On this page you will find an overview of the Gaia-X Board of Directors for 2023-2025 in alphabetic order by company.
Gaia-X Board of Directors 2023-2025
Catherine Jestin – Chairwoman of the BOD
Airbus
Executive Vice President Digital and Information Management at Airbus since 1 July 2021 and member of the Company’s Executive Committee. Catherine has previously held the position of Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Airbus since March 2020. In this role, she drove state-of-the-art Information Technology systems and solutions supporting Airbus employees, customers and suppliers. Prior to this position, Catherine was Chief Information Officer at Airbus Helicopters, a role she held from July 2013 to February 2020. Before joining Airbus, Catherine held various positions, between 2007 and 2013, at Rio Tinto in Montreal, Canada, in Information Systems & Technology (IS&T). Catherine also spent 17 years at Accenture and was nominated Partner in 2002, a position she held for five years.
Jean Philipe Poirault
ATOS
Jean-Philippe Poirault joined Atos in September 2019 as the Global Head of the Telecom Media Technology (TMT) Industry. Since March 2022, he has been appointed – CEO of Big Data& Security business (BDS). He is also a member of the Atos Executive Board. Prior to Atos, Jean Philippe worked at Amazon Web Services in USA as the Global Head of the AWS Telecom Industry Business Unit. Prior to joining AWS, Jean-Philippe was Senior Vice President and Global Head of the IT and Cloud Service Business Unit and a member of the Executive Leadership team at Ericsson. Before Ericsson, Jean-Philippe was the President and Global Head of the Multi-media, IT and Telecom Service Business at Alcatel Lucent. Jean-Philippe earned graduate degrees in Engineering from Centrale-Supelec and from from Ecole Speciale des travaux publics du bâtiment et de l’ industrie.
Susanne Dehmel
Bitkom
Member of the Executive Board & management team since October 2014, where she is responsible for the Legal & Security business unit and Artificial intelligence & Cloud Issues. Susanne is a lawyer and completed her law studies in Passau, Freiburg & Cardiff. Before taking over the data protection department at Bitkom, she was responsible for copyright and intellectual property rights from 2002-2009. She has been leading the data protection department since 2010. She was an expert member of the Commission on AI of the German Parliament and was part of the Expert Council on Consumer Questions for the German Ministry of Justice from 2018-22. She is currently part of the Advisory Board on the German Digital Strategy at the Ministry for Digital and Traffic. An important part of her work is promoting trust and security in the digital world and the practical further development of the legal framework for the digital economy & society.
Kai Demtröder
BMW
Studied aerospace engineering with a focus on numeric computing at the University of Stuttgart. After studies, started with an IT technology and consulting company focusing on software development and IT architecture. Joined BMW Group in 2005 and held various positions within IT Development, IT Architecture and IT Strategy. Headed the unit responsible for the Connected Car Digital Backend and Big Data and set up a cross company data analytics and exchange platform. Since 2021 Vice President for Data Transformation and Enterprise Platforms within BMW’s Group IT, comprising platforms for Inter-Company Data-Exchange, Data-Management and AI.
Aude Gauthier Moreau
BNP Paribas
Aude Gauthier-Moreau is the deputy head of BNP Paribas CIB Core Banking, a global department (500+ people, covering 40 countries). She has more than 25 years of experience, successfully relying on solid skills in IT, project management and global organization management. She has combined technical and functional skills, becoming an expert in data management and governance, in relation to regulations such as GDPR and European Acts and with local regulators, as well as in risk, compliance and cybersecurity aspects. During the last 2 years, she has been actively contributing to the board resolutions as a recognised representative of the banking sector. She steered the BNP Paribas community for Cloud and Gaia-X and is a Board of Directors member of the Fondation Mines-Telecom and a delegated member to the Cigref.
