TMF Brussels 2019

Dr Carl-Christian Buhr, Deputy Head of Cabinet of Commissioner M Gabriel, Digital Economy & Society, European Commission.

Carl-Christian Buhr is an economist and computer scientist who advises Digital Economy and Society Commissioner Mariya Gabriel.

He joined the Commissioner’s cabinet after heading the Commission’s IT Security unit.

Previously, he was an adviser to Commissioner Phil Hogan 2014-2016 and Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes 2010-2014.

Dr Buhr has also worked on IT antitrust and merger cases 2007-2010 and as an IT auditor at the European Court of Auditors 2005-2007.

Claire Bury is Deputy Director General in DG CONNECT with responsibility for regulatory aspects of the Digital Single Market. She is also a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges.

She was previously Director of Modernisation of the Single Market in Directorate General Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs.

Before that, she was Head of Unit for Company Law, Corporate Governance and Financial Crime in Directorate General Internal Market and Services, and Deputy Head of Cabinet to Internal Market Commissioners Charlie McCreevy and Frits Bolkestein.

An English barrister by training, Ms Bury worked in the Commission’s Legal Service and, before coming to Brussels, in the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Anna Herold is currently Head of the Audiovisual and Media Policy Unit at the European Commission. She was previously Member of Cabinet of Günther H. Oettinger, European Commissioner responsible for Digital Economy and Society. Prior to that, she was Assistant to Deputy Director-General of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology of the European Commission, Roberto Viola. She has worked for the European Commission since 2003, dealing with media, audiovisual and telecoms policy as well as competition law. Anna holds a PhD in Law from the European University Institute in Florence and has written on media law and policy, international trade and competition law.

Anthony Whelan is Director for Electronic Communications Networks & Services at the European Commission since 2013. Directorate B is in charge of designing and monitoring a legally predictable (regulatory) environment for electronic communications in the EU. As the basis for the Digital Single Market, this environment should foster a pro-competitive single market for the roll-out of high-speed internet networks and the delivery of electronic communications services. This will be an essential contribution to boost innovation, growth and jobs in Europe.

Anthony Whelan, a barrister, has lectured and researched in public law at Trinity College Dublin and has worked as a lawyer at the European Court of Justice and in the Legal Service of the European Commission. Between 2006 and 2013, he was head of the cabinet (private office) of EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes in the competition and digital agenda portfolios.

Augusto Preta is a consultant, economist and market analyst, with long-established experience in the field of content media and digital markets. As Founder and CEO at ITMedia Consulting, he has assisted and advised for almost 30 years, public institutions, authorities and major companies in media, telecommunications and the internet industries.

Mr Preta is Member of the SIE (Società Italiana degli Economisti).  He has been a visiting professor on Media Economics at Urbino University, Sassari University e Università Cattolica di Milano for almost 20 years, and has been involved in many research projects, writing influential papers and cooperating with organisations such as: Aspen Institute, European Law and Economics Society, Luigi Einaudi Foundation. He is author of “Economia dei contenuti” (2008) and “TV and relevant markets” (2013). He co-authored with Gerard Pogorel the Fondation Robert Schuman research report  “Convergence in Media and Telecom in face of Covid-19” (2020).

Mr Preta is President of the International Institute of Communications Italian Chapter, and served on the board of Directors 2006-2023.

Axel Desmedt heads the Legal Department, the Human Resources Department and the Telecoms Market & Media Department at BIPT. Mr Desmedt has been a Member of the BIPT Council since 2009, managing several services. In January 2017 he was nominated once more as a Member of the Council.

Between 1997 and 2006, Mr Desmedt joined the Brussels Bar as a lawyer, working respectively for the law firms Stibbe (at the EU/WTO Department) and WilmerHale (in the Competition, Trade and Communications Departments). In that capacity his tasks included the representation of clients from the postal and telecommunications sectors. From 2006 until 2009 he worked for the International group France Telecom/Orange in the Global Roaming & International Interconnection Department, and as Deputy Director of the Permanent Representation to the EU at France Telecom/Orange, respectively.

