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European Commissioner for Transport
European Commissioner for Mobility and Transport - 2014 to present
Deputy Prime Minister, Minister Responsible for Development, Strategic Projects and Cohesion, Government of Slovenia - 2014
Chief of the Program Committee of the SMC Party, Slovenia - 2013-2014
CEO of Vibacom Ltd, Sustainable Strategies and Innovation Ecosystems - 2000-2014
Vice-President, Telemach Ltd, telecommunications provider - 1999-2000
Michael Cramer is a Member of the European Parliament for the Greens and the chairman of the Committee for Transport and Tourism. Between 1989 -2004 he was a member of the Berlin regional parliament, where he was responsible for transport policy. He was first elected into the European Parliament in 2004 and was re-elected in 2009 and 2014."
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.
Bavarian State Minister of the Interior, Construction & Transport
Joachim Herrmann studied law in Erlangen and München, before joining the Bavarian State civil service in 1984. In 1988 he became Head of the Department of Public Order & Safety in the Erlangen- Hochstadt District Office. Becoming an attorney in 1992, he served as General Sounsel for Siemens AG.
A member of the CSU since 1977, Herrman served for eight years on the federal board of the Junge Union Germany, becoming Deputy National Chairman in 1987. From 1990 to 2004 he was a member of the City Council in Erlangen, serving as Chairman of the CSU Group in 1990-97.
Herrmann has been a member of the Bavarian Parliament since 1994, serving on a variety of committees. before becoming Deputy Secretary-General of the CSU in 1997. In 1998-99 he was State Secretary for Labour & Social Affairs. He was elected Vice-Chairman of the CSU parliamentary group in 1999, becoming Chairman in 2003.
He was appointed as State Minister of the Interior in October 2007 and Second Deputy Prime Minister of Bavaria a year later. He has been responsible for all aspects of transport policy since October 2013, when the newly-formed state government expanded the Interior Ministry to become the Ministry of the Interior, Construction & Transport.
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.
François Davenne is the Secretary General of the Intergovernmental Organisation for International Carriage by Rail (OTIF). He is a graduate of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications d’Evry in 1988 and of the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA) in 1999. ENA is a national school. Its principal responsibilities are to recruit and train men and women to the highest executive levels of government service and to provide professional training for senior civil servants. François Davenne has always promoted interdisciplinarity as a key factor for success.After experience in international satellite telecommunications, his first assignments were in the housing sector and required strong financial and legal skills. He was involved in policy and regulation of the sector, and managed key operational programmes, in particular for the city of Paris. After three years in the French Transport Ministry working on railway safety and regulation, François Davenne was elected Secretary General of OTIF in 2012, where he has promoted since 1January 2013 interdisciplinarity and partnership building to expand uniform regulations for international carriage by rail.
Andy Doherty runs a large team within Network Rail with his key responsibilities; to lead a ‘system overview’ of the railway, insuring integration of interfaces with trains and the various engineering disciplines.
Andy also leads all the Network Rail activities and processes on; R & D, wheel/rail interfaces, Acceptance of systems and equipment, and sets policy on all European work re new standards. Andy is the chairman of the EIM (European Infrastructure Managers) Support Group managing its input into the development of the ERA (European Railway Agency) new standards and a number of European Projects such as INESS.Andy is an Electrical System Engineer who also become an expert in rolling stock design, the mechanical interface between the train and track, transmission based signalling systems such ETCS and electro magnetic compatibility.
Previously Andy has held a number of senior roles in London Underground, including; Project Director and Engineer for the upgrade of the Central and Northern Lines and the Driver Only Operation project.
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.
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.
Christopher Irwin is the Vice-Chairman of the European Passengers' Federation, which brings together passengers' organisations in eighteen European countries. He is European Policy Adviser to Transport Focus, Britain's statutory watchdog for rail and bus passengers.
Having served as passenger representative on the board of the European Railway Agency from 2004 to 2014, he continues to serve on the ERRAC advisory council. He is currently head of the UK delegation to the Intergovernmental Commission for the Channel Tunnel.
Christopher Irwin worked for many years in the radio and television industry, and was closely involved in the development of satellite broadcasting for Pearson and the launch of Star TV in Asia. He served as Controller of Resources & Administration for BBC World Service in 1989-90 and as Chief Executive of BBC World Service Television in 1990-94.
Since 1993 Monika Heiming has been active in Brussels as a lobbyist and manager of international associations and groupings.
