Our call for sessions for our 2014 conference is now open. If you’d like to propose a session topic and/or speaker, please apply here. Below our some of the incredible speakers we have secured so far:
Robin Wauters
MODERATOR - Founding Editor, Tech.eu
www.tech.eu – @robinwauters
Robin is a multi-lingual technology journalist and wearer of many other hats. He is founding editor of Tech.eu, a new digital publication dedicated to covering the European tech industry in depth - with a number of amazing people by my side. He was formerly European Editor of global technology news site The Next Web, and before that a senior editor at TechCrunch and managing editor of Virtualization.com. He occassionally serves as a startup advisory board member - more specifically, he's currently a minor shareholder in startups such as Checkthis, Maily, Showpad, Argus Labs (Jini), and Oxynade. He has mentored a wide range of EU startups through the internationally acclaimed Founder Institute and Seedcamp - both startup accelerators.
JP Rangaswami
Chief Scientist Salesforce
www.salesforce.com – @jobsworth
JP Rangaswami is Chief Scientist at salesforce.com, having joined them in October 2010. As Chief Scientist at salesforce.com, Rangaswami focuses on helping salesforce.com’s European customers think about innovative ways to use the real-time, mobile and social capabilities provided by Salesforce apps and the Force.com platform. Originally an economist and financial journalist, he has spent the last 33 years working in information technology, primarily in the financial sector. He was named CIO of the Year by Waters Magazine in 2003, CIO Innovator of the Year by the European Technology Forum in 2004, European Innovator of the Year by Innovate in 2005; in 2007 and 2008, he was listed in Silicon.com's Agenda Setters as one of technology's 50 most influential people; in 2009 and 2010, he made the Wired 100 and was ranked 18th in 2010. More recently, he was ranked 4th 2013 list of the most influential people in IT. Prior to joining salesforce.com he served as Chief Scientist at BT plc (2006-10); before that he was global CIO at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, where he worked from 1997 to 2006. Prior to that, he worked at a number of leading multinational organisations, in the technology space.
Reza Malekzadeh
VP of Business, Cumulus Networks
www.cumulusnetworks.com – @malekzadeh
Reza is the VP of Business at Cumulus Networks. He was most recently VP of Sales and Marketing at Nimbula that was acquired by Oracle in March 2013. Previously, he was Senior Director of Products and Marketing at VMware in EMEA, where he was responsible for all marketing activities in VMware’s second largest theater. Reza had re-joined VMware in June 2007 following its acquisition of Akimbi Systems. He had previously been employee #10 at the company, fulfilling the role of Director of Marketing from 1998 to 2002. Prior to joining VMware, Reza was Vice President for International business at Akimbi Systems where he drove significant international growth, including sales, marketing and channel operations. Before working at Akimbi, Reza co-founded Twingo Systems, which he successfully sold to Cisco Systems in 2004. Reza holds an MBA degree from HEC in Paris.
Daniel Brusilovsky
Head of Business Development - Ribbon
www.ribbon.co – @danielbru
Daniel Brusilovsky is the Head of Business Development & Growth at Ribbon, an online payments platform whose products include the peer-to-peer focused Ribbon, and the merchant payments platform Ribbon Merchant. Prior to joining Ribbon, Daniel spent time with Highland Capital Partners, a 25 year-old venture capital firm with $3.5b under management. He's also spent time at Qik (acquired by Skype), TechCrunch (acquired by Aol), and JESS3. Daniel also founded Teens in Tech Labs in early 2008.
Florian Jourda
Principal Architect at Box
www.app.box.com – @florianjourda
Florian Jourda is Principal Architect at Box, a cloud enterprise software company dedicated to make businesses more productive and collaborative by connecting people with their most important content. He has helped Box grow from seven to a thousand employees in the past seven years, leading many parts of the product and of the technology. Florian studied Engineering at Ecole Polytechnique and UC Berkeley, and now lives in the crazy city of San Francisco.
