Thursday
15 May 2025

08:30 – 09:00

Registration

09:00 – 12:30

Meeting of the Board of Directors and of the ordinary General Assembly

09:00 – 10:45

Board of Directors meeting (interpretation: EN, FR, DE)

– for AECM members of the Board only – 

registration and documents via member area of AECM’s website

10:45 – 11:00

Networking Break

11:00 – 12:30

Meeting of the internal ordinary General Assembly (interpretation: EN, FR, DE)

– for AECM members only –

documents via member area of AECM’s website

12:30 – 14:00

Networking Lunch

15 May 2025

14:00 – 17:00

Public session of the General Assembly

“Building a more competitive and sustainable Europe”

Interpretation: EN, FR, DE

Presented by the Master of Ceremony Kama Kępczyńska

14:00 – 14:05

Welcome & Opening:

• Guy Selbherr, President of AECM

14:05 – 14:45

Keynote Speeches:

• Marta Postuła, First Vice President of the Management Board, Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (BGK), Poland
• Ismini Papakirillou, Chief Executive Officer, Hellenic Development Bank (HDB), Greece on the “Innovative financial instruments with social dimension”

14:45 – 15:45

Breakout Session: 2 to 3 introductory statements followed by a discussion (EN)

Topic 1: “EU funding opportunities: supporting the growth of SMEs”

• Astrid Bartels, Head of Unit, Access to Finance, Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW), European Commission
• Jonathan Denness, Head of Unit, Financial Instruments and International Financial Institutions Relations, Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO), European Commission
• Andrea Bomhoff, Head of Unit, State aid: case support and policy – Policy and Strategy (COMP.A.3), Directorate-General for Competition (DG COMP), European Commission

Topic 2: “How to enable affordable and sustainable housing”

• Philipp Krieg, Product Design and State Aid Law, NRW.BANK, Germany
• Dan Sellman, Senior Structurer, British Business Bank (BBB), UK

Topic 3: “Providing solutions to address natural disasters”

• Pietro Calice, Senior Financial Economist, The World Bank
• Zenón Vázquez Irizar, CESGAR / Sociedades de Garantía Recíproca, Spain

Topic 4: “Best ways to support agriculture and to foster rural development”

• Kerstin Rosenow, Head of Unit, Economic Sustainability, Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI), European Commission
• Kirsten Müller, Director of Programme Loans, Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank, Germany
• László Tóth, Chairman of the AECM working group agriculture and Deputy CEO, Rural Credit Guarantee Foundation (AVHGA), Hungary 

15:45 – 16:00

Networking Break

16:00 – 16:10

Highlights from the Breakout Session

16:10 – 16:30

Keynote Speeches:

• István Attila Szabó, CEO & Chairman of the Board of Directors, Garantiqa Hitelgarancia Zrt., Hungary on the “Latest developments at Garantiqa: implementation of the InvestEU product”
• Gonçalo Regalado, Executive Board Member, Banco Português de Fomento (BPF), Portugal

16:30 – 16:50

Fireside chat:

• Merete Clausen, Deputy Chief Executive, European Investment Fund (EIF)
• Giorgio Chiarion Casoni, Director, Investment, Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW), European Commission

16:50 – 17:00

Concluding remarks

Tomáš Nidetzký, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Národní rozvojové banky (NRB), Czechia, and Vice President of AECM

and end of the public session

18:30

19:00

Bus transfer from ESMT to Spindler & Klatt

Evening event "Roaring Twenties" at Spindler & Klatt

Dress code: 1920s style or smart casual

Friday
16 May 2025

08:30 – 09:30

Registration

09:30 – 16:30

Annual Seminar on “Future readiness of SMEs: what needs to be done”

Interpretation: EN, FR, DE

Presented by the Master of Ceremony Kama Kępczyńska

09:30 – 09:35

Welcome & Opening:

• Guy Selbherr, President of AECM

09:35 – 09:50

Keynote Speech:

• Hideaki Hashimoto, Deputy group chief of the Credit Insurance Research Group and the Credit Insurance Information Office, Japan Finance Corporation (JFC), Japan

09:50 – 10:00

Keynote Speech / Video Message:

NN (TBD)

10:00 – 10:30

Keynote Speeches:

• Claus Ruhe-Madsen, Minister for Economics, Transport, Labour, Technology and Tourism, State government, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
• Debora Revoltella, Director of the Economics Department and Chief Economist, European Investment Bank (EIB)

10:30 – 11:15

Topic: “How to unlock a more social economy”

Keynote Speech: Andriana Sukova, Deputy Director-General, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs, and Inclusion (DG EMPL), European Commission

Panel 1:

Moderator:  Christa Karis, Deputy Director, Corporate Relations, European Investment Fund (EIF)

• Milena Angelova, Member of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and SME Envoy of Bulgaria
• Harald Schmitz, CEO, SozialBank, Germany
• Yesil Rusconi, Head of International Relations, France Active, France
• Nancy Frehse, Managing Director and Founder of Oktopulli Ltd., Germany

11:15 – 11:30

Networking Break

11:30 – 11:45

Keynote Speech:

Holger Schwannecke, Secretary General of the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts (ZDH), Germany

11:45 – 13:00

Topic: “Addressing the challenges of demographic change”

Keynote Speech: Mauri Kotamäki, Chief Economist, Finnvera, Finland

Panel 2:

Moderator:  Lucia Cusmano, Acting Head SMEs and Entrepreneurship Division, Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities, OECD

• Corinna Pape, CEO / Owner ETTLI Kaffee GmbH, Germany
• Koen Dierckx, Head of Unit, Budgetary guarantees and risk analysis, Directorate-General for Budget (DG BUDG), European Commission
• Ralf Peter Kronberger, Head of the Department Fiscal Policies and Taxation, Wirtschaftskammer Österreich (WKÖ) – the Austrian Federal Chamber of Economy, and Member of the Supervisory Board of aws, Austria
• Gerhard Huemer, Director Economic and Fiscal Policy, SMEunited

13:00 – 14:30

Group Photo and Networking Lunch

14:30 – 14:45

Keynote Speech:

• Sabine Hepperle, Head of the SME Policy department at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action and SME Envoy, Germany

14:45 – 15:45

Breakout Session: 2 introductory statements followed by a discussion (EN)

Topic 1: “The importance of advisory services”

• Nagla Bahr, Executive Board Member of the Credit Guarantee Company of Egypt, Lead Representative of the EMGN, and African Continental Coordinator of the GNGI
• Nicolas Pirotte, Wallonie Entreprendre, Belgium

Topic 2: “Capabilities to strengthen the defence sector”

• Inga Beiliūnienė, Member of the Executive Board and Chief Business Development Officer at ILTE, a National Development Bank, Lithuania
• Virginie Poncet, Senior Advisor EUROPE, Bpifrance, France

Topic 4: “Facilitate SMEs’ use of intellectual property rights”

• Inge Buffolo, Director of the Business Development Department, The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO)
• Sungmin Bae, Korea Technology Finance Corporation (KOTEC / KIBO), Korea

15:45 – 16:00

Highlights from the Breakout Session

16:00 – 16:15

Keynote Speech:

• NN, Kafalah, Saudi Arabia (TBC)

16:15 – 16:25

Presentation of and invite to the annual event of AECM in 2026

16:25 – 16:30

Concluding remarks: Guy Selbherr, President of AECM

16:30

End of seminar

16:45 – 18:00

Annual Meeting of the Global Network of Guarantee Institutions (GNGI) (EN)

– for GNGI members only –