In November 2004 she joined the European Rail Freight Association (ERFA) and in January 2005 was made its Secretary General, serving the organisation's company and association members across Europe. Her tasks include dealing with the association’s legal, technical, political, financial and administrative matters and external issues.
From 1999 to 2004 she managed and marketed the engineering activities of a European engineering group, Europengineers eeig, which had 5,000 staff working in 10 design offices that were active in 45 countries.
From 1993 to 1997 she helped to develop the railway industry association UNIFE, lobbying for multimodal, combined transport, the environment, EU Framework Programmes for R&D and CEECs.
Monika Heiming studied languages at the University of Cologne, she holds a Master’s degree in European Management from the University Faculties in Brussels and an Executive MBA from the Belgian Solvay Business School. She is member of the Solvay Alumni and of the Belgian League of Optimists.
Monika Heiming was born on 18 November 1965 in Cologne (Germany).
Mr Onidi oversees the Directorate with responsibility for the promotion of the Trans-European Transport Network policy, the implementation of the single European rail area, inland navigation and port policy and the development of infrastructure innovation and investment strategies.
His last assignment was as Director for Innovative and Sustainable Mobility within the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport. Before, he was Deputy Head of Cabinet of the Energy Commissioner, Mr Günther H. Oettinger. He also worked as Head of Unit for air transport and Head of the satellite navigation system programme – GALILEO, as assistant to Directors-General in the areas of Energy & Transport, External Relations, the Secretariat General and in the cabinet of the Commissioner for Research and Development, innovation, education and training.
Before joining the Commission, he worked as adviser to the Executive Committee of Belgacom and as public policy Manager at American Express International.
Mr Onidi holds a Master of Science in Economics, a Master in European Studies and in Business Administration.
2013-present:
Executive Director Bayerische Eisenbahngesellschaft (BEG), Munich. The BEG plans the entire regional rail passenger transportation on behalf of the Bavarian Ministry of Transport.
2008-2013:
Executive Director Foreign investments of Invest in Bavaria, a joint venture between the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology and Bayern International GmbH, Munich
2006-2008
Head of the Media Industry and Telecommunications department at the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology, Munich
2001-2006
Chief Executive Officer of Regentalbahn AG, Viechtach, one of the leading private railway companies in Germany
2000-2001
Head of Public Transportation Competence Center at Rödl & Partner, management consultants and auditing firm, Nuremberg
1995-2000
Deputy Director of the Public Transportation System Department.
at Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology, Munich
1989-1995
Scientific Research Assistant at the Institute of Organization, Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich
1994
Doctoral dissertation on The Emergence of Standards in the IT Sector
1984-1989
Studies of Economics at Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich, Germany.
1962
Born December 20, 1962 in Steingaden, Germany
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.
Mr Ralf-Charley Schultze is 50 years old and lives in Vienna with his family.
Before going to Austria he was responsible during five years within the freight department of the swiss railways (SBB Cargo) for the combined traffic, the automotive business and the partner management. In this time he had the opportunity to practice liberalization and to experience so called coopetition. He has an international background, speaks fluently five languages and studied law in Germany, France and England. 10 years in different logistics and forwarding companies in Europe gave him a solid logistics background and enabled him understanding, organizing and implementing logistic processes, meeting the real needs of the market.
The last five years he was director for multimodal logistics within the GEFCO group, responsible for the development of multimodal business all over Europe, with a strong focus on Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia. Since the 1st of January 2014 Mr. Ralf-Charley Schultze is director general of the UIRR, the international union for road-rail combined transport in Brussels.
Rainer Wenty, a mechanical engineer, is Manager of Technical Sales and Marketing for Plasser & Theurer in the company’s main office in Vienna, Austria. He has been with the company since 1967 and has widespread international experience in the application of track maintenance and construction machines – both in technical and economic terms. Mr. Wenty has also authored numerous technical papers for trade publications and conferences.
Memberships: VDEI (Association of German Railway Engineers), ÖVG (Austrian Society of Traffic Science), and currently Chairman of Vienna Branch of ÖVG
Joined Plasser & Theurer to build up the Technical Department in the central export office, subsequently taking over the worldwide marketing as an executive of the management.
Export manager since 1996.
Assignments all over the world for consulting and solutions concerning problems of maintenance and repair of railway track, numerous publications in trade journals and presentations at international conferences and seminars.
Dr Josef Doppelbauer holds a degree and a Doctorate, both in Physics. He started his career at Alcatel, where in 2001, he became Chief Technical Officer. He joined Bombardier Transportation in December 2002, where he held several positions including Vice President Research and Technology.
