Doina Nistor was appointed Minister of economic development and digitalization of Moldova in March 2025. She is a leader with over 20 years of experience in economic development and digital transformation in the Republic of Moldova.

Holding a PhD in Economics and Management from the Technical University of Moldova and advanced studies in Leadership and Management from Arizona State University, Doina Nistor has led major projects funded by the U.S., Swedish, and British governments. Her work has had a significant impact on the competitiveness and digitalization of key sectors, including information and communication technologies, tourism, winemaking, light industry, engineering, cybersecurity, and the creative industries.

Doina Nistor speaks Romanian, English and Russian and is an active member of the boards of key institutions, including the Investment Agency, Moldova Innovation Technology Park, the Institutional Strategic Development Council of the Technical University of Moldova, the National Institute for Education and Leadership, and the East European Foundation.

Visiola Pula, Principal Analyst, follows cybersecurity regulation at EU level and national developments impacting the digital economy in Austria and Germany. At EU level, she focuses on major initiatives shaping the security of critical infrastructure, 5G networks and IoT. 

Visiola joined Cullen International initially as a telecoms analyst in July 2015. She holds an LLM degree from the University of Hamburg, Germany in EU Law and Affairs.

Joanna Pawełek-Mendez, diplomat, PhD in the field of political science, minister-counsellor and chief of cybersecurity unit  in the Department of Security Policy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Among her responsibilities are: cooperation with key partners in bilateral and multilateral cyberdiplomacy initiatives, promotion of Polish interests in ongoing processes within international organizations (UN, EU, NATO, OSCE) regarding: the analysis of threats in cyberspace, confidence-building measures, capacity building and the impact of new technologies on global peace and security. At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 2008.

In 2010-2016 she worked in Paris in the strategic affairs departments of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the General Directorate of Armaments (within the French Ministry of Defence), as well as head of the political department of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Paris. She also served as the liaison officer of the Polish Presidency of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in 2022. Romanist, graduate of the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, of the National School of Public Administration and the Institute of Higher National Defense Studies in Paris.

Dr Alfredo Veneziani serves as EU Affairs Expert at the Italian National Cybersecurity Agency (ACN), where he plays an active role in shaping European Union cybersecurity policies and in the negotiation of both EU and national legislative instruments in this domain. A qualified lawyer and experienced public sector official, Dr Veneziani possesses a robust background in European institutions and international affairs. Prior to his current position, he served as Legal Officer at the Cabinet Office of the Italian Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy. In addition to his institutional responsibilities, Dr Veneziani is an Adjunct Professor of International Law at Suor Orsola Benincasa University of Naples. He holds an LL.M. in Law and a Ph.D. in International and EU Law, both from the University of Naples.

Chris Gow is Senior Director for EU Public Policy and Head of the Brussels Office for Cisco’s Government Affairs team, responsible for engagements with the EU institutions. 

Having joined Cisco in 2008, he oversees all of Cisco’s EU public policy positions and advocacy. He is currently deeply engaged in security, digital sovereignty, cloud, AI and data issues in region and globally. Chris has held multiple industry leadership roles. He is currently a Member of the Board of the European Internet Forum (EIF) and has previously served on the Executive Board of DIGITALEUROPE and as the Chair of DIGITALEUROPE’s Privacy and Security Group.   

Prior to Cisco, he was responsible for campaign strategies and digital economy policy work at EICTA (now DIGITALEUROPE). He has been in Brussels since 2003, initially as an Assistant to a Member of the European Parliament, working on internal market and legal affairs issues. He studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University.

Ilias Chantzos is Broadcom’s Global Privacy Officer and the Head of Government Affairs programmes for Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA). Chantzos leads the global privacy programme of Broadcom across the company’s multiple business units and regions. He also represents Broadcom before government bodies, national authorities and international organisations in EMEA advising on public policy issues.

