Meet our speakers

Senior Human Resources Professional with international experience and a track record of designing successful people strategies to support the business needs. With a background in adult education, she is a strong leader of change. In her roles leading the Human Resource Functions with Coca-Cola HBC, Telekom and as Owner of ChangeWorks she initiated culture, engagement and talent programs to ensure workforce development and motivation in times of transformation, integration, merger, acquisition or cost reduction. Action and results oriented, Mrs Georgescu-Aladgem has been able to build strong teams of professionals, aligned human resource practices and organisations and drove key talent and leadership development programs to ensure bench strength, retention and brand identification.

Mrs Georgescu-Aladgem is here in her capacity of VP Mentoring at PWN Romania, a cause that she has been supporting for over a year.

Angela Achitei is the President of ADV Romania Foundation – national organization specialized in social inclusion services, having its national headquarters in Iasi. She is also the CEO of the Util Deco social enterprise, established in 2008 as a solution for the creation of sheltered workplaces for people with disabilities.

A trained social worker, having a Master’s degree in integrated education and with on-going doctoral studies in “strategic management of social economy businesses”, Angela has ensured, in over 15 years of activity at ADV Romania, the management of over 75 European projects, attracted in the local community over 17 million Euros and developed the Util Deco social enterprise, within which over 40{720ec7a127c17316850481649a87df2b3b1e9080dcb40e422ebed62fefc8da53} of the employees are people with disabilities, generating an annual turnover of over 5 million Euros.

In 2017, Angela received the ”Social Entrepreneur Of The Year” Award within the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year competition, the only global competition in the entrepreneurial field, developed in more than 145 cities from 60 countries. In 2015 she received the “Business with social impact” award given by Business Days. In 2014, Angela received acknowledgement as “entrepreneur in social economy” within the Gala of Female Models.

Other than the position held with ADV Romania, Angela invested a lot in the development of the NGO sector in Romania. During 2012-2014 she set the basis of the NGO Committee in Iasi. In 2014, together with other 9 NGOs from Iasi, she established the Federation of Nongovernmental Organizations for Social Services – F.O.N.S.S., being the President of the federation.

Starting with 2017 she is an active member of the Europe Club, developed by the European Commission, ensuring feedback of different European topics of interest.

Cristina Negraru is cofounder of Paradigma Film, a video storytelling startup that has been launched last year with the journalists Denisa Morariu and Cristian Tamas. She has an experience of nine years in business journalism for publications as Wall-Street.ro, Business Magazin and Ziarul Financiar. During this period (2007-2016) she had intervied more than 1.000 people, especially from the industries of IT&C, media&advertising and entrepreneurship. In September 2016, Cristina Negraru became personal adviser of Mr. Claudiu Vrînceanu, secretary of state at The Ministry of Economy, Commerce and Relations with the Business Environment. From this position, she managed the communication activities of the Cabinet and one of these projects was “MestesugarFEST” – the biggest national Romanian artcraft and traditions fair. She also created the editorial content for Startup.gov.ro – a website launched by the minister for SMB’s, especially startups.

Dragos is entrepreneur since 2005, and is currently Managing Partner – Catalyst Solutions – Talent & Employer Branding. Some of the projects which he helped launch are: www.hipo.ro portal, TOP Employers career fair, conferences and IT DevTalks program for young people of Top Talents. He is passionate about technology, digital marketing, employer branding and recruitment.

She is passionate about NLP, she lectures on the psychology of selling and on the psychology of leadership. In 2016 she did the step towards entrepreneurship, after 15 years of leading Marketing and Business Development department of a major foreign company in Romania.

Elena Badea is a graduate of the University “Politehnica” Bucharest, but she has built a career of over 23 years in marketing, sales and business development.

She coordinated 40 researches on the business environment and entrepreneurship in Romania and she was involved in training and coaching for managers and businessmen, but also in social responsibility projects and education.
Frequently publishes articles in the press in Romania and she is invited as a speaker at numerous national conferences on current topics of marketing and business development. In the past three years she has supported over 2,500 hours of workshops both in multinational companies and large entrepreneurial firms in Romanian.

Addresses topics that include: marketing and communications, business development, account management, business body language, presentation techniques, networking, personal brand development, leadership and sales psychology and neuromarketing.

