Speakers

Featured Speakers

	Terrence Hogarth, University of Warwick, U.K. Academic Researcher/Professor Terence Hogarth has 40 years of experience of carrying out research on vocational education and training in the UK and the EU. He is responsible for the Net Costs and Benefits of Training to Employers series of studies which has been carried out periodically since the mid 1990s. In addition he has carried out a large number of research projects on apprenticeships, labour and skill shortages.
	Kathleen deLaski, Education Design Lab (Founder), Senior Advisor, Harvard Project on the Workforce, USA, Adjunct Professor, George Mason University Senior Advisor, Social Enterprise Founder, Adjunct Professor Kathleen deLaski is an education and workforce designer, as well as a futurist. She founded the Education Design Lab in 2013 to help colleges begin the journey to reimagine higher education toward the future of work. Her non-profit has helped 1200 colleges, orgs and economic regions design shorter, more affordable pathways for learners to achieve their economic goals.
	Konstantinos Pouliakas, CEDEFOP Senior Expert in Skills and Labour Markets, CEDEFOP An Expert on Skills and Labour Markets at the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP) and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Aberdeen Business School. He is the lead expert of Cedefop's skill mismatch and future of work projects and team leader of its Skills and Work team. He has designed and steered the data collection of the 2 waves of the European skills and jobs survey.
	Dr Andrew Dean University of Exeter Senior Manager and Director University of Exeter’s Marchmont Employment and Skills Observatory Head of Regional Engagement in Exeter Innovation (EI) at the University of Exeter. He is a senior manager and a specialist in the topics of civic engagement, employment, skills, the labour market, and regional impact. He also leads the University of Exeter’s Marchmont Employment and Skills Observatory, a research centre dedicated to supporting real-world interventions in local and regional labour markets. His main interests include: local and regional higher education impact; labour market and employment policies; vocational education and training; regional and local labour market monitoring; the role of social partners in employment and skills policy; and linking policy with practise.
	Àngels Fitó PhD. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya President Àngels Fitó has a PhD in Business and Economics from the University of Barcelona and is a full professor at the UOC. She was dean of the UOC's Faculty of Economics and Business between October 2010 and February 2019 and has been Vice President for Competitiveness and Employability between 2019 and 2023. Fitó was inaugurated on April 2023 as the new rector of the UOC. Her research interests focus on financial reporting harmonization processes, management control systems and the transformative power of higher education for employability given the complexity of labour market dynamics. She leads a number of different local and international initiatives in this field to reconfigure higher education and provide a response to the challenges for lifelong learning arising in the current context of transition.
	Carme Pages PhD. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya Associate Professor and Director of the Labour Market Research Unit Dr. Carme Pagès Serra is Associate Professor at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), where she focuses on aligning education with labor market needs through skills intelligence and research on employment dynamics. She previously served as Chief of the Labor Markets Division at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Her work centers on skills demand, labor policy, and the future of work. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Boston University and has published extensively on labor markets and public policy.