Mr Desmedt co-founded the magazine on network industry legislation for which he holds a position on the editorial team and he is a visiting lecturer at UCL as well.

Mr Desmedt holds a Master’s degree in Law from the Free University of Brussels (1997) as well as an LLM degree from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, USA) where he specialised in international trade law.

Celene Craig was the former Deputy Chief Executive of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI), since its establishment in 2009 until March 2024, in addition to having worked with its predecessors the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) and the Independent Radio and Television Commission (IRTC).

A significant dimension of her work in the BAI has been her responsibilities for the formulation and review of a wide range of broadcasting/media-related policies and for advising on the implementation of legislative and policy changes in the audiovisual field at national and European levels. Most recently, she has led the development of the BAI’s Policy Position on the Implementation of the revised Audiovisual Media Services Directive and on the Regulation of Harmful Content on Online Platforms.

Ms Craig has had responsibility for regulatory oversight of public funding for the Irish public service broadcasters, RTÉ and TG4, and has acted as an Authority nominee to the BAI’s statutory committees for Contract Awards and for Compliance.

From 2015 to May 2019, Ms Craig was Chairperson of the European Platform of Regulatory Authorities (EPRA) and is an active participant in European fora, such as ERGA, on audiovisual legislative and regulatory matters.

Celene Craig is also an Advisory Council member at the International Institute of Communications.

Dan Sjöblom is the Director General of the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS) and was appointed by the Swedish Government on 1 February 2017.

He served as Chairperson of BEREC (Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communication) in 2020, having served as a vice-chair in 2019.

Prior to taking up his position, Mr Sjöblom was the Director General for the Swedish Competition Authority for eight years, between 2009 and 2017.

He is also board member of the Swedish Broadband Council.

Mr Sjöblom has served as a civil servant at the European Commission between 1996 and 2009. He holds a Master of Laws from Stockholm University.

David Wheeldon is Group Director of Policy and Public Affairs at Sky, advising the CEO and Group Executive Committee on strategic public policy, regulatory advocacy, government relations and industry engagement across Sky’s major European markets where his team cover a wide range of media, telecoms, consumer and digital issues. Previously Mr Wheeldon looked after Sky’s sustainability strategy and for its initiatives to inspire customers and staff in sports, arts, environment and schools. He has also served as deputy president of the Association of Commercial Television Europe and he is currently a board director of Internet Matters, a not-for-profit company that helps keep children safe in the digital world. Prior to Sky Mr Wheeldon held a similar role at the London Stock Exchange Group where he was responsible for the Group’s UK, EU and global public policy covering listed companies, equities trading and the capital markets. In the early 2000’s, he was a partner in a leading London based communications firm where he provided political advice to major international businesses. He began his career as a university administrator before becoming a political speech writer and strategist.

Elin Nolsøe Nielsen is Head of EU Affairs at Orange, and has more than 20 years of experience dealing with regulatory issues at national and international level. She started out as a product manager but moved quickly into regulatory affairs negotiating roaming agreements, new licence acquisition and the launch of the first mobile payment solutions. Her work is now concentrated on regulatory affairs at EU-level within the area of consumer policies, telecom and digital regulation. Ms Nielsen represents Orange in various industry associations working on policy issues, self- and co-regulation.

Ms Nielson has a Bachelors degree in Marketing, International Economics and Management from Copenhagen Business School.

Felipe is a seasoned economist with over 20 years’ experience in competition policy, litigation and regulation. He co-heads Oxera’s global Digital, Telecoms, Media, and Technology (DTMT) practice and holds a senior leadership position in Oxera’s Madrid office.

Felipe is a recognised expert in the telecoms sector, where he has advised on wholesale and retail market reviews, margin squeeze assessments, and wholesale fibre access pricing, amongst others.

Mr Flórez Duncan is also a seasoned economic expert, having provided expert witness testimony in regulatory, competition and damages cases before UK and European courts.

Francesco Liberatore advises clients on all aspects of the application of communications and competition law.