Before joining Broadcom, Chantzos spent almost 16 years in various government affairs and legal roles in Symantec. During his last post with Symantec, he was in charge of the Government Affairs for the EMEA and the Asia Pacific Japan regions and the Global Advisor for Critical Infrastructure Protection and Privacy.

Before joining Symantec in 2004, Chantzos worked as legal and policy officer in the Directorate General Information Society of the European Commission focusing on information security policy. He covered the Council of Europe Cybercrime Convention and the Framework Decision on Attacks against Information Systems. In addition, he worked on a number of EU legislative initiatives relevant to information society and security, including directives on Privacy of Electronic Communications, the Data Retention Directive and the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA). He also represented the European Commission in various international debates and conferences.

Chantzos holds a law degree from Aristotle University, a Master degree in Computers and Communication Law from Queen Mary College, University of London and a Master in Business Administration from Solvay Business School. He has also completed executive education at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore and at the JFK School of Government in Harvard. Chantzos is a member of the Athens Bar Association. He served as Chairman of the Executive Board of TechAmerica Europe. He also served for four terms as Chairman of the European Policy Council of the Business Software Alliance (BSA). He has represented Symantec at the NATO Industry Cooperation Platform and he has been a member of the Advisory Board of the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) from 2006 until 2020. He is also a member of Europol’s European Cybercrime Center (EC3) Advisory Board. Chantzos is a member of the Young Global Leaders 2014 class of the World Economic Forum. He speaks English, Greek, Dutch and German.

Visiola Pula, Principal Analyst, follows cybersecurity regulation at EU level and national developments impacting the digital economy in Austria and Germany. At EU level, she focuses on major initiatives shaping the security of critical infrastructure, 5G networks and IoT. 

Visiola joined Cullen International initially as a telecoms analyst in July 2015. She holds an LLM degree from the University of Hamburg, Germany in EU Law and Affairs.

Héctor Laiz Ibáñez is a Technician at the Director’s General Cabinet and of the National Coordination Center (NCC-ES) of the Spanish National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE), the entity designated to coordinate the network of the European Cybersecurity Competence Center (ECCC) of the European Commission in Spain. At NCC-ES, Héctor is involved in advancing Spain’s cybersecurity capabilities, fostering national and international collaborations, and supporting the execution of EU-funded projects aimed at enhancing common European cybersecurity capacities. The goal of NCC-ES also encompasses creating a public-private cybersecurity competence community in Spain and assisting stakeholders with technical support.

Héctor is a PhD Student of Industrial Cybersecurity and Economics at the School of Industrial, Computer and Aerospace Engineering of University of León, and is also an Associate Lecturer of the Department of Business Management and Economics at the Faculty of Economics and Business. His research focuses in cybersecurity, digital economy, strategic decision making, emerging technologies and chess. He has also previously worked in wine export management in La Rioja and in wine economic research at the Vine and Wine Research Institute at the University of León.

Héctor holds a Master’s Degree in Innovation and Digital Transformation from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and a University Degree in International Trade from the University of León.

Bio to follow.

Dr. Matthias Sachs serves as Google’s Cybersecurity Policy Lead for Europe. He assumed this role after joining Google in February 2021, where he initially worked in Public Affairs and Trust & Safety. Previously, Dr. Sachs held the position of Director Corporate Affairs for Central and Eastern Europe at Microsoft. His professional trajectory commenced as a political advisor to a Member of Parliament in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, followed by experience in political consulting. He holds a doctoral degree in Political Science from the University of Cologne, where he also earned a master’s degree in Political Science, History, and German Philology.

Danielle Jacobs is CEO of Beltug, the Belgian association of CIOs & Digital Technology leaders, with over 3000 members from 540+ organisations.

At the EU level, Danielle is member of the Leadership Team of the cooperation from the CIO associations in France (Cigref), Germany (VOICE), the Netherlands (CIO Platform) and Belgium (Beltug), to represent the business ICT users at the European and international levels. She is a Fellow at VUB, the Free University of Brussels.

