ARISE-GIN Symposium 2020: Towards Circular Regions Online event

Dr. Oriana Romano is the Head of Unit, Water Governance and Circular Economy in Cities in the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Cities and Regions. She set up the OECD Programme on the Circular Economy in Cities and Regions, supporting governments towards the transition to the circular economy. She has led multiple circular economy policy dialogues and created the OECD Roundtable on the Circular Economy in Cities and Regions.

Nilgün Taş is the Deputy Director of the Department of Environment, UNIDO and the Chief for the Industrial Resource Efficiency Division, which promotes and advises on green industry development through resource efficient cleaner production (RECP) and circular economy practices, transfer of environmentally sound technologies (TEST), chemical leasing as well as ecosystem services with emphasis on water. She also leads UNIDO’s cross- departmental team for Circular Economy. As a private sector development specialist with over 34 years of experience, since August 1996, Nilgün held various positions at UNIDO as Chief for Competitiveness, Business Environment and Industrial Upgrading Unit, Chairperson for the Gender Mainstreaming Steering Committee, Country Representative in Vietnam. She was also Chief Technical Advisor for various UNIDO, UNDP, OECD and TIKA projects within the same period.

Tamara leads Metabolic’s Cities Program, in which she tackles the major urban challenges the world is facing. She has been involved in a wide range of projects regarding sustainable cities with a focus on topics such as water ecologies, the freight sector, waste systems, and renewable energy, in cities including Amsterdam and New York City. In these projects, she has been able to conduct comprehensive systems analysis, in-depth research, and collaborative design as a basis for creative and feasible strategies towards a more sustainable and circular state.

Her background as an earth scientist allows her to integrate knowledge on scientific processes that underlie the ecological impacts with creative solutions that engage novel technologies and are sensitive to social issues

Prof. dr. Jacqueline Cramer is member of the Amsterdam Economic Board, particularly in charge of the circular economy and professor of sustainable innovation at Utrecht University. Before she was Minister of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment for the Labour Party (2007 –2010). Her background is primarily related to industry, working as a consultant for many years with more than 200 companies on the implementation of sustainable entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility and circular economy. Moreover, she worked as professor since 1990. She was and still is member of various (inter-)national advisory boards of the government, industry and non-profit organisations, among which chairman of the Supervisory Board of Holland Circular Hotspot, Mayor of Circle City and chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Plastic Soup Foundation.

Seb Egerton-Read joined the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in 2014 initially working as part of the editorial and digital marketing teams producing content across the organisation's social media channels and Circulate News. He currently works in the learning team, where he leads work across our informal and digital learning activities, including oversight of the Explore the Circular Economy weekly show, digital learning tools and experiences, and the From Linear to Circular programme.

Alessandro Taberna is a PhD candidate at the Department of Governance and Technology for sustainable Development (CSTM) in the University of Twente. He graduated cum laude with a Master’s degree in Economics awarded by the University of Torino. He developed his passion for research in complex systems while completing  his Master thesis entitled “Brexit, Labour and Migration: an Agent-Based Model". He worked as a financial analyst for the European Investment Bank in the Risk Management department.

In his free-time he enjoys playing electronic music, cooking mediterranean food and playing football. He has an affinity for the great outdoors, he regularly hikes and is an avid snowboarder.