Save The Date
26th of September 2023
Port city – Antwerp / Belgium
BCO Conference 2023 to be hosted in Antwerp
Registration BCO Conference
BCO Conference Registration
Program BCO Conference
9:15 a.m.
Admission
10:00 a.m.
Start of the BCO Conference: organizational details
Christian Horn, Communications Officer XSTAFF GmbH
10:10 a.m.
Stephan Schiller & Antonios Rigalos,
Managing Partner XSTAFF GmbH
10:30 a.m.
Dr. Martin Schwemmer,
Managing Director Federal Logistics Association e.V.
11:00 a.m.
Future is now. Sustainability and the economy
Dr. Günther Bachmann,
former Secretary General to the German Council for Sustainability
11:30 a.m.
12:00 p.m.
Jan Cuyt
Business development advisor – Coordinator Maritime Business
Port of Antwerp/Bruges
12:30 p.m.
Sustainability in daily work
Pieter Leonard, Capability manager transport, Colruyt
1:00 – 2:30 p.m.
2:30 p.m.
China inside – Challenges and Opportunities
Felix Lee, Editor, Table Media
3:00 p.m.
Outlook for the shipping industry
Jan Tiedemann, Senior Analyst, Alphaliner
3.30 – 4:15 p.m.
Coffee Break and exhibition walk
4:15 p.m.
Analysis and forecasting of ship delays in Asia-Europe traffic
Christian Boekhoff, IT expert XSTAFF GmbH
4:45 p.m.
New technologies for the industry: ChatGPT
Dr. Max Pillong, Business Director Lufthansa Industry Solutions
5:15 p.m.
Closing Words
Stephan Schiller & Antonios Rigalos,
Managing Partner XSTAFF GmbH
5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Get together (Drinks, Fingerfood)
Speakers

Günther Bachmann
Günther Bachmann is a Fellow of Conservation International, an NGO that implements nature-based solutions to global warming. As co-chair of the German Sustainability Award Foundation, Günther nominates and networks the best-performing companies in the German market. He holds honorary positions and acts as a consultant for companies and institutions. From 2001 to 2020, he advised the German government as Secretary General of the Sustainability Council and built the case for sustainable development as a strategic politicy framework. Since 2020, he has written or edited various books on sustainability, most recently a fifteen-year review of the German Sustainability
Award.

Christian Boekhoff
Christian Boekhoff, Bachelor of Nautical Science (B.Sc.), has been working as IT project manager for XSTAFF GmbH since 2022. As part of his bachelor thesis, Christian developed a program that decodes AIS data sent by ships and reconstructs routes. By means of the reconstructed routes, possible savings potentials of ships by using Flettner rotors were determined and amortization calculations were carried out. Christian is currently completing his master’s degree in Maritime Management (M.Sc.). In his master’s thesis, he is working on the development of predictive models for ship delays in the Asia-Europe trade. In doing so, he uses his expertise in various AI models such as GBM, random forest and neural networks. His knowledge in this area has enabled XSTAFF to effectively use previously unused data to develop a powerful predictive model for the benefit of its network partners and shippers.

Felix Lee
Felix Lee, born 1975 in Wolfsburg and raised in Germany, studied sociology, economics, and politics, and graduated from the Berlin School of Journalism. He worked as an economics and politics editor at the daily newspaper “taz” in Berlin (2003-2022) and was China correspondent in Beijing between 2012 and 2019. In 2011 his book “The Winner of the Crisis – What the West Can Learn from China” was published and in 2014 the biography “Power and Modernity. China’s Great Reformer Deng Xiaoping”. In the meantime, Felix writes for China.Table Professional Briefing. He has been a guest on several German talk shows and news formats this year, including “Markus Lanz” and “Maischberger” as well as “ARD’s Morgenmagazin”. As a child, Felix experienced how his father Wenpo Lee helped build up the China business of the Volkswagen car company. In spring, he published a book about his family history: “China, my father and me. About the rise of a superpower and what the Lee family from Wolfsburg has to do with it.”

Pieter Leonard
Pieter Leonard started working for the Colruyt Group in 2009. Initially he worked as a process engineer, mainly focused on streamlining warehouse operations, before gradually transitioning into more strategic projects in supply chain. Currently Pieter is employed as Capability manager Transport, working towards the important goal to decarbonize transport by 2035.