Jeremy Rollison is Head of EU Government Affairs within Microsoft’s Corporate, External, & Legal Affairs (CELA) group. Based in Brussels, he focuses on cloud policy related to the EU Digital Single Market (DSM), with a particular emphasis on data issues and corresponding public policy covering privacy, cybersecurity, and the cross-border provision of online services. Prior to joining Microsoft, he worked in the Government Relations team at Nokia in the company’s EU representative office, and was previously Director of the European Digital Media Association (EDiMA) in Brussels. He has over a decade of public policy experience in Brussels at the company, association, and consultancy levels, focusing and engaging with EU stakeholders on issues related to the development and delivery of digital and online services in the Internal Market and corresponding EU regulatory policy.

Iva Tasheva is the co-founder and cybersecurity lead at CYEN, an award-winning consultancy established in Brussels in 2018. Cyen is recognised for providing pragmatic, business success-oriented cybersecurity risk and compliance solutions that are strongly tailored to its client’s needs. Cyen specialises in the financial, manufacturing, public and digital sectors.

In addition to her work for CYEN, Iva is an appointed Member of the EU Cybersecurity Agency (ENISA) Ad-Hoc Working Groups on Enterprise Security and on Cloud Security (Certification) and a Board Member of Women4Cyber Belgium.

Her expertise is recognised, being winner of the BeNeLux Outstanding Female Security Professional Award (OSPA) 2024, Belgium Cybersecurity Personality of the Year 2022 and listed ‘35 under 35’ by Santander/CODIB. She is a published author, including authoring the Bulgarian Guide for SME Cybersecurity, and a regular speaker. Iva holds an MBA from KULeuven and a Master in Cybersecurity degree from the New Bulgarian University. She is certified ISO 27001 Lead Implementer, ISO 27799 Lead Manager and DORA Senior Lead Manager.

Follow Iva Tasheva (or CYEN) on LinkedIn for updates on cybersecurity policy and implementation. Follow ‘CYEN – Cybersecurity’ on YouTube for monthly cybersecurity top experts’ interviews.

Anne-Sophie Diehl joined the Commission 2021 as Policy Officer in Cybersecurity Technology and Capacity Building unit of the Directorate-General for Communications, Content and Technology (DG CNECT.H1) in the European Commission and Seconded National Expert (SNE) from the French cybersecurity agency (ANSSI). Since 2023, she has been responsible for setting up and leading the European Commission’s Cybersecurity Skills Academy, an initiative addressing the cybersecurity

Prior to her posting at the Commission, Anne-Sophie was in charge of European affairs at the Secrétariat Général de la Défense et de la Sécurité Nationale, representing the French National Security Authority in various European security committees in charge of protection of classified information.

Anne-Sophie holds a MSc degree from the London School of Economics (2015) and Master degrees from Sciences Po (2014) and Université Paris II-Panthéon Assas (2013). She also holds a Brevet technique de l’enseignement militaire supérieur (Ecole de Guerre-Terre, 2021).

Siggi Stefnisson leads Technology at Gen, including core technology as well as the teams driving the security engines that shape the company’s vision for Cyber Safety. Prior to his roles as Cyber Safety CTO, Siggi served as the head of the Threat Labs team and transformed the organization with over 100 security experts focused on developing new methods to counteract malware threats. 

Before joining Avast in March 2021, Siggi was the Vice President of Threat Research at Cyren, where he spent over 7 years honing his cybersecurity expertise. With more than 25 years in the industry, he started as a virus researcher in 1996 at FRISK which was acquired by Cyren (formerly Commtouch) in 2012. His work involves advanced threat analysis and the development of best practices in cybersecurity. Throughout his career, he’s had a passion for mentorship and building high-performance teams while   using technology as an enabler to bring the best out of people. 

Siggi is a member of the Computer Antivirus Research Organization (CARO), an organization established in 1990 to research and study malware.

