Melissa Heikkilä

Senior Reporter

MIT Technology Review

Melissa Heikkilä is a senior reporter at MIT Technology Review, where she covers artificial intelligence and how it is changing our society.

Melissa Heikkilä is a senior reporter at MIT Technology Review, where she covers artificial intelligence and how it is changing our society. Previously she wrote about AI policy and politics at POLITICO. She has also worked at The Economist and used to be a news anchor. Forbes named her as one of its 30 under 30 in European media in 2020.

Meet the 2025 speakers

Mystery Speaker

Genval Forum II Speaker

The mystery speaker is a regular of the Genval Forum

Mystery speaker

Speaker

Genval Forum II

The mystery speaker is a regular of the Genval Forum

Marili Männik

Executive Director ad interim

eu-LISA

Marili Männik became eu-LISA’s Deputy Executive Director on 16 August 2024. She has also been appointed Executive Director ad interim by the Agency’s Management Board, a function she will hold until the recently selected Executive Director will take up his duties.

Tom Garnett

CEO & Co-founder

Refute

Tom co-founded Refute to address the next critical threat to governments and commercial organisations: disinformation.

Sebastian von Ribbentrop

Founding Partner

JOIN Capital

Sebastian von Ribbentrop is a Founding Partner at Join Capital, bringing over 25 years of experience in private equity, real estate, and venture capital.

Denys Gurak

Co-founder & COO\CIO

MITS Capital

Serial entrepreneur with a proven track record in securing investments and extensive experience managing the international business of a defense conglomerate (UDI) with a turnover of $1B.

Klaus Welle

Chairman of the Academic Council

Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies

Klaus Welle chairs the Martens Centre’s Academic Council since April 2023. In May 2025, he was appointed Special Advisor to the Commissioner for Defence and Space.

Benjamin Cistecky

Managing Partner

Certitude Holdings (Temasek)

Ben Cistecky is Managing Partner of Certitude Holdings, a Temasek platform focused on innovations in mission-critical applications.

Micolaj Firlej

Co-founder and General Partner

Expeditions Fund

Over the last decade, Mikolaj has worked on autonomous weapon systems and the application of AI in defence and intelligence sectors.

Isabelle Roccia

Managing Director

IAPP Europe

As Managing Director, Europe, Isabelle Roccia leads the IAPP’s Brussels office and engages with senior industry leaders, policymakers, regulators and civil society, keeping IAPP members informed and apprised of local developments in privacy, AI governance and digital responsibility.

Sebastian Hallensleben

Chief Trust Officer

Resaro

Dr Sebastian Hallensleben is the Chair of CEN-CENELEC JTC 21 where European AI standards to underpin EU regulation are being developed, and co-chairs the AI risk and accountability work at OECD.

Ingrid Romijn

CEO & Co-founder

Q*Bird

Ingrid Romijn is the CEO of Q*Bird, a Delft-based leader in quantum-secure communications, building ultra-secure networks that safeguard critical infrastructure today and prepare organisations for the quantum internet of tomorrow.

Clayton Williams

Managing Director

In-Q-Tel

Clayton Williams is the Managing Director of In-Q-Tel, where he manages In-Q-Tel’s relationship with the UK government and is responsible for identifying, investing, and guiding In-Q-Tel’s portfolio of deep tech start-up technology across Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

Theo Francken

Minister of Defense and Foreign Trade

Government of Belgium

Theo Francken has been serving as the Minister of Defence and Foreign Trade in the Bart De Wever government since February 2025.

Marta Kindrys

Director of the IT Industry Development and Advocacy Center

IT Ukraine Association

She is a lawyer with nine years of experience, representing the Association’s interests before government authorities.

Tommaso Cecchi

VP Sales, Europe

DDN

Background in Physics (Astronomy, Plasma Physics), I spent an equal amount of time working at a Supercomputing Centre and at a Technology Company for overall a quarter of a century.

Hanna Myshko

Regional Director for Ukraine, Moldova, and the Gulf States

StrategEast

Hanna Myshko is Regional Director for Ukraine, Moldova, and the Gulf States at StrategEast, and building partnerships with the U.S. and Europe.

Zoe Stanley-Lockman

Officer, Innovation and Technology Adoption Section Defence Industry, Innovation and Armaments Division

NATO

Zoe Stanley-Lockman works in the Innovation Directorate of the NATO Defence Industry, Innovation and Armaments Division, where she spurs rapid adoption of technologies in defence and innovation cooperation with Ukraine.

Seth Dobrin

CEO & Co-founder

ARYA Labs

Dr. Seth Dobrin is the CEO and Co-founder of ARYA Labs, building deterministic, physics-encoded world foundation models.

Ebba Kraemer

Co-founder

Scaleout

Ebba Kraemer is a co-founder of Scaleout and a privacy-preserving AI evangelist.

Dan Nechita

Managing Director

Vanguard Europe

Dan is the Managing Director of Vanguard Europe, a mission-driven consultancy in Brussels focused on AI, emerging technologies, and defense, and the EU Director of the Transatlantic Policy Network.

Grégory Mounier

Head

Europol Innovation Lab

Gregory (PhD) is the Head of the Europol Innovation Lab whose mission is to help the European law enforcement community to make the most of emerging technologies by developing innovative solutions to improve the ways in which they investigate, track and disrupt terrorist and criminal organizations.

Andrii Yermolenko

Chief Business Development Officer

Buntar Aerospace

Andrii is Chief Business Development Officer at Buntar Aerospace, and Chief Consultant in OpsVentures.

Lord Liam Booth-Smith

Head of EMEA Public Policy

Anthropic

Liam Booth-Smith is Anthropic’s Head of EMEA Public Policy. He is also a member of the House of Lords.

Suzy Wild

Head of External Affairs EU

Anthropic

Suzy Wild leads Anthropic’s External Affairs in the EU. She has worked in European politics for nearly 20 years, including as an adviser to MEPs on justice and home affairs, security, digital policy, and transatlantic relations.

Max Konstantinovsky

CEO and Co-Founder

Organized Matter

Max Konstantinovsky is the CEO and Co-Founder of Organized Matter. A three-time founder, he specializes in technology commercialization for climate tech and robotics.

Oleksandr Danyliuk

President

Destinus

Oleksandr Danyliuk is a Ukrainian economist and senior executive with broad leadership experience in government, finance, and technology.

Benjamin Clayton

Head of Industrial Strategy

UK Ministry of Defence

Benjamin is the UK Government’s Co-Chair on negotiations with the European Union with regards to Security for Action Europe.

Graham Webber

Defence Counsellor

UK Joint Delegation to NATO

Graham Webber is the Defence Counsellor in the UK’s Joint Delegation to NATO. Previously, he was Head of the Security Policy Department in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, leading for the FCDO on deterrence and strategic stability.

Daniel Miller

Director, NLP+LLMs

BigBear.ai

Dr. Dan Taninecz Miller directs natural language and large language model development at Bigbear.ai.

Tímea Lapsánszki

Senior Consultant

Logos Public Affairs

Tímea Lapsánszki is a senior consultant at Logos Public Affairs, where she advises clients on European foreign affairs, defence, and security policy.

Oleksandr Arapov

Chief Product Officer

Swarmer

Oleksandr Arapov — CPO of Swarmer with over 10 years of experience in product management.

Vsevolod Chentsov

Ambassador

Embassy of Ukraine to the EU

Vsevolod Chentsov, Head of the Mission of Ukraine to the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, was appointed Kyiv’s top diplomat in Brussels in August 2021.

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