Carlos Silva
CEO & Co-founder Seedrs
www.seedrs.com – @cmsilva
Carlos is President and co-founder of Seedrs, Europe's fastest-growing online platform for investing in startups and the world's first regulated crowdinvestment platform. Carlos holds a Master in Computer Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico and an MBA from the University of Oxford. He started his professional career as an ethical hacker responsible for testing the security of major banks and telecom companies. Passionate about innovation he soon started pursuing new ideas for businesses having very successfully bashed quite a few before starting Seedrs. Carlos is also a co-founder of Beta-I, a Portuguese non-profit organisation that promotes entrepreneurship and innovation, is a mentor at acceleration programs like Seedcamp, Founders Institute and Lisbon Challenge, and serves as an advisor to multiple innovative startups.
Boris Saragaglia
CEO Spartoo
www.spartoo.com – @spartoo
Having graduated from both the prestigious Écoles des Mines (French School of engineering) and HEC, an elite international business school, Boris Saragaglia, the CEO of Spartoo, got the idea to start Spartoo in 2006 after noticing the impressive and ever increasing results registered by American online stores. He was only 23 years old. “I was interested in building a company where people feel happy and motivated by their job and want to build with a long term perspective'.
Quentin Vacher
GM Birchbox - CEO JolieBox
www.birchbox.fr – @VacherQuentin
Quentin Vacher is the Europe General Manager of Birchbox, previously co-founder and CEO of JolieBox. Prior to founding JolieBox, he worked in Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley as a M&A banker covering the French market from Paris and London. Before, he worked for the European VC and Private Equity fund 3i in their Paris-based office. Quentin is passionate for everything that implicates business, organizations and most of all human beings. His prior knowledge of finance and business development helped him grow the JolieBox business in a fast and sane manner. Quentin was born in Paris, has a master degree cum laude in Finance from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences and master degree in Business Administration with first honors from Paris Dauphine University.
Vincent Ricordeau
CEO and Co-Founder
www.kisskissbankbank.com – @VinceRicordeau
Self-made entrepreneur since the age of 18, Vincent has also run major media and sports marketing (VNU Publishing and Sportfive). He's promoting the third revolution and its drastic change in the way our society is ruled. He believes in the Web power and in its network layout to set up a more circular economy. Launching KissKissBankBank in September 2009, he's one of the world Crowdfunding pioneer alongside Ombline and Adrien and contributes to the sharing economy outstanding move. As European leader with KissKissBankBank, they decided to launch hellomerci in April 2013 to position on the peer to peer lending segment.
David Rodriguez
EMEA Business Development & GM Paris Hailo
www.hailocab.com – @rodriguezdavid
David currently enjoys being part of the fantastic HAILO success story and concentrates in Business Development and Partnerships in the EMEA region. As an entrepreneur, David founded and ran the business operations of Viajillo.com. Viajillo was a revolutionary online travel agency that allowed users to fully customize their à la carte holiday trip. Before that, David’s business and technology experience ranged from product management and business development with P&L responsibility (media and telecommunications: Eurosport TV, Sagem Communications) to large IT system implementations & restructuring (JP Morgan). Among his digital experiences, David was a pioneer in new media projects, implementing some of the first interactive TV (before social TV), broadband and mobile services. He is a Reims Management School graduate with major in technology management.
Olivier Mathiot
Co-founder Priceminister
www.priceminister.com – @oliviermathiot
Olivier Mathiot is the co-founder of PriceMinister, an internet market place launched in 2001, then sold to the japanese group Rakuten in 2010. He is now the VP marketing and Communication of Rakuten PriceMinister which counts 250 employees in France. Olivier Mathiot is also a “Business Angel” accompanying about 15 innovative start-ups. In 2012, he was one of the representant of the movement “Les Pigeons”, and in 2013, he participated to “Les Assises de l’Entrepreunariat” organized by the government. End of 2013, he is appointed as co-president of the association “France Digitale” which mission is to favor the emergence among the French start-ups of international digital champions. Until 2000, Olivier was in the Advertising industry, Brand Director then Sales Manager for the agencies CLM / BBDO and DDB, in charge of mass consumer brands. Olivier Mathiot has a HEC diploma, specialized in Marketing.
Frederic Mazzella
Founder & CEO BlaBlaCar
www.blablacar.com – @mazaic
Frederic Mazzella created BlaBlaCar under the initial name "Covoiturage.fr" in France when coming back from 3 years in California where he was commuting between San Francisco and Palo Alto, sharing his car with ride sharers every day. Fred had imagined a new transport network built on people, that could bring efficiency to road transport, solve congestion problems, make travel affordable and social. With a background in scientific research (he studied physics and later worked at NASA) he saw the full potential of a peer-to-peer transport network, and the huge environmental and economic benefits of enabling a more efficient use of existing resources. Frederic holds a Masters degree in Physics from ENS Ulm in France, a Masters degree in Computer Science from Stanford University and an MBA from INSEAD. He currently teaches the “Startups” class at Sciences Po in Paris.
