Speakers
Head of the Board, FinanceEstonia
Partner, Redgate Capital AS
Aare possesses extensive banking, real-estate and finance experience from various top Estonian and Nordic companies. Aare was CEO and CFO of listed real estate company Arco Vara and Head of Corporate Banking in Nordea, Estonia. Aare has also worked four years as CFO in Estonian major state-owned company Port of Tallinn. He has been one of the first key employees of Baltic leading investment bank Suprema Securities working as Head of Sales and Trading and Managing Director. Aare has been part of Redgate Capital’s team since the beginning from 2008 as a Senior Partner responsible for Financial Advisory services.
Aare has an MBA degree from Bentley Graduate School of Business, Bosto, USA, and executive education from London Business School, London.
Ardo Hansson
Governor of Eesti Pank
Member of the Governing Council of the ECB
Ardo Hansson is the Governor of Eesti Pank and a Member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank.
Before taking on his current position in June 2012, Ardo Hansson worked for the World Bank, where he served as the Lead Economist of the World Bank’s Economics Unit in China from 2008. He joined the World Bank in 1998 and before going to China he worked on several countries in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans.
Between 1991 and 1997, he held several senior positions in the Republic of Estonia, including Economic Adviser to the Estonian Prime Minister in 1992-1995 and in 1997, and adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1991-1992. Hansson was also a member of the Monetary Reform Committee, and a member of the Supervisory Board of the Bank of Estonia in 1993-1998. During the 1990s, he was engaged on short-term consulting assignments for the governments of Mongolia, Poland, Slovenia and Ukraine.
Ardo Hansson was born in Chicago, in 1958. He graduated with first class honours from the University of British Columbia in 1980 and earned a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1987. Since completing his studies, he has held faculty and research positions at several well-known universities in Canada, Finland and Sweden and published numerous articles on economic policy.
President of EBAN
Candace Johnson is a global infrastructure, network and innovation expert and serial entrepreneur. Candace is a co-initiator of SES/ASTRA and SES Global, the world’s pre-eminent satellite group. She is also the founding President of Europe Online Investments S.A., the world’s first internet-based online service and satellite broadband network, and the founder of Loral Cyberstar-Teleport Europe, Europe’s first independent private trans-border satellite communications network.
Candace is also founding President of the VATM, the Association of Private Telecom Operators in Germany and founding President of the Global Telecom Women’s Network (GTWN). Candace is also President of Johnson Paradigm Ventures (JPV) which is a principal founding shareholder with AXA, Caisse des Depots, Bayerische Landesbank, and the SPEF of Sophia Euro Lab, Europe’s first trans-border early-stage investment company based in Sophia Antipolis. JPV is also a principal founding shareholder in London-based Ariadne Capital, “Architecting Europe.net”, one of the earliest supporters and promoters of Skype, the global VoIP phenomenon. She has been a featured speaker in the OECD International Entrepreneurship Forums in Shanghai, Riga, and Cape Town. She holds Masters Degrees with Honors from the Sorbonne and Stanford Universities and a Bachelor’s Degree from Vassar College.
CEO, Holvi
Seasoned startup executive, angel investor and former VC Johan is Holvi’s CEO. Prior to joining Holvi Johan has worked on both the technology and infrastructure side of traditional banking, as well as advising and investing in fintech companies. He especially enjoys building and executing highly scalable technologies and business models.
Johan carries the knowledge of digital transformation in banking – how to bring change to an industry that hasn’t evolved in the past 20 years to better fit the shift in society.
Holvi, founded in Helsinki in 2011, is a banking service designed for the connected age. Holvi is for the self-employed, micro-businesses and SME’s of Europe. The core of Holvi’s service is the current account – built for managing a business. The fully digital accounts can be opened with a few click here and they are live across Europe in minutes. All accounts have basic SME tools built in including online shop, an invoicing tool and financial reporting features. Holvi has independently built an end-to-end online banking platform from the ground up. A financial service that does not operate on the legacy backend or balance sheet of any existing bank. Holvi is introducing intuitive design, usability and beauty to banking.