He has 25 years of experience in key aspects of railway technology, and development of ERTMS. His international work experience includes stations in Austria, France, UK, Sweden, and Germany. He was chairman of the Joint Technology Initiative SHIFT2RAIL, and in January 2015 took up his current position as Executive Director of the European Railway Agency (ERA).
Deputy Head of Cabinet, Vice President S Kallas (Transport)European Commission
March 2010 – Present
Head of Unit, Research and Innovative Transport Systems, DG MOVE, European Commission -2014
Jean-Marc joined Amadeus in 2000, and since then has held senior positions across systems engineering, services and market management based in locations across Europe, Asia and Latin America, and created Solution Centres in Bogota and Warsaw.
Jean-Marc joined the Rail and Ground Travel division of Amadeus in 2013 and most recently has been responsible for managing the “All Ways Travelling” project with the European Commission, leading a team of seven companies and one university who answered and won the EC tender to study and develop multimodal travel in Europe.
In his current role Jean-Marc is responsible for multimodal projects. Prior to joining Amadeus, Jean-Marc worked for Techlink after completing his studies in Edinburgh. He holds a Beng (Hons) degree in Electronic and Computer Engineering from Napier University. He is a French citizen and is fluent in both English and Spanish.
David Kramer is chairman of Train2EU since the start of the foundation in 2014. As chairman of the national organisation of young public transport professionals in the Netherlands, Jonge Veranderaars, he was actively involved in the forming of the foundation. Currently as manager of international logistics at NS International he is responsible, along with his colleagues, for the yearly timetabling of all international services from the Netherlands. Previously, he has held various positions at public transport operators and consultancies in several European countries. Hailing from the United States, he has made the Netherlands his home for over 8 years after spending several years working and studying in Germany.
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
Werner Rothengatter graduated from Business Engineering at Universität Karlsruhe in 1969. While as a Researcher and Research Assistant at the Institute for Economic Policy Research 1970-1978, he earned the PhD in 1972 and the Habilitation in 1978, both in Economics. He worked as a Professor for Economic Theory at Universität Kiel (1979), Professor for Economic Theory and Policy at Universität Ulm (1979-1986), as a Visiting Professor at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee (1982), as Head of the Transport Division at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Berlin (1986-1989), and received a call to the Universität Münster, Institute for Transportation Science (1989). Since 1990, he worked as Professor at Universität Karlsruhe (now the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)), Dean of the Faculty of Economics (2003-2004) and Head of the Institute of Economic Policy Research and its Unit of Transport and Communication. Since April 2009 he has retired from University obligations. He retired as well from the Scientific Advisory Committee of the German Ministry of Transport, Construction and Urban Development, which he had chaired from 2001 to 2002. In 2010 he was honored with the Francqui-Chair for Logistics at the University of Antwerp and in 2013 with the Jules Dupuit Prize of the WCTRS. He was member of the Advisory Committee of Deutsche Bahn AG and a member of the Reform Commission for Large Projects of the German Ministry of Transport, Construction and Urban Development. He is involved in a number of projects of the European Commission and the European Parliament and works as an author, advisor, rapporteur and reviewer. He was President of the World Conference on Transport Research Society (2001-2007) and is still a member of its Steering Committee. He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Boards of the Transport Policy and Case Studies on Transport Policy Journals (published by Elsevier) and Editor of the Springer Series on Transport Economics and Policy (together with David Gillen).
Hellen van Dongen is the Director of the Public Transport and Rail division of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment. She is responsible for policy and regulation in the field of public transport and rail in the Netherlands. This encompasses a broad range of subjects such as user interests, infrastructural projects, the permanent improvement of quality, security and efficiency of the railway system and its connection towards regional and local public transport.
Since starting her position in 2014 she has been responsible for the granting of the concessions to the public infrastructural manager and railway undertaking for the upcoming 10 years in the Netherlands and has participated in several international and European forums.
Before becoming Director of Public Transport and Rail, Hellen was Director for Telecommunication Market Issues at the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. In that position she was responsible for several policy issues such as liberalizing frequency usage, implementing the New Regulatory Framework and the most recent Dutch Multiband frequency auction.
Hellen started working at the Ministry of Economic Affairs in 1992 on trade policy issues, European integration and international relations.
UNIFE - the European Rail Industry June 2011 – Present
Vice-President Urban Transport Information Solutions April 2010 – March 2011
Managing Director of Alstom Belgium Transport, January 2006 – September 2010