Alex leads STR's AM:PM platform and is focused on scaling the product across STR’s global supply and pipeline databases. He began his career in New York, gaining experience in fixed income with Lazard, Merrill Lynch, and Scotia Capital. He then moved into the hospitality industry when he joined Expedia’s sales and development team, working in both their New York and San Francisco offices. Alex subsequently moved to London for HotelTonight, with responsibility of managing partnerships with global brands and industry organizations. He joined STR in August 2016.

Chris Igwe is one of the world’s leading authorities on global retail and highly sought after for his knowledge and insights. 

Based in Paris, he is special advisor to global brands, owners and investors on strategic matters at his own consultancy firm, Chris Igwe International. He is also Managing Partner at More Or Less, representing exclusively tenants in their lease-related problems. From 2007 to 2015 he was Head of Retail, France and EMEA at CBRE, and before that, Head of Real Estate Europe at Foot Locker and then Gap.

Chris is a frequent international keynote speaker and conference moderator. He is Co-Chair of ULI (Urban Land Institute) Retail and Entertainment Council, Member of ICSC’s European Research Group and Member of MAPIC Steering Committee.

Hotelier with 25 years of experience in the hotel industry in the area of ​​operations, sales and development, gained in the InterContinental Hotels and Resorts in the USA and AccorHotels / Orbis in Poland and Eastern Europe. Since 2017 responsible for the development of Hilton brands in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary and Romania.

Indrė Genytė-Pikčienė began her professional career at the Lithuanian Free Market Institute, then continued working closer to business practices at Vilniaus Bankas and as a member of the real estate advisors team “Resolution Advisers”. Before joining DNB she worked as a senior economist at the Bank of Lithuania. Indrė Genytė-Pikčienė has been a valued member of DNB Research (later - Luminor) team since 2007 – for twelve years already. 

Indrė’s work scope at Luminor encompasses the analysis of the global economic trends and financial market processes, macroeconomic and market risk analysis of the Central Eastern European region, monitoring of Lithuanian internal macroeconomic processes and economic activities, close communication with the business community, active participation in a public debate on economic, political and social topics.

Gijs Klomp is currently investment director of NEPI Rockcastle covering the CEE markets.

Gijs Klomp (41) is a Dutch citizen and specialist in real estate management, who attended the Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands. He had his first contact with the Romanian market back in 2000 during an internship. Upon graduation in 2002, he joined ING Real Estate Investment Management (ING REIM) in The Hague as a Research Analyst. After 3 years, Gijs Klomp relocated to Prague and subsequently to Bucharest and later Budapest. He was involved in numerous acquisitions, divestments and also worked in asset management at ING REIM, which later became CBRE Global Investors.

Starting May 2013, Gijs Klomp joined JLL in Romania as Managing Director and in early 2015 returned to CBRE to head CBRE’s Romanian and later CEE capital markets practice.

As of July 2016, he moved to NEPI Rockcastle, a public property company that specializes in retail real estate to become their investment director. NEPI is one of the largest retail property landlords in CEE with assets in Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. 

In Moscow since 1995, David Jenkins joined the Radisson Hotel Group in 2015 as Vice President Business Development for the region covering Russia, Baltics, CIS, Ukraine, Georgia, Balkans and Israel. This followed on from a 10-year period as one of the most respected hotel consultants in the Russian market with JLL, Cushman & Wakefield, DTZ and Horwath. Prior to consulting, David spent 8 years with Interstate in Moscow working for the Marriott properties. David has a degree in Hospitality Management and now has over 25 years of experience in the industry from operations, consulting and development.

Ms. Elina Chodzkaite - Barauskiene has an experience of over 6 years in site selection, project implementation, negotiation, managing international relationships, sales and marketing, and country branding. She oversees manufacturing investment projects with a focus on developing industries of strategic importance to the national economy, including Life Sciences, Automotive and Industrial Machinery. Her client portfolio includes Thermo Fisher Scientific, Hollister and Continental. 

Elina graduated from the University College London, reading BA Politics and Eastern European studies as well as obtained a Master's degree at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, Austria.  

Educated at the University of Warsaw in the field of Sociology and at the University of London in the field of Politics and Economics of the East European Countries, Dominik Piwek has been involved in marketing and advertising since 1994. He has gained professional experience working for international advertising agencies such as Publicis, BBDO Worldwide and Edipresse publishing house. Being responsible for media, advertising and marketing strategies, Mr Piwek worked for brands such as Renault, British Airways, Red Bull and others. Since 2007 he was associated with the METRO PROPERTIES company (M1 shopping centres), to later begin his cooperation with the Balmain. Currently holding the position of Marketing & PR Director at NEPI Rockcastle Poland, Dominik Piwek’s responsibilities include management of the marketing department as well as development and implementation of advertising and marketing communication strategies for NEPI Rockcastle’s shopping centres portfolio in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Latvia.

Laisvis joined Invest Lithuania in 2013. After 2 years of engaging executive management teams to attract operations to Lithuania, he was appointed to lead the Business Services team. As the Head of Business Services at Invest Lithuania he is in charge of creating strategy for Global Business Services (GBS) development in Lithuania and identifying and overseeing needed changes in investment environment. He also actively participates in Lithuania’s GBS community building by leading the creation of Lithuania’s GBS Industry Report and annual GBS Community Gathering, representing GBS community and the government in various panel discussions, forums, awards, interviews, etc. Some of Business Services team’s major recent clients include names like Moody’s, Booking.com, Nasdaq, Telia, Outokumpu, Yara, Festo, NKT and others. Laisvis earned Bachelor’s in Business Economics from University of Liverpool (UK) and MSc degree in International Management from Royal Holloway University of London (UK).

Kaspars Beitiņš is General Manager of Akropole, the newest and most modern shopping and entertainment centre in Riga, Latvia, that will open its doors on 4th April, 2019. The development and construction of Akropole has been one of the biggest projects of the last decade in Latvia. Kaspars Beitiņš joined the team in 2012 as Assistant Development Project Manager and was appointed as Project Director in 2016. He has led and supervised all phases of Akropole project – from design and construction through to the opening of the new shopping and entertainment centre.

Vlaho Kojakovic is Director of the Property and Tourism Team at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development where he has been working for the past 8 years.  He is a seasoned banker and a real estate executive with more than 20 years of experience in the sector.

Before joining EBRD, Vlaho worked as Development Director with the Trigranit Development Corporation, the biggest real estate developer in Central and Eastern Europe. He started his career in investment banking with BNP Paribas in London.

Vlaho ‎holds an MBA from Imperial College, University of London, and an executive education from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

EBRD operates in 38 economies in Central and Eastern Europe and North Africa and has invested over €125 billion in more than 5,000 projects up to date.