Speakers

Rodrigo Hoinkis Mazza is a seasoned professional with extensive experience in pricing strategy and execution. With a robust background in Marketing & Sales Operations and a keen analytical mindset, Rodrigo excels at leading pricing initiatives that drive profitability and market competitiveness. His expertise spans across various industries, where he has consistently demonstrated his ability to optimize pricing structures, conduct market analysis, and leverage data-driven insights to inform strategic decisions.

Particularly skilled in value-based pricing, ensuring that pricing strategies reflect the true value delivered to customers compared with their next best alternative, aligning pricing with customer perceptions and competitive dynamics. He is adept at collaborating with cross-functional teams to align pricing strategies with overall business objectives, ensuring sustainable growth and deliver measurable results.

As a Chief Marketing Officer with over 20 years of experience, I’ve had the privilege of shaping strategies across the value chain in industries like chemicals, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food, packaging, and automotive. I’ve served on Executive Committees for over eight years, building global marketing teams, enhancing brand positioning, and driving meaningful business growth.

I’m passionate about digital transformation, having led initiatives like CRM implementation, ecommerce advancements, and the integration of AI-driven pricing models across Europe. Sustainability has been a cornerstone of my work, where I designed and implemented ESG strategies that align with business goals, developed tools to foster transparency, and led crossfunctional teams to drive collaboration and organizational change.

Beyond the corporate sphere, I’m an international speaker, sharing insights on topics like pricing, business transformation, and sustainability. In 2021, I was honored as the first Spanish woman recognized by Plastic News USA in "Women Breaking the Mold," celebrating my commitment to innovation and leadership.

Thomas Pizzini is the Pricing Strategy Manager at Tesla, where he leads innovative pricing strategies across EMEA markets. With a background spanning global pricing management and business analytics, Thomas has developed expertise in AI-driven pricing automation, value-based pricing models, and cross-functional collaboration.

At Tesla, Thomas has centralized and transformed EMEA pricing structures through AI integration while developing systems to optimize the relationship between used and new vehicle sales. Previously, as Global Pricing & BA Manager at Waldom Electronics, he managed price books exceeding one million records and implemented strategies across 40 suppliers in 4 regions.

Thomas holds an International Business and Management degree from the Amsterdam School of International Business. His analytical approach combines mathematical expertise with strategic business insight, enabling him to develop data-driven pricing models that drive profitability and market growth.

Rafal Janaczek serves as EMEA Strategic Pricing Director at Tenneco, bringing 15 years of transformative pricing leadership across the energy and automotive industries. A visionary yet pragmatic pricing strategist, Rafal has spearheaded successful pricing initiatives across Europe, the US, and global markets.

Prior to joining Tenneco, Rafal led BP's Global Gross To Net function where he developed best-in-class trade spend management frameworks and served as an internal strategic pricing consultant. As BP's Global Strategic Pricing Manager, he reinvented the pricing function to operate as an internal consulting group, launched innovative digital competitive intelligence tools, and established a pricing community of practice connecting practitioners with external experts.

Known for taking teams beyond established comfort zones to discover new possibilities, Rafal combines cross-functional expertise with a solution-oriented approach to pricing transformation. His background spans sales, business development, operations, and digital innovation, making him a courageous change agent in the evolving manufacturing pricing landscape.

Laura Rathjen is the Head of Global Pricing at Festo, where she leads the development and implementation of agile pricing strategies across international markets. With over 12 years of experience at Festo, she has built extensive expertise in pricing automation, global standardization, and data-driven decision-making processes.

Prior to her current role, Laura served as Project Manager in Strategic Marketing & Business Strategy, where she enhanced global price decision-making by adapting pricing processes and IT/SAP tools. Her accomplishments include designing and implementing a global managerial accounting system and speeding up pricing processes through technological innovation.

Laura's background combines technical expertise with business acumen, holding a Master of Science in Management from HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management (graduating in the top 5%) and a Bachelor of Engineering in Business and Engineering. This dual perspective enables her to bridge the gap between technical value creation and strategic pricing implementation.

Her international experience includes roles in France as Regional Demand Planner Europe and in the USA, giving her valuable insights into diverse market dynamics and global pricing standardization challenges.

Aleksandr Dobrynin is the Pricing Strategy Senior Manager for Europe Operations at Schneider Electric, where he leads transformational pricing initiatives across diverse European markets. With over seven years of progressive experience in pricing strategy, he has developed expertise in building high-performing teams and driving revenue in multinational environments.

Throughout his career at Schneider Electric, Aleksandr has advanced through increasingly strategic roles, from Finance Intern to his current senior leadership position. His experience includes managing pricing for CIS regions before expanding to broader European operations, giving him unique insights into adapting pricing strategies across different market dynamics and customer preferences.

