The Future of European Rail

Anna Walker

Vice Chair, IRG-Rail

Biography

Anna Walker is Chair of Office of Rail Regulation. She was Chief Executive of the Healthcare Commission from 2004-2009 (responsible for regulating public and private sector healthcare and the predecessor of the Care Quality Commission). She has wide-ranging experience in regulation and performance improvement. Anna was Director General, Land Use and Rural Affairs at Defra from 2001 to 2004, where she drew up a new rural policy following the foot and mouth disease outbreak. Anna was Director General of Energy at the Department of Trade and Industry from 1998 to 2001 and Deputy Director General, Office of Telecommunications from 1995-1998. She is also Chair of the National Centre for Young People with Epilepsy and on the Board of Welsh Water and Consumer Focus.

Alain Barbey

Chief Executive Officer, TGV Lyria

Biography

Since July 2010, Alain Barbey has been in charge of Lyria SAS, a Paris and Bern based joint venture between SNCF and SBB, responsible for the traffic between France and Switzerland.

With the new commercial agreement signed between the parent companies, giving Lyria more autonomy and responsibilities, his main tasks have been to transform a marketing entity into a profit oriented company, geared towards customer needs. After the opening of two new lines, “Haut Bugey” reducing travel time towards Geneva as well as the “Rhin-Rhone” in the direction of Basel and Zürich, Lyria is now preparing for the introduction of its own fleet (19 TGV multi-voltage) for the end of the year.

Before working at Lyria SAS, Alain Barbey spent 3 years as CEO of the railway operator Cisalpino AG. Cisalpino AG is a joint venture between SBB and Trenitalia and operates tilting trains between Switzerland, Italy and Germany. 

Alain Barbey started his career in the airline industry and spent 15 years with Swissair, occupying various leading positions around the world; first in operations as Station Manager in Boston and Accra, Ghana, then as Marketing Manager West Coast in Los Angeles, regional Manager in North Africa and finally as Country Manager for Italy.

In 1999 he made a move into the industrial word, in the area of catering, retail and hospitality, as General Manager of Gate Gourmet France, opening a new unit in Paris CDG. He then lead a joint venture in Italy as CEO of Ligabue Gate Gourmet Italy, with responsibility for retail shops, restaurants and catering for 10 Italian airports.

After two years as Vice President Business Development International Ligabue Group in Venice, specialising in hospitality activities for on and offshore gas and petrol compounds, he made a foray into the world of tourism, as General Manager of the touristic region of Crans-Montana before joining the rail industry in 2007.

Alain Barbey graduated from the “Ecole Supérieure” de Commerce de Lausanne” and is an officer in the Swiss army. He is married and the father of two daughters.

Iris Henseler-Unger

Vice President, Bundesnetzagentur

Biography

Studied Economics, Ph.D. in Economics

1986 – 1993 and 1999 – 2004

Several positions at the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology; e.g.
Principles of Economic Policy; Economic and Structural Policy Research

1993 – 1999

Economic policy, posts and telecommunications expert with the liberal parliamentary group (FDP)

Since March 2004

Vice President of the Regulatory Authority for Telecommunications and Posts (RegTP)

N.B.: In July 2005 Reg TP was renamed in Federal Network Agency for Electricity, Gas, Telecommunications, Post and Railway (BNetzA) 

Pierre Messulam

Strategy Director, SNCF

Biography

Pierre Messulam, born in 1960, graduated in Ecole Normale Supérieure, with a Doctorate in stochastic control, a master in economical theory, and joined the Corps des Mines, higher Civil Corps in the French Administration.

As a member of the French Nuclear Safety Agency, he specialized in Command and Control systems inspections, and in quality insurance process.

He joined SNCF in 1989, first to ground the human factors approach for safety and among others on the Man Machine Interfaces Issues for locomotive drivers, for maintenance track and signalling operators, and procedures for operations.

He later managed the TGV Chatillon Workshop, while commissioning the TGV Atlantic train sets. Later, as infrastructure manager of Paris Rive Gauche area, he organized and carried the rebuilding of the central section or the RER C, one of the busiest routes in Europe with more than 500,000 daily passengers, and developed and used new project methods for signalling.

