Past Speakers

Past visiting dignitaries and executives include Prime Minister of Lithuania - Andrius Kubilius, Prime Minister of Latvia  Valdis Dombrovskis, HE Mr Simon Butt - Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Lithuania, H.E. Jan Palmstierna, - Swedish Ambassador to Estonia,  H.E. Anne E. Derse - U.S. Ambassador to Lithuania,  Raoul Hasselgren, Flemming Lindeløv, Jens Spendrup and many more.

Daniela Weber-Rey

Daniela Weber-Rey is a Partner in the Law firm Clifford Chance and advises mainly German and international clients. She is a member of the Conseil d'Administration at BNP Paribas, Paris, since May 2008. Member of the German Corporate Governance Commission since July 2008 and a member of the management board of the German Private Equity and Venture Capital Association 2001 – 2005. Member of the Advisory Group on "Company Law and Corporate Governance" at the EU Commission since 2005. Member of the Expert Group "Removing obstacles to cross-border investments" at the EU Commission since 2006

Henning Dyremose

Henning Dyremose has broad national and international management experience as the former CEO of TDC A/S and from other management post before that at Novo and DLH. He also has extensive experience of trade policy and economic affairs from having been a member of the Danish Parliament and served as both Labour Minister (1986-89) and Finance Minister (1989 -93). Mr Dyremose is or has been a Supervisory Board member or Chairman of many of the biggest Danish companies like TDC, Carlsberg, _e Confederation of Danish Industry, Gavdi, Danish Trade Council, Brdr. A & O Johansen A/S, KOFF A/S and Rosendahls Bogtrykkeri A/S

Aivaras Abromavicius

Aivaras, a Lithuanian national, joined East Capital in 2002 and is today a Partner of East Capital, working within the Portfolio management team. He is based in Kyiv.Aivaras started his career with Hansabank, the largest Baltic Bank, where he soon was appointed Head of Equities. He also worked three years as Head of Trading at Brunswick Emerging Markets. Aivaras has a BA in International Business from Concordia International University, Estonia and Concordia University, Wisconsin, USA. He speaks Russian, Lithuanian and English fluently and communicates well in Estonian.

Lars Johan Cederlund

Lars Johan Cederlund is Senior Advisor at KreabGavinAnderson since 2008. Former Senior adviser at the Ministry of Enterprise in Sweden, the Division for State-Owned Enterprises. Lars Johan Cederlund has a long standing experience in handling state owned enterprises and has experience as board member in a large number of companies. Examples are Swedish Export Credit Corporation, Telia AB, Vasakronan AB, Sveaskog AB and Svensk Bilprovning AB. Between 2004 – 2008 chairman of the OECD Working Group on Privatisation and Corporate Governance of State Owned Enterprises.

Sarah Blomfield

Sarah is a graduate of Cambridge University in the UK and qualified as a solicitor with Slaughter and May in London in 1998. Sarah joined Rothschild in 2001 and is a Director in the Investment Banking Division, Head of the Technical Team and a member of the Risk Committee. Sarah’s team advises on a range of transactions from pitch to execution, specialising in on-market M&A including UK Takeover Code, Listing and Disclosure Rules and financial regulation. Sarah is also responsible for global best practice at Rothschild.

Dr. Elisabeth Wagner

Dr. WAGNER from the Law firm of Clifford Chance in Germany advises mostly investment banks and financial investors in the areas of corporate finance and corporate structures. She specialises in takeovers, mergers and acquisitions and public transactions.

Richard Frederick

Richard Frederick advises on issues of corporate governance and transparency mainly for the World Bank, the IFC, UNCTAD and the OECD. He was one of the principal authors of the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance, and a contributor to the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the UN Guidance on Good Practices for Corporate Governance Disclosure, and other national and international codes of governance. Recently he has analyzed state-owned enterprise governance and worked on corporate governance codes in developing and emerging market economies.Mr. Frederick was involved in the privatization of state-owned enterprises for the Treuhandanstalt in the former East Germany and, while at KPMG, advised boards on executive remuneration schemes. Formerly a Principal Administrator at the OECD and the Director of Operations of the International Federation of Accountants, Mr. Frederick holds an undergraduate degree from Yale University and an MBA from INSEAD.

Pekka Timonen

Pekka Timonen was a researcher and scholar in the University of Helsinki 1984 - 2001, Doctor of Laws 1997, Docent of Commercial Law in the University of Helsinki and Docent of Economics of Law in the University of Tampere. He has numerous publications in the field of Company Law, Corporate Governance and Legal Theory and several board memberships in both listed and non-listed Finnish companies.

