Rokas Masiulis was appointed as Minister of Transport and Communications of Lithuania in 2016. Previously, Rokas Masiulis served as Minister of Energy. 

Before joining the Government he served as CEO and later also as a member of the Board of Directors at the state-controlled oil terminal operator, SE Klaipėdos Nafta. During his term as CEO of Klaipėdos Nafta, Rokas Masiulis was in charge of the implementation of LNG terminal project. LNG terminal has started its operation in December 2014. He was also CEO of Lithuania‘s natural gas trading company LITGAS and Director of Business Development as well as Finance of LEO LT, an electricity holding company. For 14 years Rokas Masiulis held a number of senior positions at Energy practices of “Arthur Andersen” and “Ernst & Young“. His regional focus covered Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan. Minister Masiulis holds a degree in International Relations and Political Science as well as Master’s degree in Economics from Vilnius University.

Andrzej Bittel is responsible for railways in the Ministry of Infrastructure of Poland.

He graduated from Faculty of Law and Administration at Warsaw University (MA). He also completed postgraduate studies in management in public administration at Kozminski University and Postgraduate Study of European Self-Government Law in Polish Academy of Sciences

Career history: In 2006, Andrzej Bittel served as mayor of Wawer district of Capital City of Warsaw. In 2007-2010 he was an officer of the Central Anticorruption Bureau. He was deputy mayor of two Warsaw districts: Ursynów (2010-2013) and Targówek district (2013-2014). In 2015 he became head of the Department of Infrastructure and Environmental Protection at the County Office in Pruszków.

Mattias Landgren is State Secretary to the Minister for Infrastructure Tomas Eneroth. His areas of responsibility include transport and infrastructure issues

Prior to assuming the role of State Secretary in 2016, he was a political adviser in the Swedish Prime Minister’s coordination secretariat. His previous career includes the position of chief legal officer for the Building Workers' Union and several other duties within the Swedish trade unions. Mattias Landgren has a Masters of Law (LL.M.) from Uppsala University.

Catherine Trautmann has been acting as the European Coordinator for the North Sea-Baltic TEN-T Corridor since 29 October 2014. Born in Strasbourg, France, she became active in local and national politics in the early 1980s. She was elected Mayor of Strasbourg in 1989-1997 and subsequently became Minister for Culture and Communications in 1997-2000. She served as Member of the European Parliament in the years 1989-1997 and again in 2004-2014 as President of the French Socialist Delegation in the European Parliament.

Baiba A. Rubesa is an experienced international manager in a range of business areas: oil and gas, retail, automotive and telecommunications. She has lived and worked in Canada, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan and Norway.
Since October 2015 Rubesa is Chairperson of the Management Board and CEO of RB Rail AS. In January 2017 she was appointed a Supervisory Board member to Latvia’s largest company, Latvenergo. Prior to that she worked as a consultant and new business developer in her own company, RFactor Sia, and served as a Supervisory Board member for Citadeles banka. She has also driven a business agenda as the global Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility for Statoil ASA, Government and Public Affairs & HSE director for Statoil in the Caspian region, Managing Director for Latvija Statoil SIA and Marketing Director, Statoil Baltic States.
Rubesa has served as a Supervisory Board member, DNB NORD banka, Chaired the Foreign Investors Council in Latvia, been a Vice President of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce in Latvia. Currently she serves on the Supervisory Board of the think tank “Providus” and in the foundation Kokneses Fonds to support the development of the Memorial Site “Likteņdārzs”.
Rubesa was educated in Toronto, Canada at York University and Shaw colleges.

Since 1 February 2017, Herald Ruijters is the Director responsible for Directorate B - Investment, Innovative & Sustainable Transport in DG Mobility and Transport, while at the same time continuing as Head of Unit responsible for the Trans European Network (TEN-T). He assumed the role of Head of Unit in 2009 and has been directly involved in developing the TEN-T Guidelines.

He was previously working in the same DG from 2005 to 2009, in order to promote the implementation of TEN-T projects in cooperation with the European Coordinators, and for the development of road safety policy, from 1997 to 2005. Before coming to the Commission he held various positions in The Netherlands related to transport.

Herald Ruijters holds degrees from Nijmegen and Amsterdam Universities in both French literature and European Studies, and was post-graduated at the Centre Européen Universitaire in Nancy, in European Law, and in Business Studies at the University in Leuven.

