Since March 2019 Nicolas Konnerth is Head of Voice for ERGO Digital Ventures. He is responsible to shape ERGO's profile on voice assistants, ensuring to gain and hold a relevant position on this emerging customer Interface.

Bedrija Hamzan in his function examines the opportunities and potential of new trends and technologies for the Aduno Group. He develops promising concepts with a network of partners to MVPs, accelerating the innovation of the financial services provider. Bedrija Hamza holds an MBA in Innovation Management from SUPSI and has over 10 years of practical experience introducing financial systems.

Laura is a senior voice user interface designer at denkwerk, a pioneering digital agency that creates value for brands by creating value for people. She is responsible for strategic and human-centered conversational design. Before denkwerk, she was a VUI consultant for major automotive brands in Germany and has worked in different stages in the design, specification, and implementation of custom-built voice user interfaces. Laura’s strong linguistic foundation and commitment to comprehensive user requirements engineering fuel her passion for the design and delivery of denkwerk’s brand-tailored VUI solutions that are seamless, conversational, and natural.

Marcus Nessler has been Head of Customer Experience since 2008, designing the customer experience of Samsung Electronics GmbH. In addition to the strategic development and management of contact centers, these include digital services, content management, social media, and service marketing. Together with his team, he built Samsung in recent years for multiple award-winning test winner in the service. After graduating in business administration (BA) he worked as a lawyer at Hewlett-Packard in various German and worldwide management functions.

Martin has more than 18 years of experience in the Reinsurance industry. He has Extensive experience in project, program and product management of technology-driven projects across the P&C Reinsurance value chain with global scope and user base. Furthermore, he has Advanced experience in the digitization of the insurance business model through extensive work within the IOT ecosystem and continuing work in the Smart Homes and Motor Telematics initiatives. Since 2014 Martin is Director and Head of Insights & Analytics at Swiss Re.

Xaver Scheffer is part of the voice team at the BR, the public service broadcasting of Bavaria. Together with his colleagues he is developing the company's strategy for digital assistants.

Still studying at Munich's Academy of Fine Arts in 2013 he started working as a news editor for BR's radio stations.

Jeroen Vonk works at the Sociale Verzekeringsbank (SVB) since 2004 and since 2017 working full time on innovation at Novum, the innovation lab of the SVB. From the passion that everything must be understandable, user-friendly and accessible to everyone. People should not shy away from contact with the government, this should be fun. He is committed to this. This is why Voice is such a perfect addition to the services of the government and certainly for seniors.

Daniel Whaley is a leading designer and technologist and has been involved in voice and artificial intelligence since the earlier noughties, both in design and development and as a consultant. Currently, at the BBC, he is helping to build the future of broadcast media, Daniel has seen the AI world emerge from the shadows to the mainstream and gained years of practical experience along the way.

Marion is a digital assistant pioneer and personality crafter for AI. She has more than 10 years of experience in managing global digital content and communication at both, corporations and agencies. She worked among others for over 10 years for Microsoft and managed Cortana's personality in the German-speaking market. At the moment she is Infusing values into the BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant to ensure ethically responsible behavior and communication, making sure diverse values and needs are considered across the globe.

Hamid Dastmalchian studied industrial engineering at the University of Hamburg and has more than 10 years of experience in Buying and Purchasing. He was Head of Buying at OTTO Group. At Tchibo, Hamid started as Director Non Food and since 2011 Director of the Capsule Systems Qbo and Cafisimo.

Sebastian Spang is the Director of the digital section of BurdaNews and is responsible, among other things, of digital product management for the TV Feature Film, TV Today, Cinema, Fit For Fun, Focus Magazine and Playboy brands. After several years in mobile product management, his focus is now on the further development of the existing portfolio and the establishment of new digital business models.

Before joining Google in 2016, Benjamin taught German at Columbia University, wrote dictionaries for Langenscheidt, and worked as a conceptual designer in a creative agency. Over the last 3 years at Google, he has shaped the Google Assistant’s personality in over 17 languages. Now he’s focused on designing the tools and techniques to build the next generation of conversational user interfaces.

Alexander Wodrich founded the audio branding agency why do birds in 2010. Located in Berlin they employ 15 people working in music-production, brand consulting, graphic and motion-design. Their clients include such brands as Siemens, Hyundai, Deutsche Bahn or GORE-TEX. Alexander has a degree in business and has also been a musician for the most part of his life. Before founding why do birds, he was a member of the MetaDesign management board, responsible for the audio branding and motion graphics departments.