Director, New Investment Opportunities, Public Affairs
Finnish Industry Investment
Jouni Hakala is the Director at Finnish Industry Investment Ltd, a government owned private equity and venture capital fund. Jouni has been employed by the FII between 2008-2011, when he run the fund investments’ team, and again since January 2013 being now responsible for new investments and public affairs. He is also acting as Deputy Chairman of the European Venture Fund Investors Network, following his Chairman position during 2013 – 2014.
Previously, Jouni was the State Secretary at the Ministry of Employment and the Economy during 2011 – 2012. Between 1995-2007 he served the European Investment Bank Group in Luxembourg and acted most recently as Deputy Head of Equity Investments at European Investment Fund. Jouni holds a MBA and Master of Laws degrees.
Founder and CEO, Funderbeam
Having been a part of the key players in developing public registry systems and capital markets in Estonia over 16 years, Kaidi decided to go back to the very beginning – to a start-up. She is the Founder and CEO of Funderbeam. Funderbeam provides data intelligence for startup investors by applying tools and metrics of capital markets to startup industry. Funderbeam x-rays startups for actual success factors and delivers standardized values for easy comparison. Prior to founding a startup, Kaidi was engaged as the CEO of Nasdaq Tallinn, CEO of Central Securities Depository, and the Founder and CEO of Estonian Service Industry Association. She is also a co-author of Estonian Digital Signatures Act and coaches a youth national orienteering team. Kaidi holds a MBA in Strategic Management and BA in Law from the University of Tartu.
Kaido Veske
Founding Partner, Livonia Partners
Kaido is a founding partner at Livonia Partners, a pan-Baltic private equity fund. He has started his career in London and New York working first for investment bank Bear Stearns and later for middle-market private equity firm Irving Place Capital focusing primarily on packaging, manufacturing, and consumer sectors. Since 2012 he has worked alongside LHV Capital, managing its portfolio and consequently setting up Livonia Partners. Kaido holds an MBA from INSEAD and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Managing Partner, BPM Capital
During the past 12 years, Kalmer has participated in projects involving underwriting of senior debt, equity and mezzanine, as well as raising follow up equity financing and senior debt for the MBO projects. Kalmer has held executive positions in companies such as Baltic Mezzanine, Hanseatic Capital and BalAEF. Kalmer has served as a board member of several growth companies. Kalmer holds a BA in Economics from Estonian Agricultural University and an MBA degree from Henley Management College.
Program Director of e-Residency of Estonia
Kaspar is running the coolest governmental start-up in the world: e-Residency @ e-estonia.com/e-residents/ He has been analyzing and developing the idea and executing the program of e-Residency since September 2014 and today Estonia has thousands of e-residents. Prior to the e-Residency program, Kaspar has worked at TeliaSonera as a Cloud Business Manager for 3 years. Kaspar has graduated from Lancaster University with a Master’s Degree in E-Business and Innovation, and BBA from Bradford University School of Management.
Founder and President of Scaale Group (US)
Kaushal Chokshi is a serial entrepreneur, investor and business man. Over the last three decades, Kaushal has founded over 20 ventures across the USA, Europe and Asia with 3 successful exits and an IPO in 1987. Kaushal’s passion to understand the global context has brought him to do over 15 round world trips and to build teams across the globe. In this context, back in 2006, Kaushal focused on his big project, Scaale Group, a venture resource group dedicated to implement solutions for startups, SMB’s, corporations and governments through innovation, sales, capital and talent. Headquartered in San Francisco, Scaale Group comprises of 7 companies and a team of 300+ employees spread over 10 countries. Kaushal was born and raised in India, where studied Electrical Engineer and Management. After that he moved to UK, Germany and today he lives in USA for the last 20 years.
