SPEAKERS 2022

Dr Dariusz Adamczewski works as a Director of Government Affairs and Policy at Johnson&Johnson Europe.

Mr Eleanor Brooks is a lecturer in health policy at the Global Health Policy Unit (GHPU), School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. She holds a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship for the period 2020-2024, supporting the Better Regulation for Better Health project. Eleanor is a Scientific Advisor to the European Public Health Alliance, coordinator of UACES Research Network on EU Health Governance and member of the Young Gastein Forum.

Prof Sandra C. Buttigieg is a Professor and Head of the Department of Health Services Management (HSM), Faculty of Health Sciences, UOM. She is a Consultant in Public Health Medicine, Head-Clinical Performance Unit, and Chair-Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Team, at Mater Dei Hospital. She is the outgoing Global-Representative-at-large of the American Academy of Management-HCM Division. She is a Board Member-at-large and a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the European Health Management Association. She lectures in HSM, Public Health, Family Medicine, Research Methodology and Evidence-based Health Research (EVBRES).

She authored/co-authored several articles in peer-reviewed international journals, and widely participated in international conferences, and congresses. She is on the Editorial Boards of PloS One, Health Services Management Research, International Journal of Human Resources Management, Journal of Health Organization and Management, and Frontiers Public Health. She is Frontiers Topic Editor: “Network for Evaluation of One Health (NEOH) Case Studies”; “Patient Safety: Delivering Cost-Contained, High Quality, Person-Centered, and Safe Healthcare” and “Health Service Management and Leadership: COVID-Style”.

She is a Fellow of two programmes of the Salzburg Global Seminar, related to health care, which were led by amongst others, past presidents of the Institute of Medicine, namely, Donald Berwick and Harvey Fineberg.

Professor Buttigieg has been visiting scholar in the US (JMU -Harrisonburg, VA), UK -University of Birmingham and Aston University, Birmingham, and Kuwait (Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Kuwait University).

Prof Americo Cicchetti has served as a Professor of Management at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Faculty of Economics, Rome since 2006. He is also currently the Director of the Graduate School of Health Economics and Management at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. In addition to his academic experience, Dr Cicchetti was a member of the Price and Reimbursement Committee of the Italian National Drug Agency from 2009 to 2015. He is a member of the European Network of Health Technology Assessment; Member of the Innovation Steering Group of the National HTA Program for Medical Devices (Ministry of Health, Italy); Member of the National Immunisation Technical Advisory Group at the Ministry of Health, Italy since 2019; Member of the Health and Research Commission of the Rome Foundation since 2007; and a Member of the Board of Directors of the Health and Research Foundation since 2017.

Furthermore, Prof Cicchetti is the Chief Executive Officer and Director for Molipharma, whose core business is the research and development of new drugs and diagnostics aimed at predicting, detecting and treating female oncological diseases. He also serves as an independent board member for Foundation Health and Research, and Leonida SICAF, a fixed capital investment company. He obtained his PhD in Management from the University of Bologna, and his B.A. from the University of Rome.

Ms Emma Cracknell leads FleishmanHillard’s Brussels healthcare team, specifically focusing on strategically advising clients on the development and execution of EU Public Affairs strategies, and European market level public affairs plans for pharmaceutical companies ahead of product launch. Prior to joining FleishmanHillard in 2015, Emma completed GSK’s Communications and Government Relations Future Leader’s Programme, with placements in the Pharmaceutical and Consumer Health businesses in London, UK and Vaccines in Wavre, Belgium.

Ms Isabel de la Mata is the Principal Adviser for Health and Crisis management in the European Commission. Previously, she worked as Counsellor for Health and Consumers at the Permanent Representation of Spain to the EU, as Deputy Director General for Health Planning at the Spanish Ministry of Health, as Adviser to the Vice-minister of Health and several other posts at the Ministry of Health of Spain and the Regional Departments in the Basque Country and in Madrid. She has been a member of the EURO-WHO Standing Committee of the Regional Committee, and has worked with the Pan American Health Organisation, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation. Isabel de la Mata graduated in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Basque Country in 1983 and holds post-graduate degrees from the University of Leuven and Paris VI in Public Health, Hospital Administration and Statistics. She is a specialist in Preventive Medicine and Public Health.

