Speakers

Annika Bränström has been the Director General at the Companies Registration Office in Sweden since 2008 until April 2017. She has a Master of Laws and has during the last twenty years worked with the development of different e- services, both nationally and internationally. Annika Bränström has been a board member of the European Business Register (EBR EEIG) and worked within the European Commerce Registers' Forum (ECRF) especially with benchmarking. Since 2014, she is the President of the ECRF. She has also been a delegate in the Swedish eGovernment Delegation and between August, 2011, and July, 2015 she was the Chairmen of the delegation. Since January 2011, she is also a member of the Swedish eIdentification Board.

 

Ieva Tarailienė is Head of the Register of Legal Entities Department, State Enterprise Centre of Registers (Lithuania). In 2002, Ieva Tarailienė graduated from Vilnius University with Master Degree in Law. Ieva has been in charge of the Register of Legal Entities Department since 2013. Her working experience at the State Enterprise Centre of Registers in managing the Register of Legal Entities extends over 15 years. Ieva has contributed to the establishment and development of the Register of Legal Entities, successfully managed the project on Electronic Service for the Registration of Legal Entities that was funded by the EU funds. She also participated in the development of information system of legal entities’ participants. Currently, Ieva actively participates in the development of electronic services, contributes to drafting legal acts on regulation of corporate activities. She supervises implementation of the BRIS project in Lithuania, participates in the initiatives related to the creation of information system of beneficial owner.

 

Rytis Juozapavičius is a facilitator and a FranklinCovey Lithuania partner. Rytis was hosting talk shows on National Public Television and Radio, leading Transparancy International Lithuanian Chapter, serving as a member of Chief Official Ethics Commission.










 

Andrea is the Head of the Unit "eGovernment and Trust" in Directorate General 'Communication networks, content and technology' (DG CONNECT) of the European Commission whose mission is to advance the quality and innovation of public administrations and accelerating the large-scale public sector and private sector use of trusted identification and trust services in the digital single market by leadership in the eGovernment agenda and in eIDAS.
 
From 2012 to June 2016, he led the eIDAS Task Force in charge of the adoption and implementation of the eIDAS Regulation (EU) N°910/2014. The purpose of the regulation is to deliver a predictable regulatory environment for electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market to boost user convenience, trust and confidence in the digital world.
 
From 2006 to 2012, he was Deputy Head of the Unit "Internet; Network and Information Security" in DG INFSO where he co-managed the Unit and was in charge of defining and implementing the strategies and policies on network and information security, critical information infrastructure protection, electronic signature and identification.
 
From 1993 to 2005, he worked in the European Commission ICT research programmes (ESPRIT, IT, IST and ICT) dealing with safety critical systems, software engineering, database technology, privacy enhancing technologies, biometrics, dependability and cyber security.
Before joining the European Commission in 1993, he worked in industry for nearly eight years as a project manager of international R&D projects on decision support systems for environmental, civil and industrial emergency and risk management.
 
He graduated with Laude in Nuclear Engineering at Politecnico di Milano and carried out PhD studies on fuzzy sets and artificial intelligence at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London.

Maija Laurila is the Head of the Company Law Unit at the European Commission, Justice and Consumers Directorate General since 1 October 2016. In addition to European company law, this Unit deals with corporate governance law and policy in general and also corporate governance in financial institutions.

Gintautas Bartkus is an advocate and a Council Member of the Lithuanian Bar Association. He is a partner and the Chairman of the Board of Law Firm Tark Grunte Sutkiene.
 
Gintautas Bartkus graduated from the Law Faculty of Vilnius University, where he teaches corporate law until now. Gintautas Bartkus has also done research at Helsinki University, John Marshall Law School (Chicago, USA), Ǻalborg University, Jean Moulin University as a research fellow or worked as a visiting professor.
 
Gintautas Bartkus is a former Minister of Justice of the Republic of Lithuania. He served as a member of working groups on drafting the Civil Code of the Republic of Lithuania, the Company Law, the Small Enterprise Law, as well as frequently advises the Government and the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania on various legislation initiatives.
 
