Maud Olofsson Sten Nordin Jozias van Aartsen Paul Bevan Cecilia Uddén Kristina Alvendal Hans Rosling Ahmed Aboutaleb Ulla Hamilton Elizabeth Kautz Ulf Kristersson Pedro Ballesteros Jean-Marc Ayrault Robert Silverman
Eric van der Kooij Hella Dunger-Löper Bill Clark Wendelin Friedel Wolfgang Förster Annette Kayser Rob ter Steege Dave Carter Georgios Tselentis
Plenary Speakers
Maud Olofsson
Maud Olofsson is Minister for Enterprise and Energy and Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden. Her responsibilities include business development, competition, regional development, tourism, and energy policy.
She started her political career as an ombudsman of the youth organisation of the Centre Party in 1974. From 1992 to 1994, during the Carl Bildt centre-right government, she worked as Special Adviser to Minister Börje Hörnlund at the Department of Labour.
She has been party leader of the Centre Party since 2001, and a Member of Parliament since 2002. She has previously been Managing Director for the Rural Economy and Agricultural Societies (Hushållningssällskapet) in the Västerbotten region and EU co-ordinator at the County Administrative board of the same region.
Maud Olofsson was born in Arnäsvall in 1955, and is married with three children.
Sten Nordin
Mayor Sten Nordin was born in 1956 in Nyköping, south of Stockholm. He studied Economics and Sociology at Uppsala University, and has held a number of public functions since the early 1980s.
He is the mayor of the City of Stockholm since May 2008 and is also the leader of the Moderate Party in the City of Stockholm and the President of the City Executive Board. Before assuming his current position, Sten Nordin was a member of the Swedish Parliament and was previously Vice Mayor for Traffic and real estate.
Sten Nordin lives in downtown Stockholm with his wife and two children. He has a special interest in culture and gardening.
Jozias van Aartsen
Jozias van Aartsen is the Mayor of The Hague and the President of EUROCITIES. He was born on 25 December 1947 in The Hague. He is married and has three sons.
From 1994 until 1999, Van Aartsen was Minister of Agriculture, Nature Management and Fisheries and from 1998 until 2002 he was Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Dutch government.
Van Aartsen was installed as Mayor of The Hague on 27 March 2008. His portfolio includes International Affairs, Public Order and Security. Riding a bike is a Dutch tradition that Mayor Van Aartsen honours, so every working day he travels from his home to the city hall by bike instead of by car.
Paul Bevan
Paul Bevan was appointed Secretary General of EUROCITIES in November 2008. Before joining EUROCITIES, Paul was Chief Executive of the South East England Regional Assembly, the representative regional planning body for the South East of England, which Paul founded and developed for nine years. Over the past year, he has brought to the organisation a wealth of expertise in local governance, but also an ambitious and dynamic vision for the future of the organisation.
At European level, Paul has worked on winning key funding for cities through the EU URBAN programme, and was Secretary General for the Eurotowns Network from 1997 to 1999. Paul has worked extensively in local government and with external stakeholders in planning, economic development and regeneration for local development. He also worked for several years in the IT sector.
He has a Masters degree in Politics and a Diploma in Town Planning. He is married with four children and enjoys film, dance and cycling.
Cecilia Uddén - moderator
Cecilia Uddén is one of the most renowned Swedish journalists and foreign correspondents. She has been with Swedish Broadcasting since 1989, and she currently holds the position of Middle East Correspondent.
Previously Ms Uddén has been posted as foreign correspondent in Washington DC and founded the current affairs program “Konflikt”. For her reporting in the United States and the Middle East she has also been awarded the majority of Sweden’s most prestigious Journalism Awards including Stora Journalistpriset 1997, Torgny Segerstedts Frihetspenna 2004 and Wilhelm Moberg-stipendiet 2006.
Ms Uddén was born in Stockholm in 1960, and grew up in Bangkok, Thailand and Cairo. She holds a degree in Journalism and a BA from Stockholm University. She currently lives in Amman, Jordan, with her husband and two children.
Kristina Alvendal
Kristina Alvendal is Vice Mayor of Stockholm and responsible for the City Planning Division. She is Chair of the City Planning Committee and the Real Estate Committee, Chair of the local police authority in Stockholm County, and active in the Moderate Party Executive Committee in Stockholm. On the European level, Kristina Alvendal represents Stockholm and Sweden on the EU’s Committee of the Regions in Brussels.
Prior to her role as Vice Mayor, Ms Alvendal has worked extensively in the private sector for companies including GlaxoSmithKline, Lidl and KREAB. She was born in 1972, and holds a Batchelor degree in law from Stockholm University.
Hans Rosling
Hans Rosling is Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institutet in Stockolm and co-founder and Director of the Gapminder foundation.
International health research focuses on the links between economic development, agriculture, environmental issues, poverty and health. Hans Rosling will be looking at the impact through time which global health problems have on economic growth and living standards, not the least in our own European cities.