Mrs Sabina Lindström works as a Director at the Networks Department in the Ministry of Transport and Communications in Finland. The Networks Department is responsible for all questions related to transport and communications networks in Finland and also for issues related to energy and the environment. Transport networks covers all transport modes and everything from maintenance to building new infrastructure. 

Mrs Lindström was born in Helsinki, in Southern Finland. She has worked in the Ministry of Transport and Communications in Finland from 1996. In the Ministry she has worked mainly with transport issues, covering both national and international projects. She has had a managerial position at the Ministry since 2011.  

Mrs Lindström has had several positions of trust, such as membership in the board of directors of the Finnish Meteorological Institution, The Finnish Customs and the National Emergency Supply Agency.

Meelis Niinepuu, partner of Civitta International and Civitta Estonia, has 14 years of experience in advising major infrastructure projects, including projects belonging to the core network corridor. One of his most recent assignments was leading a cost-benefit analysis for the Muuga Multimodal Terminal, the northernmost cargo terminal of the Rail Baltica. Mr Niinepuu has also extensive experience in EU project financing and project management. He was part of the team of consultants responsible of securing financing for the Rail Baltica project from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).

DI Kari Ruohonen has been the Project Director of FinEst Link project and he is working in that project to Helsinki Uusimaa Regional Council. He is Board Member of Tampere Tram Company and Senate Properties (Managing Real estate assets owned by Finnish State). Earlier he was the Director General for all large Finnish States transport projects in Finland working in Finnisih Transport Agency until 2015. Starting first from 2001 of large Investment Director of all large rail way projects in Finland. Before that Kari Ruohonen worked as consultant 27 years.

Dr. Cheng Baozhi is Senior Fellow with Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS), one of the leading official think-tanks in China. His major study fields cover Arctic governance and international & European law. Dr. Cheng obtained his Doctor (2009) and Master (2005) Degrees of Public International Law consecutively from Wuhan University, one of the top Universities in China.

As a prominent Chinese scholar on polar policy and law, Dr. Cheng has published extensively on Arctic governance and China’s involvement in some Chinese leading academic journals and newspapers, and has also been invited to present his views on Arctic governance and cooperation on some relevant high-level forums such as International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences (ICASS), Arctic Circle Assembly, Arctic Frontiers, Arctic Shipping Forum, SIPRI Symposium on China-Nordic Arctic Cooperation and China-Nordic Think-tank Roundtable, etc.

 Dr. Cheng was visiting scholar on EU Arctic policy with SWP Berlin (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik) in 2012, visiting fellow on U.S. Arctic Strategy with CSIS (Center for Strategy and International Studies, Washington D.C.) in 2014, and senior visiting fellow with the Arctic Center of University Lapland sponsored by the CNARC (China Nordic Arctic Research Center) Project in 2016.

Tristano Sainati is a Research Fellow at the School of Civil Engineering, University of Leeds. Tristano is expert in governance, procurement and contracting, and complex decision-making in large infrastructure projects. Tristano research interest lies in three main sectors: Water and Sanitation, nuclear and Oil & Gas.  Actually, Tristano is involved in a project entitled: ClimAte, CosTs and Urban Sanitation (CACTUS), which is funded by the Bill and Melinda and Gates Foundations. The CACTUS project focuses on complex decision-making and advocacy for urban sanitation in developing countries. Tristano’s PhD focused on the negotiation and Design of Special Purpose Vehicles for infrastructure megaprojects and was supported by the Major project Association in the UK. Previously, Tristano participated in two research fellowship at the Politecnico di Milano. The first project concerned the development of the national BIM server for the Italian construction industry; the project was founded by the ministry of economic development. The second project focused on the modular construction of onshore petrochemical facilities.  Tristano collaborates (in some cases is a member) with different associations including Major Project Association, Association for Project Management, Project Management Institute, International Project Management Association, World Nuclear Association, International Atomic Energy Agency, and Associazione Nazionale Impiantistica Nazionale (Italian association of industrial-process contractors). Tristano has a mixed background encompassing industrial engineering and law.

Dr. Gerhard TROCHE is ‘Senior Advisor International Projects’ at Győr-Sopron-Ebenfurt Railway, a Hungarian-Austrian cross-border railway company involved in three international EU Rail Freight Corridors. Between 2010 and 2015 he was working as expert at the European Commission with the development of European rail freight policy and supervising the implementation of the EU Rail Freight Corridors. As a scientific researcher he is also involved in several EU Shift2Rail R&D-projects and participates in training and education of railway professionals and academics in Europe and Asia. Dr. Troche obtained a PhD-degree in 2009 at the Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm (KTH) with a dissertation on the economics of rail freight production systems.

