BestCities Global Forum Copenhagen - December 2019

David Meade is a 1st-class honours graduate from Ulster Business School, and his work as a lecturer and researcher in International Business and Strategy with the University of Ulster, has built his reputation as one of Europe’s most sought after motivational and organisational speakers, trainers, and facilitators. He’s worked with organisations such as: Apple, PwC, BT, Saba, Harvard in Boston, the Cabinet Of ce in Westminster, Bombardier, and the Bank of America.

From writing the manifesto for the Nordic food revolution and co-founding noma, a perennial “World’s Best Restaurant”, to launching an indigenous food movement in Bolivia that has trained thousands of young people and is unlocking a new sense of national pride, Claus Meyer has always been motivated by goals that stretch far beyond the profit-motive. Addressing issues such as the importance of unconventional thinking and naïve ambition, how to create an avalanche-like cultural movement rather than a traditional business plan, and why we - and our teams - need to remain in close touch with our values and passions if we are to be truly successful, this “son of the microwave oven” will share insights from his gastronomic, business and philanthropic journey.

Nadim is President and founding Board member of the RRI (Rapid Results Institute). He has led teams that introduced RRI’s 100-Day Challenges in Nicaragua, Eritrea, Kenya, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Sudan, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe.

More recently, Nadim's work focused on veteran, chronic and youth homelessness in the US, and on the integration of social and health care in the UK. The work involved using 100-Day Challenges to nudge community stakeholders towards much higher levels of collaboration, innovation, and execution. Most recently, he helped introduce RRI’s 100-Day Challenges in the UAE, as part of a Government Accelerator program sponsored by the Prime Minister’s Office.

Nadim’s work has been featured in the New York Times, the Harvard Business Review, and the Stanford Social Innovation Review. He was named by Foreign Policy Magazine as one of the 100 Top Global Thinkers in 2012, and he served as a Yale School of Management Donaldson Fellow in 2012 and 2013.

Nadim was born and raised in Lebanon. He worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development in Beirut, where he oversaw the implementation of USAID’s relief and rehabilitation program during the Lebanese civil war. He also worked for Save the Children Federation, where he led the design and implementation of a food assistance program serving 100,000 families that were displaced during the civil war. After leaving Lebanon, he worked at Schaffer Consulting, a Connecticut based change advisory firm, where he served as managing partner from 2009 to 2012.

Nadim has an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a Master’s degree in Public Health from the American University of Beirut. He also has a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Website: https://www.rapidresults.org/nadim-matta

While setting the strategic direction for the Danish Design Centre and governing the most demanding initiatives and activities, Christian is also CEO of Design Society, a foundation which is the parent company of the Danish Design Center, INDEX: Design to improve life, Global Fashion Agenda and Copenhagen Fashion Week.
He is also a prolific contributor to blogs and magazines, including Harvard Business Review, Stanford Social Innovation Review and the Danish weekly business and political magazine Mandag Morgen. He is the author of seven books on design, innovation and management, most recently Leading Public Design (2017), Form Fremtiden (Shape the future; 2016), Design for Policy (2014) and Leading Public Sector Innovation (2010). Christian is a visiting associate professor at several executive educations, including Oxford Saïd Business School, the European School of Administration, Copenhagen Business School and Aarhus University.
Christian is a member of the board for the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Design and Conservation (KADK), a member of The Rockwool Foundation’s Research Programme Committee, and also member of the World Economic Forum's Global Future on Agile Governance Council. He is a former Chair of the European Commission’s Expert Group on Public Sector Innovation and a former member of the European Design Leadership Board.
Currently, he is a member of the SIRI Commission and the Danish government's challenge panel on public innovation and digitization. Christian holds an M.Sc. in Political Science from Aarhus University and a Ph.D. from Copenhagen Business School, CBS.
Christian is in high demand as a speaker and inspires and advises business leaders and governments in Denmark and abroad.

Sara has been working within the field of design, innovation and healthcare for more than 10 years, developing products and services for the healthcare sector, advising policy level, and implementing innovation policy and strategy.

Sara is head of the Danish Design Centre’s business and focus area and the team Future Health. The team explores how designcan radically improve healthcare services and solutions across the public and private sector and, while elevating advanced technology, is fully centered around the patient experience. The goal is to facilitate the creation of ground-breaking new servicesand products as well as public-private innovation frameworks bytackling challenges through experimentation and harnessing thebenefits of the developments in technology and access to new data.