Dr Patrick D`Haese is a senior executive in the healthcare industry with extensive experience in P&L, general management, sales, marketing, public/governmental affairs, PR, corporate communications, and clinical research. He has more than 28 years of international experience in leading pan-European and global teams. His versatile background allows for easy crossing of industry barriers as evidenced by diverse industry, clinical and functional experience.

Through dedicated and personal leadership, he strives to create highly effective, passionate and successful teams enabling companies to realise their full potential. He currently works as a Corporate Director of Awareness and Public Affairs at MED-EL Medical Electronics.

Dr Yvan Devaux is Head of the Cardiovascular Research Unit at the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH).

Using a thoroughly validated experimental pipeline including both discovery and validation phases, Yvan and his group aim to identify novel biomarkers of acute cardiac conditions such as acute myocardial infarction, cardiac arrest, heart failure, aortic stenosis and stroke. His research group focuses on RNAs and particularly non-coding RNAs such as microRNAs and long non-coding RNAs.

He founded and coordinates the Cardiolinc network, a consortium of 7 private partners and more than 49 research groups worldwide investigating the role of long non-coding RNAs in cardiac disease.

Ms Sara Doguelli is based in Brussels and works at the European Health Management Association since April 2022. She was born in Istanbul, Turkey where she completed her early education and later moved to the Netherlands, finishing a BSc in International Communication and Media with honours at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her academic career has been further developed with a Master of Arts in Business in International Health and Social Management, from the Management Centre Innsbruck in Austria. She has been combining academic work with health management positions since 2020.

Mr Joaquim Duarte is the Senior Sustainable Waste Manager at The University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust. The Trust is one of the largest NHS Trusts in the South West of England. Bringing together a combined workforce of over 13,000 staff, the Trust delivers over 100 different clinical services across 10 different sites serving a core population of more than 500,000 people.

Joaquim worked within the Trust for over 16 years, and through his professional progression with the Trust, he has worked in various roles. Working within the Trust Sustainability Team, Joaquim oversees the Sustainable Waste Management strategy and policy within the organisation.

Originally from Milan, Prof Susanna Esposito is a Full Professor of Paediatrics at the Department of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Parma, in addition to holding the role of Director of the Paediatric Clinic of the Pietro Barilla Children’s Hospital. She is President of the World Association for Infectious Diseases and Immunological Disorders (WAidid) and has taught in prestigious national and international universities.

After graduating with honours in Medicine and Surgery, she continues her studies with specialisations in Paediatrics (1999) and Infectious Diseases (2006). She is the Director of the Simple Operating Unit of Paediatric Infectious Disease first, then Director of the Paediatric Clinic I from 2010 to 2013. From 2013 to 2016 she is at the helm of the High-Intensity Paediatric Unit at the IRCCS Ca ‘Granda Foundation Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico dell’ University of Milan. From 2017 to 2019 she heads the S.C. Paediatric Clinic of the Santa Maria Della Misericordia Hospital of Perugia.

Prof Esposito has been writing scientific texts starting from her university years, dealing with paediatric infectious pathology, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of various paediatric diseases in the fields of infectious disease, pulmonology, allergology, immunology, endocrinology, nutrition, rare diseases, and ENT. Her research has resulted in 710 publications in international journals and various articles in national newspapers. In 2012 you identified two new Enteroviruses, C-117 and C-118. To continue her research, she went abroad to important centres such as St George’s Medical Center (London, UK) and Kiremba Hospital (Burundi).

