



Alexey Vishtal has been a Senior Packaging Specialist at Nestlé since 2018. He has been with Nestlé for 5 years and before that held various positions in paper related industries.
With a background in engineering his primary interests are in packaging concept development, scaling it up and ensuring the best possible end-of-life scenario for it.
He develops recyclable fibre-based packaging with barrier and other functionalities
Alexey has a paper engineering background and a doctoral degree in paper physics and converting, he is also an expert in specialty papers, paper recycling, flexible paper packaging, barrier paper, moulded pulp, paper converting, filling & packing & packaging sustainability.
Anna Papagrigoraki is the Sustainability Director at Cepi, the European Confederation of Paper Industries, since 2019. Prior to Cepi, Anna held positions in PlasticsEurope where she was part of the Advocacy team and CEFS, the EU Sugar Manufacturers Association as an Environment & Agricultural Advisor. She has experience in environmental policy topics ranging from industrial emissions and circular economy to climate change and life-cycle-assessment. Anna has Masters in Civil Engineering (2009) and MSc in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (2010) from the University of Southampton.
Annita Westenbroek is Energy Innovations Manager at Cepi since June 2020. She is also Manager Innovations at the Royal Association of Dutch Paper and Board Industries, director of the Dutch Biorefinery Cluster, and cluster director at the Dutch Institute for Sustainable Process Technology (ISPT), where she coordinates the European initiative on Deep Eutectic Solvents.
Annita studied Chemical Engineering and in 2000 received her PhD on a research towards refining of paper making fibres. She has been employed for 11 years at Wageningen UR, of which 6 years being responsible for coordination of the research group focusing towards the pulp & paper industry.
Economist with a strong experience of public affairs at EU level in a European industry trade association, I’m in daily contact with companies and EU institutions officials advocating on behalf of an industry sector striving for competitiveness and jobs. I have been involved in the Alliance for a Competitive European Industry, which gathers the heads of the main industry sector organisations based in Brussels.
Sappi, a leading global provider of sustainable woodfibre products and solutions, appointed Berry Wiersum (64, British) Chief Executive Officer of Sappi Europe S.A. on 15 January 2007.
Mr Wiersum started his career at ICI Fibres, became President of Amoco Fabrics (Europe), then the President of Amoco Chemicals (Europe), and when Amoco was taken over by BP, he moved to BP to assist with the integration of the two groups in Europe. He subsequently left BP and joined Pechiney S.A. in France and ran the CEBAL packaging division until he was recruited as Managing Director of the Packaging division of Kappa Packaging BV (The Netherlands) and member of the Management Board responsible for paper manufacture and packaging in the Kappa group.
Catharina is a highly-skilled sustainability assessment professional working as the Sustainability and Chemicals manager at CEPI. Her main responsibilities include leading various sustainability projects and expert groups in the field of e.g.circular economy, sustainability and environmental directives. Catharina has more than 16 years of experience from developing environmental methodologies as well as data management and softwares in the field of life cycle assessments. Catharina is based in Finland and works for CEPI part time.
Charlotte Sode is Head of Sector for Bioeconomy within the Directorate General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission in Brussels. She joined the European Commission in 2007, and worked in the Directorate General for Agriculture and Rural Development on Direct Payments, as Head of Sector for Arable Crops and for the Common Agricultural Policy Budget for Direct Payments. While working as Head of Sector in the Danish Agricultural Agency, she represented Denmark in EU work related to the Common Agricultural Policy. She has a BA and Cand.Mag Degree in French from the University of Copenhagen and the BSc degree in Agricultural Economics from the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University.
Christian Holzleitner is currently Head of Unit responsible for Finance for Innovation and Land Use at the European Commissions Directorate-General for Climate Action. Previously, he worked as assistant to the Director-General for Climate Action covering all issues related to EU and international climate policy; and at the Directorate-General for Competition in the area of State aid for services of general economic interest in the postal, transport, and health sectors.
Before joining the European Commission, Christian worked as senior manager with KPMG Germany on international transfer pricing.
Christian is an economist and holds a PhD from the University of Linz (Austria).
Before joining Cepi as Public Affairs and Communications Director, she worked for leading EU public affairs consultancies, namely advising European and global players in the automotive, electricity, gas, batteries and lighting industries.