Elena is, above all, a great ambassador for the game and the importance that it has in the adult lives. She does it either as the entrepreneur (in the company Starfish Events – a creative events company that aims to transform your business through play, whose tagline is Evolution likes to play ), either as trainer of communication, leadership or motivation (at Human Invest / Blanchard Romania), or as facilitator in Empretec – the program for entrepreneurial education. The common element remains the same – let’s learn to take ourselves less seriously. A convinced hedonistic, Elena seeks tirelessly to reconcile pragmatism of business with the belief that magic exists

Flavia has studied at the Scuola Politecnica di Design in Milan and has returned to Romania, keen on promoting local design at an international level. After working for several years as an Interior Designer in Milan and Bucharest, she has decided to embark on an entrepreneurial journey and partnered with her best friend and interior designer Andreea Batros to launch the Dare to Rug brand in 2015.

Dare to Rug is the first Romanian design brand that creates hand-tufted rugs, mixing craft and design inspired by traditional patterns. Dare to Rug has positioned itself as a creative brand that has the courage to engage in bold projects that fit its artistic core. The designers have launched their first collection in late 2015 and since then have had great reviews from an international audience. In 2016, the designers have designed and launched a dedicated collection for the renowned flooring brand Forbo – world-leader in their market.

The founders of Dare to Rug, Andreea Batros and Flavia Scînteanu were named Best Product Designers in 2016 at the ELLE Decoration Romanian Design Awards for their first hand tufted rug collection, “Romanian Moods”.

On September 21, 2015, Hans Klemm assumed the duties of U.S. Ambassador to Romania. Previously, Ambassador Klemm served as Acting Director General of the Foreign Service and Personnel of the Department of State. Ambassador Klemm was the Senior Official to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, led all U.S. civilian and military rule of law programs in Afghanistan, and served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste.

Overseas, in addition to multiple tours in Japan, Ambassador Klemm worked at U.S. Embassies in Bonn, Seoul and Port of Spain.

A graduate of Indiana University (B.A) and Stanford University (A.M.), Ambassador Klemm has professional fluency in Japanese and German. He is married to Mari Kano.

Liana Alexandru is the prime-time news anchor at Digi24, the first HD news television in Romania, broadcasting since 2012. Liana is a journalist with 17 years experience in media, first as a radio editor and presenter and then as a TV presenter and talk-show moderator at Realitatea TV and Digi24. She broadcasted live and covered all major events of the late years, from terrorist attacks to general elections. She has a Master’s degree in Linguistics and graduated Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest. She likes reading, writing and going to theater and opera with Selona, her 4 years old daughter.

Maria Gheorghiu is the Co-funder and Executive Director of the Romanian NGO Asociația OvidiuRo. In 2010, together with Leslie Hawke, an American Peace Corp volunteer, Maria designed and developed, in partnership with the Ministry of Education, the Fiecare Copil în Grădiniță program, aiming to bring the poorest children to kindergarten. The pilot program proved to be so successful at increasing the attendance and outcomes at high-risk children that in 2015 the Romanian Parliament passed legislation financing a national program based on the Fiecare Copil în Grădiniță model.

In April 2016, Maria was appointed by the Prime Minister Dacian Cioloș as State Counselor on Social Inclusion, spearheading the PM’s Anti-poverty package, and working directly with the Ministries of Education, Labor, Finance, Health, and EU Funds.

In 2016, Leslie Hawke – together with Maria Gheorghiu – received The ALIANȚA Award for Achievement in Humanitarian Work and Social Involvement, an acknowledgement of the long history of fruitful partnership between Gheorghiu and Hawke in fighting poverty through promoting the access to education of the poorest children of Romania.
Starting January 2017, Maria has restarted her activity at OvidiuRo, continuing a battle she has never put on hold: fighting for making quality early education available to Romania’s most disadvantaged children – so they have a chance to reach their potential in life.

27 years of experience in 9 different industries and more than 13 jobs have formed a strong knowledge base for Mirela Bucovicean, named four times one of the most powerful women in business by Business Magazine and awarded Crystal Globe for Entrepreneurship by Beau Monde magazine.

In 2010, Mirela Bucovicean started Molecule-F.com – the first promotion and sales platform of Romanian designers, a powerful concept that has generated a trend in the market. In less than a year, Molecule F becomes “the Romanian fashion revelation” and a benchmark in the industry.

