An experienced legal, regulatory & compliance department leader, Patricia I. Kovacevic’s career comprises leading senior legal & regulatory positions with tobacco & cannabis corporations, including Philip Morris International & Lorillard, as well as partner roles with premier global law firms. Her expertise includes senior management roles & leading multinational, cross-disciplinary teams, with focus on corporate law, FDA & EU regulatory, compliance, M&A, US & global food, drug, nicotine & consumer goods regulation, cannabis/CBD regulation, external affairs & the legal framework applicable to marketing, media communications, investigations, FCPA, trade sanctions, privacy, intellectual property, product development & launch. She also led cross-disciplinary teams engaged in scientific research efforts. Kovacevic served on various trade association bodies & conference advisory boards. She authored several articles on nicotine regulation, co-authored an academic treatise, “The Regulation of E-Cigarettes” & is often invited as a keynote speaker or panelist before global conferences & government agencies public hearings. Kovacevic is an attorney admitted to practice in New York, before the U.S. Tax Court, before the U.S. Court of International Trade & before the Supreme Court of the United States. She holds a Juris Doctor (doctor of law) degree from Columbia Law School in New York & completed the Harvard Business School “Corporate Leader” executive education program.
Jeannie Cameron is a Public Affairs & Regulatory professional with over 25 years’ experience & is currently CEO of JCIC International, a UK based strategic advocacy consultancy focused on bespoke advice & engagement. She is a leading expert on the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control FCTC, including attending its development in Geneva & the development of its subsequent Protocol on Illicit Trade. She provides advice on national implementation & matters relating to the FCTC COP. She founded JCIC in 2011 but took an 18 month break in January 2020 to work as Vice President, International at Juul Labs. Before JCIC she headed BAT’s Int’l Political & Regulatory Affairs Division focusing on int’l public health & anti-illicit trade advocacy. JCIC’s clients have included multi-nationals & start-ups. She has an LLM in international law; a degree in politics /communications & a graduate diploma in finance & economics. She earned a distinction from King’s College University London for a dissertation on Emerging International Public Health Issues – Human Rights, Harm Reduction & the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). She has been a parliamentary advisor & chief of staff as well as a civil servant in the International Legal Section of the Australian Cabinet. She has served as Co-Chair of OECD’s Charting Illicit Trade Taskforce. She has been an active commentator in the public health policy area of harm reduction, as well as public admin & governance reform.
Benjamin Apelberg is the Deputy Director for Regulatory Science in the Office of Science at FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products in the U.S. He was previously Director of the Division of Population Health Science at CTP and has been with the Center for more than 10 years. He is an epidemiologist by training and received his PhD in epidemiology from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
A former governmental official and researcher, Dr Foltea is a lawyer advising global companies and governmental institutions around the world. Her main areas of expertise are international economic agreements and organisations, notably the WTO, FTAs and International Investment Agreements (IIAs). She specializes in the WTO accessions, market access, trade policy reviews, dispute settlement.
Since September 2016 she is on the Indicative List of WTO Panels, which makes her eligible to solve WTO disputes. Starting 2019, Dr Foltea is one of the five experts sitting on the WTO Permanent Group of Experts on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. She is a frequent speaker in international events and has spoken in the European Parliament.
Dr Foltea has obtained her Ph.D. in International Economic Law in 2010 from the University of Bern winning the Walther Hug prize for the best legal dissertation in Switzerland. She is also Assistant Professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences (Institute of Law Studies) focusing on legal aspects in the control of illicit trade in the EU.
Marina Foltea is Founder and Managing Director of Trade Pacts, Geneva.
Christopher Snowdon is the Head of Lifestyle Economics at the IEA. He is the author of The Art of Suppression, The Spirit Level Delusion and Velvet Glove; Iron Fist. His work focuses on pleasure, prohibition and dodgy statistics. He has authored a number of publications including Sock Puppets, Euro Puppets, The Proof of the Pudding, The Crack Cocaine of Gambling and Free Market Solutions in Health.
