EFM BOARD
Professor Danuta Hübner
Patron
Professor Danuta Hübner was a member of the Committee on International Trade and the Committee on Economic & Monetary Affairs. She was Poland's first European Commissioner; is one of her country's foremost economists and policymakers; and has played a key role in the enlargement of the EU. Her roles in Poland's Government included Minister for European Affairs, Head of Office of the Committee for European Integration, and Secretary of State for Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Deputy Minister for Industry and Trade and Minister Head of the Chancellery of the President of Poland. She was previously Under-Secretary-General of the UN and Executive Secretary at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in Geneva. She has a PhD from Warsaw School of Economics and in 1992 was conferred with the scientific title of Professor of Economics by the Polish President.
Christophe Clergeau
Member of the European Parliament
Christophe Clergeau is Vice Chair of the S&D Group and Vice Chair of the Delegation to the Africa – EU Parliamentary Assembly. He is a Member of the Environment, Climate and Food Safety Committee and a Substitute member of the Committee on Industry, Research & Energy. He serves as the National Secretary for Europe of the French Socialist Party. His main priorities are the industrial, food, and health sovereignty of the Union, as well as European Ecological and Energy transition. He has degrees in History and Economics from the universities of Nantes and Paris 1 Pantheon -Sorbonne.
Sara Matthieu
Member of the European Parliament
Sara Matthieu is a Belgian member of the European Parliament. She is a member of the Industry, Research and Energy Committee and a substitute member on the Employment and Social Affairs Committee as well as the Environment, Climate and Food Safety Committee. She has a background in environment, energy, and mobility. She previously worked for Natuurpunt, a Flemish nature conservation NGO, and was a policy advisor in the Brussels government and its Parliament for the Green party. She is an active member of the women’s movement in Belgium
João Cotrim De Figeuiredo
Member of the European Parliament
João Cotrim de FigueiredoIGUEIREDO is Vice President of the Renew Europe Group and a member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, and a substitute member of the Committee on International Trade. He has held senior management positions in companies in various sectors,
including investment banking, FMCG, television and tourism. He was previously President of Turismo de Portugal and was Vice-president of the European Travel Commission. His political career began in 2019 when he was elected to the Portuguese Parliament, becoming the first-ever representative
of Iniciativa Liberal, a newly formed liberal party. That same year, he was elected President of the party, a position he held until 2023. He completed two terms as a member of the Portuguese Parliament, between 2019 and 2024. He studied at the German School of Lisbon, graduated in Economics from the London School of Economics, and obtained an MBA from the Nova School of
Business and Economics.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Member of the European Parliament
Tsvetelina Penkova is a Member of the European Parliament from the Group of Socialists and Democrats. She is Vice-Chair of the Industry, Energy, and Research Committee and a substitute member of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee as well as the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee. She is the President of the European Energy Forum. She was previously a finance specialist at an investment fund in London, an investment banker at the Royal Bank of Scotland, and an analyst at Egon Zehnder. Prior to this, she was a Consultant at ING and a financial analyst at Astra Zeneca. She holds a Master's degree in Financial Economics from Oxford University, and a double Bachelor’s degree at Bocconi University in Milan and the Central European University in Budapest.
Raúl De La Hoz Quintano
Member of the European Parliament
Raú́l De La Hoz is a Member of Parliament from the EPP Group from Spain. He serves on the Industry, Research & Energy Committee and as a substitute on the Environment, Regional and Employment Committees. He is the deputy spokesperson of the Spanish EPP delegation. Prior to joining the European Parliament, he had an extensive political career in Spain, including as a Member of the regional Parliament of Castilla y Leon between 1999 and 2024. He held key roles in this function, including being the spokesperson for Partido Popular. He is a lawyer specialized in banking and commercial law.
Maria GRAPINI
Member of the European Parliament
Maria Grapini is Vice-Chair of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee and a substitute member of the Budgetary Control Committee. She is also a member for relations with Japan. In 2019 she received the "MEP Award" granted by "The Parliament Magazine". She was previously a member of the Romanian National Parliament and a Minister for Small and Medium Enterprises, Business, and Tourism. In 2000, she received from the President of Romania the National Order "For Merit", in the rank of Knight and received several national and international distinctions
for her contribution to the economic development of the country. She is an engineer by profession with over 25 years as a businesswoman, founder and President of several NGOs.
