Würzburg International Business Forum’s Roundtable Meetings

Professor Emin Akcaoglu is Head of Department of Capital Markets at Manisa Celal Bayar University (Turkey). He is also co-founder, and co-chairman of the Würzburg International Business Forum. He had earlier served as a banker for fifteen years at the Export Credit Bank of Turkey (Turk Eximbank) before moving to academia. Before leaving Türk Eximbank, he was Manager of Underwriting Department. He has also served at various other universities including Loughborough University (UK), and FHWS University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt (Germany). His research and teaching focus on SME internationalisation, foreign direct investment, international trade and project finance, and political risk management.  He has consulted with various companies and organisations including UNCTAD on international business and FDI-related issues.

Prof. Dr. rer. pol. Harald J. Bolsinger is Professor at FHWS University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt (Germany). He deals with sustainability and values management as well as business ethics and regulatory policy. The ethicist from Würzburg gained extensive practical experience in corporate customer care and sales in the cooperative banking sector, as an economic promoter for the city of Nuremberg and in independent management consultancy. He is active in numerous initiatives to promote corporate responsibility as well as Christian values in business and academic life. Professor Bolsinger has taught at various universities; served as Dean of the Faculty for Economics and Business Administration at FHWS and is Director Regulatory Policy as Member of the Board of the Research Group Finance and Economy of the Global Ethos Institute at the University of Tübingen (Germany).

Mr. Benedikt G. Hoffmann is a seasoned impact investing expert. An accomplished executive bank manager with a strong interest in technology that improves financial access with a special regional focus on international growth markets. Deep Knowledge and vast Experience of impact investing/sustainable finance. Highly interested in everything related to climate change. Proven track record of working in different cultural environments/emerging markets. He comes with vast experience in impact investing, institution Building and deep knowledge on legal and financial regulatory frameworks in emerging economies. Prior to Co-Founding AfriKairos, he worked as COO at Invest In Visions GmbH, one of the leading German sustainable Asset Managers, for 10+ years he led as CEO ProCredit Banks in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. At the same time, he served as Director and Chairman on various Supervisory and Audit Boards of ProCredit Banks. Additionally, he was a Director of the Salvadoran Banking Association as well as the German Chamber of Commerce Abroad (AHK). He is Co-Chair of the Research Group Finance and Economics at the Weltethos-Institute at the University of Tübingen since 2003 and an Advisory Board Member at the Centre for Sustainable Economic and Corporate Policy at the University of Applied Sciences, Darmstadt. He is a Co- Founder of the Circular Economy Innovation Partnership (CEIPafrica.org) and serves as an Advisor to the Board of Trustees of the Growing Businesses Foundation and as alternate Director to the Board of Interswitch Financial Inclusion Services (IFIS), Nigeria.

Prof. Dr. em. Johannes Hoffmann was in charge of developing the Frankfurt-Hohenheimer catalogue, which provides with the most comprehensive criteria for ethical investments with over 800 evaluation criteria the basis for assigning sustainability ratings to many companies worldwide. He is Chairman of the Founding Board of the Research Group Finance and Economy of the Weltethos Institute at the University of Tübingen.

Dr. Ndidi Nnoli Edozien is Chair, Circular Economy Innovation Partnership and Managing Partner Afrikairos GmBH. She was engaged by Dangote Founder/President to initiate and operationalize sustainability at Africa’s largest business, serving as Chief Sustainability and Governance Officer [March 2017 – June 2020], Dangote Industries Limited. Immediately prior, she served as faculty responsible for sustainability, ethics and social entrepreneurship at Lagos Business School, Pan-Atlantic University. She founded Growing Businesses Foundation in 1999 to combat poverty and enable financial and digital inclusion as the base of the pyramid. She is Co-Chair, Research Group, Finance and Economics [Frankfurt-Hohenheimer Leitfaden] based on which she commenced development of her Seven Pillars Methodology 15 years ago, is the ACCA Africa Advocacy Program Subcommittee Chair on Sustainability & Givernance. She is also a full member of the Club of Rome and serves as a member of the Executive Committee. She has been an Associate/Fellow of the University of Edinburgh since 2019-2021, member of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Stakeholder Council and the Nigeria Integrated Reporting Committee. She served on the Governing Council, Lagos State Employment Trust Fund, and continues to Co-chair the Private Sector Advisory Group (PSAG) on SDGs, linked to the Global United Nations SDG Fund, inaugurated by the Nigerian Presidency in 2017. She holds a B.Sc. (Economics), International Relations from London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) and a Ph.D. in Sustainability & Governance, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt. She is an alumnus of Wharton Business School and attended executive programs at INSEAD and Judge Business School, Cambridge. She has published books, serves on several non-profit and social enterprise boards and has made it her life mission to support Africa's sustainable development.

Mr. Carlos Alvarez Pereira is a senior professional combining more than 30 years of experience in research and innovation, entrepreneurship, and business management, with a passion for complexity thinking and transdisciplinarity. He is keen on exploring the cultural transformation required to cross the threshold towards equitable human wellbeing within a healthy biosphere. He is member of the Advisory Board of the International Bateson Institute (IBI), fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS), and member of the Spanish Fulbright Alumni Association, of which he has been Vice-President during 8 years. With an MSc in Aerospace Engineering, he has been a lecturer and researcher in Applied Mathematics at the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM). He founded and chaired for 14 years the Innaxis Foundation & Research Institute, specialized in the modelling of complex systems and big data applications. He has been the founder and top-level executive during more than 25 years of several consulting companies in Spain, Switzerland, France and Germany in the domains of digital technologies, systems integration and strategic advice.

Professor Wimboh Santoso is the Chairman of the Indonesia Financial Services Authority. He started his career as a banking supervisor at Bank Indonesia. He worked as Director of Banking Research and Regulation at Bank Indonesia between 2010 and 2012. Later, he was appointed as Head of Bank Indonesia Representative in New York, before joining the International Monetary Fund to take an executive director’s seat there. Since 2015, Professor Santoso has been the President Commissioner at PT Bank Mandiri (Persero) Tbk, and in 2016, he also became Director of the Indonesian Banking Development Institute. Professor Santoso was a member of Bank Indonesia delegation for a G20 meeting in 2010, and in the same year he also represented the Central Bank at the Financial Stability Board and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. Then in 2014, he co-chaired the Asean Banking Integration Framework. He has also been teaching at leading universities in Indonesia for both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. His publications include Effective Financial System Stability Framework (2007), the Impact of Global Liquidity on Financial Landscapes and Risk in the ASEAN-5 Countries (2007), Risk Profile of Households and the Impact on Financial Stability (2009) among many others. Professor Santoso has an MBA from the University of Illinois (1993), and a PhD in Financial Economics from Loughborough University (1999).

Prof. Dr. Rainer Wehner is Professor at FHWS University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt (Germany). He is also the co-founder, and co-chairman of the Würzburg International Business Forum. As the Director of International Relations at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of FHWS, he is responsible for the faculty’s international programmes, beside the membership in several international networks and research projects like EAIE, NIBS and CIDD. His teaching and research focus on entrepreneurship, strategic management, CSR, the internationalisation of SMEs, virtual mobility as well as on international taxation.