Francisco Mingorance
CISPE
Hispano-Swiss, based in Brussels, helped create CISPE.cloud in 2016 with a group of leading European cloud infrastructure providers. He also took part in efforts to develop a cloud infrastructure Code of Conduct under the GDPR to help cloud customers regain control of their data by enabling data processing and storage exclusively in Europe; developed the Ten Principles for Fair Software licensing in the Cloud; co-created the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact to make all cloud services climate Neutral by 2030 and worked with the European Commission to develop industry best practices to facilitate data portability. Francisco represents CISPE in the board of Gaia-X. A lawyer with an engineering background from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Francisco has over 25 years of experience working with leading technology firms.
Leonardo Camiciotti
CONSORZIO TOP-IX
Leonardo Camiciotti is currently Executive Director of the TOP-IX Consortium (wwww.top-ix.org). Since 2006 he has been responsible for the TOP-IX Development Program, which facilitates new business creation by providing infrastructural support (i.e. Internet bandwidth, computing resources and product prototyping) and promotes technological innovation projects in different sectors (e.g. Interconnection, Cloud Computing, Big Data, etc.), aiming at producing economic and social impact. Previously, he was Research Scientist, Strategy & Business Development Officer and Business Owner at Philips Corporate Research. He graduated in Electronic Engineering from the University of Florence and holds an M.B.A. from the University of Turin.
Aniello Gentile
CSIT- Confindustria Servizi Innovativi e Tecnologici
Graduated with honours in Electronic Engineering, Aniello Gentile joined Enel in 1981. Until May 2023, he has been director of Enel’s Global Cyber Security unit. Since June 2018, he is in the World Economic Forum Working Group for ‘Systems of Cyber Resilience: Electricity’. In May 2020, he was elected to the Executive Board of SWIPO AISBL after being one of the co-chairs of Switching Provider and the Portability of Data (SWIPO) Working Group. Since November 2021 he is in the interim management committee of Gaia-X Italian Hub. ln August,2022 he became member of Confindustria’s Technical Group “Digitale per la competitività del sistema industriale”. Since March 2023, he is a Board Member of Confindustria Servizi lnnovativi e Tecnologici, where he has the delegation for European policies for the development of innovative services.
Laurent Lafaye
Dawex
French entrepreneur, co-CEO of Dawex, Laurent Lafaye has a recognized track record in the field of the data economy and regularly speaks to decision-makers about the creation of data ecosystems and the challenges of data circulation, from data trading to developing data hubs and data marketplaces. Founded in 2015 with Fabrice Tocco, Dawex allows organizations to create new ecosystems around data exchange platforms that meet regulatory requirements and address traceability and security challenges. Dawex technology enables economic stakeholders to value the potential of their ecosystem through data exchange. In 2020, Dawex was awarded “Tech Pioneer” by the World Economic Forum, joined the Global Future Council on Data Policy and spoke at Davos in 2022 about creating trust in data exchanges. Dawex is also the initiator of an international standardization program on “Trusted Data Transaction”. With a degree in bio-mathematics and computer science, Laurent co-founded a first company specialized in data, sold in 2014, after starting his career in technology and internet consulting.
Maximilian Ahrens
Deutsche Telekom
Maximilian Ahrens is Managing Director of T Digital at Deutsche Telekom since January 1, 2023. Before he held the roles of CTO and VP Cloud Strategy at T-Systems, Deutsche Telekom’s division for Enterprise cusotmers. Maximilian has an entrepreneurial background. Before joining T-Systems he founded and sold the majority stake of an infrastructure cloud technology company that enabled clients to build and manage distributed cloud deployments. As the CTO and CPO he led the product strategy and engineering teams.
Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl
Digitaleurope
Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl has been Director General of DIGITALEUROPE since 2017. She has more than 25 years of experience in the ICT industry. She previously held global positions at IBM and Oracle and two international SMEs, building businesses across Europe and China. She has deep insights into the digitalisation of business and society and the data-driven economy. She also served as President of the Board of the main Danish ICT association, as Board member of the Royal Export Council (Danish Foreign Ministry) and chairman of the Export Grant Committee of Denmark for 9 years. Cecilia has also held advisory roles to various organisations and expert groups, including the European Commission’s Industrial Forum, the High-Level Forum on European Standardisation, and the Advisory Group to the Secretary General of NATO on Emerging and Disruptive Technologies. She has been a Gaia-X Board member since June 2021.
Martine Gouriet
EDF
Martine Gouriet is director of digital uses within EDF Group, a role which she assume in 2019. Most recently, she was Director of IT and Telecom shared services at the company. Previously , she was leading EDf subsidiary Edelia which is specialized within data, energy efficiency and smart grids. She has worked during 17 years within Orange and she has launched in France the IP and VOD TV. Martine Gouriet is also board director of Gaia X, leading the work related to labels and energy in the association. She is gratuated from ” Ecole Polytechnique ” and ” Telecom Paris Tech“.
Dario Avallone
Engineering Ingegneria Informatica SpA
Dario has spent 36 years working in Engineering’s R&D department, 20+ acting as Director of the R&D Dep. counting almost 450 researchers. He has been holding and still holds significant connections and positions in relevant European and National research and innovation Associations and initiatives, actively contributing to the research development of emerging ICT opportunities and trends. At EU level Dario has/had relevant board member/chair- roles in the following initiatives IDSA, ECSO, FIWARE, BDVA, EOS, NESSI, EIT-Digital. In addition he is member of the Board of Sannio University and Advisor of Parthenope Uni. (NA). Dario is a Board Member of Gaia-X since June 2021 providing relevant contribution to the creation of the DSBA, to the set-up of the Italian Gaia-X hub and to the Gaia-X lighthouse Structura-X aimed to implement a Gaia-X native infrastructure
Boris Otto
Fraunhofer Gesellschaft
Boris Otto is Professor for Industrial Information Management at TU Dortmund University and Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering (Fraunhofer ISST). Furthermore, he is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Fraunhofer ICT Group
(the largest ICT research organization in Europe) and Member of the Presidential Council of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. As an industrial engineer by education, Boris Otto is a senior Information Systems researcher with a focus on data ecosystems, data spaces, data governance, and enterprise data management. He is member of the Boards of Directors of the International Data Spaces e. V., of the Gaia-X European Association for Data and Cloud AISBL, and of the Catena-X Automotive Network e.V. Moreover, Boris Otto serves as the co-ordinator of the EU Data Spaces Support Centre.
Daniel Saez Domingo
ITI – INSTITUTO TECNOLÓGICO DE INFORMÁTICA
Telecommunication Engineer from Polytechnic University of Valencia and Master in Business Administration and Management by EOI Business School. More than 20 years of experience in R&D policies, competitive intelligence and strategy in ICT. President of the Spanish Gaia-X Hub, Gaia-X AISBL member of the Board of Directors since 2021. Daniel is also working for the establishment of the Data Economy in Europe as member of BoD in BDVA, member of the Steering Committee of NESSI, Member of the management board of Planetic since 2007, currently vicepresident and coordinating the Spanish interplatforms group of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. President of the delegate commission of AI4ES, the Spanish excellence network in Data based technology enablers and is the coordinator of the Data Cycle Hub, the Data Innovation Hub, which is coordinating EuHubs4Data, the European Federation of Big Data Innovation Hubs.
Bert Verdonck
Luxembourg National Data Service
Bert Verdonck leads the Luxembourg National Data Service, a new governmental organisation that solves the hard problems of governance between multiple institutions, the technical challenges of data platforms at scale, and the compliance with ELSI requirements in cross-border settings. In his prior role at Philips, he explored the various health data space initiatives, to improve data sharing for primary care delivery as well as for secondary use and research. During 26 years at Philips, he delivered results in the cloud/edge/data domain, via modern software stacks, healthcare informatics solutions within the hospital and in the home, solving complex data challenges, and leading people in the transformation towards data spaces. He has a PhD in medical image processing from ENST Paris (France) and an engineering degree from KULeuven (Belgium).
