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Global Association Forum

Creating meetings that matter

11-13 September, 2023 | Tórshavn, Faroe Islands

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The ICCA Global Association Forum is shaping up to be an extraordinary gathering of knowledge and expertise on regeneration, sustainability and legacy. We are excited to announce the confirmed lineup of speakers.

Meet our Moderator

Bo Krüger

Meeting Designer, Facilitator and Speaker, Moving Minds

Bo Krüger is prize-winning and international renown Meeting Designer, moderator and keynote speaker. Bo is the owner of Moving Minds, a consultancy that helps clients design and facilitate better meeting and events. His main focus is on creating more meaningful, engaging and fun meetings both virtual, in-person and hybrid.

Bo has previously worked as an innovation consultant at the Danish Institute of Technology and as a senior Management Consultant in Implement Consulting Group. He has worked in and with many associations and has experience from clients in more than 25 countries. He has written books on facilitation, gamification and creativity and won the Outstanding Achievement Award at the Danish Meeting and Events Awards. Bo is based in Copenhagen, likes kayaking, wintherbathing and bikes every day to work.

Meet our Speakers

Monday, 11 September

Guðrið Højgaard
CEO, Visit Faroe Islands

Guðrið Højgaard is an experienced CEO and Managing Director in the travel and tourism industry, with a strong track record in Sweden, Denmark, and the Faroe Islands. Her expertise spans strategy, marketing management, change management, brand management, PR, and digital marketing.

Under Guðrið's leadership, Visit Faroe Islands has achieved remarkable success, winning multiple prestigious awards such as the Golden Lions in Cannes, Clio Awards, Eurobest, Epica Awards, D&AD, Vega Awards, and World Media Awards from 2016 to 2021. These accolades celebrate the exceptional creativity, strategic acumen, and captivating campaigns that have engaged audiences worldwide. Guðrið's visionary leadership extends beyond the tourism industry, earning her a place in the esteemed "Politico 28 2019 Class," which acknowledges individuals shaping, shaking, and stirring Europe.

Håkan Ericson
Head Coach, Faroe Islands Football Association and Lecturer, AB and UCS Management

Håkan Ericson is an expert with over 35 years of professional experience in leadership, team building, coaching, and NLP. His career includes 35 years of dedicated service as a full-time professional football coach, during which he has contributed in national teams.

Håkan has had the privilege of contributing to the Olympics and European Championships. Håkan has had many lectures, sharing invaluable insights on maximizing team performance, leadership, culture, and generational boundaries.

Igor Ardoris
Mental Coach, Faroe Islands Football Association and Founder , Mushin AB and Budo Mental Training

Igor Ardoris is the founder of Budo Mental Training - mental training for dealing with difficult situations. As an accomplished mental trainer, writer, lecturer, and educational consultant, he has made remarkable contributions to the field since 2007.

Throughout his career, Igor had direct expertise in mental training on high-pressure situations to a diverse clientele, including elite athletes, teachers, police officers, ambulance attendants, business leaders. His experiences committed him to study, understand and develop these invaluable skills of managing the human psyche under stressful and frightening circumstances.

Tuesday, 12 September

Gérald Howard

Senior Project Development Manager, Promotion & Sales, Lausanne Montreux Congress

American, French, Italian, lived in Africa, Asia, Europe, America is commonly a citizen of the world. A UN’ background on field, and a specialist in Sociology (Intercultural Communication), with more than 25 years of experience in the domain of events, Gerald has structured his professional experiences with the 3 pillars of the MICE world: PCO, international Associations and Convention Bureau. An added value to understand our world and its mechanism.

Gerald enjoys at most to share with others and to follow the principle of Legacy-

One of the reason why today while working for LMC (Lausanne Montreux Congress) he is teaching in a tourism school and creates strong relationship with his clients to create innovative and impactful events that prod us into thinking and leave a mark on all. Share and you will be!

Elaine Miller

Association Business Development Manager, Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC)

Elaine has 18 + years’ experience in the world of associations, working in Edinburgh’s DMO and the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC). Her experience ranges from association research, managing ambassador programmes, international sales, and business development.

Often involved in city -wide collaborative projects, Elaine is skilled in liaising with government agencies and city partners, where she seeks innovative and creative ways to open sales from new business areas and develop relationships. Elaine enjoys collaborating with academia, the international association market, and local sector contacts.

Recent projects have included the formation of the EICC’s academic advisory board, working with city partners to develop the Business Events Shaping Tomorrow (BEST) tool to measure community impact of conferences in Edinburgh, and passing on knowledge and skills to the next generation of event professionals with the Cities Destination Alliance mentoring programme.

Bianca La Placa

Senior Executive Manager, WEEC Network

Journalist, PR& communication expert, Bianca is focused on international events industry – meetings, conventions, exhibitions, workshops, seminars, awards ceremonies, in Europe and worldwide. She has worked in a variety of operational and marketing roles, specialising in digital & print media and events.

Her experience includes project and event management, developing and nurturing client relationships, strategic planning and implementation, managing and mentoring team members, fostering supplier relationships. Client and supplier liaison; effective communication with the technical and design teams. She has directed national and international communications and promotional initiatives through: designing and implementing creative media campaigns; producing promotional materials; developing an engaging online and social media presence; coordinating high-level events.