Hans Rosling has been health adviser to WHO, and UNICEF, among others and in 1993 he co-founded Médecins sans frontières in Sweden. He is a member of the International Group of the Swedish Academy of Science and was previously head of the Division of International Health.
The Gapminder Foundation, which he founded, developed the Trendalyzer software system that animates statistics into interactive and enjoyable graphics. This has met with international success, and his lectures have won numerous awards by making complicated statistics exciting and inspiring.
Ahmed Aboutaleb
Ahmed Aboutaleb was installed as Mayor of Rotterdam on 5 January 2009. After completing his secondary education, he attended an institute of technology, graduating in telecommunications in 1987. He worked as a presenter, programme maker and as a reporter for several media, was a press officer, head of information and manager of the Communications and Publications Sector. In 1998 he became director of the FORUM Institute for Multicultural Development and in 2002 of the Social, Economic and Cultural Development Sector of the municipality of Amsterdam. In 2004 he was appointed to Amsterdam's municipal executive as alderman for Work and Income, Education, Youth, Diversity and Urban Policy. On 22 February 2007 Mr Aboutaleb was appointed State Secretary for Social Affairs and Employment in the fourth Balkenende government.
Ulla Hamilton
Deputy Mayor Ulla Hamilton is responsible for the Environment and Traffic Division in Stockholm, and has an extensive background in politics as well as in the private sector. She has been a member of the Stockholm City Council since 1995. Her current posts includeStockholm’s Ports Chair, Environment and Health Committee Chair and Traffic and Waste Management Committee Chair.
She is also a former member of the Local Government Councils of Uppsala and Lund. She worked as a political expert at former Prime Minister Carl Bildt’s chancellery 1991-1994 and she has been a consultant in PR and PA 1995-1999. Before she became Deputy Mayor she was Communication Manager at Svenskt Näringsliv (Confederation of Swedish Enterprise).
Ulla Hamilton holds a Bachelor degree in Law from Uppsala University. Her main interests include golf, photography, history and travelling. She also enjoys gardening at her country house. Ms Hamilton is married and has a cat called Winston.
Elizabeth Kautz
Elizabeth B. Kautz is Vice President of The United States Conference of Mayors, a public interest group in Washington, D.C., that represents mayors and cities of populations of 30,000 and above. She will become President of The U.S. Conference of Mayors on January 1, 2010, and will serve in that capacity until June 2011. Mayor Kautz is the fifth woman to serve as Conference President in its 77-year history.
She is in her sixth term as Mayor of Burnsville, Minnesota, having first been elected in 1994. She chairs the Minnesota Valley Transit Authority Board and the Suburban Transit Association; is co-founder and co-chair of the Minnesota Regional Council of Mayors; chairs The Dakota Communications Center, composed of 13 cities and the county, which provides public safety dispatching services; and represents Burnsville on numerous local, regional, state, and national boards.
Mayor Kautz received her Master's Degree in Counseling and Psychology from the Alfred Adler Institute of Chicago, Illinois, and was awarded an undergraduate degree in theology with a psychology focus from the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota. She was one of the first women to serve as a Professional Minister within the Catholic Church as Pastoral Minister.
Ulf Kristersson
Ulf Kristersson is Vice Mayor of Stockholm since 2006 and responsible for the Social Welfare and Labour Market Division. He is also Chairman of the EUROCITIES Social Affairs Forum, and Chairman of the Moderate Party Immigration and Integration Policy Commission.
Previous to his current posts, he has been Co- Mayor of the city of Strängnäs, Chairman of the Moderate Party Family Policy Commission, a Member of Parliament and National Chairman of the Moderate Youth Party Organisation.
Ulf Kristersson was born in 1963 and studied Business Administration and Economics at Uppsala University. He has written and published a number of books. He is married and has three daughters.
Pedro Ballesteros
Pedro Ballesteros Torres is principal administrator at DG Energy and Transport of the European Commission. Among his duties, he is in charge of the launch and management of the Covenant of Mayors, the EU initiative to support local authorities leading the fight against climate change; the Sustainable Energy Europe Campaign; the European Commission programme for communication on clean energy; the ManagEnergy initiative, to foster local action on sustainable energy and transport; the co-ordination at DG TREN of the Intelligent Energy Europe programme and the initiative Islands for Sustainable Energy.
He is an Engineer in Food Industry having studied at the Universidad Politécnica of Madrid, and has a MBA in Energy Business. From 1984 to 1994 he worked as consultant in energy and environment issues for European institutions and the United Nations. He has worked at the European Commission since 1995.
Jean-Marc Ayrault
Born in 1950, German teacher, Jean-Marc Ayrault is Mayor of Nantes since 1989 and President of Nantes Métropole since 2001. Over twenty years, under his impulse, Nantes has become one of the leading French metropoles. He is also Member of The French Parliament since 1986. For the last 12 years he is chair of the Socialist group in the National Assembly.
