SPEAKERS

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.