Mr Thierry Carlier was appointed as Ambassador of France in Sweden on March 7th 2025. From 2014 to 2018, he worked at the General Secretariat for Defence and National Security (SGDSN) as Director for international, strategic and technological affairs, managing inter-agency coordination for counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation and export control. Promoted to Lieutenant General, he then went back to the DGA as Director for International Development (2018-2022). He was then promoted to General and assigned as Deputy General Director of DGA (2022-2025).

Married and father of two children, Mr Carlier was awarded the ranks of officier of the Légion ’honneur and commandeur of the ordre national du Mérite, and received the Aeronautics Medal. He was awarded the rank of Commander of the Legion of Merit (USA), Officer of the Order of Merit (Italy), and received the Tamandaré Medal of Merit (Brazil).

He speaks English and German.

Ambassador Caroline Vicini handed over her letters of accreditation to President Macron on September ^1st 2025. She came to France from Kenya where she led Sweden’s largest embassy in the world for 5 years. She was, in parallel, Sweden’s Permanent Representative to United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and UN Habitat, as well as accredited to the Seychelles and the Comoros. She has also been ambassador to Afghanistan.

Caroline has served two tours in Washington D.C. as Deputy Chief of Mission at both the Swedish Embassy and there after at the EU Delegation. Caroline has also been Chief of Protocol at the MFA in Stockholm and hasprepared and led numerous state visits, among them the state visit to France in 2014.

As young diplomat she was posted in Alger, Paris, Rome and Dublin as well as in Stockholm. She has also worked shorter periods for World Food Programme (WFP) and KREAB.

Caroline is passionate about security policy and military affairs, but also having a considerable experience in public diplomacy and trade promotion.

Gîta Paterson is the president of the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in France. She is also board member of the foundation Swedish Youth Abroad and former Chairperson of the Swedish-French Language Foundation. She is the legal advisor of SWEA International, Inc. Gîta Paterson graduated from the School of Law and Graduate School of Management of the UCLA (1975-1978) and Lund University in Sweden, LL.M. (1975). She is an international business lawyer at the law firm FTPA and has solid experiences within the French-Swedish business relations and companies. 2026, Gîta was promoted to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honour for her contribution to bilateral economic relations, but also her efforts to promote the French language in Sweden, academic exchanges with France, and the friendship between France and Sweden.

Christian Danielsson is State Secretary at the Prime Minister’s Office since 2022, responsible for EU and Nordic Affairs. A career diplomat, Danielsson has held various positions in the EU institutions since the accession of Sweden in 1995. After serving in two Commissioner Cabinets and as Ambassador of Sweden to the EU 2008-2010, Danielsson became Deputy Director General of the European Commission, Director General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations, eventually becoming Head of the European Commission Representation in Sweden in 2020. Danielsson holds a Degree of Master of Science in Business and Economics from Stockholm School of Economics.

Photo: Ninni Andersson/Regeringskansliet

Anna Stellinger is since 2019 Deputy Director-General at the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, Head of International and EU Affairs. She is responsible for the Confederation’s comprehensive international policy work and outreach, as well as EU policy including the office in Brussels. Swedish Enterprise is Sweden’s largest business federation representing 50 member organizations and 60 000 member companies.
Prior to joining Swedish Enterprise, Anna Stellinger was between 2014 and 2019 Director-General of the National Board of Trade (Kommerskollegium), appointed by the Swedish government. The National Board of Trade is the Swedish government agency responsible for the EU single market, international trade and trade policy. For 10 years Anna Stellinger was a researcher and a Director of research at several non-partisan think tanks and institutes in Paris, France. She holds master’s degrees both from Lund University and Sciences Po in Paris, and she is a board member of Business Sweden, Swedfund and Utrikespolitiska institutet.

Katarina Tracz is the founder and CEO of Solomós Communications, as well as an analyst and strategic communications adviser. She has extensive experience in analysis and communications, with particular expertise in Swedish defence, NATO cooperation, the Arctic, transatlantic security, and the impact of technological development on international relations.

Katarina previously served as Director of the think tank Frivärld (Stockholm Free World Forum). She has also been a Marshall Memorial Fellow at the German Marshall Fund and an International Research Fellow at the McCain Institute for International Leadership in Washington, D.C.

Tomas Alsmarker is associated with the SLU Bioeconomy Platform and is co-chair of the French-Swedish working group on forest product innovation. Tomas was one of the pioneers of modern timber construction in Sweden. At that time, he was also an adjunct professor in Wood Design and Technology at Linnaeus University in Växjö. With one foot in academia and the other in industry, he has served as the CEO of Nyréns Architects, Design Director at BoKlok, DeputyCEO at Tyréns, and Head of Innovation and Research at Swedish Wood. Tomas currently runs his own firm, T Alsmarker BioBuild AB.

