For over a decade, Christoph Magnussen has been speaking about the future of work, AI, and New Work.

With his company Blackboat, which he founded in 2010, he supports organizations in setting the right cultural and technological foundations. Christoph firmly believes that AI will fundamentally change the way we work. His vision is to prepare companies for this new era and make the possibilities of generative AI practically accessible. 

He is also the co-host of the podcasts "On the Way to New Work" and "AI to the DNA," formats offering deep insights into the future of work.

Prof. Aswath Damodaran is widely regarded as the world's foremost authority on valuation, earning him the nickname "Dean of Valuation" among academics and practitioners alike. He is a Professor of Finance at the Stern School of Business at New York University, where he teaches corporate finance and valuation in the MBA program, a valuation course for undergraduates, and occasional short-term classes on both topics. He received his MBA and Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles, and his research interests lie in valuation, portfolio management, and applied corporate finance.

His papers have been published in leading academic journals, including the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Review of Financial Studies. Beyond his research, Damodaran is celebrated as an exceptional teacher: he received the Earl Cheit Outstanding Teaching Award at UC Berkeley in 1985, the Stern School of Business Excellence in Teaching Award nine times, and was the youngest-ever recipient of NYU's University-wide Distinguished Teaching Award in 1990. Business Week named him one of the top twelve business school professors in the United States in 1994 and, in a 2011 poll of MBA students, the most popular business school professor in the country. He is a prolific author, having written four books on equity valuation ("Damodaran on Valuation," "Investment Valuation," "The Dark Side of Valuation," "The Little Book of Valuation"), two on corporate finance ("Corporate Finance: Theory and Practice," "Applied Corporate Finance: A User's Manual"), and several further books on portfolio management and risk. He shares his ideas and expertise with a global audience through his widely followed blog, "Musings on Markets".

Prof. Dr. Michael Hüther is one of Germany's most prominent economists and a widely respected voice in economic policy debate, known for his regular contributions to public discourse on macroeconomic policy, industrial competitiveness, and structural reform in Germany and Europe. Born in Düsseldorf in 1962, he studied Economics and History at the Justus Liebig University Giessen and the University of East Anglia, Norwich, before beginning his career as a research and teaching assistant at the Chair of Economics II (Public Finance) in Giessen. From 1991 to 1999, he served on the staff of the German Council of Economic Experts, becoming its Secretary General in 1995. He subsequently held the position of Chief Economist at DekaBank in Frankfurt am Main from 1999 to 2004.

Since 2004, Prof. Hüther has been Director and Member of the Presidium of the German Economic Institute (Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft, IW) in Cologne. He holds an honorary professorship in Economics at the European Business School in Oestrich-Winkel since 2001 and has served as Adjunct Professor at Stanford University since 2019, following an earlier appointment as Gerda Henkel Adjunct Professor there in 2016–2017. In recognition of his contributions, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by the Federal President. Prof. Hüther is Chairman of the Supervisory Board of TÜV Rheinland AG, Vice Chairman of the Board of Atlantik-Brücke, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, among numerous other advisory and trustee roles.

Managing Partner of BlueVal in New York.  Antonella specializes in the business valuation portfolio valuation and the valuation of digital assets for private equity and venture capital funds for financial and tax reporting, M&A transactions, buy-sell agreements, gift/estate planning, and litigation purposes. Prior to joining BlueVal, Antonella held positions at various valuation advisory firms, KPMG & EY in San Francisco and in New York. Antonella is the author of Early Stage Valuation (Wiley: 2020) and a frequent speaker on the valuation of VC- and PE-backed companies. She is qualified as an expert witness in the State of California.

Antonella is a member of the CFA Institute and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). She holds the CFA charter and is licensed as a CPA in California and in New York. She served as a member of Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA)’s research committee, a director and treasurer of the Board of the CFA Society of New York, as a judge on the CFA Institute Research challenge, and as a director and consultant on industry standards, practice analysis and curriculum review at CFA Institute.

Antonella is currently serving on the Forensics and Valuation Services Executive Committee of the AICPA and as a consultant on the CFA exam development team. She received the 2021 Business Valuation Volunteer of the Year Award of the AICPA and is listed in Forbes 2025 America’s Top CPAs for Valuation and Forbes 2026 America’s Best-in-State CPAs for New York State. She is a founding member of the Certified Digital Asset Valuation Credential Community of EACVA. Antonella earned a degree in Economics, with honors, from the University Federico II of Naples, Italy and a Master in Law Studies in Taxation from NYU School of Law. She served as a research fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 

Education: Rafaël Graduated from Universidad Adolfo Ibanez from Santiago, Chile. He is a CFA Charterholder, CAIA Charterholder, Chartered Financial Modeller, Certified Valuation Analyst, Certified Valuation Professional, certified Financial Modelling and Valuation Analyst and Accredited in Business Valuation by the AICPA.

Before pursuing his passion for teaching, Dennis spent 20 years in banking of which the last 12 years at UBS where he was European Head, UBS Valuation & Accounting Research.

He is also a co-author of www.footnotesanalyst.com, a blog that aims to inform and educate investors, analysts and other interested users of financial statements on topical accounting and valuation issues. The Footnotes Analyst is also involved in training for both graduates and experienced analysts at for example ABN AMRO, Berenberg, ING and Jefferies. 

The Footnotes Analyst | Analytical Insights for Investors

Trainer at Financial Edge, where she delivers finance training to investment banks and asset management firms.

Before joining Financial Edge in 2019, she was a director at Barclays Equity Research for 7 years where she specialized in accounting and valuation research as part of one of the top ranked teams in her sector.

Deborah also worked as co-head of Sustainable and Thematic investing, carrying out research on corporate governance issues. She has also co-authored two books: ‘Financial Statement Analysis under IFRS’ and ‘Company Valuation under IFRS’.

