2024 SPEAKERS
Aurel Ciobanu-Dordea, European Commission
Since May 2022 he is the Director in charge of Circular Economy in the European Commission's Directorate-General for Environment.
Between January 2014 and April 2022 he worked as the Director in charge of enforcement, cohesion and the European Semester in the same DG. Before that he was the Director for Equality in the Directorate-General for Justice since April 2011, in charge of equality and fight against discrimination, after having been the Director for Fundamental Rights and EU Citizenship within the same DG and in DG Justice, Freedom and Security since June 2009.
He joined the European Commission in 2009. He holds an LL.M. from the University of Illinois (US) and a Ph.D. from the University of Bucharest (RO).
Stefano Soro, European Commission
Stefano Soro was born in Genoa, Italy. He holds a degree in Management and Economics from Università Bocconi, Milan.
After working in the HR department of a multinational company, he joined the European Commission in 1994, serving in a variety of posts in Eurostat, the Enterprise and Industry DG, the Secretariat-General and the Health and Consumers DG, where from 2006 to 2011 he headed the unit responsible for non-food consumer safety. From 2012 to 2016 he was the Head of the "Medicinal products - quality, safety and efficacy" Unit and then of the “Animal nutrition, veterinary medicines” Unit.
Stefano joined the Internal Market, Industry Entrepreneurship and SMEs DG as Head of the "Food Industry" Unit in 2017. Since 2021 he is the Head of the DG’s Net Zero Industries, Sustainable and Circular Products Unit.
Gloria Gabellini, PepsiCo
Gloria is Director Environmental Policy for Europe at PepsiCo, where she works since 2016. She manages environmental policy issues including packaging sustainability and environmental labelling, supporting markets in Europe in the implementation of strategies involving these issues. She is also coordinating the works the EU public affairs team.
Prior to joining PepsiCo, Gloria worked as a policy advisor on agricultural markets and trade at COCERAL, the EU association of grain traders where she also held the position of Deputy Secretary General.
Gloria has a Master in Agricultural Engineering from the University of Bologna and worked there as a research assistant on energy crops before moving to Brussels in 2009. She is since living in Brussels with her husband and two children
Kim Ragaert, Maastricht University
Kim Ragaert is full professor at Maastricht University, holding the key domain chair of Circular Plastics within the department Circular Chemical Engineering (CCE). She leads a research group on Brightlands Chemelot Campus with 2 associate professors, 2 senior researchers, 4 assistant professors and 12 PhDs. Research topics include concepts of quality for recycling, the macromolecular interactions in complex mixes, the effects of contaminations and degradation, design for & from recycling and the balance between different recycling pathways. Interdisciplinary topics include systems thinking for plastics, cost calculation in recycling and how to connect technical quality to LCA.
Kim 's 2017 review paper on plastics recycling has been cited over a 2000 times, she was the 2020 European Plastics Recycling Ambassador and co-chair of the steering committee on the well-known 2022 ReShaping Plastics report. She consults for organizations like Plastics Europe, Plastics Recyclers Europe, CEFLEX and ECOS, and works closely with several industrial partners.