As regional director of Paris Sud Est, he managed the Gare de Lyon station and the South East HSL to Lyon, launching the TGV Mediterranean in 2001.

Pierre Messulam, as Wagon director of Ermewa Group in Geneva, had the responsibility of the freight forwarding, wagon rental and wagon construction business, and contributed to the elaboration of the TAF TSI.

He directs all SNCF ERTMS projects, on strategic and technical levels with the successful launch of High speed cross borders Thalys operation between Paris, Amsterdam and Cologne, and the migration process towards ERTMS.

He is also the TGV Rhin Rhône Director, the next TGV project, starting operations on the 11/12/2011, and acts as TAP TSI expert.

On the 1/12/2011, he has become SNCF's Director of Railway Stragegy and Regulation, while keeping the direction of ERTMS projects.

Marek Pawlik

Vice President, PKP PLK

Biography

Vice-president of the Management Board – Director in charge of Strategy and Development. Born 17.11.1964 in Warsaw. 1988 graduated from the Faculty of Fine Mechanics Warsaw University of Technology. After graduation joined the Railway Scientific and Technical Centre (CNTK). 1992-1993 chief technology officer in a Polish IT company and consultant at the Transport Institute of Warsaw Technical University on the signaling systems for the Warsaw Metro. Since the beginning of 1994 returned to CNTK and was involved in substantive work on the standardisation of European Railway Management Systems implemented by the European Rail Research Institute, UIC and ERTMS Users Group. 2001 defended the doctoral dissertation at the Transport Institute of Warsaw Technical University. 2006-2008 Deputy Director of Railway Scientific and technical Centre for Infrastructure Research.

2002-2006 has been coordinating the involvement of the PKP in the works of 17 groups of the European association for Railway Interoperability mandated by the European Commission. Since 2004, on behalf of Poland engaged in the work of the Directorate General Energy and Transport of European Commission on the interoperability and rail safety. Since 2006, on behalf of the Community of European Railways actively involved in the work of the European Railway Agency.

Bruno Auger

International Rail Director, Keolis

Biography

Bruno Auger has worked in the Rail industry since 1992 when he joined the SNCF. He occupied a number of operational roles in operation and business unit management, with a proven track record in the development of revenue, and improvement of performance for passengers, before becoming operations Director for Eurostar in the late 1990s.

Since 2001, he has been responsible for the development of Keolis' rail division. During this time the company has won a number of major franchises and contract including Transpennine and Southeastern in the UK, Yarra Tram in Australia, Hellweg and Maas Rhein Lippe in Germany, and Virginia Rail Express in USA.

He is now head of the Rail Division at Keolis, with responsibility for all the company's rail activities in terms of both projects and operations.

Keolis is a well known public transport operator in France, where it runs a number of major urban networks including Lyon and Lille. Internationally, the company currently operates in 8 countries and the rail division, which has grown rapidly, now accounts for more than 35% of total revenue.

Danny Gilbert

Development Manager, Arriva

Biography

Danny’s career to date has seen him move from a public sector client-side role into private sector consultancy and finally to a public transport operator in the shape of Arriva.

Danny started his career at London Transport and London Underground Limited where he held a number of transport and investment planning roles.

At Jacobs Consultancy he advised transport authorities and governments across Europe and Africa in the structuring of rail concessions and privatisations, as well as supporting parties bidding for transport contracts.

As a Director at Moorgate Associates and Collinson Dutton Ltd (CDL), Danny built and managed teams to support UK rail franchise bidders as well as transport authorities globally.

Having joined Arriva in 2006, Danny was a key member of the successful UK CrossCountry franchise bid, since when he has focused on successfully developing Arriva’s non-UK business in bus, light and heavy rail through both acquisition and tendering.

Fabio Croccolo

General Director, Rail Regulation Office, MIT

Biography

Born in Rome in 1959, married with three children, MoS in Transport Engineering, Ph.D. in Management.Former Assistant Professor of business administration, economics and management, since 1995 he was Director at the Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport, where he managed units regarding railways, international relations and infrastructure planning. General Director since October 2010, he's the Italian Rail Regulator and is as well director of the special unit for the evaluation and monitoring of public investments of the ministry.

Representative of the ministry, member of the board and chair in international bodies and groups.