Fabio Di Franco is working for the European Union agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) since 2017. He is the mastermind of the European Cybersecurity Skills Framework (ECSF), the EU reference framework for cybersecurity skills and roles. He is currently leading the initiative around the ECSF and the mapping with regulatory framework and other policy initiatives. He is also responsible for developing skills in the EU member states and EU institutions through trainings and table-top exercises for cybersecurity professionals.

Fabio has worked more than 15 years in public and private organizations and has a master and a PhD in telecommunication engineering. He is a frequent speaker to conferences and events and an advocate in order attract new talents to cybersecurity.

Valentina Stadnic currently serves as a Programme Officer in the ITU Office for Europe. Previously, she was an ecosystem builder, passionate about creating synergistic impacts, guiding stakeholders in IT competitiveness, and unlocking opportunities for the IT sector in Moldova.

With over a decade of experience, Valentina’s commitment to the sector is evident in her diverse roles, from leading a virtual IT Park to holding senior government positions. Her work consistently focuses on developing innovative approaches that accelerate the transformation towards a digital economy, streamlining corporate innovation practices, boosting industry growth, supporting job-creation partnerships, and promoting sustainable investments.

Valentina is dedicated to bridging gaps between diverse stakeholder initiatives, policy, and technology to foster development. As a government advisor, she has been involved in numerous projects, programs, and policy changes, including legislative reforms that foster the digital economy.

She has extensive expertise in knowledge sharing and capacity building for institutions and public sector stakeholders, as well as building partnerships with various organizations and donor institutions. Valentina brings a wealth of policy, project, and program management experience from both the public and non-profit sectors.

Her educational background in economics and international relations is complemented by various training programs in technology challenges, policy development, program design, and management. Valentina’s multifaceted experience and passion for digital innovation continue to drive her contributions to the IT sector.

Sara is a tech journalist with a specialization in data privacy and security, reporting from Brussels for MLex. She covers topics such as content moderation, child safety online and data protection. Before joining MLex, she gained extensive experience working as a freelance journalist for several Austrian news outlets, covering politics and social issues. She was named one of Austria’s best 30 under 30 journalists in 2024. Sara holds a degree in Communication Science from the University of Vienna and an international master’s degree in Journalism, Media and Globalisation. 

Noortje has led the Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) team at the Dutch National Centre for Cybersecurity (NCSC-NL) since 2018. She is responsible for all phases of the threat intelligence lifecycle—from collection to dissemination—ensuring the timely delivery of both general and sector-specific insights into digital threats to the NCSC’s constituency.

She also oversees the operational execution of the Dutch National Detection Network and manages the development and delivery of all CTI products and services provided by the NCSC.

As part of a national CSIRT, Noortje is committed to providing partners, institutions, and organizations with a comprehensive view of the national threat landscape—merging technical indicators with tactical and strategic context. To this end, she actively collaborates with experts, policymakers, and international organizations to stay ahead of emerging attack vectors, trends, and developments in the cybersecurity domain.

As a team lead, Noortje strongly advocates for the importance of diverse skill sets and perspectives within CTI teams, regularly emphasizing the value of inclusive and multidisciplinary collaboration.

Christian Reilly currently serves as Field Chief Technology Officer, EMEA, at Cloudflare, a position he has held since May 2024. Externally, the Field CTO plays a crucial role in building relationships with enterprise clients, prospects, and partners, communicating the value of Cloudflare’s global platform to executive-level stakeholders. Internally, the Field CTO works closely with Cloudflare’s engineering, product, go-to-market, and customer success teams to help drive the adoption of our industry-leading products and services and ensure customer success across our portfolio.

Prior to joining Cloudflare in May 2024, Christian held the position of Chief Technology Officer, EMEA, for HashiCorp where he was responsible for engaging with senior technology leaders across multiple customer segments to help drive strategies for multi-cloud infrastructure, security and developer lifecycle management transformations.

