Free Market Road Show 2014 - Speakers
The Future of Europe at Stake: EU Elections Ahead – What is next for the EU?
Tuesday, April 22, 2014, from 2 pm to 7 pm
Best Western Premier Hotel Slon, Slovenska cesta 34, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Andraž Grahek is a managing partner at corporate finance advisers Capital Genetics, Slovenia. His professional engagement with financial markets began as a Journalist, Head of Research and Consultant to the editorial of Finance Business Daily, the Slovenian subsidiary of the Swedish business media group Bonnier in 2001. For almost five years he was covering macroeconomic trends, capital markets and corporate events in Slovenia and also former Yugoslavia. In 2006 he moved on to KD Funds, where he was Fund Manager for several investment funds focusing on investing in global emerging and developed equity markets. In May 2009 he was appointed as the Head of Asset Management at KD Funds thus leading the entire team of portfolio managers managing more than 20 investment funds and roughly 400 million EUR of assets, predominantly in equity funds. In his role he was also responsible for communication of investment strategy and house views to the investors, media and broader public. This included appearances at key industry events in the region and in the media, both local and also international, including Bloomberg, Financial Times and Wall Street Journal. In 2012, after six years and a half at KD Funds, he decided it was time to move on and launched Capital Genetics. The vision of Capital Genetics is to provide senior resources with experience and superior knowledge to tackle advanced processes and solve problems in the field of Corporate Finance, Corporate Development and Strategy and Alternative Investments. Grahek graduated in banking and finance from University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Anže Logar was born on May 15, 1976 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He has been a Ljubljana City Councillor since 2010. Earlier, Logar was two times (2007 and 2012) appointed Director of the Government Communication Office in both PM Janša's governments. During the Slovenian EU presidency, he was its spokesperson in the first half of 2008. In January 2003, Logar became a Slovenian advisor to the EU parliamentary group of the European People’s Party in Brussels, Belgium. From 2000 to 2002, he was employed by SKB bank in Slovenia. In 2007, former Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus conferred upon Logar a state decoration the Life Saving Cross for saving life of a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania. He graduated at the Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2000 and obtained an MSc degree at The Graduate School of Government and European Studies, Slovenia in January 2006.
Damir Črnčec is assistant professor of defense and security at Graduate School of Government and European Studies, Slovenia. He is also President of the Association for European Slovenia, an active member of the Slovenian Civil Society and a European and Transatlantic Think-Tank. From 2005 to 2012, Črnčec was Director General of Intelligence and Security Service of the MOD and Director of Slovenian Intelligence and Security Agency until 2013. He participated or lectured at numerous scientific and professional events in Slovenia and abroad. Črnčec is (co)author of numerous scientific and professional articles and monographs on global governance and management; global, geostrategic, geopolitical and national security issues; intelligence; asymmetry of contemporary conflicts; biometrics; and information-communication technologies. In his research he focuses on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Črnčec holds a doctorate in political science from University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Draško Veselinovič is CEO and professor at Gea College, Slovenia. From 1982 to 1989 he was assistant manager at Ljubljanska banka. 1989, Veselinovič baceme project manager for the Yugoslav Stock Exchange, and later the first president and CEO of the Ljubljana Stock Exchange. In 2004, Veselinovič became President of Management Board at Deželna banka Slovenije. In 2009, he was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Nova Ljubljanska banka, before becaming CEO of KD Group, the largest private financial conglomerate in Slovenia. From 1990 to 1992 he was a member of the Slovene Parliament. Since 1986 he has been Associate Professor of International Finance at the Faculty of Economics in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In addition, he has been a visiting professor at Vienna University, London School of Economics, IEDC – Bled School of Management, and Faculty of Economics and Management Maribor. Veselinovič has produced over 500 articles and 5 books on international finance and capital and securities markets developments. He is a regular speaker at international conferences including European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, World Bank, ISC St Gallen in Switzerland, London School of Economics and the Financial Times. His interest are foreign exchange hedging, arbitrage instruments, and derivatives. Veselinovič chaired many supervisory boards and/or auditing committees in companies, like Krka, Slovene Restitution Fund and Paprnica Radeče. Veselinovič received an BA, MA, and PhD in economics from University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Erich Weede received a diploma in psychology at the University of Hamburg in 1966. After a one-year stay at Northwestern University (Illinois), USA, he acquired his doctorate and venia legendi in political science at the University of Mannheim in 1971 and 1975. He was a professor of sociology at the University of Cologne in Germany from 1978 to 1997, and at the University of Bonn in Germany from 1997 until his retirement in 2004. Thereafter, he has devoted most of his time to study Austrian and Public Choice economics.
