Arvydas Anušauskas – Current Minister of National Defense of the Republic of Lithuania.

Jovita Neliupšienė – Current Vice-minister of Economy and Innovation of the Republic of Lithuania. Jovita is responsible for handling government business in the following areas: business environment, export, innovation, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), EU support to business, public procurement and tourism. Since becoming Vice-minister, Jovita was the chancellor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has become a permanent representative to the EU; Ambassador at the Permanent Representation of the Republic of Lithuania to the European Union, Chief Adviser for the Foreign Policy Group of the office of the President of the Republic of Lithuania, and a lecturer at The Institute of International Relations and Political Science of Vilnius University.

Giedrimas Jeglinskas – the Assistant Secretary General for Executive Management. He has overall responsibility for management of the NATO headquarters, and is the Secretary General’s primary advisor for NATO-wide management issues. Before assuming his current post, Mr. Jeglinskas served as the Vice-Minister of Defense of Lithuania beginning in 2017. From 2010 to 2017, Mr. Jeglinskas worked as Vice President in Corporate Banking at Citigroup, most recently in Warsaw, Poland. His earlier roles at Citigroup included capital markets origination and corporate finance in New York, Tokyo, Singapore, and Sydney, Australia. A former Lithuanian Army officer, Mr. Jeglinskas served as a platoon commander with the Lithuanian Grand Duke Algirdas Mechanised Infantry Battalion and as a senior intelligence analyst in the Ministry of National Defense.

Guillaume Galtier joined the European Commission DG DEFIS/A2 in September 2018. He is actively involved in the European Defence Fund (EDF) after having contributed to one of its precursor, namely the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP). He is a military engineer graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Techniques Avancées in France. From 2007 to 2018, he occupied various positions inside the French Ministry of Defence, mainly on military space programmes (earth observation, signal intelligence) and space-related projects (image processing, geo-intelligence), including R&D, covering technical aspects, multilateral cooperation and strategic orientations. He also contributed to the Defence and National Security strategic review in 2017.

As of 1 October 2017 Pieter Taal is Head of Unit Industry Strategy & Wider Policies at the European Defence Agency. He is responsible for the agency’s initiatives to create an optimal interaction between the developments in European industry and the fulfilment of (future) defence capability needs of the member states. This includes increasingly taking the effects of the policies and instruments of the European Commission into account. The ultimate aim is to contribute to European Autonomy supported by world class and affordable defence capabilities based on a competitive and innovative industry.

Inga Beiliuniene – Deputy CEO and Head of Project Management Division at JSC „Investment and Business Guarantees “(INVEGA) – national promotional institution in Lithuania. Inga is responsible for launching of various financial instruments and global grant measures, dedicated for start-ups and business development and financed from European Union Structural Funds as well as national funds, and the supervision of implementation of these instruments and measures. Overall, Inga has more than 11 years of experience at the national and international (i. e. European Investment Fund) financial institutions as well as 18 years of experience in designing and implementing financial instruments and other support measures dedicated for the development of small and medium-sized as well as large business

Matthias is Head of Department for International Cooperation, Security Policy, Raw Materials and Space at the Federation of German Industries (BDI). He graduated as a Fulbright Scholar with a Master of Science in Global Political Economy from Rutgers University. He also holds Bachelor of Science degrees in Business Administration from Coburg University and INSEEC Paris. Upon his return from the US he joined the Executive Management Program at Europe’s largest digital publishing house Axel Springer SE. In 2008, he became Personal Adviser to the CEO at the BDI. In 2010, he became Head of the Department for Strategic Planning, Policy and Coordination. Since 2012, he is Head of Department for International Cooperation, Security Policy, Raw Materials and Space. Matthias is a trained infantry officer and served with the German Armed Forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2006. He currently is a lieutenant colonel in the army reserves.

