2017 eXplore Speakers

Marc Hansen

Governmental posts

Marc Hansen was appointed Secretary of State of Education, Children and Youth, Secretary of State for Higher Education and Research on 28 March 2014 in the coalition government formed by the Democratic Party (DP), the Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party (LSAP) and the Green Party (“déi gréng”). He replaced André Bauler following his resignation from the government for health reasons. On 27 March 2015, Marc Hansen was also appointed Secretary of State for Housing. Following the resignation of Maggy Nagel from the government, Marc Hansen was appointed Minister for Housing, Minister Delegate for Higher Education and Research on 18 December 2015.

Other political posts

A member of the DP since 2008, Marc Hansen was an alderman for the municipality of Useldange from 2005 to 2014. From 2011 to 2014, he was a member of the intercommunal syndicate De Réidener Kanton. At national level, Marc Hansen was elected to Parliament for the first time in 2013 while standing for the DP in the constituency of the North. In Parliament, he served as chairman of the Finance and Budget Committee as well as vice-chairman of the Committee for Labour, Employment and Social Security from 2013 to 2014, when he was appointed to the government.

Professional activities

Marc Hansen started his professional career with DNR (Den Neie Radio). He worked at RTL Radio Lëtzebuerg and RTL Télé Lëtzebuerg from 1995 to 2009. From 2009 to 2011, he served as a parliamentary attaché.From 2011 to 2014, Marc Hansen was the chief executive officer and managing director of Éditions Lëtzebuerger Journal. He is also the cofounder of several innovative start-ups in the information technology sector.

Philippe Hemard

Philippe Hemard is Vice President at Amazon Logistics Europe.

For more than 20 years, Philippe’s role has been to develop end-to-end logistics organization from vendors to customers. I’ve worked on network modelling, procurement and buying processes, inventory management, fulfillment management, and transportation network management.

Currently, Philippe is focusing on the final segment of the supply chain called The Last Mile which is the direct connection to the customers. Getting the right inventory, at the right place, at the right time in order to offer to customers a wider product selection with a wide choice of delivery services, at the best delivery experience and the best cost. Philippe is based at Amazon EU HQ in Luxembourg.

Philippe has been with Amazon since 2000, where he joined Amazon.fr as Distribution Centre General Manager, moving to Amazon.co.uk (Scotland) in 2004, supporting business growth within the UK and setting up two new distribution centers in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Before joining Amazon, Philippe worked for Danzas/DHL and FDS in France holding several positions in managing Distribution Centers.

Philippe Hemard has a Bachelor’s degree in Finance and Accountancy and a Master in Logistics received from the University of Le Havre, France.

Dr. Florian Kache

Dr. Kache is a Supply Chain Strategy Senior Manager working at the Germany-based chemical manufacturer BASF. In his role, he is responsible for the development of end-to-end Supply Chain strategies, Supply Chain innovation and trends monitoring as well as the management of relationships with external research bodies such as the MIT.

Prior to joining BASF, Dr. Kache spent 7 years as a management consultant working at Accenture Strategy. On international projects within the automotive, chemicals, pharmaceutical, and communications & high-tech industry he specialised in supply chain and digital business transformations, global strategic sourcing, procurement transformation and carve out transformation in M&A divestitures. Prior to Accenture, he gained extensive international experience through various engagements working in the high-tech and mining industry in Taiwan, China, Singapore, and New Zealand.

With a main research focus on the nexus of supply chain management and information management, Dr. Kache received his Ph.D. in Digital Supply Chain Management from Kassel University, Germany. Portraying a big data analytics approach in a digital business transformation context he focused his doctoral studies on investigating the challenges and opportunities of digital information richness in supply chain management.  He holds a Masters in Management Systems, specializing in Supply Chain Management, from Waikato Management School, New Zealand, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Information Management and IT from Hildesheim University, Germany, which comprised studies at the Manchester Business School, UK. His work has been published in leading academic journals, such as the International Journal of Operations & Production Management and Supply Chain Management: An International Journal.

Prof. Steffen Klosterhalfen

Steffen Klosterhalfen is an Associate Professor at the Luxembourg Centre for Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LCL).

His research focuses on quantitative decision-support models for supply chain management, in particular inventory management in a single- and multi-echelon context, as well as the general application of operations management models and methods to real-world problems, esp. in the process industry. Topics at the interface to other business functions, such as strategic planning or management accounting, represent another focus area of his. His work has been published in leading academic journals, such as Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, European Journal of Operational Research, and International Journal of Production Economics.

Prior to his academic career, Steffen spent 4 years working in the chemical industry at BASF SE as an Operations Research Specialist developing quantitative decision-support tools for various application areas within the company including Production, Supply Chain, Marketing & Sales, and Strategic Planning & Controlling. Additionally, he has been involved in numerous consulting projects on supply chain optimization with various companies from different industries, including the automotive, pharmaceutical, and chemical industry. Prior to joining the LCL, Steffen was an Assistant Professor of Management at the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond, VA. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Mannheim, Germany. He was a visiting researcher at Boston University and at the Technical University of Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

Zsofia Kräussl

Dr. Zsófia Kräussl is a Research Associate at the Luxembourg School of Finance, focusing at digital transformation and corporate innovation. Her current projects look at the disruptive effects of the Blockchain technology in the financial sector, exploring their socio-economic implications for financial institutions.