Alice Zagury
MODERATOR - CEO and cofounder at TheFamily
www.thefamily.co – @Alice_zag
Alice, 29, the “French startup Mama” is fiercely involved in making the Parisian digital ecosystem no more toxic. She is the cofounder & CEO at TheFamily, with a very ambitious mission: offering education and unfair advantages for entrepreneurs. Alice puts unlimited tenacity and hard work to make a change in a French landscape ruled by elistism and where nor youth neither diversity are admitted. TheFamily is backed by Index Ventures and accelerates 100+ startups in France.
Kat Borlongan
Co-founder Five by Five
www.fivebyfive.io – @KatBorlongan
Kat Borlongan is the co-founder of Five by Five and the Open Data Institute Paris, as well as an an advisor to the French Government's open data task force, Etalab. Prior to this, she worked as the Country Director of Reporters sans frontières’ Canadian bureau and as a public affairs consultant to the UN and the SNCF. As a merit scholar of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kat completed her undergraduate degree in Political Science at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Bordeaux. She also holds a master’s degree in Communication Studies from McGill University.
Sabine Safi
Cofounder & CEO at 1001pharmacies.com
www.1001pharmacies.co – @SabineSafi
Sabine SAFI is the cofounder of 1001pharmacies.com, the 1st pharmacies marketplace in France, along with Cédric O'NEILL. They met 3 years ago during a Startup Weekend in Toulouse (FR) and started working on Cédric's idea: take a leading position on the online pharmacy market, working hand in hand with brick and mortar pharmacies. They were both finishing their studies: pharmacy for Cédric, management & e-business at Toulouse Business School for Sabine. After two (long) years of preparation they launched 1001pharmacies.com, just as the French governement allowed drugs to be sold online. Today they work with a team of 15, Montpellier-based passionnate people, gather 400 partner pharmacies and just closed a 2M€ round of funding.
Yoram Wijngaarde
CEO of Dealroom
www.dealroom.co – @dealroomco
Yoram Wijngaarde is founder and CEO of dealroom.co, where professional investors and founders connect with each other to discover, track, and exchange information. Before founding dealroom.co Yoram worked for 10 years in investment banking: first at Lehman Brothers in London and New York, and later he helped build NOAH Advisors and NOAH Conference. Yoram is a Dutch national and currently spends most of his time between London, Amsterdam en Berlin. He holds a cum laude Masters Degree in Economics from the University of Amsterdam.
Julien-David Nitlech
Investment Manager, Iris Capital
www.iriscapital.co – @jdnitlech
Julien-David joined the Iris Capital team in 2013 and is mainly focused on early stage. He is responsible for investments in Cloud and Mobile technologies, with a particular interest in e-commerce platforms, enterprise software and Internet of Things. Prior to joining the team, Julien-David launched and grew the European activities of Apperian, a US start-up that develops and markets a cloud-based mobile application management platform. Julien-David has an extended experience in Telcos and Tech. He started his career in Business Development for Orange US activities, then led the signature of strategic partnerships between Orange and key vendors on convergence of communications. He then headed Orange’s portfolio of fixed and mobile devices on B2C and B2B markets worldwide, and contributed to establishing the Orange/DT joint venture, BuyIn. Julien-David is a graduate from Ecole Polytechnique and Telecom ParisTech.
Rob Kniaz
Founding partner at Hoxton Ventures
www.hoxtonventures.com – @robk
Rob is currently a founding partner at Hoxton Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm investing across Europe. He is an active board member at Campanja and Tizaro. He was also an advisor to Jaycut (acquired by RIM) and SocialMedia.com (acquired by LivingSocial). Prior to Hoxton, Rob was formerly a member of the investments team at Fidelity Ventures in London, focusing on consumer internet and software as a service sectors. Prior to Fidelity, he was on the new business development team at Google and was previously a lead product manager for AdSense’s front-end systems. While at Google, he also launched the AdWords pay-per-action (PPA) product and was actively involved in the acquisition of Feedburner in 2008. Rob began his career in Intel’s highly selective technical sales program where he worked to grow their entrepreneurial reseller channel in the Federal Government vertical and later in Latin America from Bogota and Miami Beach. He holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Maryland and a Masters certificate in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University.