Author of 30 major publications, business advisor.

Fabrice Morel

International Development Director, SNCF Voyages

Biography

An 18-year veteran of French national railway SNCF, Fabrice Morel, age 43, has held numerous positions related to the international activities of the long distance/high speed passenger division (SNCF Voyages). Most recently he was Director of the Railteam alliance (2008-2011), and prior to that CEO of North American distribution subsidiary Rail Europe Inc. (2003-2007). Fabrice is a graduate from the Paris-based Sciences-Po and HEC Management schools.

Stefan Wehinger

Managing Director, Westbahn

Biography

Born Feb. 9th, 1966 in Ludesch/Austria

 Academic Studies:

• Physics, University of technology, Vienna, Austria 1986 – 1991
• Master of Science, University Innsbruck, Austria and MIT Cambridge, USA 1922-1996

 Occupational history:

• Board of directors Montafonerbahn AG (www.montafonerbahn.at) 2000 – 2004
• Board of directors ÖBB Personenverkehr AG (www.oebb.at/pv) 2004 – 2008
• Founder, co-owner and CEO of Rail Holding AG (www.westbahn.at) since 2008

Nicolas Painvin

Head, Transport & Social Infrastructure, EMEA, Fitch Ratings

Biography

Nicolas Painvin heads the transport and social infrastructure team in EMEA region. The team rates more than 100 infrastructure credits, of which toll roads, airports, ports and rail projects, as well as social (primarily healthcare and education) and environmental infrastructure (water and waste). Prior to this, Nicolas was responsible for the public finance ratings and research in several European countries, including France and Germany.

Prior to joining Fitch in 2000, Nicolas worked as a senior auditor for Deloitte and Touche and as banker for Caisse Nationale des Caisses d'Epargne in France where he was in charge of large public sector clients.

Nicolas is a professor on credit ratings in the MBA of HEC since 2004. He has been teaching public finance, project finance and credit ratings at the Universities of Paris since 1998 (currently at La Sorbonne, Dauphine and Sciences Po) as well as lecturing at Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA) and Institut National d'Etudes Territoriales (INET).

He co-authored a reference book on credit ratings ("La notation financière"), published by Dunod in 2007.

Nicolas graduated from Rouen Business School, holds a post graduate degree in public economics from Université Paris-Dauphine and a BA in languages (German, English, and Italian) from La Sorbonne.

Martin Metz

Global Head of Land Transport Finance, DVB Bank

Biography

Martin Metz is Global Head of DVB Bank’s Land Transport Finance team and responsible for all rail and road vehicle financings worldwide. DVB Bank’s Land Transport Finance division has a strong track record of structuring, arranging and financing asset based deals out of Frankfurt (for Europe) and New York (for North America and Australia). The team also receives invaluable support by its dedicated in-house Land Transport Research unit in Frankfurt.

Martin Metz joined DVB Bank in July 1999. Since then he has built up an excellent team of asset finance experts as well as a substantial and diversified portfolio of structured finance transactions for rail and road asset fleets, both passenger and freight, with a well balanced international client base of leading players in the Land Transport markets. DVB Bank’s Land Transport Finance team won a number of prestigious “Rail Finance” awards from Jane’s Transport Finance, UK, over the recent years.

Prior to joining DVB Bank, Martin Metz worked in the Global Project Finance Group at global investment bank CSFB, New York, (now Credit Suisse) and before that in the Land-based Transportation team of KfW, Frankfurt (now KfW IPEX Bank).

Martin Metz holds a Master’s degree in Economics from University of Cologne, Germany.

Trevor Garrod

Chairman, European Passengers’ Federation

Biography

Born 20/09/1946 in Ipswich. UK

Studied at Universities of Oxford (MA in Modern Languages) and Leeds (PGCE) 1965-70.

Taught English in Berlin 1967-8.

Worked as teacher in secondary and middle schools and further education; then as civil servant in Department of Work & Pensions.

Active in Railway Development Society (now Railfuture) 1972 onwards, including 14 years as General Secretary. Chairman of European Passengers' Federation since its formation in 2002. Has written or edited many books and reports, organised conferences, special trains and foreign visits; engaged in dialogue with transport professionals, politicians and decision-makers at all levels.