Akbar Al Baker has been instrumental in shaping the development of Qatar Airways into one of the fastest growing and most highly acclaimed airlines in the world.

Born in Doha, he is a graduate in Economics and Commerce and worked at various levels in the Civil Aviation Directorate before becoming Qatar Airways’ CEO in 1997.

Mr. Al Baker has, over the last decade, spearheaded the growth of Qatar Airways, which operated only four aircraft in a regional capacity prior to his appointment. Qatar Airways currently flies to 86 destinations across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, South Asia and North America.

He is also leading the development of the multi-billion dollar New Doha International Airport, which is scheduled to open by 2011.

A highly motivated individual, Mr. Al Baker has been a successful businessman in Doha for more than 25 years, holds a private pilot licence, and is also CEO of several divisions of Qatar’s national airline – these being Qatar Airways Holidays, Qatar Aviation Services, Qatar Duty Free Company, Doha International Airport, Qatar Distribution Company and Qatar Aircraft Catering Company.

Born on August 11, 1941 in Nice, father of three children, Jean-Louis Beffa is the Chairman of the Board of Saint-Gobain since June 2007.
An alumnus of the Ecole Polytechnique, he also holds a degree from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure du Pétrole and the Paris Institut d'Etudes Politiques.

He began his career in the Oil Division of the French Ministry of Industry. In 1974 he joined Saint-Gobain as Vice President Corporate Planning (1974-1977), Managing Director and subsequently Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Pont-à-Mousson Company (1978-1982) a major subsidiary of the Saint-Gobain Group, he was also in charge of the Pipe and Mechanics Division of Saint-Gobain from 1979 to 1982.

Jean-Louis Beffa has been Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Saint-Gobain from January 1986 to June 2007, after having been Saint-Gobain's Chief Operating Officer (1982-1986).

Jean-Louis Beffa is Vice-Chairman of BNP Paribas. He is also a director of the boards of GDF SUEZ and Groupe Bruxelles Lambert (GBL), a member of the supervisory board of Siemens A.G. and a member of the International Advisory Board of J.P. Morgan.

He is Great Officer of the Legion of Honour and Honorary Commander of the British Empire (CBE).

Jagdish Bhagwati, is University Professor at Columbia University and Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has been Economic Policy Adviser to Arthur Dunkel, Director General of GATT (1991-93), Special Adviser to the UN on Globalization, and External Adviser to the WTO. He has served on the Expert Group appointed by the Director General of the WTO on the Future of the WTO and the Advisory Committee to Secretary General Kofi Annan on the NEPAD process in Africa, and was also a member of the Eminent Persons Group under the chairmanship of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso on the future of UNCTAD.

Professor Bhagwati has published more than three hundred articles and has authored or edited over fifty volumes; he also writes frequently for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times, as well as reviews for The New Republic and The Times Literary Supplement. Professor Bhagwati is described as the most creative international trade theorist of his generation and is a leader in the fight for freer trade. His most recent book, In Defense of Globalization (Oxford, 2004), has attracted worldwide acclaim. Five volumes of his scientific writings and two of his public policy essays have been published by MIT press. The recipient of six festschrifts in his honor, he has also received several prizes and honorary degrees, including awards from the governments of India (Padma Vibhushan) and Japan (Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star).

A native of India, Professor Bhagwati attended Cambridge University where he graduated in 1956 with a first in Economics Tripos. He then continued to study at MIT and Oxford returning to India in 1961 as Professor of Economics at the Indian Statistical Institute, and then as Professor of International Trade at the Delhi School of Economics. He returned to MIT in 1968, leaving it twelve years later as the Ford International Professor of Economics to join Columbia. He is married to Padma Desai, the Gladys and Ronald Harriman Professor of Comparative Economic Systems at Columbia University and a scholar of Russian and other former socialist countries' transition problems. They have one daughter, Anuradha Kristina.

C. B. Bhattacharya is the E.ON Chair Professor in Corporate Responsibility at ESMT European School of Management and Technology in Berlin, Germany. He is on leave from Boston University where he is the Everett W. Lord Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Marketing at the School of Management. C. B. received his Ph.D. in Marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1993 and his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in 1984. Before joining Boston University, he was on the faculty at the Goizueta Business School, Emory University. Prior to his Ph.D., he worked for three years as a Product Manager in Reckitt Benckiser plc.

His expertise is in the area of business strategy innovation aimed at increasing both business and social value. He believes that in today’s environment, companies need to go "beyond the 4P's" and use "intangible assets" such as corporate identity and reputation, membership and brand communities, and corporate social responsibility to strengthen stakeholder relationships. He is the Faculty director of the "Stakeholder Marketing Consortium," an initiative that studies how firms can best consider the welfare of multiple stakeholder groups in their decision making, which he started in 2007 with support from the Aspen Institute. He has served on the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Marketing and Corporate Reputation Review and has also served as Editor of special issues of California Management Review, Journal of Business Research and Journal of Public Policy and Marketing. He has published several articles in journals such as the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organization Science, and many other journals. C. B. won the William Novelli best paper award at the Social Marketing Conference in 1997 and the 2001 Broderick Prize for Research Excellence at Boston University. He was a finalist for the 2007 Faculty Pioneer Awards given by the Aspen Institute.

On the teaching front, C. B. received the Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award in 1995, the highest teaching award at Emory University. He is also part of the select group of faculty that has made it twice on Business Week’s Outstanding Faculty list. He has secured in excess of $500,000 in competitive research grants and conducted research for many organizations such as AT&T, Eli Lilly, General Mills, Green Mountain Coffee, High Museum of Art, Hitachi Corporation, Procter & Gamble Company, Prudential Bank and Timberland. C. B. is often interviewed and quoted in publications such as Business Week, Newsweek, The New York Times and The Economist and on TV stations such as CBS, FOX and PBS. He also frequently delivers keynote talks at company and industry conventions.