Mirela Bucovicean is a business woman that overcomes herself leaving behind her comfort zone, developing ideas out of the box at times that for others can be very risky and carefully following the needs of the business market. The key to her professional progress is that every day, she asks more from herself, doesn’t stop when an intermediary succes emerges, learns how to be curious, looks for answers and gives something back to the community.

Mirela Dragoi is the type of entrepreneur that makes dreams materialize. Literally. Her current business, with an annual turnover of over 20 million Eur and with a 56{720ec7a127c17316850481649a87df2b3b1e9080dcb40e422ebed62fefc8da53} market share was 20 years ago merely a theoretical student project. Pet Star was founded on Mrs. Dragoi’s university thesis. The factory gradually became a leader within the whole Balkan region, grounded not only on vision but also on hard work and dedication. With a focus on continuous development, change and re-invention, Mrs Dragoi speaks about knowledge, education and importance of always being relevant and up to date

Oana has 15 years of experience in communication, from journalism and direct marketing to public relations and social media.
After a solid career in journalism, with 4 years in print media and television, she started working in PR. In 2007 she joined MSLGROUP The Practice (PR Agency of the Year 2016, the most creative & the most awarded PR agency in Romania) as PR consultant, and since February 2013 she is Managing Director of the agency.

Along the years, she has been engaged with work at strategic, supervision and implementation level in numerous communication campaigns, for more than 60 clients from various domains such as FMCG, retail, real estate, IT&C, automotive or financial. Most of these campaigns were awarded internationally and locally, in competitions such as Cannes Lions, EMEA SABRE Awards, Global SABRE Awards, European Excellence Awards, IPRA Golden World Awards, Romanian PR Award or ADC*RO Awards.

She gained valuable experience as a juror in local and international competitions (e.g. Sabre Awards, Eurobest – Festival of Creativity, Romanian PR Award, ADC*RO Awards, Stevie – International Business Awards or Business Review Awards), as a guest speaker or moderator in various industry events and as a trainer for communication professionals and aspirants. She teaches Personal Branding at DallesGO, one of the largest after-work courses platform in Romania.

Oana Craioveanu is a passionate entrepreneur, with an extensive experience in project management. She is the co-founder of Impact Hub Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca. Impact Hub Bucharest is the first co-working space launched in Romania and one of the most important organizations in shaping and supporting a new generation of entrepreneurs. Oana is also the co-initiator of Innoteque, a conference about creating, nurturing and maximizing an innovation ecosystem in Romania and the Project manager of Startarium, the most complex platform dedicated to supporting entrepreneurial initiatives. She is also an Aspen Romania Young Leaders Program 2012 Fellow.

An expert in strategic communication for the political, diplomatic and high-level institutional environment, Oana Marinescu creates and implements communication, PR & public affairs strategies with vision and credibility. She lives by the belief that good communication is based on values – on sharing and standing by your own, while understanding and respecting those of others.

Due to a heightened sense of situational and contextual awareness, Oana has set off in the last decade a refreshing long-awaited change to the Romanian landscape of public debate, policy making, public perception and cross-cultural understanding. For her the question is never who’s going to let me, but who’s going to stop me now.

Rodica Alexandru established in 2002, together with the shareholders of INGEDIA FACILITEUR, currently part of NOX Group, the first company in Romania of the French engineering group, INGEDIA ROMANIA, currently NOX INTERNATIONAL, active in the field of buildings, industrial processes, energy, transport infrastructure, and environmental infrastructure.

Since then, she has continuously driven the development of the company in Romania, as well as worldwide, through strong business acumen, high standard project management, effective people management efficient communication, successful networking at all levels, and in-depth knowledge of applicable practices and policies of the European Union and of a variety of International Financial Institutions, such as The World Bank, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and The European Investment Bank. Rodica has acted as Business Development Manager for International Markets for the group, assuring penetration of new markets, followed by sustainable long-term presence in Kosovo and Turkey, since 2009. Among the most noteworthy projects coordinated by her, the Renault Technical Center in Titu, Romania and the upgrading of power transmission system in Kosovo stand out the most.

In 2014, Rodica has cofounded BRINOX DEVELOPMENT, as well part of NOX Group, company that is primarily involved in real estate development, such as commercial turn-key projects. She supports and facilitates interaction between French investors and the Romanian business environment and sharing her extensive experience on dealing with local and international clients, both private and public, gained through the coordination of more than 50 civil and industrial projects.

Rodica is a member of the professional network Association Progress du Management Bucharest, which she also presided during 2012 – 2015.