She also worked for the trade association representing the European electricity industry in Brussels (EURELECTRIC), focusing on electricity distribution grids.
Her expertise lies in building powerful advocacy campaigns by integrating traditional EU public relations with powerful communications strategies.
Claire holds a Masters in International Relations and EU Affairs from Institut D’Etudes Politiques d’Aix-en-Provence and a certification in People Management from Brussels management school ICHEC.
Claudia Canevari is Head of the Energy Efficiency: Policy and Financing unit of DG Energy, European Commission. She has been working in the Commission for nearly 25 years. She joined DG Energy in 2012. Previously, she was policy assistant of the Director General in DG Communication, member of Cabinet of Commissioner Stavros Dimas (environment) and coordinating the international negotiations in the climate change team of DG Environment. A lawyer by education, she is admitted to the bar in Italy and she holds an LLM with merit from the London School of Economics.
I come from northern Italy, where I graduated in Business and Economics and started working in Ecol Studio 20 years ago as a consultant in the field of Quality Management Systems.
As a consultant I developed specific skills in Quality and Product Safety Management Systems within various industrial sectors, with a particular focus on paper & board manufacturing processes. I qualified as a third-party auditor according to ISO 19011 and developed skills and experience in auditing companies on Good Manufacturing Practices for the manufacturing of Food Contact Materials, and other voluntary standards. The implementation of these standards, as well as regulatory consultancy in the paper & board and packaging industries is still part of my present tasks.
Now I am permanently working abroad, coordinating the European business development and clients’ projects for the Product Safety and Sustainability Area of Ecol Studio in close collaboration with Ecol Studio UK Ltd, and acting as Managing Director of the Swedish company Ecol Studio Consulting AB.
Dr. Müller Is Director General for Forests, Sustainability and Renewable Resources of the German Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture (BMEL).
She has more than 35 years of professional experience in international forestry, with a focus on forest policy and sustainable forest resource management. From 2004 to 2018 she worked in leading positions with increasing responsibility at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome. As Director of Forestry Policy and Resources she led FAO’s technical work in Forestry.
Michele studied Environmental Sciences at the University of Taranto in Italy, where he graduated in 1996. After a post-doc in Bari (Italy) and Nottingham (UK) Michele worked from 1999 till 2005 for ENEA, the Italian national research agency for Energy and Environment. Since 2005 he is working for the European Commission in Brussels. He has worked for 5 years in the Research & Development Directorate General, then for 10 years in the Directorate General for Environment. Since April 2019 he is working in the Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW).
His main area of expertise is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Moreover he contributes with his expertise and experience in the development of new policies in the area of circular economy, product sustainability, products environmental labelling, and digitalisation of information along value chains.
Eija Hietavuo currently holds a position as SVP Sustainability at Stora Enso Packaging Materials.
Eija’s work comprises of strategizing and managing sustainability and providing leadership across the global organisation on environmental, circular economy and social sustainability matters. Eija has 20 years of experience in senior international roles related to sustainability and sustainable business ranging from being a forerunner in driving ESG analysis in the financial sector, to accelerating the human rights and business agenda at the UN and now leading the packaging sustainability related work in one of the world´s leading paper and pulp industry companies.
Eija is the Chairwoman of the Cepi Environmental Committee and she also chairs the 4evergreen circular packaging alliance.
After graduating from King’s College London, Guy joined DS Smith in 1996 and he has held a number of roles within the Paper Division from Technical Manager, Pulp Mill and Paper Machine Operations Manager and lastly as Technical Operations Manager at their Kemsley Mill. In 2018, Guy joined the newly formed DS Smith Group R&D function covering all areas of the business and focusing on bringing new and exciting technologies into DS Smith. Guy’s role includes the identification, test and adoption of technologies and partners in the field of Digital Operations with a focus on Product Quality and Sustainability.
As of January 2020, the new Cepi Chairman is Mr Ignazio Capuano, CEO of the Italian firm Burgo Group Spa and Vice President of the Italian paper manufacturers’ association Assocarta.
Mr Capuano, who holds an Engineering degree and a Master’s degree in Economy from the University of New York, has been working for the paper industry since 1991 as general manager of Saffa, CEO of Reno de Medici and presently, since 2016, as CEO of Burgo Group.
