MEET OUR SPEAKERS

Kornelia Papp is an artificial intelligence lead in the financial sector (Zurich Insurance Group). She is the founder of the NLP Zurich meetup group, an AI-driven, technology focused knowledge sharing series (https://www.meetup.com/NLP-Zurich/).

She developed AI applications in the area of speech technology, machine translation, fraud detection, natural language generation, language learning, and financial analytics. She currently leads the AI and automation activities at Zurich Insurance Group.

Rutger de Ruiter is the Head of Product Engage at CM.com, a global leader in conversational commerce solutions. With a strong background in product management and innovation, Rutger is passionate about creating seamless customer engagement experiences through cutting-edge technology. At CM.com, he leads the development of the Engage platform, empowering businesses to connect with their customers via personalized and scalable communication channels. Rutger is dedicated to driving growth and delivering value by bridging the gap between technology and customer needs.

Sofia is acting as Head of Customer and Employee journey at AXA Partners. She is responsible for designing and leading an innovative global transformation roadmap to accelerate digitalization and new emerging technologies across the 20 countries where AXA Partners CLP markets its products.
In addition to her corporate career, she is enthusiastic entrepreneur who among other things co-founded Sweden's biggest female insurance industry network. Sofia holds an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, with a major in Business Development from the Royal Institute of Technology.

Michael is an experienced executive with a strong background in financial services, consulting, SaaS, CRM, digital experience delivery, and digital transformation. He has a proven track record of developing successful strategies for leading banks, insurance companies, retailers, and media organizations across the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region, creating clarity, motivating high-performing teams, and delivering sustainable business value.

His expertise spans agile international project delivery, including nearshore, offshore, and quality delivery models, as well as digital marketing, brand building, customer experience, and CRM. Recognized as a thought leader in Austria and the CEE region, Michael is passionate about helping organizations achieve sustainable growth through AI and digital transformation, customer-centric innovation, data-driven strategy, and technological excellence.

Outside of work, Michael is a proud father to his seven-year-old daughter. He enjoys spending time in the mountains and is an avid tennis player with an ITN rating of 4.5.

Moran is a Senior Machine Learning Manager at booking.com, researching and developing GenAI, NLP and CV models for the tourism domain.

Moran is a Ph.D candidate in information systems engineering at Ben Gurion University, researching NLP aspects in temporal graphs.

Previously worked as a Data Science Team Leader at Diagnostic Robotics, building ML solutions for the medical domain and NLP algorithms to extract clinical entities from medical visit summaries.

Martin Woodward is Director Global Legal and Global Responsible AI Officer at Randstad, where he leads the design and implementation of the company’s Responsible AI program while overseeing global tech, procurement, and IT contracting. A seasoned in-house attorney and AI law leader, Martin works at the intersection of law, technology, and digital innovation, advising on large-scale IT projects, data protection, and AI governance. He is admitted to the Dutch Bar, chairs the NGB digitisation working group, and is an active contributor to leading AI and IT law associations.

Björn van Dijkman is an AI Engineer at Adyen, specializing in transforming promising LLM prototypes into reliable production systems. He develops AI applications for payment investigations, customer-facing content generation, and internal commercial support. His work spans retrieval, orchestration, evaluation, and workflow integration, with a strong focus on combining deterministic software engineering with AI to build robust, high-quality systems through rapid feedback loops. Before moving into AI engineering, Björn worked as a Data Engineer in Adyen’s in-person payments team and previously built data platforms and delivered data-driven solutions across multiple industries. He is also an active contributor to the AI community, regularly speaking at developer events and organizing hackathons to share practical lessons from building and operating LLM systems.

Yasmin Levens is an AI Engineer at Adyen, where she builds and deploys LLM-powered applications for production use. Her work focuses on designing reliable AI systems that create measurable business value, with experience spanning retrieval, orchestration, evaluation, and real-world deployment. Before transitioning into AI engineering, Yasmin worked as a Data Engineer at Adyen's In-Person Payments team, building scalable data solutions. She previously collaborated with the Data Science team at Albert Heijn on AI-driven recommendation systems, contributing to research published on the company's technology blog. Passionate about practical AI engineering, Yasmin enjoys sharing lessons learned from building production-grade LLM applications and helping teams bridge the gap between prototypes and enterprise-ready AI systems.

