Meeting of the internal ordinary General Assembly
registration and documents via member area of AECM’s website

Public session of the General Assembly

Welcome & Opening

• Guy Selbherr, President of AECM
• Athina Chatzipetrou, CEO of the Hellenic Development Bank (HDB), Greece
• Konstantinos Makedos, President of TMEDE – the Engineers and Public Works Contractors Fund, Greece

Keynote speech on the EIF’s support for SMEs: state of play and challenges

• Marjut Falkstedt, Chief Executive, European Investment Fund (EIF)

Panel 1: State aid, recovery plans, and ESI Funds: how to strengthen the link and improve the absorption capacity?

• Moderator and introductory speaker: Mateusz Olszak, Director Guarantees and Sureties Department, Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (BGK)
• Jonathan Denness, Head of Unit, Financial Instruments and International Financial Institutions Relations, Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO), European Commission
• Chris Allen, Senior Expert, Resident Representative in Athens, Unit Greece, Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission
• Andreas Bergmann, Policy Officer – State Aid, Unit State aid: case support and policy, Directorate-General for Competition (DG COMP), European Commission

Panel 2: Is the implementation of the InvestEU Programme on track?

Introductory speaker: Giorgio Chiarion Casoni Director, InvestEU and financial institutions, Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission

Moderated by Kurt Leutgeb, Head of Guarantees and Equity, Austria Wirtschaftsservice Gesellschaft mbH (aws), Austria

• Astrid Bartels, Head of Unit, Access to Finance, Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW), European Commission
• Agata Mazurkiewicz, Head of Unit, State aid — Financial institutions II, Directorate-General for Competition (DG COMP), European Commission
• Ana Vizcaino Ochoa, Managing Director, Compañía Española de Reafianzamiento (CERSA), Spain
• Kiril Velitchkov, Director European Projects and Financial Institutions, UBB, Bulgaria, Manager of KBC Group European Financial Instruments Competence Centre

Concluding remarks & end of the public session

• Guy Selbherr, President of AECM

Annual seminar on “The regulatory framework of SMEs: how close are we to the red line of red tape?”

Welcome & Opening

• Guy Selbherr, President of AECM
• Athina Chatzipetrou, CEO of the Hellenic Development Bank (HDB), Greece
• Konstantinos Makedos, President of TMEDE – the Engineers and Public Works Contractors Fund, Greece

Keynote addresses: financing of SMEs

• Andreas Athanasopoulos, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Group Chief Transformation Officer, Digital & Retail, Eurobank Holdings

• Haroula Apalagaki, Secretary General, Hellenic Bank Association, Greece

Keynote addresses: how to improve the regulatory and policy environment for SMEs

• Lucia Cusmano, Deputy Head of the Division on Entrepreneurship, SMEs and Tourism at the Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE), OECD
• Choi Won-mok, Chairperson & CEO, Korea Credit Guarantee Fund (KODIT)

Panel 1: The regulatory environment to finance sustainability for SMEs

• Moderator and introductory speaker: Gerhard Huemer, Director Economic Policy, SMEunited
• Tony Greenham, Director ESG, British Business Bank (BBB), UK

• Burçak İnel, Director of Financing Sustainable Growth, European Banking Federation (EBF)

• Giovanni Zazzerini, Secretary General, INSME – The International Network for SMEs
• Lina Konstantinopoulou, Policy Director, Eurochambres – the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry

Panel 2: Regulatory framework: striking the right balance

Moderated by Giuseppe Gramigna, Senior Advisor i.a. of the World Bank Group and of AECM

• Konstantinos Adamantopoulos, Legal Advisor, TMEDE – the Engineers and Public Works Contractors Fund, Greece
• László Tóth, Deputy CEO, Rural Credit Guarantee Foundation (AVHGA), Hungary
• Gernot Rößler, Deputy Managing Director, Verband Deutscher Bürgschaftsbanken (VDB), Germany
• Presentation of the ESG Tracker and of the Innovation Scorecard by Athina Chatzipetrou, CEO, Hellenic Development Bank (HDB), Greece and by Evangelos Karayannakos, Strategy Director, Hellenic Development Bank (HDB), Greece

Panel 3: The regulatory framework of SMEs from an international perspective

Introductory speaker: Luz Stella Lozano, Secretary General of the Association of the Ibero-American network of guarantees, REGAR 

Moderator: José Fernando Figueiredo, Special Honorary President of AECM with the special mandate for international relations and Founding President of the Global Network of Guarantee Institutions (GNGI)

• Nagla Bahr, President of the Euro-Mediterranean Guarantee Network (EMGN) and Managing Director, Credit Guarantee Company, Egypt
• Cha Ji Yeong, Deputy General Manager, Korea Federation of Credit Guarantee Foundations (KOREG), Korea
• Mohammed Al-Jafari, Chairman of the Jordan Innovative Start-ups and SMEs Fund (ISSF) and Director General of the Jordan Loan Guarantee Corp. (JLGC)

Concluding remarks & presentation of the AECM annual event 2024

• Guy Selbherr, President of AECM
• Athina Chatzipetrou, CEO of the Hellenic Development Bank (HDB), Greece
• Mateusz Olszak, Director Guarantees and Sureties Department, Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (BGK), Poland, host of the AECM annual event in 2024

15h30 – 17h30

• 15h30 – 16h30 virtually
• 16h35 – 17h30 face-to-face

Annual meeting of the GNGI

– For members only –