.5B. Before Microsoft, Kostas held various senior positions in publishing, consulting and services industries.  Kostas has received his MBA in Management and Technology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA.

Mario MATEUS, President, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Initiative (Portugal)
Mario Mateus began his career in Portugal Initiative in 1994 as Chief Financial Officer. Two years later he was promoted to Managing Director Client Service. From 1999 to 2002 he worked at Initiative Italy, where he rose to Chief Operating Officer. He then took over the position Chief Executive Officer with 80 employees at Initiative Group, Portugal. In 2005 he joined the Initiative EMEA Operational Committee and at the end of 2008, he became President, EMEA, overseeing 27 countries. Initiative is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG), one of the four largest global advertising holding companies with a turnover of more than U.S. $ 7 billion.

Prof. Stefan MICHEL, IMD (Switzerland)
Professor Michel’s major research interests are in marketing strategy, service innovation and pricing. He has written five books, eight book chapters, and more than twenty newspaper articles on these subjects, as well as many academic articles that have appeared in journals including Harvard Business Review, California Management Review and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. He won the Emerald Literati Award 2009 by the Journal of Service Management, the Best Paper Award at the 10th Research Seminar in Services Management 2008 in La Londe and the Best Paper Award in Marketing Strategy at the AMA Winter Educators' Conference in 2005. Prior to joining IMD, Professor Michel was Associated Professor of Marketing at Thunderbird School of Global Management (USA), where he taught in the MBA and EMBA programs, as well as in customized corporate learning programs for European, Korean and Chinese companies. In addition, he is founder and director of a marketing consultancy that provides services to companies including GE (New York), Visa Europe, Credit Suisse, Interbrand Zintzmeyer&Lux, Concordia, Postfinance, Secura, and UBS and he ran his family’s hotel business as chairman of the board. Professor Michel holds an MBA and a DBA from the University of Zurich, both summa cum laude. He received the 1997 Best Dissertation Award, granted by the Swiss Society for Market and Social Research.

Pedro SIMKO, Member of the Worldwide Executive Board and Chief Marketing Officer for Europe, Middle East & Africa, Saatchi & Saatchi (Argentine/Switzerland)
Pedro Simko was born in Buenos Aires of Austrian parents in 1957. After studying in the US (Princeton BA, magna cum laude, 1980; Harvard MBA, 1982), Pedro worked in marketing at Procter & Gamble in Switzerland, Middle East, UK, Ireland, Canada and Portugal from 1982 to 1988. From 1988 until 1991 he was Marketing Director for Jacobs Suchard, responsible for the chocolate business in Switzerland, as well as Toblerone and Sugus worldwide. In 1991, he co-founded SIMKO Communication, which quickly became one of Switzerland’s largest and best known independent advertising agencies. In 2003, SIMKO became the first agency ever based in the French-speaking part of the country, to win the Campaign of the Year Award, Switzerland’s most important creative prize. In 2004 SIMKO Communication joined forces with Saatchi & Saatchi to become Saatchi & Saatchi Simko. In 2005 and again in 2006, Saatchi & Saatchi Simko was the fastest growing office of Saatchi & Saatchi worldwide. The agency now ranks second in Switzerland, after Publicis. In May 2006, Pedro was named to Saatchi & Saatchi’s Worldwide Executive Board and as of September 2007 he’s been appointed Europe, Middle East & Africa Chief Marketing Officer, and a member of the EMEA Executive Board.  He retains the position of Chairman, Saatchi & Saatchi Simko.

Roland Bernhard, Partner, Prophet (CH)
 Bernhard is a Partner leading Prophet's Zurich office, bringing 20 years of international experience in both management consulting and marketing-driven Multi-nationals. He was leading numerous major engagements across the globe and categories. Industries covered were B2B and B2C, including e.g. consumer goods, hospitality, financial services, construction, media, telecom, agriculture, market expansion services, tourism.

Prior to his management consulting career, Bernhard was Global Head of Marketing and a member of the International Management Board for Red Bull. Prior to joining Red Bull, he spent 6 years at The Coca-Cola Company & BPW (a JV between The Coca-Cola Company and Nestlé SA). While there, he held a number of senior level positions including: Head of Marketing Europe, Eurasia, Africa - Tea Category; Member of the Supervisory Board of The Coca-Cola Nestlé Refreshment Ltd. Europe; and Director Strategic Innovations Switzerland Bernhard holds a B.B.A. from the Graduate School of Business Administration in Zurich, Switzerland, and an M.B.A. from the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University in North Carolina, USA.

Thomas BROWN, Head of Insights, The Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK)
Brown is Head of Insights for The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) - the world’s leading professional body for marketing - where he shapes efforts to advance the marketing knowledge base and improve industry capability. His work is focused on three key areas: (1) Creating great knowledge and insight by defining, planning and leading projects such as global benchmarking, think tanks and strategic research. (2) Sharing this knowledge throughout the marketing and wider business community - to help marketers and their businesses perform better. (3) Embedding this knowledge across the CIM organisation - helping us to leverage our knowledge assets to deliver maximum value to all of our stakeholders
 

Brown regularly works alongside and advises marketing, brand and capability leaders from major, international organisations and frequently represents CIM at Board level externally. He is an accomplished speaker to the media, members, clients and other stakeholders covering research and points of view and spends much of his professional capacity encouraging and stimulating 'out of box' thinking amongst colleagues and clients alike.

Luigi ROBBIATI, Director of Growth, Corporate Marketing and Sales EMEA, DuPont
Since September 1st, 2006, Luigi Robbiati is the Director of Growth for DuPont in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). He is responsible for corporate marketing and sales in the region and to develop new growth opportunities for DuPont, ensuring common and consistent best sales and marketing practices throughout the region. He is also leading the West European Country Leaders team, focusing  on “one DuPont” sales, marketing and growth activities in these key markets.

During a career of over 30 years at DuPont, Luigi has held previous European and global leadership positions in DuPont’s printing and publishing, imaging, medical X-ray and industrial films enterprises. Accomplishments include helping guide the transformation of DuPont Teijin Films into the world's largest PET film manufacturer in his role as President of DTF Europe, and, most recently, achieving significant growth for the company’s Packaging and Industrial Products business unit as EMEA Regional Business Director and as global VP of the Glass Laminating Solutions business.