Leander leads Go-to-Market for ElevenLabs in EMEA, focusing on scaling ElevenLabs Agents. He works closely with leading enterprises to deploy AI voice agents across products and operations, helping them unlock scalable applications and measurable ROI. Based in Amsterdam, Leander combines a consultative approach with a proven track record in business development, building trust and long-term partnerships that drive transformative customer experiences.

Pragati Shaw is an AI Product Owner at the Würth Group specializing in AI and data-driven innovation, bridging technical development and business strategy to deliver high-impact AI products. She drives and scales AI solutions including product recommendations that personalize customer experiences, shop assortment recommendations that optimize inventory for local markets, and customized storage systems recommendations for customers with intelligent stock tracking and automated replenishment.

She previously led a cross-functional team at Digital Product School by UnternehmerTUM to develop an AI product for Würth, bringing an entrepreneurial, hands-on approach to enterprise-scale challenges.

Dorit Posdorf is a senior commercial leader with over 15 years of experience driving D2C, e-commerce, and digital transformation at scale. She combines a strong strategic foundation with hands-on commercial execution, having started her career in strategy consulting at Roland Berger before taking on senior leadership roles at DocMorris, flaconi, C&A, and Outfittery. As an Operating Partner, she also managed and scaled digital portfolio companies within ProSiebenSat.1.

Across her roles, Dorit has led P&L-responsible growth with a strong focus on branding, creation, CRM, retention, and full-funnel optimization. She is known for building differentiated brands while translating strategy into measurable commercial impact. Today, her work increasingly centers on applied AI and data-driven execution, with a particular emphasis on enabling effective human–machine collaboration and delivering sustainable, profitable growth rather than isolated digital initiatives.

Stefanie Söhnchen is Vice President Strategy / Lead Digital at PIABO Communications, the leading communications agency for the world’s most innovative companies. She has been a recognized expert in digital communication strategies for over a decade. Whether it's corporate ambassador programs, social media, newsletters, app and website concepts, content development, SEO, or storytelling – when it comes to strategic (digital) communications at PIABO, all roads lead to her.
With a background in multimedia journalism, Stefanie combines editorial expertise with a strong strategic mindset. Throughout her career, she has successfully supported companies across a wide range of industries – including insurance, energy, automotive, tech, beauty, and healthcare – in strengthening their digital brand presence. Her broad perspective on what drives success in both German and international markets makes her a sought-after strategic partner.
Outside the world of digital strategy, Stefanie is a passionate foodsaver and advocates for sustainability, equality, and diversity – in both her professional and personal life.

Alexander Schmitt has over 15 years of experience in Voice Assistants, Voice AI research, and product development. He began his career at the University of Ulm, joining Germany’s first spoken dialog system research lab in 2007, where he pursued a PhD on AI-driven Speech Dialog Systems in collaboration with New York-based SpeechCycle Inc.

In 2012, Alex joined Mercedes-Benz, contributing to research, advanced engineering, and product development for next-generation in-car voice assistants and emotion AI. A prolific author, Alex has published over 60 international papers in voice assistant-related fields. He currently leads the development of the next-gen #HeyMercedes Voice Assistant, working with a talented team of software developers, data scientists, and product owners to push the boundaries of conversational AI.

Ivana is a long-term Board Member, Executive Director in IT industry, currently CGO - Business Development at Atos Group, Forbes Councils Executive Member and thought leader, with over 18 years of experience leading global strategic and growth initiatives. She has been awarded 40Under40 Top Business Leader in Europe, 2025 Tech Leader of the Year, and Global Leader of the New Era. Today, she’s President of STEM Women in the Netherlands and G:100 Country Chair Netherlands for IT Services and Innovations.
As a vocal advocate for women in technology and AI, Ivana serves as a Global Ambassador and Mentor for Women in Tech and Women in AI Benelux, on a mission to empower the next generation of leaders while driving change in industries powered by AI, automation and digital transformation.
Ivana's strategic acumen and dynamic leadership style have solidified her reputation as a trailblazer in global business development while growing strong C-level relationships and sharing knowledge and expertise on digital transformation with a mission to drive innovation in the ever-evolving landscape of technology.

Chris is a visionary in conversational AI, believing technology should adapt to us, not vice-versa. He champions chatbots and voicebots as tools to create a seamless, human-like interaction with technology.

As Solution Architect for Conversational A.I. at Rabobank, he leads all customer-facing Generative AI agents, demonstrating his practical approach to integrating AI into everyday life. His work, showcased with Microsoft and Genesys, exemplifies his success in building empathetic conversational solutions.