In 2005, Gintautas Bartkus was appointed a member of the Advisory Group on Modernising Corporate Governance and Company Law and since 2014, he has been a member of the Informal Company Law Expert Group of the European Commission.

Gintautas Bartkus belongs to the EMCA (European Model Company Act) drafting group.
 
Gintautas Bartkus held earlier and holds up to now independent directorships in a number of companies and societies.
 
Gintautas Bartkus is a member of the ICSID Panel of Arbitrators (World Bank).
 
 

Vito is currently Senior Advisor for International and EU Affairs for the Italian Business Register.

He has been involved in the creation of EBR and ECRF, and he is Member of the ECRF Steering Committee. He is also chairing the ECRF Working Group on the Beneficial Owners registers.
 

 

Kevin is the founder of Tower 81 Associates, an IT consultancy incorporated in 2012 that provides strategic, operational and technical advisory services to registries and regulators. As a registry specialist, he has spent the last 11 years helping Registrars to overcome challenges with the design, specification, procurement and operation of systems that support corporate, pension, intellectual property, security interests, aviation and licensing registers.
 
Since 2009, Kevin has held the position of Technical Manager within the European Business Register (EBR) where he provides technical counsel to the EBR Board and is responsible for IT Strategy and the overall management of the electronic network that connects the data sources of the business registers within 26 European countries.
 
Kevin is the Technical Coordinator of the EBOCS project which is building information services and investigation tools to Counter Crime Agencies in the fight against money laundering activities. He has extensive experience establishing interoperability between registers at a national, federal, pan-European and global level and has undertaken key roles in European registry projects including BRITE, e-CODEX and SPOCS. 

 

Michele Riccardi is senior researcher at Transcrime (www.transcrime.it) since 2006 and adjunct professor of Business Economics at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan (Italy). He is a researcher in the field of money laundering, financial crime and financial information manipulations and he authored various publications in these domains. He has been coordinating several research projects funded at both European and national level on topics related to money laundering and serious and organised crime. Among them, project BOWNET on beneficial ownership identification for crime prevention purposes and project IARM (www.transcrime.it/iarm) on money laundering risk assessment in Italy, the Netherlands and United Kingdom. He is member of the ARO – Asset Recovery Offices Platform of the EU Commission, DG Home Affairs and of the EU CEPOL – European Police College – Money laundering common curriculum. He has been involved as expert in the Italian ML/TF national risk assessment and in the FATF mutual evaluation of the Italian AML/CTF system. He got a MSc in Accounting & Financial Economics with Distinction at the University of Essex, UK (2008) and a MA in International Relations with Distinction at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy (2006).

 

Julian Lamb is the director of the Jersey Financial Services Commission.

 

Peter Hubalek is working in the Information and Communication Unit (ICT Unit) of the Austrian Ministry of Justice in Vienna since 1992. He is responsible for the ICT infrastructure, the ICT budget and the marketing of the IT products of the Austrian Justice System (ie land register and business register).

Since 1997 he represents Austria in the EBR and since 2001 in the ECRF.





 

Adam Hexner is a state official employed in the legislative department (civil law unit) of the Ministry of Justice of the Czech Republic. He is concerned with various areas of civil law and also with public registers. Adam is a ministerial legal supervisor for public registers’ information system. He has been participating in the drafting of the Czech legislation on the beneficial ownership register since its beginning in 2015. 








 

Sascha Heinig is a Divisional Director of Official Announces and Register Management at Bundesanzeiger Vergal. He was appointed to the position in 2016, after previously successfully leading Legal Publication division for 8 years. Sascha Heinig has degrees in Economics and Business Administration that he has acquired in the Cologne University of Applied Sciences.