Erik Brandsma is Vice President Corporate Responsibility and interim Chief Responsibility Officer at E.ON AG, Düsseldorf/ Germany.

Before joining E.ON in April 2006, Erik Brandsma worked in a variety of positions in the international arena of corporate responsibility and sustainable development. He worked during the 1990’s at the United Nations Commission for Sustainable Development in New York and at the OECD (OCDE) in Paris. Erik also worked as an independent advisor and consultant for multi-national corporations.

He has a Masters in Resource Management from SFU, Vancouver/ Canada. Erik is a national from the Netherlands and living with his family in Stockholm/ Sweden.

Christoph Burger is a faculty member at ESMT European School of Management and Technology and heads the Practice Group Telecommunication, Transport and Utilities, ESMT Customized Solutions. He studied business administration and economics at the University of Saarbrücken (Germany), the Hochschule St. Gallen (Switzerland) and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (USA). Christoph lectured microeconomics at the University of Ann Arbor, was project leader at Otto Versand, worked as a strategy consultant at Arthur D. Little as well as independent and was Vice President at the Bertelsmann Buch AG.

Christoph Burger has professional experience in strategy, post merger integration, equity financing as well as customer and supplier management. He has solid international experience, spanning Northern and Eastern Europe and the United States. Christoph teaches consulting skills, strategy and leadership in ESMT’s MBA and executive education programs. His publications focus on customer management, industry outlook and business plan assessment.

Michael Diekmann studied law and philosophy at Göttingen University in Germany. After graduating in 1982, he headed up his own publishing business, Diekmann/Thieme, where he wrote and published a number of books.

In 1988, Diekmann joined Allianz as executive assistant to the manager of the company’s Hamburg office. In 1990, he assumed leadership of the Hamburg-Harburg Sales Office, then became Head of the Hannover office (1991) and Head of Customer Relationships in Munich (1993), as well as Head of Sales for the region of North-Rhine–Westphalia, in 1994.

In 1996, he went to Singapore to manage the Allianz Asia-Pacific business. Two years later, he was appointed to the Allianz AG management board. In Asia-Pacific, he turned loss-making subsidiaries into profitable businesses through acquisitions and the introduction of new infrastructure and new pricing models. In 2002, Mr. Diekmann became the head of the Allianz insurance business in the Americas.

Since April 2003, Mr. Diekmann has been the Chairman of the Board of Management of Allianz AG (which turned into Allianz SE in 2006).
Mr. Diekmann is Chairman of the Supervisory Boards of Allianz Deutschland AG and Allianz Global Investors AG. He is also Vice Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Allianz France SA and a member of the Supervisory Board of Allianz S.p.A. In addition to his responsibilities at Allianz, he is Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Linde AG and BASF SE and Supervisory Board member of Siemens AG.

Andrew is the CEO of Merryck & Co. UK. and is passionate about the impact of exceptional leadership within organisations because great leaders build on their strengths to deliver twice the profits generated by “good” business leaders. Clients and colleagues value Andrew’s ability to cut quickly to the heart of the matter and empathize with their situation. He has a wide range of experience having worked in consumer and healthcare businesses from “large corporate” to “start up”. He has had a variety of roles from CEO, to administrative, finance, marketing and frontline sales with experience in working with different cultures (North America/Europe/Asia) with fluent German and competent French. After qualifying as a Chartered Accountant, (Price Waterhouse), Andrew spent 10 years as Finance Director of Olympus UK. While FD, he also ran the Microscope business; increasing sales and profits by 50% in two years. His first move into full time general management was as CEO of Olympus Switzerland. After a successful business turnaround, Andrew returned to the UK as head of Olympus Diagnostics, helping to grow the business by 30% p.a. over 3 years. Andrew built a new global business in electronic blood transfusion safety. Initially conceived as a means of differentiating the £300m Diagnostic business, Olympus Osyris continues to lead as a best practice model for patient safety throughout the world. In 2006, Andrew established Biz4green, dedicated to reduce the impact of business on the environment while reducing overhead cost. Andrew has been a non-exec Director of Mencap since 1988 and is a committee member of the City Institute of Directors. He helps to run the Network of Entrepreneurial Talent (NET) formed to support social entrepreneurs around the world. 

Jonathan is Professor of Leadership and Director of the Centre for Leadership Studies at University of Exeter Business School since 2002. He is currently leading the worldwide launch of the One Planet MBA.

Trained as an anthropologist, Jonathan worked for several years as a mediator in neighbourhood conflicts in London, founded the UK’s first community mediation service and was the founding Secretary of the European Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution. After taking a mid-career MBA he moved into management education at Lancaster University, where he directed MBA and other programmes for British Airways and other major companies. He co-founded, with Henry Mintzberg and 3 other malcontents, a new approach to management education, the International Masters in Practising Management. This takes place in six countries around the world, and has been the springboard for several subsequent innovations in helping practising mangers to improve the way they manage, including an annual short course ‘Round Tables for Practising Managers’. Jonathan also played a significant role in the so-called ‘critical management’ movement, launching an influential MPhil and PhD programme and contributing to the development of specialist conferences and interest groups.

He has published articles in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Leadership, Management Learning, Academy of Management Learning and Education, and in many more practice-oriented outlets, including a regular column in Exeter’s ‘Leadership Matters’. His 2005 book ‘Nelson: Leadership Lessons from the Great Commander’ (with Stephanie Jones) was published for the bicentenary of the battle of Trafalgar, and is the basis of a popular series of lectures and workshops. In 2007 he published ‘Key Concepts in Leadership Studies’ (with Antonio Marturano) and ‘Foundations in Leadership: articles in celebration of John Adair’ (with Morgen Witzel and Peter Case).

