Google Event:

Björn Olsson

Senior Vice President - Center Management

Vienna Airport

Björn Olsson joined Vienna Airport in 2016 after 8 years within the non-aviation airport business in Sweden. During these years retail responsible within a joint venture company between Schiphol Group and Swedavia group. This company, Arlanda Schiphol development company AB, was driving the retail business within the airports; Stockholm Arlanda Airport and Gothenburg Landvetter. Last role as Head of Retail within the Swedavia group who owns and operates 10 airports, including Stockholm Arlanda Airport, Gothenburg Landvetter and Malmö Sturup. 


Björn graduated a Master of Science in real estate economics from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. He also studied business administration & real estate finance at National University of Singapore. Since June 2016 as SVP of Center Managment leading a team of 11 with regard to Retail, F&B and Services. Working with the terminal expansion plan and with digitalization to disrupt and create the optimal and most profitable commercial consumer journey at Vienna Airport for the future TR business.

Jonathan Smith

Executive Director

Travel Blue Ltd.

Jonathan Smith is a global director of travel retail at TravelBlue Ltd.. At this year TaxFree World Exhibition, Jonathan celebrates 29 years in the industry.

Jonathan's experience in Duty-Free started with Alfred Dunhill in 1986 as their International Sales and Marketing Manager for their luxury jewelry division. Continuing with luxury consumer product, joining Aquascutum. Then Ronson Plc. As their Sales and Marketing Director, for the Duty-Free Division. Before joining TravelBlue, almost 6 years ago, Jonathan was Managing Director of House of Brands Ltd a specialist company in travel retail, not only offering consumer brands but also as a consultancy.

Jonathan has a wealth of experience and knowledge of this fascinating, exciting and ever-changing market sector.

Pascal Beij

Country Manager Germany

Premier Tax Free GmbH

Pascal Beij is the country manager for Premier Tax Free in Germany. He has been with the company for 18 months heading up the German business, and has a fintech background having run start-ups in the payment space and has held international leadership positions in listed companies like Euronet, General Electric and Nike. He lives and works out of Munich.

Jan Hieronimi

Industry Manager, Retail

Google Germany GmbH

For more than nine years, Jan Hieronimi has been using retailers in leveraging the potential of digital for their retail and branding efforts on Google. As Industry Manager for Multichannel Highstreet clients, he works with his clients to find the right answers to the challenges of today's consumer behavior in the omnichannel world. Before working at Google, he worked in print for 8 years as a journalist and co-founder of a special interest magazine.

Markus Knauer

Head of Digital Commerce

Gebr. Heinemann SE & Co. KG

Markus Knauer is Head of Digital Commerce at Gebr. Heinemann focusing on implementing an omni-channel digital commerce strategy to help transform the company. Markus Knauer has been with Gebr. Heinemann since 2012. Prior to starting at Gebr. Heinemann, Markus spent 10 years in various leadership positions at Beiersdorf AG, OTTO GmbH & Co. KG and Putz and Partner. Since 2017 he is also working as Innovation Pioneer at Gebr. Heinemann focusing on designing the company’s innovation strategy, inspired by the Silicon Valley spirit and aimed at gaining speed to market.

Miriam Strasmann

Measurement and Attribution Specialist

Google Germany GmbH

As a Product Specialist for Online2Offline Measurement Miriam is responsible for omnichannel product solutions in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. As part of her role Miriam consults Google customers and leads product launches together with the Google Engineering and Product Management teams. Prior to her current role Miriam worked as a key account manager at Google's European headquarters in Dublin where she also got her university degrees in European Business and International Management

Stefan Hofmann

Managing Director

Outletcity Metzingen GmbH

Dr. Stefan Hoffmann is Managing Director at OUTLETCITY METZINGEN GMBH – one of Europe’s biggest Premium- & Luxury outlets with 4 million visits offline and 25 million visits online. He joined the company 7 years ago to launch OUTLETCITY.COM – a closed online shop – which was a first step towards an omni channel strategy and a unique move within the outlet sector, for OUTLETCITY METZINGEN is the first outlet across the globe to have launched an own-operated online shop.
Currently, OUTLETCITY METZINGEN is focusing on an integrated omni channel strategy in order to combine online and offline business units. An end-to-end customer journey, integrating all touchpoints of national and international guests, is the centerpiece of this strategy.
Before he joined OUTLETCITY METZINGEN, Dr. Stefan Hoffmann co-founded and run VOD platform Maxdome as Managing Director. He has got a wealth of experience of nearly 25 years working for several digital businesses  (United Internet, 1&1, O2, SupplyOn, ProSieben-Sat1).

Xin Deng

Managing Director

Global Smiling

Xin Deng is the Managing Director of Global Smiling.  Originally from China, Xin is an expert and has been actively using Chinese social media for more than 10 years.  After the completion of his studies in the UK, Austria, Finland and Germany, Xin started China Smiling which has now grown internationally and evolved into Global Smiling.  With offices in Hamburg, Chongqing and Moscow, Global Smiling is a digital marketing agency specializing on the traveling consumers offering tailor-made social media and performance-based mobile marketing to a wide range of clientele that prioritizes the business of traveling and shopping. 

Xin believes in the vast potential of the market based on the hard facts of the increasing rate of global travelers between countries, especially among the steady increase of Chinese and Russian tourists. In today’s ever-intensified digitalization, it is a sure sign that social media will only continue to grow and will remain an inevitable component for the traveling consumer.

Luke Barras-Hill

Deputy Editor

Travel Retail Business

Luke Barras-Hill is the Deputy Editor for leading travel retail and duty free news provider TRBusiness.

With more than seven years’ journalistic experience, Barras-Hill has held senior editorial positions across a variety of B2B publications covering the international luxury goods markets, including travel retail and duty free, in addition to the public realm and built environment sectors.

Previously, he was Managing Editor for African Review of Business & Technology, holding overall responsibility for strategic content delivery at the continent’s longest-running high-circulation technical magazine dedicated to business, finance, construction, power and mining.

Prior to this, he was Business & Finance Editor at Frontier magazine.

He holds an NCTJ qualification in newspaper reporting and a BA (Hons) in History and Anthropology from the University of Sussex.

António Luis Rodolfo

Airport & Travel Retail Consultant

António Luis Rodolfo is former Dufry Global Head of Operations and Nuance Global Strategic Marketing Director. Before joining Nuance, he was Commercial Director for ANA, overseeing commercial activities across Portugal’s airport network (2006-2012). In his time there he launched the first e-Commerce platform at Lisbon Airport. Currently he is working as an Airport & Travel Retail Consultant, based in Zurich, Switzerland.

Leopold Gräubig

Google Germany GmbH

Leopold Gräubig studied Business Administration at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, USA (B.A.). Afterwards he worked within the SMB Marketing Department at IBM's German HQ in Stuttgart from where he joined Google in 2004. Since then, he has worked in various advertising sales positions. Currently, he acts as an Industry Manager with the retail sector with a focus on grocery retail, where he consults clients in the areas of digital advertising, omnichannel, and digital Transformation.

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Global Shopping Forum is the business platform for the Travel & Shopping industry. We bring together the industry leaders, top decision-makers, experienced practitioners and innovative entrepreneurs to discuss the market insights and best practices in order to optimize the business and maximize the profits.

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