He is currently working in the in Prime Minister´s Office, Ownership Steering Department. He formerly worked for the Ministry of Trade and Industry /State Shareholdings Unit with responsibility for the corporate governance of state-owned companies in Finland. He is Finnish delegate in OECD Steering Group of Corporate Governance and OECD Working Group of Privatisation and Corporate Governance of State-owned ssets.

Chris Hodge

Chris Hodge is Head of the Corporate Governance Unit at the UK Financial Reporting Council, the independent regulator responsible for corporate reporting and governance. He is responsible for updating and monitoring the effectiveness of the Combined Code on Corporate Governance and related guidance on issues such as internal control and audit committees. Prior to joining the FRC in 2004 Chris held various positions in different Government Ministries

Dag Detter

Dag Detter is working with governments and government ownership functions developing state-owned commercial assets in a wide range of sectors. Dag was previously the President of Stattum, the Swedish state-owned enterprises holding company, and a Director at the Swedish Ministry of Industry where he led the deep-rooted transformation of the Swedish government’s €60bn corporate portfolio.

A former banker in China and Europe working with both M&A and project finance, Dag also has industrial experience of serving on a number of boards of both public and unlisted companies in various sectors including telecommunications, defence, real estate and transportation.

Dag has been an adviser to the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and a number of governments in Europe, Asia and the MENA-region, on the management of SOEs. A recognised authority in the field, he was one of the key initiators of the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of SOEs.

Dag was born in Sweden, holds a degree in Business and Sinology from Sweden and has studied classical Chinese history In China.

Mr. Raoul Hasselgren

Raoul Hasselgren is a very experienced Senior Executive, he has been a professional board member in 70 national and international companies, both private and public.
During his extensive management career he has worked as a CEO for companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Unilever and Nordiska kompaniet NK.
Mr. Hasselgren is the main lecturer for the Stockholm Chambers of Commerce Board Member Education, and has educated more than 200 people as board members.
Mr. Hasselgren has an MBA as well as a PhD. 

Mr. Flemming Lindeløv

Flemming Lindeløv (PhD) holds an MSc in engineering from the Technical University of Denmark. He has been the senior executive of a number of Denmark’s largest companies, including FDB, Tulip Meatpackers, Carlsberg and Royal Scandinavia. He gained substantial management experience over a period of 30 years from these positions and has been in charge of a number of successful acquisitions, mergers and rationalisation measures. Mr. Lindeløv is 60 years old.
Mr. Lindeløv is a very experienced board member of large companies, he was for more than 10 years the Chairman of the Board of the global Pharmaceutical company Lundbeck.
He is currently a very active board member of key Danish and international companies, among these he is the Chairman of the Board of Deltaq, a private equity fund. Mr. Lindeløv is currently member of the board of PARKEN Sport og Entertainment, Illums Bolighus and WEEE-System.

Mr. Olli V. Virtanen

Olli V. Virtanen, 55, is Secretary General of the Finnish Association of Professional Board Members (Hallitusammattilaiset ry), and Editor-in-Chief of the Board News magazine. He is also Board Member of the European Confederation of Directors’ Associations (ecoDa) and Member of the Private Sector Advisory Group of the Global Corporate Governance Forum, part of the IFC in Washington DC.
As management consultant Mr Virtanen has advised Finnish and international companies on investor relations and corporate governance issues for 20 years. He has co-written four books on these subjects, and lectures extensively in Finland, Europe and beyond. He is currently board member of two Finnish companies.
Prior to his career in corporate governance Mr Virtanen was a business journalist working for Kauppalehti (Finland’s leading business publication), for the Financial Times as Helsinki correspondent, and for the BBC in London.

Mr. Monty Åkesson

Monty Åkesson is a Swedish national with strong Baltic connections. Mr. Åkesson was for many years an Ernst & Young Partner in Sweden, Latvia and Lithuania. He is a member of the association of the Swedish Board of Directors. In addition to this he was the Founder, Chairman & board member of the Foreign Investors Council in Latvia, FICIL, 1999-2004. Since 2005 he has been non executive director of private companies in construction, real estate, and finance, marketing and shipping industries.

Mr. Sven Unger

Sven Unger is a partner of the Swedish law firm Mannheimer Swartling. He has practised business law as a member of the Swedish Bar Association since 1978. During 1992-1996 he was president of the Swedish Bar Association. He has written articles in various legal areas, for example “Special features of Swedish Corporate Governance”. Mannheimer Swartling is the leading Nordic law firm, with presently 420 lawyers.