Max Pillong
Max Pillong studied Bioinformatics at the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, graduating in 2011. In 2014 he obtained a PhD in Chemistry & Applied Biosciences (Dr. sc ETH) from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich), Switzerland, working in the field of computer-assisted drug design. Afterwards, he took on a research position in Basel, working for the Novartis Institute of Biomedical Research (NIBR) before joining Lufthansa Industry Solutions in 2018, where he has been working as a technology consultant in the field of air cargo and logistics. Since April 2021, he leads an interdisciplinary team of data scientists and data engineers responsible for developing and implementing AI and data analytics solutions for clients across various industries, including aviation, logistics, and manufacturing.

Antonios Rigalos
Antonios Rigalos joined the XSTAFF team on March 1, 2021, as Managing Director – responsible for growth. Antonios is today acting as Managing Partner. In his new role, the native of Hamburg with Greek roots is primarily responsible for XSTAFFs current core product Ocean and for the commercial activities. Antonios has gained his knowledge and experience in AP MOELLER Maersk, where he worked some 25 years in various commercial positions. Most recently as Global Key Client Director.

Stephan Schiller
Stephan Schiller is working in the logistics industry for more than 30 years and has become familiar with almost all dimensions of the industry and management in general. This includes general and specific management functions across all modes of transport, the establishment and expansion of companies and global partner networks and the development of crossborder e-commerce solutions. Before joining XSTAFF in January 2023, the Hamburg native worked for the Otto Group for more than ten years in executive positions, where he was responsible, among other things, for the development and positioning of Hermes as a supply chain logistics provider and the incorporation of the business model into the Otto Group’s supply chain management. As Managing Partner, his focus at XSTAFF is on the one hand the development of strategic and technological competencies and on the other hand driving growth in products and geography.

Martin Schwemmer
Martin Schwemmer is Managing Director of Bundesvereinigung Logistik e. V. and responsible for Innovation, Marketing and IT. Until the beginning of 2022, he was a senior consultant at the Fraunhofer Working Group for Supply Chain Services SCS. Since 2011 he was the author of the study series “The Top 100 in Logistics”, which has become the standard work for describing and analyzing the European logistics industry. He completed his PhD on the success of logistics start-ups in early 2021 and co-edited the book “Logistik-Start-ups” in late 2021. In addition, he conducted intensive research at Fraunhofer on trends and innovations in supply chain management. He is a member of the German logistics expert panel “Gipfel der Logistikweisen” and jury member of the ”Logistics hall of fame”.

Jan Tiedemann
After completing his master’s degree in economic geography at the University of Hamburg and studies in urban planning with a focus on infrastructure at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg (TUHH) Jan Tiedemann initially worked as a management consultant and analyst until he joined BRS Group and Alphaliner in Paris, France, in 2007. In 2014, he returned to Germany to open the joint BRS Group and Alphaliner office in Hamburg as Team Lead for the international analyst team. Since the merger of Alphaliner and AXSMarine in 2021, he has been Vice President of Liner Strategy at AXSMarine, a multinational service and data provider for the maritime industry. In this role, he continues to develop AXSMarine’s product portfolio and is primarily responsible for Alphaliner.com, the world’s leading provider of data and market intelligence for the liner industry.

Jan Cuyt
Jan Cuyt joined the Port of Antwerp-Bruges 3 years ago, as Business Development Advisor in the customer relations department, Maritime Business Team. Maritime Business takes care of the relations between the Port and the Shipping Lines, Ship owners and Ship Operators. He is further part of the team preparing the upcoming Energy transition in the Port: Preparing the Port and facilitating with the operators for the new alternative fuels, shore power and green corridors.
He is a former Captain and worked also for 30 years in the Maritime Service Industry (Ships Agency, Logistics, Technical Services). He headed entities in Benelux, Switzerland and France and also took on several global responsibilities within this Industry.
BCO Exhibiton Partner
Directions
By public transport
By train
- Antwerp Central Station
- 20 minutes on foot or by bike, bus or streetcar
By bus
- Bus 34 (Zuid – Berchem – Borgerhout – Zuid)
By streetcar
- Streetcar 7 (Mortsel – Eilandje)
By bike
If you don’t own a bike in Antwerp, you can rent one for €5 per day.
The nearest rental stations:
- Godefriduskaai station, 1 minute walk
- Station MAS (Godefriduskaai – Oostendekaai, 2000 Antwerp), 2 min. walk
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