Maria Apazoglou

Head of AI, BI & Data Platforms

Thomson Reuters

Maria leads the Core AI & Data Platforms at Thomson Reuters, streamlining the user experience for accessing and processing content, data and AI, creating services for first in class content driven technologies and overseeing the implementation of CoCounsel, a leading AI Assistant. She is an advocate of centralized platforms that offer both flexibility and autonomy to users, while also ensuring compliance with data and model governance standards. Maria holds a PhD in Pure Mathematics from Queen Mary University London and a degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from National Technical University Athens. She started her career as a quantitative analyst at RBS and VTB Capital, ran at Palantir Technologies data driven projects for a big energy company and a number of financial institutions, and was the Head of Data and Architecture for Digital Business Services at HSBC where she played a key role in their cloud transformation program and the creation of a global operations data platform enhancing the speed of data driven decisions in a compliant and efficient manner across markets.

Sam Kruklis

Sam has a background in computer engineering and a Masters degree in Business Information Systems. After some years in tech related roles, he naturally shifted into data engineering and the artificial intelligence space. At Roche he was running data delivery teams that leveraged models within the clinical operations activities, he then joined Google in 2019 and has been part of the enterprise cloud engineering team since, also contributing to Google Cloud’s Data Analytics AI&ML practice.

Jeremy Maetzener

Jeremy Maetzener is a versatile and experienced tech lawyer and corporate generalist, with a strong expertise in litigation, AI, copyright, data protection, competition and contract law. He has worked as in-house counsel for Google since 2018 and is the GC of Google Switzerland since 2022. Before joining Google, Jeremy practiced in a top tier law firm based in Geneva, Zurich and London and specialized in cross-border disputes and international commercial arbitration. Jeremy studied law in Zurich and Hong Kong and holds a master of arts degree in classical piano performance.

Nicolas Zahn



MS International Affairs, Geschäftsführer

f0t1 GmbH

Nicolas Zahn hält einen Master of Arts in International Affairs des Graduate Institute Geneva. Er ist Vorstandsmitglied, Mitgründer und Mitglied diverser Organisationen und engagiert sich insb. demokratie- und netzpolitisch (siehe Engagements).

Er ist Alumnus der Schweizerischen Studienstiftung, ehemaliger Binding Stipendiat, ehemaliger Kollegiat des Mercator Kollegs für internationale Aufgaben sowie ECCRI European Cybersecurity Fellow. Die vierte Ausgabe der 35 under 35 List von CIDOB Barcelona und Banco Santander würdigte seine Arbeit an der Schnittstelle Politik und Technologie.

Er publiziert zu diversen digitalen & politischen Themen u.a. in der Republik, NZZ & The Market, der Handelszeitung und dem Schweizer Monat (siehe Auftritte & Publikationen) und ist Dozent an mehreren Schweizer Fachhochschulen.

Nicolas Zahn arbeitet als Geschäftsführer der f0t1 GmbH und der Swiss Digital Initiative.

Dorian Selz



PhD Information Systems, Mitgründer und CEO

Squirro

Dr. Dorian Selz ist Mehrfachunternehmer: Er ist Mitgründer und CEO von Squirro. Squirro mit Hauptsitz Zürich analysiert Unternehmensdaten mittels künstlicher Intelligenz. Kunden sind Firmen weltweit wie Standard Chartered, Helvetia, Bank of England, Deutsche Bundesbank, oder Henkel. Zuvor hat er Memonic, ein Online Notizbuch, sowie Local.ch die führende Schweizer Suchplattform gegründet. Er war zuvor Partner & COO der führenden Schweizer E-Business Beratungsfirma Namics. Sein Studium der Volkswirtschaft führte ihn nach Genf und Aberdeen. Anschliessend doktorierte er an der Universität HSG St.Gallen im Bereich Wirtschaftsinformatik. Die Schweizer Wirtschaftszeitschrift Bilanz und die Zeitung Le Temps haben ihn mehrfach in die ‘Hall of Fame’ der Top 100 Digital Shapers der Schweiz aufgenommen.

Alexander Rohde

Dr. iur., MBA (MIT), Partner

Venturis Consulting

Alexander is a legal operations veteran. In the last 12 years, he has worked as COO of the legal department of a global corporation and as COO of a leading Swiss law firm. As in-house legal operations leader, he witnessed first-hand the daily tests that GCs in large, global legal departments are exposed to. Later, as member of the management team of a large national law firm, he personally experienced the challenges and partnership dynamics that Managing Partners and Management Committee Members must deal with.

Alexander is passionate about the General Counsel’s “doing more with less”-challenge, where he advises on the legal operating model, cost management and outside counsel management as well as efficiency and effectiveness improvements. Another focus is legal department internal communication and department culture.

On the law firm side, he advises on organizational design, efficiency and business services professionalization. He also helps to develop law firm brands, and advises on how to improve its reputation and keep the firm future ready, i.e. analyzing and improving firm culture, diversity and ESG.

Martijn Lesterhuis

LLM, MBA, Partner

Venturis Consulting

Martijn is a partner at Venturis and an expert in driving change and growth in law firms. With a combined background as lawyer, strategy consultant and law firm board member, Martijn assists firms in building coherent and evidence based strategies focussed on transformation and profitable growth. Due to his first-hand experience with board room dynamics and managing partnerships, he has excellent understanding in how to manage effective and high impact strategy implementation within law firms.
Martijn’s broad experience includes projects on Transformation (organisational and operational change), Profitable Growth (commercial, client and pricing strategies), Finance, Merger processes and Post Merger Integration. Apart from his long-term career in the legal industry, he can boost on substantial experience in other industries. Martijn worked, both at national and international level, within leading organisations on strategy and business transformation, including in Financial Services, Health Care, Consumer Goods and Aviation.

Kriti Sharma

Chief Product Officer for Legal Tech

Thomson Reuters

Kriti is an innovator, product leader, and a global voice on AI and its impact on society. She is currently an Artificial Intelligence technologist at Thomson Reuters, focusing on leveraging technology to transform professional work. Kriti was named in the Forbes 30 under 30 list for advancements in technology. She is a Google Grace Hopper Scholar and a winner of the Google Women in Engineering Award, and her TED talk has been viewed more than two million times. In 2017, Kriti founded AI for Good UK, an organisation that’s using AI and data to help solve some of the toughest global challenges of our time.

Imanol Schlág

PhD Artificial Intelligence, Technical Lead for Large Language Model Development at Swiss AI Initiative

ETH Zürich, ETH AI Center

Imanol Schlag is co-leading the Swiss AI Initiative’s Large Language Model effort with Professors from EPFL. Before joining the ETH AI Center he was a PostDoc at ETH and a PhD student at USI/IDSIA. His doctoral research focused on Artificial Intelligence via connectionist models, encompassing innovative, scalable neural network designs. Some of these were created during his time at Microsoft, Google, and Meta.

David Rosenthal

lic. iur., Partner

VISCHER AG

David Rosenthal praktiziert seit über 20 Jahren Daten- und Technologierecht, hat sowohl ein Jura-Studium an der Universität Basel als auch einen Background als Softwareentwickler und ist Partner der Wirtschaftskanzlei VISCHER, wo er unter anderem das Data & Privacy-Team und jenes für interne Untersuchungen leitet. Über die Schweiz hinaus bekannt wurde er durch die Entwicklung von Methoden und Werkzeugen für Risikobeurteilungen bei internationalen Datentransfers, beim Einsatz der Cloud und von generativer KI. Rosenthal ist seit vielen Jahren Dozent an der Universität Basel und der ETH Zürich und publiziert regelmässig