From 2012 to 2015 she was President of the World Health Organization Commission for the eradication of measles and congenital rubella. Since 2013, she has also been the coordinator of the vaccine study group (EVASG) of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. She was president of the Italian Society of Paediatric Infectious Disease (SITIP) from 2011 to 2014, from 2009 she has been for 10 years she is President of the Association for the Sick Child (ABM) Onlus.

During her career she has received several awards: the Amici di Milano Award as the best scientific researcher in 2004, the Ambassador Award for research abroad in the media field awarded by the Honourable Maurizio Lupi in 2011, the certificate of merit for the commitment and professionalism demonstrated for the health of the child in 2014 (Associazione Amici del Policlinico and Mangiagalli).

Dr Damien Gruson, Pharm. Biol., Eur. Specialist in Laboratory Medicine, worked from 2008 as a specialist in Laboratory Medicine at Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, an academic hospital in Brussels, Belgium. He is currently the Chief of the Department of Laboratory Medicine of the Cliniques Universitaires Saint Luc and a member of the research unit on Endocrinology Diabetes and Nutrition of the Catholic University of Louvain. He has published numerous articles in several international peer-reviewed journals. He is a member of the executive committee of the division on Emerging Technology of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine. Prof. Gruson is also a member of the working group on cardiac markers of the European Federation of Laboratory Medicine. Pr. D. Gruson is also actively participating in the activities of the European Society of Cardiology as a fellow, and of the Belgian Thyroid Club, as a board member.

Mr Ed Harding has worked for many years in the development of multi-disciplinary policy advocacy networks in health, and in health policy research and writing. He has led several high-level international collaborations in healthcare, many of which have achieved substantial public endorsement. He is a specialist at combining policy research and stakeholder engagement efforts into impactful and original political engagement. This involves working with senior figures in public life from a variety of backgrounds, typically in a highly competitive and often sensitive political environment. Formerly he has led several senior roles in government, NGO sector, and political campaigns.

Recent roles in the Health Policy Partnership portfolio include Programme Director, Heart Failure Policy Network (since 2015) and he has led other international HPP policy and research projects in osteoporosis and CVD risk factor management.

Prof Dr Marija Jevtic is a full professor at the University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Medicine, specialist in Hygiene (Public Health) at the Institute of Public Health of Vojvodina with sub specialisation in medical ecology; research collaborator at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Research Centre on Environmental and Occupational Health, School of Public Health; associate member of the Academy of Medical Sciences Serbian Medical Society; group analytic therapist and System Psychodynamic Organizational Consultant; EU Climate Pact Ambassador.

She has 25 years of experience in the research and education process and advocacy in public health and environment and health. Field of interest and work: public health, environment and health, SDGs, climate change, disaster and health, migration, mental health, school health, food safety, nutrition, health management, reproductive and sexual health, group psychotherapy, organizational consulting. As a university professor, she has been involved in different curricula development in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Novi Sad in the field of Public Health, Nursing, Disaster medicine, Nutrition, Medical ecology, and Hygiene. She is also a professor at the Faculty of Technical Sciences University of Novi Sad (undergraduate and postgraduate studies) in the field of disaster and vulnerability, public health and emergencies, mental health and psychosocial support in emergencies).

She has been Director of the Institute of Public Health of Vojvodina; Head of the Department of Hygiene at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Novi Sad; Assistant minister Ministry of Health RS.

Dr Usman Khan is a visiting professor at KU Leuven.

A health policy and management professional with more than 25 years’ executive-level experience within the public, private and not for profit sectors, Usman spent over a decade working in academia, before moving into health and social care consulting in 2000. As managing director of Matrix Insight until 2012, he led a consultancy team of 30 in delivering impact assessments and related research studies for the European Commission and other related government bodies.

Usman has held a number of high profile non-executive positions in health and social care and currently holds visiting academic positions at George Washington University and New York University (London). Usman holds a PhD from Sheffield University and a BA (Hons) in Economics and Politics from London Metropolitan.

