Speakers

Mayor Ischgl

Günther Zangerl is a board member of Silvrettaseilbahn AG, which is the investor and owner of the Silvretta Therme.

Andreas Ramsauer, a long-standing member of the EWA board, has taken over the management of Silvretta Therme after Wörgler Wasserwelt.

Michael Krieger is managing partner of KRIEGER Architekten I Ingenieure GmbH, Velbert, which was responsible for the planning of the Silvretta Therme together with Wimreiter & Partner GmbH, Saalbach.

Thomas Sjöstrand has been working at Liseberg since 2008, first as CEO of Liseberg's Restaurant Company and after the merger in 2014 as Vice-President, COO with responsibility for all business areas in the park. Since June 2017, Thomas has been focusing on the expansion project with a family hotel with 457 rooms (opening April 2023) and a new indoor water park (opening June 2024) and has also been CPO for Liseberg since 2021.

After completing his studies at RWTH Aachen University, Olivier Zirnheld joined Schroeder & Associés in 1999, where he has been responsible for project development, client representation and construction law as head of the project management department since 2007. In this role, he has been responsible for numerous projects ranging from the construction of the new airport and Luxexpo trade fair centre in Luxembourg to Les Thermes in Strassen and, most recently, the new Complexe Sportif in Mondorf-les-Bains.

After studying business administration and sports science and completing his doctorate in sports management, Dr Boris Zielinski was initially Managing Director of Hesse's largest leisure sports club before taking over as Managing Director of Frankfurter Bäderbetriebe in 2018.

Dipl. Ing. Rolf Böker has been managing partner of the architectural firm geising + böker gmbh together with Gerhard J. Geising since 1989, which emerged as the winner of the high-calibre competition to build the new Rebstockbad.

Rainer Maelzer is President of WhiteWater ERA GmbH based in Munich, a subsidiary of the Canadian company WhiteWater, which designed and built the slide tower in Qatar and also developed the "Endless Surf Pool".

Prof. Dr Torsten Widmann has been head of the Tourism, Hotel and Gastronomy Business Administration course, specialising in Leisure Management, at the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University since 2009.

Dr Harald Köpping-Athanasopoulus heads the Trend Management department at the 2b AHEAD Future Research Institute in Leipzig. In his research work, the keynote speaker is particularly interested in how individual humanity is changing in an increasingly technologised and digitalised world.

Natalie Eßig studied architecture at the TU Darmstadt and the Politecnico di Torino. Since 2013, she has held a professorship for sustainable building at the University of Applied Sciences in Munich. In the same year, she founded essigplan GmbH and, in 2015, the Bau-Institut für Ressourceneffizienz unad Nachhaltigkeit.

Stefan Studer heads up the consultancy business at Kannewischer Holding AG, a family-run company with 50 years of experience in the design, planning, and operation of public pool facilities. His aim is to help operators and owners to set up their pool projects well and make the right decisions from the outset.

As Managing Director of Stadtwerke Plettenberg, Dr Uwe Allmann is also responsible for Aqua-Magis Plettenberg GmbH.

Dr Edmund Friedl is Managing Director of Therme Wien GmbH & Co KG, which is part of VAMED Vitality World, and also runs the Therme Laa Hotel & Silent Spa.

Patrick Doll is the managing partner of monte mare Betriebe based in Rengsdorf. In addition to a planning office and an operating company, ten locations with different product orientations are united under the monte mare umbrella brand.

Robin Stork is the owner and managing director of the Stork Group, Paderborn, which has been successfully operating leisure pools, spas and spa hotels at several locations in Germany for decades.

Friedi Kühne is a passionate slackliner and is internationally recognised for numerous world-first free solo ascents of longer and higher highlines. For example, he balanced in front of tens of thousands of spectators at a height of 60 metres between two church towers over the city centre of Straubing and walked over a slackline at a height of 350 metres between two sky-scrapers.