On the behavioural side, Mr Liberatore’s practice includes bringing and defending all types of regulatory and competition disputes before Ofcom, the Competition and Markets Authority and the European Commission, as well as managing internal investigations, dawn raids, and counselling on compliance issues and various commercial agreements. On the transactional side, Mr Liberatore handles UK and EU merger control due diligence and filings, as well as coordinating multijurisdictional merger control strategies. He also advises private equity investors, banks, and other financial investors on arbitrage opportunities.

Mr Liberatore’s litigation experience includes representing clients in matters before the Competition Appeal Tribunal, the High Court of Justice and the European Courts.

He has authored several legal publications, including the UK Chapter of the International Telecommunications Law handbook (Juris Publishing).

Mr Liberatore has been listed as a leading practitioner in Chambers UK, Chambers Global, The Legal 500 UK and Who’s Who Legal. He is a guest lecturer at King’s College London and a member of Justice.

Grégoire Polad is the head of the Association of Commercial television in Europe (ACT) as of November 2015. The Association of Commercial Television in Europe represents the interests of leading commercial broadcasters throughout the EU and beyond. The ACT member companies are highly regulated and adhere to strict editorial responsibility standards. ACT believes that the healthy and sustainable commercial broadcasting sector has a crucial role to play in sustaining quality news and information whilst reinvesting in the creative and cultural economy.

Mr Polad has been involved in European affairs for more than a decade working in several global and niche consultancies. For ACT, Mr Polad has been the spokesperson for the industry on a number of core files for the media industry, notably media regulation and tackling disinformation in the online space. Mr Polad was a leading member of the Sounding Board on Disinformation convened by the Commission. He works closely with other media sectors, journalists and academia on the issue of disinformation in view of encouraging policies that lead to a more responsible online space.

Prior to working for ACT, he was Managing Partner of True Political Communications where he coordinated the Wider Spectrum Group, a group bringing together eleven pan-European associations including trade unions, employers and viewer organisations.

Mr Polad has also been active on the tech front, representing application developers as Head of European policy for The App Association.

Mr Polad is a former Associate of McKinsey & Co and holds an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business as well as an MSc and BSc from the London School of Economics.

Harald Gruber is head of the Digital Infrastructure Division at the Projects Directorate of the European Investment Bank based in Luxembourg. He oversees project appraisal in the ICT and space sectors and advises on the Bank’s business strategy with respect to financing of broadband infrastructure, innovation policy and the digital economy in general. He has also contributed in work related to the contribution of SMEs toward the innovation policy of the Bank as well as the role of start-up companies. He has also led the EIB’s technical appraisal team in assessment of financing of SME and start-up companies, including also the context of economic development. He has investigated the scope of digital technologies in furthering economic growth.

Dr Gruber has a considerable record of accomplishment in scientific publication. Recent work is on proposals for a digital industrial policy. He has published articles in refereed journals such as Economic Policy, European Economic Review, Telecommunications Policy, Information Economics and Policy and International Journal of Industrial Organisation. He has published The Economics of Mobile Telecommunications at Cambridge University Press in 2005.

Dr Gruber is on the editorial board of academic journals such as Telecommunications Policy, Information Economics and Policy, Journal of Industrial and Business Economics.

Dr Gruber has been Professor at Bocconi University (Milan) for telecommunications economics. He holds a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics.

Irene Roche Laguna is the Deputy Head of Unit dealing with the Implementation of the Telecom Regulatory Framework in the European Commission (DG CONNECT). Before that, she was Team Leader in the Unit dealing E-commerce and Platforms; in that context, it coordinated policy and enforcement actions under the E-commerce Directive. In particular, she has coordinated the Commission’s work on illegal content online and the legal aspects related to the intermediary liability regime.

Ms Roche Laguna also worked as an Assistant Professor of European and Constitutional Law at the University of Valencia (Spain) before joining the European Court of Justice in 2002 and the European Commission in 2004. She has worked in the areas of State Aid, online and postal services and on the coordination of Single Market Governance issues in DG MARKT.