With a strong European conviction, Jean-Marc Ayrault is involved with EUROCITIES since 1997. Nantes Métropole currently seats at the EUROCITIES Executive Committee, chairs the Culture Forum and co-chairs the Working Group “Climate Change Energy” which has produced the EUROCITIES Declaration on Climate Change. Nantes Métropole speaks in favour of local governments in international negotiations on climate. On this account it chairs the Climate Task Force of the UCLG. Jean-Marc Ayrault wishes that Cities and local governments speak loudly and strongly before the European Union and United Nations in favour of an eco-society and a social and ecological market economy.
Robert Silverman
Robert Silverman, chargé d'affaires, joined the US Embassy in Stockholm as the deputy chief of mission in August 2007. A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Mr. Silverman has worked for most of his career in the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. Most recently, he served in Saudi Arabia from 2006-2007 as the Economic Counsellor in Riyadh. From 2004-2006, he was the Director of the State Department's Office of Iraq Economic and Reconstruction Affairs in Washington. In 2003-2004, he was the senior civilian official of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Tikrit, Iraq. Mr. Silverman has received three individual Superior Honor Awards.
Before joining the Foreign Service in 1989, Mr. Silverman practiced corporate and securities law in Los Angeles, California. He graduated with undergraduate and master's degrees from Princeton University in 1980 and 1982, and a law degree from the University of Michigan in 1985. Mr. Silverman's foreign languages are Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish and Azerbaijani. He is married to Young-Mi Silverman and they have three children.
Deep Dive Speakers
Eric van der Kooij
Eric van der Kooij is an urban designer and has been head of the Metropolitan Team of the Spatial Planning Department of the City of Amsterdam since 2007.
Recently he has been working on urban pilots by inventing design tools for water management in relation to urban development. As a designer he worked on the regeneration of post-war housing areas and transformation of working areas into mixed use work and residential areas.
Hella Dunger-Löper
Hella Dunger-Löper is Permanent Secretary for Building and Housing in the Senate Department for Urban Development in Berlin. She will discuss ecological construction in Berlin.
Bill Clark.jpg)
Bill currently manages Southampton City Council’s Sustainability Policy Unit in the Environment Directorate, which is corporately taking forward sustainability; energy and resource use; Climate Change and coastal defence agendas into the Council’s policy framework. He is a qualified Landscape Architect with over 30 years experience in the fields of design, development, regeneration and spatial planning. Bill is involved in developing Southampton’s well-known Geothermal / CHP District Heating scheme.
Wendelin Friedel
Wendelin Friedel is desktop manager of the Deputy Mayor for Environment and Health in the City of Frankfurt since 2006. He studied process engineering and has over 20 years working experience in the field of energy and energy efficiency both in industry and as a consultant for World Bank and GTZ (German Technical Cooperation).
He has worked to increase the amount of co-generation in the city and to prepare energy plans for newly developed areas. At present he focuses on the implementation of the city's climate protection activities.
Wolfgang Förster
Born in Vienna, Austria, 1953, Wolfgang Förster Phd has studied architecture, planning and political sciences in Vienna and Graz. Since 2001 he is Head of the Vienna Regional Housing Research Division. He is also Chair of the EUROCITIES Working Group on Housing, Austria’s delegate to and Chair of the UNECE Committee on Housing and Land Management and co-ordinator of several EU-projects.
Annette Kayser
Annette Kayser is a civil engineer specialising in town planning and currently works as project manager in Copenhagen’s Technical and Environmental Administration.
During the last few years she has worked on the climate perspective of transport and traffic in the city, and she is responsible for the transport side of the city’s climate plan, a politically accepted agreement which puts in place ambitions goals for the reduction of emissions in Copenhagen
Rob ter Steege
Rob ter Steege (1957) is a classically trained Double bass player and was deputy-director for the Conservatory of Rotterdam. In 2001 – while working for Rotterdam European Capital of Culture he started in public office and became head for the cultural department for the city of Eindhoven. Since 2004 he is responsible for the implementation of the programme Design, developed in collaboration with the business sector, the creative industry, and knowledge institutes. He also managed a large EU project about design and became editor for Design and the European City, the Agenda21 for Design. With the city of Helsinki, Eindhoven is finalist in the World Design Capital competition 2012.
Dave Carter.jpg)
Dave Carter is Head of the Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA) at Manchester City Council. MDDA coordinates information society initiatives across the Greater Manchester city-region, and focuses on how digital technologies can support economic regeneration and social inclusion. He was one of the founder members of the Telecities network (part of EUROCITIES) and first President of Telecities (1994-96) and is currently involved in a range of EU funded projects.
Georgios Tselentis
Georgios Tselentis is with the New Infrastructure Paradigms & Experimental Facilities Unit in the Information Society and Media Directorate-General of the European Commission. He works as scientific project officer on projects comprising experimental reseach for the Internet of the future. Previously he worked as project officer in the European Commission in the areas of collaborative working environments, robotics and for the training and mobility of researchers. Before joining the European Commission he worked in industry and academia in applied research projects in the area of smart control systems and data analysis in which he holds a Ph.D and a production and management engineering degree, from the Technical University of Crete.