Silvia Taurer

Region Manager, Europe, Digital Built Environment Institute

Silvia founded her Building Information Modeling (BIM) consultancy LRCZ in 2008 and is a founding member of the DBEI Europe Foundation since 2012, Region Manager for Europe and member of the DBEI Global Association Executive.

She first got exposed to the concept of BIM or integrated planning as a contractor for the emerging Revit platform in early 2007 and since then wholeheartedly embraces the vision on creating a better future for the generations ahead by extensively utilizing unbiased collaborative thinking. She is a free spirit and lateral thinker; combining industry knowledge, managerial assets and clear vision.

By doing so, Silvia has contributed to conferences such as RTC Europe, BILT Europe, BILT Academy Summit as well as influenced other industry related events in her role as Board member to the RUG (Revit User Group) BeNeLux, shaping the individuality of those. Silvia inspires everyone with her energy and drive – propelling the collaborative goal of integrated planning.

Péter Kakucska

Vice President of Strategic Alliances & Managing Director of RAHM and Board of Director, LGBT Meetings Professionals Association

Based in Berlin, Péter Kakucska’s life work has been dedicated to shaping a better, more sustainable, inclusive world. Having spent nearly two decades in event management at the United Nations, Péter is a veteran diplomat in sustainability, where he provided crucial support in strategic implementation and international negotiations to world leaders during the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change. Péter has also been instrumental in benchmarking corporate social responsibility, promoting sustainable development and social justice in the event industry amongst others.

Beyond diplomacy, Péter is a keynote speaker and opinion contributor whose dedication extends to championing causes that unite people for the common good and for a better world and has been a driving force in fostering the fusion between diversity, equity and inclusion principles and corporate governance. Péter has managed councils and corporate advisory boards, on diversity and leadership where he creates platforms for positive change by promoting DEI best business practices and management principles. Péter is currently developing a strategic roadmap for navigating the event industry amidst destination boycotts by introducing a united, forward-thinking approach that merges lasting transformation with economic stability.

Inge Krogh Larsen

Senior Changemaker, The Nordics

With 25 years’ collective professional experience in travel and tourism, senior sustainability consultant, Inge Krogh Larsen, is on a mission to help destinations, CVBs, SMEs, and the meetings and events industry develop strategies and understand the need for positive change.

She fuels her mission with wisdom acquired by working in Danish business and leisure tourism for 11 years. During her time with VisitAalborg and Inspiring Denmark she naturally migrated towards sustainability. This journey was further nurtured by her employers’ participation in the GDS-Index. With a renewed and enlivened career focus on people and planet, Inge went freelance. For the last 2,5 years she supported SMEs and destinations with sustainability certification. This is a boon she brings to GDS-Movement and the GDS-Index in particular. Having been through the benchmarking process herself, Inge knows first-hand what destinations experience in their progressive journey towards greater regenerative destination management, and how to help them get there.

In her spare time, Inge enjoys her garden, cooking, good food, family, and friends. Her biggest wish is for green fuel to become readily available so she can travel long-distance again.

Beatriz Ibanez

Senior Consultant, GDS-Movement & #Meet4impact

Beatriz is an entrepreneur with 20+ years' experience in MICE-sector management positions. She's passionate about events and projects with a triple bottom line: those focusing on three key aspects of performance – positive social, environmental, and financial impact.

In 2009, she founded SITevents (Social Impact Travel & Sustainable events) a DMC with purpose, working with companies and organisations from around the world to design and produce unique and memorable events and corporate experiences that are also more environmentally and socially responsible.

She was the congress director of the Ship2B Impact Forum from 2017 till March 2023, and a member of the Ship2B Foundation steering committee from 2020 till March 2023. There, she worked to build, foster, and engage the impact community while developing this flagship, Spanish-impact economy congress.

She has mentored impact startups with the aim of accelerating their growth for more than 5 years. Beatriz is now senior changemaker at GDS-Movement and #Meet4impact bringing her know-how and expertise in tourism, events, and the impact economy sector to lead on event impact and sustainability strategies.

Wednesday, 13 September

Anja Hartung Sfyrla

Branding Advisor & Owner, LoopNordic

Anja Hartung Sfyrla is a distinguished expert with over 25 years of experience in business tourism, meetings, and congresses. She is the Owner of LoopNordic. Anja worked for more than 10 years at VisitDenmark, passionately marketing the nation as an ideal meeting destination. Known for her strategic insight, she has made valuable contributions to industry standards in meeting design and strategic partnerships.

LoopNordic is a Marketing & PR agency that specializes in tourism and the experience industry, partnering with both destinations and private companies. With a strong focus on the Nordic region, LoopNordic aims to deliver impactful and tailored marketing solutions.

Kolbrún í Haraldsstovu
Head of Department, Botany at Faroe Islands National Museum & Project Leader and Co-founder of the Lendisbati

Kolbrún í Haraldsstovu is a plantecologist with a passion for Ecological Restoration. As Head of Department of Botany at Faroe Islands National Museum, she is project leader and co-founder of the Lendisbati (landaid) initiative, which aims to restore degraded nature types in the Faroe Islands.

She is also responsible for the data collection and research relating to the vegetation in the Koltur baseline project, which is to become the first nature reserve in the Faroe Islands. As a SoMe nature-influencer and permanent guest lecturer at the University of the Faroe Islands, she strides to raise awareness of the vulnerability on the faroese nature.