Isolde Goggin has over twenty years experience working at the highest level in telecommunications regulation, competition policy and consumer protection. She was chairperson of Ireland’s Competition and Consumer Protection Commission from 2014 to 2021 and, prior to that, chaired one of its predecessor bodies, the Competition Authority, from 2011 to 2014. She was a commissioner of ComReg, the Irish Commission for Communications Regulation, from 2002 to 2006, and chairperson from 2004 to 2006. From 1996 to 2002 she was a member of the Competition Authority.

Isolde’s involvement in the telecommunications sector dates back to 1980 when, after qualifying with an engineering degree from Trinity College, Dublin, she joined the incumbent telecommunications operator. She completed a masters in business administration at University College, Dublin, in 1988, and subsequently moved to an advisory role in the European Commission, working on satellite policy. She also worked for the Swedish telecommunications manufacturer Ericsson for several years.

Isolde has represented Ireland in many international fora, including the European and International Competition Networks, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications, the EU’s Radio Spectrum Policy Group, the European Consumer Protection Co-operation Network and the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network. She has provided advice to government on spectrum policy, next generation networks, data protection and online safety.

Isolde is an honorary life member and fellow of Engineers Ireland, a chartered engineer and member of the IET. She is also a member of the board of Trinity College, Dublin, and of the Central Bank of Ireland’s consumer advisory group. Reflecting a lifelong interest in the classics, she gained a BA in the subject from the Open University in 2021, and a masters from Trinity College Dublin in 2023. She is also a keen open water swimmer and last summer combined the two interests by participating in the 6.5 km Bosphorus Cross-Continental Race in Istanbul.

Jack Hamande joined the Institute in September 2013 as Chairman of the Council until January 2017, when he was nominated as a Member of the Council.

Mr Hamande acquired a great deal of experience in management, previously working for the Walt Disney Group, AT&T, Verizon Business, Cisco and Proximus. His managerial responsibilities increased and broadened over the years, especially as regards strategy, regulation, engineering and business development. In 2009 he changed the course of his career by joining the Belgian federal public sector as Director General for Organisation and Personnel Development at the FPS Personnel & Organisation. There he initiated several programmes applying to the whole of the federal public service in areas such as efficiency, customer orientation, leadership development, performance management, culture, diversity and well-being at work.

Mr Hamande holds a Masters degree in Psychological and Pedagogical Sciences (ULB) and a degree in management.

Jean-Jacques Sahel was appointed Asia-Pacific Information Policy Lead at Google in November 2019, overseeing Google’s public policy approach in the region for issues including misinformation, online safety and intermediary liability.

He has been involved in international government and regulatory affairs for over 15 years in both the private and government sectors. Before joining Google, Mr Sahel was Managing Director of ICANN’s Brussels office and led the organisation’s corporate strategy and operations across the European region. He also led ICANN’s strategic plan for outreach, support and engagement with governments, private sector, and user groups throughout Europe, and worldwide for civil society.

Previously, Mr Sahel headed government and regulatory affairs for Skype, then digital policy at Microsoft for Europe, Middle-East & Africa regions. He had started his career in the City of London, before spending several years in the UK Government, leading in particular its international telecommunications policy.

Ex officio, Mr Sahel chaired the UK Chapter of the International Institute of Communications (IIC) from 2009-2019, and served on the Board of Directors from 2011-2024.

He was a member of OSAB, the Advisory Board of UK communications regulator Ofcom for 2 terms until 2016. He has authored articles and research in both mainstream media and academic publications particularly on Internet policy and governance.

Bio coming soon

Laura Sboarina follows EU regulation affecting the media sector, specialising on television and online video services. She also follows the television markets in Italy and in the US.Ms Sboarina joined Cullen International in 2011, previously representing in Brussels the European association of television and radio advertising sales houses (EGTA). She has also worked at the Italian public service broadcaster, RAI.

Lindsey Fussell is Group Director for Networks and Communications. She leads Ofcom’s work in the telecoms, post and network sectors, where we aim to protect consumers’ interests and promote competition.

Before joining Ofcom in April 2016, Ms Fussell held a range of senior leadership roles at public bodies. She was Public Services Director at HM Treasury, where she led on devolution, education and culture, defence and criminal justice. Ms Fussell supported the Varney review for public service transformation, and led major aspects of the 2015 Spending Review.