 

Andreja Marusic is the Global Lead for Business Environment at the World Bank Group’s Trade & Competitiveness Global Practice. She has over 20 year’s expertise in investment climate and regulatory governance, including implementation of institutional reforms and capacity strengthening with public sector agencies. In her professional career, she worked on designing and implementing business environment and regulatory reform programs in many countries, in Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Africa. Prior to joining the World Bank Group, she held several high level government advisory positions such as Head of the Regulatory Reform Unit at the Prime Minister’s Office in Serbia and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Serbian Business Registers Agency. She also managed her own corporate law firm for a number of years which enabled her to keep in touch with “real life” problems investors’ face in complex regulatory environments.                               
She is author and co-author of several publications, including: Regulatory Impact Assessment in Developing Countries—Tales from the Road to Good Governance (Public Money and Management, 2015); Public Policy Making in the Western Balkans (Springer, 2015); Towards Smart Regulation in Europe (Maggioli Editore, 2013), Attractiveness of East African Community (EAC) for Foreign Direct Investment (Economic Analysis, 2014); Progress in Transition and Reform Implementation in Serbia Comparing to Other Western Balkan Countries, (IFC/World Bank Group, 2011); The Role of Inspections in the Enforcement of Legislation with Main Focus on Business Related Inspections in Serbia (BCRR/USAID BEP, 2012).  She holds a Master of International Business Law (LLM) degree from New York State University.

 

Monica Grahn has a Master of Law and started as a lawyer at the Swedish Patent and Registration Office in 1991. Bolagsverket became effective on 1 July 2004 when the previous Companies Department of the Patent and Registration Office was made a separate government authority.
 
Monica’s journey has gone from being a lawyer, through various management services to today work as Senior Advisor, connected to the Director General and Deputy Director General. Monica has always been driven by a desire to find the best solutions for citizens and business with. The questions often combine law and IT. Monica participates in different groupings within public sector, where development of e-services is the focus. For example the initiative called “eSam”, a digital collaboration between 21 Swedish authorities in order to develop digitalized service for the public. Since 2013 Monica is a member of the Survey Working Group with main focus to coordinate the work with the International Business Registers Survey and Report.

 

Stacey-Jo is a Senior Policy Adviser in the UK company law team at Companies House. She has previously worked as a European Policy Adviser on EU company law matters that affect the UK. She worked on the development and implementation on the UK’s register of beneficial ownership and is currently working on implementation of the EU Fourth Money Laundering Directive.

Stacey-Jo has a degree in Politics and International Relations, and has previously worked as an operational manager for a data quality company, supporting e-commerce and supply chain management. She has been involved in international registry benchmarking since joining Companies House in 2008, and is a member of the survey working group on the current International Business Registers Report project.

 

Franklin Steves is Associate Director for Investment Climate and Governance in EBRD’s Governance and Political Affairs department.  In this role Franklin coordinates the EBRD’s policy reform work in support of investment climate and governance reform in the Western Balkans region.  Prior to his current role he served as a Political Counsellor for a number of regions and countries including Central Europe and the Baltics, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Russia, Turkey and Armenia.  He also served as the Coordinator for EBRD’s Country Strategies. Franklin conducts research on topics related to governance, the rule of law, the business environment and transition politics, and he has published widely in the fields of post-communist politics, political economy and international relations.  He studied political science and philosophy at Columbia University and international relations and post-communist politics at the London School of Economics and University of Essex.

 

Zvonko Obradović, Attorney-at-Law, has been the Serbian Business Registers Agency (SBRA) Director since 2007. He has successfully managed several projects related to the reform of the business registration system in Serbia and the Balkans region.

For his exceptional contribution to improving the efficiency of administration and the environment for doing business in Serbia, he is the recipient of the annual award for Top Reformer of 2009 and Special Award of 2017, conferred to him by the National Alliance for Local Economic Development (NALED).

In the period 2007/2008 he was appointed President of the European Commerce Registers’ Forum (ECRF). As of June 2014, he is a member of the ECRF Steering Committee.

 

Rimantas Žylius, director at Norway Registers Development AS, is a recognized Business Environment Reform and Policy mastermind and a former Minister of Economy of the Republic of Lithuania.
 
While serving as Minister of Economy, he was in charge of reducing red tape, improving the business environment, reforming public procurement, increasing the efficiency of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). He also led other successful reforms which improved the country’s competitiveness.