His passion is to figure out the best way to mix human talent and technology. During the last 14 years Alejandro has been working for Microsoft developing the strategy for sites like www.office.com and www.windows.com across multiple regions. He is currently leading the team developing Cortana for 12 of the international markets: UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, China, Canada and India. Alejandro developed his career combining 3 lines of work: Marketing, Business Development and Sales, and he has worked in most of the areas of Information Technology from: Artificial Intelligence, back end solutions, front end portals, service and access providers, content: strategy, development and acquisition, sales and consulting, commercialization, partner ecosystem, web production, web design and digital marketing.

Thomas Neumann is leading the digital service team at Vodafone Group Services to find new ways and technical solutions to create a differentiated and unique customer experience. He is equipped with a comprehensive background in the mobile industry - working in the technology branch for more than 15 years. He also benefits from international experience in several different countries and cultures as well as working in different roles and responsibilities. He is passionate about new technologies and how they can be used to improve customer's life. His focus is on digital channels with the ambition to create a wow effect. Thomas is responsible to deliver the global chatbot solution to our local markets as well as delivering voice assistants.

Hannes Ricklefs is a Lead Architect within the BBC’s Technology, Strategy, and Architecture team, which drives the transformation of the BBC’s technology landscape and media capabilities. Before joining the BBC to work on Frameworks, Automation, and Human Centricity, Hannes worked for over a decade in feature film VFX, building platforms that enabled the global production of Oscar-winning productions such as Disney’s Jungle Book.

Oliver is Digital Manager at Hermes Group since 2011 and is responsible for the development and roll-out of the Hermes voice recognition services on Amazon Alexa and Google.

Tim works at USEEDS since 2015 and leads the team Human-centered Innovation at USEEDS since 2018. He is an enthusiastic about discovering, understanding and translating human needs into innovative products, services, and outstanding experiences.

Lisa Krick has been with MetaDesign since 2013, and is an executive director of Brand Innovation, supporting brands in their renewal processes. As a service design and innovation expert, she leads MetaDesign's area of ​​responsibility and develops and extends the service and service offerings of both MetaDesign customers and their customers. She joined Gray in 2001 as a commercial apprentice and completed post-graduate studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen as a brand consultant and strategist at MetaDesign. She worked for brands such as Aktion Mensch, Allianz, Sparkasse, Deutsche Post DHL, Ergo, Karstadt, Marbert Cosmetics, Merck, Merz, etc..

Host of the Voice Tech Podcast, riding the wave(form). Data Scientist.

Benjamin brings an education and professional experience in software development as well as managing technical integrations in an international context. His passion for IoT and Smart Home brought him to Miele & Cie. KG in Gütersloh, where he is now working as a product owner for voice control solutions. In his role, he is defining the company's voice strategy and ensuring a permanent progression of existing voice products together with business product owners and stakeholders. He is supported by a team of software developers, technical project managers, UX experts and language enthusiasts who are sharing the common vision of a natural interaction with household appliances via voice resulting in a new level of assistance, comfort and security.

With a rich background in audio production and interactivity, Nicky has spent the last three years designing voice-activated experiences for smart speakers for BBC Research and Development. She co-created a science fiction drama for Amazon Alexa called The Inspection Chamber where the listener plays a character in the story. An interactive version of the 1960s experimental book by BS Johnson, the Unfortunates, starring Martin Freeman that changes on every listen, and a documentary on Berlin for the Google Assistant where the listener chooses which location of Berlin they explore and who they hear from. Her recent work is exploring interactive audio storytelling across multiple devices, including the Bose Frames.

Christoph is a conversation-first evangelist and Head of VUI Design at VUI.agency. With his team of voice architects, linguists and language specialists, he has supported major international clients in building their own voice frameworks as well as leveraging existing platforms like Alexa or Google Assistant. Christoph strongly believes in the power of good conversations and his vision is making conversational interfaces the user interface of the future.

Mike Weber is the managing director of the real.digital Agency in Mönchengladbach, Northrhine-Westfalia in Germany. He studied business informatics in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt. He co-founded webdesign companies in 1997 and 2000 and was their managing director until 2018. Since Summer 2018 he is with the real.digital. His constant challenge is the conversion from monotype customers to multichannel users and to enthuse online customers for the real markets.

Philipp Kraft is Senior Vice President of Product at E.On since November 2016. Amongst other things, he is responsible for Product Innovations & development of non-commodity products like the Internet of Things (IOT), Home Energy Management Systems, E.ON Plus & Smart Meter, Voicification & Artificial Intelligence. He also is responsible for the development and roll-out of two different voice recognition services to let the customer interact with commercial and privacy propositions on edge devices and cloud in German and English.