Known for his analytical approach and self-awareness, Aleksandr combines strategic vision with practical implementation skills to create powerful partnerships between pricing and sales teams. His work focuses on developing sophisticated pricing frameworks that balance global consistency with local market needs while driving sustainable profitability.

Loon Spielmann is the Vice President of Pricing Strategy at Bosch Rexroth, bringing over 20 years of experience in pricing and competitive intelligence from the medical device industry to the industrial automation sector. He specializes in developing and implementing global pricing strategies that drive profitable growth. His focus is on empowering sales teams with data-driven insights and tools to strengthen value propositions and optimize competitive price positioning. His proven ability to synthesize pricing strategy with competitive intelligence, honed in the highly competitive B2B market, is now a key asset in shaping Bosch Rexroth's pricing approach across its diverse and complex product portfolio.

Global Pricing Commercial Excellence Lead at Syngenta with over 9 years of experience in driving pricing excellence across the organization. Francesco specializes in helping business units excel through clear definition of pricing strategy, value creation, and customer segmentation.

In his current role, he focuses on upskilling pricing capabilities through on-the-job projects, dedicated training programs, and sharing best practices across the organization. Previously, Francesco served as Pricing Manager for EAME-EU countries where he developed expertise in commercial policy development and strategic price execution.

With a strong financial background from roles at The Coca-Cola Company and Nestlé Waters, Francesco brings a data-driven approach to pricing decisions. His unique combination of financial acumen and commercial expertise enables him to effectively partner with sales and marketing teams to optimize profitability while maintaining market competitiveness.

18 years of experience with pricing-related functions, from pricing consulting (Simon-Kucher & Partners) to 3x green field in-house pricing function establishment. Responsible for pricing software implementation, value-based pricing models, their parametrisation, calibration, subscription-based pricing, pricing processes design, deal desk leadership, and KPI measurement, directly driving the company's P&L.

Steve, a founder of Flintfox, has extensive pricing experience honed from senior finance and sales management roles at Kraft, Pepsi, Western Digital and Hewlett Packard. During his 20 years at Flintfox, Steve has worked closely with distributors from all sectors and all regions developing pricing solutions at companies including US Foods, WESCO/Anixter, SiteOne Landscape Supply, PartsTown, Opici Distribution, Sonepar Norway, PJP, Sarnova, Horizon Beverage, Dagrofa FoodService, L&F Distributors, and CERTCO. 

Jacques Orbach serves as Head of Strategic Business Program at Endress+Hauser Group, where he leads a diverse team of Contract Managers, Price Managers, and Business Analysts. With over 20 years of experience in the industrial automation industry, Jacques drives the implementation of critical business processes focused on Strategic Account Management, Contract Management, and Pricing Management.

His career at Endress+Hauser spans more than two decades, including 18 years as a Strategic Account Manager where he built long-term customer relationships based on technical expertise and business acumen. This extensive customer-facing experience provides him with unique insights into developing effective pricing strategies that align with customer needs while delivering business value.

Jacques is known for his entrepreneurial approach to business challenges and his ability to build organizational excellence. His work centers on three core pillars: Driving Business Growth, Developing People, and Building Organizational Excellence—principles that inform his approach to strategic pricing and value creation. His combination of deep industry knowledge and customer relationship expertise makes him particularly effective at developing pricing strategies that reflect true market value.

Michael Nils Ulrich is the Global Pricing Manager Strategic Business at Endress+Hauser Group, where he brings over 11 years of pricing and commercial experience. In his current role, he develops and implements global pricing strategies that align with the company's strategic business objectives across international markets.

Michael's expertise spans both pricing strategy and contract management, having previously served as Head of Contract Management for over seven years, where he specialized in international contract management and pricing frameworks. His background also includes leadership roles in base price business, key account management, and commercial special products in the flow division.

With a unique combination of technical and business acumen, Michael holds a Diplom-Ingenieur (FH) in Mechanical Engineering and a Wirtschafts-Diplom in Economics. This dual perspective allows him to develop pricing strategies that balance technical value with market economics. His extensive experience in area sales management across Europe and Asia provides him with valuable insights into diverse market dynamics and customer requirements for value-based pricing strategies.

Federico Bocardo serves as the Global Commercial Excellence Delivery Director for Animal Nutrition & Health at Cargill, where he leads cross-functional initiatives to optimize pricing strategy and drive profitability across global markets. With extensive experience in commercial excellence, Federico specializes in designing fact-based, action-oriented processes and analytics that translate pricing strategies into measurable business results.