He is currently conducting research into emerging concepts of leadership, extending earlier work on the distribution and practice of leadership in Higher Education. Other on-going research includes the study of change and continuity in large organisations, and the processes by which leadership is legitimized in minority communities.

In 2009 he was Visiting Professor at INSEAD, France; Lund, Sweden; and Bled, Slovenia.  He is a Fellow of the Windsor Leadership Trust; the Leadership Trust Foundation; and Trustee of The Fintry Trust. Jonathan advises several companies, international agencies and government departments on their leadership-related issues. As director of the Centre for Leadership Studies he works with a first-rate team of researchers, teachers and consultants collectively making a significant impact on both the understanding and practice of leadership.

Rajeev Gowda is Professor of Economics and Social Sciences, and Chairperson at the Center of Public Policy at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Bangalore, India. Before joining IIM he served on the faculties at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Oklahoma.

He is director at the General Insurance Corporation of India, and member of the Executive Council at the Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development.

His research areas include environmental policy, risk analysis, public policy, and risk management.

Rajeev Gowda received his Ph.D. in Public Policy and Management from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He has a M.A. in Economics from Fordham University, NY, USA, and a B.A. in Economics, History, and Political Science from St. Joseph's College, Bangalore University, India.

Dr.-Ing. Carlos Härtel is Managing Director of the GE Global Research Center Europe in Garching bei. München, Germany. He took his current position in June 2007, after having served as manager of the Laboratory for Alternative Energies at the Research Center since 2003. Prior to joining GE, Dr. Härtel held positions as scientist and manager in the development of gas turbines at Alstom (Schweiz) AG.

Dr. Härtel studied mechanical engineering at RWTH Aachen and at the Technical University of Munich. He received a doctorate from the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (German Aerospace Center), Göttingen, and spent several years in research at ETH Zurich, where he qualified as a university lecturer in 1999. Dr. Härtel owns several patents and has published over fifty scientific papers.

The GE Global Research Center in Garching near Munich is one of four GE Research Centers worldwide. The main areas of research are alternative and renewable energy sources, manufacturing technologies for composite materials, instrumentation for sensing and security applications, and imaging technologies for medical diagnostics.

Alexander Holst is a Senior Manager in Management Consulting of Accenture and leads the Sustainability Services Group in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In this role he helps clients to integrate sustainability into their core business by managing comprehensive and integrated programs. He has been in consulting for about 12 years and has lead several projects on strategy formulation, organizational change, and process-optimization.

In addition to Accenture, Alexander Holst has worked in London for Merrill Lynch and for Black & Decker as well as for the Automotive Supply Company Phoenix AG in Hamburg.

Mr. Holst holds an MBA from IESE in Barcelona and has studied European Business in Osnabrück and London. Moreover, he is an Alumnus of the Cambridge University Business & Environment Program. He was a scholar of the US Congress and the German Bundestag and lives today in Berlin with his family.

Mel Horwitch is Professor of Technology Management, Director of the Institute for Technology and Enterprise, former Chair of the Department of Technology Management, Founding Director of the Othmer Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University. He was also elected an Othmer Senior Faculty Fellow.

Professor Horwitch is an acknowledged expert on innovation management. He has written extensively on technology strategy, particularly with reference to knowledge-intensive sectors (e.g. services, media, information technology, and telecommunications), global innovation, and the role of networks and cross-boundary and multi-sector endeavors in developing technology. Most recently, Professor Horwitch has focused his research on global innovation, especially in emerging economies, global entrepreneurship in both stand alone and corporate venues and the future configuration of modern innovation. He has developed new courses at Polytechnic on services innovation, business model innovation, global innovation, managing growing enterprises and society-wide technology policy. He also has extensive executive education experience.

Before joining Polytechnic Professor Horwitch was Visiting Professor at London Business School, Professor and Founding Dean of Management at Theseus Institute in Sophia Antipolis, France, the John M. Olin Distinguished Fellow at Templeton College, Oxford University and Visiting Professor at the University of Paris-Dauphine. He is also Chair of the Technology Management Education Association [TMEDA]. He has also served on the faculties of the Sloan School at MIT and Harvard Business School. He received his AB from Princeton University and MBA and Doctorate from Harvard Business School, and was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand.

His publications include Technology in the Modern Corporation: A Strategic Perspective (editor and contributor), Clipped Wings: The American SST Conflict, contributor to Energy Future: Report of the Energy Project at the Harvard Business School (contributor), articles published in such journals as Management Science, Policy Science, Sloan Management Review, Technology in Society, and Business Strategy International, and several print and Web-based multimedia cases.

Belén Izquierdo is Head of Corporate Responsibility in Telefónica SA. She first joined Telefonica in 1999 taking responsibility over the International Relations of Human Resources within the group as well as leading HR & CSR joint initiatives. Prior to Telefonica she worked for JP Morgan in the London and Madrid branches within Global Markets and Internal Audit departments respectively. Belén holds a Bachelor degree in Economic Sciences from Autónoma University of Madrid and a is Masters degree in Human Resources by the Instituto de Empresa Business School in Spain. She also has completed Postgraduate studies in International Trade and International Finances at Georgetown University, Washington DC.

Manfred Kets de Vries was named ESMT's first Distinguished Professor on March 1, 2008 and is active in ESMT's Center for Leadership Development Research. Manfred is a clinical professor of leadership development and holds the Raoul de Vitry d'Avaucourt Chair of Leadership Development at INSEAD, Fontainebleau & Singapore. He is also the Director of INSEAD Global Leadership Centre. He has also held professorships at McGill University, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, Montreal, and the Harvard Business School, and he has lectured at management institutions around the world. He is a founding member of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations. The Financial Times, Le Capital, Wirtschaftswoche, and The Economist have rated Manfred Kets de Vries one of world's leading leadership thinkers. In addition, he is program director of INSEAD's top management seminar, "The Challenge of Leadership: Creating Reflective Leaders" and the program “Consulting and Coaching for Change: Creating Reflective Change Agents” (and has five times received INSEAD's distinguished teacher award). Furthermore, in 2005, as the first non-American, he received the International Leadership Award for his contributions to the study of management.