Hannah Meiton
VP Sales iZettle
www.izettle.com – @hannahmeiton
Hannah Meiton is the VP Sales at iZettle, the fast-growing payments company whose first service consists of an app, a chip-card reader and a free business management software tool, the iZettle Portal. iZettle lets anyone take card payments and manage and grow their business. Prior to iZettle, Hannah comes from the Silicon Valley start-up world where her main focus has been on growth and sales within innovative industries; the most recent one prior to iZettle was the social media marketing platform Wildfire where she built and ran the CRM & Client Services team. Wildfire that was acquired by Google in 2012 and Hannah has been part of the iZettle team since November 2012 where the mission is to democratise card payments and give individuals and small businesses the possibility to accept card payments in a simple, affordable and secure way.
Cedric Ingrand
MODERATOR - Broadcaster, Podcaster and resident geek at LCI/TF1 in Paris.
www.LCI.fr – @cedric
Cedric Ingrand is the Technology Specialist at LCI, the French TV news network, where he hosts "Plein Ecran" (i.e. "Full Screen") a weekly show dedicated to technology trends and startups. In its tenth season, Plein Ecran covers tech from Silicon Valley to Tokyo and everywhere in between. He is also a regular on several tech podcasts in France and the US, such as OnRefaitLeMac and TWiT, among others. Before joining LCI/TF1, Cedric was News Editor for PC Magazine, and wrote for Yahoo Internet Life, ZDNet, and The Register among others. Based in Paris, Cedric is an avid traveller, prefers US essays to French novels, likes '80s electro-pop, Scorcese movies, and Asian cuisines. Favorite quote: "May you live in interesting times."
Carlos Espinal
Partner Seedcamp
www.seedcamp.com – @cee/h6>
I started off my career as a network consultant, then did some tech R&D work for a large stock trading floor in the US, then moved over into tech startup investing as part of a large UK-based VC fund, and now I’m doing seed investments as a Partner at Seedcamp, Europe’s premier startup program and seed stage fund. I love tech & startups. I began blogging about tech on my first blog http://www.chromewalker.com back in 2000, and have been following the tech scene ever since. I’ve been told I’m pretty good at analysis, finding efficiencies & new processes, devising strategies to overcome problems, and probing at the details. What can I say? I love this stuff!
Romain Dillet
MODERATOR - French Editor - TechCrunch
www.techcrunch.com – @romaindillet
Romain Dillet is a writer at TechCrunch. Originally from France, Romain attended EMLYON Business School, a leading French business school specialized in entrepreneurship. He covers many things from mobile apps with great design to complex tech achievements. He now lives in Paris to help build the tech ecosystem. He likes to cover European startups as well as New York startups as he used to live there.
Cedric Giorgi
Co-Founder & CEO Cookening
www.cookening.com – @cgiorgi
Cédric Giorgi is the Co-Founder and CEO of Cookening, a global marketplace that brings locals with foreigners during home cooked meals. Founded in 2012, Cookening mission is to connect people and cultures though food. Before turning entrepreneur, Cédric worked at several startups: he was Europe Director for Seesmic and Marketing Director for Goojet/Scoop.it. Besides these positions, Cédric has been highly involved in the startup ecosystem, by blogging on his own blog or as Co-Editor and Conference Organizer for Techcrunch France. He has also helped the organization of LeWeb conference since 2011. Cédric is a mentor at different startup accelerators in France and he created and manages a closed community of 1000+ French Startupers on Facebook. He's involved as a teacher in different Business and Internet schools in France and speaks regularly at tech conferences in France & Europe. Cédric has graduated in computer science and business from two major French schools, and is fluent in French, English and German.
