Speakers

Dr. David Kim Huat Chua, Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Design and Engineering, National University of Singapore

Dr David Chua serves as Deputy Head (Admin) and Director, Built Environment 4.0 in the Department. He obtained his PhD degree in 1989 from University of California, Berkeley, USA. He is a registered professional engineer in Singapore. His research interests in recent years have been in lean construction, BIM, and digital construction. Presently, he serves in the editorial board of Auomation in Construction and other international journals.

Dr. Ilias Katsagounos, PM², PMP, RMP, M_o_R, IT Portfolio Consultant at DG GROW (European Commission)

Ilias is a Brussels based instructor and consultant with more than 15 years of experience in the fields of project, programme and portfolio management, currently working as a Senior IT Portfolio consultant at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW). He holds a Masters’ Degree in Engineering - Economic Systems (NTUA) and a B.A. in Military, Diplomatic and Law studies (SSE). Additionally, he is a certified Project (PMP®) & Risk Management Professional (RMP®, M_o_R) as well as a PM2 certified trainer. Ilias holds a Ph.D. in the fields of Risk Management and Decision Making. His research was focused in providing viable solutions to the corporate world, by enhancing the decision-making process through the provision of more accurate probabilistic forecasts, while taking under consideration the pragmatic scarcity of resources and available information.

Nicos Kourounakis, MAsc, MBA, PM², IPMA-D, PMP, PM² Alliance Founding Member and CEO, Senior Consultant, Methodologies at European Commission

Nicos is a Project Management Consultant specializing in Project Management Methodologies and Organizational Project Management Maturity. Over the past 7 years, he has been leading consulting projects with major EU Institutions such as the European Commission, the European Council, the European Central Bank, the European Investment Bank and other EU Agencies. He is also the PM Methodology Lead at the European Commission and the Co-Author of the PM² (2012) and Agile PM² (2014) Project Management Methodologies, and the Project Manager of the Open PM² Initiative – releasing the PM² Methodology as an open source Project Management Methodology. Nicos has also been involved in many international projects in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg and Greece, working both with large organizations and with smaller ventures and start-ups. As a Product Manager he also managed the successful development and launch of an Enterprise Project Management software application, which is currently used by several EU Agencies. Mr. Kourounakis also has several years of experience in training and public speaking. As an Adjunct Professor at the Professional MBA program of the Hellenic American University in Athens, Greece, he has taught courses and delivered seminars in Project Management, Portfolio Management, Operations & Supply Chain Management and Management of Information Systems.Nicos is also one of the founding members and the CEO of PM2 Alliance, an international, not-for-profit organization. Founded by PM² practitioners, the Alliance brings together individuals from institutions, companies and the academia to inspire dialogue, share resources, and address the field’s challenges while promoting the wider adoption of the PM² Methodology. Mr. Kourounakis holds an MBA from McGill University, Montreal, Canada, a MASc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Victoria, Canada, and a BSc in Physics from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

Dr. Thodoris Koutsogiannis, Chief Curator of the Hellenic Parliament Art Collection

Thodoris Koutsogiannis has studied archaeology and art history at the University of Athens (bachelor 1996, master 2000, PhD 2008). Additionally, he attended seminars and conducted research, on scholarships, in various universities and institutes abroad (La Sapienza, Scuola Normale Superiore,  Istituto di Studi Umanistici, Princeton University). Since 2009 he is working as Chief Curator of the Hellenic Parliament Art Collection, Athens. He has taught modern art history as visiting professor in Greece, he has presented many papers in international conferences and essays in collective volumes, and he has curated various exhibitions in Greece. He is working on modern European art from early Renaissance to late Neoclassicism, especially concerning the artistic reception of Antiquity, the phenomenon of Classicism, and Greek aspects of the modern visual culture.
 

Dr. Noushin Mokhtari, Global Business Services, Business Solutions & Services, Data Process Consulting, Siemens AG

Dr. Noushin Mokhtari holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Leibniz University Hannover, a master's degree in Aviation and Astronautic engineering from
Technische Universität Braunschweig and a PhD in the field of machine learning and data science methods for automated condition monitoring of jet engine components from Technische Universität Berlin. Due to her experiences and interest in data driven topics, she joined Deutsche Bahn AG in 2020 to work in the field of digitalization of rolling stock maintenance (Predictive Maintenance). Not only the engineering sector with machine data, but also many other sectors with different types of data have to deal with digitalization issues. The marketing and sales sector attracted her greatest interest as there is a huge movement nowadays and many different challenges to overcome. Therefore, she joined Siemens AG in February 2022 as a Senior Consultant Data Engineering.
 

Prof. Ayman Hamdy Nassar, Associate Professor of Construction Management, German University in Cairo. President, Association of Engineering, Project, and Production Management (EPPM)

Ayman Nassar is full Assistant professor at GUC University at Civil Engineering programme. He worked as Assistant professor from 2000. He earned his doctoral degree in 2000. He is member of ASCE and ESE. He has been supervisor for more than fifteen M.Sc. Degree and Ph.D. of Construction and project management. He was instructor for more than 20 international courses and workshops in several countries.President, Association of Engineering, Project, and Production Management (EPPM).
Extensive professional and consulting service in Egypt and the Gulf area. Experienced professional trainer for large construction companies and training center.
 

Dr. Sherman Ong, Director & Principal Consultant, Asia Operations, Global Business Management Consultants

Dr Sherman Ong is currently Director and Principal Consultant at Global Business Management Consultants Asia. Dr Ong has an extensive business experience across four industry sectors, namely, High Technology Aerospace and Defense Manufacturing industry (ten years), Information Technology and Communications industry thirteen years), Public Healthcare industry (seven years) and Higher Institute of Learning Education industry (one year), over thirty-six years. He held senior management positions over a span of twenty-six years, impacting lives across these four industry sectors. He was also involved in three start-up businesses across the Asia Pacific region. Dr Ong’s top five signature talent themes are Competition, Belief, Activator, Includer, and Strategic. As a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach, he continues to engage clients to coach them in personal talent growth and strengths development. Dr Ong is a passionate communicator and loves teaching, training, coaching and mentoring. Dr Ong’s life mission statement is: Live Best; Leave Best! As a Certified Lean Healthcare Leader, Dr Ong engages clients in clinical process improvement, quality healthcare services and enterprise risk management. He is a regular speaker at conferences, symposiums and industry forums, and as keynote speaker variously on Change Management, Supply Chain Integration, Business Process Re-engineering, Transformational Leadership, Lean Optimisation, Project Management and Operations Optimisation, One-to-One Marketing, and Strategic Business Management. Since 2010, Dr Ong is also an Academic Advisor for doctoral candidates at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia; and an external examiner for doctoral theses for Doctor of Professional Studies degree programme.
 

Sam Pecqueur, Head of Central Project Management Office & Digital Transformation Director, DEME Group

After graduating as a civil engineer in 2008, Sam joined DEME group to construct ports across the world, e.g. in Qatar, UK, Australia and Singapore. In these large projects the value of good project management methodologies and project controls skills became apparent and second nature. In 2017 he achieved a MBA at IMD Switzerland and then moved to support Borealis, an Austrian Petrochemical company, to deliver their large capex growth portfolio of new plants with a better governance and supportive systems. Three years ago he rejoined DEME Group to lead digital transformation and set up a new central project management office, that focuses both on the group digital transformation, and on improving the project management capability for all construction projects.

Dr. Giannis Petropoulos, Communications & Personal Development Trainer, Hellenic American University
Ioannis Petropoulos holds a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Hellenic American University, a Postgraduate Diploma in Comparative Literature and an M.A. in 19th- and 20th-century English and American Literature from the University of Essex, UK. He also holds a Diploma in Shipping and Business from Morley College, London. For the past 20 years he has been conducting open and tailor-made corporate seminars on oral communication, advanced professional presentation skills, creative writing, and interpersonal communication skills in business. Dr Petropoulos is also an adjunct faculty member of the Hellenic American University.

Konstantina Siettou, Project Manager, Sword Group

Konstantina Siettou is an accomplished Project Manager with more than 10 years’ experience in the IT sector, the last two of which have been working in three major European projects with SWORD, Trasys Group, a global leader in technology transformation projects.  Konstantina started her career from IT support working in Upstream, moved on to CGI as a Web Developer and a Lead Consultant in Space sector projects and then moved to Lighthouse as Project Manager, leading several international projects, also providing technical guidance and research. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Technology from the University of Peloponnese and a Master’s Applied Mathematics from the National Technical University.

Nikolaos Tsekouras, CIA, Audit Supervisor, Credit Suisse

Nikos Tsekouras started his professional career at National Bank of Greece in 2004 he worked in various positions in Branches and Management Units. In 2012 he joined the Internal Audit Department of the same organization as an Auditor and later as Senior Auditor and Audit Supervisor. He then moved to Credit Suisse Banking Organization in Zurich, Switzerland, in the Group Internal Audit Department, as an Audit Supervisor. He has extensive experience working in audit projects mainly in Greece, Switzerland, Turkey, Luxembourg, and USA. Nikos Tsekouras studied International and European Economic Studies at the Athens University of Economics and Business and holds an Msc in Banking and Finance from the same University. In 2020 started his Master's degree in Information Technology and Telematics (Information Systems in Business Administration) at Harokopio University, which is currently in progress. He is also a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA).

 

Chairman: George Merguerian, PMP, PfMP, Open PM² Advanced, Senior Partner & Head of EMEA Operations, Global Business Management Consultants

Throughout his career, George held senior technical/engineering, line management, marketing and management development positions in multi-national organisations from the Construction, Engine Manufacturing, Oil Services, Executive Development, Information Technology, and Consulting industries. He has managed projects/contracts for Foster Wheeler, Cummins and Schlumberger in Europe, Asia and the Middle-East. Prior to BMC, George developed and lead e-commerce projects in the automotive, FMCG and Health sectors for European organisations in cooperation with major consultancies like AT Kearney, and Deloitte & Touche. George has expert knowledge in Quality, Technology Management and Organisation Development and developed these practices at Management Centre Europe (MCE) in Brussels. Since 2001, George has developed unique practices in strategy development and implementation, project management training, coaching and consulting for leading European companies coming from the engineering, pharmaceutical and IT fields as well as, public institutions like the European Commission and NATO. Some of his customers include organisations like American Standard, Atos Origin, Biomet, Carmeuse, Coca Cola Hellenic Bottling Company, DSM, FMC, GSK,  JohnsonDiversey,  Pliva, QAD, Schlumberger, SMIT, UHDE Industrial to name a few.  George holds a Mechanical Engineering degree and an MBA from the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), Lausanne, Switzerland. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP® ), a member of the Project Management Institute and a Board Member of the  Society of European Engineers and Industrialists (SEII). George is faculty member for project management programmes at the Rotterdam School of Management in Holland, the International Management Institute in Ukraine and others. He has authored and co-authored papers on technical and management subjects. George is a PMI Authorised Trainer. George is British, lives in Belgium and delivers his programmes in English.