Ms Fussell holds a degree in Modern History from Oxford University, and is a member of York University’s governing Council.

Lisa Felton leads the public policy strategy and engagement with policy makers in relation to global policy programmes for Vodafone across its global footprint. She has over 20 years’ experience as a lawyer and in policy both within Vodafone and in private practice.

Ms Felton is a Visiting Policy Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute and Chair of the GSMA Mobile Commerce Operator Expert Group

Ms Felton holds an MA from Oxford University in Law and a Masters in International Law of Human Rights.

Lorna Woods is a professor of internet law at the University of Essex and a member of the Human Rights Centre there. She started her career in practice at a commercial solicitors’ firm advising in the field of commercial law, specifically that relating to the ICT sector. She then moved to academia where she has taught and researched in media and telecommunications regulation at both national and EU level, publishing widely in these fields. Notably, she co-authored a book, European Broadcasting Law and Policy (Cambridge University Press) with Prof J Harrison, and has been country expert for the UK in respect of a number of Commission funded projects.

Madeleine de Cock Buning is the Vice President for Public Policy EMEA at Netflix.  As Vice-President for Public Policy Europe, Middle-East and Africa, Prof de Cock Buning is working with her team to ensure Netflix continues to play an active role in supporting EU institutions and national governments across the region in their efforts to promote and champion the creative industries as a catalyst for innovation and creativity.

Prof de Cock Buning is also a professor of Copyright and Media Law at the University of Utrecht Faculty of Law (UU) and chaired professor of Digital Politics, Economy and Societies at the School of Transnational Governance of the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. Previously, Prof de Cock Buning was Chair of the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group (HLEG) on fake news and disinformation (2018), chair of the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA) (2016 & 2017) and was President of the Board of Commissioners at the Dutch Media Authority (2009-2019). She was Honorary Judge of the Court of Appeal in The Hague (2010-2020) and was a panelist of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) (2001-2018).

In May 2019 Prof de Cock Buning received a Royal Distinction; she was appointed Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau by the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Marie Helly joined the BBC World Service in 1987. She spent several years working on a diverse range of domestic factual radio programmes, including Woman’s Hour, the Food Programme, and Costing the Earth. She produced award winning investigations and documentaries on the environment, science and the world of work. This was followed by a period of time with BBC News on the daily current affairs programme, The World Tonight, producing coverage of big domestic events, as well as bringing in depth analysis of global affairs to a UK audience.

Ms Helly has returned to the World Service throughout her career, including a period editing Business Daily during the financial crisis 2007/8. After leading coverage of the Brexit referendum campaign she once again returned to the World Service in 2016. The BBC has made tackling the challenges of disinformation a strategic priority, and so Ms Helly was asked to lead a project for the World Service, to develop content and events that would hold social media companies and politicians to account, whilst building partnerships to develop solutions. This became the BBC’s “Beyond Fake News”. As part of this project, the BBC has hosted high impact conferences across India, Africa, Brazil and Serbia; commissioned original research into why people share fake news; created media literacy workshops and other content for young people in the UK and globally.

Ms Helly holds a degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics.

Mathieu Moreuil has been dealing with sport related issues in Brussels for 15 years. He started his career in 2003 in the European Commission, first in the sport unit and then in the unit in charge of free movement of workers including professional players.

In 2007 Mr Moreuil joined APCO, a Public Affairs Consultancy, where he advised clients in the media and sport sectors.

In 2010, Mr Moreuil was appointed Head of EU Public Policy for the English Premier League and set up the Brussels Office. In 2018 he was promoted Director of International Football Relations and EU Affairs

Mr Moreuil also coordinates the Brussels activities of the Sports Rights Owners Coalition (www.sroc.info) a group of 50+ sport events’ organisers which deals with IPR and rights issues.

Mr Moreuil graduated from the Strasbourg Institute for Political Sciences. He also holds a Masters in European Law from the Free University of Brussels and an MBA in International Management from the ESCP Europe.

