Within the ZF Group, Dr. Michael Büchsner is responsible for the Occupant Safety Systems (OSS) Business Unit with around 30,000 employees and sales of approximately EUR 4 billion. Holding a doctorate in engineering economics and business administration, he is particularly interested in finding technical solutions to complex matters and successfully commercializing them. Occupant safety represents the main thread in his career path.

With worldwide work experience in the areas of production, quality and development, he has significantly contributed to the ascent of the OSS business unit, one of the leading providers of occupant protection systems worldwide.

Michael Kolich has worked in the automotive seating industry since 1997. He joined Ford Motor Company in 2005. He currently leads a team of engineers responsible for comfort. Michael Kolich obtained an MBA (2006) and a PhD in industrial & manufacturing systems engineering (2000). He holds over 30 patents and has authored more than 50 articles, published in a wide range of international journals and conference proceedings. This is his first time attending the Automotive Seating Innovations Summit in Europe.

Prof. Peter Vink is an author of more than 250 papers in the field of comfort and design. His latest book is titled ‘Vehicle Seat Comfort and Design’. He now works with colleagues, PhD students and master’s students on vehicle interiors and seats on projects for companies like BMW, Grammer, Boeing, Savas Seating, KLM and SNCF. He also develops comfort models and perception models.

Mr. Pasquale de Luca has been in the automotive seating business for 9 years, first as project manager at Isringhausen in the LCVs market, then at Alfa Romeo for the development and launch of the new Giorgio platform. He currently leads seat engineering in Alfa Romeo/Maserati. He holds a MSc in mechanical engineering from Politecnico di Bari (2003) and a doctorate in motorcycle engineering from University of Padua (2006).

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ralf Stetter studied mechanical engineering at Technische Universität München. His doctoral dissertation was concerned with the implementation of product development methods in an industrial company. He worked at Audi AG Ingolstadt as a team coordinator of seating comfort in the interior product development department. He is a professor in design and development in automotive technology at Hochschule Ravensburg-Weingarten and is vice dean of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He is a project leader in the Steinbeis transfer centre of automotive systems.

Raquel Ledo is a telecommunication engineer with a degree from the University of Vigo, a postgraduate master’s degree in management of automotive enterprises, and a degree of research proficiency and advanced studies. From 2003-06, she worked in the automotive industry (PSA Peugeot Citroën group). She joined Automotive Technology Centre of Galicia (CTAG) in 2007 as a senior project manager and was promoted to head of the materials innovation area from 2016. Besides her extensive experience in the automotive business (both in automotive suppliers and in OEMs), she was directly involved in more than 15 EU projects and she is currently coordinating two projects. From 2015, Raquel has collaborated with the European Commission on a regular basis as expert evaluator in several research programmes (SME Instrument, FETOpen, EIC Pathfinder, and MSCA ITN).

Sibashis Parida studied aerospace engineering at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia and has an MBA from Liverpool Business School, England. Since the beginning of 2010, Mr. Parida has worked in various positions in the research and development unit within BMW Group. His expertise includes: technical integration in the concept development phase, total vehicle integration, body-in-white engineering, value engineering and cost optimization after SOP, and vehicle project management.

Dr. Reiner Nett graduated in automotive engineering and received a doctor’s degree in mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Berlin. He has worked for over 22 years in the field of automotive safety, taking responsibilities in research, numerical simulation, crash testing, regulatory affairs, and product development. In Joyson Safety Systems, he has established the European business unit of child safety seats. He is responsible for engineering, marketing, and sales of this growing business unit. The latest premium-positioned products and applied technologies are implemented and sold by major European automotive manufacturers and by newly added selective retailers throughout Europe.

Maximilian Wegner graduated from the Technical University of Munich (Dipl.-Ing) in Germany with a study in the field of mechanical engineering. Since 2011, Mr. Wegner has worked in various positions in the research and development unit within the BMW Group. His expertise includes: technical integration of controlling and regulation systems, technical integration of smart materials in the car-interior, comfort, and feature specialist in the seat department. Since 2016, Mr. Wegner is a PhD-employee in the seating department at BMW. The PhD program is in co-operation with the Technical University in Delft, Netherlands.

Alexander Siefert initially studied civil engineering at FH Karlsruhe and earned his degree in civil engineering (1997-2001). Afterwards, he got an M.Sc. degree in computational mechanics of materials and structures (2001-2003) at the University of Stuttgart. In 2003, he joined Wölfel and started working in the field of human body modelling and seating comfort. In 2013, he finished his PhD at TU Darmstadt, where his dissertation was titled: “Numerische Modellierung und Experimentelle Validierung der passiven und aktiven mechanischen Eigenschaften des menschlichen Gewebes und dessen Implementierung in ein Ganzkörpermodell”. Since 2015, he is the engineering director for numerical analysis and seating comfort at Wölfel and a member of business management at Wölfel. With his team, he supports customers worldwide in the field of seat development.

Mr. Yucheng Yang (M.Sc.) graduated with a Bachelor of Science in communication engineering at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT) in June 2012. He obtained his Master of Science in automotive software engineering at the Technical University of Munich in January 2016. He developed an intuitive driver’s workplace adjustment in a motor vehicle, which won the RAMSIS Excellence Award in 2017. Since May 2016, Mr. Yang works as a research associate at the Chair of Ergonomics, Technical University of Munich. He focuses on driving and non-driving posture modelling and interior concepts development in highly automated driving.

Robbert van den Broek, aged 49, graduated in business economics at R.U.G. in Groningen. He has spent the last 24 years working at Snoeks Automotive, a Dutch company developing and supplying concepts for light commercial vehicles. Over the last decade, Snoeks moved from converting vehicles themselves to designing, developing, and producing kits for installation by LCV manufacturers. The concept which is most known in Europe is the crew van, a second seating row in an LCV including all the needed interior parts from B-pillar to C-pillar. Apart from a lightweight, comfortable seat construction, Snoeks also specialize in load shifting protection. Snoeks has extensive experience working with all major European LCV manufacturers, offering them a variety of relatively low volumes.

Graham is a qualified mechanical engineer that has worked in the automotive industry since 1993. Graham has held several positions in production and process engineering management, after which Graham took several roles in quality management ending up as quality manager for a major UK Tier 1 structural plastics supplier. Since then, Graham has held various commercial roles in both local and global 1st and 2nd tier suppliers. In his current role, Graham has a global overview of the development of the interior segment of Saint-Gobain Bearings and tolerance ring business.

Mr. Gruebel holds degrees from the University of Leicester (BEng Electronics Eng.) and the University of Furtwangen (Dipl-Ing). Harald has worked in MBtech North America, Division Electrical / Electronics, Mercedes-Benz Technology GmbH as vice president. He then worked for Consulting4Drive GmbHIAV Automotive Engineering Group, part of Volkswagen as the president & CEO. His last working position was JSC «AVTOVAZ», Togliatti, Russia, Renault-Nissan Alliance as an executive vice president for engineering.

Damián González has an MSc Degree in electrical engineering from the University of Vigo. With more than 10 years of experience in the field of noise and vibration testing of automotive interior components, he is currently a project manager at the NVH laboratory of the Automotive Technology Centre of Galicia (CTAG), where he leads an R&D team oriented towards vibration comfort and innovative methods in vibration signal synthesis.