Volkmar Vogel started as an Android developer and helped to set up the REWE App. He also accompanied the development of the delivery service at REWE digital. For about two years now he has been working on the subject of language assistants and has called the REWE Assistant into being. Since then, he is leading this area at REWE digital and also in the REWE Group.

Dirk is Digital Technologies Scouter And Advisor at Beiersdorf since January 2018. Before he was responsible to build and enhance Beiersdorf's eCommerce business in a multichannel context. In his actual position, he constantly looking for new and exciting technologies as well as start-ups to work with.

Christian Wendrock-Prechtl has been Head of the User Interface division at comdirect since 2015 and also sits on the supervisory board of onvista media GmbH. Previously, the graduate designer was Head of Design Competence Center at T-Systems, Head of Usability Competence Center at Telekom Deutschland GmbH and Head of Usability Competence Center at SIEMENS AG.

Benoit is Technical Evangelist for Amazon Alexa. He joined Amazon in 2016 as a Solutions Architect to help companies in Gaming & Entertainment to build Cloud solutions. Afterward, he moved as a Solution Architect to the Alexa team and supported the creation of hundreds of skills for the launch of Alexa in France. Today, he helps the European Developer community to build incredible voice experiences for Alexa. He is passionate about all Serverless solutions and how to apply them to real-life use cases.

Mathias Rolfes is the creative director at MetaDesign, specializing in the conception and development of digital brand experiences and digital products. In his professional career, he led projects on behalf of various renowned brands, e.g. Deutsche Bahn, Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen or O2, as well as federal ministries, cultural institutions, and NGOs. He has received numerous national and international awards for his work.

"Small teams can perform better - intelligent marketing at profitable prices!" for Thomas Hertkorn, Head of Online Marketing at a&o Hostels since early 2018, courage and technology go hand in hand, first mover attributes are the key to success. "Full cost control" is the maxim of the 34-year-old, who has been at home in e-business for over a decade.

Tim van Dijk started a separate innovation department at the SVB where he is the team lead. The mission of the team is to create new services for civilians based on social and technological trends and innovations combining human-centered design, lean startup and agile to create and validate those services and products. As the lead, he is responsible for the innovation vision, finance and the relationship with the board of directors.

Dougal has been Head of Digital Experience and Engagement at Leeds Beckett University for the past six and a half years and is responsible for the delivery of all of their public digital outputs and online recruitment marketing. In his time there he has led the development of the University’s digital and social media strategies, overseen the implementation of a new CMS and the transfer of over 35,000 web pages to it, developed the Leeds Beckett app and was responsible for the small matter of rolling out the University’s rebrand when it changed its name from Leeds Metropolitan. In the summer of 2017 Dougal and his team implemented Chatbot technology that enabled the University to make course enrolment offers online during clearing, being the first institution in the world to offer this functionality. In 2018 they followed this up by developing an Amazon Alexa app to deliver the same function.

Leonid Mishkind is the technical product owner for Chatbots and Voice Assistants at Vodafone Group. During his work with Vodafone, he was responsible for launching Vodafone services with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. His team was responsible for the launch of the first Google Assistant integration for a telecommunication company in the world – a great achievement and collaboration with Google. He is a great enthusiast and believer in AI technologies. He believes that AI is revolutionizing our world and already now starts to have a significant impact on every aspect of our lives.

Marie-Luise Sessler is co-founder and head of the InnovationLab of Frankfurter Sparkasse.

In addition to her doctorate in medieval philosophy, she studied economics and worked at various banks. In 2015, she joined Frankfurter Sparkasse as a speaker on the board. At her own request, in 2016, she was lent to Helaba for the digitization strategy project and subsequently founded the Innovation department at Frankfurter Sparkasse. In 2017 she was awarded the Digital Female Leader Award.

Her research interests are currently in robot ethics (how man and machine can peacefully coexist in the future) and in the further development of UX design into a social experience design that also brings a fresh start to classic business ethics.

Lars works as strategist and product manager at amp, a global leading sound branding agency developing sound dna® based sonic and voice identities for global brands. Coming from the cognitive sciences and sound and music computing, Lars acquired an in-depth knowledge of the different ways in which sound can influence people on a cognitive- and emotional level. He developed an expertise in the use of speech and sound to improve the usability & user-experience of human-computer interfaces.

Malte Völkner is UI/UX Designer and worked together with Christian Wendrock-Prechtl on the 2018 Voice Based App projects at the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam.