The 2026 speakers

Ziad Matar is co-founder of Tokenando, an intelligence business focused on the economics of artificial intelligence, wher he is also editor-in-chief of The Compute, its flagship publication. He is managing partner at Meditari, the AI advisory firm he founded in 2018.
Ziad brings 30 years of experience at the cutting edge of technology: he started his career at Ericsson in 1996, then moved to Qualcomm in 2008, where he led strategic business development across the Middle East and Africa before turning full time to building his own ventures in 2018. He has been a charter member of The Indus Entrepreneur (TiE) since 2012 and served as president of its Dubai chapter in 2019 and 2020.
Ziad produces 2 podcasts: Sprezzatura, which he co-hosts with his friend and partner Radin Rahimzadeh based in San Francisco; and Wirelessly Yours, where he interviews founders and technologists about emerging technologies and business.

Lars Vonhof is a Senior Solutions Architect at Digital Realty, helping global enterprises design the digital foundations required for AI at scale. His work focuses on connecting infrastructure, data, cloud platforms, and digital ecosystems to enable secure, high-performance AI deployments.

In addition to his current role, Lars brings more than a decade of experience in the automotive industry, including autonomous driving development, large-scale data collection, and strategic cloud platform initiatives. Throughout his career, he has been passionate about translating complex technologies into business outcomes and helping organizations navigate digital transformation with confidence.

At the AI Summit Barcelona, Lars will share insights on Private AI, data sovereignty, and the infrastructure strategies shaping the next generation of enterprise AI. His perspective combines hands-on experience in emerging technologies with a deep understanding of enterprise-scale digital transformation.

His philosophy is simple: "Empathetic in cooperation and clear guidance in implementation."

Represented as an AI Creator by Pocko (London/Berlin/Tokyo) and SXV Sound x Vision (LA). Creative Partner at Runway, Dreamina, OpenArt, Hailuo, Flora and Exclusive Minimax Audio, as well as a Kling Elite Creator and member of the Runway Talent Network.

Her work has been showcased at Times Square NY, OFFF Barcelona, Milano Design Week, London College of Fashion Film Fest, Shaike Film Fest France, Runway–Iconoclast TV London, Lisbon Loras, and Budapest Smart Film Fest.

Art directs AI-driven brand universes, visual identities, fashion content, commercials, music videos, immersive digital experiences, and retail projects for high-end clients like Christie’s and North Sails, and collabs with Iconoclast TV and Grammy-winning directors Pierre Dupaquier and Clément Durou.

Avinash Jha is Senior Director and Head of API & Integration at Volvo Group, where he leads the integration architecture that connects enterprise systems, data and partners in real time. His work focuses on moving agentic AI beyond proof-of-concept: making live data available to agents, and solving the harder problems underneath — agent identity, delegated authority, fine-grained access control, observability and accountability for agent actions. He is the author of a widely downloaded white paper on real-time integration and agentic AI.

Oscar Hernández Porta is a Partner at NTT DATA and Head of Application Services in Spain for the Industry and Telecommunications sectors. In this role, he leads the evolution of large-scale technology services, driving new delivery models that combine industrialization, efficiency and quality in an environment of continuous innovation and transformation. In the field of Artificial Intelligence, he focuses on taking AI beyond proof-of-concept initiatives, transforming delivery models and integrating AI not only into the way services are built, operated and evolved, but also into how they are conceived and how organizations collaborate with clients. Within this context, he sponsors initiatives such as the transformation journey NTT DATA is undertaking together with Ecoembes, aimed at providing the capabilities, talent and commitment required to evolve from a traditional service model towards an AI-native operating model.

Eduard Truñó is a Director at NTT DATA with more than 20 years of experience in technology consulting. He works with clients to define and execute IT strategies that balance transformation, efficiency and business continuity, bringing an end-to-end perspective to technology services. As the lead executive for the Ecoembes account, he is directly supporting the transformation of its teams and development model, working within a partnership focused on converting new AI capabilities into measurable efficiency and, progressively, greater business and customer value.

Manuel de Arcocha is Technology Director at Ecoembes, where he leads the organization's technology evolution and digital transformation plan. With more than 20 years of experience at Ecoembes, he has built his career around the full application lifecycle, from design and alignment with business needs to development, deployment, maintenance and continuous improvement. He is currently driving the adoption of Artificial Intelligence as a lever to transform the way technology teams work, improve efficiency and develop new capabilities that enhance the service provided to Ecoembes customers.

Angelo Antinoro is General Manager for Corporate Solutions & Partnerships at Albert School, a leading institution at the intersection of data, business and AI. Drawing on experience spanning Amazon Kindle, HEC Paris and higher education, he works with organisations to develop future-ready talent through corporate partnerships, executive education and real-world business challenges.

At Ai Summit Barcelona, Angelo can share a practical perspective on how AI is reshaping education, early-career talent and the skills businesses need most: judgment, critical thinking, communication and the ability to navigate complexity alongside AI.

Enric Escalé Garrell, Partner at SDG Group, leads the Insights & Performance business line (Business Insights, business process optimization, data & AI strategy)
Industrial Engineer (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya), with part of his studies completed at TU Wien. 13+ years of career, entirely at SDG Group — started as an analyst, named Partner in July 2025

Driving growth for global companies through the sharing & scaling of best practices.
After 15 years of experience in marketing, sales & operations, I discovered that best practices are the best way to drive growth, but it is a painful process for everyone (the sharer, the one receiving it & the organizer).
This is why I created Wegrow, to industrialize this process and drive engagement, efficiency and effectiveness.
As a result, we drive faster innovation, better activation & accelerated AI transformation for 30 global companies (including LVMH, HP, Nestlé, Danone, Mars, Total Energies, Merck, Adidas...) in 50 countries.

Michael Kessler is co-founder and CEO of CheckedAgent, a security company building runtime protection for AI agents. CheckedAgent sits inline between an agent and the tools it calls — over MCP, the protocol agents use to reach external systems — and inspects traffic in both directions, catching prompt injection, data exfiltration and compromised tool servers before anything acts. It deploys alongside existing infrastructure, with no changes to agent code. He spends his days looking at what agents actually do in production, not what they do in a demo. Previously he founded and led technology companies across IT service management, hospitality technology and climate tech.

William Sean Cohen is Commercial Director at Abodoo, where he works with CHROs, CLOs and Heads of Talent Acquisition at global organizations to make sense of a question most of them are starting to ask : what does an AI-ready workforce actually look like? He oversees the growth of Abodoo's skills intelligence platform, navigating everything from Fortune 500 procurement to government and civil service processes. Before Abodoo, he helped build Recrytera and Swapcard. He moderates Wednesday's session on the Auditorium stage.

Vanessa Wainwright is the CEO and Founder of Abodoo, the company behind SIIO™ Skills Intelligence Infrastructure the essential foundation on which AI-ready companies can be built.

Her work is driven by a belief that organisations cannot realise the potential of AI without understanding the skills they have, the capabilities they need and the people they risk leaving behind. Abodoo makes workforce capability visible, measurable and connected to business performance.

Through the Global Skills Podcast, Vanessa brings together leaders, innovators and changemakers to explore how we can future-proof people and organisations, close the global skills gap and ensure that technological progress creates opportunity for everyone.

Her mission is clear: to help build an AI-powered future in which every person’s skills are visible, valuable and able to evolve.

Mark Hill is Group COO at Tenth Revolution Group and also represents new AI startup FDECo.

Backed by private equity firm TPG, Tenth Revolution Group is a 20-year global technology talent, training and consulting business operating across AI, Cloud, CRM, Data and ERP.

FDECo is a new Applied AI consulting business specialising in expert FDE talent and project services.

Mark brings over 30 years of experience in enterprise technology, including more than 20 years in Capital Markets technology. He offers an expert operator’s perspective on enterprise transformation, governance, workforce strategy, business change, and the practical potential of agentic AI.

Suggested session themes: Enterprise AI adoption; building AI-ready teams; transformation and change; and turning enterprise software into trusted, outcome-driven platforms.

Juliet MacDowell is the founder of Mission AI and an AI Product & Programme Advisor to the Cosmocitizens Foundation. Her work focuses on designing public-interest uses of AI and translating social and programme needs into products that people can actually use. At Cosmocitizens, she has developed concepts for multilingual AI-supported services for refugees and civic participation initiatives exploring how young people can influence the use of AI in education, work and public life. She also hosts Between Us and the Machine, a podcast examining who shapes AI, whose values it reflects and what kind of future we are building with it. Before moving into AI, Juliet spent more than 25 years working internationally in development, public health, strategy and communications. She holds a master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University.

Architect since 2006, Yves Ubelmann began his career working in the Middle East and Central Asia, where he carried out surveys of archeological sites using photogrammetry. In 2013, he founded the ICONEM start-up whose mission is to digitize endangered heritage sites around the world to ensure their transmission to future generations.

After graduating from La Sorbonne in Humanities and from Paris 42 School in Computer Science, Andrea started working at Iconem within the Research and Development team, developing digital tools to improve data accessibility for the scientific community. Over time, her role expanded to include technical project management while continuing her work as a software engineer. Today, Andrea also holds the role of Chief of Staff at Iconem, combining hands-on technical expertise with strategic coordination to support the company’s growth and mission.

Jean-Charles leads climate research at Clarity AI, where he designs the methodologies behind the firm's climate solutions. He spent a decade in strategy consulting before that. His expertise spans transition finance, net zero alignment, and climate risks. His current work focuses on the credibility of companies' transition plans, and on the balance of top-down and bottom-up models in climate risk assessment.

Paula López Otero has a PhD in Telecommunication Engineering. She has worked in the academia for more than 10 years before moving to the industry and, later, to the Spanish Agency for the Supervision of Artificial Intelligence (AESIA). Her main areas of expertise include emotion recognition from speech, speaker identification and deepfake detection.

Simi Wang is Sales Director at AgiBot Europe, based in Barcelona, where she leads business development and strategic partnerships for humanoid and commercial cleaning robots across Europe. She works with retailers, manufacturers, logistics providers, and system integrators to accelerate the adoption of embodied AI, supporting co-development, OEM partnerships, dexterous manipulation, and industrial automation.

With nearly a decade of international experience in robotics, Simi has held commercial leadership roles at AgiBot, XNERGY, LionsBot, and Keenon Robotics, helping scale innovative robotic solutions across Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia. Her expertise spans channel development, strategic partnerships, and bringing robotics from pilot projects to large-scale commercial deployment. Passionate about the future of embodied AI, she focuses on connecting technology with real-world business value.

Jesús Beatove is Head of AI & Automation at Baskonia Alavés Group, where he leads the adoption of artificial intelligence and automation across the organization, spanning sports, commercial, operations, finance, and customer-facing teams.

With a background in engineering, technology leadership, and business transformation, he focuses on turning AI from experimentation into measurable business impact — redesigning processes, building AI-powered solutions, and driving organizational adoption at scale.

Mario Tristán Del Pino is an AI Data Platform Technical Specialist and Customer Success Manager at IBM, based in Madrid. He is also the founder of Datatris, a freelance data-science consultancy focused on helping mid-market and large companies turn their existing data into business value.

An industrial and energy engineer by training with a master’s in Data Science (Machine & Deep Learning), Mario has 6+ years of experience delivering data-analyst and data-science projects across sectors such as industrial, energy, food, insurance, and services. His work spans machine learning, automation, reporting, and data-processing solutions, including digital twins, CRM/ERP integrations, lead-scoring models, churn and fraud detection, sales forecasting, and process optimization using Python, R, SQL, and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP).

At IBM, he focuses on AI data platforms and customer success, combining technical depth with strong client-facing skills in pre-sales, solution design, and project delivery.

Bruno Fondevila is a founder and CTO focused on AI-native products, automation and software engineering.

Before becoming an entrepreneur, he spent eight years at Booking.com, working on large-scale software products and helping lead engineering in a global environment serving millions of customers. Since then, he has held founder, CTO and Head of Engineering roles across several technology companies.

Today, Bruno works at the intersection of AI and software engineering, building AI agents and automation for real business workloads. His focus is on turning agentic AI from experimentation into reliable production systems that simplify processes, improve how teams operate and deliver measurable value.

Jara Forcadell Ortiz is Head of AI Innovation and Business at i2CAT Research Centre. An industrial engineer with extensive experience in public-sector advisory, strategic innovation, and smart-city projects, she leads initiatives connecting artificial intelligence with real-world business, public services, sustainability, and urban innovation.

David Sanchez Serrano is a CDP Consultant & Data Analyst at WPP, focused on first-party data infrastructure and customer data platforms for enterprise clients. A Physics graduate from the University of Granada, he built his data career delivering large-scale first-party data transformation projects, including a CDP implementation for RIU that was shortlisted for The Drum Awards in both the Digital Transformation and Game-Changing Technology categories.

He brings a hands-on, technical perspective on how first-party data actually gets structured, activated, and put to work inside marketing organisations \u2014 grounded in delivery rather than theory. His work sits at the intersection of data engineering and marketing technology, with particular depth in CDP architecture and first-party data strategy for large, multi-market brands.

His perspective is especially relevant for audiences interested in customer data platforms, first-party data strategy, and the technical realities of activating data at enterprise scale.