Dr. Kräussl is a graduate of the Free University Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Prior to her current affiliation, she has been actively involved in industry-strength, collaborative research projects in numerous domains, such as energy management and cross-border trade.

Benny Mantin

Benny Mantin is a Professor and the Director of the Luxembourg Centre for Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LCL). Professor Mantin joined the LCL in January 2017 but was involved in setting up the centre since September 2016.

His research covers different aspects of dynamic pricing and revenue management, supply chain management, and transportation economics. Using game theory frameworks, Prof. Mantin seeks to explore and understand the strategic interactions between suppliers, vendors, and consumers in different market settings. He also conducts extensive empirical work using retail and airfare data. In his research, Benny addresses topical and compelling questions and his research has been published or accepted for publication in numerous journals such as Marketing Science, Production and Operations Management, Naval Research Logistics, Transportation Research Parts B and E, and European Journal of Operational Research.

Prof. Mantin is a board member of the Journal of Air Transport Management and he is on the advisory board of the Hamburg Aviation Conference.

His research has been recognized and supported by several grants.

Prof. Mantin has been engaged in consulting on air-transport policies and has been involved in numerous projects where he led students to improve processes at different firms.

Prior to joining the LCL, Prof. Mantin was an Associate Professor in the Department of Management Sciences at the University of Waterloo, Canada.  He received his Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia, and M.Sc. as well as B.Sc. from Tel-Aviv University.

Yossi Sheffi

Dr. Yossi Sheffi is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he serves as Director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics (MIT CTL). He is an expert in systems optimization, risk analysis, and supply chain management, which are the subjects he teaches and researches at MIT. He is the author of many scientific publications and four books:

– Urban Transportation Networks: Equilibrium Analysis with Mathematical Programming Methods (Prentice Hall, 1985)

– The Resilient Enterprise: Overcoming Vulnerability for Competitive Advantage (MIT Press, 2005)

– Logistics Clusters: Delivering Value and Driving Growth (MIT Press, 2012)

– The Power of Resilience: How the Best Companies Manage the Unexpected (MIT Press 2015)

Under his leadership, MIT CTL launched many new educational, research, and industry/government outreach programs, leading to substantial growth. He is the founder and the Director of MIT’s Master of Supply Chain Management degree. He also led the international expansion of MIT CTL by launching the Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence (SCALE) global network of academic centers of education and research. The network includes centers modeled after MIT CTL in Zaragoza, Spain; Bogota, Colombia; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Luxembourg, Ningbo, China.

From 2007 to 2011 he served as the Director of the MIT Engineering Systems Division, where he set a strategy, revamped the PhD program, and set the division for future growth.

Outside the university Professor Sheffi has consulted with governments and leading manufacturing, retail and transportation enterprises all over the world. He is also an active entrepreneur, having founded and co-founded five successful companies:

– Princeton Transportation Consulting Group Inc.

– LogiCorp Inc.

– e-Chemicals Inc.

– Syncra Inc.

– com Inc.

Dr. Sheffi was recognized in numerous ways in academic and industry forums and was on the cover of Purchasing Magazine and Transportation and Distribution Magazine. In 1997 he won the most prestigious recognition given by the Council of Logistics Management—the Distinguished Service Award. In 2006 he won the Aragón International Prize. In 2010 he became an honorary Doctor (Doctor Honoris Causa) of the University of Zaragoza in Spain and in 2011 he was awarded the Salzberg Medal and Award for “outstanding leadership and innovations in Supply Chain management” by the University of Syracuse. He is also a life fellow of Cambridge University’s Clare Hall College.

He obtained his B.Sc. from the Technion in Israel in 1975, his S.M. from MIT in 1977, and Ph.D. from MIT in 1978. He now resides in Boston, Massachusetts.

Hjoerdis Stahl

Graduate of Georgetown University in the USA, Hjoerdis Stahl, German, has built a successful career in the field of logistics. Hjoerdis started her professional life at Lufthansa where she was responsible for handling activities in Germany and the Lufthansa Cargo Centre in Frankfurt. In 2007, she managed the cargo sector at Luxair. In 2008, she managed the cargo handling sector. She joined POST Luxembourg in 2013 and held the position of Director of POST Courrier (postal activities). In April 2016, Hjoerdis Stahl became a member of the Executive Committee of POST Luxembourg.

Matthias Winkenbach

Dr. Winkenbach is a Research Associate at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics. His current research focuses on multi-tier distribution network design in the context of urban logistics and last-mile delivery. Dr. Winkenbach received his Ph.D. in Logistics and his Masters in Business with specializations in Finance and Economics at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany. He also studied at NYU Stern School of Business in New York as well as at the École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC) in Montréal, Canada. His doctoral studies focused on the optimal design of multi-tier urban delivery networks with mixed fleets. His work was closely linked to a research project with the French national postal operator La Poste. During and after his doctoral studies, he spent several months at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics as a Visiting Scholar. Dr. Winkenbach’s previous professional work includes working with Volkswagen in South Africa on local sourcing and cost optimization, with Deutsche Telekom in Germany on co-investment models for network infrastructure expansions, with McKinsey & Company in the United States, and in Germany on organizational redesign in the automotive industry and on innovative delivery models in the postal and express logistics sector, as well as various other projects in the mining, shipbuilding, consulting and logistics industries.