Adam Demusiak, Partner at PwC Polska, Head of Mergers and Acquisitions Team. Adam has extensive (20 years) experience in M&A gained while working in the Corporate Finance departments of leading consulting companies in Poland. He advised in over 90 transactions, working with clients in the processes of purchasing or selling enterprises on the private market, in particular in such industries as TMT, industrial products & finance.Adam was voted by Mergermarket as the most prolific M&A advisor in CEE (2018) and his team was ranked no. 1 M&A Advisor by number of deals closed on the Polish market both in 2020 and 2019. Moreover Adam’s team has been awarded the Best M&A Advisor by the Polish Association of Private Equities & Venture Capital two times in a row (2020/19 and 2019/18).Adam is a graduate of the Finance and Banking at the Warsaw School of Economics, as well as the Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics at the Warsaw University of Technology. Adam is a CFA Charterholder and an auditor affiliated to the ACCA organization.

Adam Niewiński is a Co-Founder and General Partner of OTB Ventures.Graduated from the Warsaw School of Economics and is also an Alumni of Stanford University – Graduate School of Business.Before OTB, Adam was the Founder and CEO of Expander (Poland) as well as Co-Founder and Board Member of Platinum Bank (Ukraine).Adam started his professional career in 1997 at The Boston Consulting Group. From 2000 he built a team and acquired financing to establish Expander, which became the first Polish FinTech. From 2002 to 2017 Adam was associated with the UniCredit Group, where he was leading investment banking and wealth management in CEE. Following this, he became CEO of Xelion Investment House, which he successfully relaunched to become a leading platform for Personal Financial Advisers. In 2015 he was appointed Deputy CEO of Bank PEKAO SA responsible for the Private Banking Division as well as Small and Mid Corporate acquisition and financing. He was also the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Xelion Investment House, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Private Equity Managers, Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Central Brokerage House of Bank Pekao S.A., and a Member of the Supervisory Board of Pekao Investment Banking. Currently, he is Member of Supervisory Board of Desa Unicum, as well as a Board Member for Cosmose AI, ICEYE, FintechOS, Silent Eight and Ondato.

A journalist, graduated from the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland with a degree in journalism and social communications. She’s worked as a journalist since 2008, publishing both in newspapers and on websites. Main specialisations: European Union, education and career opportunities, business and economy.  She’s been a member of the Puls Biznesu daily team since 2011, where she’s been covering private equity and venture capital market innovative companies, including startups, as well as new technologies, innovations, intellectual property and e-commerce. Her articles are also available on the website: www.pb.pl. In December 2013 her series of articles on intellectual property was awarded with a prize in the contest organised by Polish Patent Office.

Adi Ben-Artzy builds creative, scalable, employee-focused programs and operations, that help Google grow and Googlers thrive. She joined the company a decade ago, and spent the first 8 years working in various recruiting roles in the Tel Aviv office, her latest role being leading Google Tech Staffing in Israel and the Nordics . Two years ago Adi moved with her family to Warsaw to take a new role focused on developing and delivering site wide strategy and programs. Before joining Google Adi worked as a recruiter in BMC Software, and did HR and Recruiting roles for a couple of Israeli companies.

Eliza Kruczkowska, Chief Innovation Officer at Polish Development Fund, a financial group which offers instruments supporting the development of companies. She is in charge of coordinating “ Start In Poland” programme aimed at building a vibrant startup and venture capital ecosystem including €500m in investment in VC funds and online one-stop-shop for startups at startup.pfr.pl. She used to be a CEO of Startup Poland, a grassroots organization aimed at helping build better conditions for Polish startups by influencing policy-makers, educators, academics, and the media. She has extensive experience in tech, politics, communication, as well as NGOs. In the past, she has worked abroad in Madrid at Internet Advantage, London at the Evening Standard, and Munich at Lewis PR.

Gad Huldai joined Pitango in October 2016 as a Venture Partner. In March 2020 Gad was appointed Partner in the Early Stage fund. Before joining Pitango, Gad was a Venture Partner at Giza VC, where he focused primarily on Internet, Mobile, and Advertising technologies. Prior to Giza, Gad served as VP of marketing at Empire Online, an internet gaming marketing company which was successfully issued in London’s stock exchange. Gad founded several companies specializing in e-commerce and internet marketing, and has served on the advisory boards of leading internet and mobile companies such as Symantec, BlueSnap, Brightcom and many more. Gad holds a B.A in Social Sciences and Management from The Open University of Israel.