Ville Sirviö
NIIS – Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions
Ville Sirviö leads the Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS), overseeing the development of the X-Road® open-source software with hundreds of millions of end users worldwide. He also contributes his expertise as a board member of the Gaia-X European Association for Data and Cloud, advancing the development of European data spaces.
With a diverse background ranging from startups to listed companies, Sirviö brings a wealth of experience in digital transformation. His areas of specialisation include software development, digital commerce, digital government, interoperability, and open-source software. Throughout his career, he has been a frequent speaker and panellist at various technology conferences and events.
Nassima Auvray
Orange
Since January 2023, Nassima Auvray is Chief Trust Officer (in charge of the strategy and the marketing of Connectivity, Cloud, Data, Cybersecurity trusted solutions) at Orange Business. As Chief Armaments Engineer she started her career in the French defense procurement agency (DGA) as expert and projects manager in satellite telecommunications and electronic warfare. In 2015, she was CFO’s Chief of Staff before joining the National Budget Office of the finance minister. From 2019 to 2021, she was Advisor of French defense minister (Florence Parly) and in charge of Innovation, Digital Transformation and Cybersecurity topics. In January 2022, she joined Orange Business as Director of strategy and marketing for trusted cloud solutions. Nassima Auvray has an eengineering master’s degree in embedded electronics & signal processing.
Thierry Souche
OVHcloud
Thierry Souche joined OVHcloud in 2021 as Chief Technology Officer. He leads the Product Business Unit, in charge of the deployment and operation of the OVHcloud services for all customers segments. His team of several hundreds of people is dedicated to deliver OVHcloud products roadmap with a wide use of open-source solutions and open, by design, to market-leading solutions. They also largely collaborate with the R&D teams to integrate and deploy the latest generation solutions. Prior to OVHcloud, Thierry operated for 26 years in the Orange Group, as a Technology leader in the Netherlands, UK and Romania, and for the last 9 years led digital transformation and innovation as Group CIO.
Antonietta Mastroianni
Proximus
Member of the Proximus Leadership Squad since April 2021, where she acts as Chief Digital & IT Officer. Before Proximus, she was Group CIO and CDIO at the Danish TDC, Head of IT and Business Partner at Swiss Sunrise, and she had several roles in Swisscom and H3G Italy. She is an influential IT leader with 20 years of international Telecom experience leveraging technology to drive organizational growth, performance and profitability. She has worked in different European countries (Italy, Switzerland, Denmark and Belgium) and is a council member of Etis. Currently, she holds the VC Finance seat in the Board of Directors of Gaia-X, chairwoman in the Board of Directors of Proximus Ada and a Board Observer of Lumine Group. She studied Computer and Automation Engineering at University of Siena and is a member of the Order of Engineers of the province of Caserta. In 2022, Antonietta was awarded the Telco Women of the Year by NetworkX, 5G World CxO of the year 2021 by 5G World and named Telco CxO of the Year in 2021.
Mark Kühner
SAP
Mark has been integral to SAP’s cloud journey since 2001, pivotal in building large-scale infrastructures, including the SAP Cloud and Enterprise Cloud Services. He supported cloud transformation at the Amadeus CTO office in 2018 before rejoining SAP in 2020. As VP of Cloud Architecture and Engineering, Mark drives cloud transformation and sovereign cloud initiatives and represents SAP in various bodies such as Gaia-X as director, as co-chair at the Industry Alliance for Data, Edge, and Cloud and as member of the BITKOM working group “Gaia-X und Cloud Politik.” Mark initiated developing SAP’s “Open Reference Architecture” project for the Important Project of Common European Interest – Cloud Infrastructure and Services (IPCEI-CIS).
