Michael McSweeney, President & CEO, Cement Association of Canada a position he had held since 2010. He serves as a Director ‎of the Athena Institute and Ottawa Riverkeeper. Mr.McSweeney has significant experience in the environment and climate change arena and is served Premier Wynne on the Ontario Climate Action Group and was asked by the Alberta Minister of the Environment to co-chair a stakeholder panel on climate change.

Michael has worked in the private and public sector for 30 years including: Ottawa City Councillor (1982-1991), Executive Assistant to Rt Hon Brian Mulroney, Prime Minister of Canada, (1983-1984); CEO, Standards Council of Canada (1992-1999); VP Business Development, Archer Daniels Midland, (1999-2002) and VP Environment and Public Affairs Bennett Environmental, (2003-2007).

Mr. McSweeney holds an MBA from the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario and an MPA from Harvard University and a BA from Carleton University.

María José García is a lawyer with a master's degree in business administration and financial specialization. He has been president of various financial, banking and mortgage institutions; Member of the Boards of Directors and external consultant for construction companies and financial companies.

She is currently the Executive Director of the Inter-American Cement Federation - FICEM- that representes the cement industry of 26 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a coverage of 77 producing companies and 280 cement production and grinding plants, which represent more of 180 million tons produced annually. Likewise, it has as associates 16 institutes, chambers and associations of cement and concrete in Latin America.

Maria Jose Garcia, represents the cement industry of the region in global scenarios and projects, with an ever-widening scope, the initiatives and achievements of the industry in the region around sustainability issues through the coordination of a wide network of regional and international partners.

Fatih Yücelik is the Chairman of the Executive Board and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Erçimsan Holding, a leading organization in the Turkish cement sector that owns the Aşkale Cement, Sançim, and Kavçim cement brands. He is also the Chairman of the Turkish Cement Manufacturers' Association. (TURKÇİMENTO).

Mr. Fatih Yücelik began his career in Istanbul as an executive candidate after receiving a BA from the department of political science and international relations, and later he worked as a senior executive in the construction sector. Strategic management, corporate communications, brand management, marketing, and finance are among his areas of expertise.

In addition to his professional experience, Mr.Yücelik takes active roles in several non-governmental organizations. He is currently the Eastern Anatolian Honorary Consul of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Cement Industry Employers Union (ÇEİS) and Board Member of the Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEİK). He is married with two children.

With nearly two decades under his belt as sales and consulting professional across a wide range of industry leading companies like Atos, BASF, and INFORM, Karsten Horn knows a thing or two about IT and logistics. In his current role as Senior Business Development Manager, he helps cement and ready-mix producers to drive their logistics performance. Karsten holds a master’s degree in business administration and a finisher certificate in triathlon. Based in Germany, he is a (digital) sales nomad and serves clients around the globe.

Tim Kuebler is the President and CEO of Elementia USA. Elementia USA is comprised of three separate businesses: Giant Cement Holding Inc. (GCHI) operating 3 cement plants across the eastern seaboard of the US, Maine, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. Giant Resource Recovery (GRR) operates 4 facilities in Eastern US and Allura, a fiber cement manufacturing business, operates 3 plants located in White City, OR, Nuevo Laredo, Mexico and Roaring River, NC.

Headquartered in Houston TX, Elementia USA has annual cement production capacity of 2.6M tons, 4 import terminals, and 6 rail served distribution terminals, all strategically placed along the US east coast from Maine to Georgia. GCHI is positioned well for growth and is focused on adding value for customers daily and for the long term. Allura has the capacity of 300k tons of fiber cement with importing capacity from sister companies in Central America and Mexico. Grr! is in the waste recycling, disposal, and transportation business. Grr! has 4 facilities in the eastern US capable of processing 160 million pounds of hazardous residues per year.

Elementia is a subsidiary of Elementia Global, a multi-regional cement producer and producer of construction materials, headquartered in Mexico City. Previously, Mr. Kuebler held positions with Lehigh Cement, Builder’s Concrete and Titan America in various locations in the US.

Jona Amssoms graduated with a bachelor in mechanical engineering from Harding University in 2015 and started his career as a sales engineer in the water and wastewater sector leading to an application engineering role as he became more experienced.

Since 2019, he has taken the role of sales engineer at Haver & Boecker USA for the cement industry while working closely with IBAU Hamburg.

Ernie Thrasher has over forty-five (45) years’ experience in the coal industry.

His coal experience began in 1974 working for a family owned mining company with operations in Maryland. Thrasher held various positions in mine operations and mine management through 1981.

Prior to forming Xcoal Energy & Resources in 2003, Thrasher spent twenty-two (22) years in various global marketing positions at Primary Coal and AMCI.

Xcoal is the largest exporter of U.S. origin coal. In addition to marketing U.S. and Australian origin coal to customers throughout the world, Xcoal activities include the financing and development of mining projects and related infrastructure projects.