Gordon Kerr is an investment banker with broad experience of banking collapses and the need for systemic reform, having started his career working on sovereign debt syndications and the Latin American debt crisis. In the 1990s he specialised in housing finance, designing Scandinavian mortgage securitisation structures and rental securitisations for the UK social housing sector. Shortly after the LTCM hedge fund collapse and bailout of 1998, he designed regulatory arbitrage structures that used credit default swaps combined with US monoline wraps to create synthetic regulatory capital, a structure that was deployed Europewide to releverage Europe’s largest banks. In 2002 he met with the UK bank regulator, the FSA, to attempt to explain that wrong accounting for derivative products would cause the banking system to collapse. In the 2000s he specialised in the design of tax and mortality products, before setting up Cobden Partners shortly after the banking system collapsed. He is the author of The Law of Opposites, Illusory Profits in the Financial Sector.
HSH Prince Michael of Liechtenstein studied commerce at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, and consolidated his studies by assignments for the banking and industrial sectors in Belgium, Canada and the USA. From 1978 to 1987, he worked for Nestlé SA in the fields of controlling, management and marketing on various markets in Europe and Africa. In 1987, he took over the management of Industrie- und Finanzkontor in Vaduz, Liechtenstein an international advisory and fiduciary trust company, where he now holds the position of president. He is founder and chairman of Geopolitical Information Service AG, as well as president of the think tank ECAEF - European Centre of Austrian Economics Foundation, based in Vaduz, Liechtenstein.
Jure Stojan is an adjunct fellow at Svetilnik. He is also a business journalist at Večer, a Slovenian daily newspaper. In addition, Jure has attended many Liberty Fund conferences in Europe. An advocate of economic freedom, Jure is covering topics in European macroeconomy and the Slovene business environment. Jure holds a doctorate in economic history from St Antony's College, University of Oxford. He studied the political economy of regulatory reform in 20th-century Britain, with a focus on how the growth of the welfare state and the rise of new business models influenced the market for healthcare. His research included a case study on the British Health Freedom League, a grass-roots movement of the 1940s that tried, unsuccessfully, to block the emergence of a State-operated, monopolistic National Health Service (the NHS).
Karl-Peter Schwarz is an Austrian journalist and political correspondent covering several Central- and Southeast European countries for the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In the past, he worked for the conservative Viennese newspaper Die Presse, than for Austrian Radio and Television (ORF) which sent him as correspondent to Rome. In 1990 he moved to Prague, attracted by the revolutionary changes after the fall of communism. The ongoing transformation of the society led him to a deeper understanding of the very foundations of a free society with the help of the Austrian School of Economics. He published a book on the dissolution of the Czechoslovak Federation and numerous articles regarding history, political theory and economic transformation. Schwarz holds a Master degree in history and Italian literature from the University of Vienna, Austria.
Matej Avsenak Ogorevc has been a member of ESFL - European Students For Liberty executive board since 2013. At the same time, he is local coordinator manager at ESFL - European Students For Liberty. Avsenak Ogorevc is entrepreneur and small business owner since 2009. He graduated in business and economics at Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2010.
Matevž Kadak is a student of defense studies at Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and president of Slovenian Student Association of Defense Studies. He is also a member of executive board of Euro-Atlantic Council of Slovenia, a senator at the Student Organization of University of Ljubljana, and vice president of Student Club of Faculty of Social Sciences. Kadak participated in several conferences in the Western Balkan and ATA/YATA General Assembly, and worked for four months in the United States of America. His focuses on conflict prevention and national security issues.
Pierre Garello is Professor of Economics at the Faculté d'Economie et Gestion of Aix Marseille University in France, where he is also directing the Centre d’Analyse Economique. He is also a cofounder of the European liberal think tanks' Resource Bank and a research director at IREF, a French think tank that promotes tax competition and sound public finances. From 1995 to 2013, Garello was a director of the Institute for Economic Studies-Europe. He has published various articles on Austrian economics, law and economics. Garello is the editor-in-chief of the Journal des Économistes et des Études Humaines, a scholarly review dealing with economic, legal, philosophical and political issues, in the tradition of the French Classical Liberal School. Garello received an MA in Economics and a BS in Applied Mathematics from the University of Aix-Marseille, france, and a PhD in Economics from New York University, USA.
Tanja Štumberger Porčnik is the founder and president of Svetilnik. She is also an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC, USA. In 2008, Štumberger Porčnik envisioned and launched Liberty Seminars Slovenia, and has been its executive director ever since. Between 2012 and 2013, Štumberger Porčnik was a senior fellow at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. In 2012, she was a teaching fellow at Georgetown University - The Fund for American Studies program in Prague, Czech Republic. Between 2006 and 2011, Štumberger Porčnik was both research associate and manager of external relations at the Cato Institute. As an undergraduate, she studied Applied Economics at both University of Maribor, Slovenia, and Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. Štumberger Porčnik did her graduate studies in American Political Thought at both the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Georgetown University, USA.
Žiga Turk holds degrees in computer science and structural engineering from University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, where he has been a professor and researcher in the field of engineering communication. In the past, Turk was the Slovenian Minister from Growth between 2007-2008, a Secretary General of the Reflection Group in the Future of Europe at the European Council in Brussels between 2009-2011, and the Slovenian Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports between 2012-2013. In the recent work he combines his background in technical sciences with experiences in the area of policymaking.
