Having lived and worked internationally, Michelle has worn many hats – from investigative journalist to commodities editor, marketer, business development consultant and entrepreneur. With extensive experience as a luxury marketer, communications and business development consultant, Michelle specializes in creating an environment in which businesses are empowered to connect with new clients and open up new channels of business. Her projects have included work with luxury brands in the travel, lifestyle and fashion industries including LVMH, Wedgwood, Rolls-Royce HR Owen, Iconic Luxury Hotels, Explora, Last Word, The Telegraph, White Desert, Extraordinary Adventure Club and Mantis Collection (acquired by Accor). Michelle also has a particular interest in women and their power as consumers and ambassadors. In 2014 she founded The Women’s Chapter, an invitation-only, networking group and event platform for high impact women with more than 5,500 founders and senior professionals in the community.
Dr. Stefan Gruber is an economist, professor, and coach. He has been teaching for over 20 years at the Universities of Innsbruck and Bozen, the University of Applied Sciences Kufstein, Umit Tirol, and the Landeshotelfachschule Kaiserhof. He is also a Research Fellow at the Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis, an expert at the ifo Institute in Munich as part of the Economic Expert Survey, as well as a coach and juror in the startup field. The University of Applied Sciences Kufstein has honored him with the title of Guest Professor. Stefan Gruber has extensive experience in both academic and applied research in the areas of Economic Geography, Regional Economics, and Health Economics, and is well acquainted with South Tyrol through his work. He holds a doctoral degree and a master’s degree in Economics from the University of Innsbruck.
Peter Werth has been a seasoned leader, serving as a General Manager in various countries. He has worked as a Managing Director of businesses with up to 600 employees from 50 different nations. In total, he has 20 years of international experience in over 130 countries across all 7 continents. Currently, Peter Werth works as a consultant and trainer, both domestically and abroad, and is also a lecturer at various universities, colleges, and educational institutions. He is also a published author on the subject of Leadership and Personnel Management, and is a certified psychological consultant and a Neuromental Trainer.
Dr. rer. nat. Karola Obojes-Wahler is currently Biosafety Officer of the company Roche Diagnostics GmbH in Mannheim, Germany. Karola has extensive experience in customer service and application support of pharma companies. In her career, she got the MBA scholarship at MCI the Entrepreneurial School together with Südstern. Additionally, she obtained the postdoctoral fellowships Armand Frappier and Louis Pasteur for working in Laval, Canada. Karola holds a PhD degree in Virology from the University of Würzburg and Diploma degrees in Genetics and Microbiology of the Universities of Salzburg and Innsbruck.
Andrea worked for 5 years for SAP, Europe’s biggest and the world’s third-largest software company. As a Business Transformation Consultant, she supported organizations (internal and external) in their digitalization processes. She develops creative concepts and experiences following design practices to support internal and external stakeholders in driving change.
The award-winning luxury brand and management consultant founded a luxury brand consultancy based in London-UK and Innsbruck-Austria in 2013. With 25 years of international experience in the strategic and operational development and sales of luxury brands, she was an early adopter of the changing face of luxury. Since 2017, she has specialized in empowering leaders to develop unique, sustainable brands and implement them successfully and authentically with employees. Her core competencies include: Holistic success support from brand strategy to implementation, brand positioning and growth support; Covering customer needs (emotional, social, functional); Emotionalized, authentic customer communication; Coaching and potential development of executives & teams; Building unique gatekeeper networks.
Daniel Tocca is a sustainable fashion entrepreneur and cofounder of the sustainable fashion brand Re-Bello, the Kauri Store concept and the consultancy Kauri Distribution. Daniel grew up in Bolzano, Italy, where he lives with his wife, Sara, and their two daughters, Sophie and Joy. Daniel is fluent in Italian, German, English and Spanish and is a passionate entrepreneur and advocate in the sustainable fashion industry. With over 10 years of experience as co-founder and CEO, Daniel has established various businesses and has led dynamic teams toward success. Daniel has proven expertise in the development of new sustainable products and materials, go-to-market strategies, and adapting to digital and international marketplaces.
Paolo Coletti started his research activity with a PhD in computational fluid dynamics at the University of Trento, specifically on partial differential equations of turbulence models in hydraulics, moving to computational linguistics working on language models for automatic speech recognition and on natural language understanding. He has been teaching computer science and data analysis since 2005, carrying on research on computational finance, focusing in particular on data collection and network representations of Italian public companies. He is also involved in projects related to mass customization and cryptocurrency technology.
Johannes Bittel (M.Sc.) has been working in the areas of corporate innovation and startup entrepreneurship for 10 years. In the digital division of Deutsche Bahn, he is a Senior Innovation Manager. Previously, he was a Startup Innovation Manager, where he specialized in particular on managing early-stage innovation projects (ideation, acceleration, proof of concept), as well as collaborating with startups and innovation consulting. He is the founder of the digital conference platform WikiStage.org with more than 150 conferences in over 10 countries. Johannes is an ambassador of the French Tech Ticket program for entrepreneurship in France. He studied International Business Administration with Master degrees in London, Madrid and Paris and speaks 5 languages.