Managing Partner, BaltCap
Martin joined BaltCap in 2000 when BaltCap’s Estonian office was established. His current responsibilities include operational management of BaltCap group, investor relations, and serving as a supervisory council member of investee companies. Prior to joining the BaltCap team, he previously worked in different positions in Nava, a machinery trading company. Martin graduated from Tallinn Technical University and has an EVCA Certificate in Institutional Private Equity Investing (CIPEI) from Oxford Saïd Business School.
Niall Bohan
Head of Unit, Capital Markets Union in European Commission
Niall Bohan (b. 1967) studied economics at Trinity College Dublin (1984-1988) and the College of Europe in Brugge, Belgium (1988-1990). He worked at the Centre of European Policy Studies, Brussels before joining the European Commission in 1994 where he has worked in a variety of technical and management, principally focussed on financial market regulation. This includes responsibility for drafting the COM proposal for MiFiD (2000-2002), serving as Deputy Head of Unit for financial policy coordination (2002-2004) and as Head of Unit for the Asset Management unit between 2004 and 2009. Between 2011 and 2013, he was seconded to the Task Force for Greece (DG ECFIN), where he coordinated the provision of technical assistance to the Greek government to support reform of customs, public procurement, competition and investment licensing. From January 2014 to March 2015, Niall Bohan was Head of the Banking Unit, with responsibility for implementation of for the Capital Requirements Regulation and Directive. On April 1st, 2015, he assumed responsibility for management of the unit responsible for the Capital Markets Union in DG Financial Stability and Capital Markets Union.
Head of Public Affairs, TheCityUK
Richard is Head of Public Affairs at TheCityUK and focuses on financial regulation and global competitiveness issues in the financial and related professional services sectors. He previously worked in the UK Parliament as an advisor on economic and European affairs. He is an American national, holds an M.A. in International Relations from the University of St Andrews and speaks Spanish and German.
Moderators:
Managing Director, EstBAN
Heidi is the Managing Director of EstBAN and the Board member of EstVCA. She has served as a Board member of the Estonian Development Fund´s venture arm SmartCap and fund manager of Early Fund II. Heidi has been involved with developing the Estonian venture capital market and startups since 2008 and her investment portfolio consisted of 20 innovative Estonian companies. For over 15 years, Heidi has been actively participating in financing and acquiring companies – for more than 10 years she worked on corporate advisory and finance at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Heidi graduated from the University of Tartu, cum laude, specializing in international economics.
Member of the Board, Mobi Solutions
Information Technology visionary
Linnar Viik studied IT management and international economy in Tallinn University of Technology and Helsinki University of Technology. He worked as a researcher in Finland and Sweden, a management consultant in KPMG Management Consulting and in the UN Development Programme.
Linnar began as an entrepreneur in 1995 by co-founding AS Meediamaa, where he became Chairman of the Board. Following the company’s merger with Levicom Group, he continued as a Member of the Supervisory Boards of AS Meediamaa and Netexpress, and a Member of the Board of AS Levicom.
From 1999 to 2001, Linnar was a part-time advisor for the Prime Minister in IT, research and development issues, while also being the Head of Secretariat of The Research and Development Council of Estonia. Besides consulting various Governments in Central and Eastern Europe, he is also active in the fields of mobile communications product development and language technologies as a founder of Mobi Solutions and Keelevara.
Linnar was involved in the establishment of the Estonian Information Technology College in 2000, and has been a lecturer there since that time.
Linnar has published over 150 articles and studies, has been a visiting lecturer in several universities in Sweden and Finland, and he is chairman of the international jury of the Stockholm Challenge and Global Junior Challenge IT awards.
Managing Partner, Karma Venture Partners
Chairman of Board, EstVCA
Margus has headed the Estonian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association since 2012 and venture capital investments at Ambient Sound Investments (ASI) since 2008. Prior to joining ASI he held management positions at Estonian Energy Distribution Network and leading Estonian HR company Fontes, was the Economic Policy Vice-Chancellor at the Ministry of Finance, and worked in the Compensation Fund’s investment department. He is a member of the Enterprise Estonia financial committee. Margus also helped launch the Tallinn Stock Exchange.
