EU Funds Management - Fostering Cohesion for Impactful EU Investments

Siegfried Muresan is a Member of the European Parliament, Vice President of the European People's Party and Vice Chair of the EPP Group in the European Parliament, coordinating the Group's activity in the areas relating to the EU budget, regional development, agriculture and budgetary control. Siegfried Muresan is also the chair of the European Parliament's Delegation for relations with Moldova and member in the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. He is the European Parliament's co-rapporteur for the upcoming Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2028 to 2034. He was the European Parliament's Rapporteur for the 2018 and 2024 EU budgets, thus being the only Romanian MEP to hold this position twice. He was also co-rapporteur for key EU legislation like the establishment of the Recovery and Resilience Facility and for RePowerEU. Moreover, he was responsible in the European Parliament of the report for the adoption by Croatia of the euro and of the report on the financing of the European Green Deal.

Myles has extensive experience of the audit, control and management of the cohesion funds, having worked for 6 years in DG EMPL's audit directorate, and for 2 years in the joint audit directorate for DGs EMPL and REGIO, as team leader for the budget discharge process. Prior to this, he worked as an administrator in the Commission's Secretariat General, in charge of interinstitutional relations with COREPER II (EU Council). Myles holds a Msc degree in European Politics from the LSE.

Dr Jorge Núñez Ferrer is the Director for Cohesion and EU Budget at the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR). With a PhD from Imperial College London, he has over 20 years of experience as an academic, European Commission official, and consultant for governments, European Institutions, UN agencies, think tanks and he is a visiting lecturer at Central European University. His expertise spans EU budgetary and financial instruments, regional development, strategic planning, and public financial management.

As the Head of the Interact Managing Authority and Secretariat, Petra ensures the seamless implementation of the programme. She represents Interact in interactions with Member States, the European Commission, and various external stakeholders, fostering collaboration and driving programme success. With a rich background in governance, Petra previously worked at the Office of the Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic and served as a Member of the Slovak Parliament, bringing extensive experience in public administration and policy-making to her current role. She graduated at Comenius University in Bratislava, gaining her degree in translation and interpretation and later on in management

Chiara Frencia is the Director of the Policy Support department at Inova+, a Portuguese consultancy in Innovation Management and EU funding support. She has over 15 years of experience in European and international cooperation projects in the field of innovation. Chiara is a recognized expert in the field of European policies in research & development, societal challenges, SME development, entrepreneurship, regional innovation ecosystems and financial instruments.

Jo Kremers is a chartered accountant and a certified IT auditor with extensive experience in auditing, fraud investigation, and internal control. He holds the position of Senior Audit Manager at the Audit Authority for ESI Funds in the Netherlands since 2007 and has had a distinguished career spanning more than three decades. Jo is recognised for his expertise in anti-fraud and corruption, and in particular, for his Anti-Fraud and Corruption games which have received awards from the European Commission. He is also a sought-after lecturer, trainer, and speaker for national and international institutions, including the International Anti-Corruption Academy (endorsed by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, OLAF, INTERPOL, and the Republic of Austria). Jo has also worked as an expert in various international, EU, and World Bank funded projects, contributing to the internal control and audit functions in the public sector in several (candidate) EU Member States.

Austin Kilroy is Founder of the product Whispers.tech, a copilot for better meetings. Previously for 12 years he was a private sector development specialist at the World Bank Group, focusing on competitive cities and regional economic development. His degree in Economics and Politics is from the University of Cambridge, his Ph.D. in urban and regional economics is from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a Fulbright Scholar.

Benedict Wauters is currently the director responsible for European Programmes in the Ministry of Labour in Flanders (Belgium). He has worked for more than twenty years as a civil servant, consultant (Deloitte Consulting in Belgium, Policy Research Corporation in the Netherlands) and independent expert, in/for multilateral public institutions (e.g. United Nations, OECD, European Commission), regional and national government departments, local government as well as NGOs and public corporations. In addition, he has been a core lecturer at the Rotterdam Business School, teaching strategy, risk management, consulting skills and research methodology in the Master and MBA programmes, while also chairing the school’s curriculum board. At the Haagse Hogeschool in The Hague he has lectured in ‘external risk management’ in the Master in risk management. He has also been responsible for the skills lab in evaluation for the Master in public management at Antwerp Management School. He has conducted many seminars on policy evaluation, performance management, public sector innovation,.. for a variety of training institutions and clients (incl. the EC, EP, ECA...).

Cristina Costa has extensive experience on the application of the DNSH principle with more than 2 years in the RECOVER Task Force working on DNSH and green policies, as well as monitoring the application of the principle in the Spanish Recovery and Resilience Plan. Prior to this, she worked as an environmental policy researcher in an environmental NGO, in particular with projects related to Just Transition and conservation of protected areas. Cristina holds a degree in International Business and Economics from UPF (Barcelona) and a Masters in Environmental Policy from SciencesPo Paris.

Amira Szöny is currently the Head of Unit at the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) in Unit A3, in charge of administrative investigations related to the European Structural and Investment Funds, Agricultural Funds and Recovery and Resilience Facility Fund in seven Member States. Comparative lawyer by training, she is a former investigator in charge of high profile fraud, corruption and irregularity cases concerning EU funds spent in EU Member States or third countries.