CALENDAR OF UPCOMING & PREVIOUS EVENTS

Dr. Frank Jürgen Richter is a German entrepreneur, economic advisor, and commentator. He is best known as the chairman of Horasis and founder of the Horasis Global Meeting, as well as a former director of the World Economic Forum.

Currently Frank is the Chairman of Horasis. He has served in that role since he founded the organization in 2005 – building it into today’s global platform for cooperation between emerging and developed markets. Horasis hosts the yearly Horasis Global Meeting as well as the Horasis India Meeting, Horasis China Meeting and the Horasis Asia Meeting. Frank is actively engaged with top businesses, and political and intellectual leaders around the world. He advises governments and private sector organizations on issues such as globalization, trade, and sustainable development.

Frank is frequent public speaker on BRICS economy (for our listeners: BRICS is the acronym coined for an association of five major emerging national economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). He is a scholar and author of 37 books and numerous articles on global strategy and Asian business.

His writings appeared in the financial and regional press, such as The International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, The Far Eastern Economic Review, The Straits Times and the South China Morning Post. He has been interviewed by several publications and appeared on CNN, BBC, CNBC, CCTV (China Central Television) as well as the Voice of America.

Sidney Minassian is the Founder of ImpactLadder – a global people development company on a mission to help people become their extraordinary.

For the past 20 years, Sidney has been an entrepreneur, speaker and coach. His ventures and engagements have given him the opportunity to live and work in the USA, Europe, Asia and Australia.

As Founder & CEO, Sidney has raised private and venture capital, hired and developed teams, launched new products, designed go-to-market strategies and made direct and channel sales. His most recent venture, Contexti was acquired by Versent, Australia’s fastest growing technology company.

Additionally Sidney has been a keynote speaker and has interviewed hundreds of leaders and practitioners on his ShowInnovation YouTube series and on his SalesNative podcast.

Scott A. Sandschafer Scott Sandschafer is Novartis CIO and Head of NBS IT in Basel, Canton of Basel-Stadt, Switzerland. He was appointed as Vice President and Chief Information Officer (CIO), Chrysler Group LLC in December 2009. In this position, he was responsible for all information technology applications and infrastructure in support of Chrysler Group business units located in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Asia-Pacific. He served as the executive sponsor of the Chrysler Asian Network (CAN), in addition to playing a leading role with the Chrysler Group Global Diversity Council.

Sandschafer joined Chrysler Group from CNH America LLC, where he gained extensive experience in information and communication technology, most recently serving as Head of Information Systems – SAP Core Program, Sales, Marketing and eBusiness.

Prior to that Scoot worked at Accenture, leading numerous global information and communication technology programs with broad global reach.

Sandschafer is an automobile enthusiast and loves to spend his free time with his family. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1996).

CELSO Y. GUIOTOKO Tokyo, Japan
Celso has been one of the key players in the Manufacturing industry being a Member of the Board of Directors and CIO at Nissan Motor Corporation in Japan for 14 plus years, Global Alliance CIO at Renault-Nissan for 7 plus years; Information Technology leader at Toshiba Semiconductor in the US, and management consulting role at Accenture for 11 plus years. Celso has extensive experience in Supply Chain Management in several industries working for i2 technologies acquired by JDA Software.

Senior Technology Executive with a distinctive track record at board level driving commercial growth and innovation for Nissan and Renault-Nissan Alliance (2004-2017). Proven ability to design and lead transformation programs in IT, supply chain management, product life cycle management, customer relationship management and corporate support functions using advanced digital technologies. Combines the technical ability to evaluate new technology with negotiation skills to develop strategic partnerships that drive value to business and clients. Joined Nissan, following a series of roles in industries that spanned supply chain management, semiconductors, financial services and business and software consulting services. Unique multicultural background with previous positions in Brazil, the U.S., Japan and France. Established an Innovation Lab in Silicon Valley for Nissan, delivering significant results in Big Data, IoT – Internet of Things, Cyber Security and Machine Learning
. Technology Leadership: As Alliance Global VP for the IS/IT organization and Group CIO of Renault and Nissan, led the convergence of Engineering, Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management, Purchasing, HR Functions and IT solutions to achieve more than 4B Euro synergies in 2016.
Most recently has been a member of the Board of Directors at Nissan Motors; has been a NED of Hinduja Tech Limited. Member for several advisory boards for global IT solution companies, high-tech start-up and academic program.
Currently, Celso is extremely active and holds several high impact roles as Non-Executive Board Member at Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan Holding Co., Executive member of Nishimoto Trading Co. , Digital Advisory Council member at Coats PLC in UK, President for Brazilian Chamber of Commerce in Japan and Cyber Security Policy Program Advisory Committee Member at the Stanford University in the US.

Digitain organized a hackathon event in Yerevan, Armenia where Emma Arakelyan was a speaker on the panel. The M1TQ program, organized in the framework of Digitain’s DigiTown project<https://www.1lurer.am/en/2021/02/11/%E2%80%9CDigitown%E2%80%9D-International-Center-for-Innovative-Technologies-to-be-built-with-5-000-jobs/412168>, aims to crowdsource innovative technological solutions and empower the Armenian startup ecosystem. This year, the program was organized in cooperation with Garage48<https://garage48.org/> and was composed of 2 parts: the hackathon and acceleration. The M1TQ hackathon<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA6IjgudXE8&t=840s> kicked off in Yerevan on 20-22 of May with a whopping 187 participants and 50 ideas pitched. The hackathon was followed by the 12-week acceleration program led by Garage48 experts and professionals. As a result, seven startup teams finalized their ideas and made MVPs.

Emma was a speaker at FinWave event to cover Inside Fintech Investment Decisions. Emma covered insights about VCs still heavily targeting Fintech in their investment thesis despite lower revenue growth and valuation multiples. Emma Arakelyan led a discussion on which aspects are attracting capital today, key areas of due diligence, and how investment decisions are made for Fintech startups. Emma Arakelyan is the Co-Founder of New York based BAJ Accelerator, Venture Partner at Covenant Venture Capital, and CEO & Founder of Orion Worldwide Innovations, LLC. Emma’s broad leadership experience, across business strategy, M&A, governance and compliance, includes roles in management consulting (E&Y Accenture), adjunct professor at New York University, Featured Speaker at Columbia Business School and mentor at the Singularity University.