Jan holds an engineering diploma for “Technical Cybernetics and Automation” of the University of Chemnitz (Germany). He has gained 25 years’ experience in commissioning, design, sales and execution of electrification, automation and drive projects in the global pulp and paper industry.
Each year his global team runs about 500 projects in more than 20 countries.
| Mr Stenberg has held a number of positions on the Chemical supplier side of the Pulp and Paper industry in the last 20 years. He has experience from several of the major supplier companies and has been mainly operating in the Nordic and EU region and also from the Asia Pacific Pulp and Paper Industry. Since 2019 he is managing the Pulp Industry Technology for Buckman and with that also has a very active role in supporting the Smart and Digital solutions for the pulp industry currently being implemented by Buckman Globally and in Europe particularly. He has a past in other highly advanced Industries such as the Polymer composite industry and the Super abrasive industry where digitalization and process efficiency has played a major role over the years. |
Since June 2019, Jori Ringman is Director General of the Confederation of European Paper Industries (Cepi). Previously he was Deputy Director General and responsible for issues relating to sustainability, environment and consumer protection, with particular concern for packaging and food contact. Since joining Cepi in 2005 he has been advancing and exploring circular low carbon bioeconomy in the sector.
Prior to 2005, he was a civil servant at the European Commission and a political advisor in the European Parliament.
Mr. Jukka Kantola has broad experience of the woody biomass related industries. He has held various executive positions in Europe and in Asia. Hence, he has a profound understanding of the challenges and opportunities of these economies. Jukka is well-known in the bioeconomy sector and passionate to advocate circular bioeconomy.
Jukka established NC Partnering, a novel bio-consulting company focusing on the versatile valorisation of woody biomass for innovative applications. He and his company have played an active role in advocating the bioeconomy in practice. During past years NC Partnering has been involved in facilitating new biorefinery ventures, a relatively new phenomena in the forest industry. He is also a founder and Chairman of World BioEconomy Forum.
Katrina is a London-born and bred, Brussels-based moderator and communications specialist, with a degree in Modern Languages from Oxford University.
Since 2007 when she moved to Brussels, Katrina has been consulting for, and moderating events covering diverse topics and policy areas. These span research and innovation, technology and digitisation; social affairs and development issues; agriculture, environment and climate change; energy, mobility and transport; and fisheries and maritime affairs. Alongside, until 2017, she managed the co-creation of content and development, and subsequent roll-out across Europe, of multimedia, multilingual communications campaigns targeting the public, and EU and national stakeholders from diverse sectors.
Lydia Tempel is head of the Department `Recycling and Digitalization´, in the business unit ‘Smart Services & Products ’. She holds an engineering diploma in ‘Waste Management and Contaminated Sites’. Since 2009 she has worked at PTS, contributing and managing various research and consultant projects in the area of recycling.
Her fields of expertise are recovered paper management, circular economy, recyclability and end-of-life strategies for fibre-based products.
After receiving a degree in Industrial Licensing at Lunds University in Sweden, followed by a Masters in Engineering Physics Industrial, Magnus began his career at SCA. Over the next 15 years, he held positions in Packaging Research and Product Development across various European regions. In his final years at SCA he held the position of Design and Operations Director for the packaging division across Europe. After DS Smith took over the SCA company in 2012, he continued in a director role covering Design and Research. In late 2018 the Group Research and Development division was created at DS Smith where Magnus was promoted to division head.
As Group R&D Director at DS Smith since Oct 2018, Magnus oversees research and development across all divisions including Recycling, Paper Making and Packaging. Some of the focus areas are materials development, fibre optimisation, barrier & surface innovations, product safety, recyclability and the circular economy. Magnus plays a key role in contributing to many industry groups including 4Evergreen, the Ellen Mac Arthur Foundation and Cepi.
Massimo Ramunni, gaduated in Industrial chemistry at the University of Milan, after an experience in the aluminium sector, since 1998 works for Assocarta, the association of the Italian pulp and paper industry, becoming Deputy director general in 2008. He is also the Director of Aticelca, the Italian association of the paper industry technicians, the Country manager of Two Sides in Italy and Member of the Board of Conlegno - Monitoring Organisation for the EU timber regulation, Eucepa – the European association of the paper technicians and AFC – Italian association for vocational education in the paper industry. He took part and/or chaired few working groups and committee at National and European level related to environment, climate, circular economy, food contact, forestry, research and technical standardisation. He is also author of publications and guidelines.
