Future of European Commerce Awards 2023

Juan Manuel Morales has been elected president of EuroCommerce in June 2021 for a period of three years. He is managing director of IFA, a leading retail group in Southern Europe, with more than 130,000 employees and 11,000 stores operated by its affiliates across Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Morales’ whole career has been with the consumer goods industry, spanning 30 years within both retail and food and drink manufacturers in Spain, Portugal, Poland and the Baltics: before joining IFA in 2011, he held commercial, general management, and president positions in Grupo Osborne, The Coca-Cola company, and Nielsen.

Juan Manuel is also Vice-President of our member association ASEDAS, member of the executive committee of the Spanish business and employers’ federation CEOE, and board member of AECOC, the Spanish GS1 association.

He has a degree in Economics and Business from the Complutense University of Madrid and an Executive MBA from the IESE Business School. He speaks Spanish, Portuguese, English and Italian. Juan Manuel is married, has two children, and is passionate about football and golf.

Dita Charanzová is a Vice President of the European Parliament. Elected first in 2014, she is serving her second mandate. Ms Charanzová completed a doctorate degree from the University of Economics, Prague, and graduated from the Diplomatic Academy in Madrid. She is a former diplomat, whose postings included the Czech Permanent Representation to the EU during the Czech Presidency. She has also worked at the Council of Europe.

In the European Parliament Ms Charanzová is the Renew Europe rapporteur for the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee and a member in the International Trade Committee.

André Sobczak works to empower cities in EU decision making through Eurocities. He spent 20 years as a manager and impact-oriented academic, as well as serving two terms as Vice-President of the Nantes Metropolitan Area for European Affairs, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Employment. His positions in Audencia Business School have included Positive Impact Chair and Chief Executive for Corporate Social Responsibility, experience which he is harnessing to strengthen training activities and create strong ties with academia through a new Eurocities Academy. In local politics, he worked to coordinate the metropolitan area’s 24 mayors, as well as representing Nantes in Eurocities’ Executive Committee and as Chair of the network’s Economic Development Forum.

He has worked tirelessly to reinforce and communicate a virtuous circle between economic development and social and environmental goals. On the one hand, he has coached companies to improve their business plans and management to this end; On the other, he has spearheaded initiatives like #NegoTrainig, which gives women free training in wage negotiation, and ‘Fairwork,’ a monitor for working conditions in the platform economy. He leads with an approach of multi-level cooperation between the public sector, businesses and civil society for tangible positive impact.

As Director General of BEUC, Monique represents 45 national consumer associations in 31 European countries, acting as a strong consumer voice in Brussels, ensuring that consumer interests are given weight in the development of policies.

Monique is a member of the Euro Retail Payments Board, as well as of the European Commission’s Consumer Policy Advisory Group,

Monique is Co-Chair of the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) a network of EU and US consumer organisations.

Kristin Schreiber leads the Directorate Ecosystems I: Chemicals, Food, Retail, Health in DG GROW, the Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs of the European Commission.

After obtaining the Diplôme de l’Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (with a special focus on International Relations, Economics and European Law), a Master’s degree from the University of Kent at Canterbury and the Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies of the College of Europe in Bruges, she worked as a Graduate Lecturer at the University of Kent in Canterbury and a researcher on the Single Market in Bonn. Kristin Schreiber joined the European Commission in 1990 and was appointed to her current position in March 2021 after serving as Director for Governance of the Single Market and International Affairs in DG Internal Market (until 2015) and Director for SME policy in DG GROW (until March 2021).  

Previously in the European Commission, Kristin Schreiber was Head of Cabinet of Employment Commissioner Vladimir Špidla, Deputy Head of Cabinet of Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier and member of the Cabinets of Enlargement Commissioner Günter Verheugen and Competition Commissioner Karel Van Miert. She also served as Head of Unit for International Affairs in the DG for Employment and Social Affairs and was a member of the Merger Task Force of DG Competition.

Kristin speaks German, French, English and Spanish, some Italian and has notions of Czech and Slovak.

Ester Asin Martinez took the position of Director for WWF’s European Policy Office on 1 October 2018. A lawyer and political scientist by education, Ester has been working for civil society organisations leading their engagement with the EU for more than 20 years. Prior to joining WWF, Ester worked with a number of global and regional NGOs – Save the Children, CARE International, and the European Confederation of Development NGOs CONCORD- in leadership, senior advocacy and resources mobilisation roles. As part of her work  on development, humanitarian aid and human rights, Ester set up and developed the “Aid Watch “initiative in CONCORD. She successfully lobbied to increase EU humanitarian funding for education in emergencies. She led the coalition of organisations who advocated for better protection of migrant children, which resulted in a dedicated Commission’s initiative on Children in Migration in 2017.

She has worked for the European Commission in West Africa, and started her career in Brussels with the European Consumers Organisation (BEUC).

Ester is an elected member of the Board of the Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe. She’s currently the rotating chair of the Green 10, the informal network of environment NGOs. She is a member of the Strategic Advisory Council of the French think tank IDDRI.

Ester is a Spanish national. She holds degrees in Spanish Law, a DEA (Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies) in EU Law, and an M.A. in European Political and Administrative Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges.

Christophe Leclercq is the founder of EURACTIV Media Network & Chairman of Europe’s MediaLab, plus adviser & commentator. He has recently sold his majority stake to MediaHuis, which now owns 100% of EURACTIV. He was on the EU’s High-Level Expert Group on disinformation in 2018 (leading to co-regulation of GAFAs in Europe), and now is on the Advisory Board of EDMO (European Digital Media Observatory). Mr Leclercq initiated Stars4Media, an innovation programme helping newsroom and business transformation, as well as Stars4Media-FACTCHECKING, research project on fact-checking sustainability in the East.