Day 1: Session 1: Towards a Single European Railway Area
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Born in 1956 and educated at Esch-sur-Alzette, François Bausch began his career working for national railway CFL.
A member of the Green Party since 1986, he was elected to Parliament in 1989, representing the constituency of the Centre. He served as a Member of Parliament until 1992, before being re-elected from 1994 to 2013. Among other posts, he was Chairman of the Parliamentary Oversight Committee for the State Intelligence Service from 2009 to 2013. He was Chairman of the Green Party parliamentary group from 1999 to 2013.
At local level, François Bausch served as a municipal councillor for the City of Luxembourg from 1994 to 2005, and then as first alderman from 2005 to 2013.
Following the legislative elections of October 20 2013, François Bausch was named Minister for Infrastructure & Sustainable Development in the coalition government formed by the Democratic Party the Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party and the Green Party, taking office with effect from December 4 2013.
Executive Director, Community of European Railway & Infrastructure Companies (CER)
Libor Lochman graduated from the Transport University in Zilina and has a doctorate in electronics from the West-Bohemian University in Plzen.
Having started his railway career specializing in signalling and control systems, in 2000-05 he served as Director of the Railway Test Centre in Praha, testing European rolling stock, infrastructure and signalling components.
He joined CER in 2007 as Deputy Executive Director and Head of Technical Affairs, taking over as Executive Director in 2011.
Ismail Ertug (MEP) is of Turkish descent and grew up Bavaria (Germany). After studying business management he worked as coordinator and social insurance expert in the marketing department of the German general health insurance (AOK) of Bavaria. Since 1999, Ertug is a member of the German social democratic party (SPD). After having worked as a member of the Amberg city council for five years, he now represents the Bavarian regions of Upper Palatinate and Lower Bavaria as a Member of European Parliament (MEP).
Ismail Ertug is member of the Committee on Transport and Tourism as well as of the Joint Parliamentary Committee EU-Turkey. As co-rapporteur of the TEN-T guidelines, he played a central role in the shaping of Europe’s future transport policy. Furthermore, he is a substitute member of the Committee of Agriculture and Rural Development as well as of the Delegation for relations with Israel.
In his committee work, he defends the vision of a strong European transport network that allows for seamless connections across the entire single market. To him, this development should, however, contribute to the goals of the EU’s ambitious climate and environmental policies and go in pair with a modal shift towards more sustainable means of transport, such as rail, electric mobility and inland waterways.
Deputy Secretary-General Secretariat-General (SG)16/11/2013 – 30/09/2015
Head of Cabinet for Vice-President Siim Kallas 2004-2013
Assistant Trade Commissioner / Finnish Foreign Trade Association Estonia Office 1993-1995
Head of the European Integration Bureau / Chief Government Counsellor of the Government of Estonia 1995-2004
Minister of Economy 2001-2002
Leos Novotny is a Chief Executive Officer at LEO Express, a Central European open-access passenger railway operator founded in 2009 by an investment group owned by the Novotny family.
He is also a Managing Partner & Founder of AAKON Capital, a private equity investment company based in the Czech Republic.
Entrepreneurial experience
As a son of a successful entrepreneur, Leos Novotny has started his professional career very early and gained a lot of business experience before establishing LEO Express and AAKON Capital. Alongside his studies he held managerial and minority equity positions within HAME A.S. where he was primarily engaged in the UK and Chinese markets. As a Foreign Markets Manager he was fully responsible for HAME’s exhibition representation and organization, for example he held presentations at the most important exhibitions in the food industry across Europe and in Asia. Leos has also played an active role in the sale of HAME to Nordic Partners in 2008.
After the sale of HAME Leos joined Raiffeisen Investment AG in Vienna to work on private equity deals within the CEE region as a member of the Financial Sponsors & Real Estate team. Then he became the Secretary of the Czech Minister of Agriculture but he did not stayed in the position for a long time. He quit after 6 months in order to establish AAKON Capital.
AAKON Capital is a private equity investment company that sources, arranges, invests and manages private equity investments into small and midcap opportunities in the Czech Republic, the DACH and CEE regions on behalf of its investors. Under AAKON Capital Leos also concluded several private equity deals in the United States’ distressed real estate market worth 25 mn. USD.
Jochen Eickholt studied electrical engineering at Aachen University of Technology, and Imperial College London, before taking a PhD at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology.
After five years at the Fraunhofer Institute, he joined Leopold Kostal GmbH in 1994 as Head of Corporate Planning, later becoming Vice President, Strategic Procurement. In 1997 he moved to Desag AG as General Manager of the Display Glass business unit.
Eickholt Joined Siemens AG in 1999 as CEO of Siemens Elektropristroje in the Czech Republic, later becoming Senior Vice President of Supply Chain Management in München. After a brief period with BenQ Mobile International, he served for three years as CEO of Siemens Home & Office Communications. He became CEO of Siemens Rail Automation in 2009, before moving to head the Rail Systems business unit in 2013.