Andres Trink has 15 years of top management as well as transaction experience in banking, real estate and construction in the Baltic-Nordic region.

Specialties: strategic & operational management, turnarounds, corporate governance, people development.

Has held various executive positions in the private and public sector. Before being hired at Merko Ehitus, worked for 15 years in the financial sector, including as a Member of the Management Board of Baltic banking at Hansapank (now Swedbank).

Baiba Fromane has graduated from the University of Latvia, Faculty of Law, with a Master’s degree in law. Her background includes management of the Latvian Association of Non-bank Lenders, and serving as the Chairperson of the Board of SIA Biroju centrs Ezerparks. In addition, Baiba Fromane has gained experience in public administration by working as the Head of the Office of the Minister for Justice, Adviser to a Member of the European Parliament, Head of the Office of the Chairman of Riga City Council, and Adviser to the Minister for Finance.

The responsibilities of the partnership head include organising the daily work of the Partnership of Latvian Construction Entrepreneurs to ensure the achievement of its goals.

Toomas Tamsar has Graduated from the Tallinn University of Technology as an engineer in economic sciences. On 1990-1991 he studied in Germany at Eichstätt Catholic University, faculty of economics.

Starting from May 2013 he has been working as the Managing Director of The Estonian Employers' Confederation, which represents the interests of Estonian business and works with Estonian Government and with Unions. He advises managers of Estonian companies on how to become better employers.

He is also the President of International Coach Federation, Estonian Chapter.

He is member of The International Coach Federation.

His background also includes management of the Pärnu Management Conferences at 1995 – 2014 as The Chairman of the Board and serving as CEO of the holding of AS NG Investeeringud on 1998 – 2002. From 1992 to 1998 he was General Director of Estonian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and councillor of the Estonian President (1992-1994).

Riia Sillave is holding the position of CEO for Rail Baltic Estonia, one of the three implementing companies for the Rail Baltica project. Her extensive knowledge of project management she has gained from the launch of the greenfield BCTMP pulp mill AS Estonian Cell with the startup date of 2006 – the biggest foreign investment to Estonia, being the first employee and Member of the Management Board. From 2012 to 2017 she was employed in the headquarter of the shareholder of AS Estonian Cell being the Chief Financial Officer of Heinzel Group, a major pulp and paper production and sales corporate group in Austria. During her career previously, from 1997 until 2004, she has worked also as Controlling Manager for the headquarter of the German automotive company Webasto Thermosysteme GmbH in Stockdorf near Munich, Germany. Returning to the home country, she has joined the Rail Baltica project in December 2017 and in 2018 she holds additionally the Chair of the Supervisory Board of RB Rail AS.

Kaspars Rokens is an experienced manager in power distribution and generation, retail, building automation and industrial applications’ business. Since 1994 he has served in multinational technical trading companies as sales teams’ and organizations’ manager.

For the last 5 years, he has been Country Manager for Latvia and President and CEO for the Baltic Countries at Schneider Electric. The main customers have been contracting companies, which have taken part in construction of the National Library of Latvia, “Great Amber” concert hall in Liepaja, IX Corridor electrification of railways in Lithuania, Estonian National Museum in Tartu and many more. As of December 2015, Kaspars Rokens is also a board member at the Latvian Association of Power Engineers and Energy Constructors, LEEA.

On April 24, 2017, Rokens was appointed to the Management Board of RB Rail AS and assumed the position of Chief Operating Officer of the joint venture. He holds a master’s degree in thermal engineering from Riga Technical University and an executive MBA degree from Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga).

In his career Kristjan Piirsalu has been involved with numerous projects internationally through his procurement roles, having had integral involvement in major railway infrastructure projects in the UK – such as the West Coast Re-modelling and Northern Hub, for example. For the past two years he successfully managed procurement exercises in the energy sector in Estonia. The multi-disciplinary projects, that he had involvement in from the procurement side, exceed the value of 2 billion Euros. Kristjan is a full member of the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply, which is supplemented by certification in Business Administration and Project Management. From February this year, Kristjan Piirsalu is supporting the Rail Baltica project by implementation of best procurement practices.