Manfred Kets de Vries brings a different view to the much-studied subjects of leadership and the dynamics of individual and organizational change. Bringing to bear his knowledge and experience of economics (Econ. Drs., University of Amsterdam), management (ITP, MBA, and DBA, Harvard Business School), and psychoanalysis (Canadian Psychoanalytic Society and the International Psychoanalytic Association), Kets de Vries scrutinizes the interface between international management, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and dynamic psychiatry. His specific areas of interest are leadership development, career dynamics, executive stress, entrepreneurship, family business, succession planning, cross-cultural management, team building, coaching, and the dynamics of corporate transformation and change.
Kets de Vries is the author, co-author, or editor of twenty-seven books, including Power and the Corporate Mind (1975, new edition 1985, with Abraham Zaleznik), Organizational Paradoxes: Clinical Approaches to Management (1980, new edition 1994), The Irrational Executive: Psychoanalytic Explorations in Management (1984, editor), The Neurotic Organization: Diagnosing and Changing Counter-Productive Styles of Management (1984, new edition 1990, with Danny Miller), Unstable at the Top (1988, with Danny Miller), Prisoners of Leadership (1989), Handbook of Character Studies (1991, with Sidney Perzow), Organizations on the Couch (1991), Leaders, Fools and Impostors (1993), the prize-winning Life and Death in the Executive Fast Lane: Essays on Organizations and Leadership (1995) (the Critics' Choice Award 1995-96), Family Business: Human Dilemmas in the Family Firm (1996), The New Global Leaders: Percy Barnevik, Richard Branson, and David Simon (1999, with Elizabeth Florent),  Struggling with the Demon: Perspectives on Individual and Organizational Irrationality (2001),  The Leadership Mystique (2001, new edition 2006), The Happiness Equation (2002), The New Russian Business Leaders (2004), Are Leaders Born or are they Made: The Case of Alexander the Great (2004) Lessons on Leadership by Terror: Finding Shaka Zulu in the Attic (2004) and The Leader on the Couch (2006). He has also developed a number of multi-rater feedback instruments: The Personality Audit and the Global Executive Leadership Inventory (2004), The Leadership Archetype Questionnaire (2005).
In addition, Kets de Vries has published over 250 scientific papers as chapters in books and as articles. He has also written approximately a hundred case studies, including seven that received the Best Case of the Year award. He is a regular writer for a number of magazines. His work has been featured in such publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Fortune, Business Week, The Economist, The Financial Times, and The International Herald Tribune. His books and articles have been translated into twenty languages. He is a member of seventeen editorial boards and has been elected a Fellow of the Academy of Management.
The Dutch government has made him an Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau. He was the first fly fisherman in Mongolia and is a member of New York's Explorers Club. In his spare time he can be found in the rainforests or savannas of central Africa, the Siberian taiga, Australia’s Arnhem Land, the Pamir mountains, or within the Arctic circle.

Matthias Kopp holds a diploma in industrial engineering and management from the TU Berlin and University Westminster/London.
 
In his professional career he joined PriceWaterhouseCoopers Management Consultants in 2001 in their strategic consulting practice covering the European energy markets, gas and electricity in particular. He focussed in his work on fields of risk management, corporate strategy, gas and electricity auctions and energy trading.
 
In 2005 he joined WWF Germany as project coordinator for energy and capital markets work in the field of climate change. Within the climate programme he is responsible for WWF's work with the corporate sector. In that role, he coordinates WWF Germany's engagement and partnership with the German branch of the Carbon Disclosure Project and the global collaboration between WWF and the Allianz-Group on climate change and its relevance for a financial services company amongst other aspects. How economies and the economic actors can shift towards a low carbon development pathway and instill momentum on the wider economy is amongst Matthias' work themes for WWF.

Konstantin Korotov joined ESMT European School of Management and Technology in August 2005 as an assistant professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in August 2008. He is also an integral part of  ESMT's "Center for Leadership Development Research. Konstantin is also an executive coach and a research fellow with the INSEAD Global Leadership Center in Fontainebleau, France, where he also received his PhD in Management (Organizational Behavior). In addition to his academic work, he has over 13 years of practical Leadership Development experience in the US, Russia, UK, France, Portugal, Spain, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, Uzbekistan, and Latvia. 

Konstantin's dissertation was about the dynamics of executives’ identity change and conditions supporting personal transformation. He currently conducts research on leadership development, leadership coaching, and executive education. His recent work is reflected in “Coach and Couch: The Psychology of Making Better Leaders,” a new book co-edited with Manfred Kets de Vries and Elizabeth Florent-Treacy (Palgrave, 2007), as well as in academic and practitioner articles on leadership development in Europe, and teaching materials for participants in leadership development executive programs.

As an expert on leadership and management in Russia and post-Soviet economies, Konstantin also conducts research on leadership styles of business elite and emerging leaders in the region. With Manfred Kets de Vries and associates he co-authored “The New Russian Business Leaders” book (Edward Elgar, 2004), as well as academic and practitioner-oriented articles on leadership, leadership development, and careers in Russia. He has also written a number of case-studies on leadership challenges. His case-study on Yukos and Mikhail Khodorkovsky (with Kets de Vries, Florent, and Shekshnia, 2004) won the European Foundation for Management Development case study competition.

Konstantin is the Program Director for ESMT’s “Leading People and Teams” executive program. He also teaches Organizational Behavior and Integrative Leadership courses in the ESMT MBA program. His executive education portfolio includes programs for Deutsche Telekom, KPMG, Elster Group, Deloitte, McDonald’s, BAT, B/S/H, B.Braun, Almirall, Ernst & Young, Pepsi, Shell, Coca-Cola, ABN-Amro, Mars, Mittal Steel, Frontstep CIS, Western NIS Enterprise Fund, Uralsib, Probusinessbank, Unilever, Golden Telecom, and Pernod-Ricard.