Lic.Sc. (Tech.) Minna Vikman work as a senior research scientist at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd. She has over 20 years of experience in environmental biotechnology and biodegradability studies of plastics, polymers and packaging materials. She has worked in national and international projects related to biodegradability, municipal waste management and composting. At VTT, she is responsible for the facilities related to the testing of biodegradability. She has published 18 scientific peer-reviewed publications on several topics such as biodegradability of polymers and ecotoxicity.
Nicola Rega has been working in Brussels on EU-related policies for a wide range of stakeholders (industry associations, European Commission, NGOs, governmental institutes, consultancies) since February 2003. His area of expertise focuses primarily on energy and environmental policies. In January 2013 he joined the Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI), where he holds the position of Climate Change and Energy Director. His role is to represent industry’s interests towards the European Institutions, international organisations and relevant stakeholders.
Päivi Luoma, M.Sc. (Env. Econ.), MBA, works as Leading Consultant at Gaia Consulting. Luoma is an experienced professional in strategy and business development and new business concepts. She has 20 years of experience on working with impact-driven companies and their innovations globally. She has successfully led a variety of projects on strategy and business development involving a variety of stakeholders. Lately she has been focusing on advising companies on understanding the drivers of sustainable business and innovation and their impacts on business concepts and ecosystems as well co-creating value with other companies and customers. She is an experienced expert on bioeconomy, cleantech and circular economy business. Before Gaia she worked at Finnish Forest Industries Federation. For two years she was based in Brussels working on forest-based industries related EU issues. Currently she is working on her PhD on the value of data in fiber-based value chains, circular business models, and corporate responsibility.
Petri Sarvamaa is a member of the National Coalition party in Finland and a Member of the European Parliament since 2012 in the EPP group. He is currently a full member of the AGRI Committee and member and Vice-Coordinator of the EPP Group in the CONT committee. He holds the position of Vice-President in the EPP's internal Working Group on Budget and Structural Policies. He was the rapporteur for the European Parliament's Own Initiative Report on the EU Forest Strategy post-2020.
Richard Ali is Vice President of Public Affairs for Huhtamaki. He works with stakeholders across the value chain, promoting sustainable development. Prior to Huhtamaki, Richard has worked in diverse roles and sectors within the food chain and in land-based sectors, both within the UK and internationally. He is a graduate and post-graduate of the University of Reading and is an alumnus of The Prince of Wales's Business & Sustainability Programme.
Ulrich Leberle joined the Confederation of European Paper Industries (Cepi) in November 2005. Having held several positions in the area of raw materials at Cepi, his responsibilities in his current role of Raw Materials Director include the availability of raw material both from forestry and recycling and the policies impacting them.
Prior to Cepi, he worked in the European Commission, the European Parliament and as a consultant in a Brussels based company specialising in EU Public Affairs.
Veronica, COO at StepChange, has close to 20 years of global management consulting experience, leading numerous transformational and performance improvement programs for forest products, pulp, paper, packaging and FMCG companies.
She has successfully helped companies implement (digital) strategies across the globe and has helped them achieve significant performance and financial improvements.
Veronica concentrates on strategic industry topics and implementing performance change across all functional areas. In recent years her focus has been on digitalization in pulp, paper and packaging including the first industry wide digitalization study.
Veronica is a graduate of the Technical University of Vienna, Austria. She has a MSc, an MBA and a PhD in Economics. She is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, German, English and French and is additionally responsible for StepChange business in Latin America and Russia.
One to one online networking
One to one online networking
Part 1. The substitution effect of forest-based products
Part 2. Coupling industry decarbonization with resilience
Part 3. How can the new EU Forest Strategy support the European Green Deal?
One to one online networking
Ecol Studio is successfully involved in the realms of occupation al health and safety, and of environment and product quality, with distinctive competences as far as services and markets, specialized in training, consultancy and testing.
The Italian company with 35 years of experience in the paper and board field, has 2 sites in Europe (Sweden-UK) and is an international reference point for the paper industry and its supply chain.
Learn more here:
www.ecolstudio.com
“The Pulp and Paper sector is in a key position to support
the EU in becoming fit for 2050. Our sector has several
potentials to substantially and sustainably reduce greenhouse
gas emissions. In order to achieve these aspirations,
the availability of political support will be critical.”


