Always interested in the cultural and social transformations in the digital era, started in 2006 by defining and implementing the formerly independent Grup62’s website, online marketing strategy, and digital publishing plan and business model. Since 2011, at Rakuten Kobo, the world’s digital bookseller created by and for book lovers, works on expanding the general catalogue (with a special focus on Spanish and Portuguese languages) and cooperating with publishers and Kobo partners to its growing performance at Rakuten Kobo. She is also an Affiliated Academic Staff in the Master of Digital Publishing at UOC.
Elisa Molinari – Project manager Fondazione LIA
Graduated in Italian literature, Elisa worked at the Italian Publishers Association, taking part at national and European projects devoted to digital publishing. Since 2013 she has been working with Fondazione LIA where she is responsible of events, training activities and projects aimed at spreading the culture of accessibility. On behalf of LIA she participates to the Accessibility Task Force of the Federation of European Publishers and to Publishing Accessibility Action Group of the Publisher Association.
Project manager for EDRLab, Gautier Chomel is a 25 years experienced editorial and book production designer with a 12 years specialization in accessible content for visually impaired people. Gautier is also a confirmed trainer who worked for international organizations like WIPO and the Daisy Consortium and has operated éditadapt, a certified training center. His passion for book production technics goes as far as hand printing using 3d matrices during his spare time.
Antonino Cotroneo has been working since 2014with Fondazione LIA where he takes part in training, testing and consultancy activities in the field of accessible digital publishing.
He has a background in music, which he achieved by studying piano and composition in Italy and at the «Mozartheum» in Salzburg. He is also a computer scientist, enhancing the use of technologies in order to integrate them into the study and life paths of children and adults with visual impairments. He currently also works as a Digital Accessibility tester and advisor for Gucci.
Kristina Kramer is Deputy Director for European and International Affairs at the German Booksellers and Publishers Association (Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels). After completing her training in translation and interpretation in Munich, she studied Cultural Sciences in Berlin and Paris. She worked for the Franco-German Youth Office before joining Börsenverein’s team for the organisation of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 2010. From 2012 on, she has been focussing her work on public affairs at the asscociation’s Berlin Office. Kristina set up and runs the Taskforce Barrierefreiheit (Accessibilty) within Börsenverein.
Rachel Martin is the Global Director of Sustainability at Elsevier, where she is driving transformational change in the priority areas of sustainability and SDGs, with a focus on climate action. In 2020, this resulted in the launch of the Elsevier report “The Power of Data to Advance the SDGs” and the launch of Elsevier’s Climate Action program which she oversees. Since joining Elsevier in 2010, she has held various communications positions with a focus on policy and advocacy. Additionally, she has worked as a strategic communication advisor on industry initiatives such as CHORUS, CLOCKKS and the Accessible Books Consortium. Rachel is also part of the team that launched the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Publishers Compact and the SDG Book Club that has included supporting local chapters in Africa, Portugal, Brazil, Germany and in the Netherlands. Rachel represents Elsevier on several industry sustainability committees and is currently chair of the STM Social Responsibility Committee and the UK Book Industry Communications (BIC) Green Supply Chain committee. In 2022, Rachel is also the co-founder of the Publishing 2030 Accelerator working on a carbon label prototype.
Jordi Panyella Carbonell is a publisher at the Pol·len edicions cooperative, from which, together with the Comangera publishing house and the Leitat Technological Center, they have promoted the Institut de l’ecoedició de Catalunya. He writes about eco-publishing in the digital journal.cat, has participated in the elaboration of guides and articles on eco-publishing, and every year at Pol·len edicions organises the EcoBooklab, a creative laboratory to delve into eco-publishing. He also participates in the organization of the Fira del Libre Local i Conscient de Les Preses, and with Pol·len edicions co-created La Politja, a cooperative ecosystem in Sant Cugat del Vallès.
Eric del Arco is Industrial engineer and humanist. Until 2014, he worked as an engineer, export manager of fire detection systems, missioner and telecommunications support technician. Until he applied as a book trainee at the Documenta bookshop. At the end of 2013, together with Josep Cots, founder of the bookshop in 1975, he planned the move from the historical shop in Cardenal Casañas to the current one in Pau Claris. In these almost 9 years, he has been learning the different tasks that allow him to carry on with the business and the activity. A year ago he became president of the Gremi de llibreters de Catalunya in a joint meeting with three other bookshops.
Pepe Verdes (1963) is a cultural manager who has dedicated the last 30 years of his professional life to developing different projects always within the publishing sector: he was a desk editor at Aguilar (1996-2001), where he had the opportunity to work with authors such as Vicente Verdú, Javier Reverte, Manu Leguineche, Vicente Verdú, etc. He later joined the recently inaugurated literary agency La Oficina del Autor (2001-2010), from where he managed the international rights of authors such as Manuel Rivas, Fernando Vallejo or Fernando Schwartz, at the international book fairs in Frankfurt and London. From 2010 to 2014 he was Director of Business Development and Strategic Alliances at Prisa Digital, with the aim of identifying business opportunities both internally (Transversal Business Committee) and with partners outside the Prisa Group, and together with Javier Celaya and Jorge Tomé he founded the Manuscritics platform (2014), a content-enriched manuscript tool for publishers. Since 2015, he has been the director and commercial manager of Librotea, the book recommendation tool for readers, which started out in the newspaper El País (2015-2021) and was subsequently acquired by Grupo Milenio, Mexico (2021-present).