Prior to his current role, Federico held the position of Global Pricing Excellence and Analytics Director at Cargill, where he built and led the company's Commercial Excellence Analytics Hub. His background also includes significant transformation leadership experience at Aliaxis, where he implemented value-based pricing frameworks and led commercial excellence initiatives that achieved substantial improvements in performance metrics.

Federico combines his corporate expertise with academic contributions as a professor of Business Unit Strategy, Corporate Strategy, and Strategic Pricing at ISAM, where he teaches in both English and Spanish. This unique blend of practical industry experience and educational perspective enables him to deliver insights on pricing strategies that balance theoretical best practices with real-world implementation challenges

Kalle Aerikkala has worked within the pricing and product management profession for the last 15 years, starting with Finnish technology companies supporting service and spare part pricing globally. Currently Kalle works with Vendavo as a Business Consultant, helping a broad range of customers to achieve better results through improved commercial excellence. Even after 10 years in the industry he learns something new every day, and finds the world of pricing incredibly interesting as it touches on basically every function within a company.

Alexander Lüring serves as Managing Director at Accenture Strategy, where he specializes in Customer, Sales & Service and holds a leadership position in the European Pricing Practice. With over 20 years of consulting experience, Alexander focuses on Commercial Excellence and Commercial Due Diligence, delivering strategic value creation initiatives across diverse industries.

Prior to joining Accenture in 2021, Alexander spent 16 years at Homburg & Partner, where he rose to Partner and headed the Competence Centers for Private Equity/M&A, Chemicals & Process Industries, and Consumer/Retail. During his tenure, he contributed to more than 250 consulting projects and played a key role in the company's successful acquisition by Accenture.

Alexander combines his extensive industry knowledge with a strong academic foundation as a graduate of the University of Cologne, where he earned his Diplom-Volkswirt in Economics. This blend of practical expertise across both large corporations and SMEs enables him to address complex commercial challenges with tailored strategies that drive measurable business results.

Mark Perkins, Business Development Director at Peak, spearheading the onboarding of key manufacturing clients such as Nissan, Bayer, Heidelberg, and Sika. With a deep expertise in commercial and transactional behavior analysis, he crafts tailored AI-driven pricing solutions that optimize revenue and margin growth. His strategic approach focuses on identifying unique business needs and aligning advanced technology to drive sustainable results for high-profile clients in the manufacturing sector.

Chris Ashley, VP of Strategy at Peak AI, is a leading expert in the application of AI and advanced technologies in manufacturing, CPG and retail operations. With over 10 years of experience scoping out enterprise-grade AI solutions and supporting leaders to build differentiated AI strategies, Chris has helped scores of leaders win in the AI era.

Senior Solution Strategist at Pricefx with extensive expertise in price management across diverse industries and channels. Sara-Marie excels at transforming complex pricing analytics into actionable business strategies that drive measurable results.

With nearly 4 years at Pricefx and previous roles as Pricing Manager at Algeco Germany and Michelin DACH, she brings practical experience implementing pricing solutions in real-world business environments. Her consultative approach combines analytical rigor with strategic vision, helping organizations modernize their pricing processes and leverage technology effectively.

Sara-Marie is particularly passionate about guiding businesses through pricing transformations, identifying new opportunities for value creation, and developing innovative approaches to address evolving market challenges. Her enthusiasm for the

pricing industry and commitment to driving change make her a valuable partner for organizations looking to elevate their pricing capabilities.

Dr. Danilo Zatta is a leading management advisor in topline growth. He specialized in profit improvement on the revenue side, with extensive experience in pricing. He has published over 20 books on topics including corporate strategies and pricing as well as many articles in various countries. He is a regular speaker and chairman at events, forums and leading business schools.

He is the author of the international pricing best seller 'The Pricing Model Revolution' (Wiley) translated into 10+ languages and defined by the Father of Marketing Philip Kotler as best book on pricing. His new book ‘The 10 Rules of Highly Effective Pricing’ has been praised by leading C-levels.

Dr. Danilo Zatta has been recognized by the Financial Times as 'one of the world's leading pricing minds'. Dan has also been included in LinkedIn's Top 5 Pricing Thought Leaders, a 'list of the most engaging and impactful pricing thought leaders globally'. Dan has also been defined as one of the TOP 50 globally leading Thought Leaders in both Marketing and Sales.

Chad Crowell is an Industry Consultant. He was the Pricing Lead for BrandSafway’s International Division. He recently moved up from the Forming & Shoring subsidiary to leverage his pricing successes across BrandSafway’s Commercial and Industrial business units. He specializes in pricing strategy, transformation and digitalization. He started in 2011 in Caterpillar’s Global Mining pricing transformation, focused on value-based pricing models, channel alignment and PROS.