Kaido Zimmermann is responsible for RB Rail’s planning and implementation activities of the Rail Baltica Global Project. Previously he has gained experience in railway and legal consultation services, leading the consultancy company Zimmermann IB. Kaido Zimmermann has also served as Railway Logistics Director in Port of Sillamäe in Estonia, was Chief Engineer of Latvian Railways and Chairman of the Board-Managing Director of Estonian Railways. He was also Lecturer of Railway Construction in Tallinn University of Technology.

Kaido Zimmerman holds a Master’s Degree in Engineering from Tallinn University of Technology.

Elodie Faivre was in charge for SYSTRA of the Rail Baltica Design Guidelines from the tender stage to the submission of final deliverables. She is graduated engineer from Centrale Nantes (France) and has 10 years of experience in technical management of projects. She has worked on several infrastructure project for High Speed Line, long bridges, highways, buildings and systems as deputy project director, project manager and technical coordinator. 

Jean-Marc Bedmar has been involved with the Rail Baltica project for more than 9 years, initially as a consultant for one major international transport engineering company, for which he performed feasibility and implementation studies for Rail Baltica project, as well as for conventional railways in the Baltics. He was also working for numerous railway, metro and tramway projects in different countries. As of May 2017, Jean-Marc Bedmar is Senior Engineer in RB Rail Technical Team, responsible for railway Systems and Operation of the Rail Baltica Global Project, and acted as Chief Technical Officer until March 2018. Jean-Marc holds an Electrical and Telecommunications Engineer’s diploma of Advanced National School of Electronics and its Applications (ENSEA) of Cergy-Pontoise (France), and an Advanced Master Degree in Environmental Public Relations, of Cergy-Pontoise University. He is a railway transport systems engineer with a keen interest in railway operation, passengers and freight intermodal transport development and innovation in sustainable transport systems.

Since 2016 Agnis Driksna is working at “European Railway Lines” in position of Director of Development and Communication department. Since 2014, he had been the Rail Baltic Project Manager of the Ministry of Transport responsible for international cooperation. He prepared the first funding applications to the EU and represented Latvia in the joint projects of the Baltic States and the EU.

Previously, Agnis Driksna has worked in the Ministry of Economics of Latvia as Deputy Director of European Union cooperation department and Head of EU law division. He was also Legal consultant in Competition council of Latvia.

Agnis Driksna has MBA degree in Business and law in European Union from Rigas Stradiņa university, as well as Master's degree in European Union and international law from Concordia International University Estonia.

Mr Carlo Borghini was appointed Executive Director of the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking on 16 February 2016 and is responsible for the overall management of the S2R JU activities.

Prior to this posting, Mr Borghini was EDA Corporate Services Director, where he was responsible for the management of financial and human resources, as well as programme management and administrative issues.

Previously, Mr Borghini held the position of Deputy Executive Director for the SESAR Joint Undertaking (SJU) in Brussels from 2008 to 2014. In this capacity, he had specific responsibilities for corporate governance, administration and finance while contributing the overall management of the programme. More specifically, he managed a budget amounting to over €2 billion, with a portfolio of more than 300 different projects undertaken by the 16 SJU Members.

Prior to that, Mr Borghini held several middle and senior management positions in the European Commission, UN agency and private sector. Born in Italy on 1 September 1964, Mr Borghini holds a Master Degree equivalent in Business Economics. He is a native speaker of Italian and also possesses an excellent proficiency in French. He is married with three children.

Paulius Valiulis currently is the Head of Innovation laboratory at the Lithuanian Rail. Previously he has held a head pf export and investments at Infobalt and from 2012 till 2014 he was the Logistics and supply chain co-ordinator at Avanti Communications Group.

Professional experience in sales, technologies, multi-modal logistic, business development and government administration. 

Kaspars Briškens has been involved with the Rail Baltica project for more than 10 years, initially as a diplomat in the Latvian Foreign Service and later as staff advisor to two Latvian transport ministers, as well as Supervisory Board Member of the Rail Baltica joint venture (RB Rail AS), since its establishment in October 2014. As of November 2016, Kaspars Briškens is RB Rail’s Business Development Manager responsible for commercialization and business development activities of the Rail Baltica Global Project. Kaspars holds a Master’s Degree in Economics from Stockholm University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Business and Economics from Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga). He is a transport and logistics industry professional with a keen interest in transport economics, intermodal logistics, supply chain development and aviation. He also serves as Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Air Baltic Corporation.

