Speakers of the SCHUMANN Conference

Christiane von Berg is the Head of Economic Research for the Dutch and German speaking countries at Coface. With over 14 years of experience, she is a generalist in the field of political economics. Von Berg holds a German Magister degree from the University of Mainz with majors in Economics and Political Science (equivalent to a Master's degree). She completed her studies with an Advanced Master's degree in International Economic Research Policy at the renowned Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

During her studies, she worked as an assistant to the financial policy spokesperson of the CDU parliamentary group in the state parliament of Rhineland-Palatinate. She also gained several years of experience in the media sector as an editorial assistant at the political TV channel PHOENIX, focusing on election coverage.

After her studies, she moved to the State Bank of Bavaria (BayernLB), where she worked as an economist with the regions US and Japan for financial market-oriented macroeconomic research. There, she specialised in financial and monetary policy as well as political risks.

In 2019, von Berg joined Coface, where she first focused on country and sector risk analysis in Northern Europe and then turned to the BeNeLux-region as well as Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Since summer 2022, she has also appeared as an expert on the stock market news programme NTV.

With a doctorate in business informatics, he managed the development of business areas as well as marketing and sales for the business unit Industry & Trade.

Since January 2023, Dr. Stefan Gröger has been responsible for the sales management of the business units Industry & Trade, Financial Services and Credit & Surety in his role as Commercial Director and member of the Executive Board at SCHUMANN.

Dr. Werner Grünewald is an experienced managing director (CFO) with a wide range of business literacy. He has many years of management responsibility in a medium-sized family owned company.

Knowledgeable in the implementation of market and financial topics, such as M&A transactions, strategic controlling, risk management and compliance as well as in the sustainable development of transformation and change processes, strategy development and compensation systems.

Experienced, result-oriented, entrepreneurial and international manager with strategic competence, paired with pragmatic implementation know-how.Total turnover/ profit responsibility: EUR 10 bn or EUR 140 m EBT. Beginning April 2020 working as an independent consultant.

Janet Henry was appointed as HSBC’s Global Chief Economist in August 2015 and is responsible for all HSBC’s economic forecasts and thematic economic research output globally. She was previously HSBC’s Chief European Economist.

Much of her research has focused on globalisation – including the global determinants of local inflation – and the political and economic challenges of the post global financial crisis era, notably labour market disruption and the implications of income and wealth inequality within major advanced economies. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, her work has focused on the labour market implications, evolving inflation dynamics and policy challenges of the unprecedented recession and recovery.

Janet is a Governor of the UK’s National Institute of Economic and Social Research, a member of the World Economic Forum’s Chief Economists Community and a Non-Executive Director of HSBC Bank UK plc. She has given evidence to financial committees of the EU Parliament on China and UK House of Lords on Europe. Janet joined HSBC in 1996 in Hong Kong where she worked as an Asian economist in the run-up to, and aftermath of, the Asian crisis.

Mike is an innovative, entrepreneurial Chartered Director with a strong track record of creating and growing businesses across Europe, USA and emerging markets.

Mike has 39 years’ experience in trade credit and political risk insurance, as well as in trade finance. He has been at the forefront of innovation in the industry and has been active in the Dutch and German markets as well as the UK and the US. He was a founder and CEO of trade credit insurer Equinox Global Limited.

Mike’s recent activities include being a director at Nexus Trade Credit, a consultant at Charles Taylor Adjusting, a director of a motor insurance MGA; providing advice to the Irish Government on credit insurance, and acting as Deputy Chair of the London Handel Festival (of classical music).

Mike recently became a Chartered Director after studying with the Irish Institute of Directors.

As a Managing Director Evgeny is responsible for marketing and sales. He is also responsible for the business unit Credit & Surety.

Robert Meters is Director of Global Business at SCHUMANN. He studied Business Administration and International Management at the University for Economics and Management in Düsseldorf and Essen. He has been in the credit risk management industry since 1993 and has worked for leading information service providers as well as in the telecommunications industry.