Under his leadership, public procurement in Lithuania became more transparent, more efficient, and better controlled by the state. The financial performance of state-owned enterprises significantly improved, as did their contribution to the overall state budget. Together with the Minister of Justice, Rimantas Žylius also initiated and led reforms of business inspections, aiming to shift their focus to educational and advisory functions instead of compliance monitoring and fine collection.

 

Hans Graux is an IT lawyer at the Brussels based law firm time.lex (www.timelex.eu), which specialises in information and technology law in the broadest sense. The team is internationally recognized, being both a Legal 500 Top Tier firm in Information Technology, and a Chambers Europe Recommended Firm for TMT - Information Technology.
 

Hans graduated in Law in 2002, and obtained a complementary degree in IT in 2003. He worked as a research assistant at the Catholic University of Louvain, before becoming a lawyer at the bar of Brussels in 2005. In July 2007, he co-founded the IT law firm time.lex.
 

He has participated in a large number of international ICT policy studies, primarily for the European Commission and various European Agencies. Recent work for the Commission has included projects focused on data protection, eSignatures, electronic identity management, cloud computing and information security. Furthermore, he is a member of the ICT Committee of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), and Member of the ICT Committee of the Order of Flemish Bars.

 

Johan Bergsten is the head of Customer relations department at the Companies Registration Office in Sweden. The department responsibility is to provide a cohesive experience and design of services to customers, manage internal and external communications, deliver information from the registers and manage collaboration with different stakeholders and initiatives in both a national and international context. The Agencies participation in the European Business Registers (EBR), BRIS and TOOP are part of Johan’s responsibilities.
 
Johan has a degree in Computer Science has been working with leadership and transformation in the area of IT/IS and digitalization in almost 20 years from both the public and private sector.  In an international context Johan have been responsible for a larger global delivery to a customer in the TELCO industry. Johan has also been participating in several large scale projects within the EU such as BRITE and SPOCS.

 

Mojca Kunsek, Master of Economics, has been director of Agency of Republic Slovenia of registers and related services (AJPES) since 2013.
 
Mojca's journey has gone from being a portfolio manager to consultant of managers’ board in different public and commercial institutions. For her contribution to improving woman management in Slovenia, she received annual award Artemida of 2014, conferred to her by The Association of Managers. Under her leadership AJPES received award for the best IT project in Slovenia for developing register of public information (2015) and for the most socially responsible agency (2016). She is also the author of several articles in a professional journal Mednarodno poslovno pravo (The international business legislation) and on web professional portal FinD-INFO for tax, legal and accountancy topics.
 
Currently, she is actively involved in the development of electronic services for reducing administrative burdens, preparation of draft legislation on Register and Company Law, supervise the implementation of the BRIS project in Slovenia and the initiatives related to implementation of information system of beneficial owners.

 

Tadej Ulčar holds a graduate degree of Organization and Management of Information Systems and a Postgraduate Diploma in Tax Law of University of Maribor - Faculty of Law.
 
He has extensive experience in independent consulting work, especially in the areas of taxation, business law and legal informatics. He is the author of several articles in a professional journal Davčno finančna praksa (Tax and Financial Practice).
 
In his current position as Adviser to Director of AJPES, he is responsible for International Cooperation and Projects, at this time focusing on Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS).



 

Gary Walsh is a senior manager within Enterprise Registry Solutions (ERS), located in Ireland. In this capacity, Gary is responsible for the day-to-day management of ERS’ operations in Jersey with the Jersey Financial Services Commission. This entails the complete overhaul of the registry systems, including replacing the current system with a modern registry system that incorporates new register types, in particular aircraft and beneficial owner projects. Since joining ERS in 2011, Gary has worked across most areas of the company. His wider role within ERS includes the areas of business development, research and development, and product design. Within this role, Gary has a particular interest in new technologies and has led the ERS research into block-chain and its applications in the registry domain. Gary has presented on this topic at several conferences, including the ECRF study tour in 2016 and IACA in both 2016 and 2017.