Kenneth is a Professor in the Accounting and Finance research group of Loughborough Business school and the Director of Postgraduate Taught programmes. Prior to that he was an Associate Professorial Lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He lectures on financial analysis and equity valuation and researches sell-side analysts’ interactions with other key actors in capital markets. He is also a member of the Capital Markets Advisory Committee (CMAC), a body supported by the IFRS Foundation, which interprets proposed accounting changes from the perspective of capital market participants.

Before academia Ken was a Managing Director & Head of European Equity Research at Barclays Capital, where he worked for 8 years before leaving in August 2017 to take up a number of academic positions. Prior to this he was also a Managing Director and a ranked accounting and valuation analyst at Citi Investment Research in London. During this time Ken published extensively on accounting and valuation topics for investors and was ranked in the top 3 in the Institutional Investor Survey over more than a continuous 10-year period.

Ken graduated from Trinity College Dublin/Dublin Institute of Technology with a degree in Management Science. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, a member of the Institute of Taxation, a CFA Charterholder and a member of the Securities Institute. He holds a doctorate from Aston Business School which focused on how analysts make stock recommendation decisions.

Ken has published in a number of leading academic journals including Contemporary Accounting Research, The British Accounting Review and European Management Review.

Ascanio Salvidio is a chartered accountant and auditor specializing in business and intangible asset valuation, with over 30 years of experience in Italy.

He is a former member of the OIV Italian Valuation Standard Setters (2011-2018).

His firm, Salvidio & Partners (www.salvidio.com), provides valuation services to clients in both the private and public sectors and serves as an expert witness in civil proceedings. Ascanio is a frequent speaker at courses and seminars on business valuations organized by accounting and audit associations and firms, as well as by universities, chambers of commerce and other entities.

Professor in the field of Management Control, Accounting and Finance. He gives classes at Webster University St. Louis/Vienna, Graz University of Technology and University of Applied Sciences Burgenland. He is guest/visiting professor at University of Twente, University of Maribor and Istanbul Medeniyet University.

He acts as a referee for academic journals and as a member of scientific committees at numerous international scientific conferences. He has published papers in major scientific journals, books and actively participated at scientific conferences around the world. Furthermore, he is Certified Tax Consultant (financial advisory), Expert Witness and Certified Valuation Analyst (EACVA/NACVA).

Received his first PhD from University of Maribor and his second PhD from University of Primorska. He is certified in quantitative risk management (CQRM), and is full professor of applied economics and econometrics and full professor of finance.

He works at University of Maribor. In the period between 2005 and 2006 he worked as vice-dean for Scientific Research and Postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Business and Economics. He is currently head of the Institute for Finance and Artificial Intelligence. He gives classes at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Faculty for natural sciences and mathematics and other universities in and outside Slovenia. He was visiting researcher at Humboldt University of Berlin in the Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 649 “Economic Risk” and is currently visiting professor at Technical University of Graz (Austria).

He has worked as chairmen of the supervisory board of the largest re-insurance company in Slovenia, as member of the Strategic council of the government of the Republic of Slovenia, and as advisor for many government and other public institutions in CEE region. He was elected for the vice governor of Slovenian central bank. He is actively working as consultant in the field of risk management and artificial intelligence, is member of the steering committee of the Slovenian risk association - SI.RISK, and acts as an expert for WHO. He was a member in the research Programme CORE@UM under the topic "Innovation for Healthy Living and Active Ageing" in its part RRP3 – Applied Studies of Complex Systems. This research program was co-founded by the EU (2013-2015).

He is currently active member of Digital Innovation Hub University of Maribor, where he acts as expert in the fields of artificial intelligence and finance. He worked on “Stress testing Scenario Modelling for Banks and Insurance companies operating in CEE Financial Markets”, founded by Slovenian Research Agency ARRS and Austrian Agency for International Cooperation in Education and Research between 2011 and 2012. He acts as a referee for research projects of Bank of Slovenia, Institute of Macroeconomic Analysis and Development of the Republic of Slovenia and Slovenian Research Agency.

He is also member of extended committee for financial stability for the area of fintech and cybersecurity. He has published papers in major scientific journal, books and actively participated at scientific conferences around the world.

Chairholder Chair of Financial Management and Banking at the HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management since 1995.

Doctorate and habilitation at the University of Regensburg. Visiting professorships at the University of Eichstätt/Ingolstadt (call, declined), EADA Barcelona, Waikato School of Management, Hamilton NZ and at John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, Montreal. Research stays at Purdue University, West Lafayette, In., USA and at INSEAD, Fontainebleau.

Prof. Schwetzler is Member Chairman of the expert groups "Fairness Opinion" and "Corporate Transaction and Valuation“ of the Society of Investment Professionals in Germany (DVFA); Co-Founder and member of the board of the European Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts (EACVA e.V.); Member of the editorial board of the magazine CORPORATE FINANCE, Member of the scientific advisory board of the German Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVK) He has written numerous publications about company valuation and also acts as an expert witness for courts.

He teaches courses and seminars in corporate finance, private equity and corporate valuation for international firms like ValueTrust Advisors, ProSiebenSat1 Media AG, Metzler Corporate Finance, Verbundnetz Gas AG, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, KPMG, Jenoptik, Association of German Asset Managers, German CFA Institute.

VALUESQUE advises investors and companies on complex valuation and financial analysis matters. Matthias' work focuses on non-standard, out-of-the-textbook cases, mainly litigation contexts or challenging investment situations.

He is CFA-Charterholder, holds a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg (Germany) and has over ten years of experience as an equity portfolio and investment manager at Allianz Global Investors, the investment arm of Allianz insurance.