Ulrich Schwendimann is active in bringing Polish and Swiss business communities together. This includes consultancy for both Polish and Swiss companies wanting to enter the respective markets, as well as the organisation of events and other initiatives dedicated to various professional groups and industry sectors.
The Polish-Swiss Chamber of Commerce is an independent bilateral association representing more than 215 Swiss and Polish companies. It is registered in Warsaw as a voluntary association under Polish law and is not funded by public institutions. The Chamber supports networking among its members, promotes their interests, organises events, and contributes to successful bilateral trade and investment.
Ulrich Schwendimann graduated in Slavonic and Business Studies from the University of Zurich and completed an Executive MBA at the Warsaw University of Technology. Before his assignment with the Chamber he worked as a journalist and researcher at the University of Zurich.
Piotr Lesiak graduated from the Warsaw School of Economics and the University of Warsaw. Since July 2023, he has been the Head of the Swiss Business Hub Central Europe in Warsaw, where he coordinates activities aimed at supporting Swiss companies in Poland and other V4 countries, searching for business partners, preparing market analyses and studies, organizing business delegations and trade fairs. He has over 10 years of experience in foreign trade. Previously, he worked as a manager at the Polish-German Chamber of Industry and Commerce where he was responsible for project and team management and of the Market Consultancy Department. He has also conducted numerous presentations for exporters.
Luca Laloli is the Head of Economic, Financial and Scientific Affairs at the Embassy of Switzerland in Poland. He is a Swiss career diplomat with a background in European and Economic Affairs with previous postings in Brussels, London and Dublin. Before joining the team in Warsaw in August 2024, he was co-leading the negotiations with the EU on Switzerland’s participation to Union programmes in the field of research, innovation, education and space. Luca also worked for the Swiss State Secretariat for International Finance and was part of the team negotiating the standard for the automatic exchange of information on financial accounts. Luca holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs and Governance from the University of St. Gallen HSG and a Master’s Degree in International Development from Sciences Po. Paris.
Przemyslaw Zakrzewski has been working at ABB since 2004, and since 2018 he has headed the ABB Group’s Corporate Technology Center, which develops solutions in the areas of production management for discrete, food and petrochemical industries, electromobility and efficient use and storage of energy, smart buildings, digital solutions for marine units combining cloud platforms, Internet of Things, automation and advanced data analytics.
Among other things, he is co-responsible for research and development projects that result in products and services that allow ABB’s customers and partners to operate more efficiently, cost-effectively and environmentally.
He is a graduate of the Lodz University of Technology and an Executive MBA from the University of Warsaw / University of Illinois. Won the Diamond CIO of the Year “Vox populi – vox CIO” in 2015.
Passionate programmer, for many years fascinated by digital technologies and defining future interfaces and methods of human-machine, machine-to-machine cooperation.
In 2023 Patrick started his new role as Vice President for Central Eastern Europe. With his team of country managers and business leaders, his focus is the development of Google business and partnerships in the region. Patrick has been leading business teams for 10 years in Media at ProSiebenSat1, the largest private TV network in Germany, and for 15 years at Google. In his 12 years as Country Director for Switzerland, the Google Zurich office grew to the largest development hub of Google outside the USA with 5,000 colleagues from 86 nationalities. His education background includes a Bachelor in economics, MBA at Steinbeis University Berlin / Bocconi University of Milan / Stern University in New York City, the 2012 Singularity University Executive Program and the 2014 Stanford Executive Program.
Dr. Joost VandeVondele is the Deputy Director for Science at the Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS), ETH Zurich, overseeing its development of research infrastructure, supporting scientists with high-performance computing (HPC) and extreme-scale data. He also serves as program director for the Platform for Advanced Scientific Computing (PASC) and holds roles in Swiss AI (steering committee) and the National Center for Competence in Research (NCCR) MARVEL (executive board).
He earned his MSc in Engineering Physics at U of Ghent and his PhD in Computational Chemistry at ETH Zurich.
Tomasz TrzciĹ„ski (DSc, WUT’20; PhD, EPFL’14; MSc, UPC/PoliTo’10) is an Associate Professor at Warsaw University of Technology, where he leads the Computer Vision Lab. He is also the Computer Vision Group Leader at IDEAS NCBR, a publicly-funded Polish AI research center. He was an Associate Professor at Jagiellonian University (2020-2023) and was a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University (2017) and Nanyang Technological University (2019). He worked at Google, Qualcomm, and TelefĂłnica. Tomasz is an Associate Editor for IEEE Access and MDPI Electronics and reviews for top conferences and journals in computer science. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, a member of the ELLIS Society and ALICE Collaboration at CERN, and an expert for the National Science Centre and Foundation for Polish Science. He is also the Director of ELLIS Unit Warsaw. He is a co-owner and a Chief Scientist at Tooploox and is the co-founder of Comixify.
Piotr Sankowski is a professor at the Institute of Informatics at the University of Warsaw, where he earned his habilitation and PhD in physics (2009) and a PhD in computer science (2005). He completed postdoctoral fellowships at ETH Zurich and Sapienza University of Rome. He is a member of the ELLIS Society and co-creator of the Highlights of Algorithms conference. He received the Crystal Brussels Prize and the NCN Award and is the first Pole to secure four ERC grants. He is the co-founder of MIM Solutions. He was the CEO of IDEAS NCBR (2021-2024), where he led the research group “Intelligent Algorithms and Data Structures.”
Professor Dirk Mohr holds the Chair of Artificial Intelligence in Mechanics and Manufacturing at ETH Zurich. He joined the faculty of ETH in 2015 after heading the Experimental Dynamics Group at Ecole Polytechnique (France). He was educated at the University of Karlsruhe (Germany), ENPC (France) and MIT (PhD, 2003). He is Associate Editor of the International Journal of Solids and Structures (IJSS) and the International Journal of Impact Engineering (IJIE). He is member of the executive committee of the International Deep Drawing Research Group (IDDRG) and president of the DYMAT association.
MichaĹ‚ Kuszewski is the Chief Specialist for Innovative Economy at the Economic Development Department of the Warsaw City Hall’. He currently coordinates the project ‘Ethical Standards for the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Warsaw City Hall’, aimed at responsible implementation of AI in city administration. MichaĹ‚ combines knowledge of psychology and UX design with his passion for new technology and experience in public administration, allowing him to take an interdisciplinary approach to challenges related to Gen AI. He is the coordinator of the ‘Generating Innovations’ program, an element of the #Warsaw2030 Strategy, where he works on implementing innovative solutions for the future of the capital.