Applied Agentic AI for Leaders

Agne Ivanauskaite-Sanders is a leading AI governance architect and founder of GX1, building the next generation of programmable trust infrastructure for the AI-native economy. A former AI & Privacy Director at Barclays, HSBC, Meta, and Goldman Sachs, she has spent more than 15 years at the intersection of law, compliance, risk, and technology, transforming complex regulatory requirements into scalable, machine-executable governance systems.

Throughout her career, Agne has designed and deployed enterprise-scale governance solutions, including the world’s first global data-sharing approval platform, automating compliance across 71 jurisdictions and more than 600 legal entities. She has also developed compliance engines for financial crime, AML, sanctions, and AI governance, helping some of the world’s largest organizations operationalize trust at scale. A FEEL Programme Fellow at the Dubai Future Foundation, selected from more than 400 global applicants, Agne is recognized internationally for pioneering a shift from static compliance frameworks to dynamic, executable governance. As a sought-after keynote speaker and researcher, she advises organizations on building AI governance architectures that are not only compliant by design but capable of scaling with the next generation of intelligent systems.

Senator Amira Saber is a Member of the Egyptian Senate and Vice President of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party. A legislator with a decade of parliamentary experience, she has introduced draft bills on AI governance, climate change adaptation, and food security, and has led legislative work at the intersection of technology, human rights, and public policy.

She serves as co-presiding officer of the Global Young Parliamentarians Initiative at the IMF and represents MENA on the World Bank’s Young Parliamentarians Steering Committee, and is a member of the Munich Security Conference Women Parliamentarians Program.

She chairs the UNITE MENA Chapter, a cross-party network of parliamentarians advancing global health governance and she is a winner of the British Council social action award.

Amira holds an MA in Development Studies from the University of Sussex (Chevening Scholar), an MBA from ESLSCA Business School, and is currently pursuing a DBA from the Swiss School of Management and studying a second degree in Law. She is a faculty member at the University of London and a Vital Voices Public Leadership Fellow.

Ana Manuel is COO of Connect Robotics and COO & Founder Team member at AirSafe.ai, leading the business and innovation of AI-powered autonomous technologies that are redefining logistics, critical infrastructure, and the future of urban innovation.

André Dionísio, 26 anos, é Cofundador e CEO da ByTheLaw, plataforma portuguesa de IA para profissionais do Direito, com mais de 4000 utilizadores e clientes como a Sérvulo & Associados, ANA Aeroportos e diversos municípios pelo país todo. Estudou Engenharia e Ciência de Dados na Universidade de Coimbra tendo depois feito uma pós-graduação em IA aplicada ao Direito e a sua Regulação pela Universidade de Lisboa.

Beatriz Gomes did her Integrated Masters in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Coimbra. After that, she finished her PhD in computational neuroscience at the university of Manchester, followed by a postdoc turned into research fellow position at the Alan Turing institute, where she also was one of the hosts of the Turing Podcast. Since 2025, she has been a researcher in the Futures Team at Microsoft AI.

Bruno Guinchard, IT & AI Governance Director

With almost two decades in banking (UBS), one of the most heavily regulated industries, across various IT roles spanning quality, testing and compliance, and a recent focus on AI governance framework definition, Bruno brings a practitioner's view on bridging governance frameworks, regulatory expectations and operational reality.

Carlos Lebre Ribeiro is the Founder and CEO of Coalex.ai, an Agentic AI Risk Ops platform that helps organizations in regulated industries—including insurance, healthcare, banking, and pharmaceuticals—deploy AI agents with governance, oversight, and trust: "where AI earns the right to act." With nearly a decade of experience in AI engineering, Carlos led the scaling of Talkdesk's AI team, where he was responsible for the company's first generative AI product deployed in production. He also worked on fraud detection at Feedzai.

Carlos holds an MSc in Computer Engineering from the University of Coimbra and an MSc in Management from ISCTE, along with PMP, ITIL, and Agile certifications. Based in Coimbra at the IPN Incubator, he is building the trust layer for the agent economy—the equivalent of Know Your Agent (KYA) for AI.