Paul has vast experience in inhaled product development across pharmaceutical and consumer products. He commenced his career working at a specialty pharmaceutical company where he gained experience of dry powder and metered dose inhaler development including treating local lung conditions and for systemic absorption for all stages of product development and commercial scale up. He also managed and successfully led the Quality Control department in a multinational pharmaceutical company that manufactured generic nicotine lozenges. Paul led the product characterisation team at Imperial Brands, where he designed the testing strategy for the chemistry of inhaled and oral next generation nicotine products assessing a variety of prototypes at the early stages of development and for regulatory submissions, including PMTA. He joined Broughton in 2021 as Head of Scientific Affairs and is responsible for consulting on and developing next generation nicotine product testing strategies for clients.
Eva runs ECigIntelligence’s market data tracking and brings expertise in quantitative research methods and data analysis. Her passion is in understanding consumer behaviour and turning data into insights. She holds an MBA from the Grenoble Ecole de Management and a BSc in Tourism and Hotel Management from the Budapest Business School.
Eva manages the market analysis team, overseeing the research of all our market reports and data.
Ao Weinuo is the Secretary-General of the Electronic Cigarette Industry Committee of the China Electronic Chamber of Commerce; he is also one of the main founders of ECCC. ECCC is the only influential & represent the E-Cigarette industry association in China. ECCC has established since January 2017, Ao Weinuo as the key person to draft the “E-Cigarette Standards” into T/CECC 1-2017 & the T/CECC 2-2017 of the "Specification of E-cigarette Liquid " in which ECCC has formally released this implementation on the 20th December 2017. In the past 4 years, Ao Weinuo has often conducted active dialogue & communication with government departments such as State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Commerce, the China Customs. He has accepted interviews with major media such as CCTV & People’s Daily. In addition, Mr. Ao is the most important planner for the International E-cigarette Industry Summit Forum which held in Shen Zhen every year, giving much time & efforts on promoting the E-cigarette industry in which prospering standard development & maintaining interests among the industry. Ao Weinuo has a senior background in electronics industry for 15 years, once served as Shen Zhen Baoan SEG Electronic Company General Manager, with a wealth of experience in electronic market management & sales of electronic components, mobile phones, digital products, e-cigarettes.
Nick is a Principal Scientist at Hall Analytical Laboratories responsible for providing technical support to new and existing pharma, med device and ENDs customers in the field of extractables and leachables. Nick’s area of expertise includes E&L study design, defining E&L strategies, performing leachable risk assessments and authoring E&L regulatory sections.
Prior to joining Hall, Nick spent over 10 years at GSK in the field of extractables and leachables. During this time, he worked on a range of therapeutic areas including inhalation, topical and parenteral. Where he had responsibility for the E&L assessment of devices, closure systems and manufacturing processes to ensure patient safety, product quality and regulatory approval.
Dr. Stefanie Scheffler is a chemist with a doctorals degree in technical chemistry and experiences in cell culture, in vitro inhalation toxicology and proteomics as well as human and environmental risk assessment including exposure assessment. Since 2017, Stefanie is employed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine ITEM as a scientist in the department “Regulatory Affairs” in the division “Chemical Safety and Toxicology”. At her current position, Stefanie’s work focuses on the evaluation of studies in the field of human and environmental toxicity as well as on exposure and risk assessments for various different products, e.g. biocides, food additives, plant protection products, cosmetic products and consumer products. Stefanie first gained experiences with nicotine delivery systems when she was working at Cultex Laboratories in 2014 and 2015, performing in vitro inhalation studies with e-cigarette aerosols. At Fraunhofer ITEM, she is engaged in different projects assessing the health consequences of e-cigarette consumption. In this context, Stefanie leads a project to develop a device for standardized e-liquid testing to improve consumer safety.
I developed a vaping machine named U-SAV in 2015-2016. I am an expert on AFNOR, CEN and ISO committees on vaping products since 2016 and I am in charge of two documents. I defended with success a PhD in January 2021 titled "Thermodynamics contribution to the understanding of the electronic cigarette functioning". I also published papers on the functioning of vaping devices [ORCID: 0000-0002-7802-7233].