 

Maurizio Pirazzini has a degree in Law and works within italian chamber of commerce system since 1988. He is Secretary general of Chamber of commerce of Padova from february 2011 and chief of the Business Register. Deeply involved in delivering services for italian business companies such as administrative simplification and development of innovative services (web content management, digital signature, certified email), he promotes the use of cloud computing and open source software in business and public organizations (PloneGov). He coordinates Padova Chamber of Commerce activities and iniziatives in order to improve synergies between public administration and business companies and collaborates with Unioncamere and italian Government in redacting law proposals.

 

Pierluigi Sodin has a degree in law and diverse experience as a member of the Ministry of Economic Development commissions on the Italian Business Register. He provides support to Chambers of commerce on judicial affairs, such as guidance on implementing laws related to Business Register, and he coordinates national and regional Chambers working groups on Business Register quality and legal affairs. He has frequent interactions with Ministry of development and other public administration regarding the evolution and maintenance of services for Italian businesses directly and indirectly related to the Business Register and in particular in the development of new and advanced services for SMEs involving different branches of government. Interoperability and joined-up eGovernment services are also frequent themes of his collaborations with AGID, the Agency for the Italian Digital Agenda. Some recent projects which he manages include LEI – Legal Entity Identifier – and the e-Justice Access Point in order to promote interoperability at international level (for example application of directive 2012/17/EU relating to interconnection of business register; interconnection of insolvency register with e-justice portal; TOOP: the once only principle project in the field of business register).

 

Mark is currently Head of Integrity and Enforcement Unit and he joined Companies House in January 2001. Most recently he has worked in Policy developing fees regulations, introducing digital charges, insolvency changes, web incorporation and ‘free data’. He joined the Integrity and Enforcement Unit July 2015 managing late filing penalties and moved to Integrity as Senior Integrity Manager in May 2016.  Working within Integrity Mark liaises with Law Enforcement Partners on data integrity and data access issues and manages new functions relating to removal of information and defaulting companies Registered Office addresses. Previously, Mark worked for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, Crown Prosecution Service and for 5 years worked for himself managing Petrol Stations for a well-known oil company.

 

Jo is Head of Project Delivery for Companies House, responsible for developing systems and services to meet the demands of customers and legislation. She has been part of Companies House's digital transformation since its start as well as having a role in delivering a variety of legislative change. Beyond Companies House she has been involved in cross government initiatives such as joint filing of accounts in XBRL and is currently leading for Companies House on the development with the UK tax authority of an integrated company registration service.






 

Ann became the Registrar of Companies for England and Wales and Chief Executive of Companies House on 1st May 2017 and is the 32nd Registrar in a line going back to 1884.

Ann joined Companies House in July 2009, as Director of Operations and Customer Delivery and was responsible for the Central Operations, Customer Service and Enforcement departments.

Prior to joining Companies House, Ann was a Deputy Director within the Office for National Statistics (ONS) based in Newport. Ann spent over 30 years at the ONS covering a variety of roles with a great deal of experience of introducing and managing major business change strategies. Ann has managed large teams with complex portfolios, specialising in operational management and business change and efficiencies.

 

Maria Gabriela Zoană serves as a deputy director general at National Trade Register Office where she is responsible for coordination, organization and control of its activity and of the trade register offices attached to the law courts. Since receiving her PhD in 2012, Maria has been lecturing Criminalistics and Special Criminal Law and Criminal Proceedings Law at the Faculty of Law and Administrative Sciences in the University of Piteşti. Before taking up positions at public administration, Maria has worked as a lawyer, insolvency practioner, mediator and arbiter.


 

At the GLEIF, Ricco Dun is mainly responsible for the connections between the world of the business registers and the new world of the Legal Entity Identifiers (LEI’s). It is important that these worlds understand each other and cooperate. There are already 6 national business registers (becoming) active as a LEI issuing organization.
 
He is also the Chairman of the Board of the European Business Register (EBR). EBR is the cooperation between business registers from 26 European countries in which they facilitate the exchange of business register information between themselves and for their customers.
 
He has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Corporate Registers Forum (CRF). Within the European Commerce Registers’ Forum (ECRF), he has been a member of the Working Group BR2BR (on the interconnection of business registers) and the auditor of the financials.
 