Pauline Laigneau
CEO & Co-founder Gemmyo
www.gemmyo.com – @paulinelemalef_
Pauline had worked hard years of stress and competitive exams to get her admission to Ecole Normale Supérieure (prestigious French institution to train the country’s top-notch teachers). But once she got there, exhausted and supposedly victorious, she realized she was not happy. She did not want to be a teacher. She was longing for risk, adventure and danger and had no taste for patient education of students. She could have settled for her life as a teacher to try to justify her years of study. She decided not to. She accepted her past as a sunk cost, ditched her hard-earned education assets and rebuilt a new life dedicated to entrepreneurship. Pauline cofounded Gemmyo, a modern jewelry brand for which she has raised 4 M€ in two years with her partners.
Jeanne Dussueil
MODERATOR Journalist-producer
www.startup-plus-politique.com – @jdussueil
Jeanne Dussueil,28, is an independent journalist-producer who has recently launched the new concept "Start Up+ Politique". This web-talkshow allies the will of a better understanding of current economical issues and the highlight of solutions and concrete ideas related to the digital world. She published "The Entrepreneur and the Occupier, two ways of changing the world" (Ellipses) in October 2012, besides her previous job at Challenges. She also worked in Economics publications in London and in Germany.
Alexandre Delivet
French Editor - Startup Digest
www.startupdigest.com – @alexd
Alex is curator of Startup Digest in Paris and founder of B2B Rocks Conference. He was the co-founder and CEO of tripXP, a Paris based startup allowing tourists discover and book original activities offered by local people. Alex is also co-founder of Apero Entrepreneurs (Drink Entrepreneurs in the US).
Stephanie Pelaprat
CEO Restopolitan
www.restropolitan.com – @StephPelap
Stéphanie Pelaprat, aged 30, is the founder and CEO at Restopolitan. She graduated in 2005 from a French Business School (ESCE) with one dream: becoming an entrepreneur. Soon enough she created Restopolitan with the ambition to combine her passion for new technologies and gastronomy. Inspired by US Open Table’s successful business model, Restopolitan’s promising starts were severely affected by the economic crisis. Therefore, in 2011, Stéphanie and her team decided to invent (in less than 72 hours!) a whole new strategy based on one product, with one simple promise : a Membership Card with a 2-for-1 offer at participating restaurants and a Conciergerie service. In 3 months, that marketing pivot became the key for Restopolitan to reach its break-even point. Since then, Restopolitan has met a 3-digit growth that has seduced some of the most popular French Business Angels (X. Niel, J-A. Granjon, M. Simonicini, S. et J-E. Rosenblum…)
Sebastien Metrot
CEO XSpray, Yasound
www.XSpray.com – @meeelooo
Sebastien is a 41 year old autodidact software developer and all around geek. He spent 8 years in R&D positions in the video game industry at Cryo interactive/networks, Cyanide studio and Delphine Software. He then turned his interests to music software for pro musicians as well as music lovers at Ultimate Sound Bank/MOTU, MXP4. He was a co-founder of the webradio creation startup YaSound where assumed the role of CTO and then CEO. He has been building NUI, his open source multi-platform C++ framework since 2001. He is now passionately working on exciting innovative music applications. When he is not writing software and squashing bugs, you can find him playing guitar, bass or drums, or taking bazillions of pictures of his kids.
Edouard de La Jonquière
CEO & Co-founder Mention
www.mention.com – @edelajonquiere
Graduated from la Sorbonne in Philosophy and Audencia Nantes in Management, Edouard has lived in China, Morocco and India before joining Capgemini Consulting in 2007 as a Management Consultant. In 2012, he co-founded mention (mention.com) - a real-time web and social monitoring app - along with Arnaud Le Blanc and eFounders.
Boris Golden
Founder of Pealk, sold to Viadeo
www.pealk.com – @Pealk_
Boris is the founder & CEO of Pealk (acquired by LinkedIn rival Viadeo in 2013). He is now Director of Product at Viadeo. Boris is a lead mentor at Le Camping Startup Accelerator and an advisor for several web startups. He holds a PhD in Computer Science and a M.Sc in Management from Ecole Polytechnique.
Xavier Zeitoun
CEO & Co-founder of 1001 Menus
www.1001menus.com – @XavZeitoun
Xavier is the co-founder & CEO of 1001menus, a French startup helping restaurants manage their digital presence from place. He holds a master in entrepreneurship from a French business school. Xavier started 1001menus with an initial idea that failed and then pivoted to become a viable business model. After 3 years, the first-time founder raised more than €1.8M from famous VCs and entrepreneurs and is now leading the company’s european development.