Speakers

Brad Olson
Counsel, Dickstein Shapiro LLP, Washington DC
Brad Olsen is the counsel of the Wasington DC office of Dickstein Shapiro in the Intellectual Property Practice. 
Mr. Olson has extensive experience in patent litigation, including the handling of discovery, motion, and trial practice, retaining experts and consultants for trial, coordinating jury focus groups, and preparing witnesses for deposition and trial testimony.  He advises clients on patentability, infringement, and validity issues, with an emphasis in the biotechnology and biomedical device fields.  He has prepared and negotiated complex intellectual property rights transfer agreements, including patent litigation settlements, patent licenses, and computer software and hardware agreements.  He also has coordinated patent litigation in several European countries in conjunction with foreign counsel, and successfully defended clients involved in patent interference proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences.

Shelby Scarbrough
President, Practical Protocol & President, Entrepreneurs' Only

In 1990, Scarbrough founded an international special events management organization Private Protocol followed by a non-profit company in 1993, Tech-Knowledge International (TKI), where she served as president.
In the area of small business, Ms. Scarbrough is a Burger King franchisee with 10 restaurants in northern Virginia. She served as Chairman of the Political Action Committee (PAC) of the National Franchisee Association of Burger King Franchisees for three years
and helped grow the PAC to its current position in the top 100 of all PAC’s nationwide.

Ms. Scarbrough combines an entrepreneurial background with pride and responsibility of public service to bring new perspectives to each endeavor. Throughout her career, Ms. Scarbrough has worked with such notable figures as: His Holiness Pope John Paul II, Presidents Reagan, Bush, Ford, Carter and Nixon, President Walesa of Poland, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and members of the Royal Family, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Nelson Mandela. She has planned events in locations ranging from the Vatican to Buckingham Palace to the Kremlin and the White House and most recently as the Deputy Lead for the State funeral of President Reagan.
Her skills and experience blend protocol with practicality for business and government executives alike.

Urban Smedeby
President, Bridgewater Capital Corp.
Urban is the founder of two money management firms; establishing Bentley Richards and Associates in 1991 and subsequently forming Bridgewater Capital in 1994 where he has served as President since inception.
During Urban’s 17 year career in corporate finance he has structured, negotiated and successfully completed transactions for over $500 million in various equity and debt structures. Bridgewater Capital’s primary focus is managing “special situation” hedge funds. Urban has managed Triton Private Equities, one of the first PIPE (Private Investment in Public Equity) funds that set the trend for what has now become the standard for small and mid-cap Companies to access secondary financings. In addition to managing Instream Capital, LLC a convertible debt fund that was part of a $4 Billion Hedge Fund, Urban is also presently managing Oceanus Value Fund, a fund focusing on bridging the gap between Venture Capital backed private Companies and their Initial Public Offering.
Through the years Urban has worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs and is uniquely qualified to act as a liaison between the founders of Companies and the capital markets. Urban’s real passion is food and wine and is the majority owner and co-founder of the San Diego Wine and Culinary Center. In addition he also serves as a Corporate Director of the Swedish American Chamber of Commerce.

Elisabeth Tandan
Managing Director, Swedish Shareholders Association
Elisabeth Tandan has been Managing Director for the Swedish Shareholders Association (Aktiespararna) since 2006. She got her Business Degree from University of Stockholm, and Doctor’s degree from Stockholm School of Economics. Tandan started as a broker on the money market. Previous to starting her own consulting business, she worked with risk management at IBM. In addition, she has held positions within Ernst & Young and Marsh.

Jorgen Thorball
Vice President Business Development, Novozymes
Jørgen Thorball started his carrier in the pharmaceutical industry 1990 as a Product Manager in Kabi Pharmacia, Denmark. In 1996 he moved from hospital business to OTC sales, now as Business Manager in Rhône-Poulenc Rorer, Denmark & Iceland. However, the vision for building own products and business drove him to become founder and director of BioGaia HealthCare Sweden in 1997. A range of products was developed and several corporate deals were signed, before he was headhunted to Novozymes as Vice President, Business Development. Jørgen Thorball is also co-founder & chairman of the biotech companies Alsensa and ViroGates, and chairman of the medtech company Vivolution and inventor and patent-owner of several medical applications, among them the first internet-SMS based alert system for e.g. people with allergies (1996), and various clinical delivery systems (1995,1999,2001,2003). Recently he was co-founder of the Danish Innovation Council, due to his continuing interest in facilitating innovation activities.

Sten Tolgfors
Swedish Minister for Foreign Trade, Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Minister Tolgfors -a member of the Moderate Party- was appointed to Foreign Trade Minister in October 2006.
In February 2007 he visited New York and Washington D. C., and met with his U.S. counterpart. In a speech at the House of Sweden he addressed the challenges of Globalization and the importance of free-trade for the world economic development. "Export growth for small and medium-sized enterprises builds on a sound business climate at home. Favourable conditions at home give stronger enterprises abroad, which in turn boosts jobs at home", says Minister Tolgfors.

Göran Tunhammar
County Governor of Skåne
Göran Tunhammar has been the County Governor of Skåne County since July 2006. He was earlier the CEO of the Swedish Employers’ Association during 1990-2001.
In September 2003, Tunhammar became the first CEO for the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise. Since then, he has had several commissions for Swedish government. He is currently the board chairman for AMF Pension.

Viveka Wahlstedt
Chairman-Elect, SACC-USA, Co-Founder, President & Managing Partner, Carnegie Wordlwide, Inc.
Ms. Wahlstedt possesses over 25 years experience with internationally focused, high-growth corporations throughout Europe, North America, and Asia. She has also worked as a business change management consultant and led several large corporate turnarounds and consolidation/expansions through mergers and acquisitions, as well as organic growth through startups of subsidiaries and expansion of already existing businesses.
Carnegie Worldwide, Inc., which she co-founded, is a highly specialized, multinational, strategic management consulting and retained executive search firm. Ms. Wahlstedt obtained a Master of Science degree in Industrial Psychology and an additional Masters Degree in Business Administration at UCLA.
Ms. Wahlstedt is a member of the World Trade Association, as well as a dedicated supporter of Clinica Esperanca de Amporo a Crianca, a not-for-profit children’s HIV clinic started in 1989 and located in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Sten Wandel
Professor Engineering & Logistics, Lunds University
Professor Sten Wandel was in 1998 appointed full professor in Engineering Logistics at Lund University, Sweden. Before that he was for 20 years Professor and Head of the division of Logistics Transport Systems at Linköping University. He has been visiting professor at MIT and Stanford in the US and at IIASA in Austria. Earlier he was Head of the department of Planning and Systems Analysis at the National Defense Research Institute (1976-76) and assistant professor in Business Administration at the University of Stockholm (1974-76). He has a Ph.D. (1973) and a M.Sc. (1970) in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University, a M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (1969), and a MBA (1966) from the University of Stockholm. Born 1943 in Stockholm.