Sara led the design-driven strategy process, co-creating the innovation strategy with and for the Capital Region of Denmark managing 5 big hospitals in Denmark. The work has contributed to the transformation of the organization and the strengthening and prioritization of innovation and has provided management decision-making basis for concrete implementation plans that can support innovation efforts among employees and businesses.

Sara also leads the programme Boxing Future Health – a future lab for health. Boxing Future Health consists of physical manifestations of future health in 2050 - four plausible scenarios. She leads the team running collaborative workshops with both private and public leaders and innovators to explore the consequences of alternative futures for their products, services, and business and governance models. The lab was created through a comprehensive co-creation process with more than 100 experts and with five close partners: two major hospitals, two educational institutions and the industry association, the Medico Industry.

Sara is an experienced keynoter and leads the collaboration withOxford Business School and HEC on the executive master programme Consulting and Coaching for Change.

Previously Sara has been serving as an internal consultant and advisor for the Capital Region of Denmark, managing more than 40.000 healthcare professionals, where she amongst others, was responsible for implementing the innovation policy from thepolicy level to operation management, teaching innovation methods and tools. Sara holds a Master of Science degree in engineering, Design & Innovation from the Technical University of Denmark.

Anne Danielsen is senior service designer of the development platform DesignHealth, where she focuses on the ways in which design can create health effect and services that places the patient in the center.

Based on her practical experience as a service designer, she is in possession of a great deal of optimism regarding design thinking. Simultaneously, she has a curious and accommodating attitude towards the complexities of reality, particularly within the health industry.

With a background in industrial design, Anne has a keen eye for the interaction between the user and the product. Her strength lies in exploring human behaviour and human needs, as both are crucial in the development of sustainable changes – whether these are concerning products, services or strategies. Apart from a master’s degree in Industrial Design, Anne has practical experience with service design within the field of energy, transportation, education, foodstuffs, tourism and telecoms.

Currently, Anne is heading two major projects. One is the Danish Design Center's contribution to The Capital Region of Denmarks's innovation strategy in 2017. The second is Boxing Future Health - a scenario and design project that explores possible futures for the health sector in the year 2050.

Thomas Trøst Hansen is an industrial PhD Fellow at Wonderful Copenhagen and an affiliated researcher at the Humanomics Research Centre, Aalborg University Copenhagen. His academic work focuses on how scientific conferences underpin the knowledge economy and is particularly interested in effects related to networks and recognition exchanges. He has also published on international mobility.

He has previously worked in the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science and in the Danish National Research Foundation as a senior advisor on national and international science policy. Furthermore, he was the Head of Media and Marketing at the EuroScience Open Forum 2014 Copenhagen – the largest European science policy conference, which had an ambitious outreach programme with more than 40.000 participants.

Alessandro Jacques Cortese is since 2009 the Chief Executive Officer of ESTRO, the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology and Chairman of the ESTRO Cancer Foundation, and was, until June 2015, President of ESAE, the European Society of Association Executives.

Founded in 1980, ESTRO is a non-profit and scientific organization that fosters the role of Radiation Oncology to improve patients’ care in the multimodality treatment of cancer. With over 6,500 members in and outside Europe, ESTRO’s mission is to promote innovation, research, and dissemination of science through its congresses, special meetings, educational courses and publications.

Previously, Alessandro was Director of the Association Management practice at MCI, based in Brussels. In this capacity he was responsible for consulting clients on strategy and products offering, and for the maintenance and development of the competency of the MCI Brussels office in the AM practice.

Alessandro has gained significant experience working with international associations, particularly heading up the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) office of the Project Management Institute (PMI).
Within the scope of the collaboration with MCI, Alessandro served in key management and consulting roles for several international associations such as IAEE (International Association of Exhibitions and Events), DMAI (Destination Marketing Association International), CIC (Convention Industry Council) and APICS (The Association for Operations Management).
Before working in the association domain, Alessandro worked as a marketing and communications specialist for AT Kearney and for McCann-Erickson, based in Milan, Italy.

Alessandro Cortese is a graduate from the University Statale degli Studi di Milano, with a degree in political sciences and an MBA from the same institution. He is also a PhD candidate in Management Sciences at the University of Antwerp.
Other academic accomplishments include serving on the Faculty of Economics, Department of Political Economics at the University Statale di Milano as a lecturer of economics of culture.

In 2015, Alessandro co-founded the Executive Master in International Association Management at the Solvay Business School in Brussels, where he also serves as a Lecturer in Strategy.

Alessandro is regularly invited to give talks to industry events and congresses, focusing in particular on strategy for International Associations. He is also a member of the International Advisory Boards for Destination DC, MyCEB Malaysia, PCMA (EMEA) and BestCities.