Nick Joad – Current director of Defense Science and Technology and deputy Chief Scientific Advisor. Nick was appointed in April 2019, having previously been Head of Commissioning. Prior to joining the Directorate, Nick worked in the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) as their Portfolio Director and led their aerospace and weapon related work. Nick has worked as a consultant systems engineer in the private sector and has a DPhil in Theoretical Solid-State physics. As Director Science and Technology, Nick is responsible, on behalf of the MOD Chief Scientific Advisor, for setting the strategic direction for Science and Technology in Defense and ensuring that it is efficiently and effectively delivered and exploited. He ensures UK Defense has access to the S&T required for its battle winning capabilities now and in the future. His team also leads on S&T engagement working across government, with international partners and, crucially, with the brightest and best in UK industry and academia to ensure that Defense benefits from innovative ideas. Additionally, they provide an independent technical challenge function to Defense, driving the consideration of innovative concepts into strategic planning and informing MOD decision makers of emerging technologies.

Daina Kleponė – The managing director of Enterprise Lithuania Enterprise Lithuania is a trade promotion agency, established by Ministry of Economy. Daina Klepone has gained a comprehensive experience as a senior executive in leading multinational organisations and local projects across a wide range of different industries and markets. Before taking a lead of Enterprise Lithuania, she was known as general management professional with history of significant profit, volume, market position achievements and proven track record from successful turnarounds, transitions and brand developments, driven with focus on planning, implementation and achievement of budgets for sales, income and costs. After university studies in chemistry she followed with an MBA for international executives by Baltic Management Institute. Daina was leading big local enterprises as “Šatrija”, “Baltika Lietuva”, “Audimas”, was in management board of biggest insurance company “Lietuvos draudimas”, several years has been consulting foreign capital companies in Austria, Switzerland and India.

Elīna Egle-Ločmele has 17 years of experience in leadership of national and sectoral business organisations. Since 2013 she is Co-Founder and Chairperson of the Board of Federation of Security and Defence Industries of Latvia (FSDI Latvia). Before that she was Adviser to State President on Economics, Entrepreneurship and Employment in Chancery of the State President of Latvia and General Director of Employers Confederation of Latvia. International experience was gained working in International Labour Organisation of United Nations where she was consulting employers’ organizations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. For 7 years E.Egle-Ločmele was Member of Executive Committee of International Organization of Employers, Executive Committee, Business and Industry Advisory Committee to OECD, Member of Executive Committee of BusinessEurope. Her educational background was built within PhD studies and academic work on Public Administration and Policy Analysis, she has M.A. of Social Sciences of Political Science on European Public Administration and European Studies in University of Latvia. She is a member of Society of Political Scientists of Latvia, co-founder of CSR Latvia, Chairperson of the Council of Business Union of Latvia uniting SMEs. More information is available on the website www.elinaegle.lv

Jaanus Tamm – Current supervisory board member of Estonian Defense Cluster and Defense Industry Association. During last 15 years, Jaanus has built several technology companies in ICT and in the security and defense area. Created new products, which is used in more than 30 countries from USA to South-East Asia and helped to protect EU external borders against smuggling and illegal crossings. Being a member of Estonian Defense Industry Association and Defense Cluster and European defense network SERA allows Jaanus to shape the future of European defense industry and SME in that industry. Jaanus is an active contributor to the Estonian start-up community, being a member of the Estonian Founder Society. Jaanus’ main areas of expertise are technology, sales & marketing, strategic management, start-ups, defense and security, Cyber and AI (machine learning).

Mr. Dan Runefeldt is currently holding a position as Senior Director, Marketing and Sales at Saab AB, Business Area Surveillance, mainly involved in the marketing and sales of radar and combat management with main responsibility the Baltics and MENA regions. Previously Mr. Runefeldt has held positions as Chief Marketing Officer of Saab Middle East LLC, a joint venture between a local Emirati company and Saab AB as well as General Manager of Saab International Middle East, the local UAE foreign branch office of Saab AB, a position he took up in 2007 and held until 2016. Mr. Runefeldt started his career at Saab (then Ericsson) as a systems test engineer in the field of radar in 1988. Later on, he has held various positions within customer training, program management and marketing at Saab.