Konstantin consults companies worldwide on issues of leadership development, executive coaching, and mentoring. He is also a practicing leadership coach.

Additionally, Konstantin has held positions of Director of Professional Development for Ernst & Young (CIS), consultant for the Center for Business Skills Development (CBSD), and researcher at New York University.

Alexander Landia graduated from Tbilisi State University with an honors degree in mathematics, and earned his Ph.D. in the Minsk Institute of Mathematics. In 1993 he joined Dresdner Bank in Frankfurt, Germany and left in 2001 as first vice president of oil and gas global debt. During this period, he led or worked on major infrastructure projects around the world from Canada to Hong Kong. In 1996 he began working with major Russian companies, most notably on arranging of project financings in excess of more than US$6bn for OAO Gazprom in 1997 and the purchase by Ruhrgas AG of shares in OAO Gazprom in 1999.

From 2001 until joining OAO SUEK, Mr. Landia was a partner of Accenture. He was general director of Accenture Russia until 2004 and thereafter became Global Gas Lead Partner. The geography of his various projects ranged from Russia, Germany, the UK, Austria, Italy, Slovakia, and the US to Qatar, Nigeria, and South Korea.

Mr. Landia is Chairman of the Board of Directors of SUEK since 2006. He was elected Chairman of Year 2007 by the Association of Independent Directors of Russia. Mr. Landia serves since 2006 on the Board of Directors of Lambert Energy Advisory Ltd. in London – an oil & gas M&A merchant bank. He is further a member of the Advisory Board EMBA Utility Management of Jacobs University, Bremen.

Zhike Lei joined ESMT as an assistant professor in January, 2009. Previously she was a professor at George Mason University's School of Management. She received her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Zhike also holds a MBA degree in Marketing and Management from Illinois State University and Bachelor of Arts degree in Advertising from Beijing Institute of Business, China.

Zhike’s research interests broadly center on understanding how individuals, teams and organizations build safety and reliability in organizations by systematically managing and learning from error and failure. Currently, she is studying frontline nurses’ communication and coordination patterns in their experience of ambiguity, uncertainty, complexity in hospitals. Her research on error identification and medical errors has received major awards from the Juran Center for Leadership in Quality at University of Minnesota and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Zhike also worked as a communication and marketing specialist for leading advertising and marketing firms including Dentsu Inc. and ACNielsen in Beijing, China, as well as startup companies in Chicago, USA. She has served on the patient safety committee for major health information organizations both in China and USA such as NOVARHIO and INOVA Healthcare System.

For the 2010 calendar year, Zhike is the coordinator of the Faculty Research Seminar (FRS) together with Sumitro Banerjee.

Peter Löscher took over as President and Chief Executive Officer of Siemens AG on July 1, 2007. He is the twelfth CEO in the 160-year history of the company and the first to be named from outside Siemens. He had years of professional experience in various companies in the pharmaceutical and medical fields. His international management experience began in 1988 with the Hoechst Group, and in the course of his eleven years with the company he held top management positions in Spain, the United States, Britain and Japan. Later he moved to General Electric Healthcare and GE Healthcare Bio-Sciences. Immediately prior to his appointment as CEO of Siemens, he served as President of Global Human Health at Merck & Co, Inc., in the United States.

Peter Löscher studied economics at Vienna University and at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He received his Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Vienna University. Peter Löscher graduated from the Advanced Management Program of Harvard Business School. He was born in Villach, Austria, is married and has three children.

Peter Löscher serves on the board of several relevant industry associations; among other, he is Vice-Chairman of the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), Member of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum and Co-Chairman of the EU-Russia Industrialists’ Round Table (IRT). He furthermore serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Siemens Stiftung and as Member of the Supervisory Board of Munich Re AG.

Wolfgang Mayrhuber is the Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Deutsche Lufthansa AG. As such, he is responsible for the aviation group, which comprises the Passenger Airline Group, Logistics, MRO, Catering and IT Services segments and has over 118,000 employees worldwide.

Wolfgang Mayrhuber has nearly 40 years of service with the Lufthansa Group. He joined the company on February 1, 1970, as an engineer at the engine overhaul facility in Hamburg. After holding a variety of management posts in the Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) division, he was appointed Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Technical at Lufthansa on November 1, 1992. In the early nineties, Wolfgang Mayrhuber headed the rehabilitation team charged with engineering Lufthansa’s recovery. Subsequently, he was elected Chairman of the Executive Board of Lufthansa Technik AG when it became an independent company in October 1994 and exercised an influential role in its ongoing evolution into a global supplier of MRO services. The company currently has 56 subsidiaries worldwide. After six years in that post, Wolfgang Mayrhuber was appointed to the Executive Board of Deutsche Lufthansa AG on January 1, 2001 with responsibility for the passenger airline business. On April 1, 2002, he was elected Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board. At the conclusion of the Annual General Meeting on June 18, 2003, he took up his position as Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Deutsche Lufthansa AG. In March 2005 his contract was extended up to December 31, 2010.

In addition to his executive-board responsibilities, Wolfgang Mayrhuber sits on various supervisory boards. He is member of the supervisory boards of Fraport AG, Lufthansa Technik AG, Munich Re Group (Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft AG), Austrian Airlines AG and BMW Group. At an international level, he is a member of the Board of Directors of SN Airholding SA/NV and HEICO Corp. (Florida/USA).

Wolfgang Mayrhuber has been appointed to the Steering Committee of the Association of European Airlines (AEA). In 2006 he acted as the chairman of AEA. Mr. Mayrhuber is also the Chairman of the Strategy and Policy Committee (SPC) of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and is seated on the IATA Board of Governors.