Thomas Hahn
Siemens
Thomas Hahn is since 2011 Chief Expert Software at Siemens AG. After studying computer science at Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen he joined the company in 1986. Thomas Hahn had several responsibilities in the area of manufacturing such as Head of Software Development for Industrial Automation Systems. Beyond his activities at Siemens, Thomas Hahn is a member or board member of various bodies, including Openlab CERN and steering committee Plattform Industrie 4.0. He is vice-president OPC Foundation, Vice-Chairperson GAIA-X AISBL, Chairman of Labs Network Industrie 4.0, Board Member of the Bavarian “KI-Rat” and President Big Data Value Association.
Alberto Nulli
TIM
I have been degreed in Computer Science at University of Pisa in 1996. My career has begun with Sun Microsystems / Netscape as Software developer. My career in Sun has been developed in the Professional Service Unit with EMEA coverage in the Java Practice. In 2005 I’ve joined Cisco covering different position in the EMEA and WW organization for DC business in the Service Provider vertical. In 2012 I’ve joined EMC/VMware as EMEA CTO Hybrid cloud. In this role I’ve finalized my Cloud Architect skillset adding Management and financial skills. Straight after this experience I’ve started a CTO role in Purestorage focusing on Cloud and Service Provider and data management. In 2020 I’ve joined TIM subsidiary Noovle to run the Portfolio and Center of excellence. In this role I’ve also added skills related to Partnership and architecture. Actually I am in TIM with same and expanded role
Berry Vetjens
TNO
Director Digital lnnovations at TNO ICT, Strategy and Policy (ISP). He has over 25 years of experience in concept development and innovation management roles. He is currently involved in a large number of Dutch public-private innovation eco-systems, among which 5Groningen, Delft Internet of Things Lab, Partnership for Cybersecurity innovation, dcypher, Techruption, Quantum Application Lab and the Leibniz Institute. Berry has been responsible for business development and portfolio management of TNO ICT’s innovation activities for the past 6 years, resulting in the creation of a 70+ people datasharing innovation cluster and pushing topics like interoperability, privacy and sovereignty to the top of the agenda. Furthermore, he has been responsible for the strategy course on embedding TNO portfolio choices in Europe, resulting in the creation of the Dutch Gaia-X Hub and TNO’s participation in several EU PPPs (SNS, ADRA, BDVA).
Hubert Tardieu
Independent Board Member
After 27 years in Sema then SchlumbergerSema then Atos in various positions on Executive Committee including EVP for Global Telecom, Global Finance, Global Consulting& Systems Integration, Hubert Tardieu has been the advisor of Atos CEO helping him to form the vision of what will be our world in 5 years ahead. To help him in this task he formed the Atos Scientific Community in June 2009 which he chaired until October 2020. He is now consultant with his own company. Hubert Tardieu is the author of several books on Information System Design Methodology Merise and in March 2020: “Deliberately Digital: Rewriting Enterprise DNA for enduring success” Tardieu and all. Springer ed Hubert Tardieu has been successively, in 2020 the Interim CEO then in 2021 the Chairman of the Board of the Gaia-X AISBL until June 7. He is currently Independent Board Member in charge of relationships with governments.
Jeroen Tas
Independent Board Member
Advisor, Board Member, and investor since 2021. Prior to that, he held the position of Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer at Royal Philips from 2011 to 2021. Founder, COO, and Vice-chairman at Mphasis from 1998 to 2006. Leader CiHbank Techlab from 1992 to 1998. Throughout his career, he has received notable accolades such as the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2004 for the New York Region, in the Technology category. Dutch CIO of the Year 2013 Award, the NASSCOM Global CIO Award 2014, the World InnovaHon Congress 2014 CIO Leadership Award, the CIONet European CIO of 2014 Award, the IT ExecuHve 2014 Award, and the Accenture 2015 Innovator of the Year Award.