Born in the Austrian city of Freistadt in 1965, Karl started his professional career as an apprentice at voestalpine in 1981, quickly moving on to shift work at the heavy end and steel production. He paused his career in 1989 to study Technical Chemistry and Business Economics at the Johannes Kepler University in Austria. Karl has a PhD in Natural Science. 

From 1997, Karl filled a number of sales related roles, including Product Manager and Sales Director  at the Dutch chemical company DSM from 2001 until 2006. He then returned to voestalpine, first as a project manager and then, from 2009 until 2011 as a Member of the Executive Board of the high performance metals division of voestalpine AG. Karl has been Chairman of several Supervisory Boards globally during these roles.

Karl joined Tata Steel in Europe in 2011 as Director Downstream Operations. In September 2017, Karl was engaged in preparation for the intended joint venture with thyssenkrupp Steel Europe, but this process ended in May 2019. Karl is leading Sales, Marketing and Supply Chain as Chief Commercial Officer of Tata Steel Europe since November 2019.

Karl is married and has a son who is doing a PhD in Physics and a daughter who is studying Economics. He enjoys sports and technology driven approaches.

Markus A. Moll is the Managing Director of Steel & Metals Market Research (SMR).  Originally from Tyrol, Austria, Markus studied as a Mechanical Engineer and gained a Masters Degree in Business Economics, from the University of Innsbruck.

Markus worked for four years in sales and marketing roles with PLANSEE, a world market leader in refractory metals (Molybdenum, Tungsten, Tantalum). He worked for five years as a market analyst with a German market research firm, focusing on stainless steel long products and nickel alloys.

Since 1994 he is Managing Director and Senior Market Analyst with SMR, providing market intelligence in the form of single- and multi-client studies to the speciality steel industry in Europe, the USA and Asia. He is also a regular conference speaker in the steel industry. SMR currently employs thirteen people and is located in Reutte county of Tyrol – in the “Heart of the Austrian Alps” which Markus describes as the perfect location to monitor the Global Specialty Steel Market!

Michel is a Senior Partner in McKinsey’s Luxembourg office, and serves companies in the metals industry. He has worked with metals producers in more than 30 countries across all continents, and most of his work has been on advising steel companies on large scale performance transformation programmes, and more recently on digital transformations. Michel is also leading the Basic Materials Insights group, which is McKinsey’s global research and expert consultant organization for the Basic Materials sectors.

Michel Van Hoey holds a degree in Civil Mechanical Engineering with "Magna Cum Laude" from the University of Gent in Belgium and an MBA from INSEAD.

After a few years in the banking industry, Edwin Basson joined the steel industry in 1994 as Chief Economist at Iscor Ltd. in South Africa. In 1996, he became Business Unit Manager for coated steel products and flat steel products. He later headed Strategic Initiatives at the company.

Edwin was transferred to Europe when Iscor became a part of Mittal Steel (now ArcelorMittal) in 2004 as a General Manager responsible for Marketing Strategy and was part of the Merger & Acquisition team in Mittal Steel. From 2006 until he joined worldsteel, he was Vice President, Commercial Co-ordination, Marketing and Trade Policy at ArcelorMittal.

Edwin joined worldsteel in August 2011 as Director General.

Edwin received his PhD in Economics from Pretoria University. He taught Economics at the same university from 1984 to 1990.

Ali has 30+ years of international conservation, campaigning, fundraising and communications experience in both the commercial and charitable sectors. Early projects included working on the launch of the Forest Stewardship Council and leading campaigns against the illegal trade in wildlife.

Her key achievements include co-founding The Climate Group and growing it from an initial team of 3 to an international organisation with over 100+ staff in offices in US, Europe, India and China, founding and running a corporate and NGO communications consultancy with clients ranging from the European Climate Foundation to Sainsburys, and rising within the WWF network to lead the Fundraising and Marketing Dept for WWF UK responsible for delivering annual income of c£70million. Recently launched the Clean Air Fund, a new initiative pooling philanthropic funds to tackle air pollution globally with initial funds raised of $50m.

Ali joined ResponsibleSteel in 2019 and as of May 2020 has stepped into the Executive Director role on a temporary basis to steer the organisation through the start of its next phase.

Bill Russo is the world’s leading global expert on the development of the automotive industry and the future of mobility.

He has nearly four decades of experience in the automotive, electronics and information technology industries. He is currently serving as the Chair of the Automotive Committee at the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.

Bill is Founder and CEO of Automobility which engages with clients to build and profit from the future of mobility through a portfolio of consulting, scouting, investment and business development services.

Alex Woodrow joined Knibb, Gormezano and Partners (KGP) immediately after graduating in Manufacturing Engineering and Economics from the University of Birmingham in 1994.  He gained an MSc from Loughborough University in Automotive Systems Engineering in 2008. He took over as Managing Director in 2010.

During his 26 years at KGP he has worked on 100s of projects related to materials and powertrain trends in the global automotive industry.  He currently focuses on the Commercial Vehicle, Non-Road Mobile Machinery segment and the evolution of GHG, emissions, electrification and aftertreatment.