Born in Waizenkirchen, Austria, on March 22, 1947, Wolfgang Mayrhuber studied mechanical engineering at the Technical College in Steyr, Austria, and at the Bloor Institute in Canada. In autumn 1990, he completed an Executive Management Training course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston.

Born in 1955, August 14
Place of birth: Shakhtersk, Sakhalin region
Education: Higher
Science degree: PhD (Economics)
Graduated from the Moscow Physics and Technology Institute in 1978
Profession: automated control systems

State and the Gas Industry awards, and honorary titles:

2001 – Acting Member of the International Academy of Investments and Construction Economics

1978-1989 – Employee of the Foreign Economic Relations Department of the Moscow Institute for Global Economy and Foreign Relations Research (IMEMO) of the USSR Academy of Sciences, later on – Senior Researcher, Acting Leader of the Group, Secretary for the Complex Program of Scientific and Technological Progress (USSR Academy of Sciences and USSR GKNT), Moscow

1989-1991 – Director of Donau-Bank AG, Managing Director of a branch of Inter Trade Consult, GmbH, Austria

1991-1996 – Director of IMAG Investment Management & Advisory Group GmbH, Austria

1997-1998 – Vice-President of Vostochnaya Neftyanaya Kompania, Moscow

1998-2002 - Director of IMAG Investment Management & Advisory Group GmbH, Austria

Since 2002 – Director General of Gazexport, Member of the Gazprom’s Management Committee, Moscow.

Since 8.04.2005 - Deputy Chairman of Gazprom’s Management Committee, Director General of OOO Gazexport (since November 1, 2006 - OOO Gazprom export)

From April 2008 – KHL Chairman - President

Prof. Meran is Vice President and Dean of Graduation Studies at German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) and Chaired Professor at the Institute of Environmental Economics and Policy, Technische Universität Berlin. In addition to numerous publications in journals and collected works, he is also a referee for several journals, including Journal of Economics, Journal of Comparative Economics, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics. His presentations include Econometric Society European Meeting (ESEM), European Economic Association (EEA), Meeting of the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics (EARIE), International Water Association, International Association for Energy Economics, Verein für Socialpolitik. He also has consulted to Price Waterhouse and Volkswagenstiftung.

Dr. Henrik Mueller, born 1965, is the deputy editor-in-chief of manager magazin, Germany's leading business weekly. He studied economics at the University of Kiel and the University of the Armed Forces Hamburg and journalism at Deutsche Journalisten-Schule in Munich. He has specialized in monetary and international aspects of economics and wrote several books in this field. Before joining manager magazin in 2000, he worked for the magazine Stern.

René Obermann, born in March 1963 in Düsseldorf, Germany, has been Chief Executive Officer of Deutsche Telekom since November 2006.

He joined the Group in 1998 as the Managing Director Sales for T-Mobile Deutschland GmbH. In April 2000, he became Chief Executive Officer of T-Mobile Deutschland.  Internationally, he assumed responsibility for the European business of T-Mobile International AG & Co. KG one year later as the Board Member for European Operations and Group Synergies.

From the end of 2002 to December 2006, he was CEO of T-Mobile International AG & Co. KG and the Deutsche Telekom Board Member for Mobile Communications. In this period, T-Mobile continued its growth course as one of the leading mobile operators in the world with more than 100 million customers, successfully introducing the T-Mobile brand in eleven countries.

René Obermann’s career began with a business traineeship at BMW in Munich. Following that, he set up his own business ABC Telekom in Münster in 1986. He became Managing Partner of Hutchison Mobilfunk GmbH, the successor of ABC Telekom, in 1991. From 1994 to 1998, Obermann was Chairman of the company’s Management Board.

René Obermann has been a presidium member of the German industry association BITKOM since March 2007. In the 1990’s, he was Chairman of the former German Association of Mobile Communication Service Providers for two years.

Professor Charles O’Reilly’s research includes studies of leadership, organizational culture and demography, the management of human resources, and the impact of change and innovation on firms. He has published widely in his field, including the books Winning Through Innovation: a Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Change and Renewal with M. Tushman (Harvard Business School Press, 2002) and Hidden Value: How Great Companies Achieve Extraordinary Results with Ordinary People with J. Pfeffer (Harvard Business School Press, 2000). His recent work investigates how managers can design organizations that can generate streams of innovation and deal with disruptive technological change.

Charles A. O’Reilly III is the Frank E. Buck Professor of Management and the Hank McKinnell-Pfizer Director of the Center for Leadership Development and Research at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford. He began his education in 1965 at the University of El Paso Texas where he received his BS in Chemistry. In 1971 he received his MBA in Information Systems, from the University of California, Berkeley where he also received his PhD in Organizational Behavior in 1975. He began his teaching career as an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, from 1976-80. He later became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley from 1980-92. In 1993 he joined Stanford University where he has been since, and has received many awards, including the MBA Distinguished Teaching Award in 2002. He was also the Henry Ford Carroll Professor at the Harvard Business School in 1999-2000.

Professor O’Reilly’s research interests are studies of leadership, organizational culture and demography, the management of human resources, and the impact of change and innovation on firms. His previous books include: Winning through Innovation: a Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Change and Renewal with Mike Tushman (Harvard Business School Press, 2002) and Hidden Value: Getting Extraordinary Results with Ordinary People with Jeff Pfeffer (Harvard Business School Press, 2000). This book shows how successful firms are able to win the war for talent – and why their competitors find it so difficult to replicate their success. He has authored more than 100 papers and is writing his next book, with Mike Tushman, Ambidextrous Organizations: Resolving the Innovator’s Dilemma which explores how managers can design organizations that can generate streams of innovation and deal with disruptive technological change.