John has a strong background and reputation in the European e-cigarette industry having held senior executive positions in some of the US and Europe’s biggest companies. He advises many leading industry analysts, financial institutions and media organisations looking at the vaping and CBD sectors. John is also one of the founders of the UKVIA , the UK’s largest vaping Industry association and has advised the UK governments All Party Parliamentary Group on Vaping as well as giving evidence before the UK Science & Technology Committee investigation into the Vaping industry and the Australian Parliaments review on vaping. John is a regular guest speaker at many of the worlds leading conventions. John regularly appears on national and international television stations and print media to discuss vaping related matters.
Dustin Dahlmann from Hamburg, Germany is the president of the Independent European Vape Alliance (IEVA), the German vaping industry association BfTG (Bündnis für Tabakfreien Genuss e.V.) and owner of the successful e-cigarette wholesale InnoCigs. He fights for an autonomous regulation of vaping products as a means to harm reduction independent from tobacco industries throughout Europe.
Michelle co-founded Lorax Compliance in 2014 in order to help companies that are obligated under Extended Producer Responsibility and Product Stewardship legislation around the world. With 15 years of experience working in this sector, her focus is to ensure clients find the process of EPR and Stewardship reporting as simple as possible, despite the complexities placed on businesses by legislation. As COO, her role covers the management and delivery of several teams, including Accounts, Compliance, Sales, Marketing and Human Resources.
Ben Kelsey. Bachelor of Science Degree in Psychology (University of Liverpool). Cambridge Design Partnership. A Behavioural Science Specialist. Complementing his academic background in Psychology, he has over 10 years professional research experience working in consultancies to support the development of products, policies and services that are designed for, and empathetic to, the needs of the intended audience. Nicki Sutton. Masters of Science in Biomedical Engineering (University of Surrey). Cambridge Design Partnership. An innovation insights specialist having over 20 years’ experience working with global organisations and brands to enable growth through innovation. She utilises her academic background in science, engineering, and strategic marketing to uncover unmet user and wider stakeholder needs, along with viable technologies for addressing them. Nicholas Johnson, Bachelor of Art Degree in Industrial Design & Technology (Loughborough University). Cambridge Design Partnership. A qualitative researcher who is currently finalising his PhD focusing on strategies, processes, and frameworks to achieve design innovations within fast moving consumer goods industries in the United Kingdom. His academic experience enables him to recognise human challenges and needs. His focus is to hypothesise and develop strategies and frameworks through which the associated challenges could be overcome, and the resultant needs met.
Andrea Patton, PhD is a Senior Behavioural Epidemiologist in Public Health within the Centre for Substance Use Research Ltd (CSUR), Glasgow, United Kingdom. Andrea has over 15 years of experience working in public health in the United Kingdom for academia, regulatory bodies and industry.
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Pete gained his PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Liverpool in 2004. He then embarked on an 11-year research career as a drug discovery expert. In 2015 he joined a major independent UK manufacturer of ENDS products as technical manager, responsible for product quality standards and regulatory compliance. Pete joined Hall Analytical in 2021 as head of reduced-risk product analysis. He is a contributing expert to BSI/CEN/TC 437 and ISO/TC 126 WG3.
Sarah is a science engagement specialist focusing on harm reduction and science communication. She joined BAT in 2010 to establish R&D’s science engagement team to better communicate the science behind less-risky nicotine products to regulatory and general audiences. She drove a real change in BAT’s publishing strategy and created the visitor programme, science exhibition and a series of award-winning science reports – which showcased the company’s reduced risk product research in an accessible way. Prior to BAT, she held various publishing roles at Nature, Elsevier, Wiley and BioMedCentral. She holds a BSc in genetics and an MSc in plant genetics both from the University of Toronto, and her research has been published in Science. She is also dedicated to choral singing!
Chris Aikens is an External Affairs Manager in Europe for RELX International. Prior to joining RELX International in May 2021, Chris worked as a Government Relations Manager and Fiscal and Regulatory Affairs Manager for Japan Tobacco International between 2017 and 2021, covering reduced-risk products engagement and regulatory affairs. Before joining Japan Tobacco International Chris worked as a Parliamentary Assistant to MP’s in the UK Houses of Parliament. Chris holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Loughborough University where he studied from 2010-2013.