Between 2021 and the company being taken private in late 2022, Christian served as Vice President, Technology Strategy at Citrix – a $4bn revenue global software, network and cloud services provider. Christian led the Technology Strategy Organization – a function that was established in June 2021 to continue to drive subscription revenues and establish closer alignment with customers and transacting partners. The Technology Strategy organization focused on providing “the glue” between Citrix, their customers and transacting partners to facilitate technical and commercial engagement and innovative routes to market across a varied and complex ecosystem.

Prior to this role, between 2017 and 2021, he served as Vice President & Global Chief Technology Officer for Citrix. Today, Citrix, as part of the Cloud Software Group, provides solutions to more than 400,000 customers across 100 countries and is trusted by 99% of companies in the Fortune 100.

In this role at Citrix, Christian routinely engaged a C-level global customer and transacting partner base to articulate the company vision & strategy; working collaboratively to better understand customer’s own technology strategy, industry & business direction and the evolving markets in which Citrix operates. This knowledge is directly fed back into the core business; engineering & product, to directly influence future overall technical and commercial innovation, product & service strategy, ecosystem partner alignment, sales enablement and overall go-to-market direction.

Christian also represented Citrix as a global keynote speaker and is widely recognized as a technology industry thought leader.

After joining Citrix in 2015, Christian held the role of Vice President & Chief Technology Officer for the Workspaces Business, responsible for driving technology strategy & direction. The Workspace Services Business comprised many of the core products and technologies. The Workspace Services Business Unit was restructured in early 2017 to allow for a streamlining of the overall Product & Engineering functions.

Christian then assumed the role of Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, company-wide.

Prior to joining Citrix, Christian held several key IT leadership positions over a 21-year career at US-based Engineering & Construction firm Bechtel, where, in his last role as CTO, reporting to the CIO, he was responsible for the strategic planning, infrastructure & enterprise architecture, applications & systems portfolio and global innovation program within the corporate Information Systems & Technology group.

During his career at Bechtel, Christian gained technology and business leadership experience on construction mega-projects in multiple countries, including Italy, Germany, Azerbaijan, Curacao and Qatar and then relocated to the United States where he led a number of different teams across many business and technology disciplines, including the team that identified strategic areas of new and emerging technology development and advised on sustainable innovations that would make the biggest impacts to Bechtel’s $50bn revenue global business.

Roberto Cascella is the Chief Technology Officer at the European Cyber Security Organisation (ECSO). He leads two technical working groups: one focused on defining the cybersecurity research and investment roadmap for trusted and resilient technologies, and the other dedicated to standardisation and certification in cybersecurity, with the mission of establishing trusted supply chains at the EU level.

Prior to joining ECSO, Roberto worked as an Innovation and Research Project Manager and Research Scientist, contributing to several EU-funded projects. He holds a Ph.D. in ICT from the University of Trento (2007), and an M.Sc. in Telecommunication Engineering from Politecnico di Torino and KTH Stockholm (2003).

Maurice Godschalk is an experienced cybersecurity and ICT leader with over 25 years’ experience of bridging the worlds of technology, business and government. As Account Director at OPENVAS B.V., part of Greenbone AG – the leading provider of open-source vulnerability management – he works with organizations to enhance digital resilience and proactively address security risks. Throughout his career, he has built long-term client relationships, driven digital transformation and forged strategic partnerships with system integrators and technology providers.

Maurice has held senior roles at Dell, Oracle, LinkedIn and SAP, overseeing strategic public sector accounts across Europe. He is actively involved in the Dutch public sector ecosystem, participating in forums and conferences on digital sovereignty, emerging cyber threats and open-source solutions.

With a career spanning corporate and governmental environments, including an early service in the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, Maurice combines technical expertise with an in-depth knowledge of public sector processes and international cybersecurity cooperation.

Lara leads public affairs across CFG. She capacity-builds and strategises to connect the dots within CFG’s considerable knowledge base, and have CFG’s future-spotting outputs matter in decision making here and now.