Professor O’Reilly has consulted for a variety of public and private firms in the U.S., Europe, Africa, and Asia. He also has developed, directed, and taught in executive programs for senior managers in innovation, technology, leadership, change, and human resources.

Girish S Paranjpe is the Jt. Chief Executive Officer of Wipro’s IT Business and is an Executive Director on the Board of Wipro Limited. He jointly carries the overall responsibility for the strategy and operations of Wipro’s IT Business.

Girish’s direct responsibilities include the following Business Units - Financial Services, Communication, Media, Telecom and Technology. Girish is also directly responsible for driving Consulting, Business Technology Services, Product Engineering Solutions and other functions under him are CTO, CIO and Global Delivery.

Girish joined Wipro in 1990 and has held a broad range of leadership positions in critical portfolios across the Wipro Corporation during his tenure in Wipro for the last 17+ years.

Girish has represented Wipro and the IT Industry in various public forums including the Prime Minister's Task Force on Information Technology, the NASSCOM and at leading global business schools. Mr. Paranjpe is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India.

Frederik Pleitgen is the Berlin correspondent for CNN, appointed to this position at the end of 2006.

Since joining the international news network, Pleitgen has made his mark with reports on the Islamic militia being driven out of Somalia, who controlled most of the south of the country. In addition he has reported on numerous subjects from Germany, including the controversy surrounding the theatre production of Mozart´s 'Idomeneo' in Berlin as well as the trial and sentencing of Mounir El Motassadeq, alleged helper of the 9/11 hijackers, in Hamburg.
Prior to joining CNN, he was political editor at German public service broadcaster ZDF, and had previously worked at private news broadcaster n-tv as a reporter and executive producer. Pleitgen also has spent time working for RTL and TV Berlin.
Well respected within the German media, Pleitgen brings a uniquely German perspective to CNN´s global audience and delivers insight into the political, economic and cultural influences of this important European nation. A pioneer in German journalism Pleitgen was co-creator on the much respected n-tv reportage show 'Ganz Nah – n-tv Reporter Unterwegs'.

Major stories that Pleitgen has covered over the last few years have included the German Bundestags-Elections in 2002, the Asian Tsunami in 2004, the death of Pope John Paul II and subsequent election of the first German pope, Cardinal Ratzinger, and now Pope Benedict XVI. Pleitgen, who is fluent in German, English and French, reported from London during the July 2005 terrorist attacks and was dispatched to bring German audiences coverage of the tragic aftermath of both Hurricane Wilma and Katrina in the U.S.
Pleitgen studied North American Studies at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-University in Bonn and at Free University Berlin, where he submitted his master’s thesis on traditions in American journalism. He also spent one year studying at the School of Journalism at New York University and in 2004 received a fellowship for the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy in San Fernando Valley/USA. Pleitgen was also awarded with the 2005 Arthur F. Burns Fellowship, which he spent at the International Centre for Journalists in Atlanta/USA.

Professor Lars-Hendrik Röller took over as President of ESMT European School of Management and Technology on September 1, 2006. Since 2007 he has been a Research Professor at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Europe’s largest social science research center, and he continues to be a Professor at Humboldt University (on leave until 2011).

Professor Röller’s career began at the Department of Economics at University of Pennsylvania, where he held a position at the Institute for Law and Economics. From 1987-1999 he was a professor at INSEAD. In 1995 he was appointed Professor at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin where he holds a Chair in Industrial Economics. From 1994-2007 he was the Director of the institute of “Competitiveness and Industrial Change” at the WZB.  In 2003 Professor Röller was appointed Europe’s first Chief Competition Economist of the European Commission, a position he held until 2006.

Professor Röller has been a Visiting Scholar and Professor at the Autònoma de Barcelona University, New York University and Stanford University. From 1996-2003 he was a Director at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) in London, and from 2005-2007 he was the President of the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics (EARIE).  He is the Chairman of the German Economic Association (Vorsitzender des Vereins für Socialpolitik), a panel member of the European Research Council, Non-Resident Senior Fellow at BRUEGEL (“Brussels European and Global Economic Laboratory”), Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), London Member, and a member of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Scientific Council for Transatlantic Cooperation (TransCoop).  In 2002 he was awarded the Gossen Prize (given by the German Economic Association to honor a German economist whose work has gained international reputation), was appointed Fellow of the European Economic Association in 2004 and was admitted in 2008 into the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Academy of Sciences).Professor Röller is on the editorial board of the several leading international journals and has published extensively in the area of competition, technology and market structure.  He has consulted international companies, governments and international organizations on issues of competition, strategy and regulation. Professor Röller is married and has three children.

Jonathan joined The Economist in 2005 as British Business Correspondent from Bloomberg News, where he reported on UK banks. Before that he covered the South African economy at Bloomberg and was industrial and commodities editor at Business Report in South Africa. In January 2008, he won the 'Feature of the Year' award at the WorkWorld Media Awards, for his piece on Tesco entering the North American market. Jonathan has been interviewed on BBC News 24, Sk and ITV 'Tonight', amongst others. He has been writing about European business and finance since October 2008 and is now based in Berlin.

Dr. Norbert Röttgen was born on July 2, 1965 in Meckenheim, Germany. He is a member of the political party Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and is a lawyer by profession.

Minister Röttgen studied law at the University of Bonn and was awarded his doctorate in law (Dr. iur.), in 2001. He was admitted to practice law in both regional and higher regional courts in Cologne. Minister Röttgen joined the CDU in 1982 and has been a member of the German Bundestag since 1994. From 1992-1996 he was Chair of the CDU youth organization, Junge Union, North Rhine-Westphalia and was Legal Policy Spokesman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group 2002-2005. From 2005-2009 he was Chief Parliamentary Secretary of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag and has been Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety since October 28, 2009.

Minister Röttgen is married and has 3 children.