Daniel Fangueiro is Innovation Director at Loop Future, specializing in innovation strategy, digital transformation, AI, R&D, and securing European funding for technology initiatives. He has led innovation programs, international partnerships, and research projects that bridge emerging technologies with business transformation. He holds a degree in Business Management and a Master’s in Innovation Economics and Management, complemented by executive studies in IT Management at Porto Business School. A certified trainer and former mentor at Startupbootcamp Amsterdam, Daniel is also a Guest Speaker on AI for Productivity at Nova SBE. He currently leads AI, Data, and Cloud talent development initiatives, including a recent technology academy delivered in partnership with Deloitte and the University of Coimbra.

Elena Maran is an AI Executive, founder and CEO of Alethesis AI, building runtime authority infrastructure for agentic AI. Previously Chief AI Risk Officer at Modulos AG and serves as an External Advisor to Spain’s AI Regulatory Sandbox at the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Administration. She is a member of CEN/CENELEC JTC 21 WG4, the European committee drafting harmonised standards for the EU AI Act; a IAPP certified AI Governance Professional; an ISO 42001 Lead Implementer; and Adjunct Professor at IE University Madrid. She was named among ETH Zurich’s Top 100 Women in AI. Her background spans fifteen years in international financial services at Citigroup and China Construction Bank before moving full-time into AI risk and governance. She speaks regularly in international events such as the World Economic Forum, the Singapore Fintech Festival, the Responsible AI Summit London, and the AI Policy Summit, the IAPP AI Governance Global Europe and recently keynoted Copenhagen Compliance’s Global Risk Management Day 2026.

Dr. Eva-Maria Hempe is Executive Director, Public Sector EMEA at NVIDIA, where she sets and executes the company's strategy for national AI adoption across governments, ministries, and national labs. A Gates Cambridge Scholar with a PhD in Engineering from Cambridge and a background in strategy consulting at Bain & Company and enterprise technology, she has spent the last decade working at the intersection of AI, regulated industries, and large-scale institutional transformation. Her current focus is on how governments design, procure, and govern AI infrastructure at a national scale.

Filipa serves as Healthcare & Life Sciences Leader at KPMG Portugal, Executive Director of APDSI, and Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Lisbon. She holds a PhD in Biomedicine and focuses on driving innovation and digital transformation in healthcare, with a strong emphasis on citizens and healthcare professionals.

João Ribeiro-Bidaoui is Cloud ESG Planning Director at Microsoft, where he works at the intersection of AI and Cloud infrastructure, sustainability, regulatory strategy, and operational planning across Europe and the Americas. His expertise lies in translating complex public policy, ESG, and operational risk signals into practical decision-making frameworks for critical digital infrastructure. He has led internal initiatives to apply AI and AI agents to regulatory planning and ESG workflows, including process automation, drafting support, data quality enhancement, and transforming knowledge into actionable decisions. In the field of AI leadership, João advocates for a responsible, impact-driven approach in which leaders use agentic AI not only to increase productivity, but also to strengthen governance, human oversight, risk management, and institutional trust.

Lauren Hawker Zafer is Chief Operating Officer of Squirro, the enterprise-grade Generative AI and knowledge-graph company headquartered in Zurich. She architects the operational backbone of high-growth GenAI scale-ups, translating technical vision into the system s, capital structure, and commercial execution that produce measurable business outcomes. As COO, she runs a 120+ FTE global organization across engineering, product, sales, marketing, customer success, finance, and people through a full Target Operating Model; has cut OPEX 30% QoQ; owns a $4M sales pipeline in BioTech and Manufacturing; leads the launch and capital raise of Squirro's Basel biotech joint venture; and owns fundraising and investor management end-to-end. Across four executive roles in four years she also established Squirro's category leadership in enterprise GenAI across Gartner® and the European markets as CMO, shipped the company's flagship GenAI suite to market in 2.5 months, and built The Squirro Academy from zero (35,000 assets; Accenture, Deloitte, and d-fine certifications; enablement for the Bank of England and European Central Bank). Earlier, as Global Academic Content Director at EF Education First, she led digital learning content production reaching 1.5 million end-users worldwide.