Raitis Bušmanis has been working with BIM systems and software for more than 5 years. Started his involvement with BIM systems in an innovative private company in Latvia as an engineer and was a part of the team responsible for developing the internal BIM standards and quality criteria. From August 2014 continued his career in Finland joining Trimble Solutions Oy (previously Tekla Oy) as Software Specialist supporting clients globally and working tightly with the developers and other stakeholders. Later, as Project Manager, was responsible for testing the latest BIM software’s improvements and developments with end-users. Raitis has a Professional Master Degree in Transportation Engineering from Riga Technical University and started his career in this industry as a bridge designer. Joined the RB Rail AS team in January 2018 and is working towards implementing BIM system and standards for the Rail Baltica Global Project.

Risto is Managing Director of Estonian Digital Construction alliance called E-difice and representative of Estonia at buildingSMART organization.

In 2015 - 2018 he has held different roles in Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. In 2016-2018 Risto was Estonian Head of Digital Construction and responsible for starting and building national construction digitization initiative.

From 2011 Risto has lived and worked in Sweden and Estonia and co-founded several digital construction initiatives as BIMConsult and BIMsummit. He has been founder and CEO of construction information management start-up SiteEyes and has been involved in international BIM-related research at KTH Royal Institute of Technology and creation of industry standards.

Risto is holding M.Sc. in Civil Engineering from Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia and M.Sc. in Real Estate and Construction Management (incl. BIM) from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden.

Management consultant in Civitta's Vilnius office. Worked with logistics and railway companies, most recently on analysis of technological and spatial needs of multimodal freight terminal Rail Baltic at Muuga harbour. Functionally works with strategy, business modeling, and change management topics.

Simon Wray is an engineering information manager with over 20 years experience supporting the delivery of major infrastructure and railway projects valued over €30bn. Simon understands the challenges facing the rail industry and is passionate about improving outcomes for asset owners and their supply chain. He is the Infrastructure lead at The BIMstitute and Managing Director at Specialist Project Integration.

Javier Ibáñez de Yrigoyen obtained a MSc in Industrial Engineering at Málaga University. At present, he is Manager for International Projects in Adif, the Spanish Railway Infrastructure Manager. His extensive experience in the transport sector varies from grand international project management such as the Haramain High Speed Railway Project in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where he was acting as Contract, General Services and Logistic Manager, to the automotive industry in his early beginnings.

He was working as Operations and Research and Innovation Manager in Adif until 2012, when he joined the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER) in Brussels. As Advisor for the European Union Agency for Railways and Research related issues, he was involved in the technical and innovation related EU policies, such as the 4th Railway Package technical pillar, European Technical Specifications for Interoperability and managed technical working groups coordinating over 100 experts from European Railway Operators and Infrastructure Managers in different topics and areas. After being more than two years linked to one of the most impressive railway projects being currently executed worldwide, he was back from Saudi Arabia to join the Adif International Directorate in Madrid.

Mr. Petri Sarvamaa (born 1960) is a Finnish Member of the European Parliament. He is the first Vice Chair of the Committee on Budgets and the EPP group Coordinator in the Committee on Budgetary Control in the European Parliament.

Anvar has 13 years of experience in the railway sector, previously working as a deputy director general in the railway's regulatory body and afterwards as a development director in Estonian Railways Ltd. Anvar has joined with the Rail Baltic Estonia team several days ago, but has been involved as one of the key experts when Rail Baltica project implementation started in Estonia. Due to his previous background, Anvar has an integrated knowledge of railway subsystems (infrastructure, vehicles and traffic control), thus he understands how to maximise performance of the whole system. In addition he has a keen interest in transport economics, intermodal logistics and supply chain development.

Anvar holds a master's degree in technology of transportation from Tallinn University of Technology.

Chris Docker is the Director of Strategy and International Development at Atkins since December 2015. From 2008 onwards, Chris held a variety of senior roles at Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd, including those of Commercial Director and Director, Business Transformation and has extensive experience working in complex stakeholder environment on contentious and complex projects. Prior to his time in the rail industry, Chris worked for Ford Motor Company Ltd in a variety of roles, leading Association Programmes establishing operational agreements between different businesses.

Chris is the lead director for the Rail Baltica Infrastructure Management Study 

Chris’ primary degree was in Politics & International Relations. He is a certified 6-Sigma Blackbelt and has a postgraduate qualification in Strategic Leadership from Warwick University.