Mr. Rümmler is Senior Vice President Upstream/Generation at E.ON in Düsseldorf. He holds a degree in Marine-/Shipbuilding Engineering from the Technical University, Hamburg. Prior to his current responsibilities he was Member of the Executive Board in the division Energy Business Optimization at E.ON Energie AG in Munich. His career at E.ON began with PreussenElektra/E.ON Kraftwerke in Hanover, starting as Head of Process Technology, moving on to Power Plant Manager Mittelweser and finally advancing to Managing Director Power Plant Staudinger. He has also held positions at Steag AG in Essen and Shipping Company Bastian in Bremen.

Catherine H. Tinsley is an Associate Professor at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, and is the Executive Director of the Georgetown University Women’s Leadership Initiative.

Professor Tinsley is currently serving on the National Academy of Sciences Committee to Improve Intelligence Analysis for National Security and is a CPMR fellow for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. She is also a Zaeslin fellow at the college of Law and Economics, University of Basel.

She has received several grants from: NASA and the National Science Foundation for her work on decision making and risk and from the Department of Defense and Army Research Office for her work on modeling culture’s influence on negotiation and collaboration. She is a past Board member and past Division Chair of the Conflict Management Division of the Academy of Management and a past Board member and past Program Chair of the International Association of Conflict Management.

She studies how such factors as: culture, gender, reputations, stereotypes, and negotiator mobility influence how people negotiate and how they manage conflict. She also examines decision biases, particularly under conditions of risk and uncertainty. As well, she has examined how and why U.S. based management theories do and do not translate across national cultures.

She is, or has been, on the editorial board of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, the Academy of Management Journal, International Negotiations: A Journal of Theory and Practice, and International Journal of Conflict Management. She has published in Journal of Applied Psychology, Organization Behavior and Human Decision Processes, American Sociological Review, Research in Organizational Behavior, Journal of International Business Studies, Management and Organizational Research, Research on Negotiations in Organizations, Negotiation Journal, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Applied Psychology, International Negotiation: A journal of Theory and Practice, and International Perspectives on Organizational Justice. Her work has been translated for practitioners in the Academy of Management Executive.

Dr. Tinsley has conducted numerous negotiations, conflict resolution, and leadership training seminars for various organizations including: the Staff of the U.S. Senate, Rolls Royce N.A., Gucci, Sprint-Nextel, Nextel, Verizon Avenue, the World Bank, DPT Laboratories, Ferro, Lamson & Sessions, Rhode & Schwarz, the International Securities Management Association, the General Clinical Research Center, and the Korean International Trade Association. She has also run numerous “open enrollment” negotiations trainings for managers of a variety of companies, and within a variety of cultures, including: Germany, Japan, Korea, Slovenia, Hong Kong, India and Mexico.

She has collaborated with the White House and U.S. State Department to execute a woman-to-woman mentorship summit. Moreover, she partnered with the U.S. State Department and the Council of Women World Leaders to convene the first ever world-wide meeting of the Ministers of Women’s Affairs.

Mary Uhl-Bien is the Howard Hawks Chair in Business Ethics and Leadership and Co-Director of the Institute for Innovative Leadership at the University of Nebraska. Dr. Uhl-Bien’s current research and teaching interests are complexity leadership, relational leadership, and followership. Her work has been published in leading journals and books, and she has won best paper awards from The Leadership Quarterly in 2001 for her article on complexity leadership and from the Southern Management Association in 2009 for her work on implicit followership theories. She currently has a major grant from Booz Allen Hamilton studying leadership and adaptability in the healthcare industry, and has conducted research in partnership with organizations including Lockheed Martin, Bank of America, Disney, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Professor Uhl-Bien is senior editor of the Leadership Horizons series for Information Age Publishers and is on the editorial boards of Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, The Leadership Quarterly, Leadership, and International Journal of Complexity in Leadership and Management. She is a founding member of the Network of Leadership Scholars in the Academy of Management and served on the OB Executive Committee. She has been a Visiting Professor at Lund University in Sweden, Catolica/Nova in Lisbon, Portugal, and Pablo de Olavide University in Seville, Spain.

Dr. Uhl-Bien is active in consulting and executive education nationally and internationally, teaching for the Brookings Institute, the Gallup Organization, and universities in both the U.S. and Europe. She served as the executive consultant for State Farm Insurance Co. from 1998-2004. She participated in a Fulbright-Hays grant to Mexico during the summer of 2003, and trained Russian businesspeople for the American Russian Center at the University of Alaska Anchorage from 1993-1996 and worked on a USAID grant at the Magadan Pedagogical Institute in Magadan, Russia from 1995-1996.

Alexander Voigt (CEO, Younicos) co-founded in 1997 SOLON AG (now SOLON SE), one of the leading European producers of solar modules and photovoltaic power plants. Two years later, together with partners, he established Q-Cells AG, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of solar cells. Alexander Voigt was the CEO of SOLON AG from 2001 to 2006. In 2008, he founded Younicos AG in Berlin with his business partner, Clemens Triebel.

Peter is Director for Global Sustainability at P&G. Based in Newcastle, UK.  He chairs P&G’s Sustainability Leadership Council - the global, business-wide group responsible for developing and delivering P&G’s Sustainability Strategy and Goals.

Peter also leads P&G’s Global Sustainability Department.  This corporate group supports the global business units, manages sustainability issues and reports progress against the company sustainability goals.  

Peter is actively involved in the work of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Sustainable Consumption, and has written and spoken widely on sustainability issues.  A biologist by training, Peter has worked for P&G for 19 years in the areas of Environmental Management, Lifecycle Assessment and Integrated Solid Waste Management.

Prior to joining P&G he researched and taught Biological and Environmental Science at the Universities of Oxford, California (Berkeley) and Arizona (Tucson), and also spent three years as a volunteer teacher in Nigeria with the UK development charity VSO.

He is married with 3 children, and loves sailing, cycling and walking.