Marc-Aurel Bischoff has been Senior Director EU Policy & Industrial Affairs for General Dynamics European Land Systems (GDELS) since January 2019. His responsibilities include the industrial and political positioning of the Group in Europe and the coordination of GDELS’ strategic business interests in close alignment with customers from 20 NATO member states and over 4500 industrial partners. Moreover, Marc-Aurel is responsible for GDELS’ offset and industrial development activities. Marc-Aurel Bischoff is an internationally experienced leader. Between 2006 and 2017 he held various management positions in the areas of corporate governance, compliance, change and transformation management at AIRBUS in Germany, France and the Netherlands. Marc-Aurel studied law, politics and economics at the Universities of Passau and Toronto and is a graduate of the North American Studies Program at Bonn University. More recently, he graduated from INSEAD Business School in Fontainebleau in Global Management. After almost two decades abroad, Marc-Aurel now lives with his wife and three daughters in Koblenz, Germany.

Ludwig Ostler is a member of the Executive Boards of Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH (RLS), acting as their COO and Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles GmbH (RMMV) as CEO. Besides his global responsibilities for these two business units of Rheinmetall AG’s Vehicle System Division, he is as well the CEO of Rheinmetall Defence Lietuva with a special focus of Rheinmetall’s current and future activities in Lithuania. After different positions within MAN Truck & Bus SE, RMMV’s second shareholder, Ludwig Ostler joined Rheinmetall in 2011 and began his career as Vice President After Sales Service at RMMV in Munich. From 2013 to 2019, he assumed responsibility as Head of Service at RLS in Unterlüß. In 2019, he was appointed as Managing Director of Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH and member of the Management Board in his function as COO, responsible for Operations, Quality, Legal, Export Control and Service for the Tactical Vehicles . In 2021, he additionally took over the position as CEO of Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles GmbH. After training as an automotive mechanic, Mr. Ostler studied at the Distance Learning University of Hagen and the University of Maryland. He has three children, enjoys restoring classic cars and is a passionate pilot.

Dr. Tomas Žalandauskas works as CEO at Baltic Institute of Advanced Technology (BPTI) from 2011. As a senior manager of the institute he initiated development of strategy of integration to defence and security related R&D market in Europe. BPTI currently participates in 3 Preparatory Action on Defence Research (PADR) projects, 4 European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP) projects, 4 security related Horizon 2020 projects. BPTI members actively participates in NATO STO, EDA activities. Mr. Žalandauskas also participated in Lithuanian delegation at NATO Industry Advisory Group (NIAG), European Network of Defence-related Regions (ENDR).

Augustinas Vizbaras' field of expertise encompasses the design and development of long-wavelength semiconductor lasers and hybrid III-V/Si photonic integrated circuits. Augustinas has BSc in EE from Vilnius University (Lithuania), MSc in Physics from Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden) and PhD at Technische Universitat Munchen (Germany). He has authored and co-authored more than 50 publications in leading scientific technical journals and conference proceedings. Augustinas is a member of the Council at Vilnius University and a member of Scientific Advisory Board at CSEM Centre Suisse l'Electronique et Microtechnique SA. Augustinas has 3 granted US patents and 17 patent applications pending.

Rimvydas Jančiauskas is a C-level executive specializing in the IT domain. While working in leadership positions from 2003, Rimvydas had an opportunity to foster ICT-based innovation both in government institutions and business. From 2011, while working in the Ministry of Interior of Lithuania, was responsible for national e. government policy. Currently holding CEO and COO positions in Elsis PRO, Lithuanian joint-stock company actively taking part in European Defence Agency and European Space Agency funding programs, enhancing companies own innovation, and new technology development initiatives in the defence, space and AI domains.

Kazimieras Sadauskas - CEO of IMINT.AI, Lithuanian startup which specializes in computer vision solutions for the defence sector. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Mr. Sadauskas was R&D manager as well as Cybersecurity expert with the specialization on Open-Source Intelligence, Cyber Threat Intelligence and Information Security topics. Kazimieras advises public and private organisations on integrated intelligence approach, information gathering and monitoring techniques, as well as hosts training courses for government and private organizations on OSINT methodologies, information analysis, personal data protection and information security topics. He was also a researcher in the deployment of the Cybersecurity Capacity Maturity Model for Nations developed by the Oxford university, focusing on cybersecurity education, training and skills, cyber culture and society and standards, organisations, and technologies.