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).
Arturo Alvaro, Sales and Project Manager in Logista Libros since 2016, expert in publishing distribution and supply chain. He started in Logista Libros in 2006 as analyst, developing several positions in the sales and administration department always focused in clients (publishers and retail). This experience and position provided Arturo a complete view of the publishing sector from all kind of publishers and all the retail channel.
“We are the link between publishers and retailers. Our main challenge is help our partners to growth in a sustainable way, work focused in their core business and being more profitable. As benchmark distributor Logista must offer solutions, security and long term relations to our partners… and we do it”.
Graduated in BA from UAM and Master in International Commerce from ESIC. 42 years old and father of 2 children.
Manuel Gil holds a degree in Psychology from the Complutense University of Madrid, a Master’s degree in Sales and Marketing Management from the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid, is a member of the first class of the Advanced Programme for the Management of Publishing Companies at the Instituto de Empresa, and holds a Higher Degree in Foreign Trade from the Angel Martinez Fuertes Foundation. After more than 35 years of professional experience in important companies in the book sector -Cadena de librerías 4Caminos, Paradox Multimedia, Marcial Pons, Ediciones Siruela, Odilo TID–, from 2017 to 2021 he was Director of the Madrid Book Fair, professor and speaker in different publishing masters, both in Spain and Latin America. He is co-author of several books and he has published frequent o articles in the magazine Texturas. His activity as a blogger began in 2007, and he currently runs the blog “Antinomias Libro”.
Ricardo has more than 18 years of experience in media and, as Director of Digital Business for the B2B Market in Prisa Media, is taking part on the digital transformation of leaders brands as EL PAÍS, Diario AS or CincoDías. The challenge is to find the right formats for the digital content, the right channels to distribute and the right ways of relationship with the user and with the media ecosystem. Additionally, he is board member of Kiosko y Más, the spanish digital platform distributing more than 400 publications.
He has a degree in Higher Industrial Engineering, a MBA from IE Business School and a Master in Supply Chain. Nowadays, trying to learn how to educate his two children, the most difficult degree, definitely.