Chris's background includes leadership roles at Sogeti Global, involvement with DDMA Conversational A.I., and co-founding DCUG. With a strong technical foundation, he excels at bridging the gap between cutting-edge AI and business needs, making technology work for people.

Lotte Koblens is an IT Engineer at ABN AMRO, working on products that help customers access support and resolve issues more effectively. She began her career as a Frontend Developer trainee, building a strong technical foundation that has shaped her growth as a software engineer.

Over the past two years, Lotte has expanded her expertise across the software stack, evolving into a full-stack developer with a broad understanding of modern product development. Today, her primary focus is on AI agents and conversational AI, where she combines software engineering best practices with the latest advancements in artificial intelligence.

Lotte is particularly interested in how AI-powered systems can enhance customer experiences by helping users solve problems, access information, and receive support more efficiently.

Sam Ferwerda is a System Architect and Full-Stack Developer at ABN AMRO, where he works on designing and building scalable digital solutions that enhance customer experiences. With a background in Mathematics and Computational Science from the University of Amsterdam, Sam combines strong analytical thinking with hands-on software engineering expertise. His interests span artificial intelligence, AI agents, evolutionary algorithms, and high-performance computing, with a particular focus on applying advanced technologies to solve real-world problems. Passionate about the intersection of mathematics, programming, and AI, Sam is actively involved in shaping the next generation of intelligent systems within the banking sector.

Alex is the co-founder and CEO at Giskard, a startup dedicated to secure AI agents through exhaustive testing. Previous experience includes big data & analytics consulting at Capgemini, and lead data scientist at Dataiku where he worked the development of the NLP and time-series stack.

At Giskard, he's leading a team developing an AI testing platform that advances Responsible AI, enhancing business performance while respecting the rights of citizens.

Nour Eid is an AI Product Analyst specializing in Generative AI and agentic systems, with a focus on evaluation, reliability, and scalable deployment. Her experience is rooted in the automotive sector, where she has contributed to one of the largest AI initiatives at Toyota Motor Europe.

Nour's work centers on testing and validating agentic systems in highly variable, non-deterministic environments, where each use case introduces unique behaviors and challenges traditional evaluation approaches. To address these challenges, she developed a comprehensive evaluation framework that has been adopted across multiple teams, enabling the delivery of more robust and production-ready AI systems.

She also designs AI maturity assessments and contributes to AI strategy initiatives, helping organizations define and measure AI value, identify high-impact use cases, and scale solutions that deliver measurable business outcomes.

Stefan Rusu is an AI practitioner working at the intersection of agentic AI andcentral banking. He holds a PhD in Finance and AI (Summa Cum Laude), withresearch focused on machine learning models for stock market decision-making, and designs and deploys agentic AI workflows and LLM-poweredchatbots used by the European Central Bank and central banks across the EU.Stefan has been involved in several of the ECB's AI projects, spanning legaland central banking applications, and launched the ECB's trainings on PromptEngineering and AI-Assisted Coding, reaching 400+ participants.He is passionate about implementing AI where it adds real business value, andabout helping others use AI efficiently and responsibly at work, with a clearunderstanding of both its advantages and its risks.

At Agentiq World, Stefan brings hands-on experience building AI solutions and driving their adoption in one of Europe's most demanding regulatory environments.

Shahar Erez is a visionary leader with 25 years of experience in enterprise B2B, transitioning from software engineering to leading product, go-to-market, and strategy initiatives. He played key roles in developing Mercury Interactive’s APM platform (acquired by HP) and VMware’s Cloud Application product suite, while also leading investments in DevOps companies like Puppet Labs and JFrog. Shahar co-founded TheOrg and Stoke (acquired by Fiverr) before founding Arato, where he continues to innovate in AI and technology.

Thomas Neumann is a visionary leader in leveraging new technologies to transform customer experiences, with a focus on digital channels that create the "wow" effect. As a driving force behind global chatbot and voice assistant solutions, he is passionate about innovations that enhance customer satisfaction and boost Net Promoter Scores (NPS).

With over 15 years of experience in the mobile industry, Thomas brings a unique blend of international expertise, diverse roles, and exceptional interpersonal skills to the table. His work bridges the transition from traditional app-based solutions to cutting-edge conversational interfaces, enabling businesses to navigate the evolving digital landscape and deliver impactful, customer-focused results.

Saskia is one of the driving forces behind our AI innovations as Lead AI Specialist at CM.com. With extensive experience in AI and personalization, she helps retail and e-commerce businesses transform their customer interactions. Imagine being able to scale your processes intelligently while maintaining a personal touch - that’s exactly what Saskia makes possible with the latest Agentic AI solution, HALO. Known for her passion and expertise, Saskia shares how AI Agents can boost (E)-commerce.