He advises and takes care of customers in the automation of credit risk management for the financial services sector with excellent references in leasing, factoring, banking and trade credit insurance.

Michael Mohr has decades of experience in the banking, leasing and factoring business. Within the Werhahn Group in Neuss, Michael Mohr was responsible as Managing Director for the abcfinance group of companies with abcfinance GmbH and abcbank GmbH. During this time, abcfinance developed into one of the market-leading leasing and factoring providers in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. In addition, Michael Mohr has represented the leasing industry for many years as a board member of the Bundesverband Deutscher Leasingunternehmen e.V. (Federal Association of German Leasing Companies).

Michael Mohr has distinctive experience in the strategic development of financial services, complemented by extensive M&A activities and expansion into other European countries. All aspects of risk management and information technology have also always been focal points of his work. In particular, Michael Mohr has massively advanced the digital transformation, among other things by founding a corporate start-up.

Since mid-2021, Michael Mohr has retired from the active management of abcfinance and has since been advising companies in the financial services industry and SMEs on strategy and management issues.

Tobias Nießner holds a PhD in Business Information Systems from the Georg-August University of Göttingen. He studied mathematics and business information systems with a focus on data science. During his PhD, he worked on risk use cases in accounts receivable management.

He joined SCHUMANN in 2023 as Product Owner to enable the product landscape with AI capabilities

Since 1991, Prof. Dr. Matthias Schumann has held a professorship in Business Administration and Information Systems (Chair of Application Systems and E-Business) at the University of Göttingen. He also heads the joint computing center of the Faculty of Economics and the Faculty of Social Sciences. He is a shareholder of Prof. Schumann GmbH.

Prof. Schumann's research interests include information systems at financial service providers and systems for credit management, as well as issues related to knowledge and education management. Prof. Schumann has a wide range of experience in consulting companies, extensive lecturing activities and more than 350 publications.

Dr. Martina Städtler-Schumann has been the managing director of SCHUMANN since its foundation in 1997. After graduating with a degree in business administration, she earned her doctorate and worked in her parents' consulting and software company. She has now been managing SCHUMANN for 25 years. With her company, she supports national and international companies in the digitalization and automation of processes in credit and credit risk management. Her years of experience hold cross-industry expertise for the optimal processes, whether for insurance companies, financial service providers or industrial and retail companies.

Städtler-Schumann is married, lives with her husband in Göttingen and has two grown-up sons.

Mr Jonathan Szejnmann is Managing Director of Trustlog GmbH and has more than 15 years of digital expertise: After working in the digital unit of a corporate group, he recently built up the Digital Business & Company Building division for a management consultancy, where he advised clients on the development of digital business models.

With the founding of Trustlog, Jonathan took over the management of the company and, together with his growing team, is responsible for the development and operation of Trustlog, the digital platform for guarantees. Jonathan holds degrees in Economics and Strategy for Business (MSc) from Imperial College London and Business Administration (BSc) from FH Nordakademie.

After completing a master’s degree in economics, Richard Wulff started his career in 1989 as trade credit insurance underwriting manager and reinsurance director of NCM (a precursor of Atradius) in his native country, the Netherlands. He founded a reinsurance captive for the company in Ireland prior to moving on to Munich Re in Germany.

At Munich Re, he managed the non-European credit, surety and political risk reinsurance department until 2008. He then moved to India to become chief underwriting officer of HDFC-ERGO Insurance Company in India, a general lines insurance business.

Richard subsequently became group general manager, heading up the world-wide credit lines at QBE Insurance in Australia, before moving to Hong Kong in that role.

He returned to Holland in 2017 to found RW Consulting, a consultancy company for trade credit insurance, surety and political risk (re)insurance. In February 2021, Richard joined the International Credit Insurance and Surety Association (ICISA), an association with which Richard has been actively involved throughout his career in trade credit insurance, surety and political risk insurance, where he currently holds the title of executive director.