Michel Van Bellinghen, Master of Laws (UCL), started off at the university in 1990 as a researcher, then became an assistant under the supervision of Professor Françoise Tulkens, at the UCL Laws Centre for Criminal Law.

Mr Van Bellinghen became an assistant advisor at the Ministry of Justice in 1992 under the supervision of Professor Marc Bossuyt and joined the BIPT in 1997. From 1999 to 2003 he held the position of expert at the private office of Rik Daems, who was the Federal Telecommunications Minister at the time, and afterwards took up the function of Assistant Head of the Private Office. From 2003 until 2009 he was nominated Member of the BIPT Council for the first time. Following this mandate he remained closely affiliated to the Council and supervised the legal department of the regulator during a number of years. He has written scientific publications.

In 2013 Mr Van Bellinghen held a position on the Council as a Member. In January 2017 he was assigned Chairman of the BIPT Council.

Mr Van Bellinghen served as Chair of BEREC in 2021.

Mirela Doicu is part of the Global Government Relations team of Nokia group, overseeing the wireless policy and regulatory affairs since 2011, and advocating for a favourable political and regulatory environment to foster investments in the digital and broadband industry. She is active in several international and European telecom industry and trade associations, contributing to the revision of the global telecom regulation and policy environment;

Ms Doicu has been Chair of the Regulatory working group of the Small Cells Forum since 2015.

Ms Doicu has 20 years of experience in telecom with Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent, and Orange, in regulation, business consulting, and strategic marketing.

Ms Doicu is an organic chemistry engineer and holds an MBA from University of Ottawa and HEC Montreal

Monica Ariño joined Amazon in April 2020, to lead public policy in the UK and Ireland. Before Amazon, she worked for BT Group as a Director of Regulatory Affairs (2017-2020) and for Ofcom, where from 2011 she led the International team. Ms Ariño has been a Vice-Chair of the European Platform of Regulatory Authorities (2009-2017) and a Board Director at the Institute of International Communications (2014-2022).

Ms Ariño studied Law in Madrid, and then completed a PhD at the European University Institute in Florence.

Monica Ariño is also an Advisory Council member at the International Institute of Communications.

Nick joined Virgin Media O2 on its formation, from one of its shareholders, Telefonica SA.  He is responsible for a multi-disciplinary regulatory and public policy team reporting to VMO2’s General Counsel.

He joined O2 UK in 2004, transferring to Telefonica SA in 2013 and has undertaken a variety of regulatory and management roles within the business, always with a strong strategic focus.

Prior to joining O2, Nick worked in management consulting advising firms during the wave of telecoms liberalisation in the 1990s.  He holds a physics degree from Imperial College, London.

Paolo Cesarini is Head of the Unit responsible for media convergence and social media within DG Communication Networks, Content and Technology at the European Commission. He previously held other management positions in the Commission, namely in DG Competition where he was responsible for antitrust policy and enforcement in the media, consumer goods, basic industries, agricultural and manufacturing sectors (from 2001 until 2010), and for State aid policy in the areas of R&D&I, risk finance and environment (from 2011 until 2016). Previous assignments include work as a legal officer at the Legal Service of the International Labour Organization in Geneva (Switzerland) and as a researcher at the Institute for Public and International Law of Siena University.

Mr Cesarini obtained a Masters degree in International Law at the University of Siena (Italy) and an LLM in EU law at the College of Europe (Bruges, Belgium). During the last ten years, he has also been teaching EU Competition Law as a Visiting Professor at Siena University, and as a lecturer at Montpellier university.

Rosa Barcelo has nearly 20 years of experience in European data protection and privacy, including expertise in compliance and policy. Her experience covers diverse sectors and is drawn from working in private practice, as well as in public service with the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) and the European Commission.

Rosa Barcelo advises clients on data protection and privacy, including compliance with the GDPR and the e-Privacy Directive. She has a particular focus on cutting-edge ICT issues, including AI, machine learning, autonomous vehicles, programmatic advertising and online tracking technologies.

