Barnabas Acs

 Sustainable Investing & Sustainable Finance – Global Director, Sales Strategy & Execution, LSEG

"Sustainability is the defining success factor for companies in the 21st century."

Farrukh Alimdjanov

Industrial Development Officer, Department of Digitalization, Technology and Innovation, UNIDO

“Embracing the influence of digital transformation, UNIDO’s “Branding for competitiveness and sustainable growth” module provides a timely response in terms of facilitating a country-, region- or enterprise-level transition to a more robust and competitive digital presence underpinned by strategic brand management. To date, the module helped target beneficiaries maximize intellectual value addition, enhancing their productivity, international competitiveness and market outreach.”

Julia Andras

Managing Partner/Head of Ligitation Lansky, Ganzger, Goeth, Frankl & Partner law attorney

“In Europe, everyone is currently talking about the supply chain. A law that will come into force in Germany as early as 2023 has also fueled the legislative debate in Austria. Therefore, brands should familiarize themselves with this relevant topic for both economic and legal reasons and prepare in good time. In this way, existing risks can be uncovered and solutions for good corporate and brand governance can be developed.”

Alexander Biach

Deputy Director, Vienna Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Philipp Bodzenta

Director Public Affairs & Communications, Coca-Cola

Bernardo Calzadilla-Sarmiento

Managing Director, Directorate of Digitalization, Technology and Agri-Business, UNIDO

“Managing change, and being proactive in doing so, is a necessary prerequisite for quality improvements in the  course of redefining post-pandemic economy. Whether it will be characterized by greater sustainability and inclusiveness will largely depend on how economic actors move forward on their development pathways, at what extent they are ready to explore recovery solutions to “build back better” and embrace innovation that fosters the digital transformation.”

Weixi Gong

Investment and Technology Promotion Division and Coordinator, UNIDO Investment and Technology Network

“UNIDO projects with a branding component have demonstrated direct impact on superior investment returns for the businesses that follow the path of digitalization-based branding, thus additionally proving its value as an efficient tool that minimizes crises-related constraints and enhances post-crisis resilience.” 

Cornelia Großmann

Associate Partner Batten & Company GmbH

"Successful multicultural brands are sensitive to cultural differences and are able to adapt their brand strategy accordingly without compromising the brand core. Working with multicultural, inclusive teams – internally as well as externally – is key."

Gerhard Hrebicek

President, European Brand Institute

“Sustainable brands carried us through the crisis and will support CHANGE. Brands are more important to inclusive and sustainable economic development than ever and are intangible assets. Against a background of accelerated digitalization, the future depends on strong and valuable brands. Despite their fundamental importance, the understanding does differ widely amongst businesses large and small. Investments in brands support the economic recovery and resilience, create growth and secure prosperity for cities, regions and countries. There is a clear need to stimulate IP transactions, to support IP based financing and to give companies the tools to provide information about their IP to emergence as a tradable asset class.

EBI already contributed a lot to more transparency and works to increase confidence and certainty in Brand and IP valuations.”

Takhmina Karimova

Co-founder and Director, "Ozara" LLC

 "We know that Brand is one of the key aspects for product promotion. But promotion of a brand requires significant investments of financial and human resources. For small companies with limited resources, the best option for promoting their products may be a trade consortium with a National brand, which will help them jointly promote products both in domestic and international markets."

Sonja Kato

Communicato & Coachings

Harald Katzmair

Managing Director, FAS research

Saten Khoshoyan

Deputy CEO, "Melante" LLC

"To ensure sustainable development of the company, we should accept that Brand is a valuable asset for its development and generating a brand value will help us bring real investments to our country as well.

Though for the SME’s creating their own brand is a hard, expensive and sometimes long lasting process, in a long-term perspective it becomes a valuable asset which  generates income even in crisis’s and  hard market conditions. So we as a company accept and highlight importance of the branding and consistently implement it in daily processes to insure resilient." growth."

       Herbert Kovar

       Partner Deloitte Tax

"The Covid pandemic and Post-Covid phase demonstrates that businesses with strong and well established brands are more resilient in crises. Reason for this is the ability of a strong brand to generate long-term and sustainable cash-flows. Thus, those businesses can balance out the decrease of crisis-induced short-term cash-flow in a better way."

David Kusuma

WDO President-Elect, Senior Vice President of Product Management & Innovation at Oregon Tool

Anna Mago

FAIRTRADE Österreich

Elena Marinina

Deputy Head, Roscongress / Head, Innosocium Foundation

Maris Orav

Communication Manager, E-Estonia

"National brands, like e-Estonia, have huge (soft) power to influence both countries, people and private companies. Years ago nobody knew what or where Estonia was, or if they did, they knew it as a post-Soviet country. We started to build the brand of e-Estonia with the aim to tell the story of one of the most digitally advanced countries in the world. And this story is now being told by numerous magazines, newspapers, spokespersons across the world. E-Estonia has become a door opener and a great basis for IT companies to sell and export their products and services around the world. "

Andrea Scheichl

Vice-President, Austrian Patent Office

"Super brands are not only robust to change. They are the advocates of cultural, social and technological change."

Christoph Schuh

Head of Communication and Reputation Managenent, APG - Sustainable Brand Management of an infrastructure company

"The Corona crisis has shown that infrastructure companies and non-profit organizations have sustainability in their DNA. Their services, which are provided over generations, automatically build trust and thus consistent branding."

Shraddha Srikant

Projects & Partnerships Coordinator, UNIDO

“UNIDO has been working with several manufacturing industries in India, with the objective of enhancing their competitiveness in domestic and global markets. Technical cooperation projects for the Indian bicycle and paper industries, for instance, have focused on a combination of meso and micro-level interventions that aim to equip the main stakeholders of these industries (nodal technical institutions, firms, industry associations) with the necessary exposure to best available technologies, best practices and market trends, combined with focused support for technology adoption and process upgrading as per needs of different markets and regulatory frameworks. These interventions are expected to aid higher firm-level innovation and productivity, enabling such firms, especially MSMEs, to position and brand themselves as leading suppliers of diverse, high-quality and value-added products.” 

Bernd Wegenstein

Country Manager, REFINITIV

Stephan Unger

Professor Departement of Economics and Business, Saint Anselm College, Boston, USA

"An increasing Brand Value contributes to a sustainable development of a firm by lowering significantly the financing costs of a firm. Stakeholders benefit from an increase in Brand Value as it reduces significantly the cost of debt and increases revenue, income, EBIT, and the stock price. Moreover it has a positive effect on long term social responsibility. The significant reduction of financing costs allows a collateralization of Brand Value."

LI Yong 

Director General, UNIDO

“The pandemic has brought the need to reconcile digitalization with economic recovery to the front. To meet this challenge, it will be crucial to promote innovative development tools, enhance professional skills, and create an enabling environment that drives digital, inclusive and sustainable digital transformation. Branding can play a relevant role in this process, as it can provide inclusive and highly customized solutions, reinforce business resilience, and support post-pandemic recovery through a more sustainable growth pathways.”