After 10 years in marketing, sales and international business development positions in the import sector and the manufacturing industry, he joined Naval Group in 2006 where he played a key role in advancing several group’s innovation initiatives, focusing on next-generation naval defence technologies and capabilities through international partnerships.

Emmanuel spends half of his time advocating Innovation R&D policies in Europe for the naval domain. He is actively involved in Brussels’ European associations and Industry groups such as ASD (Aerospace Security and Defense association), SEA Europe, Waterborne, Euroyards and the Maritime CapTech of the European Defence Agency.

Emmanuel is also very active in supporting Naval Group’s export activities, as he is in charge of the R&D packages offered as part of the industrial cooperations for the group’s major export bids.

Emmanuel earned a master’s degree in management from Audencia Business School in France in 1996 and attended the College of Business at the University of Cincinnati in 1995.

He built most of his career in the IT industry, notably with major American manufacturers such as Intergraph, Silicon Graphics, and Cray Computers.

After holding several positions in California in the 2000s, he spent more than 10 years as founder and head of his own venture before joining Atos BDS in 2015, where he took charge of and built the Advanced Computing product management team and its portfolio.

In 2021, he was asked to start and head the Quantum Computing business unit. That same year, he also began actively sponsoring the creation of the Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC), which is defining the future networking standard for AI and HPC. Bull (ex Atos/Eviden) was the only non-American company among the UEC's nine founding members, alongside AMD, Arista, Broadcom, Cisco, HPE, Intel, Meta and Microsoft, and he represents the group on its board.

Appointed Vice President, Portfolio & Strategy – High Performance Computing, AI & Quantum in 2022, he has since led a team of twenty-five engineers, designing, industrializing, and bringing to market some of the world's highest-performing AI and HPC supercomputers — products that have helped establish Bull among the world's leading vendors in the sector. In March 2022, he was named “People to Watch 2022” by the leading American industry publication HPCwire.

In July 2025, Eric Eppe was appointed Chief Technology Officer of Bull at a pivotal moment in the company's history, recognizing nearly 40 years of experience and vision in this industry.

Göran Ericsson has a MSc from Uppsala University 1994 and a PhD from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) 1999. He was appointed a chaired professorship in Fish and Wildlife Tourism 2007 and since 2011 as a fully tenured Professor in Wildlife Ecology. He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Agricultural and Forestry. From January 2022 he serves as the dean for the Faculty of Forest Sciences at SLU. He has supervised some 50 graduate students, published some 120 peer-reviewed papers, and 170 reports. He serves on a number of boards of trusts and maintains an active hand in research.

Pierre-Etienne Franc is considered as one of the leading architects of the hydrogen economy. He served as Chair of Hydrogen Europe (2011- 2016) and then co-founded and coordinated the World Hydrogen Council as Secretary (2017-2020). Within Air Liquide - where he spent +25 years of his career – Pierre-Etienne occupied several global business, strategy, and operational management positions. He notably spent 10 years leading the advanced technology companies, venture capital and hydrogen energy activities for the Group. In 2021, he co-founded FiveT Hydrogen, a hydrogen investment pureplay, and then co-founded Hy24, a 50/50 regulated Asset Manager (a joint venture between Ardian and FiveT Hydrogen). Hy24 currently manages the world’s largest clean hydrogen infrastructure fund, which is today up and running with 2 billion euros of allocations and has already made 11 investments to support project developers and equipment providers. Hy24 has recently launched a second initiative focused on hydrogen equipment and technologies. Hy24 ambitions to scale up the whole low-carbon hydrogen value chain, deploying large scale projects in the most dynamic geographies in Europe, Asia, and America. Pierre Etienne is the CEO of Hy24.

Franc graduated in 1993 from France’s HEC business school, where he was awarded the HEC Foundation Prize and the second prize of the Ernst & Young Foundation for his final thesis on industrial joint ventures.

Robin Hughes is Strategic Innovation & Technology Director at Saab, working at the intersection of emerging technologies, defence capability development, and strategic ecosystem collaboration.

His work focuses on identifying critical technology and capability needs, connecting them with emerging solutions, and accelerating the path from innovation to operational impact. This includes shaping collaborations across industry, startups, academia and other technology actors, while helping bridge established defence structures with new and non-traditional sources of innovation.

Based in Linköping, Robin is particularly focused on strengthening European technological resilience and strategic autonomy through the responsible adoption of dual-use and frontier technologies. With a background in space physics and more than 15 years of leadership experience in engineering and research-driven organisations, he combines deep technical understanding with strategic foresight and a practical focus on execution. His work centres on building the structures, partnerships and pathways needed to translate emerging technology into relevant future defence capabilities.

Dr. Irle is a Senior Researcher at Ecole Supérieure du Bois in Nantes, France and Research Coordinator the FCBA, France.