Prior to McDermott Will & Emery, Ms Barcelo was Partner and Deputy Co-Chair, Data Privacy & Cybersecurity Practice Group, Squire Patton Boggs.

Ms Barcelo was also Deputy Head of Unit of the Cybersecurity and Digital Privacy Unit of DG CONNECT in the European Commission, where she led legislative deliberations over the proposed e-Privacy Regulation.  During her tenure with the European Commission, Ms Barcelo also worked in the Data Protection Unit where she was responsible for international data transfer issues (BCRs and adequacy decisions). Ms Barcelo’s work with the office of the EDPS focused on a wide range of ICT-related issues. In these roles, Ms Barcelo worked closely with national supervisory authorities participating in the former Article 29 Working Party (now the European Data Protection Board).

Ms Barcelo has also worked in academia and as a private lawyer in the Brussels offices of various international law firms, where she advised on EU privacy and data protection issues, as well electronic commerce and technology laws.

Ms Barcelo is a frequent lecturer on data protection, privacy and cybersecurity.

Stephen Adshead is both an Associate of Plum Consulting, a consultancy specialising in the telecommunications, media and technology space and adjacent sectors, and the founder of Spark Ninety, a research and strategy consulting firm specialising in digital media, advertising and technology. He has over 20 years of experience advising corporates, investors, regulators and governments, with previous clients including Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, Sky, ITV, the BBC, Warner Media, NBCUniversal, Ericsson, Arqiva, BT, the IAB, Ofcom and the European Commission.

Mr Adshead co-authored Online Advertising in the UK, a Plum Consulting report for the UK Government published in February 2019. This report fed into the Cairncross Review into the sustainability of high-quality journalism and government work on online advertising regulation.

Mr Adshead’s previous roles include strategy director at MTM, a strategy consulting and research firm, and senior manager at What If Innovation.

He has a degree in chemistry from Cambridge University.

Dr Stephen Unger was until recently a Board member of Ofcom, the UK regulator responsible for digital communications. He had various responsibilities, including setting regulatory strategy for the UK, representing the UK internationally, and leading Ofcom’s technology programme. For a period he was Acting Chief Executive.

Before becoming a regulator Dr Unger spent several years in the private sector. He worked for a variety of high-tech start-ups who were developing and exploiting new wireless technologies.

Dr Unger’s current focus, working as a non-executive board member, consultant, and academic, is on the practical implications of disruptive technology change.

Dr Unger also served as a International Institute of Communications Board Director 2017-2022.

For more background see www.linkedin.com/in/ungersteve. Dr Unger can be contacted at swunger@swunger.com

Sébastien Soriano was apointed the Chairman of Arcep (the French telecom regulator) in 2015.

He was the BEREC Chair 2017 (the European telecom body) and was the BEREC Vice-Chair in 2016 and 2018.  In 2019, he was Chair of Fratel, the network of French-speaking telecommunications regulators.

Mr Soriano has spent most of his career in digital policies, competition and telecoms regulation areas. He started his career at the French Competition Authority, as a case handler (2001-2004) and then as Deputy General Rapporteur (2009 and 2012). Between 2004 and 2009, he held various positions at Arcep.

From 2012 -2014, he was Chief of Staff of Mrs. Fleur Pellerin, French Minister for SMEs, Innovation and Communication. Prior to his appointment as Chairman of Arcep, he was Special Advisor to the French Minister for Culture and Communication.

Sébastien Soriano has published several papers on the challenges of regulators and law makers in the digital era. He also teaches regulation and digital economy in the Master’s programme in Public Policy at SciencesPo. He is also member of the board of directors of the Centre on Regulation in Europe (CERRE).

Ľuboš Kukliš is Chief Executive at the Council for Broadcasting and Retransmission of Slovakia and Chair of the European Platform of Regulatory Authorities (EPRA).

In 2018 and 2019, he was Chair of European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA) and currently leads ERGA’s work on disinformation.

Mr Kukliš frequently speaks at public events and cooperates with international organizations on possible solutions on topics such as the spread of disinformation, protection of minors in the online space, or regulation of new media.

Mr Kukliš is a lawyer by training and holds PhD in Administrative law.