Mr Gaetan Lafortune is a Senior Economist in the OECD Health Division. Over the past ten years, Mr Lafortune has acted as the coordinator and editor of the OECD publication ‘Health at a Glance’, which presents international comparisons of health and health systems across European and non-European countries. He has also carried out a number of research projects on the training, remuneration and migration of the health workforce. Before joining the OECD, Mr Lafortune worked on a range of labour market and health policy issues for the Government of Canada in Ottawa. Gaétan Lafortune holds a Master’s Degree in Economics from the University of Sherbrooke (Canada).

Prof Federico Lega, PhD, is a Full Professor of Health Administration at the Public Health Department at Milan University, where he runs all courses in healthcare management and policy for medical students and leads the Research Centre in Health Administration (HEAD).

He is also a Professor at SDA Bocconi School of Management (SDA) where he teaches courses in Public Management and Health Services Management. He leads the research in strategy and organisational development in healthcare at the Bocconi Research Center on Health Policy and Management (CERGAS). From 2007 to 2014 he has been the Head of executive education for health managers, clinicians and medical industry leaders at the Bocconi School of Management (SDA).

Since 2015, he is acting as Editor in Chief of the journal Health Services Management Research, Associate Editor of BMC Health Services Research and Medical Care Research Review. He has published eight books and over 150 articles in journals.

As a consultant, he has advised health systems on health policy matters and governance issues, several hospitals and networks in re-organisations, strategy-making processes, value-based approaches, economic evaluations, and process management, both at the national and international level.

In the last ten years, he has advised several companies in the medical industry on their transformation toward value-based models and on the development of effective market-access initiatives. Since 2002 he has coordinated over fifteen initiatives of duality or study tours, involving the exchange of managers and senior clinicians between countries (Italy, UK, USA, Germany and France). He currently sits on the boards of hospitals and local health authorities, advises health departments of regions, national health agencies and insurances, and works as a consultant for WHO.

Dr Alexandre Lourenço is a healthcare manager and researcher focused on healthcare transformation.

He is a hospital administrator at Coimbra Hospital and University Centre and he coordinates the Postgraduate Programme in Management of Health Institutions at ISEG – Lisbon School of Economics and Management. Moreover, he is an Associate Member of Nova SBE Health Economics and Management Knowledge Centre. Dr Lourenço is also a consultant at the World Health Organization (WHO) for financing, health systems strengthening, and health services delivery.

He is the President of the Portuguese Association of Hospital Managers, Board member of the European Association of Hospital Managers (EAHM), Board member of the European Health Management Association (EHMA), and Honorary Fellow of the Brazillian College of Health Executives (CBExS).

He has co-authored several healthcare policy documents (e.g., Portuguese Ministry of Health, European Commission, World Health Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, International Labour Organization), book chapters, scientific papers, and posters. He has presented keynote talks at several national and international conferences. He is the Exec Editor-in-Chief of the HealthManagement Journal.

Mr Manuel Palazuelos Martinez works for the European Commission, where he is currently leading the Team working on REOPEN EU at the Directorate for Growth and Innovation, European Commission of the DG Joint Research Centre. Previously, he developed a good part of his career at DG ECFIN, the Directorate General of Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Commission in Brussels, where he held several relevant positions. Prior to joining the Commission, Manuel Palazuelos taught in university for five years, at the Department of Economics of the London School of Economics (LSE), where he was awarded five annual prizes for excellence in teaching, including a national UK award. He also completed his postgraduate studies in European economics at the London School of Economics, as well as other Master’s, postgraduate and university graduate degrees in both Spain and the UK, mostly in subjects related to international economics, obtaining many academic distinctions and awards. Manuel has around 35 publications in international economics, and he has presented his research at numerous universities such as Columbia in NY, Oxford, Cambridge, The London School of Economics and Georgetown in Washington DC, where he also received the best paper award.

Nicole is a Technical Officer based at the Observatory’s Secretariat in Brussels.
Her work focuses on evidence-based health policy and health systems in Europe. She is involved in the Observatory’s work on health systems innovation, co-authoring policy briefs and supporting the Observatory’s knowledge brokering activities.