Norman Nielsen is VP Organic Growth at idealo, where he leads the company’s organic growth strategy across international markets. Previously, he spent nearly seven years at Omio, most recently as VP Growth, building and scaling a global team of 20 marketing and tech experts. With two decades of experience, he is a recognized expert in organic growth, AI-driven automation, and international expansion.

"Denis Turkov is a technology advisor and ex-Spryker Chief Architect with 15+ years in e-commerce and 9 years leading platform architecture.

He has helped 30+ commerce teams, including ALDI, Siemens Healthineers, Hornbach, and Pistor, launching across 16 countries and scale systems to 300M–3B EUR GMV, with peak throughput reaching 50,000 orders per minute.

Denis specializes in building AI-ready commerce foundations by combining product and data architecture, agentic selling UX, and support automation, helping D2C manufacturing and retail brands improve conversion on complex products, increase AOV, and reduce support load. "

Jan Zubíček serves as AI Product Manager at ČSOB, Czech Republic's leading bankinsurance group and part of KBC Group, where he bridges technical capabilities with business objectives to shape and execute strategic AI initiatives. With over 20 years of experience spanning IT, data, and AI domains, he played a key role in bringing Kate to life - ČSOB's groundbreaking conversational AI assistant that has handled over 10 million customer interactions and set new industry standards for personalized banking services. His current focus is on leading the convergence of business, AI, and IT to bring the next generation of intelligent automation to banking - moving beyond conversational interfaces toward AI that acts on behalf of customers and employees across complex workflows. His expertise combines deep technical knowledge with strategic business insight, gained from working with both startups and enterprise organizations throughout his career.

Gönül Aycı, PhD, is an AI Engineer at ABN AMRO, where she develops conversational AI and voice bot solutions that help customers through intelligent, user-centric experiences. She holds a PhD in Computer Engineering with a specialization in Trustworthy AI, focusing on building intelligent systems that are transparent, reliable, and capable of acting responsibly on behalf of users. Before joining the Conversational AI team, Gönül worked as a Data Scientist, designing and deploying machine learning solutions for business-critical applications. She is also an active advocate for AI education and women in technology, regularly sharing practical insights on machine learning and generative AI through her writing, speaking, and community involvement.

Michael is a System Architect and AI Engineer at ABN AMRO, where he works on designing and developing solutions for conversational AI applications. With his academic background in Artificial Intelligence, Mathematics and Computer Science, Michael applies his expertise to develop innovative yet robust systems and tooling that support customer digital experiences in the banking sector. He is particularly passionate about building user-friendly solutions that provide value to both customers and employees, ensuring that technology bridges the gap between functionality and ease of use.

Mike Korba - Co-founder at Positive User, Global Industry Thought Leadership at Positive, is an expert in marketing automation, an enthusiast and theorist of the Internet, and a practitioner of e-marketing. He is familiar with perspectives from working in an advertising agency, as a tool provider, and the specifics of working in a marketing department. As CMO, he advises strategic clients of User and works with the biggest brands in the market on implementing data-driven marketing and hyper-personalized automated communication.

Peter M. Buch is the founder of Findable, an AI-SEO platform making brands discoverable in ChatGPT and other AI search engines. A serial entrepreneur and Forbes 30 Under 30 alum, he explores how agentic AI is reshaping marketing and customer growth.

Yoav Barel is an Israeli-American technology entrepreneur, Founder and CEO of Chatbot Summit, and a Partner at Sunrize Research, with over 15 years of experience in Conversational AI and customer experience innovation. He began his career at Sun Microsystems, Oracle, and later LivePerson, where he led AI-driven customer engagement solutions.

As the driving force behind Chatbot Summit, Yoav delivers the event’s flagship State of the Bots keynote and curates its agenda, making it the leading global platform for AI innovation. A passionate advocate for Conversational and Agentic AI, as well as a quantum enthusiast, Yoav advises startups and corporations, helping them leverage AI to foster innovation and create lasting impact.
As the driving force behind Chatbot Summit, Yoav delivers the event’s flagship State of the Bots keynote and meticulously curates its agenda, establishing it as the premier global platform for AI innovation. In addition to his leadership roles, Yoav advises startups and provides strategic research services to corporations and investors, helping them harness AI to drive meaningful innovation and create lasting impact.