Dr Benedikt KUTTENKEULER
Siemens, Head of EU Government Affairs
Dr Benedikt Kuttenkeuler has been Head of Representation for Siemens in Brussels since 2017, working for Siemens since 1999. Before coming to Brussels, he held several high-level positions in the company’s legal department. These included spending the last 5 years serving as Head of Global Functions, Corporate Legal, and Compliance at Siemens AG in Munich. His previous positions also included being Vice President for Legal Affairs at the Siemens Representation in Brussels as well as Head of Business Administration at AllessaSyntec GmbH & Co KG. Apart from his career at Siemens, he held several public offices including for 10 years serving as a Councillor at the Würzburg City Council. Having studied Law & Economics in Bayreuth, Birmingham, and Würzburg, he obtained his doctoral degree in 1998 and was admitted to the German Bar.
Philip Cole
WindEurope, Director of Industrial Affairs
Phil Cole is Director of Industrial Affairs at WindEurope, the European trade association representing over 600 companies, research centres and national associations in the wind industry. He leads WindEurope’s teams that are focused on supporting and growing the wind industry’s manufacturing
presence in Europe, its competitiveness globally and driving its research and innovation strategy. He focuses on securing access to financing and funding for supply chain infrastructure, fostering a level playing field for European manufacturers and driving collaboration to strengthen the industry’s position. Since 2020, he has served as a Board Member of the European Forum for Manufacturing. He previously spent 10 years in strategy and commercial roles with a focus on Europe and the Middle East within global manufacturing organisations including Kellogg’s, Lindt & Sprüngli and L’Oréal.
Hywel Jarman
Consortium of Battery Innovation, Senior Director of Communications
Hywel Jarman is a communications and public affairs specialist. For five years he represented the manufacturing sector in Westminster and Brussels. In 2018, he helped create the Consortium for Battery Innovation, a global pre-competitive research group. He is responsible for communications and advocacy programmes in Europe and the United States. He is a former broadcast and newspaper journalist and has held senior communications and public affairs roles across industry and in the public sector.
Karl Pihl
SVP & Head of Volvo Group EU Representation
Karl Pihl is responsible for driving the Volvo Group’s policy agenda in Brussels, where his main tasks are to lead and create a favourable environment for Volvo and its customers’ success through thought leadership and trusted advice that proactively influences EU institutions, EU member states representations and EU industry bodies in EU policies & legislation. He previously headed up Ericsson’s EU Affairs Office, between 2019-2024, with responsibility for devising and executing advocacy and outreach strategies towards the EU institutions, providing proactive support to different business areas, both on technical level as well as on corporate strategic level towards senior management. He has over 15 years EU Government Affairs experience in Brussels, both in the private and public sector as well as in the EU institutions. He holds a Master’s Degree in Political Science with a specialization in EU Affairs from Uppsala University, as well as from the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences-Po).
Paolo FALCIONI
APPLiA – Home Appliance Europe, Director General
Paolo Falcioni has been APPLiA's Director General since 2014. In this position, he focused on improving the Association's visibility and effectiveness within Europe and internationally. To that extent, he has been one of the founders of the International Roundtable of Household Appliance Manufacturers Associations bringing together representatives from the home appliance industry across continents, to discuss global challenges including sustainability and innovation. He is one of the Steering Committee members of the Coalition for Energy Savings, a multi-stakeholder group aimed at improving energy efficiency across Europe. He is also one of the Board members of Smart Energy Europe - smartEn, fostering demand-side management to help consumers reap the benefits of the new Energy market and co-chair of the European Society of Association's Executives community on governance and diversity, equity, and inclusion. In 2016, he was nominated as a member of the REFIT platform as a representative of the stakeholder group. He graduated in electronic engineering from the University of Ancona.
Antony Fell is Secretary General of the European Forum for Manufacturing which was founded in 2009 by the then Chair of the European Parliament’s Internal Market Committee. Manufacturing matters to Europe. It provides jobs for over 33 million people; accounts for three quarters of EU exports; and provides over 80% of EU private sector R&D expenditure. EFM aims to bring together
representatives of the Commission, Presidency and Parliament to debate policies relating to European manufacturing. EFM is independent, not-for profit and non-partisan. He has a Master’s Degree in Law from Cambridge University.