Before joining the Observatory, Nicole worked as a Blue Book Trainee at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Health and Food Safety, where her work focused on health information and the State of Health in the EU cycle. She has also gained experience at national level, working as a Scientific Officer at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin with a focus on Global Health projects in low- and middle-income settings.

Nicole holds a Medical Degree from the University of Milan, Italy and is currently a fellow and doctoral researcher at the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health, Germany. Her research interests include health inequalities, health policy and systems research and the socioeconomic determinants of health.

She is a member of the German-Italian Young Leaders Dialogue (Spinelli Forum) endorsed by the German Council on Foreign Relations and the Italian Institute for International Political Studies.

Dr Marilia Paulo has a PhD in Health Policies and Development from NOVA University Lisbon, Portugal. She has worked on Health Services Research, Health Workforce development, and Environmental/Occupational health in the United Arab Emirates. Has also worked on systematic reviews and metanalyses of environmental and occupational health exposures and nowadays is committed to advancing health information systems through the Population Health Information Research Infrastructure (PHIRI) project from the European Commission. She is a member of several committees and international networks like the Climate Change and Public health Research Network from the Ministry of Environment of the UAE and the Coordination and Harmonisation of European Occupational Cohorts (OMEGA-NET).

Ms Sabrina Montante is a Senior EU Policy Advisor at Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Brussels Liaison Office and Head of EU Affairs for Health Research Sector at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. She is an expert on EU Policy and Programmes with a focus on public health and health research topics. She has a deep knowledge of the mechanisms, policies, legislations and procedures of the European Union.

In the last years, her work has been focused mainly on improving strategies and initiatives at the EU level supporting innovation in health systems. Sabrina has over fifteen years of public policy, multi-level governance and management experience in the health sector. She has worked with International and EU organisations, research entities, and national and regional offices so far. Sabrina has directly contributed to several high-level EU and international initiatives. She earned a Master of Laws degree from the University of Bologna and a Project Management graduate certificate from Boston University.

Joan Prades is a healthcare service and policy researcher with more than 10 years of experience within the cancer field. Having as main focus the analysis and planning of organisational models in cancer care, he has published different articles on centralisation policies, multidisciplinary teams and their impact on care processes, the dissemination of innovations in radiotherapy or the creation of fast-tracks between primary and specialised care for cancer suspicions’ detection.

Manuel Pizarro is a Portuguese politician of the Socialist Party who has been serving as a Member of the European Parliament since the 2019 elections.

Pizzaro has been a Member of the European Parliament since the 2019 European elections. In parliament, he has since been serving on the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Fisheries.

In addition to his committee assignments, Pizzaro is part of the parliament’s delegation for relations with Brazil. He is also a member of the URBAN Intergroup.

Mr Justin Rautenberg currently works as Senior Manager of Project Development at OptiMedis AG. In November 2020 he took over the management of Gesunder Schwalm-Eder-Kreis+ GmbH, a regional health management company of which OptiMedis is a shareholder. Justin Rautenberg has a degree in business administration and worked for many years at the leading international management consultancy Accenture, most recently as a partner and managing director, as well as at other large and medium-sized IT consulting and service companies. He was also interim Chief Information Officer in a regional hospital association.

He has more than 15 years of programme and project management experience in the areas of healthcare and social security – with a focus on statutory health insurance/private health insurance, hospitals and life sciences. His focus is on these areas: strategy development/implementation, organisational development, performance and care management, population health, negotiation, IT management and renewal, hospital and rehabilitation information systems, as well as networking, e-health and telematics.

Dr Francisco Ribeiro Mourão is a consultant in Pediatrics at Centro Materno Infantil do Norte – Centro Hospitalar e Universitário do Porto, Portugal.

He has been actively involved in several professional organisations and is currently treasurer of the European Junior Doctors Association – an organisation representing more than 300.000 Junior Doctors in Europe. Francisco has a special interest in Pediatric Gastroenterology and is doing his PhD at the University of Porto.