At the National Centre for Research and Development, she is responsible for cooperation with Venture Capital Funds within area of financing young and innovative enterprises.Graduate of Economics at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University. She started her professional career in 2007. For four years, as an expert in NWAI Dom Maklerski SA, she was responsible for the process of obtaining debt financing on the capital market for companies from various industries.She was also employed by the Copernicus Group in the Asset Management Department where she assisted the management of debt funds and was responsible for the valuation of investment funds.For five years she worked in Citigroup Inc. in the valuation of Polish and foreign investment funds.

Since October 2019 Head of Google for Startups in Central & Eastern Europe, leading Google Campus in Warsaw. In the internet industry since 2004, joined Google in 2006 as one of the first employees in Poland. Between 2015-2019 leading team helping Polish startups in global expansion. Earlier responsible for development of Google’s collaboration with retail, e-commerce, finance and travel industries. Before joining Google worked for Bankier.pl Group. Graduated from the Technical University of Lodz & Executive MBA from Towson University/University of Maryland.

Serial entrepreneur, investor, advisor and expert in commercialization of new technologiesAlumnus of Economics studies at the Warsaw University and the Advanced Management Program at IESE Business School.Chairman of MIT Enterprise Forum CEE. MIT EF CEE is one of the largest acceleration programs in Central and Eastern Europe focused on deep tech startups. MIT EF is a 40-year old not for profit organization originally established at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). Today MITEF has chapters in major cities in the U.S.A and a growing number outside of the U.S., including many in emerging markets. MIT EF informs, connects, and coaches technology entrepreneurs—enabling them to rapidly transform ideas into world-changing companies.CEO at ValueTech Seed Fund. Valuetech is a seed fund investing in early stage deep tech startups. Valuetech Seed is based in Warsaw, Poland.Previously, Paweł Bochniarz was a Director at PwC, Strategic Advisor to the PM of the Republic of Poland and a Co-founder of Coalition For Polish Innovations.

Ruthy Kaidar joined Microsoft 6 years ago. She’s the Director of the Health Industry Sector covering Central & Eastern Europe. Prior to that, she was the Chief Startups Lead and Software Partners Tech Lead covering CEE, after servingas VPStartups & Developer Relations at Microsoft Israel.Ruthy is an executive with over 20 years of experience in the medical devices, digital health, telecommunications, and venture capital industries. As a Computer Science Engineer, she worked in Software and Firmware engineering in the Telecomm industry. She then followed her passion for Healthcare and pursued a Master’s degree in Biomedical, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, focusing on Brain Computer Interfaces, and an MBA. Ruthy held key positions in R&D,Product Management, and Business Development, in Medical Device companies, among them Medingo, which she joined with founding until acquisition by Roche. She founded and led several Digital Health startups and led Investments in Healthtech. Ruthy is a business and tech mentor to entrepreneurs and an avid promoter of women tech entrepreneurship. Ruthy is married, mother to three children, and is a hiking, running, and yoga enthusiast.

Tomasz Domogała is an entrepreneur, and owner of an investment firm TDJ operating in five business areas – Equity, Venture, Estate, Finance and Foundation. Currently, Equity is the largest investment area. This includes companies from the energy, automation and offshore sectors. Venture embraces investments in innovative technological start-ups, while Estate includes residential and commercial properties. His favourite area is TDJ Foundation, which supports the education and personal development of children and teenagers.

Tomasz Snażyk took over the post of Startup Poland Foundation CEO at the beginning of 2020. Previously, he was known as one of the partners and founders of SKM Legal, working on many of the largest transactions and investment rounds in startups in the CEE region. Tomasz sits on the supervisory board of Audioteka, SMOK fund, and many others. He was also one of the initiators-founders of Startup Poland Foundation, established in 2013.He has over a dozen years of legal career and dozens of transactions to his credit. He gained experience in Kerosky & Associates law firm in San Francisco and Gide Loyrette Nouel law firm, among others. Since 2013, as a co-founder of SKM Legal, he specializes in investment advisory for domestic and international investors, working closely with key individuals from the Polish innovation ecosystem.