Thrasher founded XLNG Energy & Resources in 2015, which is marketing LNG originating from global sources with emphasis on natural gas reserves in the Marcellus and Utica Shale basins in the U.S., to customers in South America, Europe, and Asia.

Thrasher serves as a Director on the National Committee on U.S. China Relations, as a Director of the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum, a Global Trustee for the Asia Society, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the President’s Leadership Council-Boy Scouts of America.

Aris Papadopoulos is the founding chair of Resilience Action Fund, a US non-profit advancing greater awareness, transparency and education for greater resilience in the built environment. He authored the book: ‘Resilience–The Ultimate Sustainability: Lessons from Failing to Develop a Stronger and Safer Built Environment’. The book inspired the 2018 documentary BUILT TO LAST?, airing on US Public Broadcasting (PBS) and stations around the world.

Aris has 35 years international experience in the construction and energy industries. He retired in 2015 after serving as CEO of Titan America for 20 years. He served as board chair on ST Equipment & Technology, board chair of the Portland Cement Association and board member of CTL Group. He was named Distinguished Expert in Resilience at Florida International University’s Extreme Events Institute and chairs its External Advisory Board.

For 10 years he served on the global board of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s (UNDRR) private sector initiative (ARISE) and was its founding chair. He advocated for resilient investment before five UN global conferences and played an active role in developing the ‘UN Sendai Framework for DRR: 2015-30’.

Aris was a member of the the Climate Bonds Initiative Adaptation and Resilience Expert Group that developed and released Climate Resilience Investment Principles in 2019. Current projects include working with the World Bank to develop a Building Resilience Index which will be first tested and launched in the Philippines.

He provides counsel to government, industry and organizations on resilience/climate adaptation policy and investment. He has been quoted and featured in the New York Times, NBC and multiple television, radio and media stations.

Aris earned Bachelors and Masters Degrees from MIT in Chemical Engineering and an MBA from Harvard University. He is a World Trade Center 9-11 survivor.

As a Chemical Engineer from the University of Waterloo, Linal spent the beginning of his career in the Oil & Gas industry as a Process Engineer and then a focal on hydrocracking catalyst. However, following the pandemic, he wanted to make a change in his career. While pursing my MBA at Rice University, Linal began working to make a difference at Svante.

As the Business Development Engineer, Linal focused on assessing new opportunities and managing prefeasibility studies which set the project development team up for success. Svante are continuing to grow as leaders in the CCUS space and supporting the energy transition.

Mr Guillot leads all work across the GCCA with a particular focus on the industry decarbonisation transition. This includes the delivery and implementation of the global net zero roadmap.

Thomas joined the GCCA from Holcim, bringing 20 years of sustainability experience with a key focus on circularity and industrial ecology in both operational and functional roles. Most recently he led the development of Holcim’s decarbonisation programme and its circular business (Geocycle) across the EMEA region, and played leading roles in the development of various strategic initiatives, business development activities, organisational redesign and industrial rationalisation programmes.

Thomas also held leading positions across various industrial associations – including chairman of EUCOPRO, co-chair Working Group B (Circular Economy and Processes) at CEMBUREAU, former active member of UEPG, and founder of the Bulgarian Aggregate Producer Association.

20+ years of practicing CEMENT and working with senior executive leadership teams and business leaders from every inhabited content. Strategy oriented by nature, with first- hand experience in almost every major aspect of Cement Industry, in globally diverse organizations, across different geographies, in more than 50 countries providing sustainable business solutions in the areas of:

• Business transformation, M&A, post-merger integration, cross business units’ projects
• Improvement of industrial and business performance optimization.
• Companywide performance issues and development of performance standards and metrics.
• Management of Enterprise Risk Management framework and driving a culture of risk management ownership
• Digital Maturity projects.
• Developing, communicating, executing, and sustaining corporate strategy.
• Business Analysis toward increasing globalization, innovation, in order to improve competitive edge.
• Designing, developing, and architectural review of business growth opportunities as well as managing all aspects of the development process, including resource planning and budgeting.
• Assessing, Analysing and Managing successful projects, and product management activities.

Technical Director – FCT Americas

Graduated in Aerospacial Mechanical Engineering from the University of São Paulo.

Ricardo is technical director for FCT for the last 5 years and is in the market, designing and developing new combustion technologies for 20 years now with accomplished projects in all continents. Projects for cement, lime and minerals industries.

Jose F. Diaz is the vice president and general manager of Ozinga South Florida and Miami Cement. With more than 22 years of experience in the Florida building materials industry and a degree from the University of Miami School of Business, Jose brings a wealth of real-world knowledge in safety, sales and management and has used this experience to successfully grow Ozinga’s operations in Florida.