Dr Josep Roca is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Barcelona, Coordinator of Innovation at the Institut Clinic del Tòrax (ICT), Hospital Clínic (Barcelona), and Coordinator of BioHealth Computing Erasmus Mundus in Barcelona and senior researcher at IDIBAPS. He authored more than 220 original articles in peer-reviewed journals and several book chapters, review articles and books. His two main fields of interest are chronic diseases: integrated care, systems medicine, predictive medicine, information and communication technologies (ICT); and, O2 pathway – cell bioenergetics relationships: biological mechanisms and impact at the system level, non-invasive assessment, exercise, rehabilitation and wellness. Dr Roca has been the coordinator of several EU projects and is currently a member of the ACT consortium – Advancing Coordinated Care and Telehealth (www.act-programme.eu/).

Ms Anett Ruszanov is the Programme and Policy Director at EHMA. Anett is a committed professional with eighteen years’ work experience in Brussels.

Her special expertise lies in project acquisition and management, stakeholder engagement, co-creation with stakeholders, event organisation, community management, moderation, and producing evidence-based policy recommendations. She has a proven track record in research and innovation policy, particularly in the healthcare field. Anett has extensive experience with member-based networks: designing and providing services to members and managing membership relations.

She has a background in European studies and project management. Before EHMA, Anett worked for the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), was managing projects at the European Regions Research and Innovation Network (ERRIN) for 11 years, and was heading a regional office and worked for Business Hungary for 4 years.

Ms Anna Sagan is a Research Fellow at the European Observatory on Health Systems. She works in the Observatory’s London hub, sharing her time between the London School of Economics and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

She is also an author and editor of Observatory studies, most recently on private health insurance, Health Systems in Transition (HiT) reviews, and Health country profiles – Health Systems and Policy Monitor (HSPM) and COVID-19 Health Systems Response Monitor (HSRM) profiles and State of Health in the EU (SoHEU) profiles. Anna obtained her master’s degree in economics at the London School of Economics and is currently pursuing a PhD at the Jagiellonian University in Poland.

Alex Agius Saliba is a Maltese politician who was elected as a Member of the European Parliament in 2019 on behalf of the Labour Party.

Agius Saliba was a journalist for 5 years before he graduated as a lawyer. Since then, he has worked as a legal advisor to a number of Ministers, including Ministers Helena Dalli (Malta’s European Commissioner) and Ian Borg, and Parliamentary Secretary Stefan Buontempo. He was appointed as Head of the European Union Secretariat in 2017 but stepped down to contest elections in 2018.

After being successfully elected to the European Parliament, Alex Agius Saliba has been serving on the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, the Committee on Petitions as Coordinator and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. In addition to his committee assignments, he is part of the Parliament’s delegations to the ACP–EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, Delegation for Relations with Palestine and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean. Agius Saliba was also appointed as co-chair of the MEP Alliance for Mental Health and Vice-President of the Biodiversity, Hunting, Countryside Intergroup.

Mr Agius Saliba is also leading the negotiations on behalf of the Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament on the Common Charger Resolution. The European Parliament approved the resolution by an overwhelming majority a proposal.

Agius Saliba was also appointed as rapporteur of the Digital Services Act by the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee and the Right to Disconnect by the Employment Committee at the European Parliament. He was also appointed as the rapporteur on the protection of Persons with Disabilities by the Committee on Petitions.

As Health Assessment Europe’s Development Lead, Ms Yuliya Shcherbina works with healthcare providers to facilitate the implementation of accreditation and quality improvement programs from Health Assessment Europe (HAE) and their affiliates, Accreditation Canada (AC) and Health Standards Organization (HSO). Yuliya has 10 years of experience in international development, working on a variety of health quality improvement, relationship building, and communications projects. Since joining HAE five years ago, she has initiated and overseen the implementation of several accreditation projects by healthcare organizations located primarily in Southern Europe.

