Robert Piaskowski

Krakow Festival Office & ICE Kraków – programme Director, Director of the UNESCO Creative City in Literature programme.

The Plenipotentiary of the Mayor of Krakow for Culture.

Mr. Piaskowski represents Krakow in relations with the OWHC and with the Festival Cities Network, bringing together Montreal, Krakow, Edinburgh, Adelaide, Singapore and UNESCO.

Rob Davidson

Managing Director, MICE Knowledge

His main areas of expertise are conferences and incentive travel, and he has written seven books on these themes.

Mr.Davidson has carried out research projects for a number of major organisations including the Poland Convention Bureau and the Ireland National Tourism Development Authority, he also teaches as a Visiting Professor in five European universities.

He was honored with multiple awards, among those is the Lifetime Achievement Award at the IBTM WORLD exhibition in Barcelona in 2017.

Boudewijn Bokdam

Project leader at Amsterdam&Partners, the city marketing organization of Amsterdam.

He has 10 years of experience in (city) marketing strategies, on- and offline media and project management. As a project leader at Amsterdam&Partners, Boudewijn Bokdam has been an innovator and an inspiration, leveraging everything from editorial savvy to artificial intelligence to create award-winning campaigns that resonate with a variety of stakeholders. In 2015, his project “Visit Amsterdam, See Holland” was awarded the title of Best Touristic Project Worldwide by the United Nations.

He is also responsible for projects that focus on artificial intelligence applications and led the development of Goochem, the first chatbot to provide easy access to information on the cultural offering in Amsterdam and the region.

Winner of the ECM Future Leaders Award – case study “Transforming cities into attractive regions in a sustainable way. The Amsterdam tourism case”.

Demetrios Fakinos

Director/Partner at European Design Awards.

Member of both the Advisory Board of the Porto Design Biennale and the BMW Foundation Responsible Leaders Forum.

He is currently organising regional and international conferences that cater to the professionals coming from the various disciplines of design (including communication design, architecture and interior design, digital design and product/industrial design).

Johanna Freidl

Johanna is a member of the team that works in The ‘Hohe Tauern Health’ (HTH) initiative. It was launched to develop the mountainous area as an innovative tourist destination, exploiting the health benefits of the local Krimml Waterfalls.

Responsible for: scientific project management, Patient education – Allergy & Asthma trainings, special Employees Trainings for “allergy friendly hotels” Certification of “allergy friendly” hotel-rooms.

MSc, PhD, Paracelsus Medical Private University Salzburg

Christian Mutschlechner

Director of the restructured VIENNA CONVENTION BUREAU (1991 – 2019), current President of the Austrian Convention Bureau. In the past Christian has been president of the European Federation of Conference Towns and of the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA).

One of the leading experts of the international meetings and events industry. He contributed significantly to Vienna’s success as one of the world’s most popular meeting destinations. Mr Mutschlechner was awarded with IBTM World Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016 and multiple other awards.

Erwin Van de Wiele

Erwin Van de Wiele has been Director-manager of VisitGent, the DMO of the Belgian city of Ghent, for the last 15 years. He already started his career working for the city of Ghent,  immediately after leaving college.

First as a consultant for the IT-department, as communication manager for the alderman of economics and of the seaport, and as  director of the real estate department. Finally, after 6 years as general- manager of the culture and leisure department, he found the perfect job: attracting visitors to Ghent as head of the tourist office.

For six years he was, until recently,  also member of the board of ECM (European City Marketing), and he is member of the board of the Flemish Art Cities.

François Lafont

CEO of Luxembourg Convention Bureau G.I.E. (Since June 2019).

Deputy Director Congress & Events, Tourism, Meeting Industry & Economic Development Agency of Toulouse (Toulouse, France, 2009-2019).

Lecturer at Toulouse Business School (Congress marketing & sales) (Toulouse, France, 2011-2018).

CEO of  Toulouse Convention Center (Toulouse, France, 1999-2006).

Krzysztof Celuch

CEO at Celuch Consulting.

Dr Krzysztof Celuch CMM, CITE, CIS, HMCC, CED – a speaker, a trainer, a business consultant, an academic lecturer and an entrepreneur. Krzysztof specializes in the meetings industry, event marketing and event management

From 2008 to 2017 Mr.Celuch was running the Poland National Convention Bureau and was key to establish the Organization and to put Poland on the international meetings map.

Tetyana Romanovska

General Director of State Enterprise “Danylo Halytskyi International Airport “Lviv” since February 2016. She has been working in the aviation industry for over 20 years. In 2018, she entered the TOP-33 managers of the year according to Focus magazine.

Volodymyr Vorobey

FORUM MODERATOR

Volodymyr is a Managing Director of PPV Knowledge Networks economic development agency (Lviv, Ukraine). Since 2008 the agency is supporting companies and is developing business ecosystems, – developing business models and business strategies, generating project concepts and implementing cross-sectorial projects, conducts studies and is investing in startups. It is a Business Information Support Centre set up by the EU4Business programme with the support of European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Creative economy is oneof the focus areas of the agency.

Volodymyr has over 20 years of experience in large projects management, business consulting and economic policy development. Volodymyr is a member of the Nestor Group and Warm City (Ivano-Frankivsk) supervisory board.

www.facebook.com/ppvknowledgenetworks

Bohdan Shumylovych

FORUM MODERATOR

Art historian, media arts researcher, facilitator.

Bohdan Shumylovych studied art history at the L’viv Academy of Arts and obtained master’s degree in modern history from the Central European University (Budapest).

In 2014-2019 he studied at the doctoral program at European University Institute in Florence. He works at the Center for Urban History and teaches at Ukrainian Catholic University in L’viv. The main focus of his work is media history and the history of television in East Central Europe and the Soviet Union, as well as the interaction of digital history and traditional historiography. He is also interested in media arts, visual studies, urban spatial practices, and urban creativity.

Serhii Kiral

FORUM MODERATOR

Serhiy Kiral works as a Lviv City Mayor Advisor for International Cooperation and Environmental Issues. Until August 2019 he was a member of Samopomich Political Party of Ukraine. Mr. Kiral was a Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Industrial Policy and Entrepreneurship and a member of Ukrainian Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). He was the author of resolution on “Drug-resistant tuberculosis in Europe” and resolution “Air pollution: a challenge for public health in Europe”, he also initiated the creation of the Parliamentary Platform to Fight Tuberculosis (about 50 MPs membership across all political parties). From 2008 until 2014 Mr. Kiral was a Director of Foreign Economic Relations and Investments at Lviv City Council. At that time hundreds of millions of euros investments in city infrastructure and private sector projects where engaged.

Ivan Liptuga

The president of the National Tourism Organization of Ukraine

In 2017 – 2019 he was an advisor to the First Vice Premier for Tourism. In period from 2015 to 2017 he worked at the Ministry of Economic Development of Ukraine as the director of tourism and resorts department.

Ivan Liptuga also takes an active part in the work of international and national NGOs:

– The president and founder of the Odessa Tourism Association , Ukraine (since 2012)

– The vice-president at FIATA (International Federation of Forwarding Associations), Switzerland (2009 – 2015)

– The chairman of the Board of the Southern Branch of the European Business Association (EBA), Ukraine (2005 – 2014).

Yevheniy Khainatskiy

SkyUp Airlines CEO

Well-known aviation industry expert with 20 years of experience in management positions of
Ukrainian airline companies. Core responsibilities include managing and developing route
networks, organizing commercial activities of air carriers, doing research and development and
providing for scheduled and charter flights.