He has worked for many years as the Manager of the Business Register of The Netherlands Chamber of Commerce. Before that, he has had several legal and sales & marketing functions, including e.g. the development of all internet based activities for the dissemination of information from the business register.
 
He has represented the Netherlands during the negotiations on the EU Directive on the interconnection of business registers in the European Council Working Party and during the discussions on the implementation of the Directive in the Company Law Expert Group for the Business Registers Interconnection System (CLEG-BRIS) of the European Commission.

 

Zahrah Abd Wahab Fenner is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM). Prior to her appointment as CEO on 1 January 2015, she was the Deputy Chief Executive Officer (Services) (DCEO Services) a post she held since the establishment of SSM in 2002. While serving as the DCEO (Services), her portfolio comprised of the Corporate Development and Policy Division, the Corporate Resource Division, the Information Communication & Technology, the Compliance Division, the SSM Training Academy (COMTRAC) and the Corporate Communications Section.
 
Zahrah, who graduated with a Bachelor of Accounting (Hons.) degree from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), is a member of the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA) and is a Chartered Accountant (CA). She is also a member of the Approval and Implementation Committee of the Iskandar Regional Development Authority (IRDA).
 
Zahrah was appointed as a board member for the Certification of Certified Integrity Officers and is also a member of the Financial Reporting Foundation (FRF). Further, she is a member of the Labuan Financial Services Authority (LFSA), member of the Board of Trustees, National Welfare Foundation of Malaysia and the Audit Oversight Board (AOB). She was also the chairperson of the SSM Cooperative between 2011 and 2014. In 2016, Zahrah was elected as an Executive Committee member of the Corporate Registers Forum (CRF) which is an association of international corporate registries.
 
Zahrah began her career as an Advisor Accountant with the Royal Malaysian Customs and Excise Department and served the department from 1984 to 1992 where she advised on matters relating to the valuation and standard international practices of the open market. Zahrah was attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as the Principal Accountant from 1992 to 1995 and was responsible for the financial accounts and auditing of the Malaysian Embassies and High Commissions worldwide. Subsequent to that, she joined the Registrar of Companies in 1995 and served as the Chief Accountant until her appointment as DCEO (Services) in 2002.

 

Cheri Myers is the Director of Corporations at the North Carolina (NC) Secretary of State’s Office.  She oversees the Corporations Division, which consists of the Corporations Unit as well as the  Authentications Office, other State mandated programs, and receipting functions.   She is instrumental in providing the general public, business owners, and the legal and international communities’ business assistance to achieve their goals. Cheri has been associated with the NC Secretary of State’s Office since 1997 and is an alumnus of the College of Management at North Carolina State University.  She has been a member of the International Association of Commercial Administrators ( IACA) since 2005 and is currently the President-Elect.


 

Bruno Paul Goutaland Rosset de Greysier is the Managing Director of Companies House Gibraltar since 1993. Companies House Gibraltar is the Registrar of Companies, Business Names and Domain Names, Trade Marks & Patents, EEIG, Limited Partnerships & Trusts. Bruno has been advising with vast experience in Companies and Trust matters for these past 30 years, and was Managing Director from 1985 to 1993 of Europa Trust Company, a Trust Company licensed by the Financial Services Commission (FSC); he is also one of the Founding Directors of Turicum Private Bank, a Swiss owned private bank based in Gibraltar.
 
Bruno is a Trust & Estate Practitioner (TEP) and a Member of the Gibraltar Branch of STEP since April 1999. He is also a Commissioner for Oaths, registered at the Supreme Court of Gibraltar. He was the Registrar of Pleasure Yachts for 17 years from 1992 to 2010, and Registrar of Ships from 1996 to 1998. Bruno was also a Member of the Board of the Gibraltar Chamber of Commerce from 2001 to 2005 and was appointed to the Board of Gibraltar Information Bureau in Geneva, the Representative Office of Government of Gibraltar in Switzerland from 1990 to 1993.

A keen sailor, Bruno has been a member of the Royal Gibraltar Yacht Club, since 1990.