His research interests cover all aspects of wood-based composites: their manufacture, their properties, their uses and their recycling. He has published 80 papers in refereed journals and over 300 articles in magazines, conferences and books. He has successfully supervised the research of 24 PhD, 3 MPhil, 20 MSc and numerous undergraduate students.

A summary of his current activities include: Honorary member of the Executive Board of InnovaWood; participant in several national and international research projects (mainly on different aspects of recycling wood), and he is a Fellow of the International Association of Wood Science, a member of the French Agricultural Academy and former Fellow of The Wood Technology Society of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (UK).

Peter Ling-Vannerus is Senior Advisor at SEB with a focus on Asia and recently returned from Beijing where he spent 10 years as SEB’s Chief Representative working with the bank’s business in China both with corporate clients as well as with financial institutions. He was also during this period chair of the grouping of European Banks and Security Firms representing 44 EU subsidiaries and branches in China. He was also a member of the Executive Committee of the European Chamber of Commerce in China with 2000 member companies as well as Chairman of the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in China. He was particularly pleased to work with development of Green Finance in China and China is now the largest Green Bond market in the world. He has previously worked as General Manager of the SEB Branch in Paris as well as Chief Representative in Brazil.

Eva Malmström is Professor in Coating Technology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Director of the Wallenberg Wood Science Center. She is also Vice Director of the Vinnova-funded competence centers FibRe and BioGlue. Her research advances sustainable polymeric and wood-based materials, bridging fundamental science, innovation and industry. She is co-founder of Polymer Factory Sweden AB and Ecohesives AB.

Loïc Mougeolle is a French entrepreneur and defense expert, founder and CEO of Comand AI. He launched the company in 2023 in the wake of the war in Ukraine, driven by the ambition to build a global leader in defense software. Comand AI develops AI-first solutions designed to augment the full end-to-end cycle of multi-domain combat operations, contributing to the next generation of command.

With a dual background in engineering and business, Loïc graduated from Chimie Paris Tech (PSL) and HEC Paris. He spent nine years at Naval Group, where he held key roles.

Within thestrategy department, he helped initiate the largest international defense contract in the world, a AUD 50 billion barracuda submarine program for Australia. He also co-launched the drone and cybersecurity activities. In parallel, he led the development of Naval Group’s strategic plan and worked on multiple partnerships with major European defense industrial leaders.

In theinnovation division, he led Naval Group’s investments in deep tech funds, defined the group’s first AI strategy, and built the team responsible for its execution. He cofounded and led Naval Group’s incubator, and his team was among the first in the world to conduct large-scale swarm of drones experiments against top-tier defense systems. Before leaving, he served as Deputy CTO in charge of strategy and Director of the Naval Group incubator.

Helene Niklasson has 30 years of experience in the automotive and transport industry, with several positions leading global teams in primarily technology research and development. She joined the Volvo Group in 2008.

Helene is an engineer at heart with a big interest in the power of group dynamics and the drive to collaborate to achieve common goals and deliveries. Throughout her career, Helene has lived and worked mainly in Gothenburg Sweden and in Singapore.

In her role as Head of CampX by Volvo Group, Helene has successfully secured implementation of a global innovation concept which acts as catalyst for accelerating business and technology innovation within the Volvo Group.

Helene holds a Master of Science in Engineering Physics from the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.

Helene is member of the board of FFI, the Swedish national Strategic Vehicle Research and Innovation program, joining forces between the state and the automotive industry. She is also the 2026 chair of EUCAR.

Laetitia began her career at Alstom working in the wind energy and high-voltage grid sectors. She later joined Neoen, a global French renewable power producer with 10 GW of capacity, where she has led the development and expansion into several new markets, including Ireland, Finland and Sweden.

Based in Stockholm, she is now leading Neoen’s data center development initiative across Europe, including a major data center project in Sweden.

Jakob Rutqvist is Group Vice President of Strategy and M&A at Epiroc, a global technology company serving the mining and infrastructure industries. He works at the intersection of strategy, technology, and industrial transformation, with a particular interest in how new technologies can reshape some of the world’s most established and asset-intensive industries.

Over the course of his career, Jakob has held senior leadership roles across mining and infrastructure, spanning corporate strategy, M&A, commercial operations, and the scaling of new technology businesses. His experience includes leading major acquisitions and transformations, building global businesses across multiple continents, and working with technologies ranging from automation and electrification to digital solutions and AI. Earlier in his career, he advised global companies on strategy and transformation and worked on issues related to natural resources, sustainability, and economic policy.

Jakob is co-author of Waste to Wealth: The Circular Economy Advantage, published by Palgrave Macmillan, and has studied business and economics at Harvard University and MIT. He has worked and travelled extensively around the world, with experience spanning more than 90 countries.