Prior to her current role, Yuliya also worked for the Canadian Stem Cell Foundation, developing and managing relationship building projects between clinicians, scientists and the community. In this role, Yuliya also worked with patients to facilitate knowledge building on advancements in stem cell research and the impact of clinical trials on patient care, both domestically and internationally.

In addition to working in various EU countries and North America, Yuliya is fluent in several languages including English, Italian, French, Spanish, Ukrainian and Russian. Yuliya Shcherbina holds a Master of Arts Degree in International Relations and a Master’s Degree in Administration and Management in Healthcare.

Mr Kuno Strand Kudajewski currently works as a Project Manager at the Health Innovation Centre of Southern Denmark.

Dr Hanna Tolonen has a PhD in public health and epidemiology, MSc in Statistics, and a degree in Specialist Qualification in Management. She is working as a Director of a research programme on Challenges and Solutions to Population Health and Welfare at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). She is a vice-president of the European Public Health Association (EUPHA) section on Public Health Monitoring and Reporting. She has worked for over 20 years in the field of health information, especially on the standardisation of health examination surveys. In the Population Health Information Research Infrastructure (PHIRI) project, she is leading the work package responsible for the development of the contents of the health information portal.

Mr Jon Txarramendieta holds a bachelor’s degree in Engineering in Industrial Organisation from the University of Deusto (2010) and a master’s degree in Health Management from Deusto Business School (2015). In 2017, he completed the Expert Course in Health Services and Chronic Diseases Research. He has experience in the implementation of health services in national and European project contexts. Since 2016, he has worked as a Project Manager at Kronikgune, where he has been involved in several EU-funded projects including Mastermind, ACT@Scale, SCIROCCO, SCIROCCO Exchange and the JA CHRODIS Plus.

Mr George Valiotis is the Executive Director of the European Health Management Association (EHMA).

He has worked in executive roles specialising in health policy, research, systems thinking, management, human rights, education, and training.

Before joining EHMA, he worked as Chief Executive Officer of HIV Scotland for seven years, managing multiple strategic policy and education collaborations with pharmaceutical companies, researchers, policymakers, insurers, health services, community members, and professional medical bodies. Earlier he was an education specialist for the International AIDS Society, developing global initiatives for pre and post-doctoral researchers in prevention, clinical and biomedical research. He also served on the Board of Diabetes Australia and as an Advisor on its Medical Education and Science Council. In these roles, he helped govern the National Diabetes Services Scheme which was a €65 million government contract to supply medical products, education, and services.

Prof Paul Van de Heyning is an ENT and Head and Neck Surgeon specialising in Otology, Neurotology and Cochlear implants. He is Emeritus Full Professor, former chairman and still consultant of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery Antwerp University Hospital and former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of Antwerp University Belgium.

His main scientific interests concern hearing loss, inner ear disorders and cochlear implantation. He is the author and co-author of more than 600 peer-reviewed publications and supervisor of 70 PhD thesis.

He is a founding member and vice-chairman of HEARRING and in 2018 he was president of the XV International Conference on Cochlear Implants and other auditory implantable devices.

Dr Suzanne Wait co-founded The Health Policy Partnership in 2015.

In a health policy career spanning more than 20 years, Suzanne has helped to run multi-stakeholder initiatives in numerous disease areas. She has broad knowledge of the challenges of intersectoral working and the need for sustainable and person-focused healthcare systems.

Having begun her career at IRDES, the French national centre for health economics in Paris, she worked as Global Health Economist at Novartis Pharma and later as Associate Director of Health Outcomes for Europe and the UK at Bristol-Myers Squibb. She went on to become Director of Research at the International Longevity Centre – UK. She was also a founding member of the European Nutrition for Health Alliance, and is a member of the Coalition to Eradicate Viral Hepatitis in Asia Pacific (CEVHAP).