She is founder and host of the three-time award-winning Redefining AI tech podcast, co-host of Convergence with Faisal Hoque.

Lisa Thee is a passionate advocate for ethical technology and purposeful leadership. Her journey as an engineer, entrepreneur, consultant, and educator offers valuable lessons for anyone navigating today’s evolving digital landscape.
As an instructor for the University of Michigan Engineering Professional Education, Lisa brings her real-world expertise into the classroom. She helps professionals manage the complexities of artificial intelligence and responsible innovation. In this interview, she reflects on pivotal career moments, value-driven leadership, and the power of AI when used for good.

Luís Barreto Xavier is an Invited Professor at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, where he teaches the Law of Artificial Intelligence Law since 2019, as well as Private International Law and Digital Law. He serves on the Executive Committee of the Research Group on Law and Artificial Intelligence at the Católica Research Centre for the Future of Law.
Luís has acted as Co-Director of postgraduate programmes in Digital Compliance (Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics / Católica Lisbon School of Law), AI Law and Practice (Católica Lisbon School of Law / Instituto Superior Técnico / Abreu Knowledge Institute), and Data Science for Lawyers (NOVA School of Science and Technology / Abreu Knowledge Institute).
Luís is also Of Counsel at Abreu Advogados and President of the Abreu Knowledge Institute. In this capacity, he has directed or co-directed training programmes in areas including Digital Law and AI Literacy. Luís is a member of the General Council of the Centre for Judicial Studies (CEJ), elected by the Portuguese Parliament.
Previously, he founded and directed from 2009 to 2018 the Católica Global School of Law. He was also a Lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, a Legal Adviser to the Secretary of State for Tourism, a Senior Consultant at the Legal Centre of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (CEJUR), and a law clerk at the Office of the Judges of the Portuguese Constitutional Court.

Matthew Rosenquist is a Chief Information Security Office r (CISO), cybersecurity strategist, and founder of Cybersecurity Insights, a trusted industry advisor to global businesses, academia, and governments. He specializes in emerging risks, disruptive digital technologies, and industry best practices in pursuit of optimal cybersecurity capabilities that align with strategic organizational goals.

With 30+ years of leadership, strategic insight, and operational experience, Matthew is recognized as an outspoken advocate and respected authority in cybersecurity. Previously, he served as the Cybersecurity Strategist for Intel Corp., leading numerous foundational initiatives, and currently serves on multiple technical and academic advisory boards. Matthew collaborates with elite minds worldwide, and his thought leadership has earned numerous industry recognitions, including being ranked among the Top 10 cybersecurity experts on LinkedIn.

Rui Duarte is an AI executive and the author of Statecraft 3.0: The Age of AI Diplomacy, in which he argues that international alliances are increasingly shaped by capabilities in cognition, computing, data, and governance rather than by ideology. He serves as Country Manager for Switzerland and the DACH region at Loop Future, an AI software company. In the field of AI governance, he is EMEA Vice President of the International AI Safety Commission and a member of the Global Advisory Council at AI2030.Rui also teaches at EU Business School in Geneva, where he lectures on Ethics, Artificial Intelligence, and Diplomacy in UNITAR's Master's in International Relations programme.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpgduarte

Tarja Stephens is a Finnish-American business leader, author, keynote speaker, and executive AI advisor recognized for her work on the future of leadership in the age of AI. She helps executive teams understand how organizations are redesigning work across humans and AI agents, and what this shift means for leadership and human agency A keynote speaker on global stages, including World Economic Forum week in Davos and the United Nations, she brings a Nordic leadership lens to conversations about what makes us human and the qualities leaders need to navigate the future of work.