Suzanne has authored numerous peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and policy reports. She spent five years teaching at the School of Public Policy at University College London, is a former Nuffield Trust Research Fellow at the Judge Institute of Management at Cambridge University, and was Adjunct Professor at the University of Strasbourg. She is now a Visiting Lecturer at the University College London Global Business School for Health.

Suzanne has a Master of Public Health from Columbia University and a PhD in Public Health from the University of Strasbourg. In 2006, she completed a Nuffield Trust-funded post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Cambridge, which looked at benchmarking health systems and public involvement in healthcare.

She is fluent in English, French, Italian and Spanish, and has a good working knowledge of German.

Since 2009, Ms Solvejg Wallyn has been a Policy Officer in the Flanders Agency for Care and Health in Belgium, where she is dealing with all international and bilateral matters in health that are in the remit of the regional competences. These competences have been enlarged to include primary care, mental health care, elderly care and some aspects of specialised care.

Ms Wallyn has a degree in law from Brussels University. She has worked in Sciensano and helped transpose the two Genetically modified Organisms and Micro-organisms EU Directives into Belgian legislation. She was the administrator of the European Programme on Intervention Epidemiology and the EU Rapid Response to Health Crises. She set up the Committee on Ethical issues in Sciensano and worked in the European Commission, Health Threats Unit, DG for Health and was a scientific officer in the Executive Agency.

Ms Emmi Weller is a Policy Officer at the European Health Management Association (EHMA). She coordinates EHMA’s involvement in policy networks and engagement with decision-makers and leads on producing EHMA’s publication ‘Reducing the environmental impact of medicines from procurement to disposal’, written from a health management perspective.

Emmi is a qualified health manager and graduate of the Erasmus Mundus Master’s degree in European Health Economics and Management taught jointly by the University of Oslo (Norway), the University of Bologna (Italy) and the Management Centre Innsbruck (Austria). Her first degree is in Global Public Health which she obtained at Leiden University College (The Netherlands).

Prof Kristin Wilson is a professor of health management and policy at Saint Louis University’s College for Public Health and Social Justice.

Dr Wilson’s portfolio of experience and education includes leadership, strategy, health policy, healthcare management, programme/project management, strategy, quality, community health needs assessment/planning and evaluation at the local, state, national, and international levels. For most of her career, she has been working to improve population health and impact community benefit through the intersection of public health and healthcare through various leadership positions and through her research.

Dr Wilson’s current collaborative research and practice interests include: health policy and community benefit; institutionalisation and sustainability of best practices and programmes; interaction of organisations in communities to improve health; the intersection and collaboration of organisations to improve population-level health and healthcare, and health systems strengthening.

Dr Wilson teaches both graduate and undergraduate students in health policy, and healthcare management, and leads a global healthcare leadership and management immersion experience.

Dr Matthias Wismar is a Programme Manager at the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies based in Brussels.

His work focuses on health policy, politics and governance, the health workforce, European integration and intersectoral action and the Sustainable Development Goals. He is developing studies, policy briefs, rapid responses and face-to-face dissemination and knowledge brokering formats, including policy dialogues, evidence briefings and webinars.

Matthias holds a PhD in Political Science from Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany.

Mr Richard Osei-Yeboah is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Global Health, Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh, UK. Richard is currently working on two Innovative Medicines Initiative (now Innovative Health Initiative) funded projects – the REspiratory Syncytial virus Consortium in EUrope (RESCEU) and Preparing for RSV Immunisation and Surveillance in Europe (PRomISE) which both focus on using routinely collected linked health data to describe the burden of RSV in Europe.

Richard completed a Master of Public Health (Epidemiology and Disease Control) degree from the University of Ghana and has recently completed his PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Cape Town, South Africa having been awarded the European Union’s Intra-Africa Mobility fellowship. He has presented papers at the International Workshop on Comorbidities and Adverse Drug Reactions workshop and European AIDS Conference in Switzerland and the International Conference on AIDS & STIs in Africa in Kigali, Rwanda and has participated in numerous conferences on infectious diseases. Richard has an interest in infectious disease epidemiology research.